The headless corpse of a pig was lying on the ground, a pegasus, bearing a full body armour, inspected it before marking off something at a sheet of parchment with a piece of coal before speaking out to his subordinates. "Just rags, nothing of use, throw it into the fifth pile."

A pair of earth ponies moved over and grabbed the headless corpse of the pig by its arms and legs, they were wearing hoofkerchiefs over their mouths and nostrils to protect themselves from the growing amount of rot and flies in the air. Dragging the corpse a dozen or so meters they reached their destination and lifted the corpse up by its limbs. They started weaving the corpse back and forth they shouted together before throwing it onto a growing pile of corpses."Heave! Ho! Heave! Ho!"

By the pile was a pair of unicorns using their magic to inspect the pile, then at the confirmation from one another, their horns lit ablaze with energy and they fired lances of solid hot energy upon the top and bottom of the pile, igniting it into a burning inferno. Then they fired a secondary set of spells, and a clear blue dome engulfed the burning pile, essentially trapping the smoke and fire inside, while still allowing air to flow through it. They then began to move over to the next pile, leaving behind them a line of five domes covering burning corpses.

The city of Canterlot was in a solemn mood. A week had gone by since the meat craving army called Rattenfänger attempted to lay waste to their city. Only the brave and vigilant ponies who had defended them with their lives had saved them the fate of being eaten. Over a hundred ponies had been severely injured during the siege, over fifty of them having crippling injuries while around thirty of them had died.

But the one who had gone beyond the limits to keep them safe was a certain pony by the name of Golden Cross. An old earth pony who single hoofedly fought against the never ending tides of gluttonous beasts, with the aid of the gods and through sheer tenacity, he broke through the limits of body and soul and kept moving, even after having been torn to shreds. All so that he could keep a promise to a little filly whose family he had grown to think of as his own.

It had been a wondrous moment in the history of ponies, and yet also the greatest tragedies in their history as well. A great warrior, an honourable knight and a wonderful person, fell in battle that day, defying death until he could see the first rays of the sun.

His body had been left there beyond the gates, standing tall and proud. He had been so cold in his final moments that it had felt like touching ice. his body had run out of blood even before he staggered back to the broken bridge. Celestia had confirmed it.

Ponies spent the entire day cheering, dancing and singing together. Praising him and his name, and never stopping. A few kept to silent mourning, Happy Meal, Grand Music, Grand Feast, Solid Pink and Princess Celestia would meet at the castle in silence, the foals crying constantly while Grand Feast would sometimes join them. Solid Pink, a bit less refined then when she was last seen, had a bit of a teary look in her eyes as well as she gave the grieving family comfort food and tissues.

Princess Celestia had grieved when she sang to his honour, she had shed her tears, and now she just offered a comforting presence to her friend Grand Feast and her two foals. And she would keep doing so for the rest of the day, until she had to lower the sun and raise the moon.

When the first day since the battle had gone past and the sun was lowered. There was reaction from the still standing body of Golden Cross. The body finally succumbed to the will of nature and its joints fell slack and he collapsed onto the ground, as the moon was raised. And there up upon the surface of the moon, as if laughing at his final fall, the burning mark of black and green fire, the Phantom of the Moon, had reformed itself onto the moon's surface.

His body was put to rest in a coffin of the finest marble, his wounds dressed, his uniform placed on top of his chest, with his forelegs clutching his poleaxe, none had been able to make his body let go of the weapon, even after he fell down his hoof just refused to let go. Black and white petals were throw out into the air and in front of the streets as his body was put into the coffin, and slowly carried through the streets towards its final resting place.

Golden Cross was carried in a solemn parade through the city by ten volunteers. His horrid wounds were not bare for the city to see, most of it was covered by the well folded tunic as well as several bouquets of flowers put around his body, hiding the bloody remains of the proud warrior. They carried him in silence from the city gates to the Central Keep, there the body was placed within a large stone sarcophagus in the courtyard's garden, the sigil of his order carved out upon its surface. And then it was lowered within a large stone monument, a statue of him, of stone, marking him as one of the heroes of Equestria.

There was no cheer as the hero's body was finally put to rest. Only solemn silence and tear stained cheeks. But life must go on and so Celestia declared this day to be a holiday for all ponies to remember those who fell in the horrible battle with Rattenfänger, and the one who sacrifice everything to save them.

The cheerful and happy day turned from cheer to solemn grief and the ponies began to work to rebuild what they had lost. For days the walls would be examined, repaired and improved. The remains of the Rattenfängers were gathered in piles and burnt up to ash to be used a fertilizer, while whatever gear, objects and documents they had in their camps, was taken by the ponies.

But the remains of the unicorn horns used to create the Horn of Destruction, were gathered up, from the smallest shard to the largest horn, all of them were gathered together, and buried to honour those who fell to the Rattenfängers. A memorial was being prepared to be placed on the market square by the city gates. There was some debates about what would be a fitting monument, but in the end, it was decided to be a memorial stone with the names of the fallen carved out upon its surface, with a statue of Golden Cross in his armour, standing on his hind legs, holding his halberd with his right hoof while holding his helmet in the crook of his left.

As time went by and the week reached its end, was a document discovered upon the kitchen table in Golden Cross' wagon, a Will, written by him days before his death. The wagon itself was well guarded by ten guards, who were constantly shifted out, none of them wanted the belongings of their saviour desecrated by anyone. Although no one could enter the wagon without the key, a key, Golden Cross had left with Happy Meal and Grand Music before he left to fight.

It had been Grand Feast who discovered the Will when she and her children went to look in the wagon at the end of the week. The Will was written and stamped with the sigil of Golden Cross' order, the Lawbringers. It was an official Will and thus it would need to be read by an official, but Celestia, once she had been informed about the will, decided to do it herself.

It was around mid afternoon, the reading of Golden Cross' will was to be had at the throne room. Originally had Grand Feast wanted to have it read in private, but when Tall Sprout got wind of the will he stated that he wanted to hear it as well. And then several others joined in, most of the members of the Blue Grass Clan and several soldiers and guards who had been part of Golden Cross' training regimes.

In short, the amount of ponies wanting to listen to the Will was staggering and thus would have to be held in the throne room. Celestia had not realized how much of a deal it would have become and had been rather surprised when a group of fifty or so ponies came into her throne room to hear the Will of Golden Cross. When Grand Feast had asked for them to use the throne room she had not been expecting this many! *We hath though perhaps twenty or so ponies. But over fifty? By the Gods, art thee serious!?*

Even if she was a bit confused and shocked by the sudden increase of listeners to the will she managed to keep her 'unflinching ruler' face on and had several chairs and seat pillows pulled out by the servants for the visitors. Once everybody had taken a seat she coughed politely to gather attention before speaking out the crowd. "We art gathered here today, for the reading of the Will of Ser Golden Cross. We, Princess Celestia, shalt be reading it out for all those, invited here today, to hear."

The crowd of ponies, who had been discussing and murmuring together, went dead silent and looked at her with concentrating looks on their faces. Celestia's face was blank but mentally she was feeling very awkward and nervous with the sudden change in mood. But she kept her face straight and broke the seal on the Will before unfurling it, levitating it before her eyes with telekinesis.

Taking a short moment to skim through it she coughed lightly to clear her throat, before she started reading the words written upon the parchment. "This is the Will, of Ser Golden Cross, Son of Ser Golden Heart and Lady Bright Heart, Knight of the Lawbringer Order, Lord of Blackstone Keep. And I, Golden Cross, of sound heart and mind, write down this final message to those who are willing to listen to an old pony's final words."

Celestia was a bit confused herself by one of the titles written by the old earth pony on the paper. He spoke of himself as both a knight and a lord. It was not something possible in normal cases, a Lord was too high a rank for a knight. But... perhaps it was so that Golden Cross' rank as knight was like that of a noble having a military service? She would have to check it up some time.

"If you are reading then, then I am dead. I am sorry that it had to come to this, but I knew already, since a year back ,that I was dying. Yet I do not regret it. I have lived a long live, and yet the last month was the most special, where I meet many new friends along a trio of ponies who would become like family to me. And so, I have written this Will, to offer my final act as an official Knight of the Lawbringer Order."

She felt both sad and happy. To know that the old pony had been happy in his final days of life for the first time in over a century. Knowing that her ponies had made such a difference made her proud. And yet she still felt sorrow that the old knight had to die so soon, it felt like it had been too early, she had wanted to learn more about him ,to know him further. But time had not been kind on her or him, sadly as it was.

"To Princess Celestia and the City of Canterlot, I leave the scattered tomes and notes I have found during my travels across the land. They are not many and some of them are unreadable, but hopefully you may gain something off it. I know you will be able to count on Grand Feast and her children to offer you support as well. For they are the heirs to what little I have left."

Smiling a little the Princess of the Sun felt gratitude to Golden Cross' generosity, even if what he offered was not a large amount, was any of the lost knowledge and lore of the old ponies and their ways more precious then any amount of wealth. Knowledge was a thing they had lost at Discord's rule, and to even have a small fragment of it back, was truly extraordinary.

"To Grand Feast, Grand Music and Happy Meal, I offer all of my earthly possessions, as well as my spiritual ones. I offer you my wagon and its contents. The armours and weapons of my order, their manufacturing lost long ago, they are yours to do with as you wish. My self written book about my Order and our ways and traditions are yours as well. I have already written the necessary paperwork for my final gift to you."

Celestia's eyes grew wide as she read up this part of the Will, and slowly as her words rang out through the room, were the eyes of those listening, including the on duty guards and servants, widening as well. And the teary eyes of Grand Feast, Grand Music and Happy Meal, grew largest as the words registered in their minds.

"I, Golden Cross, Officially adopt Grand Feast and her children into my Clan. And thus, as the head of my clan, I offer you all the rank and title of Knight, may you find these titles and items beneficial in your lives. With Grand Feast inheriting my title as Lord of my clan, she will be the next head of my clan. With the title of Knight, and your adoption, you are entitled the lands of my clan. Which consists of the ruined keep of my Order, Blackstone Keep, located to the far east upon a mountain peak. I hope these final gifts of mine, will be of use to you."

The Princess wanted to make a pause there but she could not stop reading, even as tears began to run down the cheeks of the three ponies and the others in the room, she kept reading, not even noticing how light trail of tears was streaking down her cheeks as well.

"And a final message to you all. Do not cry for me, I am an old soul and I would willingly offer my life to let you live. My ways are old and of much use for the future, at least, not a future I can be part of. Try not to rely too much on the old ways and do not fear the unknown. Try to seek your own path. That said, if you can learn from the past, from the old, to improve the future, then this old knight is happy, knowing that he made a difference in the end. No matter how small it might be."

Brushing aside her tears, having noticed them, Celestia read the final lines of the Will, a simple and plain will, and yet so heartfelt and powerful in its purpose. "Signed, Ser Golden Cross, Knight of the Lawbringer Order, Head of the Cross Clan, Lord of Blackstone Keep."

There was a solemn silence as the ponies in the room digested the words written. It would take a while for them all to slowly leave the throne room, leaving the Princess and the Feast family behind in the silence. Grand Feast was frozen in shock while her children looked so confused, sad and yet so... excited at the same time.

Celestia was feeling a little uncertain what this could mean for the future, but she knew one thing. Golden Cross had made Grand Feast a far more powerful pony in the city then most of its original nobles. Smiling gently she walked down from her throne and led out the still stunned Grand Feast and her two foals out of the throne room to talk about her new titles and social standing. *Things art going to be interesting from here on out. We can tell.*

A few days passed after the reading of Golden Cross' Will, the nobility of the city were trying to persuade the Princess to not accept a new member of nobility who had not earned her titled. Of course she rebutted rather thoroughly by telling them that many of them had earned their own titles the same way and had no way to rebuke the decisions of a Will.

Grand Feast was having a bit of a hard time adjusting herself to the life of a Knight and Lady, she still preferred to live in her old home and even if the Princess offered to have the lands of golden Cross' examined for her, she felt that it was not needed. Those lands had not been used for over a century, there was no reason to run wild over them just yet, especially now that the ponies needed to gather their wits and recover.

If anything was Grand Feast's down to earth attitude a refreshing air for the court according to Celestia, several of the nobles accepted the former commoner as one of their own rather civilized or even friendly. Some of it may have been because of her relationship to the saviour of the city, but some nobles did actually have proper manners and knew how to behave nice with others, even those who art not of the same origin as themselves.

Sadly enough are those kinds of nobles getting fewer as time runs by. Once all nobles had been just that, noble and honourable ponies who had deserved their grand titles and wealth. But few of their inheritors had inherited the same behavior and it was not as common as it had once been.

Maleficus laid on his back on a sand dune, his wings spread out to not get cramped or hurt by his own body weight, he was looking up at the planet above him in deep thought. He almost flinched a bit when he shifted a little, feeling the painful sensation through his body.

When he had been sent back to the moon his body had been half torn apart, it had taken his body the better part of several days to completely repair itself. His flesh and organs had been torn apart and was riddled with iron fragments from the spike that had split through him before. His body had been forced to gather up the metal fragments and... dump them through the natural fashion rather then just forcing them out of his body.

His asshole was still sore and tender from that experience, it had taken him around four hours to shit out all of the metal along with whatever else kind of nastiness he had been filled with during the battle.

He had not really moved a lot since he had recovered. For days he just laid there, contemplating, thinking and sleeping. It was not easy for him to be back on the moon, now that he knew he would be stuck there for several years, a decade even.

He felt hopelessly unmotivated to do anything and just wanted to recluse himself into his dreamscape and watch cartoons for the next ten years. Even as a small crater formed next to him as a small meteor struck the moon's surface he just laid there, watching.

*Why should I bother returning to the planet... I will probably just mess up things even more... Perhaps i should just let Celestia win and see if she can execute me...* His depressing thoughts were creating a dull and dark aura in the empty atmosphere of the moon. It was like the dead and silent landscape was even more depressing, the glowing screens of the Interface almost seemed to grow dull and grey as his depression filled the land.

For all of his physical and magical development, had he taken notice of something. His body and mind was unnaturally fast at learning the arts of war and magic. He was not sure how it actually worked, he just knew that he could learn at a faster rate then normal. Even he figured that it should not take him a few hours of morning practice to learn the move he had developed a few days ago.

But he did not really consider it a handicap, sure it made him feel uneasy, but anything to help him attune himself was worth it. Although he did feel like he was cheating, but so were many others when you think about it. For now, he just wanted to lay still and not think too much about it. He sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds before opening them, looking across the darkened planet as the night sky began to roll down upon its surface.

That's when he noticed something on the planet's surface. It was small and barely noticeable, but he could see small bright dots glittering over the area were Equestria was located. Getting nervous and concerned he scrambled up from the sand dune and rushed over to the Interface.

With a flare of his horn and a tap with his hoof he activated the magical structure. The screens flared up to life and lifted up a few inches and started rotating apart, letting their creator enter the empty space between them. Colours and shapes began to emerge from the screens as the large floating plates making up the telescope/wand segments of the Interface started to shrink and grow in different manners as the magical energy within the structure began to activate its purpose.

He stood up on his hind legs and pressed one of his hooves against one of the larger screens and began to drag it across the surface. As he did this were the screens around him altering themselves in size while the floating circular plates shifted and angled themselves, pointing towards the place where he was seeing the sparkling lights.

Then upon the largest of the screens he could see an image of the planet growing larger as the telescope of his Interface started zooming down towards the planet. The planet's surface approached rapidly, the atmosphere was passed, the night sky became clear as the moon light upon its surface revealed the features of the land bellow.

And there, down upon the land within and around the City of Canterlot, Maleficus Victoria witnessed a wondrous sight.

There upon the fields, among the parks and upon the courtyard of the castle, were pillars of bright light being pointed around, the ponies had somehow managed to create skylights! But that was not what was making him stunned, it was the sight of what stood upon the main square by the city gates, as ponies were gathering around it, holding up candles and praying.

There, upon a large cube shaped piece of marble, stood a statue, a statue of solid gold depicting Golden Cross, standing tall upon his hind legs, holding his poleaxe as it rested its pommel on the ground, while in the crook of his left foreleg, was his helmet. It was an image of his fake persona, in his final stand, without injuries or destroyed armour.

Gently he zoomed further in, to view the statue properly, when he saw them. Happy Meal and Grand Music were standing next to Grand Feast, looking up with bright and happy smiles upon the statue, even if their eyes were puffy from many tears did they look happy and healthy. And there, next to them, stood Celestia and Solid Pink, both of them smiling up at the statue as well.

He felt so touched by this he could not properly describe what he was feeling. It was indescribable, something that gave him so much joy and yet so much shame it hurt and healed at the same time. *I cannot do much from here... but... I can at least do this.*

With his thoughts echoing through his mind he aligned the Interface properly, a bit above the city itself, and then he ignited his horn, and released a spell through the Interface. The beam of solid red struck the glowing magical construct, and it was shifted from plate through plate, each of them adding and mixing the magical energy, until it began to flare up along the telescope plates.

Each time the energy passed through the focusing plates of the Interface it expanded, doubling itself each time it moved through. And as it left the final lens, was a powerful bright beam of light fired out of the Interface and towards the planet bellow. Without the amplified force of his magic, his spells would never even reach halfway towards the planet before dispatching.

Smiling softly, Maleficus watched as the beam split through the atmosphere and began to descent towards the city. at thus point it had not lost any of its size but it had become increasingly paler. But that was by intention. Carefully he shited his hoof across the interface, the view of the screen shifted upwards and he watched as the beam of light, now only a bright beam of light, streamed down from the sky and struck the statue, causing it to glow brightly.

As it did, the ponies on the square gasped and moved away as the statue was covered in what, to them, looked like glittering moon light. Then, Maleficus shifted his hoof upon the Interface so he could see the statue from the front and smiled as the golden metal of the statue, was slowly painted over. Like an invisible painter working upon the metal was the entire frame slowly being painted until it was made into the same colour theme as his shape as Golden Cross, making the statue almost look alive.

Watching the stunned ponies, he smiled, and he made the moon light twinkle away slowly, leaving behind, the perfectly painted statue of Golden Cross. After the shock settled, the ponies erupted into cheer and started celebrating. He could see the teary but smiling faces of the three ponies he cared for and smiled, they would be safe, and that was good enough for him.

Yet that did not stop the shame burning through his heart even as he disengaged the image link.

Sighing softly into the soundless realm of the moon, Maleficus closed down the Interface and moved away from the sand dune it was floating over. He walked through the sand, once more lost in thought, before just laid down on his side, and folded his wing over his head, as to cover his eyes from the bright light of the planet and the sun. And there he laid, slowly falling asleep as a small smile grew upon his lips as he remembered the good times he had, had with those three, and with those warm thoughts soothing his mind, he fell into a deep slumber.

Not noticing how a wisp of green energy emerged from his body and floated away towards the planet like a tiny dot of sparkling stardust.

Golden Cross' eyes blinked and he found himself inside his mindscape once more, he felt happy to be able to enter it once more, it had been. But something was different about it. Namely the blue decorated office with the sight of Luna, still in filly form, sitting on a desk, going through a collection of paperwork from a pile labeled 'Ideas & Development' she was transforming into crystals and tossing into a large bin with the label 'Magical Comprehension'.

"Okay... THIS is what you have been up to this last month!? Paperwork!? What kind of paperwork is there to do in my fucking mind!?" Was his loud proclamation. His voice echoed over the room and the filly on the chair almost fell over at the sudden noise. She looked up from her work and smiled at the sight of the black alicorn stallion and shouted out at him while waving her left hoof in the air.

"Oh! Thou, sorry, you are back! We- sorry, I was worried you would not return to your mindscape!" Her broken speech made him a bit confused, but he got the gist of it, at least she was making an effort. Although it was rather fascinating that she was improving her speech pattern and accent at such a rapid level, although he had no room to speak.

He sighed and scratched his neck with one of his forelegs' hooves before walking over to the desk and sat down on a cushion he manifested by his own thoughts. "Yeah well... I haven't been able to enter my dreams for the last month until I was sent back to the moon. It has been lot of dreamless nights, not very uncomfortable, but I'd like to have my dreams back. And an explanation about this... whatever it is you have been doing."

Luna smiled at him and nodded before pulling out another sheet of paper, the last, and read through it while speaking to him. "Well I have no real understanding a of why you were unable to dream. But I have been able to learn quite a bit about you and your situation while in here. Not to mentioned I have been able to let you comprehend the ways to use and alter magic without causing serious miscasts or accidents. When you tried that Flesh Puppet spell a few days ago you almost made yourself explode. Thou, sorry, you are lucky I am here to make these ideas of yours possible for your mind to comprehend on how to make."

"..."

A silence filled the room and Maleficus stared, really stared, at Luna as she shifted the last parchment into a crystal and tossed it into the bin while commenting. "Interesting idea to alter the Flesh Puppet spell into a Flesh Golem spell, might be of use to your future play war with min- sorry, my sister. But personally I think that colour alteration spell you crafted a few moments ago was better in its purpose, plus it was rather beautiful and sweet how you used it."

That made him snap out of his silence and he stood up on his hind legs and slammed his forelegs down on the surface of the desk and stared boggled eyed down at her, shouting out in a very, very concerned, and loud, voice."WOW! Wow! Wow. Wow. Are you telling me, that the only reason I am able to comprehend and alter magic like I have, at such a fast rate, is because you are processing it for me!? Like some kind of mental secretary!?"

Nodding Luna chuckled a bit at his reaction, she had to say that the face he was making when he realized it made it worth it. Calming down her laugh with a light cough she shook her head a little before stepping off her chair and pointed at the bin she had been tossing crystals into. "Yes that is correct. We- sorry, I had to spend most of the nights managing the information influx and adapting it to function with your mind. It will take several years, decades even, before you are able to alter and research magic on your own, but until them am I your training wheels."

Maleficus was silent for a bit before he lowered himself down on all four again and walked over to look at the bin, it was more like a black pit with a fancy bin like fence around it. He sighed and rubbed his forehead and spoke out his thoughts. "...That is both incredibly cool, yet incredibly disappointing, for me I mean. I actually thought I was developing things on my own, I just thought that the knowledge I devoured from the Nightmare allowed me to act upon it."

Chuckling again Luna lead the dismayed stallion away from the bin and out of the officer, outside they came to a large room decorated like a VIP movie theater. It even had its own supply of food and toys. There were line of large black leather retainers, a popcorn machine, a soda machine, a massive ,wall sized tv screen, and a large array of prop in a massive closet. It was heaven for any otaku or nerd in any franchise from games to movies to cartoons to animes. As she lead him through the red carpet covered floor Luna talked to him. "Nay, you may have assimilated the power and fragmented memories of the Nightmare and its own components, but that would never allow you to cast such advance magic like tho- sorry, you have. You need years of dedicated training to come up with such advanced and mentally taxing spell crafts, let alone casting them."

Blinking a bit he nodded in understanding, he made a comment as he looked into the large array of props and outfits. "Huh... so... what else have you been doing? I mean, I highly doubt you have been doing only paperwork in here. Plus I can tell you have found interest in my media memories, but I figured it would not hurt to ask."

She perked up instantly and giddily clapped her hooves together and jumped into the closet and began to speak out in a happy and jolly tone as she began to put stuff on. "Oh! I have been watching those moving story books on that magical crystal plate of yours! We- sorry, I love them! Those moving images, the music, the sounds and the voices! We hath, sorry, I have never witnessed something so amazing before! Not to mention the clothes, weapons and accessories your mind link them to! And those wonderful games! I have never had so much fun! There are so many variants and types!"

A bit stunned Maleficus pondered just how in hell his world's media entertainment turned an alicorn magical warrior princess into a freaking otaku nerd... But then he realized just how redundant what he just though was and made a 'meh' motion with his shoulders before grabbing a familiar looking red and white cap with a green symbol on it before putting it on his head. "Huh... Do you mind if we start watching some anime right now? I could use some entertainment after having this fucked up situation revealed to me. And I do not feel like playing any games at the moment."

Out of the closet emerged Luna, now dressed up like Naruto, orange jump suit, goggles, head band and ninja weaponry, she was in his shadow clone jutsu pose when she shouted out in a cheerful and loud voice. "YES!!! Let's Us watch Naruto! His wonderful adventures despite his origin inspires me!"

*Not to mention I think you guys are both rather identical in loudness and cheerfulness it seems.* Maleficus thought to himself before he pulled out a blue vest, with holes for his wings, and a belt with white and red balls.

After he had put them on he walked over to the soda machine and got himself a big soda mug with some fruity red soda as Luna filled up a big bucket of popcorn. As he carried his drink in levitation he spoke to her as she bounced on the chairs , levitating a bucket of popcorn and a soda mug filled withe cola. "As long as you do NOT try to convince me to watch the Shippuden Arc or those pointless fillers then it is fine. I think it is for the best to just watch the first season, then we watch some Pokemon. I want to re-watch the Kanto Arc."

Jumping off with a flip Luna landed on one of the large retainers and seated herself before punching her right hoof into the air and answered his request as the lights were turned off and the screen was activated, and the intro song of Season 1 of Naruto started. "Agreed!"

Sitting down in his own Ash Ketchum outfit, Maleficus sipped on his soda, enjoying the sensation of a carbonated fruity drink after so long, and watched the anime with his unlikely roommate.

Canterlot had recovered from the attack, with the revelation of the statue and the memorial the ponies started to build a graveyard outside of the city walls. With the sudden deaths of loyal soldiers, and several elderly and sickly ponies passing on, there was a need for a place for their bodies to be laid to rest. And thus the Canterlot Cemetery was scheduled to be constructed for the future use of all common and noble ponies of Canterlot.

The Cemetery was to be placed upon the eastern edge of the city, by the mountain side it had been carved out of. Even as several days since the memorial and its statue was revealed, had the ponies been working. There were several who had started making proclamations of the Will of the Gods, several groups of various believers were starting to form into actual religious cults. Not to mention the amount of ponies who wanted to take part of the newly minted project by Lady Grand Feast and her two children, the creation of a new Knightly Order. To honour Golden Cross and the Order of the Lawbringer.

Celestia had been more then willing to accept his proposal to create an official Knightly Order of Equestria to honour Golden Cross and his order. Several of the nobles wanted to recreate the Lawbringers when the proposal was put forth, but Grand Music and his family decline that option. When confronted with why they would decline the opportunity to recreate the Lawbringers, Lady Grand Feast spoke out to the nobles to explain why.

"Ser Cross told Us this himself, his Order was not perfect, it was home to the just and the corrupt, he sounded both regretful and happy to be the last of his Order. We shalt not make light of his Sacrifice nor the actions of his Fallen Order to protect Us by just recreating the Order. A New Order is to be made, one that We hope will be greater then the Lawbringers, an Order that will make Ser Cross and his honourable brethren proud of Us all."

Those words by Lady Grand Feast had put the arguments to rest. And thus was the work to create and establish the yet to be named Order started. The many documents left behind by Golden Cross would be used as a guideline to establish the rules, parts of the training and recruitment requirements for the Order. But after that would the Order have to test and work out

The first thing to do, beyond establishing the purpose, rules, organization, recruitment, membership requirement and authority of the Order, was the construction of a Head Quarter of the new Order a must to properly handle recruitment, training and founding of the order.

And thus was a large construction project started for a headquarter for the new Lawbringer Order, the number of volunteers for the construction was astronomical, those seeking to join the newly founded Order was not as high, but still far higher then normal. Celestia had not been able to hide her shock when a group of five hundred ponies volunteered to design and construct the building, for free.

The real kicker was among those who volunteered, over fifty nobles, among them, ten Lords. THAT, had almost made her fall off her throne. Luckily had she not done that, but she would give Solid Pink a bit of a frown when she startled giggling, even looking completely unfazed, one could hear the former Sun Guard giggle within her mouth.

Grand Music was standing next to his sister and mother, watching the project he had initiated just a few days ago. He had been surprised how quickly his proposal had been accepted. But it made him feel happy, knowing that he was fulfilling not only his wishes, but the wishes of his family as well.

"So. You. Think. Grandpa. Cross. Would. Be. Glad. About. This?" The young lord asked his adopted mother as they looked at the construction site of the large, cathedral like building, being constructed by a large group of workers next to the beautiful park Golden Cross' wagon has been parked ever since he came to Canterlot.

Piles of the finest timber and massive boulders of the finest marble was filling the entire area as a massive group of ponies worked together to construct it. The amazing part was that they had started building said area just two days ago, and they were almost halfway done. From the ten meter deep basement area to around thirty meters up from the ground level, they had completed the entire base area of the massive building within just two days. Now they were working on building the towers and the large chamber, which would also act as a shrine to the gods.

Grand Feast just smiled at her little colt and rubbed his head, the little pony made some giggling sounds, emitting his voice through the enchanted choker he had been given as a gift by General Blood Gorger. The old general wanted to contribute to the promising young Lord's life as a thank you to his adopted grand father, by giving him a stretchable choker with a gemstone enchanted with the same speech device the general used himself. Only, set to a less intimidating voice.

"Grandpa Cross would love this place! We bet he would be giving ye a damn good hug an' snuggle brother!" Happy Meal cheered, but her mother was not amused by her choice of crude words, even if Grand Music was cheered up.

"Happy Meal! Where hath thou learned such foul words!?" The little filly, looking startled, and moderately uneasy, took off running towards the park. Grand Feast wanted to run after her but Grand Music just laughed and pointed at some of the workers swearing as they had difficulties lifting a big piece of rock.

"By da fucking flanky shit on da Gods' buttocks!" "This thing be fuckin' heavier then ma wife's flank!" "Oi! No speakin' of ma sister dat way ya daft cunt!" The amount of crude words and swears made Grand Feast's eyes narrow further and further until she was in a bonafide mother's wrath glare. It was at such an intense focus of motherly protection and righteous fury that the workers felt shivers down their spines and looked around in confusion, before yelping in fear at the sight of Grand feast glaring at them.

The glare Grand Feast sent at the workers kept going for almost an hour. Its constant presence made them all feel uneasy and concerned, uncertain as of why the recently made Lady was giving them such a harsh glare. But they just lowered their heads and quietly worked until the scary mare walked off with her colt to find her other child, satisfied in having wordlessly chastising a group of twenty stallions with just a glare.

Up on her balcony Celestia watched as the Lawbringer Temple was being constructed in the distance, it would easily be the tallest building in the city once it was finished, well next to the central keep, but it would not be expanded further until the nation of Equestria was properly established. For now she was only in control of a small region of her own nation ,she needed to send out messengers, scouts and couriers to spread the word of her foundation of Equestria.

The plans of the future brought up old memories of her life before being a royal Princess. She could recall the times she played with her sister in the woods, learning magic from her mother, eating sweet fruits and jam covered breads. Those days had been the best of her life, then suitors started to show up as the reign of Discord caused many ponies to seek the true heir to the throne to reestablish the old, or found their own, pony kingdom.

Her mother had answered all suitors with a trial of combat, something very few left without a sever injury. But the reign of Discord had made it hard to adapt, even with their isolated lives in the Everfree keeping them away from his notice was his chaotic shenanigans spilling out over the world like a plague. Her mother had been forced to leave her and her still too young sister to fend for themselves for a few years.

She had cried so many times during those harsh years, comforted by her sister and comforting her in return. Luna had always had a close relationship with her, the two of them drew strength and comfort from each other. When their mother returned and ascended them into Alicorns, Discord had finally found them and their mother distracted him long enough to let her flee with her sister into the unknown outside world.

Years she and her sister wandered, fighting Discord's evil while gathering allies and researching what could be used against Discord to stop his mad rampage. Then they found the Elements of Harmony, the six powerful gemstone fruits of the crystal Tree of Harmony. The reign of Discord ended with the twisted Chaos God in stone, he had been one of the few things to be pulled out of the Everfree, to keep him from being freed out of his prison.

After Discord's defeat she and Luna founded a new kingdom in the Everfree, and for a time all was well. Then the Green Star struck, her mentor fell to corruption and soon so did her sister. And the rest was history. Now she was seeking vengeance upon the one who had wrought such destruction and despair upon her ponies and her family. Just the thought of that brutish Alicorn stallion being alive and well on the moon made her grow furious.

As she started to lower the sun for the day she glared at the moon's burning phantom as she raised it up, growling out nasty words as she tried to burn the moon's surface with her glare. "Just what kind of foul plans couldst that monster be planning even now? Even as We seek to avenge Our sister, We know he be plotting further misdeeds there upon the moon. We shalt need to prepare Ourselves and Our ponies, We hath ten summers to prepare, We better spend them well."

She gave a final scalding glare at the moon and its burning specter before leaving the balcony for her personal chamber to get some sleep, she was going to have a busy day tomorrow. A princess' job was never done, but that was something she preferred, it kept her distracted from falling into depression and unrelenting rage at the thought of Maleficus Victoria running free.

A pair of alicorns were smiling at the massive screen as the final ending of the Kanto Arc played out with Ash and Pikachu standing on the Indigo Plateau Stadium, smiling at the memories of their efforts and found no regrets.

"We art happy We watched this. The Gods only know how much We wish Ash Ketchum could develop himself into a better character then what the series later portray him as, but he is still a person worthy of the title hero, even among my people." Luna said with a smile as she tossed her empty mug and popcorn bucket into a black hole trashcan.

Maleficus grinned and nodded, it had been fun watching his old time favourite anime. Perhaps next time they could watch some cartoons, non-animated movies, documentaries or possibly just play some video games. But then a thought struck him and as the pair left the entertainment room in his mind and entered a large forest area, through the same door the office had been, he asked her about it. "So tell me this Luna, why exactly are you acting as a magical filter for me? I mean, I know we are connected, somehow, but other then the safety of myself I cannot find a good reason to not let me learn from my mistakes."

Luna looked at him for a bit before sighing. "Well it mostly is because the spells you try to do and how you try to do them, are about as efficient and safe as a dragon hatchling acting as a miner in a gemstone mine with pockets filled with natural gas. I was able to filter your magic when you fought Ou- sorry, my sister the first time. And at the time the amount of damage you did to not only yourself by the area around you could only be described as devastating."

A bit confused Maleficus tapped his hoof against his chin and tried to figure out 'which' one of his dangerous spell attempts could be described in such a manner. Then he remembered the First Crusade, and realization struck him, and he let out a drawn out, "Ooooooh..." as he did.

With an awkward silence following he fidgeted a bit before he turned to Luna and asked in a slightly, ashamed tone as he rubbed his neck nervously. "You mean that cry, or wail, of terror I did, which tore up my throat, and... that black hole I made during my fight with Celestia?"

Luna just nodded and conjured a cup of tea and began to drink it as Maleficus summoned a garden table and chairs for them. The conversation felt awkward, but Maleficus did not want to appear rude to his mental roommate, although it still was a bizarre situation."To put it bluntly, those two things, were the worst things out of that entire fight. Had you NOT tried to create an artificial black hole, which I found out later as I watched those documentaries of yours, is beyond idiotic to even consider, I might have been willing to allow you to do your own thing. But with the dangerous knowledge you have and the lack of magical restraint and control, I am not willing to make any chances and allowing you to blow up my sister and our subjects by mistake."

Sighing he nodded and drank a glass of water, the freshness of the cool non flavoured liquid just made him more relaxed, he preferred sweet drinks, but he had a fondness for cold water. Suppressing his urge to sigh again he kept the conversation going as the two of them sat there in the middle of the forest decorated mindscape. "I see your point, I was on a battle high at the time, but later on I really realized just how insane what I had done was. Had I and Celestia not blocked the backlash of the miniature supernova, there would have been a very big crater left behind."

Luna just nodded and resumed talking after he was done. It was a bit odd that she was not furiously screaming our shouting at him, which she had done when they first meet in the mindscape. But he did not mind, he never enjoyed angry confrontations, they made his heart ache with unease and sadness, even if he was the one being angry. He never liked being angry, it made him feel less like himself. "Yes, you are correct. But you need to realize that your magical strength is beyond normal and while i have a few theories, none of them make much sense to me. Most of all I think you are using magic with such force and amount that you are constantly tearing and healing your magical pathways and thus expanding them. The second theory is that the unnatural material making up your bones are a powerful conduit of magic, but that makes no sense."

Rubbing his forehead Maleficus stayed silent for a few moments before he looked up at the blue sky above the trees and thought about what she had just said. The fact that his own body was alive being a miracle, that he could move at all being a miracle, and that he was so magically powerful, being a side effect of said miracle. Perhaps it had occurred during the one hundred years he spent ass a wandering burning skeleton zombie. But he was not too sure, he had assume a theory of his own, not all that possible. But it could be.

Turning to look at Luna, he expressed his own little idea of how he was able to even breath. "Yeah, I have a theory of my own. It is slightly similar to your second theory, only I do not think it involves my bones, entirely. You know how some metals are heavier then other right?"

"Aye." Luna answered with a nod, she preferred silver armour, because it was lighter then gold armour after all. Although the fact that silver fit with her dark complexion, was not entirely wrong either.

He raised up his right foreleg, and Luna almost gagged as with his imagination, he peeled off his skin and flesh intl only bone remained on the entire leg. As he spoke he shower how his entire limb, was pure, metal. A metal, unlike any other. "Well... the metal in my body seems to be a very, very, heavy metal, when I land after jumping the ground beneath me crack. And that's when I am not wearing armour. So I am considering if my body is using so much magic internally to allow me to stand or even breath, that my magical capacity is constantly growing because of this constant strain."

As his flesh was put back into place Luna closed her eyes, pressed her hooves to her forehead and started making calculations, theories, estimates and analyzes. It took her a decent while but her eyes sprang open and she stood up with her forelegs on the table, almost toppling it over, as she finally managed to figure out what he just had said meant. "Wait... you mean that you muscles are too weak to support your bones and thus your body naturally started using your magic to support your body structure. Essentially constantly draining and straining your magic to keep you from collapsing on the ground? That... is both insane and plausible. Your muscles would be as weak as a foals if you ever managed to remove the magical energy holding you upright!"

Nodding Maleficus looked at his foreleg and rubbed the upper portion, around the elbow part, and muttered a bit as he did so. "Yes. That is my conclusion as well. If I somehow remove the magic from my muscles... My bones will be too heavy for them to hold onto. Essentially, the weight of my own bones will rip off my muscles and tendons, in other words making me break apart from within... Until my magic forcefully regenerates the damage to the muscles and tendons until my muscles are of proper strength to allow me to... well... live... Though the restoration process will... at least I figure... would take a long time, years even, and it would be about as painful as being burned alive for a century as my nerves, tendons, veins and muscles, would essentially tear and restore themselves, constantly.."

He solemnly kept rubbing his right foreleg, it was painful to even imagining it. It made his entire boy tense and freeze up in phantom pains of burning acidic fire. But he bore through it, even though his mindscape fractured in the background for a few seconds, fractures in reality itself of the dream realm appearing in the very air, before returning to normal. And he kept talking. "So I do not know if I will be able to mentally handle such an experience again. I am probably never going to recover from my burning stage as the Stallion of Torment. I still get mental breakdowns. But this... might break me if it happens. I do not like to admit it... but I cannot deny the possibility."

Luna looked at the stallion, her eyes wide in horror as she witnessed the reality of the mindscape fracture, before being restored, right before her very eyes. Something that should be impossible. She had not a long experience being an immortal. But she thought that even Discord could once have been a sane being, then been broken through some sort of trauma or other situation. It would make sense, but she was not sure, she had never actually voiced her ideas after he was defeated. She did not have pity or concern for the Chaos God, he was a foul being who played on the fears and pleasures of others to break them into his little toys. But she still had her theories about hoe he became like he was.

But Maleficus was different, he was not born of this world, he was a mortal made into a demi-god, or full god depending on how you looked at it. Just like she and her sister had been. The difference was, he was neither corrupted or ignored by the populous. He was alone, isolated, hated and traumatized, with only his own regrets to haunt him as he tried to live in a world that had first sought to kill him by burning up his flesh until he grew immune to its attempts.

Sighing Luna tried to figure out what to do. She had no clear idea how to fix this mess, and it was a proper cluster fuck of a mess too. But for now, she would aid him, keep him company, and try to help get past this new ordeal.

That was when Maleficus got an idea and looked up at the newly made night sky and up at the moon above them. "...Hey Luna, just how low is the gravity on your moon?"

Blinking in confusion Luna pondered the question before responding. "Around... one tenth the gravity of the planet, why do you ask?"

He gave her a small smirk. "I have an idea... a bit crazy. But it might work. And it involves, making me remove my magical support on my body's muscles, and learn how to move, while on the moon."

".......WAIT WHAT!?" Was her loud response and he just rubbed his ears before starting to explain his plan and idea. And for all of the doubts she was having, Luna could not help but consider it, and finding it to be possible. But for it to work. Maleficus would need to learn how to deactivate and activate his body's internal magic, without her aid.

She had a feeling it was going to be a looooong time before Maleficus could properly move around. But at least it was a start. But for now... she would support him, for even if it was only a slight chance, was it still a chance. And that was more then many ponies could say that they had, sadly enough.

The pair of mentally linked Aliorns worked together for what felt like weeks, getting Maleficus ready to start removing the magical crutches in his body to let him develop his muscle strength properly.

Down in Equestria was a joyous celebration being held as the Temple of Law, the final name decided for the HQ of the new Knightly Order, was finished construction. A parade of newly accepted recruits for the order wandered the streets as confetti was thrown into the air and trumpets sounded. Princess Celestia stood by the large gates of the massive cathedral like building, with Lady Grand Feast and her two foals, standing by her side, the young lord Grand Music, in a small uniform of his own.

He was standing with well combed mane and tail, in a similar uniform like Golden Cross had worn to the Grand Galloping Gala, only a slightly altered colour theme to fit his white fur. The uniform was yellow in the base with green strikes and the black symbol of the Law Bringers, stitched onto the shoulder and side. With his attempt to look stern and important was not very effective, were more then one foal in the crowd inspired by him. And to everyone else of adult age or above, he looked absolutely adorable.

Grand Feast and Celestia were both trying to refrain from cooing and cuddling the little uniformed colt as he stood there and tried to act important. His sister Happy Meal was in a similar uniform, making silly faces at him to make him break out of his 'boring' stage. It was funny, adorable and absolutely heartwarming to watch them. It was not a large inspiring knight or lord, but even then, were there no low spirit in the entire parade and the recruits were eager to know that they would be training alongside the adopted grandson of the Last Lawbringer.

As the line of two hundred and fifty recruits, the final number after going through over seven hundred applicants, an exhausting endeavor by itself. Princess Celestia strode forward and stood tall in her golden plate mail armour, shining in the sunlight at the top of the stairs leading to the temple. And then, she cleared her throat, before starting a loud and grandiose speech, with the Royal Voice.

"Ponies! We welcome thou all to this grand day! The day We bring forth an Order, made in the image of the Last Lawbringer! It shalt be thus named! The Order of the Golden Cross!"

The entire city cheered out when the name was spoken and for a few minutes was the name Golden Cross chanted out through out the city. With a proud smile she kept up her speech, not willing to stop just because of her ears ringing.

"A new Knightly Order hath been founded today! Lord Grand Music, adopted grandson of Golden Cross, hath been the one to fund this endeavor! The Order of the Golden Cross! He shalt also join Our proud recruits in their training, and eventually try to become the first Grand Master of the Golden Cross Order!"

Another loud cheer echoed through the city and the face of Grand music almost twitched as he tried to not wince at the volume, Happy Meal cheering into his ear was not helping much either, but he would not trade this moment for anything. And then Celestia continued her speech.

"All who become part of the Golden Cross Order, shalt be given the duty to guide and protect the innocent within Our nation! We know We shalt be proud of their efforts as they become true Knights of the Golden Cross! They shalt aid and advise the armies, they shalt act as Our Sword and Shield in battle! Now! Recruits! Swear Thy Oath!"

As one the recruits knelt down before the Temple of Law, their weapons held by their forelegs so that they could rest their foreheads against them. Then, in a chorus of voices, the first recruits of the Order of the Golden Cross, started swearing their oath. An oath made in the memory of Golden Cross' arrival to Canterlot.

As the final part of the oath was sworn was a pair of large banners unfurled from the top of the two large towers, the symbol of Golden Cross' cutie mark upon a purple background. The sheer noise of the cheering people of Equestria, was like a shockwave through the land. Bearing upon their joyous voices, the name of their saviour and new Knightly Order. Golden Cross.

The following months would be harsh on all of the recruits, including Grand Music an Happy Meal, both of which had joined the order as recruits. Grand Feast was considerably nervous about her two foals joining an order of Knights, but she could not help but being proud of both of them. But from here on out it would be a long journey of physical training and education for the first generation of Golden Cross Knights to take form, to establish a decent foundation for the new Order. And even if she still felt nervous about the whole situation, did she know that her foals would make her, and their honourary grandfather proud.

As the ponies of Canterlot cheered, the recruits started to enter their new home to be given their new roles as members of the Golden Cross Order. as they moved past Celestia and the three nobles, Grand Music turned towards his mother and spoke to her.

"Mother. We. Wish. For. Our. Order's. First. Mission. After. Finishing. The. Training. To. Be. To. Travel. To. Grandpa. Cross'. Old. Home. The. Blackstone. Keep. It. Will. Let. Us. Investigate. Your. New. Lands. Too." Grand Feast looked with nervous eyes at the determined and focused eyes of her son, she tried to refrain tears from falling as she reached out and hugged him and just cuddled her little colt to her chest as the recruits entered the keep.

She did not verbally answer her son's request. But sometimes a mother does not need to speak out loud to tell her child that she is reluctantly letting you do as you wish even as she wishes for you to remain safe.

Maleficus woke up to the surface of the moon. He was not sure how long it had been since he laid down to sleep. But it had been a progressive time within his own mindscape with Luna to guide and aid him. But first thing first. He needed to start his newly designed training program he and Luna had developed.

The large stallion stood up from his position on the sand dune, stretching a little as he did so, before walking a bit further away from the Interface, he did not wish to damage it if he was too close to it.

Once a decent distance away, he sat down and closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He felt the magical energy as it flowed through his body. And slowly, with focus, he began to drain it away from his body. There was no immediate change. But soon it became clear that it was affecting him, as his boy began to press into the sand and he felt his entire body grow heavier.

Once he felt like his entire body was carrying a full body lead suit, he let go of the magic... which was a BAD thing to do. The result was immediate when he cut off his manipulation of the magic, it went into a flux before it stabilized by being expelled from his body at the sudden change in the flow. In short, he cut off all of his body's magical boost with that one move.

The result? A mega ton like face plant impact upon the sand, leaving a decent sized crater around his body as even on the moon, his body weighted too much without the magic supporting it or altering its weight that he was essentially sinking into the sand.

Maleficus gave out a soundless grunt and tried to pull himself up. It was hard to move, his entire body felt sluggish and he was already feeling cramps and burns through his entire body by just moving.

He pressed his forelegs into the moon sand and pushed himself upwards slowly, his forelegs were shaking and quivering but he managed to lift the front portion of his body upright. Then slowly he did the same with his hind legs. It was unbearably heavy and even as he tried to take a single step, the sheer weight o it made a small crater form beneath his hoof and he tripped forward, managing to shift to land on his side rather then his face, forming an even larger crater on the surface of the moon desert.

Slowly he struggled up once more, even a he felt his muscles burn and protest, he knew he had to do this to not let his body end up like a sack of useless flesh should something happen to his magic. And slowly, but surely, after about seven trips and falls, he began to slowly walk across the surface of the Moon, practically dragging his hooves through the sand to move forward, around the hill where the Interface was connected. He raised his wings and started to move them in various movements as he walked, adding to the strain on his body, while he tried to move as many muscles as he could.

His constant circling began to shape a moat or ditch around the hill, with the eight of his boy making larger then normal crates form beneath his hooves, and whenever he tripped. But those things were not something he was focusing on. Instead, he was trying to keep moving, while mentally distracting himself with some mental illusions, by essentially closing his eyes and visualizing a tv screen onto his own eyelids, he was in simple turns, exercising while watching subtitled movies and cartoons.

That was put to a stop when he tumbled on the first sharp edge of a small crater. Instead he ignited his horn with magic and summoned an Interface screen and had it float in front of him, letting him watch various sights on the planet bellow. Mostly he used it to have some pretty scenery to watch, as he was not willing to link his memories of cartoons onto the Interface. For one, it would take far too long, and second, he was not sure if the floating construct of solid light could even hold such amounts of memory after all he had been doing with it for the last year or so.

So he was content with just a scenery screen to not get overly dulled by the moon desert around him as he walked. After around six hours of constant walking, the strain on his body became too much and he felt his legs start to give away beneath him.

*Fucking dammit... this is going to take a loooooong time. I just know it!* He grumbled to himself as he slumped down on his knees when the strain on his muscles became too much. Once he collapsed his rib cage began to feel awfully tight and he focused his magic and enforced his body, The pain of his rib cage ceased but after that he stopped boosting his body, he needed to have a strain even as he slept, for his body to adapt to a lack of magical support even as he slept. It would probably not be as efficient as he wanted it to be, but... fuck it. He did not many other options.

As time went by, was a schedule was formed on the moon for the ascended former human. During his waking hours he would move around with less and less magic supporting his body's muscles and bones. Using a floating Interface screen to entertain himself as to not get over boarded by boredom as he exercised. He would sleep with the bare minimum of magical power as to let his body adapt to it as he slept. and as he slept, he was enjoying some off time by watching TV and playing video games with Luna.

The Moon Princess was a rather awkward player at first but soon he was not willing to play against her as she became less awkward and more brutal in her gaming. It was especially frustrating on Halo since she kept spawn killing him, well at least until he returned the favour and let her experiences it, in the end they both agreed to not play on opposite sides again.

No one enjoyed being spawn killed.

But he, nor Luna, noticed something strange going on as they kept doing their schedule. And it would take a good while for them to notice just what it was.

In the meantime, down on the surface of the planet in the nation of Equestria were the recruits of the Order of the Golden Cross working together to become great knights. They were given a special schedule to keep during their first year as recruits.

First they would be woken up and be given an two hour long, training pass of physical exercise in the courtyard of the temple. Then afterwards they would eat a good breakfast with a break time of thirty to sixty minutes. Then two hours of studying and learning from various subjects from basic reading and writing to basic military tactics. After that there would be the second physical exercise pass of the day, then lunch. Next would be an hour of Lunch followed by one hour of Resting. After that they were given a lot of free time to study, exercise and develop themselves on their own interests, or just being lazy.

The studying and exercising was rather rapid in its construction, but this let the recruits spend the morning training and studying until lunch before having essentially the rest of the time for doing self training, self studying or do something else. It allowed them to develop as individuals as well as knights.

It was a slow progress for many, it was an unusual and new way to teach, and yet its effectiveness was not to be doubted. The physical exercises with running laps, handling heavy weights and going through stretches to strengthen their spines, allowed many of the recruits to adapt their bodies, even the older recruit were able to adapt to it rather fast. It would take quite a while before they could move on their hind legs with such ease like Golden Cross had, but it was not an impossibility.

Out of the many recruits were the biggest hopefuls the two youngest, Grand Music and Happy Meal. While Grand Music was not as physically adapted as many of the other recruits, was he very smart and had already developed a decent start on developing his spine's muscles from what little training he and his sister had gone through with their honourary grandfather.

Happy Meal o the other hoof was a physically active and strong mare, her development as a warrir was without a doubt amazing, and with her wings allowing her to fly, she was the most agile and movable of all the recruits. She did find most of the education boring but with Grand Music there to help her out, she made at least an effort.

For the following year it would become a routine. They would exercise, eat breakfast, study, exercise, eat lunch, sleep and then have a free period for the rest of the day. Many of the recruits were on the edge of stopping, there was no shame in quitting, but the sight of a pair of foals working together to become stronger and smarter, gave the older recruits motivation to not give up. In the end, not a single pony dropped out of the first batch of recruits who sought to join the Order of the Golden Cross.

A month before the end of the study year, the holiday to honour Golden Cross, and the fallen ponies of the Rattenfänger Siege, was held. During all holidays, such as Heart's Warming Day, Canterlot's Founding, and so on, the Temple's students would be given free leave, to celebrate with family, friends or to just enjoy themselves.

While the Order progressed, so did the nation of Equestria. Farmers began to develop better farming techniques, using a periodic shift in what they planted to not let the ground grow stale. Yet another piece of knowledge found among the Chronicles of the Lawbringers. Smiths began to work on alloys rather then pure metal. Trying to develop the Sacred Bronze the Lawbringer's weapons and armour had been made of, something they apparently lost knowledge of when Discord ruled the lands.

Ballistaes, Catapults, Trebuchets and other siege engines were being fixed and made into stronger, larger, and sometimes smaller, versions. Celestia was focusing much of the industry of the ponies to develop their military forces. And for the most part the ponies agreed. The Rattenfänger invasion had made most of the ponies aware that a strong military was needed to keep their city and nation safe from not only bandits, but enemy forces as well.

With the rising of the military were many parts of Canterlot left to its own devices to develop on their own turns. This had some bad side effects however. With the disappearance of almost every thief and beggar within the city were there many empty nooks and alleyways for new uncouth figures to gather among the shadows.

But those went unnoticed by Celestia and her personal Advisers and Generals. For as the Eight Month reached its conclusion, the event many had been waiting for came. The graduation of the first Golden Cross Knights.

Meanwhile up on the moon. Maelicus Victoria, spent most of his time exercising and training. He was rebuilding his body strength from the ground up. He was not certain if he could handle the gravity of the Planet, it would have to be figured out on the next time he was sent there. So until later he would have to keep on exercising and developing his muscle strength and retrain himself in martial combat.

His stamina and strength increased many times over from the many months of constant exercise he was having. Though he wanted to, he never looked down to Canterlot, wishing to not let the images there influence him and make him act recklessly. He wanted so much to speak to Happy Meal, Grand Music and grand Feast, but he knew it would not be worth it.

Even if there had been possible once, was it not possible anymore for him to confess. He had built up a lie so big it would ruin them. No matter how much shame or guilt he felt, he did not wish to ruin them. When he had been a human, he had seen what things such revelations could cause. Good and bad. And it terrified him beyond reason to even consider telling them the truth to the ponies and their naive life views. And Luna, for all of her words about trust, honour and honesty, agreed with him. Telling the ponies the truth about Golden Cross would only cause harm as it was.

So he focused on his training, moving over the sand, jumping over the dunes, kicking the air, swinging weapons and sparring with unseen opponents. Never stopping until he collapsed in exhaustion and sleeping soundly, spending time with his mental roommate as to not go even more insane then he already had.

Grand Music was a bit bigger now, as was Happy Meal, both foals had turned twelve during the spring, they were already experiencing the growth spurts that would get them to adulthood. Grand Music was still very thin for his age, but he was no longer unhealthy. Happy Meal was a good five inches taller then Grand Music was proving to be growing into a very large mare from the amount of growth she was experiencing.

Both of them stood at the front of the two hundred and fifty recruits who were graduating, It was held in the shrine area of the Temple of Law, the Princess, the Generals and the Nobility would be granting them their Positions among the Order of the Golden Cross. Of course, there would be no Grand Master yet. For no pony had earned the title yet.

The Positions of the Order was spread out in accordance to their specialties and skills. There were those specialized in combat and military endeavors, the Crusaders. Another position was the Wardens, agents of Order and Law who would act as aids to town guards, judges and the common ponies through out the realm of Equestria. This order seemed much like the Lawbringers, but the Wardens were more like a force of detectives and lawyers.

Then there was the Heralds, those who excelled as military officers and strategic advisers. Following is the Peacekeepers, the stealthy agents of the Order who acted as its shadow to gather information from all the corners of the realm for the Order to use to keep the nation and its citizens safe. Another Position was the War Priests, the religious followers and preachers of the Gods, they acted not in accordance of Religion, but of the Moral Guidelines of the Gods. Their duty would thus be to protect holy sites, retrieve ancient relics, discourage others from misusing religion in any manner, they would hunt down those who would corrupt the world or its inhabitants and they would also act as medics and emergency healers for those who are ill or wounded.

And lastly was the Keepers, their duty was focused on maintaining the Order's funds, its equipment, its bases, its supplies, its defences and its own development projects. Their duty was supportive in nature, but Keepers are just as vital as any warrior, healer or priest. The Keepers would be those to teach the future generations of Knights their common educations and offer them the paths to learn crafts and lores they might find of use in the field. The other Positions of the orders are the branches and trunk of the Order, but the Keepers, were the roots.

There was also, one yet to be sanctioned Position, the Templars, the rank of those who were taught in the ways of two or more Positions. Once a Templar had earned his or her way into four or more positions they would earn the title of Grand Templar. Those who earn a rank among all the Positions in the Order, is granted the title of Enlightened.

The Ranks of the Order was as following. Recruit. Knight. High Knight. Master Knight. Grand Master. To earn the Rank of Grand Master, does not require you to be an Enlightened or even a Grand Templar. A Grand Master, though a Rank, is considered an unique Position on its own. And only those, who have earned it, with true leadership, honour, courage, decency and humility, shalt be given the chance to bear it.

It came as no surprise to either Grand Music or Happy meal that they were both given Positions as Heralds, for both of them, while Grand music was more mentally adapt and Happy Meal more physically so, were both of them very good at tactics, strategy and theoretical warfare. They attributed this to the short while they had watched and learned from Golden Cross, not to mention the book he had left them gave them many maps with details of tactical warfare, enemy movements and counter attacks and so on.

Out of the Two Hundred And Fifty recruits would there be. 65 Keepers. 50 Crusaders. 45 Wardens. 35 Heralds. 30 War Priests. 25 Peacekeepers. And after this graduation, would there be even more recruits who would join the Order for their own chance to become members of the Order.

Even as the trumpets played, the commoners cheered, and the wind was filled with the warmth of sun light, the two foals never stopped smiling. Even as the decorated golden sword of Celestia was lightly tapped on each of their shoulders, they did not stop smiling.

For they were now one step closer to their goal, to become just as good as the old knight they admired the most. And not even their mother crying and smothering them with kisses and hugs could make them stop smiling.

Upon the surface of the moon moved a certain alicorn stallion out of a wall of green and black fire. He rushed over a sand dune and somersaulted through the empty atmosphere of the moon's surface before landing face first into another sand dune.

With a brief struggle he pulled his head out of the sand and sat down. Once on his rump he spat out lumps of sand before blowing out sand and snot from his nostrils and then cleaned up his face before he got up on all four legs again and resumed his exercise. It was getting easier to move around and his body required less and less magic to support itself on the moons surface.

What had once taken him an entire day now took him only about half a day, which left him some time to craft and alter magic, with the, now acknowledged, aid of Princess Luna. He had begun to alter the spell he had used to create his flesh puppet copy. It had been a bit of an effort to alter the spell, even with Luna's aid, but he was making progress on making the Dead Flesh Replacement spell into a proper Flesh Golem.

So far had he only managed to make about fifty dead corpses, of around twenty had exploded and five that had been transmutated into pile of mud, a pile of sand,a wooden figure, a block of granite and for, some odd reason, a living goat, which had promptly died. But despite those setback, he was making progress.

Light would cascaded out over the sands whenever he initiated his magical experiments, and it would probably have been more impressive, had it not been completely dead silent.

A months after graduation, it is a new day and the winter season is reaching Equestria. With the pegasus working to establish a proper control over the weather around Canterlot to handle the harsh uncontrollable winters of before.

But even with the chilling morning mist and the bright sun streaking through the cloudy ground, were there muc cheer in the city as the gates were being opened. Out of the gates, upon a properly made wooden draw bridge, strode out lines of well equiped ponies, dressed in bronze armour with a golden cross upon their helmets. With the banner of their Order carried high by each group of specialized ponies.

At that moment was the ponies of the Order of the Golden Cross wandering out of the Gates of Canterlot with the people of the city cheering on their departure, for it was a grand and important quest on their shoulders. They were going on their first official mission as Knights of Equestria. As Grand Music had requested were they to investigate the former hold of the Lawbringers, Blackstone Keep, to possibly recover whatever fragments of knowledge and lore could be gathered from its ruins.

But their mission was more then that. On this journey they would aid the common ponies however they could as they passed by. This would test their character.

They would spread the word of the nation of Equestria to those not in the known. This would test their dedication.

They would protect the innocent and punish the wicked. This would test their honour and courage.

And finally, they would place out mile stones marking the direction and distance to Canterlot. This was not as much of a test as it was an important task the Princess found could be used as a test for when the ponies started building out the old worn out roads.

She had gotten the idea from the notes in Golden Cross' book, speaking of the old tales from his father about miles of roads with a stone marking every mile, with a common saying that Every Road Lead To This City. The name of the city had apparently been forgotten even by his father, but the concept of mile stones was intriguing so Celestia wanted to give it a try.

Grand Music and Happy Meal both struggled a bit as their mother hugged then and frantically asked them if they had everything with them. Even if they were almost as big as their mother they could, for some unknown reason, not struggle out of her grip when she became like this.

The long marching line of knights glittered in the morning mist and the bright sun. Looking like sparkling saints and heroes of legends as they wandered off on the road to the unknown regions to the East.

Even as the two young ponies had left for their fellow knights and disappeared beyond the sight of the city, was their mother still waving and crying. After it had settled down, would Princess Celestia move down to the square in her Pegasus disguise, and look up at the statue of Golden Cross, with a smile on her muzzle as she thought of how proud he would have been if he could see those two young ponies now.

Maleficus sneezed, and cursed as the spell he had been crafting became a messed up mass of green slime, which he quickly burnt into a black goop. Sighing soundlessly he stood up on his hind legs and spread apart his hooves and began to focus once more. starting yet another attempt at creating a proper flesh golem.

The Knights marched on the old road to the East. Each mile they placed a marker in the shape of a cube shaped stone, with the distance, in miles, to Canterlot marked on it. The first two weeks went without anything in sight except for woods and mountains. Their large numbers deteered most animals and beasts from approaching.

Their mood was good and their morale high, even if the journey was long were all of the Knights of the Golden Cross Order prepared for it with wagons of supplies and several of them knowledgable with what is edible upon the wilderness in case of emergency. The days were filled with the sound of marching hooves and idle talks. The nights were mostly quiet if not peaceful as they slept out their aching legs while some of them stood watch.

Then as the third week started, they reached their first obstacle. A large wooden wall, built upon a pass in the mountains, essentially blocking the path through the mountain. Their ranks pulled to a stop and the Heralds gathered to discuss their options. The decision was made to send in the more stealthy of the peacekeepers to investigate the strange wooden wall and its lack of a gate.

A group of ten moved through the foliage and the sky. With either flight, magic or silent hooves they moved up onto the wall and began to scout out the surroundings. What they found was surprising. Beyond the wooden wall was a large amount of boulders and rocks, a land slide had occurred here.

Given the state of the wall and the moss and plants growing on the walls, it had happened ages ago and just been walled off.

Once the Peacekeepers gave their report the ponies wondered what to do next. When Grand Music got an idea. "If. We. Cannot. Go. Over. The. Landslide. We. Will. Just. Have. To. Go. Through it. Let's. Dig. A. Tunnel."

The idea was given some debate but it was the best option given their situation. With magic and tools it took less then a week to dig through the land slide, with the unicorns essentially fusing the rocks together into a solid mass, to not let ti collapse the newly made tunnel.

Breaching past their first obstacle, with a twenty meter wide and ten meter tall tunnel to show for it, the Knights of the Order of the Golden Cross, marched on once more. The work they had done had been tedious and very straining, but it had been a decent effort for a group of less then three hundred strong ponies.

From there on out it was thick woods and more mountains. The old road was so overgrown the knights had to essentially rebuild the road as they wandered over it. After two weeks, marking the end of the first month since they left, of wandering through the forest, the Knights reached their next obstacle. This one, was much more difficult then a blocked mountain pass.

There in the distance, upon a hill by a rapidly moving stream, was a small village, barricaded with a simple wooden wall. Surrounded by two legged dogs wielding axes, spears, bows and torches, howling out at the village with wicked intent. Upon the walls of the village were what looked like ponies, or at least four legged creatures, wielding slings, spears and bows.

The dog creatures were separated from the village by the deep rapid stream moving by its side and the mountain side behind the village. Yet they seemed undeterred from their siege. The dogs numbered nearly five hundred strong from what the Peacekeepers could tell as the Knights once more gathered for a council.

It was uncertain if the dog creatures were there to eat the inhabitants, to rob them, for vengeance, or some other reason. But form what the Peacekeepers had been able to discover was there no sign of pony bodies being eaten by the dogs. Rather instead, they had found what looked like piles of gemstones, and wagons with cages and chains. And they had seen the dogs, EAT the gemstones.

This made Grand Music certain that these... Gem Dogs? Stone Dogs? ...Well the name could wait. Anyhow. Grand Music was certain that these dog creatures were not here to eat anyone, since apparently they ate gemstones rather then meat. Instead it was more then likely that they were here for one thing only, slaves. Just by the fact that they had empty cages and chains spelled out their intents to capture the villagers for some nefarious deed.

Grand Music looked upon the crude map of the area the Peacekeepers and the Keepers had managed to supply, when Happy Meal pointed out something on the map. "Hey! That there cliff side in them woods. It be above those dogs right?" The other Heralds looked at her and examined the map, got some confirmation from the scouts and told her yes.

"Well I think it be pretty clear then! We just break apart that there cliff on top of them dogs! Then we rush in and clean up!" The others considered the idea, it was simple, crude, but by the Sun if it was not the most clever plan they had thus far.

The Crusaders and the Keepers moved together to the cliff side by the dogs' camp. It was a thirty meter tall cliff side covered with tall pine and leaf trees. The Keepers discouraged all animals and birds quietly away from the cliff using some scent based potions and balms to make them move away. Then they and the Crusaders got into position a decent ten meters away from the edge of the cliff and ready to run should the entire thing start collapsing.

Then a burning arrow was sent into the camp, striking a dog in the head, causing him to catch fire, howling out in pain. That was the signal. As the rest of the dogs in the camp moved to discover what the commotion was, was the combined force of over fifty ponies working together, slammed into cliff.

Gravel the Big was the Alpha of the Pack. His kind was a race of two legged dogs who ate the shiny rocks in the ground for nourishment. They had no name for their own race, they only called themselves dogs. He had grown up a miner in the mountains, flailing claws into the dirt for months for even a scrap of food. He had hated it and had never wanted to do it ever again.

But how would you never have to dig for your own food? The answer came to him when one day he and his father visited a village filled with four legged creatures called ponies to sell inedible stone called coal to them. They were smaller, but could carry much and some of them were strong and some of them could use a mysterious power called magic. And thus he got the answer to his question.

The way to get food without work. Make someone else do the work for you. And thus he began to physically train himself, to one day challenge the Alpha of the pack. And after twenty years he succeeded in killing the alpha in one on one combat. The Alpha had been old and soft, too weak to guide the pack. Now Gravel was in charge and Gravel wanted food for less work, and thus he would need them ponies to work in the mines for him.

The Alpha's word is law. That is the basic fundamental rule of all dogs. Alpha decides everything for pack. And thus, Gravel had them make chains and cages, and tools for the ponies to use. He was of no mind that he could convince the ponies to dig up his food for him. He himself would never want to do so again, thus, the only option he saw was to force them to do so.

And so he and his pack laid siege to the village. His pack was big and strong. The ponies were lesser in number and smaller and weak. But Gravel made mistake and not know how to handle siege on a village with a wall and a powerful stream to protect it. But Gravel confident he can break the ponies' defences given time.

After two days of siege, he put down two challengers for Alpha position. He would enact plan to use trees to cross the stream, ponies had withdrawn their wooden rope pulled bridge before siege. Gravel make mistake to ask for surrender, no make that mistake again.

A loud scream in camp. One of Gravel's pack harmed. Gravel moved closer to sound. But then there was a strange terrifying sound, a familiar sound to any who work in mine and mountain like Gravel and Pack.

There was a loud resounding crack and all of the dogs looked up startled, as a landslide of boulders, trees, dirt, earth, pebbles and rocks crashed down into the middle of their camp. They had barely the time to scream as more then three hundred dogs were crushed beneath the force of the landsline as it struck them.

After five minutes of intense rumbling and shaking was the mountains calm once more. Then several claws popped out of the stone and dirt and several wounded and shaken dogs dug themselves out of the dirt. And then another sound was heard, a cry out from the road to the west. "CHARGE!" "FOR THE GODS!" "FOR PRINCESS CELESTIA!" "FOR THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN CROSS!" "FOR EQUESTRIA!"

Ponies, an army of ponies. Gravel, who had been able to avoid the landslide, pulled to his paws and drew his two axes and howled out to his pack to attack. Rushing forward gravel meet one of the smaller armoured ponies with his axes. A young mare from what he could smell. At first he though of his opponent as weak and stupid to charge a much bigger opponent. No reason to go after the stronger opponent when there are smaller and weaker oens around after all.

He raised both of his axes and howled out in glee as he slashed at the small pony's armoured side. Only for his shiny gemstone axes to shatter upon impacting the pony's metal armour. Those axes should have split apart that pony's armour like tinfoil, and yet they had shattered like fragile quartz.

Snarling in anger he prepared to leap forward and rip out her throat. But then the mare hefted her weapon and made and upward and then downward arching strike with its hefty axe head adding more power to the strike. The Sacred Bronze metal of the two handed great axe struck down upon his helmet and split it apart, before splitting his fur, then his hide, next the flesh, then through bone and finally into brain tissue.

With the force of the strike his entire skull split apart, and Gravel had barely the time to blink at his opponent as his skull was cracked open like a melon, spewing blood and brain fluids into the air. He stood there, his face twitching and his vocals making shuddering yips. The mare stared at him with wide eyes through it all- After a good two minutes his body went limp and his head dropped down, off the edge of the axe, and with a loud thud the aspiring slaver collapsed dead on the ground.

The pack was unable to put up a proper defence to the attackers. And with more then half of their numbers already dead, it was not soon until they all fled howling up into the mountains from the terrifying pony warriors.

The Order of the Golden Cross was victorious, with Happy Meal's strategy they managed to defeat their foes without losing a single life of their own ranks. Horns were sounded in triumph and the villagers cheered for their saviors. But while the cheering was going on, was Grand Music comforting his puking sister, who killed a large dog by splitting open his skull. He himself had killed a pair of dogs with his broad sword, but not as graphic as Happy Meal, who was obviously shaken by the bloody death she had caused.

Together the two supported one another. They would get through this together. But it was certain now that both of them found an even deeper respect for their adopted grandfather and his old words of wisdom. Truly he had been right, war and battle, was no place for children or the ignorant. And they were ever grateful for his words, though it had not registered too deeply so long ago when they first heard them, it still gave them the strength to handle what they had done.

They were no longer little foals.

The villagers would welcome the newcomers who had saved them and help the newly blooded warriors recover from the shock of taking their first lives. Just as well, winter had started and the snow was covering the path, the Order of the Golden Cross would spend the Winter in the village, which they found out was named Hefty Crack Town, apparently named after the deep crevice were the stream was flowing down from the mountain.

Maleficus stared upon his creation, an adult pony, with the biological functions of a living being, with no mind or soul to control its momentum. He had made a breakthrough in his attempts of creating the body, now, he would need to make it possible to control the flesh golem properly. He would have to make it possible for it to receive signals and move in accordance to those signals.

Luckily he did not need to alter his spell anymore on the golem itself, now it was just a matter of creating a proper control conduit spell to properly handle the golem's movements and actions.

Happy Meal smiled at her brother as they left the village of Hefty Crack Town, it had been three months since they made camp by the village. it had been an eventful couple of months. Both of them had worked hard with the other Knights to convey the intent of Equestria and the Golden Cross Order.

The villagers had not heard of Equestria and were apparently concerned about the concept of an Alicorn Princess controlling the Sun and Moon. They had explained to them that the rulers of these lands were a pair of self proclaimed barons. Both who a pair of pegasus stallions who had split the region in half from the mountains to the coast. There were no real and proper knowledge of the time before the age of Chaos, heck the villagers barely knew about the Age of Chaos.

The two Barons had split up the region along the central area of the coast, the known coast at least, and ruled form old keeps from the age before Chaos, each keep with a harbour town. The Barony of the Northern Regions, filled with mountains, fields, hills and wastelands. This region is rich in metals, grains and gemstones. And this was used to great effects by its self proclaimed ruler.
'
His name was North Wind, Baron North Wind, he was apparently a pegasus with a rather cold and self preserving attitude. He cared only for results and improvements of his realm. A one point had the majority of this area been a thick woodland, but the Baron had within just a few years, turned it into a prosperous farmland, even if harshly controlled.

Baron North Wind's banner was a blue background with a black cloud with shards of white ice beneath the cloud.

To the south laid the Barony of the Southern Regions, a land of woods, rivers, mountains and swamps. it was not as rich in metal and grains as the northern region. Instead it was rich in woods, clay and fabrics. The Baron of this region was quite the opposite of the northern ruler. Baron Summer Breeze was rash, opportunistic and quite a big waster. But he was just as greedy and self centered as his northern fellow, only far less cold and pragmatic in his personality.

His banner was in the shape of a yellow background, with a red upside down triangle on the upper portion of the banner, with a clear white cloud with raindrop shaped specks of fire beneath the cloud.

Neither of these Barons sounded much agreeable for the Order to make contact with. The villagers could not tell much else about them as most they knew was from outsiders who might have a coloured perspective of the two Barons.

They knew also that the Northern Region was a common home for the Gemstone Eating Dogs, although they were mostly friendly unless one of their less then friendly numbers gained control of a pack, like the pack they had defeated. Besides the dogs was there something of even greater importance the villagers knew of. The entire coastline was an area were dragons would come from across the sea to tear open the land to sate their massive hungers.

Dragons was something unknown to the Equestrians, and the fact that Golden Cross' personal notes mentioned dragons as beasts of incredible size, power, greed and intelligence, made them quite nervous. But apparently were dragon incursions so rare it could be decades between them.

From there the villagers could not tell them much else. They knew not of the towns or the villages beyond the mountains, and even then they had not seen or heard from them in months. It was not surprising for the former nomad Happy Meal that even close neighbors could be ignorant of each other. While the rest of the Knights who were not experienced like Happy Meal or some of the older knights, were rather baffled by this.

But while the villagers could not tell them anything else of importance about the region or its inhabitants, they knew a few more things, even if only a hoofful of them even remembered it, was it very good to know. Since apparently, a few of the elders of the village and heard about the Lawbringers and their ancient fortress Blackstone Keep. Apparently had they heard about both the Lawbringers and Blackstone Keep from old tales, rumours of wanderers and in the songs of minstrels. This surprised both Grand Music and Happy Meal, pleasantly of course, since Golden Cross had apparently been certain no one remembered his Order.

Apparently had there been whispers and rumours about an order of knights wandering the roads to keep the peace and fight the wicked. Apparently it had been a common sight a long time ago, but then all of a suddenly, they all went up to their fortress and then disappeared. This happened way before most of the villagers were even born. They knew about the Blackstone Keep, the ancient fortress of the order, though they did not know the name, but there could be no other place ,considering the name. There was once a large black stone fortress on a mountainside on the eastern edge of the Foal Mountains, which as apparently the name of this mountain range. It had laid on a mountain peak, just west of the large hills and fields separating the mountains from the coastline in the east. The old keep had been left alone for decades, no one dared approach it, and just as well since a falling star had destroyed the fortress around one or two years ago.

It was hard to get a proper timescale when all your news came from travelers, merchants and the occasional rangers.

The villagers were more then happy to tell them the path to the ruins of Blackstone Keep. and once they were told of the values and moral standings of the Golden Cross Order. And when they were told about Golden Cross, the last of the Lawbringers, the stallion who inspired the creation of this new Order, which was named after him, they felt awed and honoured to have been told such a tale from those who had witnessed this event.

And with the positive explanation of Celestia's manners, not to mention the Princess' kind personality, they were more then willing to become part of the nation of Equestria. Especially if it meant aid such as protection and supplies when they were experiencing harsh times. Some of the older generation had been a bit grumpy about it, but they saw it as the lesser of three evils considering how the two barons were feuding across the lands rather harshly.

"What are you smiling about Happy Meal?" Grand Music asked as the two of them marched over the drawbridge and into the mountainous woodlands. The keepers had managed to improve the voice device on his throat so his sentences were no longer broken up into single words.

"Just glad grandpa's old home was not entirely gone ya know. Plus. I be sure mama is going ta love ya new voice, it sounds real cool!" The unicorn blushed a little a rubbed his neck awkwardly before coughing and focused on marching, with the mare next to him giggling at his shyness.

As the Order of the Golden Cross marched down the old road the Keepers pulled on ten large wagons, each of which was covered by a cloth of oil soaked linen. Rain would be falling now that the winter was over and spring was making its way across the land. What lay beneath the linen was something the Order's Keepers had been working on, along with some aid from the other Positions, during the winter to prepare for the possibilities of hostility from the two Barons.

The Order Marched for two more months before they came out of the Foal Mountains. Through this jorueny they connected with several other villages and minor clans of nomads through out the woodlands and mountains of the Foal Mountains. Not all were receptive or friendly, but the majority were willing to listen and even join the growing nation of Equestria.

Now they had come upon a vast open region of woodlands and fields. It was so open tat you could almost make out the ocean from where you stood by the mountain side. And up ahead of the road, was the two regions of North and South almost split in the middle. And in this center between these two regions, was a large blackened field, which held a foul air.

And on either side of this black mark of soil was a pair of large war camps, one within the woodlands to the south and one on the field to the north. Both of the war camps were flying the banners of their respective Barons and the land between the two war camps was littered with corpses and carrion eating birds and animals.

It was like a punch to the nostrils. The intense stench of decay and death was like nothing the knights had ever experience before. A few of them ended up puking. Not that anyone blamed them for it.

With one look at the situation between the two barons, all of the rumours could be considered truth, at least the hostility between the two. The Knights of the Golden Cross Order gathered for a meeting, and a decision was made. Neither of the two self proclaimed Barons would be considered allies until further information was gathered.

The army of knights marched north towards the location of Blackstone Keep, evading the battlefield and its two war camps entirely. Even as scouts on both sides reported the sighting of the vast force of armoured ponies mwarching northwards, neither of the armies of the Barons knew what to expect from these strangers.

And by the time word reached the two Barons, would things start to change, rapidly, for the regions.

A bright flare filled the land of the Moon for a few seconds as a fresh Flesh Golem was created by Maleficus' magic. He had proceeded the magical array for creating, sending and receiving commands for the Golem. It had gotten a bit easier once he managed to properly make it so that Flesh Golem was not just an inert magicless breathing puppet of meat. He gave it a magical core, well, more like an organ that processed and circulate the magic within its body like a unicorn horn did.

Now he just needed to test giving it orders.

"..."

And that's when he realized something of an issue. There was no air to transfer commands verbally on the Moon. He would have to find an alternative way to send the orders to the Golem, without sound.

He facehoofed, hard, at his blunder.

Another month of travel up the northern road lead the Order to the mountain they had been notified of. And indeed, it had once been a proud peak, but now it was a large mountain with a big crater taking off half of its height.

Marching up to the large crater the ponies of Equestria began their work to scavenge whatever scraps they could find. and they found a surprisingly big amount of remnants. There were pieces of ruined stonework, melted down nuggets of metal of what had once been various types of items or weapons. While it was mostly scraps, there was one major thing they discovered that made it their goal to establish a base her.

A basement. Within the bottom area of the crater there was a collapsed tunnel leading directly down into the core of the mountain. Digging it out took less then a day. and what they found, was astonishing. It was not a dungeon, it was not a treasure vault, it was not a storage room, or even an escape tunnel. It was a temple. A temple to the Gods.

Beneath the roots of the mountain, within a vast cavern with a crystal clear lake of water, there was a ceiling of glittering gemstones making it appear like stars and planets when a light was lit within the cavern. And upon a square shaped platform, levitating above the lake, connected by a levitating bridge made out of pure crystal, stood a massive structure. A spiraling cone stretching up towards the ceiling, though it was mistaken as a temple at first, was there no more doubts of its purpose once they found the engraved gates of the building. It was a hidden underground, and flying, temple, the size of a castle.

Reaching the temple ha taken no effort. But entering was another question, a pair of golden alicorn statues, one a mare and one a stallion, stood vigil before the large gates to the temple. Upon approaching the gates, both of the statues would speak up to those who sought to enter.

None had found an answer to the riddle yet. But the Knights were not willing to give up and began to carve out the crater in the mountain to form a circular shaped wall, to form a large castle out of the mountain's own destroyed peak. The stone they carved out of the melted down craved was shaped into proper blocks, and foundation was made and slowly, the base of the new Blackstone Keep began to grow.

For a month they laboured, building two stories of stone and carving out large circular shaped walls with towers and turrets on the mountain side. Morale was still high, but the tension was growing as the ponies felt hope start to fade as the tempel remained unopened.

Then one morning it came to them. The Knights were going through their collective notes on what the riddle might mean, none of the suggestions had been voiced yet since no one was willing to make a wild guess just in case the statues would attack those who answered wrong. When a young Peacekeeper came to report.

"Heralds! News from the south! The forces of the Barons hath clashed once more. But this time the Northern forces hath split off from their little war and is heading northwards, possibly towards Our position."

The Heralds muttered and spoke to one another, trying to figure out the best way to approach this, when Happy Meal leaped up with a grin and shouted out, startling everybody in the tent. "That be it! I know that be the answer!"

As one the Heralds in the command tent looked at her in confusion and before any of them could stop her she marched off towards the tunnel. There was a short silence before all of the knights rushed after her, Grand Music at the front of the group, shouting out to his sister to not act rashly.

With rapid steps and flight the knights ran down the tunnel and barely managed to avoid falling down together. They ran out into the cavern, startling the guards and workers setting up camp there, and ran over the bridge after the cheering mare.

"I got yet answer!" Happy Meal proclaimed with a wide grin to the two statues, who seemed to give her a confused look at her bright and happy mood, before responding in their monotone voices.

With a loud shout Happy Meal interrupted the two guardians. "No need fer all that fancy talking just tell me ye riddle already so I can solve it!"

It was quite a sight to see two statues staring with a mixture of baffled and upset looks on their faces. They then looked at each other and decided to just do as the mare wanted.

"War. That be war yer talking about yeah? Grandpa Cross' book mentioned some philosophy talk about war being da tool of countries." Happy Meal said with a grin. And all of the Heralds blinked as they slowly realized, just how right she was.

The large golden gates split open and the knights entered the temple called Sanctum for the first time. It was a massive interior built with the intention of worshiping the gods, but it also held several other things. A large library, though many books remained altered by the Age of Chaos was there much to discover. There was a smithy, some workshops, storage with crystals and a warehouse filled with weapons and armour made out of the Sacred Bronze of the Lawbringers.

A loud cheer echoed through out the caverns as the Order of the Golden Cross, had accomplished their mission. Once the base was established, the majority of them could start their journey home.

Up on the Moon was Maleficus still working on his prototype Flesh Golem, thus far he had managed to make it, walk, stop, jump, lay down and poop, that last one had been a mistake but it was still a mark in progress.

Down on the planet, were things starting to turn from better to worse. As the Peacekeeper had reported was the forces of Baron North Wind marching towards their location. But it was not just a force, it was his entire army. Apparently was the pegasus not willing to share power with others, especially those who established military outposts within his own borders.

And not only that, Baron Summer Breeze was chasing after Baron North Wind, possibly thinking that he was having the other Baron on the run. Thus was making it so that two full scale armies were marching towards the new Blackstone Keep. The news had made morale plummet, even if they were two hundred and fifty strong knights were the forces of battle hardened soldiers numbering in the thousands, not something they could handle.

But that was not what Grand Music was thinking.

"I do not think we need to consider fleeing. We have everything we need to win right here, on this mountain." When he said those words during the war meeting, had no one even dared to breath. While many of them were skeptic, had Grand music and Happy Meal both provided on numerous occasions the Order with ideas and tactics that worked far beyond what you'd consider possible.

"So what's yer plan Music?" Happy Meal asked with a grin as she sharpened the edge of her new poleaxe, she had claimed a weapon just like the one held by Golden Cross, it just felt right to her. While Grand Music was still using a heavy greatsword.

"We have the advantage of having ten meters thick solid stone walls. And the ten surprises we have constructed duringthe winter will be most favourable against their forces. But more then that. With the approaching rain we got words of from the pegasus Peacekeepers, we have the biggest advantage. The terrain around Blackstone Keep will become either a muddy killing field or a massive mud based landslide. While we will be standing on solid stone with proper drainage to not let us get washed away." He marked down the six towers of the keep, each a big and strong structure, in truth ws the keep built for at least a thousand strong to properly manage it. But they had been building for the future.

"We place six of our surprises here. On each of the towers. And put the remaining four on the roof of the now finished keep. The keep's rooftop reaches above the wall so we will have a clear view unless the rain blocks too much of our vision." He then marked down the walls by the large gates of the keep, facing towards the now wood free mountain side leading down to the road.

"The castle walls will give us leverage and range advantages over our opponents. Though they are mostly pegasi will they not be able to properly fly in such weather. Thus can half of our troops on the walls focus on handling the soldiers on the ground." He then marked down the gate house of the keep and tapped on the path leading up to the keep.

"We will not need to directly face them. But it is best to be prepared should they managed to reach past the walls and attempt to open the gates or attack us from within. Thus I suggest we place the majority of our close range crusaders by the gates to act in case someone slips past the walls somehow." Everyone looked at the battle plan, it was efficient, it used the terrain, the coming rain and their higher vantage points to their full potential. Now they would just have to properly act upon it.

"Well We art not sure if this be the right course Lord Grand Music... Morale be low right now. We shouldst find a way to encourage Our comerades." One of the older heralds stated, rubbing her chin in concern as she looked out at the less then cheerful crowd training out in the courtyard.

"I will handle morale. Just tell them to gather at the courtyard in five hours and I will try to raise morale." Grand Music said with a determined look on his face. Even if they held the advantage, the morale was too low for the troops to be efficient. He needed to raise morale, the question was only how. At the moment he just know he had to do something, but what he could do was uncertain.

He then looked at the metal of his helmet, a metal horn shape on the forehead to cover his own horn, to act as protection in combat and still allow him to cast magic. It reminded him of the time he had worn Golden Cross helmet. And it also reminded him, of when Golden Cross had given him his named.

Golden Cross just chuckled and swallowed his mouthful of food before speaking to Grand Feast who was trying, and failing, to make the two foals eat less savagely. "You know. We should give him a name, he has yet to write anything down so I do not know if he knows how to read. But it is probably for the best that he has a proper name."

Grand feast, currently trying to shield herself with a towel while at the same time trying to calm down the two foals, looked at him in surprise before nodding. "Aye. We thought so as well. We art not certain what manner of name though. We hath never heard of somepony being named by anypony except the parents."

The foal almost seemed to flinch at the word 'parents' but nobody except for Golden Cross seemed to have taken notice, the old earth pony pondered a bit while stroking his chin. "Well. There is always a first time for something." He then turned towards the colt who was looking up in confusion, his entire muzzle covered in blueberries and pie crust. "So kid, how would you like a name?"

The child looked concerned and a bit worried for a moment before his eyes narrowed and he nodded purposely to the old earth pony who smiled at his fierce expression. "That is a good face to have lad, and I am not sure if it fits you. But let us get back to the subject at hoof. I figured, if anything, it will be ironic and amusing to name you after something that is both grand and musical, for even if you are mute, will music always be something that you can create and play. It is a magic in itself you know. So how about it? Would Grand Music be a name for you?" The foal looked into the eyes of Golden Cross, a twinkle seemed to shine in the old pony's eyes and then the foal's fierce expression seemed to turn slightly tear but he quickly wiped his eyes and just nodded.

"Grand Music it is then, now try not to eat too much or you will get sick and throw up. And then you will not be able to eat properly for a while."

Putting on his helmet Grand Music looked past his great sword strapped on his back and then notice something as he walked out of the tent. There was a soft humming coming from his blade as it tapped against his chair. and it got him thinking. And idea sprung to mind.

He walked over to the keepers by the courtyard and whispered softly to them if they had any decent musicians in the Order. There were a surprisingly large amount of musically adept ponies in the Order. So Grand Music had the keepers makes some instruments, anything they could in a short time.

Five hours goes by and Grand Music takes deep breathes as he stands behind a wooden stage prepared by the Keepers for his speech. He hoped his plan worked out, or he would be more then making a fool out of himself. As the knights gathered he let out a long slow breathe and tried to relax, before he put his game face on and slowly strode up onto the stage, helmet strapped to his side.

He walked up to the front and looked out with intense eyes upon the crowd, seeing Happy Meal waving at him in the distance with a cheerful smile on his face, and he felt a lot calmer then before. Grand Music then made a signal with his right hoof, and the musicians by the stage, started playing the song he had been writing, rather hastily, for four hours. He just hoped it worked out.

As the music started to build up he stood up on his hind legs and pointed out his right forleg at the crowd of knights and began to speak, loudly.

"Now listen to me! My name is Grand Music. I once had a different name. But when I was thrown to the gutter I left that name behind me! Instead a kind soul took me to those I now call family, he gave me my new name! He took this worthless mute little foal in the street and saved him!"

The knights in front of him were no longer nervous or skittish, they were focusing all of their attention on him. Even as he spoke out his darkest hour he did not let it deter him, for he was not ashamed of his past. Instead he kept talking, as the music carried out across the courtyard.

"For no cost! For no reward! For no expectation of gratitude!"

He walked back and forth, not looking away from the crowd, he just kept looking straight at them. This was it, the moment of truth, he had started it and he was not slowing down!

"He saved that which was considered worthless by others! And here I am today! All thanks to him! That pony was the closest I had to a grand father!"

Realization started to appear in the crowd's eyes as he spoke about his saviour, the pony whom he considered brighter then even the Princess. And he felt no shame for thinking such ways either.

"And you all know him! There is no one in Canterlot or the borders of Equestria who does not know his name! His name was Golden Cross!"

There was no sudden gasp from the crowd, only a dawning realization, and a deep intense emotion running through their bodies. And a burning heat started to fill their hearts as the music resounded with their spirit. As Grand Music, pointed out at them all, his sword now held with blade down in the stage, looking like an knight of legend.

"And I stand here today, as a founding member of the Order named after him! As a member of the Order YOU are part of as well! An order made in his honour! And I want all of you to know this! No matter what come! No matter what be! We Are Knights of the Golden Cross! And We Are Just Starting!"

Backs, once slack and hunched, grew straight and strong. A sense of pride filled them, yet a pride tempered with the knowledge that they were not within the reach of such a great pony, not yet. But they could be.

"Let the ignorant insult us! Let the corrupted attempt to hinder us! Let the greedy attempt to sway us! Let the wicked attempt to slay us!"

Determination started to fill their eyes, their heads were held high. and even as Grand Music's voice carried through them. The thundering music flowed through their souls like a volatile fuel put on a bonfire.

"For We fight not for Ourselves! We do not act for Ourselves!"

Once more, the truth. They fought not for themselves. It was something that had been drilled into them during basic training. A knight was not a humble servant, nor was he a pious lord, nor was he a mindless warrior. A Knight of the Golden Cross was someone who fought for the order, stability and safety of others.

"A knight's worth is only as strong as his heart! And We all know what such strength can do!"

Yet another truth. The tales. The sights of the still remaining scars on the city walls was all the proof needed to know it. There was no limit to the strength of one's heart. And a knight's heart was not just his, or her, own. It was the strength of many.

"I say let them come! Let them break upon our walls! We stand not by Ourselves! We stand with our friends! Our family! Our brothers! Our sisters! Our Princess! Our nation! So I ask of you! To face the approaching storm! And show the world! Who We Are!"

As one, the knights in the courtyard stood up, drew their weapons and held them in front of their muzzles, and shouted out together. Even as Grand Music's own voices rang through their ears, their hearts beating with intense, warmth and comfort in knowing, no matter the end. They were knights, and they would not fail in their duty.

"Aye!"

Taking a deep breath Grand Music pointed out his sword at the crowd, and the music grew more intense, and he shouted out to them. "And who are we!?"

The knights raised their weapons into the air, and shouted out together, their voices shaking the very air itself.

"Knights of the Golden Cross!"

[End Theme Music]

the music grew to an end, and a long silence resounded through out the courtyard. And then there was cheer and the once dull and hopeless morale of the Blackstone Keep, was strong and bright once more.

Swiping off the sweat on his forehead, Grand Music looked out over the cheering knights with a smile before looking up at the bright afternoon sun. "Music... is a magic in itself... Is this what you meant Grandpa?"

"Music! You got ye cutie mark! That be so awesome!" Came a loud cheerful voice from his side and he barely had time to react when a most energetic Happy Meal tackled him in a hug that sent him tumbling off the stage, making the knights break into frenzied laughter.

As Grand Music laid there being hugged by Happy Meal, he realized just what she had said and looked at his flank. And saw there a grand stage, with a golden sword inserted into its center, with a violin and a flute crossed behind the stage. And he smiled brightly in joy at the sight. *Thank you grandpa Cross.*

On the surface of the Moon, within the mindscape of Maleficus weres both Luna and Maleficus watching the ending scene of the first Pokemon Movie, the death and resurrection of Ash was the most touching of the scenes, making both of them a bit teary eyed. Then they decided to watch another kind of movie, and Luna made the suggestion to watch a cartoon she had seen written among the many titles he had within his memory.

"How about we watch the cartoon movie called... err let's see... Karl Bertil Jonsson's Julafton... does it mean that Christmas thing your species enjo-" A loud crack resounded through out the mindscape, interrupting her words. And fractures took shape across the room and the very space itself.

Luna stared as thick cracks had taken shape in the walls and items within the mindscape. Spreading like spiderwebs across the room. She rose up from her seat and grabbed Maleficus, who was staring blankly at the TV screen, and shouted into his face. "Maleficus! Are you okay!?"

Maleficus just gave Luna a calm smile, even as the bordeline fissures in the space of his Mindscape began to seal shut. "Do not worry Luna. Everything is fine."

The Alicorn princess looked at him with worry and felt that things were far beyond fine as it were. She needed to figure something out and fast.

Down on the planet. The siege of Blackstone Keep was soon to happen. Even before the sun had settled had the army of North Wind gathered by the base of the mountain. But with him came the rain clouds and the soft tinkling rain. Which would soon turn into a full blown storm.

The knights were more then ready, and it was clear of the Baron's intent as he sent no messengers to parley. He intended on taking them all down, one way or another. And with the approaching forces of Summer Breeze coming from the south, there was no time to waste, yet North Wind was a careful planner and he wanted his troops to not be unprepared for the coming siege.

And thus as the sun settled and the night was filled with lightning and the light of torches and lanterns. The Baron sounded his war horns to assault the Blackstone Keep in the night.

It ended with disaster. The Baron had known his forces would not be able to fly properly with the storm and the rain. Thus he had planned for a massive ground assault upon the keep. He had considered the location stable enough to attack without risking a mudslide.

But he had made a miscalculation. That the ponies had not prepared an artificial mudslide of their own. It had occurred to the Heralds that the best way to make the mudslide happen, was to make it so that it would happen. And thus they built wooden fences on several points on the mountain side and piled up tons of sand and mud into them.

Then as the army of North Wind charged up the mountain in a frenzied charge, the Knights of the Golden Cross activated their trap. There were magical rune stones which exploded in powerful bursts of kinetic energy buried at the bottom the now mud and water filled fenced areas in the mountain side.

So when they detonated, they not only released the mud in the fences, but caused several more tons of rock and mud to slide down with it. The brown wave of rock and mud buried the entire army in moments, even flooding down over the war camp by the base of the mountain, burying the unsuspecting Baron and his closest commanders alive beneath the wave before they had a time to react.

The instant victory had been a surprise and the Knights had originally not known what to do. But then their options were picked for them when a new war horn was sounded and an army of ponies charged over the now settling mud and up towards the mountain side. Summer Breeze ha sneaked up on the war camp of North Wind.

He had intended to take out his other opponent first with a strike force from his main army a bigger distance away. Bu the sudden defeat of his rival by the strangers had made him very irritated. He had wanted to take down the other Baron on his own, and not use a proxy victory to achieve his goals. The name Summer Breeze was to become the foundation for the region and all of the surrounding lands. And no upstart sparkling pretty knights with dumb luck were going to upstage him!

And so he had sent out his main force to charge the now defenceless fortress. The invaders would not be able to handle his far superior forces. Of this he was certain.

With a gleeful smile on his muzzle the self proclaimed Baron watched with a spyglass from a comfy chair how the siege ladders were put to use to scale the tall walls. So kind of North Wind to leave them unattended.

But then things went from good to concerning. As a loud twang was heard from the keep and then a bolt of solid wood struck one of the rank of ground troops, tearing them apart by the sheer kinetic force of a wooden bolt enchanted to split apart into shrapnel, hitting their ranks. Staring up with his spyglass Summer Breeeze snarled as he saw the source of the projectile. Upon one of the towers stood a large crossbow like construction.

It was a newly made prototype, one of four. It was a Heavy Ballistae, twice as large as the common Ballistae and with more special ammunition. But that was only four out of ten siege engines made by the Keepers during the winter. The other six were something else.

A brave group of the baron's pegasus soldiers flew up along the side of one of the towers to take out the siege engine, when a lout repeating sprat like sound was heard from the central keep. The force of twenty pegasus were torn to shreds by a swarm of wooden shafts piercing their leather armour covered forms.

The source of this shower of bolts was a newly made weapon called the Hornet's Nest. A rectangular shaped box filled with cylinder shaped chambers, about forty or so, resting on a mobile tripod platform. Each of its cylindrical chambers was filled with a single pure wooden bolt. The gunner just needed to aim the weapon in a direction, and with a burst of magic, the runes within each of the box's chambers would launch the projectiles like a single massive buckshot, at the speed of a common bow shot. It took a while to reload and the enchantments were not easy to maintain ,but it was efficient as a prototype.

Snarling in fury Summer Breeze ordered for his beast tamers to bring forth the war beasts and break down the door. The only reason North Wind had not been defeated by these beasts was because he had known how to handle them. Now these strangers would most likely not know how to handle twenty manticores.

With the crack of whips and the shouts of orders were two groups of ten manticores sent towards the gate. Their wings had been clipped to prevent them from flying away, thus leaving them far more developed for ground combat.

The twenty beasts charged in two waves, ten at a time. But then, on the two towers on each side of the gate house, was a loud kaclunk heard before a bright flash of lightnign struck the sky, blinding most ponies. Then pair of loud resounding bangs erupted from both towers.

Out of the wooden frame of what looked like a mixture between a magical wand and a cannon, was a single bolt of magical energy fired from the clear blue crystal tip of the wooden siege weapon. The bolt struck the approaching manticores and the powerful lightning fried their large muscular bodies to ash in an instance.

They were called Energy Rods. They were used by slowly gathering natural energies, like heat, cold or electricity to charge its crystal tip for a solid energy attack. The problem was that currently it took hours to reload, unless of course you had a source of instant energy available, like a lightning cracking storm for example.

Summer Breeze was at this moment frothing in utter rage and was about to scream out more orders. When suddenly a loud whistling sound was heard. Curious he looked up, only to stare in shock as a bolt shot from one of the Heavy Ballistaes, expanded into the size of a forty meter tall and three meter wide tree trunk, enchanted with the shrapnel runes. The Baron had only time to curse his luck ,before the massive projectile struck the center of his camp, before detonating into a storm of wooden shrapnel.

And even with the few soldiers bearing metal protecting him. Were the metal no match for the solid force of shrapnel the size of branches flying at the speed of sound. The attack broke the morale of the enemy forces and they fled into the woodlands, leaving some perplexed but happy Knights in their fortress.

While they had been certain of victory, for their siege engines to handle their enemy forces so well was astonishing. But perhaps the fact that most of the soldiers in both of the Baronies had little more then cloth and leather armour made things a bit more in their favour?

The Order of the Golden Cross had essentially killed both of the Barons of the south and north of the region, within one and the same night, without losing a single life. It was... astonishingly humbling for them to realize just how much of a different proper equipment and training could do for you in a fight like this.

For a year the Order remained in the mountain and the Blackstone Keep. There they established a proper source of supplies, information and materials from the regions. With the barons dead there was now a lot of self ruling towns and villages no longer swearing fealty to anyone.

The Knights of the Golden Cross had to march out of their keep at several occasions to put an end to depravity and outlaws for a long time until it started quieting down. From there they started establishing connections and trade with the locals. While the knights sought no rewards were they more then willing to offer profitable services to others, but they never established contracts or mercenary works, they were no thugs for hire, nor were they free agents. They were Knights of Equestria and their loyalty was absolute.

An idea was put forth after the Battle for Blackstone Keep. Each newly graduated Knight would travel to Blackstone Keep and stay there for a year for training and practical experiences. Communication with Canterlot was slow but it took less time to travel back now that most of the road had been cleaned up.

Of the two hundred and fifty who arrive,d would one hundred and fifty return. Leaving one hundred knights of various positions to handle the Blackstone Keep until its was properly filled up with new knights. And among those returning home to Canterlot was Grand Music and Happy Meal, now both sixteen years old.

On the moon were things not going well Maleficus was exercising and experimenting and trying to distract himself with his vast memory of TV entertainment. But recently had Luna started noticing his mind fracturing, even when he was not actively inside the mindscape. The frequency and intensity was growing and she was growing steadily worried for the alicorn stallion.

It kept going for months, possibly years. He tried to dissuade her, telling her it was nothing, and just kept going, closing up his emotions and thoughts and ignoring them. Which ended up, as it always did, in a total break down. One day, even as he calmly jogged over the sand, Maleficus' mind just could no longer handle the strain and without warning his eyes rolled up and he essentially, collapsed out cold on the sand of the Moon, while his mind went into total break down.

A loud crack erupted through the mindscape. Luna, who had been sitting and reading a comic book, looked up and stared in shock as the walls around her started to break apart. Spiderweb like cracks and fissures spread over the floors, the walls, the ceilings and the objects within the mindscape. She jumped off the sofa she had been lying on and stared in shock as it collapsed into dust sized fragments which began to pour into the cracks.

Flapping her wings she broke out of the fracturing room she had been in. The fractured wall split apart like glass and revealed a massive shifting and twisting mass that had once been a vast black void. Closing her eyes as a blizzard of ice and fire erupted in front of her she flew through it and screamed out into the vast area as one of the shifting masses turned into a twisted face with five eyeballs, three ears, two noses and one tooth. "Maleficus! Where art you!?"

Her cry echoed through the vast space of twisted chaos and she was forced to evade a swarm of flying scarabs with octopus heads with burning kabuto beetle horns. The swarm pestered her, trying to grab, bite or molest her shape before they all exploded into black ichor as a misshapen metal figure with two legs and two arms wielding a burning salmon with the head of a frog as a weapon to swat the swarm.

Then a massive crack formed amid the chaos and a massive black hand like appendage reached out of the void, with a large white masked face grinning at her from the split space in the mindscape. Gritting her teeth she fired off a lance of pure energy and it struck the hand and it deteriorated into a swarm of flying rats with the wings of butterflies and the tails of snakes.

Furiosuly frustrated she tried to think and figure out just how to reach Maleficus. Even if he had broken down mentally, should his mental avatar still be possible to find. She just had to figure out where to find him. That's when she noticed something. All over the space of utter chaos was a single black untouched space, a black void amid the unsettling insanity sticking the mindscape.

Her shape split through the blackened mass that made up the darkness and reached a vast dark space of nothing, yet she could see, just beyond the edge of the darkness, the writhing chaos and insanity twisting across the rest of the mindscape. Turning towards the deeper area of the void she flew forward, and as she did, she began to hear it. The frantic mumbling, slurred languages, twisted ramblings and broken words of the mindscape's owner.

"Jag... I _w^ant... _mam^ma- ^yes! _Min.. _m^y- m^ys_el^f.. ^m_a^m_ma... _fat^he-.. _pap^pa..."

The voice grew louder as she flew further and further into the darkness. The shifting chaos outside almost seemed like preferable, in the void there was only the sound of the broken voice of a young stallion, echoing across it like the mourning ramblings of a tortured spirit. Luna was not sure if she preferred the round and endless chaos to this silent, mentally pressuring, darkness with the rambling voice within.

"_Jag ^vill... _I ^want_... _h^{ur s}k_a,,, ho_w d-.. _V^a_r^f_ör!? ^Ha_h^aeh_eh^ee... ^Green S_tar! ^Wro_ng... a_llt... f^el.... s^{o m}an_y.^.. så _många^... de^ad._.."

"^Vi... _bo^rde... s^ho_uld _w^e _make... ^Broth^er!_... Th_e.^.. B^ro_r..^.. v_i... s^ist_er.^{. I w}a_nt_.... ^jag_... ^vi_.... ^Lord _o^{f T}e_rro^r_!"

She saw something in the distance. The voice was growing louder as she approached the shape there beyond the edge of her vision in the darkness.

"_Frien^ds... _we.^{... ja}g._{.. v}i_{ll n}i.^{.. ha}r ^v_i... pl^a_y ^some _gam^es... ^wo^rk._.. _för^äldr_ar^.._. g^ra_v._.. ^dead._{.. a}loⁿe..."

The Princess of the Moon suddenly found herself landing on solid ground, even though she could not see any kind of solid surface, nor had she even been attempting to land, it was like she had gone from flying to running in less then an instance. but she shrugged it off and ran towards the limp shape lying there in the darkness, rambling to himself.

"^Arb_eta m_i^{g u}t _i... _ge^t _{a li}f^e... L_aur^a! P_on^y da_m... b_ea^u_... p_r^e_tt^y._.. _dri^nk _up ^me _pi^rat_es y_oh^o! ^Se_xy t_i^me._.. ^I w_an^t.^.. j_ag ^vi_ll h^eh_eh^eh_ehe^ee!"

The voice grew more frantic and insane as time passed by. Luna knew she had to reach him quickly, he was devolving into an utter mess and if she did not break him out of this he could revert into a childish mind state, or worse!

"G_old^en C_ro^ss! .^.. A^he_he_he^e! _I ^a_m.._.. M_al^ee_eee._.^.. Fⁱk_us_..^... ^Vi_cto_r^y._{... e}eh^heheh^e_ee! S_hitt^{y Ge}m_{s o}f^... _sl^a_veri!"

She reached him, her hooves stepped over the empty void as she slowed down to a halt as she came within a few meters of him. He just laid there, limp like a broken puppet, mumbling and rambling, his shape distorted by the darkness. It made him appear more like a mass of shadows in the darkness. but as she approached him, the more details became visible.

"H^app_y._... ^Mea_l... i^nga _pom_mes... ^yea^{h n}_{o fr}i^es.^{.. J}a^{g gi}l_lar^... ^Gran_{d M}us^ik..^{.. p}r_otec^t..^{. ba}r_nen... sk_ydd^{a th}e c^hild_ren..^{.. Gr}a_nd F^east.^.. le_{t u}s e_at!.^.. ha_pp^y... w^ar_mt^h... _v^arm_t... ^fa_milj.._.. sk_yd^da..^{. pr}o_te^ct_{... h}ur^t..."

Luna reached out and grabbed the limp form of the babbling alicorn. She made a startling realization that he did not look the same as she had seen him before. The once solid black pony alicorn looked like a misshaped mixture between a brown monkey and a black pony foal. He was barely the size of an adult. And as she grabbed him, his rambling gre more intense and then his jaw unhinged into a mad laughter before twisting into an echoing scream.

"P^ai_n.._{. s}il^enc_e..^{. in}g_en ^me^{r tys}t_na^d... sⁿä_lla... _var ä^r._.. w^her_{e a}m_... q^ui^et s_o.._.. ty^st._.. sa^v_e.._{.. he}l^p... ^Mig_... h_jäl^p... ^sn_äll.^... _varf^ör^..._{. wh}^y... a^aa_hh^aa_ha^ha_h.^... Aa^aa_aa^a_aaa^aaaa_aa^ahhh_hhh^hA_A^AAAA_AA_AA^AA_AAAA_AAAA^AAAA^AAA-"

Even as he screamed out in utter heart splitting despair, she grabbed him by his misshapen head and looked him straight in the eyes and spoke out to him. Breaking through his screaming with her soothing words. "Maleficus. Calm down. You are not alone. I am here. You are safe."

"-A_AAAa^aaaaaa_aaaaa^aaaa...ha_aaa... haaaaa..."

His unfocused pure white eyes seemed to twitched for a moment, and slowly he stopped screaming. She gently stroked his cheek, which was slowly reforming into a pure pony shape, and whispered gently to him, tears running down her cheek as she looked at the broken creature who was her friend. "Calm down. It is okay. Shhhh."

"Ha.....ha....." He made soft gasping breaths, his eyes were still unfocused, he was still limp in her forelegs. But he was no longer screaming or rambling and the twisting chaos around his black void, was slowly but surely, disappearing. She just looked him in the eyes until they slowly regained their colour and a bit of their focus.

And then.

"Huhuhuuuhuuuuu..." The broken stallion broke down into tearful sobs and just started crying.

Luna hugged him to her chest and let him bury his face into her fur and gently cradled the crying stallion to her and gently rocked his head as he clutched her in a desperate embrace, and just wept until he blacked out and fell asleep within his own mindscape. "It will be okay."

It would be a long time until Maleficus recovered from his break down. But with Luna there to support him, he would get through.

The following seven years would go past mostly uneventful. The Order of the Golden Cross would expand its numbers and spread out across the nation to do their duty. With Grand Music as the newly appointed Grand Master after returning home.

Equestria began to expand its borders to the eastern coastline, establishing the towns of Fillydelphia and Baltimare in the northern and southern region for a steady supply of goods. With the outlaws of the immediate region gone would the ponies start tending larger fields and producing much larger and varied amounts of crops, thus adding more to the nation.

The unexplored southern, northern and western regions would be investigated in the future. But for now was the nation content in developing in its already existing territories. New towns and villages would have to be added along the newly restored Mane Road. With the Milestone System being put to use immediately.

Celestia still focused mostly on military development, and the lack of support to other parts of the kingdom and its needs was starting to cause a bit of a shift between the Crown and the Nobles. It was growing into such a problem, that a group of ponies, would start making plans, to make Equestria recover from its war efforts. With or without the Princess permission.

Up on the moon Maleficus would slumber deeply for almost six years, his mind needing a long time to recover from his break down. Luna kept watch over him, comforting his disoriented mind self through the intense nightmares and memories haunting him. She thought she had figured out the reason for his mental collapse. aligning it with his already damaged psyche from his many years of torment as the Stallion of Torment. Followed by his lack of reaction to his sudden change form human to pony. Not to mention the emotional drama of being made into a villain and sealed on the moon only to be charged with attempted execution every ten years or so.

It was in the end, uncertain but she thought she had the right idea about how and why he had his breakdown. But she would probably not know for certain yet since not even Maleficus himself could even speak to her about it. He needed time to recover before he could even consider investigating the cause of his break down. But she was not certain if he was even willing to try and do so.

But even if he did attempt to investigate the cause of it, would she do so in his stead. Perhaps it was for the best, it would help her in handling such cases in the future, not to mention allowing her to learn more bout the stallion she was sharing a mindscape with.

And thought it pained her to watch him just soundlessly sleep for such a vast amount of time, she knew his mind needed rest to recover. And so she remained by his side as the years rolled by, helping his aching mind and heart to recover from the horrors he had experienced, while also entertaining herself with a small tv screen to watch cartoons and anime as he recovered.

Author's Notes:

Staadnauthursil: Well another chapter down. This one was less focused on he events themselves and more on the time table. I admit I was rather tired when I finished writing the last part. But hopefully will this chapter fulfill its purpose. If not will I have to alter it.

Pinky Pie: Wohoo! Yeah! New Chapter! Wohooooo!