"Alright, do Shining Armor now,” sergeant Cloudy Sunset asked.

Havoc cleared his throat and began to talk with Shining Armor’s voice. “My fellow ponies! Today we fight for justice! Today we fight for love! Today we fight for the most sacred thing above all else: CORNDOGS!”

Havoc was surrounded by an increasingly large crowd of laughing pegasi. They had left the Crystal Empire with the sunrise, and they had just stopped after several hours of flying to catch a breath and have a quick lunch. After the spar with Cadance, Havoc’s magic reserves were low, so he was trying to find a way to cause chaos and recharge himself. He found himself in a dilemma, since he had been ordered not to annoy the ponies with his magic, yet he couldn’t come up with anything else that would help him.

Luckily for him, Cloudy Sunset and a few more ponies had then introduced themselves to Havoc, curious about him. They had mostly asked him about his powers, and once he told them that he could imitate voices everypony had asked him to imitate them. Then, he suddenly became the focus of the attention of all the ponies that travelled with him. He had imitated pretty much any famous pony he knew, such as the Princesses, Spitfire and Soarin’, as well as most of the ponies around him.

“Wait, can you imitate ANY sound, or just voices?”

“Let me check,” Havoc replied, and then he managed to copy the sound of a trumpet, prompting the ponies around him to ask him to make the weirdest noises they could come up with. “I should take advantage of this ability more often… Hold on, I just had the best idea ever.”

Havoc began to play air guitar, and the music came out of him as if he was some sort of amplifier.

“Oh my gosh it’s Hooves N’ Roses!” a female pegasus shrieked in excitement.

The show continued, with Havoc doing whatever he was asked to or he felt like doing, until Captain Cyclone commanded them all to prepare to resume their travel. When they did, Cloudy Sunset asked Havoc to flight with her team, so he didn’t have to awkwardly fly a couple of meters away from everypony to avoid causing even more awkwardness with his proximity. Since he had charged himself with the reactions of the pegasi to his antics, he could focus on talking like a normal person instead of trying to cause as much chaos as possible.

As flying was a dull activity, the pegasi and Havoc talked a lot. He learned the stories of Cloudy’s team members, starting with hers. Silverwing, Cloudy’s wingpony who seemed to have developed a brother-sister relationship with her, told them about how he had been forced to join the Equestrian Guard to pay the bills when he realized that he would never become a rock star. Tight Grip was a large stallion way past his midlife crisis who had been given the choice between going to jail or joining the Guard after he almost killed a pony in a bar fight. He was not ashamed to state that he greatly enjoyed being paid for killing others, and that he wouldn’t leave the Guard when his serving time was over. The last member of the four ponies squad was Timid Breeze. He seemed to be the polar opposite of Tight Grip, as he was small, introvert and easily startled. He had joined the Equestrian Guard because it was a family tradition, and what he desired the most was that the war would end and he could go back to Cloudsdale, where the worst thing he was likely to face was a drunk stallion that was causing property damage.

Despite their differences, the four ponies had become close friends over the course of the war. Soon, Havoc found himself exchanging stories and exploits with them, which made the travel seem much shorter. When they finally reached the frontline, three days later, pretty much everypony had gotten used to Havoc, some had learned to enjoy his random antics, and a few had even befriended him.

When they reached their destination, Havoc was greatly impressed by the enormity of the equestrian army. Hundreds of tents covered a portion of terrain as large as Ponyville, and thousands of ponies and diamond dogs moved between them. Princess Luna herself was waiting for them, and she approached Havoc just as he and the pegasi landed.

“Greetings, Havoc. It is good to meet you outside of your dreams.”

“The pleasure is mine, princess,” he replied, bowing.

“I would like to discuss some matters with you in the intimacy of my tent, follow me.”

For once, Havoc didn’t assume that Luna wanted to have sex with him just because she said they should continue talking in her tent. Curious, he followed him to the largest and darkest tent in the camp. There he found Shining Armor, Drogur the Arcane, and a diamond dog he hadn’t seen before discussing something.

“Well, if it isn’t Balto!” Drogur exclaimed. “I’m glad to see you in one piece, even though you look way uglier now that you aren’t a diamond dog.”

“You mean you considered me pretty before?” Havoc replied, fluttering his eyelashes.

“See? This is what I love about this guy!” Drogur told the others while laughing. “You just can’t be bored when he’s around.”

The other diamond dog approached Havoc. “So you are Havoc. I am Attila Sarois, Lord and Alpha of Yellow Topaz. It is nice to meet you, Alpha Drogur and Prince Shining Armor have told me about your feats.”

“Aren't you a little short for an Alpha?” Havoc asked, as Drogur laughed his ass off.

“I don’t have alpha blood, but I earned my title fairly by combat,” Attila replied, unamused.

“Wow, so you defeated a diamond dog with alpha blood? You have my respect, Alpha Attila.”

“If you are done smelling each other’s butt, we should focus on the matters at hoof,” Shining Armor said. “Havoc, I won’t beat around the bush: I don’t like you, and the only reason I agreed to let you join us is because I want to keep an eye on you. With that said, we received a letter via magic from Cadance detailing your powers and abilities. We have decided that you will fight alongside Princess Luna, so she can further evaluate your performance in the battlefield. The den Sharp Ruby has refused to release their slaves, so we are going to attack them in a matter of hours. We greatly outnumber them, so our goal is to defeat them while killing as few of them as possible.”

“Because of that,” Luna continued. “You won’t use your magic with killing intent unless it is to protect your life or the life of an ally. I’ll be next to you, so you better remember this or I’ll intervene.”

“Alright, no killing unless there’s no other option. I promise.”

For the next hour, the four of them filled Havoc’s mind with as much information as they could. How each side fought, what he should expect of his opponents, what he should never do unless he wanted to be attacked by his allies by mistake, what to do if he got lost in a diamond dog den, what to do if a dragon or any other powerful foe joined the fight, which orders he could give or receive during the battle, and many other details. After that, they went over the plan for taking over Sharp Ruby. When Drogur was in the middle of his description of Sharp Ruby’s Beta, Havoc interrupted him.

“Excuse me, but I have been non-chaotic for too long. If I stand still any longer I’ll be unable to keep myself in check.”

With that said, he turned into a perfect copy of Princess Celestia and began to talk with a voice that was neither his nor Celestia’s.

“Luna!”

“What, Havoc?”

“I’m a banana!”

“You are a what?”

“I’m a banana!”

“What happened to your voice?”

“I'm a banana!
I’m a banana,
I'm a banana,
I'm a banana,
LOOK AT ME MOVE.

Yeah, Yeah.

I'm a banana,
I'm a banana,
I'm a banana,
LOOK AT ME MOVE.

ARW, ARW.

Banana power,
Banana power,
Banana power,
Pow, Pow, Pow, Pow, Pow, Power.

Banana power,
Banana power,
Banana power,
LOOK AT ME MOVE.

Uh Oh banana time,
Uh Oh banana time,
Uh Oh banana time,
STOP!”

Then he began to make the weirdest noise any of them had ever heard.

“STOP!”

He made the noise again.

“Stop!

Cart, fart, smart, dart, heart, tart, cart, mart, cart, smart, dart, fart, tart, fart, dart”

He screamed as he created a perfect clone of Princess Luna who, wearing a Scootaloo costume, began to sing on her own.

“Chicken,
chicken,
chicken,
I am chicken chicken,”

Both the fake Luna and Celestia exploded into a massive fireball that covered the tent in smoke. When it cleared, a laughing Havoc had replaced the two copies.

“What did just happen?” asked Shining Armor.

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” Luna added.

Eventually, Havoc stopped laughing and managed to recover his composure “Alright, we can continue now.”

“Follow me, Havoc!” Luna shouted. “We are almost there!”

Havoc stopped charging the spell he had been preparing, which would have trapped a dozen diamond dogs in a comic book for an hour, and flew behind Luna. She rushed through dozens and dozens of diamond dogs, pushing them away with her telekinesis as if they were rag dolls. After fighting along her for half an hour, Havoc had learned to fear the Princess’ power. From what he had seen so far, she was easily five times stronger than Cadance, and she was much more proficient in both magical and physical combat than the princess of love.

The two of them were advancing through the underlit tunnels that spawned all over Sharp Ruby’s domain, trying to find where they kept the slaves confined. The two of them had stormed the warren’s main entrance, easily getting rid of the dogs that tried to stop them, with Shining Armor and the Imperial Guard rushing behind. Meanwhile, Drogur’s diamond dogs had split into several groups that dug as fast as they could, so they could attack the enemy from behind while they were busy with the ponies. Havoc’s mission was to cover Luna once they found the slaves, so she could focus on a spell that would teleport all the slaves to their base. Since the spell was, according to her, “very taxing, terribly dangerous if interrupted and with a long casting time”, she would be unable to use it unless Havoc protected her from the diamond dogs. The idea was that Luna and Havoc would release the slaves as soon as possible, so the diamond dogs wouldn’t use them as hostages or kill them in revenge.

“Here we are!” Luna exclaimed. Both of them had entered a large domed room with several cells inhabited mostly by ponies and griffins. The princess’ horn glowed for a second and the doors made of steel rods were violently torn from their hinges by her telekinesis. “Listen to me! I am Princess Luna, co-ruler of Equestria! Your days of captivity and forced labour are over. Gather around me and I’ll teleport you to our camp! There, you will be fed and your diseases will be treated by our medics. The nightmare is over, it’s time to wake up and go back to the life of happiness and freedom that you deserve!”

The enslaved ponies and griffins ran towards Luna, some of them cheering and spilling tears of joy. As he had been told, Havoc became invisible so he wouldn’t scare anyone away. Luna’s horn ignited with power and, one by one, the slaves gathered around her began to vanish with the sound of a bottle being uncorked. Havoc guessed it would take her around ten minutes to teleport everyone outside.

He was beginning to hope that they wouldn’t be interrupted when he heard the clanking sounds of steel armors coming from the only entrance, and growing louder. A pack of fifteen diamond dogs - wearing armors, spears and shields - bursted into the room as Havoc made himself visible and faced them. His sudden appearance shocked them, giving him enough time to use his powers on them so they would fall asleep. His smirk disappeared when he felt his sleeping spell break into raw magic and then be absorbed by something. Only then did Havoc notice that, among the diamond dogs, there was an enormous, two-headed white dog that was eating the remains of his spell as if it was dogfood. The creature’s heads were mismatched, one similar to a rottweiler’s, and the other just like an alaskan malamute’s.

“Magic won’t work near an orthros, monster,” the leader of the group, a huge diamond dog of the alpha subespecies, taunted as he patted the rottweiler head. “Now you die.”

Due to the personal space the others gave him, Havoc identified that diamond dog as the Beta of Sharp Ruby.His weapon was a huge steel hammer, which a normal diamond dog would have been unable to wield, and he wore a steel armor with some parts replaced by single dragon scales of every color and shape.

During the meeting in Luna’s tent, Havoc had been told that some diamond dogs gathered shed dragon scales whenever they could to reinforce their weapons and armors, but that the practice was most common in the dens near the Dragon Badlands, where dragons and their leftovers were more common. Sharp Ruby, being one of the diamond dog dens furthest away from the Badlands, would barely find a single scale on their domains. Due to this, they bought the shed scales from the dragons themselves, giving them more gems in return.

Havoc made his hammer appear as the diamond dog group approached and circled him, the Beta and his orthros right in front of him.

“Havoc! Don’t let that creature bite you or it will suck you dry of magic!” Luna warned. “And keep it away from me so it won’t interfere with my spell!”

“That’s easier said than done,” Havoc thought aloud. He attacked one of the diamond dogs, bringing his hammer down on the him. The diamond dog managed to block the blow with his shield, but the impact forced him to kneel and put his spear hand on the floor to avoid falling. The other dogs attacked Havoc in return, forcing him to retreat and allow the fallen dog to get up again. Havoc attacked four more times, without managing to harm any dog, until one of them managed to stab Havoc’s side. Havoc’s red blood sprayed from the open wound, covering the diamond dog’s face and arms. The blood then turned yellow and melted the dog’s flesh, killing him before the orthros could make it harmless by eating its magic.

Instead of being frightened after witnessing their comrade’s fate, the remaining diamond dogs attacked all at once, suddenly emboldened. Attacked from all sides, Havoc could only flail around his hammer to force them to retreat, too busy to notice that the Beta and the orthros were darting towards Luna.

“HAVOC! STOP THEM!” Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice boomed.

Realizing what was happening, Havoc pushed the diamond dogs’ weapons away with his magic, the orthros being too far away to stop him, and charged after it and the Beta. He let out a gasp of pain as two more spears pierced him as he broke out of the circle, one digging deeply into his cheetah leg and the other hitting a rib that stopped it from going through his heart. Confused by the pain and the attacks from all sides, Havoc instinctively tackled the orthros. The beast quickly broke free from his grasp moments after they both hit the ground, giving Havoc just enough time to raise his dragonbone hammer and use it to keep the orthros’ jaws away from him. While he was still trying to fend off the aggressive creature, the Beta hit him from the side, his hammer breaking Havoc’s diamond dog arm.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Havoc roared, unable to use his magic to make the intense pain disappear from his mind with the orthros so close to him.

Said orthros attacked again while Havoc was paralyzed by pain, his two mouths closing around the draconequus’ neck. Havoc began to twitch with violence, as a dark purple glow flowed from him to the orthros.

Luna could only watch impotently, as interrupting her spell could kill the remaining slaves she still had to teleport, or greatly injure her with the backlash. She was about to interrupt it anyways when the orthros released Havoc, just after ten seconds of syphoning his magic away. As the draconequus fell on the floor, panting, the orthros began to heave violently.

“What have you done to my orthros?!” the Beta roared, furious.

The two-headed monster began to vomit a liquid made of pure chaos magic, which violently lashed against everything around it. Parts of the rocky floor turned into lava, while others froze or became a completely different material. The orthros, on the other hand, was covered by tendrils of the chaotic power which harmed it in every way imaginable. After a couple of seconds, all that remained of the powerful creature was a grotesquely disfigured corpse.

Havoc got back on his legs, having healed his injuries while everyone was distracted by the orthros’ violent demise. “You are all going to suffer in ways you couldn’t dare to dream for what you have done to me,” he growled, his hands seething as all of his remaining magic focused on them.

“Havoc, don’t! Don’t succumb to hate! You must be the better stallion!” Luna warned him.

Havoc turned to face Luna, too furious to recognise her. With no further words, he teleported behind him and hit his right arm with his hammer, breaking it just as the Beta had done to him moments earlier. The other dogs rushed towards him, so he aimed at them with his wooden arm, blue lightning coming out of his fingertips. While they shook and screamed in pain, Havoc raised his hammer with his spare hand, aiming for the Beta’s head.

“HAVOC!” Luna shouted. “YOU PROMISED!”

Havoc roared in frustration and threw his hammer aside as he stopped his lightning attack. Before they could recover, he knocked the Beta out with a punch to his head, and used his magic to make the other dogs fall asleep, as he had originally intended. Exhausted, he recovered his hammer and leaned on him, his nearly depleted chaos energy slowly replenishing from the shock of the slaves.

“I can’t believe... these little shits... got so close to ending me,” Havoc muttered, panting. “These fuckers…”

The rest of the rescue operation went smoothly, with Luna teleporting all the remaining slaves successfully while Havoc calmed down. When the last slave disappeared, Luna made silvery chains appear and coil around the diamond dogs, ensuring that they wouldn’t escape or rejoin the fight if they woke up.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, but that monster dog stole most of my magic.”

“I was asking about your mental state, Havoc. You were possessed by an immense rage mere moments ago.”

“Yes, I’m fine. I just… I almost died, and after all the things I’ve been through, when I realized that a bunch of random diamond dogs were going to kill me… I felt so angry at them. They have no right to almost kill me after all the enemies I have fought that were way, way stronger.”

“I am glad you controlled yourself before you did something you would have regretted,” Luna told Havoc. “However, you have the wrong mindset, and that only leads to despair. Yes, a diamond dog Beta with an orthros may be considered a laughable enemy when compared to the likes of you. Still, even the weakest pony could kill you with a lucky arrow between the eyes. If you think yourself above anypony who can’t match your raw power, you’ll grow bitter as those you consider beneath you outsmart you, outperform you or simply are more lucky. Now, this is not the place or the moment to talk. Can you still fight, or did the orthros take all your magic?

“I just need a couple of minutes near chaos and I’ll be good to go.”

“Then we’ll reunite with the main forces as they search for Sharp Ruby’s Alpha.”

After a couple of minutes searching through the dark corridors they stumbled upon Shining Armor’s group. Luna and Shining talked briefly and he sent a group of crystal ponies to retrieve the chained diamond dogs, then Havoc and the princess joined him. For the next three hours they roamed Sharp Ruby, defeating any group that opposed them, until they finally heard the howling that signaled the Alpha’s defeat.

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry it took so long to update. I've been very busy lately :-(