Armor's Game

by OTCPony

Equestria, Home and Beauty?

Below a cloudy September sky, the last Hussar alighted atop the Recinante Cliffs. “Last pony, sir!” he barked, saluting smartly and trotting off to join his regiment ranked behind a battalion of green-clad Light Infantry in the rearguard.

Shining Armor dropped his hoof and turned to Colonel Tool Box of the Royal Engineers. “Blow it.”

Tool Box aimed his horn at a trail of powder snaking along the grass and ignited it with a jet of magic. A pulse of flame raced along the trail, leaving a long line of black through the green. The powder trail disappeared down the slope of the switchback path leading down the Recinante Cliffs fifty feet away. The hiss of the burn faded moments later.

Then, seconds later, a thunderous roar filled the air as the burn hit the immense mine of fifty barrels of gunpowder buried under the Recinante Cliffs. A vast cloud of dust leapt up over the cliffs, and then there was a rumble like a stricken giant as an avalanche of shattered rock crumbled into Froud Valley.

Shining Armor waited ten minutes for the dust to settle before he advanced to the edge of the cliffs, now twenty feet away. He nodded in satisfaction. The Great Trunk Road’s path down the cliffs had vanished, transformed into a steep slope of shattered rubble that no creature on four legs – or two – could traverse. Froud Valley was sealed off from the north.

He wondered what would happen to it. The Felinia would certainly not resettle: they had rarely been seen outside the Valley, and the few that were only because their loving and trusting nature had made them excellent willing slaves for the less civilised quarters of Equus. He remembered reading somewhere that after Chrysalis’ attack there had only been a thousand of them left in the entire world. The eggheads had said that that was below the minimum population the Felinia needed to keep their species alive. Ponies might have come to make the forests bloom again; to clear the Kelpie Creek and make it run crystal-clear; to recreate emerald-green meadows and lush orchards, but not now that this whole place had been tainted by the memory of war. It would probably, he thought with a shudder, return to nature.

Unless the humans really are pursuing us...

He said none of that to Tool Box. Instead he smiled at him and said; “Well done, Colonel. Let’s go home.”

***

The Royal Equestrian Army’s march through the Lynx Territories was slow and leisurely. It was much different from their race back from the Bitissippi Delta: there Shining Armor had insisted on silence on the march, silence in camp, and all fires to be put out before sunset. They had almost equalled the pace of their forced march from Valneigh to Maneden. Shining Armor could not believe that that was only two months past. It felt like it had been over a year ago.

The army sang during the day and laughed during the night. But on the dawn of the fifth day of the march, with Mount Grappler slowly disappearing below the horizon behind them, they saw a column of smoke rising into the air before them. A Light Dragoon from the vanguard raced up the line of confused troops and thumped down next to Shining Armor.

“It’s the Lynxes, sir,” he growled. “We ran into one of their pickets. Chieftain Strong Blow wants to speak to you immediately. King Strong Blow, he calls himself now.”

Shining Armor saw his staff exchange glances. They had heard little of the Lynxes since their defeat at the Second Battle of Pawrinth. The rumour from the supply convoys that had been delayed endlessly in their journeys south was that Strong Blow was busy gobbling up the Changelings’ leavings.

“Blackfire, Ration, with me,” he said slowly. He nodded at the Dragoon. “I’ll take your regiment as well. As an... honour guard.”

Flanked by General Blackfire and Lieutenant General Ration Bag, and the 5th (Princess Luna’s Own) Light Dragoons at his back, Shining Armor trotted ahead of his army. The column of smoke rose over a low rise ahead of them, and suddenly a change in the wind blew the full reek of it in their faces. Shining’s step halted and next to him Blackfire retched as a stink of charred bones, cooked meat, burned blood and shattered bowels swept over them. On the wind came screaming. As they crested the rise they were met by a sight that belonged in Tartarus itself.

Pillars of smoke rose from blackened craters that had once been Lynx lairs. They had been smashed open and burnt, their screeching inhabitants cooked alive inside. The few that escaped the flames were dispatched with a quick claw slash and a gout of crimson blood by stripe-furred Lynx warriors.

Corpses coated the trampled grass: not even the charnel house of the Kelpie Creek could have prepared any of them for it. Lynx warriors cackled as they stalked through the carnage, killing at will or plundering trinkets from the lairs. The young toms and queens were dragged away by and strapped into chain gangs. The elderly or cubs-in-arms were slaughtered on the spot. A female Lynx, her coat blackened with soot, staggered around amid the carnage. A laughing warrior seized her with both paws, bent her over a pile of corpses and thrust himself inside her. A queue of cackling warriors formed behind him.

Ration Bag hid his face in a map. “Stalkfang,” he whispered.

The lair we went to war to save, thought Shining Armor bitterly.

“PRINCE SHINING ARMOR!” roared someone jubilantly. They turned to see an ornate chariot, towed by two dozen Lynx slaves taken from other conquered lairs, their eyes downcast, rattling towards them. Atop it, with new-forged golden torcs ringing each foreleg was the stripe-furred Strong Blow, Chieftain of Afleasia.

“Chieftain,” growled Shining Armor.

Strong Blow laughed. “King, they call me now, but the difference between king and chieftain is a small one. My warriors proclaimed my King of All the Lynxes after we lost young Slashclaw. They insisted: somelynx had to build a bulwark against the south.”

The queen being raped let out a high pitched, keening scream as another warrior entered her. “What is going on here?” demanded Shining Armor through gritted teeth.

“Oh, I have been plagued with recalcitrant tribes since I was crowned. Some cub claiming to be a brood of old Stalks Silently thought he’d try to rebuild the Stalkfang lair. I asked only for his homage, but he refused.”

Shining Armor spotted that Strong Blow held a thin chain in his paw. The self-proclaimed king looked down. “Oh yes, I have found this to be particularly effective against any Chieftain plotting rebellion.”

He jerked the chain hard. From behind the chariot shambled six Lynx queens chained together, and at the sight Shining Armor recoiled in horror. But for their faces each one of them had been shaved bare, and a welter of scars that could only have come from a whip coated each of their backs. They hobbled along as if each step was agony for them. They stared at him with dull, lifeless eyes.

“The mates of my first six rebel chieftains,” proclaimed Strong Blow. “I have found I need only turn up at a lair with them behind my chariot and my would-be enemy becomes my best friend.”

Blackfire and Ration Bag’s hooves slowly went to their sword hilts. Shining Armor hastily stood between them and Strong Blow. “We must be on our way. My army longs for home.”

The Lynx Territories’ new tyrant whipped his slaves into motion. “Farewell, Shining Armor. The Lynxes are forever indebted to you!” As he rattled off down the hill, his prizes staggering in tow, a warrior pulled himself from the female Lynx and added her to the mound of dead.

“We should kill these buckers right now, sir,” hissed Lieutenant Colonel Nightfire of the Light Dragoons. He gripped his sword tight. “Every last savage one of them.”

“I want the Life Guards to brigade the army as we march past,” whispered Shining Armor. “I don’t want anypony getting close. It could be a massacre.”

“Sir, we went to war to protect these people!” hissed Ration Bag.

Shining Armor looked back over the desert that had once been a lair, tears in his eyes. “Not from themselves.”

***

“Vinyl.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Vinyl, you’re distracting me.”

“I said I’m thinking.”

Octavia Melody sighed and shut her copy of Hayto’s Symposium. Her colleague-and-flatmate stood on the other side of the coffee table on her much-filthier side of their tiny sitting room. Above a sofa coated with crumpled cardboard cartons filled with the ancient remnants of takeaways, pinned between two posters for bands whose names Octavia couldn’t even begin to pronounce, was sheet upon sheet of reports, photos, and newspaper clippings, all linked by string. It was Vinyl Scratch’s self-proclaimed Mural of Murderous Mystery.

“You’ve stared at that thing every day since we heard Rough Charger died,” said Octavia. “We’ve found nothing. The war’s over, Vinyl. Nopony cares about those guns anymore.”

Vinyl rounded on her, but if she’d tried to fix Octavia with a furious gaze, the effect was ruined by her glasses. “Somepony cared enough to murder our only lead! That’s not just profiteering! There’s something more here.”

“We don’t know that Charger was murdered.”

“Yeah, ‘cause a pony just eats enough taxine to kill four stallions!” Vinyl pointed at the toxicologist’s report on the Mural. “He wasn’t even drunk, and the post mortem said there were no signs of yew in his stomach. Somepony poisoned him.”

“Granted, it’s suspicious, but...”

“He also had twenty thousand in gold under his bed! Somepony was ready to blow a lot of money to make sure he stayed quiet before they had to kill him! Who has that kind of dough?”

Octavia stood and crossed from her own immaculately-dusted-and-vacuumed side of the sitting room to Vinyl’s. “We’ve discussed all this before, Vinyl, but we haven’t found anything. All we can do now is wait for anything new to develop, if anything happens at all.” Her eyes fell on the folded newspaper lying on Vinyl’s couch. “I thought we weren’t buying News Equestria anymore?”

Vinyl looked down sheepishly at that morning’s copy of News of Equestria. “Oh, yeah. Well, it’s got a feature on Shatterhoof, so... yeah!”

Octavia rolled her eyes, wondering why she was surprised that Vinyl would let her addiction for news of her favourite band to override her principles. Then she saw that Vinyl was staring intently at the front page. “What?”

“Look, Tavi!”

Vinyl seized the paper in her magic and held it up to Octavia’s face. She frowned at the picture of the Parliamentarian statesman below the headline. “Yes, that’s Blueblood. I hate him. What of it?”

“Blueblood, Tavi!” Vinyl swung back to her Mural, looking at each of the newspaper clippings pinned there. In everyone about the guns scandal, he was there: Blueblood said in Parliament in response... Parliamentarian spokespony Mr Blueblood... Mr Blueblood today called the ongoing scandal “a national disgrace”...

“You cannot be serious...” said Octavia.

“Think about it, Tavi!” cried Vinyl. “He uses a load of deficient guns to cause a scandal that he’s right there to exploit, and then he offs only pony that can link him to the warehouse! He’s got the money for it, and it’s done wonders for his political campaign! Look!” She seized a brochure for the Trottingham Holding and Storage Company, the late Rough Charger’s erstwhile employer. “He owns the warehouses, for Spirits’ sake!”

“Vinyl, this is ridiculous!” protested Octavia. “No pony outside bad thriller novels hides in plain sight like that!

Vinyl wasn’t listening. “Oh, Celestia! Snowy Grape!”

“What?!”

“An MP just happens to die the same week Blueblood says he’s going to stand for the Parliamentarians, then he wins her seat?! That’s not a coincidence, Tavi!”

Vinyl grinned at her Mural, hastily rearranging strings. After so many fruitless weeks, everything was coming together. We crack this open; we can bury that traitor for good!

“Vinyl!” snapped Octavia, desperate to bring the Unicorn back to a plane of reality. “Even if what you’re saying is true, all this is circumstantial! We can’t go to Amber Spyglass with this. If we tried to start an investigation, it would just look like the Crown trying to discredit Blueblood!”

Vinyl fell silent, and the excitement faded from her face. “So... what can we do?”

Octavia looked down at the picture of Blueblood, smirking at them from the newspaper. “The same thing we were just doing,” she seethed. “Wait for something to happen.”

***

The train seemed intent on rocking Applejack to sleep. Every gentle shake that came with each click-clack as the wheels passed over gaps in the rails was lulling.

She twitched and fidgeted in an effort to clear her head. It wouldn’t do for a Sergeant in the uniform of the Royal Equestrian Army to be seen dozing on the train, not since the rest of her section, scattered across the carriage, had fallen into slumber hours ago. Hayseed Turnip Truck snored on the bench opposite her, a thin line of drool trickling from his mouth. She couldn’t blame any of them really: they’d been on the train since seven that morning after a wild end-of-war party the night before, and had been sitting here for nearly eight hours.

The army had begun to demobilise immediately after it had arrived to a cheering crowd outside Appleloosa five days ago: most of the protesters had dispersed after news that the war had ended had come through, and the hard core of activists had been kept away by Sheriff Braeburn’s deputies. Soldiers had begun streaming out of “Camp Demob”, as the army’s last marching camp had become known, the next morning, with the only guidance from the General Staff being for regiments to spread dispersal over two weeks to avoid swamping the railway network. Officers and staffs would leave last so they could handle medals, pension requests and disciplinary cases. Applejack’s section had left a half-deserted camp that morning and had exited a palisade that had more empty space than tent lines within.

Applejack turned to the window and tried to focus on the countryside to stay awake. She’d found she’d been looking out the window a lot on this journey, far more than she had been on the way south all those months ago. Over the day, the view had given way from the russet sands of Coltorado to the tall white stone buildings of Salt Lick City, to the pale broken crags and screes of the Rambling Rock Ridge, to the rich farmland of the Reinine Valley. Orchards, vineyards and wheat fields flashed past, sunset blazing on them. Every so often the train raced over brooks and streams trickling gently down from the Reinine Range to water the valley. Equestria, thought Applejack happily, not for the first time that day. Home.

She wasn’t sure what she’d done down south, and she wasn’t proud of a lot of it, but she knew that she’d done it to keep this safe. She’d managed to get her entire section out of it alive as well. She didn’t care what some politician or college protester said about it: of that, at least, she was proud.

Applejack yawned and stretched on the hard wooden bench. The army didn’t pay for First Class. Another hour until Ponyville, she reckoned. She cast her eyes around the carriage. Apart from her Light Infantry in green uniforms, she didn’t recognise any of them as having boarded that morning: few ponies from Coltorado made the expensive journey this far north. Some of them smiled and nodded respectfully at her. When they’d taken on passengers at Trottingham, somepony had even raced over to shake Hayseed’s hoof and thank the bemused stallion for his service. Most just kept to themselves, however, reading newspapers and books or daydreaming to pass to journey.

Her eyes fell on the front page of the newspaper an Earth Pony mare across the aisle from her was reading. It was, she noted with distaste, The Baltimare Times, one of Newsprint’s rags. Applejack didn’t exactly make a habit of reading the papers, but she had come to hate News Equestria as much as any other soldier.

The headline sent a twinge of sorrow through her: VICTORY, BUT AT WHAT COST? Applejack had mercifully not had to think about that much. Her section had survived the war without casualties, but the same could not be said of the rest of the Princess C’s: two hundred of its ponies had died since they’d set out to war three months ago. Two hundred houses with darkened windows. Two hundred families for whom Hearth’s Warming would be poorer this year.

And then there were the casualties of the rest of the Army. Applejack had never followed the official casualty list that had been posted every day in the centre of each marching camp, but she knew that Rainbow Dash had made a habit of reading, repeating and memorising every new name.

Applejack felt a lump form in her throat as she read the impersonal figure off the newspaper front page: Seven thousand young stallions and mares had died in Southern Equestria, either in battle or of wounds. Nearly a quarter of the Army had gone through hospitals while on campaign, and of those, four thousand were crippled for life.

It was then that Applejack realised that the mare was staring intently at her. Applejack smiled apologetically and looked away sheepishly, deciding not to steal anymore of the mare’s paper.

Applejack tried to enjoy the scenery again, but she couldn’t help but notice that the mare was still staring at her. A college filly, she guessed, based on her age and striped scarf. She seemed to remember her getting on at Gasconeigh.

After about five minutes the mare stood up and crossed the aisle to her. She was looking right at Applejack, lips pressed tight. She stood over her and spat on her.

It landed on Applejack’s row of medals, darkening the ribbons of her General Service Medal and Southern Star. The college filly walked back to her seat.

Applejack was trembling with shame and embarrassment. The other ponies in the carriage hid behind books or newspapers. Some looked intently out of the windows at the golden fields.

She wiped off the spit as best she could and pretended to go back to looking out the window, trying to control the shaking. The college filly stood up and walked off in a superior fashion to another coach. A small victory.

Applejack wanted to move as far down the train as possible in the opposite direction. To stay there with ponies who had seen what had happened was almost unbearable. But she couldn’t. Not without waking her section. Not with Ponyville so close.

***

Twilight sighed as another five jotters appeared atop the already tottering pile on her desk in a flash of flame. “More?”

“Don’t you complain,” croaked Spike. “You need to invent a better way of doing this.”

Owlowiscious fluttered over and dropped a packet of throat sweets, Spike’s third that day, into the baby dragon’s claw. “Thanks pal.”

“Hoo.”

“You. Thank you.”

“Hoo.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Twilight stuck a tab to the heavily-highlighted page for future referencing. “I really don’t know why Rear Echelon wants this done so quickly.” She shook her head. “Four weeks! To write a dissertation-length document! It took even me two months to do that at university!”

Two weeks ago, Spike had burped up a note from Minister of War Rear Echelon. It was now pinned to Twilight’s notice board:

Your Highness,

With the recent war over and the Army returning home, we at the War Office will be reviewing the events of the conflict with the aim of formulating a new doctrine for the Royal Army.

This will inherently be an enormous task for us. To this end, we are approaching you and others across Equestria to help us analyse out documentation of the war. Prince Shining Armor has spoken highly of your attention to detail, ability to sort and analyse data, and draw conclusions. We would be honoured if you would assist us in this task to ensure a better defence of Equestria.

I remain, ma’am, your obedient servant,

Rear Echelon, Minister of War

Twilight had, reluctantly, agreed. She had tried not to think about Shining Armor since she had seen a changed stallion at the Recinante Cliffs, but she did not yet dislike him enough not to be swayed to an appeal to her intellectual side. Since then, field reports, unit war diaries, and even personal journals donated by soldiers at Camp Demob had been arriving every day, much to Spike’s displeasure. Twilight had handed over much of the work concerning the physical act of killing to a disturbingly-eager Summer Set. Her bodyguard had barely moved from the library table since the first sources had arrived, poring over parchments and giggling occasionally as he identified another way to more efficiently expedite the rapid transfer of blasts of magic or small pieces of metal into other people’s bodies.

Twilight preferred to be distant from that, focusing instead on what she had grandly described in her introduction as “the conceptual element of fighting power; the methods of applying the means without which the most accurate spear and the most powerful cannon are worth nothing.”

Twilight frowned at the page of the despatch in front of her. “Spike, can you bring me The Ways of Strategy?”

“Sunfyre’s, Marechiavelli’s or Friedrich the Feathered’s?”

“Sunfyre’s.”

Spike retrieved a slim volume from the shelf recently re-prioritised for military history and settled it down on Twilight’s desk.

Twilight grimaced at the innocuous, red-covered book. The Ways of Strategy, a collection of quotations attributed to Sunfyre, the semi-legendary Dragon strategist whose instruction had led King Chrysophylax to victory in the Warring Kingdoms Era over two thousand years ago, was undeniably insightful and influential. Too influential for Twilight’s tastes: since the war had started its easy-to-ready collection of pithy maxims were the only things being cited by armchair war experts who seemed to think it was the be all and end all of military thought. It was therefore with some trepidation that Twilight opened it to find the passage she needed.

She found it in the introduction: the famous anecdote of Sunfyre’s life that Long Grapheme had included in his first translation of the ancient text:

“Sunfyre, who was a native of Charrix, had secured an audience with King Chrysophylax. Chrysophylax asked Sunfyre to demonstrate his famed techniques for conducting the movement of troops, by commanding one hundred and eighty of the King's mates.

Sunfyre divided the drakaini into two companies and put the King's two favourite mates in command. He instructed them all in the emission of balefire, and the proper way to respond to flying commands. He explained the orders five times, after which he gave the signal to take flight. The drakaini did not move, and laughed at him.

Sunfyre said; “If instructions are not clear and commands not explicit, it is the commander’s fault. But when instructions have been made clear, the fault lies with the officers.” He ordered that the two company commanders, the King's two favourite mates, be executed immediately.

King Chrysophylax was horrified, and sent an aide to protest. But Sunfyre declared that he had been placed in command, and as the King's appointed general, he therefore had the right to deal with his army as he saw fit. He repeated his order, and the two mates were swiftly beheaded.

He then chose two other drakaini to serve as company commanders, and when he gave the order to face right, the drakaini efficiently turned to face right. This time, there was no laughter.”

Twilight sat back on her haunches and tapped a quill against her chin in thought. The values the anecdote put forward hadn’t exactly aged well across two millennia and an ocean, but the truth at the heart of the story remained.

Not for the first time she wondered why she was doing this. The war was over and yet the government was preparing for another one. They wanted new doctrine, but to defend against what? Even odder were the regiments that had been kept intact during demobilisation, to be billeted on their home cities. The Royal Guard was still stood up, obviously, as was the Crystal Guard, but so were the Trottingham Grenadiers, the Vanhoover Fusiliers, the Royal Manehattans, and the Bucklyns. With those regiments mobilised Shining Armor had the entire northern border covered, but why? And why the Trottinghams as well?

As Spike went to the kitchen to mix himself a herbal soother, Twilight took up her quill and rapidly began to write.

“Formal orders, both written and verbal, given during the Changeling war were characterised by a total lack of structure. No standardised process existed for rapidly and efficiently communicating information to subordinates. This left officers with a general idea of what the commander hoped to achieve, but with little concept of what exactly had to be done to achieve success. Major General Neigh’s decision to break off the plan to encircle the Changeling legion at Valneigh, the 2nd Division’s near-suicidal march into Changeling cavalry at Maneden, and the 12th Light Brigade’s failure to pursue the defeated legions at the same battle, may all be characterised as a failure by the commander to properly communicate his intent.

To this end, a formalised orders process that can be used across the Army is required. At the very minimum, orders should include a statement of intent. This will properly define the commander’s goals and how subordinates should subsequently conduct their missions. From intent must be derived the subordinates’ missions, and these must be articulated in such a way that there is no doubt as to what subordinates must achieve regardless of circumstance.”

Twilight paused, her quill hovering over the parchment. Maybe I’d better clarify that...

Before she could write, there was a knock and Golden Oaks’ door swung open. “Hi Twilight!” sang Pinkie Pie.

Summer Set suddenly moved like a flash of green lightning. As he streaked across the room, Twilight saw a look of absolute horror on his face. He barrelled into Pinkie, sending him and the stunned mare careening across the room and smashing into the Advanced Magical Theory shelf. From above the door fell a massive weight marked “50 Tons”, which crashed into the spot just inside the threshold where Pinkie had been standing just half a second before, sending the floorboards groaning and creaking in protest.

“Huh,” said Pinkie, amid the ruins. “So that’s why I was getting an ear-eye-knee combo...”

“SUMMER!” roared Twilight. “I’ve told you about this!”

Summer Set stuck his head out from the pile of books.”My apologies, madam, but my attention to my studies left me distracted! Had I heard Miss Pinkie coming, I would have disarmed the trap post-haste!”

Twilight frowned. “You can hear Pinkie from here?”

“I have taken your instructions regarding the treatment of your friends to heart, Your Highness! I have memorised the hoof beat pattern of every pony in Ponyville! Miss Pinkie is particularly distinctive!”

“ANYWAY!” sang Pinkie, utterly unperturbed. “Just came to tell you that Applejack’s ‘Welcome Home From The War’ Party is starting in exactly twelve-point-seven-five minutes when her train gets in! See you at the station, Twilight!”

“Wait, that’s today?!” demanded Twilight. She shot a glance at her calendar. “I thought that was next week?”

“No, silly, that’s Dashie and Applejack’s ‘Joint Welcome Back to Ponyville Party Because Applejack Wasn’t Back For Rainbow’s Welcome Home Party’ Party! NOW SHIFT YOUR FLANK! I HAVE LESS THAN TEN MINUTES TO GET THE PUNCH OUT OF THE FRIDGE AND GET TO THE STATION!”

And with that, Pinkie leapt out of the library, not even slowing down to dodge around the weight still sitting in the door.

Twilight stared in disbelief after the cloud of dust in Pinkie’s wake as Spike and Owlowiscious began their grim task of rebuilding the bookshelf. Applejack home, after three months of war. More than three months, given how long the training had taken.

I haven’t seen my friend for nearly half a year...

“Applejack is home!” she cried suddenly. A delirious happiness filled her. She forgot all about Rear Echelon’s project and seized Spike in her magic, whisking the stunned baby Dragon across the room and onto her back. Giggling, she galloped out of the library and raced down the wide road towards the station.

She joined a crowd of ponies, some already wearing scarves against the autumn cold, some trotting, others flying, all grinning and flooding towards Ponyville Station. The platform already thronged with ponies: Big Mac stood at the front, with Apple Bloom propped up on his back waving wildly as the train appeared on the horizon. Granny Smith was at his side. Twilight joined Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and an out-of-breath Pinkie next to them. Mayor Mare stood ready on a podium in the middle of a platform to give a welcoming speech.

In clouds of steam, the train chugged into the station, slowly coming to a halt. As the doors drew level with the platform, a cheer went up from the crowd, which rose and rose and rose until the door of the carriage slid open and Applejack trotted out, when it became a roar. The thinner, gaunter Earth Pony barely had time to grin sheepishly before she was buried by the deluge: Rarity threw her hooves around her neck in a bone-crushing hug. A cloud of streamers and confetti burst into the air as a party cannon fired and Pinkie leapt on top of her. Then Rainbow Dash descended from the sky to join the hug, then Apple Bloom leaping from her brother, then Big Mac, then Granny Smith, then Twilight, Spike and Fluttershy, the Cakes, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo... Atop the podium, Mayor Mare laughed and threw away her prepared speech as she leapt down to join the ever-growing throng of ponies welcoming the sons and daughters of Ponyville home.

In that moment, overwhelmed by friends and family, tears in their eyes and smiles on their faces, Applejack forgot about the war, forgot about what she’d done, forgot about silly college fillies. She only knew that she was back in Ponyville, back where she belonged.

She was home.

Comments

[The Sleepless Beholder]

now that the war has ended, i can say, i didnt like it.
you are a good writer, i wont deny that, but the whole campaign was more like a massacre than a war.

i know that the changelings were lacking the armament to fight the ponies properly, but that was what make it interesting. see a well armed but small army with comunication problems, fight a very big army with less armament but with a hive mind that give them incredible advantage and fearless charges.
but not even once, the changelings managed to win a fight against the pony master race that you are describing. and dont mention the battle with the Lynxes, i'm talking about the pony invulnerability.

now, we knew from the very begining that the changelings would lose, you even put two main characters in the front lines, but the fact that the pony army simply walked across enemy territory wining every single skirmish make me start rooting for the changelings ratter than the ponies. and now, in this very chapter, i have to feel bad about the soldiers, or Shining Armors guilt thing. i wont fell sorry for them when i want them dead.
you reached a point when all the caring for the ponies in the army has banished, as i said, i wanted the changelings to win since Madenem (sorry if i mispell ti). but again and again pony master race win, and not because of the advanced armament or Shining's strategic's but because the plot demanded it. you needed the war to look bad for Blue Jerk plan, so the ponies needed to get to changeling territory and kill the children. and when they said that the plan was to kill the eggs, i knew that the changelings will be exterminated, and that the final battle will be a victory for ponies no matter what.
and talking about the last battle, that was the first, actual fight of the changelings. like they sudenly realised that they could hurt pony master races. i really liked that battle, but sadly, it was the last one. if more of the previous battles were like that one, i will not be writing this.

im not trying to say that you are a bad writer, if you were, i wouldnt have read you story. but this war could have been much better. i know real wars are like this, the side more powerfull making the other retreat until it one of them surrenders, or the retreating force resives some sort of reinforcement. but when you only see victory on one side, the wole fight gets predictable and booring. of all the scenes of the pony army, i only enjoyed the ones with Inkie Pie, the only character in the wole army that i dont wanna see dead by the way.

i read the comments that adressed this topic, and your response was the suicidal charge of Neigh in the changelings borders, but that was still a victory for the ponies.
the pony army was not flawless, but still was invincible while the changelings strugled to even put up a fight. the seven thousand loses of the ponies are insignificant against the probably hundred thousands of the changelings.
im not asking for the changelings to win the war, but at least a battle won against the ponies would have made it better.

the last thing, im not trying to be an asshole about it, and if im wrong, by all means make me eat my words, i will have them whit salt. in these kind of sotries, i prefer to be seen as someone who jugges too soon, than a good critic.

i hope Shining Armor dies in jail, im gonna join the humans in the north to kill every single one of the pony master race.

[Imperial-Arstotzka]

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Tl;Dr