Chapter 11: Hell March
Chapter 11
Hell March
“I’ve had my fill of war. Trouble is, I don’t think war’s had its fill of me.”
- General Spitfire, after the Manehattan Civil War
The orchestra of war once again echoed across the city. The somber gray clouds had rolled back, letting the early morning light stream down from the blue skies above, giving the Solarium airships a clear line of sight as they obliterated troublesome buildings. The weather was bright and cheery, which annoyed Rainbow Dash to no end.
The Trottingham army could accomplish remarkable feats, if they put their mind to it. In two hours they had managed to clear out the major avenues and barricade them. Rainbow Dash was running behind one such makeshift barrier of sandbags and assorted junk, carrying sacks of ammunition and supplies on her back.
Running, not flying. She had already seen what happened to pegasi who tried to fly more than a few feet above the ground. Poking more than a helmeted head over a sandbag wall was a bad idea. It wasn’t where she wanted to be, but Trottingham’s newfound distrust of anything to do with Cloudsdale slid the option of being on the front lines away from her. Still, even the most distrustful soldier wouldn’t say no to ten boxes of bullets when staring down a Solarium infantry rush.
She darted through an alleyway and, after checking some street signs, found her destination. A long mound of furniture, vendor stands, and carts packed in with sand and rubble blocked half the four-lane avenue, and the soldiers were hurriedly dumping more on the rest of the road, protected by an APC that guarded the unbarricaded half. A pair of machine guns mounted on top of the makeshift wall rattled away at something down the road, while an anti-tank gun was being set up to their rear, behind the broken corpse of another one. The gunners took no notice of Rainbow Dash as she dumped her sacks near the machine guns, so she chanced a peek over the barricade.
Solarium was slowly advancing down the street. The ruins of a Solarium light tank with a gaping hole in the side of its hull was the temporary cover for a squad of enemy Earth ponies, pinned down by the machine guns. Further down, a massive Minotaur tank was obliterating the paving bricks as it rolled forward, its turret aimed to the right to deal with some unseen foe. More Solarium squads were trying to make their way against the enemy lines, with slow progress, dashing from cover to cover. Suddenly, a massive column of purple fire burst forth from the ground, consuming the Minotaur. Rainbow Dash started to cheer, but the sound died in her throat before it could leave her mouth as she saw the house-sized tank roll out of the flames, edges glowing red-hot but otherwise quite unscathed.
The sound of gun chariots swooshed in overhead, and everypony behind the barricades ducked. Rainbow Dash caught just a glimpse of one as it swerved and flew off to parts unknown. As it passed, the soldiers resumed their work; the Solarium soldiers had taken advantage of the lull in the fire to advance another dozen meters.
They weren’t getting the worst of it though. The fiercest fighting was taking place in buildings and back alleys, where the labyrinthine paths made for no clear battle lines, just a confused brawl. It was sword-work in there, and the Trottingham ponies knew their city far better than any invaders, making for many a nasty ambush. Solarium, however, was less concerned about the collateral damage, and could make their own paths by knocking holes in walls between buildings with towed guns. On top of that, they owned the rooftops as well.
None of this registered with Rainbow Dash, who only knew to take stuff given to her from Point A to Point B. So when a trio of Shock Troopers teleported down from the roof of the building opposite to her, it was as if they had come from nowhere. They blinked into the middle of the barricade-builders and instantly began slaughtering the lot—five ponies were dead before the rest even had time to react.
Not that it mattered much when they did. Swords and spears scratched uselessly against the full-body armor of the Shock Troopers, and even the bullets from the machine guns ricocheted off them. One teleported up to the machine gunners and ran one through with a hoof-blade, then threw him at the other gunner before finishing off the other with a heavy metal kick.
The Trooper down bore down on Rainbow Dash. There was a flash of light, and suddenly he was right in front of her. But Dash’s reflexes were honed by a lifetime of thrill-seeking, and the blade only stabbed the air as she rolled back. She bucked, catching the Trooper in the side, but whereas an unarmored pony would have buckled, the metal knight merely stumbled. The Shock Trooper whipped around and stomped down on Dash, who propelled herself backwards between the Trooper’s legs with a burst from her wings and attempted to slice at the legs. The little claws on her shoes, however, only managed to scratch the paint, and she had to roll again to avoid another downwards stab.
Her roll put her right underneath the Shock Trooper’s face. She punched upwards, trying to aim for the helmet’s optics, but the Shock Trooper caught her hoof. She tried again with the other one, but the metal knight caught that one too.
She grinned. Powerful wing muscles flexed, and her extra two limbs swept out the Shock Trooper’s hind legs from underneath him. Rainbow Dash leapt up and away, but suddenly smacked against the ground as something pulled on her tail. She turned; the rainbow hairs were enshrouded by a green aura, as the Shock Trooper, tired of the nonsense, prepared to finish her off.
Rainbow Dash grinned again, and the Shock Trooper looked up. Maybe, in his last moments, there had been just enough time for his brain to recognize the barrel of the anti-tank gun.
Sound and dust consumed her world. When she could hear again, she first heard a shout, “Fall back! Fall back!” She crawled along the ground, choking on dust and so numb she couldn’t be sure how many of her body parts were still attached. Just when she was about to collapse again a mouth clamped down on her tail and began dragging her along. Darkness took her.
When she woke up, she was lying against a pile of bricks. Everything was a blur; she could barely make out a light blue blob beneath her. She blinked. It was her own body. Somepony had taken off her armor and wrapped a bandage around her chest. Blood had soaked through the gauze and fabric.
Some part of her thought, Awesome! Battle scars! The rest of her thought that part was a moron and started working out how alive she still was. She wiggled her head, arms, and legs experimentally. They seemed to be in working order. But the moment she tried to shift her posture, pain ripped down her chest.
“Don’t try to move too much,” a voice said to her left. Rainbow Dash turned her head, and a light gray stallion swam into view. His helmet had a red cross on it. “I think I removed all the shrapnel, but there might still be some left. You’ll live, though, which makes you luckier than those folks.”
Dash turned her head in the direction he had nodded. There were a dozen other ponies—or in some cases, most of a pony—lying against the same rubble pile.
“Mom, help, it hurts, it hurts, help—”
She turned back. The medic was gone. She listened to the soldier crying for his mother, and decided she wasn’t going to stay here. Her hooves touched the ground gingerly. Breathing was hard, but getting easier. She could stand without too much difficulty.
She looked around. They were in the middle of a wide avenue, probably one of the main roads of the city. Rainbow Dash thought she recognized it from when she had been flying overhead—it cut a winding path through the town that eventually lead to Trottingham Castle. The castle wasn’t there anymore, but the road was still the major artery into the heart of the city, and there was sure to be heavy fighting here. Judging by the smashed barricades, the ruins of armored vehicles, the broken buildings and piles of rubble, there had already been, and the lack of gunfire told her the fighting had lulled.
She wandered around another pile of debris and gazed down the street. The Trottingham defenders had set up defensive positions behind enormous piles of rubble. Several APCs were parked on the sidewalks. Gun barrels stuck out of windows. Most of the soldiers were sitting down, tending their wounds or just resting. There didn’t seem to be much coordination. Certainly there was no spirit. Solarium had taken their morale and ground it into a fine powder beneath their treads. It’s all a mess.
“I thought I told you not to move!” The shout came from the medic, who was hunched a body behind the remains of a barricade with four other ponies. Their grim looks pitied her, and that part of her that had thought about battle scars rebelled against it. Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and marched forward, trying not to let her exhaustion show. “What’s going on?”
One of the soldiers, a dark blue stallion, nodded over the barricade. “We just held off their second assault.” He said the words matter-of-factly, without pride. “They’re bringing up reinforcements.”
Rainbow Dash looked around again at the broken soldiers, the smashed barricades, the damaged guns. “Why not retreat to a better position?”
There were some grins. “There aren’t any.” As if on cue, a deep rumbling echoed out from the far end of the avenue, the heavy, unstable percussion of breaking bricks coupled with the steady clanking of metal treads. “Damned Discord, they’re starting again.”
Like targets at an arcade shooting gallery, heads popped up over all the barricades. Dash’s eyes stared fixedly as something white, something huge rounded the corner. “Oh shi—”
“LEVIATHAN INCOMING!”
A wall of white steel filled the road. Three massive gun barrels emerged from beyond the corner and swiveled on their gigantic turret. A thundergod struck his hammer, and in a cruelly flagrant display of overkill, the avenue exploded.
Rainbow Dash pressed as closely against the barricade as possible as debris rained down everywhere. Two other rubble barricades had detonated, the ponies hiding behind them simply evaporating, while an APC had turned into an expanding cloud of metal shrapnel. Discord’s black bones...
The Leviathan was too wide to fit in the avenue, but that meant little. As it advanced, it tore through the fronts of buildings on either side, ripping apart facades and storefronts like paper mache as it towered above them. The paving stones cracked and popped beneath its treads, which crushed flat the feeble defenses and barricades that foals had thought could hold back the might of Solarium. Its main guns might have been reloading at a glacial pace, but the Leviathan bristled with lesser weapons that filled the space between the buildings with bullets and magic. Accuracy wasn’t even an issue; with so much firepower, simply existing in the space in front of the tank was enough to guarantee a hit.
She peered through a tiny hole just big enough to see through and watched as the wall of steel advanced. Ponies that tried to leave the temporary safety of their barricades or piles of rubble were cut to pieces. Ponies that stayed could only whimper helplessly as the inexorable wall of steel rolled over them.
She pulled away from the hole and looked at the soldiers next to her. One was staring at the ground dejectedly. One had his eyes closed in prayer. None were holding their weapons anymore, none moved to fight. There was nothing left to do.
“It hurts, mom, it hurts so much—”
It didn’t seem real. The sound of the guns, the screams, the implacable, inescapable wall of steel, might have been silent. Even the pain in her chest was numb. She blinked, and it seemed the simple movement of her eyelids took an eternity. She felt her mane flow in the wind, and looked up at the sky. The Leviathan advanced, merciless, and in that moment, with all its guns roaring in every direction, rock and brick and blood mixed in its treads, it seemed like the beast of mythology itself, risen from the darkest depths of the ocean to drown all that stood.
And at last, that part of her, the part that had always been there, the part that had reveled in the glory of destruction up there in the sky, in the adventure killing the enemy, the part that had fumed when she wasn’t allowed to join in the great dogfights of aerial combat, that fought against every precaution, every restraint, forsook her.
She looked down at her hooves as the thought came, unbidden, unwanted, but inescapable. I’m going to die. It filled her mind, her soul. It was not a thought she had ever considered herself capable of having. Death was something that happened to other ponies. Not her. Not Rainbow Dash.
Until now.
“Hey.” The voice was like a mirage in the desert. “Hey.” There was a nudge. Rainbow Dash turned. The mirage crystallized. All five of the other soldiers were staring at her. There seemed to be some sort of agreement. The medic was speaking. “Get out of here. We’ll distract them.”
She just stared, and blinked. “W- what?”
The medic turned to his fellows. “We’re Earth ponies. We don’t have a chance of getting out. But you’re a pegasus... you can fly into one of the side alleys and get out of here.”
“But...” Dash stared into the stallion’s eyes. Were they watering, or was it her own? “You’ll die.”
The ground trembled as the Leviathan tore through another building, causing it to collapse. The obvious did not have to be said. The medic touched her shoulder.
She turned to the others, burning their smiles into her memory.
As one, the six ponies sprang out from behind the barricade. Rainbow Dash pumped her wings. She could hear the shouts behind drown in gunfire. She didn’t look back.
She screamed into an alley, scraping along the wall until landing again. Trembling, she looked down at her body. I’m alive. Her left side was bleeding from scraping the wall and her wing cried out in agony, but she couldn’t have given less of a damn. I’m alive!
Metal hoofsteps thudded behind her, punctuated by the rattling of steel. Alive, but far from safe. She ran as fast as she could down the maze of alleys. It didn’t matter where to—as long as she was running. As long as she was running, she was alive.
Incredibly, she wasn’t the only one. There were still ponies, unarmored, ununiformed ponies, running through these alleys. Civilians or deserters, didn’t matter. She caught no more than glimpses, her interactions with them as fleeting as those of meteors with Equestria’s atmosphere. The hoofsteps were getting louder; Dash dared not look back, but she knew they were gaining on her.
She couldn’t outrun them. She was too tired, too injured. She had to hide. She found the nearest door and tried it. It was locked. No luck on the next one either. The third, however...
The building might have been an apartment. Dash raced down the hall and up to the second floor, not knowing what she was looking for, trying some of the doors along the way. As she ran down the new hall, there was a single open one. She stepped inside.
The place was an absolute mess. It was a tiny room, with a single worn couch and small, scratched table. Food and furniture and clothes were strewn everywhere. The owners had left in a haphazard way, having left even a small pile of money on the table. Probably their entire life savings. It seemed strange to go to the trouble of taking all that out, only to leave it on the table.
Dash walked over to the window and peered out. The building was facing the same avenue she had escaped, and so was temporary shelter at best. The Leviathan was still advancing, and the street didn’t get any wider down here. Its guns had gone quiet, and that could only be because there were no targets left.
Rainbow Dash sighed, and for the first time that day, felt exhausted. She took off her helmet and threw it aside. If she ditched the clawed shoes, the helmet, and the blades on her wings, she could pass for just an ordinary civilian. Maybe that would be enough, or maybe they would just shoot her anyways. Dash just knew that she didn’t want to fight anymore. She could see those five smiles every time she blinked.
Hoofsteps came echoing down the hallway. Dash froze. Somewhere to hide, somewhere to hide... The hoofsteps were almost on her now. There was no time to find a good hiding spot. She had to fight. She leapt over the couch and pressed herself up against the wall next to the doorway. Please don’t look in here, please don’t look in here... But if they did, she had to be ready. I don’t want to die, I’m NOT GOING TO DIE— She stretched her good wing and tensed, prepared to cut down the first thing that walked through that doorway...
The hoofsteps came ever closer, then stopped for a moment. A yellowish-orange body stepped through the doorway. Rainbow Dash pounced, drawing her wing across the pony’s chest and then stabbing its side with her metal claws...
And then she realized her mistake. She stepped back until she hit the table. Horror was inscribed on her face. “I’m sorry!” she said as the civilian collapsed, limbs splaying out across the floor, blood seeping into the carpet. “I’m so sorry!”
The mare paid no attention to her, raising her head back towards the doorway. “Run!” she cried.
Then she died.
Dash poked her head out the doorway and saw the tip of a tiny purple tail disappear down the stairs. She collapsed onto the floor and buried her face in her hooves. “No,” she moaned, “no, I didn’t mean to, this can’t be happening—”
But it did. And the blood on her wing, her hooves, now staining her face as well, proved it.
Slowly, as though in a trance, she threw away her shoes and blades, casting them out as though they carried the plague. A deep rumble shook the apartment, the sound of the building next door collapsing as the Leviathan tore through it. Rainbow Dash made for the door, but heard a small, high-pitched cry from outside the window.
“Help! Somepony help me!”
Taking care to not be seen by the Leviathan, Dash looked out and down. There, trapped in the rubble, was a small orange filly. The color of her tail was unmistakably the same shade of purple as the tip that had disappeared down the stairs.
“Please, somepony help!”
There was no one. The Leviathan continued to advance. It didn’t even know the filly was there, it couldn’t know the filly was there. Not that it mattered; its treads were already smeared with blood...
“Help!”
Guilt pounded at her.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
And she saw that part of her that had left. It had been the reckless bravado, the fearless daredevil, the arrogant athlete. It was the part of her that reveled in death and destruction as adventure and glory, but it was also the part of her that stood steadfast in the face of adversity, the part that fought alongside her friends when they needed her most, the part that would never, ever let somepony down. That part of her stared her in the eye.
But can you live like this?
Dash opened the window and dived.
It was a clumsy, inelegant dive—her injured wing didn’t want to extend fully. She hit the ground with a force that shocked her legs and torched the nerves in her chest. She ignored it, and began pushing the rubble off the little filly, grabbing her tail in her mouth and pulling her free...
She felt, rather than saw, the machine guns turn towards her. She swung the filly onto her back and looked up the black barrel.
She waited.
The Leviathan shuddered to a halt. The unstoppable wall of steel stopped.
For a long time, nothing happened.
Rainbow Dash turned, and ran away.
----------
Applejack waited on the worn wooden bench nervously. The rooms of the Manehattan military command center were all rather thinly decorated. The city did not believe in spending extra money on pomposity for its armed force, although it seemed to have no trouble doing so for its government. The walls were lined with white wallpaper and the floor gray tiles, with a rather worn red carpet leading down the center of the hall.
The officer at the desk on the far side of the room was busy sorting through papers. It was a big room, with lots of benches, and Applejack was the only other pony in it, but she was too nervous to be lonely.
Without any cue that she could discern, the officer spoke up. “You can go in now.”
Applejack opened her mouth, but thought better of it. Wordlessly she ambled over to the double doors and cautiously pushed them open.
General Frozen Thought, five-star general of the Manehattan armed forces, was sitting at the distant wall. It was a large desk, but simple, a mere wooden block on four legs, with neatly stacked papers, an inkwell and quill in the corner, and a single closed dossier in the middle. The rest of the room was equally spartan, giving the entire place the air of a hospital, or perhaps an asylum. The utilitarian lights were not fully lit, and the corners of the room were drenched in darkness.
Frozen Thought was small for an unicorn, but his gaze had a focus that belied his thin frame. His large, green eyes seemed to have been watching Applejack even before she had entered the room, focusing on a point about half a meter behind her head. He regarded her as she walked in, and smiled. His voice was thin and sharp, much like his appearance, and his movements were coated with a smooth courtesy that would have been more appropriate on a politician than a general. “Hello, Corporal Applejack.”
“Er, howdy, sir. I uh, thanks for takin’ yer time to meet me...” Applejack had not requested to meet the general, of course. That would be ludicrous for a mere corporal. She had applied to speak to the company commander, but instead had been bumped up to the highest military authority in the land. Why was utterly beyond her.
“To meet a courageous hero such as yourself? I think I always have the time. I was merely looking over the reports from Trottingham.”
He don’t care much for military discipline, does he? Tradition would have dictated that a five-star general be a gruff, tough, no-nonsense sort of pony, who cut past the chatter politics and got things done. You could not have found a less accurate description of Frozen Thought, unless perhaps you added “stupid” to the list. He was better at politics than any politician, which perhaps was precisely why he wasn’t a politician.
“Uh, are they good, sir?”
“No. They are awful.” Frozen Thought’s smile did not change in the slightest.
Applejack squirmed. The way Frozen Thought’s eyes seemed to see through her head was distinctly unnatural. It was as his gaze was breaking her down into components for analysis. In desperation, she glanced around the room. It was then she noticed the window behind Frozen Thought. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “What’s goin’ on out there?!”
Still smiling, Frozen Thought stood up, turned around and watched Manehattan burn.
Fire was raging through the slums like a wild beast, merrily devouring the makeshift homes. The impoverished sectors, built by refugees and immigrants that had come to the city seeking a better life, were the perfect tinderbox for even the smallest spark.
Applejack stared at the distant reddish-orange blaze, transfixed. “Wh- what’re they doin’ to the bridges...?”
“Ah, yes. I see our richer and worthier citizens are bravely demolishing them.”
“... Why?”
Frozen Thought realized that he would have to tone down the sarcasm for this one. “I imagine they would find it quite problematic if the less worthy were to try and escape into their districts.”
Applejack gaped. “S- shouldn’t we all be... doin’ somethin’?”
“They have already closed the river gates.” And indeed, denied its usual path into the sea, the river was already overflowing its banks, flooding into the streets in great torrents. Soon the land of fire was merely a series of flaming islands, and a great cloud of steam covered the sky.
“They’re floodin’ the whole city to put out the fire?”
“Of course not.” Frozen Thought returned to his seat. “Just the slums. Now, Corporal Applejack, let us turn our attention to you.”
“I, uh.” With great difficulty, Applejack tore her eyes away from the city. The words she had been rehearsing out in the waiting room had fled her mind entirely. “Uh, well, you know sir, I come from a big farmin’ family down in the south, with mah siblings and mah granny—” She swallowed. Why in the world was she talking about this? But Frozen Thought seemed to radiate uncomfortable silence that Applejack felt compelled to fill. With what, it didn’t matter. “And mah parents, and mah pap was in the Civil War, and—”
“Your grandmother is too old to work your farm, while your mother’s injuries sustained in the Manehattan Civil War render her equally helpless,” Frozen Thought said. He had steepled his hooves again, and was resting his chin on top of them. “Therefore, you, your father, and your brother support the family. However, all households subject to Manehattan law are required to have at least one member in the armed forces, in potentia. You argued that you were the youngest and, in terms of farm work, the least valuable. This alone, however, would not be reason for you to preempt the draft card and volunteer. Thus, patriotic duty compels you to ah, ‘do your duty for our nation’, as it were.”
Applejack just stared. If he had asked, “Am I right?”, that would have merely made it irritating. He, though, simply read her head as though her life history were written on it.
The uncomfortable silence returned. “I, uh... yes, sir.” That seemed the only appropriate response.
Frozen Thought put his hooves down on the desk. “Do you want to die for your country?”
“Sir?”
“You showed remarkable courage on the battlefield. Running to deliver a desperate message, capturing a Solarium tank and using it to achieve a breakthrough for a division that was not even yours, operating a gun in a destroyed tank to cover the retreat of an important package that you did not know the nature of. I have received no less than sixteen commendations for you, four of which have been for the Cross of Valor.”
“I just did what anypony else would’ve done, sir.”
This seemed to amuse the general. “Ah. Modesty.” The way he said it suggested he thought of it as a trait best reserved for insects. “So then, Applejack. Do you want to die for your country?”
Applejack worked her jaw. Sweat dripped down the side of her head. This meeting was not going the way she had imagined.
“No, sir.”
Frozen Thought smiled. “Good. I have no use for ponies that want to die for their country.”
“Sir.” It was a half-statement, half-question that didn’t really have any purpose except to fill the void. Applejack had given up trying to grasp the conversation.
“My purposes are better served if such ponies are on the other side.”
“Sir.”
“And what of your purposes, Applejack?”
“Sir.”
Frozen Thought looked. He opened his mouth again, speaking slowly. “What do you want, Applejack?”
Applejack blinked. “Um, sir...”
“Everyone that enters this office wants something, Applejack, even if it is only to leave it.”
There was a slight pause. “I’d like to be transferred to the army, sir.”
Frozen Thought leaned back in his seat. “Is that all?”
Weeks of being yelled at by a drill sergeant were barely able to keep Applejack from staring at the ground. “Yes, sir. Uh, the navy’s nice ‘n all, but it was really mah second choice, cause the army wasn’t recruitin’ Earth ponies then...”
Frozen Thought rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Corporal Applejack, there are entire rooms of ponies in this building that want to see me, and all of them are either very wealthy and powerful, or think they are, and not a single one of them would dare to trouble me with anything unless they had absolutely nowhere else to turn. And yet I have inserted you into my busy schedule after the Director of Science and Technology and before the CEO of FlimFlam Industries, on the basis that such an unusually-phrased request to meet higher authority by such a remarkable young mare ought to be important indeed. Now, are you going to tell me that you will make no use of this opportunity to make any other requests of me?”
Applejack’s legs suddenly felt like they were made of warm ice: brittle, heavy, and melting rapidly. “... Sir.”
“Very well. I will have you transferred to the Armor Division Zero.”
A jolt ran through her body. Everypony knew that Division Zero got the best training, the best equipment, the best—
The incongruity of the situation hit her, and suddenly she wasn’t sure if what had just happened was good or not. Frozen Thought was smiling though, and so she tried to smile back. “Thank you, sir.”
“Excellent. Now I am sure you have many promotions to receive, medals to enjoy, training to endure. We will probably not see each other again.”
“Yes sir.” Applejack turned and left the room. As the doors closed behind her, she shuddered.
The lieutenant at the desk glanced at her and smiled. “Yeah, he does that.”
----------
Frozen Thought watched the orange pony leave. So that was the fabled Earth pony that had ensured the successful retrieval of the Element against heavy odds. Interesting.
His eyes returned to the dossier on his desk that he had been looking at before she had walked in. He magically opened the file and looked over the pictures of a beautiful white unicorn with a floridly curled purple mane, showing off her fashions. He did not profess to understand this alternate universe business, but he was a fast learner.
There was much to learn. Oh yes, there was much to learn. The nature of the game had changed, this much he knew. His hoof swirled in the air, tracing out mental arrows on an imaginary map of Equestria. Leaving war to your generals now, are you? he mused about the Solarium Supreme Commander. A chessboard with a thousand pawns, and suddenly the Supreme Commander was no longer interested, all because of the appearance of a single queen. Ah, but there were five other queens concealed on this board, colored neither black nor white. History finds a way, does it?
Still, events were already in motion that could not be stopped. The Third Rune War would be fought to its bitter end. But Frozen Thought had always considered it more useful to direct a runaway train to hit an irritating building. Two birds with one stone, as it were.
They would come for the Element, soon. That much was obvious. The Supreme Commander would let them.
He smiled.
----------
A tiny perturbation in his command, the confusion, then clarity of a single pony down there on the battlefield, alerted Oversight to the message. “General,” he reported, “they are offering to surrender.”
“Ah, jolly good,” Greenblade said, imitating the famous Trottingham accent. “Unconditionally, I presume?”
Oversight furrowed his brows. “I... can’t tell. The sense is too indistinct...”
Greenblade nodded. “Very well, have our forces stand down then. We can await their pegasus in the meantime.”
Oversight nodded, and pushed his mind out onto the landscape, giving the little psychic nudges that told the ponies to cease the attack.
“Let’s assemble down by the staging area. Have the Rapid Assembly Vehicles begin preparing a track to the Valley of Death in the meantime.”
This last bit was not directed to Oversight. He sighed and finally relaxed. The battle was over. Cheers and congratulations erupted all over the bridge. He stepped out of the cage of the dominator engine and walked over to the window. The muddy trails the Solarium armored divisions had ploughed, the smoke rising from the ruins of Trottingham, it all seemed so distant, so controllable from up here. The offensive had been a complete success. The casualty counts would take some time to assemble, but Oversight could give a good guess based purely on his mental maps. There wouldn’t be that many on the Solarium side, he was sure.
Textbook.
----------
Rainbow Dash climbed to the top of the hill and turned around. The Solarium forces were withdrawing, their giant airships turning around in the sky. As much as she would have liked to imagine it was because they were beaten, even she wasn’t that stupid.
Stupid. That word really summed her up, didn’t it? Just a few hours ago—it seemed like a lifetime!—she had been thirsting for battle, been so disappointed that she couldn’t be in the first wave, couldn’t slice and slash at other ponies in the air and instead just blew up airships with Sonic rainbooms. That Rainbow Dash seemed like an entirely different pony now. Flaming cola rain, she had been such a foal.
The little pegasus filly on her back hadn’t said a word. Dash figured now was as good a time as any. “Hey,” she said, turning her head to look at her with one eye. The filly was staring at the grass. “What’s your name?”
“S’.” The voice was so quiet that the only way Dash knew for sure she had said anything at all was the movement of her mouth.
“Hey, speak up, kid.”
The filly looked up at her. “Scootaloo.”
Dash nodded. “I’m Rainbow Dash.” The words came out of her flatly, and sounded almost completely different, as though they belonged to somepony else. She had always worn her name as though it were a badge of honor.
“Thanks for saving me.”
Dash’s insides twisted. She doesn’t know, she thought. The filly hadn’t seen her when she... she killed that mare. She tried to hide it, tried to smile. “Where’s your dad?”
“Don’t have one.”
She frowned. “Everypony has a dad.”
Scootaloo shrugged. “Mom never talked about him.” Suddenly, as if the words were a magic spell, she broke down in tears. “Mommy! She- she had- l left the—”
“There, there,” Rainbow Dash said in a tone that she thought was soothing, though in truth she had less experience being soothing than a turtle did flying. She lifted up her good wing and stroke the filly’s back. “I’m... I’m...” She gulped. What was she?
A murderer.
No! It had been an accident. She hadn’t meant to. It wasn’t supposed to have happened. None of this was.
The crying subsided, reduced to mere sniffles. Scootaloo rubbed her nose. “Sorry.”
“D- don’t apologize.” Dash couldn’t bear to look at the filly any longer. She turned and gazed at the plain. Thousands, no, tens of thousands of multicolored dots were streaming across the hills out of Trottingham. It seemed as though the entire city had left, but of course that couldn’t be true. They must have been making for the Spiral Pass that would take them across the Chaos Mountains to Manehattan. Where else could they go?
For that matter, where could she go? A life of patriotism told Rainbow Dash that she should return to Cloudsdale, but she wasn’t sure if she could make it through the hurricane with an injured wing. And besides, she couldn’t just leave the filly here. Not when she had... she had... done what she did.
“Ever been to Manehattan?”
She felt Scootaloo shook her head. “No.”
“Wanna go now?”
There was a pause. “Ok.”
Well, it was decided. To the greatest city in the world they would go.
--------------------
Manehattan Central Intelligence Services Archives - Classified: Eyes Only - CIS Intelligence Report: Dominator Engine - Abstract
Of Solarium’s multitude of secretive rune engine variants, the dominator engine is perhaps the most insidious. Despite multiple attempts at obtaining a model or blueprint of this device, the workings of the dominator engine remain completely incomprehensible to us. Even more worrying, the Ministry of Science and Technology has remained unable to even suggest a viable magical theory to explain the capabilities of the engine. As of the time of this writing, CIS believes the dominator engine is derived from remnants of magic from the pre-Discord era being held at Area 06 [See CIS Intelligence Report: Changeling Queen Chrysalis].
Whatever its source, the nature of the dominator engine is well-established. In its most common form, it is a mind-control device. CIS first discerned the existence of the engine after multiple operatives were captured and later seen collaborating with known Solarium operatives. Through a process referred to as “rehabilitation”, the dominator engine is capable of entirely reprogramming a pony’s mind and memories down to the unconscious level. As of the time of this writing, no method of countering the effects is known. Solarium frequently uses the engine in counterespionage to great effect, as well as pacifying dissidents within its own population.
The second form of the dominator engine is as a long-range communication device. Through unicorns known as “Battle Commanders”, Solarium is able to assert instantaneous communications over a vast battlefield. Specially-trained officers on the ground called “seers” relay thoughts to the Battle Commander via the dominator engine, who then can form a picture of the battlefield based on real-time information.
The existence of the dominator engine’s third form is inferred from third-party reports from the Battle of Los Pegasus. Due to the insanity of surviving witnesses, few details are confirmed, but it is hypothesized that Solarium deployed an experimental version against the griffon army that resulted in massive collateral damage to its own forces and the citizens of the city. Little else is known of the event except that the disturbance was psychic in nature, and gathering coherent information from the survivors has been notoriously difficult. What happened to the weapon afterwards, if it existed at all, is the subject of speculation.
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Twilight Goes To Hell: The Final Fragment
You even named the chapter after the greatest video game song ever. How perfect.
I'm waiting to see what unusual gadgets the Coalition has up its sleeve...
3072882
if it's the greatest, how come I've never heard of it?
3074767
It is glorious.
So Rainbow Dash accidently killed Scootaloo's mother and will likely now forever feel as if she is a murderer. Though this may also mean Scoots doesn't have to worry about being abandoned. I'm hoping Scootaloo's father happens to be Greenblade because that would make for an interesting side story.
Vorwärts Soldaten erwartet Manehattan niemanden! Solarium seems to be very German-esc in its design of an army/air force. (Combined arms + Tank heavy)
So Twilight and Twilight are headed to Tartarus eh? Sounds like a hell of an adventure
Manehattan seems to have adopted Soviet style ideals when it comes to the worth of the common pony.
3074767 Because they don't want you to know...
In all seriousness, you probably haven't heard of it if you haven't played any of the Red Alert games.
3075365 Not to be rude, but you do know that the Germans weren't the only ones with plenty of tanks? Other armies had the whole "combined arms" thing going, too.
3077038 I know, but using the Americans is overused and the Russians had a different style of tank warfare and production.
Mainly I see a German style with Solarium's forces because they took the route of creating monster tanks that are very intricate in nature. Quality over Quantity.
As for combined arms tactics, everyone had used them by the end of the war but Germany was one of the first to actually use tanks with infantry as support versus the opposite which France and Britain had in the beginning.
3077131 Point taken, the Solarium do obviously prefer emphasizing armor and firepower at the expense of mobility when it comes to tank design.
Although, I'd argue that the "Germanic" aesthetic is just as overused for fictional militaries as the "American" one is. Also, "quality over quantity" kinda oversimplifies things, I think. It's more about which qualities you want to emphasize and which you're willing to sacrifice.
3077003>>3074830
Upon both of your reccomendations, I listened to it anticipating something good, but was severely disappointed. Not only was it bland, but it could have been cut down to about 30 seconds and still fit in all the variation in the entire song. In other words, it was the same thing over and over. The cuts of the commands were poorly done and sounded more like dog barks than something shouted to subordinates. I am extremely displeased.
I've heard better soundtracks on decade old games.
3077506
Eh, to each their own. I probably hate music you like too. As for the commands, that's kind of what happens when you use period audio of German drill instructors.
3077517
To my defense, the music i was referring to is as much rock as this is.
3077439>>3077131
The German analogy works to an extent, but it's worth pointing out that, unlike the nations of WWII, their doctrines of war are more due to necessity than intent. Solarium magitech is considerably more advanced than Manehattan, and the Manehattan industrial and population base is several times that of Solarium. Solarium has little choice but to try and exploit its technological advantage to the maximum extent possible, while Manehattan has little choice but to avoid going mano y mano, and instead focus on creating new tactics and methodologies of warfare (Manehattan may be behind in magical technology, but not necessarily conventional technology...).
Huh..between Solarium's massively overpowered tanks and forbidden technologies for mind control and all that stuff, and Canterlot's hyper elite commando's, I'm starting to wonder how they haven't already taken everything over..but then I'm probably forgetting stuff mentioned/shown earlier or otherwise we'll be seeing stuff the other cities have that could help counter them.
3087982
Solarium population: 500,000
Canterlot population: 300,000
Manehattan and surrounding territories: 3,200,000
Fillydelphia and surrounding territories: 1,500,000
Hope that answers your question for now. The detailed explanation is in chapters to come
3088016
It does in fact make things much more plausible thank you. Looking forward to the next chapter. Also, delayed feels!
(where IS Pinkie in this world anyway?)
3090623
I regret I only have one 'thumbs up' for this story. I rather like Frozen Thought, for some reason. I dunno. And Dash... wow. Right in the gut, there.
ooh! ooh! love the scootaloo bit (even though i as a rule despise sappiness in fiction). this is by far the best action series ive found on fimfiction.
we thank you for your diligence. carry on.
Is anyone else having a hard time not thinking of these tanks as ww2 tanks? This feels like a German Maus, for other genetic tanks I thinking of a Sherman, and for that one flamer thank you, I can't help but think of either one of those short-barreled/howitzer German panzer or the M10 US tank...