Part 2: Resolve
Colors faded back to black as the void slowly returned. “Realistic, isn’t it?” The voice of Death asked, obviously rhetorically, “Of course, even with such vivid imagery, there is no guarantee that everything is correct. Such is the disadvantage of hearing a story second-hand. On the day Delta died, the war was roughly ten thousand years older than the first sapient pony. Thus, no-one, especially this pony, expected the end to come so quickly. This is one of the more interesting sections of the story. I have only one account of this, and I have no way of knowing exactly what happened afterward. I am sure that there was another witness, but if there was, they chose to tell me nothing. But I digress, she can tell it a thousand times better than I. After all, she was there.”
Broken stone clattered under my hooves. Around me, the others trudged on in perfect formation. Ruined buildings sent pangs of regret through me. Regret that we had allowed another city to fall. Regret that Chaos had fallen on yet another population.
“Number 37!” The commander shouted, “Focus and keep in line!”
I had failed to keep up, had allowed my unhappiness to show. Forcing myself back into proper position required a great effort, but I eventually regained my composure. My sister, a pegasus, had fallen in battle the previous night. I had looked forward to serving under for several years. Now, it could never happen. An interruption from one side. A pony near me in line fell to the ground, bleeding heavily from one side.
The order came quickly, “They’ve hidden in the nearby ruins! Break into squads and deal with any you find!”
My group of ten broke away from the main body, and we charged in the direction of a mostly intact ruin. Another whistling chunk of metal struck one of my fellow soldiers, but failed to penetrate his armor. Now that the presence of the enemy was confirmed, I dived through a window and landed next to a surprised unicorn. With my magically enhanced strength, his skull was little more than a glass bowl, to be broken. It felt wrong. My first kill. Other infantry broke through the walls and quickly dispatched the enemies in the room. A mere three bodies lay on the ground. Something was off. Chaos soldiers never attacked unless they thought they had a chance of victory, and three against ten was no competition at all. Then, it struck.
“It’s a trap! Get outside!” I shouted, desperately launching myself out the same window through which I entered. I heard the order echoed from behind me several times, and the squad dived out as quickly as they had entered. An explosion from behind. The scream of an unfortunate straggler the explosion consumed him.
“Locate the pyromancer!” the captain cried to his scattered soldiers, then glanced at me. “You acted without orders. It saved lives, so I’ll let you off with a reprimand. Don’t do it again.”
Irritation shot through me. I had saved his life, and this was how I was treated? However, I had no time to brood, as the next assault had already begun.
From above, a group of three pegasi swept down, each grabbing a soldier and launching themselves back into the sky. They regrouped around a griffon wearing a rich red and gold flight-suit and offered their cargo to it. It dug its beak into one of my companions, Number 32, who screamed and struggled. However, the griffon merely laughed harshly and quickly slit his throat. Tossing the dead pony aside, it let off a burst of flame from its mouth, roasting another soldier. Even fifty feet away, the heat caused me to flinch. My captain looked stunned. No-one had ever seen a griffon in battle before, much less one that had sworn itself to Chaos and received one of his accursed powers. Running through my options, I quickly decided on an appropriate course of action. We needed cover, somewhere where they wouldn’t have thought to set up a trap. Of course! The building from before had not entirely collapsed. It would certainly serve. Pegasi couldn’t beat heavy infantry in closed spaces.
“Quickly! Back under cover!” I shouted, grabbing my stunned commander and dragging him into the badly burned ruin. Two of the remaining soldiers followed, but another went up in a column of fire before he could escape. It was Number 38 this time. Although the building had suffered in the explosion, there had been no force in the detonation. Based on the charred corpse halfway through the door, it had mostly consisted of raw heat. It struck me then. That could have been me. That could have been all of us. Even as it stood, six of the ponies I knew best were all dead, and they had all died within the space of a few minutes. A crash from above. Swinging hard, I felt a satisfying crack as the pegasus’ neck snapped under my armored hoof.
As the griffon flew in, I noted that it was smoking slightly. Chaos’ curse was obviously taking its toll. Too distracted by a now flaming wing, it didn’t notice until too late the earth pony waiting to crush it in a death-grip. As the new corpse fell to the floor, the Captain visibly pulled himself together, and choked out the order, “fall back to the rendezvous point. We’ve taken too much damage.”
From outside, the call came, “Chaos is coming! Reform and prepare to flee!”
I had heard the tales about Chaos. While the land under Order’s control was full of ordered cities and prosperous economies, Chaos’ territory was full of lawless violence, often encouraged by its lord. Chaos was supposedly a monster, absurdly powerful and random. To speak with him was to risk death or worse. Even his most loyal risked their very lives simply by drawing near to him. So great was his strength that we had no possibility of defeating him. The past night alone he had killed an entire contingent of our soldiers. Only with Order on the field could we hope to throw him down. As things stood, he would probably catch us even if we fled, killing us all out of sheer spite. A hoof slamming into my face snapped me back into reality.
“Who do you think you are?” demanded the captain. “This is the second time you’ve acted without orders in as many minutes!”
“But sir,” I began, but he cut me off.
“Don’t call me sir! You are exactly what we work so hard to fight! You will be held, awaiting trial upon our return! Now, form up! We need to get out of here!”
With a heavy heart, I rejoined the line. Did Order really value obedience over intelligence? In the distance, I saw several chaos soldiers fleeing at the top of their speed. Apparently, even they didn’t want to be anywhere near their master. “Sir!” I called to the commander, “We’ll never escape Chaos. He’s going to kill us all! We need to scatter. At least some of us will have a chance at escape then.”
“Your logic is unnecessary and flawed,” the captain responded sharply, “This will be added to your record of insubordination.”
“Then add this to the record too!” That was the final straw. If being in Order’s army meant that I would be reprimanded for saving lives, I wanted no part in it. I stopped marching and walked in the opposite direction. We needed a distraction, and the commander was obviously not going to let it happen in any way but this. In the distance, I heard something shouted about killing me on sight. So this was what Order was, a being so focused on obedience that she wanted us to forget about our own lives. But was Chaos any better? I would soon find out.
Ten minutes passed, and then twenty, but still no sign of him. I began to wonder what had happened. Was he simply not coming?
The minutes passed, and I eventually reached the outskirts of what had once been Canterlot, the former seat of Commander Arcturus’ power. I stopped for a moment to examine the rough, mossy stones, when a sharp smell touched my nose.
Heavy, roiling smoke tainted the air as Chaos approached, but from behind. Immediately, the realization struck. He had killed the soldiers first, and then come back for me. His appearance was impossible to describe. It constantly changed and shifted, from brass gears and steam to unidentifiable biological mass, to a crude facsimile of my own.
In one voice, but yet thousands, he spoke, “Let us look at this situation simply. You are alone and wearing the Order uniform. Singular Order soldiers do not exist. This means that you have either been banished, or have deserted. The determined hatred on your face clearly marks you as an enemy, which leads me to believe that you came out here to distract me from your fleeing and now dead comrades. They really didn’t deserve you.” It reached out an arm to gently touch the side of my face, which I promptly broke as violently as I could manage.
“Stop talking and fight me!” I bellowed in defiance.
His demeanor shifted to one of amusement and several more arms extruded themselves from what might be called a body, “It’s a pity, really. I saw your performance in battle earlier. You would make such a good soldier for my side. Unfortunately for you, I’m not currently accepting applications. You see, one of my favorite soldiers, Commander Delta, is dead. Order killed him last night, although not before losing her best pegasus commander in the fighting. This has put me in a really terrible mood.”
“Did you say pegasus commander?”
“Why, yes. Lieutenant Stonewall was her name. Relative of yours?” He grinned, clearly showing that he already knew.
I slammed into him, doing my best to hurt him, but the arms pinned me to the ground. “She was my sister! My hero! I was supposed to serve under her!” Although I tried to control myself, my angry shouts degraded into grief filled sobs.
His face, such as it was, adopted a serious position. “It’s time for a lesson, my little pony. Learn it well. It is to be your last. Order is not what you think it is. It is basically representative of simplicity.”
A claw scratched into my side, drawing a few drops of blood. My innate magic slowly began to seal it, closing it little by little.
“You earth ponies have impressive regenerative abilities, as well as absurd strength. But do you need them? No. You do not. And that is how Order will begin to treat it, as unnecessary”
I winced as he pulled something out of my body, something that faintly shimmered in the light, before fading away into the smoky air.
“And that was your magic. You didn’t need it, so I eliminated it, just like Order will.”
He ripped off my tail and mane, grinning viciously and humorlessly.
“You don’t need a mane or a tail, so they go away!”
His voiced waxed louder as he tore off my nose, “You don’t need a nose, so it is taken from you!”
Pain blossomed in my face as I collapsed to the ground.
“Before long, Order decides that life is itself unnecessary to this universe, and then it goes away!”
Driving a limb, through my chest, he turned and began to walk away. The wound, however, was not immediately fatal; it would be a while before I died.
A voice boomed from behind me, “Chaos! Today, you die!”
“That’s rich, Order, you know that we’re equals. It’s not like you to lie like that. There is no possible way to defeat me without dying yourself. Just take your soldier and go.”
I struggled to look at Order, and dared to hope for a second that I might survive.
Then, Order spoke, “She was not mine. She was a mere grunt. I don’t feel like saving a useless soldier who disobeyed orders. She tried to balance Order and Chaos and died for it. Neither of us can afford rogue elements.”
It was then that something snapped. Being dead really helps your perspective on things. I now know for a fact that in that instant, I went completely, utterly insane. Two, all-encompassing sides had rejected me, and I rejected them. They didn’t care about me. They counted me among the dead, when I could still hear and understand them. They didn’t care about anyone. We were just pawns in a war that we did not choose. And in that instant of clarity, the music began. Strings of melody, echoing in my ears, faint at first, but waxing louder. It felt sad. No. Sad was the wrong word. It sounded like distilled grief, the sorrow of the dead all around.
It whispered to me, asking for assistance, for a body to use, and I gave it everything I had. It seeped into my veins and lifted me gently to my feet. My wounds ceased to ache, washed away by the raw feeling behind the power. Pain still pulsed through me, but it was nothing, merely a faint melody, lost in the storm. I was lost. Now I am found.
Wings burst forth from my back, and a horn grew from my forehead. Some part of me registered that it couldn’t last, that my wounds were too great, but I resolved to use this broken body of mine to save my people. I asked for the power to do so, and I received it. For an instant, I felt Harmony. Light seeped from my wound as it yawned wider from the strain, and golden ichor pooled on the ground at my feet.
Order’s usually smug and impassive face showed terror as she looked upon my shining form. Chaos didn’t even bother to look, fleeing at the top of his speed. They were nothing. Catching them with a bolt of magic, I brought the full force of the power to bear against them. They broke and splintered under my grasp, screeching as they felt pain for the first time. Then, they vanished, leaving me alone on the field.
Satisfied in my work, the power left me. Drawing itself away, the music, and feelings that came with it, abandoned me to my fate. As it left, I realized that I would never feel anything again. Nothing could compare to the raw emotion and depth of Harmony, not even my mortal wound. I died then, in a pool of my own blood, alone but content. I had made the world a better place.