(Elemental Nations: the Battlefield)

All the backup in the world wouldn’t make a difference in this particular battle. An endless surge of human combatants stood no chance in a fight whose participants’ power rivaled those of the gods.

The very earth felt as though it had shifted as a large nine-tailed fox, burning brightly orange with archaic black markings spanning its body, leapt into the air to narrowly avoid the pitch-black sphere of foul chakra that had been launched at it. Any form of life that was touched by the sphere was quickly consumed and left as nothing more than an empty husk, as evidenced by the multiple patches of dead trees that had shattered like twigs under their own weight shortly after.

Upon landing, the fox leveled a glare of sheer fury at its opponent: a massive humanoid-shaped being of darkness that gazed back with a single red eye, consisting of three circles that expanded outwards from the pupil, each one featuring three tomoe. But what truly defined the monstrosity were the ten tails, black as its body, which lashed about frenziedly.

Atop the fox’s head was a teen, wreathed in the same glow as the fox. The usually thin lines upon his cheeks were now thick bars of black, while the orange chakra formed a tattered long coat around the young man, whose slit pupils were focused with a deadly intensity on the beast before them.

Beneath him, the fox rumbled, “Naruto, do you feel them?”

Naruto nodded, “Yeah: a large number of the Allied Shinobi Army is headed straight for us. But there’s nothing they could do to help; if anything, they’ll just be getting in the way and making this more difficult for us, Kurama.”

“We need to end this as quickly as we can, no matter the consequences: the Jubi must be destroyed once and for all.”

The teen nodded solemnly, before schooling his features, “Kurama, we need to focus all of our chakra into one massive attack. Hopefully, it’ll be enough.”

The fox, Kurama, nodded in agreement as he and his Jinchuriki…no, his partner, began to merge their respective chakra in front of his gaping maw. Within moments, a Charka Sphere, the size of which easily dwarfed any other that they had used before, had formed before them, its very existence pulsating with great power.

The Jubi, roaring in defiance, began to form yet another sphere of its demonic energy. It seemed that the primordial entity would not be going quietly into death, if not at all.

Kurama smirked, “Hey, kid? I regret nothing.”

Naruto smiled softly, “Me neither, fox. Me neither.”

Three roars echoed through the air, accompanied by a massive explosion. Apparently, the Jubi had gotten slow in the reflex department while it was gone, seeing as Kurama and Naruto were able to fire their combined sphere a full second before it could, and that second made all the difference in the world.

Had the Jubi been able to launch its sphere first, Naruto and Kurama would’ve been vaporized, leaving the world to the beast’s eternal wrath.

Because the Jubi’s sphere wasn’t able to fully stabilize, it had been easily punctured by its opponent’s attack, causing its own attack to erupt in its face.

Of course, seeing as it was the Jubi’s foul chakra, the resulting explosion’s expansion proved to have a truly unexpected effect on the victors.

When the Allied Force arrived, they would be greeted by a stunned Killer Bee, who could not take his eyes off of the scarred landscape that earlier played the stage to the key battle of the War. When questioned by a distraught Hinata Hyuga as to the location of Naruto, he could only slump his shoulders and state that he lost sight of him in the explosion. Immediately, every tracker began to search for the missing shinobi, who was no longer in their world, but in another…

(Equestria: Ponyville – Sweet Apple Acres)

Amidst the countless apple trees of Sweet Apple Acres, there was a pony. Not just any pony, mind you: this mare had an orange hue, a blonde mane tied in a ponytail while her tail was done in the same fashion, with an old western-style hat upon her head.

Turning to where the front of her body was facing away from the nearest tree, she raised her hind legs and delivered a mighty buck to the tree trunk. The violent strike jostled dozens of apples from their branches, causing them to plummet down into several barrels that were placed with precision around the trunk.

Lifting up a foreleg to wipe some sweat from her brow, she glanced over at her older brother, Big Macintosh, and her little sister, Apple Bloom, before hollering, “Pick up the pace, ya’ll! The Summer Sun Celebration is in a coupla’ days and we’re in charge of caterin’!”

Big Macintosh, a large red stallion with a horse collar, replied with a simple “Eeyup”, while Apple Bloom, the young ribbon-wearing pale-yellow filly, called back, “No problem, Applejack! Just keep buckin’ those apples!”

Applejack grinned, “Don’t you worry about that, Apple Bloom; I-”

Her voice left her as her eyes looked skyward, with her siblings following: in the sky above was a shooting star, but it was the middle of the day. That shouldn’t be possible, right?

Three pairs of eyes watched the blazing shape as it plummeted from the heavens to the ground below: judging from how it was moving, it was going to land right…

“MOVE!”

The three ponies were able to retreat to a safe distance just seconds before the star came crashing down right where she was standing. Luckily, nopony was hurt, apart from a few apple trees and the ground that broke the object’s fall.

After several tense seconds of waiting, it seemed like that was the end of it. Applejack cautiously approached the smoking crater that now decorated their orchard to find out just what the hay was going on.

What she found was certainly not what she was expecting…which wasn’t hard, because she wasn’t sure what she should be expecting.

Within that crater was some sort of critter that she had never seen before in her life: it had four appendages just like her, but instead of hooves, these ended with five stub-things. While it had a blonde mane, it only covered the top of its head, and it had no visible tail. What really set it apart from any other critter was that judging from its body shape, it spent most of its life walking on only its hind legs.

What caught her attention was its clothing: dark orange that was currently stained red with its-

“It’s hurt! Look at all that blood…”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack looked at her siblings, “Big Macintosh, help me get it back to the house. Apple Bloom, go on ahead and let Granny Smith know what’s goin’ on.”

“Eeyup/You got it, sis!”

Apple Bloom shot off like a squirrel toward the family house while Applejack and Macintosh descended into the shallow crater to retrieve the wounded creature.

Little did they know that, with the actions they had taken, the future of Equestria would be altered forever…