“She said WHAT?!”
Colonel Crimson Dawn stared at Shining Armor with his mouth wider than a tsunami was tall. The white Unicorn stallion repeated himself, losing a bit of patience in his voice, and waited for the red Pegasus to calm down. Looking back in time at the Atlantean-Dominion War, that might take a while.
“I - Ah - I - agabungwafflesingerbungabanarfeklesushigabeda! The hell? Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckadin…” He ran out of things to say. He also paused to catch his breath after that nonsensical reaction.
Taking that pause as an opportunity, Shining slowly backed away. Crimson might be a formidable opponent, but he tended to concentrate on one thing at a time when something like this happened.
Cadence walked in. Immediately hearing Crimson’s rant, her ears instantly flattened by reflex, and she glanced at her husband. “I’d rather not have this… vocabulary around our daughter, Shining. What set him off?”
“I told him what Princess Celestia sent this morning. The Dominion of Apollo is joining the war on our side. The problem is, he fought them for more than a decade.”
“Anypony else joining the war?”
“Queen Atlantis responded to the Dominion’s mobilization by declaring war against Sombra as well. Apparently not to be one-upped, she’s going to lead her army herself while her ministers keep Atlantis running. I’m told her battle armor makes her look like a sunrise over the ocean.”
“Did you tell him about Atlantis yet?”
“No. I’m waiting for him to calm down first.”
In the background, Crimson finally composed himself. He straightened his uniform and saluted the pink alicorn. “Princess.”
“At ease. Shining still hasn’t told you the rest of the news.”
“Thanks, Cadence, but I coulda just told him. Anyway, Queen Atlanta is personally leading some Atlantean Reserve Emergency Army here. She’ll pull into Manehattan port if it isn’t frozen over in two months. If it is, she comes here.”
“Milady… the Queen…? Oh, my, I… um…” Crimson had trouble with that. He kept stammering for a minute, trying to get a comprehensible sentence out of his muzzle. Eventually, he gave up, saluted, and left.
Cadence saw the look on the Pegasus’s face. It was one of fear. Not for himself, her, Shining, or even his officers, but for his queen. Shining read his wife’s thoughts and looked at her. He grimaced, showing his thoughts before he said them. She spoke first.
“I know. Queen Atlanta doesn’t have a declared heir, or a child in general. If she does, we’d know about it.”
“Not just that. Crimson’s pretty tight-lipped about it, but he told Major Snow, and she told me. Apparently, the queen has an interesting backstory, and it involves a little…” He tried to find his way around it, but Cadence nodded understanding and he moved on. “Yeah. Crimson married her illegitimate daughter. So even if she dies, he’s there if he doesn’t go down. But I don’t think he wants to consider that possibility. There’s also the part where Atlanta said the Equestrian army would be in charge even when she arrived, so I believe a lot of his trouble is possibly giving his queen an order that she’d then have to obey-”
“Only because he’s running the Equestrian army right now.” Cadence finished for him.
“Yep.”
-----------------------
Crimson sat under the insufficient shade of a wilting oak tree in the Baltimare City Park. The army had taken it to be their training ground while they prepared for the campaign ahead of them. Crimson called it Operation Princess Sunrise, referencing both his queen’s battle armor and Celestia and signifying the current union between the two military goals. Now it would have to be literal. Celestia was coming back with an entire Dominion army, with the closer Atlanta arriving three weeks earlier with an army of her own.
He sweated profusely from the heat. It seemed that without the Tree of Harmony, Element of Magic, and two alicorns, it was hotter than the sun itself during the day. By night, Pluto had more warmth. And Reynolds said that place was probably colder than a melting Popsicle of liquid nitrogen. Crimson thought that a stretch, but maybe not very far off.
Major Crystal Snow and Lieutenant Silver Comet saluted as they walked over to report. Those two were inseparable these days.
“Cousin, all surviving regiments check in mentally. They seem to have recovered from the Changeling battle,” Crystal Snow said.
“Good. We move out to Ponyville in a week. Get all the officers together. There’s two full armies coming up behind us, and we need to get out so they can file in and get to the front.”
“WHAT?!” came the simultaneous reaction from both ponies.
“That’s right. Princess Celestia successfully recruited the Dominion, which I don’t entirely agree as a good choice, and Atlantis wanted in. two months.”
“I thought Atlantis already was helping us. You’re from there,” commented Silver Comet.
“I know. What I mean is a full-on Atlantean army. The one I served with, to be exact, which is approximately two hundred thousand, plus artillery, steam tanks, and a corps of engineers. I don’t think we even want to know what the Dominion’s sending.”
---------------------
“My lord Sombra,” rasped General Shattered Hope through his developing cough, “I bring news of war. Atlantis and the Dominion of Apollo have both declared. I fear their numbers, combined with the Equestrians, will be too great a challenge, even with the Gem.”
“How so? We blast them as soon as they arrive within range.”
“No, my King. We cannot. The Gem has done something we cannot comprehend. It - it shakes the ground. The tunnels have already collapsed four times and a rift appeared in the mine, causing who-knows-what kind of damage. Dragonspire Citadel is near completion, but even it will not stand against hundreds of thousands of troops indefinitely.”
“And what of our Russian and Chinese friends? Can they not hold the enemy at bay with their monstrosities and noisemakers?”
“No, my lord, not with their American enemies assisting the Equestrians as well. They report that their war, ‘back home’ as they say, is not going well. Their flying machine transports have been destroyed, and an assault on the Chinese city Beijing is underway. Before long, the Russian city Moscow may be taken, the war an American victory.”
“See to it that Dragonspire does not fall.” Sombra practically grumbled in his volcano-earthquake voice, and that made it creepy.
In the immense fortress, Crystal ponies hauled great blocks of solid stone on rollers, lifted them with cranes, and placed them where they fit. So far, a full four thousand were devoted to construction, with another five hundred bringing the stone out of the mine. Shattered Hope felt no remorse towards using his own fellow citizens like slaves, but he did feel a pang when seeing Andromeda, daughter of Crimson Dawn and the late Rose Thorn, being forced to assist in the hauling. When she resisted, an overseer bore down the full force of his whip on her scarring, red-streaked back. The star-speckled midnight blue coat that once was so sweet held no beauty this day.
Shattered Hope walked to Andromeda and pulled her aside. He had a theory as to why she even was an alicorn, but it was but a theory. Here was a chance to test it.
“What if I told you that Queen Atlanta is personally leading an army to assist your father?”
She blinked, trying to remember. The general knew why it was so hard. Sombra’s ingenious, albeit painful both mentally and physically idea, was to brainwash her with shadow magic. It worked for the most part, but she could still recall who and what with a push in the right direction. He could see the gears spinning, Andromeda’s blank face slowly curling into a smile.
“I’d be thankful.”
“Is there a specific reason?”
“It means that Grandmare is coming. She will kick your ass back into last millennium.” It took a second for the filly to realize she shouldn’t’ve said that. Her eyes went wide with horror.
“Don’t worry; I won’t tell anypony. Back to work.”
Andromeda trudged back to her place behind the five-ton stone, pushing with all the energy she could muster. Even in the natural cold of winter in the Crystal Empire, she sweated like the end of the world. It was a sign of overexertion, but Shattered Hope had already turned away. He had what he needed.