Chapter 10: Two Sides

Tomorrow was the day everypony in Equestria has been talking about. Worst of all Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Spike had no idea what was going on. They noticed the general uneasiness within the castle’s staff, but Celestia refused to tell them, she said it is ‘nothing of concern’ and they couldn’t leave because their training would start soon.

Through a tricky ‘heartfelt’ talk with one of the cooks, Applejack was able to find out what was going on. Their reaction was appropriate for this kind of situation, all four of them combined formed a pretty terrifying storm of insults and anger who pushed through the line in front of Celestia’s court.

Princess Celestia knew when something was about to be difficult, so she signalled the guards to close the large door, trapping the still very angry mares, dragon and herself in the court hall.

“You three seem to be quite upset, whatever is the—”

Rainbow Dash interrupted her, “Why the hell would you do something like that?!!”

“Yeah, that ain’t right! We want to speak with her!” the country pony joined in.

Celestia sighed and said, “I should have known that I could not hide something like this from mares like you. Since we are alone, I am quite busy and this room is soundproofed by magic I will reveal my true intentions, but none of you can talk to anypony about this especially not your pink friend.”

The blue pegasus rolled her eyes and replied, “Get on with it, we won’t leave until we know what is going on.”

“To put it simply, the entire execution is just a show. Twilight, Nightmare Moon and Rarity will certainly not let your friend die, they will come and try to save her. We don’t know how many soldiers they have, but my reliable sources said that they have been making business with a dangerous gangster boss from Manehattan. We are prepared for that case and when they appear we will capture them. This is going to put an end to their rebellion, hopefully Twilight and Rarity will see the errors of their ways and come back to us, voluntarily.”

Applejack exclaimed angrily, “That were a lotta fancy word to say that ya’ll use our friend as a bait! Ah’m absolutely sure there’s a better way to convince them, princess. If ya start a war with Twilight, you better be up for a ride.”

“We want to help you for Pete’s sake! We all want Twilight back!” The little dragon exclaimed, he had enough of this ‘hiding in a shelter’.

Fluttershy got the chance to finally speak up too, “Uhm… I agree with Dash and Applejack.”

Rainbow was sick of this, “Enough explaining, either you let us speak with Pinkie or let us at least help you catch Twilight tomorrow. We aren’t as weak as you thing we are!”

“I can not allow any of these options. If you speak with her she will know that this is just a trap for Twilight and I can’t let you fight with my soldiers because there is a very high chance that my student and Nightmare won’t refrain from killing them.”

“Well too bad, I’m sure she won’t harm us just like that. If that means we get them back we are more than willing to help you.”

Celestia simply sighed and talked with them about the details. ‘Great, more problems for her to deal with.’

Morning Blaze wasn’t very fond of doing things behind Celestia’s back, this however, could prevent a war.

As a part of the Equestrian military, it was her duty to serve her land. If that would mean going to the deepest dungeon in Canterlot and risk ruining an extremely important mission, then it had to be done. Blaze had never been good with rules anyway.

She stood before Pinkamena’s cell, in the safest prison Equestria had to offer. All air vents and cell bars were reinforced with gryphonian steel, the best and hardest metal in the world. It was practically crowded with guards, every corner had to be secure, at any given time. That’s why the watch shifts also changed very frequently. Two ponies in black steel-plated armor were guarding the cell.

Walking calmly towards to heavy door, consisting of massive, double reinforced steel, the yellow mare said, “Open that door.”

One of the two ponies, guarding the cell, looked around nervously and asked, “Captain Blaze?”

“Yes, would you hurry up already.”

“I’m sorry, but the princess herself ordered us to keep this door locked, without any exceptions.”

“Are you doubting my authority as a Captain of the Royal Guards?”

He gulped once and replied, “N-no, o-of course not! J-just don’t say a word to the p-princess.” A little generic threat was all it took for her to get what she wanted. Was that how Twilight felt now?

As she entered, the prisoner Pinkie Pie lifted her head to look at her visitor. The pink mare looked horrible, very thin, her coat was duller than last time Blaze had seen her and her mane fell down her neck in a ninety degree angle, it was unsettling even for her.

“Pinkamena Diane Pie, complice of the famous rebel Twilight Sparkle. What an honor to meet you,” Morning Blaze said in a mocking tone.

“Leave me alone...” Pinkie whispered, her gaze directed at the floor beneath her.

“Not until I get some answers! We both want Twilight safe, don’t we? The only way to prevent them from starting an open war with us, is to capture her, before your execution. So tell me, how do I get into your HQ and what are your plans?” the yellow mare asked, the desperation in her voice was apparent.

“You don’t get it, do you? This can’t be stopped anymore. It doesn’t matter if I return to Celestia or if Twilight and the others rescue me. The first wouldn’t be an option for me anyway, I’ve heard some pretty bad things about Celestia. Living under a tyrant like that doesn’t really appeal to me,” Pinkie explained with an unusual serious tone.

“What are you—” Blaze got cut off by the pink prisoner.

“I may seem silly to you, but let me tell you, this is going to be bad... really, really bad. They are out for blood and as I know them, their plan will end badly for Celestia. Twilight isn’t afraid of hurting anypony anymore, she wants revenge, just like Luna.”

Blaze rushed forward and punched Pinkie in the chest, “Do you even know what you are talking about?! Twilight will find her way back to us!”

Air escaped Pinkie’s lungs as the sudden punch came. Coughing only made the pain worse, it was like inhaling boiling, hot water. The spot already began to swell. Another few hefty hits rained down on Pinkie it was like Blaze lost herself.

As the yellow mare finally came to a halt, the prisoner looked even worse than before. Swollen parts all over her body, bleeding nose and lip and a black eye. Blaze huffed and simply left the cell without saying another word, Pinkie had no idea what was going on anymore.

“Twilight, this is not the end! I will save you!” Blaze spoke to no one in particular.

Silver Night sat in the main hall together with Twilight, talking about what happened the last two days, ”So, you all agreed on this?”

“Yes.”

“Assaulting Celestia to prevent the execution of Pinkie Pie?”

The former student simply nodded this time.

“And you want me to blindly follow you into suicide?” Silver asked angrily.

“Pretty much.”

“I won’t even start pointing out the errors in your ridiculous plan, but what choice do I have? Fine… I’ll come with you. Even though it is most likely that we’ll all die or get captured.”

“Great, we need you out there. If everything goes as planned we have her free in no time. Your job will be to fend off the soldiers as long as possible, since you don’t have any way to focus stronger chaos magic, Rarity will try to help you. Luna and myself will, hopefully, kill the generals with a new technique we developed and free Pinkie. We had no chance to test it out, but I’m sure that we can at least delay them. And just in case, if you see that the scaffold is clear, take the opportunity and spare us needlessly killing innocent ponies.”

The brown bat pony stallion tried to mask his fear while listening to her plan. Fear… genuine fear of death… that was something he hadn’t felt in a long time. As Twilight finished explaining he simply replied, “Understood.”

Before they left the lavender mare said, “Don’t worry, I won’t allow any of you to die. We go in, rescue Pinkie and after that we can focus on a proper vengeance for your injury. However, in case we waste too much time, we have to have a backup plan, that is why I wanted to talk to you so urgently.”

“Alright, I’ll hear you out.”

Thirty minutes…. thirty minutes and everything would be over. A loss was not an option, the citizens of Equestria relied on them, without Celestia and her army there would be nothing but chaos and anarchy.

Built at the very end of the inner courtyard was the scaffold, the steel construction stabilizing the wooden platform where Pinkie Pie was held captive. Massive steel shackles that were enchanted with various anti-breaking spells chained her to the platform. Behind her, two guards with long poles that had straight swords attached to it, the executioners, hired for the specific purpose of ending her life. On the other side of the platform stood Princess Celestia in all her glory, looking over her army.

It was enormous, nearly the entire ground was filled with more than three thousand elite soldiers, every last one of them willing to sacrifice their life. The crowd reached until a large, massive marble block, where the scaffold was build on. This thing cut off the entrance to the castle entirely, it had been built only for this event. At the two sides of the scaffold stood her most powerful soldiers, the five captains, including Morning Blaze and Shining Armor, the three generals and as ‘guests of honor’ Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Only Specter and his Archmages were absent, that did not surprise Celestia in the slightest, he would always stay in the background, but as long as he was on her side she could tolerate that.

Twenty minutes... nervous chatting could be heard from the crowd of soldiers. “Do you think they will come?”

“What is going to happen?”

“I hope this will be over soon…”

Celestia noticed the unrest and spoke with a magically enhanced voice, “We are the power that holds Equestria together! No group of so called ‘rebels’ will ever change that! Every last one of you is an elite member of the Equestrian forces, we have the chance to put an end to this. We fight for the law, we fight for justice, WE FIGHT FOR OUR LAND!”

Her little speech had just the right effect, with lifted spirits her soldiers broke out in loud cheers. Only a few more minutes and they all could brag about how they helped to save the land. They would be heroes.

Fifteen minutes.... suddenly a large, black rectangle appeared at the end of the courtyard. It was about three meters wide and five meters high, confused with the situation, the few soldiers near it backed off.

It slowly split open like a door and revealed four ponies casually walking out of it. The only non unicorn was also the only one wearing armour, his entire body was covered with red hardened cloth and iron plates. It was enough to offer medium protection against physical attacks, but also granted the maximum possible amount of mobility. The lavender one wore nothing but a confident smile on her face. Walking a bit behind them, a white mare followed, she seemed to be unsure. The biggest surprise was the last one, wearing her deep blue royal regalia and wielding a nearly black, magical straight sword, Nightmare Moon!

At the sight of Twilight Sparkle and Nightmare Moon even the toughest soldiers became unsettled. They had to have some kind of ace if they expected to win against an entire army, with only four ponies.

Twilight summoned Yoru and pointed it straight at Celestia, her voice could be heard in the entire courtyard as she spoke, “You never fail to surprise me Celestia. I never thought you were that stupid. In honor of our good old times I give you one last chance, release Pinkie or watch as I slaughter your army!”

As no answer came from the demi-goddess Twilight gave the signal to the others and stated, “As you wish.”

The princess noticed that her sister and the other two rebels were going into an offense and ordered, “Don’t let them come near the scaffold!”

The soldiers right in front of the small group charged at them and shouted, “For Equestria!”

Silver Night was the fastest of them, his nearly unbreakable wing blades tore through the necks of the nearest group of guards as he flew past them with an impressive speed. Their dead, and in some cases dismembered bodies fell to the ground, the first blood of this battle stained the ground below them.

The battle had just begun, but dozens of guards were already dead. Nopony was able to even follow the movements of Silver, he would either fly past a guard, who would break down without a head seconds later or lift a guard off the ground, where he would soon land again, only in little, bloody pieces. He was like a whirlwind of death with nothing to lose, which was partly true.

He was stopped by a purple barrier, trapping him and dragging him towards the ground. In between the corpses of his soldiers stood Shining Armor with his horn glowing and an enchanted saber floating near him. “You will pay for this.”

With a quick slash of his right wing blade the barrier was destroyed and he said, “We’ll see about that.”

On the other side of the battlefield Princess Luna slowly trotted through the masses of soldiers. Her goal was the scaffold... and Celestia, the only thing she left behind were dismembered, burned or crushed bodies of her sister’s ‘elite army’.

A bright shine came flying towards her, she squinted to see what exactly was attacking her, it was a beam of focused light. Luna definitely didn’t want to get hit by this attack. Time to test that new spell Twilight developed. She surrounded her sword with a vortex of chaos energy, the blade itself was barely visible anymore. Luna struck the ray sideways and deflected the magical projectile so that it impacted with a group of unsuspecting guards. The following explosion was enormous, it was enough to let the ground shake all around the mountain of Canterlot. For just a second the battle came to a halt, curious as to what happened most ponies looked around, only to remember that they were currently fighting for the honor of their land. As the cloud of dust began to settle down, the magnitude of the attack could be discerned, it instantly disintegrated over fifty soldiers and left a hundred more with permanent injuries or at least unable to fight. The crater that was left in the ground was over ten meters deep and had a radius of more than fifteen meters, turning a good portion of the battlefield into a mass grave.

Just outside the gigantic hole stood the source of this monster attack, Dawn Comet. He sat lazily on a huge boulder that didn’t get smashed into pebbles. After a short yawn the general stated, “Well, that certainly did not go as planned. Good reaction time, Nightmare Moon. Only very few ponies are able to attack me in my light form.”

Luna levitated her sword into a neutral stance and asked, “Too bad you won’t live long enough to appreciate it.” After threatening her opponent the Princess of the Night broke out into another fit of insane laughter. Killing always made the Nightmare push harder against her sanity, but on the other hoof she was so close to finally get vengeance.

Dawn drew his weapon of choice as well, the light sword Murakamo. Although he was nearly twenty meters away from his dangerous opponent, Dawn just pointed his right forehoof at her and stood right next to the alicorn, ready to attack. Luckily, Luna could react fast enough to intercept his blade with her own. The chaos vortex surrounding the sword already began to absorb the energy of his blade. As the general noticed that, his entire body shone with an extreme intensity, quickly more and more particles of his form disappeared until he was at a safe distance again.

“So you can suppress my elemental magic, interesting.”

“The darkness attracts everything, even magic. What is caught in the gravitation of this special spell won’t be heard of, ever again,” Luna mocked. Although she couldn’t cast the spell as perfect as Twilight, it worked better than she had expected.

Then the circle started anew, only clashing sounds were audible and the flurry of blades could be seen from outside the battle. Dawn was good, but the millennia old demi-goddess’ abilities in the battle exceeded his by a landslide.

Soon his bright yellow suit and his body were littered with deep, bleeding cuts and some places were burned due to a good aimed fireball. Because of Nightmare Moon’s strange spell he couldn’t regenerate himself and that was a big problem, as he looked at the state his body was in. The worst of all was, that Dawn did not manage to land a single hit. Not even a dent in her regalia or her blade.

Before he could think any further, Luna attacked him near his legs to make him back away. Followed by an extremely fast side swing with the hoofguard of her blade, managing to disarm him. Murakamo laying at her side, just outside of his reach. With a victorious grin Luna towered over him, her blade at his throat.

The wicked alicorn laughed and said, “At least you tried.”

Accepting the inevitable outcome of the situation, he closed his eyes to wait for death’s sweet embrace. The blade that would make his pain go away, the first real pain he felt in a long time. Instead he felt magic surrounding him and the familiar tingle of a teleportation spell. Opening his eyes once again Dawn was laying before Celestia, a good hundred meters away from Nightmare Moon.

“Rest, Dawn Comet. I’ll handle this.” Then she was gone. The princess saved him… he felt miserable, it shouldn’t have come to this. As a general he was supposed to be the very best…

Luna looked at her sister walking towards her, wearing an angry expression on her face. Oh, this was going to be good, “Ah, the glorious Princess of the Sun, what pleasure it is to see my sister again. Always so full of mercy, saving her favorite subjects from the vile grip of Nightmare that has befallen their lands.”

“It was a mistake to come here, Luna. This battlefield... will be the end of your rebellion and if you don’t surrender immediately… your grave.”

“I’d like to see you try, dear sister.”

Between the hell that broke loose and the countless corpses of their enemies, one little pony was all by herself. Separated from her friends, running from guards and dodging numerous spells. Rarity was never meant to be a warrior, she was a fashion designer, nothing more, nothing less, but there she was partaking in the biggest bloodshed Equestria has seen in the last hundred years.

Almost two hundred soldiers were already dead or unable to fight, all that chaos caused by four angry ponies. So far the fashion designer tried to avoid confrontations, only helping out Silver with a barrier at the right time, his fight with Shining Armor was still perfectly even. Now she was just scouting for new possibilities to help her friends.

With that many enemy soldiers the inevitable happened eventually, a group of guards surrounded her and cut off Rarity’s only escape route. Screaming wouldn’t help either, every last one of her friends was engaged in a different fight and couldn’t come to her aid.

A particularly heavy hit against her chest with the blunt end of a spear knocked the seamstress to the ground. Fortunately it wasn’t hard enough to knock Rarity unconscious, that would have been the end. She tried to focus chaos magic several times by now, all attempts failing. It just wouldn’t work. Only now, under this extreme emotional distress, Rarity felt the magic flowing stronger than ever before. This was all she had, a small glimmer of hope, she grasped it and channeled as much magic as she could into it.

The outside effect of her magic was different from what she had imagined. Sharp crystal-like spikes shot out of the ground, brutally impaling the guards assaulting her. With their now dead victims, they protruded over three meters out of the earth. All of them had a nice blue colour, but as soon as the blood of the soldiers flowed over them, they began to absorb it, changing colour into a menacing, vibrant crimson red.

Rarity never felt like this before, she was sorry for the guards she just killed, but also incredibly glad for this new magic. Again she tried to focus it, only around thin air this time and sure enough, it worked. The air before the seamstress crystallized into thin, razor-sharp projectiles which she shot into the other guards that weren’t killed by the spikes. As they hit their targets the ponies began to scream in agony, their fur and soon their inner organs crystallized more and more, until only lifeless statues remained.

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t start this. At least you will all look fabulous... forever,” Rarity stated with apparent sadness in her voice.

After a little amount of relative silence the screaming started anew, this time from the large crystals she created. Some guards came to lift their friends off and as soon as they touched the pulsating red gem they too began to turn into crystals. Her special talent with gems and fashion turned into a lethal weapon and even after she used them they remained deadly traps.

Sadly this was far from over, so she had to find her friends and help them.

Morning Blaze watched idly over the battlefield, there was a specific pony she was waiting for. On her left side stood Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash who were all very eager to help the guards down there.

Rainbow Dash snapped already and exclaimed, “Oh come on! What are we waiting for?! We want to beat up Nightmare Moon.”

“Celestia is handling her and we are waiting for somepony specific,” Blaze said absent minded.

“Ah don’t suppose that ‘somepony’ is Twi, right?” the farm pony asked.

There she was! Morning Blaze couldn’t forget that weapon, the long, slightly curved blade sliding effortlessly through the armor of dozens of guards and pulsating with dark magic. That was different from last time, but nonetheless, it was Twilight Sparkle’s weapon so she was there as well.

Without warning the yellow mare teleported herself and her three ‘guests’ down into the battlefield, directly before her student. Blaze looked at her closely, her eyes spoke for themselves. So much hatred and anger in them, something bad must have happened with her former cheerful student.

Twilight made her first move and greeted them with false joy, “Well, would you look at that, what a pleasant surprise! Hello there Blaze. So you didn’t accept my offer, what a shame. And you guys too! What a great reunion.”

Simultaneously she swung her blade at the thin air her behind her, seemingly ripping it apart, it convulsed and distorted, cracks forming at the edge of nothing particular. It was like a earthquake shattered the sky, that caused a large shockwave to appear at that point. Over fifty ponies charging at her back were thrown through the air like paper bags. A good portion of them had broken at least a leg or were knocked unconscious and had bleeding wounds from the heavy impact.

The polychrome pegasus who just witnessed this pointless act of cruelty from her friend charged at the lavender unicorn with maximum speed. Her plan was to tackle Twilight to the ground, to hold her down long enough for the others to react. The former student however, had other plans. She rammed the sword almost half a meter into the ground again so that she could hold the grip tight. This stance improved her defense by a margin, the large golden crossguard of Yoru would be hard to get around. Dash couldn’t react in time and slammed head first into the sword guard. Stunned for a second she didn’t notice the magic surrounding her, it was purple, that meant she was in trouble. Gulping once, the agile pegasus looked at Twilight.

“Hehe, Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow. Always acting before thinking, right? Who would be so blatantly stupid to attack an enemy empty hoofed?” Twilight lifted the blue pegasus slightly into the air.

“Be-because I am not your enemy, Twilight. Come back to your senses! I… We all want you and Rarity back, we can even make sure that Celestia leaves you alone, forever, just please, end this madness.”

“Sadly I have to decline your, very generous offer. It’s payback time for Celestia and her allies. I mean really, banishing her own sister just for the spotlight? Trying to raise the most powerful, mortal unicorn as a tool for her own amusement? Two very wrong choices that will cost her quite a bit.” Twilight laid her right forehoof at the bold pegasus’ chest and unleashed the chaos magic she had focused during the conversation.

A second time the battlefield witnessed a chaotic shockwave. Rainbow Dash got hit by the full power and crashed with near supersonic speed into the marble block the scaffold was built on. If she hadn’t been a pegasus the light blue mare would have been a flat bloody pancake, distributed all over the huge marble boulder. So the impact only knocked her unconscious, lying on the ground beneath the structure, the imprint of her impact could be seen clearly, even from relatively far away.

Unsatisfied with the results Twilight vanished into the shadows and reappeared a split second later, towering over the helpless pegasus. “Wrong spot, wrong time, now you gotta pay too, Dashie.” She rammed the blade into her former friends abdomen and twisted it for maximum effect. The reaction was immediate, Rainbow Dash’s coat lost, slowly, but surely it’s usual shine of life, her own blood pooling underneath her. Without a miracle this would be the end for her.

Morning Blaze saw that as her chance and teleported behind, the now apparently insane, Twilight. Unfortunately she taught her student too well, the lavender mare dodged to the right, preventing a lethal strike from her teacher. Blaze’s blade only grazed her flank, but due to the nature of her weapon it still burned like hell. The wound didn’t even bleed because the fire immediately sealed it.

Twilight closed one eye to cope with the pain, but she couldn’t stop smiling. Killing Rainbow Dash felt like a personal victory against Celestia. “You cheeky bitch. Shouldn’t Celestia’s favorite subjects play honorous?”

“We crossed that line as you killed your helpless friend.”

Just the line she had hoped for, “Well if you say so.” Once again the darkness swallowed her. This time appearing behind the timid yellow pegasus. “Hey Fluttershy, wanna see a cool trick?”

Fluttershy didn’t even notice the lavender mare, she was beyond mortified right now. Staring at her childhood friend lying motionless in a pool of her own blood. She slowly turned around, “Please… Tw-Twilight, don’t… don’t do this.”

“If you were to go on a trip... where would you like to go?” Fluttershy didn’t understand what her murderous friend meant. Getting no response Twilight touched the pegasus’ shoulder and enveloped her with chaos magic. A few seconds later the black magic faded and Applejack’s only remaining friend vanished.

The farm pony couldn’t get herself to speak, she just lost two of her dearest friends… killed by another friend. Applejack fell on her haunches and cried, she couldn’t deal with this situation anymore…

“Cool new spells, right Morning Blaze?” Twilight saw Rarity approaching her and figured it was time to go, they had a mission after all. “Oh well, I guess it is time to go. Let’s see how long it takes us to kill all of you.”

Rarity joined Twilight in their sprint towards the scaffold. At the same time she produced more and more crystal thorns and spikes out of the ground to shake off their pursuers.

The lavender unicorn looked at the new spells the seamstress created and said, “Impressive new magic, Rarity. Wouldn’t have thought you had something like that in you, both killing and this magic.”

“We have to do what has to be done, darling. Our goal is to save Pinkie, while I think it wasn’t necessary to… kill Rainbow Dash, she was still an enemy. I agreed to join you because I know Celestia has to pay and that includes her allies. And for the second part, isn’t this kind of magic absolutely fabulous? So beautiful, shimmery and shiny!”

They were almost there, but then two new opponents interrupted their rescue attempt again. Mistral and Law. Of all ponies on the battlefield two of the most powerful had to oppose them at the same time. That wouldn’t be easy, Twilight and Rarity were already panting in exhaustion from the heavy magic strain. Also, the two were far from uninjured, the fashion designer had some bloody, swollen spots because of the kicks she got and Twilight had this nasty burn on her flank which still hurt pretty badly.

Every town square in every city was crowded with masses of worried and curious ponies. All of them looked at a giant, square canvas where the images of Canterlot Castle were transmitted. Like spellbound they stared at the moving images of the terrifying event.

Many reporters were already describing the horrifying images to the smallest detail. Soon the entirety of Equestria would know about the disaster of Canterlot. Approximately three hundred ponies dead or injured until now because of four, lousy rebels? It was devastating for Celestia’s reputation. Even other kingdoms would hear the news, that could give the rebels even more followers than they already had.

The Princess of the Sun had been untouchable for millennia, now was the first time since Luna’s defeat, that enemies of her reign received some hope. It would be the end of Harmony if other countries started a war against Equestria.

Nervous mumbling could be heard everywhere, it was the same questions over and over again.

“What will Celestia do?”

“How can she protect us against other kingdoms, if she can’t even defeat a small group of rebels?”

“Can we really trust a pony who executes innocent citizens of our land?”

Twilight and Luna predicted the situation right again. If they play it smart they could start a civil war in Equestria, it wouldn’t take long for it to spread like a wildfire. Celestia’s only hope was a miracle or an ace she hasn’t revealed yet.

While all the other members of their small group were occupied with their main objective, Silver Night was stuck with Shining Armor. It could have been better for him. The white stallion was the second strongest captain and an expert in barrier magic.

Silver couldn’t get to him before Shining Armor was ready to push him back with a new barrier yet again. It was starting to get frustrating. While he was struggling to come forward, the captain of the second division just had to cast the same spell over and over again. Just like his little sister, he had an immense amount of magical energy to spend and by the expression on his face they weren’t even close to running low.

While slashing through another purple barrier with his enchanted wing blade Silver asked, “Isn’t this getting repetitive? I’m sure you have something else you’d rather be doing right now.”

“If it means I can save my little sister from criminal scumbags like you, I would do this for all eternity! And as soon as I’m done with you, Twilight will come home with me, if she likes it or not.”

“What a fine big brother you are. Let me just say this, she isn’t the pony you knew anymore. Just look at her, she has killed more ponies in this battle than Rarity and me combined. Twilight is doing this willingly, she wants revenge. Maybe ask Celestia, your sister was nothing but a tool for her entire life. A weapon to be used against my princess, nothing more. Retreat and I’ll let you live to ask her.”

Shining Armor wasn’t even reacting anymore. He couldn’t trust anything out a criminal’s mouth. Celestia would never do such cruel thing.

Not even two hundred meters away from them the most energy consuming battle in the last thousand years was happening. The two princess fighting with everything they had to offer. Nightcaller on Luna’s side, the blade, born from darkness itself and Horizon, the favorite weapon of the Sun Goddess. Aside from that, control over an unrestrained, nearly limitless pool of alicorn magic in its purest form.

Both represented the two individuals to perfection. Luna’s sword dark as the night and cold as ice, flickering with coldness and Celestia’s Horizon steady as a stone, like her it stood for total control, hotter than the sun and harder than the best steel.

Every second another explosion could be heard all over Canterlot. However, none of them managed to finish the other off, they parried each other’s spells almost perfectly. Neutralizing them or intercepting them mid air with a similar spell. All of that while having a near light speed sword fight. No mortal pony could even hope to keep track of their motions, a tornado of blades against another.

Luna unleashed an inferno of black flames, which got countered mid air by her sister’s sunfire and stated,”It’s been long since I’ve felt your magic, sister. A great opportunity to improve my magic, even more chaos spells I can teach MY new student.”

“Oh Luna, trying to distract me, how unlikely of you. I know I can still fix things, she won’t ever be your student and don’t you play fool on me, I know you’re just trying to keep me busy, but that’s not really important. Twilight won’t best General Law and Mistral at the same time and if we have her, your ridiculous act of revenge will be over.”

The next few seconds were again filled with the sound of dozens of sword strikes clashing into each other. Nothing could stop them now and that was exactly what Luna wanted.

Rarity and Twilight stood only a few meters away from their pink friend, who was oddly quiet for a pony like her, blocking their path were two of the three most dangerous soldiers in Celestia’s army. Both extremely aggressive and absolutely loyal to the Princess of the Sun.

“Rarity… How much magic... can you spare?” Twilight said, panting in exhaustion. Her magic pool was enormous, but even the deepest pond has to run dry at some point.

“I can hold them off for a short while,” the fashion designer replied, obviously exhausted as well, but she couldn’t fail right now.

“Good,” the lavender mare disappeared into the shadows once more and left Rarity alone with Law and Mistral.

Both looked at each other and Law said, “Well, then, you’re first then. We get to Twilight soon enough.” Their attack was quick and unexpected, Law unleashed a stream of extremely hot lava at Rarity and Mistral fired several thick and sharp ice spears at her.

Before either could hit the seamstress she managed to erect a crystal barrier, blocking off the elemental magic. She felt the two opposites gnawing at her magic reserves, it wouldn’t be long before the crystal would break. “Hurry up, Twilight!”

That was the plan for the former student. She had no intention to slow down now, everything went according to plan. With her pulsating dark sword she appeared behind Pinkie Pie at the top of the scaffold. The two executioners dropped dead a second later, trying to grasp their bloody, torn throats “I’m here, Pinkie. Hold still.”

A quick strike with Yoru and it was done, the countless enchantments shattered alongside the chains that tied pinkie to the wooden platform. Now they just had to get out of the courtyard, she had a plan for that as well, but it would demand a sacrifice.

She looked at her once again free pink friend, she was in a much worse state than Twilight had hoped. Pinkie looked bruised, scratches and bruises all over her body as if she had been beaten over these three days, her left eye, swollen and black. Blood was splattered over her coat, some older, but some was fresher, apparently from some unfortunate guards that got hit by an attack. Also she was much skinnier than usual, like she hadn’t eaten anything at all in days. “Pinkie, are you alright? You are unusually quiet for yourself.”

It took her a moment to reply, “Tw-Twilight.... I-I… You are… here.”

“What happened to you, Pinkie?” Twilight asked genuinely concerned.

“I… I’ve s-seen… so much b-blood. All these ponies dying… just because… because I wasn’t strong enough.”

“They knew the risk of following that whore of a princess. It wouldn’t have come to this if she hadn’t been so desperate.”

Pinkie’s hair seemed to straighten even more, this statement from Twilight didn’t make her feel better at all. Her expression changed to a more neutral and she said, in an almost creepy voice, “I won’t ever be a burden for all of you again… I-I’ll make her pay for this! T-these soldiers died… died because of her.”

“I hope you know what you are doing, but alright, let’s go.”

Twilight touched Pinkie’s shoulder and they both appeared a few meters away from their white unicorn friend. Without any explanation the lavender mare grabbed Rarity with her magic and pulled her along, until she ran for herself. “We’re finished here. Let’s run.”

As they ran the consequences of Pinkie’s promise became apparent. She dashed through the soldiers like they weren’t even there, flipping over them, grabbing their neck and pushing them to the ground, breaking it in the process. Even without a weapon the pink mare was deadlier than most guards, Twilight had no idea how she was doing it, but that could wait, at least until they were safe.

She called Luna and Silver through a simple thought sending spell and said, “Luna! Silver! We have her, you know what do you, Plan Bravo. I am sorry Silver, we’ll meet at the HQ if you come through.”

Her ominous message was their escape plan, a complex paralysis spell, triggered by a code word. This way they could escape and immobilize Celestia’s troops and preventing them to recover their injured and chase the rebels. Unfortunately though, one had to stay behind and since he volunteered, Silver was chosen. It was a suicide mission and they wouldn’t come to rescue him.

Luna appeared besides Twilight at the end of the courtyard where they came in. The two of them focused Silver’s wingblades as some sort of anchor for the spell. He could feel the foreign magic pulsing within the metal, he just had to fight on and wait.

Rarity created a barrier around herself, Luna, Twilight and Pinkie in order for them to finish their spell. The two magical experts started chanting the phrase, “Rin, pyo, to, sha, kai, jin, retsu, zai, zen.” Simultaneously they moved their left front hooves in a seemingly random pattern, but it was far from random, it was just extremely complex.

Celestia noticed the pattern and shouted, “Stop them! They must not escape!”

They all entered their newly opened rift to the safe haven they called home now. “We’re sorry, Silver Night.”

As he felt the door closing, Silver closed his eyes as well and said, loud and clearly, “Isfet!”

An extremely fast and dark shockwave originated from his wingblades, washing over the whole castle in a matter of seconds. Immobilizing all ponies hit by it, the only one fast enough to protect herself was Celestia and she was right next to him. She didn’t look very pleased, covered with some long, bloody scratches and slightly sweating, “A noble sacrifice, that will cost you a lot…”

It was over, Celestia and her ‘undefeatable’ army was bested, all it took was four extraordinary ponies. In less than an hour they killed over three hundred soldiers and injured at least twice as much. This battle would soon be known as the Nightmare of Canterlot.