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Within a mountain range was a loud crackling sound erupting among the peaks. The sound of breaking stone and fracturing ground. Avalanches of ice, stone, and snow tore down the sides of various mountains and cliffs as they shook in strong tremors as the sounds echoed through out the mountain range.

Then the crumbling escalated until they resided into a gentler crumbling sound of falling rocks and boulders. And something large rose out of the peaks of the mountains, it was a large city carved out of the peak of a mountain. Its architecture was in the shape of Gothic styled stone structures. Upon the top peak of the mountain rested a large Gothic tower with towers, spires, and turrets.

The castle easily covered the entire peak, and floating above it was a group of ten flying ships with storm clouds floating beneath their wooden frames. Around the castle was a large courtyard and garden decorated with various statues, smaller inner walls, and exotic plants. While the castle itself had a Gothic appearance was it decorated with a varied combination of evil, good and wild aligned creatures of various myths.

It was all manners of beasts of myths decorating the city, from statues of dragons and heroes to statues of monstrous hounds and beautiful cat like creatures. There were all manners of mysterious creatures carved into shape upon the city and resting upon its buildings and among the larger streets.

Even as the mountain the city and castle rested upon rose out of the mountain range and into the heavens, was the city unaffected by the shifting mass it was resting upon. And the sheer scale of the city not to be ignored, even with its medieval architecture already making it appear like the imagery out of a steampunk fantasy game, was the city not compact.

It was spread out with wide streets, bountiful gardens, impressive statues, four exotic looking cathedrals, and fourteen lesser keeps placed along a twisting path that moved in a spiral across the entire city from the bottom to the peak. Along the entire pathway were tall and thick city walls lined with towers, between the walls were the fourteen lesser keeps lining down the entire path. Creating a murder path leading up to the top.

There were a set of main gates at the bottom of the path at the base of the city gate after wards came to a keep, and then another keep, only there's no gate to the path after the keep. Instead one has to travel around the city to find the pathways leading up to the next district to then travel back to the path to breach the second group of keeps. And it would repeat this like a battle of attrition.

The fourteen keeps were split up into a total group of seven, splitting up the city in Seven District. From the bottom up they were named as follows, the Humble District, the Prayer District, the Golden District, the Sanctum District, the Judgement District, the Cross District, and finally the Crown District. Each district was mostly identical and had no specific purpose. The knights had no agricultural land or buildings like the other cities, instead, they relied on trade and what underground crops they could produce, a lot of their dishes involved all manners of moss, insects, and mushrooms.

Only the Crown District was special, for it was there that the Knight Commander and Warlord of the Horses reigned over the city.

This was the city of Saints' Chapel, the citadel city of the knights, known as the City of Myths and Miracles. And it was the last of the horses' constructed homes to attain flight. It marked the completion of not just Project Skyheim, which was the construction of their nation's cities and resource outposts, but also Golden Apple as well.

Golden Apple was the project meant to raise the lands of the horses to the skies, making them a Nation of Flying Islands, or mountains if you want to be specific. This was the reason why they had only marked down ten spots on the map when they marked down their borders.

For their borders would be ever shifting and never at one place for long. Thus creating a nationwide security system for the horses and their homes by the very nature of the floating islands they had created. But because of this were they forced to pick the largest, sturdiest, and resource rich areas they could find for this to even work.

And with the collective information about the planet's intermediate resources available to them by the scans of Maleficus' Interface Satellite System, were they able to find the areas without spending years of manual prospecting. Through the aid of this information they picked the largest, the most fertile and the sturdiest spots to build their new homes and to raise them into the skies.

Yamale, Jarngard, Póli ton Álogo, each of these cities had been granted the power of flight through Project Golden Apple. Not only these four cities had been granted this blessing. The other sites of the horses had been augmented with the Golden Apple Projects

The large and vast farming communities of High Corn and Grand Grainosa were essentially floating islands easily twenty miles in width and length, almost perfectly circular in their shape. These lands hold vast amounts of farmlands to produce crops and other manners of food items to spread out to the other cities. While also producing quite a bit of material from plant or wood matter. The defence lines of the two farming communities were constructed with two large circular walls, with the larger cities built by the edge of the central city wall. There were smaller villages spread out with large watch tower by each community and along the walls. With large artificial lakes in the center of each area.

Not much population when compared to the Great Cities, but a lot of resources.

And then there were the three resource-rich communities. One was a large round-topped mountain that was once an active volcano, long since dormant. The hole left by tearing out the mountain from the mountain chain left a lake of magma as the volcano was dormant, but the magma was still connected to the bottom of the mountain.

The mining community upon its surface was named Gemrutter Town, a crude name but fitting with the rich metal and gemstone within the mountain. Large towers and a single large keep protects the mining town, there's no city wall, but the labyrinth-like interior of the mountain makes one irrelevant.

While Gemrutter was the main producer of rare metals and gems were another mountain the producer of not just metal but also coal, herbs, fungi, wood, and rare plants through glass buildings built among the city. This flying mountain had two flat peaks, plateau-like areas. Upon these areas were two halves of a single large city constructed with a single bridge connecting them. Beneath said bridge was an artificial lake made by making two dams between the peaks and creating artificial rain clouds above them to fill it up into a water reservoir, the bottom was reinforced as to not leak into the mines.

Beneath the halves of the city were deep elevation shafts leading down to industrious mines and factories. While on the surface the two city halves were producing other things. The surface area beneath the city was covered with pine and leaf trees, with spread out guard towers, with four large keeps on each end of the sky floating mountain island.

there were no city walls except for at the peak where the two halves of the city were surrounded by thick walls. But the spread out towers made this mining outpost capable of as much offense as defence. Which was a lot considering it had over a hundred towers spread out among the woodlands, not counting the other fifty spread out along the two city walls.

Its name was Coaltike, a bit of a horse pun with some interesting references mixed into it.

The third resource location was the main producer of wood, charcoal, tar, sawdust, fungi, herbs, exotic plants, and other forest slash swamp products. It was no mountain, instead, it was a massive piece of forest that had been essentially carved out of an entire valley, making what was left even deeper. Creating a thirty mile long and twenty miles wide floating forest. It was the largest of the Ten Holdings of the Horadrim Kingdom, and for good reasons.

It was covered in various types of forests, with hills and even swamps. With two large lakes on each end of the landmass, with a network of rivers and smaller lakes and ponds all over the place. Over twenty camps had been made for processing wood products were built on the floating forest. But there were also producers who made charcoal, tar, glue, gathered various kinds of seeds, fungi, herbs, a few kinds of animals, and so on.

There were ten towns on the floating island, each named differently. Woodbuck Town, Hill Filly Valley, Roundhouse Town, Shroomboom Village, Giftmouth Town, Manelure Hamlet, Hooferdam, Haystrom, Prancing Hill, and Bigbuck City. Each connected by a set of roads and paths.

But in the center of the forest island was a large city built upon one of the medium-sized lakes in the middle of the river system. It was constructed with a network of bridges and several walls and watchtowers. With a large castle and a Sky Harbour for the Sky Ships like a big airport located on an island in the center of the lake. This was the city of the island, Strotholm, and here the horses would get products through the waters they received, either by cart, sky ship, riverboat or carriers. Which they would later make into various kidns of objects to sell.

The entire island was named after the city, as to mark it down as the most important settlement on the floating forest. And also gave the horses something to use when messing with future tourists. Like when asked what the name of the city of Strotholm is and thus create a chain conversation where the tourist is trying to figure out what the name of the city is, as they think they are being told the name of the floating island.

Horses can be pranksters sometimes.

The final location of the ten spots is the floating stronghold carved out of the strongest mountain found. A mountain-sized fortress carved out into the shape of a massive castle. It looked less like a floating mountain and more like a floating castle the size of a mountain.

It was crafted with over ten walls, over two hundred massive watchtowers, and double that in smaller watchtowers. It had gatehouses, bottleneck locations, murder holes, archer holes, battlements, and so much more. It was created to be able to withstand any army, as it was not just a floating fortress. It was the location of the main research facilities and holding vaults of the artifacts and secret gathered by the horses.

It is known as Girthenburg. The main stronghold of the Horadrim Kingdom.

All of these floating islands had been created by ripping out large landscape out of various locations that had been marked down on the map of Equestria when the horses marked down their borders. An act only made possible with the utilization of the incomplete mana engine blueprints of their creator to create a complete and functional version that could be used to power the large scale arrays that would tear the heavy masses of the Ten Spots free from the ground they were bound to.

And they had succeeded. Now all of the major landmasses of the horses were floating among the clouds like massive airships of stone, earth, and soil.

But that was not all the horses held within their borders.

The horses still had holdings and outposts on the ground as well, specifically within or near the large pits formed by tearing out their now flying islands from the landscape. And even outside of their borders they held a large number of informants, diplomats, spies, and agents. There were several hundreds of horses living among the ponies, but the horses' mainlands is still the floating islands.

And currently, are all of these flying landmasses gathering in a secluded location within the mountain range of the Foal Mountains. Even though they are hard to hide are the horses able to move their floating islands by moving above thick cloud layers and creating artificial clouds around the islands to cover them from sight.

And currently, above the eastern central region of the Foal Mountains, were the sky islands floating with an armada of sky ships flying around them.

Within the highest tower of the large stronghold of Girthenburg was a large gathering hall where a large banquet was being held. A large square shaped table covered with an abundance of various types of food, drinks, and refreshments stood at the center of the large room, with a dozen or so smaller round tables holding different types of snacks and drinks, not as diverse as the table. Sitting by the vast table, or standing by the smaller round tables, were a large number of important figures of the Horadrim Kingdom.

The Warlords, the Horadrim Mages, the Sky Ship Officers, the newly founded Merchants' Guild's Staff Members, and even the recently chosen Mayors of the five islands utilized for productions of goods, materials, and food.

There was also the temporary leader of the Horadrim Kingdom, Cursed Blessing. The elder looking horse was seated on a chair by the large square table and he was sipping a glass of red wine made from the grapes of Grand Grainosa, the rush of the sweet alcoholic drink was a pleasant experience for him. Though he made a mental note to not do any magic until a few hours had gone by and the alcohol was out of his system.

The feast had been going on for a few hours now and all of them were well fed and slightly buzzed from drinks by this point. And thus the horse sage decided that now was the best time to speak to everyone without anyone getting overly tense or asking a lot of questions. He raised a small brass bell next to his plate of roasted corn with marinaded chicken wings and rang it out to the gathered diners.

"If I may have your attention please." He said as he rang the bells. And after a few moments of ringing the bell gently, he saw that he had the attention of the room and that no one was talking. He slowly lowered the bells down to the table, and stood up from his seat and addressed the room.

"We all know why we have gathered together here today. We are soon reaching the moment for the return of our creator from the moon. The time has been confirmed by not only our own astronomers but the ponies have realized it as well." The horses went a bit stiff and looked at each other but did not speak or murmur, and just kept listening to their leader.

"At the start of the first of the seventh month next year, the Red Solar Eclipse will be occurring. Maleficus will be returning and I have already received words of his plans through the Black Beacons he has sent us. We will keep out of the conflict, our nation will instead aid Equestria with its defences along the areas the army will be gathering its soldiers from." Some ponies might have spoken against this fact when it was spoken to them, but the Horses of the Horadrim Kingdom were only able to aid Equestria in any conflict if they were attacked, not if Equestria was the aggressor.

Princess Celestia had known this and had agreed to the terms even while knowing this fact. She did not want to drag another nation into what she considered an Equestrian matter. Even though her conflict with Maleficus was causing a lot of unbalance not only with her nation's military but also causing much disorder and distress with opportunistic bandits, raiders or monsters taking advantage of the lowered amount of patrols in the nation.

"We will be aiding Equestria to the best of our abilities. Our Sky Fleets have grown, as have our troops and civil numbers. By now we number over twenty thousand adult horses and about half of that in youths. We have been blessed with good progress of expansion, but we cannot stay idle. We need to make sure we have space, resources, and the workload to keep our nation's population expansion stable and not run out of control. Thus we may need to expand even more in the coming decades or so." Another serious problem for the horses was that their numbers were growing out of control. Even though they had a lot of room and resources to handle their current population, could they grow too quickly and become unable to handle the constant population booms.

The horses had only a limited amount of land, and if things got really bad, they may have to colonize ground cities or raise more landmasses into the skies to properly accumulate their population growth. It was a serious issue, one they would have to consider talking about more in the future.

But for now, were their minds more focused on another matter. The return of their father. "But for now, we shall celebrate the future arrival of our Creator and Father. May his feud with Princess Celestia come to an end so that he can focus on fulfilling his promise to Queen Laura. To a peaceful future!"

"To Peace!" The horses cried out, raising their own glasses or mugs in response to the speech of their leader, as he raised his own glass. And the entire room drank their varying beverages, before continuing the feast. This time in a cheerful and happy manner, knowing that their Father and Creator would be returning next year.

Of course, their hopes for the conflict between Princess Celestia and their creator was far fetched, or at least not in the immediate future. But they could hope, pray and, wish for the conflict to come to an end. That much they could do.

The word of the approaching Red Sun had been spread through out Equestria in just a few hours after its discovery. Princess Celestia was having her plans prepared and was getting ready for the confrontation between her forces and Maleficus' dark minions. She refused to consider his corrupted followers as horses, they were no better than mindless thralls in her eyes.

So she had a gathering for her Generals in the War Room in the Royal Palace. General Rough Stock of the Bronze army was smoking a pipe, the veteran was nearing his first century of age for an earth pony. Some would say that most earth ponies have gone past their prime at that phase of their lives. But Rough stock looked still as hearty and strong as he had during the First Crusade.

Next to the General was one of the Captains of the Bronze Army. A strong looking earth pony with a large sword of iron strapped to his side, a weapon forged for him by the horses as a request. Captain Weak Guts had grown exceptionally skilled and strong, not just as a soldier but as an officer as well.

With him was the General of the Silver Army, Aerial Grace, who was currently discussing a team-work effort between some of her silver troops and Guts' bronze troops. The two had grown very close ever since the Draconic Incursion and it had become quite the pleasant gossip about how they seem to like each other but cannot talk about anything not related to combat or warfare.

It was both sweet and amusing to see the two warriors fumble around when they were trying to speak about things not related to work or battle. Celestia had even heard that there was a betting pool on when the two would end up officially enter a relationship together.

She had a thousand bits on them getting together before the end of the year. Not a large amount with her being the ruler of Equestria, but still quite a tidy sum.

And lastly there was the leader of the Golden Army, Bloody Courage... well he would have been there, but he was not. And she could not figure out why he was absent during such a crucial time. In his stead was a young Captain of the Gold Army, a unicorn mare by the name of Combat Support, a young mare in her early twenties with a green mane and tail, gray pelt, pale green eyes, and the cutie mark of a brown medicine kit saddle bag with a gold sword, a bronze shield and a silver crossbow resting behind it..

Deciding that she needed information, which was a no-brainer since she wanted to know just why one of her Generals were not at the war meeting. "Doest thee mind telling Us where General Bloody Courage might be? We hath no recollection of him abstaining from duty."

Young Captain Combat Support coughed a bit, caught off guard by the question. Even though she should have been expecting it. And gathered her wits before responding to the Princess. "General Courage is on his honeymoon your highness, he got married a month ago and has taken leave for his honeymoon with Lady Sweet Nonsense."

Princess Celestia blinked and stared at the nervous mare before she tilted her head and spoke out in a baffled voice. "Why hath We not heard of this matter yet? Such important events should hath been spoken of to us."

Captain Combat Support laughed a bit nervously while rubbing her neck before speaking up to her ruler. "Apparently had former Lord Bloody Charge entered General Courage in a betrothal contract with Lady Sweet Nonsense's family before he abstained as Lord. It came into effect recently because it was approaching the appointed date. Apparently, he felt that General Courage was not taking his status as a noble seriously."

Celestia gave the nervous Captain a hard stare and the other officers in the room tried to not make it clear that they were listening to the conversation. No one was willing to get Celestia into a bad mood because of Bloody Courage's lack of procedure. "This doest not explain why Lord Bloody Courage hath not informed us of his wedding nor of his absence from the Crusade We art about to undertake."

"Apparently to keep General Courage from revoking the betrothal was he not informed about it until a few days before the planned wedding. This decision was made before the known date of the Third Crusade. So he apparently had no time to give any information about it." That was the response given to her, with the mare providing it giving a helpless shrug. Since she too could not figure out why General Bloody Courage did not inform her personally. It was impossible to figure out how nobles thought, they were not creatures of logic that were for certain.

The alicorn mare pressed a hoof to her forehead and let out a suffering sigh. "Well, We art not one to blame Lord Bloody Courage to being forced to follow the word of his Head of House. But We art not pleased with how this hath obscured his duty as a General of Our Gold Army. Thou shalt take his stead Captain Combat Support and lead the Gold Army's forces for the upcoming Crusade."

"Yes your Highness, General Courage told me to handle all of the Gold Army's actions in his name through your orders during his absence." Sighing again Princess Celestia just walked over to the battle map, not really focused on the conversation. Or she might have noticed a slight... concerning matter about the wording of the orders given to Captain Support.

"Let Us all focus Our efforts on the coming battle in the approaching summer." The Princess tapped a round sphere, which was being supported by a golden bowl with three legs, a bright flash emerged from the orb and the face of Commander Rock Steady appeared upon the surface of the sphere, the veteran knight saluting her.

His voice then rang out of the orb, clear and strong as if he was standing in front of them. "I am receiving imagery and sound perfectly Princess Celestia. The Eastern Division of the Order of the Golden Cross, stationed at Blackstone Keep is ready to listen to the battle plans for the Third Crusade."

"Excellent Commander. We will have your Grand Master receiving words from Our meeting as well once he hath returned from his hunt of the Church of Clucking Chaos in the White Tail Woods." Celestia said with a smile, the process and refinement of the Comm Orbs had greatly improved. A network of several hundred these long-distance communication spheres had been created and spread out all over the known realm of Equestria. Even the colony of Bangcolt had five such orbs.

Then a pair of young voices rang out from the orb and the Commander blinked in surprise when two foals suddenly appeared, hugging his neck from behind. The first voice was a young pegasus filly with a clear blue mane, and tail, and orange coat. "Papa! I want to listen too!"

While the second foal was a pegasus colt with a blue pelt and a gray and green striped mane and tail. "Yeah me too!"

Princess Celestia blinked at the sight, but then had to press a hoof to cover up the giggles that threatened to burst out of her mouth at the sight of Commander Rock Steady's face as his foals somehow got into his office and began to mess around. It was a very adorable sight to see the normally serious and stoic Commander act like a doting father.

Chuckling a bit Commander Rock steady gently levitated his giggling foals off his back and held them out to his second in command. "Sorry little ones, Papa is working. Ser Be Boop, can you take Wildheart and Cloud Dancer to their mother? I believe they have some lessons to attend to. Which they apparently have been trying to evade."

"Of course Commander, come now little ones, your father has important business to attend to. And I bet you do not want your mother to get upset about you ignoring your lessons." The voice of Be Boop said with a gentle tone to it as the pony in question carried the two foals on his back while walking out of the room.

"Awwww!/Awwww!" The voices of the two small foals whined as they were gently taken away from their father's office.

"Sorry about that Princess, they are full of energy and constantly tries to evade their lessons to play. Hopefully, will their mother keep them occupied." The other ponies in the room just chuckled at the Commander's words, none of them had been expecting the rough and duty-bound large unicorn to actually get married. He had seemed more interested in military affairs and handling of the Eastern division of his knightly order, then taking on a relationship.

And yet he had been married to a pegasus mare by the name of Ancient Ruins who was the leader of a clan of nomadic scholars and treasure hunters called the Wind Striders. Apparently, the two of them had enjoyed each other's company and it had grown from that to a serious relationship. It had been a pleasant surprise for them all.

Princess Celestia just gave him a nodded as she smiled at the orb she was communing with him through. "No worries Ser Rock Steady. We art but grateful that thou art able to keep doing your duty with your little ones taking up so much time. If thou wish We may offer thee some time off to spend with thy foals."

"No need your majesty, I and Ruin are able to handle the little tykes, and Be Boop is more than willing to be a foalsitter should we get too busy to keep track of them. Anyway, Blackstone Keep is prepared to listen to your orders and commands Princess." The unicorn commander gave a salute through the image of the orb and Celestia nodded.

She then reached out and tapped a second sphere, on this one the image of a pegasus mare, Happy Meal, appeared upon the surface. The mare gave a wide grin and saluted to the Princess. "Acting representative of da Head Quarters of the Order of da Golden Cross, Master Knight Happy Meal is here! Reporting fer duty all da way from our little camp outside of White Tail Woods Princess! We are all moving back fer Canterlot!"

"Wonderful to hear Ser Happy Meal. We will be starting the War Council soon, We shalt just call the others." Princess Celestia said with a smile to the cheerfully smiling mare, and reached out to touch another orb, out of this one came the image of a red dragon.

"Dragon Lord Clash, representative of the Bangcolt Colony, the Rock Fire Clan, and the Monster Hunter Guild, are here your highness." Princess Celestia nodded at that, Clash had proven himself an important figure for the colonization efforts of her nation, and also a steadfast ally in the attempt to pacify the Dragon Clans to not act aggressively towards her nation. His Monster Hunter Guild was the perfect front for the Dragon Hunters to take missions hunting not just for dangerous dragons, but for dangerous beasts as well. A guild hall had been opened in the city of Baltimare as well two years ago and it was showing promise.

Not speaking out to the dragon she reached out and touched another sphere. And upon its surface appeared the smiling face of an elderly looking equine by the name of Cursed Blessing, Lord of the Horadrim Kingdom. "Greetings to you Princess, Lord Asclepius is hearing you loud and clear from the Palace of Póli ton Álogo."

"We art grateful for your aid in our planning efforts Lord Ascelpius. We doest hope thou will be able to keep Our borders safe during our Crusade." Princess Celestia had discussed the plans for the Third Crusade beforehoof with the Horses. They would not take part in the Crusade, instead, they would be protecting Equestria to the best of their abilities with their Sky Ships and Sky Islands.

When the news had come to her that the horses had torn mountains and landscapes free of the ground and flown them up into the skies to create flying islands she had felt giddy. It had been such a glorious idea and the sheer amount of effort, knowledge, and power required to create such a magical effect was unfathomable! She had not been allowed to investigate the floating islands' central network of arrays or the power source of them, much to her disappointment.

But instead, she was allowed to witness the construction of the crystal spires used as the central power conversion point that let the island keep flying almost near infinitely. It had been a fascinating sight, of piles upon piles of crystal fragments, and powder gathered into large metal containers the size of boats.

When full they were sealed and the put into giant ovens. In which the horses heated them up and then in some manner increased the pressure inside of the containers. And pressed the melted crystals within with this artificially amplified pressure to such a degree that the crystal fragments and powder and been turned into a liquid mass of crystalline material.

Which was then poured out into giant molds and shaped into segments that would become the giant crystal spires.

It had been fascinating.

"We are more than able to protect your borders, Princess. We are few but we will do our best to keep your nation safe. But know that we cannot be everywhere. Even if we have our Flying Islands, are there still only ten of them." Princess Celestia nodded to the old sage's wise words, she had realized it when she was told that the number of floating islands were limited to ten in total.

The horses had one big limit with their military capabilities. They had to protect their newly constructed homes and even if the islands themselves were well fortified, did they still have fleets of sky ships protecting each of them. Thus the horses used their floating islands as massive sky bases to float through the skies and act as not just as floating islands, but as floating military bases and strongholds.

But this limited their efficiency to smaller regions as only two active Sky Fleets were not actively guarding the Sky Islands. And one of them was a trading fleet called the Hermes Fleet, and it was only sparsely outfitted with military gear. Not outfitted for prolonged warfare.

"We doest understand this Lord Ascelpius, worry not, We shalt hath orders sent to Our troops guarding the borders and our homes to keep in mind that thou art not to be bothered unless it be an emergency. They art to contact other pony forces before considering asking thee for aid." The Horse Lord nodded and went silent, puffing on a white pipe he put inside of his mouth.

Princess Celestia levitated the orbs of her observers to spots over the table and then she turned to face her Generals and Officers. "We art to start explaining the battle plan for the upcoming Third Crusade. As thou all know, We doest not know where or when We shalt face Melficus, thus we shalt have a lot of contingency plans in case he acts outside of Our initial plans."

And so the War Council began and the ponies made their final preparations and planning before their Third Crusade would begin at the start of upcoming Midsummer.

Maleficus stood on his hind legs upon the surface of the moon. Looking skywards where the planet above the moon was floating in the void of space. His eyes were looking upon the surface of the planet that he had watched for over twenty years in solitude. Only given two month's visit to the surface of the planet.

He was more familiar with the silent deserts and burning landscape of the moon then he was of the sensation of wind, grass, rain and sunlight. Slowly he raised a hoof up and held it over the planet, a sad look in his eyes as he thought about the ponies upon the planet he had grown so close to.

Only to be separated from them twice now, once he was gone for ten years, now he had been gone for seventeen. He could feel the sensation of the curse pulling him towards the moon approaching. As the sun beyond the other side of the planet was taking on a more reddish tone day by day.

He stood there, thinking, contemplating. And then the black and green flames rushed in from all around and engulfed his shape. But he did not react, only limply letting the flames lift him off the sand and carry him upwards, away from the desert of the moon and towards the planet above him.

The cloud layer split apart as he flew through the atmosphere, his soaring shape tearing down towards the vast plains outside of the Everfree Forest way, way down.

But this is how far Maleficus intended to let the fire guide him. He spread his wings, and closed his eyes, and focused his magic. A powerful pulse of green light was emitted through the flames holding him. And slowly his trajectory shifted slowly. Until Maleficus opened his eyes, his horn and eyes glowing crimson. and with a jerk of his head, he made the flames fall westwards.

His falling form made a curved turn left and Maleficus smirked as he saw his destination approaching rapidly as he flew away from the open fields north of Everfree. And instead flew westwards, over the White Tail Woods. Although he did not know the name of the region or the forest.

Green forestry passed by beneath him as he kept his eyes focused, trying to see his end goal. But perhaps he was focusing a bit too much. Especially considering he had forgotten one part about his flight.

Maleficus blinked when something suddenly appeared from below and blocked his view. It was tall, brown with a green crown and easily five meters thick. His brain froze for a few seconds before he realized what was rapidly approaching. *Where did that tree come from!?*

In his haste and focus had Maleficus forgotten that while he could control the direction of his fall, was it still a fall. And the altitude of his fall had been getting lower steadily, and he never noticed that he was getting closer to the large forest beneath him.

The falling green star that was Maleficus slammed into the massive tree. The tree had its entire upper half torn asunder as the green star impacted its crown of leaves. There was a bright flare of green light that covered the morning skies in an intense green light.

Before the light could fade came a shock wave that traveled with an intense thunderous boom out from the impacted area as the fallen star erupted into a massive explosion of dark green flames and powerful kinetic force. Bark, branches, splinters, leaves, and ashes flew out across the woodlands.

Out from the explosion came the dark shape of Maleficus flying. Debris of wood and plant matter was flying alongside him as he found himself tumbling uncontrollably through the air like some kind of misfired ballistic missile.

And then he hit another tree. This one was splintered apart by the force of the stumbling alicorn's body, spraying even more wooden fragments into the winds. The nearby trees were uprooted and knocked over as the shock wave o his passing body flew through the foliage.

And then he crashed through yet another tree. The scene repeated itself and thus a third tree exploded like a non-combustion based firework, but he kept going.

The weight and speed of his moving body were not enough to be stopped. Even as he slammed through tree after tree, even as the ground was torn up as he slammed into its surface, he just bounced up like a flat stone skipping over water. Each time he flew he spent an awful lot of time cursing, before slamming through yet another tree, and then repeat his curses.

This show of alicorn based wood chipping was repeated for about two minutes. Until Maleficus slammed into a small hill and found himself spinning through the air as he was sent spinning out of the edge of the forest. He struck the ground yet again, and again, skipping like a crash dummy until he finally stopped-

He flipped and spun one final time before slamming with a crack into the side of a massive boulder, cracking the entire thing. His body was stuck in the massive stone, buried halfway into the surface, leaving only his rear body sticking out of the deep hole he had made into the thing. His left hind leg was twitching slightly as he just hung there in that hole for a moment.

Then the boulder began to fall apart. Shards and chunks of stone fell apart into a massive pile of rubble. Revealing a stone and gravel covered Maleficus lying on his back on a pile of dust, spitting out gravel and snorting out dust from his nostrils. He finally shook himself clean and then decided to just fall over on his back and pressed his left hoof to the side of his skull, letting out a groan as he tried to ease his headache from the impact.

As he laid there among the broken fragments of the big rock while reaching up and rubbing his sore head. Muttering to himself out loud. "I really hate these landings."

The time had come. For the third time, the moon's burning specter shifted and twisted into a spiraling mass of green and black fire. It grew upwards like a growing spiraling drill before erupting off of the surface of the moon. As it reached the atmosphere of the planet it turned, from a spiraling mass of black and green flames, into a falling star of green fire.

As it was occurring was Princess Celestia standing on the large gatehouse of Canterlot's city wall. She was currently lowering the moon, and as she did so could she see that the dark black and green flames have already begun to move into a spiraling form. The Princess of the Sun watched intensely as the green streak fell down from the heavens while she raised the new sun. The crimson rays of the red sun colouring the blue skies with a tinge of red, almost making the sky look palish red.

The falling green star flew through the clouds above and moved down towards the Everfree Forest. Celestia kept her eyes focused at the falling streak of green with narrowed eyes, intent on not allowing the star to escape her gaze. After his last arrival sent her plans into disarray was she no longer going to just think that he would land by the Everfree Forest like the first time.

She knew that Maleficus could alter the direction of his fall if he wanted to. Thus she had to be constantly vigilant as to not let him escape her notice. *Thou shalt not be given time to mess up Our efforts to end thy evil presence!*

And as if on cue she saw the falling green streak shift direction and suddenly turn towards the West. She instantly knew that the cur was moving towards a spot he was intent on using against her and her armies.

This time, she intended to not give him the time to prepare.

She quickly walked over to the battlements of the gatehouse and jumped up on top of one of the taller portions and she looked down. Outside of Canterlot stood three massive rectangular formations of ponies dressed in silver, bronze and gold armour standing upon the grassy fields next to the cliff-side by the road. They were all lined up perfectly, with wagons carrying supplies and siege engines located among the center and rear of their formations.

Princess Celestia then opened her lips and shouted out to her forces, pointing westwards with her right foreleg. her voice echoed out over the city behind her and out over the open plains, the mountains and valleys before her, as she shouted out in her voice of royal authority. "Maleficus hath returned once more and once more he hath sought to evade Us to perform his wicked plans! We shalt not allow this! March West! March in the name of Equestria!"

As one the ponies raised their right hooves into the air and shouted out together. "ORA!"

And then, they all turned 180 degrees and began to march southwards. Their hooves thundered over the solid stone of the road and thumped against the soft soil of the grass, as their formations slowly shifted from two spread out rectangular formations, into three long lines.

And as they marched down the southern road they began to sing and chant. Drums were being beaten, trumpets were sounded and choirs of chanting 'ha's and 'ho's echoed throughout the melody.

The three armies marched past the southern hills. Their rumbling steps causing the land to quiver.

Their Princess flew off the gatehouse and was flying above them, her white flying shape guiding them to their path.

Soon they reached the crossroad and from there they turned right and went towards the west. Passing by the road sign that read 'White Tail Woods' in the direction they were marching.

Their steps took them down a long and wide road leading down to the lower plains where Saddle Lake was located. There was no road leading west after they reached the plains. So they had to move over the grassy plains.

The moist morning grass was growing over wet soil, as it had been raining two days earlier. Hooves and wooden wheels sank into the moist earth, but the ponies kept marching.

The Silver Army took to the skies. It was like a swarm of silver glittering birds were flying out of now muddy track left in the grassy fields. Over a hundred pegasi were pilling a newly designed manner of chariot capable of flight. Only the soldiers pulling the wagons were left below, with a couple of soldiers left behind to give them aid, if they were to be hampered by the mud.

Princess Celestia flew down ahead of the army and landed before the edge of the White Tail Woods. Behind here came first the Silver Army, then the Bronze Army, and finally the Gold Army and the Silver Army's wagons.

She then ignited her horn and tossed her head forward, a golden beam sliced through the wooden vegetation, tearing up a wide and long path through the forest. The path was over twenty meters wide but had left the ground relatively intact, as the spell had not been fire based. It did leave a pretty wide trench along its path however.

Celestia leads her forces into the White Tail Woods, in the distance, she could see the rising column of smoke from where Maleficus had landed. It would take them a day to reach their destination, even with their preparations and improved gear they would just make it to the location within a day.

As the final wagon was pulled into the newly made passage through the White Tail Woods, were over a dozen wagons pulled back to the rear. From these wagons came several earth ponies placing gravel, sand, and flat stone over the torn up ground. It would not be possible to do this in the muddy plains with their limited supplies. But they could make the planned road through the woods.

With a final cry of 'Ora' the ponies marched forth, their path taking them deeper into the forest. Leaving behind their march a pristine stone road made through the improved construction techniques of the Order of the Golden Cross.

The ponies had once more gone to war.

But as the forces of the ponies disappeared into the green forestry of White Tail Woods, were several unseen eyes watching the armies, from the dense foliage of the tree crowns. Intently watching as the forces of the ponies went westward after the fallen green star.

Then, as the army went out of sight, jumped half of the unseen figures out of the trees, spread wide and large wings, before flying out of the treeline and towards the east.

The rest remained, slowly following the ponies, as if to keep an eye on them.

Maleficus had dragged himself out of the rubble and gravel and began to wander deeper into the mountainous region of the White Tail Woods. He was heading towards a spot he had thought to be the perfect spot to engage Celestia in a type of warfare he doubted she was used to.

It would be an education for her, and himself. For while he knew the basics and had utilized tactics of such battle through mediums like miniature games, video games, books, and role-playing games, had he never actually done it in real life.

Just like all of his battles was he improvising a lot and he knew he was not the best of military tacticians. With only four battles to his name, two of them were not even real battles, more like mock fights. He had spent a lot of time training and studying tactics with Luna, but it was far different to engage in battle in real life than to do so through training or simulations.

Thus he focused more on the entire preparation phase, trying to prepare himself for anything that could go wrong, or right.

As he walked up the slopes of a large mountain he heard something in the distance. Looking back towards the forest he had crashed through, Maleficus whistled in admiration at what he saw.

A beam of golden light had just blasted a wide trench through the forest and slammed into the mountainside where he had crashed a few hours ago. It was no need to guess who had caused that. "Celestia is picking up on the preparation game rather well this time. But then again, it took her twenty-seven years and two Crusades to do so."

Deciding to speed up his movement through the mountains he hunched down, lowered his skeleton's weight, and jumped. He leaped over the peak he was trying to climb and landed on the rocky slope on the other side. Sliding down the slope, sparks erupting from his hooves as he slid down, he looked ahead and smiled as he saw the area he had been scouting out.

Jumping a second time he flew over the deep valley below. For a few seconds he soared through the skies, using his wings to glide a bit and not just fall down, and then with a loud crack, he landed on top of a smooth rounded mountain top. And from there he looks towards the location and saw that it was just another five jumps until he reached it.

Hunching down he bent his legs and with a huff jumped off the mountain towards another. Spreading his wings he soared across the valley between the two mountains he was jumping between. Another loud crack and he landed on the other mountain top. And followed by another leap he was moving towards the next.

And so he repeated it three more times until he finally slammed into not a mountain, but a large and wide grassy plain. He was now standing in the middle of a large valley with a large flat field of tall grass, mountains all around, with a few forests located in the valleys between some of the mountains. A large waterfall was pouring down a mountainside to the northwest and a wide river was flowing through the northern area of the valley before moving eastwards through some steep mountain ravines, taking on the shape of a network of streams and rivers flowing down into the White Tail Woods

Looking towards his goal he began to gallop through the large green field of tall grass. For a moment the male alicorn almost felt like he would encounter a special kind of yellow mouse during his trip through this thick grass. He actually felt a little disappointed when he got through the field without encountering such a mouse.

Shaking his head he moved out of the tall grass and looked upon his goal. Before him was the wide river, and beyond it, on the other side of the raging waters, laid a large white mountain, sticking out like a large piece of white chalk in the mountain range.

Looking up at the clear sky he frowned a bit before he looked back at the mountain. "It will be a while for the moon to rise... Guess I will have to set the foundations until then."

He then stood up on his rear legs and raised both of his forelegs to the height of his lower neck, his horn ignited with crimson energy and so were the hooves of his raised forelegs. Slowly he lowered both of his forelegs, and a soft rumbling began to sound across the valley as the ground before the river, suddenly began to press downwards into itself.

The water did not pour into the strangely shaped imprint of the ground, it was like some kind of invisible force was keeping it from moving into the newly made open space.

Maleficus then lowered his forelegs even further and the imprint sank deeper, and deeper, until it was several meters down into the surface. He then relaxed, steadily raised his forelegs, and pointed his left towards the white mountain, while he had the other still pointed at the newly shaped pit.

The sound of crumbling stone and cracking fissures erupted from the white mountain. Then in an eruption of dust and dirt, came a swarm of rock, dust, gravel and other pieces of rock flying out of a newly shaped hole in the side of the mountain.

Maleficus moved the earthly elements together, hovering them above the deep hole, and then his horn ignited. The temperature rose intensely in the air above the river, and slowly but surely, the rocks began to turn cheery red, until they began to melt. And when the once floating mass of gravel and rock was a blob of melted stone, created Maleficus an opening at the bottom of his telekinetic hold, and the molten mass began to pour into the deep pit.

Afterward was the once deep and empty hole filled to the top with a hardened mas of stone. Them as had been molded and shaped, into what could only be described, as the bottom of a small fort, or maybe a very large tower, it was hard to tell for the moment. But it took less then a hour to complete the foundation.

Maleficus then began to repeat the process on two spots ahead of the newly made foundation and began to shape and fill a pair of circular pits into the foundation of some kind of circular structure. Most likely a tower.

As the melted stone cooled down he pointed both of his forelegs towards the white mountain. And cracks and fissures began to take shape over its surface, as Maleficus began to chisel and carve out large chunks of rock from it, while also shaping its outer layer to his purpose.

All with the force of his magic utilized through his mental focus like a swarm of cranes and carving knives tearing out and shaping pieces of the mountain.

Soon was a veritable hurricane of pieces of stone in all manners of shapes and sizes flying through the air, shaped and molded to Maleficus' desires. And as they were placed at their specific locations, they were melted into place. They were not glued together by some kind of mortar. No, they were essentially being fused together by heat alone, creating a seamless surface without the slightest crack or imperfection.

As Maleficus focused on his crafting of the battlefield, were other things occurring within Equestria.

A shadowy figure was flying across the sky of Equestria, heading eastwards. It was dressed in black robes and leather hide armour that covered most of its features, but it was clearly a four-legged creature with bird wings, that much was sure. But no one had spotted it yet as it had been evading the populated areas of Equestria on its path.

Soon it reached its destination and flew into the mountainous region known as the Foal Mountains. It streaked across a few peaks and landed a few time to survey a map it was keeping within a cylindrical map case hold on its belt. Then, after what felt like hours, it reached its destination.

It flew down towards an snow-covered pinewood forest located within a deep valley. As it flew down it kept turning its head, looking left and right, trying to spot something. And then the figure saw it.

There, past a collection of pine trees laid a large open glade, and within that glad stood the bottom half of a ruined tower. In front of the old tower was a pair of statues. Both of the statues were damaged but one could make out the silhouettes of what looked like some kind of dog or perhaps cat-like creature.

Walking past the statues the figure entered the dark entrance of the tower, there was no door, only rusty hinges hanging off the edge of the stonework. Inside of the tower was a single circular shaped table of stone, a couple of barrels, a collapsed staircase and a locked wooden hatch next to the collapsed staircase.

Upon the stone table was a black piece of fabric, covering something. The figure reached out with cloth covered foreleg and pulled off the fabric. A blue light fills the room as a circularly shaped mirror with a golden handle in the shape of an eagle's talon, laid upon the stone table, glowing.

Picking up the mirror the figure spoke into the mirror in a feminine voice, the voice echoing in a slightly unnatural manner as if the words spoken were not meant to be heard. "Oh Irrormay ofway Oicesvay. Openway ethay Ayway."

The mirror's glowing surface seemed to gain a fluid state, and then it stopped glowing, but it was no longer showing a reflection. Instead, upon its surface, was what looked like a shimmering pool of blue glowing water like liquid.

And then a deep resound male voice spoke out of the mirror, the surface making ripples as the voice spoke. As if the voice was being transmitted through the watery surface of the mirror. "Report."

The female figure spoke to the mirror, giving her report of the activities of the ponies. "All is according to your vision your highness. The ponies have lost sight of their borders and gone after the green star that feel this morning. They have left their city essentially defenceless."

"Excellent. All is going as planned. The Kingdom of the ponies is rich with resources and riches at the moment, even with their frantic focus on military development have they no sustainable agriculture or resource gathering to keep it going for much longer. It is the best time to empty their coffers before they do so themselves." The voice sounded both smug and content, one could practically feel the smirk that should have been seen if the speaker had been in the room.

With a slight quiver in her voice the spy spoke out to the listener once more. "I... do have a concern about the upcoming events, your highness."

"Speak." The command was simple and plain even with it just being one word. For she knew that the tone of the speaker's voice meant one thing, 'tell me what you want to say and I will decide whether to not to kill you afterwards'.

"The green star. It... made some of our sensory artifacts react, similar to the reaction made by the Princess of the Ponies. It may be something of similar or greater strength then her." It had been a miracle that the artifacts in question had not detonated, or revealed their location to the ponies as they scouted them. Even within a kilometer's distance from Princess Celestia, had the artifacts started to glow and whine like boiling kettles.

But the voice seemed unconcerned about this, almost as if it was assure of its future victory before the battle had even commenced. "It is of no concern. The Princess has foolishly left her nest to chase after the star. She and whatever fell down from the heavens shall be content with fighting each other, while we take her capital and riches as spoils of war."

"As you say, your highness, your words are wise beyond your years." Flattery was the only way to properly dissuade her King's unwelcome attention. He could just as well kill her as he could rape her, even both, and not in any particular order, if he found her actions offensive. That's how unstable he was.

The smugness practically oozed out of the mirror as the ruler on the other side truly enjoyed the flattering of his spy. Said, spy had to keep herself from getting ill as he spoke back to her in a delighted voice. "Indeed. The ponies' gold will make a fine addition to the treasury, their artifacts studied to make us stronger. And not to mention, I do wonder what the flesh of their young taste like."

"As you most likely are to find out yourself soon enough my king." She said in a cool and steady voice, keeping her nerves steady and calm as she clenched her stomach tight as to not retch all over the mirror.

The voice just kept oozing its delight at the prospect of tasting the flesh of young ponies, it was like the meat of tender younglings was the most delicate thing in the King's mind. And it was, he was infamously whispered by the title of King of Cuisine, Cuisine of Murder that is. For he ate all that he wanted, even his own young. "Indeed. I think I will have one cut open and stuffed with boiled eggs, before slowly roasted, that will make a fine dish. One of my hens laid some eggs a week ago, it will be most delightful I am sure."

She had to hold back a flinch of utter disgust at those words, not willing to risk him noticing her reaction through the mirror. "You truly deserve the prominent title of King of Cuisine, your highness."

The king's voice echoed back out of the mirror. He was clearly delighted by the discussion and the flattery, but was now making his final statement through the mirror. "I most certainly do. Prepare for the arrival of our troops, in a few days, we take Equestria's capital for our own. Worry not about any outside forces aiding them. The mercenaries will keep the horses busy, even with their so called 'flying islands' will they prove no match for my cousin's forces for hire. After all, I doubt they have anymore flying unicorns capable of slaying dragons then the Princess herself, and she is busy elsewhere."

"As you command King Craver." The agent then put down the mirror as the shimmering surface once more resumed to turn into a glowing blue reflective surface. She then slowly walked out of the tower, walked over to a wooden stump, and then she unfurled her scarf, before she hunched over the stump and retched out the content of her stomach on the snow.

After a few minutes, was her stomach empty, but she still tried to retch. But she could not empty it any further then she already had. After a few moments of failed puking she finally calmed down. Hunched over and panting she slowly raised a foreleg to her shrouded face and wiped it clean, before folding the scarf back into place.

The cloaked spy looked with a furious and sickened look in her amber eyes at the tower. "You are no King. A monster is what you are. Murderer. Kinslayer. Cannibal. For all of the newborn lives you have eaten, I hope your soul is torn asunder by the flesh ripping vultures of Hades for eternity once you die you wretched beast."

She then sat down on the stomp and looked into the sky above her, her wings fluttering a bit in concern. "I truly hope the ponies are not as lacking in their defences as I saw. Or may the spirits have mercy on them and their young."

Out by the coastline just north of the great sea port city of Fillydeplhia stood a large castle, constructed upon a lone half island sticking out of the coastline. A lone bridge connected the castle to the mainland where a smaller fort was constructed. Upon the top of the large seaside castle waved two flags, one being the national flag of Equestria. The second flag was of the Blood Family, a singular crimson blood drop in the center of a blue spiral pattern on a white background.

This was the recently constructed Bloodstone Keep, the getaway home of the Blood Clan. And currently it was the residence of General Bloody Courage, the recently married Lord of the Blood Family.

"These Crusades will bring our nation to ruin if we cannot bring an end to them. Ponies brought and trained for thousands upon thousands of bits, leaving many cities without proper work forces, damaging the economy of the nation, and even limiting the defences of the nation as well. We do not have the resources or workforce to maintain this madness again and again. But the Princess is too blind in her rage to realize it." The lord said to himself as he looked out from the south western tower of his keep, watching as the green star fell once more.

"Well this is why you and your little group have decided to put this plan of yours into action no?" A sensual voice said out soothingly from the large bed in the chamber. A beautiful, young mare unicorn with a pale blue mane, light pink fur and black eyes was laying upon the bed, looking at her new husband with a saucy smirk on her lips while tracing her hoof upon her flank. Tracing it over her cutie mark, a red painted set of lips, with a pair of intertwined vines with black thorns that ended up with blue roses, behind said lips.

Her name was Sweet Nonsense, the youngest daughter of the Rich Clan. When she found out she was engaged to the older Lord Bloody Courage she had been a bit disappointed, thinking that the General was one of those boring thugs who thought themselves superior for being strong.

As it turned out was he a very intellectual pony and one with a similar ambitious mindset like she had. After just a few weeks of meeting her future husband had she taken a liking to him. She knew, well she knew for certain now, that she was only a pawn in his plan but she did not mind it. As it made her part of something greater.

Nodding to her words the General confirmed her statement, the Society of Heraldry, Independence and Trade had decided to initiate his plan. And now he was working on getting the foundation of the work into fruition with the aid of Sweet Nonsense. IT could not be done without her help. "Indeed. Our plan is a long term one, but it is the best option we have to legally cut the control of Equestria from Celestia's hooves. Otherwise will outright rebellion and usurpation of the throne be our only other option, and with the power Celestia wields are we not able to take control of the nation."

Sweet Nonsense smiled and gently pushed herself off the sheets and slowly walked up next to Bloody Courage and sensually rubbed her cheek against his neck, nibbling gently along his toned neck. Smearing red lipstick marks across his fur as she did so. "Well then, shall we get back to planning?"

She then let out a delighted squeal as she was telekinetically lifted up into the air before gently put onto the bed again, and her new husband jumped onto the bed as well, putting himself on top of her. Smirking down at his new wife with a wild loo kin his eyes. "Indeed, the planning is the most 'intense' moment after all."

And so the pair started 'working on the plan', whilst unknowingly, Equestria was facing a great danger that did not involve their limited view point.

Princess Celestia had her forces stop as it became to time to alter the sky from day to night. They had reached the other side of the forest by the time of the evening hours approaching. By tracing the half a mile long, and scorched black, skid mark of Maleficus' landing they found the point of impact, a massive pile of rubble and rock lying in a pile by the root of the mountains.

When they first saw the track of Maleficus' landing the ponies had been hoping that the alicorn would be unconscious, or at least stunned, from the sheer force of being thrown through half a mile of forest and into a giant rock. Alicorns however, especially this one, are extremely resilient and recovers quickly, thus they found no traces of Maleficus once they reached the crash site.

So Celestia had her tired forces make a temporary campsite next to the place where Maleficus had crashed, while sending out scouts to find their hated enemy. Currently was Celestia standing on top of the mountain next to the camp, looking at the sun as she prepared for raising and lowering the sun.

Down below she looked as her forces rested and checked their supplies. There were several more greenhorns then Crusade veterans, it was to be excepted. Her army was almost a hundred thousand strong, more then three times the size it had been during the Second Crusade. So over sixty percent of her forces were rookies who had not taken part of any major battles, outside of maybe being traumatized civilians from the Draconic Incursion, before joining the military.

It pained her a bit that she was taking so many of her subjects to fight Maleficus. But she felt like there was no other option. with Maleficus having brought forth his own army last time he had defeated her forces during the Second Crusade. And those soldiers had been veteran soldiers and knights, not the greenhorns Maleficus had fought during the First Crusade.

Thus she knew that she needed to have overwhelming numbers and highly skilled soldiers to properly take on Maleficus and his army of corrupted horses. The last time she fought him he had brought her to a battlefield he had prepared beforehoof.

A powerful storm, one her and her forces had never experienced before. She later found out from some of the locals living out on the islands of the Celestial Sea, that such storms were called hurricanes and came once every few year when the seas were experiencing strong temperature shifts.

The storm had struck nearly all of her pegasi forces lame with fear and terror, their natural instincts forcing them to seek cover and safety from the strong winds. Only a few of them had managed to push through their instinct fears of the storm, but one third of her forces had been paralyzed by that move alone.

But that was not all that Maleficus had done. He had even crafted two mountains to create a bottleneck to keep himself at a stronger position. The crafting of the two peaks, now called the Groundpound Peaks by the locals, caused massive tremors to shake the entire east coast, damaging much of the infrastructure and thus forcing the forces of her nation to offer aid to the damaged settlements.

Thus he cut her off from any manner of reinforcement.

And then he used the storm's harsh winds, rain and lightning to wear down her larger army as they tried to beat down his own soldiers. It was not until the Order of the Golden Cross made a valiant charging flank that the tide of battle seemed to torn. Only for them to be defeated by Maleifucs himself in a duel between him and the two strongest knights of the Order.

Thus she knew, she could not let him have time to prepare any of his tricks. She needed to find and reach him before the end of tomorrow, or he would have too much time to prepare.

Sighing softly she rubbed her forehead with a hoof. She was tired and needed to rest, the sun would have to be settled now so that she could raise the moon and take a well deserved rest before continuing the hunt for Maleficus.

She raised her head and a golden glow filled the air around her horn, and slowly the sun settled down towards the horizon, slowly sinking down beneath the mountains and disappearing from sight. Then she slowly raised her head and the shimmering silvery glow of the moon rose up to light the dark night sky.

As the moon rose up and rested upon the sky she smiled a bit as she looked upon the image representing her sister upon the surface of the moon. Wondering, like she did every day, if her sister was alright, being isolated upon the moon with the vile being who caused her fall. She hoped she was not in contact with the fiend, the gods only knew what manner of vile things he might do to her while up there.

She then turned to walk down the mountain to take a rest in her personal tent, when a bright light shoot down from the dark night sky. Celestia looked up with wide eyes to see a bright beacon like beam of silvery light shoot down from the moon and land far ahead into the mountains.

At first she did not know what to think of it. When she felt a glimmer of hope and she looked up with an awestruck look on her face, her eyes growing moist and teary. "Luna? Art thee trying to tell Us where he be?"

She felt tears slide down her cheeks as she contemplated the fact that her sister was helping her, even while sealed on the moon. It made her feel relief and joy, her sister was helping her. Perhaps she could dare hope, that Luna was free to act of her own will, while sealed on the moon. For she doubted that the nightmare would have aided her.

"Thank thee for thy aid Luna, We shall bring thee justice soon." Celestia then wiped her cheeks and eyes clear of tears and took a shuddering breath before moving down the mountain. She would have the direction and area of the beam marked and noted by her scouts, and then she would sleep and prepare for a rapid march.

Tomorrow. Maleficus would face the might of the Equestrian armies, and this time, he would not escape judgement for his crimes.

Maleficus looked up with a smirk as the sun was lowered down beneath the horizon and the silvery glowing surface of the moon was revealed. He had been eating a roasted bird while waiting for the moon to rise, said bird being the size of a bloody pig, it had made for an excellent spit roast.

Before him laid a set of structures of solid white stone, fused together into a solid mass. The white mountain had lost much of its natural shape, it was half way carved out, with various shapes, structures, walls and buildings incompletely carved out of the white rock.

Maleficus could not properly carve out the mountain as he wanted with the limited time frame he had. So as to make a proper job, he would be using the aid of the Interface on the moon.

The sad thing was that unless the moon was up, could he not utilize the more complex and powerful effects the Interface could support him with.

So as the moon rose to the peak of the heavens, he got up from the log bench he had made, walking away from the burning pile of coal where the half eaten bird was hung over while impaled on an iron rod. He soon reached the shores of the river and he brought out his Solid Light Screen, spreading it out he aligned the image of the mountain in front of the screen, like a camera being focused and aligned.

Then he pressed his right hoof against the interface and his horn began to glow, while he spoke out a command word to the Interface through the screen. "Initiate Construction of Project: Whitestone."
'
Up on the surface of the moon, the once inactive structure of solid light began to shine and shimmer as the screens began receiving instructions and data through the connection of the screen. And as power began to fill the interface, fueled through the physical touch of Maleficus into the Light Screen he was touching, the Interface pointed its telescope screens at the mountain and fired.

A bright flare erupted from the Interface and shoot down like a cliche, or sometimes classic, super villain's evil moon base laser. The beam shoot down, and flew down through the bare night sky, before striking the mountain. The entire structure of the beam was engulfing the mountain from bottom to peak and its entire radius, even the mountains around its immediate location were being effected.

And as the pillar of light shone upon the mountain, began the sound of humming energy and crackling stone to erupt from the mountain, as slowly but surely, the entire thing began to alter in shape. It was being molded into shape, forcefully shifted and altered by the interface, like some kind of landscape altering version of Photoshop.

All the while the smirking form of Maleficus, watched it shaped the mountain into its desired shape. At the rate the Interface was working, would the battlefield for the Third Crusade be ready before dawn.

The morning sun rose from the horizon, crimson solar rays colouring the sky in a crimson glow, as the strength of the sun's light felt stronger today.

As the light broke apart the darkness of the night it revealed the three rows of bronze, silver and gold once more gathered in formation. Determined eyes were focusing at the mountain range before their gathered numbers.

And up on the peak of the first mountan, with her horn glowing like a golden beacon, stood Princess Celestia. She raised her left foreleg as the sun was raised to its proper position upon the heavens and pointed it at her gathered forces, her eyes glowing white. "Our foe is but a few hours march away! Let Us breach through these mountains and root out the evil hiding within them! We shalt not let that fiend escape! Ave Equestria! March!"

After the short speech of their ruler the gathered forces of Equestria raised their heads and forelegs in salute and cried out together to their Princess, their voices echoing over the woods and mountains. "Ave Equestria!"

Unicorns gathered at the front of the forces and their horns ignited, and blasts of energy slammed into the mountain before them, and then the unicorns began to move forward, the beams from their horns not stopping. Slowly the beams started to sink into the mountain, until it essentially melted through the thick earthly elements of the mountain and with a loud resounding boom, erupted out on the other side of the mountain, a column of smoke and dust rising into the air behind Celestia.

A thirty meter and ten meter tall tunnel had been melted and blasted through the entire mountain's base. Thirty unicorns were forced to be carried to the wagons, too exhausted from overusing their magic to properly walk, as the forces of Equestria, began to move through the newly made tunnel.

Celestia flew down the mountain, landing in front of the recently made tunnel entrance/exit on the other side. Landing on soft grass covered by pieces of gravel, sand and dust she pointed her horn at the mountain directly in front of the tunnel and released a wide blast of magic. And began to carve out a second tunnel for her forces to march through.

In less then a minute had she blasted an almost identical tunnel for her ponies to march through. And she flew up towards the peak of the mountain to look ahead to spot how many more mountains they would have to carve a path through. The night scouts had not been able to tell her a good estimated with how difficult it was to scout mountains at night.

She counted at least five more mountain peaks for her forces to march through, she could not spare the stamina to melt out five more tunnels, she had to spare the energy required to take on Maleficus or handle any potential traps he might have set up for her and her armies.

But she could make at least one more to make it easier for her forces. And so the Princess of the Sun flew down to land in front of the mountain before the tunnel she had melted through the mountain behind her, and let lose another powerful beam of focused plasma.

After melting through the third mountain path she turned around and faced the approaching forces wandering through the tunnels. As she saw them approach she moved aside and let her forces move forward, she would have to keep track of the army's movement through the mountains.

Her forces marched through like well oiled and tuned clockwork, a group of thirty unicorns would melt out new tunnels after the armies got past the already made tunnels. And then they marched forward, and repeated the earlier step.

Princess Celestia stayed with the forces, keep them on track and making sure to let them know that she was keeping an eye out for any foul tricks Maleficus might have left among the mountains. It would keep morale high and give herself some time to recover the magic she had just spent.

She had plenty of magical power left but she wanted to keep herself at top condition, she would not tire herself out needlessly before facing Maleficus. It had been an unpleasant realization that she was not as physically powerful as Maleficus, nor was she a magically potent. The Princess did not know what manner of foul rituals or mutilations he had done to obtain his powers, but she knew that she had to get stronger herself to keep up with his constantly increasing strength and magic.

It was one of the bigger downsides of being a monarch of a fledgling nation, she could not just take time off all willy nilly to go train or exercise. Though she had managed to improve herself in the few spare times she had, was she more then certain that she was not as well in shape as Maleficus was.

*That fiend may hath a blackened heart and a soul most foul. But he doest hath a powerful presence... and quite a fit b... NO! No! We Shalt NOT Think That! No! Just NO!* breaking her thoughts she pressed her hooves over her face, closed her eyes, and began to mentally and verbally count from ten to one, repeatedly, to clear out those sinful thoughts for her brain. The fact that she was reacting like this to the stallion she hated more then anything, was a clear sign that her heat period was approaching.

Celestia was not looking forward to it. Not one bit.

After ten minutes she finally let out a long and drawn out breath before removing her hooves from her face, before her was the gathered forces of her armies marching through the final mountain side. She had, had scouts sent to reconnaissance the surroundings and the large valley beyond the mountains. So far she had not received any words from the scouts, but she had only sent them out like, thirty minutes ago.

And so she took to the winds and flew over the final mountain, and found herself looking out over a large, vast, and flat field surrounded by forests, mountains and with a large river in the distance, and a... and a...

"...Oh that bucking piece of manure." She finally muttered as her ears fell flat, her eyes went into an intense glare, and she frowned. As there, on the other side of the valley, stood a massive, white, castle. Carved out of an entire mountain.

The castle looked ancient, carved out of solid stone. It had three massive walls that split up the castle's internal area into at least three separate layers. And that was not even counting the massive natural moat that the river in front of the outer wall was creating, nor the fact that out of the center of the castle, was a massive hoof carved cliff sticking out like an upside down beak. Said cliff looked like it had been carved out at the base, and was still intact and holding.

Obviously signs of ancient Pre-Age of Chaos stone masonry there.

She could not see exactly what was on top of the large cliff, but it looked like some kind of large fort or keep like structure. Oh and the walls were lined with tall towers, turrets and there was a draw bridge on a massive gate house on the center of the outer wall of the castle. Which could if lowered, be connected to and outer smaller fort which was built out into a dug out portion of the river essentially making it a fortified pathway over the water.

There was a drawbridge on the river fort that could be connected to the other side of the river. And standing on the part of the river located on the other side of the river was a pair of tall circular shaped towers. So to even get to the castle, without flying, they would have to first handle the two towers, get to the river fort somehow, then somehow get over to the castle from the river fort, and then somehow take the castle.

And that's not even adding the internal defences of the castle, which it no doubt had. This was the most fortified stronghold Celestia had seen in her entire life.

This made Celestia realize one important factor as of why Maleficus had crashed into these mountains. It was this castle, he intended to utilize this castle to keep her forces at bay while he cooked up some wicked plan. "That fiend hath found this ancient fortress before he was returned to the moon! He hath planned to use it for his wicked purposes for the past twenty years! If only We hath found it before he returned! We may hath stopped his wicked plans!"

She then realized something, it had only been a night since he had been at the valley. He could not have done that much to the ancient castle other then perhaps clean it up or put up defences. There was still time to save the ruins form his foul touch.

And so she looked towards her gathering forces, smiling as she saw the final stragglers come out of the tunnels with the wagons. She was grateful that they had not just decided to climb over the mountain, that would have been a big waste of time. It had only taken them three hours to clear a path through the mountain and travel through it.

If they had tried hiking, it would no doubt have taken at least two days to get the armies to the valley.

And as she witnessed her three forces set up into columns she raised a hoof and called for her officers. "Officers! We shalt plan to lay siege on this ancient site! We need to make proper plans to relieve this site of our forebears before Maleficus can twist it to his will!"

The three Generals and their subordinates quickly gathered and conveyed with their princess of how to best lay siege to the massive castle.

Maleficus smiled as he walked through the internal pathways of his newly constructed fortress. The carved walls and the carved stone roads made the entire place feel like a legend brought to life. It really pleased him that the construction had gone so well, it had been his first time trying to create a fortress. Frankly he was a bit surprised it had not gone horribly bad.

As he walked through the middle pathway beneath the massive cliff he had to whistle in amazement at the size of the grotto at the base of the, cliff that he could see through the murder holes of the pathway above said grotto. It was the size of a large central market square, and the ceiling and support pillars weren't showing any signs of weakness, bad support or damage. "Man I am really surprised I didn't break the entire cliff when I used the Interface like a minecraft tool. It looks superb but I was really worried when it started carving out sections of the cliff at the bottom to make internal space and paths."

With a smile still growing on his lips he trotted out of the pathway and hummed softly as he looked up at the tall walls standing at least twenty meters over the wide walk ways of the central area. He chuckled a bit as he looked at the battlements, the murder holes and the machicolation holes located at the bottom of the battlement between the corbels, the stone supports of the battlements. It looked good, all of it. "Sure was worth all the effort. This has to be an improved version of Minas Tirith. The walls are much larger then in the movies, fewer walls, but more logical in functionality. No open archways with no doors or gates here. Proper machicholations, corbels, turrets, murder holes, gates, and even a moat with a separate gatehouse in front of the barbican gate house that defends the direct path to the main gates. I say it is a pretty decent work for my first proper castle."

As he walked up the next bailey of his imitation of Minas Tirith he was almost at the peak of the castle. His eyes scanned the final path leading towards the keep structures on the peak. His smile was still childishly wide as he walked up the path, his hooves clanged against the stone surface of the castle's pavement.

With a crimson glow from his horns he pulled up the portcullises blocking the path into the central keep. And as he walked through the internal gatehouse, he began to hum softly. And as he did, began tunes to chime through the corridors and halls of the fortress.

Maleficus walked up the stairs, leading to a vast hall filled with columns and statues, with the statues being ponified version of the statues seen in Lord of the rings. Ponies and horses dressed in robes, armour, wielding weapons or bearing crowns. The melody echoed out through the hall a he walked through it, singing softly as he looked out over the various statues decorating the large room.

He moved past a large pair of open doorways and walked up the straight and wide staircase located behind them. Torches lit themselves as he walked past them, illuminating the interior of the castle with a warm yellow glow of fire. At the end of the staircase he reached a large circular shaped room with five different hallways leading to different directions. He walked past a pair of statues depicting a group of oddly dressed pony characters. They were a pegasi in leather armour wielding a rapier and lute, an thick bearded earth pony in thick plate wielding a large sword and an incense burner on a thick chain, an elderly horse in brown feather covered robes wielding a gnarled staff, a unicorn in leather with a cloak, wielding a pair of daggers, and a second pegasus, wielding a longbow while dressed in what looked like the combination of an archer and hunter's outfit.

Maleficus moved through the arched hallway, light approaching at the end of the path as a pair of large thick wooden doors opened themselves, revealing the top of the half oval shaped mountain cliff, with a large full grown tree bearing peaches growing just before the large gates, with all manners of flowers growing around it. The alicorn absentmindedly plucked a peach off the tree as he walked past it and moved towards the front edge of the large cliff.

Slowly he reached the edge of the cliff. Before him was the large valley with the flat grasslands. And upon those grasslands stood the three armies of Equestria, standing in a line of formations that were being directed through the Generals and the Princess to optimize the effectiveness of the approaching battle. Maleficus just smiled at the sight, seeing in his head the images of orcs and goblins marching upon the city of Minas Tirith. He also remembers the adventures he played with his friends, the dangers they faced, the insanity they went through, the laughter they shared. This castle was not just for himself, it was a monument to his friends as well.

While he might no longer remember their faces, while he had even forgotten their names, could he still remember the adventures they played together. Those wonderful games they had played, the times spent pondering what moves to make, what mystery lay behind the hidden lore of the adventure. Thus, even as armies of several tens of thousands marched into formation, preparing to march upon his new creation, could he only close his eyes, smile a sad smile, and sing, as the nostalgia ran through him.

As the music faded. Maleficus opened his eyes and looked out at the armies before his castle. And his sad smile remained, but he looked far more relaxed then he had been before. As if the song itself had lifted some of his regrets and sorrows.

Letting out a soft sigh the male alicorn turned around and walked away from the edge of the vast cliff. His horn then ignited with a crimson aura and he narrowed his eyes as he kept walking. Squirming black shroud like ichor began to emerge out of the corners and shadows around him, they flowed out from every crevice and crack.

Thick black mist began to emerge from the black ichor and like a scentless smog it poured out and began to pour out through the castle. Bellowing down like a powerful stream of black water the mist and ichor flowed out over the white stone of the castle. It swept over the ramparts, up into the towers, over the streets and into the interior of the walls.

Maelficus then clapped his hooves together, took a seat on a large stone bench, and looked at the almost solid darkness he had conjured. And as he did, the black mass subsided, dissolving into nothing, as it never existed in the first place. And in its wake, as it disappeared from sight, emerged tall horse warriors, their numbers filling out the castle like an army of ghosts and specters given life again.

Their large bodies were covered in thick black armour, helmets with visors in the shape of a various manners of beasts, with horns, manes, frills and spikes decorating the sides and/or tops of their helmets. The large round shields were there, each bearing a finely decorative carving of Maleficus' cutie mark. Some of them still had the long spears but most of them now carried pole arms, crossbows, longbows, javelins, maces and axes.

The forces of Maleficus were armed for the siege, their weapons tailored for the needs to defend buildings and smash apart enemy siege gear then defending against charging forces in the open.

Even as the black smog dissolved into nothing marched the forces of Maleficus to their positions, lines of archers and arbalists (crossbow wielders) gathered up on ramparts by the battlements, while more archers gathered down by the base of the wall in long ranks as to fire volleys over the wall.

Troops entered the gate houses and pulled forth the gear their creator had prepared for them. Most of it consisted of caltrops, beads, sand, glue and mud. But there were other things there in case of emergencies.

But the walls of the castle were not limited to defencive actions. Upon a few towers, some wide ramparts, and gatehouses stood various kinds of siege engines from catapults, trebuchets, ballistaes and some manner of long wooden barrel being held by a wooden platform, it looked almost like one of the Hornet Nests designed by the Order of the Golden Cross.

Though it differed quite a bit in design. It had a much longer body, it was cylindrical. The opening was covered by a metal lid with seven round holes. At other end was a gunner, loader and aimed, who worked together to aim and fired the strange siege engine.

Even as the horses got into position, Maleficus just leaned back into his seat and stretched out his Light Screen, and connected it to a set of satellites above the battlefield and got several split screens showing various images of the battle field, with one screen showing the entire valley from above, including Celestia's forces moving into formation.

A lone horse came out from the castle, carrying a tankard of freshly made juice and a wooden mug, and left it for his creator to enjoy before leaving the top of the castle to rejoin the defence efforts. Maleficus took the mug of juice and drank some from it, watching the screens intently, while glancing out towards the open space beyond the edge of the cliff, in the direction of Celestia's armies.

"Let's see how well you can handle laying siege to a fortified castle Celestia." He said with a small confident smirk on his face before he focus his attention to the screens in front of him, examining the formations taking shape upon the grassy fields.

Absentmindedly taking a sip of juice every now and then as he watched.

The ponies were preparing for the assault upon the castle. Moving into formations while setting up gear and supplies to utilize in their attempt. Ponies were assembling siege ladders by the use of enchanted metal rods of sacred bronze, enchanted with magnetic slots which, once activated, would stick together and be able to support over ten tons of weight.

It would take a while for the ladders to be made into proper lengths to utilize against the castle's tall walls. But with the way the ladders were put together could the ponies make them as long as needed for as long as they had rods to spare.

Speaking of rods, the recently improved Energy Rods were being put into lines at the rear of the formations. No longer did they look like giant wands with crystal balls at the ends. Now they looked like primitive cannons.

On the metal platforms were five meter long wooden cylindrical frames, the frames were lined with iron bands, which in turn were inscribed with runes filled with gold. The crystal balls had been put into the back end of the Energy Rods, essentially plugging it. There were also several smaller orbs located along the interior of the wooden cylinder.

This new design allowed a safer and more powerful use of the energy rods' magical discharges. The smaller gem stones aligned to focus and aim the magical blast out of the cylinder, which was enchanted with both magical energy and runic inscriptions to keep the energy from discharging in a erratic manner.

The power of the shoots had been lessened greatly but in return ere their firing rate and amount of firing per day increased exponentially. Where the rods had once been only able to fire around five or ten times before needing to recharge, could they fire up to a hundred times now, and at a rapid rate of ten shoots per minute.

In front of the lines of Energy Rods stood a line of trebuchets, their designs had been improved, given more support, heavier counter weights and increased accuracy. There were no other type of launcher siege engines within the Equestrian Armies, since the smaller catapults were deemed too inaccurate, too short of range, and too inefficient to wield against Maleficus.

At the front of these lines of siege engines were the ballistaes, large and medium sized. The large ballistaes were the refined version heavy ballistaes that the ponies had developed to fire various types of large bolts. While the medium sized ballistaes were a larger version of the Manticore Ballistaes which had been developed just before the Rattenfängers' siege against Canterlot. These larger sized rapid fire ballistae were equipped with explosive rune tipped bolts, more powerful and potent in not only range, piercing capability and durability, but explosive force and impact power as well.

The Gold Army soldiers were working on the siege engines and the War Camp put up at the front of the camp. Their focus was as it always had been, support the other two armies with artillery fire, supplies, medical aid, and other manners of supportive actions.

In front of the golden lines of siege engineers and the war camp stood lines of silver soldiers, the ranged and aerial forces of the Equestrian Military. They were getting ready to take flight, they were supplied with not only ranged weaponry like javelins or crossbows, several units of pegasi were wielding several kinds of melee weapons, like pole arms and curved blades. A few units of pegasi were equipped with shields as well for some extra defensive options.

These melee aerial units were at the front, they would act not only as skirmishers but as defenders of the aerial ranged units. But they would no doubt have to spend a lot of efforts and weather magic to defend their ground bound fellow soldiers.

In front of the pegasi soldiers of the Silver Army stood the ranged units. Mostly unicorns and earth ponies, with a few pegasi who would act as support against any projectiles from the castle's siege engines and defenders. All of the unicorns wielded either focus items for harnessing magical energy easier, or utilized telekinetic grips to wield ranged weapons. While the earth ponies wielded all manners of bows, crossbows and throwing weapons.

There were even ten units of heavy ranged units with five teams of three ponies in each team, a pony with a mobile small ballistae on their back, another who acted as the loader, and a third to acted as the spotter.

In front of the formations of silver units stood the large groups of bronze plate covered soldiers of the Bronze Army. They no longer wielded just random amounts of gear. Now they were spread out in units, each specialized in a specific manner of weapon.

There were mostly ponies wielding shields and long spears with small side weapons. There were also several groups of specialized heavy weapon wielding ponies, great swords, war hammers, halberds, and so on. A few groups were lightly armed and armoured, wielding either dual weapons or singular light weapons while wearing cloaks, they were the scouts and sappers of the bronze troops.

The Bronze Army was put out into formations of rectangular, square and triangular shape. All of the units were assembling the siege ladders and would be workign together to carry the ladders towards the the front lines once they began the assault upon the castle.

But as all of this was going on, were the officers of the army gathered by the war camp, discussing their war plans with Celestia. So far had they come up with several possible assaults upon the castle. But they all relied on the fact that they needed to take the small fort and the two towers blocking their path over the river. Even if the ladders they were assembling could be used to lay siege to the large walls of the castle on the other side of the river of made long enough, could they not place the ladders with the towers and the river fort there to deter their progress.

As they were discussing the best ways to take the fort, came a messenger flying down from one of the watch towers. The Gold Army pegasus landed before the assembled officers and the Princess and saluted, while holding out his spy glass. "Private Fire Flight reporting in! A black smog has emerged within the large castle, it is spreading out over the entire area, even out over to the river fort and the two towers."

"Good work lad. Guts. Go check it out." Rough Stock stated to the Captain who nodded before walking over to the soldier and accepted the spy glass, before looking at the castle. Even without the spy glass could the black smog be seen spreading out over the ruins.

And as he looked through the spyglass could he see the black smog dispersing, revealing several hundreds, if not thousands, of black garbed troops upon the fortifications of the castle. He frowned as he saw this, there were far more enemies then the last crusade. Maleficus was not pulling any punches that was for certain.

"Maleficus has decided to summon his forces it appears. I can estimate that there are at least eight thousand troops judging by the size of the walls alone." Captain Weak Guts said as he looked out at the white castle with the enchanted spyglass, the rune engraved lenses magnifying the images ten times more then a regular spyglass ever could.

Princess Celestia hummed and then got a smirk on her lips. "Excellent, it appears that Our foe hath underestimated Us. While he doest hath a good defence, doest he not hath the power to repel Our newly improved forces with numbers alone."

"Yeah about that. He has several siege engines, including one weird looking long barrel thing that I think look a bit like the Energy Rods, but it is not the same, I think. But I bet it has some kind of nasty surprise for us." Weak Guts said as he zoomed in on the siege engines upon the walls.

The officers began to mutter at those words, the fact that Maleficus had siege engines of his own was nothing new, but the fact that he was developing new ones they had not seen before was worrying. Since that meant that the advantage they had hoped to have with their improved siege engines and combat gear was now not as assureds it had once been.

Celesita nodded at this and pressed down a hoof on the battle map, pressing it down on the place where the fort was located. "We see thy point Captain Weak Guts. But We shalt still lay waste to Maleficus' forces, We shalt prevail over his wicked plans and bring him to justice."

She looked at the gathered officers and they were not looking away as she did so. They were ready to put their skills to the test against the corrupted horses of Maleficus. A smirk grew on Celestia's lips and she spoke out her orders to her officers. "Give the signal to engage stage one of the siege upon Maleicus' forces within the hour. We shalt free this ancient place of his foul presence, one stone at a time. Start with the river fortifications, and then proceed to claim the main walls. Hath the aerial forces of the Silver Army prepared for take off, We shalt need them to enact stage two of our Siege Plan. And then We shalt wait for the signal for stage three."

There were salutes given by the officers before they all began to move out of the war camp to their respective units, they would have to move fast. Maleficus would no doubt act to stop them and their plans if they did not act quickly to overcome his perception and insight of their intentions.

A horn was blown from the rear of the pony forces. Orders were spoken out by officers among the troops. And the siege started.

The front lines of bronze soldiers began to march forward, ten units of a hundred ponies each were marching forward, each carrying long siege ladders. There were six units at the center, moving towards the two towers an the river fort. While the other four were split up, marching towards the harsh moving river to put up their siege ladders over to the top of the castle walls on the other side.

Ponies marched, chanting out wordlessly as they marched over the grassy fields. The horses within the towers and the river forth prepared to defend the fortifications, preparing their weapons as the ponies drew closer.

At the front of the center unit was Captain Tall Sprout, captain of the 3rd Infantry Unit, going by the nickname of 'The Stone Hooves'. He was leading the march towards the river fort, his eyes constantly scanning the fortifications for weak points and defences.

He then noticed something glimmering within the deep square windows of the towers and cried out to his forces as they marched forward. "Prepare for ranged assault! Engage Formation Turtle!"

As one the unit altered their formation, now they were circular in shape, the two siege ladders in the center of the formation, their large shields were hefted up and interlocked, creating a makeshift roof of enchanted bronze, while the front units linked their shields together to make a wall. Their spears were pointed out of the formation, either upwards, at an angle or straight forward, creating an almost pincushion like look.

Captain Tall Sprout looked over the edge of his shield as they marched towards the fort. He knew they would have to endure the projectiles of their enemies before they could start raising the ladders. So he shouted out at his unit once more as they began to march. "Keep your focus! Do not panic. And make sure we reach the edge of them oat before the fort safely so we can heft up the siege ladders!"

Then the voice of the soldier next to him shouted out for the rest of the unit to hear. "Enemy is firing Captain!"

"Hunker down and tighten shields!" The Stone Hooves stopped moving and tightened their shields together before slamming down into the soil, creating an almost dome like shell over their bodies as crimson lights began to shine within the towers.

There was the sound of something being fired, and Captain Tall Sprout held his shield tight and closed his eyes, taking soft breaths as to keep himself calm. Then there was the sound of something impacting one of the shields and the sound of shattering ceramics. A metallic taste filled his mouth and his fur stood on edge and he opened his eyes only to scream out in pain, along with the rest of his unit, as intensely bright and blue coloured sparks of electricity arched over his entire unit, conducted through their shields.

Darkness claimed the entire unit as the powerful electrical shock rendered them all unconscious within a few seconds. But not before they all screamed out in shock and pain as their bodies were shocked until they lost consciousness.

The Stone Hooves' screams were soon joined by the other two forces marching towards the central fortifications as clay spheres covered in runes were shoot out of the towers. Upon impact the spheres shattered, and released an powerful burst of electrical energy that arched across the entire units.

As the blue light of the electrical surge dispatched were all three units covered in soot and smoking as if they had just walked through a burning building. One of the troops dropped their mouth open and a cloud of smoke erupted out of their throat with a strained gasp for air. Then as one all three units just collapsed down to the ground, incapacitated within an instance.

Acting General Combat support was looking out at the battle with her spyglass and when she saw the first three units fall down from some manner of magical attack from the towers she gave an order to her messengers. "Send words to the central units of heavy ballistaes and tebuchets to fire at the towers! We need to take out whatever it was that just took out those units!"

The unicorn saluted before running off to give the order, there were plans to spread out communication orbs for all units in the near future but the production of the magical crystal balls was still not t such a level that they could split them up among the units. So messengers, light signals and flags were still used for quick communication among the forces.

As the words of their General's orders were received aimed the siege engine crews of the heavy ballistaes and trebuchets their large siege engiens and calculated the angle needed for the trebuchet's arc to reach the towers. While the ballistaes shifted and aligned their scopes to carefully aim for the wooden roof on top of the tower to take out whatever weapon was inside.

The group leaders cried out together to their respective unit's sergeant as their preparations were completed. "Preparations complete! We are ready to fire!"

And the sergeants responded by raising their hooves into the air and cry out, not simultaneously, but almost in sync. " Fire!"

The first to get a shoot of were the ballistaes, their bowstring loaded projectiles fired off with a loud twang as the wooden bow frame of the massive crossbow straightened out and the strength of the tense rope flung the wooden projectile off its slot in the ballistae frame.

A spray of several dozens of large thick bolt shoot through the air with a loud whistling sound as they tore through the wind, it lasted for less then a two seconds before they struck their intended targets. The wooden roofs of the white stone towers were skewered by the meter long projectiles, and then the projectiles detonated as the explosive runes upon the sacred bronze tip of the projectile activated.

There was a cloud of fire and smoke as the top of the two towers erupted with loud booms. Wooden fragments and burning splinters raining down upon the grass beneath the towers. Thankfully was the grass moist because of its closeness to the river or it might have caught fire.

Then there was a collection of loud 'ka-clunk' sounds of wooden frames turning and releasing something heavy. Over thirty boulders soared up over the grasslands and then struck at the two white towers and the fort behind them. But to the surprise of the ponies watching, were the boulders the least effective attack on the fortifications.

They boulders struck the white stone walls, and shattered like clay or just smashed into the rock and fell down, leaving not even a scratch on the surface. Even the wooden drawbridge of the fort showed more damage then the stone, and it barely had a dent made in its thick frame from the impacts of the large rocks.

Though the most astonishing thing was the fact that the burning rooftops of the towers were showing no sign of damage to the stone of the structure from the explosions that had just recently destroyed the wooden roofs. It was not even showing a hint of being scorched by the flames, it was like the white stone was impervious to most manner of damage.

But even with the lack of results from the trebuchets were now the towers incapable of properly defending the fort. A set of three units, carrying siege ladders, marched forward, past their fallen comrades who were being retrieved by Gold Army Medic with wagons.

"Ready ladders and prepare to scale the walls!" The leading Captain of the center unit cried out as they rushed towards the moat before the gates of the river fort. They were covering their heads with shields but were not covering their front, they wanted to keep an eye out in case the horses had more of those dangerous projectiles.

A line of horses on top of the fort and from the arrow slits, shoot bolts and arrows with keen accuracy. It was a rain of blunt tipped wooden projectiles. The blunt arrows impacted with heavy strikes, almost denting the enchanted sacred bronze shields of the Bronze Army's soldiers. It sounded as if they were being pelted by a rain of hammers as the arrows rained down upon them.

Some arrows struck past the shields and hit their intended target, and loud screams erupted from those hit by the blunt metal heads of the arrows as the weight and impact of the blunt arrow heads broke bones. Those were soldiers with t he worst injuries, the rest were mostly just heavy bruising.

Though if you were unlucky and got stuck on the head were you probably not going to be part of the fight. Luckily with their helmets on was no one given any severe concussions or head injuries. But the vibration and sounds of the blunt arrow heads striking their helmets left those unlucky to be hit disoriented, dizzy or unconscious if the impact was strong enough.

No one would die but their injuries would make them stay out for the rest of the siege.

But their efforts had made progress. The three units of soldiers screamed out together as they charged towards the moat, hefting their siege ladders. And thne they impaled the end of the ladders into the soil just before the moat and began to push the ladders up.

Of the six siege ladders being raised up, were two located directly in front of a set of square shaped windows on the inbuilt towers of the fort. And as the ladders were raised up, was a loud fwooshing sound heard as a jet of green fire shoot out of the towers and struck the metal ladders.

The ladders were struck at the center and the flames melted that part of the ladders into slag in seconds. As the upper half of the ladders began to sag and fall down, dropped the soldiers holding the ladder their grip on the now red hot metal. The still burning metal fell backwards onto the moist grass and the soldiers scattered to avoid the burning metal.

They watched in horrified awe as the two ladders of solid enchanted iron/silver alloy melted into slag in seconds before the green flames died own, leaving two large puddles of molten metal in a scorched black patch of grass.

But the other four ladders were put up correctly, and with loud clangs they were tilted forward and slammed into the rock of the battlements, and the ponies cried out battle cries as they began to scale the ladders. Then there were screams of panic as bowls of hot sand were thrown out over their heads. While the ladders were splattered with some kind of clear slick liquid, making the scaling of the ladders near impossible.

As the blinded ponies tried to scramble up the ladder they gripped at the oily surface. One slipped with his foreleg and slammed muzzle first into the metal bar that was the step and with a loud clang slumped over, clutching his face. The ladder was wide enough for more to scale it but it was more difficult with somepony clutching their face in the middle of the ladder.

Another slipped on his hind legs and as he tried to reach out to not fall he grabbed another soldier by the leg and they both went tumbling down. Their bodies splashed into the moat bellow the ladders. And soon several others hit the water as well as more hot sand struck their bodies as they tried to scale the slick ladders.

A group of gold soldiers rushed over to the edge of the moat, throwing off the metal parts of their gear, before jumping into the waters. Swimming over the calm waters they dove down and after a few seconds emerged with the fallen troopers. Even as more and more bronze soldiers were falling down into the water were the gold soldiers either physically swimming into the water to physically drag them out, or using telekinetic magic to lift them out.

Several dozens of soldiers fell into the moat in front of the fort. They were quickly pulled out of the water by their fellows as the moat did not have any rapid motion to its waters unlike the moat behind the fort. So they were able to be easily carried out of the waters. Especially with the weight reducing enchantments on most of their armour.

Captain Weak Guts's unit arrived as the third wave of bronze troopers reached the fort. Nearly one third of the Bronze Army had been defeated and they had not even reached the castle yet. Unacceptable. He would not have this crusade end like the last one, all effort, no gain. Turning his head towards the nearby relief unit of Gold Soldiers he cried out to them. "Messengers! I need messengers!"

Two pegasi of the Gold Unit rushed over and the Captain pointed towards the rear where the flags bearing the markings of the Silver Army was located. While also pointing towards the gold units the messengers had come from. "Send words to the Silver Army's ranged units! Tell 'em to fire a suppressing amount of projectiles at the walls to give us cover! Tell all unicorns in your unit to utilize their magic to clean the ladders so we can scale 'em!"

The two messengers saluted, one flying off towards the Silver army, evading a rain of hot sand and blunt arrows, while the other scrambled over to their unit and informed them of their new orders. Since the bronze soldiers had stopped scaling the slippery ladders were there no more ponies that needed to be fished out of the moat. So the unicorns quickly got to work and began to clean up the ladders by either. Dragging rags all over the while firing hot steams of water onto the slippery parts. Or by manipulating the slick liquid and pull it off the metal with aquatic based manipulation magic.

As the clean up of the ladders commences were the first line of ranged silver units given their orders y the gold messenger. As moved two units ahead of the rest, spread out in lines, and aimed weapons and horns at the walls. And at the signal given by their Captains, fired a mass of projectiles at the walls, where the horses had to lift up round shields to protect themselves.

Seeing their chance Weak Guts stood up on his hind legs and pointed his sword at the fort and shouted out a single order to the surrounding units. "Charge!"

A mass shout erupted from the bronze soldiers around him and the four cleaned up ladders were once more scaled. As they reached the halfway mark were yet again buckets filled slick transparent oily liquid and hot sand being prepared by the defenders to pour down the murder holes of the walls. But Guts was prepared for it and shouted out to the gold troops at the base of the ladders. "Blast the upper portion of the walls with water!"

The gold unit unicorns were at first confused but complied. And rather then pouring water out of nowhere they manipulated the water of the moat and created large tendrils of water that splashed up against the walls in constant streams. The water shoot into the murder holes and archer windows, essentially rendering them useless for as long as the torrents of water were pushed against them.

There was nothing that could stop the ponies from climbing the ladders any longer.

And with a mighty roar the bronze soldiers finally scaled the ladders and climbed up onto the walls. Gut's unit was specialized in heavy weapons, most of them wielded great swords, not as large as their captains but still hefty. The rest wielded either large mauls, warhammers, big maces or great axes. Guts lead their charge into the disarrayed defenders and swung his great sword with a mighty shout.

Two foes were instantly cut down as his blade cut through the weaker chain mail areas of their bodies, and essentially sliced open their guts, making them spill over the rampart before collapsing to the ground. The others of his unit followed his lead and the black iron of the dark forces were found lacking in the face of their heavy enchanted weapons made out of sacred bronze.

They charged towards the gatehouse while the other units of bronze soldiers scaled the ladders and began to fight the dark horses in a grand melee. Guts saw the thick wooden door blocking his path into the gate house and reared back his great sword before pushing it forward while making a heavy charge towards it.

There was a loud resounding crack as his thick sword split through the three inches thick wooden gate, and with a great wrenching movement of his forelegs he split the iron bound door into two pieces, one hanging onto the side with the other just fell to the floor.

The path was clear. Or so he thought.

As he rushed into the gate house he felt something slam into his front and was suddenly flung out of the doorway and into his unit, who managed to catch him before he fell to the ground. He reached up and rubbed the big dent in his breast plate and looked at the doorway with narrowed eyes through his officer's helmet.

Out of the doorway emerged a large horse, almost as big as Maleficus Victoria himself, it was covered in head to hooves in thick iron plate, and wielded a large tower shield and a large iron ball attached to a three meter long chain. It was obvious of what had struck him in the front when he charged into the gatehouse.

The rest of Guts's unit backed off at the sight of the massive horse, and some even whimpered as a deep resounding voice rumbled out of the helmet of the behemoth, making it feel more like a sentient armour shaped construct then a large horse. "None. Shall pass."

"Oh I highly doubt that." Guts growled out as he got back onto his hooves and hefted his sword up, getting into a stance as he glared at the knight, the rest of his unit backing away to give him room and to keep the other horses away from him.

The big dark horse stared at the pony before him before giving a slight nod, as if in respect, before hefting the large iron ball in its grip and started to spin it around.

And it was skilled with the weapon, that much was clear. The big iron chain seemingly avoiding any wall or railing around the big horse, it obviously had perfect control over the weapon. Otherwise it probably could not have used it inside of the gatehouse.

Guts reared back his great sword and waited patiently. Then as the large dark horse swung his iron ball towards him Guts swung down his sword and batted the large iron weight back towards its wielder. But the knight just raised his shield and made the orb ricochet upwards before utilizing the momentum to make it swing downward towards Guts.

There was a loud crack as the iron sphere struck the white stone surface of the rampart, but did not even crack the surface, as Guts jumped forward. The dark horse yanked back its weapon and tried to crush its approaching foe between its shield and the large iron sphere that was its weapon.

But then Guts jumped up onto the dark horse's large field, and held his balance surprisingly well as he planted both of his hind legs' hooves on the top edge of the shield. As he had made the leap he had shifted his great sword to a downward angle and as he jumped he hefted it up with both of his forelegs and as he landed on the shield he made a downward thrust.

There was a loud crack as iron was split through, before the sound of sharp metal sinking into flesh and piercing bone was heard as Guts's great sword pierced through the helmet of his foe and into their cranium.

Killing the dark horse within the thick armour instantly. The iron ball struck its owner's shield and just landed with a thump on the ground, even with a sword in its head was the dark horse not knocked over by the heavy weapon, a proof of its great physical might. But even that is not going to save you from having your skull pierced by a giant blade.

The earth pony quickly jumped off the still standing corpse, warily eyeing it as it swayed a little, before letting out a soft sigh of relief as it fell over its side, dead as could be. Guts then looked towards his wide eyed troops and made a forward motion with his free foreleg an shouted at them. "Take the gatehouse and lower the drawbridge!"

As one the bronze soldiers broke out of the stupor and rushed into the gate house alongside their officer. Once inside they quickly dispatched of the dark horses in the process of sabotaging the gears of the drawbridge. Thankfully were they quick enough to claim the gatehouse before they could do so.

With the gatehouse of the fort claimed they lowered the drawbridge to the main land and the central columns o the Bronze Army quickly marched inside and began to clear out the dark horses within the structure. The no longer burning towers in front of the fort had their gates smashed open and quickly laid claim to by the stragglers behind the front line and central units.

But while the central column had been struggling with laying siege to the fort and the two towers. Had the two flanking sections of the Equestrian forces been trying to lay siege to the castle walls. They had charged towards the river banks, carrying their ladders over their backs as they trampled over the moist grass.

Then as soon as they reached the edge of the moat they planted the front portions of their twenty ladders into the ground and began to heft them upwards to lean them towards the castle walls.

Sadly that's when the truth of the situation was made clear. As even with the forces having used all of their metal rods to lengthen the ladders to be as long as they could, the ladders only managed to land halfway up against the enormous castle walls.

The width of the river that acted as a natural moat and the height of the walls themselves, made it near impossible for siege ladders to reach the upper portions of the walls. Even if the ponies reassembled all twenty ladders to create ten extra long ladders, would it not be possible to lift them, even with magical support.

Thus the two forces were left with no way to properly reach the top of the walls. They still had twenty meters left to scale before they reached the battlements of the walls. The Bronze Army was in a bind and the Silver Army were about to move in to aid them, or they would had it not been for one major issue that they were about to discover.

Sergeant Golden Shower was a proud veteran of the first two crusades and he was a former Knight of the Sun Guard, having retired to act as an instructor for future generations. A pale white pegasus with black mane and tail, he had the cutie mark of a black rain cloud with five gold coins dropping down from it like rain drops.

A specialist in Fly-By-Attacks and Bombardments, he had decided to take it upon himself and his squad of twenty to fly up to the walls and secure rope ladders for the bronze soldiers.

"We take off now! Let's show these dark wankers what we're made of! Ave Equestria!" The Silver Sergeant cried out to his unit who cried out together with their leader before all twenty one of them took flight.

As they flew over the huddling bronze units they moved upwards to avoid the range of the dark archer's arrows. And that's when one of Golden Shower's troops spotted something going on at one of the towers. "Sarge! I see something moving at the top of the second tower to the right of the middle of the western wall!"

All of the unit turned to look at what was moving and blinked when they saw a long, thin, wooden barrel mounted on some kind of triple jointed metal limb connected to a rotating metal platform. And then Golden Shower realized that it was aiming in their direction.

"They are aiming for us! Scatter!" The unit flew apart to escape the attack from the weird looking weapon.

But even as they broke formation, the weapon fired, and out of the holes at the end, erupted small clouds of smoke as a stream of large round pellets flew out of the weapon and towards the unit of pegasi. The unit thought they had managed to evade the weird looking attack, but it was not hat simple.

As the pellets flew through the sky they were starting to smoke and glow, creating a mirage of them turning into a group of flying bolts of white light.

And then they burst apart in a bright explosion of light and air pressure. An almost visible shock wave moved through the air and struck each of the pegasi. The powerful burst of intense air pressure scrambled their eardrums and shook their heads so intensely that they lost all sense of balance and were almost unconscious.

They plummeted down towards the moat, but were miraculously able to fall close enough to the shore of the moat to impact the moist soil. Loud thumps and clangs were heard as the pegasi soldiers crashed into the soft wet ground, leaving a unit of twenty one unconscious pegasi lying down in ditches made by their crash landings.

So the situation was as following.

The dark horses defending walls were firing down a constant barrage of arrows at the bronze soldiers, while they also had several towers with long ranged air burst launchers capable of shooting down large groups of pegasi. Not to mention the catapults firing barrels of glue or oil at them. So currently were the bronze soldiers hunkering together in turtle formations, forming giant shells of sacred bronze as a near constant stream of blunt arrows and liquid filled barrels struck at them.

While the pegasi forces of the Silver Army were forced to remain grounded after watching one of their smaller units being shoot down by an exploding air burst from the weird looking barrel like cannon.

Thus, even as the fort of the river was finally claimed, had over seven hours passed since the attack upon the castle was made and sun rise was imminent. Even with overwhelming odds had the castle's main walls not even been touched by pony hooves when the first day of the siege ended.

Princess Celestia was deeply upset by this set back but felt reassured that given her forces' newly obtained experience with the siege, they would perform better the next day. For she did not feel comfortable laying siege to the castle at night. With the dangerous river and not to mention any unknown plots of the castle's current owner, was it very dangerous to do such a thing.

And she was not willing to risk her soldiers at a night attack when most of them were still just raw recruits.

Nor did she feel comfortable attacking the castle with her magic directly, she had an ominous feeling that, that was exactly what Maleficus wanted her to do. She had to play it safe or she would once more fall victim to his wicked schemes and lose yet another attempt at bringing him to justice.

Up on the top of the castle was a certain alicorn stallion standing by the edge, looking out at the glowing fires of the ponies' war camp and within the river fort of which they had claimed. He was rather proud of how well the ponies had done during the siege.

*I honestly through that they would be unable to lay claim to the first line of defence for at least a few days. But for them to claim the first line of defence within the first day is far more then I was expecting.* Maleficus thought to himself as he looked down at the fort in front of the main gate of his castle. The ponies would be able to reach the main wall and gatehouse by the morning.

Even with the high walls and towers offering great range and height superiority over the attackers was he sure that the ponies would find a way to breach the defences of his castle like they had done on the river fort today. They had proven very capable in overcoming obstacles and defying the odds. It made him feel like he was watching a group of humans trying to best the odds in an action movie and succeed. It felt... nostalgic.

*I must admit that it might be possible for Celestia to end up winning this fight. Well... if she can complete the objective. After all, this fight is not just focused on me. But this castle itself. And I hope that she realizes this, or she might lose even without realizing it.* Maelficus turned around and walked towards the large peach tree growing before the main gates to the palace. He gently plucked one of its ripe fruits off its branches and began to eat it, enjoying the sweet flavour of the fruit while looking at the tall tree.

*After all. This would not be a proper version of Minas Tirith, without a magical tree now would it.* He thought as a smirk grew on his muzzle before he spat out the seed of the peach onto the soil next to the tree. The alicorn then watched with amusement as roots reached out of the soil like tendrils. The thin strands reached upwards and began to entangle the seed lying on the ground, and with a steady phase pulled the seed down into the ground.

The floating city of Jarngard flew over the Foal Mountains at a slow but steady phase. Several dozens of Sky Ships were flying alongside the sky island, with several more docking with the floating city's Sky Dock and at several docking positions along the city walls.

Said fleet of sky ships had no real actual designation yet, but the local called it the Storm Hammer Fleet. In honour of their warlord Thunder Hammer.

The fleet itself was a mixture of the various types of ships the four factions had control over, the horses knew to not leave their homes defended by a single type of ship. Variation was important in battle, it made it possible to utilize other options when another would fail.

Thus were horses of the Samurai, Knight and Sparta factions taking part of the fleet as well to man the other ships. Officially included to act as 'diplomatic' envoys to represent the unity of the Horadrim Kingdom. While in truth were they just looking for an excuse to keep their fleets well balanced and strong to make people not realize the deeper connection between the Horses.

Politics is a certain headache for any living being, be them natural, supernatural or unnatural.

While the horses Sky Ships were powerful and numerous could the horses not employ all of the fifty flying ships in their home for just patrolling the island. They kept about half of the sky ships docked in the Sky Dock or on the city walls. Making it easy to deploy more ships in case of an emergency.

It also made it possible to add day and night shifts for the fleet's crews as to not make them remain too long on the ships.

And while one might think that the horses would just change shift at the same time was that incorrect, they would send in one ship at a time in a steady interval, with the last being the flag ship of the fleet. It make the process long time consuming but it kept the fleet at top condition.

One of the recently changed crews was upon a large skeid longboat named 'Långsvärd' or 'Longsword' in the pony tongue. Its crew of fifty fresh viking warriors floating at the east most edge of the fleet's formation.

A young stallion raider was sitting on a barrel looking out towards the cloudy horizon, slowly dragging a whetstone over the edge of his long shafted axe. His pony name was Silent Hero, while his horse name was Sigurd. He was a light brown pelted horse with a reddish brown mane and tail, with a pair of green eyes.

He was equipped with a harness with a pair of cauldrons, a loincloth and a set of belts for several pouches, bottles and other little items. He was wearing a viking helmet with a visor, decorated with a pair of curved dragon horns, with a chain mail coif hanging down the back of the neck, with a set of opening to let his braided mane free.

As he watched the horizon he absentmindedly checked the sharpness of his axe by scraping it lightly against his horse shoe covered hoof. *Calm as ever. It almost makes you wish for something exciting to happen with just how boring these routine guard duties can get without anything going on.*

He rotated his axe a bit before holstering it onto his back in the harness. And he turned to leave to get some water and fruit from the hold, when he noticed something at the edge of his vision. Swirling around he quickly pulled out the spyglass strapped to his belt and looked out towards the eastern horizon, and his brow furrowed at what he saw.

From behind the thick white cloud emerged around a hundred large flying ships, not like the sky ships of the Horadrim Kingdom. These were frigate like ships being held afloat by a large oval shaped balloon that was covered by metal plates and held to the ship with thick ropes and fabrics shaped into a hexagon like pattern. On the top of the balloon was a metal structure which had two strange looking antenna like structures sticking out of its sides, while at the peak of the metal structure was some sort of glass dome containing something that was sparkling and glowing bright blue.

At the front of the ship was a large crown decorated eagle head with open beak, with what looked like a large cannon barrel sticking out of the opening. the ships were apparently being propelled by some kind of large fan shaped propellers at the rear of the structure.

Each ship was identical to the other in size and design, and there was at least eighty if not one hundred and twenty of them. They were larger then most of the ships used by the horses except for the slightly larger ships. And they looked rather slow and clumsy, but sturdy.

But the problem was not only with these massive eagle ships, no, the armada was surrounded by wedge formations of around five hundred flying soldiers, heavily armed griffins to be exact. For they could not be anything else. The bodies were four legged, with the rear being the back part of a lion with tail. While the front was that of an eagle with wings at the center.

Every single one of the griffins were armed with well designed aerial armour, light leather combined with chain and plate, to allow maximum protection while not hindering their mobility or making them slower. The manner of metal they utilized was unknown as it had been painted, the plate was painted blue while the chain mail were all painted in a squared pattern similar to that of a tartan pattern of the Scottish kilts from Maleficus home world. The specific colouring of the pattern were lines of white with two purples lines on either side of the white line, with a red square in the center, and repeat all over.

All of the griffins were wielding crossbows while having either swords and shields, or, large great swords, as melee weapon, no differences.

Each unit and each ship, had a banner upon either mast or pole, bearing a heraldic image of a gold crowned white eagle head i the center of a six pointed yellow star shaped field, with a purple background. With a red talon held within each of the star's six points.

And among the armada could ten large dragons be seen, each covered in blue plate armour. All of them as large as a three story tall building. And, though it was hard to see, could Silent Hero make out what looked like either large box shaped baskets or large wooden crates, tied to the dragons' backs.

Slowly the young raider lowered his spyglass and muttered to himself as he looked at the approaching army of air ships and griffins. "...Oh... ooooooh... shit... this is not good..."

He then pulled off one of the horns on his helmet, held to to his mouth and blew into it. A loud rumbling tone echoing out over the skies. Young Sigurd repeated this three times, making it a total of four signals, signalling to the rest of the sky fleet about approaching enemies from the east.

Returning his horn to its spot on his helmet Silent Hero walked over to the front of the boat as the captain began to bark out orders. And he looked out towards the approaching army and its fleet of air ships. While the sky fleet shifted and turned, facing the unknown army approaching their home. *I did not even speak out loud and yet Murphy's Law was still invoked!? Damn... that's terrifying.*

He would not mention his treacherous thoughts that might have invoked the sudden invasion of their air space, better to not risk it any further.

Upon the central ship of the fleet of air ships stood a tall black pelted and brown feathered griffin bearing a full body plate mail armour with a mantle strapped over his left foreleg and over his back bearing the tartan pattern that the rest of the army was wearing. Upon his side was a curved sword with a fork like cross guard shaped like a four fingered talon.

His left eye was replaced with a clear blue crystal ball, with a nasty looking scar that looked like something head tried to either eat or tear off the left side of his face. On his left pauldron was a heraldry in the shape of a white circle with the image of an iron gray griffin biting through a sword.

He was Earl Cahal, Ruler of the Eagle Coast, Patriarch of the Ironbeak Clan, and Admiral of the Third Fleet of the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Gryphon. A veteran of several wars within and without of Gryphon, and older cousin to King Craver, the current ruler of the Griffins.

News of these nations of equine beings with powerful magical artifacts and rich vaults filled with wealth had spread out from the south, being carried by the dragon mercenaries Cahal hired on a regular basis. It had come as a surprise to all of the griffindom when the tales of the rich nations and their skirmish with the dragons.

When words had reached the King had he been swift to order preparations and war plans to be made. And Cahal was proud of his younger cousin, he had ambition and goals, and though his personal habits might be a bit distasteful was he King, and thus could be given leniency for his acts. After all, none of those he had eaten had been of legit royal blood, being chicks of concubines and slaves. And the servants were there to serve the king, what did it matter if a few of them did so in another manner?

His young cousin's rule was far more profitable and glamorous then the old King, it had been a great satisfaction to aid the young king claim his throne from his useless father. Even if the old bird had been Cahal's uncle was he far too weak and paranoid to be a proper king in his eyes.

Craver was a better ruler by far, even with his odd dietary habits.

Walking past a line of sailors pulling ropes and preparing weapons he looked towards the large floating island and the fleet he had been preparing to assault for the past year. Utilizing the enhanced vision of his crystal eyeball he examined the fleet and the defensive structures of the islands. Muttering to himself as he tried to keep his awe in check at the sight of a floating island. "The reports spoke of it, but it is clearly much different to see it in person. A floating island, a magnificent sight."

A slight smirk could be noticed as the cheeks of the old war bird shifted a bit, and he walked over to his second in command, who was also his nephew, and spoke out in an excited manner. "This will make for an excellent tribute for our nation's power, if we can learn to utilize the secrets of the island we can finally overwhelm our neighbors and get control over the lands. The first of many grand prizes to claim for our king and nation. Ain't that right Bevyn?"

The younger griffin shared his smile, but it was a bit on the uneasy side as he did not have his uncle's experience or self confidence. Or delusion. "Very true uncle Cahal, but what about those reports we got from our scouts in the south about the ponies and horses killed off one of the Dragon Lords?"

Shaking his head the older griffin scoffed at the mere notion and pointed a claw at one of the dragon mercenaries flying among their fleet. "Just tall tales and rumors created by the ponies and horses to dissuade more dragons from attacking them. The old King might have feared those rumours but King Craver has a better spine and sense of things then that paranoid coward who I once called uncle. Any griffin worth their hide knows that dragons do not falter for anything, much less so a Dragon Lord. The only thing they care about is food and gems, and as long as you can provide either, or both, are they more then willing to serve us short lived being for a while."

The younger griffin nodded to his uncle's words, never speaking out his unease that both his uncle and the King had forgotten one crucial piece of evidence that supported the tales from the south.

Over four hundred dragons had flown west nearly two decades ago to perform their annual raid upon the pony lands. And out of the around half a thousand dragons that left, returned less then a hundred. There had been an all time low activity from the dragons ever since and there were even reports of ponies making colonies along the coastline by the Dragonlands.

But the King had dismissed the possibilities of such a large number of dragons being slain and just made the logical conclusion that the majority of the dragons who left had decided to make new homes in the pony lands. It had made sense for many, for few had even considered the other option a possibility.

And the King was also certain of the weakness of the ponies and the limited might of the horses, weakened by the dragon raid. With the reports of the wealth of the horses and ponies, not to mention their magical abilities and artifacts, made the recently discovered nations of Equestria and Horadrim very valuable for Gryphon.

At least that was what King Craver's ambitions were, and they were mirrored by the military officers and nobles of the kingdom. So young Bevyn could only follow his superiors' lead, even though he felt that this course of action would only bring disaster upon not just themselves, but the nation as well.

War Lord Thunder Hammer glared out from one of the balconies of his castle, the admiral of the fleet had told him the situation through the use of the Comm Orb in the flag ship. "So they think we are just going to roll over and let them plunder us eh? Well now. That won't do."

He turned around barked out orders as a group of officers and messengers. "Prepare for siege! Order the Shamans to engage the Shield Ritual! Tell the Storm Hammer Fleet to show these pretenders how real warfare with boats are made! We are Vikings! The Wolves of the Sea and the Eagles of the Skies! Let the Gods and our Father witness our Valour! In Glorious battle!"

Thunder Hammer then threw his maul and slammed the pommel into the floor, cracking the marble and releasing a short burst of rumbling thunder and lightning. And then he roared, his eyes glowing with sparkling blue lightning. "Valhalla!"

And he was joined by the rest of the horses in the chamber, and those outside of it, shouting out to their Warlord's speech, which had echoed out over the major vicinity of the entire castle.

While the fleet moved into formation was Jarngard swarmed with activity, civilians were running into the safety of the underground chambers or the large central keep on the peak of the island. Viking soldiers and guards within the city were preparing weapons and tools, manning the towers and walls of the island, while the ships docked to its harbours were slowly casting off one by one to join the fleet in defending the floating city.

But on the outer walls of the city, were some of the towers being prepared for a different purpose. Towers standing taller then the rest with four long horns sticking out of the sides of the towers, ending up in sharp points, almost like split spear heads or one edged daggers, making the top of the towers appear almost like scepters or claws.

A group of robed horses were standing on top of one of these outer towers, standing in a circle. Each of them were wielding a ceremonial dagger. Holding the dagger in their right foreleg they stood up on their hind legs and began to dance together, chanting and swirling their daggers in sync. Their chanting grew louder and a golden light began to emit from the ground beneath their hooves as a pattern of runes began to emerged out of the stonework, as if it was bleeding golden light.

With a final cry the robed horses pressed the tips of their daggers against each other, forming a star like pattern with their daggers and forelegs. There was a rush of heat as the magic of the shamans joined together. The runic array beneath their hooves filled the entire floor of the top of the tower, even stretching out into the four blade line pinnacles on the sides. There was a moment of silence as the light seemed to fade, before suddenly a pillar of light shoot out of the tower's center. It expanded upwards like a laser moving at slow motion, when it reached three quarters of the height of the mountain it started to bend and expand towards the island's central point.

As the expanding light beam reached the air above the ship docks, it was meet with eleven other beams of light emitting from the other outer towers, and as they connected was an almost bird cage like form made. But then the golden light began to expand and shift, flowing out and expanding until there was no longer any gaps, leaving the entire city covered by a golden force field.

As the force field completely covered the city were the ships of the horses taking up formations to face the enemy. One group of ships from the rear of the fleet were moving in another direction, while the rest of the fleet began to create a large bulwark to defend the island.

The griffins and their fleet of Air Ships were charging towards the city and its gathered fleet, the ten dragons moving at the front. With gusto and glee screeched Earl Cahal out to his troops as he witnessed the magnificent sight of his ships and dragons charge towards the enemies. "Signal all ships to take no prisoners! There shall be nothing but the might of Gryphon remaining after this battle!"

One of the messengers walked over to a large metal barrel and struck it with his talons. Bright flashes of light began to erupt from the lightning filled dome on the top of the ship. The light was released in a pattern, acting as a coded message system for the rest of the ships to receive orders without the use of messengers.

But even as the order was given, were the charging griffins and their dragon allies caught by surprise by what came next.

Five Atakebune had taken the front formation, with five Trireme ships above them and five Carracks above the Triremes. They made up the frontal guard of the horses' fleet, and as the griffins and their dragons charged towards them with clearly ill intent, the horses aboard the ships fired their ship's weapons.

The Atakebunes' front barrels shone in bright light and the griffins at first thought that it was some kind of blinding attack and closed their eyes to not get blinded.

Five glowing balls of condensed energy flew through the air, erupting out of the front barrels of the Atakebunes.

The first flew at one of the closer dragons. With his eyes closed was the fire breathing giant creature unable to see how the small spherical force field flew straight at him.

It impacted the dragon at the left side of its skull, the mighty scales, flesh and bones were gorged apart by the intense ripples of momentum from the compact energies making up the sphere. The magical energy projectile flew out of the back left side of the dragon skull, showering the air in bits of the dragon's skull while the body went limp and began to fall downwards.

The orb flew further and struck an unlucky group of five griffins, their bodies were torn apart and scattered into the winds as the sphere struck them. Before it finally ended its journey by impacting the front of the blimp like balloon on one of the air ships, rupturing it in the process.

Bluish gas erupted from the deflating metal plated blimp and caused severe nausea to the griffins nearby. Right before it detonated into a cloud of plasma as the container on the top of the balloon broke as the blimp collapsed. The entire ship fell down like a falling blue star as the plasma fire trailed after it like a tail of liquid fire.

Several dozens of griffins barely had time to scream as the blue flames engulfed their bodies. Even before their bodies were burnt away into nothing was the intense heat of the plasma causing black vapor to erupt out of their orifices, eyes, ear holes and beaks as their body fluids were almost instantly vaporized form the heat. Their insides boiled to shriveled up charcoal before the blue flames even touched their dead bodies.

It all took less then a few seconds to occur.

The second shoot struck the chest of another dragon, like the first it tore open a round hole into the body of the large creature. But unlike the first was this force field sphere unable to travel all the way through and instead, detonated.

The dragon let out a pained cry as its abdomen bubbled up in an unnatural fashion before its hide and flesh beneath its upper chest erupted like a water balloon. A geyser of blood and gore sprayed outwards from the dragon's midsection, painting the heavens with a red rain. The creature fell downwards, its limp shape showing how its entire midsection had been torn clear of flesh, revealing the creature's spine, ribs and pelvis bones. The only flesh left between the chest and the pelvis were pieces of its internal organs and flesh hanging off its spine.

Though the third shoot missed its intended target, as the dragon in question shifted a bit as the force field was heading towards it, did it still strike one of the ships behind the dragon. In a brutal explosion of shards of wood, metal and gore was the entire lower section of the ship torn asunder, leaving only a large metal plated blimp balloon that was starting upwards without the ship or its counter weights to keep it from floating off.

None of the crew members survived the detonation of the ship.

The fourth energy projectile gorged through another dragon's left wing, tearing the appendage in half as the mythical creature screeched out in pain and fear as it began to tumble down, trying to regain altitude with its remaining wing. Its body slammed into the jagged peak of a mountain and pierced through the dragon's stomach and out through its back, leaving it impaled upon the mountain top.

But the sphere kept going and struck the side of one of the air ship's balloons, tearing out a large gaping tear in its side. The ship began to fall instantly as the gas was expelled out of its container. Griffins abandoned the ship as it fell down toward the mountain range bellow, and as the ship struck the rocky surface, it detonated in a large thunder clap of lightning and plasma fire as the electric filled dome cracked and the no longer contained lightning ignited the gas.

The force field sphere flew away, not hitting anything else, before suddenly wobbling in its shape, before erupting in a massive burst of magical energy. Several ships and griffins fought to remain airborne as the shock wave slammed into them. Around fifty or sixty griffins fell down unconscious, unconscious from being struck by the powerful pressure of the shock wave. While five air ships crashed into the ground or each other, before hitting the ground, erupting into fiery wrecks of blue fire.

And then the fifth shoot struck its target, striking the dragon in the snout, the flesh and scales shredded apart as the sphere gorged through the dragon's skull before erupting out of the back, leaving a headless corpse to fall to the ground. The sphere flew for a short time before slamming into the side of an air ship, causing it to explode into blue fire as the projectile detonated inside its wooden frame.

Admiral Cahal growled and glared at the finned ships that had just torn apart four of his dragon mercenaries and over a dozen of his one hundred air ships. "Those magic farting donkeys will regret this insult! None but Gryphon may rule the sky! Give the order to the fleet! Prepare to fire the Tintreach Cannons at the ships! Focus your fire at their oars and sails! Give them Blood and Thunder!"

A joyous cry filled the ship and signal flags were waved to the other ships. Bevyn kept his personal opinion of the situation silent, he had a feeling that the Tintreach Cannons of the airships, would prove less effective then his uncle had intended. *Those cannons may be the greatest engineering feat our race has produced in the last two hundred years, but that still does not mean they will be as effective against these sky ships like they are against our air ships or non-lightning aligned dragons.*

Upon each vessels moved griffins at the front, pulling levers and adjusting pressure valves on a set of pipes. The beaks of the ships lowered their lower parts and the barrels rolled out, adjusting in length until they were sticking out two meters from the beaks' tips.

One of the griffins of each crew were rotating a vertical wheel with a handle on it, rapidly rotating the metal circle as three gem stones above the wheel began to glow blue. As the third gemstone shone the crew member would shout out to their superior officer. "Tintreach Cannon loaded, aimed and ready to fire Captain/Admiral!"

The leader of the air ships would raise their talons, holding some manner of weapon or spyglass, and point it at their targets. And then they would cry out the griffins' ancestral word, for shoot, or fire. "Scaoil!"

A series of loud resounding cracks filled the air as one by one the massive air ships released their lethal loads. A blue flash of light emerged from the tips of the cannons and was released in a sphere of sparkling blue lightning. They flew at such speed it was less of a projectile and more like a slow motion moving lightning bolt, still fast, but not as fast as its naturally occurring variation.

The lightning balls struck at the wooden masts of the ships and the oars as well, intense light emerged form each strike as the energies of the lightning bolts surged out over the ships. Only to somehow be redirected into the clouds beneath the ships, and after a few seconds, the electrical arches had disappeared, absorbed by the clouds beneath the horses' sky ships.

All the griffins could do was stare in shock and horror as the mightiest weapon of their nation, had its power and potency rendered null and void.

Admiral Cahal reacted in a more vocal and aggressive manner once he recovered from his shock. His voice crying out over the stunned crew staring at the horses' fleet, which was no longer floating passively, but moving towards them. "What!? What happened!? Why are those ships undamaged!?"

One of the officers, who had been looking with a spyglass, cried out to the admiral to give his report. "The sky ships admiral! They absorbed the lightning bolts! The cloud beneath them appear to act like lightning rods! The horses don't even look like they got zinged!"

Young Bevyn held back from openly scoffing and rolling his eyes at those words. Instead he mentally berated his fellow griffins as they panicked about their cannons failing to damage the horses' sky ships. *Really? You don't say. It must be highly improbably, no? For what ever reason would anyone ever assume that a race of equines sailing on boats riding storm clouds would know how to handle lightning strikes being aimed at? Incomprehensible.*

His uncle screeched out in anger, punching through the railing before the steering wheel of the ship. And began to rant while glaring at the approaching ships. "Damn it! All non essential crewmembers! Prepare yourselves for boarding actions! We outnumber them still! Kill them all!"

Bevyn flinched as the crew drew their arms and screeched out together, he silently stepped back into a shadowy corner. He did not like with how things had been going and he just knew that even his uncle, famous for his physical prowess, would find the horses easy prey.

The two fleets flew towards each other with rapid speed. A wave of projectiles erupted from the carracks, the triremes and the atakebunes. Ballistae bolts pierced through reinforced balloons that would ignite into blue flames, canisters splattered vile concoctions over griffins and ships, while bolts of magic erupted from the hooves of the magic users located on the different ships.

In response to the volleys of projectiles were the griffins arming their crossbows and firing as good as they could at the ships and their crews. The crossbow bolts shoot through the wind in low arches and struck wood, flesh or air as the griffins utilized their natural skill of flight as well as their well developed eye sight to take pot shots at the horses.

Most of the air ships had given up on utilizing their Tintreach Cannons, instead they armed small ballistaes and readied crossbows. Firing with increasing fervor at the horses and their sky ships, even gong so far as to put the bolt heads into braziers of burning tar before firing, trying to put the ships on fire, through only managing to burn small holes in the sails at most.

But not all griffins had given up on their Tintreach Cannons. At least two dozen ships were still firing them as their crews tried to figure out a way to get past the anti-lightning defenses of the horses. Even as the horses' ships kept enduring the strikes of the lightning balls.

The remaining six dragon mercenaries, seeing four of their numbers gone, but never saw how or why, decided to take action. They flew towards the approaching horse fleet and opened their maws to release torrents of fire upon the first row of ships. That's when several crackling booms erupted from the skeids at the front of the fleet, as they swung their oars up wards and then down.

Out from the clouds beneath the skeids came a magnitude of thunder and a torrent of lightning. And the dragons, covered with their metal armour, were the perfect lightning rods. The six beasts cried out in pain as hundreds of lightning bolts struck at their bodies and scorched their hides and flesh, smoke began to erupt out of their throats, their eyeballs melted, and finally, their bodies practically shriveled.

The black roasted shapes of the dragons fell down, and as they struck the ground, was all that remained ash and bones scattered across the mountains. And now the griffins' fleet was without its draconic fire support.

And then the two fleets clashed.

Griffin warriors flew at the ships, crying out war cries as they wielded their various weapons, while others held back and kept firing crossbows at them. The horses however, responded in kind.

Several dozens of griffin warriors flew at one of the smaller ships that had the strange fin like shapes on its form. They were meet by a group of fifty horses dressed in strange exotic armour, wielding long curved swords with frightening looking helmets and masks covering their faces.

The griffins charged at the samurais- And the samurais in turn, spread out into a line, by doing so they were essentially blocking the griffins from reaching the doors leading to the lower section of the ship., Then they shifted into a stance, standing on their hind legs, holding their swords by the sheath with their left foreleg while gripped the handle of their swords with their right. With said swords still in the sheaths.

And then, as the griffins came charging, the samurais breathed, closed their eyes. And then as the griffins came within two meters, they opened their eyes, and blurred. It was like the fifty samurais had disappeared.

The griffins blinked and looked around ,trying to figure out what had just happened. When they heard the sound of metal being sheathed into leather covered wood. From behind them.

Turning around they saw the fifty samurais, in the process of slowly sheathing their swords. One of them saw this a an opportunity and cried out to the others. "They have their backs to us! Kill them now!"

"Sorry but that won't be possible." One of the samurais commented as he slowly turned around, the sword in his sheath ,just an inch from behind inserted completely.

The griffins looked at each other in confusion as of what was going on. But the one who had shouted out hefted his large sword and glared at the samurai. "Oh? and why's that? If you mean you surrender th-"

But the samurai interrupted him before he complete his sentence. "The reason is simple."

And as one the samurais clicked their swords into place, and spoke out together to the griffins in cold, dark, voices. "Omae wa no shindeiru."

"What kind of garbling tongue is th-kgh." The griffins words ended as thin red lines emerged across his neck, chest and head. As did it over the rest of his fellows, and in a spray of blood and gore, the bodies of the griffins split apart. Leaving piles of gore on the wooden planks of the ship's deck.

One of the samurais quickly raise a hoof at the sight. "I am sooo not going to be the one that has to clean that up!"

Another group of griffins were on one of the air ships, aiming crossbows with fire bolts at the closest ship approaching them. Even as they fired upon the wooden frame did it not catch fire, much to their frustration.

But then one of them noticed something. "Say, is that ship trying to ram us?"

They all blinked and looked at the fast moving ship, its strangely painted bow was looking straight at them, the rows of oars were rowing rapidly while the large sails pushed it faster. This was the war ship of the ancient times of the Greece, the trireme, it was built not jut for fighting side to side or by distance. Its bow was designed with a long pointed wooden pole with the end equipped with thick metal plates.

It specialized in ramming ships, sometimes even going so far as to split them in half given enough momentum.

The captain of the air ship cried out to his crew as he began to pull at the steering wheel of the ship."Evasive actions! Do not let them ram us!"

But it was too late, the trireme slammed into the port side of the sky ship with a loud crack, the metal enforced wood give away to the runic enchanted battering ram of the ship. The griffins abandoned ship, taking flight off the doomed vessel as the trireme pushed through it, until with a loud crack, the entire thing split apart like a broken cookie.

The ship fell apart, several large wooden pieces of the vessel falling down while the no longer weighted down balloon flew upwards into the heavens.

And as this occurred, were the ballistaes of the trireme taking aim, and firing upon the fleeing griffins and the surrounding air ships.

The carracks flew with strong and steady momentum through the heavens. Their crews armed the sling shots with canisters before flinging said canisters at the griffin forces. No one dared to use the harpoon launcher however, as the volatile gas of the air ships' balloons made the horses unwilling to risk it.

One of the knights on one of the carracks had just grabbed hold of a clay sphere canister, put it in place in the sling shot's bowl, and pulled it back. Carefully aiming the knight visualized the intended arc of how they intended for the canister to land. And then they let loose.

With a loud twang the projectile was released from the sling shot launcher. The container flew upwards, forward and then downwards, before hitting the wooden deck of the griffin air ship. Its fragile structure shattered and thus released the content within.

Thick black goop splattered across the deck, some even hitting the griffins whom were quick to wipe it off. Which was a not working, as when they tried to rub off the black goop it smeared and stuck to their talons like glue. And then the black cook suddenly began to bubble and swell. Before suddenly it began to expand and bloat out like a growing mass of bubbling tar.

For that was what it was. Self boiling and expanding tar.

Screams of agony and fear began to fill the air ship as the black bubbling mass grew quicker and quicker, those unable to evade it were stuck in its mass and quickly submerged into the tar. Those who had been struck by splatters of tar were screaming out in agony as their feathers, flesh and blood was boiled as the bubbling tar began to expand out over their bodies.

The captain was the first to abandon ship, but he did not get far. Even as he rushed to the railing and jumped off, spreading his wings to take flight, was he interrupted. The sound of something whistling through the air heard was heard for the instance of a second, before it ended with the abrupt screech of a bird in pain.

And then the captain of the ship slumped over and fell down towards the ground far, far beneath the warring ships, an arrow sticking out of his left eye socket.

All griffins who fled were quickly shoot down by the group of sixty long bow wielding archers firing from the carrack. None were able to flee or aid the ship as the tar kept growing and growing.

As the ship's upper deck was completely covered in tar was the groaning sound of straining supporters heard from the metal reinforced ropes and frames holding the blimp like balloon in place as more and more weight came upon the ship. That scene was being replicated on four other air ships floating a few dozen meters away from the broad sides of the carrack.

The captain of the ship raised a hoof and pressed it against his muzzle, before blowing through the specific shape air holes of his horseshoe, to signal the archers with a set of Morse coded whistles.

As one the archers pulled out an arrow, and held it out, as a Horadrim mage, standing next to the captain, held out a staff of wood with a crimson gemstone on its end, and released a burst of red energy from the staff. The light spread out over the archers, and the arrow heads, burst into flame, flames that did not appear to be releasing smoke or turning the metal black or char coaling the wood of the arrows' shafts.

Then, the archers pulled back their arrows, aimed carefully, before releasing them. and as they did, the carrack sky ship raised its speed and flew away from the cluster of damned air ships.

Five groups of twelve fire arrows streaked out across the skies in high volleys. And then, they struck the five bloated air ships, some struck the balloons, some struck the metal plates, but most, hit the deck. Where the growing mass of bubbling tar was located.

There were five bursts of fire, each explosion of heat erupting in a golden flare of light. Only to be replaced by an even more intense flare of blue light, as the balloons of the air ships erupted as the flames melted through the metal frame and fabric of the balloons, and ignited the gas inside.

Five burning wrecks fell down towards the ground, and so did seven more ships, as other carracks handled their own foes.

Over a hundred griffin warriors flew at some of the longer, but less intimidating boats. Sure they had dragon formed figure heads but from what the griffins could see had they no proper defences outside of their lightning bursts, and the griffins were confident that they could evade such nuisances.

They flew down with loud war cries, wielding great swords and axes. That's when a loud meaty thunk was heard, and the leader of the charge fell down, a smaller then average axe sticking out of his split skull. But no one noticed, they were far too deep in their rage and lust for battle.

Griffins took no heed, as a rain of axes, spears and arrows struck at their charging forms. Not even as their numbers wetn down by a third before they even reached the ship.

The first attacker screamed out as he raised his large weapon and made a down ward swing at the horse standing closest to the railing. His cry was cut off into a gurgling as the horse raised his own large sword and not only blocked the griffin's attack, he put so much strength behind the striek that the griffin's own sword slammed back and sliced into his neck and was buried halfway through.

With a loud thud the dying griffin struck the wooden deck of the long boat. And he blinked, as he tried to figure out what had just happened.

And he saw it. He saw the large horses, each decorated with pieces of animals as trophies or armour.

He saw two of his fellows charge with shields and axes at a horse wielding a sword and shield. The horse blocked their stricks and pushed his shield back at them ,making them recoil backwards. Where the horse made a step forward and with two rapid thrusts of his sword, pierced through the griffins' throats and out of their necks, the floor splattering with their blood as they fell over, dead.

At the same time was a large horse wielding a long shafted axe rushing at a group of four griffins who were charging at him in turn. The first had their swing deflected ,before a powerful tackle struck their midsection. They were then hefted up like a sack of grain over the front of the horse, who then used them as an improvised battering ram.

It ran forward, pushing over the other three, before slamming the disoriented griffin into the mast of the ship, before kicking said griffin in the face, a loud crack was heard as the griffin's neck was broken. The warrior then swirled around, and with a brutal left side swing, cut off the head of the second griffin soldier. The third, who had recovered, tried to make an effort to strike back, only for the pommel of the axe to shatter his back before the axe struck him in the skull and split his head in half, all the way down to the neck.

The fourth griffin tried to attack the horse warrior while they were busy yanking out their axe from the third's body. But the axe wielding berserker like brute reached out with their left foreleg, deflected the thrust of the griffin, and then kicked them in the gut, making them hunch over. Before punching them in the face, knocking them to the floor. Then with a savage downward swing, it struck the prone griffin in the stomach, the axe piercing through the plate with ease.

And then with a savage pull, it dragged the axe downwards, splitting open the griffin's stomach, while dragging out parts of its intestines. It took it less then two seconds to do so before finally tearing the weapon out of the groin. Splitting apart the intestines int he process. The prone griffin had been screeching through the entire ordeal before going silent as the weapon finally left their body.

There was a horse dressed in robes decorated with various parts of animals, with the skull of a dragon or large lizard acting as a helmet or hood, hard to determine as the skull was partly covered by the hood of the robe. It was wielding a long ceremonial dagger, and as griffins charged it would the horse evade their attacks, before slicing the dagger at any exposed parts of their body.

Then it would drip the blood onto its free hoof, before chanting in some weird exotic tongue. A crimson glow emerging from its hoof, and then all of those the blood had come from, let out screams of agony, as their flesh began to wither and dry out. But they did not fall as the final liquid of their bodies left them, instead they stood there as shambling dried up corpses, their hollow eye sockets glowing red.

But as the still living griffins charged at the horse mage, reacted the dried up corpses. They let out shrill soul quivering screeches, like a dying eagle screaming within a dull and dark cavern. And then they charged, their bodies moving at the same speed they had when alive, but no longer bound by the limits of the mortal flesh. And the mage just stabbed more griffins as the newly converted corpses fought for them now, and began the process again.

Nearby was a horse wielding a spear and shield moving through groups of griffins, deflecting blows, before stabbing the pear through them. The horse was agile and merciless, it did not matter if their opponent was unarmed, wounded or unconscious, they would kill them swiftly and efficiently.

Alongside the spear wielding killer was a mad horse wielding a pair of axes, it ran forward, screaming out in utter frenzy, slashing and hacking at anything within sight. sight. A few griffins were brave, or foolish, enough to face the mad horse. One tried to attack from behind, only for a spear to pierce through their back and out the front as the spear wielder protected the berserker.

Another griffin valiantly charged at the frenzied axe wielder. Utilizing a shield to block the flurry of blows the griffin tried to use their stamina to outlast the warrior's frenzy before attacking. But before even ten seconds had gone by was a loud crack heard as the griffin's shield was split by the warrior's left axe before the startled soldier had their face split in half by a blow into their cheeks from the right axe.

Even with his body dying the griffin watched in fascination and horror as the various barbarians broke down his fellows in a slaughter unlike anything he had ever seen.

He could only stare, not even noticing the approaching blade of the horse that had cut him down in the initial assault. Even as his neck was decapitated, even as his head went tumbling across the floor, the griffin's face never lost the look of horrified awe upon its surface.

Admiral Cahal could only stare in silence at what he was witnessing.

His fleet of a hundred strong air ships and over five thousand air forces and ten dragon mercenaries, was being torn apart.

The air ships valiantly shoot bolts of wood and lightning at the air ships. But beyond killing a few individual horses or damaging some oars or sails, was there no real visible damage to the horses' fleet.

Blue flares of ignited air ships erupted as the sky fleet retaliated with much more efficient salvos. Even though the old griffin could see two or three of the horses' sky ships catch fire by being too close to the erupting air ships, could he not feel a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. He felt hollow inside.

Seven air ships flew with intents to take out three of the box shaped and fin decorated ships with sheer physical might. Only for their bows to slam into an force field that was erected around the ships. The front of the ships was crushed against the energy field, crumbling and grinding the bird heads and the lightning cannons at their fronts into flattened scraps of wood and metal.

Then there was a bright shining flare of light from the finned ships, and the shields suddenly doubled in size. With loud horrible crackles and booms were the seven air ships wooden and metal frame shattered. The balloons, no longer bound by the ship frame, floated upwards towards the heavens.

Griffin air ships and horse sky ships were flying wildly all over the clouds above the fol mountain. Blue flares of light emerging every now and then whenever air ships exploded. Bolts of lightning, metal and wood were streaking across the distances between the ships. Mixed in with ballistae bolts and lightnings bolts were force field balls, canisters, arrows and throwing weapons.

It was utter chaos, but the difference between the air ships and the sky ships were obvious. The air ships were extremely volatile and their main weapon ineffective against the sky ships, which variations of not just ships but armaments and troops, made them more capable of handling the air ships.

Admiral Cahal pressed his talons against the railing and closed his eyes, taking a deep shuttering breathe as he felt the numbness leave him, being replaced by heart wrenching despair and self loathing. *This is wrong! This is all wrong!*

The once mighty and powerful Third Fleet of the griffindom's Royal Navy, was losing. Badly. All because of him and the rest of the nobility's lack of foresight and lack of options. He, and they, had never considered anyone able to withstand the force of their fleets and the lightning spitting cannons. Now, he was proven wrong. Oh so wrong.

*Someone wake me up from this nightmare!*

But his mental contemplation and self suffering was disrupted by the cries of his first mate screaming out from the bow of the air ship. "My lord Cahal! Enemy forces are approaching from the front!"

Two long boats flew out towards the flag ship, upon them stood large horse warriors preparing to board. The sound of drums being beaten could be heard over the sound of the large sky battle.

Spitting to the side the old griffin pointed his saber at the approaching vessels. "Prepare for battle! We shall board their ships and use them to destroy the rest!"

A plan began to fill his head, if he could rally his forces and get hold of one or two of the horses' sky ships, then he could at the very least disrupt the horses' forces enough to retreat and rally the remains of his fleet.

His words gave his crew and officers the boost they needed to prepare for combat. Crossbows were gathered, swords drawn, shields hefted and axes wielded. The griffins moved into formation, they could not risk taking flight with the amount of ranged weapons in the air. Thus they decided to make their stand on the ship before trying to board the boarders' ship in return.

The two long boats weaved through a rain of lightning and mundane projectiles, the carved serpentine dragon heads at the bow of the ships each had an oil lantern burning within the open jaws. Upon the ship stood barbarian like horses with grappling hooks, ropes and ladders. Some were even ready to leap off the railing of the sky ship to launch themselves over at the air ship. The clouds beneath the two sky ships rumbling as the oars rotated through them as they started to align with the air ship, essentially flanking it from both sides.

Two rows of crossbow wielding griffins were aimed at the horses upon each ship. Even with the low deck of the ship making it difficult to target them directly, could the crossbows still make an effort. But even as they aimed at the line of warrior horses, they could make out the smirks upon the warriors' faces with their griffin eyes.

Talons gripped triggers, the bend wood flexed out, pulling the string as it did. And with soft twihping sounds the bolts were released. At a range of less then five meters the crossbows' bolts could penetrate armour plate with ease. and with these lightly armoured foes it should have pierced through their bodies.

Instead, as the bolts struck at the pelts of the horses, there was resounding sounds of metal stricking rock, and the bolts deflected off the horses' hides. And that's when they noticed it, behind the rows of warriors stood a group of knife wielding mages, glowing in toxic green lights that was being emitted towards the warriors, rendering their bodies impervious to the bolts.

One of the griffins just stared blankly at the sight, before muttering out a curse. "Plucking hell."

The horses raised their weapons towards the heaves, they tossed their heads backs, their manes flurrying into the wind. And they cried out as one into the heavens, their battle cry. "Valhalla!"

And then they jumped off their ship, screaming out wordless battle cries as they savagely leaped upon the defenders. A row of weapons slamming down with the force of a stampede of iron.

The Griffin warriors at the front raised their shields to hold back the invaders. But the griffins had overlooked a lot when it came to the horses. They had kept considering them to be just very big earth ponies.

Horses are not only larger then ponies, they are also much heavier and much, stronger. The weight of a full grown horse, dressed up in light leather to heavier chain mail armour, each carrying at least one tenth of their body weight in gear, came straight down towards the round griffin shields, wielded by griffins, whom were s bit larger then an earth pony, but was about as light as a pegasus because o their bodies' bone structure.

The result was the front row of griffin warriors had their forelimbs' bones shattered by the impact. They ended up collapsing beneath their own shields, not just because of the pain, but also because of the force of the impacts. And as they landed on their backs, wings pressed down to the deck, came the full weight of the horses' bodies, coming down form a two meter high jump, down upon the shields over their bodies. The front line warriors had most of their bodies crushed beneath said shields as the horses trampled on and over their bodies.

Screeching war cries erupted from the great sword wielding griffins swung at their larger foes. Two horses failed to block or duck away from the swings. One raider horse had his left foreleg sliced halfway through by the heavy blade before the bones made it get stuck.

A berserker warrior had his head cut off as he had fortunately entered a frenzied rage a bit before reaching his enemy. Which became his undoing as the griffin managed to land a lethal blow to his neck.

Then the crossbow griffins, having reloaded their weapons swiftly, shoot a volley past their fellows. Now only a meter away from the wave of horses. Hoping that the tribal dressed mages' magic was no longer in effect.

And it no longer was.

Twenty bolts were fired at each group. Five horses were struck in vital points like the head, throat or heart and fell down dead. The rest of the horses pushed through the wave of bolts, except for a few who faltered as their bodies became pin cushions and could no longer move without having the bolts removed.

The horses came upon the griffins like a stampede of muscle and iron, blood sprayed over the wooden deck as griffins and horses began to brutally slice each other up. Griffins fell to the floor, clutching bleeding stumps or broken limbs. Horses neighed out in pain and fury as they pushed through the bolts and blades of the griffins.

Soon total chaos was filling the entire ship as the horses pushed the formation of griffins apart, and began to tear the feline aligned birds apart even as their own blood painted the surroundings. Their tough bodies and minds able to push through wounds and pain that would have been too much even for veteran warriors.

They were vikings, they lived and died for battle, they were the merchants of gold, blood and war, trading blows with their foes while in battle. While trading goods and gold in preparation for the next bout.

Admiral Cahal watched with a grim look on his face as his forces tried to repel the boarders. The odds were just not in their favour, the horses outnumbered them at least three to one. His griffins had managed to kill around ten or twelve of them thus far, but that left about ninety more.

He knew what he had to do. It was time to signal the retreat and have all available air ships escape while having those lost self destruct. Including his own.

The old griffin moved with a surprising agility for his size and age and began to rush towards the steering wheel of the ship. There he could send out a last ditch signal to his forces by flaring up the lightning being emitted from the dome of the blimp of the air ship. It would cause the storm stone within to become unstable and possible explode, but he was not concerned. He was an old warrior and he would serve his King even if it meant his life.

But as he ran up the steps towards the steering wheel, he heard a loud tramping from behind and barely had time to turn to the left, as a long shafted and beard edged great axe was swung towards him. The blade of the weapon split through the steps of the staircase, rending half of the boards into splinters.

His sable sang as he sought to decapitate the raider who had just tried to kill him. Said the raider raised a hind leg and kicked the large griffin in the chest ,sending him into the railing of the ship with a loud clang. Before jerking out his weapon from the ruined staircase.

The tall horse stood on his hind legs and held his axe with his forelegs, glaring at he old griffin who was rubbing the dent in his chestplate. Getting up from the hit the griffin admiral let out a screech before charging the horse, who ducked aside the strong swing.

Cahal was not finished however, he utilized his own momentum and the claws of his rear legs' paws, to suddenly turn an lunge after the horse with a thrust towards the young raider's stomach. The young warrior used the shaft of his axe to deflect the blow and swung the pommel at the griffins head.

But the old war bird evaded the strike by ducking and then tried to use his free talon to rip open the horse's stomach. Only for the horse to raise a hind leg and kick at his chest again. The old griffin evade the strike and was now at the defense as the silent warrior made several rapid slashes, thrusts and swings at him in quick succession.

The Earl knew he could not block the strikes of the raider, it would either break his guard, or his bones, or leave him open for an attack from the horse's hooves. He could deflect and guide away the strikes however, showing an agile and skilled usage of his thick saber to attack the axe as it was swung at him, forcing it aside as he did so.

As the two fought had the rest of the horses killed or subdued the rest of the griffins on the deck. and had gathered in a circle around them, chanting out together as the admiral fought the young raider.

Finally the admiral had, had enough of the cat and mouse play and decided to make a gamble. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a vial. Which he threw at the raider.

The vial shattered against the raider's torso and instantly a thick cloud of smoke filled the area. Cahal covered the nostrils of his beak with his free claw before making a lunge at the place he could see the horse' shape. and made to stab him in the head.

Then the edge of the axe came bellowing from the right, right out of the smoke, and struck him in the side. A loud echoing clang erupted as the edge of the axe head slammed into the griffin's plate mail, but it was slightly dampened by a loud crack, as the admiral's left wing had its central join shattered from the impact. The strength behind the blow sent the old war bird tumbling across the wooden floor.

But he was not willing to give in, he struggled up from the floor, coughing up a bit of saliva as he did. The breastplate had protected his internal body parts, his wing was broken, but he had not broken any ribs or had any of his organ damaged.

The young warrior calmly walked forward, and for the first time of the fight, he spoke. His voice calm and low, almost like a whisper. "You have fought well, but you are not going to win. Give up now and our Lords may be merciful."

Cahal did not know just what agravated him more. The fact that this young yelp of a ground bound beast had managed to hurt him so much in a single blow, or that he was being offered the chance to surrender. Him!? Cahal Ironbeak!? Admiral of the Third Royal Fleet!? Clan Elder of the Ironbeak Clan!? Earl of the Eagle Coast!? Him!? Surrender!?

It was kind of obvious what made him the most pissed. And he used this anger to make a jump from the ground, utilizing his feline hind legs to make a swift lunge at the horse's exposed and unguarded torso. "Shut up and die you useless ground dweller! The heavens belong to us Griffins! You do not belong here!"

The horse calmly stepped aside from the lunge, even with the old griffin's speed had he been able to predict the attack. As the old war bird had used several similar moves during their brief fight. As the griffin passed him by, the young raider raised his axe and swung at his foe from behind. "That is your opinion cat bird. Here's mine."

Another loud clang erupted as the a´heavy axe struck the old griffin's plate mail in the back. Sending the old griffin tumbling and rolling until he struck a group of stabled barrels, knocking them over. The old griffin staggered up and glared at his enemy, still not dead even after taking such a powerful strike. But as he struggled to stand, he felt his legs give away beneath him, his energy and strength gone. "Ach! Y-you fucking stupid b-beast. I am Cahal Ironbeak! Earl of the Eaglecoast and Admiral of the Third Royal Fleet! And I shall make you suffer!"

"The interrogators will handle you and your fellow officers, whatever rank you may be. This is your loss." The young warrior said calmly, almost whispering, as he walked towards the griffin as he was trying to stand up from the pile of barrels. Only to slump back onto them. His old body was unable to do any more physical efforts.

Sneering at the young horse the old griffin pointed a claw at his face. Contempt, arrogance and smugness almost glowing from his eyes as he mocked the one who had defeated him. For in his mind, even if he lost the battle here, would the horses and the ponies, never win the war. Not losing this confidence one bit, not even as his words fell sluggish and stuttered as his aged body began to shake and shiver with exhaustion. "Fool. We a-are just o-one o-of many f-fleets. T-this was j-just the f-first target. Y-you a-and the p-ponies s-shall fall to-to us. A-all s-sh-sh-shall belong t-to King Craver."

"Again. That's your opinion. And here's mine." A horseshoe equipped hoof struck the downed admiral in the cheek and knocked his head into the side of the barrel he was leaning against, knocking the old griffin out cold. The young raider looked at the nervous and skittish looking Bevyn, who had not fought against the invaders, rather giving up instantly.

"We assume that you will cooperate?" The young raider asked as he stood there, leaning against the handle of his axe while he held the axe head against the deck.

The young griffin nodded and knelt down, slowly, with shaking talons, unsheathing his sword and holding it out in surrender. "Y-yes. Ahem. I am Bevyn, son of Greta, Second Youngest Heir of the Ironbeak Clan. I surrender to your superior might."

As one the horses raised their weapons and roared out to victory, except for the raider who had just beaten the Griffin Admiral. He was contemplating what the old war bird had said, and knew that things were about to get tense for not just them but the ponies as well.

But for now he had to find the admiral's cabin to discover any possible items, maps, charts and what not to bring back to his superiors. If this was to be a large conflict, they needed information.

The battle around the defeated flag ship ended shortly afterwards. With barely ten air ships fleeing eastwards with about three hundred griffin troops on them, unwilling to get left behind. And the fleet signaled out with its horns and flares whilst the crews cheered.

Victory.

Thus marked the end of the first battle of what would in the future be refereed to as the War of the Red Rains.

Lord Asclepius, or Cursed Blessing as he preferred, was about to get ready for bed in his private quarters within the stronghold of Girthenburg. Dressed in a fine nightgown with a glass and a tankard of water standing on his nightstand if he found himself thirsty.

When a there was a loud and rapid knocking on his door.

Letting out a tired sigh the elderly looking horse looked longingly at his bed before turning towards the door. "You may enter, I have not gone to sleep yet."

A clearly distressed horse mare dressed in Horadrim robes came rushing into the room ,after having kicked the door open. And was screaming to the horse lord, in a very, very rapid manner. "WejustreceivedwordsfromWarLordThunderHammer! AfleetofairshipscrwedbygriffinsjustattemptedtoattackJarngard! Hereportsthatthereisatleastninemorefleets! TheyaregoingtoattackcitiesandcastlessalloverEquestriaandtheHoradrimKingdom!"

Cursed Blessing, blinked, slowly. And then he started to recap what he had just been told, in slow motion. And then, after a minute of recap. While the clearly panicking mare was pressing a sack of cloth against her muzzle as she tried to calm down, staring at him. And then slowly the temporary Ruler of the Horadrim Kingdom said. "What?"

Within the war camp of the Equestrian Armies were ponies moving beneath the cover of the few remaining hours of darkness. Though even then was the sky slightly lit s is common during the summer season.

They were moving in accordance to Princess Celestia's orders.

Words had been whispered across the camp, orders sent by silent messengers to the officers of the three armies. To be verbally given at the cover of darkness. And the orders had been received and the ponies were acting to fulfill their Princess' orders.

Lines were slowly put together, hushed whispers were quelled with short sharp hushing. The ordinary foot soldiers were clueless of what was going on, well most of them, a few were were starting to, or already had, realized what the purpose for their nightly assembly was.

And their theory was confirmed. When a golden light shone from the war camp where Princess Celestia resided, and the sun began to rise in the horizon, and as it did, was a war horn sounded. And as the sun light struck the valley, it struck directly at the white castle, while leaving the soldiers on the grassy plains to be in the shadow of the mountains behind them.

Then, as one, every single officer of the Three Armies, raised their hooves, pointed their weapons at the castle, and shouted out a single command.

As a single massive stampede the ponies charged forward, moving in a great single unity for a single goal they rushed ahead. Pegasi flying over in a massive flock of spread out wedge formations.

And Princess Celestia, dressed in her golden armour, wielding a rune inscribed sacred bronze spear, smirked towards the castle holding her hated foe. "We halt take thee and thy foul forces down, with the Sun as Our ally. Thy shalt perish."

Unnoticed by all, were the flashing light of the Comm orb within the Princess' private chambers. All officers were on duty and there was too much work to tend to the wounded and to handle the grand assault to properly keep track of everything. Even the Princess herself, failed to notice it, her mind clouded with a desire for vengeance and justice.

"Clever girl, Celestia. Real clever. I am actually very impressed by this. A way to utilize not only your natural talent to blind my forces but to also get your own force time to adjust to the sharp light because of the reflective properties of white colours. Very clever." Maleficus said with a smile as he sat on a sun chair, a pair of sunglasses on his face, while he was looking upon the charging stampede of ponies.

No doubt would his castle fall, all of his forces had still not recovered from having their eyes blinded by the sudden sun rise. They would have to spend precious amount of time to no longer have their vision impaired.

He watched in amusements as three large siege ladders were carried into the river fort and how pegasi used ropes to lift the massive metal ladders up right, before pushing them over, slamming into the upper battlements of the gatehouse of the first wall of the castle.

Munching on a bowl of peeled peach slices he nodded in approval as he watched the ponies rush up the ladder and charge his still disoriented troops. Blood began to colour the white stone of the castle's ramparts and towers as the ponies pushed against the defenders. The main gate house was over taken and the controls for the drawbridge were put to use lowering the large wooden bridge down for the main forces to charge at the gates. Only to discover the gate to be blocked by a massive set of wooden gates reinforced with bands of rune engraved metal.

"How are your ponies going to get the gates open? The controls are not in the upper portion of the gatehouse but beneath it in a hidden cellar." He muttered to himself as he watched intently as the ponies in the gatehouse and the walls began to move outwards, fighting his black armoured horses whilst trying to find the hidden controls for the gatehouse.

That's when he saw it, a large group of gold armoured support unicorns were gathered in front of the gates and examining every crook and edge. And he began to smile, feeling a deep sense of pride, as the unicorns found the holes beneath the gate, where the chains and gears of the mechanism to operating them could be seen. After that discovery the unicorns spread the word to the other forces.

"Smart. Very good use of your common sense there." They swarmed the lower parts of the tower like ants, even going as far as to fly, or climb, down to the courtyard behind the large gatehouse to get to the cobblestone road on the inside of the gates to get looking.

The gatehouses of this castle were special. None of them had any direct doorways or stairs leading to what lay behind them. They were only connected to the walls on either side of them. To get down to the courtyard, without flying, climbing or jumping down a nearly twenty meter fall, they had to reach one of the towers, which were far more bottle necked and only connected to the 'zone' of the castle they were part of. Thus they were not connected to other parts of the city wall, and thus only had one entrance, unless connected to a smaller gatehouse to cut off invaders.

And it was like this, for every single tower, gatehouse and wall, which cut off the castle into several different zones. None of the walls, towers or gatehouses connected to the other walls in the other zones. And there was also the fact that the inner zones of the castle were much higher up and thus made it even more difficult as the defenders could rain down arrows, stones and other things upon their foes as they tried to invade the castle's deeper areas.

This was Project Whitestone.

It was a castle the focused entirely on making it as difficult to take over as possible. But Maleficus knew that those were the odds if your opponent was human, and not an intelligent being who had either great physical attributes, magic or flight.

Thus he had enchanted the stone to be able to absorb magic, whilst engraving various runic arrays to make the energy disperse into various magical functions to keep the magic from overloading the absorption ability of the castle.

But the ponies were persistent and the alicorn stallion felt his grin grow wider and wider as he watched the ponies open the gates to let in the rest of their forces. He watched them take over the castle bit by bit. Killing his forces as they fought back with non-lethal weapons. Blood and gore was painting the white stones of the castles like raspberry jam over a bowl of vanilla ice cream. "For some reason am I craving for cake... gods... I can't figure it out. But a cake would be nice."

A thick smell of blood and death was filling the air even as Maleficus calmly sat there, watching as the ponies breached past the second inner zones and began to over take his siege engines.

His troops had recovered from the assault and were desperately trying to defend their positions to the best of their abilities. But with the pegasi assaulting the siege engines were his forces unable to properly defend against the invaders as they bit by bit took over the castle's walls. Until they reached their final obstacles, the gateway into the central keep. The very same building that was the only way to reach the massive cliff Maleficus was seated upon.

Why had the pegasi not assault the large cliff? Because of the invisible barrier of wind that would blow them away whenever they came into range. It was as if some invisible giant was blowing wind at them whenever they came within a certain distance of the cliff top.

"One must cover all the bases when it comes to defence. Above, below, behind, in front, sides and within." Maleficus said calmly as he got up from his sun chair and stood up on his hind legs, and stretched a little before holding his forelegs behind his back, walking towards the pointed end of the cliff.

"True there are no perfect defences. But there are no such thing as perfection anyway, so why bother seeking perfection? Just improve from what you have learned, adapt, change, and rise above your past failure." He kept talking, even as he took one last glance at the floating screen, watching as his horses fought in all manners of defensive retreats against the ponies

"This is the pure basics of all life's hardships, not just warfare or combat. To overcome, to improve and to adapt. Those were the three things that let my race become the alpha species of my world." Maleficus dismissed the screen, putting it aside with a telekinetic grip into a pouch on his belt. And he stood before the edge of the cliff's pointed edge. Down below he could see the horses and ponies fighting as the morning sun shone upon the red painted white rock of his castle.

"But I know it can be told to other specie as well. And I must say, that you have truly learned from your past failures. I am actually rather proud." He turned around and calmly walked towards the tree by the main entrance to the keep, the wind swaying his mane. As he reached the tree he felt his wind barrier give away to something, and he calmly looked down at the slowly growing sprout of the peach see he had laid down by the tree's roots yesterday.

"In the past you would no doubt have rushed foolishly straight into a conflict. No foresight. No taking advantage of the terrain, not utilizing your special talent to blind my forces." Not pausing he just raised his head slowly, and looked up at the green leaves of the branches with their, almost golden pink, peaches glistering in the morning light with droplets of dew trickling down their round shapes. Not even looking back as the sound of four horseshoe protected hooves slammed into the ground behind him.

"You have improved quite a lot, Celestia."

Princess Celestia glared at the back of Maleficus as he stood there before her. Even with his forces faltering as her own was taking this ancient castle from his twisted hold, he was still mocking her. She had received words that her forces had been unable to find a way into the keep of the castle.

She had decided to take care of it herself as none of her unicorns could figure out how to dispel the wind barrier or the enchantments of the castle's gates, which were keeping them out. So she had flied straight into the wind barrier, and had to try at least two more times before she managed to get past it.

And what did she find? Her hated foe, standing calmly by a fruit tree, a strange folding chair resting by a line of flowers. A bowl half full of sliced fruit lying on a small stone table by the chair. *Hath he been loitering up here for these past two days!?*

Pointing her spear at her hated foe she snarled out. "Curb thy mocking tongue villain! We shalt not fall to thy mocking!"

Maleficus slowly turned around and gave her a raised eyebrow, almost as if he was honestly confused. Then he spoke. "I am seriously concerned about you Celestia, can't you take a compliment?"

She felt her cheeks grow red as embarrassment at the sheer thought of being complimented by this brutish fiend. "Silence! We hath told thee already! We shalt not be swayed by thy lies!"

Sighing Malefius rubbed his forehead while speaking up with closed eyes. "Okay, dropping the subject."

Celestia was not sure why but she felt even more mocked by that action. "Shut it thou foul thing! Surrender to Us so We may deliver justice for Our sister and citizens upon thy twisted self!"

"...You already know my answer to that stupid request." She faltered a bit. It felt strange, Maleficus was not acting entirely like himself. He was not as... vigorous. Not as energetic. In fact, he seemed almost... apathetic? No, not that far... Lazy? Maybe? Whatever it was, it made him seem almost... weary, tired even...

She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. What did it matter if he was acting weird!? She was here to punish his twisted self for his crimes not to examine his mental state of mind!

Assuming a stance with her spear she glared at him and screamed out at him once more. "Just stop it with the talking and fight Us thy fiendish monster!"

"Very well. But I am just going to make thing easy or you Celestia and explain the rules of the siege. This battle, has never been about me, or you. It's been about this castle." Maleficus pointed his left hoof towards the tree and suddenly swept it around in a circle, and two lines were cut into the pavement in front of the tree, as if cut by an invisible blade.

"You and I are going to fight here. All you need to do to win is to get past me and touch the tree. All I have to do to win, is to last the hour that it will take for the sand in this hourglass to run down. That's it." Celestia stared at him, trying to figure out just what the buck she had just heard.

"Art thee mocking me again?" She was so flabbergasted by the absurdity of the situation that she just had to ask. Not even noticing how her grammar shifted slightly at the end of her sentence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc8Qz4zeL70

Maleficus shook his head and reached to behind his back, and pulled out a spiked handle, connected to a chain. He gave the handle a hard tug and revealed the chain to be about seven meters long, with its end connected to what could only be described as four axe heads melted together into a thick flail.

Iron plates floated up from behind the stallion, and placed themselves on his head, slowly covering his skull with a thick shell of iron, which then seemed melt together into a, not solid, but interlinked, helmet. The stallion then spun the handle of his weapon, and the chain began to almost shift and slither like a metallic snake, the flail whip's head streaking through the air as the chain began to swirl and rotate around him. "No. I am not. Get past that line, touch that tree. And I will surrender. You will win. That is all you need to do."

Celestia's right eye twitched a bit, and her eyes began to spark, her horn began to glow, and then her face narrowed, her mane and tail burst into fire and her eyes began to glow like star. And she roared out in utter fury before charging, one more, not noticing the slight slip in her grammar. "STOP SPEAKING YOUR FOUL LIES!"

The runic pear was thrust toward Maleficus' head, but before it could even reach five meters of him was it repelled by the thick chain of the flail whip. He kept silent, and just kept controlling his weapon, making the Princess roar out in frustration as she repeatedly tried to slash and stab at him. Every time the broad spear head was swung or thrust at him the iron chain seemed to detect it and intercepted her attacks, deflecting them away from Maleficus.

Sparks flew through the air as the golden spear clashed against the chain. Celestia's eyes were narrowed beneath her golden helmet as she glared at her foe, ready for his snarky insults. But they did not come. Maleficus was awkwardly silent, she had never actually thought about it, but now she realized that he had always been trying to talk whenever they fought before. Now, he was just silent.

Celestia's eyes twinged green for a few seconds and the air in front of her ignited with a golden glow as she fired a blast of intense magical energy at Maleficus at point blank range. But then lines of glowing blue light appeared all over the swirling chain, forming together into runes, and the blast was dispersed as the chain spun around like a tornado.

Her eyes widened at the sight of the chains dispersing her magical attack and then they narrowed as she spotted the runes. She recognized those runic arrays. And she was furious at the sight, those were the same runic arrays as the chains used for her Restricta siege engines. Her ponies had spent a lot of time and effort making them ,and here he was, utilizing them against her. "Foul thief! Thou hath stolen mine ponies' works to use against me! Those chains' runic enchantments art the same as mine Restrictas!"

The Princess of the Sun burst forward with a wordless war cry, intent on crashing through his deflecting chain. Maleficus just sighed, leaning back to avoid the spear aimed at his throat. Even as he leaned back ,he reached down with his free foreleg to keep his front body from falling over. He then raised his left hind leg, and kicked Celestia in the front.

There was a loud resounding clang followed by a pained scream as Celestia found herself sent backwards, the chest plate of her armour dented with a deep hoof print. The enchanted plate had been buckled in so much that it was digging into her fur.

She landed with a tumble but quickly leaped up on her legs once more and glared at Maleficus, who was once more standing up, swirling his whip like flail. Celestia focused her magic into her limbs and with another wordless cry she made a forward leap, while releasing powerful bursts of air from her hind legs' hooves. She pushed past the swirling chain with the shaft of her spear and tackled Maleficus in the front.

Maleficus fell on his back with a loud clang, grunting a little as he smacked into the cobblestone pavement. Celestia stood over him, raising her spear with both of her forelegs above her head, and made a downward stabbing motion towards his neck.

The stallion stretched out his wings and pushed himself to the side, Celestia's spear struck the cobblestone pavement next to his head and pierced the spearhead halfway through the enchanted stone. Cracks spread out like cobwebs around the impact of the spearhead.

Snarling Celestia pressed down a hoof on his barrel her eyes started glowing like neon lights, her tail and mane ignited into golden flames. And her horn ignited with a golden aura, golden blades of light appearing above Maleficus. Said alicorn's own eyes started burning with a crimson aura while his mane, tail and hoof pelts ignited into toxic green flames. As Celestia's magical swords flew down towards him, he flapped his wing and with a powerful gust of wind flipped himself two meter away from Celestia, who lost her balance when he managed to push himself free from her hoof.

Suddenly shifting he lashed out with a kick with his left hind leg and struck Celestia's leg that had been pressing into his body, the impact shattered the bones just above her hooves. She fell to the ground screaming, losing the grip on her spear s she clutched her leg.

Maleficus rolled over the pavement, and after two rolls he suddenly pushed all four of his legs down into the ground as he rolled onto his front. The force behind the pushing limbs flipped him five meters up into the air, where he spun around two times before landing with a loud clang with on all four on the pavement.

Celesti glared at him and stood up, her leg healed from the damage, but before she could reach out and grab her spear was her breath pushed out of her lungs as the heavy flail head of Maleficus weapon suddenly lashed out at her from the ground and slammed into her breastplate with a loud crack. She went flying into the air,only to notice the chain of the flail was now warped around her mid section, and at the end of the chain, once more griping the handle, stood Maleficus.

"Oh glue." Was all she could mutter as she realized what was about to happen. Then Maleficus twisted the whip flail and the chain turned, sending her slamming into a stone pillar, making her lose her breath once more. The impact was enough to fracture her armour and she spat out blood as bones broke from the impact.

She had no time to recover her breath as she found herself torn away from the pillar, spun around in the air by the chin, before slammed into the ground with a loud metallic crack, shards of golden plate flying around. The Princess of the Sun tried to focus her magic but her focus was broken when once more she was dragged into the air by the chain and slammed into the raiding of the cliff.

Maleficus flailed her around like a rag down, slamming her into various parts of the garden of the cliff. It was like being dragged around by a fishing line by a sadistic fisher.

Finally Celestia managed to focus her magical energies enough to enhance her own strength beyond the normal of her alicorn body. She grabbed hold of the stone pillar she had just been smashed into and reached out to grip the chain herself, her face covered in healing bruises while blood was leaking out from her mouth and several parts of her body. And then she screamed out a slightly strained wordless cry of a rage, before tugging the chain towards her.

Maleficus was heavy however and only lost his grip on the flail whip rather then being pushed towards her, resulting in Celestia getting out of the chain holding her. Said Princess, her wounds still healing ,flew at him with a golden aura surging from her body with a scream of utter fury.

The stallion crossed both of his forelegs and crossed them in front of himself, Celestia's hoof slammed into his forelegs with a loud resounding clang. Whilst the armour and flesh of his forelegs were torn and rendered by the force were the bones undamaged. The force of the strike sent him scrapping back five meters, almost pushing him into the peach tree.

Maleficus lowered his forelegs and watched as Celestia, still burning with anger, flew towards him, gripped her spear, and screamed out at him whilst making a powerful thrust towards his face. "DIE FIEND!!!"

Then, the were the sound of gentle ringing, as the sand of the hourglass, ran out, and a small gentle bell rang from somewhere upon the cliff. And Maleficus reached out with his left foreleg, and caught the spear in mid thrust, the force of the thrust making his burning mane shift and spark.

He reared back his other foreleg, and brutally punched Celestia in the face. The strike buckling in her helmet, tearing it fro ma shape of protection and more into a torture garment. She flew backwards, tumbling and rolling for a good dozen meters before rolling to a stop.

Dropping her spear to the ground he recalled his weapon and rolled up the chain, strapping it to his belt. And then he walked forward.

Celestia snarled and stood up from where she had landed and got into a fighting stance, ready to retaliate any move he would make towards him. He approached and calmly walked towards her, and as she made ready to counter his next assault.

He walked past her.

Blinking slowly she tried to figure out what had just happened, then she turned around and snarled at him. "Where art you going coward!?"

"I have won. So there's no reason to remain here." The Stallion calmly stated as he walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked down at his fighting forces. They were struggling, but he could see that the ponies had taken over over 90 percent of the castle's defences, the only true point left was the keep and the cliff where he stood.

"WHAT!? This fight is not over!" Celestia screamed out as she telekinetically retrieved her spear and got ready to charge, intend on keeping fighting.

But Maleficus just shook his head. "I stated the terms of his fight Celestia. You would have won had you touched the tree before the hourglass ran out of sand. But you did not succeed. And thus. You have lost. Sure you may have obtained a strategic victory over my forces. But you haven't claimed the central keep and thus cannot claim to have won this siege."

"Fool! Those art terms thy wouldst hath no uphold anyhoof!" She cried out, frustration and anger fueling her voice as she stomped on the ground. Unwilling to accept defeat by his terms.

"I would have. But I do not have to, now that you have lost." He calmly spoke while slowly he began to trace the air, a line of crimson light taking shape upon the wind, as if he was painting something with solid red light. Or rather, solid mana.

"No! We shalt not accept this!" She cried out and made to charge at him, only for suddenly a swarm of wooden roots and branches to erupt from the ground beneath her and engulf her body. Celestia let out a screech of shock as her body was suddenly bound by wooden tendrils.

The roots ran deep and had great strength, and thus pulled the alicorn mare's body to the ground, forcing her limbs apart, growing over her like a sentient rope instructed by a master binder. Even growing over her horn, making her cringe as she felt her magic unable to breach the branches' hold even with magic. It was like they were absorbing it. Her burning mane and glowing eyes returning to normal as her power was drained.

"The Sacred Peace Tree of Whitestone only protects this place, this keep and its garden, from invaders or saboteurs, she does not care who rules the keep. As long as it is ruled and she and her kin are taken care of, she will protect it, and I am consider to be her ruler. As you did not managed to stake claim over her as the new ruler by beating me or my terms." Maleficus explained to her as he slowly pained the runic array into existence before him.

"Foul beast! Thou corrupt touch shalt not blighten these ancient ruins!" Celestia cried out from her bound state.

But Maleficus just shook his head. "I am leaving Celestia, this is your lose. Once I leave, you may lay claim to this place and its holy tree. But know that you have lost this Crusade, just like the last two. Nothing will-"

That's when he's interrupted, not by Celestia, not by the warring forces in the castle. Nor by the fickle ways of nature or chance. No, he was interrupted, by the sound, the sound of loud and echoing rumbling, of a horn being blown.

The Signal Horn of Canterlot was being blown. In a long and drawn out signal, not a short and repeated sound, but in a single, long and drawn out signal. And by the paling look on Celestia's blood stained face she knew what that meant, just like he did.

Canterlot, was being attacked, within its walls. Something had breached the city's defences and was assaulting its interior.

Stopping his tracing Maleficus looked eastwards and slowly he pulled out the Interface Screen and began to zoom in at the Capital, he could not use one of his black beacons, it would be too soon to reveal his connection to them. And that's when he saw it. A swarm of what looked like balloons floating over Canterlot, explosions, fire and flying troops covering the city like a swarm of battle.

And then his chest began to feel cold and strained, as he felt fear and anxiety fill his soul. For within that city lived those most precious to him, and by the looks of things, they were in very big danger. And Celestia and her forces, were too far away to reach them in time.

He dismissed the screen with a rapid swipe and turned towards his runic array. And with both his forelegs began to rapidly complete it, and as he did so he spoke to Celestia.'

"I am going to release you from your bonds soon Celestia, and then I and my forces are going to leave. To save your City." Celestia's eyes widened and she began to struggle even harder with her bonds. Not even caring if the roots and branches are digging into her wounds or tender spots, causing her some pleasant, if humiliating discomfort. But the plants would not give to her efforts.

Maleficus traced the final rune of his array and the floating structure of runes, lines and curves began to glow and rotate. And then it began to spin, faster and faster. Then as the thing seemed to turn into a spinning circle of red light, Maleficus reared back his right foreleg, before punching into the center of the spinning disk.

There was a resounding clang, and the runic array, shattered, not into shards or fragments or fading sparkles. But into particles, dust. A cloud of red dust began to expand out over the castle, floating out over the fortress. And as it did, Maleficus raised his left hoof, and a soft crackle was heard, and the defensive barrier in front of the gates of the keep, disappeared.

"'What foul things doest thee intend to do to mine city!?" Celestia cried out as she raised her head to glare at Maleficus. Even as a soft, skittering sound was slowly echoing out from around the city.

Maleficus just turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow before shaking his head. "I intend to save it. For reasons I am sure you would understand, if you would only stop this madness."

Celestia just remained silent glaring at him, trying to figure out what wicked plans he had in store for his subjects and capital. Would he utilize the opportunity of whatever was harming her city to invade it and take over? Would he destroy the last things she held dear? Would he remove the Elements of Harmony and release Discord? What was this wicked thing planning!?

Even as he mind built up more and more theories, would her eyes shimmer and twitch green once every five second, unnoticed even to Maleficus, as her helmet covered her eyes.

And that's when she heard it. The skittering sound was now rising in volume, echoing out from the city. And her mind was temporarily distracted as she tried to see what was making that sound. "What be that infernal noise?"

Maleficus just grinned and folded his forelegs behind his back and walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked out over the besieged fortress. As a crimson light began to cover it surface. "Backup."

Captain Guts walked past the line of troops standing guard in front of the main gates of the citadel's central keep. The barrier holding them away from the keep had been removed and everypony were marching into the city as good as they could. Some marveling at the ancient statues and mosaics scattered across the entire thing. It was like the entire keep was one big memorial to ancient heroes and/or villains.

The strange dragon statues decorating the keeps' top walls were unsettling though, about fifty such statues scattered around in different positions. Only wings and legs with a tail and snake like neck, no forelegs. Which was the weirdest look for a dragon Guts had ever seen. Still quite big and had some mean looking stingers on their tail tips.

He soon reached the top floor, where a group of fifty heavily armed Bronze soldiers were standing before a large set of white wooden doors. It made the earth pony wonder why they hadn't went through the doorway yet. "What is keeping ye here?"

"We're pretty certain Princess Celestia is fighting Maleficus out there Captain. The doors are not willing to open, we're not sure how to handle the situation yet." One of the younger soldiers said as he made a show of pressing a dagger against the doorway. Only for the door to glow and the dagger of sacred bronze to melt like a wax candle, falling to the floor into a puddle of melted bronze. There were several such puddles on the floor of the doorway.

The soldiers turned to Guts and shrugged to him, unable to figure out how to get through.

"Buck. This is complicated. I will go out and see how the rest of the siege is going. Keep an eye on this place." Guts said before he marched back out. And that's when he heard it. A skittering sound, like a swarm of vermins and beetles making a crescendo.

"That sound rather ominous. No doubt trouble." He muttered as he walked out of the keep's gatehouse and blinked as he saw the entire citadel glowing a crimson light.

"This is unreal, Just what the buck is going on here!? This magic is giving me chills!" One unicorn captain in silver armour stated as he looked around nervously. Guts walked over to the battlements of the ramparts and looked down. The entire fortress was glowing red. The sound of skittering rodents and insects echoing out over it in a very freaky manner.

And that's when one of his troops standing watch on top of one the towers along the fortress' inner wall, suddenly cried out to him. Their voice amplified by a Gold Soldier unicorn enhancing it. "Captain! Something is happening with the Dark Ones' corpses!"

Swirling his head he looked down at the pile of corpses on the pavement at the base of the wall he was standing on. and he watched in horror as the corpses were twitching and squirming. Like worms were crawling beneath their fur and flesh and expanding.

He turned towards his fellow Captain and cried out to him. "Burn the corpses! Maleficus is resurrecting them!"

But it was too late.

One nearby corpse staggered up from its once prone position. Its cut off head came flying out of nowhere and attached itself to the stump of its neck, and the cut off or burnt pieces regenerated. The horse opened its mouth and reared back its head and let out a cry like a mixture of a horse and a rodent, revealing four pairs of long jagged fangs jutting out of its lower and upper front row of teeth.

The flesh on its side began to bulge out and there was the sound of ripping leather before in an explosion of blood and black ichor, erupted a pair of large leathery dragon like wings out of the horse's back. It then flapped its wings and flew up into the air, howling out its unnatural cry as it did so.

Another corpse, this one split in two, simply regenerated into two new horses, the bones growing out of the halves, then covered by veins, muscles, organs, tendons, nerves, flesh, skin and fur. They two cried out and flew up to join their newly resurrected brethren.

All over the battlements, the towers, the gates, the halls and the fields. Wherever the corpses laid, they began to twitch, heal and then mutate. Black leathery bat wings were taking to the air as once dead horses took to the heavens, crying out together. Within a minute was the sky above the city covered by massive swarm of bat winged horses, flying in a spiraling manner above the city, before moving like a massive black tendril around the cliff and up towards the edge where Maleficus stood.

And that's when the crumbling of rock could be heard. And Guts looked to his left and stared in horror as one of the 'ornament dragons' on the side of the keep's walls, began to crack. Grey marble began to flake off as black thick scales and dark grey membrane and brown claws broke free. The dragons let out screeching roars before taking flight, flying off to join the swarm of bat winged horses, flying towards the cliff where Celestia and Maleficus were.

Guts could only stare and mutter to himself. "Well... shit."

Celestia stared in horror at what she was seeing.

Bat winged, or dragon winged, horses and strange looking scorpion tailed dragons, were flying in the air before the edge of the cliff, crying out together like a swarm of horrors from an forgotten story of evil and darkness. The dragons as black as the night, burning eyes, claws like talons, rows of saw like teeth.

Corrupted horses built more like a combination of beast and pony. A twisted insult to nature, a mockery of what had once been magnificent beings. Now rendered into a perversion of all that was equine.

What manner of ancient evil had Maleficus brought to life? And what manner of evil rituals had he learned to twist the horses into such monsters?

And she muttered to herself as she stared at the monstrosities, contemplating her fearful thoughts of what was occuring. "What hath thou wrought upon this world?"

Maleficus just smiled and turned around, his hooves, standing by the edge of the cliff. And he spread his forelegs, as if to present a great masterpiece of art to the world. "These are but a byproduct of my work, of my research. They are a stopping stone to master things I could not do on my own. These are my Thestrals and Wyverns, and with them. I shall free Canterlot."

"Please... Do not hurt them... anymore." Celestia's mind was reeling, she was having flashbacks. The horrors of the past, the painful memories of the dead bodies, the burning corpse of her mentor. It was making her tear up and shiver, her anger overwhelmed by her sheer terror and sorrow of what would happen to her ponies once these monsters entered Canterlot.

Maleficus lowered his forelegs and gave her a sad smile. "I never intended to hurt anyone. Nor do I wish to either. I will do my best to keep your subjects safe Celestia, I will not bring harm to them."

And then he stepped back, and fell down off the cliff, spreading his large feathery wings to gently glide down onto the neck of a particularly large wyvern. And then, as one ,the massive swarm of the newly born thestrals and wyverns, flew away from the castle. Uncaring about the arrows, spells and stones being launched at them by the fearful ponies. Ignoring even the pegasi trying to attack, as they flew east like a black storm cloud of omens.

Towards Canterlot.

Unknown to him, had Celestia not taking his words as reassurance. If anything, they had made her even more despairing. and as the roots let her go, as the soldiers were let into the garden as the Holy Tree stopped blocking the doorway, she cried out to her troops.

"Stop him! He's heading towards Canterlot! We hath to stop him!"

And as one, the armies of Equestria, felt a great chill of fear enter their hearts at those words.

A great panic spread. The soldiers scrambled to pack up and return to their home. Celestia left a force of soldiers, unattached to Canterlot, to care for the Whitestone Keep for now. But personally, she wanted to take flight and fly after her hated foe.

But she could not fly. It was like her wings just went limp whenever she was about to take flight, her mind, soul and heart had been rattled. She could not focus. She could not concentrate. She could not fly.

Celestia was ground bound by sheer terror alone, and would have to return on hoof. Even as she sent her air units of the Silver Army to fly for Canterlot, she prayed to the Gods.

Even as she and her forces ran like a massive stampede through the mountains, tunnels and forests in their path, she prayed.

She prayed for hope, that she would not be too late to stop him.

She prayed for any pony that could put a stop to whatever horrors Maleficus would unleash upon her home with his horde of monsters.

She prayed. And she ran. For home. For Canterlot. For Luna.

Author's Notes:

Staadnauthursil: Oh boy this one is a dosey. It took a while but I am finally done. Gods this was an effort. Bad economy is NOT helpful in any manner. Hopefully I will be able to get the next chapter done without such a delay. Again.

Pinkie: Yay! Happy chapters day and happy birthday!

Staadnauthursil: Thanks Pinkie, but my birthday was about a week ago so a bit late there.

Pinkie: Not my fault you won't let me bring a party to your home.

Staadnauthursil: Sorry but the last time you went to this dimension, you caused bit of a disaster.

Pinkie: I said I was sorry!

Staadnauthursil: Anyway. Thank you all for your patience and hopefully you will enjoy this new chapter. As always, I accept all reviews and comments. If possible can you support me on Patreon to give a bit of a boost in my less then stellar wallet situation. I would appreciate it a lot.

Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/TreasureHoard