//------------------------------// // How She Got There // Story: Remembering the Fallen // by vren55 //------------------------------// How She Got There Author’s warning: I wrote this chapter with the goal of enlightening what happened to the pegasus, but it turned out MUCH darker than what I anticipated to. I warn you, there is no explicit gore, but it’s harsh about war’s realities... Well I can’t say that since I’ve never been in a war, but I tried to replicate it as much as possible so if by chance any veteran is reading this, please forgive my audacity and feel free to dislike. Expect to feel rather dreary and sober at the end of it because I am not going easy on what she could have felt. I am not putting out a lighter version... so prepare to feel a bit miserable at the end of this. Ponyville... It was late evening when a group of six mares and a dragon sat around a table. Her magic sparkling weakly, Twilight lifted a stack of papers that had been gathered in the centre and straightened it. Her tired eyes roved over the pages as she took in the information they had gathered and the sprawling lines of Fluttershy’s hoofwriting. “I think we have a pretty good idea what happened to that poor mare on the field,” said Rarity. “Just in case, I’ll read aloud the report so that you can correct me. Eh Hem. We know that the War of the Sun and Moon started some time after the disappearance of the Crystal Empire. The accounts disagree why the war started, but they do note that the first engagement took place in the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, also known as the Castle Everfree and that it was between the Day and Lunar Guardsponies. Judging by her armour, our pegasus was in the Day Guard and was possibly at this engagement...” More than a thousand years ago, The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters... Nightmare Moon rose, her cackling laughter resounding through the royal castle; Celestia only able stare in shock and horror as tears streamed down her face. “Luna STOP! Please!” begged Celestia. “We are Luna no longer Princess Celestia! We are NIGHTMARE MOON and from now on, Equestria will be graced with ETERNAL NIGHT!” Lightning flashed and thunder boomed, pronouncing this statement. A female pegasus allowed the slightest hint of fear to flit across her face before she turned to the indomitable form of Guard Captain Burnished Shield. “Protect the princess!” ordered the unicorn. With a surge, unicorns and pegasi formed a golden wall in front of their princess. This defiant move only caused the fallen alicorn to sneer. “Lunar Guard attack!” roared Nightmare Moon. Lunar Guards, in their night-purple armour stormed forward in a snarl, fangs and webbed dragon wings extended. The female pegasus felt her spirit surge as she extended her own wings and lunged forward with her comrades, lance levelled at the ponies, whom only days ago, had dined with her in the same mess hall. Present... “The engagement was inconclusive. Although Nightmare Moon retreated from the castle, most of her forces remained intact. With her supporters, constellation creatures and manticores, she secured most of then southern Equestria, now Fillydelphia and Las Pegasus. After that, there was a lull period. The Day Guard were kept in reserve until the Siege of Stalliongrad, where Celestia led her Guard to attack the weakened Nightmare Moon.” Outside Stalliongrad... Hailstorm, for that was her name, watched in wonder as the garrison of Stalliongrad burst out from the city’s keep and sallied forth, straight into the besieging forces of Nightmare Moon. Their surprise attack tore a gaping hole in the enemy line. Quickly flapping her wings, Hailstorm raced back to the woods outside the burning city. Princess Celestia stood resplendent with the rest of her Day Guard. Her greatsword Solar Flare was strapped to her flank. The entire regiment of Day Guardsponies backed her, shining in their golden armour. Kneeling at the princess’s feet, Hailstorm lowered her icy-blue eyes. "Your Highness, the Stalliongrad ponies are sallying forth in a last ditch assault. They will not last long,” reported Hailstorm. Celestia blinked her eyes in surprise and then nodded. “Thank you Lieutenant Hailstorm, join your company. Guardsponies! Attack!” roared Celestia. Already straining at the bit, the Day Guard galloped and flew as fast as they could, their princess at the head. They charged through the smoking barricades lining the streets, tore past the remains of houses, stepped over the remnants of pony corpses and trampled the dead carcasses of Nightmare Moon’s creatures. Falling from the twilight sky and galloping over the blood soaked ground, they slammed into the rearmost ranks of Nightmare Moon’s forces. Present... “The battle ended in victory for the Day Guard and the remainder of the Stalliongrad ponies. After that, the Day Guard were kept in reserve as Princess Celestia’s elite force. They fought at: Trottingham... Hailstorm dodged a storm of arrows, huddled behind a wall and took a moment to catch a few breaths. “Need a hoof?” chuckled a voice. The pegasus jumped and levelled her lance warily. The Princess had attempted to raise the sun, but moon was still up and the only light now available was a ghostly purple twilight. Though difficult to see through, Hailstorm made out earth ponies crouching beside her. The dark blue surcoats they were wearing were unfamiliar, but the summer sun emblazoned on them supposedly marked them as friendlies. Hailstorm wasn’t taking any chances though. The leader of the group, a sky blue mare wearing a mail shirt and lobster tail helmet, extended her hoof and gave Hailstorm a kind smile. “Sorry we surprised you. I’m White Tower, Colonel of the Stalliongrad Ponies. We’re here to pay back a debt.” Hailstorm smiled back and shook the hoof. “Hailstom, Lieutenant of the 1st Maniple, 1st Cohort of the Day Guard. You’ve come just at the right time!” chuckled the pegasus. Cloudsdale... Hailstorm had weathered seeing her comrades drop beside her like the summer rain; she had faced Nightmare Moon’s creatures and still she had endured. Yet, she wept as Cloudsdale, the city of pegasi and her home, was lit by the flames of Nightmare Moon’s newest creation, Cloud Fire. The vicious white flames leapt from cloud structure to cloud structure, consuming all. Even after the battle, the flames still crackled. Cloudsdale was in ruins. Between that and the shrieks of trapped and dying pegasi, the normally stoic mare’s mask cracked. “And I thought I would have gotten used to this by now,” snorted the pegasus. “Because you’re a pony and not a monster,” said Lord Barbican, commander of the 1st Equestrian Lancers, an illustrious pegasi cavalry wing used to shock tactics. The two officers had been eating their rationed mess meal together. “So many dead... on my hooves Barbican... I keep thinking if I could have saved them... How did you deal with it? The deaths of your comrades?” asked Hailstorm. The pegasus winced, his mistake still a delicate subject to him. “I didn’t deal with it. I was... a shadow of myself for weeks. Until I remembered what I was originally fighting for,” said Barbican with a determined smile. “What are we fighting for? The Princess?” “Indirectly... It may sound naive, but we fight for Equestria, for all living things and for Harmony.” Present... “Our pony could have been involved in any of the battles, but which one specifically, we cannot be certain. What we do know is that she was at the final decisive engagement of the War of the Sun and Moon. That battle actually took place very close to where Ponyville is today and was known as:” The Last Battle... Captain Hailstorm of the Day Guard led her fellow pegasi over the sky, filled with the sound of clashing weapons, horn blasts, battle cries, roars and screams. The ground was littered with lines of disciplined ponies facing the beastly hordes of Nightmare Moon’s creatures. Constellation wolves, manticores, timber wolves, hydras and ursas tore at the unicorn and earth ponies below. The sky was just as chaotic. Gryphons and manticores were locked in the deadly dance of aerial combat against the pegasi defenders. Glancing around to take in the situation, Hailstorm saw that the unicorns and earth ponies were holding out in their defences along the river. The once clear water was now stained with the red blood of manticore and the wooden chips of timberwolves. But in the violet sky, pegasi were falling and bloody pony feathers filled the air. Squadrons of bat winged ponies were speeding through the sky, routing pegasi and slaying any who didn’t follow. The Lunar Guard had been unleashed. Swallowing, Hailstorm turned to the pegasi under her command. Some of them were itching for the fight. Others were shaking in their armour. Hailstorm was just tired and knew she had to say something, but she had never been good at these speeches. Captain Burnished Shield: now that was an inspiring pony. He had fallen at Trottingham, along with so many others on so many other battlefields. Still, Hailstorm had to say something, so she did. “Pegasi of the Day Guard! We cannot let them through! The princess is depending on us to keep them away from the castle! She cannot beat the Nightmare if those ponies get there! I know you are tired, hurt and sick of this bloody cursed war. But please! I beg of you, pegasi of Equestria! One last time, for this last battle, fight! Equestria and Harmony depends on us today and as ponies of the Day Guard, we must lay down our lives for them! For Equestria!” screamed Hailstorm. “For Equestria!” returned the pegasi with a roar and the clattering of shields and arms. “CHARGE!” ordered Hailstorm. The pegasi leapt off their clouds, and with lances levelled, weapons held high, sped toward the Lunar Guardsponies. Hailstorm was at the point of the wedge, heart pounding in her chest as her command closed in upon the enemy. The charge hit home. Armour shattered, breached by lances. Ponies and bat ponies were cut down from the sky. Hailstorm rammed her lance into a sneering bat pony’s face and with a skillful twist of her wings, extracted her weapon and looked for another target. Banking, she ducked a bat pony’s axe swing and barrel-rolled to drop behind him. She just managed to see the fear in his eyes before her lance was buried into his hindquarters, causing him to scream in pain and drop out of the sky. She repeated this pattern for several other opponents, some falling extraordinarily quickly. For others, she had to hover and feint before she was able to bloody her weapon once more. The end came suddenly for Hailstorm. She was seeking another target when out of the corner of her eye she saw something descending behind her. A warning was yelled, she couldn’t really hear it, but she did feel her left wing being shattered by a brutal, spiked mace. Nothing could describe the agony she felt. She couldn’t breathe. Her senses were overtaken by an overwhelming, sharp, paralysing pain that reverberated throughout her body. The pain! It was thrumming, like a piano chord struck by a hammer. She was falling, spinning. She couldn’t control herself. Wind was whistling past her fur, ruffling her mane, dark yellow like a lion’s. Her eyes felt wet. Tears? Were they shut or open? A screeching, rage-filled wail of despair filled the air, overcoming the noise of the wind around her. It was her own voice, but she was too overtaken by the pain to realize it. The scream stopped as the mare dived into the ground with a horrible, nauseating crunch. The pain was still there. All over her body now. A massive ache in her chest and right side; her head felt sore. Her left wing was still on fire and now her right wing hurt as well. Something wet trickled down her left side and her mane felt weird, cold, soaked by something. A sniffle, followed by a sob, turned into a cry as the pegasus burst into tears, from pain and from pure despair. She was going to die. No amount of unicorn magic would save her. Besides, she seemed alone, somehow on the edge of the battlefield, nowhere near any medical staff. The good thing was that she wouldn’t get finished off by some manticore or torn apart by wolves. Hailstorm blinked. The pain was going away. Slowly, but surely, it was replaced by a sort of numbness. Comforting, compared to the blazing hurt that had afflicted her. She looked at the battlefield with wet bleary eyes and just laughed. She didn’t know where they came from, but a horde of buffalo, earth ponies, donkeys, mules, zebra and unicorns had galloped over the ridge to the left of Nightmare Moon’s armies and had crashed down upon them. The monsters were in retreat, frightened by the sudden appearance of reinforcements. The pegasus thought she saw a familiar blue furred, silver maned pony in the distance, leading them forward through her steadily blurring vision. As the battlefield faded away, Hailstorm she saw her mother, father, brothers and sisters. Cloudsdale before the cloud fire had blazed through it. She chuckled as she saw her school days and her days soaring through the sky. Life was good. The pegasus then blinked as she saw her old captain Burnished Shield walking toward her. “Hailstorm it’s good to see you!” Hailstorm was incredulous. Her eyes and ears must have really failed her now or was it the pain? “Hey captain... what are you doing here?” asked the pegasus. “I’m taking you over the hills and over the main! Where there are dark forests, sunny meadows and rolling plains. Get up already!” snorted the unicorn. He wore his usual gruff smile and his armour shone like... the dawning sun. That was something she hadn’t seen in a long time. Hailstorm only looked down at her mangled body, wincing at the sight. “I can’t Cap. I’m down... dying... can’t even move a single bloody feather. I must be the ugliest mare around and the sorriest sight on this bloody field. Damn, I’m so STUPID! After all those battles, I forgot to watch my back and look what happened to me.” “Don’t ever call yourself stupid or ugly Captain Hailstorm. You did your duty to the very end. I’m proud of you lass. Now get up.” Hailstorm snorted, but she tried anyway and to her surprise, she stood on all four hooves, her wings feeling better than ever. She flapped them a few times and they didn't hurt. “Now follow me. The gang’s all waiting for you!” chuckled Burnished Shield. Hailstorm smiled, left her body on the field and followed her captain over the hills and into the dawning sun. Present... The battle ended... in victory. Nightmare’s forces were defeated at the same time as Celestia sealed Nightmare Moon. Our pony seems to have died at the edge of the battlefield, and was never buried like the rest, leaving her body to the elements, which covered her up.” Twilight lowered the report, the six ponies and the dragon had not objected one single time. Rainbow Dash raised a hoof, completely unlike her normal self and Twilight nodded in assent. “Well... what do we do now Twilight?” she asked. The unicorn took a deep breath. A long time ago, she would have contemplated twice before doing what she would do now. However, that was a long time ago and before so many new revelations had been unfolded. “Spike, take a note please.”