• Published 6th Jan 2013
  • 7,240 Views, 241 Comments

Fragment - Heliostorm



An unwilling traveler of time and space, Twilight Sparkle becomes face-to-face with herself in a torn and dying Equestria forged from magecraft and industry, and haunted by the spectre of Discord's thousand-year reign.

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Chapter 4: Awe

“The closest thing to a strategy Solarium’s ever used when it encounters a military problem is something along the lines of, ‘Build another tank, but bigger this time.’”
- Frozen Thought, Manehattan General

When the draft notice had came and she had taken the pre-basic training exam, the sergeant who reviewed the results had taken off her glasses and told her, “Young lady, you have the lowest scores out of any recruit I have ever seen or heard of. In fact, I would bet that you have the lowest scores in not only the history of Cloudsdale, but in the entire history of Equestria.”

So they threw her in the medical corps, and Fluttershy was ok with that.

In her white vest and cap emblazoned with thick red plus signs, she stuck out like a sore thumb in the field of combat. Which was the entire point, of course, as it was a war crime to attack a medic while they were doing their duty. Though ponies might have taken to violence, they never forgot that on the other side were ponies too—with thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams. Not like the brief but traumatic time Equestria had dueled with the gryphons. Still, war crime or not, the reality of war meant medics did get hurt like the rest of the army.

All in all though, Fluttershy considered herself relatively lucky. The explosions and screams of war frightened her, the sight of blood and corpses terrified her, but she was able to find strength in the knowledge that she was helping ponies in dire need. Drifting over the besieged city with her first aid bags like a calm leaf in a thunderstorm, her eyes roved, her ears attentive to the call.

“Medic!”

Heavy cuts across back, rubble in wound.

Fluttershy did not much care for who she tended to; a hurt pony was a hurt pony. She couldn’t care less about the clash of ideologies that started the war.

“Medic!”

Possible concussion, looks like internal bleeding, bad burns across the chest and face.

Her focus on her job was absolute. Distraction was fatal; every second counted. Not only that, but Fluttershy knew that if she let herself pay too much attention to the explosions and destruction, she would become much too afraid to do anything but cower.

“Medic!”

Heavily injured limb, probably need to amputate. Extreme blood loss, need to stop bleeding-

Too late.

“Medic!”

The cries were endless, and there was no time to pause and mourn the lost. Medics saw the worst in war, and there was no shortage of moments where Fluttershy wanted nothing more than to run away and hide. But she just went to the next one, and the next one, and the next one—always flying, always trying to help, even when there was little she could offer except kind words.

So it came as a complete surprise when she suddenly found herself with no pony to go to.

Confusion began to set in, but then Fluttershy remembered what she had seen of the battlefield, high in the sky. The Manehattanite forces were advancing in two waves; an advance line consisting of infantry and tanks was rolling over the beleaguered Solarium defenders, while a second line of support troops and artillery followed. In between was a no-mare’s land. If Fluttershy flew a mile east or west, she’d soon run into a wall of Manehattan and Cloudsdale forces.

The sounds of combat were distant and intermittent, so Fluttershy took the opportunity to rest and land. Walking through the streets, she let her eyes wander, admiring Solarium architecture. The city lacked the natural spaces filled with plants and animals that she preferred, but she still liked the intricate designs of the structures; the buildings seemed alive, in a mechanical way—spinning, twisting, glowing. There was no shortage of light; even though it was three hours past midnight Fluttershy had little difficulty seeing.

Loud whispers drifted down the street. Fluttershy suppressed the urge to squeak and ducked into an alleyway.

“Ew ew ew, this is so disgusting...” one voice said.

“Get over it, will you?” the other whispered. Fluttershy tilted her head; the two voices sounded exactly the same. “If I can handle it so can you.”

“But why?”

“I told you! Combat by non-uniformed ponies is prohibited by the Hoofington Convention! And besides, we might get attacked by our own side!”

“But... but...” The first voice made a whining noise. “Did we really have to take these off a dead guy?

“Do you have a better idea?”

Those don’t sound like soldiers, Fluttershy thought, poking her head out from behind the building. She couldn’t see anypony in the street, despite the voices sounding relatively close.

“Hey! Somepony’s there!”

Fluttershy involuntarily squeaked; she felt her entire body lift into the air and hover in the middle of the street. She looked around wildly, but still couldn’t see any pony that could have been casting the spell.

That’s when the space before her eyes shimmered. The air seemed to part like curtains, revealing two lavender unicorns in black-and-white chestplates two sizes too large for them.

Fluttershy stared. Not only had she never seen an invisibility spell before, but she had also never seen two ponies that looked so... identical. Even twins usually had slightly different cutie marks. The only thing that distinguished one from the other were a pair of elaborate-looking multi-functional glasses.

Fluttershy?” the non-glasses-wearing unicorn asked.

Both Fluttershy and the other unicorn turned to her in surprise. “You know her?” the bespectacled unicorn asked.

The first one nodded. “She’s one of my best friends!”

The bespectacled unicorn glanced back at Fluttershy with a quizzical expression. “Well, whoever she is, she’s not the pony you know.” Fluttershy suddenly felt her body drop to the ground. The unicorn bit her lip in consternation. “Maybe I can knock her out for a few hours if I hit her on the head hard enough.”

“What? No!” the other pony cried, apparently having forgotten about whispering. “You can’t do that! Fluttershy wouldn’t hurt a fly! She’s the kindest, gentlest pony you could ever meet!”

“She’s an enemy,” the bespectacled unicorn retorted, pointing a hoof at the Cloudsdale emblem on Fluttershy’s vest. “And if she tells her friends we’re here, we’re dead.”

“Fluttershy wouldn’t do that!” The other unicorn turned to the yellow pegasus. “Would you, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy had no idea how this strange mare knew her name or could say anything about her being kind and gentle, but it was obviously in her best interests to agree. She eagerly nodded. “See?” the purple unicorn said.

The bespectacled unicorn stared at her twin as though she had suffered a terrible head injury. Finally she answered slowly, “It’s too risky. She’s not the pony you know, and we can’t trust her.”

“Umm...” The noise Fluttershy made drew the gazes of both unicorns, and she immediately shrunk back. “Excuse me.. if it’s not too much trouble I mean... maybe you could take me prisoner?” She smiled sheepishly.

The unspectacled unicorn turned to her partner in expectation. Her twin groaned. “It’d be way too much trouble to drag along a prisoner with us on a stealth mission.”

“I promise I’ll be really, really quiet,” Fluttershy said. “I’m really good at it—I mean, you have no idea how good I am at being quiet!”

The glasses-wearing pony groaned again, rubbing her forehead, and Fluttershy’s gaze fell upon the unicorn’s wound.

“Excuse me, but... may I see your shoulder?” she asked.

The injured unicorn looked at her suspiciously for a few seconds, but grudgingly offered her limb.

One glance at it was enough. “Oh my, this is no good,” Fluttershy said, shaking her head. “This wound hasn’t been cleaned properly, there’s a good chance it will get infected. And whoever did the stitching did a very bad job, and you probably didn’t need the stitches anyways..”

The bespectacled unicorn glanced at her twin, who grinned embarrassedly. Fluttershy set her saddlebags onto the ground and took out her equipment. First she applied a small amount of local anesthetic to the shoulder, then cut away and removed the stitches. Then she carefully cleaned and disinfected the wound, and finally applied a large bandage.

“There, that should do it,” Fluttershy told the unicorn. “The anesthetic should wear off in an hour, but try not to strain that shoulder too badly.” She stepped back and saw suspicion, but also grudging respect in the unicorn’s eyes.

“Come on,” the other pony said, smiling calmly. “If you’re anything like me, I know you don’t want to hurt a defenseless pony.”

The bespectacled unicorn shook her head, defeated. “Fine...” Her expression then turned deadly serious, and she jabbed a hoof into Fluttershy’s chest. “But if you do anything to compromise our mission in any way whatsoever, I swear on my father’s grave that I will kill you without hesitation. Understand?”

Fluttershy nodded quickly, breathing a sigh of relief.

The other unicorn’s mouth dropped, her face a mixture of surprise and horror. “Wait, your dad’s-”

“Not the time.” The bespectacled unicorn snapped annoyedly, her eyes glanced down the street. “The control node should be about two more blocks from here. Let’s go make up for lost time.”

----------

As Shining Armor stepped out of the train and into Starlight Station, he half-expected a small army to burst out from behind a wall or something. But the train station was empty, and the only sounds were distant, muffled shouting and the wind.

That wouldn’t last for long. The flying machine, after having disappeared for several minutes, now flew over again and began to descend onto the plaza outside.

“Go!” Shining Armor shouted, and the four ponies took off at full gallop. They were halfway across the plaza when the aircraft lowered its boarding ramp and six unicorn Rangers rushed out.

Shining Armor spotted a fragile-looking column on one of the buildings lining the street they were heading towards, more for decoration than for actual structural support. “Keep going!” the commando yelled to the other three ponies, sliding to a stop and spinning around. His horn glowed, and using as much force he could muster, he pulled at the top of the column, causing it to tip over and fall onto the road.

He didn’t stop to view the results of his handiwork, but instead took off after the Lord Magister. Behind him, three of the Rangers skidded to a stop and powered on their horns, lifting the column back into place, while the other three ran past their compatriots.

Their destination was just up ahead: a small, unassuming furniture store nestled between two large towers. Spear Shot magically opened the door as they rushed inside, then slammed it shut again with a dull thud. He didn’t bother locking it again; an ordinary door wouldn’t stop the Rangers for longer than it took to lock it. They went down the stairs and into the basement, where they encountered a long, dark tunnel that sloped down into the depths of the mountain.

“Go on,” Shining Armor said to his friends, gesturing to the tunnel. “I’ll hold them off.”

The other three ponies looked back at him. “No!” Twinblade said.

Spear Shot kneed Twinblade in the ribs. “Orders are orders.” He looked Shining Armor in the eyes. “Good luck.”

Taking a deep breath, Shining Armor turned around and faced the empty basement, taking the precious few moments he had to prepare himself. One by one, the Rangers descended the stairs. Having seen what Shining Armor could do, they were wary, and spread out in a line on the far side of the room. One of them found the light switch.

Shining Armor flicked out one of his blades and dragged the tip across the floor. Sparks flew into the air and scattered onto the ground, glowing for but brief, ephemeral flashes. A clear line was carved into the concrete behind which he stood. His eyes burned with determination, and his next words echoed deeply off the walls, lingering in the air for long seconds.

“Any one of you who passes this line today, dies.”

His eyes pierced through the darkness at the Rangers. A long, motionless moment passed in which the seven ponies shared in the calm before the storm. Then one of them tipped their spear, a tiny, twitching little motion, only just barely noticeable to the untrained eye.

Shining Armor charged, and battle was joined.

----------

“Could somepony please explain to me why a mere Battle Commander is directing the defense of Solarium?” a tall, brown unicorn mare asked as she entered the command center.

Battle Commander Oversight rose from his tactical map. “Secretary-General,” he greeted the mare as she looked down upon him, sternly judging him through her spectacles. A twinge of nervousness ran down his spine. “Neither General Ironside nor General Blazewing could be located,” he explained, “leaving me the ranking officer here in the HQ. My sincerest apologies, but my support team and I shall direct the defense of Solarium to the best of my ability.”

The Secretary-General’s expression was unreadable, and Oversight felt like he was melting under her gaze. Finally, she spoke. “A satisfactory answer.” There was just the slightest hint of a nod. “Although I imagine this is quite different from the chair of a dominator engine.”

Oversight had to stop himself from breathing a sigh of relief. To get any kind of gesture of approval at all from her was a miracle; the running joke was that one of the job requirements of being Secretary-General was having no soul. “It’s not all that different, ma’am,” he replied. That was a complete lie, of course, but if it made her feel more confident in him, it was better than the truth.

“Very well, then, please continue,” the brown mare said, then moved back to a corner of the room.

Oversight turned his attention back to the tactical map. The grid-like pattern of Solarium’s streets were laid out before him, along with the grass fields beyond the outer walls. Simple metal blocks with letters hastily scrawled in green or red marker were arrayed in clumps, representing fighting groups.

The situation was desperate. Although Solarium ran a series of defensive fortifications all across the Chaos Mountains and scattered throughout the plains between the mountains and Solarium, the city itself was only lightly garrisoned. It had been assumed that any assault capable of posing a threat to the city would be spotted long before it was within range of besieging the capital. It had also been assumed the city’s static defenses that had been built into the outer wall were more than enough to handle any army capable of sneaking in range of the city.

And, as the Solarium military had just had hammered into its collective brain, assumptions were deadly in war. They had never counted on an advance force of pegasi disabling the shields on the western side of the city by cutting the conduits for remote activation and smashing the manual controls while the static defenses were down. Nor had they counted half a division’s worth of forces emerging from camouflaged netting designed to look like grass and then suddenly storming into the city. How the Manehattanites managed to get tanks and artillery across the mountains without being noticed, Oversight did not know.

The bulk of the enemy forces were still outside the city; the western gate provided an effective bottleneck. But that wouldn’t last for long; already artillery was taking a toll on the barrier wall, and soon the city would be flooded with enemies. The forces that already were in the city were rolling over the unprepared Solarium defenders like the tide against a sand castle.

They needed to get those shields up, and they needed reinforcements. If Oversight were honest with himself, he was completely out of his element here; his typical role as a ‘Battle Commander’ was really just to be a glorified messenger. But when half of the high command had been killed or grievously injured by changeling assassins and the other half were off inspecting distant fortifications or conducting secret training exercises, that put an inexperienced scrub like Oversight in charge.

“Lieutenant.” The Secretary-General suddenly addressed Oversight’s communications officer.

“Yes, Madam Secretary?” the pink unicorn replied.

“Have you made contact with the 2nd Armor Division yet?”

“Uh...” the communications officer glanced at a small blue flame burning merrily in a large bowl on her desk. “I’m afraid I don’t have the codespell for their messenger fire, Madam. They’re on a classified training exercise aren’t they?”

“Allow me, then,” the Secretary-General replied, summoning a quill and scroll to herself. The quill danced across the paper in long, flowing strokes, and the brown mare then furled up the scroll and threw it into the fire.

It was roughly twenty seconds until the reply jumped out of the flames. The pink unicorn magically unrolled the scroll, her eyes flickering rapidly across the page.

“They say they were alerted to the attack two hours ago,” she reported, “and have been en route ever since, ETA 1 hour 20 minutes.

“I’ve ordered them to be placed under your command,” the Secretary-General said.

Oversight stared at her in astonishment. “You’re giving me command of an entire division? Ma’am?”

“You’re the one with boots on the ground, Commander,” the brown mare replied. Oversight might have been imagining things, but her voice almost carried a tone of kindness. “Inexperienced and possibly incompetent as you are, you are nevertheless the one with an understanding of the tactical situation. I may be just a civilian, but I have the authority to make such a decision, and I have made it.”

Oversight paid no attention to the minor insult—the vote of trust the Secretary-General had just given him was compliment enough. He turned to the communications officer. “What are we getting?”

The officer was smart enough to interpret the vague question. She glanced down the scroll. “One hundred Leviathan superheavy tanks, with support vehicles, scout forces, and artillery, a platoon of shock troopers.” Her eyes widened. “... and a Princess...”

Oversight nearly choked on his own saliva. He laughed, out of both embarrassment and at the ludicrousness of the situation. Really? They’re putting me in charge of that?

The communications officer’s report had been heard by everyone in the room. In an instant, the atmosphere of the command center had changed. No longer was their battle a desperate struggle to prevent themselves from being overwhelmed; now it was just a matter of holding out and minimizing damage until the hammer came down.

“Alright,” Oversight said, smiling as he returned to his tactical map. “Let’s show these Free-Staters what Solarium’s made of.”

----------

Hundreds of Solarium tanks were rolling across the distant hills, looking like a swarm of migrating white scarabs through Applejack’s binoculars. “Horseapples!” she cursed, putting the binoculars on the floor of the rowboat and turning to her partner. “Bonnie, we gotta get a message to General Greenblade! There’s an armor column comin’ down from the north!”

“But we’re not unicorns!” Bonnie pointed out, gesturing to the messenger fire. “We can’t change the codespell on the fire!”

Applejack raised the binoculars to her eyes again, peering at the armor column. As they came out from behind the mountain in an endless line, she saw something that made her blood freeze.

Slowly, Applejack put the binoculars back down, blinking and shaking her head in disbelief. My eyes gotta be playin’ tricks on me, she thought, bringing up the binoculars once more.

They weren’t. Applejack snorted aggressively. “Well, there’s nothin’ else for it then. We’ve gotta send it the hard way.”

Bonnie stared at her. “But that’s a twenty-minute run at full gallop!”

Applejack leapt out of the rowboat and swam the short distance to the shore. “I’ll do it in ten!” she called after shaking herself dry. She looked back at the boat. “Put out the fire, Bonnie, it’s a dead giveaway out here!”

Bonnie glanced at the messenger fire. “But...”

“We don’t need to send no more letters anyways, Bonnie! Just do it before they-”

Just then a light tank crested over the nearby hill, perhaps drawn by the sound of the shouting. Upon spotting the enemy vehicle Bonnie hurriedly tried to dump the bowl of magical flames into the river, but it was already too late. The tank’s turret swiveled towards her, and the rowboat exploded in a plume of water droplets and splinters.

“BONNIE!” Applejack screamed.

A faint, gurgled cry came from the water. “I’m alright!” Applejack glimpsed the yellow pony struggling to stay afloat. “Don’t worry about me, just go!”

That was all Applejack needed. Bursting immediately into a full gallop, she raced up the river’s slope. Her orange coat stuck out like a sore thumb against the brown mud and green grass. The light tank’s turret swiveled again, and the hillside behind her spat clumps of dirt and grass into the air. Fortunately for Applejack, no pony in Equestria had yet developed a spell to making aiming easier.

She crested the hill and leapt over to the other side, beyond the angle of attack of the Solarium tank. Her relief lasted about a millisecond before she looked up onto the next hillside.

Roughly a dozen more light tanks, likely an advance scout force for the main column, were rolling across the hillside. Applejack froze motionless, eyes wide, ears pressed against her skull, as half a dozen cannons swiveled towards her.

“Ah, shit.”

As the hill around her exploded, Applejack lowered her head, and ran.

Adrenaline pumping, ears ringing, eyes stinging—she couldn’t tell if she was injured or even if she was dead. The thunderous roar of the cannon barrage and the biting pain of rocks and dirt pelting her skin faded into a mental fog. In that moment, Applejack was overwhelmed by a single, crystalline concept that became her entire being, as though her entire existence up to this point had been leading up to this single transformation into a higher plane of focus.

Run.

And Applejack ran. She ran without thinking, without direction, without purpose. Hill after hill after hill, one leg after the other—front left, front right, back left, back right.

It took her a long time to notice that the world around her had stopped exploding. At the top of the next hill she stopped to catch her breath, her heart feeling as though it were about to explode out of her body, her chest swelling and shrinking like a balloon. The adrenaline had not yet worn off; exhaustion had not set in, but Applejack was beginning to notice aches and scratches all over her body, and the wind blowing through the top of her head told her that she had lost her hat. Ah, well, ya win some ya lose some. She took the chance to look behind her.

Light tanks, as speedy and nimble as they were by tank standards, could not keep up with a pony in full gallop. The Solarium division had given up trying to pursue her with tanks, but instead there were now two pegasi flying over the previous hill. Applejack would have sworn, but she didn’t have the breath.

Just one more hill, she told herself. Just one more. She dashed down the slope and up the next. To her great surprise, the city of Solarium loomed before as she crested the hill; its spiraling towers, its white fortress walls, even the imposing form of the Solar Engine that dominated the skyline.

There was a flash of green light that forced her to blink, and suddenly two unicorns, wearing elaborately-decorated armored suits that covered their entire bodies and portable rune engines on their backs, appeared out of nowhere in front of her.

Shock troopers! Applejack felt magical energy envelop her as her body was lifted helplessly into the air. One of the shock troopers extended an electrified blade from his hoof armor and nonchalantly walked towards her. To have come so far and made it so close...

“BUCK YOU!” Applejack screamed, twisting her body around as her legs coiled like a spring. By sheer luck, excellent aim, his’s overconfidence, or some combination of the three, the mighty kick connected with the armored pony’s face, sending him reeling back into his partner, the two of them falling over like bowling pins.

The spell holding her in the air disappeared, and Applejack wasted no time in racing down the hill as fast as her legs could carry her. The two pegasi plunged down to catch her, their bladed wings carrying death. But the ground behind Applejack exploded again, and this time it was the Manehattanite cannons blasting away.

The Solarium pegasi suddenly thought better of their pursuit, and the rest of Applejack’s run was free and clear.

A light gray pegasus landed next to Applejack as she finally reached one of the tanks that had been providing cover fire. “Dude!” he shouted by way of greeting. “I saw that whole thing! That was amazing!” His eyes were suddenly drawn to what was on Applejack’s forehead—or rather, what wasn’t on it. “And you’re an Earth pony? Flaming cola rain, that makes what you just did like, ten times as awesome!”

“I... have... a message,” Applejack managed to gasp out between breaths, “for... General... Green... blade...” Her body finally gave out on her, her limbs collapsing like broken toothpicks, the side of her face meeting soft, cold dirt.

“Dude, I will carry you the rest of the way,” the pegasus said, hooking his forelegs beneath Applejack’s shoulders and lifting her into the air.

“Th... thanks...”

General Greenblade was directing the battle from on top of a rather impressive-looking two-barreled tank. “What’s the meaning of this?” he asked as the pegasus flew in, half out of annoyance at being interrupted, half out of curiosity at the unexpected sight.

“This little Earth pony just ran through about two dozen light tanks shooting at her and fought off a squad of shock troopers,” the pegasus explained, beaming as he let Applejack down on the roof of the tank. “And she says she has a message for you.”

Greenblade’s bushy eyebrows disappeared into his unkempt white hair. “Well then,” he said slowly, clearly not entirely believing what his ears were hearing, “we’d better hear what she has to say.” He poked the orange mare with a hoof, who was sitting hunched over with face towards the ground. “I hope you’re here to herald the opening of the gates of Tartarus or something.”

Applejack lifted her head, eyes spinning as she took a few more seconds to breathe and assert herself. Finally she straightened and looked Greenblade in the eyes. “General, there’s a Solarium armor column comin’ in from the north, at least 500 vehicles strong.”

Greenblade frowned, eyes flashing back and forth as he quickly incorporated the new information into his battle plan. “Well then,” he said, turning to his communications officer. “Time to pack up. Sound the general call for retreat. Tell them to leave the heavy tanks and artillery crews here; their orders are to fight to the last mare—cause as much damage as possible.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “You’re leavin’ them here to die?”

Greenblade snorted, evidently amused by the fact that he had to elucidate things for a greenhorn. “This entire assault was a sacrificial play,” he explained. “We came here to accomplish a specific objective and deal as much damage as we could while we were at it.” He smiled. “But at thanks to you, we might not have to take as heavy losses as we expected.” He turned around to bark at another subordinate. “Let’s get the package out of here before we all get run over by tanks.” He patted Applejack on the head. “I think you deserve a ride back to Manehattan, hmm?”

“Thank you sir,” Applejack replied, managing a feeble salute before fainting.

----------

The western conduit controls were located in the basement of the Solarium sewage maintenance headquarters. Though small and unassuming by Solarium standards, in typical fashion for the City of Motion, it was covered in dazzling arrays of lights that blinked in sweeping, flowing movements. Or at least they would have, had the building not been struck by a stray artillery shell. The slug of metal had blasted a small hole in the roof and penetrated all three floors before hitting the front wall and blowing a gaping hole in the sidewalk and marble facade. Any ponies who might have thought the building was a good place to hide had clearly been disabused of that notion, for the structure was empty. At least the hole in the wall made it easy to get in.

“Let us all hope very hard that the control node is still intact,” Twilight murmured as she hopped over the broken slabs of marble.

“Why are the controls in a sewer building?” Other Twilight asked.

“The conduit runs through the sewers,” Twilight explained. “Easier to keep it hidden that way.” She glanced back at the Cloudsdale medic. Twilight wasn’t quite comfortable with talking so freely in front of a prisoner, but Fluttershy was so timid and innocent that she couldn’t help but want to trust the pegasus.

That didn’t mean she did, though. “Stay up here and watch her,” she ordered her twin once they had found the staircase, then descended alone down into the basement.

The room, remarkably, still had power; several electric arc lamps lit up the dim basement. At first glance, the room held little more than a few desks and chairs and one door that led to the sewers, but Twilight knew from the last time she had been here that there was a set of six wooden switches hidden beneath the largest desk.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know the combination; the positioning of the levers meant that she hadn’t been able to watch the guard who had previously escorted her here pull them. But she knew, roughly, where the hidden door was. So she closed her eyes, telekinetically grabbed that portion of wall, and ripped it out.

Chunks of concrete gave way to wood paneling, and Twilight knew she had found it. Normally there would have been guards in place to kill anypony who attempted to simply force their way in like she just did, but they were all busy at the moment. Twilight strode through, using the light of her horn to find the light switch. The control console was on the far side of the room, attached to a gigantic metal pipe that she could have easily walked through had it been hollow.

A voice echoed from the top of the stairs. “How long is it going to take?” Other Twilight called.

“No idea!” Twilight shouted back. Having never done what she was about to try, there was no way to know how long it might take or even if it was possible. As she magically unscrewed and removed the panels covering up the console’s inner mechanisms, blueprints and algorithms flashed through her brain. The part of her that always kicked in when diving into the complex clockwork of rune matrices took over, and thoughts of the battle, her ruined project, even the room she was in faded away, overtaken by a trance-like state of mental calculation.

For a unicorn whose life was filled with unending stress and worry, this state was the closest to nirvana she ever got.

“There’s some soldiers in green armor coming!” Other Twilight shouted, her tone filled with worry, interrupting Twilight’s reverie.

“Get rid of them!” Twilight shouted back, angry at the disturbance.

“Wh- how?”

“I don’t know, just do it!” Twilight dived back into the machine.

Alright... I have to reverse the direction on the primary diode to allow energy flow in the opposite direction, then initiate a moderate-sized jolt to be interpreted as an activation order... but the low-voltage inhibitor blocks pulses below the maximum energy I need, so I’ll need to remove that... then I have to account for energy losses in the interpretation phase...

Her mouth creased into a frown as her horn began to glow, screws, nuts and bolts flying out from the inside of the console as she made the necessary adjustments. Each type of part was piled neatly on the floor in organized little stacks. Eventually she removed enough parts to get access to the main diode that acted as a one-way valve for the magical energy in the conduit. Taking a deep breath, she twisted the rounded-cylinder part out of the pipe and carefully levitated it towards her; some adjustments would have to be made before it could fit in the reverse direction.

So engrossed in her work was she that she didn’t hear hoofsteps on the steps. When a hoof tapped lightly against her shoulder she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“I did it!” Other Twilight exclaimed happily, completely failing to notice the moment of utter terror she had instilled in her twin. “Well, Fluttershy did it, I just went invisible while she convinced those mares that there was nothing here!”

Twilight blinked, looking around at the neatly-organized parts she had just scattered around, hoping very hard that she hadn’t just lost a screw or something. “Um, that’s... great! Thanks a, uh, ton!” she said half-heartedly, trying to remember where she had been before having the living daylights scared out of her.

“Oh, and I’m not sure if you heard,” Other Twilight continued, not noticing where Twilight’s attention was focused, “but there was this horn call. Fluttershy said it was the general retreat signal.”

“Um, ok,” Twilight replied, her twin’s words not really registering in her head. “Could you give me a sec? I’m almost done here.”

Her twin trotted back up the stairs, apparently still oblivious to how disruptive she had been to Twilight’s activities. Twilight turned back to the console.

Several minutes later, a few of which were spent searching for mysteriously-vanished screws, and it was done. Twilight lowered her head and touched the tip of her horn to an exposed input pipe. Summoning power, she released a jolt of magical energy into it.

A glowing purple pulse raced down the channel and into the main conduit, quickly vanishing out of view. Twilight rushed up the stairs, where her twin and Fluttershy stood gazing at the sky.

“Did it work?” Other Twilight asked, turning around to face her.

Twilight glanced out the hole in the wall. “Can’t tell.” She gestured with a hoof. “That way is east, so we can’t see the western wall from here. Let’s get up the roof.”

The trio climbed up the stairs; the topmost flight had collapsed, but fortunately there was a pile of rubble leading up to a hole in the ceiling. Fluttershy flew up first, and was able to help the two unicorns up from above.

The western edge of the city was now enveloped in a glowing, translucent, layer of crystallized magical energy. The shield wasn’t perfect; the translucent layer did not reach all the way up into the sky, leaving a gaping hole in the top that a pegasus could still fly through. A casual glance at the towers along the wall told Twilight that only two out of the five shield engines and none of the stationary turrets had activated, but even that was enough to resist bombardment for days, if not weeks.

“We did it!” she screamed, jumping into the air.

The other two ponies were not so overjoyed. Instead, they were staring into the distance. Twilight at first thought they were watching the retreating swarm of Manehattanite troops, but then Other Twilight pointed her hoof at something on the horizon. Something moving.

“What... is... that?” Other Twilight asked.

Twilight squinted at what Other Twilight was pointing at, lowering her glasses back into that makeshift binocular configuration. A wide, evil smile spread across her face.

That,” she said, “is a Princess.”

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Solarium Strategic Direction Committee Report
New Weapons Development To Counter Heavy Fortifications
Introduction (Excerpt)

Although weapons technology improved greatly between the First and the Second Rune Wars, shield technology nevertheless remained ahead. To defeat the defenses of a single city during the Second Rune War required a prolonged assault by vastly-superior forces (often outnumbering defenders by margins of 8:1 or more) for sieges that could last for months at a time. The cost to the attackers in ammunition and morale, not to mention the dedication of such enormous resources to the attack on a single city, made city-sieging impractical, leading the stalemate that dominated much of the Second Rune War prior to the gryphon invasion.

It is clear to this committee that, if should the city of Solarium wish to engage in successful offensive operations against enemy fortifications, significantly more resources must be engaged in the creation of new weapons systems that are capable of destroying an enemy shield array. This document attempts to review several proposals and recommend a course of action to the legislature. In doing so, we have used the following as our main criteria:

- Feasibility: Such a weapons system must be deemed technologically reasonable to construct. The committee would like to remind lawmakers, however that this requirement allows for extremely large and ambitious systems as the resources that would be devoted to a typical multi-month siege are enormous.

- Effectiveness: Such a weapons system must be able to greatly reduce the length of time a siege would take. Because shields are magical in nature, they are far more effective at absorbing magical attacks, such as beam spells, than they are physical attacks, such as cannons. Our theoretical weapons system therefore should either be able to deliver an enormous amount of kinetic energy or be able to bypass the shield itself and disable the rune engine generating it.

- Mobility: Such a weapons system must be capable of being delivered to a fortification in a timely manner while being reasonably resilient to enemy attack.

The following sections detail our analysis of 9 systems proposed to the committee, followed by our recommendation on Solarium’s course of action as determined by the legislature, the Secretary-General, and the Supreme Commander.

Author's Note:

I've went back and changed Applejack's "Ah" to "I", since, upon review, that is a silly way to convey her accent.

Also, a note on the use of the word "buck". I know a lot of people on Fimfiction frown on its use as a swear word, but I feel that only applies to its use as a replacement for the f-word. The way I'm using "buck" here makes perfect thematic and logical sense. Applejack is shouting, "buck you", and then proceeds to do exactly that: kicking the guy in the chest.