Emeral Sword felt content. His neck was sore from swinging his blade for hours, his right eye was closed to avoid the blood from a small wound on his forehead getting in, and he stank of blood and sweat. The diamond dogs they fought were dangerous opponents, even though most fought without weapons or armors. Their claws cut through steel plate with ease, and their teeth could break a sword in a moment. They had sharp reflexes, and their superior size gave them an advantage. However, they fought without discipline, and it was clear that they hadn’t been trained to fight together.

“Volley!” Shining Armor shouted from behind, and Emerald Sword ducked as soon as he heard the order.

In less than a second, a barrage of magic projectiles flew over him, burning any diamond dog they touched into ashes. Emerald Sword’s squad rose up and clashed against the next line of diamond dogs, giving the unicorns time to charge another volley.

Crystal ponies might seem the weakest breed of pony at first glance, as they don’t have the magic of an unicorn, the wings of a pegasus or the endurance and ‘crops growing magic’ of an earth pony. Their unique power, their ability to channel emotional magic through gems and crystals, seems much weaker than unicorn magic, especially if you consider that their greatest magic feat is using the Crystal Heart, while the unicorns can move the Sun and the Moon when they use their magic together. However, the crystal ponies had effectively time travelled one thousand years into the future from an age that had been unforgiving with ponykind. It isn’t surprising, then, that their army was better equipped and trained than their Equestrian counterpart. Emerald Sword had checked himself that the Equestrian Royal Guard was only slightly better than the average crystal soldier, and that was mainly because the war tactics and equipment had evolved in the last millennium. Emerald Sword had been a member of the Crystal Empire’s Imperial Guard himself, so he had requested a meeting with Shining Armor to discuss how to combine the crystal soldiers and the Equestrian soldiers in the best way. The prince had been surprised by Emerald Sword when he told him that he didn’t have any command over the other guards, and had asked why a sergeant, the lowest rank an imperial guard could have, was meeting him instead of a captain, and Emerald Sword explained it to him.

When Sombra took over the Empire, he had enslaved the entire population, but not all of them had gone to the mines. The soldiers, he had kept, for he knew that he wasn’t powerful enough to stand alone against the alicorn sisters and their armies. Emerald Sword remembered those days with horror. Sombra had executed all the officers so, if his magic failed somehow, there would be nopony with the leadership skills needed to overthrow him. The remaining soldiers had been subjected to Sombra’s mind control, which had turned them into emotionless husks of themselves, unable to feel anything save for loyalty towards Sombra. Fortunately, this form of control had been broken and replaced by the apathy and amnesia that plagued the rest of the crystal ponies when the alicorn sisters defeated Sombra. Else, Equestria would have needed an army to retake the Empire from Sombra.

Shining Armor took it all in stride and promoted Emerald Sword to captain of the Imperial Guard, as he had showed more initiative than the rest of the guards. Then, Emerald Sword had told him what he thought about the Equestrian forces, and the prince refused to believe him.

“The Equestrian Royal Guard is an elite force, its member are chosen from Equestria’s finest and they are feared by our enemies,” he stated. “You will have to proof that the crystal soldiers are as great as you say the are.”

“As you command, my prince,” Emerald Sword said. “If you consent, I’ll order the Imperial Guard to gather at the training grounds to have a sparring session with the Equestrian Royal Guard.”

Shining Armor approved the idea and, in an hour, both elite groups were standing on formation, wearing their armours and wooden swords. Many civilians had gathered to watch, and Princess Cadance had decided to join, too. The Imperial Guard greatly outnumbered the royal guards that Celestia had ‘gifted’ Shining Armor, so Emerald Sword chose a few to spar against the Equestrians. The Royal Guard was publicly humiliated that day by the Imperial Guard. The crystal ponies fought with a ferocity that the Equestrians had never witnessed. The royal guards had been trained mostly to subdue their opponents, mainly ponies, with their bare hooves without using lethal force, and to kill only when there was no alternative. The earth ponies weren’t used to wielding weapons, the pegasi didn’t aim at their opponent’s head with their razor wings, and the unicorns focused their magic on barriers. The Imperial Guard was trained to kill with effectiveness and to defeat anything short of an adult dragon with a sword. When it was clear that Emerald Sword wasn’t bragging when he talked about their superiority, Shining Armor decided to join the spar.

“The former captain of the Royal Guard, against the new captain of the Imperial Guard,” he said. “If you defeat me, the Imperial Guard will return its place protecting Cadance and myself. If I defeat you, you will train these royal guards until they become good enough to be imperial guards themselves.”

“My prince, my oaths forbid me from harming you,” Emerald Sword said. “You will have to release me from them for the duration of this spar.”

“Yes, yes. I hereby declare that Emerald Sword isn’t bound by any oath taken by him for the duration of this spar session,” he said with a monotone voice as he donned his helmet.

Emerald Sword took a wooden sword with his mouth and Shining Armor levitated one with his magic, and then they attacked each other. Shining walked backwards while attacking Emerald with magic bolts, which would make him lose if they hit him, as they would have been lethal in a real fight. Emerald Sword dodged them, moving with much more grace and agility than a pony wearing a full body armor should. When he was close enough, the crystal pony threw his sword at the unicorn, hitting him in the horn with enough force to interrupt his spells. As soon as that happened, Emerald grabbed Shining’s sword as it fell from his magic grip and did an horizontal slash aimed at his head. Shining pushed Emerald away with his magic, and then he retrieved his sword. The continued fighting for ten minutes, until they were panting and covered in sweat.

“I think you two have proved already how macho you are,” said Cadance. “Why don’t we call it a draw? You two have better things to do than beating each other into submission. The Imperial Guard is better at fighting, but that is because Equestria hasn’t seen war in centuries. Our army is trained to watch over our cities and protect the order, not to fight against invading forces. ”

“Yes, my princess/love,” they said in unison, dropping their weapons.

“Now,” continued Cadance. “The Imperial Guard has protected the rulers of the Crystal Empire since their creation. I’m sure they know the palace and its surroundings much better than any Equestrian. Restoring them on their functions is something I want to do as soon as possible. On another note, we have witnessed first-hoof that the crystal soldiers are great fighters. I expect a full report on your training methods on my desk before tomorrow evening. Times of change approach, and we might need more capable soldiers and less police officers in the future.”

Drogur and his warriors were fighting alongside the ponies against Azklur’s dogs. Unlike Sapphire Pit’s dogs, they wore armors and fought with weapons made with the scales of Thuryol, the green dragon that Drogur killed with Havoc’s help, save for Drogur, who was clad in the set made with the red scales of a teen dragon he had killed by himself years ago. Dragon scales are one of the few materials that can’t be pierced by a diamond dog’s teeth, so they were a great protection. The Alpha of Sapphire Pit was in the center of his army, and they were slowly getting closer to him. The ponies, wearing their plate armors, were the spearhead, and the dogs protected the flanks. Killing the Alpha often meant an immediate victory, unless the Beta managed to replace him in time to avoid his forces from disbanding, but Drogur knew that such thing wouldn’t happen today. Azklur was cunning and treacherous, rumours said that any new Beta who was strong enough to challenge Azklur for the rule of the pack was found dead the next morning. Then Azklur would choose a weak Beta that wouldn’t even consider attacking him. A strong dog would then defeat the weak Beta, and when the new strong Beta decided that their Alpha was too old or too weak to continue ruling he would be found dead and so on.

“When you revealed that we were going to ally with the ponies, I almost challenged you,” Drogur’s brother, Borduk, said as he fought on Drogur’s right side. Borduk usually talked broken Equestrian like most dogs, save for when he talked to his brother or he had to prove his intelligence. He also enjoyed speaking while effortlessly killing his enemies with the axes he carried on each hand. “I thought that you had finally gone mad while trying some sort of magic spell, but you have had great ideas that seemed crazy at first before, so I waited. Many dogs suggested me to defeat you and become the new Alpha. ‘He want us to be pretty ponies,’ they said. ‘We live on surface and eat pony food,’ they said. ‘He makes us sing instead of fight,’ they said. Some of them even dared to challenge me when I said I wouldn’t fight you.”

“Ha! That explains why so many dogs had broken bones the next day,” Drogur said, grinning.

“It seems that I made the right choice,” Borduk continued, stopping only to sever the arm of an opponent that had managed to keep up with him more than the others. “Sapphire Pit has been a pain in the ass for decades. They stole the corpse of the dragon you killed because it fell on their domain, and they are too many for us to beat them without help.”

“I would have liked it more if they had joined us,” Drogur said. “I know this is good for the dogs, they will realize that working with the ponies doesn’t mean we become weak...”

“Not that these ponies in particular are weak. They fight with courage!” Borduk commented, pointing with his left hand at the crystal ponies.

“Yes, but every dog we kill is one less we’ll have under our command when we win. It’s a shame that diplomacy didn’t work.”

To say that negotiations, or diplomacy, with Sapphire Pit’s Alpha had gone awry would imply that there had been negotiations to begin with. After the visit from the pegasi messengers, Drogur had sent his wife, Gavriila, to be his ambassador in the Crystal Empire. She and six of Granite Back’s finest fighters had crossed Sapphire Pit’s domain digging their way to the Empire, which was safer than travelling on the ground level, where any dog or dragon could attack them. Unfortunately, Sapphire Pit’s mines were deeper than they expected, and they dug right into them. To make things even worse, they appeared right when a group of ten diamond dogs had decided to have some “fun” with the pony slaves, and right where they were having said fun. The lascivious dogs attacked them, but they only carried whips so Gavriila’s guards made short work of them with their swords. Gavriila’s group continued digging until they were sure they wouldn’t cross more mines, and then they dug towards the ground level so they couldn’t be attacked while they were digging if Sapphire Pit sent dogs to kill them in revenge.

Cloudy Sunset flew above the battlefield, watching the enemy’s movements in order to inform her commanders of any change in their tactics. The fight was taking place in Granite Back’s territory. Sapphire Pit was much bigger than Granite Back, with a population of nearly a thousand diamond dogs. Most of these dogs were now gathered below Cloudy. Only the ones in the center of the army, the Alpha and the dogs who protected him, wore armor and weapons made of steel that shone under the Sun. The crystal ponies and Granite Back’s dogs, also wearing armor, were advancing in a wedge formation towards the center to slay the Alpha. From above, the Sapphire Pit army looked like an eye with a shining pupil and a brownish iris that was being pierced by an arrow. The plan was risky, as Shining Armor and Drogur would find themselves surrounded by enemies if their advance was stopped. If that happened, she had orders to fly as fast as possible to where the rest of the crystal pony army was hiding, as showing themselves would have revealed that they had numerical superiority over Sapphire Pit, and the dogs would have left and resorted to guerrilla tactics. This hidden battalion would charge against the enemy army like a hammer while it was focused on Shining’s troops, who would act as an anvil.

It had taken Cloudy Sunset a full day after reaching the Crystal Empire to do anything other than staring into the distance and chew the food that the nurses fed her with. Less than an hour after she said her first words - asking a nurse if she could leave - Prince Shining Armor himself visited her. He sat on the bedside and talked to her about the first time he killed. His speech about how it never got easy, but you learned to bear with it, and that sometimes it was the only option was pretty unoriginal, but the genuineness with which he said it made up for it. His words helped her overcome the shock, and so did talking to the other soldiers who had gone through the same ordeal. She hoped that, if she had to kill again to save her life or somepony’s else, she wouldn’t hesitate.

She had been there when the ambassador arrived. The female diamond dog and her guards had arrived at the doors of the Empire panting and covered in dirt a few minutes after the first watchpony sighted them. The dogs had immediately been escorted to the palace, where they had been greeted by the royal couple and led inside. A week after that, a group of fifty diamond dogs surfaced from the ground in the middle of the city and tried to steal the Crystal Heart. Fortunately, a strong magic barrier had been erected around it, and they had been forced to retreat through the same hole they dug by the crystal ponies. Gavriila, the diamond dog emissary, said that the den that was located between Granite Back and Sapphire Pit must have learned that they were planning to work together, so they had decided to destroy them both to avoid being surrounded by enemies. Cloudy didn’t know the details, only that the attempts at negotiating with Sapphire Pit had failed, and that the dogs had resorted to guerrilla tactics. They would dig holes leading straight to pony houses and take them away while they slept. When Cadance and Shining Armor resorted to maintaining a magic barrier around the city that didn’t let them dig into it, they began attacking the farmlands that had been rebuilt around the city, which were too far for the barrier to protect. When this was noticed, the Crystal Empire decided to retaliate. Shining Armor and Drogur would take each their best soldiers and join in the middle of Sapphire Pit, an act of defiance that Azklur would be unable to ignore without risking an uprise from his dogs for his cowardice. Cloudy wondered how could Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance trust Drogur to the degree of fighting alongside him. She didn’t know much about warfare, but she was certain that, if Drogur betrayed them during this fight, Shining Armor would die and the Crystal Empire would lose its finest ponies and risk being invaded. ‘At least Princess Cadance stayed back at the Crystal Empire to protect it while we are here’, she thought.

Emerald Sword knew the time had come for the crystal ponies to release their power. Since they left the Crystal Empire, the gems on their armors, and their own bodies, had been gathering the magic that the crystal ponies’ emotions created. Emerald ordered the Imperial Guard to release, and so they did. Immediately, their fury made them stronger, they anxiety made them faster and their euphoria made them ignore fatigue and wounds. Their crystalline bodies shone brighter than ever, as they attacked their enemies with ferocity. Sapphire Pit’s dogs broke the lines when they saw that the ponies were now slashing through anyone who stood on their way like knifes through butter. Shining and Drogur’s forces charged through the routing dogs until they reached their goal: the Alpha and his guard. Sapphire Pit’s elite didn’t escape, but they still weren’t match for the ponies. One dog stood out among the rest, as he was the biggest of them and the only one wearing a full armor made of brown dragon scales and adorned with skulls from many different species. Azklur was old for an alpha, his dark grey fur was covered with lighter grey patches and he had lost a few teeth. However, he was still a formidable foe. Wielding an axe, which was so big that any other dog would have needed both arms to use it, with his right hand and a shield with his left, he joined his dogs and together they managed to stop the crystal ponies’ advance.

Drogur attacked Azklur the moment he joined the fight. Only the Beta could challenge the Alpha of a pack, but if an Alpha killed another many dogs would join the winner’s pack in most cases. The ponies had been told to stay away from the duel between Alphas, and the dogs did the same. Azklur proved to be as good a fighter as Drogur, despite the age difference. While Drogur was tired after fighting for hours, Azklur was still fresh, and he fought with ferocity. Drogur found himself on the defensive, as Azklur's attacks rained on him from all directions. His brother's words came to his mind: "If you spend all day sitting and reading you lose strength! I warned you about your strength! I told you dog!"

“You are pathetic!” spat Azklur after making Drogur fall backwards with a shield bash. “You are weak, and you help ponies fight diamond dogs. You are no Alpha, you are Drogur the Half Pony!”

“I have only one word for you,” replied Drogur as he got up just in time to block another attack. “Vigor!”

Drogur didn’t know why some words allowed him to perform magic, his knowledge was mostly practical. He didn’t know that the forgotten dragon tongue, which was identical to Earth’s Latin, had power over magic. Because of this, his range of spells was limited to the dragon words that had been incorporated into Equestrian, had remained unchanged and had noticeable effects. He didn’t know why gems and dragon scales could be charged with magic energy, which he needed for his spells to be strong, as a diamond dog’s natural magic was meant to help them dig faster than it should be physically possible and could only be used for geomancy spells. On a side note, that is how Drogur discovered that he could do magic. He was holding a gem that was charged with magic due to being close to a ley line, the streams of pure magic that crisscross any world in which magic exists, when he said the word ‘tremor’. Immediately, the gem lost its light as it released its magic and caused a small tremor. From then on, Drogur experimented with words and sources of magic until the present day.

When Drogur said ‘vigor’, the magic on his armor went to his body, making him stronger in a similar way to the crystal ponies with their emotional magic. Using his improved strength, he hit Azklur with his shield with enough force to make him drop his weapon. The attack surprised the older Alpha, who couldn’t react in time to dodge Drogur’s sword, which stabbed him through the belly.

“The other packs...” Azklur struggled to say. “Will... Destroy... You...”

“They will try,” Drogur replied, and then he grabbed Azklur’s head with his free paw and tore it off with a powerful pull.

Drogur rose Azklur’s head for all to see, as he howled with all the force of his lungs. The dogs stopped fighting and growling as they focused their attention on Drogur.

“THE TIME OF THE DIAMOND DOG HAS COME!” he shouted for all to hear. “JOIN ME, AND YOU WILL NEVER FEAR DRAGONS AGAIN!”

Drogur howled again, and Sapphire Pit’s dogs dropped their weapons and howled with him. They had accepted him as their new Alpha, and they had become members of his pack.

“What did dragons and new times have to do with anything?” Shining asked Drogur as they walked towards Sapphire Pit, where Drogur would be officially declared the new Alpha of all the inhabitants of the den.

“Saying that always works. Most dogs fear dragons, and many of our legends talk about a future in which we will become a single nation under the rule of a Diamond Wolf that will become the Alpha of Alphas.”

“So you used the beliefs and fears of your own people to trick them into joining you?” Shining asked, frowning.

“I had to say something simple, short and effective enough to make them join us before they decided to continue fighting. Would you have preferred to kill more diamond dogs, prince?”

Shining frowned at the accusation, and shook his head in reply. He and Drogur had just met a few hours earlier, and they only had had half an hour to discuss how to defeat their enemies before they had to mobilize their soldiers for the impending fight. Shining Armor didn’t consider himself a pony prone to hate others, but he was convinced that he would grow to hate Drogur at the current rate. Their alliance had already managed to get them entangled in a war with another pack of diamond dogs, and Granite Back had still to release its slaves. He hadn’t had time to question Drogur about Havoc, and for all he knew the Alpha could be a pawn of the draconequus; or the draconequus himself thanks to his shapeshifting powers, and Shining Armor hated shapeshifting with a passion since he almost married the Queen of the changelings.

“Your ambassador promised that you would free your slaves as soon as possible,” Shining stated.

“Sapphire Pit has a flying ship with enough weaponry to discourage dragons from attacking it,” explained Drogur. “With it, we’ll be able to carry the slaves to the Crystal Empire, and we will as soon as the safety of my people is guaranteed.”

“I intend to make it all official before we return to the Crystal Empire and Granite Back,” Shining replied.

Gavriila had been very clear with their demands. She had blatantly stated that slaving was a legal practice in Granite Back, and that they would only free them when such practice was made illegal. In the end, they had reached an agreement: all the diamond dogs under the rule of Drogur would be considered Equestrians, and they would have the same rights as ponies. Drogur would become a Lord of Equestria, and he would only answer to royalty. It had been hard to convince them into accepting the title of Lord instead of Prince, with which only Celestia and Luna would have been above him, but making a diamond dog a Lord would already anger the nobility, putting him above them as royalty could have started a civil war. In exchange for their addition into Equestria, Drogur would apply Equestria’s law on his domains, and so slavery would be forbidden. The other main controversial point had been their diet. Diamond dogs were carnivore, and they couldn’t survive by eating only gems. Equestria already had laws for carnivores, which stated which animals could be eaten and under which circumstances. Equestria’s magic affected their fauna, and so an Equestrian bunny could be nearly as intelligent as a human child and couldn’t be eaten, while a bunny born in Gem Fido, which had less environmental magic, would be like a common Earth bunny and eating them was accepted. Due to this, the few carnivores living in Equestria were the ones who could afford buying imported meat and the ones that weren’t considered equal to ponies, such as owls and regular dogs.

Celestia and Luna had given their approval when they learned about it, but they have expressed skepticism in their letters. “Since their birth as a race, diamond dogs have always been prone to violence and brutality, and their leaders have always been cunning and selfish. Listen to their words, and treat them with love and tolerance despite their differences, but don’t let your guard down. This alliance could start a change in diamond dog society. If diamond dogs learn the magic of friendship, all the living beings in Equis will be happier.”

‘I wonder what they will think of this battle,’ Shining thought, as he was led to Sapphire Pit, the first territory acquired by Equestria through conquest in centuries.