Ponies and Elves
Princess Celestia was in her castle, reflecting on how wrong everything was in the world. A team of cartographers had just returned to Canterlot and given her sketches and notes detailing the full extent of Equestria's relocation. Equestria hadn't just been moved to Immoren, it had been moved quite haphazardly. Los Pegasus was now within the White Tail Woods, near the rail line. Dodge City was at the foot of Rambling Rock Ridge, and Appleloosa was almost directly beneath Cloudsdale. The Macintosh Hills, the Badlands, and the Hayseed Swamps were completely unaccounted for, as were the Crystal Mountains. Manehatten, Fillydelphia, and Baltimare remained in their relative places, but were no longer coastal towns.
This cartographical crisis was secondary to the sudden spike in military needs. She had no official communication with the Khadoran Empire, but their soldiers sporadically struck at Equestria's borders, north and east. Skirmishes with trollkin and savage Thornwood-dwelling humans were increasingly frequent. Cryx, despite Victor Pendrake's warnings, had not yet made a reported appearance, but the princess was sure that the disturbing increase in missing-pony reports was at least partially the Nightmare Empire's work. Independent mercenary organizations of all sizes attacked Equestria's border towns at random, serving unidentified masters with undefined goals. All of these problems had to be addressed by the Royal Guard. Fortunately, while some mercenary groups seemed to prefer attacking Equestria, others were more than willing to help defend the nation, and a pair of arcane steamworks had stepped in to give Equestria a leg up on the increasingly-essential industry of warjack manufacturing. From Cygnar came Engines East, who helped launch Engines Equestria's two branches in Canterlot and Ponyville. Cygnar's Fraternal Order of Wizardry had also sent personnel to guide the Royal Alchemists in the mechano-alchemical art of cortex manufacture. From Ord came another steamworks, the independent Black Anchor Heavy Industries, which had salvaged Baltimare's collapsing local economy by founding Black Anchor Baltimare. Engines East and Black Anchor Heavy Industries had both provided finished warjacks, blueprints, and valuable production training -especially in the miniaturization of steam engines and their related apparatus, which in Equestria had never previously been built for anything smaller than a train. Of course, all of this came at a price. Both companies seemed willing to take Equestrian bits, on the logic that coins made of solid gold spend as well regardless of where they were cast, but the royal coffers only had so many bits in them, after all.
Captain Shining Armor inspected the trio of Freebooter warjacks provided to him by Black Anchor Baltimare. According to the humans who had sold them to Equestria, these Freebooters were originally labor steamjacks that had been extensively modified for combat with the addition of thicker hulls, stronger steam pistons, and a secondary arcane turbine integrated into the chassis, through which a warcaster could pour a burst of arcane power in exchange for a significant, if temporary, increase in speed. The engineers of Black Anchor Baltimare had warned him against doing this too often, however, as it tended to damage the vital clockwork in the warjack's hip assembly, and Black Anchor hadn't produced very many replacement parts yet. The warjacks had also had modifications made on their cortexes, making them highly aggressive.
The captain had to admit that his inspection of the machines was entirely for show. As an officer of the Royal Guard, he was expected to understand the abilities of every military asset under his control. He had undergone a mostly self-taught crash course in controlling warjacks, but he had yet to mobilize them even in simulated combat. He felt that Freebooters were simple enough to understand, however: Keep the enemy from compromising them until an open charging line to a valuable target appeared. This might be a task for the lighter Talons he had also been provided, which carried durable shields and were relatively nimble. Looking away from the line of former laborjacks, Shining Armor found his attention drawn to the pair of Nomads provided by the Cygnaran Armory. Formerly warjacks of the Cygnaran Army, Nomads had been decommissioned in favor of the newer Ironclad, but were extremely popular among mercenaries for their reliability. The unicorn couldn't help but see a sort of nobility in the warjacks, with their long-bladed swords and simple bucklers, which allowed their left hands complete freedom of movement. His musings were interrupted by the sound of pounding hooves.
"Captain!" shouted a frightened earth pony soldier, "we're under attack!"
"You two, fire up these Nomads!" Shining Armor immediately commanded a pair of pony engineers, "details, soldier, details!"
"Unidentified enemies, roughly two dozen soldiers, four warjacks, they're at the proving grounds!" The soldier explained as the Nomads' steam engines rumbled to life.
"Oh, mother of Celestia, they'd have to attack the proving grounds!" Shining Armor shouted, primarily to himself. The proving grounds were the large expanse of clear, flat grasslands that had once been Horseshoe Bay. Princess Cadance had taken a pair of heavy Mule warjacks there to test their capabilities, as well as her own, by using them to attack wooden targets telekinetically controlled by a group of Royal Guard unicorn ponies. He had been distinctly perturbed by the idea of his beloved wife marching to war, but she had been adamant that as a Princess of Equestria it was her duty to defend her nation. The unicorn waited just long enough to link his mind to the Nomads' cortexes before rushing to the battlefield himself.
Princess Mi Amore Cadenza felt her heart pounding as she mentally guided her Mule warjacks while leading her Royal Guard escorts with verbal commands. The unicorns who'd been guiding her now-abandoned practice targets were moving constantly, while firing bolts of arcane force at the attackers.
Cadance kept her Mules stationary, firing heavy shells at the closely-grouped enemies. Her warjacks were capable of diverting pressurize from their leg assemblies in order to increase the force with which they launched shells from their unique, steam-powered cannons. Given the number of enemies present, along with the highly explosive nature of Mule steam lobber shells, Cadance abandoned accuracy completely, using her magic instead to drastically increase the speed at which the Mules reloaded and pressurized their cannons.
The winged unicorn knew little about her enemies. They wore white armor and moved in close, precise ranks. They were divided into two squads. One squad were armed with large swords, and the one who seemed to be their leader commanded a pair of light warjacks armed with shields and polearms. The shields did a passable job of guarding the warjacks from her forces' attacks, and they seemed to be augmented by some kind of arcane barrier wrapped around their hulls, which was invisible except when struck. Oddly, the snow-white warjacks of the enemy seemed to lack steam engines -they certainly had no smokestacks. This squad advanced slowly, apparently reluctant to commit to a charge. Cadance's warjacks and escorts had already felled a number of them, but this did not seem to bother the survivors.
The second squad advanced behind the first. They carried shorter swords, with rifles integrated into them. Or were they rifles with blades attached to the barrel? The Princess couldn't be sure. Either way, their wielders fired these weapons by pressing the rifle's stock -sword's grip?- against their armored hips and triggering the firing mechanism. They did this with remarkable accuracy, and had struck down one unicorn already by precisely shooting at gaps in his armor. Cadance's magic told her that he was alive, and would probably recover if given medical attention quickly, but his knees might never work quite right again. The warjacks escorting the riflemen had neither shields nor polearms, instead bearing blades that ran the length of their forearms. They also demonstrated the ability to twist their arcane barriers into blasts of raw force, a power their halberd-carrying brethren apparently lacked. Cadance found these blasts remarkably similar to the bolts of force she was firing from her horn -and unicorn magic in general- as well as being entirely unlike the projectile-based ranged weaponry used by the rest of the Iron Kingdoms.
The rhythmic thumping of sprinting warjacks drew Cadance's attention behind her. Watching the steadily-advancing attackers through her Mules, the princess turned to look for the approaching 'jacks with her own eyes. She was relieved to see a pair of Nomads painted in white and cerulean, with her husband between them, rushing towards her. Shining Armor stopped in front of her, while the Nomads broke away to take defensive positions near the Mules.
"Cadance, are you all right?!" Shining Armor asked, clearly worried about her.
"I'm fine, Shiny, just fine," Cadance assured him, "but I can't figure out what these people are up to. They just came out of the woods and started shooting. They got Cinder Sparks, he's alive but not going anywhere. Since then they've just been marching at us, letting us shoot at them."
"Looks like a fairly basic combined-arms assault," Shining Armor said analytically, "but what are they up to? You've already dropped a few of them, you'd think they'd either go for a last-ditch rush or retreat. They don't stand much chance just marching slowly into everypony's lines of fire."
"I really don't know." Cadance shook her head, "I'm expecting them to start running -either towards us or away- at any moment, but they just don't."
Shining Armor considered this for a moment before replying, "either they're trying to lure you into charging them, or this whole attack is some kind of diversion. Regardless, we had better finish them off."
"I'll keep suppressing the troopers, can you manage the warjacks?" Cadance asked.
"I think my Nomads can deal with them, anything I should know about them?"
"The ones with arm blades can shoot magical force bolts that seem to inhibit movement. All four of them seem to be protected by some kind of magic barrier."
"I see. All right!" Shining Armor turned to order the unicorn guards who had been firing blasts of arcane heat and cold from the sidelines, "All of you, with Cadance! Here I go!"
Shining Armor released a pulse of arcane light that spread to envelope himself and his Nomads. Empowered by this spell, the two heavy warjacks charged towards the enemy's halberd-carrying 'jacks. Noticing the bladed warjacks focusing on the Nomads, Shining Armor suddenly created a glowing wall of force between the warjacks, which stopped the energy blasts, then vanished just as the Nomads were about to collide with it. Each Nomad barreled into one of the halberd-and-shield warjacks, punching through the 'jacks' force fields with their heavy battle blades and shearing large chunks of their physical shields clean off. Guided by Shining Armor's will and moving almost completely in unison, each Nomad locked its enemy's halberd with its free hand while continuing to slash and batter the target with their heavy swords. Soon, the white-painted warjacks collapsed under the brutal assault. Shining Armor gave a satisfied smile. His Nomads performed very much as he expected, able to crush their enemies with overwhelming force. All he had to do was deliver them to the enemy lines, and his magic was proving highly effective at that. Still, he was already close to his limits. He found himself envying Cadance -as a winged unicorn, her supply of raw magical power was nearly endless, while he was just a regular unicorn trying to cast highly-demanding spells and use his power to enhance his warjacks all at once. The Cygnaran Armory had given one of the powerful arcantrik turbines used to enhance warcaster magic to Engines Equestria, but the ponies there were reverse-engineering it in order to learn how to fabricate more. For that reason, it was in dozens of pieces and completely useless to him - even if it weren't in Ponyville.
The stallion pushed these thoughts from his mind as he watched the remaining enemy swordsmen fall to magic and shells from Cadance, her warjacks, and the other unicorn ponies. Now all that remained were the riflemen and their force-shooting warjacks. He released another magic pulse to renew the boost to his Nomads' mobility and precision, then sent the warjacks charging at the enemy machines. One of them slammed into its target and began hacking at it, but the other enemy 'jack was able to fire its force bolt before Shining Armor could once again manifest his arcane barrier. The struck Nomad immediately stopped, as if it had suddenly lost all of its momentum. Before it could build up speed again, the man who seemed to be leading the riflemen barked what must have been an order, although in a language Shining Armor didn't understand. In perfect unison, every rifleman raised his weapon and fired it at the Nomad. Eleven bullets pounded the heavy warjack at the same moment, striking exposed joints with amazing precision to puncture the pistons that moved the machine's right arm. Small jets of steam sprayed from half a dozen perfectly-placed holes in the Nomad's arm as the tip of its sword sunk into the ground. Shining Armor realized that the joints in the warjack's hand had seized up - it couldn't even release its grip on the now-useless blade. Unwilling to stop, the damaged Nomad continued to trudge forward, dragging its blade behind it, reaching out towards the enemy warjack. Too late, Cadance's Mules closed to firing distance and began to rain shells on the now-retreating enemies. At a shout from its handler, the remaining enemy warjack charged the crippled Nomad, but was intercepted by its still-functioning fellow 'jack, which staggered the light warjack with a backhanded strike from its buckler before making a ruin of its hull with its sword. Though the remaining enemies were now out of sight in the thick woods, Cadance had her Mules fire several more shots into the darkness for good measure.
One of the unicorns approached Shining Armor and saluted. "Cinder Sparks has already been evacuated, no further casualties on our side, Captain," the pony reported.
"I want Sparks up on his hooves ASAP," the captain replied, "and check the enemies. Bury the dead and imprison any survivors, I want to know who these people were and what they wanted."
"Yes, sir!" The guardspony snapped another salute and began relaying Shining Armor's orders to the others.
"Shiny, I'm not sure these people were human," Cadance said. Now that he could get a closer look at them, Shining Armor thought Cadance had a point. He walked over to inspect the enemy that she was standing over.
"Yeah, their ears are longer, and kind of... pointy. And their hair, Pendrake said humans don't have blue hair, but this guy," Shining Armor nudged the fallen enemy with his hoof, "this guy's hair is the same color as my mane." Suddenly, the enemy in question let out a small groan, prompting Shining Armor to take a step back and create a force bubble around the warrior.
"Looks like we've got someone to answer our questions," Cadance said grimly.
Dawnguard Sentinel Grymvas slowly opened his eyes and began to assess his situation. His arms and legs were present and seemed to work, so that was something. His armor had been removed, leaving only the padded clothing underneath. Neither his armor nor his sword were in sight. He was in a room formed of three brick walls and one wall made of iron bars, into which was built a gate. Clearly a prison cell, the likes of which could be found throughout human lands. The design was crude but effective. On the other side of the bars stood one of the strange, horse-like creatures he'd been sent to attack. It appeared to the the one that had commanded the sword-wielding warjacks that had destroyed his Griffon myrmidons. His unit had been sent to divert attention while other elements of the Retribution of Scyrah made their way through the area on a mission of utmost importance. He had no way of knowing whether they had bought enough time, but he trusted in his fellow believers. The creature outside the cell began to speak.
"You are our prisoner. Your fellow warriors are dead, your warjacks are destroyed," the creature said flatly. It spoke Cygnaran, which Grymvas had some familiarity with, but its accent was unlike any he'd heard before, "your armor and weapon are gone, and you are miles away from the forest you came from, with hundreds of Royal Guard ponies between here and there. Oh, and you tried to murder my wife," the creature said this part much more harshly, "so I am very, very unhappy with you. Now, I'm going to ask you some questions, and if you're smart, you're going to answer them."
Grymvas merely stared at the creature, doing his best to keep his expression neutral. The being's questions were what the Dawnguard soldier had expected, it wanted to know who his people were and why they had attacked its kind. Grymvas knew that the best way to avoid revealing secrets was to simply remain silent, so he did just that, even when the creature asked his name. Finally it rolled its eyes and sighed.
"I guess you're a little too smart," it grumbled, rubbing its head with one of its flat fore-appendages. Grymvas wondered if they counted as feet or hands, the creature seemed to use them as both. "Looks like you think I might guess something you don't want me to know if you give me anything to work with. At this point, I'm angry enough to get out the leather straps and sharp implements, but my wife has a method she wants to try first. Cadance?" Another of the strange creatures stepped into view. Grymvas recognized this one as the apparent leader of the group his unit had attacked. "This," the first creature continued, "is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Show some respect."
"I'm honestly not too worried about formality, Shiny," the one called Cadenza replied. It closed its eyes, and a soft glow appeared around its horn. Grymvas recognized this glow, it seemed to appear when these creatures used their strange, runeless magic. A bright, pink glow overwhelmed the Dawnguard's vision, which then faded away slowly.
Grymvas loved everybody. He loved his whole unit, even though the creatures before him said they were dead. He loved Dawnlord Vyros, the brilliant leader that his unit had been assigned to. He loved Ravyn, the brave and uplifting warcaster titled 'the Eternal Light', who had once been a priestess of Scyrah. He loved, of all elves, Adaptis Rahn Shyeel, the imperious master of House Shyeel's battle mages and myrmidon producers, who shamelessly played politics with the dire circumstances of the goddess Scyrah. He even loved the two strange and mysterious creatures who had imprisoned him -quite understandably, he'd attacked them after all- and saw no need to keep secrets from them. He cheerfully explained that he was an elf from the forest of Ios, briefly laid out the history of the Iosans, the vanishing of six of the elven gods, and the current state of the two survivors - Scyrah and Nyssor. He explained that Scyrah and Nyssor were dying, being slowly killed by the use of human magic. The Retribution of Scyrah had been formed to assassinate human arcanists and destroy their mechanika to grant Scyrah reprieve, and possibly the chance to recover. They had added to their goals the retrieval of Nyssor once they had learned that he yet lived, sealed in an impenetrable vault of his own divine ice in order to escape the fate of his fellow gods. He explained that his attack had been intended to divert attention from the Retribution forces that were currently smuggling Nyssor's vault through the area, and that opinion within the Retribution was divided as to whether his new friends' runeless magic also posed a threat to Scyrah. Through it all, both of his four-legged friends listened silently, while a barely-audible scratching sound suggested that someone outside his field of view -someone else he loved, no doubt- was writing down every word he said. It didn't matter. They were all his friends, and he loved each and... every... Nyrro forsake him, what was he doing?! He, Grymvas of the Dawnguard, an elite soldier of Ios, had just told these mysterious creatures everything! He'd revealed the purpose of his unit's attack, he'd revealed that the Retribution was watching these beings, he'd even explained to them the dreadfully vulnerable state of Ios, how open it was to invasion while so many of its people wallowed in malaise or hid from their dire circumstances in mindless entertainment. These creatures might react to his words by mustering an invasion force and attacking the Iosans, and their borders were defended almost entirely by the sinister reputation that the forest had for swallowing up unwanted intruders - a reputation that could not be maintained against a large army. All because of that twisted pink creature and the corrupting light its horn emitted. Such a power could doom nations, Grymvas realized, and it might have just doomed his. The elf fell silent, mortified at what he had just done.
"My spell has worn off," the one called Cadenza said, "sorry, Shining Armor, but it'll be a while before it will work on him again."
"That's fine," Shining Armor replied, "I think we got just about everything we were going to get out of him already. That was clever, Cadance, I never would've thought to use your love-spreading spell in an interrogation."
"Well, after about the fifth date where I ended up telling you a secret I'd never told anypony else, I just realized you could get anypony to tell you anything if they loved you enough," Cadenza explained, "but it wasn't until now that I realized how well my love-spreading spell meshed with that idea. I sort of feel like I should've realized that part a while ago, you know?"
Shining Armor gave Cadance a wide smile. "Well, you know what they say about hindsight. I think your aunts need to hear about this guy's story, in any case." With that, both ponies left Grymvas to his thoughts.
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Nearly all magic in the Iron Kingdoms involves glowing circles of runes appearing in the air around the caster's hands and/or whatever is being affected, so the fact that unicorn magic doesn't do that seems very alien to our friendly neighborhood angry elves. Myrmidons, which are extremely similar to warjacks, are powered entirely by arcane capacitors which contain magical energy and funnel it into magic-reactive materials in the myrmidon's limbs to produce motive force. Most myrmidons, including the Griffons and Gorgons we see in "Ponies and Elves", are fabricated by House Shyeel, Ios's foremost masters of force magic. House Shyeel tends to forgo heavy armor in order to make room for bulky-but-powerful specialized equipment, such as the force generators that produce each myrmidon's force fields. So long as these protective fields are active, the myrmidon can utilize its ranged weaponry, which fires blasts of pure kinetic force, as well as other special abilities. In addition, a surge of power from a controlling warcaster can be used to recharge a depleted shield. However, if the barrier goes down due to heavy or repeated attacks, the myrmidon itself is relatively fragile, and the generator's delicate nature makes it vulnerable to trauma.
I literally thought of using Cadance's love spell for interrogation about three minutes before I started writing the interrogation scene. It was originally going to go nowhere, but I thought having our pony friends actually get something useful out of it would be better. Despite her special talent being spreading love around, I think I made Cadance out to be kind of a user.
brainwashing: the solution to most of lifes problems
I wonder how the Equestrians will react when they see a colossal?
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Funny you should mention that, I have some rather specific plans for colossals and gargantuans. There's a reason why I chose to specifically mention Black Anchor Heavy Industries as one of the 'jackworks helping Equestria.