• Published 5th Nov 2011
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Equestria: Total War - emkajii



War comes to Equestria: with despair, with starvation, with sacrifice and with heroism.

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XXIV. Colossal Commissure, Punda-Milia. May, 1252

Colossal Commissure, Punda-Milia. May, 1252

The full moon cast a lovely glow: a cool and peaceful light bathing the world in tranquillity. Tonight a child could sleep outdoors and be confident there were no demons or monsters lurking around the corner. Tonight lovers could admire the pleasing effect such soft light had on the countenance. Tonight Gilda could barely read her ancestor-cursed map.

"You useless little lion-cub," she growled, "what could possibly have gone through your pathetic little head that made you think you didn't need to buy any more torches?!"

"Well," Frankie said, smiling nervously. With a claw she smoothed her ragged, patchy feathers, and continued: "because you said the moon was so pretty last night we hardly needed them, and it was a waxing gibbous, so I figured we'd be fine tonight."

"'Waxing gibbous,' oh for--yeah, it's fine, except we're trying to go to a cursed cave, there isn't a moon inside a cave, and I can hardly read the map as it is!" She stopped, cocked her head, then smiled obnoxiously. Her voice dripped sarcasm. "What, darling little ragged girl, is the point of paying nearly all our gold in bribes for this map..." she trailed off, and let the words fade into the night. She then put her face in Frankie's and shouted, "if it's too dark to read it?"

"You were reading it before!"

"Yeah," Gilda said, "it was daylight. And after that, I was following this dark river line, and then headed towards this big mountain thing. But now we're in this grey stuff, and I can't tell how close we are or where we are or where we need to go! All because you thought--"

You should walk towards that tree, a voice chimed in their heads. Frankie and Gilda turned to look. Screwball floated upside-down, grinning as always.

"Which tree, Screwy," Gilda said, her voice flat, her expression irritated. "There are, in case you haven't managed to 'remember' yet, trees in every direction."

That one!

"Um, Screwball," Frankie said, "there are a lot of trees. It would really help us if you pointed with a claw or something. Or, you know, a hoof."

Screwball extended her rear left hoof. It pointed directly at a rather undignified-looking baobab.

Gilda shrugged. "All right. But it's only like a hundred yards away, I don't think that'll really give us much perspective."

Ha ha ha ha, she laughed, her voice ringing through their skulls.

"What's funny?" Frankie squeaked.

"Probably nothing," Gilda said. "Maybe some gryphon chick twenty years ago fell out of its nest. Or maybe--" Suddenly, Gilda found her left hind paw was nowhere near where she expected it--it was stuck. She tugged at it as she lost her balance, then crashed inelegantly to the ground, her face hitting the dirt. She caught her breath, then checked back at her paw. It was caught between a root and a crack in the soil.

Gilda glared behind her. "You did that on purpose."

Yep! We're here!

"No, we aren't. We're looking for a cave called the Colossal Commissure. This here? This is a three-inch crack in the ground. Not. Colossal." Gilda tugged at her paw. It was trapped a bit tighter than she was expecting.

"I dunno," Frankie said, "It's just big enough to get in over here. Like maybe...I dunno. A couple feet wide. And it goes down a little bit. We could fit."

Gilda reached back and snipped the root with her beak, then shook her freed paw. "Look. We're looking for the Colossal Commissure, where an ancient magical stone was safeguarded. A crack in the ground doesn't exactly fit the bill."

"I wouldn't look here for it," Frankie said, then dropped down into the hole. "Hey! It's a lot bigger than I thought! I bet even a fat gryphon like you could fit."

"Fine," Gilda said, and sighed. "But we're not spending long, and if you sprain a leg on a rock or something dumb like that I'm not carrying you." She put her claws on either side of the crack, and lowered herself down. A few seconds later, Screwball looked around, paused a second, then floated head-first down the hole.

Together they felt their way through the pitch-black tunnel.

"You're checking for sinkholes and traps and other paths, right Frankie? You're going kinda fast," Gilda said.

"Uh, Gilda? I'm a Talon. You're like a Talon tourist. Little respect, huh?"

Gilda held her tongue. Frankie was right. "Sure, kid."

They pushed on for another minute, then Gilda turned to look behind her. Two spiral-etched purple pupils floated in the darkness. "Screwball. Is this where we find it? It's pretty important. I'd think you'd remember if it was."

One of the pupils spun in a half-circle. I don't remember anything past going down this hole. I never did. I always wondered why.

"Well, that's encouraging," Gilda muttered.



Suddenly, the gryphons fell through the ground. They fell ten feet or so, and hit the ground roughly. Screwball, for her part, floated gently down until she was her customary three feet off the floor.

Gilda growled, "I thought you said you were checking for--"

She was interrupted by a dessicated voice; the voice of a body dead and dried. It spoke in a rhythmic voice, with each vowel getting its own syllable, and each vowel sound pure. "Twa Gryphones and a littel Hors cometh to myn fosse-cave. Hwaet seketh they?"

Gilda looked around. They were in a round chamber, sparse and unadorned, about ten feet high and having a radius of about forty feet. At the center was an ancient zebra sitting upright with crossed legs. The room was lit by a small glowing pebble held between his front hooves. He floated a foot off the ground, and was encased in a bubble of crackling magical power. She shook her head.

"Look, stripes," she said, "I get you're old but I don't really wanna talk to you in Middle Equestrian or whatever the heck that's supposed to be. And you're not probably speaking it right anyway--your pronunciation is too textbook. Nobody speaks like a textbook. So it's obviously not your native tongue. And if you're some sort of sage-guardian thing, I can't imagine only speaking a language nobody's spoken in forever makes you effective, huh? So let's recap: I don't speak it. You don't speak it. And there's no reason for you to speak it. So let's drop the lion dung and speak normally, and we keep this friendly."

The zebra furrowed his brow. He spoke in a slight Zebra accent, but his voice remained dry and sandy. "Many over the centuries seek the Occultation. I find it appropriate to speak in the ancestral voices."

"Yeah, that's great. I'm a scribe in the court of the Gryphon King. You've gotta do more to impress me than open a reference book and write a little speech. So let's talk pebble, huh?"

"...the Gryphon King," the zebra said slowly. "It was he who buried it here. One bearing that title, at least. It was many, many, many years ago. Before the last empire fell. Before the coming of the--"

"--look, I know you don't get many visitors, and I'm sure your story is fascinating, but we're kinda in a hurry. There's a war going on, so if you just give us the magic pebble we'll bring it right back in a jiffy, huh? Atta stripeyhorse."

"No." He remained placid.

Gilda shrugged. "All right. Well, I guess we go home now." She turned to leave. She immediately wheeled on her feet, faced the zebra agian, bowed, and glared. "Now let's start over. You want the long form? Here's the long form." She raised her head, and spoke in a clear, even, unnecessarily loud voice. "Respectful greetings from the court of the Most High and Most Powerful, The Rightful Lord and Sovereign of the North, The King of Gryphonia, whose name none are worthy to utter. I am humbly honored to be Twistbeak, scribe to His Dreadful Majesty. I come bearing letters of greetings written by His Dreadful Majesty's own quill, plucked from his own body. Beside me is my compatriate Francesca Talonborn, dedicated from birth to His Dreadful Majesty's service. And behind me is...okay, criminy, no way to pretty that up. Screwball." She pointed to Screwball, who was lying on a heap in the ground. Screwball slowly lifted her head off the floor. Her eyes looked panicked. Both pupils were fixed helplessly on Gilda.

"Screwball, get up," Gilda said.

Screwball cocked her head. Her eyes darted left and right, both pupils locked together.

"Whatever," Gilda muttered. She looked back at the zebra, and resumed her formal speech. "I come to you now in desperation. We are locked in a bitter battle with our enemy, the malignant Queen of the Ponies, whose very presence denies the world its course, and who holds captive a thousand generations of ancestors in an unholy clockwork prison of deliberately enslaved nature. We seek the Occultation not for our own gain but to right a cosmic wrong."

The ancient zebra nodded slowly. "Do you understand what the Occultation is?"

Gilda glanced around. "Well...it's an artifact of great power. Or, I guess, of no power at all. It turns off magic. It blocks the Flow. And...Celestia's got a ton of magic. So. You know."

Behind them, Screwball crawled awkwardly forward. She coughed gently.

The zebra shook his head slowly, as if he was afraid he might break it. "That is what it does. Do you understand what it is?"

Frankie piped up. "It'll let us kill the Pony Queen real easy and then the war's over!"

The zebra shook his head again. "That is the same answer. Do you understand what it is?"

Gilda scratched her head. "The scrolls weren't clear. And I'm not fluent in Zebra at all."

"All magic comes from the Flow," he intoned wheezily, "the unlimited well of potential that creates and maintains our universe. So does all consciousness. So does all life. Every mind, every soul, every spirit and every spark comes from the Flow. So does every wisp of magic. Some have sought to tap into the Flow, but the results have been disastrous without regulation. Pure potential is quite uncontrollable. The ponies have the Elements of Harmony, which expand access to the Flow by using virtue itself as a gate. And the gryphons made the occultation. It, too, is a gate--but a gate that only blocks the Flow."

Gilda nodded impatiently. "Yes. It blocks the Flow. Stops magic. Exactly what I said."

"No. It stops life. Anyone who dies in the presence of the Occultation does not return to the Flow and everlasting life in communion with all reality. They are simply...extinguished. And in the sustained presence of the Flow, life may not be created. New body cells lack the spark of spirit. The body eventually becomes soulless. It was conceived as a weapon to use against the magically inclined races. It was hidden here as too dangerous and too cruel to be used."

"Then why didn't you destroy it?" Frankie asked.

"It cannot be destroyed. Not by any means we are aware of. It cannot be interrupted. It cannot be overcome. It cannot be destroyed. It is a blight."

Gilda nodded her head. "I understand it is dangerous. I understand that by taking it, we would be putting ourselves in dire risk. But I also--"

"--I can think," a quiet voice behind them said. Gilda turned. So did Frankie. The zebra glanced over Gilda's shoulder. Behind them, Screwball stood uneasily on all four legs. She looked first at Gilda, then at Frankie, then at the zebra. "I can think now. I...I don't think I could. Not for a really, really long time. Like...I can decide what I want to be in my head. And then I can put it there. It's not just...everything. It's so quiet. It's so...so nice. I don't think I've felt this nice in a long time."

The zebra raised an eyebrow. "The pony has been cursed with magic? Is that why she is here--for relief?"

"I don't really know," Screwball said in her half-whisper. "I was playing outside at school. At my special school. And then somepony talked to me. And he said he was Discord and he was my new dad, and he would make me really special. And...and then he said that it wasn't right. And he gave me my hat. And told me that I could get better. And...I don't know what happened next. A lot of things. Everything, I guess. I can't remember. But it feels like I remember everything, if that makes sense. Everything ever. And now I'm here."

"Discord?" The zebra asked. "Did he return?"

"I don't know," Screwball replied, biting her lip. "I don't know how long ago it was. Maybe it was yesterday. Maybe it was forever. I just...I know I'm Screwball. I know Celestia needs to die. And I know Discord is my dad. Where is my dad?"

Gilda looked aside. "He's not your father, Screwball, he's--"

Screwball narrowed her eyes. Her face was an exaggerated look of childish anger. "YES HE IS! HE IS MY DAD! HE GAVE ME MY HAT AND SAID HE'D FIX ME AND HE DID! I WANT TO TELL HIM THANK YOU!"

Gilda shrugged. "He was turned to stone by Celestia. Again. Second time it happened."

Screwball shook in anger, stamping her hooves. Then she stopped, and snorted. "So that's why she needs to die. Good." She nodded, then relaxed. "Um. I'm Screwball. I don't really remember much else. It was all weird images and weird thoughts. Who are you and will you help me?"

"Later," Gilda said, then turned to the zebra. "Yes. As I was saying. I understand it is dangerous. I understand that by taking it, we would be putting ourselves in dire risk. But the entire world is in dire risk. The Occlusion could have been hidden away and forgotten. It could have been tossed into the middle of the Eastern Sea. It could have been encased in polar ice. But it was hidden here, with a keeper, in our ancestral homeland. Surely it was intended to be used again."

The zebra nodded. "Yes. But not lightly."

Gilda bowed. "We wish only--only--to put right what Celestia has made wrong. And if we lose this war, the pony cancer will spread, and the whole world will eventually be put wrong. You say it was given to you for safekeeping by the authority of a Gryphon King. By the authority of a Gryphon King, we wish for it to be returned that an evil might be cleansed."

The zebra thought. "Yes. I have heard the ancestors' cries carried on the North wind. Your cause is just. I only worry you do not understand what danger you will be taking on."

"I understand completely," Gilda said. "I am willing to risk my soul for the fate of the Earth."

The zebra nodded, then from a pocket on his thin vest he took a small potion. He drank it, and the crackling bubble around him subsided. "Electric aura. Doesn't originate in the Flow. Quite handy for keeping thieves away," he winked.

Screwball stumbled forward. "Um...may I please have it? May I? I know you said it's bad, but...I really like having my Flows turned off or whatever it does."

The Zebra looked hesitant. "I...I do not wish to give this to a pony with the mind of a child. It is not fair to curse her to nonexistence."

Screwball pouted. "I was living in a nonek...a not existence for like forever! Please! Just let me live a normal life for a while! It'll be over soon and then I can go back to being whatever I was!"

He pursed his dried lips, then relented. "Very well. The situation may be exceptional."

"On the hat," she squeaked. "Take off the green spinny thing and put that glowy pebble on instead! The hat is totally perfect!"

"As you wish," he said. He popped the spinner off, and placed the Occultation on instead. It immediately snapped into place, as if magnetically.

"Thank you, wise one," Gilda intoned. She looked at Frankie. "Now kill him. He's useless to us."

"Sure thing," she squeaked. She leapt at the shocked zebra and, in one move, swooped around him and sliced his neck open with her talons. She then thrust a talon through his eye and twisted it. He twitched, then fell dead to the ground. "Boy, he's really dumb for an ancient guardian!"

"Eh," Gilda said. "Probably sick of sitting here all day. Wanted to retire. Can't blame him. Too bad he'll be forever nonexistent or whatever the hell he was going on about. Now let's get the heck out of here. We got a pony queen to kill."

Suddenly, the room went dark. Gilda and Frankie looked around in a panic. Off, a voice said. Two spiral pupils floated in the dark.

"On," Screwball said. The rock glowed. She clattered to the ground. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. The light flickered. She left it on. "The nice stripey pony was right. It's a gate. You can open it or close it!"

Gilda looked around. "That's not...um...the scroll didn't say anything about that. Oh. Um. Frankie. Get the Occultation from Screwy. I like her better with the magic off."

"NO," she shouted. "NO NO NO NO NO. DAD SAID I COULD HAVE IT! HE SAID IT WAS MINE!"

The room went dark again. Off. Don't be mean and take things from me. I don't like mean ponies. Or mean gryphons.

"Oh...okay. Okay, Screwball. You can have it. Just...try to keep it on, okay?"

Light. Screwball stuck out her tongue in concentration. "Okay. I...hey. I wonder if you can leave it like sorta open. Like crack it a little. Huh. Hold on." The light flicked on, then off, then on, then off, then dimmed slightly. Then a bit more. Then brightened, then dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed, as her body rose and fell a bit off the ground. She finally settled on a fairly bright glow that left her feet on the ground.

"There we go. It's cracked open now. This is really nice," Screwball said. "I can see some stuff but not much. And I can still do some cool stuff too! I think...huh. I think I could do anything without this thing. But...I couldn't think of anything to do. But now I can think of things. And I can still do lots of them! Ha ha ha! This is awesome!!"

Gilda looked incredibly uneasy. "Um...this isn't at all how I thought this would go. Maybe we should..."

Frankie perked up. "Could you blow up the world?"

Screwball laughed. "I don't want to!"

"Could you blow up the moon!"

"I don't wanna do that either."

Frankie laughed. "Could you turn me into the moon?!"

Screwball stuck out her tongue again. "mmmmmmaybe. Hold on. The moon is small and really high, right?"

Frankie started to speak, then looked around sharply--first at Screwball, then Gilda, then at her chest. "Nngh. Screwball. My skin hurts. You're just..."

"I'm making you small. Shhh."

"No, you're...agh! Stop it! Rrrgrrggrgh!" Blood started to flow from her forehead and back as her skin split.

"Oops," Screwball said. "Guess I have to do the whole thing. Not just the outside. Hold on."

"Wait," Gilda said. "Wait, no--"

With one explosive, wet noise, Frankie's body collapsed into a beachball-sized reddish-brown orb of compressed skin and bone and organs and muscle and feathers. "There we go! A moon!"

"Oh, dear ancestors--no--no no no no no--no, this isn't happening, no--"

"Huh. But a moon is rock." She stuck out her tongue again. The ball that was Frankie turned to stone. "And it's in the sky!" Suddenly, the ball shot upwards, then shattered against the ceiling. "Oops. That was silly of me. Ha ha."

"Oh my god, no, Screwy! What did you do?! What did I just do?! What did--oh, no, no, no."

"Well, you gave me my pebble, and now I'm all better." Screwball laughed. "And Frankie wanted me to turn her into a moon but I didn't do a very good job so she broke but I'll practice on other people!"

"You killed her! You--you killed her! You just--oh, no, I have to get out of here, I have to go warn somebody, I have to--"

"Well yeah! Moons aren't alive! You're silly...Gilda! I remember your name now. You're silly, Gilda."

Gilda leapt at the hole in the ceiling they had fallen through, then flapped her wings to give her a bit of lift. She managed to get her chin and a claw on the other side of the hole, then started struggling to pull herself out.

"What are you doing, Gilda? Can I come?"

"No! Stay here! Stay here and don't move," she shouted. "Just...stay here and I'll get someone!"

"...you don't like me now that I'm not crazy," she said in her quiet little voice. "You only liked me because I was crazy, didn't you. And now I'm better and you don't like me now."

Gilda felt her talons scraping agianst the rock. She was losing her grip. "No! Ancestors, you're still crazy, you're even worse now that you can think! You're--"

"First you said you were my friend. Now you say I'm bad. You're kind of...a flip flop, Gilda," she half-whispered. "That's a kind of shoe, right? I think I saw that sometime. You called Frankie that a couple times. I don't know what it means. So I guess you're a flip-flop. You're a flip-flop, right Gilda?"

Gilda fell to the ground. She immediately sprang up, and began backing into the wall.

"Fine. Sure. I'm a big flip-flop. Biggest flip-flop ever. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Let's get back to working together, and--"

Screwball nodded, smiling happily. "You're a big flip-flop. Ha ha ha. That's funny. You don't look like a flip-flop. A flip-flop is way smaller than you are. And it's flat. You're not small and flat. But...but I bet I could..." She stuck out her little tongue.

"No. Oh, ancestors, please, no, please, no, please don't, I prom--"

An explosive, wet noise echoed through the chamber, followed by a delighted little giggle.



---



The bazaar roared with life. Zebras everywhere were buying, selling, or just happily ambling through the street. By the side of the road, they drank tea, told stories and jokes, and gambled with dice.

Screwball walked up to a vendor near the city gate. "Hello! Wow! You've got pretty stripes like the old pony who gave me my pebble! Do you know where Celestia is?" She blinked and smiled.

"Mimi kuomba msamaha," he said, shaking his head. "Je, akizungumza lugha ya kaskazini?"

"Hmm," she said quietly. "That's not very helpful. Do you know where I can find Celestia?"

He looked off to the side. "Mimi si kuzungumza lugha yako," he said awkwardly. "Je, unataka kununua berries baadhi?"

"Princess Celestia."

"...Princess Celestia? Malkia wa farasi mdogo? Anaishi kwa kaskazini na farasi mdogo."

"Celestia." Screwball kept a gentle smile on her face.

"...Siwezi kukusaidia," she said, then turned away.

"Hmm," Screwball said cheerily. "You're really pretty. But you're kinda useless! Just like a...like a flower! Do you want to be a flower now? You'd be a good one!"

He ignored her.

"Okay then!"

An explosive, wet noise echoed through the street. Zebras everywhere turned to look, and all immediately shouted in horror.

"Huh. I guess they're angry now," she said to herself. "That's weird. Oh. Flowers are pretty colors!" She stuck out her tongue, and then the grotesque flesh-flower in front of her turned a sickly purple and green. "Better!"

Behind her, she heard voices muttering intonations. She felt a tickle in her mind. "Oh," she said, turning to face them. There were three zebras in hoods, each chanting at her. She smiled. "You're doing magic now! I guess you're angry I made him a flower, even though he's a better flower than a pony. On."

She immediately began floating in the air. The zebra shamans behind her suddenly stopped speaking, and grabbed at their heads.

No. No magic. Cracked.

She settled to the ground and smiled cheerfully. "Hm. You want to hurt me, but you're really not very good at it. I guess you're like a bee? Ha ha. A little, little bee."

Three explosive, wet noises echoed through the street. All around, zebras began fleeing in terror. Zebra pushed against zebra. Some were shoved to the ground in the hurry to get out. From the other direction, a dozen zebras in guard uniforms came running up towards Screwball.

"Huh," she said. "They're really crabby. Maybe like crabs are? No...that game is getting boring. I know! Fireworks are pretty!"

One by one, the guards exploded into streaks of light.

She looked around, and sighed. "Hm. They're not very friendly here." She hung her head in simple sadness and dragged a hoof in little circles in the dust, doodling patterns with her single misshapen little sandal.

All around her, panicked shouts rang through the street.



---



Southwest of Manehattan. April, 1252.


Derpy looked over the newest reports, massaging her head. 9,000 recruits. In one month. How on Earth could she train 9,000 soldiers? They were just slowing her down; they couldn't even fight. They would be weeks away from even reserve duty. But...the gryphon army was over twice that size. And she was already having to spend most of her time trying to avoid them. The only option was to get bigger. But...that would only increase the amount of attention she was drawing. Meaning the only option was to become so big she could beat one of their armies in battle. But...if she could beat one, she could beat them all. She only had to beat them without fighting a knock-down battle. To beat every army that way.

Yes. She only had to do that.

So her hope was to take a bunch of farm ponies who had never even heard of "following orders," recruit a bunch more of them, and get them to execute perfect plans with perfect precision. Over. And over. And over. Yeah, Derpy. That's gonna happen.

Suddenly, another pony burst through the door. A pegasus, with a bloodied bandage wrapped around her wings. "General! It's me. Daisy May."

Derpy looked over her shoulder. Her eyebrows raised. She burst into a smile. "You're back! Finally! Did they get the letter?!"

The messenger nodded reluctantly. "Yes. But...but General. Something very, very bad has happened. The New Equestrian Army...doesn't really exist any more. There was a battle. We lost. We really, really, really lost. I'm sorry, General. The Princess is still alive, I think, but right now...we're it. It's just us. I've got three letters here for you. Two from Celestia. And one from your daughter."

Derpy froze. The world froze.

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