Episode 69: The Really Dirty Dozen - Finale
Quick warning: there's a part here that was inspired by a scene from ‘Once More into the Fray’ a comedic fanfic retelling of Mass Effect by 1991Kira.
Check it out if you like Mass Effect and want some laughs mixed with a bit of drama, but also be warned; the scene in question (while played for laughs) might mean that I should include the 'Gore' tag for what Star Wing does when she's pushed too far. 
Please let me know your thoughts on if that tag should be included; your feedback is always a huge help to me.
And, of course, huge thanks to AstralFlare42 for his OCs Astral and Shade. They're going to get some pretty big roles going forward, and I appreciate all the help he's given making sure they make an impact.
Mere minutes earlier…
Star Wing collapsed in an exhausted heap, feebly stirring as Shade and Sombra regarded the tale she had revealed of the Father of Monsters.
Shade scratched his chin as he pondered all that had been revealed. “So, Grogar wasn’t just the Father of Monsters.”
“I’ve heard of the first Emperor of Equestria before,” Sombra admitted. “He sounds like someone that will take our rightful places as Kings of Equestria and the Dragon Lands. While we rule over simple scraps, he would take the full bounty.”
“Even so,” Shade noted. “If he was gratuitous enough, he’d let us be his puppet rulers. We’d be able to do whatever we want as long as he’s content.”
Sombra narrowed his eyes. “I’m no puppet ruler. I will not toil under the watch of another. And if you intend to awaken that beast and deny me my rightful claim…”
“Your claim to rule is as weak as you are,” Shade refuted, darkness flaring around his claws.
As the two dark lords argued, Dark Spike stepped up to Shade’s side, ready to defend his lord… but also leaving Trixie free to finally release Swift.
“Well done, my lass,” Good Diamondback whispered.
“Why couldn’t you have freed me first!?” Dark Diamondback whispered, before sighing. “It’s because I’m the evil clone, isn’t it?”
“Be patient,” Trixie replied. “The Great and Powerful Trixie can do more than freeing just one.”
Good Diamondback nodded. “And Swift will make sure she has the time.” She looked to the griffon-dragon hybrid. “Won’t you?”
Swift nodded, gazing in concern at Star, who seemed to barely notice the dark lords arguing above her.
“You can’t help her if you don’t get the others,” Diamondback reminded him.
“I know,” Swift whispered. “It just… hurts. Seeing her like that. Knowing she wouldn’t be there if I was stronger.” He looked down. “Maybe Hawk was right about me. Maybe…”
But before Diamondback could try to assuage his grief, Trixie tried to get Cozy free. Dark Diamondback gasped.
“Wait, stop…!” she hissed, but Trixie had already reached out to Cozy Glow… and encountered a familiar aura of magic.
Trixie pulled back, but her mistake had been made. Cozy whirled on Trixie, and her eyes flashed green.
“LORD SOMBRA!” Cozy bellowed like an alarm. “LORD SOMBRA! THE PRISONERS!”
Their captors whirled around just in time to see Swift take to the air.
“STOP HIM!” Sombra boomed.
Shade blasted dark magic crystals towards Swift while Dark Spike threw his sword in a desperate attempt, but the griffon-dragon dodged and made it out into the canopy.
“HELP SOMEBODY HELP!” he cried out. “You guys gotta help! Star Wing, Diamondback, Cozy and Trixie, they’re over here! Shade Fang and Sombra are with them!”
Sombra swore and fired another spell, but as Swift dodged it, Dark Diamondback swung her bound legs and knocked Cozy out with a brutal swipe.
Good Diamondback gasped in horror, but Dark Diamondback snarled. “She blew our cover,” she snapped. “I should have known Sombra’s spy would’ve had something like that.”
“Sombra’s…” Diamondback stammered.
“Spy?” Trixie finished. She stared at the unconscious filly. “Why does that make so much more sense than it should?”
Dark Spike didn’t give her time to consider it, as he rushed her and drove her back from the still bound captives. As Trixie fled from the dark version of Spike, screaming all the way, Shade advanced on the two Diamondbacks, while Sombra kept firing spells at Swift, determined to take him out of the sky.
Shade summoned his scythe. “I think we should get rid of you two. To both weaken our enemies and to get rid of a failed clone.”
Dark Diamondback glared at him while Good Diamondback frantically worked her still strong bonds. But before Shade could act on his words, the foliage burst apart, as the full might of Equestria’s united forces bore down upon them.
Astral and Shade glared each other down. Anger and frustration at Shade putting everyone he cared about in trouble shined on Astral’s face, while fury that Astral could control the power of the ancient dragons wrote itself across Shade’s features. No need for words was needed; they drew their weapons.
As Dark Spike leaped to defend his master from Astral, Sombra’s eyes fell on Star Wing.
As did Luna’s. “DON’T YOU DARE…!”
But Sombra was fast. And with another spell, he yanked Star’s feebly stirring body over to him, holding her up like a shield.
“DON’T TRY ME!” Sombra bellowed.
“STOP! EVERY ONE STOP!” Luna cried out.
Shade watched as everyone froze. “Cowardly,” he mused. “But effective.”
Astral glared at the cowardly tyrant.
For a tense second, everyone froze, as Sombra’s magic coursed over Star’s body, threatening all sorts of horrific things to the young alicorn.
“Sombra…” Luna hissed with barely contained rage. “If you harm a hair on her head, you’re going to wish that you stayed dead.”
“I’d be more worried about yourself, Princess,” Sombra spat. “I know all about what our last encounter did to you. How you came to embrace the Night.” He lifted Star higher, as her eyes fluttered open… a far brighter green than they had been before. “We could have ruled this world together, you and I.” He glared at Shade. “Now instead, we may all end up living under the rule of Grogar, unless you cooperate.”
Star’s eyes shot open, pure panic on her features. “No…” Her horn lit up. “NOOOO!!!”
An explosion of magic threw Sombra, Shade and Dark Spike back, while making the rest stumble and fall over each other.
As Sombra struggled to recover, Star whirled on him like a wild animal. Before anyone could move, she jumped the dark lord.
And what followed was the most one-sided fight anyone had ever seen in all of their lifetimes.
Despite Astral and Shade’s famous rivalry, even they couldn’t help but stop and watch, stunned, as Star Wing proceeded to tear Sombra apart with her bare hooves, bellowing obscenities that would have given the mothers of countless foals heart attacks at the fear of their children hearing such language. It was easily the most sickening and fascinating thing any of them had ever seen.
Silver Stream clutched her stomach and folded into Queen Novo’s arms, who similarly folded into Queen Sapphire’s arms, who then folded into Jackknife’s arms. Ocellus and Thorax shapeshifted into eyeless, earless rocks.
“Eep…” sounded from somewhere among the dragons, but all of them immediately jumped and looked around.
“Who ‘eep’ed?” Spike asked.
“I swear it wasn’t me!” Smolder insisted.
Spike just hugged her. “It’s okay… it’s okay,” he promised.
Shivering, she leaned against him. “Was it at least… y’know a very dragonly ‘eep’?”
“Yeah-yeah, very dragonly,” Spike assured her.
Twilight backed into Spike’s arms as well. “Spike,” she whimpered. “Remember when I used to think you were a teddy bear?”
“Yeah, you… used a spell to turn me soft and fluffy,” Spike admitted.
“Can I do that again?” Twilight whimpered. “Because I’m going to be having nightmares about this… probably for the next five hundred years.”
Astral ran to a bush and got sick, bad enough to turn back to normal.
Shade, meanwhile, backed away as his thoughts began to fill with a chant: “Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope…”
As for Luna herself… Celestia offered her a wing, but Luna waved it off. “Luna,” she whispered. “You don’t have to…”
“This is what we’re capable of, Tia,” Luna whispered. “I must watch. I must be there for my daughter.” So, she grit her teeth, and just watched the stomach-churning spectacle unfolding before her very eyes.
Several times, Sombra tried to crawl away from the maddened alicorn. After the fourth attempt, however, Star proceeded to rip off his legs and do things that should NEVER be mentioned aloud in polite company.
Finally, after twenty horrifying, mentally-scarring minutes later, Star Wing stood over the dark stain that had once been Lord Sombra, breathing heavily.
Then she turned her gaze to Shade.
Shade turned to Dark Spike. “Time to go, my apprentice.”
Dark Spike nodded, and both of them bolted like rabbits.
Astral, despite feeling weak from the trauma of what he just saw, gave chase.
“Quick, help him!” Rainbow Dash barked, taking off after Shade.
But fear of a Dark Star Wing had given Dark Spike wings beyond wings. And even as the fastest of the bunch went after him, it was unlikely they’d catch up.
Star tried to follow, only to nearly fall flat on her face before Luna and Spike caught her.
“Whoa, easy, Wing!” Spike said. “You went through a lot.”
“Have to… stop him…” Star mumbled, her voice unnaturally dark and deep for someone normally so chipper.
Luna was going pale. “No,” she said. “You need rest.”
“Y-You don’t understand…” Star insisted. “Grogar… he… he knows… Grogar…” But the exhaustion from everything she went through took its toll, and Star collapsed unconscious in Luna and Spike’s grasp.
Celestia sighed as Luna carefully looked over her daughter Star. The Solar Princess turned her gaze to Spike and the Young Six.
“I wish that we could take the time to celebrate what you have done for this nation,” she told the six young Element Bearers. “The way we celebrated Twilight and Spike’s friends.”
“To be fair,” Spike noted. “Our celebration kinda got mixed in with Cadence and Shining’s wedding.”
“Indeed,” Celestia sighed. “Unfortunately, this is not a time for parties.”
Pinkie gasped in horror. “It ISN’T?!”
“Are you kidding, Pinkie?” Twilight demanded, pointing to where Shade and Dark Spike had fled. “Sombra may be…” she paused and grimaced before shaking it off, “...but Shade Fang’s the one that brought him back.” She looked at the still unconscious Cozy in sorrow. “We don’t know what he did to her mind… or whether she can come back from it.”
“And now he’s got help,” Applejack agreed.
“Maybe more,” Rarity added. “Depending on who this ‘Grogar’ is.”
Twilight sighed. “If my research is correct, that’s an ally Shade definitely doesn’t need.”
Diamondback’s eyes bugged out as she looked around. “And it’s not the only ally he has right now,” she noted. “Has anyone seen my dark counterpart?”
The others spun, but Dark Diamondback was gone.
##
And that was because she had fled deep into the forest, knocking aside branches and diving through dirt as she fled the utter monster that Star Wing had become.
As Dark Diamondback tripped and hit the ground, curling into a scared fetal position, a pair of paws came into her field of vision.
She looked up, seeing several diamond dogs, gazing on her with unreadable expressions.
Dark Diamondback shivered and cowered before them. “Please…” she whimpered. “Please don’t take me back there.”
One of the diamond dogs - Shiva - looked to the other - Myst. “She was very kind to us.”
“But it was a manipulation,” Myst noted. “A trick.”
“A trick that led to what?” Dark Diamondback sobbed. “My sister betrayed me. My own creator chained me!” She wiped away her tears, and shifted to a sitting position, allowing the diamond dogs to see how much power she had lost; she sat no taller than any of them. “Is this going to be Equestrian Justice? Am I to be executed as my siblings were? Just because of where I came from?”
Even Myst faltered at her words. She had to force out her rebuttal: “How do we know this isn’t another manipulation tactic?”
“It is!” Dark Diamondback admitted. “Because the alternative is death! Is it not a fundamental quality of all living beings that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable?”
“So you’re saying submission is preferable to death?” Shiva noted.
“Yes,” Dark Diamondback admitted, bowing to them. “Do whatever you wish of me… as long as I am allowed to live at the end of it all.”
Shiva and Myst exchanged worried looks. “Diamondback… the real Diamondback…” Myst noted with a glare at the dark counterpart. “She’s not going to like this.”
“Maybe not,” Shiva admitted, before giving Dark Diamondback a look of pity. “Maybe this will come back to bite us…” she sighed. “But I can’t do this. Not when she looks so pitiable.”
Dark Diamondback gazed up at her with pleading eyes. “Please…” she whimpered. “I don’t want to die.”
Myst sighed, turning to Shiva. “This is a mistake.”
Shiva nodded solemnly. “We’ll see.” She turned to the dogs. “Find some strong rope. Bind her up.” She turned back to Dark Diamondback. “We’ll bring her to the others.”
Dark Diamondback shivered in terror, but the terror was waylaid by a brief soothing relief. For now, she wasn’t going to die.
##
Further away, Dark Spike watched as his last remaining companion was taken away by the diamond dogs. He almost moved to help her, before Rainbow Dash flying overhead forced him to retreat back into the burrow he and Shade had found to hide in.
“She’s gone…” Dark Spike whispered. “All my companions… all my… ‘friends?’” He looked at Shade in confusion. “E-Either way… gone. I’m the only one left.”
“Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices to achieve your goals,” Shade replied, checking that the coast was clear before moving to leave.
Dark Spike considered his words, before shaking off his grief, and following his master. “What are your orders, my Lord?”
“First, we’re going to give you a new name,” Shade replied. “Then, we’re going to find the ruins of Tambelon, where we shall awaken the father of all monsters.”
Dark Spike fidgeted. “I-Is that a good idea, sir? I mean… after what Star… er, the alicorn… showed. I… it might not be safe for you, and…”
“Remember, my apprentice,” Shade refuted. “No reward comes without danger.”
Briefly, Dark Spike glanced at where Dark Diamondback had gone, but took a shaky breath, steeling his nerves. He then pressed his hand to his chest. “By your word… my Lord.”
Shade briefly glared at where their foes were still searching for them. “Be prepared, my enemies. For once we find what we’re looking for, nothing will ever be the same.”
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Another excellent job on the dialogue, characterizations, action, general wrap-up for this arc and set-up for the final season. REALLY liked the teamwork going into the prisoners' escapes as well as Star figuratively AND literally ripping into Sombra. And, yeah, the reflection on what was done to Cozy's mind makes a great deal of sense (for this universe). And, yes, Dark Diamondback negotiating for her own life upon defeat makes an immense amount of sense, as does Twilight admitting to the degree of PTSD this adventure has heaped on her. And the stuff with Dark Spike (Thorn seems like it would be a good new name for him) talking to Shade concerning the plans to go to Grogar was some good set-up for later.
Here's hoping that, when Cozy wakes up, she is going to be a lot nicer when she's not under Shader and Sombra's control. Maybe not entirely good but far more mischievous than actually evil.
And, yeah, Grogar getting the idea to create the Legion after Shade tells him how close he and Sombra got by working together sounds like it would make a great deal of sense, as does Grogar freeing Tirek and Chrysalis from Tartarus, resurrecting the Storm King and bringing in the Dazzlings from the human world (for the tactical advantage of having allies that the heroes DON'T know). And then Grogar pointing out that he KNOWS most of them have too big of egos to easily follow orders (with the possible exceptions of Aria and Sonata, who are used to taking orders from Adagio) and would be all too willing to double-cross everybody else at the first real opportunity before using some powerful magic to bring out Celestia's darker side in full effect (basically as an object lesson - if Celestia (who had the dual advantages of knowing the enemies better than any members of the Legion did AND being somebody that the heroes would be much more likely to hold back against) couldn't beat the enemy, then none of them stand a chance on their own. From there, they spend the better part of a year training to learn to work together as a cohesive unit.
But, anyway, definitely looking forward to more of this.
Ok, that whole bit with Spike hugging Smolder who "eeped" is freaking adorable
Holeee crap I do believe canon Sombra got off easy been vaporized in the S9 premiere than this Sombra getting torn to shreds, Star just went Super Broly from the old DBZ movies on him!
No one would hold it against you Smolder for that 'eep, trust me! If anything it was adorable!
As for Shade I can already see his fate sealed when he wakes up Grogar, his days are numbered!
11906228
Oh yeah.
Hence why I was curious if it needed the 'Gore' Tag. Granted, it happens pretty late, but I want to be sure, y'know? Just like when Spike's parents were revealed to have given their lives for Celestia.
And Smolder just learned that it's okay to be adorable, so hopefully she won't beat herself up too much over it.
Oh yeah. Star's anger was born from pure fear of what this version of Grogar's capable of.
Shade has no idea what he's in for when he finds the Father of All Monsters.
Looking forward to sharing what happens when he finds out.
Until then, thanks for reading.
👍
11906213
Thanks.
I was hoping that would work; a nice little bit of chemistry between Spike and Smolder, while also adapting one of the funnier bits from 'Once More into the Fray'.
Thanks again for reading and commenting throughout this journey. The Final Season's going to be starting next week, and I'm very excited to share it.
11906162
Ecstatic that you're enjoying.
Fun fact: all of Star's anger was borne from pure FEAR of what this version of Grogar's capable of. She saw him nearly get loose and is absolutely terrified of what he did in the short time he was free before she managed to seal him back in his tomb. The desperation she's going to have to keep him from getting free again is going to be a major arc of hers in the next season, as she'll even start to consider giving into her darker 'Nightmare Knight' form - her version of Nightmare Moon or Day Breaker - just for a shot at beating Grogar. Which in turn, will play into Grogar's plans, like you said, by having the princesses get corrupted by their own negative emotions.
I also really like Thorn. Good idea on how to use that for Dark Spike. Now I just need to consider a name for Dark Diamondback, since she'll be playing a role as well.
I'll admit, I'm still figuring out what I want to do with Cozy, but I do like the idea that she's more mischievous than evil. I did consider having her struggle with the influence of Sombra's magic even after he's gone, but we'll see where it goes.
Fair warning; I'm planning for Grogar to be a bit different from how he was portrayed in the show.
Since his title 'The Father of Monsters' reminds me of the Greek father of monsters Typhon, I want to give Grogar a similar vibe to him. In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Typhon was feared so much that when he got loose, every major God in the Greek Pantheon dropped what they were doing and went to fight him. And even with all of them working together, all they did was slow him down until Poseidon got the drop on him.
I also want Grogar's forces to include some of the more wild monsters out there. Like maybe he manages to attract Cerberus to his side, with Cerberus freeing Tirek and Chrysalis, along with hydras, cragodiles and other wild animals going to his cause. We could then top it off with him approaching the Dragon Lands and offering them an alliance, since some of them were born from him as well.
I will admit, I forgot completely about the Dazzlings, but now that you brought them up, they would be a perfect addition, and further showcase Grogar's threat level by having him bring together pretty much every enemy that the heroes have fought up to this point - even including Nightmare Moon, Day Breaker and Nightmare Knight as mentioned above with Star Wing going crazy in a failed attempt to take Grogar down - providing the ultimate set up for a final battle.
I'm so excited for the future.
The Final Season is almost upon us, and it's been an amazing journey with your helpful feedback and thoughts. I look forward to seeing what you think of the next episode.
Until then, thank you again for reading.
👍
11906309
Maybe Saphira for Dark Diamondback?
11906309
Let's not forget thePonyofShadows.
11906343
That's not a bad suggestion.
That or maybe Pyrite, since it means 'fool's gold'; a nice contrast to Diamondback being named after valuable jewels?
11906346
Oh yeah, definitely can't forget that.
Especially since I wanted to have it so that my version of the Pony of Shadows is the reason Luna turned into Nightmare Moon.
Maybe the Pony of Shadows can appear to Star and tempt her down the path of darkness, playing on her desperation and fear to corrupt her.