It was quiet...too quiet. At least, that’s what somepony would say were it not for the roaring explosion that shook the mountain side capital of Canterlot to its very foundations. The ponies of the capital had no idea what was going on, or where the startling noise was coming from. All they knew was that there was a giant plume of ash and smoke that seemed to swallow half the city in its billowing embrace. Debris and chunks of the city rained down everywhere, causing everypony to scream and scatter in panic to avoid the onslaught.

From the castle that overlooked the entire city, a lone human raced through the hallways. Using his unique abilities of wire manipulation to expertly weave over and through the groups of confused and terrified ponies that crowded parts of the castle. Sam, the wire conduit, sprinted past any who were running in the opposite direction until he found a glass doorway that led to an open balcony. Throwing open the doors, he disregarded the panes of glass that shattered from having their frames slammed against the opposite walls so hard.

Sam did not care though, for there was the sea of chaos that emanated from the city below that held his attention more acutely. Gazing out from the balcony, Sam could only see what most others could see. Billowing clouds of smoke, flecks of embers coming from the fires that engulfed the streets from anything flammable enough, and the sounds of panicked citizens crying out from the city below for somepony to come save them.

“Sam!” a voice called out from behind the wire conduit.

The sound of galloping hooves came racing toward him, but he did not need to turn around to know who it was due to recognizing the voice. The purple unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, came to a halt just before the balcony’s entrance, panting raggedly. She carefully maneuvered around the shards of glass still on the ground to reach the wire conduit looking out onto the city with an enraged glare.

“Sam, please, at least wait for the captain and the guards to mobilize!” Twilight pleaded to the human.

Sam looked down to see the desperation in the unicorn’s eyes, but even that would not change his mind, “I’m sorry, Twilight. There’s just no time. This has to end, today.”

“Sam,” Twilight whispered, already resigned to the conduit’s conviction.

Though before Sam had to time to clear the balcony’s railing and leap down to head toward the city, he felt a gentle hoof brush up against his side, which brought his attention back down to the unicorn that it belonged to.

Her eyes were misty, but Twilight stood resolutely and gave Sam a encouraging smile, “Give them hell, Sam.”

Sam smiled broadly in return and kicked off from the railing to race toward the city below.

Within the city of Canterlot, on the streets of the lower ring facing the east, the streets were filled with nothing but destruction and despair. Many of the buildings were already in some state of ruin. The cobblestone streets were either cracked, pockmarked with smoking craters, or littered with the wreckage of its surroundings. At the center of all this stood three menacing looking figures that were the cause of all of it.

Two of them were unicorns that continuously swept the streets for any signs of movement as they moved along. The third was a griffon, that led the three man fireteam down the streets. Unlike his companions, his gaze was focused straight ahead, like he already knew what was to come and just needed to wait for it to happen. All three of them heard it over the crackling fires and crumbling buildings and turned in direction it was coming from. It was an odd sound, but one that they were growing familiar with. It was like a metal barb whistling through the air until it struck a solid enough chuck of building to anchor it, followed by a steady whoosh of air before the barb ripped from its concrete anchor and the barb retracted, as if on a reel.

The steady rhythm grew louder before the source of the noise came into view and revealed it to be the human conduit that they had been anticipating, swinging from building to building on wire grappling hooks. The three figures tensed and drew their weapons of choice and opened fire on the incoming conduit. A hail of gunfire and concrete projectiles filled the air between the mercenaries and the wire conduit. Sam expertly dodged the barrage by zipping from side to side on his wires til he was right on top of the trio.

Using more wires that he shunted out from his forearms, he braided them into cable whips, dropped down between the mercenaries and lashed out. Only one of the unicorns was caught with a graze from the opening counter, while the other mercenaries darted out of the way of the wire appendages. They regrouped down the street and took aim on the conduit, but held their fire. Sam stood up slowly, his wires retracting into his body as he took a defensive stance against the mercenaries before him.

“Hey, guys. You know, if you all wanted to hang out again, you could have just called,” Sam snarkily remarked, but his usual mirth was jaded by the wanton destruction surrounding them.

The griffon was the first to step forward and stare the conduit down from behind his tinted visor. The two unicorns fanned out to either side slowly, looking like they were preparing to flank from both sides while keeping their firearms held in their magical grasps trained on the lone human.

The griffon clicked his beak a few times before addressing the human in his gruff tone, “We’re not here to play games, bio-terrorist!”

“Conduit,” Sam quickly corrected, “and why not? You and the lads even brought your toys, even if your moves are getting a bit stale.”

At that, the griffon chuckled darkly. Sam didn’t like the sound of that. The cynical laughter died down after a few seconds, and the griffon did something unexpected. Reaching up with his talons, he unclasped the buckle to the strap on his helmet. With a swift, yet methodical motion, the griffon removed his helmet to reveal the knowing smirk on his face. His eyes held a confident glow to them that Sam was growing uneasy around.

The griffon tossed the helmet over his shoulder and pointed at the human on the other side of the cobblestone road, snidely announcing, “If you still think this a game, fine. Just know that the boss was generous enough to teach us a few new ‘moves’.”

Sam tensed up even further, unknowing of what the griffon could be hinting at. He was about to get his answer as the griffon reared up on his hind legs and raised his talons above his head. In a blur, the griffon’s talons flew down to infront of his chest and formed a sequence of gestures that Sam was unfamiliar with.

When the sequence was done and held on a final gesture, the griffon flared out his wings and cried out, “Kage bushin no justu!”

The street in front of Sam exploded into plumes of smoke. Sam raised his arms defensively, but the effort was in vain as no immediate attack sprang out to catch him off guard. As the smoke settled, Sam gasped in surprise. There was no longer just one griffon, but half a dozen. Each with either a set of short swords, throwing stars, or metal capped claws. All of them wore a black headband with a metal plate attached to it with the D.U.P. logo engraved into its center.

Sam took a step back out of fear. Never in his life had he seen someone, even with conduit abilities, do something like that. The griffon, or ‘griffons’, chuckled again in delight at having surprised the human conduit. Though, he wasn’t about to let the wire conduit catch his breath. So, the six griffons took flight in all different directions to encircle the stunned human from the air.

Sam reacted out of instinct, which was probably the only reason he wasn’t sliced into six different ways, and rolled out of the way at the very last second. There was the clanging of metal digging into cobblestone as the six griffons drove their tools into the spot that Sam was just in moments ago. They didn’t hesitate for long, as they pried their weapons from the ground and chased after the retreating human.

“Not so smart mouthed now, huh?” one of the griffons taunted as he swiped at Sam with his metal capped claws.

Sam dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, and dogded out of the way of the assault, praying for an opening to retaliate that never came. Another griffon came barreling out from Sam’s right and narrowly nicked the human across the cheek with a slice of his sword.

The same griffon smirked and taunted the wire conduit further, “There’s no way you’re going to win against us!”

“My power has increased to a level that you could never attain!” a third griffon called out as he threw a trio of throwing stars at Sam.

Two of the throwing stars made a few more grazes across Sam’s left forearm and back. He hissed in pain, doing everything he could to avoid seizing up and render himself wide open. He had to come up with something quick, or he would suffer worse injuries than just a few cuts. The inspiration hit him in a flash, and he worked to divide his attention on both avoiding the griffons’ attacks and charging a mass of energy from his arms.

Wires wreathed his arms and sporadically twitched in all different directions around his upper body. He took a few more hits from the divided effort, but just as it seemed that the griffons had him on the ropes, the wire conduit smirked. All six of the griffons dove from all around the conduit, weapons forward as if intent to impale him in one final attack. The world moved in slow motion, and Sam crouched and slammed the palms of his hands into the ground.

“Eat this!” Sam cried out, “Super-Amazing-Defensive-Hedgehog-Attack!”

The griffons saw the attack a split second too late and spikes woven from wires shot up and outward from the ground all around the conduit. Four out of the six griffons managed to flutter away or twist their bodies in a way that threaded them around the sharpened points of the spikes before backing off. The other two weren’t as lucky, as they were rightfully impaled and screeched out in pain with an eagle cry. Their limp forms twitched one last time before they burst into a puff of smoke and disappeared into the ether from whence they came.

Sam panted heavily from expending so much energy at once, but he rose to his feet victoriously. The griffons watched cautiously as the human walked out from the center of the spiky circle. They weren’t about to make the same mistake again, but a sudden glint from behind the conduit caught their eyes and gave them a reason to smile deviously. The unicorn duo sprang from their hiding spots behind the wire conduit and lined up their shots to fire upon the unsuspecting human.

“Prepare to die, bio-terrorist!” one of the unicorns called out, focusing his magical grasp on the trigger of his gun.

Before either of them had time to fully squeeze the triggers, another figure sprang up from behind them. The new figure was shrouded in his silhouette from the sun behind him and cast a foreboding shadow on the two unicorns with his outstretched wings. The distraction was all the new figure needed, as the unicorns tried to turn to see who the newcomer was before a spear swung out and caught the first unicorn in the midsection. It may have only been the shaft portion of the spear that clipped him, but the hit was strong enough to send him tumbling through the air and plow into the other unicorn and send them both tumbling to the ground. The unicorns tumbled to a halt at the griffons’ talons as the newcomer rocketed down from the sky and landed beside the human conduit.

Sam covered his eyes for moment as the newcomer’s entrance not only created a crater in the cobblestone he landed upon, but the force of the landing kicked up a veritable cloud of dust and smoke. When the debris cleared and Sam could see again, he was both shocked and surprised by who it was that just saved his life.

“C-Cappy-sama!”

Indeed, captain of the royal guard and defender of justice, Aegis Flare, had arrived to join the fray! His tattered, white cloak billowed in the wind, only slightly obscuring the battle-scarred, golden armor underneath that contoured to his awesomely strong frame. He took a deep drag from the cigarette between his lips before expelling the smoke through his nostrils. His one eyed stoic gaze, for his other eye was hidden behind a badass eyepatch, never left the enemies across from them. However, he tsked and flicked his attention to the human beside him to address.

His voice came out deep and strong as he reprimanded the human, “Yare yare daze, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, baka?”

“Glad you could join the party, Cappy-sama,” Sam replied in delight, “Seems like our friends came back to be good neighbors and say hello. Might even stay to have a cup of tea if we invite them nicely.”

The captain spat his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with a hoof. It seemed that not even the increase in adversaries could deter the stoic captain. He even went so far as to toss his spear off to the side, like the thing would only get in his way as he stepped forth to approach them. The unicorns raised their weapons once again to line them up with the approaching captain, but a claw held up by one of the griffons made them lower them again.

Aegis Flare stopped a few yards away from the ninja mercenaries and bared down on them with the meanest, edgiest glare he could muster and called out, “Where is your master?”

Before anyone could get another word in, maniacal laughter filled the air and echoed all around them, like the voice it was coming from was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The bonfires created by the destruction of the city block also took on a sinister glow about them and danced with an unnatural wind. All of a sudden, everyone looked up and behind the mercenaries to find the individual that the evil cackle belonged to atop of one of the half destroyed buildings littering the streets.

“You ask where I am, but it should be ‘How might I beg his forgiveness?’!”

The pony known as Visionary Dusk had appeared at last in all of his evil splendor. He continued to maliciously laugh as he twirled one side of his curly-q mustache with a hoof. His high collared, black cape fluttered in an opposing wind to the captain’s cloak fluttering. A crystal clear monocle adorned his right eye, even though he needed no further accessories to accentuate the level of evil he exuded from his presence. The spectacle’s chain appeared to be attached to nothing and hung loosely below, just to put the final punctuation on the point.

The unicorn settled down from his laughter just long enough to evilly grin and shouted over to the human and captain below, “Surrender now, or suffer my unholy wrath that I have held onto for the last five-hundred years!”

“Never, you fruit-of-the-loom mad scientist!” Sam yelled back in retort, sporting a defiant glare at the villian.

“Mad, you say?” Visionary Dusk began to chuckle once again, switching hooves to twirl the other side of his moustache, “Oh, I’m mad alright! You could say that I’m, ‘angry’, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m...upset!” The unicorn reached behind his cloak and pulled out a corked vial full of fluorescent liquid from seemingly nowhere and tossed it in the direction of his mercenaries. “You, henchponies numbers two and three, you know what to do!”

The unicorn to the griffons’ left nodded and caught the vial in his magical grasp. He popped the cork off the top and turned to look at his fellow unicorn companion. The two shared a look and gave each other a silent nod of agreement. As the first unicorn with the vial downed the fluorescent contents in a few gulps, the second unicorn reached into one of his pockets and retrieved what looked to be some sort of remote with a single button on its face. A simple push of it and a two tone beeping sound was all the warning they got before, out from the sky, an object descended fast enough to cause a sonic boom on its reentry. The unicorn with the remote leapt to an impossible height and met the hurtling object halfway on its descent and disappeared into its depths in a flash of blinding light.

The object, easily twice as big as the tallest building still standing, crashed to the ground and kicked up an even bigger cloud of dust to obscure its features than the captain’s initial intro. A single glowing green eye suddenly appeared within the dust cloud, and soon, the eye rose to an enormous height, with the sounds of hydraulic actuators and mechanical components sliding over each other. The dust cloud suddenly dispersed with a gust of wind, and the giant figure was finally revealed.

Sam gasped in surprise at what he saw, “N-nani?!”

A gundam mecha suit, specifically the MSN-06S Sinaju, in all its deep red, armored glory. The unicorn as its pilot moved it to take a fighting stance in front of its dwarfed opponents as it drew its energy sword.

Beside him, the unicorn looked like it was having some sort of seizure. The glass vial he had drank from shattered upon the ground when his magical grasp collapsed from it. The unicorn’s body started bulge out in weird, contorting fashions as his fur, mane and tail took on a shade of seaweed green. His clothes began to come apart at the seams til they tore off completely from the expanding mass of muscle and flesh, leaving him in only a tasteful pair of bright purple shorts.

Sam looked on in worry, for now it wasn’t just the ninja griffons he had to deal with anymore, who had taken to the air to circle around their oversized companions. Looking down to the captain beside him, the human conduit was surprised to see said captain was completely unfazed by the turn of events.

“Don’t worry, Samuel-kun. Everything is going to be okay,” the captain smiled, still with his stoic expression, up at the human, “Let me ask you one thing; Do you know what we ponies are exceptionally known for?”

“What is that, Cappy-sama?”

“Our navy!” the captain shouted and brought one his hooves up to his mouth and whistled a simple three tone tune.

The ground shook violently, and from behind the defender of justice, a giant battleship equipped with enough firepower to make the human’s world powers blush appeared. It glided through the ground, tearing up anything in its path, which included a huge swath of the buildings it plowed through and uprooted. On the very tip of the bow of the mighty ship, a figure stood with forelegs crossed over her chest.

“Yar, thou art in for the most heinous of beatdowns, you vile cur!” Princess Luna roared with her thick pirate accent.

Even from so far away, Sam could see her clad in her iconic pirate garb, a quartet of cutlasses held aloft in her magical grasp, and her ever faithful pet possum, Tiberius, casually scampering about the brim of her feathered hat. The commander of the Equestrian Royal Navy, Pirate Princess Luna, looked down upon the assembled enemies before her and smirked.

With a flick of one of her cutlasses, she pointed in the general direction of their foes and shouted, “Spare them no quarter, ye scallywags!”

Battlecries filled the air as droves of royal guards charged off the battleship and toward the enemy. All of them donned in a multitude of variant types of power armor, but each equally plated in a garish array of bright colors. The battleship itself began to rumble and shutter, until previously unseen seams formed upon its frame. With the hiss of venting pressure from deep within the machine, the battleship began to transform, morphing itself into a bipedal entity and charged into the chaos of warfare as well.

Giant robots brawled as they tried to wrestle one another to the ground, forcing the other into submission. Pirate Princess Luna and Cappy-sama worked in tandem to push the hulk of a green unicorn back and chipped away at his defenses that were slowly crumbling. A giant cloud of smoke burst out from the air, and when it was clear, an army of ninja griffons clashed with the power armored guards.

This left only two combatants left on the battlefield without an opponent. The wire conduit had managed to slip through the chaos to climb atop the decaying building that the mustachioed, evil unicorn perched upon to watch the battle below.

Without letting up on the twirling of his mustache, Visionary Dusk cackled, “Muwhahahaaha! It’s over, Wire Wraith! Even if those fools somehow managed to beat my legion of doom, you couldn’t hope defeat me! Especially by yourself!”

“You’re wrong, Dusk!” Sam shot back, posing triumphantly with one hand on his hip while the rest of his body leaned out to accentuate his finger pointed in the evil unicorn’s direction, “You think that I fight alone, just like you, but look around! All the friends I’ve made here, they’re here to fight by my side and to kick your ass! That’s what it means to have the power of friendship!”

The impromptu speech was punctuated by a timely explosion right behind Sam, casting him in ethereal light. The plume of fiery awesomeness was due to the battleship transformer piledriving the unicorn’s mecha head first into the ground.

Visionary Dusk paused in his meticulous coiling of his mustache to give the wire conduit a withering glare. For a long while, the two stared at each other as if in a contest of wills. Neither of them would allow the other to blink or look away. It was like all that mattered in the world was them and their unspoken battle. Then, the maniacal unicorn’s cheek twitched. His shoulders began to shutter as he tried to hold in his sadistic glee. Then all at once, it broke and he threw back his head in crazed laughter.

“You think your little ‘magic of friendship’ will be enough to stop me?” The unicorn’s horn lit up and tore his cape away to reveal his true form of a solid, muscular body atop his indomitable gaze, “Then come, Wire Wraith! Show me what you’ve got!”

The unicorn leapt far above the city and even the mountain top that the capital resided upon. Flexing to show off his perfect physique, the unicorn basked in his own magnificence before careening back toward the earth. Aiming squarely to collide with the human conduit upon impact.

Sam was undeterred by the unicorn’s challenge and tugged on his shirt with one hand until it ripped away like wet tissue paper. A body sculpted like an adonis glowed in the rays of the sun beating down on Sam’s form. He took a moment to flex and show off his own undeniable strength before springing into air to face his adversary mid flight. Visionary Dusk scoffed at the human’s effort, but would not underestimate his rival.

With a deep inhale of air, the unicorn bellowed out his warcry, “Wraaaaaaaaaith!!!”

Sam was not one to be out done and issued his battlecry with all his soul, “Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusk!!!!”

“Wraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaith!!!!!”

“Duuuuuuuusk!!” “Wraaaaith!!” Duuusk!!” “Wraaaaith!!”

“AAAaaaaAAAaAaaaAhh!!”
“AaaaAAAaaaAAAaAhhh!!”

“Boom! Kablamo! Then there was another explosion in the background as the battleship bombarded the ninja army!” Sam continued his narration of the story with all the included sound effects and over-the-top reenactments with his arms, even if they were completely unnecessary.

Sam, Twilight, and the rest of her friends were enjoying an afternoon out in Ponyville Park while having a picnic when Rainbow Dash all but demanded to hear how the final battle in Canterlot had taken place. Sam’s ‘retelling’ had started off ok, but the longer it went on, the more unbelievable and unrealistic it became. Unsurprisingly, Twilight was both annoyed and unimpressed with the falsified retelling of the events that transpired to the point that she could longer be silent.

“Sam,” Twilight tried to call over the over exaggeration of a story.

“Yeah, hang on a second,” Sam merely waved her off before getting back to the story, “And then Dusk was like ‘No, stop! I need an adult!’ and I was like ‘I am an adult!’, and then I punched him in the face!”

“SAM!” Twilight shouted, having had enough.

Luckily, the shout was loud enough to break the wire conduit’s concentration and he ended up losing where he left off. His disappointed look toward the purple unicorn did nothing to dissuade her as she stomped her hoof on the ground to emphasize her annoyance.

“Sam, none of that happened, and you know it,” Twilight said, pointing an accusatory hoof at the wire conduit.

Sam crossed his arms and twisted his body away in his crossed-legged position away in indignation, “Hmph, well sorry~, if I wanted to add a few little extra details to liven up the story a bit.”

“Ah’m sorry, sugarcube,” Applejack shrugged and shook her head, “but that story was more rotten than a bushel of apples left in sun fer a month.”

“Hey, I was really getting into it,” Rainbow Dash flew up from her seat to chide her friend, “Especially the part with the giant robot that flew in from the sky! What did you call it again, Sam?”

Sam pointed his finger toward the picnic basket and a wire snaked out and threaded its way across the blacket full of friends to rummage through its contents as he replied, “A ‘gundam’. Pretty much one of the most badass types of mechas from my world’s media. Ah, there it is.” With his prize finally found, Sam reeled the wire in with the slice of blueberry pie attached to it that he had been saving for dessert.

“Well, I didn’t mind it all that much,” Fluttershy chimed in meekly, still hiding one of her eyes behind a few locks of hair, “Although, it was a bit...violent.”

“Agreed. I know you’re used to this kind of action, but was it necessary to include such graphic details?” Rarity inquired.

“Of course it was, Rares!” Pinkie said, practically bouncing in place and everywhere else at the same time, “Sammy’s story may have had a few exaggerations, but it was all to make it more fun and exciting!”

“Meah, wha’ she said,” Sam agreed through a mouthful of blueberry pie.

Twilight facehoofed as she scolded the conduit’s actions, “Sam, don’t talk with your mouth full. Honestly, the story was bad enough.”

Sam childishly stuck his tongue out at the unicorn when she wasn’t looking, which got a few snickers out of both Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash.

Applejack cleared her throat to finally ask the question that was bugging her since halfway through the story, “Iffin’ you don’t mind mah askin’. How did ya’ beat that rattlesnake of a pony, Dusk?”

Sam tapped his chin to figure out the best way to break it to the now expectant mares eyeing him. After a minute, he gave up and shrugged before deciding on telling the truth.

“Literally tried storming the castle after giving himself conduit powers, slipped on a puddle, and clocked himself in the head with a bust of Celestia from a pedestal he knocked over.”

Everypony, except Twilight, who already knew this to be true, gave the conduit a disbelieving look.

Sam shrugged again, “Hey, believe it or not. That’s what happened.”

Everypony was too shocked to come up with a dignified response to the outrageous claim. It was only when Rainbow Dash finally collected herself enough to ask the next obvious question.

“So, uh. What happened to him after that?”

Deep within the bowels of tartarus, which was basically the equivalent of pony hell, there was a little corner of that place specifically selected to hold the worst of the worst of Equestria’s aggressors. Atop of the jagged hill in that little corner of pony hell being guarded by cerberus, who’s three heads were enjoying a nice, juicy bone to gnaw on, stood an iron cage. Inside that cage, a group of creatures sat around a large folding table, each with their own folding chair and playing a game of poker to pass the time.

Among them, a centaur that looked frailer than an elderly pony at the nursing home, a bug-pony hybrid thing, a large monkey with white fur, and a statue of a creature that looked like an animal mix-n-match toy still somehow holding a set of cards in his petrified talon. Finally there was the oddest one among them. Moreso because of how out of place he looked among the wild creatures, for he was a simple unicorn pony with a sunset for a cutie mark.

As the bug-pony took her time to shuffle the deck, the centaur leaned over to the pony and asked not so subtly, “So...How did you end up here?”

The unicorn’s eye twitched as he glared harshly at the centaur, “Just shut up and ante up.”

Author's Notes:

Lol, I know it was hardly a surprise to those reading, but can you blame me? I just like to imagine that this is how the final battle would turn out; cliche, over-the-top, and downright silly. Don't worry though, another chapter should be in the works soon and we'll get back to our regularly scheduled program. Hope you all at least had a little fun reading this is the meantime.

Thanks Regreme for all the hard work on editing with the shorter schedule that I had with this chapter.