//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Equestria At War 
// Story: Emerald Gleaner: Spirit of Dissent 
// by Legionary 
//------------------------------//

War.

Equestria had never known true war. It had gotten a taste of it during the Changeling invasion but it was a conflict of a single city that lasted a day. Emerald’s alternate, Oskar, attempted his own invasion but it was a conflict only the Enclave felt. The battle between Emerald and Oskar had caused collateral but it could be seen as more of a natural disaster than actual battle for the ponies of Equestria.

But now Equestria truly knew war and had been getting to know it for the past three days…


ALPHA


A unicorn mare galloped, panting and gasping for breath amongst a stampede of terrified, desperate ponies. Roars and explosions filled the air, the earth shook and ponies tripped and stumbled; some got back up, others simply disappeared beneath the hooves of the ponies that had been directly behind them.

“Teeny! Teeny Heart!” she heard a voice cry.

She paused briefly and looked towards the voice to see a group of ponies clustered around a street corner, hooves waving frantically in the air as they looked towards her.

“Mom!” Teeny shouted back and ran towards them, having to fight against the tide of ponies to do so. It was a good thing she had done so.

The street the crowd had been running down suddenly exploded in a cloud of smoke and flying rubble. Ponies screamed in pain and fear as a massive shape moved in the dust cloud. The cloud rapidly cleared to reveal a giant, diamond dog shaped, armored form lying face up across the street. The giant then immediately rolled over just as another giant form impacted the ground with shaking force where it had lain.

The second giant was ape-like in appearance but made entirely of rust colored stone. The ape opened its mouth as if to roar, only to get a facefull of massive bullets from the massive guns on the giant dog’s arms.

Teeny could only stare in wide eyed silence at the sight of the fight where she lay after being thrown by the literal earth shaking impacts.

“Teeny!” two voices cried, and she looked to see an earth pony and a bandaged pegasus stallion standing beside her.

“Dad… Far Wing, your… wing…” Teeny said, almost too quiet to be heard in the deafening battle and noise of a war torn city.

“Nevermind that, little sissy,” Far Wing forced out quickly in a failed attempt to draw attention away from the bloody bandages on his side and the lack of a bulge where the wing should have been. “Come on! We have to get to the train station!”

“R-right!.” Teeny tore her gaze away from her brother’s side and quickly got up. She followed her brother and father to the others who were gathered on the corner. She recognized each face. Aunts, uncles, cousins and her grandparents, her entire extended family was here.

They ran once they were all gathered together. The giants were still battling and not only that but a centipede made of fire had joined in and started setting everything alight. The fires and the fighting forced them to take a long route to the train station.

The streets were growing progressively emptier the further away their detour forced them from the station. The somewhat distant sounds of explosions, roaring and screaming seemed unnaturally quiet to the soft crackle of fire and shifting wind over empty streets.

“How much farther, Comet?” Teeny’s mother asked her father.

“Not too far now, Lucky,” Comet began. “We should be about-”

Suddenly there was the noise of rushing water and gurgling. Teeny turned her head to see her uncle and several of his children being snatched up by a serpent made of water, literally swallowing them whole to start drowning them in its transparent belly.

“NO!” Teeny heard someone scream, but before anyone could do anything the ground exploded in a cloud of dirt and road bricks.

A white armored shape leapt out of the earth and crashed through the watery serpentine form and everyone held within spilled out with gasps for air. The armored being immediately leapt back on its feet and swiped its arm through the now angrily hissing water spirit’s head, disrupting its form further.

“GO!” the being shouted in a modulated voice as the serpent rapidly reformed and started to wrap around it.

The entirety of Teeny’s family immediately bolted down the street. But Teeny couldn’t help but look over her shoulder at the struggling armored being as it drew a cylinder from its waist and pulled a pin from it. A moment later a blazing white fire erupted  where the two had been and the sound of something like a blowtorch and sizzling water filled the air.

With adrenaline pumping, Teeny and her entire family galloped down the street and didn’t stop until they started seeing other ponies making for the train station. Even then they wouldn’t have slowed if they could. Worn down from all the running and the adrenaline wearing off, they walked as fast as they could, panting and gasping for breath. Monstrous tracer rounds flew over the rooftops followed by rockets screaming past, explosions and roars resounding in the distance as the battle in the city continued.

Finally coming to the train station, Teeny and her family had to force themselves to enter the trainyards in the shadow of looming giants. Tall, troll-like creatures stood guard with massive guns attached to their arms and racks of missiles lined up on their backs. There wasn’t a moment that one of a dozen of these beings weren’t firing off into the distance. Combined with the fact the train station was clearly packed with frightened ponies even from the outside, the noise was deafening. Thankfully something had been done about this; as soon as Teeny and her family crossed the threshold of the train station entrance, the noise suddenly died down.

The sound of crying, screaming and generally terrified ponies, however, was still pretty loud.

It was incredibly crowded in the train station proper and it was all Teeny and her family could do to stick together as they slowly moved with the crowd towards the train platforms. The speed of their progress was agonizing considering what was going on in the city, but it seemed like the train station was the place everyone had thought to go. Certainly ponies on the outskirts of the city had simply ran for the main roads or into the wilderness  but for everyone that had lived in the heart of the city…

“... PLEASE KEEP MOVING!” Teeny started to hear over the terrified drone of the crowd. “KEEP CALM AND MOVE FORWARD! THERE ARE STILL TRAINS BEING LOADED!”

Suddenly the ground shook and Teeny swore she heard a deep, vicious growl resound up from the floor, a deep baritone that rattled her bones. Just as suddenly there was another shake that ended abruptly followed by another growl, this time feeling frustrated. 

Teeny didn’t know what that had been about but, like her, the crowd didn’t want to find out and in their collective desire to leave the flow of ponies became smoother. As can be expected from having a name like Teeny, she wasn’t the tallest pony. Teeny Heart had to curse the fact she was barely taller than the average teen once more - not to mention a bit too much on the slender side, even for a unicorn - so all she could see was the wall of ponies pressing in on her. Several minutes of this eventually led to the ceiling changing from the tall lobby of the train station to the looming ceiling and glass windows of the train platforms.

Teeny Heart could smell the strange aroma left behind by the massive ranged weapons the Enclave giants used as it blew in from the broken glass sunlights overhead. It was a strange, alien smell she found oddly pleasant, though from the faces of those around her she was probably the only one.

‘Strange, I thought the Warhounds from the Enclave switched to non-powder based weapons?’ Teeny thought idly, honestly lacking anything else to do besides slowly inch forward with the crowd. ‘Maybe their… what did they call them? Biogears? Their large soldiers, anyway, still use powder based weapons simply from technical limitations or they never got around to it in time? Hmm… why did the Princess never update the Royal and City guard to have- oop!’

So engrossed in her mental tangent, Teeny almost never noticed being herded through the doors of a train car. Looking around, she saw that it was one of the new models, a more utilitarian design without much of the typical Equestrian flair. She had heard about these from friends and family who often groused about how bland and boring the trains were becoming “thanks” to the Enclave.

‘Now that I see it for myself, it honestly isn't that bad,’ Teeny thought as she did her best to stick close to her family. ‘Almost refreshing, really. At least now there is less artistic flair to accidentally break off.’

Thankfully she managed to stick with her family with little issue and they collectively managed to claim a seat along with the floor around it as their own. It was honestly that crowded in the car that comfortably claiming some floor was an accomplishment, though one of selfish greed or actual achievement Teeny had yet to determine…

‘At least no one is giving us dirty looks,’ Teeny thought while purposefully ignoring the fact she had claimed the window seat the instant she saw the chance to do so.

“NO! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO US!”

“THEY’RE LEAVING US HERE!”

Teeny turned her head to look out the window and see the crowd grow angry as well as afraid. Looking around some more, she realized that this train was basically the last one to be loaded and there were many more ponies in the train station trying to get out.

“PLEASE REMAIN CALM!” boomed a loud, authoritative voice. “MORE TRAINS ARE COMING! WE ARE HERE WITH YOU! PLEASE REMAIN CALM!”

There was a whistle as the train’s engine started to chug and pull out of the station. Teeny half expected the crowd to surge forward and latch onto the train any way they could. Some definitely did this, but most of the crowd simply stood around worriedly, looking lost and afraid. Before long the train had left the station along with the spell that blocked out the noise.

The situation in the city hadn’t gotten any better; in fact it was worse. The dog biogear was now being assaulted by four spirits, a fiery winged serpent had joined the jotun and the other two spirits were half their size. The giant dog was unable to properly fight back now that it was completely outnumbered and did all it could to maintain a defense, one that could not be kept for much longer if the cracked armor was any indication. Along with that, the safety of the station and the train itself was in question.

Screams of fright filled the interior of the train car as Teeny grit her teeth at the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. All she could do was watch on as spirits burst into existence out of the earth and into the air. The troll-like giants guarding the station were constantly stomping their feet along with swatting at both the air and their own bodies. Spirits of all four types swarmed these giants, their forms disrupted by being crushed or swatted by the massive fists of the giants but merely reforming nearby. There were several dozen warhounds stationed along the tracks the train was on, each of them fighting desperately not only to protect themselves but to keep the spirits from attacking the train.

‘...Jotuns can manipulate the earth, can’t they?’ Teeny thought as she considered the battle outside the window, unable to do much more considering how helpless she was; it was better than joining in on the screaming that was beginning to leave her ears ringing. ‘Why aren’t they pulling the warhounds into the ground? Or even just shattering the track the train is on? If I can think of it, surely they can?’

Of course, as soon as she thought that she witnessed a warhound’s foot fall into a suddenly appearing crack in the ground. Oddly, however, this was as far as it got and dirt even filled the crack and pushed the warhound’s foot out.

‘...That doesn’t make sense. Why would-’ Teeny thought and interrupted herself as she narrowed her eyes at the giants almost futilely swatting at spirits. Specifically, she stared at their still rhythmically stomping feet. ‘That shaking and growling earlier… Can those things manipulate the earth as well? Guess that explains why we aren’t dead yet.’

Yet was the key word. The warhounds and their heavy support were just managing to keep the spirits off, but they weren’t winning either and were clearly being worn down. Fortunately the answer to their current problems had just arrived.

There was a flash of pink light and the spirits attacking the biogear split apart in an instant. The spirits attacking the giants only had time to turn their heads before they too burst apart with screams of agony by streaks of pink light.

“It’s her!” Teeny heard a boar-like Jotun the size of a bus squeal in fear before it simply fell to pieces with its fellows following suit.

The pink light came to a halt just above the battlefield that had been the trainyard and Teeny could just make out the distant figure of Emerald Gleaner, floating in mid air.

“BIG BOSS!” one of the Warhounds cheered.

“BIG BOSS! BIG BOSS! BIG BOSS!” the rest of the warhounds added to the cheer, and even the giants and the distant Biogear joined in.

Teeny could just see a motion that was probably Emerald raising her fist into the air in a salute before she was suddenly gone. The cheering continued and even a lot of the ponies aboard the still moving train joined in.

“She did it! She saved us!” a voice cried out.

‘Again… for now,’ Teeny mentally added with a sigh as she leaned back in her seat. This actually wasn’t the first time Emerald Gleaner had teleported over to destroy the spirits attacking the city. In fact, Emerald had come around the city at least a dozen times in the past three days to beat off attacks.

‘The problem is that she can only get so many of them and the rest always instantly run away,’ Teeny thought. ‘Then once she is gone they just come right back and the lethal cycle continues.’

“You alright, Teeny?” Far Wing asked, now sitting on the floor in front of her.

“Besides being stressed, I’m completely untouched, Far Wing,” Teeny replied before frowning.

“Don’t worry about it.” Far wing shook his head and shuffled in place until his bandaged, maimed side was hidden from sight. “You forget about the international hospital? I’ll just check in and have it grown back, good as new!”

“...There will be a line,” Teeny couldn’t help but reply.

“Always such a party pooper, sissy.” Far Wing practically pouted. “I’m fine with waiting. It’s not like I can do weather work even if I hadn’t lost it.”

“Yeah…” At that, Teeny looked out the window. According to the position of the sun it should have been noon. Except for the fact that the sun and moon had crisscrossed the sky every which way several times in the last twenty four hours. Trying to keep time purely on the sun and moon was pointless when those two very things seemingly moved randomly now. The situation had started two days ago when the sun was raised and then set over the course of five hours and steadily got worse ever since.

Teeny yawned. The result of the unreliable day and night cycle was a badly disrupted sleep cycle, something that was keenly felt now that the illusion of safety from a “won” battle was settling in. She had barely rested her face against the cool window of the train car when a sudden jolt snapped them back open.

The short unicorn wiped a hoof across her bleary eyes and looked around. It was rather dark and everyone seemed to have fallen asleep as well. She rubbed her eyes again and froze when she looked out the window and saw a pair of large, glowing white eyes staring back at her.

Teeny simply stared at the eyes as they stared back at her, and this kept up for what felt like a small eternity. Then, quite suddenly, the eyes closed in an almost tired fashion and disappeared. The darkness seemed to lighten with the disappearance of the eyes and Teeny saw that the train was currently traveling through a tunnel.

The short unicorn wasn’t sure what to make of the event she had just witnessed. She had only just woken up from what felt like a far too short slumber. No doubt had anyone saw her, they would have told her how stupid she must have looked just staring blankly at the eyes.

Suddenly there was light and Teeny had to squeeze her eyes closed for a few moments. She opened them to see that it was now night, or at the very least the moon was currently out; no doubt at the rate the moon was moving across the sky the sun would be out in just an hour or two. Despite how tired she still felt, the light was enough of a shock to the system she felt she might as well stay awake.

‘Just what was that a minute ago?’ Teeny thought to herself as she leaned her face against the window once more. ‘Another spirit? Why didn’t it kill us? Who knows how long it had to do something to us.’

Considering how much violence and death had been happening from the invasion of her home city alone, Teeny thought it was rather odd a spirit hadn’t taken the chance to murder them all. Although… thinking back, there was an odd feeling she got from the being, something along the lines of uncertainty and regret.

‘Well there isn’t much use wondering over it now,’ Teeny thought. ‘I wonder how much further it is from the Refugee camp?’

Teeny didn’t try to go to sleep again. Just like she thought, the moon had set in only an hour and up came the sun, causing people to be forcefully roused from their own slumber. It was a very grumbly and frustrating couple hours following that before they finally arrived at their destination.

The Canterlot Refugee encampment was a massive makeshift metropolis of tents built in the shadow of Canterlot itself down in the grasslands and hills. The station for the tent city was actually the commercial trainyards of Ponyville, but the sprawl had grown so vast the edges had neared the large town.

The train yards were so busy that theirs hadn’t even been able to stop at a proper passenger platform. They all had no choice but to disembark from the middle of the commercial train yards and walk to the check in station. Being checked into the tent city was not a fast process; the officials were clearly stressed and doing everything they could to keep some kind of order and documentation. Three hours of waiting later and their family was assigned a packed tent and a lot to set it up in. Another three hours of walking and being lost trying to make sense of the street number system and they finally had the opportunity to spend an hour struggling with their tent before they got to even settle in.

Teeny laid wide awake atop her sleeping bag, simply watching her family in their fitful, exhausted slumber. By all rights after being cooped up in a packed train and spending six hours standing, walking and struggling, she should have been tired as well but she wasn’t, oddly enough. Teeny actually felt restless and maybe even a bit hungry.

‘Might as well go find an eating area,’ Teeny thought. As far as she knew there was little else to do and it wasn’t like they had brought things like books with them.

The short unicorn carefully got up and left the tent, zipping the door closed behind her. She began to walk somewhat aimlessly towards an area she and her family had accidentally discovered in their lost wanderings. Despite the fact it could have very easily been past noon by now, the sun was barely even in a position one could call ten o’clock; clearly this was going to be an especially long day.

‘Not the happiest looking people ever, not that I blame them,’ Teeny thought as she trotted past residents and fellow wanderers of the tent city. ‘Everywhere I look, everywhere I walk it’s the same: ponies crying and grieving, depressed and lost or just helplessly angry. Who in the world could have expected the very elements to rise up against you for “past crimes”?’

The spirits that had invaded her city time and time again hadn’t been silent on the matter of their grievances. Apparently ponies of ages past forced them asleep and took the world for themselves. Well that was news to Teeny; news to everyone else as well and it wasn’t especially fair to be blamed for crimes of people both long dead and unknown. Frankly, Teeny was of the opinion they all should be rather angry with the spirits for holding them responsible for actions eons before their birth, but if people wanted to mope instead that was on them.

Eventually Teeny arrived at the eating area and couldn’t help but groan. In a rather large, somewhat busy clearing, many tables were set up. Off to the side was where the food was located on pallets. It was all entirely of a kind of processed bar made of berries, wheat and various grains. It was one of those “superfoods” she had been hearing about and was  supposed to provide a pony with all the nutrition they needed. Well that was honestly true and having them once in a while was fine, but making a whole meal of them?

‘This is going to get old very fast,’ Teeny thought with a sigh and turned her eyes towards an area walled off with tarp walls, the restrooms as the gender signs attested. ‘Might as well see if I can freshen up a bit.’

Entering the mare’s side of the restroom, Teeny found herself in a somewhat crudely made public bathroom with a few other mares here as well. Along one side was a long line of portable toilets facing the sinks. The sinks were all a bunch of rapidly welded together tubs with a water silo piping water to each one, each sink emptied into a trough that fed into a box that Teeny knew to be a runic water purifier, with said box feeding back into the water silo.

Teeny walked over to the sinks and looked into the mirror that each thankfully had. She was a mess, there was no getting around that. The last three days of being stuck in a warzone had not been kind to her hygiene. Her naturally messy blond mane was clumped together in greasy tangles that would take some effort to clean up. Her tan colored coat was covered in grime, dirt and dust, not to mention a few bloodstains from some cuts and minor wounds. The lack of sleep hadn’t done her cerulean eyes any good either, as they were now badly bloodshot. Not only that, but she must have gotten hit in the eye at some point because one of her eyes was half red from a burst blood vessel. As for her flank? Besides being as dirty as everywhere else, it was as blank as the day she was born, something she felt she’d always have to live with.

‘Ugh! Normally I’m not all that concerned about how I look but this is pushing it!’ Teeny reflexive gave a disgusted scoff at the reflection before turning the water in the sink on. ‘Not much I can do without an actual shower, but I can get some of this cleaned up.’

Teeny Heart probably spent a half hour just in that washroom, hogging the sink and trying her best to get cleaned up. In the end she managed to get the dirt off of her head and from around her neck. She gave her hair the best wash she could with just tap water.

‘Still not pretty to look at,’ Teeny thought with a frown as her reflection, with its one mostly red eye, glared back at her. ‘But considering what I started with, it’s an improvement.’

When Teeny left the washroom, she saw a crowd gathering around one side of the eating area. Over their heads she could see the towering form of a fully armored Warhound. Curious at what she was seeing, she walked closer and through the buzzing murmur of the crowd’s voice she could hear one shouting, trying to be heard.

“... ANY WHO WOULD BE WILLING TO VOLUNTEER!” Teeny started to hear the voice clearly as she slowly squeezed through the crowd. This was probably one of the rare few times she was glad for her smaller size as it allowed her to get to the front with little issue. It was there that she saw an official looking pony standing atop a soap box while a Warhound towered next to him with crossed arms.

“What’s going on?” Teeny whispered to the pony next to her.

“They tryin to get us to go fight in their war,” a gruff looking earth pony wearing a bakerboy’s cap spoke before spitting to the side. “Not bloody likely!”

“PLEASE EVERYPONY! WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!” the official beseeched, and even Teeny felt like turning away. Something about this suited official just made her not want to buy anything he was selling. “IF WE JUST CAME TOGETHER, THIS WHOLE- GAH!”

“This is not how you ask your people to fight and die with you,” the Warhound growled lowly as he hoisted the pony up with a single hand. He then placed the pony down behind him and planted a foot on the soapbox before reaching up and pulling his helmet off.

“I AM FENRIR!” The Warhound spoke as he revealed his white, wolf-like head. Placing the helmet under an arm, he continued; “I am Captain of the Direwolves, an elite force of Warhounds currently scattered across Equestria, fighting tooth and nail to defend against a merciless foe.”

“I look at you all today and I see a people who have had their peace torn away from them!” Fenrir spoke solemnly to a now silently still crowd. He seemed to gaze into each one of them with his icy blue eyes that burned with conviction and faith. “A peace a thousand years in the making! Torn away! And for what?! Why was this peace taken away from you? Was it something you all personally did? A fault that any could see as something truly deserving of retribution? NO!”

The white wolf ended with a bellow that startled the crowd, the motion moving through all like a wave.

“They tore away your peace for the crimes of those eons dead!” Fenrir growled, and in his anger his foot crushed the soap box with a cloud of splinters. “For the crimes of those long gone, they have decided to kill your friends, your family, your loved ones. Drive you away from your homes!”

“MURDERERS!” someone cried out, and Teeny could almost feel the hackles of the crowd start to rise.

“Not just murderers!” Fenrir continued. “They deny you your right to live! Your right to peace and happiness! Your right to create a family, make a home. They would tear the very earth out from under you! If they win, they would turn the world into a lifeless wasteland! If we do not fight, we surrender to monsters that would see you and your families dead and gone! WILL WE LET THEM WIN!?”

“NEVER!!!” To her own surprise, Teeny found herself adding her voice to many others. Intellectually she knew the reasons for the spirits deciding to kill them all was unjust and something to be angry about. And she was angry, but it wasn’t a passionate, burning anger. It wasn’t the sheer fervor she could feel Fenrir pour into his words. If it wasn’t for the righteous, infectious anger the dog was exuding, his words would probably be little more than just dramatic rhetoric. As is, it was almost scary how easily the crowd got carried away by someone else’s emotions… and how easily she found herself willing to be carried away as well.

“Then join me! Join us!” Fenrir spread his arms wide. “Help us defend Equestria! Help us bring peace back to our world! Fight together with us for our right to live!”

Angry cheers filled the air along with the stamping of many hooves.

“Now that’s how you ask a fella to fight!” the gruff pony from before said with a toothy grin. Teeny Heart had to agree with him completely, considering the choice she had just resolved to make. 

Unbeknownst to the short unicorn, her blank flank started to glow lightly and a shape appeared after it faded. It was the face of a pony’s bare grinning skull surrounded by a laurel wreath with two crossed rifles behind it.


BETA


With a flash of pink light, Emerald appeared on the peak of Mount Canterlot and fell onto one knee, panting and grasping at her chest.

As a Blacklight being, Emerald was physically tireless but the same could hardly be said of her mentally, magically and even emotionally. She had been going at it for three days straight. The most of a break she had ever gotten was a minute here and there to talk with friends and family to make sure they were alright. It was the most time she could ever spare considering the fact she was the only person in Equestria who could hurt and kill spirits. Everything and everyone else were merely holding actions.

Starswirl had done what he promised and managed to create a runic array to replicate the spirit strike in weapons. In just three days, Starswirl had created a brand new runic array that could be applied to firearms.

‘At this very moment hundreds of thousands of the magical equivalent of a bolt action rifle are being made,’ Emerald thought with a frown, absently monitoring every second she was spending resting and every new alert that was popping up. ‘Brand new weapons that have never been strenuously field tested are going to be given to pony recruits who likely will only be able to have days of training at most… there is no telling just how many thousands are going to die because of freezing up or their guns jamming.’

Intellectually, Emerald knew she wasn’t to blame. Both she and Celestia knew that taking time to properly prepare a force to deal with spirit attacks would take weeks if not months. The deaths that would occur if they did attempt such would almost certainly see the end of Equestria as they knew it. But she couldn’t help it; she felt the weight of the deaths to come, the deaths happening at this very moment.

‘All this power. I could force the world to heel singlehanded,’ Emerald thought with a mirthless chuckle. ‘But just try to help everyone and I find myself falling short. Is the only thing I’m good at taking lives? Damn it… at this rate, we’re never going to be able to help the other nations of the League if we can’t even secure our own lands.’

Emerald was forced to cease her brooding when the alerts rose a little too high for her liking. Ending what little break she allowed herself, she went back to blitzing the entirety of Equestria.


GAMMA


The capital of the Griffin Principalities was under siege.

The howling winds had been a perpetual noise ever since the beginning of the assault three days ago. It was caused by the inland hurricane that had been raging for three days straight, the eye of which was situated over the capital itself. The only reason why there was even a capital still standing was thanks to the ceaseless efforts of the stormwings, who were contesting the windigos for control of the air. But it was a siege that couldn’t be withstood forever…

The Grand Prince looked over the Great Hold of his family, a city they had built from nothing upon their rise as a family of significance and been in their care for generations. Its gleaming towers were a marvel of ancient griffin architecture and artistry, the palace itself was a monument to the glory of what it meant to be a griffin of significance, a family of knighthood and honor. It was now all a crumbling shadow of their former glory

Stones rained down from above as the ground shoke. Windigos were not the only spirits attacking the city; there were also Jotuns crawling up the sides and bursting up from the ground itself. With the Stormwings focused entirely on tying up the windigos in the air, it was up to the Knights who only had some training in Stormwing techniques to combat the spirits on the ground. In the end, the lightning amplified attacks were only just enough to keep the spirits from getting too deep into the city or from causing too much damage at once.

“Grand Prince, the western residential districts have started sliding off the mountain top. There is nothing more that can be done,” a Royal Knight in battered armor, highly decorated in storm sapphires, spoke.

“Took them long enough,” the Grand Prince retorted with a derisive snort. “We’ve been forced to let them have it over a dozen times and only now they manage to destroy it.”

“It’s strange, your highness,the first few jotun to assault the city caused most of the damage,” the Knight added. “But then more of them showed up and they became manageable somehow… it’s like…”

“They are tripping over each other to get at us.” The Prince’s face hardened in certainty. “I’ve seen the same thing in young stormwings who haven’t learned to coordinate their efforts. Instead, they as a group try to act as individuals. They forget they aren’t unicorns, however, and their power is reliant on the world around them, not just the energy within. They end up struggling against one another for the same resource there is only so much of and accomplish little because of it.”

“That must be it!” the Knight exclaimed. “It’s the only explanation for how we’ve been able to stalemate their control of the weather for so long. But how do we use it?”

‘A difficult question to answer,’ the Grand Prince thought grimly. ‘If we had realized this fact even two days ago we might have had options, but as is, attrition has worn down our forces.’

There had been no choice but to rotate the knights and stormwings to keep a rested force. Against an unkillable, tireless enemy there was no other way to hold them back. But even kept on rotation, the rest periods were often forced to be ended early to repel offensives. If the spirits didn’t kill them all then pure exhaustion would.

‘We have to come up with a strategy to use their inability to work together against them. Our current position is untenable.’ It made the Prince’s heart clench to actually consider abandoning his family’s Grand Hold, but… ‘In conventional warfare, the position of the city was the greatest and most defensible position in the world. This war is anything but conventional and my duty is clear. I must save my people and ensure their future if we are to continue fighting for survival and not just run and hide. My ancestors will understand. If not, then they are no family of mine.’

Of course that brought back the problem of finding or even creating an opening to evacuate through. He was still considering their situation when the ground started shaking in steadily increasing intensity; and not only that, but the static electricity in the air grew rapidly.

The Grand Prince turned his eyes to the bright blue light shining in the distant sky. His gut clenched as he started to recognise the shape of yet another windigo, this one of immense size - easily the size of the city. Just stalemating the current group of windigos were a near enough thing as it was, and now there was this one titanic being added to the mix?

The shaking continued to intensify to the point the Prince felt like he could feel his bones rattling. More than a few already damaged and crumbling buildings in the city below could no longer stay standing and began to crumble and topple. Then, off in the distance, he saw a mountain top start to crumble as well.

‘No, that’s not it.’ The Grand Prince ground his teeth together. ‘That’s another jotun.’

The mountain top in the distance exploded and rapidly reformed, and from the debris the titanic figure of a massive lion appeared. The lion then shook its body and rock began to fall away to reveal a hide of shining silver and a mane of steel. It was as the great eagle made of lightning lighted down on a mountain top opposing the lion’s that the Prince realized something.

‘Wait…’ he thought as the lion gave a deafening, challenging roar. ‘They aren’t here for us.’

The two utterly gigantic spirits weren’t giving the Great Hold any attention at all. It might as well have been a big rock in the background to them, for they only had eyes for each other. Further enforcing the idea that these two weren’t here for them was the fact that more spirits appeared around them and looked like they were begging and pleading. Jotuns sprouted from the earth around them and windigos appeared in the air about them. The two greater spirits only put up with this for a few moments, tossing them aside. The lion only stomped a great silvery paw and the eagle flared its wings; these simple movements seemed to utterly annihilate the lesser spirits around them. As the two greater spirits began to clearly size each other up for an inevitable fight, the Grand Prince began to realize he knew who these two spirits were.

‘Once upon a time there were two beings of great power…’ the Grand Prince recited to himself. 

One was a mighty bird of thunder and lightning who ruled the skies and a great mountain... 

The other was a great, proud lion who ruled the hills, plains and forests around it… 

One day Great Lion and Thunderbird could not bear the presence of the other any longer…

Great Lion and Thunderbird fought, feather against hide, lightning against claw…

So horrible was their struggle, so bloody, that the mountain had sundered into countless smaller ones and lakes of blood formed from the wounds…

From these lakes of mixed blood, the griffin were born into a world of violence and terror and fled to hide among the new mountains…

Thunderbird and Great Lion fought for a moon and a score more…

On the end of the last moon they stopped fighting and were never seen again…

It is said that in the end, Thunderbird and Great Lion realized they destroyed the thing they had fought over…

And in their pride and shame could not bear to show their faces…

‘It appears that the old tales were true,’ the prince thought as the Thunderbird lifted off and the Great Lion prepared to pounce. ‘Except it seems that Great Lion and Thunderbird were forced to stop rather than realize they should… it’s to our advantage in any case.’

“GATHER THE KNIGHTS!” the Grand Prince commanded over the howling winds and rumbling earth. “WE MUST TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS!”

Whatever reply the knight made to give was lost as the two greater spirits collided with literal earth shaking force. He felt as the two titanic forces of nature tore at each other in midair, sending massive hunks of steel and lightning flying everywhere.

It was a good thing the fighting between the two spirits was so disruptive to the local spirits, as it was definitely violent enough to spell the end of the Great Hold. It was all the Grand Prince could do to simply focus on saving his people and not watch a place that was home to generations of family simply slide off the mountain top. As it was, tens of thousands of griffins flew away in a very conspicuous crowd through the air, the able bodied carrying the wounded and ill on stretchers.

But even with the two warring spirits distracting the others, that didn’t mean the winds were any less calm. In fact it was all the Stormwings could do to keep wind in their immediate vicinity from scattering everyone to the horizons and against the earth below. And to make matters worse, it seemed the dispersed lesser spirits were coming back.

“My Prince! The windigos come!” a Royal Knight yelled over the howling winds.

The prince turned his head and saw the dozens of cloudy shapes bursting into existence and start barreling towards them. The fact the entire evacuation fleet wasn’t instantly scattered by the winds spoke volumes of just how much of the local wind element the Thunderbird must have been monopolizing.

‘What are our options?’ the Grand Prince thought as he grimly clutched a mace. ‘We can’t hope to stand and stalemate them, not without firm ground beneath us and not when we have to protect the people. But we can’t outrun them either. They can outfly the best scouts; the people could never hope to get away before they’re forced to fight… a last stand then, made up of what little stormwings could be spared and those best capable of resisting the windigos.’

“ALL ROYAL KNIGHTS TO ME!” the Grand Prince bellowed. His knights wore the best armor in the Principalities, but that wasn’t the important part. What mattered was the fact their armor had storm sapphires faceted into it. It was the knights who wore armor with storm sapphires that could best resist the attacks of spirits and maybe even hurt them. He would have to be part of the last stand as well; after all, his crowned helm and armor was covered in the finest examples of storm sapphires that could be found. His own mace was even a storm sapphire, an heirloom and within the spiked ball was the largest storm sapphire ever found.

“FATHER!” came a shout, and the prince saw a male griffin in scarred and battered armor fly rapidly towards him. “Father, what are you doing!?”

“I am ensuring the survival of both our clan and our people!” the prince retorted imperiously. “My son, you will lead the remnants of our clan and our people to safety. If our own state is any example, no other Great Hold will be safe!”

“”B-but you can’t… YES FATHER!” The prince’s son warred with himself briefly before steeling himself with visible effort. All it took was just a glance at the onrushing living storm to remind him of the stakes.

“My son…” A glance at oncoming certain doom and the prince judged there was just enough time left. “If it were up to me, you would inherit all that I have, but all I have to give is time so that you may live. There will be no time to choose a new Grand Prince after today. Until a new age of peace rises, the clans must work together to survive. Fight for honor, for our people and a new peace! NOW GO!”

That was all that the heir and now Prince-to-be needed to hear, and he took off for the evacuation that was barely being kept from scattering in panic. 

The Grand Prince took stock of his forces; there wasn’t much time for much else. A quick count brought the number up to one hundred and eighty eight, the majority of that made up of knights with the remainder being stormwings. A hundred and eighty eight exhausted and sleep deprived warriors at his command, an unkillable enemy in front, their hopes and dreams fleeing behind them.

“THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A KNIGHT! TO BE A PROTECTOR OF THE INNOCENT! THE SYMBOL OF HONOR AND GLORY!” the Grand Prince immediately bellowed. It was strange just how he only now truly understood it himself, in this time when death was all but certain.”STAND WITH ME ONE FINAL TIME, BRAVE KNIGHTS! WE FLY FORTH INTO BATTLE LIKE TRUE KNIGHTS! FLY WITH ME, GRIFFINS OF NEW GRIFFONIA!”

The Royal Guard erupted in a warcry that could be heard over the howl of the wind. It was never in doubt that these griffins could be relied upon to make one final stand, even exhausted as they were. It was the spirit of chivalry that had seen the death of Old Griffonia and her treacherous ways and birthed a new land, a new continent of Griffonia. So total was the end of surreptitious ideals in the social psyche of griffins that a knight’s code of honor had ruled unquestioned for centuries.

The spirits were upon them now, like a ghostly menagerie of murderous animals of all shapes and sizes, this time unified enough in purpose to gather some lightning about them. The stormwings contested as best as they could, but most of their effort was making sure the wind didn’t just tear them out of the sky. The knights met the charge with a swing of a mace, charged by lesser shards of storm sapphires. But even a mace magically wreathed in the power of a storm sapphire did little more than disrupt the forms of the windigos. Killing them was impossible, hurting them was impossible; being an utter annoyance was the most any one of the griffins could hope to ever be. This fight was little better then protracted suicide.

It didn’t matter to them.

“I give my body, heart and soul to the oath I swear,” the Grand Prince intoned solemnly, his voice lost in the wind and battling of gods. A lightning bolt arched towards him and was merely absorbed into his armor. He retaliated with a swing of his mace, glowing brightly with power and it met the face of a serpent headed windigo only for it to dissipate with an annoyed hiss.

“No plea for help shall find me wanting. No obstacle will stand before me.”

Knights began to fall, the gems in their amor overloading with sudden explosions of light and without their protections the lightning slew them mercilessly. Blackened, smoking bodies in twisted armors fell into the hurricane to be suddenly carried away.

“No evil will taint the lands entrusted to me. When the clarion call is sounded, I will fly out and fight in the name of honor and justice.”

More griffins began to fall, their imminent deaths always signaled by the flashing explosions of their storm sapphires. Keeping their dropping numbers in mind, the knights began to try to prioritise the protection of the stormwings in their number, the only ones keeping the fight from being an immediate loss.

“That which is innocent, I shall preserve.”

It worked up to a point, but this was always going to be a losing battle. As more of them fell, the harder it became to distract the windigos from stormwings and not just die in the process. The Grand Prince was almost exempted from this thanks to the quality of his armor. Lightning struck him but he had so many faceted gems that it seemed like they never filled. The Prince took advantage as much as he could, the smell of ozone filling his nostrils as he darted among the swirling winds that was the bodies of the windigo. He lashed out with his mace every which way and infuriated the spirits as their bodies dispersed time and time again. They focused more of their attention on him and bought just that much more time for the evacuation.

“That which is... h-helpless, I will protect…”

Every moment in a fight was practically an eternity. It was hard to know if they had been battling for three minutes or three hours. Either way, every moment counted. As the stormwings themselves began to fall, the knights threw themselves into the fight with ever greater determination, selling their lives dearly with every distraction. The prince was starting to pay the price as well, gems in parts of his armor started exploding and charred his flesh every time. He fought on all the same through the pain and blanket of exhaustion. His mace was red hot and its points had long since melted off and several tears had formed in the ball, exposing the large gem beneath.

“T-t… that which threatens, I-I will... destroy... for my righteous fury will k-know... no bounds.”

The winds began to roar and pick up speed as the stormwings fell one by one, the knights now too few to protect them. The prince’s body was swiftly becoming covered with burns and charred fur and feathers. His armor was outright  molten where his gems had exploded. Without the stormwings to contest the winds, he was now unable to do any aerial acrobatics and was barely able to move. But even reduced to a near helpless state, even aware that he was now the last griffin alive and the windigos were circling like hungry sharks, he refused to let himself fall. He would die fighting to his last breath…

“H-honor… is...a-all… chivalry… i-is-”

There was a sudden screech of pain and rage. The Grand Prince turned his bloodied and burned head to see the titanic form of the Thunderbird flying through the air, its enemy the Great Lion upon it in a pounce.

The lesser spirits scattered immediately to avoid the two battling greater spirits. The Grand Prince could only hover in place and watch his doom fly at him. The two god-like beings didn’t hit him, their forms struggling for dominance over the other missed him by a great many meters, but at that size it didn’t matter. The mere passage of the two titans caused immense wind storms and their impact with the earth sundered mountains and cracked the earth, magma spouting from the cracks like gushing blood.

The prince was sent spinning through the air. The winds were so strong they had broken and plucked his wings bloody. As his doom rushed up to meet him, he finished his knight’s oath.

‘I rise a knight, I fall only to kneel in respect or to meet my death… so I swear... to New Griffonia…’

The bodies of the Grand Prince and his Royal Knights would never be found. Indeed, no one would ever recognise the lands of the Grand Prince and his Great Hold as the battling giants would render them a forever changed hellscape. But the last stand of the one hundred and eighty nine was not for nought. In their sacrifice, countless thousands would live and a clan would continue to exist.

The days ahead would not be easy for the survivors, however; the enemy was still deathless, still implacable. With their defenses rendered utterly useless, the Principalities would be forced to become nomadic and forever fighting to retreat.

The Knights of the Principalities of Griffionia cared not. An enemy that slaughtered innocents demanded they meet it with claw and axe and mace. And they would do so with fearless abandon.


DELTA


Celestia kept her expression stony and fought the tears that desperately wanted to pour down her face.

Once again the interior of Canterlot Palace was looking utterly ransacked, but this time it was purposefully done. The Hub of the Enclave and Canterlot were national command centers of the Equestrian warzone; the Hub was more combat centric whilst Canterlot was focusing on organizing evacuations, refugees and maintaining some sense of society. To help organize things on the Equestrian side, Wheatley had created a command and control linked to the satellite network in orbit. Thanks to said satellites, they were given a highly detailed, constant flow of information…

“Day six of the Spirit War. Casualty rates among pony recruits are sorta stabilizing between forty and sixty percent.”

And there was precious little good news…

“Bright side is that recovery rates for casualties are around ninety four percent,” the AI continued. “Meaning our actual casualties are bouncing around three and two percent.”

“I consider it grim news that my ponies have to be revived endlessly to be thrown back into combat,” Celestia said as she continued to stare at a holographic display of Equestria. “Tell me, how many of my citizens have been killed in this senseless war?”

“Well… even for my satellites, giving an exact number is a little much…” Wheatley responded a little hesitantly. “But compiling what I can of conflict zones, records, refugee registration and combat feeds… I’d say so far the civilian casualties have risen to one point one million.”

“...” Celestia seemed to have frozen as she stared at the map. Said map had locations on it marking cities which were different colors to denote current status. Green meant safe, yellow meant insecure, orange meant under threat, red meant under attack and black was a lost city. Only one city on the map was green and that was the Enclave. Everywhere else was yellow at the very least. Manehattan was marked down as black and any operations there were just to get people out. So far it was the only black site, but far too many locations on the screen were flashing red.

“At the very least we can actually fight back now without relying entirely on Emerald,” Wheatley said as assuringly as he could.

“I am no great strategist, Wheatley, but even I can see the issue here.” Celestia frowned. “Even with weapons capable of harming spirits they still have the ability to appear anywhere. We have no real frontline to speak of, every location we hold is effectively surrounded at all times.”

“Potentially for not much longer,” Wheatley replied and Celestia turned her head to look at his display. “Emerald noted the issue with Starswirl and, while the fellow would rather be making the ‘aether rifles’ better, he has some ideas of forcing spirits to conform to more conventional warfare.”

“And how long would Starswirl need to create this new weapon?” Celestia asked.

“If the creation of the new guns are any example, anywhere from two to four days,” Wheatley answered. “In the meantime, I’ve been looking over his notes for the guns and have been engineering my own varieties. Nothing groundbreaking, mostly just making different gun types which I’m planning to affix to the bio gears.”

“Timeline on those?”

“I should have refitted bio gears being rolled out by the end of the day,” Wheatley assured. “The real trick was building the factory lines for them, honestly.”

“Hmm…”

“...Celestia, you should know the City and Royal Guards are already at sixty percent… ponypower I suppose,” Wheatley warned. “They were never big institutions in the first place and the volunteers are already starting to be spread thin; the new army just isn’t big enough. It might be we’ll have to resort to conscription.”

“Wheatley, if I have to order it for the sake of all my ponies I will but please, give me options that aren't me forcing my people to become soldiers.” Celestia closed her eyes and couldn’t help but mourn for her ponies. Certainly many were being brought back to life, but for those who were soldiers it was a resurrection straight back into combat.

‘Just how many have begun to wish they stayed dead?’ the princess thought.

“Well… all due respect your highness, but ideals aren’t putting hooves between your people and genocidal spirits as fast as we need them,” Wheatley retorted and Celestia could only sigh at the cold blooded pragmatism; truly he was a child of Emerald. “Look, we can maintain a volunteer only doctrine for the time being, but we need to do something to boost recruitment numbers if it’s going to stay the main strat.”

“I have officials canvassing the city and refugee camps,” Celestia replied. “I suppose I can send out more of them, but from what I can see we already have good coverage.”

“Coverage is not the issue,” Wheatley countered and brought up a recording over the map display. Shown was a riled up crowd of ponies shouting their support. “Look at this. This is one of the recruitment drives, but this specific official brought in loads more recruits than any one other recruiter. Looking into the potential cause, I saw the difference here was that there was a Direwolf with him, specifically the Commander of the Direwolves himself, Fenrir.”

“Hmm?” Celestia watched the recording and listened to the dog speaking and couldn’t help but be impressed with the energy he conveyed even through a recording. “He spoke of their personal issues, of the threat to the things they cared about then he stoked their anger until all they could think of was a need to do something. The most impressive part is that I am not sure if he merely acted the part or truely did believe in what he was saying.”

“If we are to maintain and grow numbers to the point we can not only keep Equestria safe…” Wheatley began. “But also send people out to help the other LoN members, then we will need greater numbers, far greater almost certainly in the millions.”

“...I take you it you have a plan then?” Celestia stated carefully, doing her best to move past her initial horror at the idea of any kind of armed force numbering in the millions. “I can see my kingdom being capable of bearing the weight of at least a million and half ponies being sent out to fight, especially since said armed force will be equipped by another, but attempting anymore will cause issues.”

“Well firstly, this isn’t an enemy that concerns only Equestria. The spirits are out for the extermination of all life,” Wheatley explained. “So while we’ll have to send out a goodly number of ponies to help other nations, I fully expect further expansions to the relief forces to come from our neighbors… which unfortunately is contingent on there being neighbors left to save. Oh well… the less people the less land we have to secure.”

“I sincerely hope that was a poor attempt at dark humor?” Celestia stated with an arched look.

“A statement of what will almost certainly be our reality,” Wheatley answered unapologetically. “While the goal is to ensure the survival of our allies so that their able bodied citizens can be tapped for recruitment, the size of the attacks means that the potential pool of resources will shrink with every day. If we are unable to act quickly enough, it’s very likely that nations we go to could be barren landscapes, scoured of all life.”

“... And your plan to secure more numbers?” Celestia asked, trying not to get too hung up on the idea of genocide and extinction of such scale. “I take it, it is something taking after Fenrir’s example? As much of a difference his presence made for that one recruitment drive, I have doubts if he would be able to do the same everywhere.”

“Very true, and that is why we use someone everyone knows is out there fighting the good fight and keeping monsters from killing them all,” Wheatley replied and changed the image on the screen. “Emerald Gleaner.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes as she considered the picture Wheatley brought up. Somehow Wheatley had gotten lucky enough to get quite a photogenic picture of Emerald in action. Emerald was wearing her official regalia, her star cloak flared out just to enhance her presence. She was standing over a group of ponies, shielding them from a blast of flames being launched at them from between ruined buildings. It was the perfect example of a dramatized picture and yet its quality was so lifelike Celestia had a hard time seeing it as anything other than a perfectly timed picture.

“Like it? Made it myself!” Wheatley said with a bit of pride. “Just an example of my idea, really. What I’m planning to do is basically weaponize Emerald’s status as one the spirits fear to great effect. Using a combination of actual events and some slight artistic recreation, I’ll create life-like still images along with a fake Emerald to star in a propaganda video, puppeted by yours truly!”

“I… find it hard to approve… would Emerald even approve?” Celestia frowned in hesitation.

“Well she oughta. I mean she designed my brain so anything I think up should be something that would be well within her expectations,” Wheatley said confidently. “Come on luv, we need boots on the ground and this is the best option without resorting to just conscripting ponies.”

“...Yes. Much as I am loath to admit it, I have to agree,” Celestia said with a sigh before shaking her head. “I’ll leave you to organize the recruitment drive, then. Has Luna sent me any messages?”

“Let’s see… oh she has just finished mastering the very basics of the spirit strike! She and that scythe of hers have started doing some work on the front…”


EPSILON


“WATCH IT! WATCH IT! HERE THEY COME AGAIN!”

The first three days of the spirit war had been a harrowing experience for all ponies; their first taste of war and it had been against an enemy that hated their very existence and could not be killed, only annoyed and delayed. The following four days after that had been a… mixed situation to say the least.

News had been spread far and wide of Starswirl’s new anti-spirit weapons, the aether rifles or AR-1s, along with a call to arms to all ponies of able bodies and minds. Reception had been mixed in a vast majority of places. A population that did not know war for literal milenia did not mobilize quickly. For the most part people were wondering why the Guard couldn’t be the army since it was their job to protect people. However, the Guard were not a proper military; the only guards with heavily regimented training and anything approaching a militaristic mindset was the Royal Guard, and they were vastly outnumbered by the City Guards. In total, there could be anywhere between eighty and ninety thousand guards in all of Equestria, while just a singular percent of that was the Royal Guards. In a country of near a hundred million trying to make an army out of a force that didn’t even break a hundred thousand was laughable, even more so when you had to protect everywhere at once.

Thankfully, despite grumbling, there were plenty of ponies wanting to do something to protect their homes and avenge loved ones. The rough estimate of the military force was easily raised to roughly five hundred thousand, a far more respectable number compared to before and it was still being stretched to its limits because the front line was literally everywhere.

Of course that was pretty much the only good news. Equestria’s PR department was rapidly falling into their own form of PTSD as they tried to stifle the news that the new army was given only days of training and they were literally dying in droves. One could argue that a ninety percent chance of being saved form death itself should have countered that… one could also realize ponies don’t like the idea of friends and family being murdered over and over again, being thrown right back into the grinding murder machine that is war by authorities they trusted. Thus the information blackouts and highly sanitized news being filtered to the public.

“Just one this time!” a voice cried out. “Spread out! Try to-”

Teeny threw herself onto her side to avoid the whip of molten rock that nearly hit her. With her coat of heavy dragon scale mail and helm with neck guards, she had little worries from the heat. It was still who knew how many hundreds of pounds of molten rock whipping through the air, and she didn’t need to suffer another death by broken neck just because she felt invincible.

“The Captain’s down again!” Teeny heard a familiar voice cry out.

“Why is it so much harder when it’s only one of them?” Teeny muttered to herself as she quickly leapt onto her hooves.

Currently Teeny’s squad was in one of Equestria’s many idyllic towns dotting the countryside. A town was what she was going to call it, because she didn’t bother to remember its actual name since she had been moved around like a pinball these last few days. The Enclave had basically paid the bill for the modernization of Equestria’s army with Enclave weapons, so trucks and combat buggies had been pouring out by the hundreds, hourly. Making any clear idea of her current location even worse was that any sleep she got was often on the back of a troop truck.

‘Focus, focus.’ Teeny shook her head. ‘Don’t let sleep deprivation kill you… again.’

Looking over, Teeny took in the form of the spirit. Initially one could have said it was a squid ifrit due to the molten rock, but from the way its body darkened and began to rapidly cool it was more likely a jotun. Chances were it simply formed its body deep below and the heat of the deep crust had made the rock molten.

Noting how her squad had scattered and was taking cover behind any stone fencing and walls they could find, she quickly levitated her rifle up. A brilliant beam of ethereal light burst from the rifle and struck true in the squid’s eye, bringing a pained, almost comical blurble from it as it flailed its partially molten tentacles.

Teeny leapt off the ground and quickly began hopping away from the angry spirit in a zigzag pattern, just barely avoiding the ground splitting open beneath her hooves. An earthen tentacle would have grabbed her leg and likely snapped it if it weren’t for the hail of ethereal rounds smashing into the spirit.

The squid jotun’s body cracked and lost whole sections of its form and it blurbled furiously again before quite abruptly sinking into the earth. That was an immediate bad sign. If the spirit had left, it would have left its body behind; this one was clearly clever and was going to try to pick them off from below.

With little hesitation, Teeny levitated her rifle out so that it rose up in the air and aimed down at her, specifically her legs. She then began stamping hooves down into the earth in an attempt to draw attention to herself. It was a bit of a gamble in more ways than one, but honestly there was little she could do at this point; her only effective weapon was her rifle. The only alternatives was hoping Emerald Gleaner showed up again or watch as the jotun pulled them under to unmarked graves.

The ground split open and tentacles burst forth and wrapped themselves around her legs. Teeny had been hoping they would be just tentacles made of the cool surface stone, but no, the stone was still searing hot to the touch. Still, at least her reflexes were as fast as ever.

There was a bone rattling groan of pain as the rifle shot managed to shoot through all the tentacles wrapped around her legs followed by a literal hair razing wave of energy. Teeny was rather familiar with the feeling by now; it was the spirit tearing itself apart after it tried to return to the spiritual realm with too great amount of damage done to itself.

“Little help! Any minute now would be great!” Teeny cried out through gritted teeth, parts of the tentacles were still wrapped around her legs and weren’t cooling down fast enough for her liking. At times like this, she wished the Enclave industrial complex was growing faster so she could get a proper suit of armor as opposed to a merely extremely resilient coat of scalemail.

“Oh my gosh, TEENY!” a voice cried out and a large earth pony darted over. “I’ll help you! Gimme a minute!”

“A second would be best, but take your time…” Teeny joked through gritted teeth.

“Don’t do that!” the earth pony mare said as she quickly broke apart the still hot rock tendrils around her legs.

“I try, Gentle Hoof, but it’s how I cope,” Teeny replied with a rasping sigh as she took in the sight of the raw, bloody burns on her legs. She forced her eyes to turn away. There was little point in upsetting herself with the damage. Intellectually she knew that scars and crippling injuries were a thing of the past, but emotionally it was hard to move past seeing your body be mutilated. “... least I’m not dead again.”

“Ya alright there, missy?” Another earth pony approached as Gentle Hoof wrapped Teeny Heart up in a tight hug.

“Shut up and give me ointment, Clover,” the injured unicorn retorted.

“You’re the salt of the earth, Teeny Heart,” Clover replied sarcastically as he removed his helmet and put his baker boy hat back on before waving another pony over. “Medic! Give the lady her medicine!”

“Hold still, wouldja?” a colt pegasus muttered as he swooped down and opened up his medkit.

“The gravel is sticking…” Teeny complained and tried to keep her mind off the pain when the medic used an alcohol swab to clean her burns. “How’s the Captain?”

“Oi!” Clover shouted out. “The Cap all froze up and ready to go or what?!”

“...Captain ain’t getting back up again,” a pony replied as they trotted over, his expression stiff and wooden. “Rock smashed his head against a wall.”

“Wonderful… fantastic…” Clover muttered with a sigh and Teeny could see the already low morale of her squad plummet. She felt Gentle’s arms wrap around her tighter and started to shake a bit. Suddenly it felt like she was comforting the much larger mare as opposed to Gentle comforting her.

“You about done down there?” Teeny asked the medic and saw that he was just finishing the wrapping after applying ointment. “Alright, back up. I’m getting up.”

Her legs were still badly stinging, but it was a relief from the burning throbbing they were before. Teeny took in her squad again. They were all ponies that had been part of that crowd back in the refugee camp when the diamond dog had spoken to all of them. They had all been so eager and full of spirit then. Now, just four days later, all of them looked years older despite medical treatments.

‘I… I can’t let them think too much on what’s going on. We have to keep moving forward,’ Teeny thought. The last thing she wanted was to see her squad destroy themselves; bad enough the spirits were still doing a decent job of that. ‘Right, let’s make sure we aren’t about to be overrun with more spirits.’

“MCP, uhhh Delta Squad here?” Teeny said as she radioed the mobile command post, also wishing she had way more than a few days of training to familiarize herself with all aspects of military life.

“MCP here, Delta. Give us a sitrep,” came the calm reply of a diamond dog.

“Right, well we were attacked by a spirit - a jotun - we’ve lost our commanding officer and he is definitely not going to get back up again,” Teeny replied, keenly aware how everyone around her was staring. “We managed to kill it. We suffered some injuries but the Captain was the only fatality.”

“Acknowledged. Please stand by, Delta…” MCP replied and continued after a moment. “Private Teeny Heart, after a quick run over of your battlefield records, command has decided to promote you. Congratulations, Captain Teeny Heart. Your first command is to lead Delta back to the MCP for resupply, healing and awaiting further directives. Any further questions?”

“Oh… oh, yes!” Teeny was surprised at the sudden promotion but quickly moved past it. “What is our current situation? Was the rest of the defense force attacked?”

“Yes they were, Delta,” MCP replied in a tone Teeny was deciding sounded more emotionless rather than calm. “All attacks have been repelled, though most weren’t as successful as you. Delta, move to MCP. MCP out.”

“Right, right…” Teeny said as she was briefly overcome with indecision, but she quickly shook this off as well. “Private Clover, get the Captain’s body prepped for movement! He might be dead but we aren’t leaving him here! The rest of you check your gear and for wounds. I expect us to be ready to go in three minutes.”

“Yes ma’am!” Clover was the only one who said this with real energy to his voice. The rest looked as tired as Teeny felt, but she no longer had the option to freely show it. “Right’o, you heard the boss mare! Let’s get the Cap’s body wrapped up and ready!”

With that an earth pony and a unicorn quickly trotted after Clover as he went to quickly recover the Captain’s body. Teeny for her part began following her own command and she was done within a minute. There was precious little to look over. She had her rifle and her armor and besides that was her oversized backpack of rations, bullets, rifle care kit and camping supplies. She hadn’t been wearing said pack during the fight thankfully. When the spirit had made its appearance, everyone had quickly tossed their packs away to keep mobile.

Teeny had closed her eyes for what felt like a second, and when she opened them Clover and the others were back with the captain’s remains. Said remains were covered with a tarp and on an improvised stretcher made out of a hammock net and two steel rods. Everyone was looking at her expectantly now.

“Move out!” Teeny barked out and couldn’t help but wonder how every moment of rest seemed to pass in a blink of an eye.

The march back to the MCP back in the center of town was a quiet one. The town had been hit before and thus was in poor shape. This new attack, however, had torn it apart. Buildings were crumbling or on fire, a fire that was beginning to grow and likely would consume whole blocks of homes. Fresh blood scattered the streets along with the odd corpse of a fellow pony soldier. The only signs of dead spirits were animal shaped lumps of earth and inexplicable puddles of water.

“Have you ever noticed how stale the air is getting?” Gentle Hoof said in the silence.

“What’cha mean?” Clover asked.

“I mean… every time after a fight where we manage to bring down a few of them, everything seems so…” Gentle paused for a moment trying to put her thoughts into words. “I don’t know… still? Lifeless? The air feels stale, the water looks stagnant, these road stones seem to crack when I walk on them and those flames are weirdly struggling to spread.”

“...Yeah, yeah I know what you mean…” Clover muttered. “But what does it all mean?!”

“Something way above our paygrade, I’m sure!” Teeny bit in quickly. She could see the implications and didn’t want her squad starting to get hesitations about fighting. “So quiet down back there and focus! Just because the attack is over now doesn’t mean it can’t suddenly start again!”

“Aye!”

“Sorry Ma’am…”

Inwardly, Teeny couldn’t help but feel the uncertainty she was trying to ward off her soldiers. Did killing spirits mean killing their land? Maybe even their world? If so, what did final victory mean? A quiet, barren world where everyone was struggling to eke out an existence out of a world that could be barely bothered to be alive?

‘Then again, the alternative is letting them kill us all,’ Teeny Heart thought as she steeled her briefly flagging resolve. ‘Even if final victory only brings up struggles ever after to simply live, at least we will be alive.’

Eventually, everyone returned to the mobile command point, no doubt internalizing worries and concerns about the fate of the world even if they were to win.

The MCP was basically a large, segmented trailer with ten rows of massive wheels, powered by magic and heavily reinforced. The MCP was designed to serve as the local central communication hub for local forces as well as a decent fortress if needed. Its size and tires gave an impression of being slow, but it was a vehicle that was almost detrimentally fast; its size and highly durable tires actually tended to tear up Equestria’s landscape and somewhat primitive paved roads.

Currently the MCP was situated in the town center, sitting before the rustic town hall, parked atop the ruins of a shattered fountain. The area had been fortified with walls of sandbags but considering the abilities of spirits, they were more for the soldiers’ mental reassurance rather than out of actual effectiveness. The place was filled with hundreds of ponies, both soldiers and support personnel. Currently they also had the luck of a full squad of actual Direwolves, not just Warhounds, assisting them.

Which is probably why the pile of temporarily dead and permanently dead was only a few dozen bodies this time…

“Right, give the Captain’s body the black tape before you add him to the pile and get whatever R&R you can,” Teeny commanded. “I’m going to have something to eat and probably pass out before I manage it.”

With that, Teeny wandered around the area before she found an empty spot against a small wall of sandbags. She dug around her pack after sitting down and brought out an MRE along with an eating tray. She spent a few frustrating minutes bashing out the dents of her eating tray before unpacking the MRE. She had just finished putting the vegetable lasagna into the heating packet when she finally lost her battle against unconsciousness.

Teeny’s dreams were… unpleasant to say the least. The specter of her many deaths over the past few days haunted and tormented her. The current nightmare was a very vivid recollection the time her head had gotten pulled off and the shock hadn’t immediately killed her. Then quite suddenly there was a vision of Princess Luna, standing vigil in the distance and it all went mercifully black… then she was awake again and wasn’t sure what to feel.

“Hey Cap, ya gotta keep your energy up.” Teeny’s bloodshot eyes reluctantly, slowly opened as Clover shook her shoulder. “Come on, eat your food.”

Teeny blinked until her vision cleared, though it did nothing for the headache from sleep deprivation. She saw that her squad had found her and sat down to rest and enjoy their meals around her, save for Gentle that is since she was curled up next to her quietly sniffing and crying. The newly promoted Captain sighed in some relief as she noticed she hadn’t slept so long that her food hadn’t gone cold.

“So, any news on the medical droids?” Teeny asked as she rapidly distributed her MRE packs to her tray and started eating. “Can’t help but notice I still have these bandages around my legs.”

“Gonna be a bit I’m afraid,” Clover replied as he also ate an MRE. “The doc bots are busy bringing dead ponies back and going over the severely injured. Not as many dead this time around, but had a ton of badly wounded.”

“Joy…” Teeny said as she swallowed down the lasagna. MRE food was nothing compared to the real thing and it was hard to swallow down because of it, however the last thing she was going to do was whine and complain.

“Why are we here?” Gentle suddenly said after her crying finally ended.

“Obviously, just to suffer…” a stallion replied bitterly as he practically stabbed at his food.

“Care to explain yourself, Bright Will?” Teeny asked a bit testily. She had pretty much no training in the matter at all, but even she knew that keeping morale up was important to the group’s survival. She was also still exhausted and was really hoping pointedly asking him to explain himself would make him back down.

“Does it really need explaining?” Sadly it didn’t seem to be the case. “Here we are out here fighting to protect homes that aren’t ours, literally dying for ponies over and over again-”

“Private Will!” Teeny said firmly, hoping this was the leader-like thing to do. “If you are going to complain, by all means do so but tell me what we should be doing besides fighting against things trying to kill us all?”

“... Really suited to your role, eh Captain?” Will replied sullenly as he turned his head back to his meal. “Doesn’t change the fact no one new came after we got recruited. It was just us - us being thrown into the grinder to die again and again.”

“Enough of that!” Teeny commanded firmly. “I’ve been through it all with you, I know how long it feels, but it’s only been a week! We won’t be the last ponies to answer the call, we won’t!”

Teeny’s words seemed to have startled Will, but she doubted it was any real speaking skill on her part, more of the fact the last week since the start of the Spirit War felt like months as opposed to only a week. She was doubly certain her words hadn’t been the least bit effective since the other members of her squad were looking sullen as well. Being heavy handed in this matter was the wrong choice perhaps? Then again, they all only had the absolute bare minimum level of training. The only reason they all weren’t already dead and gone was purely because the medical droids could heal most deaths. They were all barely a step above conscripts in that they had been talked into volunteering. It was only through rapid honing of battle and constant death that they were all in any way skilled.

‘Maybe I should have let him talk and air out his frustrations?’ Teeny thought as she surreptitiously took in her whole squad. ‘It looks like they all need something like that… I can hardly just go back on my word literally a minute after I said it, though… curse it all, I was not trained for this.’

As Teeny resolved to be a better leader, she noticed that a pair of Direwolves was carrying a large disc over to the center of the plaza. She silently ate as she watched them place the disc down and started poking at it before it started to light up. And quite suddenly an image of Emerald Gleaner appeared in midair. Everyone immediately whipped their heads around as they noticed the hologram of the one being single handedly holding back the worst of the spirit assault.

Emerald in the hologram was standing at a cliff’s edge overlooking a road leading out of Manhattan. She was wearing her regalia, her hair tied back in a ponytail and arms crossed. Below, a long line of ponies moved along the road as they abandoned the flooded and mostly collapsed city. Emerald watched them as they passed, clearly standing guard over them as they sought refuge in the center of the kingdom. After a moment, she turned to face the audience, the wind kicking up just then to flare her cape, the moving starry night of her star cape contrasting with the colors of the rising dawn behind her.

“Ponies of Equestria! Brave soldiers…” Emerald began, moving her eyes as if she really could see everyone through the hologram. “It has been a week, a mere week, since the life we have known was so cruelly uprooted. A week since the slaughter of countless innocents for the crimes of those eons gone had begun. A week of mindless murder that has felt like the pasing of ages in itself. Stallions, mares, foals… butchery most foul of children who have done no wrong! And our enemies, the spirits, the so called rightful inheritors of our homes, dare claim it’s justified…”

The silence was drawn out and Teeny couldn’t help but be surprised when that energy and anger that Fenrir had used to recruit her returned. She had thought the passion had been wrung out of her from all the fighting and dying, but here she was, the outrage returning, the exhaustion forgotten. Looking at every pony soldier in the area showed she wasn’t the only one, either. Gentle Hoof had sat up, tears still wet on her cheeks but her attention firmly on the broadcast.

“This I vowed, I will not allow it. I would NOT ALLOW THIS MASS MURDER TO GO ON UNCONTESTED!” Emerald declared, fist crackling with pink lighting raised and the clouds answered her promise with a thunderous rumble. ‘I will not pause, I will not sleep! Until they are stopped! And I have not paused nor slept… brave soldiers of Equestria, you have joined me in our battle for survival, for the right of our children to simply live.  And it is a battle I swear we will win!”

New life seemed to return to the soldiers around Teeny, that old energy Fenrir had stirred up was coming back. She even started to hear the stirrings of vocal agreement from the battered and resurrected soldiers. They weren’t the only ones buying into Emerald’s words. The Direwolves stood before the hologram with a hand held over their hearts.

“Remember what we are fighting for, ponies of Equestria!” Emerald called out, a hand waving to the city behind her. “A thousand years of peace stolen away! To ensure that no other city suffers the fate of Manehatten! Even as I speak, countless thousands of your fellow ponies have joined me in the fight to reclaim Equestria from these butchers! We will avenge our murdered loved ones! We will reclaim our ruined, burning homes! We will DRIVE OUT these monsters!”

The life had fully returned now and the pony soldiers were starkly reminded why they were here. For now they put aside personal traumas and allowed themselves to be carried away with the emotions Emerald’s words brought up. Chants filled the air and for the first time in eons, ponies began to give war cries. Even Bright Will, the near broken cynic that he was, could only bare his teeth in pure aggression, silently agreeing with what he heard.

“I SWEAR BEFORE THE MONTH IS OVER WE! WILL! TAKE! BACK! EQUESTRIA!!!”

There was proper cheering going on now. It had become so loud that being able to hear any more words would have been unlikely. But Emerald appeared to be finished. she stared sternly, solemnly for a long moment before she placed a clenched fist over her heart. A silent vow that her words today would not be a lie.

“Well… get the feeling we’re probably going to get a bunch of new guys coming in soon,” Clover remarked with a grin that could almost be described as bloodthirsty.

Teeny could only agree. She had a feeling there would be a flood of new soldiers very soon…


ZETA


“-WE! WILL! TAKE! BACK! EQUESTRIA!!!”

Emerald sat silently on a rock overlooking a burned out village. Displayed on a hologram before her was a recording of a broadcast, the same broadcast she hadn’t ordered and the propaganda of herself she most definitely hadn’t given permission to be made. However, while she was supremely annoyed and in a better time she might have rebuked Wheatley for this, she was also tired and could see the reasoning.

‘Have to admit he did a damn good job at the very least,’ Emerald thought as she watched her doppelganger on the recorded broadcast with a reluctant wry smile. ‘He must have gotten some tips from Fenrir to make it nice and inspiring … but god damn it if it isn’t going to be a massive pain in the ass to keep the act up myself.’

It had actually been a few days since the broadcast had aired, but she was so busy with the war she simply wasn’t aware of what went on at the time. It wasn’t as if Wheatley had purposefully hidden the broadcast away from her, either. The recorded broadcast and even plans for it had been forwarded to her… it was just that Wheatley had marked it as non-critical and free to review when she had time.

Well, she was reviewing it now and found herself being profoundly unamused with the propaganda Wheatley had organized on his own. But again, she could see the logic and she could hardly expect him to wait on her orders when she had been constantly busy the last week and a half. She barely responded to critical reports as is and she could only imagine how furious she’d be if he brought something minor to her attention. Not only that, but she could hardly argue with the results, either. There had been a sudden jump in the amount of soldiers Equestria had out in the field that even she noticed. The increase in soldiers combined with the greater variety of anti-spirit weapons pouring out of the Enclave was a massive boon.

‘The greater capability for conventional forces to actually deal with problems has freed up a decent amount of time for me,’ Emerald thought with a tired smile, but quickly frowned. ‘Time I can’t help but use to fight even more.’

Emerald was still hurt. Make no mistake, her wound was healing, but Emerald’s constant fighting and exertion was not conducive to recovering from soul wounds. She probably should have been using the bought time to actually rest an hour here and there to focus on healing, but she wasn’t. Instead, she was using that time to leave Equestria and see how neighbouring countries were doing. It was almost entirely bad news to say the least.

‘The griffins are on the run. They practically have no settlements and their warrior spirit hasn’t helped survivability in this case.’ Emerald frowned and clutched at her wound with a grimace. ‘I’ve probably spent more time just dropping crates of spirit strike enchanted melee weapons than fighting spirits there. Not everyone is in as bad a position, but it’s a near thing. The only other nation that is in as good a position as the Enclave and Equestria is the Heron Republic.’

With an enemy like the spirits who could pop up almost anywhere, a conventional war was completely out the window. Trying to hold ground and even make some kind of counterattack on “conquered” lands was going to require extremely mobile, asymmetrical warfare.

‘Thankfully I already have an answer,’ Emerald thought. ‘With teleportation I can give the Warhounds and Equestrian Army my mobility and response times. It’ll take a little bit of setting up, a ton of power to make it useful and working out the issue of retrieving people once they’ve been deployed, but it’s the best option. I can probably even just give Wheatley the idea and tell him to get to work on it.’

Suddenly Emerald’s earpiece went off with a bomb raid siren-like wail; what little time she allowed herself to rest was done. With a sigh she slowly rose from her rock but once she stood up she frowned and glared up at the clouds. Meeting her glare was a faintly glowing set of eyes only someone with her amplified sight could have made out.

Lately she had noticed she had gained a few stalkers, a handful of greater spirits simply watching at a distance and ready to flee the moment she tried to attack them. They never did anything besides watch her, but she was already a suspicious person by nature and a known enemy following her was putting that trait into overdrive.

Unfortunately there was little she could do about it right now. It wasn’t like she could actually capture a spirit and force them to give up information.

‘Unless…’ Emerald hummed, thoughts of a certain pony wizard flashed through her mind. ‘More things to pass along to Wheatley, so much to do… I haven’t seen my family in nearly two weeks…’

With yet another tired sigh, Emerald teleported.


-TBC-