Swartt Sixclaw sat roasting a mackerel by the fire, far down on the tideline, close to the rocks. He had not been able to capture the mountain. He was used to fighting woodlanders, but his horde couldn't handle the magical creatures. Those griffons and dragons had turned the tide of battle against him. Sunflash would probably have already killed Swartt by now if the ferret hadn't kept hiding behind his vermin soldiers.

Now the groups of hordebeasts crouched around their fires, too weary to do anything but eat, sleep, or lick their wounds. Swartt stared up at the rock, racking his brain for a solution. Within the next hour it presented itself, when Nightshade came up to him with a pink unicorn.

"Lord Sixclaw, you recall how you said that it was only the magic beasts that were standing between us and victory? Well, what if we had a magic creature on our side?"

Swartt looked at the unicorn. "Where'd ya find dat t'ing?" he snarled.

"She is called Starlight Glimmer. She is not of our horde. I do not know where she comes from, but you would be wise to listen to her offer."

"Awright, tell me why ya came here," Swartt said to Starlight Glimmer.

"I hear you've got an enemy," Starlight said.

"Are you offerin' ta kill 'im for me?"

"Well, I imagine you'd like to kill him yourself, with your own paws," the unicorn replied. "But of course you can't because he's much too powerful for you."

Furiously Swartt knocked her to the ground and pressed his switchblade to her throat. "Nobeast is more powerful dan me, Swartt Sixclaw. I oughta kill ya right now!"

Starlight Glimmer remained quite calm. "Oh, I don't think you'll want to kill me when you hear my plan. How would you like it if I took you back in time to a past in which your badger was still a child, and you could kill him without any trouble?"

Swartt straightened back up, his eyes shining. "You can do dat?"

"Oh, yes," Starlight answered. "There is a spell invented by a unicorn magician that can transport one back a week. But I've discovered how to modify the spell so that you could travel years into the past! I was planning to travel back in time to get my revenge on Twilight Sparkle and her friends in Ponyville." At the sound of the name Ponyville, Swartt growled, remembering his defeat there. "From what your vixen tells me, it sounds like the time period I want to go back to would be a good time for you to travel to and kill the stripedog as well. So what do you say? Have we got a deal?"

The Warlord nodded his head in admiration. "Da job's yours."

"Excellent," Starlight Glimmer said. "I'll find you when the spell's ready." Then she vanished, melting into the night.

Swartt threw the vixen a roasted mackerel. "Good work, at last you've done somethin' right. Stripehead is as good as dead, I'd say. Oh, when we get back from da past, ya know what ta do wid her."

"Oh, yes, Lord. I know exactly what to do!" Nightshade replied.