//------------------------------//
// The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 
// Story: Broken Stems 
// by TCC56 
//------------------------------//

It was almost disappointing, how the first moments of the revolution went. 

Despite it being their primary job, the Storm Guards watching the slave encampment were lazy and lackadaisical from years of monotony. By the time they registered that a group of slaves a hundred strong was coming to the gate when they weren't supposed to be, it was too late. The guards were armed, yes - but they were too few and too slow. Rocks and claws and hooves did the job, and then the gates were open. 

It took seconds for the slaves working nearby to the encampment to see what was happening - and then it spread like a flame through gasoline. The Storm Guard had grown complacent, believing they had the spirit of the slaves crushed. Now they paid as the town exploded in a wash of chaos. 

It would have been impressive to Rarity if she weren't so unnerved at how gleeful Fluttershy's smile was. 

"Darling, we really must discuss at some point how he's rubbing off on you."

Then a griffon ran past them with a flaming stick in claw, and Rarity's focus snapped back to the here and now. 

They had the advantage for the moment as the handful of nearby guards were overwhelmed by surprise and numbers. But the moment was passing - bells were ringing not just in the town but at the CItadel itself - loud peals of thundering sound to bring the wrath of the Storm Guard. 

And there was no sign of a cart or of three other ponies. 

"Um. I don't see Applejack anywhere. Do you think something happened to them?" Fluttershy flapped her wings once, starting to move to a higher viewpoint - before Bright Mac touched a hoof to her side and gave a shake of his head. Up would make her a target. She understood and went no higher.

Rarity frowned deeply, even as she watched a group of Abyssinians overwhelm a guard using nothing but broom handles and fury. "Hopefully we can find Pinkie Pie and she can guide us."

"I actually wasn't in the Filly Guides but I can try!" Pinkie cheerfully noted from three inches behind Rarity.

Predictably Rarity shrieked and lept into the air, legs flailing wildly.

Leaning over to Bright Mac, Pinkie stage-whispered, "She drinks too much coffee." 

Then Pinkie's mind screeched to a halt. Her eyes widened, filling with sparkling stars as she looked up at Bright Mac. And her mouth morphed into a smile that threatened to envelop her entire face. 

Fluttershy gently pushed the party pony away as she started to vibrate with glee. "Pinkie, I know you're excited to meet Bright MacIntosh, but we're, um, sort of in the middle of a violent revolution against his oppressors right now. Could you maybe tell us where Applejack is?"

Pinkie shrugged. "No idea, haven't seen her." 

A recovered Rarity rejoined the conversation. "But the signal! We heard you fire your party cannon!" 

"What? No I didn't." Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. "I didn't bring my party cannon, silly. It wouldn't fit in my saddlebags! You know that, Rarity - I mean, did you see me carrying it when we left Ponyville?"

Under other circumstances, Rarity would have ground her teeth and been irate. But not now - not like this. Her eyes went wide, as did Fluttershy's as they looked at each other. "Oh no." And then they both looked to the rolling boil of riot.

The crowd was cheering, high on their apparent victory and the catharsis of finally taking action. The slave quarter and everything immediately around it was theirs - the only remaining guards were heaps on the ground. 

But there was an undercurrent of noise below the cheers. The loud thump of furry feet on stone and the jangle of black iron weapons. It came out of the west, from the direction of the Citadel - and it was growing. 

Bright Mac paled. "We gotta do somethin'. If those guards get here, we ain't got a thing but rocks and sticks." His gaze darted around the compound, looking for anything usable. "Barricades! We gotta close off the street!" 

"You'll need time." Rarity spoke up - and stepped up. "Fluttershy, help him gather the others to make the barricades. Pinkie, if you please? I need you to shatter as many rocks as you can into as of small of pieces as you can."

The old farmstallion quirked an eyebrow at the unicorn. Rarity batted her eyes and smiled. "Trust a lady, please?"

He did - and galloped to the nearest group of rioting slaves to spread the word.

They weren't fast enough. 

A phalanx of Storm Guards crashed through the half-built barrier scant minutes later, scattering slaves and stones to mark their arrival. The horde of rebels surged to action, just as they had in the opening moments - a wave of bodies to overwhelm the guards and drag them down. But what worked on surprised individuals didn't do the same for a coordinated and prepared unit. The wave crashed - and the wave broke, bouncing off in a flurry of jabbing spears and crackling electricity. 

Several of the slaves fell to the ground while the rest recoiled, taking cover as the guards began unleashing lightning around themselves. Rocks and debris were lobbed in return, wobbling blunt force in response to far more powerful blasts. 

The guards advanced in a tight pack, protecting one another in a formation that reeked of Tempest's work. One guard strayed slightly and paid the price - the hornless minotaur lept from the roof of a building, bowling the furry Storm Guard out of formation. The minotaur was put down quickly as several bolts of blue lightning struck home - but so did the guard as a quartet of griffons wielding makeshift clubs and sharpened stones left it in a heap before scattering again. Two others tried to pull guards from the pack in quick succession, but found that the minotaur's strike was a one-time deal. They paid for their attempts with pain. 

Advancing, the Storm Guards sent the slaves scurrying away like rats - making room for a second phalanx to advance into the gap. The revolution was less than ten minutes old, and it was already on the ropes. 

On the ground, a young diamond dog groaned. Stunned by a bolt of lightning, it futilely struggled to crawl clear of the advancing guards. The nearest raised its spear to club the helpless dog with the butt-end--

Air rippled, and the Storm Guard dropped the spear with a yelp of pain.

The formation closed back up, eyes searching for a new threat to beat aside. It didn't take long to find - after all, there were only two ponies in the entire camp, and neither of them looked like that. 

Rarity took another step forward, fully coming out from behind the makeshift pile of benches and tables that the slaves had piled up. Identifying the unicorn as the threat was easy - the glowing field of magic around her vibrated, tensely holding dozens of tiny pebbles and stone shards in the air. 

For a moment, the guards held to try and make sense of her - the only unicorn they knew was Tempest Shadow, and she did nothing like that. 

Rarity smiled, showing enough teeth to make Nightmare Moon jealous. 

"Darlings."

Then there was a hiss as the first projectile cut through the air. 

One after another, Rarity launched the shards into the crowd of guards with well-practiced precision. Years of juggling dozens of pins and needles at once came to a literal point as she slung fragment after fragment with rifle precision.

Beside her Pinkie Pie brought her hooves down on the flagstones again and again, breaking rock into thin flechettes to feed the barrage.

The phalanx broke and scattered - the guard's shields were far too small to protect their massive forms and every exposed inch was a target for Rarity's stinging fury. 

One peeked out from a doorway, pointing its spear towards the unicorn. A bolt of lightning flew - and fizzled as Rarity conjured a diamond-shaped shield in front of her. Her gaze locked on the one who had dared to take a shot at her, and every one of the hundred or so shards in the air around her snapped to point exactly where she was looking.

The guard howled as half a dozen bits of stone tagged it in the arm.

As Rarity continued to launch her barrage of suppressive fire at the guards, the liberated slaves took the opening to pull their own injured to safety. The one-eyed hippogriff broke from cover to help Fluttershy drag an injured Klugetowner the last few yards, the three taking shelter by Bright Mac behind an overturned cart. His beak turned to a grin as she paused to catch her breath. "Take a moment, pony. Your friend's got this in claw." He motioned towards Rarity with his chin. "If we'd had soldiers like all of you at Mount Aris, the Storm King wouldn't have stood a chance!"

Fluttershy blinked guilelessly. "Oh, we're not soldiers."

The hippogriff paused uncertainly. "You're... not?"

"Rarity's a seamstress," Fluttershy explained. "Well, um, she prefers fashionista." 

Slowly, the hippogriff tried to process that. "And you're...?"

More confidently Fluttershy noted, "I run an animal sanctuary."

A third time and even more slowly, the hippogriff pointed to Pinkie Pie with a claw. "And she's?"

"A party planner and baker," Fluttershy chirruped.

"So... Equestria didn't send an elite commando team of highly trained soldiers to liberate us? You're just.. normal ponies?" 

There, Fluttershy wavered. "Um, I'm not sure I'd say normal? We try to be but I guess wielding the Elements of Harmony and serving as the Princess' Council of Friendship probably disqualifies us."

A long moment of silence awkwardly crept from the hippogriff - though only from him, as the background was still packed by the sounds of sporadic lightning bolts, pain and Rarity shouting about someone getting the point. 

"Well," he finally settled on, "I'm not going to complain about the help either way. If she keeps this up, we can't lose." 

It was at that moment Bright Mac chimed in. "She ain't gonna keep it up much longer." His frown deepened. "Gal's sweatin' up a lather, even if that white coat of hers ain't showin' it." 

Fluttershy bit her lip and nodded. "Twilight was always the one with the magical power - Rarity's not nearly as strong. Holding all those shards in the air is one thing, but she isn't used to throwing them. I think we might need a new plan soon." 

Before they could come up with anything, however, all ears turned to the sound of crashing chaos. Rebel hearts skipped a fearful beat as sound of more guards running at a charge came bouncing off the stone walls of the street westwards. The first line of fresh Storm Guards rushed onto the battlefield - and were violently tossed aside. 

The new guards hadn't been advancing - they had been fleeing. Three were thrown clear, scattered like bowling pins as Applejack plowed through at breakneck speed. The only thing keeping her slow enough to have some meager control was the weight of the laden cart behind her - though it was scorched from lightning and one of the wheels was wobbling in protest. 

Behind her on the cart, Rainbow Dash was doing her best to fend off their pursuit - the cart was far faster than the lumbering Storm Guard, but they still had persistence and numbers on their side. All Rainbow Dash had was Lightning and Thunder - which is what she had named the two spears she was currently wielding. Awkwardly standing on two hooves in the wildly rocking cart, she held both spears - because A is both for Akimbo and Awesome - wedged between foreleg and barrel as she aimlessly sprayed bolts of electricity backwards. They hit nothing she intended to outside of raw luck, but it had been enough. The cart made it through. 

It immediately fell over.

Applejack tried to brake, and the wobbling wheel broke. The cart itself flipped onto its side, scattering a plethora of spears across the flagstone courtyard. Rainbow Dash - used to crashing - instinctively flapped her wings and took to the air, losing both spears she carried before executing a quick backflip and putting all four hooves on the ground. The farm mare herself skidded out, sliding across the stone before coming to rest against one of the rebel's makeshift barriers. 

A dozen yards to the side, Rarity let out a shout of effort as she hurled all of her remaining ammunition forward. Splinters and shards cascaded against everything in front of her in a cone to buy a little more space - before the unicorn collapsed out of exhaustion. Pinkie faithfully grabbed and hauled her friend out of the open. 

And the open was suddenly a very dangerous place to be. The Storm Guard surged forward moments after Rarity fell - and found that stinging unicorn magic was replaced by dozens of liberated slaves grabbing up spears. Both sides slammed together in a choatic melee. 

But back behind it all, Applejack groaned. Slowly finding her hooves again, she pushed her hat up out of her eyes.

And she stared. 

Bright Mac stared back. 

Only a few feet apart, both were struck dumb. Despite almost two weeks of preparing herself for this moment, Applejack couldn't find the words. And after a decade and a half, no words could express what Bright Mac needed to say.

Softly - silently - Applejack did the only thing that made sense to her. She took off the hat and held it out to give it back to her father. 

Bright Mac looked at it, wiped a tear from his eye, and nudged her hoof away with his. "'S yours now," he gently noted. "Ah hear tell you've more than earned it, sugarcube."

A moment later, Applejack had him in a tight hug as she bawled her eyes out. 

The moment didn't last very long - while Fluttershy watched with barely restrained joy and Rarity was laying against an overturned table trying to catch her breath, Pinkie Pie interrupted the hug with hesitant words. 

"Applejack?" She grimaced as her friend and her father looked over, torn away from a most precious moment. "Applejack, where's Fizzie?" Pinkie's voice trembled dangerously - and looks of fear came to Fluttershy and Rarity's faces as well. Three had gone out - two had come back. 

Applejack swallowed a little bile. "She..." Another hesitation - she looked to her father. To the fear in his eyes that their reunion already had a dear cost. "She stayed behind. Lept off the cart to hold 'em off, an' blew up the armory behind us." Her eyes swept over the battlefield - one slowly calming as the Storm Guard pulled back again to regroup. And her own fears were confirmed with the presence of only one pegasus. "Ah think Rainbow Dash went back for her."

"Then we must move." Rarity rose unsteadily - nearly falling again as her legs wobbled, but that was prevented again by Pinkie Pie. "Losing one of them is a terrible tragedy - two is unthinkable." 

Nodding, Fluttershy pursed her lips and looked towards the towering black edifice of the Citadel itself. "The slaves should head for the docks to escape soon. If we're going to save Buttercup, we need to go before they do. And, um, fast."

A little grin cracked Bright Mac's face. "She's got a point. We gotta go save your Ma, right Jackie?"

Applejack shivered with joy at the thought of that next hug. "Yeah. Yeah, we gotta." She stomped her hoof to bring it all to order. "C'mon! We still got three ponies to save. We ain't gonna leave without 'em."

As they started to move off, Pinkie used her free hoof to wave Bright Mac over to the unicorn she was lifting. "C'mon, two backs can lighten any load!"

Though weary, Rarity still managed to be offended. "A load, am I?" She sputtered ineffectually - though it brought a small smile to her friend's faces as some things never change, even in the face of tragedy.

Bright Mac flanked Rarity's other side, already picking up on the group's good humor. "Now don't you go slightin' the lady, little miss," he playfully scolded. "She's done mighty fine at crammin' a day's worth of work into the last half hour."

With a wink, Pinkie returned fire. "Aw, don't worry! Rarity knows how much we all love her, Uncle." 

It took Bright Mac about six steps to realize what was said. "....Uncle?"