The castle on the top of Canterlot had been turned into a fortress. Armed guards patrolled the halls at every hour, tacticians and magical users filled the rooms while going over battle plans against the titans and the numerous bedrooms were occupied by dozens of ponies that needed a reprieve from the constant battling.

But two alicorns weren't able to take a moments reprieve, so as everypony moved out of the way of the exhausted sisters Celestia and Luna did their best not to show how tired they were. The two of them nodded whenever ponies bowed to them, but other than that they made no efforts to stop as they marched towards the command center. Celestia opened the door for her sister and the both of them walked inside to see that their other main protectors were already in the room.

"Twilight. I am glad to see that you and your friends have survived your encounter with the titans in the south," Celestia greeted Twilight with a curt nod, before turning her attention to the other five members of harmony. All of them wore strong looks on their faces, but Celestia could see the weariness and exhaustion creeping in. Aside from her and her sister, the Ambassadors had been fighting the longest. "There is little time so I will be brief. Last night my sister and I discovered that these titans are not as invincible as we previously thought."

The exhaustion in the eyes of the Ambassadors melted away with amazement at the news and all of them leaned closer to hear what Celestia had to say. "Last night my sister and I battled with a pair of titans in a city far from here. There, we combined out might and managed to blast the head off of one of the crystal monstrosities. Unlike the other times we've taken a limb off of these beasts, this time the monster stayed down."

"So all we need to kill them is have enough magic equal to the strength of two alicorns," Rainbow said with a smirk, but her usual sarcasm was instead replaced with exhaustion.

"Our rainbow power should be able to make up for that, even if the titans are magic resistant," Twilight told her friends before looking up at Celestia with a look of sorrow. "I am sorry princess, but we weren't able to completely protect all of the ponies in Mareiland. We...we lost near a thousand when the second titan showed up. We managed to chase it back, but..."

Luna held out a hoof and gently placed it on Twilight's shoulder, getting the princess to look up at the princess of the night. "This is war, dear Twilight, and the unfortunate reality of war is that there will always be causalities, no matter how hard we fight to make sure there is not. We cannot drag ourselves down with those we failed to save, but instead realize that due to our actions there are those that survived. That is the only way you can keep yourself going."

"Thank you princess, I will remember that," Twilight said with grateful smile, before Celestia used her magic to create a map of Equestria. Numerous cities had marks above them and even a few of them had a red X over them.

"So far the titans have been pushing themselves inland, despite our best efforts to keep them out. They are definitely pushing towards Canterlot, and by extension the symbol of Equestria's power," Celestia recapped for the group, some of who were shocked at how many cities had already been lost. "That alone makes me think that there is a mind behind these monsters."

"What do you mean?" Fluttershy asked.

"Some of the smaller towns have been completely avoided despite being right in the way of a titans path. If the titans were just destroying everything in their way, then those towns would be gone," Luna spoke up for her sister. "But they were ignored for a bigger target. So either the titans don't care for the smaller towns or the mind behind them doesn't. And given how the titans will destroy anything, I'm willing to bet the latter."

"A mind behind these monsters, that makes sense," Twilight muttered, before a sad thought came to her. "But even if there is somepony controlling these things, we can't go look for them. It's taking everything in our power to keep these things from destroying everything in their path. If any of us were to go look for the monster behind this, the casualties would skyrocket."

"I agree with Twi. We can't leave the front lines to go look. And if there isn't anypony there, we would have doomed how many on a wild goose chase," Applejack spoke up, her expression showing that she didn't like what she was saying. "Ah think our best bet is to hopefully wait out these titans. These things can't be easy to build and whoever is building them can't keep it up without more crystal."

"Without more crystal..." Luna muttered to herself before her eyes went wide with horror. "The Crystal Empire! The one place the titans haven't attacked yet!"

"Of course. At first we thought that they were avoiding the Crystal Empire because of the heart, but what if whoever is controlling these titans were waiting until we were weakened before striking," Celestia finished. As soon as she said this, the door to the room was kicked open and a guard ran inside.

"Princesses! Emergency call from the Crystal Empire! Seven titans have appeared there and are laying siege to the empire!" the guard blurted out. Celestia and the others all shared the same look of horror, before a scout pony flew into the room behind the guard.

"Princesses! Three titans are on the outskirts of Ponyville!" the scout informed the group, getting the Ambassadors to gasp in disbelief. "Also, there is a pair of titans heading towards one of our hospital towns a good ways from here! We don't have enough forces to fend these things off!"

"Thank you. You are both dismissed," Celestia instructed, but the two were hardly out of the room before she had turned to the others. "Here is what we will do. My sister and I will head towards the Crystal Empire and defend it. If we lose it, not only are we down Cadence and Shining Armor, but the titans will have a lot more crystal to keep building their forces."

"Twilight, you and your friends will head to Ponyville and defend it. If we lose a place so close to Canterlot, we may soon lose this city as well. Not to mention I am certain that this is a direct attack against the six of you," Luna continued on before her horn began to glow. Twilight nodded and motioned for her friends to follow her, but Pinkie raised a hoof. "Yes Pinkie?"

"But what about that town with all the wounded ponies?" she asked. Luna and Celestia both shared a bitter glance before they sighed.

"We must defend these two places first. And if we can afterwards, we will go to that town. But unfortunately, we cannot be everywhere...as much as it pains me to say. We have to focus on winning the war and we can't do that without either Ponyville or the Crystal Empire. Now go. You have your orders."

Luna and Celestia vanished in a flash of light, leaving Twilight to glance back at their friends. They all wore the same bitter look that she did, but they all knew that the princesses were right. So as Twilight cast a spell, the six of them vanished to go defend their home. It was all they could do.

({[]})

Autumn had never run so hard in her life. The titans had practically appeared out of nowhere, lumbering towards their town from the north and the south. The guards stationed their had just enough time to sound the alarm before going to stall the titans. They knew they couldn't win. Everypony in the town knew that they couldn't win.

'Gotta find mom! She'll know what to do!' Autumn thought to herself as she weaved in and out of the stampeding ponies, all of who were either running for their lives or trying to find their loved ones. She glanced up to see the guard tower on the edge of town be knocked over by one of the titans, who was now making his way into the town. The titan brought back a fist and slammed it into the ground at the edge of the city, sending out a shockwave that knocked Autumn Breeze off of her hooves.

"MOM!" Autumn called out as she pushed herself back up, turning around to see the second titan entering her town. The beast brought back its head to take in a breath, before it opened its maw and unleashed a blast of magic into the clocktower in the center of the town. The magic blasted it to ash, while everything else the beam struck went up in flames.

A pony slammed into the side of Autumn and knocked her into the mud, getting the filly to groan as she slowly pushed herself up once more. Through pain filled eyes she watched as the first titan reached one of the hospitals they had set up, lifting a massive foot over it before slamming it down with an earth shaking force. She was too far away to see what had become of the ponies, but from the screaming in the distance she could guess.

The best way for her was away from the titans, so she took of in the direction that they weren't going. A herd of ponies went with her, all of them doing what they could to outrace the others. But while she ran Autumn kept an eye out for her mother, hope starting to fade in her heart. Yet when she ran by the hospital she had been helping at, she spied her mother helping the sick and wounded out of the town out of their tents.

"MOM!" Autumn yelled as she tackled her mother, nearly knocking her over.

"Autumn! You're safe!" Summer Sky exclaimed with relief before she pulled her daughter into a tight hug, a hug that only lasted a moment before Summer broke apart. "You need to get out of here now! The titans will be coming this way soon and you can't be here when they do! I'm going to stay here and help the wounded get out!"

"I'm not leaving you, mom!" Autumn said with such a voice of finality that Summer looked down at her daughter with surprise. She then gave her a loving smile before she pointed to a group of foals hiding in a tent across from them.

"See those foals? They're too scared to get out by themselves. Help get them out of here," Summer instructed. Autumn nodded before she ran over to the foals, all of who were cowering underneath of a table.

"Come on you guys, we need to get out of here!" Autumn instructed to the foals, all of who shook with fear and closed their eyes. Autumn sighed at their response before she ran behind the hiding group and pushed against them, kicking them out of their hiding place. "Trust me you guys, you don't want to be hiding under a table for protection when a titan shows up. We need to go!"

The foals were too scared to argue and they followed Autumn as she ran out of the tent, leading them through the parts of the streets that weren't filled with stampeding ponies. "We're going to be heading for the east exit! Stay together and don't get lost!"

"Why don't we go with the others?!" one of the foals called out, before a roar that chilled all of their souls echoed throughout the town. A third titan then rose out of the ground at the edge of the town, right in the way of where most of the ponies had been running towards. The monster let out a roar before it fired a blast of magic into the large group of escaping ponies, reducing them to ash in seconds.

"That's why," Autumn replied in a whisper as she tried to get the foals to run with her, but the sight of ponies being vaporized had gotten the foals to be frozen with fear. The titan then began to look around, looking for another set of targets. And then its spied the group of foals, with numerous other ponies standing around them. The titan slowly began to march towards them. Autumn tried one last time to get the ponies to move, but none of them did. All they did was watch as the bringer of their end walked towards them.

"Autumn!" Summer called out as she ran over to her daughter, pulling her into a hug and holding her tight before staring up at the massive monster. The creature came to a stop and stared down at them, hatred and power flashing in its eyes. It then drew back its head as magic formed in its mouth, shaking the ground with its power. "Don't look, dear," Summer whispered as she pulled Autumn close. "Just close your eyes."

Autumn did so, holding her mom close one last time.

An explosion with enough force to tear apart the sky and shake the land asunder erupted over the heads of the ponies, getting Autumn to snap open her eyes and look up. A vortex of black clouds were swirling overhead, in a way that the ponies had never seen before. Even the titan stopped its attack to look up, unsure of what was happening. Then something fell out of the sky. Something so tiny that the ponies couldn't see it until it was right on top of the titan.

Crystal was shattered into dust as the item collided with the head of the titan, falling straight through its head and cleaving its body down the middle. The titan let out a weak noise before its entire body shattered into billions of pieces, just as the item slammed into the ground in front of the ponies who all stared at what had just killed an unkillable titan.

It was a large hammer.

The hammers impact had created a good sized crater, but the destruction of the titan had drawn the attention of the other two titans, who began to march towards the group of ponies. But then something else fell out of the sky, something else that caused the titans to stop as it too landed in front of the ponies.

The being was slightly taller than the princesses, yet gave off an aura of power that dwarfed the princesses in comparison. His blond hair gently drifted around his shoulders, while a helmet of silver with wings on the side shined atop his head. A red cape blew in the breeze behind him, while his armored suit barely contained the muscles that was beneath it.

He extended its hand towards the hammer and at once the hammer flew from the ground to his hand, almost as if the hammer was determined to be with its owner once more. The moment the hammer touched his hand, the sky let out a cascade of thunder so mighty that it sounded like a chorus of power singing the arrival of the new being. The titans, beings that took on the princesses without fear, backed away slightly from the being that had arrived. Then the being looked behind him at the group of ponies, glancing over them before his eyes rested upon the stunned face of Autumn. Then he smiled and she realized what he was.

"You...you're..."

"Aye. There is no longer need to fear, little one," the being said before he turned back to the titans, the lightning of the gods flashing in his eyes as he began to swing his hammer.

"Thor has heard your prayer."