“So, you claim to come from another world, this “Terra”; and your natural form is a whale-sized scaley bird?”

Princess Sunset Shimmer grumbled with an incredulous look; earning an eyeroll from Rodan.

“I said my wings were each the size of a whale and I’m going to ignore that bird comment. But yes, I was that and then got ejected into Equestria; at least that is how Princess Twilight and Lea explained it. And given the Equestria I got tossed into seemed to have a lot of the same cast members as this place, but not the same roles; it’s not the same Equestria as this one. Stuff like Princess Luna fully reforming, Twilight becoming a princess, and obviously the kaiju’s arrival; never happened here.”

He shrugged, trying not to think too hard about this multi-dimensional case of hot potato. Sunset Shimmer studied him for a moment, maintaining her poise when Rodan so casually mentioned the traitor alicorn’s name so plainly. There were so many things wrong with this situation she’d lost count at this point.

“Hold still. I’m going to scan with you my magic.”

Rodan did as requested, snorting and rolling his eyes. Sunset Shimmer’s horn glimmered and a curtain of red magic opened before her. Like a draping shawl, it laid down and cast itself upon Rodan; going through his form like a sheet of smoke. As it did so, specks of black and dark blue glows became visible, dotting his form. Rodan cocked a brow and looked at a set of blots layering his forelimbs, trying to wipe them off to no avail. Sunset Shimmer puzzled, turning her head and casting the same spell on the spot some of the Shadows were being summoned through, their portal being the same as Rodan's. A worrying thought returned to her mind when she saw the sheer enormity of the traces left behind by the Shadow army she’d seen form right in front of her.

-Nightmare Moon herself could summon a lot, but that many from a single warlock so quickly? Never seen that artifact she was using before either. And if this buzzard is right it could pull things from beyond just whatever dark magic nether the Nightmare forces tied themselves to. Just where did they get that and why hadn’t they used it before?-

She mentally shrugged, looking back at Rodan and seeing the trace markings on him.

-One problem at a time Sunset.-

With her magic-enhancing vision like a magnifying glass, she could see the traces were shrinking; albeit at such a slow rate she had to magnify to almost cellular level to see it moving.

“Your story is ridiculous, but possible. I’ve had some experience with portal magic before, I once swapped places with another version of me for a short time. And there’s a gradually diminishing magic stuck on you.”

She muttered with a stiff tone. Rodan incredulously looked at his forelimb’s black coating as the spell vanished and both the trace magic and Sunset’s own were lost from sight.

“So that’s what this stuff is. Must have been laid on thick before you burned a lot of it off. And you said it’s shrinking?”

“It’s definitely the enchantment that brought you here and is keeping you locked to this world. I don’t know what tool she was using but that warlock was using a gate to the nether realms to draw up those Shadows that came out after you. When I fought her, the runaway magic must have made the portal “lock” onto a random energy source and it picked you. But, no worry needed. Maybe because of our bout or the fact you’re not a dark magic monstrosity, the magic is dying away slowly. Once it’s evaporated off, you’ll go back to the same place you came from.”

To her hidden surprise, the gryphon took it in stride. In truth he’d had two weeks to have the whole technicolor ponies, pony magic, and portal shenanigans to not surprise him much anymore. And with Sunset’s assessment, nothing to worry with so why bother?

“Huh, convenient. How much longer will it last?”

Sunset rolled her eyes before looking off and to the side with thought, running at least a dozen calculations in her mind given what she’d seen so far.

“Given the amount lost in the past five minutes, roughly twenty four hours.”

She grunted, before the realization of what she was doing dawned on her and caused her to sneer.

“Five minutes of which I have wasted not dealing with this Nightmare crisis. Go, leave here. You can survive my fire blasts and fly so Everfree won’t hold you back. I have work to do.”

To her mix of surprise and annoyance, flaps of wing-blown wind and a placid voice chased her down and came over her.

“Not alone you don’t.”

Sunset Shimmer leered at the gryphon hovering upside down above her, blowing her bangs out of her face.

“This isn’t your world and this isn’t your quarrel. You have no need to endanger yourself needlessly. I can handle myself.”

Rodan, still upside down, tilted his head to the right to Sunset’s left. He raised his brow and held his beak in a way Sunset could tell he was giving a miffed expression.

“No can do. Princess Celestia was nice enough to help us out back in the Equestria I was in. I get to be in an airshow the day after tomorrow. So, I might as well make myself useful and pay her back and I see no reason to sit on my wings in this case. Besides what am I supposed to do? Fly around like a blind gyaos until I get back to my roost away from my actual roost?”

Sunset Shimmer regarded the gryphon with a bit of resigned fury. True, she didn’t demand others bow down before her, only treat her as her position suggested and not get in her way. This kaiju was managing to do both and it was pushing all her buttons. She knew it wouldn’t do anything when she puffed a short range fireball into Rodan’s face, but did keep her deadpan expression from showing her frustration. Rodan, face not a bit darker than before, just blinked at her a few times like a confused bird.

“Feeling better?”

“I’m not getting you off my back, am I?”

“... You’re one of those “Shut up, don’t speak to me peasants!” kind of royalty aren’t you? Well, I answer your question prissy?”

Sunset’s eyes narrowed and she glared through her flat expression.

“Why do you insist on intrusion? If your worlds are different then the Nightmare army is a force unlike any you have encountered before. I’m not forcing you to face them.”

Rodan just nodded his head nonchalantly.

“I’ve fought things from other worlds before. You shoulda see the mess Final Wars was. Same world or not, I’m on Princess Celestia’s team and I’ve seen her miffed before. Wouldn’t wish any world the fate of seeing her angry and I’m pretty sure her daughter getting herself killed would count for that.”

“Urg, nevermind!”

Sunset groaned, marching forward in the direction the Shadows went.

“Just keep quiet and don’t slow me down.”

Rodan, with his arms crossed in front of him, flew backwards in a manner that looked almost like a disgruntled parody of a backstroke.

“Don’t know if you figured it out yet or not, but I’m pretty bad at being slow.”

It didn’t take them too long to track down the Nightmare Army, or rather which way they were going by following the route that the army of Shadow troopers took. The duo could only guess that because they were far out of the way of civilization and the loss of the warlock and wraiths hadn’t been anticipated, covering the Shadow’s trail wasn’t a priority and would have been left to those who summoned them. As they moved through thickets and ridges, they finally spotted them in a gorge beneath them. Concealed by the shadow of the trees and with the wind not blowing their scent to the army below, they were free to watch the mobile sea beneath them.

“So, this is them huh?”

Rodan whispered, counting up the multitudes of those assembled below before having lost count at the fifth dozen. Sunset whispered with a slight stupor in her voice, eyes wide.

“Didn’t get a good look at them all before. There shouldn’t be this many! In the battle of Ponyville, Nightmare Moon threw everything she had at us and we beat them down. There should only be a few scattered cultist remnants out there; not a whole army.”

“Well it is an army. And an army has to have leadership. Nightmare Moon was beaten down and you know she’s imprisoned for sure, right?”

“Positive. My mother checks on her frequently. So someone else is in command, these monsters are as fanatical as they are murderous.”

“You hardly make them sound like ponies.”

Sunset Shimmer paused for a moment, looking down at the horde below before muttering lowly with spiteful venom dripping from her words.

“These demons stopped being ponies a long time ago. They're fanatics and sociopaths warped by dark magicks. They were already monsters before, now that’s all they are. They won't stop until they're killed and that is the only way to stop them in many circumstances; there is no reasoning with them. And because of how maddened they usually are, that means somepony must be leading here in her absence; maybe a general whom was missed in the clean up.”

Rodan opted to try and ignore the sudden shift in tone coming from the princess, not to any real success though. He could still remember when Sunset killed the warlock, despite his obstructed view of being covered in that blackness coming out of the portal. He was no stranger to use of lethal force, but the idea of it being used on an Equestrian just seemed… wrong.

The memories of Mrs. Thalia came back to him as he looked upon the army below. The kindly Appleloosa barmare had housed him during his stay in the town, once sitting him down and telling him some of the country’s history. She told him of the conflict with Nightmare Moon and the ensuing Nights Rebellion that sprung up in her name shortly afterwards. Right now, the kaiju was seeing dejavu brought to life. The exact thing Thalia had told him their Equestria had worked past was before him, an armed civil war in the name of the nightmare. And it wasn’t stopped in this timeline. How exactly he wasn’t sure, could have been for a myriad of reasons. But he now had a better understanding of the goings-on in the history of the Equestria he’d gotten into. Honestly he wanted to see one of these Chuckle-Lot performances Princess Celestia put on even more now, if only to see how something so seemingly mundane of all things might have contributed to this divergence of paths and kept this series of events from happening in the Equestria he knew.

And he knew full well what sort of reaction Sunset Shimmer had to the Nightmare forces judging from the tone in her voice. She sounded a lot like the Chief, Godzilla Junior, when he talked about Xenilla.

-I’m going to have to keep a leash on her, least until I figure out more of what’s happening. No more dead ponies until then.-

With that in mind, Rodan shifted mental gears and scanned the army encampment as they began to move out again; spotting a large tent in the center mounted on supports that showed it could be carried.

"My bet is, whoever's calling the shots around here is in there.”

He muttered, pointing with a claw. Sunset Shimmer did nod to him, but it was clear her attention was elsewhere, somehow. She kept looking to and fro between the army and the treeline surrounding the gorge, almost like she was expecting something.

“What is it?”

She didn’t look to him when she addressed him, focusing on trying to visually spot what she sought.

“The Everfree Forest is off-limits for most everypony for a reason. It’s usually far too dangerous to move through. Yet, this army barely has any on guard to watch the perimeter to deflect any attackers. With a group this big they should have attracted every manticore pride in the region hours ago.”

“That bad huh? Seems worse than in the other Equestria then for you to fret over it. Maybe something is scaring the animals away?”

Princess Sunset Shimmer looked about the army while she puzzled.

“Possible, probable. But we’d have seen the spell casts by now to freshen the hex. It’s not something they’re actively maintaining, so it must be something they’re moving with.”

“Maybe another dark magic carry-on like the do-dad that brought me here?”

Sunset Shimmer found herself reluctantly nodding, mind still racing as she took in the size of the nightmare army’s scale again.

“This army is prepared well enough to hide themselves from the outside and survive in the Everfree; all while being less than thirty kilometers away from the most heavily defended city in Equestria. It’s both cunning and lacking sense, but it’s all out war.”

Rodan rubbed at his beak with the blunt curve atop his claws.

Honestly though, the idea that these adorable ponies were at war with each other still had problems computing in his head. It wasn’t from a pacifistic protest; after all he wasn’t averse to conflict in the slightest when things needed to be put to blows, but the thought of any of these Equestrians killing or getting killed left him uneasy.

-Maybe if we got the Celestia of this world we could get her to sort things out without it being a massacre?-

“If they’re doing what they’re doing they're either pretty stupid or plenty confident in themselves. We should call in someone.”

“Which would be?”

“Your mom.”

Sunset Shimmer, mistaking the statement for a childish insult, shot Rodan a disgruntled look and almost shot a fireball at him.

“Why you!-”

Rodan put his paws up defensively, eyes wide and shaking his head as he realized his error.

“No no! I meant literally.”

“... Oh.”

Sunset Shimmer blinked and shook off her stupor.

“Uh, yes. That is a satisfactory solution given the gravity of the situation. I shall summon her with a spell I know.”

She announced, holding her head high to appear more proper and astute. Usually she liked handling this sort of thing herself, but she wasn’t as bullheaded as she once was after the Ponyville incidents.

“Which is?”

“A long distance fire display. She’ll certainly be able to see it from Canterlot and know it is me and that I wouldn’t use it unless it was an emergency.”

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Rodan deadpanned to Sunset, earning him his fifth annoyed scowl of the day.

“And why not?”

She groaned, spurring Rodan to put a paw atop her head and point it to the horde of fanatics and monsters below.

“Because there is a good hundred something crazies a couple dozen meters away who’d see it first and get here first.”

He let go of her head and spread his wings out, eyeing the opening in the treeline above them.

“Leave this to me. I can bolt over to Canterlot easy without even making a sonic boom. You just keep safe.”

Sunset Shimmer shrugged, covering her brow with her hoof as Rodan started to ascend upwards.

“As mediocre as this plan sounds, I’ll agree to it. Just be quick or the Shadowbolts will catch you if you get yourself spotted.”

She groaned, earning a shook paw and rolled eyes from Rodan.

“Eh, let ‘em try.”

With one big wing flap he shot up into the air and cleared the first few layers of dense trees. With skillful maneuvering and stronger beats, he soon broke free of the canopy without hitting a single branch on the way up. Taking mind to memorize their location relative to a rock formation visible through the canopy, as not to lose track of Princess Sunset Shimmer; the Guardian Beast ripped through the air to ascend and accelerate. With the visage of Canterlot Mountain visible in the distance, he only had time to register an odd distortion in the image before Rodan found himself stopped. Having gone just below the speed of sound to avoid a boom, Rodan had no time to slow down when a cold feeling chilled him to the bone and he felt himself hit something. Where he didn’t hit it, it was like looking into a smooth glass window. Everything looked about right on the other side, but one could still see a very subtle distortion in the airspace. Where he did hit it however, blue and black lines criss crossed the air in a vein-like mesh and only gave way slightly as they stretched into his impact. And then, like an elastic band, it snapped back to smoothness and sent Rodan hurtling back like a ricocheted pinball. Knocked half silly, he couldn’t avert his tumble through several tree branches and then crash into the ground.

Saved by a broken fall and some of his kaiju durability carrying on into his gryphon form, Rodan’s form wobbled up to his feet through the dust cloud he’d kicked up on impact. Coughing as the sediment haze cleared, Rodan was still shaking and knocked silly by the time the orange-red blobs of Sunset Shimmer; all six of her, trotted over to him.

“Nice work.”

The Sunset Shimmer and a small herd of identical twin sisters grunted in unison, helping the delirious Rodan steady and dust himself off. Shaking his head to clear his vision of excessive mares, Rodan shot an angry glare at the skyline above.

“What in the minds of Daiei was that?!”

Sunset Shimmer puzzled, glancing over to test a theory. She got it when she found a baseball sized stone, magically levitated it up, and hurled it straight up as hard as she could. The rock sailed upwards before abruptly smacking into something, giving the same sort of mesh-like, temporary impact sight before rebounding off it in the manner of a bouncy ball.

“It’s a dome. They must have it set up all across their route through the Everfree.”

“Why would they need that?”

“I’m working on some theories. My best guess is the barrier is a side effect of one huge glamor spell to mask the view of the army from anyone flying overhead, be it carnivores or pegasi. The warlock that summoned the Shadows and then you had a smaller version to mask her location. From the outside, looked like normal forest. The forcefield might be a bonus to the spell cast on a grander scale.”

“If that’s true then that means this dome has to be huge for us to still be in it even before we caught up to them. Possibly size of the whole forest. How strong of one could you make?”

It was only the realization behind the implications behind the dome being this enormous that caused Sunset Shimmer to not feel some dejection at her confession.

“Size of a city block if I concentrated. And I’m a magic prodigy.”

Rodan let that bit of information run through his head, before coming to the same realization Sunset Shimmer had while the princess continued on.

“And this dome has to be at least six times that size… How strong is whoever is keeping that spell up?..... Oh no.”

Sunset Shimmer muttered, thinking the kaiju was trying to fathom what she was as she ran down the list of sources that could possibly be that powerful; thought he was dreading what she was thinking.

“There are probably less than five beings strong enough to hold up a glamour this huge other than my mother-”

“Sunset, I’m going to grab you. Do not kick me.”

Rodan grumbled. The princess snapped out of her stupor, too confused at what the gryphon just said to hear the faint buzzing in the air.

“Huh, what?”

“Remember those Shadowbolts you told me about? I think I know what they look like.”

Rodan muttered, looking off in a seemingly random direction.

“Wh-Why is that a problem?”

“Because one isAimingForTheBackOfYourHead! HANG ON!”

Rodan shouted, flicking his limbs out and grabbing Sunset Shimmer before rocketing straight up into the air. The princess yelped in surprise, managing to avoid the instinct of kicking Rodan in the stomach or blasting him with magic in time to see a gray, black, and blue blur bury a lance into the tree they’d been standing in front of. The Shadowbolt wasn’t alone, turning and calling out in an ungodly wail to summon up his flight partner who nearly collided with the kaiju and unicorn had Rodan not air dodged out of the way. The patrol, scouts for the greater army, had heard the gryphon’s crash landing and were showing intent to bring back only bodies to their dark lady. And like wolves locked onto a deer, they homed in on the flying form of Rodan even after Sunset Shimmer teleported out of his grasp.

“Hey! I’m trying to-”

The princess gave him a glare, revving up her magic as the resulting glow encircled her.

“Shut up and fight, you handle one and I’ll get the other!”

She shouted, levitating up a tree branch to bash the stallion Shadowbolt out of the air as he tried to head Rodan off while the kaiju dodged his partner.

“Attack to kill and don’t die!”

Rodan had objections, but opted not to voice them.

-Not if I have something to say about it. Just a mare with a pointy stick, I can disable her.-

He swerved in his flight, opening up his wings to put on the air brakes and let the Shadowbolt still on his tail overshoot and fly past him.

-Not here though. Princess Priss can handle herself for a moment, it’ll be quick.-

“Keep alive yourself!”

He barked before taking off over a game trail with the Shadowbolt mare in hot pursuit. Sunset Shimmer, oblivious to the kaiju’s ploy, only looked back at the recovering stallion with a glare that could pierce stone. Hatred was a strong word in her mental space, something only a select few type of beings got. And one of them, the wrathful demon that would see her home destroyed and family put atop pikes, was right in front of her.

She charged up a fire spell as the Shadowbolt leered at her through his mask. Dark magic tainting his veins was visible on his lips and gums when the fanged maw smiled in Sunset Shimmer’s direction; his goggles masking the fact he was looking past her and not directly at her.

“The night shall endure forever and the day will drown in its own blood!”

The Shadowbolt hissed with a haunting echo in its voice that would chill all but the experienced to the bone. It grinned the opposite of a smile before hovering up into the air and shooting off after the direction Rodan and its wingmate had gone. Sunset Shimmer raised an eyebrow at the sudden retreat, but before she could rush off to help Rodan the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It was the only warning she got to duck before a tail made of swirling sword blades swung over her and sliced a sapling in two.

A metallic clicking and rattle shot out of the shrubs behind her as Sunset Shimmer hit the ground rolling and turned herself about. As much slicing as it was emerging from the brushline was a malefic form unlike any beast or being living. Dark purple and blue were the sinew that strung whirling sword blades together into some bastardized visage of a serpent that seemed to be constantly deconstructing and reconstructing itself to move around. The Blades of Nightmare, as this sort of demon was called, made no vocalization; only the scraping and clacking of its swords against each other in an unnerving warcry. The set of blades that created the approximation of jaws spread wide while the neck craned back.

Sunset Shimmer’s mind raced, throwing out a teleportation spell to move out of the way and avoid the snapping strike that shredded a tree trunk behind her.

-Alright think Sunset. Blades are impervious to physical damage and composed of dark magic. I need to hamstring it with a magic blast to disable it!-

Horn blazing, she attempted to rake the Blades of Nightmare across it’s back, for lack of better descriptors, with a flamethrower. However the demon was far too agile, cutting through the air to weave around the blast and forcing Sunset Shimmer to teleport out of the way as its spinning swords tunneled through the oak tree trunk behind her. Warping back a dozen meters away, Sunset Shimmer found to her panic that she’d lost sight of the Blades of Nightmare. The hole it had bored through the tree was still there, but there wasn’t a sign of the ten-meter malefic. Immediately she trained her eyes skyward. Blades of Nightmare weren’t typically beings of strategy, but she knew well enough that their agility was partially due to their ability to get airborne. She scanned the sky with a firespell prepped, looking to any tree or branch that might give away the surprisingly stealthy creature’s approach.

Her eyes grew wide with horror upon feeling the ground beneath her shake. She braced and vanished in a flash of light while the Blades of Nightmare exploded out of the earth beneath her like a geyser of swords and magic. Sunset Shimmer fumbled and rolled across the ground, a shower of dirt and wood chips from the Blades stuck in her mane.

-Okay, that’s new…-

She coughed, a bit of red coming up as she put a hoof on her reddened stomach.

-Damn, didn’t move fast enough!-

She grit her teeth, letting a curtain of magic sail down her body from her horn. The seams of the cut across her stomach moved together, the internal damage mending from the magic as the outside seared itself shut. It wasn’t superb medical magic, but it would keep her together. She glared at the Blades of Nightmare, eyes literally burning with as much determination and indignation as they with flames. Eyes darting to the side briefly, she thought and acted quickly even as she manually dodged to the side to avoid another strike. Her magic gripped and strangled a boulder, tearing off a jagged chunk of rock. Rolling under a tail swipe that bisected a thicket of brush behind her, Sunset focused her magic into heating up and fracturing the rock in a very particular manner; forcing stress cracks in exactly the right way as the stone began to glow white hot with heat.

The Blades of Nightmare turned to face the unicorn princess, seeing a deadeyed Sunset Shimmer burning with fire magic that crackled and roared like a phoenix while magically holding up two blazing swords made of burning stone. The demon screeched by scraping the swords that made up its mouthparts and lunged, Sunset Shimmer yelling out as she swung one of her blazing weapons at it.
About a quarter of a kilometer away, a red blur shot through the forest with a purple jet stream in hot pursuit. Rodan glanced back with an impressed expression.

-Huh, she is keeping up. Only pegasus I’ve seen get near that level is Rainbow Dash, and she’s told me she was exceptional. Princess Prissy was actually onto something!-

He was about to look at the Shadowbolt to try and enact part two of his plan when a faint hissing tore his attention away. The Omega Guardian Beast reacted completely off instinct, shooting straight upwards at a near ninety degree angle to avoid a second blur that would have t-boned him in the flank sword-first. He stalled in midair and looked down. The stallion Shadowbolt had caught up to them through a shortcut. He grinned at the kaiju above with a demented smile before joining his partner in rocketing up to him. Rodan used gravity to quickly point himself downwards and dove straight at them, turning off at the last minute. Time seemed to slow down as the trio nearly collided, Rodan’s thin wing nimbly shooting between their weapons and catching the Shadowbolts in his jet stream after he shot past them. The momentary pause their disorientation granted them gave Rodan a second’s lapse to think.

-Okay, now both of them are on me. He didn’t have any blood on him so Sunset shouldn’t be hurt; but why’d they leave her alone if she’s Celestia’s daughter? She’d be priority, not me.-

The gryphon shot through the trees with the pegasi now back into pursuit.

-Going to need to speed things up, but I gotta split them.-

Eying a pond up ahead, an idea dawned upon his head and a smirk upon his maw. Horns alight, Rodan redirected the heat from his flight’s air friction into power and fired several quick bursts of plasma fireballs aimed at the water. The flowing spheres shot away and exploded into the pond, instantly evaporating a large portion of it into a blisteringly hot cloud of steam and vapors. Not worried at all about the heat, Rodan only took a moment to slow down enough to egg the Shadowbolts on before he flew through it. Either too bloodthristy to notice or going too fast to pull off, the stallion Shadowbolt dove into the cloud directly behind Rodan and soon found out how bad an idea that was. Wings dampened and misting, the Shadowbolt lost control and barreled into the ground. He rolled into the earth, still steaming; before calling out in a very unequine screeching as he writhed in pain. The damage wasn’t bad, especially given he was wearing a flight suit, but on the exposed portions like his wings and maw it was more than disabling.

It was the shrieking he was calling out in that caused Rodan to pause. Had he not turned around to see it was indeed coming from the pegasus, he would have never guessed it. The pain was obvious, but the call was so unworldly it didn’t sound anything like a voice or any call an animal should be able to make. Involuntarily it gave him a moment of stupor and confusion, enough for the mare Shadowbolt to dive over the steam cloud and tackle him.

Brought free of his lapse in mind, Rodan’s focus turned to his attacker as they tumbled through a thicket of shrubs and rolled into a clearing. She hissed and batted at him with her hooves while trying to bring up her lance, but he wasn’t having any of it. Hissing into his beak, Rodan grabbed her lance with a paw and snatched it away from her, tossing it to the side. As the crazen pony bashed and swatted at him, he managed to fight through it and get on top of the struggle; using his weight and digit bearing limbs to grab and pin her. But even with all her limbs pinned down by a gryphon easily twice her mass, she still struggled and fought back. At first with curses of word and then by swinging her skull at Rodan like a bludgeon to try and head butt him.

“Hey if you could stop-”

“Nightmare Moon’s avatar has come to us!”

“-trying to kill me, I just want to-”

“Canterlot and the Solar Tyrant will crumble from their basin!”

“Listen if you don’t stop, that Sunset Princess is probably going to kill you-”

“I will walk upon your bones and present your beak as a trophy to!-”

“Ah forget it!”

Rodan groaned before craning his head back and slamming his forehead into her as she lunged at him again. The Shadowbolt’s head wobbled before falling back limp, knocked unconscious as it seemed. Rodan looked at her and shrugged. He purposefully dialed back his force to make sure he hadn’t used anything lethal. Despite what Sunset Shimmer asserted earlier, he had his own assertions to make. While not a deep thinker by his own admission, he knew what he knew and made his judgements based off them. He knew there had been a conflict brewing between the Celestia loyalists and Nightmare Moon loyalists for centuries, and he knew based off his own experience that conflicts tended to work in cycles. The Princess Celestia of the Equestria he knew had stopped such a civil war without any lethal force, something he’d come to admire a lot.

-Sunset might have said you’re not worth life anymore, but until I see proof of it I’m not killing any ponies.-

He glanced at the Shadowbolt while climbing off her.

“You’re welcome.”

He grumbled, starting to turn and hover up into the air to go and check on Sunset Shimmer herself. With the stallion Shadowbolt having a go at him earlier, it probably meant something had come up with the unicorn and Rodan intended to find out why.

Or at least that was his priority before the shrieking behind him forewarned the seemingly unconscious Shadowbolt head revived and pounced onto him. Rodan sneered, trying to reach back with his paw to try and grab at her after being forced to land.

“Hey get off!”

“YOUR SOUL WILL EMPOWER US!”

“What are you-”

And that’s when she did something Rodan never expected a equine to do. She chomped down on his neck in a predatory manner. Rodan flinched, shocked at the fact he could tell she drew blood and the fact a pegasus had just tried to tear his throat out with her teeth. His neck armor spared him that fate, meaning she only hit muscle. But where she did hit, the gryphon could already feel a blistering, almost frostbite-like cold settling in. He was beginning to feel weak, drained.

Unfortunately for the Shadowbolt, a slightly weakened kaiju convert was still far from a normal Equestria. Rodan grabbed hold of her head in one paw and jaw in the other, prying her off and throwing the mare over his shoulder. The Shadowbolt rolled over the ground but quickly got her hooves beneath her and slid backwards while standing up. Her mask had been torn off by the throw, causing Rodan to mentally backpedal when he saw her… its face. Sunset Shimmer’s word echoed through his mind.

-”These monsters stopped being ponies a long time ago…”-

The Shadowbolt’s face was barely recognizable as an equine. Inky veins shown through paled skin and short fur. The eyes were near completely comprised of enlarged pupils, and were noticeably sunken into their sockets with a ring of wrinkled skin surrounding them. In many places the skull’s shape was visible through lost soft tissue, and the cheeks had decayed holes in them. The Shadowbolt never looked away from Rodan. She no longer spoke, only hissing through green bloodied jaws while stalking towards the gryphon; lusting for more of the life force she’d tasted. But as she lunged forward, she only got something else as the gryphon dove to the side with his paw swinging out towards her.

Rodan’s talons striking her across the throat, cutting fabric, flesh, and bone. The Shadowbolt’s body crumbled to the ground in two pieces, decapitated.

Rodan, expressed turned to stone, turned away from the body. He was starting to try and flick the blood off his paw when he noticed the aforementioned fluid was anything but normal. He looked upon it with a disgusted sneer, seeing the black liquid churning and writhing like it had a mind of it’s own and stunk of dark magic. There was movement behind him, and not to be taken by surprise twice Rodan turned to face it.

-You gotta be fucking kidding me…-

The Shadowbolt wasn’t limp anymore. Tendrils of dark purple magic flexed and churned dark liquid. The unholy abomination struggled and surged, the tendrils starting to stitch the body as those same dark energies became visible through the veins. The wretched, living corpse limped back to her hooves and picked up her lance; living shadows being the only thing forcing her body back together. A broken grin stretched over her muzzle and the Shadowbolt began to chuckle in a craven manner as she took aim.

Rodan closed his eyes solemnly as the manic laughter erupted from her blacked maw.

-Princess was right...-

Eyes alight with glee, the cursed mare pounced forward and trained her lance at Rodan. She didn’t get one centimeter off the ground before a massive beam of plasma shot down her throat. Mana fires and dark magic reacted with each other and engulfed her form in a massive explosion, literally vaporizing the mutate in the span of a second. The broken, singed lance clacked against the earth, ash slowly raining down on the scorch mark on the ground as smoke lifted to the sky.

-I’m not killing any ponies after all.-

Rodan stopped the beam assault and looked upon the lance, at the lunar symbol carved into the base. He stomped on and crushed the brittle remains, smoke streamed from his nostrils. Without looking back, he took to the air and zoomed off to find Princess Sunset; eyes and gut still burning with anger.

-Whoever in charge of this army that just made me do that is getting worse…-

Back at the outlook, Sunset Shimmer was having her own mental crisis. Namely how to stay out of the way of one of the most dangerous monstrosities Nightmare Moon ever devised. The swirling serpent of Blades tirelessly came at her again, forcing the unicorn to cross her burning rock in front of her to try and parry. With a tilted angle and an upwards shove, she managed to force the demon up and over her, slamming it into the ground behind her. But it came at the cost of one of her tools, shattered slag raining down behind her. To anyone but herself, it probably would have meant death by their own weapon. But instead it only served to invigorate her. She took no glory in battle, but the princess of flames couldn’t deny how alive she felt even as she was rapidly dodging to avoid getting chopped in half.

-Alright, think Sunset. It’s like a snake so it relies on swinging its top or bottom around like a flail and using that to cut or stab.-

The unicorn blinked out of existence to avoid a downwards slam by the Blade’s tail following by parrying a stab from its head when she remerged several meters away.

-No limbs so I need to pin part of it’s body to hit it with magic burst. What’s good at trapping a blade?-

Her eye cast itself to an enormous treetrunk, one felled earlier when the Blades of Nightmare shoved it over with its bulk.

-Perfect!-

Sunset Shimmer teleported herself in front of the log. Flicking up her remaining stony weapon, she trained it upon the Blades like a magically held javelin as she pumped so much heat into the shape it turned white hot and threatened to melt. Seeing the unicorn finally standing still, the demon wasted no time in surging forward at near blinding speed. When it got within five meters of her, Sunset Shimmer smirked. A small explosion went off behind the stone, sending the burning projectile rocketing into the Blades of Nightmare and exploding against its metallic surface in a shower of molten rock. Temporarily blinded, the Blades of Nightmare couldn’t slow down before it crashed into the tree trunk and bowled over it. With its forward most blades bitten into and now stuck in the wood, it dragged down by the rolling log’s weight into the forest floor.

The Blades of Nightmare wasn’t able to free itself when a glowing Sunset Shimmer teleported atop the log and threw her head down towards it. A firestorm of heat and light erupted from her horn and engulfed the serpentine demon, rapid scraping and clacking being its death cries. The fire magic broiled the metallic components and cut through the dark magic sinew like cut ropes, first at the head and the to the lower body. So focused she was however at burning the demon alive, that Sunset didn’t see something as unexpected as the previous burrowing habits. Part of the Blades of Nightmare were dead, but part of it wasn’t just yet.

The remaining body contorted under the flames, flexing upwards into a C shape and swinging the tail up and around even as the upper body fell to nothing more than molten metal and ashes. Sunset Shimmer’s eyes widened as she tried to train her aim up to counter it, but she wasn’t fast enough.

What was quick enough was the searing beam of purple-red plasma sailing over her head and hitting the tail end of the Blades, mana-born magic burning through the metal and causing the dark magic holding its form together to go slack as it was energized. With the tail pushed back, Sunset Shimmer was able to adjust her aim and engulf it in her own flamethrower. The twin beams swallowed up the remaining blades, causing them to explode outwards.

========================================
Nightmare Army Camp, Several minutes earlier
========================================

Mircalla, formerly Countess and now Nightmare, felt a squirming feeling within her shriveled stomach when she walked through the camp. To many, seeing her walking about in a form akin to and bearing the armor of the Dark Lady was a sign of providence. Some of the more fanatical warlocks practically threw themselves before her, thinking their beloved alicorn had returned early. When she informed them this wasn’t the case, it did nothing to dial down their crazed enthusiasm. Surely tonight, they said, was the night they’d been lusting after for a millennia. The night Nightmare Moon returned to strike down all who opposed her and reward those loyal to her. The “Avatar of the Nightmare” they’d call her.

Publicly, she embraced the title and all it stood for as she kept up the march forward to Canterlot.

Privately, she hated every second of it. If Apostle, the arch member of the Warlocks, had been in her hooves he’d be leading the troops with pride and gusto in every hoofstep. It was almost a cruel irony, that the last of the Night Generals was the one who’d been the most disenfranchised after one thousand years of waiting. There were only three reasons she was keeping this activity up with no intent to stop it despite wishing for it, and none of them were by choice. One was out of duty to her alicorn, in return for a gift given in centuries past. Another was because of the contract behind said gift. And the last was the knowledge how desperate and psychotic most of the beings around her where. If they thought her a traitor, she wouldn’t live to see the next night.

The fact that… thing… Mizu was in support of the Nightmare Army to attain Princess Celestia, for who knows what end, wasn’t helping.

She was in a deadlock and had no way out, so Mircalla swallowed her pride and self pity to carry on as she’d done for centuries. After tonight, she wouldn’t have any more worries to be concerned with.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the faint sound of an explosion. Nightmare Mircalla turned her head to the cliffs high above, detecting the faintest amount of smoke in the air with her enhanced vision and knowing what it meant.

They had company.

“Keep moving forward, I need see to an intrusion.”

She barked, spreading her wings to take off. Several warlocks flocked to her, horns already blazing.

“An intruder! Avatar of the Dark Alicorn, let us fill our soul wells with their essen-”

“NO!”

Mircalla snapped at the mare, eyes glowing and teeth snapping shut centimeters from their face.

“I. Will see to this. Alone. Keep. The convoy. Moving.”

The vampire hissed, stomping on the warlock’s words and cowing them back before her. She was joyful that it worked, but obviously didn’t show it. After the defeat at Ponyville and imprisonment of Luna, the remaining forces she’d found herself leading had grown both bolder and more crazed by the day. The only way to control such a powderkeg was to force every command given. And it was only going to get worse from here the closer they got to Canterlot.

At this point stopping to deal with some pest at the perimeter was a reprieve.

Bits of vaporizing dark magic and scrap metal rained down on the immediate area. Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes and breathed in the heat, trying to stop her heart from pounding between her ears.

After some seconds passed, princess and kaiju turned to each other and stared. Rodan saw the ruined battlefield where Sunset had fought the Blades of Nightmare and Sunset saw the bite mark on Rodan’s collar. They didn’t need to ask what happened to the other.

And when they heard a flapping noise off to their side, both turned towards it with fire spell and heat beam at the ready. They expected it to be the stallion Shadowbolt from earlier, but instead the dark mass coming free of the foliage wasn’t singular. Rather than one set of wings flapping, it was a symphony of them. Hundreds of bats came pouring out of the treeline, flying in unison like they were a singular mass. They arched over the confused Sunset Shimmer and Rodan, their mass clustering a six meters away from the duo. The individual bats folded up their wings and fell down together, their forms remolding and condensing into a single solid mass.

Sunset Shimmer recognized the dark-colored fur, large stature, and flowing mane as Nightmare Moon and fired her magic out of reflex with Rodan following suit. The newcomer was devoured by the dual blasts of fire and heat that set the forest aflame behind her. Burning lights shot forth from the pair in torrents for a good six seconds before cutting off to inspect any success. A pair of bat-like wings unfolded before the figure, having been used as a shield and only being slightly singed with bits of smoke coming off from them; but their host was virtually unscathed. Nightmare Mircalla held her head high, the vampiress’ fanged maw looking almost disappointed.

“Impressive, but useless.”

Rodan was prepared for round two, spreading his wings and charging up another blast.

“Princess, who is this?”

He muttered, expecting Sunset to give him some snide remark of ignorance before telling him just who they were up against as it obviously wasn’t a friendly with that coloring and Sunset’s initial reaction. But all her got was stunned silence as Mircalla and Sunset locked eyes. Sunset Shimmer saw her opponent and realized this wasn’t Nightmare Moon. Though she had no name to ascribe to the vampiress, she knew who she was.

The setting shifted in her mindspace. Away from the Everfree, away from the present day. It took back to cloudy memories of two decades past to a dark night in the streets of Canterlot’s lower quarter. All she could recall where a few still images and the sensation of movement, of being carried. There were voices exchanged, ones that echoed through her mind now that the familiar sight of Mircalla’s red eyes jogged the repressed and traumatic back to memory. A feminine one, pleading for itself and another, and Mircalla answering back. The ghost of a mare's death screaming returned to haunt her mind over and over again.

Princess Sunset Shimmer hit her dreaded eureka moment and was frozen stiff, trembling lightly all over as fearful tears wet her eyes. Mircalla looked upon this and frowned, starting to slowly approach forward.

Rodan shot his eyes between the approaching mare and the one to his right, speaking with increasing desperation and urgency.

“Sunset! SUNSET SHIMMER! Snap out of it!

He barked, grabbing Sunset Shimmer by her shoulders and shaking her to try and jostle her to awareness. With no luck and Nightmare Mircalla being only two meters away, he had to react fast. Revving up a quick energy charge, he fired multiple volleys of fireballs at Mircalla’s hooves and surrounding brush. While the attack did no damage, it did ignite the ground substantially and veiled the kaiju and unicorn in a smokescreen. He then grabbed Sunset Shimmer and flew away as fast as he could.

Nightmare Mircalla stood idly by as the strange gryphon yanked the unicorn away and out of sight, making no attempt to pursue as the name of the latter as spoken by the former playing through her head. She hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in almost twenty years.

“Sunset Shimmer…”

Several kilometers of flight and a full hour passed before Princess Sunset Shimmer finally snapped out of her shock. Rodan had landed with the setting sun behind them, only stopping once he was sure the isolated glade was free of any dangers. Sunset Shimmer was stressfully weeping in his grasp, but beginning to thrash about. She struggled out of the gryphon’s grasp, stumbling forward while breathing heavily. Sizzling water fell from her eyes while she held her head low. Choked crying became audible to the kaiju, causing Rodan to reflexively take a step towards the unicorn and extend a paw towards her shoulder.

“... Princess? You recognized her, who is she?”

He whispered, causing Sunset’s crying to take a brief pause. With a snap of motion she threw her head skywards. An explosion of fire and light, so hot it incinerated the nearby grass through convection alone, shot skyward from Sunset Shimmer’s horn. The beam of heat and flames, several meters thick and so long it raked across the glamor dome high above, roared and crackled with untold power. Rodan closed his jaw and watched on as Sunset screamed with fury and agony into the burning blast, it only growing stronger as the seconds ticked by.

Kilometers away, the Nightmare Army looked to the blinding light coming from the opposite direction as the setting sun. Back with her forces, Mircalla looked to the enormous pillar of fire with a stoic expression. She ignored her forces' confused and erratic muttering and sighed. She could practically feel the heat coming from it across her face, watching the distant, roaring fires and knowing full well what it meant. Revenge.

Sunset Shimmer carried on her wail and firestorm for a full ten seconds before cutting it off. She cut the spell off and dropped her head, coarse breath stinging her lungs and chest. The unicorn’s horn glowed with a searing heat, smoking at the tip. Steeling himself, Rodan reached up and put a paw on Sunset’s shoulder; causing the shaking unicorn to wince momentarily and fall still.

Slowly, Princess Sunset Shimmer turned her face towards him; still wet with steaming tears with her expression a contorted mishmash of fury and grief.

“... She killed my mother…”

Author's Notes:

Shimmer'verse by Evowizard

Proofreading by Lance Omikron and Faith-Wolff

Artwork by Faith-Wolff