//------------------------------// // The Battle of the Common // Story: Friendship is Revolution // by ultiville //------------------------------// As soon as she hears the horrible screech again, Applejack knows, with the certainty of watching an old tree teeter and fall, that Twilight's shield won't be able to hold, that it's just a matter of time. "Rachel," she calls to the human next to her, "those speakers are makin' a noise only we ponies can hear, it's gonna drive Twi' crazy. I don't reckon she'll be able to hold the shield. Soon as it's gone, I'm making for those big machines that make it. Pinkie, you come too. What do we need to know? Why're they wearin' those weird masks?" "They're gas masks," Rachel says, "I've got one, but I don't think it'll fit you. Probably means they're planning to use tear gas. It's made from concentrated spice and makes you miserable, it's nonlethal but they use it to disperse crowds like this, it's pretty much incapacitating." "Okay then Rainbow," Applejack says, "think you and Fluttershy can make us a nice wind, maybe blow it away?" Rainbow just smirks at her and takes to the air. Nearly instantly the breeze starts to pick up, ruffling the hair and clothes of the humans who stare at the increasingly blurred forms of the pegasi, jaws slack. "That should help the rest of y'all," Applejack continues, "but we'll be goin' into the thick of it Pinkie. We've just gotta hope earth pony grit'll get it done. You gonna be ok with the noise?" Pinkie just grins and produces massive earphones from her saddlebag, plugging them into her phone. "Why didn't we get those for everypony?" Applejack starts, but time's clearly running short. The wall black-armored humans are pressing against the barrier with their shields now, and she can see the energy dancing across the surface as Twilight feeds it magic. "Allrighty then," she says, but can barely hear herself over the white noise, the sound of the straining shield, and the heavy thrumming of the helicopters. She gives it up as a bad job and just looks over at Rachel, who pulls out a club and nods back. She tenses her legs and prepares for the worst. Around her the bravest of the human protesters have assembled. Many of them have torn their signs from their poles and are wielding the wooden sticks, a few have scrounged heavy branches from the ground, and a few more are just brandishing fists. All of them form a line around Twilight and the others that mirrors the line of SWAT officers pressing against the shield. Between their apparent inexperience and lack of equipment, Applejack would trade any three of them for a guardpony, but at least they look enthusiastic, and she hopes the humans will continue to underestimate the ponies based on their size and lack of weapons. Just as Rainbow's winds kick into high speed, blowing trash, loose papers, and discarded signs around the perimeter of the park in a weird cyclone, one of the massive human vehicles runs headlong into the shield to Applejack's left; she looks up in shock, but can't see anyone in the driver's seat. The heavy impact proves too much for Twilight, and the shield wavers and vanishes, letting the vehicle crash through, scattering protesters and attackers alike as it tips over in the park, digging a deep furrow in the grass. All along the line, SWAT officers pull out tear gas grenades and toss them towards the park, but they're caught up in the artificial storm that has the protesters at its eye, and spiral into the air, scattering white trails like clouds into the swirling wind. They pause for a moment, apparently confused, and then charge through the growing cloud, shields raised. A few think to throw again after they pass into the eye, but the protesters have already begun to counter-charge. A few canisters go wide, a few more are caught and thrown into the cyclone by the defenders, and Rarity manages to snag several from nearby them in magic, tossing them into the vortex. Still a few land in the park, sending the rear ranks of the protesters scrambling away, and Applejack's eyes water just from the few fumes that escape into the still air around her. Still she gallops forward, Pinkie keeping pace despite the fact that she's more dancing than running, in time with whatever beat is playing through her excessively large headphones. Ahead the funnel looks like a true twister now, swirling and white, though the cloud isn't totally opaque, but she knows the clouds aren't harmless water, but rather painful incapacitating gas. Before that hurdle, though, the grim line of human attackers advances to meet them. Their human allies are charging enthusiastically behind them, but Applejack and Pinkie are faster. She considers slowing to let them catch up, but doesn't think there's much chance Pinkie will do the same. She hopes that if a whole section of the line collapses on them, the protesters will at least be able to take advantage of the confusion. As she approaches, though, it looks like the officers are more interested in holding ranks than swarming the two ponies. Since they're expecting a full-on assault, it's a reasonable plan, but Applejack knows all she has to do is break through. The noise and chaos of battle are already growing around her, the noise clearly indicating protesters and police have met elsewhere in the park, but she's tunnel-visioning on the few humans in front of her, now growing very near. They raise their shields to chest height, ready to block the expected attack. Applejack's approaching a shorter but scrappy looking woman, who raises her club behind her, ready to sweep down after deflecting the initial blow. At the last minute, though, she swerves to face the largest man she can see. Quickly, before she can lose all momentum from her gallop, she feigns a jump. He raises his shield, ready to stop her hooves from planting on his chest, and then she goes low, sliding along the park's grass, the rough earth painful on her belly. She pulls her head as low as she can, hoping it'll be enough, and lets the inertia from her gallop bring her between his large, planted legs. As she feels herself slowing, she plants all four hooves, just like she's done a thousand times in rodeo practice, and throws her hindquarters up under him in a blue-ribbon ponybuck. Despite his weight, he's caught completely off guard, and tumbles left, knocking the officer next to him heavily to the ground in a tumble. Applejack feels a club fall on her withers, but it's a surprised, impromptu blow, without considered force behind it, so it smarts, but has nowhere near enough force to stop her. Rather than striking back, she takes to her hooves again, powering towards the cloud at a frantic gallop. Pinkie's keeping pace again with her casual-seeming bouncing pace, and she's just as happy she didn't see how the party pony arranged to get through the lines, for the sake of her sanity. Several of the officers turn to pursue them, but even an unencumbered human can't keep pace with a pony over a short distance, let alone one with a shield and armor. They fall behind, and then Applejack sees the mob of protesters engulf them, their ordered line rolling up at the point she broke through it, degenerating into a melee that would have made Discord proud. Then her time's up. She can feel her nose twitching in irritation at the leading edge of the tear gas cyclone. She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and tries not to breathe at all. Her nose and eyelids still feel on fire, and tears roll down her face. Even her coat feels itchy and loose on her bones and muscles. She nearly cries out, but barely stops herself from taking the breath that would fill her lungs with liquid fire. She holds her breath as long as she possibly can, lights dancing before her slammed-shut eyes, then comes to a stop and takes a deep, halting breath, hoping to taste sweet air. She does, and opens her eyes. The swirling cloud is well behind her now, and through the misty barrier she can see utter chaos reigns in the park, but now she's standing on the street between two APCs. The piercing noise is sharp and urgent here, coming from two large speakers, one on each side of her, apparently moved free of the vehicles. Pinkie's next to her, smiling, of course. "Mmmm, spicy," she says, licking her lips. Applejack can't help but snort to suppress a giggle. She's about to tell Pinkie to take the left speaker when her friend leaps unexpectedly away from her, eyes widening. An angry red line appears across Pinkie's side, accompanied by a bang and the stench of fireworks. Reflexively, Applejack leaps for cover behind the speaker to her right, and Pinkie staggers behind the one on the left, trailing droplets of blood across the pavement. "Oh dear, that looked bad," Mr. Gray's voice cuts through the screech from the speaker, "you should probably get that looked at. Come out now and I promise I won't hurt you further." "Yeah, buck that and you," Applejack grumbles, making sure the speaker's well between her and the voice. She glances at Pinkie and mimes bucking the massive device behind her. Pinkie smiles thinly and nods. Applejack turns her rear legs towards it, and locks her eyes on Pinkie's. Her friend staggers to her hooves and manages to mimic the pose. Pinkie nods once, twice, thrice in order, then near-simultaneously both of them rear up and slam their hooves into the speakers behind them. Applejack knows exactly how much force it takes to knock every apple from each tree on Sweet Apple Acres, and even with her earth pony connection to growing things, the answer is "a lot". Because of this, she rarely uses even that much force in combat - it's rare she wants to kill her opponents, after all. But this speaker is massive, and she doesn't want just do damage it, she wants to ruin it. She wants to make sure that Twilight will be able to end the battle, decisively, with her magic, before they can fix whatever's wrong with it. So, for the first of her countless kicks in her adult life, Applejack just lets go. She feels her muscles pour power into her hooves, feels the fire in her bones as her magic joins it. Her hooves slam into the reinforced metal side of the speaker, and she worries for a moment they'll punch through, tangling her legs. Luckily, though, the humans have reinforced the device, clearly prepared for it to take a beating. But while it's equipped to deal with a sudden sharp shock over a small area, and the metal side now merely sports a massive dent, it isn't made to deal with the follow through. The sustained force of the kick sends the massive machine clear of the ground nearly to the height of Applejack. Through the momentary gap she can see Mr. Gray's shocked face; he was moving up behind the speaker, pistol ready, and now finds it heading towards him as an unintentional projectile. She sees the gun drop from his shaking hand and then the speaker slams down again, either between them or on top of him, she can't tell. The noise stops as the flight causes the cord to tear the power source out of the speaker completely, and there's a spray of sparks as the bottom hits the pavement at an odd angle and one edge slides along. Then, finally, the whole massive box teeters and falls to its side on the street with a crunch of bending metal and failing electronics. Applejack nods grimly at its ruin. Pinkie, injured, didn't manage quite the same blow, but she hit her speaker hard enough to sever the power cord, and at least now it's fallen silent. Now only the speakers in the helicopters still sound, distantly from here. Applejack's eyes snap back to the rubble, where Mr. Grey is crawling unsteadily towards his gun. She rushes forward and gets there first, crushing it under her hoof. "Y'all'd best be givin' up now," she says. Urbane affection gone, Mr. Gray only snarls at her. Quicker than she'd have imagined possible for a creature his size, he's pulls a wicked looking knife from his belt and lunges at her. She leaps back, and manages to knock the blow aside with her hoof, but she was caught off guard, and he recovers quicker, lunging at her in a series of wicked thrusts she barely manages to turn aside or avoid. Where previously her opponents overconfidence has worked against them, Mr. Gray is serious and angry now, and his knife and arms give him a serious reach advantage over the pony, despite her strength. She thinks a slice or two won't kill her, but she's never been entirely comfortable with just thinking she won't be killed. Twice more he thrusts at her, and both times she barely manages to avoid it, but she's giving ground. The sparking ruin of the speaker is close behind her now, and she's not sure where to go. When he comes this time, she rears back instead, and tries to bring a hoof down on his hand or blade as it's extended, but he's too fast, and she lands heavily, dangerously overexposed. He draws back to thrust the knife towards her head, and she doesn't think she'll be able to pull back in time. Mostly she hopes she'll get clear enough to catch it on her muzzle, rather than her crown or eye. Then Mr. Gray falls heavily in front of her, knife tumbling from his fingers, as Pinkie Pie half jumps, half collapses on his back with a yell. He turns to wrestle her off, fumbling for the knife with his other hand. Applejack's first hoofblow shatters the hand. She's pretty sure the second, to the head, just knocks him out, but she finds herself hard-pressed to care. She comes down to all four hooves again, breathing heavily. "Y'okay there sugarcube?" "Yeppers," Pinkie says, without much of her usual enthusiasm. "Just need a cupcake or two and I'll be all ready go party again!" "Maybe a bandage'd do better," Applejack scowls down at the still oozing wound in her side. She tears off a few long strips of Mr. Gray's shirt with her mouth and starts tying them around Pinkie's barrel. "Yeah, that might be good too. What next?" "You're gonna stay right here and eat those cupcakes. I won't have you openin' this up again out there. I'm gonna make sure they can't get this other speaker back in action and go help our friends in the park." Pinkie droops a little, but nods. "Listen up, I think I've wrecked these, but Twi' needs them all gone at once, and I can't get to the ones in the air. If they bring these back before Rainbow or Fluttershy can take those out, we're sunk. You'll be here to rest, sure, but if Mr. Gray here moves a muscle you hit him hard, and if anyone else shows up, you hit them too, you hear?" Pinkie nods. "Can I hit him anyway?" Applejack nuzzles her. "You don't really wanna do that do ya, sugarcube?" Pinkie hesitates, then shakes her head. "Good. I know he's a right nasty piece o' work but we got him good already. Let's make sure all our friends are safe, and leave the nastiness to his lot." Pinkie nods again, and this time nuzzles back with a small smile. "Thanks AJ. Go kick some flank." Applejack pauses to send a full buck into the less-damaged speaker, shattering the internal structure, then prepares herself for the plunge through the tear gas vortex again. Well Rainbow Dash, I hope you've got a plan to take down those flying machines. Rainbow Dash is looking for a plan to avoid getting shot. Right now, like most of Rainbow Dash's plans, it involves going faster. Pulling the tear gas up into a vortex was child's play, of course, for a future Wonderbolt, Ponyville weather leader, and in generally awesome pegasus. But what she hadn't realized was that the humans in those big flying machines were carrying guns, which they were now using to fire on her. She's already told Fluttershy to break off and rejoin Twilight on the ground, and she's confident her speed will make it impossible for the humans to get a bead on her with their light weapons. Of course, now she's not sure what to do from here. Sometime, even her wings are going to get tired, and if she stops on her circular pattern to charge one of the airships, she's not sure they won't hit her before she can get to them. So, because she's the Rainbow Dash, she starts beating her wings harder and harder. As she gains speed she has to widen her circle a little bit, sweeping the edges of the park clear of trash as it's drawn into the misty cyclone of refuse and tear gas, and the helicopters follow, hoping finally to get a reasonable shot. All going according to plan. She's pretty sure, anyway. She hopes. The fighting's nearing Twilight, and still the resonance from the helicopter speakers is bouncing around her head and horn, ruining her advanced spells. She hates having to stand back like this and stall for time, but she knows the superior training and armament of the SWAT teams will tell if she can't eventually bail them out. Already several large clouds of tear gas drift across the park, and fewer and fewer of the protesters are still on their feet. Between the shields, armor, and superior weapons, far fewer of their enemies are out of action, though she's proud to see Rarity still standing proud with a group of protesters around her. One of her human guards shoves her back against the base of the statue. "They're coming, Princess. Stay behind us." She just nods, and they fan out in front of her, staves at the ready. The wooden weapons look hopelessly outmatched by the high-tech armor and large plastic shields of the SWAT officers, and Twilight fully expects to be engaged herself before long. Fluttershy's next to her, looking, as usual, scared, though Twilight has every faith that when it comes down to it, she'll never leave. A group of six SWAT officers wins through, and her three guards move to engage them. The guards, she has to admit, and seem to be dancing rings around the shields and shorter clubs of their enemies, but as expected, even the heavy wooden sticks don't seem to be able to land much of a telling blow on the solid, armored humans. Well, Twilight thinks, I may not be able to win the battle, but I'm not powerless yet. Fighting through the pain, she channels just a little energy through her horn into the staves, and each of their tips glows. It's a simple version of the energy bolt she learned as part of her princess training, like she used against the tatzlwurm. Sending the blast as a beam's too much for her to sustain for long, but keeping it focused on a few points is much simpler. The next blow the guard lands delivers a jolt like a taser, and the officer falls to the ground, only slightly more stunned than the guard that landed it. All eyes snap to Twilight, and the attackers renew their efforts to break through, twirling into a dizzying storm of doges, strikes, and shield blocks with the guards. Two officers fall, then the first guard goes down heavily after a strong kick to the leg. The other two guards tighten ranks, but two more SWAT officers approach and manage to slip by the fracas. Twilight braces to get her hooves dirty again; she's worried she's rusty after relying on her alicorn magic for so long. She feels Fluttershy's coat against her as he friend leans into her, giving or taking comfort, or both. She lowers her head threateningly, a nearly instinctive posture, since she knows full well it's been several geological epochs - and probably at least one technical speciation - since unicorns used their horns in physical combat. Nonetheless, she braces herself. Then, from the twirling cyclone on the edge of the park, a burst of prismatic light erupts, bathing the combatants in disco-color. Twilight's never been this close to a sonic rainboom before, and the force of the magic knocks her to her knees. Fluttershy shrinks down beside her. The humans are even less prepared, though, and all around they're thrown from their feet, dropping their weapons, or simply gaze awestruck at the sky, conflict forgotten at the sight. The helicopters, caught in a plane with the explosion itself, are less lucky. The wave of magic washes over them, staining them for a moment in color, and then the electronics all go dark at once. Desperately the pilots struggle with the purely mechanical backup controls, trying to keep the vehicles from slamming disastrously into the park below. Fortunately or unfortunately for them, their ultrasonic speakers have cut off as well, and the failing craft are caught in the rising tide of Twilight's returning magic, deposited safely on the cleared streets around the park. Next to the statue at the center of the park, Twilight hovers, glowing like a star come to earth, violet and white. She sees most of the battle spread out before her, bathed in the flickering lights of her newly-returned power. She wonders what she can use to separate enemy from friend and expel only the former - perhaps something about their gas masks? She begins to compose an impromptu spell. Then it proves unnecessary. All across the park, the SWAT officers look upon her floating, incandescent form, and break. A few gather up the presence of mind to collect fallen friends or retain their equipment, but most simply drop everything and turn tail, running heedless into the deepening night. The exhausted protesters watch them go, and gather up the injured. In dribs and drabs, all of them make their way to the statue, and the light of Twilight's floating star. "See," Rainbow dash says, landing next to Mary, "going fast. Never fails."