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The sky was dark and cloudy. Were once there had been rain, lightning and wind there was only dark murky clouds billowing over the coast. Even as rain fell upon the sea and upon the mainland, it did not fall upon this part of the region.

A single rain drop fell from the clouds, its clear blue shape fell down towards the rocky ground of the coast, but as it rapidly approached the sight, it began to smoke. Then it began to bubble. Then it evaporated into a puff of white steam, which was blown away by the wind.

Down past the evaporating raindrops, stood a pair of ponies, armed and armoured, prepared for combat. One as black as tar, dressed in an armour of black iron with a mane, tail, beard, eyebrow and hoof fur in the shape of toxic green flames. The other pony as as bright as snow, dressed in a golden armour with a mane, tail and eyebrows burning in the shape of golden fire.

The pair stood there, seizing each other up. In the grip of their hooves were large, thick and heavy weapons normal beings would find difficult to even lift. Within the black stallion's grip was a long, thick and heavy greatsword made out of solid iron, engraved with runes along the central area of the blade. Within the grip of the white mare was a massive warhammer, a maul, of sacred bronze. It's surface was engraved with runes and the hammerhead was in the shape of a curved horn, giving it both a piercing and blunt end to use in different ways.

They just stood there, watching one another, intense emotions and magical pressure pushing against one another in the air. This intense contest of will and magic was creating a thick tension which was super heating the air around them, making steam and smoke rise from the ground around them as water and blood began to evaporate into the air.

Then, after the pair had stood there for thirty minutes, had the mare had enough. And Princess Celestia, ruler and founder of Equestria, rushed forward towards her foe, hefting the large and heavy weapon before making a powerful downward aimed strike toward the black stallion's helmet.

"Thou shall fall monster!" She shouted out as her hated foe dodged aside and made another swing, this time aimed at his gut with the pointy end of her hammer, aiming to split open his armour and pierce his guts.

Maleficus stepped to the side to avoid her second strike. He then aligned his sword to the right and blocked the powerful left kick she made towards his midsection. The impact of her hoof upon his iron sword almost forced him back, but he instead let the impact strike his weapon, shifted his body with the kinetic force behind the blow and turned with it.

"I seriously doubt that!" He shouted out as he shifted his grip as he spun round in a perfect circle. In the middle of his spin he started to swing his own weapon forward. And doing so he was using the rotation of his own body to raise the speed and strength of the strike significantly. The large blade of solid iron tore through the air and swept towards her midsection like a sharpened iron beam.

But the Princess of the Sun kicked off the ground, lifted up off the ground into a beautiful back flip, avoiding his swing before landing a few meters away from him on both her hind legs, her weapon still held by her left foreleg's hoof.

Now Maleficus was taking the initiative. He charged forward and made a forward going stab with his weapon. She evaded it like he had evaded her earlier attack by side stepping. Then the black alicorn suddenly swept out one of his wings and swatted Celestia in the face, making her get a faceful of feathers. But the reaction he had sought for, was not what he got.

"Blah! When did thou last clean thy wings!?" She screamed out in utter disgust as she reared back and clutched at her nostrils, trying to remove the irritating tickling sensation his feathers had caused, as well as the stench of unwashed wings. It had been like she had been forcefully pushed, muzzle first, into a pile of rotten and moldy cheese older then her mother!

Her nausea was temporarily forgotten when she was forced to buckled over and gag, as a powerful hoof kick slammed into her exposed midsection. The force behind the kick force the air out of her lungs and she felt a big bruise take shape before her hooves left the ground and she was sent flying for a second before hitting the ground and rolled away from her foe for a decent ten meters. The impact of the hoof had been strong and hard enough to leave a head sized dent with the imprint of a horseshoe in the sacred bronze plating of her armour.

"Well excuuuuuuuse me princess! But there is an awful lack of water on the FUCKING MOON!" The embarrassed alicorn stallion shouted at her as he shuffled his wings in slight awkwardness. He did not appreciate being pointed out as dirty, he had actually forgotten all about cleaning himself up. And the swamp water he had landed in, and NOT cleaned off, when he first arrived had not helped. Seriously though, he had absolutely forgot about cleaning himself up ever since returning from the Moon.

As he shuffled in slight embarrassment was Celestia not going to let her foe just stand there and feel awkward. This was a fight for the finish and not a bucking health discussion! She used her own body's momentum to flip up on all four and glared at the form of Maleficus before she raised her head and ignited it in a golden aura.

Maleficus knew that the fight would become more focused on magic now, but he did not let go of his sword, he might need it. Eyeing her charging magic he began to power up himself, igniting his horn in a crimson aura. As he did so he gripped his sword with both hooves and held it at the ready while starting to move sideways, as to not give Celestia clear shot at him.

Then with a echoing scream, Celestia aimed her horn towards him, and fired off a beam of white light. Had it not been for the fact that the ground and air around them were already intensely heated up by the two alicorns, would it have erupted into a powerful steam explosion. Well not likely but it could have happened. But instead the ground beneath Celestia started to melt while an intense heat almost started to sear and burn Maleficus within his own armour. The intense heat from her quickly expanding beam of light was hot enough to sear the ground into a glowing hot sludge of lava, even if nto directly touching the ground.

The alicorn swiftly dive jumped to the left as the beam of intense light speared past him and disappeared from sight for a few instances of a second, before striking the mountain side behind him. It was an instant momentum, with the massive beam of light flying past him like a javelin of intense death, before disappearing in a brief twinkle into the mountain There was a brief pause, not a single soul moving, nor the sound of the world being heard.

That is, until a massive explosion erupted from the mountain side where the beam of light and struck. The earth shook and the air quivered, as the intense pressure of heat and air seemed to shake the very world itself. Massive chunks of stone and earth shook off from the seaside cliffs as well as the recently struck mountain wall.

The mountain looked someone had slammed a hammer and chisel into the weak points and broken its integrity. Massive jagged scars could be seen spread out across the coastline, with piles of rocks in and by the sea, and beneath the damaged line of mountains. The only spot not possible to see was the area were the light had struck, being covered by a massive cloud of dust and steam rising into the sky.

A few tense moments passed by and the shaking died down, as did the light and smoke rising from the impact, revealing a fifty meter, in diameter, wide circular shaped crater, melted into the side of the mountain. Surrounded by the jagged fractures left from the sever shaking caused by the detonation. But Maleficus did not look towards the explosion, he was too busy looking at the left side of his armour, which was by now half melted by the intense beam of plasma Celestia had tried to disintegrate him with.

"Well... this is going great." He said sarcastically as he looked down at his damaged armour. The armour had been enchanted, powerfully so, and been made to be light and defensible. He had spent a lot of time making this armour, ad here it was damaged in its debut fight. It was clear, he needed to figure out a better way to make armour not only for himself, but his forces as well.

But for now did he not have time to worry too much about those facts. He had to get back into the fight. Thus he started to gather his wits, and balance, and began to stand up.

When he stood up he rested his red glowing sword upon his left side, the heated metal not even bothering him as his extra thick pauldron blocked it The the black alicorn made sure to look out across the battlefield. There was plenty of space, no ponies, only dead bodies of his own soldiers and the storm was still raging on. Celestia was a decent distance away, and she seemed a bit winded, but swiftly recovering. This would give him time to act, and he knew just what to do, he would just have to show her some magic of his own.

Maleficus sheathed his blade to his side. He then spread out his forelegs and took a deep breath, his hooves starting to glow white as the green flames behind them started to burn more intense. After a few seconds the warrior then clapped both of his forelegs' hooves together, a loud resounding clang erupted from his hooves before he pulled them apart.

As he pulled his hooves apart, was a small spark was being formed in the empty space between his hooves. And as the spark was formed, it began to intensely glow, practically flaring out intense brightness When he started to pull his hooves further and further apart, the small white dot of sparkling light in the empty space between his hooves, began to expand into a bright white sphere.

It grew further and further as he had pulled apart his forelegs more and more. And then, as Maleficus had pulled his forelegs apart as far as he could, was there a sphere of intense white light, surrounded by an aura of blueish white sparkling energy. At this moment had the orb reached the size of a large coconut. By this point was the air around his hooves starting to steam and smoke as part of his fur next to his hooves, started to catch fire.

Then he made a forward push with his forelegs, and the sphere flew forward like a cannon ball. Arches of energy flew off it as it passed through the intensely hot air. The sheer power the sphere was giving off made Celestia feel shivers even in the intense heat around her and her foe. Thus she quickly decided to take actions to evade being hit. The white alicorn princess channeled her body with augmenting magical energy, bent all four of her legs halfway, and then, she jumped.

Earth splintered and stone fractured, as she leaped twenty meters up into the air, the white sphere flew past her former location and flew out into the storming ocean. and then, as a few seconds passed by and Celestia landed on the ground once more. There was a blinding flash of light from the ocean, making both Celestia and Maleficus turn away their eyes and cover them. But even with her eyes blinded, Celestia smirked at his folly.

"Thou hath terrible aim foul beast!" She shouted out as she rubbed her eyes to try to quicken her sight's restoration. The Princess of the Sun felt more confident, having seeing his waste so much magical energy on a missed attack. Maleficus was about to respond to her biting remark when the surge of electrical energy created as a byproduct of his attack reached their location.

A twitching sensation covered their bodies as a wave of energy surged through their bodies, but they were not harmed. Once their eyes recovered was there no sign of the sphere. But there was thick scent of ozone and something else in the air, as an aftermath of the focused explosion.

Turning their attentions back to one another, the two warring immortals drew their weapons once more. Maleficus started to channel magic into this greatsword, causing green and red runes to appear upon its surface. While Celestia, created a golden aura of light over the hammerhead of her maul.

Maleficus gripped his long handled greatsword, the veins and muscles in his forelegs were bulging as he finished channeling his magic into his weapon, the blade was by now surrounded by an aura of green and red flames, green on the right side of the blade and red on the left side. Then, he raised his sword up above his head, holding it up with both of his forelegs, and shouted out into the sky.

A loud crack erupted through the air as the green and red flames of his sword suddenly swirled around and combined into a mass of black fire. His weapon, was glowing like a crimson core of magma within the red flames, the runes upon the blade's surface all that was maintaining its form.

*I have wanted to do that ever since I was a kid!* He thought with a grin on his lips before pointing his glowing weapon at Princess Celestia, as if showing her his mythical might. But in fact he was just following a scripted scene from one of his oldest favourite shows. And then, as the growing darkness of his sword stopped expanding, but instead, grew thicker and darker in coloration. When his blade looked like it was being burned by the fires of hell, Maleficus charged.

He stepped forward with his right hind leg, and hunched down on the leg, before he leaped forward with a powerful push. The speed of his lounge was impressive, but Celestia was well prepared. She moved forward herself, and meet his charge with her own.

Their weapons sang through the air and there was a tremendous impact that shook both of them to the core, but they endured it and reared back their weapons for a second attempt. Once more their weapons split the air and and clashed, the resounding clang echoing across the battlefield.

Rearing back their weapons, they suddenly altered their attack pattern and went into quick and rapid strikes. Their forelegs blurred out of sight, as did their weapons, and there was a light show of sparks in the air around them. There were momentarily images of a hammer head and a sword blade clashing whenever an explosion of sparks erupted in the air.

It was a storm of ghostly weapons striking at one another, erupting like thunder and lightning with each impact. And as they did so, the echoing clangs of their weapons striking one another, started to escalate into something that sounded like a crescendo of church bells ringing. While the wind let out moaning howls as the weapons tore it asunder.

They kept it up, not relenting, not giving up the momentum. Evenly matched in speed and power they just swung and swung, not caring about how their muscles screamed for it to stop, they did not pause in their all out assault upon one another. And then, as it would seem like the very air would be destroyed by their rapid attacks, they altered their tactis once more.

As if someone had put the video to slow motion the two alicorns ceased their trade of lightning quick strikes, and instead reared back their weapons ,held by both of their forelegs, glared at one another. And attacked, this time, not with speed or finesse, but with pure, and utterly brutal, strength!

The two warriors swung their weapons, Sacred Bronze and Solid Iron at one another, and the result, was a clash of might. A pair of ancient and traditional weapons, held by mortals beyond the known history, meet in a tremendous impact. And the occurring clash against each other would be yet another made in a pointless duel of futility. For neither warrior could overcome the other. But neither of these warriors were concerned about this, being too focused on over coming each other to see just how evenly matched they were.

There was a tremendous crack as the sharp edge of the enchanted iron blade slashed against the flat end of the enchanted hammer head. The edge of the blade seemed to grow fractures in its very aura, even while the hammer's surface seemed to crack like someone had punched a mirror. The auras surrounding the weapons fought against one another, creating loud resounding booms, cracks and screeches as their wielders fueled their powers into their weapons. Both wielders hoped that the power of their magic combined with their weapons' enchantments and their owb physical might would overcome their adversaries.

And yet even as their wielders struggled against each other. Even as their magic seemed to grow strong enough to break the air itself. Neither weapon gave away, not even as fractures took shape in their metal, they did not give away. It was clear, the weapons would break before their wielders did. But neither Celestia nor Maleficus took heed of these events, they were too busy fighting each other to notice.

"Admit thy defeat!" The Princess of the Sun shouted out in utter anger as she tried to push him back and gain the momentum she was looking for.

"Not in this life!" Maleficus retorted as he tried to push back against her own pushing. The stalemate still on going, even as they tried to overcome each other.

They grit their teeth and snarled at each other as their forelegs pressed forward, their hips and spines tensed, their hind legs pushed against the ground. Then with a loud clang their armoured heads slammed into each other, their horns crossing and grinding against each other. Through it all they glared into each others' eyes, said eyes glowing like a group of stars.

The Princess of the Sun broke their stalemate, she ignited her horn and fired off a fire spell at point blank into Maleficus' barely armoured head, searing his fur and flesh with a blast of fire. Something Maleficus had not been expecting. His eyes were practically burned out and he reared back with a loud pain filled cry, clutching his eyes. Then she brutally kicked him in the chest before swinging around her hammer in a 180 degree swing, and slammed it straight into the right side of his helmet covered head.

A loud clang erupted from the impact of the sacred bronze maul upon the alicorn's metallic skull, giving the stallion a severe headache that would be amplified by the ringing of his own cranium. The force behind the strike was enough to make the alicorn fly up a meter above ground while he was sent soaring backwards for several meters before hitting the ground with a meaty thud. His body tumbled over the solid stone ground, his limbs flailing about as he rolled and tossed around like a broken rag doll until he slammed sideways into a big boulder with a loud crack.

There was a brief pause in the fight, with a surprised Celestia staring at her weapon, before a grin appeared upon her muzzle and she turned towards her downed foe. Only for her eyes to widen as he struggled up on his hindlegs against, his regenerating flesh and fur being restored as he recovered from the impact. The stallion reached out, gripped the surface of the boulders, and lifted himself up from the ground. By the look on his face, was he NOT as happy about his landing like Celestia had been.

His horn ignited with a crimson aura. And then his sword, which had laid on the ground, was engulfed in a similar coloured aura as he telekinetically gripped it. Then the large blade flew towards him and was soon once more held by one of his hooves. The alicorn turned his neck, left and right, cracking his bones and stretching his sore joints, as his flesh was completely restored. His pelt was restored and his hair, aka his mane, tail, eyebrows, beard and hoof fur, was still burning.

Maleficus then reared back his left hoof and stomped it down onto the ground, a loud crumble filled the space around them, several hundreds of fractures, cracks and holes began to take shape as the tremor grew in strength. And then, all of a sudden, the tremor stopped. And just as it stopped, the points with cracked ground burst apart as growing jagged and pointed stone logs grew out of the earth at a rapid speed.

What had once been flat ground had suddenly become a rapidly growing forest of stone spears, with more erupting from beneath the ground. Celestia barely had time to fly upwards as the jagged stone spears came soaring out of the ground in a rising forest of death. As she flew higher and higher she noticed that the forest of stone spears had grown large enough to cover Maleficus from sight, the only reason she knew where he was, was because of the glow coming from his green fire hair.

From the sky she glared down at the location of her hated foe and began to gather new magic into her horn, igniting it in a golden aura, preparing to enact her own magical attack upon him. But before she could enact her plans, acted Maleficus before her. The black alicorn stallion stomped down, hard, on the ground once more. There was another sudden tremor, the earth seemed to split and crack at the base of all the spears. Then there was a sound crack as the stone spears, sticking out of the ground, erupted skywards as the ground beneath them erupted in small explosions of stone and air.

Celestia used her gathered energy to create a shield around her as the stone spikes shoot up at her. There was a collection of loud resounding cracks and crunches as the stone spikes crumbled apart against her force field. But then, out of the swarm of rock and stone, appeared a dark shape.

Out of the storm of stone, rock and dust emerged the armoured shape of Maleficus, wielding his sword with one hoof, holding it low, to his hip, with his other foreleg, reared back. He swung forward with his hoof and Celestia tried to enforced her magical shield more, but the moment the chrome coloured hoof struck the energy field, it split through it, shattering the shield.

"Surprise!" He shouted out with a gleeful grin as he destroyed her protective barrier.

Even before she could think of dodging was her body struck by several sharp rocks, brutally bruising her armoured body, while a few managed to scratch or tear up patches of her flesh in the exposed areas of her body, like her wings, throat and face. Then her face was struck by the powerful downward punch of Maleficus Victoriea, and Celestia found herself falling down as her head was suddenly flung downwards. Her head hurt like hell even before her body shoot down into the ground, the impact of her body striking stone left a deep imprint of her body in a ten meters wide crater.

"Oooh... We hate that brute." She muttered as she pulled her legs out of the fractured ground they had been embedded into. The crater she had created on impact looked like a bowl filled with cracks and gravel.

The Alicorn Princess struggled out of her landing zone and spat out a mouthful of broken teeth, piece of tongue flesh and bone shards, grimacing as more of her teeth were regenerating out of her recently destroyed, now repaired, jawbone. Her tongue was tingling, but whole after she had accidentally bitten off the tip. Within moments she had recovered and got up on all four and glared up at Maleficus as he fell down and landed on the ground with a loud thump a dozen or so meters away from her.

Celestia retrieved her maul with a telekinetic grip and let it float by her side as she charged up a spell, causing her horn to light up before releasing a powerful flare of light. Temporarily blinding Maleficus who had no time to react. She then flapped her wings and suddenly the intense heat of the air turned chilling cold, and rain began to pour in from the ocean as she released the powerful heat pressure she had been emitting, and a white mist began to shroud the coastline as the hot ground began to vaporize the raindrops striking its surface.

Maleficus snorted and backed away, disappearing into the mist like a ghost, while Celestia did the same, and the two fighters began to prowl through the mist, trying to gain an advantage over the other.

Back at the War Camp were the ponies staring in fear and anxiety at the insane light show they had been watching, until it was shrouded by rain and mist just mere moments ago. The fight must have been insane since the intense pressure between the two powerful ponies could be felt even from such a far distance.

It was a good thing Celestia had ordered a swift retreat when she did. The recovered pegasi troops had managed to speed up the retreat enough to keep all of their forces from being caught in the cross fire when Celestia made her fiery entrance. Many had been bruised or slightly over heated by the attack, but no one had been severely injured or killed by it.

In one of the tents laid a pair of ponies, an earth pony and a unicorn, laying on a pair of special made beds for wounded soldiers. Happy Meal and Grand Music, were both awake, having woken up during the retreat, and witnessed the power of Celestia, a brief sight of Maleficus' engaging her, before they were put in the care of the healers who rushed them back to the War Camp.

The sound of the battle between Celestia and Maleficus could be heard even by them, and the fact that their adoptive Grandfather, was alive, and a demigod of all things, who had... essentially lied to them to keep them ignorant of his true self, even acting as a old knight, telling mostly made up tales and historical facts. Tales and historical facts they had allowed to affect their entire lives. Even made a Knightly Order out of those said lies. All of this would have made them severely upset.

If it had not been for one thing, making them unable to decide just what they should think or feel about it.

"W-why do ya think Grandpa... saved us back then? I-I mean... he did not have ta... save me... mama... or you..." Happy Meal muttered softly as she laid there, her voice strangely clear and accent free, for the most part, as she laid there, thinking.

"I... I do not... Grandpa... he... was not.... he.... did not.... hah..." Grand Music tried to find words to explain, he tried to figure out a reason, a purpose, anything, for the evil alicorn Maleficus, to save a poor street child from the streets and a filly and her mother from bandits. It did not speak of an evil soul, even though it felt like he was a bad pony... Grand Music could not find it in himself to even consider his grandfather evil or bad, even if he lied to him.

For he... saved them. He saved them all. More then once. That kind old stallion, saved them all. But... that did not stop either of the two young ponies from feeling depressed and frustrated. But they knew one thing they had to do, they needed to speak to the one pony, who could clear things up for them.

"...We got ta tell mama." Happy Meal mumbled as she laid there, and Grand Music, while not vocally responding, just silently agreed. They needed to tell Grand Feast about this, it was the only thing they could do to make sense of everything.

The coastline was covered by a mist so thick it made it hard to see beneath your own legs. But this did not discern either Celestia or Maleficus. The two alicorn moved through the fog like a pair of wolves hunting the others in a massive bloody game of hide and seek.

Flares of light emerged from a spot in the mist, but were just a distraction as a wave of fire erupted from somewhere else, dispatching an area filled with mist. A storming shower of ice shard to plummeted upon the land a rain drops were frozen into javelin sized icicles. A massive sphere of darkness flared up into existence before disappearing in a singular pop, leaving a spherical hole in the ground, which was soon shrouded y the mist.

For what felt like hours they kept it up, moving silently through the thick white mist, using the wind and the rain pouring down upon them to cover up the sound of their movements.

Then Celestia decided to end the farce, her intention to use the mist to her own advantage having backfired rather spectacularly. A flash of light emitted from within the mist, amplified by the mist's water crystal structure, the flare filled up the entire seacoast like someone had ignited a sun in the middle of the coastline.

"For fuck's sake! Why is it always the eyes!?" Maleficus shouted out in pain as he was, for the nth time, blinded by a bright light and had to rub his sore eyeballs.

Then he realized just what a blunder he had made when Celestia came running out the mist, covered by an aura of fire, and brutally tackled him, forcing him back, before sweeping her wings towards him.

He reflected her wings with his own and frowned as Celestia started to... dance? No, not dance, she entered a sort of combat stance. She began to move in strange circular movements, sweeping her wings and legs into wide curved attacks towards his body's joint.

Maleficus flapped his wings and jumped backwards, using his wings to make a slow, almost sassy, glide away from her. Celestia's burning eyes glared at him and her aura of fire shoot out towards him like a expanding snake, or tentacle, of plasma.

With his sword he swept through the plasma like tendril and moved forward. The massive tendrils split apart into a massive swarm of slithering tendrils of heat, trying to whip, stab and entangle his body. Feeling VERY insecure about the entire situation he held his wings forward at a downward aimed angle, before filling them with magic, lightning arched off his wings like they were thunderclouds.

His lightning meet the tendrils and the two plasma types clashed against each other, but Maleficus was more focused on intensifying the lightning to make it denser the normal, essentially creating a shield of lightning. Celestia' thinner tendrils were unable to pierce through his lightning field and Celestia had to abandon her attack as Maleficus reached her.

A field of lightning and a shield of plasma, clashed. There was a bright flare of light before a loud resounding crackling boom erupted from the point of impact. A pressure filled wave of heated ozone and air flew out from the struggle between the two higher beings, and with it came with a powerful kinetic force that started to fracture the ground around them, cause the ground to shake and for the sea to quiver.

The white mist that once covered the coastline was torn asunder by the intense heat wave, bursting apart into wisps of water droplets as the sparkling ozone pushed itself upwards into the sky and outwards into the sea. Once the energy packed wave struck the heavens were the clouds began to emit tiny sparks of lightning across their cloudy dark surface.

Sparks streaked across the surface of the clouds, erupting outwards from several various spots like blossoming explosions of electrical bursts. The air grew thick and heavy, all by the coastline could feel the tension rising in the air and they could taste something metallic in the air while their fur, manes and tails started to stand up or spark with energy. Then the clouds made a low, steadily growing rumble, before erupting into a massive cascade of lightning with a overwhelmingly loud crescendo of thunder.

Even as the lightning arched across the sky, even as the ocean started to glow bright blue in certain spots, and the ground of the entire coastline started to vibrate and fracture, the two embodied forces of power, kept up their struggle.

Maleficus stared with a hardened stare upon Celestia's glaring face as they pushed their magical energies against each other. By far had both of them produced and maintained magical energies beyond what they had used during their first match. And now it was not as one sided as it had once been.

But then things shifted, for the worst.

The two fighting alicorns pressed harder and harder their magical auras, while physically trying to push through the other's field. That's when it happened, the steady flow o energy had built up to such intensity that the very ground beneath them was fracturing and melting at the same time.

And thus, when the ground beneath them started to give away, melting down their struggling energy fields, into the molten earth. That's when the two dense magical fields, focused and powered to the maximal output of the two alicorns, suddenly started to flux and shift in stability. Until, in a sudden strange noise, fractured, mingled together, and burst apart.

The two fields of heat and electrical energy, even if maintained plasma, could not be properly controlled when the foreign elements of the heated earth got mixed up in the struggling energies, thus causing a chain reaction.

There was a tremendous boom, once more, and the night turned into day for a brief instance, then a wave of fire engulfed the battlefield, but thankfully did not reach more then a mile in diameter, well beyond the pony War Camp.

A pair of flying figured impacted the mountain sides on the south and northern edge of the rocky coastline. There was a pair of loud bangs as the two streaks impacted rock, causing am massive dust cloud to erupt from each of the mountain sides, before settling, revealing a pony shaped hole in each of the mountains. In there. Embedded twenty meters into solid stone, laid the regenerating bodies of Maleficus and Celestia.

"Fuck... third crash today." Maleficus muttered as he struggled out of the stone tunnel his body had made when he impacted the mountain that he, ironically enough, had made himself. His body was sore and pained, but recovering, but he had lost his enhanced body form, thus his body's hair, aka the mane and other hair based areas, were back to their regular solid black colouring.

His armour was fractured and melted in several places. But that did not bother him too much, his sword was still intact, though no longer a cool black fire sword.

As he struggled out of the mountain. Was Celestia doing the same in the mountain in the opposite direction.

Her prismatic mane and tail were no longer a clouds of colours but roughed up lengths of prismatic coloured hair. Her armour and weapons were intact, well for the most part, the pointy end of her maul was broken, as in snapped off, while her armour was half melted in several places. But other then that was she mostly okay from the impact.

"Curses. The fiend is even stronger then before. But he hath not bested Us yet. " She muttered with a growling voice as she managed to struggled free out of the deep hole she had made, about five meters deep. The alicorn then glared ahead towards the opposite direction, the sky raging in a storm of chaos, revealing the ruined landscape in front of her.

The once flat stone path by the coast was now in tatters, several kilometers of its structure were fractured and in several places were parts of the pathway just gone, and had been replaced with deep crevices and chasms being filled by sea water. She spread her wings and took flight, her mane and tail turning into prismatic clouds once more as she recovered her energy.

On the other side of the coastline had Maleficus jumped off his own mountain side and was using his improvised gliding to soar forward, his own hair assuming its newly made state of green fire.

Both of the alicorns flew, or glided, through the wicked storm, unconcerned about the calamity around them, as they sought to engage in conflict one final time before their bodies were spent.

It was utter chaos out there. The battlefield between Maleficus and Celestia was so intense it was affecting the ponies, even more then two miles away from their struggle. The ponies knew that their Princess was powerful, they knew that Maelficus was powerful. But none of them, not even the veterans of the First Crusade, nor the veterans of the Everfree Forest, could ever have guessed just HOW powerful an alicorn could become.

Because what they were causing now, was not a display of power, it was display of utter divine might.

The earth shook and heaved, making the earth ponies cry out in horror. As lightning and thunder split and cracked the sky were skin tearing winds of intense heat and rain of biting cold splattering over them, making the Pegasi fearfully hide within cover once more.

But probably those most affected by all this. Were the Unicorns, their magical senses allowing them to feel the barest hint of magical energy, if trained enough. And the sheer and utter power flooding their bodies was making them feel like they were being crushed by an invisible wave of water.

Then all of a sudden, there was an intense bright light and a brief sensation of pressurized heat and a thick ozone scent in the wind. And what followed, was a madness none of the ponies dared to even look upon, as the weather went mad with rain and lightning ,while the sea roared up powerful waves, and the sound of rocks breaking and crumbling apart in the distance filled their ears.

In his private tent, using strange runic symbols to block out the sensations, General Bloody Courage was writing down something on a piece of parchment, while glaring furiously into the paper, muttering to himself. "Far too reckless... they hath no idea what madness their kind hath wrought... the carnage... the destruction... We hath to prepare in haste for the future... Pony Kind... will hath control over itself once more..."

A particular loud rumble beyond the fabric of his tent made him turn his glare hatefully towards the sound, his eyes almost piercing the fabric of his tent as he glared towards the coastline. "We shalt show them. We doest not need them as much as they need US!"

A stallion alicorn, as black as the darkest of nights with mane, tail, hoof hair and beard of green fire, flew down through the storm, not even concerned as lightning struck him, almost as if he was not affected by it. His wings were spread wide, his forelegs held up against his chest, while his hind legs were held outwards, acting like a crude way to guide himself.

A mare alicorn, white as snow, with mane and tail in the shape of prismatic clouds, flew through the storm. Even as lightning flared in front of her, even as she instinctively shielded herself, she did not steer away from her goal.

The two spotted one another within the storm, their eyes narrowed, they unsheathed their weapons, and in the middle of the lightning filled air, they clashed, screaming out the other's name.

With a loud resounding clang their weapons struck one another for the nth time. But there was one point in this flight attack they had forgotten, or rather, momentarily overlooked. The landing.

Maleficus' had only been gliding, he had no experience in fighting in the air outside of his light skirmish with Nightmare Moon over eleven years ago. Thus he could not maintain his body in the air as he impacted Celestia, he did not need to bother however.

Celestia could fly, rather good at that, but she had never fought in flight like this before and when their weapons clashed, she had been too focused on her weapon, to properply prepare for what came afterwards.

The two alicorns' slammed into one another as their weapons clashed and repelled one another from the force. Maleficus tried to align himself for a proper landing while Celestia tried to regain her flight, causing the two to struggle into a messy heap of limbs and fur, their own weapons cutting into their armours and flesh as they struggled in mid-fall against each other.

As one the pair fell down and when they impacted a solid patch of stony earth, there was a loud meaty thud and crack.

There was a few seconds of silence before Celestia was kicked in the rib cage and got sent tumbling off of Maleficus who had been at the bottom of the pile when they landed. The Princess of the Sun swiftly leaped up on her legs once more as Maleficus got up as well.

They glared at one another, summoning their fallen weapons to their hooves once more, as a wave of water cascade over the edge of the broken coastline and struck their bodies. The dark water blocked them from sight for a few seconds, before Maleficus leaped out of the water, unconcerned and unaffected, swinging his sword towards Celestia, shouting out in frustration and anger. "Why do you do you not see reason!? This conflict of ours is pointless!"

Celestia parried his blow and she moved in a circular motion, stepping over the fractured stone beneath them. Maleficus circled as well, his far more heavier body striking the unstable surface beneath their bodies, causing the cliff side they were standing on, to shake. "Pointless!? Justice for Our sister shalt never be POINTLESS!"

"This is neither Justice nor what your sister would want!" Maleficus said as he swung his sword at her, stepping off a section of the ground, which splintered off and fell off the cliff. As he moved forward, each time his hooves took a step, he pushed off sections of the unstable cliff. With each collapse, were pointy and jagged rocks taking form at the bottom, just a few meters above sea level, some of them several meters tall.

The Princess of Sun hefted up her weapon by the handle, holding it with the pommel upwards. Then she slammed the heavy head of her maul into the ground. There was a loud resounding crack as Maleficus was forced to jump, as an entire section of the cliff's edge shattered and became a landslide falling into the sea. At the same time as the large mass of rock and boulders fell down into the sea, would the bloody and charred corpses of the Ancient Ones tumble down, some being speared on the newly shaped jagged spikes on the fractured cliff, others would sink into the sea.

"Thou know nothing Maleficus! Thou art an evil wound upon this world!" She snarled out at him, her anger making her golden flame hair and mane turn crimson for a few seconds.

Another clash of bronze and iron sparked between their weapons. Maleficus used his hind leg to kick Celestia way from the edge and onto more solid ground ,he did not entertain the thought of fighting on the edge of a collapsing seaside cliff. She retaliated by firing a beam of intense heat towards his torso, he had to roll out of the away as the beam cut through the ground and sliced off a section of the cliff, leaving a smooth 70 degree angled cliff side in its wake as the several ton section of the cliff she cut off fell down into the depths.

"I know enough! And I know this is not how you are, you are NOT crazy! You are NOT unreasonable! You are NOT stupid! You are none of those things Celestia!" Maleficus leaped upwards, he hefted back his massive sword, it ignited for a short second in a crimson aura, before he swung it down wards, Celestia blocked it with the shaft of her maul, the ground beneath her hooves fracturing as it was deformed into a small bowl shaped crater from the force of the blow.

"Indeed We art not! Thus We know We art RIGHT!" With a heave she tossed him off her weapon and towards the cliff's edge once more. Maleficus flipped in mid air and landed on his hind legs once more, the force from his landing fracturing the ground beneath him even more and the once smooth edge of the cliff began to shatter and fall apart.

"Then why do you not see just how stupid this entire situation we are is!? Why do you not see how much suffering your conflict with me is causing!?" He shouted out at her as he stepped forward, avoiding the gaps on the ground as to not slip down the collapsing cliff.

Celestia rushed forward and made a right swing at his torso, he hefted his sword, caught the hammer's head with the flat side, and then used his powerful muscles to push the hammer aside, parrying the blow. But Celestia just used the momentum of the parry to spin around and made another attempt at striking him, this time aiming for one of his knees. "We hath not caused this! THOU art the source of all of Our and Our subjects' suffering!"

Maleficus spread his wings and flapped them, forcing Celestia to close her eyes as a cloud of raindrops and dirty feathers struck her face. Her swing missed him and a punch to the gut sent her staggering back a few steps, but she was able to absorb the blow.

"I am no more the cause! I stopped being the cause when you became hellbent on revenge! You do not think of the consequences! You are all the cause of your own suffering from here on out!" Maleficus' heavy blow made more and more pieces of the fractures cliff to fall off, by now was a forest of jagged pointy rocks taking the shape down below, a reef of fang like rocks. But he held his balance and he shifted his wight and spun around another of Celestia's strikes, now they were both standing on the edge, facing each other with the sea to one side and the mainland to the other. Beyond the edge of the vision, within the wild large waves of the sea, was a large shape moving towards the coast.

"No more of thine lies! We shalt have vengeance Maleficus! Thou can not hide from US!" With powerful but wild strikes Celestia hammered at Maleficus. The stallion was forced to dodge or deflect her strikes with some of his own. Echoing clangs erupted through the thunderous storm as the two powerful ponies tried to break the other's guard.By now had the edge of the sea turned red, the source of the colouring was the jagged fang like rocks that had taken shape from the two fighting alicorns.

Upon several places on the nasty looking forest of jagged spires, broken fangs and bent spike like rocks were the impaled corpses of Ancient Ones, leaking blood into the ocean, turning it red. And by now, had the large strange shadowy shape within the waters reached the crimson area.

"Well I would like to- Wait... What is that!?" Maleficus was speaking to Celestia when he notice as the strange shape within the sea, began to move upwards towards the surface. The waves were it was rising became a calm spot as the water began to bulge upwards. As this happened, Maleficus put Celesita's hammer in a block and just stared at the strange thing coming out of the ocean. It was big, whatever it was.

Celestia struggled to break out of the block, screaming out at Maleficus as she tried to break his hold on her weapon. Then she was interrupted. "Thou shalt not fool Us with-!"

The bulging surface of the sea by the coastline burst apart in a spray of water, as a massive, blue scaled, serpentine body rose out of the depths. It was over a hundred meters long, just the part reaching out of the ocean, it must be at least three times that size. It was covered in sharp looking blue shapes, with a horned head with yellow eyes, a snake like mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, and fins upon its head and some areas of its slithering body. the massive creature let out an air shattering screech towards the two battling alicorn's, a stinky breath along with a spray of blood, fish meat and seaweed hitting them in their faces.

Maleficus realized almost as soon as he saw it, what it was, something he had read about in religious books, heard about from the old myths of his homeland and seen in several games he had played. It was one of the most dangerous mythical beings to be found within the ocean. "SEA SERPENT!"

A jaw of teeth the size of boulders tore down towards the two ponies. They had to jump away from each other as the massive creature's mouth tore out a big chunk of the cliff and pulled it off, before dropping it into the sea. The creature did apparently not like the taste of rock and was staring with hungry eyes at the two ponies, it would take a lot of ponies to feed this thing.

"What in the names of the gods is that!?" Celestia shouted out while she jumped away as a large tail with a fin curled out of the ocean before swinging upwards and then down towards her location. The serpent was obviously trying to crush her beneath it to later devour her mangled corpse.

The tail struck the ground in a loud resounding crack and the sheer strength behind the strike caused the tail to tear through the rock. A gash was left by the tail's impact, and it quickly started to grow larger as the unstable stone started to fall apart. The once ten meter long gorge in the cliff's edge expanded out and became a fifty meters deep chasm in the ground, reaching around one hundred meters inland.

While it had been rearing back its tail to strike at Celestia had the sea serpent's head screeched as a spray of high pressure water shoot out of its gullet and towards the other alicorn. Maleficus had to hunch down and then leap out of the way as the water beam sliced a ten meter deep gash into the ground, making a swirly like pattern as it tried to hit the dodging alicorn.

"A Giant Sea Serpent! A form of enormous carnivorous reptile which dwells in deep oceans! It must have caught the scent of blood from my fallen soldiers and been attracted to the coastline!" Maleficus stated as he landed next to Celestia and looked around, the area was scattered with rocks, Ancient Ones corpses, damaged or ruined equipment and several puddles of sea water. They needed to work out a way to take care of the sea serpent.

Magic might be of use but it was highly unlikely that the sea serpent would just let them hit it unless they used a massive spell, which could possibly destroy more of the coastline. Not to mention the possibility that they might injure the ponies at the War Camp if the serpent decided to go there instead.

Celestia turned towards him and started to shout at him in anger. "See! Thou art the cause of-"

Maleficus interrupted her by grabbing her by the shoulder and dragged her aside as the serpent made another attempt at swallowing them up, it tore out a big chunk of the ground, once more spitting it out in distaste. He then glared at her and pointed at the massive thing trying to kill them, while holding her by the shoulder and looking her in the eyes.

The stallion then too a deep breathe, before he opened his mouth and gave her some shouting of his own, with plenty of spit and saliva flying out as he almost barked out words at her. "Oh would you fucking give it a rest and help me stop this thing!? Those at your War Camp are virtually helpless if this thing decides it'd rather eat them! It might not even be satisfied with that! It is possibly that it might tear its way into the country side and kill hundreds if not thousands of your people if we do not stop it!"

With spit dripping down her face Celestia stared blank faced at her hated enemy, as the information he had just told, or rather screamed, to her began to sink in. There was a slight glimmer of green in her eyes, hidden by the light emitting from them, for a short second, but she narrowed her eyes, which returned to their natural pink colouration. She then sighed before glaring at him, not liking that she was forced to work alongside him. "Fine! But this be far from over!"

"I. Do. Not. Care." Was all Maleficus said in response before he let go of her shoulder and assumed a stance, gripping his sword with both hooves.

The sea serpent was not just letting them stand there and talk, it had started to slither up one of the undamaged sections of the cliff and onto the solid ground of the rocky coastline. Its massive serpentine body was coiling up as more and more of its huge mass rose out of the sea and onto solid ground.

It reared its head back when half of its body had reached ground level and then released yet another powerful screech like roar and slithered towards the two ponies. The pair of alicorns had to leap aside as the jaws gorged out the ground were they had been standing. Then a massive wall of razor sharp scales was swung towards them.

Maleficus reared back his sword and swung it at the tail trying to flatten them. As the sharp edge of the enchanted iron sword struck the natural hide of the beast was there a shower of sparks as the sharpened scales was grounded against the weapon. There was a loud screech of metal scratching metal as the tail forced itself against the weapon. But then Maleficus took one step back, gripped the sword by the handle and the flat side of the center of the thick blade. And then, with a great show of strength the alicorn made a hasty push forward with a step forward, and with a powerful heave with his weapon with both of his forelegs, he made the several tons worth of scales and muscles, fly back.

The tail flew back tens of meters, causing the massive serpent to lose a bit of balance as it tried ot ite down at Celestia, making it face plant into the ground, hissing in anger at its sudden disorientation.

Celestia glared at him as her hated foe was 'only' able to push tail away from them rather then damaging it. And voiced her irritation, loudly, while slamming her hammer into the chin of the creature's face, making it rear back in pain. "Doest thou even know how to fight this thing!?"

Maleficus did not respond to her inquiry, he was too busy scanning the creature's features, trying to gauge its weak points and strong points. It had a massive body and it was covered with thick scales with razor sharp edges. He would need a good decent amount of momentum to get the strength necessary to even damage those scales. This fight would probably have to be relied on magic rather then brute force.

With an angry hiss like growl the sea serpent reared back its tail, shaping the tip a bit, like a rattle snake, and Maleficus felt a chill as he realized just what it was doing. He quickly jumped backwards, along with Celestia who too noticed the behavior of the serpent. A massive spray, more like a wave, of green and brown ichor erupted from the creature's maw and splattered across the ground, the sizzling sound as it struck solid ground was more then enough to clue him in just what it was.

Acid or Acidic Poison, either case was bad news. He would have spent more time contemplating what to do. When... Celestia broke his train of thoughts by shouting into his ear after they had to dodge away from the serpent's acidic attack. At full volume. Straight into his fucking ear. "Thou shalt NOT ignore Us!"

Gritting his teeth Maleficus rubbed his ear frantically to ease up the aching pain as he heard a constant ringing after having received her royal voice straight into the eardrums. That hurt, a lot. Finally easing up the pain in his ear he glared at her and snarled back before rushing towards the serpent. "Just shut up! For the love of the Gods do you not have control over that voice of yours!? We do not need needless distractions from your shouting! So be quiet and hit the fucking thing!"

Glaring at his back Celestia followed the stallion towards massive serpent. The creature was glaring at them and had opened its jaws to bite down upon them, its head shoot downward towards them with the speed of a charging bull. But the two alicorns dodged aside as the lower jaw dug into the ground they had been on and the serpent only got a mouthful of tasteless rock.

Maleficus leaped from the ground, soaring over twenty meters up into the air, above the serpent. He then adjusted his hind legs and shifted his grip on his sword, before released his magical weight limit. With a flutter of wind in his spread wings he plummeted down. He impacted the serpent's neck, his hooves slamming into the hard scales with a loud resounding crack a the scales beneath his hooves were fractured like grass. His sword pierced through its thick scales and into flesh, a geyser of blood erupting from where he had stabbed the large slab of iron into its hide.

The creature reared back its head and screeched out in pain. As it opened its mouth and screamed out in pain, a golden hammer suddenly slammed into its lower jaw and a loud crack was heard as several of its teeth were torn out as well as a a good meter of meat and bone.

Celestia grinned victoriously at the serpent who turned and glared at her. She was about to make another strike when the serpent decided to do something new, it began to roll its entire body. The Princess pf the Sun had to flap her wings and by fly the rolling massive body of the creature.

As the serpent began to rotate its body Maleficus let go of his sword and ran along the rotating hide of the giant reptile, keeping himself on top of the creature without losing balance. He timed how fast the creature was rotating itself before reaching out with his right hoof, grabbed the handle of his sword and with a strong yank pulled it out of the serpent's flesh. As he jumped off the serpent was a spray of blood colouring the air behind him as the serpent screeched out in pain and stopped rotating.

He landed next to Celestia and he was about to turn around for another attacked when the serpent had, had enough and snapped out with its bloody mouth out of its coiled body and snapped up the two ponies in its mouth. As soon as it senses the two morsels finally hitting the inside of its mouth it snapped down its mouth, only, to not be able to shut it completely.

Maleficus and Celestia both stood with hunched hind legs on each side of the inside of the serpent's massive mouth, standing directly next to were two long curved fangs were grinding against their armour. The pair of alicorns were holding the mouth partly open by pushing their forelegs upwards against the row of teeth above them, holding onto their weapons to block the sharp teeth.

The serpent hissed and tried to close down its mouth, but the two powerful demigods were far too strong for its mouth to overpower. A stench of rotten flesh and fish filled the mouth of the serpent as it began to prepare to spit up another round of acid.

Celestia turned towards her partner in jaw and glared at him as she struggled to keep the massive row of teeth from chomping down on them. "This be all Thy fault!"

"So not the right time for that!" Maleficus shouted back at her as he looked at the throat of the creature. The situation was bad and he knew it, he needed to find a way to get out of this thing before it bit down on them or covered them with rock melting strong acid. While they would survive, did he not consider it something he would ever want to experience. And both of them could not properly use their magic to attack the creature like this, its body was strangely enough resistant to their magic.

He had taken note of it as his enchanted blade had not even scratched its scales. Only Celestia's hammer had done any damage but that was only on the creature's teeth and bones, and the blow had only been as damaging as her physical strength, not the magical enchantments of the hammer itself.

Then the struggling stallion noticed something, the forked tongue of the serpent ,slithering out to taste the air. And an idea reached him. He turned towards Celestia and said, "Get ready! I am going to try something!", then with a heave he pushed the mouth further up.

*What art he doing?* Celestia looked on as he acted, confused as of what he was trying to do. The serpent appeared to be struggling even more, trying to bite one with all of its strength. But Maelficus' strength was too much for the snake to bite down on. The water serpent's anaconda sized tongue slithered out and that was when Maleficus acted. He lifted his left hind hoof up from the fleshy mass of the lower jaw, balancing all of the mouth's pressure on his right. And then he pressed down his left hind hoof down on the tongue as it sltihered out next to him, trapping it.

The serpent did not enjoy having its most important sensory organ crushed by the weight of a alicorn and its own jaw's strength and tried to turn and shifts its entire head to lodge its tongue free. But no matter how much its struggled or tried to jerk back its tongue, it did not get free. And then, as he got his bearings, Maleficus dragged the tongue into place, beneath the point were the massive fang was aimed, he then heaved up even more, making the fang slide free of the bottom of the mouth, he then dragged the tongue the last few inches. And then... he stopped pushing back against the mouth.

The ivory coloured fang jammed down like a falling stalactite, the pointy end of its poison filled mass, split through the black flesh of the tongue and a pool of red blood and green poison began to ooze out of the tongue as Maleficus made the sea serpent bite down on its own tongue. Essentially forcing it to poison one of the most sensitive spots in its entire body. The tongue with which it used to smell.

There was a sudden rush of stench filled air as the creature snapped its mouth open and screeched out in pain, its tongue corroding as the potent poison of its own fang hurt its own flesh. For while the serpent had a poisonous bite, was it body not immune to its own poison.

A wail of utter agony, along with a powerful stench filled breath of air the strength of an artillery cannon, allowed the two ponies to spread their wings and fly out of the creature's mouth by its own breath. Wind tore at them as did the rain, their armours no longer able to support their enchantments. Their flight was rough and harsh but both of them managed to adjust their bodies and landed with all four of their hooves slamming into the rocky ground.

A bit disoriented from the flight and scream of the creature, the pair of alicorns had to gather their wits. But they had time, the massive serpent was too busy twisting around in agony as its own poison acted against it. And once he got his bearings straight, Maleficus saw something close by that could help him and Celestia end the fight.

The creature's magical resistance was a fact, but it did not account for non-magical means. Thu he reached down and grabbed a big piece of a two hoof thick chain. It was a very long, special, chain left by his army when Celestia blew up most of his siege weapons. Its purpose was to interlink all of the siege engines, so that they may fire at the same time, it could be separated into smaller pieces of chains, but it had never happened with Celestia's fiery bombardment.

He reach out grabbed the other end of the chain, conveniently just a few meters from the other, and threw it at Celestia. She caught it and stared out it in confusion while he started to rush towards the trashing sea serpent. Shouting out to her. "Get ready! We are going to take it down for good!"

It took Celestia a few seconds to realized his plan and followed his lead. running another direction, dragging the chain with her as well. She did not find this plan plausible but the stallion had a way to break the common sense of things before, so she was going to let him act out his strange plan. No matter how crazy it was. "Thou art insane!"

As the serpent was still screaming in pain and trashing around, Maleficus ducked beneath its head as it flipped into the air in one of its pain filled trashing, he had to duck and slide on the ground to evade being crushed. When got clear of the creature's neck he made a sudden stop and turned directly in the opposite direction and leaped over the creature's neck as its head slammed down into the ground.

"Tell me something I do not know already!" The black alicorn stallion shouted out as he flew through the air before he landed next to Celestia, still holding the other end of the chain. With the snake trashing around, the chain held around its neck, the two alicorns held each an end of said chain and Maleficus knew just what to do, and Celestia knew what he was going to do. They looked at each other and nodded before suddenly running away from the serpent, still holding the chains.

They ran until the ground suddenly disappeared beneath them as they jumped over one of the newly made chasms by the coastline, or more specifically, the one located directly next to the forest of stone spines. As they did this had the serpent managed to tangle up its neck even more in the chain. The chain had tangled up so much that it went from slack to rigid as they landed, but they kept their grips on it.

Not stopping they kept moving and pulled on the chain, the thick length of iron links began to tighten and while the thick and sharp scales of the creature protected it from sharp and piercing blows, did it not protect from the chain tightening its neck like a noose. The serpent was caught off guard and made a gargling screech is it was suddenly dragged by the strength of two alicorns. It trashed and tried to worm its way free of the chain, but the links were holding strong and its head was too big for the chain to slip over, especially with the fins.

It managed to grip onto the edge of the cliff and tried to pull back. Celestia and Maleficus both had to turn and grip with both their forelegs and pull against the struggling serpent. Maleficus grounded out words as they heaved together, pulling on the serpent's body closer and closer towards the edge of the massive chasm. "Here! We! Go!"

There was a loud crack a the stone the serpent's tail was gripping broke and the creature screeched as it was pulled off the edge of the chasm, and dropped down onto the massive forest of jagged stone spikes. The weight of the falling serpent started to pull the two alicorns back towards the chasm, but after a few seconds, Maleficus shouted out at Celestia as he let go of the chain. "Drop the chain!"

The Princess let go of the chain as well and the hundreds of meters long length of thick and heavy iron disappeared into the chasm along with the serpent. There was a loud screech as the reptile struck the bottom of the seaside ravine, looking over the edge they could see just how brutally the serpent had been skewered by the stone spires. No matter the toughness of its upper scales, its lower scales were far softer and proved no protection from the jagged stone spires and spikes sticking out of the torn up coastline.

Razor sharp tips of jagged rock and pointy spires of stone pierced through the softer scales, piercing through hide and flesh. Then pressed up against the inside of the thicker scaly hide, before pushing through the inside of the scales. This kept going for a bit before the sharp points of the rocks pushed the scales apart and then split through them in several eruptions of blood and other bodily fluids, as several important organs were pierced through as well.

The serpent let out one final screech of gut ripping agony, trying to move its impaled body, tearing it up even more. And kept screaming, for what felt like hours. Until finally it went limp and silent, dead among the forest of stone, colouring the sea even more red with its blood.

The two alicorns stared at the chasm, anticipating the massive serpent returning for another round. After five minutes they let out sighs of relief, their burning manes and tails went out, their eyes stopped glowing, and then they collapsed onto the ground. Their bodies were tired and sore from the entire ordeal, not to mention the amount of magical energy they had spent during their earlier fight. Even as the rain fell upon them and the storm kept on rumbling, they just laid there on the ground, too tired to care.

"Hoooo... We must hath strained Our... everything..." Celestia groaned out as she laid there, the rain soothing her sore muscles as her badly damaged armour's enchantments were inactive. She had not been this exhausted in ten years, since she was poisoned by the Rattenfänger assassins.

Maleficus sat there, breathing heavily, resting his sore legs and just thought about the entire situation. and found himself actually not considering it to be the worst day he had experienced. Although it was still bad it was not the worst. "...Meh... feels like an average day to me."

"...Thou hath got to be jesting." Princess Celestia said in disbelief as she laid there, staring at him in utter disbelief, which turned into a stare of annoyance as he gave his response.

"I am not going to bother answering that." He said with a sigh as he struggled up on his legs again and began to walk away. Celestia did not bother shouting out at him, too tired, both mentally and physically, from what had just occurred.

The second fight had ended, it was clear that Maleficus had won. But this time, he had, had a far bigger struggle then the firs time. Both of them were growing in strength, this much was clear. And Celestia found this as a great motivator. Vengeance, was not an impossibility.

She looked up as she heard the sound of approaching hooves. A group of knights of the Order of the Golden Cross were approaching along with some of her Sun Guards. Smiling a bit in relief s they helped her up she looked down at the bloody corpse of the sea serpent. "We art not there yet, but We now know, We can become stronger."

Solid Pink offered her a bowl of water, which she was very much appreciating, as they walked back towards the War Camp. As she cleaned out the dirt and sweat on her head she spoke to her retainer. "Give Our troops the command to return home Solid Pink. We art done here. It may not hath been Our victory, but We hath come much farther then before."

The servant saluted her Princess before disappearing once more.

A few hours later, the tired and defeated Army of Equestria, began their march back home. Many of them glad to be alive, several were glad of their improved odds. But some... some were holding a grudge... and not necessarily, for the right reasons.

Maleficus looked out over his surviving troops, a force of two thousand strong, and there were about one thousand and three hundred left. Celestia had taken out almost as many as her own troops had, it showed a lot. But he was not satisfied by it. The ponies were still not ready for proper warfare, but they were improving, and it would hopefully not be long until they became a challenge for him, for he would be improving as well.

First thing though, he needed to heal many of them up, several of them were so badly injured it hurt just to look at them. Some were half burnt to a crisp, some had lost limbs. A few had parts of their heads gruesomely damaged. And there was around fifty of them walking around with weapons still impaled in their bodies. There was even several with body parts missing.

So he gathered forth his magic and crafted a restoration spell that would regenerate their bodies to prime condition. The crimson glow around his horn flew out,altering itself into a beam of green light the moment it left his horn. The green beam stroked across the entire horde of horses and for around fifteen seconds he kept it going before releasing his hold of the spell and watched in satisfaction as the wounds on his soldiers disappeared.

"Ah... okay... after I remove my forces I am not going to be casting advanced magic until after a loooong rest..." The alicorn said to himself as he stretched his sore body. As he did he contemplated his future, finding it grim no matter how he looked. The ponies of Equestra were improving at a rapid rate, it would not be long until they actually became too powerful for him to handle. The battle he had, head earlier was proof of that.

Thinking about the battles he had oh so recently experienced, he looked up at the sky a bit solemn. It had not ended like he had wanted it to. But he could not deny it felt good to no longer feeling the pressure of guilt for not telling the truth earlier, although it did not sooth the pain of shame he was feeling.

"Ha... things went a bit less good then I wanted but... I cannot argue with the results." He muttered a little to himself before his horn ignited with a crimson energy. The army disappeared in a red mist. There was a time and place for his army of horses later, but for now, they were to be put back into storage, for now.

*They performed far better then I had hoped. Sure they might have been... basic in performance, but they did well in their programming. But before I advance that any further, I need to get some proper rest.* He thought to himself as he began to walk up the path away from the, once flat, rocky coastline path.

There was a lot of information he needed to gather before he could even begin to think of using his created horses as a way to gain proper information from the world. Yes, his flesh golems were not just made for battle. Sure that was their main purpose, but he needed to be able to use them not just as tools, but socially accepted beings as well.

It would be a while until they were ready for such complex programming. But he knew that he could draw up a lot of ideas on what to base it on. Just by listening on the ponies' weird theories about his troops and reading some of their historical documents, could he find what he needed.

But until then, was he too tired to care about such complex plannings. He needed to find a proper place to sleep, some place with shelter from the rain.

He wandered north on the upper portion of the coastline, above the, former, flat rocky path. There was about a mile of fields between the mountainous edge and the swampy region. The rain was coming down harder and he was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about it.

That's when a flash of lightning revealed something to him.

A small cabin made out of wooden logs. The cabin was old and covered with moss. And while the roof was intact, was the door long since gone, apparent there might not even have been one there considering there was no even any hinges on the wooden frame. There was so nothing inside except a scent of moisture and dust.

With a quick flash of magic, he had the place cleaned up with some created and simply animated brooms and mops. It was a bit nostalgic, reminded him of that old Mickey Mouse movie. But he was too tired to think about old memories.

As he dragged himself into the recently cleaned up cabin, he pulled off his ruined armour, conjured a big pillow and blanked, before simply collapsing down onto the big pillow. His eyes closed in seconds and he almost instantly fell asleep, only half covered by the soft blanket.

He was not even bothered by the sound of the storm raging outside.

The sun was shining brightly upon the world as the morning hour was brought to life. A clear and blue sky, free of clouds, was letting the rays of the sun shine upon the ravaged coastline where the massive storm had hit yesterday. Several villages were in ruins and the growing settlement of Baltimare was half covered by water. But the ponies had endured the monstrous hurricane and were repairing the remnants of their homes, rebuilding them stronger then before.

The Equestrian Armies were marching homewards, they were tired and sore, but there was a sense of purpose among most of the ponies. Even as a few of them looked solemn or frustrated, were most of them relieved, glad or even determined. But a pair of ponies, were neither. They were instead holding cold, blank faces, hiding the turmoil within their hearts as they wandered home.

Grand Master Grand Music and Master Knight Happy Meal, both of them had learned a shocking secret during the Second Crusade. The revelation made them doubt and question everything. They only knew that they had to get home, they had to tell their mother. She was the only pony who could sort things out and help them clear away their doubts and fears.

Princess Celestia was still sleeping, only awake long enough to raise the sun. She was covered in bruises and dirt from her battle with Maleficus, but even as the Princess slept like a log in her wagon, she had an aura of purpose. Those who could see it, knew, that Princess Celestia was defeated, but she was not down for the count. She would rise up, stronger then ever after this battle. and that was more then enough to make most of them feel determination as well.

The Ponies may have been given a bloody nose by their hated foe. But things were far from over. Equestria was far from done.

Maleficus was sitting outside of the mossy old cabin he had been sleeping in. He was enjoying the scent of the sea and the sensation of the wind on his body. But as he took a deep sniff of the wind he caught the wisps of an odour that felt like a cloud of acid vapour had been poured into his nostrils. The sheer stench made him cough and snort.

He looked around, left and right, trying to determine where that foul scent had come from. Then he went still, and slowly lifted up one of his wings, and pressed his nose against it, and sniffed.

His eyes went wide for a few seconds, before he suddenly heaved and barfed onto the ground. Coughing he wiped his mouth before staring at his incredibly foul smelling and shit dirty wings and sighed in resignation. He had not cleaned up for years, he could not let it be so. But... how exactly do you clean up wings?

Rubbing his forehead he wondered what to do, when he looked out at the sea and decided that it would probably be for the best, if he found someplace to wash himself. Somewhere, without stinky salt water to make it worse.

"Guess I have to use my Interface screen for this." He said with a sigh as he pulled out a rolled up scroll made out of glowing light before unfurling it into a wide screen and began to swipe the tip of his hoof against its surface. The screen blirped and the image of the planet appeared as the link between the screen and his Interface and Satellite Network, worked perfectly.

Zooming in he began to search the immediate coastline to find a proper spot to clean off. That's when he took notice of a small section of river, or stream, just north of the rocky coastline, filled with fresh water from the mountains. It did not look particularly dangerous or near any settlement so it should be fine to go there and clean up himself before he stank even more.

"Gods... This got to be the most unsanitary state I have ever been it." He muttered to himself as he put away the screen into his satchel. It would take him a few hours but he would reach the lake before lunch time if he hurried.

For six hours he would walk across the grassy fields and through the few thickets and woods along the way between him and his destination. Once he reached the lake, in a fairly good amount of time, he began to prepare to wash himself up. The lake was big, half circular shaped, well more like a curved zigzag pattern.

He pulled off his armour and walked over to the edge of water before feeling it ,it was cool ,and yet of a non-chilling temperature. And so he took a few cautious steps to make sure he did not step into a deep crevice or similar deep area, before stepping out into the water. Although, as soon as he stepped into the water, he realized quite quickly a problem. He had no idea how to clean up his wings.

Maleficus stood there for a while, contemplating on how to properly clean up his wings. When he noticed something ,his dirty fur floated in the water, and he shook it about a little and watched as dirt and loose air was removed from him just shaking his hoof. That gave him all the inspiration he needed.

What he did was simple. He walked into the water until it reached above his shoulders, essentially leaving only his head from the neck and up above water, then he spread out his wings, below the surface, to the maximum length. Spreading out every nook and crack in his feather. And then he just soaked his wings in the water for a while, letting the water reach inside of his feathers to the roots, touching he skin of the limbs beneath them.

After about ten minutes he began to act. His wings began to vibrate as he twitched and shook them with small but powerful motions through out his entire wings. It was essential him creating powerful small ripples through his entire wing structure to shake off dirt off them. This did not only shake off dirt, it also let him shake all loose feathers and the grime caught between his feathers as well. The water splashed and rippled as he moved his wings around beneath the clear blue surface.

Well it was not all that clear blue as he cleaned himself up, a brown and grey trail of dirt and moon sand covered up a large spot of the water, flowing down towards the rapid stream going towards the sea, leaving a brown trail of dirt on the surface. He had to move away from his spot when he realized the water he was in was too dirty to wash in anymore, and stepped away from the brown spot, and repeated what he had just done.

After about two hours of shaking off damaged and loose feathers as well as dirt, he felt very refreshed, although the lake could not be considered overly clean at the moment since there was a trail of dirty feathers and grime floating down streams.

*I am just going to lay back and relax for a bit. Not going anywhere for at LEAST an hour* He thought to himself as he floated there in a cleaner section of the lake's water, just floating on the water, enjoying the sensation of the cool water refreshing his tired body.

But he was relaxing, was other things moving, other forces then the returning army of Equestria or the lone alicorn floating on a lake.

'
Canterlot was a very active city, even without the main army, a large portion of the knights of the realm or their Princess around were many still working and living their lives. But some, some were acting out work, not meant for their daily lives, but works best considered treason.

In a dark chamber deep beneath the earth stood a circular shaped table made out of some kind of black stone. By the large dark table stood six chairs, each a different colour with a specific symbol upon the back of each chair.

A door opened to the chamber, a floating candlestick bearing a trio of burning candles entered the room, followed by a black robed figure. As the figure entered the room the floating candlestick settled down upon the middle of the large table in the chamber. The figure then took a sea upon one of the chairs, one bearing the mark of a gnarled and scary looking tree.

Then four more doors opened, each on the side of a specific chair. And and out of each doorway came one more figure in a similar state of dress as the first. With them they too had candlesticks, which was either levitated or put down on the table's center. Then each of them took their seats.

One on a chair with the symbol of a silver arrow drawn back on a decorated silver bow. Another on the chair of a hammer. Then the smallest of the group sat down on a chair bearing a white kite shield with a red drop on it. And the final one settled down on the chair with the symbol of a white snowflake with a black snowflake on top of it.

Two chairs remained empty, but the meeting was started anyway for some reason. "We hath started this meeting of Our secret order for the first time." Said a young stallion from his chair with an hammer, ironically holding a wooden mallet, signalling the start of the meeting.

As the strike of the hammer struck the stallion spoke up further as the other members of the meeting did not initiate the first subject of the meeting. "As We all hath discussed, as We all hath planned. We all seek one thing. To bring down the rule of the alicorns. Celestia's senseless wasting of resources and lives hath cost Us and Our families much for the last ten years. She hath weakened not only the standing of the nobles but the merchants, the economy and Our greatest concern, Our very existence.

He kept talking, pointing out at each of the other members sitting in their chairs. "Thus We all found one another, and founded this Order, this secret society, which shalt bring down the alicorn who hath corrupted the bloodline of the old Pony Kings and Queens. And thus make Equestria a nation ruled by Unicorns, Earth Ponies and Pegasi. A nation independent from monarchy."

"This doest bring Us to Our first subject of the meeting. Thou all know it by know, the report from the Front Lines of Celestia's Second Crusade." The stallion then went silent, waiting for someone else to pick up the subject.

"What news doest We hath from Our other member?" A young mare asked from her seat with the symbol of a bow and arrow.

An elderly voice responded to this, from the elderly stallion sitting on the chair with the shield with a white background and red drop on it. He pulled out a strange orb from within his robe as he spoke to them. "We hath words from Our member within the Silver Army. Celestia lost to Maleficus, not as badly as the first time. But she still hath lost. This doest confirms Our group's intentions. The Alicorns, art not capable of leading the ponies. We shalt need to work out Our plan soon, or Equestria shalt end in ruins by her crusades."

"Buckin' hell. We was at le'st ten time as strong as last time! How da glue did We lose!?" The stallion on the chair with a hammer shouted out in frustration.

"Maleficus' strength doest no longer lie in him alone it doest seem. He hath forces of his own, an army of Ancient Ones, horses from ancient times bound to his will. Either through Necromancy or Temporal Magic, he hath summoned them and utilized them, quite efficiently, to defeat Our armies. Even the Order of the Golden Cross, although managing to clear a path through the Ancient Ones, failed to defeat Maleficus in battle." The elderly pony responded as he read the report he had written down when receiving the report from their spy in the armed forces.

There was a collective wince at the mention of the Stallion of Torment with an army of his own, one made up by their long since extinct ancestors to put the cherry on the top. But the old pony was far from done, and there was plenty of chocolate sauce to add to the sundae of bad they were being told.

"Then he fought Celestia to a standstill. But a massive monstrosity from the sea, dubbed to be a Sea Serpent by Maleficus himself, interrupted their fight. They were forced to team up and kill the creature and by then they were too strained to keep fighting. Then, he left, having beaten Celestia a second time." He continued before putting down the report.

"Just what manner of a monster art he?" The young stallion on the chair with the snowflake on, stated as he rubbed his head while slumping down in his seat. The other members of the secret order did not respond to this, too busy contemplating this information themselves.

"We hath to work on a plan to take down Celestia and put up a decent ruler before Equestra ruins itself either in warfare or economy. Our resources doest not last for long if We art to keep up with her demands for military advancements." The stallion by the chair with the spooky tree said with a grim resolution in his voice.

"Aye. But what manner of plan could We use?" Was the response from the mare in the group, and there was a collective silence as they tried to figure something out. It would take a lot of meetings for them to figure something out.

The young stallion with the mallet struck the table once more, ending the meeting. "For now, let Us end this meeting. And may this be the first of many meetings, for a fruitful future for all of Equestria!"

Then as one, each member shouted out the name of the Order, praising its purpose and message. "Praise be the Society of Heraldry, Independence and Trade!"

They then went silent and all of the ponies gathered their respective candlesticks, and left the chamber through each of their respective doors. Leaving the chamber to its darkness.

Now, yesterday had been relatively calm in comparison to the day before that. But when Maleficus had finished cleaning up and just wandered into a randomly picked forest for several hours, he had been expecting a common forest. Animals, nuts and trees. Well he got all three. But he also got some very crazy stuff. Like intelligent looking animals, sort of like one of those intelligent cartoon animals. He also saw a real life manticore sleeping on a sunny rock... he left it alone. And then he saw the tracks of a big cat the size of a car, bigger then the manticore.

He had made a small camp with a crude tent made out of transmutated leaves and branches, it was simple but comfortable. He had slept like a log... hehe. But then he woke up to a new day... and things went from slightly weird to freaking unbelievable.

Maelficus had seen a lot of weird things in his time as an Alicorn, but the sight that greeted him when he woke up that morning, was NOT something he had ever been expecting.

"...Just where the fucking hell did you come from?" There, in the middle of the clearing, laid a corpse, a corpse of a strange creature he knew as fiction.

It was a fucking cockatrice. A bloody. Fucking. Cockatrice. Tail of a snake, and body of a chicken. The thing was dead, crushed by a fallen branch. Its body had been picked clean of meat and only a mess of feathers, scales and bones was left. Well that and a pair of interesting statues.

A statue of a confused looking pony, looking to be barely the age of an adult. and the statue of a... griffin... a big and seriously muscular griffin with an angry snarl on its beak. Possibly male, it did not look feminine, but he was just going to take it at face's value this turn around.

The pony was dressed in the outfit of a farmer, well, old style that reminded Maleficus about a farmer at least. Possibly a mare going by the flowers in the pony's hair but he was not going to base someone's gender on that alone and he was not going to inspect closer. It would just feel wrong.

While the griffin was dressed in a kilt, like a Scottish highlander, bearing a seriously looking claymore. The griffin looked like the oldest of the two statues, and Maleficus could tell both of the statues were long since dead. How did he know this? The bite marks from a teethed beak having eaten up legs, pieces of the head and the torso kind of clued him in on how the cockatrice fed itself.

That's when he spotted something, one of the broken off forelegs of the griffin, a four fingered talon, or rather, three finger like claws with a curved claw and a rear finger with a curved claw that could act like a thumb. It was a predator's claw. But it was also something that gave Maleficus a sort of idea.

A way for him to regain something he no longer had. Hands. Or at least, a variant of them. Even if it would be a bird of prey talon, would it be far more... flexible then his blunt hooves. He just needed to figure out how to transform his body parts into that of a griffon.

He took a seat on the ground and examined the claw closely, examining it with his magical aura to determine what it was made up of and how it was shape. Sure it might be stone but it still contained far more information then anything he had available.

The fascinating thing was that the cockatrice may have turned the entire being into stone, it had not however, transformed the entire thing into a solid block of stone. It was instead like each part of the being, was a different type of rock, still retaining the anatomy and shape of the bones, the veins, the nerves and even the skin beneath the feathers. Had it not been so bone chillingly horrifying would it have been fascinating.

This gave Maleficus a lot to work with, but he still did not have a lot of information on how to transform his own hooves into talons. It would need to be worked on a lot, he only had dead material to work with, but with his Interface screen he had managed to get a proper scan of the talon. Not much to go on, but it was more then nothing.

"Well... I cannot work on this here, need to find a proper place to work on it." The alicorn stallion said to himself as he examined the broken talon. Then he realized something. Something he had overlooked.

Why look for a place to work on his transformation spell, when he can MAKE it on his own!?

Rearing back one of his forelegs he slammed it into the ground, and a pulse of energy flowed out of his body and through the ground. With his eyes closed he sensed every root, every pebble, every animal and every strand of grass. Then... he found what he was looking for.

He instantly turned his head in the direction of what he had sensed and his horn ignited with a crimson aura of energy. Then he bowed his head low, before raising it up, slowly, and as he did, there was a loud rumble as the ground of the forest began to shake with violent vibrations.

Then in an eruption of gravel, dirt, earth and roots, a pillar of solid rock emerged out of the soft soil a hundred meters or so away from his location.

Maleficus walked over to the stone pillar, it was cylindrical in shape, about thirty meters in radius with an height of fifty meters. Smirking he ignited his horn and the entire thick was engulfed by a crimson aura, then the once solid stone shape vibrated as something began to rotate from the peak of its cylinder shape.

After ten minutes, the vibrations stopped, then there was a loud grinding sound, as a section of the pillar's inside, carved out to leave a one meter thick hollowed cylinder in its place, as a second, much thinner stone pillar, rose out of its core.

Levitating the stone pillar to the the ground Malefivus examined it closely, then he began to carved out marking, a strange zigzagging pattern, across the entire pillar, stopping at certain points. Then after he was done marking the pattern ,he marked out areas of the pillar with two lines ,at five different points on the pillar. The area the two lines were marking was about two meters wide.

With that done he ignited his horn with arcane energy, before conjuring a blade of solid light. He then proceeded, to slice up the five areas he had marked out and created five two meter thick circles. With a push he started to roll them aside from the remnants of the pillar they had been part of recently. He rolled each of them to the hollowed out cylinder of stone and leaned them against tits surface.

Then he returned his focus to the remaining parts of the smaller pieces of cylinder and his horn ignited once more and a white light began to gather n the air. But this time, the light he conjured did not assume the shape of a blade. Instead, it flowed over to the lines, carved into the surface of the separate pieces of stone cylinders, and then, it filled up the carved lines with its light.

When the final line was filled, Maleficus narrowed his eyes in focus, and the lines of light, began to sink into the stone, melting through it. After about twenty minutes of careful focus and precision, he altered the shape of the light, and cut out parts of the pillar. The parts he cut out, fell off like cut out pieces of apple.

The parts that he did not cut out, but had carved out from the smaller stone cylinders, were a group of sets of cylindrical stair cases. Sure they were not perfect, but it was a fairly good first attempt.

He then lifted up the first staircase part with magic and levitated it into the hollowed out stone cylinder, once it was in place, he fused it into the walls and foundation by melting the rock through super intense heat created by magic, and then letting it fuse with the stone of the wall and bottom before letting it cool.

Then he levitated one of the stone plats, lowered it down into the hollowed out cylinder of stone and put it on top of the recently placed staircase, and then, he fused it into place just like he did with the staircase.

And then came the second staircase, followed by the second plate, then the third staircase and so on. As the fourth and final staircase was put into place, Maleficus levitated the second last piece on top of his recently made stone tower, the fourth stone plate.

After fusing the stone place to the top of the tower, he took the fifth stone plate, and carved out five cake pieces from the plate, each identical in size and shape. And then, he put those triangular like shapes on top of the tower, and put them together, as a pointy roof, melting them together with the top of the tower.

"Well that was fairly well done. Now for the less easy part,got to carve out the interior for my work." He said to himself before he cut out a door frame from the solid stone and entered the tower to carve out all the proper windows, entrances and to add walls and rooms to the entire structure. While not an interior designer, was he at least going to try and make his newly made workshop is not too spartan.

He created walls, windows, furniture, blank paged books, writing utensils, glassware, a rooftop garden, a proper bed and a magical toilet, through the utilization of magic an runic arrays. It would take him a few hours to finish the tower, just about mid-afternoon, and then he began to work on the reason for him creating this building in the first place. The concept of allowing him to transform his hooves, into talons.

Maleficus made sure to gather both of the petrified corpses, he did not know why but it felt wrong to separate the two long since dead creatures.

The mare statue was not of much interest to him, but he kept it in his lab along with the griffin statue. While not a fully proper human or wizard lab, was it enough for him to analyze the griffin and try to work out what to work with. The stallion knew that Luna would help him understand and process a lot, but he was fairly certain she had no idea what a griffin was an thus had no reason to know how to transform into one.

Thus Maleficus began to try to study the griffin's body. Utilizing magic and a fairly basic knowledge of biology, at least basic for the human world, he began to try and figure out the solution.

Even with all of his aid and intelligence would the alicorn find it a difficult trial. His initiate transformations into earth pony, unicorn and pegasus had worked because his body had been essentially made up by the essences from all those three creatures. Possibly more but he did not know anything about that.

But that was the thing, he could easily transform into ponies, equine beings. The griffin, was made up by eagle and lion, it held no physical relation to the ponies. There was no real way to transform into one unless someone knew how to transform into animals, but that was something Malefiucs very much doubted.

Thus, he would have to think outside of the box to even attempt to transform part of himself into a griffin. And even then would it most likely take him quite an amount of time to even figure it out. But he was more then willing to spend time on it, after all, time was a resource he had quite an amount of.

Author's Notes:

Staadnauthursil: Well this is one of my shorter chapters in a while, but I felt like it was not going to be possible to increase it in size anymore. It just felt right.

Pinkie: No need to push yourself too hard if you think you have done what you can!

Staadnauthursil: Thank you Pinkie. But also, I have already started on Chapter 14, and I have currently reached above 2k in words already. Hoping to have the next chapter done before the end of June, if I can get my mojo going.

Pinkie: Just drink plenty of milkshakes, cakes and brownies!

Staadnauthursil: ...That sounds less of a solution for lack of inspiration and more a recipe for guaranteed diabetes.

Pinkie: ...What is diabetes?

Staadnauthursil: ...Nevermind.