I stood up from the smoldering ashes; my outfit was covered in burn marks from the Griefer blast and everywhere around the forest I looked was a torrent of flame and brimstone.

Also there was a 150 metre Griefer standing right behind me with only intent to kill the one pony it’s been seeking. Me.

Damn it, so these Griefers do exist. But why would Dave show me that dream and with the same Griefer here showing up? It can't be a coincidence.

{Play Music}

“Shadow! You’ve got to hurry!” Rainbow Dash shouted over to me with the rest of the team behind her.

Weakly I attempted to sprint toward my team, the blast had gotten me but the burn injuries weren’t severe. Suddenly a red laser arced between me and the rest of the assassins; I stopped and did a backwards roll to evade the Griefer’s attack. When I recovered there was a large cut out trench in the forest ground.

Damn it! It cut me off from the rest of my team!

I shouted over the trench to the others, “Run! I’ll buy you some time, we’ll meet back around!”

“Shadow that’s suicide!” Twilight yelled back.

I ignored her and turned around towards the Griefer looming over me.

Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Without hesitating I run towards the metallic beast, it raises a leg and crushes it down before me. I leap past the leg towards the Griefer’s underside. It fired its devastating laser to the left side of me blasting the ground behind. The scenery exploded around me and I used the aftershock to propel myself past its underside.

Now safely behind it I sprinted towards the woods, the Griefer turned its body around with aid from its crab-like legs and chased after me.

“AAH!” I shouted just as the Griefer began to rapid fire into the forest.

Trees exploded from all around and debris fell through the air, I didn’t stop running knowing if I did the Griefer would catch up and tear me apart.

Just keep running, I got to get distance from it from the rest of my team.

The ground quaked from behind; I looked back and saw it was a pitch-black leg dug into the ground. Despite its size the Griefer moved very quickly at city block lengths, each per step it took overshadowed the Everfree. Luckily it couldn’t aim quite as well when it’s moving this fast.

The Griefer caused a great disturbance around the forest and burned everything in its path from preventing it from completing its mission. Blasts erupted around my hooves and the ashes from the habitat fell onto my body as I dashed even further.

From a group of bushes a random green pony came out smoking a cucumber,
“Dude… what’s the rush?”

“OUT OF MY WAY HIPPIE!” I shouted at him as I shoved him out from my path.

The hippie looked up and saw a metallic leg coming down on him, “Dude….”

*CRUSH*

Crap, crap!

I jumped over a small hill and looked behind me to see the Griefer almost directly on top of me.

MERDA CAZZO PAR PONITALIANO!

“CURSE YOU DAVE TO EQUESTRIA’S CORE! I AM NOT DYING TODAY!” I shouted at the Griefer as it blasted a 2 metre hole in front of me which I easily jumped across.

A leg shot down in the hole just as I landed making the ground shake even worse which caused me to lose my momentum and trip over a rock onto the soil.

“DAMN YOU ROCK! NOW WE’LL BOTH DIE!” I shouted at the inanimate object.

I turned my attention back to the Griefer who was now almost directly on top of me; the machine spoke in its static robot language and began to charge up its laser. Its core glowed a sinister red ready to take the final shot.

*BZZZT…….*

I didn’t close my eyes as I knew the one thing it wanted most was grief and I was not giving it mine.

*BOOM*

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What the hell?

One thing the Griefer was charging up its laser the next a giant Pinkie Nuke came out of nowhere and covered the Griefer in its creamy sticky baking dough trap.

A Pinkie nuke? How could Pinkie bring one during this camping trip!?

“Are you alright?” an unrecognizable voice behind me said.

I turned my neck and saw a serious looking brown earth pony. His mane was black and cut short like an army style and had faint stubble outlining his lower muzzle. The interesting thing about this pony was the black power armor he was wearing. It had a long red and white stripe running the length of his right arm-armor with the symbol, N7 written on it.

Not knowing if he was friend or foe I asked aggressively, “Who are you?”

“I’m Commander Beard, Equestrian Military. I know you have a lot of questions but Shadow you need to trust me for now,” he held up a hoof to help to me up.

Reluctantly I took his armored hoof with my gray ashen hoof.

Can I trust him, he might be a Templar.
Between him and the Griefer….
The answers obvious…. At least for now.

The Commander helps me up to my hooves, just as the Griefer began to fire through its sticky trap of prebaked goods.

“Dammit! Shadow we need to MOVE!”

We ran down a path as the Griefer had blasted the last of the Pinkie nuke from its metallic processors. It raised a leg and gave pursuit to the fleeing targets.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commander Beard had a very high-tech assault rifle which he shot behind him as the Griefer got closer. Unlike bullets the shots looked more like laser dots. We took bunker in a maze of foliage and strange empty pod-like plants.

Wait a moment…. these aren’t plants

A loud shriek echoed around us and I got slapped in the face with a wing. I grabbed the assailant and chucked it over to some trees in front of us. I looked at it closer and saw it was an enormous butterfly… with teeth…. very sharp teeth…

“Not carnivorous butterflies! Where there’s one…” Beard started to say but was cut off.

A swarm of hungry pony-sized butterflies flew up in front of us and salivated in delight, as ponies provided an excellent meal to their mass.

Beard raised his gun with his hoof on the trigger to the swarm of monstrous insects…

*PARAGON ACTION*

“Wait put your gun down!”

“I heard you Assassins were crazy and fearless but not stupid!” Beard said in surprise not taking his sights off the bugs.

“Please you got to trust me; I trust you and you could be a Templar for all I know. Beard, put down the gun now.”

He grunted in frustration and holstered his gun up to his back.

I stepped ahead of him and raised my hoofs to the flying insects, “Giant big carnivorous bugs of the Everfree, listen to what I have to say! We are not your enemy! That giant walking lobster behind us is!”

I heard a few chuckles from the butterflies but I ignored them, “It wants nothing but to destroy this forest and you! All of your tribe would be extinct because of its need for grief. So will you join us in retaking back your home?”

A few coughs were heard from the group, right until a large red laser come from the sky and blasted the area we were hiding in. As I looked to see what the damage was about half of the butterflies were gone. The remaining that lived was angry and swarmed the Griefer which was standing right behind us.

“Now Beard while it’s distracted!” I urgently said to him, he nodded his head and we ran from the threat.

*BAZOOM*

I looked back after a few miles of running and saw that all the butterflies were dead and the Griefer started to follow us.

That was until a still pissed off Hydra slammed into the Griefer knocking it backwards and a massive fight broke out between them. The Hydra slammed it's tail into the side of the Griefer as the Griefer counter-attacked by trying to impale its legs into the Hydra.

"Great! That will buy us some time," Beard said. I nodded in agreement for it was better that the Griefer was attaking that Hydra rather than us.

{END MUSIC}

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We parted past some trees until we got to an open field filled with the ponies of my team and two others I haven't seen before.

“Shadow you’re alive!” everypony ran over to me and gave me a quick hug.

“Why of course, I’m not going to let a mythological super-monster kill me. That would be too unprofessional for an assassin of my rank. Plus we're still not done training," I smiled at them.

“Ah, so this must be the assassin we heard so much about,” a pale green pony wearing a visor and blue power armor holding a sniper rifle said with a slightly sarcastic tone in his voice.

“He’s still a weakling compared to Beard,” a red battle-scarred armored muscle-ripped red pony said to me while holding a steel shotgun.

“Rex I’ve seen this kid handle a Griefer on his own, do you think you can last longer?” Beard taunted the red armored pony referred as Rex.

“…..maybe.”

Rex, well that’s a suitable name. But he looks very familiar I just can’t put my hoof on it.
He’ll probably break it off anyways…. Wait….

The blue armored pony went up to me and stuck a hoof out, “Where are my manners? I’m Garrus and this Gerponian brute’s name is Rex. You’ve already been acquainted with the Commander here so that speeds up everything nicely.”

Gerponian… AHA I KNEW IT!

“Say Rex do you know a Volcanous by any chance?” I asked him as he looked almost identical to him.

He gritted his teeth and said, “Ya, he’s my idiot brother. I heard he was killed by a nuke in Gerpony. Completely pathetic if you ask me, though the ponies that faced him had guts,” he gave me a somewhat devious smile.
“He knew what he was getting into joining the Templars, but in my family we don’t die easily not even a nuke can do that properly.”

Good thing Volcanous is dead nonethelss… nothing could have escaped that nuke not even the Griefer. If I had to face him again, then... WOW!

“Alright enough chitchat!” Beard said to us, “We can get to know each other later, right now we need to figure out how to take that Griefer before it heads for Ponyville.”

“WHAT!?” we all shouted.

“As far as we can tell the Griefer was after the biggest threat; Shadow in this case. But now it’s attacking that Hydra.” he pointed behind us and sure enough the Hydra was still putting up a fight.

“Wow I didn’t notice that! Monster fight!” Pinkie excitingly said pulling out a bag of popcorn from nowhere and enjoying the show.

Commander Beard had a blank look of confusion on his face and so I said, “It’s just Pinkie being Pinkie. Anyways do you have a plan to stop this Greifer?”

“I’MMA BACK!”

I turned around and saw Dr. Mareio luging a large yellow red spotted mushroom behind him.

Wait, Mareio wasn’t here? Why didn’t I notice, I ALWAYS NOTICE!?

Mareio dropped the mushroom in front of us and Commander Beard noticed him.

“Mareio?”

“COMMANDER! Wow the last time I saw a you was back at…” Mareio started to speak but Garrus did a mock cough and Mareio shut up his conversation.

“Sorry classified information!” Mareio said to me enthusiastically.

Hmmmmmmmmm……………………………..ok

“So Mareio? What’s with the a….. giant mushroom?” I asked him.

“Oh this? MEGA SHROOM!” he shouted as he waved his hooves about.

I was completely confused but a purple hoof tapped me on my shoulder.

“When you chased that Griefer from us Garrus and Rex found us and brought us here after they saved us from a Cerberus. Mareio told us that he needed to get a native shroom from the forest. Apparently if we can concentrate it into a potion it’s said to make a pony as large as the Griefer!” Twilight exclaimed the idea to me.

“And luckily for us there’s a zebra who lives here called Zecora who can make it into a potion,” Rarity added.

“Trouble is there is still that Griefer we need to distract, but the Hydra is doing a better job at it,” Rainbow Dash said.

"I just hope that terrible horrible Griefer doesn't pay attention to us on the ground," Fluttershy said.

We all turned back to the battle and saw that the Hydra was really kicking some ass.

Wow just look at the clash between those two, both are evenly matched, evenly skilled, the Hydra might actually win!

*PING*

Or maybe not….

The Hydra fell down to the forest below with a hole burned through its chest. With that problem gone the Griefer turned its attention back at the new threat, us.

“Dear Celestia! PINKIE!” I shouted over to her and she dropped her popcorn and assumed her assassin stance, “I’m overriding all safeguards! Use whatever you can to take it down!”

Pinkie bounced up and down from the amount of sheer fun she was about to have.
She lifted a curtain from the ground…

“Where did that curtain come from?” Garrus asked but we quickly shushed him.

From the curtain Pinkie revealed a large set of nukes and crafting supplies, all from the “100% do not let Pinkie touch this” section of our hideout.

While Pinkie was crafting a extremely volatile mix I turned my attention back to the rest of the ponies, and Spike. (Ace flew off towards Ponyville to quickly get a message to all the important ponies that needed to hear about this Griefer issue.)

“We need to split into two teams, one needs to stay back and buy us enough time while the other makes it to Zecora’s to fix this mushroom potion,” I looked at the ponies and decided who of my team should stay or go.
“Twilight I need you and Spike to show us the way to Zecora and Mareio for the mushroom.”

Commander Beard stepped up, “That’s too small a team, I and Rex will go with you.”

“Alright, so Applejack you’re in charge of the rest.” I walked closer to her put my hoof on her shoulder and whispered, “Don’t worry we’ll get through this, I promise...”

Garrus readied his rifle and said, “We’ll cover you and slow that Griefer as best we can.”

I nodded and with a loud heave of the mega shroom from Mareio we followed Twilight back into the dense forest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*BOOM* A loud missile exploded onto the Griefer, staggering it.

What have I done? If it’s not the Griefer it’s Pinkie’s pyrotechnics destroying this forest.

“Twilight how much further?” Beard asks her.

“Not far now just over this ridge… Incoming!” she shouted back at us.

A swarm of carnivorous butterflies flew down towards us, their eyes were an endless void and their once colourful patterns were dulled and had a sickly gray tinged look.

“OH MAMMA MIA! THEY HAVE A BEEN INDOCTRINATED!” Mareio shouted from under his oversized mushroom.

“AAH! I DON’T LIKE BUGS!” Spike shouted in fear.

Beard and Rex pulled out their guns and shot the swarm back. I quickly took 3 throwing knives from my satchel and threw them at 3 butterflies taking them down instantly. The Griefer in the distance was getting resistant to Pinkie’s blasts and my team’s attacks. It got closer and closer every second we ran.

“I can see the house!” Twilight exclaimed just as Rex hoofed a butterfly to the ground.

The Griefer was fast approaching us but we made it to the door of a twisted old tree.

Looks inviting…

Twilight knocked on the door rapidly and a zebra opened the door.

“Ah Twilight this is a surprise! Why does your friend carry a mushroom of giant size?” the zebra spoke in rhyme and pointed over to Mareio who surprisingly wasn’t struggling to carry this mushroom of gigantic proportions.

“Zecora or whatever your name is!” I said with haste, “We need you to turn this into a potion so we can destroy a Griefer!”

“A Griefer? You must be joking I infer. Why an old pony’s tale would lead you amidst when they surely don’t exist.”

*PING* A red laser shot next to Zecora’s tree.

“HOLY SWEET CELESTIA THAT THING IS REAL! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU MUSHROOM OAF, CAN’T YOU SEE IT WILL EAT US LIKE A MEAL!?” Zecora shouted at us and pulled Mareio into the tree with the mushroom barely fiting through the door.

“Uh, the mushroom is stuck,” I said.

Rex hoofed the mushroom and it broke the entire doorway, “Fixed”

Hopefully I won’t get on his bad side…

I turned around and holy crap that Griefer is close, also I think the swarm had gotten larger.

“There’s too many!” Twilight said as we defended the house from the increasing attacks.

Rex finished taking down a monster size of a butterfly and yelled to Beard,
“Beard! I’ll clear the way, just keep holding the line!”

“Rex…”

“Good luck Beard and good luck to you assassin,” Rex said to us as he turned towards the swarm and the Griefer ahead.

Wait he’s not going to…

Rex charged forward into the swarm and shotguned 5 bugs as one slammed behind him. He recovered and grabbed it’s wings and ripped them off with his bare hooves with blood spraying everywhere on him. He picked up his shotgun and slammed it into two more butterflies until he was left facing the Griefer covered in bug blood.

*PING*

The Griefer fired its laser at Rex; he fell to the ground on his knee and was scorched to a crisp from the red beam of energy. Part of his armor broke from the blast and any body part not protected by his armor charred into a black layer of flesh.

As the Griefer finished its attack the body of Rex stood motionless, after all no one survives a Griefer's blast.
Suddenly the charred Rex gave a slight laugh he weakly stood up from his knee onto his four hooves, now laughing at complete enjoyment and letting out a loud battle cry.

How did he live from that? A blast from a Greifer!?

“RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Rex charges for the Griefer’s leg at full speed and at ten times the power.

“I AM REX! I AM PONY!!”

He head smashes the Griefer’s leg which only made a loud clang noise. The Griefer lifted its front leg and drived it down towards Rex.

He lifted his hooves and caught the leg in the air not letting it crush onto him.
Rex notices a cliff next to where they are and with one last final thrust he pushes the Griefer and himself over the edge of the cliff.

“REX!” Commander Beard shouted.

I could hear a loud crash from the abse of the cliff and then silence.

Wow…. just as tough as his brother…

Suddenly a large lobster arm went up to the side of the cliff and the Griefer’s core came up shortly. It looked at us with pure annoyance and frustration as it continued to climb itself back up the cliff.

The door slams open and Zecora and Mareio are holding a bottle of yellow liquid, “Drink this now before we fry! I don’t want to die!”

I grabbed the concoction and gave it an onceover.

This better not be piss or “Medical Testing Liquid”.

I chugged the potion and almost instantly my body grew to the near exact size of the Griefer. I could see all over the forest and I was officially the second biggest thing in Everfree.

From the ground Mareio put on some sunglasses.
“Dat Mass.”

The Griefer righted itself up and stood slightly taller than me getting ready to fight. I opened both my hidden blades (the potion made my equipment and outfit big as well) and got ready in my stance towards the Griefer.

“Shadow! You only have some time until the potion’s effects wear off!” Twilight shouted from the ground.

“Time to pay for the lives you’ve taken Griefer!” I shouted at it with rage.

*BZZZZT ZOON* It replied.

“SHUT UP DAMN YOU!”

I sliced it’s metallic leg off with my blade and the battle of the giants commenced.