//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: An Alloyed Hope // by computerneek //------------------------------// “If we push into the-” “We can’t do that!  Better to-” “Attacking their base is sui-” “Baltimare is a higher pri-” “If we focus there, Canter-” “Las Pegasus needs def-” Clink. Only it was more of a clinkle.  The arguing generals instantly stop, all eyes focusing on the map table for an instant.  Their gases move rapidly from the butterfly necklace, better known as the Element of Kindness, to the pegasus that had thrown it down. “First light.” She turns and leaves. The generals exchange a second’s look, nod, and break from their evening strategy meeting.  It has been decided. That pegasus is not their strongest soldier.  She lacks the constant deliberation of a strategist, or the instinctive deception of a tactician.  In terms of actual combat strength, any of the soldiers in the room is stronger than two of her.  She had been known to make these snap decisions.  More often than not, they got ponies killed. In terms of grief, of the pain and despair in her voice, the entirety of the Guard could not account for a single one of her tears.  Not that she had allowed herself to shed any, yet.  She wouldn’t, they knew, until she had exacted a price on whoever and whatever had harmed her friend.  Nopony could expect anything different from the pegasus with the Element of Loyalty hanging around her neck. Nopony could remember the last time something had hurt one of her friends and survived to tell the tale, no matter how well protected. Something had killed one of them. The base is completely silent all night long.  When a force of minotaurs breaks in an hour before dawn, they find it abandoned.  Even the guards have disappeared. They quickly ransack the base, and make off with their souvenir once again:  The necklace. The Centauran general blinks in the glow of the morning sun, just peeking over the hills, from his current army camp.  He yawns, stretching- and promptly consumes a burning arrow for breakfast. When somepony is as hurt, or as grieved, as the pegasus that had fired that arrow, nopony can resist helping.  When she leads ponies into battle anyways, destroying alone what might trouble a regiment of veteran soldiers, they build determination.  They move faster, strike harder.  What looks an understrength battalion and support staff lands on the enemy base as silently as a ghost, with the rising sun to their backs.  Out of over two hundred thousand, there are no survivors. The ponies return to their base, just as swiftly and silently as they came.  Nopony had died, only three had been injured.  Rainbow Dash herself has almost thirty thousand fresh kills to her name. Unfortunately, this battle is one-of-a-kind.  None like it have ever been fought, nor are likely to be fought again.  Rainbow’s determination collapses once they return, and she has to be teleported back to Canterlot with the news.  Shortly afterwards, the blaze of plasma and crack of firearms draws the guards’ attention to something in the distance, firing on what looks like a retreating force of Minotaurs as it crests a large hill. Something bigger than many hills those guards know. Fluttershy jerks awake.  She’s spent most of her time resting, and has thought of a possible reason those spiders had wanted her to see those soldiers.  She does seem to remember catching a glimpse of something cyan rising into the sky, away from them.  She cries out a name, almost leaping to her hooves- and managing instead to flop herself painfully back down on the floor.  She scrambles to her hooves, some of her strength thankfully returning, and stumbles towards the door the spider had shown her to before. It opens smoothly when she reaches it, needing no touch nor instruction from her or any absent spider.  She blinks in the morning sun, looking around.  Same door, different scenery than she remembers; no cratered battlefield this time.  Rather, she sees the ground flowing past, feels the wind in her mane.  She creeps out onto the balcony thing, up to the edge of the railing.  It takes her only a few seconds to recognize the area. They’re in the foothills near the Crystal Mountains- and in particular, near the threatened Fort Dash- the very fort she last saw any of her friends at.  They had used the Elements in its defense, but their enemies had managed to create some sort of backlash that had blasted her and her friends into the unknown.  They had been separated, teleported separately- and she had found herself in the middle of an enemy war camp.  She presses her hoof to her chest, right where her Element should have lain.  Back when this war began, Twilight had managed to drop a communication spell onto the Elements, allowing them to communicate telepathically over short distances.  The spell is long-ranged enough that, even from where she is, almost three hours’ march away, she could reach any of her friends at the fort with it. If she only had it. They had taken it away.  They had treated it as a spoil of war.  None had tried wearing it; they all knew that, should they attempt to wear her Element, it would destroy them. She is alone. She looks forwards, to where this thing is moving.  At this pace, it’ll reach Fort Dash in just over twenty minutes.  She’ll also be able to see the fort any second now, as soon as it rises over this hill.  Before she can, though, bright flashes of light and bolts of thunder echo from the front as the tip of this metal monster peeks over the hill.  She spots a couple thrown weapons rising into the air overtop the thing.  One, with less energy in the throw, shatters against the metal a distance in front of her, doing no apparent damage.  Another, she realizes, is looking to land near her.  Before she can even look away, though, something moves in her peripheral vision, above the door- and a pillar of light erases the javelin from the sky, alongside its own small thunderclap.  She blinks slowly, and looks at the thing over the door. I did not realize I would be meeting a hostile force here.  A couple of desperate javelins have been thrown; one fell harmless against my armor, the other I picked off easily with the nearest point defense laser cluster.  A direct hit- and the 1.4-kiloton-rated laser beam had no more difficulty passing through the flint and wood of the weapon that stood to jeopardize my passenger than through the local atmosphere. An optic catches a pinkish/goldish glint in the air.  Even before I catch a clear enough image to identify it, course analysis suggests it was thrown- somehow unharmed- by one of my energy weapon strikes on the enemy force.  While three ion bolt repeaters and eighteen anti-air lasers track it, identification finally comes in. It’s that necklace my commander had fought so hard for.  My drone has already reported she has been teleported away, after returning to base. I make a decision, and the tracking weapons all return to their neutral positions.  I will hold onto this necklace for her.  I estimate the impact point, and send a spider to collect it from the platform my passenger stands upon. Once it lands, though, she gets to it before my spider has appeared.  I order the spider back to its previous duty- namely, standby mode. Clink!  Fluttershy jumps slightly at the noise, turning to look. It’s her Element, bouncing lightly off of the railing and falling to the ground.  She rushes forwards, picking it up as she looks around.  Who had thrown it?  She cuddles the magical gemstone against her chest.  “Thank you.”  She finally puts it on, settling it into place before she taps the gemstone, activating that communication spell. Nopony.  She can feel the spell activate, but it goes inactive again after hardly a second, not having reached anypony.  She sheds a silent tear and heads inside even before Fort Dash becomes visible.