Sablewing knew his time to defend himself was nearly upon him. He knew he was soon to fight for both his rule, and his life. Even now, while he sat contemplating the immediate future on the throne of Celestia, the knights and their lackeys had stormed through Canterlot on a rampage of blood, violence, and wretched pun-based one-liners. His most powerful servants were dead, and with the coming of these seemingly unstoppable warriors, the majority of what minions he still possessed had all but fled; abandoned him to his looming fate.

He was alone. Right now he could smell the scent of his ultimate enemies lurking on the other side of the closed doors that led to the large and wide throne room, no doubt plotting their final move against him. But Sablewing did not despair, nor did he fear. He merely prepared for what was sure to be the final battle to decide who would be ultimately victorious.

Looking to his left, he saw Princess Celestia keeping a smug glare held on him from the cage where she sat in the corner of the back of the room. She knew what was going on, and it irked the dragon to no end. He turned from her and back to the main doorway and huffed, snorting smoke through his dark and surely vile nostrils.

Yes, the fight he never wanted was coming. And all he could do was wait for them to strike.

"So what'll we do once get in there?" came the first question, spoken by Derpy. What they stood directly behind was the tall, metal door that entered the main throne room of Canterlot's castle. They had spent the last hour battling through what little resistance they found in the city, freed its inhabitants, and were now here. As Rammus stood to the side, looking with dumb fascination at the stained glass windows, Undyne had a hand to her chin and was thinking deeply.

"I say that as soon as we enter, we all rush the guy before he has a chance to speak a word," she said, looking down to her shorter cohorts. "That would be most efficient."

"But what if he has some exposition to share with us?" Green inquired. "Like, what if he had a reason for all of this? For all we know, he'll say he 'did it for his handicapped kid to give them a better place to live' or 'because it was the last wish of his dying father'. I want to hear him say something like that before I mount his head on my wall."

From five feet away, Red was visibly displeased with how his allies were going about their business, then he suddenly shouted something that voiced his opinion on it nicely. "Strategy is for cowards!" were his words. He picked up his mace and faced the door with a laugh as everyone else watched him in confusion. "A true warrior always throws himself into battle for no reason other than to please his weapon with the blood of his puny foes, not boring words. And I'm going to go right in there to punch that dumb dragon right in his stupid face. Why? To be a winner. Because I believe in me!"

Before anyone could so much as question his words, Red sped away toward the entrance of the castle with a thick cloud of dust hanging behind him. "LEEROOOOOYYYY... JENKIIINS!" he cried out at the top of his lungs, invoking the reckless holy name and ancient battle cry of He Who Has Chicken. Breaking through the door with his shoulders, the doorway split open, revealing the darker insides of the spacious room. At the far end sat Sablewing, and beside him was a cage containing Princess Celestia, who looked quite happy at this intrusion. Red instantly started forward before his friends could stop him.

"Sablewing!" he shouted to the being on the other end of the room adjacent to the caged alicorn. "I have something I want to tell you!"

"And what would you have to speak with me about?" Sablewing in turn asked back in a startlingly amiable tone, getting up from the throne. He gave a sideways glance to Celestia before looking ahead.

"So I heard you're resistant to magic, eh?" Red said, sauntering closer to the dragon. Lifting his mace and shield up, he let both drop from his grasp to the ground in a clatter mid-stride. Sablewing, intrigued by this course of action he was following, also began to pace up to him; his long cape dragging behind him.

"I was born with an intense durability to magic," he proudly revealed. "And weapons barely harm me. What is your point, little man?"

Both stopping once they were less than a foot apart, Red smiled and gave him a glare. "I know a spell. And I know that it'll get you good, even if you're resistant to it."

"Really?" The dragon murmured a laugh, poking his head closer to Red's. "And what spell do you intend to cast?" To this, and as everyone watched with held-in breath, utter anticipation and worry, Red lifted his hand and looked into his empty palm before curling his fingers together with a crackling of the joints and looking back at Sablewing's smug expression.

"I cast FIST."

A split second later, the lightning-fast knuckle of the self-entitled 'muscle wizard' Red smashed into the leftmost jaw of Sablewing with its full force. As the bellowing dragon stumbled back in a surprised fashion, hand held to the place where the dizzying blow was struck and along the place where several now-missing teeth once rested within his mouth, Red dashed back to his shield and weapon and snatched them back up, giggling like a maniac.

Everyone saw this attack with clarity, and putting on grimaces as the battle commenced, were just about to charge in by his side. But then, not a second before all of them took a step to him, Sablewing bent his body over and was then engulfed in an aura of purple flame. The broiling fire suddenly shot off from him and burst forward in a cloud, so in turn, they all shielded themselves while Red was engulfed in the scorching heat. When the cloud of flame parted a few moments later, they anxiously peered out to see what had happened.

Red appeared badly charred from the burst of flame, and his soot-covered form shakily arose from the floor. Walking up to his allies, he lifted his finger, as if to say something, before suddenly collapsing in a smoking heap. Looking past his prone shape, everyone could see a startling sight when they witnessed what became of Sablewing.

His magnificent cape now shed, Sablewing had grown to an enormous height that filled up almost a complete third of the throne room. Without a second to spare, and as soon as they had all recovered, Blue, Orange and Green all strummed arrows into their bows, while Undyne prepared a water spear. They each launched a volley of missiles at their enemy, but to their horror, none of the attacks had any effect on him. The arrows bounced off of him, and Undyne's spears dissolved into normal streams of water as soon as they were within range of his innate anti-magic, proceeding to splash uselessly to the ground.

"Gnats!" the dragon shouted angrily, swinging his long, scaly tail. It smashed against Red's inactive body and smacked him toward where Papyrus stood. The skeleton only had time to cry out as the unconscious knight hit against him, sending both flying past the large shape of Rammus and into a wall. The Armordillo dashed in not a second after his allies zipped by and stopped only when he was in front of the dragon.

Looking up at his face, Rammus raised his arms over his head and his red eyes flashed brightly for a second. Sablewing was instantly provoked by this action, for sensing him performing what appeared as a mocking gesture, he felt the blood within his body boil with rage. Unable to contain himself from this puncturing taunt, he lost his sights on the others and sent his mouth down to snap up the audacious creature, only to feel the spiky parts of the creature's armor stab smoothly into his scaly flesh when he curled up into a protective ball.

With Rammus's spiny form still impaled against his snout, Sablewing began to thrash about wildly in an effort to shake him off, roaring in pain. Rammus himself was unable to move from where he was due to obvious reasons, but, as usual, he looked utterly calm. The Armordillo was eventually, and finally thrown off though, where he slammed into a pillar near the entrance of the room, which proceeded to collapse upon him in a cloud of debris as it was broken apart from its foundation.

As Sablewing stumbled back and the others were recuperating, Orange was readying himself to intercept the dragon while it unknowingly got closer to the knight; his demon sword raised and preparing to strike. Just as Sablewing's left heel got in range, Orange swung the weapon with all his might, expecting to clang against his thick flesh with little result. What actually happened was something akin to what it felt like when one swiped through nothing more than air, and for a few seconds he feared he had somehow missed his target.

Opening his eyes as an absolutely agonized bellow rang through his ears, Orange saw that the sword had not missed, but instead had effortlessly passed through the dragon's tendon, cutting a thick gash into his appendage that was already bleeding profusely with burning blood not unlike molten lava. The dragon crashed to the ground with a thunder of body-on-stone as he was unable to keep his balance, and Orange, a devilish smile already formed onto his lips, looked to his friends with the demon sword gripped tighter than ever in his jittering hands.

"Hey, guys!" he yelled right then, catching the attention of everyone in the room. They all turned to him and saw him standing where he was, pointing to the demonic weapon he held. "This sword hurts him! It can hurt the dragon! I think it's cause it's made of something that can damage him, but I can use this demon sword to kill Sablewing! All I've got to do is get up real close to him when he isn't-"

A sound thunk went out, as Sablewing's still very much active tail whacked against Orange with a tremendous force, throwing him away. The knight slammed into a wall, cracking the stone that made it up with the force of the impact, and flopped to the ground with a grunt. Getting up and rubbing his head, he chuckled lightly at his own impudence.

Sablewing struggled to regain his footing; now hampered by his injury. And as he did so, Undyne's good eye caught sight of a figure in the far back of the ruined room, which she noticed was the caged and currently unharmed shape of Princess Celestia. "Papyrus!" she then barked to her skeletal friend. "Go save the princess before that dragon has the chance to trip and fall onto her! I'll cover you!"

"YOU GOT IT!" Papyrus agreed, already dashing off with his red, scarf-like cloth flapping like a flag behind him.

"I'll help!" Derpy also said. The two zoomed to the other end of the room together as speedily as their legs and wings could carry them. Though fast, they had still caught the the predatory eye of Sablewing, but just before a geyser of flame could erupt from his opening, glowing mouth and burn them alive, Undyne had pounced on his snout, closing it. The fish monster, unable to summon any water spears with the fact that her foe was resistant to magic, instead decided to use what she was born with.

"NGAHHH!" she roared, rearing an arm back as she prepared to deliver a mighty blow. With a steel-lined fist at her backing, she punched the overgrown lizard in the bridge of his nose, bruising the very bone underneath his scaly flesh and causing yet another bellow of pain to leave the dragon's mouth. Quite fed up with the creatures he had yet again underestimated, Sablewing extended his wings and clapped them together right when Green and Blue lunged forward to help their comrade, sending all three away from him in a gust of wind to rival that of a hurricane. By then, Papyrus and Derpy had picked up the cage containing the princess and were almost out of the throne room, huffing and puffing with effort.

"You have my thanks for this rescue, heroes!" Celestia quickly said with an almost disturbing level of calmness in spite of the havoc happening around them, just before they left the area. "I've heard in side comments of your victories against Sablewing's forces."

"WE ARE HEROES, AFTER ALL. HEROES ALWAYS BEAT THE VILLAINS!" Papyrus declared, putting the cage down and striking a small pose. "I JUST HOPE THAT DRAGON DIDN'T DO ANYTHING NASTY TO YOU!"

"But the thing is, you're safe now! All we have now is a... dragon to deal with, hehe..." Derpy replied with an uneasy laugh, just before feeling a hand touch her shoulder. Spinning around, she found herself looking at Orange.

"Derpy!" he said. "I need you!"

"For what?" she asked with an unsure expression.

Orange was practically trembling with excitement at the idea he had formulated. "Look, all the guys are getting pummeled out there. Sablewing's hurt bad already, but he's not letting anyone else get close! Our weapons have almost no effect on him, but my sword does! If you're fast enough and can carry me through the air on your wings, I can get close to Sablewing with it and end this fight!"

"Y-you're sure about this?" the walleyed mare asked.

"I am," he responded.

"I don't know..." she said back. "He's so big. And I'm so... little compared to him."

"I HAVE FAITH IN YOU, PONY!" Papyrus cheered as he fiddled with the lock on Celestia's meteoric cage. "TEAMWORK IS THE BEST KIND OF WORK!"

"Yeah! And if that big dumb lizard so much as tries to send a ball of fire our way, I'll make sure to block it for you with my shield," Orange agreed, sneaking a peek behind himself, into the throne room and seeing that Sablewing regain his footing and stand up again, spouting a burst of flame toward Blue and Rammus; the latter of whom was rolling toward the dragon in a spinning ball. Derpy took in a deep breath .

"Alright," she said. "I trust you. Hop on!"

With a triumphant shout of "Yes!", Orange jumped atop of Derpy's back. "Onward, my trusty friend and steed!" he cried out, hoisting his shield up and extending his blade ahead as a cavalier would. Rearing back and whinnying, the pegasus jumped into the air and flew forward at a quick pace with but a few strokes of her feathered wings.

Riding atop of Derpy's flying gray form, Orange and the pegasus charged at Sablewing madly through the air as fast as the wind itself. Sablewing, soon seeing them coming with fear in his eyes, thrashed out at them with his claws and tail as the rest of the heroes also attacked him at once, but all he heard in response to his efforts to swat at them were a pair of defiant roars that avoided every blow he sent their way. Orange pointed the sword ahead of himself and glared as he suddenly leaped off of Derpy and onto Sabelwing, just as the titanic creature reared back and spread his wings out, trying one final time to bat Orange's form away with both of his claws and failing.

While Orange bellowed in his fury, the sword plunged into the ebony-scaled dragon's chest as though it were nothing. Blood of a bright color, like molten lava, began to bleed and spit forth from the wound and drip to the stony ground with a sharp hiss, while the scaly skin around where the blade had pierced through began to crack like rock. Sablewing let out a scream that rendered everyone with ringing ears, and unable to hold it any longer, the Orange Knight let go of the demon sword as both Derpy and himself were flung back by the force of the dragon's cry.

With the weapon still embedded in his chest, Sablewing's enormous form lit up in a white glow and was consumed by a sudden red flame that surrounded his entire being. What followed next was a thunderous explosion that knocked everyone off of their feet, scattering loose stone about like a sideways hail of rock. The knights, Undyne, Rammus, and Derpy were tossed around like pebbles in a cyclone before all coming to a sudden stop not a few seconds later.

And then everything went still.