Mad, With Power

by Aragon


Blankflanking Maneuvers (by Pearple Prose)

“The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience.”
—Terskstoy, Peace and Sometimes War.
 
 
 
 
Seastar had been tending to his seaweed garden, one day, when he heard a very strange noise. A series of them, in fact.

This in itself was bizarre – he wondered if he was hearing his own heartbeat, for it had been a very quiet and boring day thus far, and maybe he was looking for something to pay attention to besides the endless landscape of rocks and sand and blueness.

But then he realised that those distant, muffled explosions were actually getting louder. This made him look up from his watering can and his little seaweed garden, and listen closely.

Boom.

Boom.

And then he heard, from behind, a little voice say, “Excuse me? Hello?”

Seastar was a seapony. He lived at the bottom of the ocean. He did not hear voices very often. Or at all.

He turned around, and was immediately met with a very large, very thick, and very scary looking suit of metal armour, black as night and covered in razor-sharp points. His heart skipped a beat in his chest, as his first thought was that one of the Seahorsemen of the Apocalypse had come to flush him down to the Lower Sea.

And then the armoured thing reached up with an armoured hoof and lifted an armoured visor. A little blue face poked out. “Salutations!” it bubbled. “Sorry to bother you, but we are in dire need of directions!”

Seastar stared.

“See, we’re looking for…” The landpony – which were made out of metal and could breathe underwater, turns out – pulled something wet and soggy from some hidden fold of armour. He could see the letters ‘A-Z’ written in bold text on the side facing him. “Oh, right. Ocean. Yes, see, we’re looking for a giant griffon fortress. It’s quite hard to miss, on account of all the griffons, and also the war going on by it.”

Seastar nodded slowly.

“It’s on top of a big tree, too. And it–” Then the landpony slammed an ironclad hoof, creating an enormous boom, and Seastar screamed a bubbly scream and swam off to hide behind a rock. The landpony didn’t notice, exclaiming in an ear-piercingly loud voice, “GRIFFONSTONE. That is the name!”

Then there was a pause. Then: “Wait, hold, fare seadweller!”

Suddenly, Seastar froze in place, eyes wide with terror. Some great and inexorable pull dragged him back, and he swivelled in the water until he was looking right into the landpony’s eyes. He whimpered, although only bubbles escaped his lips.

“Yes, we are very sorry for the misunderstanding,” the armoured juggernaut said in a very sweet voice. “If you could just point us in the right direction, we would be much obliged.”

Seastar stared at her. The large, expressive, rather adorable eyes of the titanic invader glittered, he assumed, with some alien malice. He thought for a second.

Then he pointed with a hoof.

“Excellent! When we are finished with our task, we shall return, and reward you handsomely for your assistance!” The strange force binding Seastar disappeared, and he watched as the behemoth of steel flipped down its visor, turned, and began to triumphantly trot in the direction he had given her.

He watched it go. Then, gardening forgotten, he turned towards the capital of Aquastria, and swam as fast as his flippers could carry him.

Princess Sealestia would need to hear of the coming invasion.


“What are we to do, your Highness? The griffons have us routed!”

Princess Celestia regarded the general of the Equestrian armed forces with a curious eye, sipped at her tea, and said, “You are mistaken, Sir Spearhead. We have them right where we want them.”

Spearhead looked at the Princess with a blank expression.

Princess Celestia was certainly one for taking the diplomatic approach to certain situations. In fact, almost every situation. So when the Equestrian army had arrived at the enormous, cloud-scraping fortress of Griffonstone, impenetrable from the ground and untouchable in the skies thanks to its legions of griffon aerial platoons, she had simply said, “General, get me your bravest pegasus courier.”

In his defence, he’d at least been brave enough to court martial himself for cowardice, saving everypony else the trouble.

It’d been a few hours since that whole incident, and the negotiation idea had gone from an optimistic hope to a frustrated demand to just kind of nonexistent. Now the griffons were making rude gestures at them from the top of their obscenely tall walls. Everypony around was pretty upset about it – if nothing else, there was a war of morale going on at that precise moment, and they were on the losing end of that one, too.

“Your Highness,” Spearhead said. “Permission to surrender?”

Celestia waved a hoof. “Permission denied. Honestly, Spearhead, I know that our diplomatic failure is a concern to you, but I’d remind you that Plan B has so far gone smoothly.” Celestia took another sip of tea. “Probably. Hard to tell.”

“There was a Plan B?

“Of course. There’s always a Plan B, my little pony.” Celestia’s diminutive form hopped down from her slightly too-tall chair, opened the flap of the war tent, and checked the position of her Sun. “Princess Luna is rather fond of her pincer movements, you see. Speaking of, we should begin the assault right about…”

In the far distance, there was the sound of something heavy and metallic crashing into a stone wall. Then screams.

“Now. Hurry on, general. We shouldn’t leave my baby sister waiting.”

And so the Armed Forces of Equestria, who had yet to actually fight in an actual battle, led a very confused, rather frightened charge upon the unconquered fortress of Griffonstone, and the beating of their hooves in their war-march was echoed by the sounds of distant thunder, the shrieking of terrified griffons, and the delighted laughter of a little alicorn at play.




“The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience. But bring plenty of firepower, just in case.”
—Terskstoy, Peace and Sometimes War.