The group ran through the halls of the fort. It echoed of the sounds of bells and running hooves, as the entire base mobilized to try to stop us. Eventually they got to a large room that seemed safe to rest a little bit. Everypony collasped onto the ground, tired and exhausted from all the running. Snow got up to count, everypony was there. Then suddenly, the doors burst opened and troops poured in. Through one door they could see the outside, but it was blocked by hundreds of soldier ponies, pegisi, and other creatures. "Oh great!" Dark exsaperated.
Facade looked around at the overwhelming numbers of enemy soldiers and back at the group. Though he didn't particularly enjoy the company of some of the ponies in the group they proved to be at least trustworthy allies. And he loved his home if anything and he would defend it well. His mind flashed and he smiled as he came up with another one of his brilliant ideas. "Snow! Quickly! I need you to amplify my voice to as loud as you can get it! And cover your ears." He chuckled as he felt the magic move across his body and motioned for the group to cover there ears. He then curled up, flattened his ears, and with his amplified voice mimicked the sound of canon fire. The noise produced sounded as if an army of was firing at the fort and the enemy soldiers turned around in panic to determine where it was coming from. 'A distracted pony is a weak-minded pony' Facade thought with a satisfied feeling. "Soldiers! The pony next to you is trying to kill you!" Facade yelled. His magnified voice once again boomed across the fort sending his order almost throughout the entire thing. A moment of quiet before infighting erupted in there ranks. The officers who resisted his call could not keep order and were also forced into the fray. Facade motioned to Snow to cut the spell off. "I have to stay and keep the chaos up. You ponies run along now. Get an army or something and make sure Equestria is not destroyed." His eyes narrowed slightly. "And pick me up along the way. I will not enjoy my stay in a dungeon."
Snow nodded, "I understand." and she waved for the others to follow. They cut their way through the crowd, and right before Snow left, she turned back to see Facade trying his best to keep ponies from attacking him before slammimg the door and they ran as fast as they could towards the Everfree forest, the one place that wasn't crawling with invaders. Once they got to a clearing and had regained their breath, Dark turned to the group, "Listen. I know that some of you weren't the best of friends with Facade, but he saved us, and it is our duty to find out what these 'Elements of the Ancients' are, what they have to do with us, who these invaders are, and most importantly, save Facade from them. And I have a feeling that the best place to get these awnsers, is to either go to Canterlot and have the Princesses tell us, or find out where they are taking Facade, because if we are these so called 'Champions', they are probably going to take him to their leader."
"Canterlot?! That place has probably been destroyed!" Edge said, "I know that we should save Facade but going there is a real risk taker!" Edge paused and looked at the group he noticed something different. He thought hard and noticed the 3 ponies missing (Not including Facade) " Has anypony noticed where the hay is Zephyr and Brave?" Edge questioned.
Brave "So, Zephyr" The unicorn said with a really obvious and sarcastic tone, in front of the group of ponies that escaped, surprising them. The pegasus was right behind him. "I wonder, why are we here? It is not like there's anypony to rescue, you know. Not like we're risking our lifes to save some bunch of friends. I mean, nobody needs our help, right?" He looks at the blue stallion with expectation. He seemed to understand what Brave Cape was doing, and all he could say was: Zephyr "Yep." Although a short answer, Zephyr's face was a clear sign that he felt the very same Brave felt. Then, he sighed. Brave "You know, we weren't going to abandon you or anything. If you had waited for us to come, maybe..." He looked in between the ponies, accounting all of them but one. "... Maybe Facade would be here still. But no, you guys had to make a run for it. After all, you're on your own!" He sighed again. There wasn't enough time for ranting, but he felt frustrated. He reflected for a moment, then trotted to a point three meters away from the rest of the group. Brave "Canterlot is too far to teleport to, but it is this way. If you catch my hint." He then started galloping anew. Brave "These ponies..." ((Since I keep taking control of you, Zephyr, you have the same right to do the same.))
"Wait!" Dark yelled to Brave to grab his attention, "I know that Canterlot may seem like a safer bet than following them to their leader, but if we do, we might be able to not only rescue Facade, but also defeat their leader. And I think I may know a way to get a better idea of what we are looking for." She then trotted over to a nearby pond. She concentrated and her horn started to glow, then the pool shifted to a complete darkness before it clarified into a picture of a castle in a land that none expected. It was a surprisingly green land surrounding a blueish-black castle with a busy town surrounding it. It zoomed into the castle and appeared inside a great hall, with a massive ornate throne at the end of it, with a smaller, plainer throne next to it. There was two ponies, each sitting at each of the thrones. The picture zoomed in on the larger of the two and they could start to here a conversation that sounded echoy and distant at first before clarifing. "Now, my little brother, with most of our lands restored to us and the barriers about to fall, it is only a matter of time before I am able to defeat my rebellious sister and restore us to the throne." said the larger of the two. "Yes brother, that sounds great! But what about the Harmony Bringers?" "Don't worry about that little brother, with you by my side, I will finally be able to rule without worry of my sister using those damn Elements of Harmony and expelling me from my own lands again, even without my own Elements. But, if and when I regain control over my elements, nothing could even hope to challenge us." and once he had finished his sentance, a servant came in, balancing a plain looking box on his back, "Sir! the last of the Elements have been found!" and the servant proceded to open the box before the larger pony. The box let lose a bright shine, "Good, good. Both Light and Divine Rule in one, now my brother, I can have the barriers torn down before me!" "But brother, we don't have any of the Champions with us, how are we supposed to use the Elements?" "Oh, but we do, Heculius, you don't think I didn't learn my lesson from last time? Of course I myself can't use them as that would make me so powerful, it is likely that the surrounding area would explode when I came near, so I went with the next best thing." Then a shadow raised from the box and a strangely crown-like object landed on the smaller pony's head. "You, my brother. You are to represent the most powerful and probably most useful of all the elements." "But... Tremalion." "No buts, my brother, now, we have a kingdom to take back." and then the picture dissapeared as Dark collasped from exhaustion. "That sounds very bad." said Snow.
Facade laid on the ground gagged, bound, and bruised with several officers looking down on him. Once the officers found he was the source of the commotion they had quickly surrounded him. He tried to talk them down but there anger made them immune to his words as they pounced on him. "Can you believe it? An element of the ancients..." One of the younger officers said in amazement his wings flapping a little. The older officers looked upon with contempt. "Yes. The element of the spoken word. How dare he fight against us when our leader created such powers for him to wield..." He snorted and stomped on Facade's stomach. He groaned and curled up a little tighter. "Het! Careful! We need this pony alive!" A gryphon officer across from him said. He motioned to two pony guards. "Put the prisoner into a carriage and get him to the Capitol. And send a message to the King. Tell him we are transporting a wielder of one of the elements to him" The guards nodded and they trotted off with Facade between them. "And the others?" The officer who had kicked Facade asked. "What about them?" The gryphon officer smiled cruely. "If I know the ponies of Equestria they will try and rescue thier friend. They'll come to us...And we will be ready."
Tremalion and Heculius stood at the head of a small but elite army, in front of them was the border of Equestria, and on it was the invisible barrier that had kept them out of Equestria for so long, or it at least used to be invisible. Now they could see a thining, diming, multi-colored sheild. "Ah, Equestria, its been too long since I last stepped hoove in your gentle and green lands. Now your usurper of a ruler shall be punished, Brother! You know what to do!" Heculius nodded, and the strange crown glew, then fired a bright purple beam of light at the barrier. At first nothing happened, then barrier started to glow brightly, before finally shattering into billions of peices of magical bits that quickly dissolved. "Now my Brother, we may rule the lands that our father intended us to!" and the army marched forward. Dark jerked up from her sleep. Around her were her friends, all sleeping like rocks.They were quietly following the wagon they had put Facade in through the forest, staying just behind it, but far enough to where they couldn't be seen. These was the first night they had stopped, so they decided to take advantage of it. Dark was worryed, for if her dream was true, that means they may already be too late to stop Tremalion. (Hey guys, I probably won't be able to post for awhile, so don't go too far without me, and you can take over Snow and Dark if need be)
Brave Cape carefully watched the enemy camp a bit more. Then he quickly returned to where all of his companions stood, and laid the formation: Brave "They're not too many, most are sleeping and there are many breaches. Facade should be easy to rescue." Everypony breathed again as he finished detailing his observations. But... Brave "It is awkward though. It really is. Something is just not right... For instance, I tried to use my aura spell, and it didn't display anything. Even though I could see our enemies right in front of me, my third eye couldn't. And yet, it can see you. I know we're short of time, but we must have some precaution... What will we do?"
Firebreeze stood up, he was impatient and truly didn't care for Facade, but if he was needed, so be it. "Lets try and sneak around or something. If they're asleep, it should be easy as cake!"
Dark looked around, she hadn't told the group about her dream, but she had confirmed that Tremalion and his brother have in fact entered Equestria. That meant they would absoultely have to get Facade back and somehow convince that Heculius to join them against his brother, which wasn't very likely. She looked at them, "Guys, we really need to rescue Facade. I say, we slip in, get Facade, stir up some trouble and leave ASAP. Does that sound good?"
"Ok lets start!" Edge said, "I will distract them with my powerful magic and you guys can get Facade," Edge got up his thorny bush and slowly crept up to the sleeping army he smiled and used his magic to grab four swords held by multiple soilders on the ground and started to slice everything up they quickly started to yell and scream and Edge tried to hold them off letting his group get Facade.
Firebreeze kicked the back door of the wagon open and saw a sleeping Facade, "wake up, Talky! Time to go!"
Snow looked around, seeing her friends get Facade out of the wagon he was in, and when they turned away, made a huge flash of light that blinded anypony looking at it. "Come let's go before it wears off!" she yelled and they galloped out of there.
The group was able to get away from the enemy troops and find a good place to sit down and talk about what to do, "ok, we've got Talky, now what?"
(Dang! I missed it...Well I guess I can't type up my counter-attack then.) Facade opened his eyes the moving and noises jolting him awake. He blinked in slight surprise when he saw the group around him. He noticed they had taken his gag off which he was a little grateful for. But he was a little confused on something. "You guys got me back so quickly? Did some pony go back to Canterlot and gather the army that we need?"
Dark looked at the group with dismay, not from having to deal with Facade's inccesant talking, but she knew she had to tell them, "Guys, I've been holding back a little information from you. You see, I had a dream where I saw Tremalion and his brother destroy the barriers keeping them out and march right into Equestria! And I later confirmed this using a remote viewing spell, at this right, if we don't start to try to cut them off, they will reach Cantelot within a few days, and they win! We need to start heading east immediately!"
Facade's eye twitched. "You didn't go to Canterlot? You went after me first?!" Facade face hoofed. "You played right into there hands! Why do you think that wagon was so pathetically undefended? I told Snow to go to Canterlot first!" Facade shook his head. "This is what I feared. You ponies and your empathy."
Brave Cape "I told you Snow... Maybe we can get there using a teleportation spell? I know it is very far, but we can still try! Just... Let it all out!" Brave began focusing his magic.
Firebreeze hit Facade in the back of the head, "Quiet, Talky. Feel lucky we decided to save your sad butt!"
