(A/N well this one is a bit short in comparison to the others but I still hope you like it. I'm still accepting OCs for the sequel and any and all suggestions are welcome if they're relevant. Enjoy! -Dark)

“If you guys are going to be here you can’t rely on your spellcasters unless they know what they’re doing.” Twilight said before charging into the horde of Ghasts. Starswirl quickly followed, spewing magical purple flames from his draconic maw and using his tail to sweep the creatures off their feet. Everyone could only stare in awe as Twilight combined slashes, parries, counters, dashes and shield bashes to effectively hold back and eliminate the tens of ghasts surrounding her.

“Well don’t just stand there!” Spike yelled, hurtling over a riot shield as he extended the spear on his gauntlet and held his shield up. As he joined his best friend everyone else snapped out of their shock and the rest of the guards followed suit while the spellcasters cast wards and barriers and the occasional offensive spell when they got the chance.

“You used to be such an egghead but now I’m scared to even call you that in case you’ve got a short temper.” Dash said when she kicked a ghast from behind Twilight that would have surprised her.

“Don’t worry Dash, you’re still the better flier.” Twilight giggled as she decapitated three ghasts with a horizontal slash of her blade and followed up with a steam powered bash into a group overwhelming Spike.

“Well Ah wouldn’t be able to keep up with yuh if’n yuh decided to take up apple buckin’.” Applejack said, going back to back with Twilight as they both got pushed back. Reacting on pure instinct, Applejack somehow knew what was happening when they locked arms for a moment and Twilight flung her at her opponents. Applejack did a spinning corkscrew in the air and landed blade down on the ghast while Twilight used her shield to parry and riposte Applejack’s old opponent.

“Ghosts coming in, I can only hold them off so long.” Starswirl called as he flung into the air on his draconic wings and faced off against a squad of Ghosts.

“Group them up together!” Twilight called as she looked at Pinkie, Rarity and Fluttershy. They pushed their opponents off of them and put their hands together and gave Twilight a look. She nodded and extended her wings as she ran towards them. She did a small leaping flip and landed on the hands, which proceeded to fling her into the air. She collided with a stray ghost blade first and went straight through it.

As she reached the peak of her ascent she used a burst of constant steam to send herself towards where Starswirl had managed to cast barriers around the ghosts to group them up. As she hit the barrier, she used an adhesive spell to stick to the wall of it as she turned on her blood pump. She stuck her right arm into the barrier, Starswirl creating a small hole for that reason, and began creating a nearly solid sphere of her own blood. As it grew to be about the side of her fist she nodded to Starswirl. With a burst of steam she kicked off of the barrier, getting herself away from it while simultaneously sending it away from the battle and causing the sphere to rapidly pressurize and burst. The resulting effect was an enclosed cube of acid, which Starswirl proceeded to dump onto the ground away from anything the acid could harm.

“That was rather creative of you.” Starswirl said as Twilight landed on his shoulder.

“Spur of the moment thing. Alright, I need you to give me a powerful and constant stream of magic fire. Send it into the air and I’ll do the rest.” Twilight said. Starswirl nodded and took in a huge breath. The purple inferno caused everyone, even the ghasts, to look up at it. Twilight used her own magic to manipulate the inferno.

She sent it down and as it passed her she jumped into the center. It impacted the ground, but starswirl kept the stream going through the flow Twilight had created. Her silhouette could be seen as the stream followed her as she dashed through the battlefield. The fire pushed the guards and her friends to safety while it incinerated the Ghasts. As Starswirl stopped due to a lack of power and breath the stream soon caught up with Twilight.

As the magical inferno slimmed, Twilight used her magic to siphon what was left into her steam rifle and used it’s magic receivers to amplify it and create a flame spitter of sorts to finish off what was left.

Just as the last ghast was turned to ash another group of them smashed through a wall nearby. There were a few spectres with them, but Starswirl quickly changed his form from a dragon to a manticore and tackled the spectres away from the ghasts. With the last of the magical flames, Twilight encased the Longsword blade with them. The effect was a purple hot blade, similar to red hot but with magic, and turned towards the new group of twenty or so ghasts.

She made the first move, using a blast of steam to propel her dashing slice and killing a few of them instantly and de-limbing a few more. The air was filled with the sound of searing flesh as Twilight used cleaving slashes to take advantage of the hot blade.

Meanwhile, Starswirl had absorbed the unstable energy of the spectres and swiftly dispatched of them with the sharp stinger tail of his manticore form. Turning to find Twilight using a water spell to cool her blade as the last ghast fell into three seared pieces he reverted to his humanoid form and grinned at her. She pulled her mask off and grinned back before turning to the guards and her friends. They were all staring at them in awe.

“I suppose you are all here for a reason?” Twilight said.

“We managed to manufacture a substance that would completely eliminate any harmful effects on the water your blood has. It will still leave the water diluted and glowing red, but we’ve found that it’s easy to use magic or simple filters to purify the water again. It also seems that without the adverse effects it actually has beneficial properties.” Celestia said, snapping out of her shock and reaching into her pouch and pulling out a small flask of pure white liquid protected by a strong magical barrier.

“There’s so little...” Twilight said.

“I only need a little, I can use my solar magic to create more. I have another flask back at the outpost so I’m giving this one to you so you can begin sterilizing the small bodies of water that aren’t connected to the river. One the toxin is cleared and you begin that we will move in and sterilize the river at its source after you’re done. We’ve already got the filtering veils over the magical dam keeping the river from flowing at the moment so it doesn’t need to be toxic for any longer than it needs to be.” Celestia continued.

“Alright. I suppose most of you want to go back until the toxin is gone from the air, but I know I can’t keep some of you away.” Twilight said, turning towards the guards and her friends.

“Damn right. We’re not letting you do this alone anymore. Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.” Dash said.

“Ahem.” Starswirl said.

“Oh you know what they meant.” Twilight said.

“I would like nothing more than to join you as well, but I need to help finish preparations at the outpost. If anyone wishes to stay and begin the clearing of the city early I warn you, with the toxin still a factor it is more dangerous but it is your choice. Anyone who wishes to recuperate back at the outpost or if you’re injured you will come with me.” Celestia announced. The group of about forty guards split into two groups. The larger was with celestia at 35 counting the injured while the last five chose to stay with Twilight. Shining unfortunately has his duty as captain of the guard so he needed to be at the outpost.

“I need to recover, but I’ll start the diluting process tomorrow at as close to noon as I can. My estimates bring me to about 36 full hours of diluting in order to reach a saturation guaranteed to absorb all of the toxin and another 36 hours until the toxin is gone and I can turn the barrier blue.” Twilight said.

“Right, how is your food supply?” Celestia asked.

“It can last me months, probably a year or two, but I don’t think it’d last a group this large longer than two days at most.” Twilight replied.

“Right, in two days I’ll bring enough supplies to last you all a week myself.” Celestia said.

“Deal.” Twilight said. Twilight looked up at the sky rather quickly for a few moments before her wings extended.

“There’s a few Ghosts on their way, I can hear the steam thrusters and one of their tanks just exploded. Starswirl and Spike, show everyone to the house and give them a meal. I’ll catch up.” Twilight said before dashing into the air.

“We had better fall back until it’s time for the entire guard to sweep the city clean.” Celestia said to Shining, who nodded and ordered a return to base. meanwhile, Starswirl had donned his Dragon form and had everyone without wings on his back as they all leapt into the air in the opposite direction.