“Everypony stand back!” Gusty commanded, her voice rising over the cries of panic and fear, echoing through the empty streets. She began slowly advancing on the forest, taking each step with caution.
“Gusty-” Maggie called, her worry prominent in her voice. But Gusty ignored her. Maybe she could banish the monsters before any more ponies got hurt.
There was movement in the trees, and Gusty lit her horn, preparing to stand her ground. The creature burst through the trees, and-
“Help! Help! Somepony, please!” cried an earth pony mare, tears streaming from her green eyes. She had a bright blue coat and a blackish-bluish mane pulled into a ponytail. A quill rested over her heart, hanging from a green beaded chain around her neck, and her cutie mark was a newspaper. She was supporting a light pink unicorn mare, who was leaning heavily on the earth pony as they stumbled along. The earth pony, whose name was Essence, helped her friend over to Gusty, where the unicorn promptly collapsed to the ground.
“What’s going on?” she asked as Maggie and Fire Storm ran up behind her.
“Chimera,” wheezed the unicorn. “In the woods. Lots of… fire… and smoke…” She gasped for breath and closed her eyes, exhausted.
“Pennie?” Essence said in a panicked voice, gently shaking the unicorn. “Pennie, you’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine. Pennie, wake up! Wake up, Pennie, please!” She rounded on Gusty, her eyes brimming with unshed tears that began to spill down her cheeks. “You have to heal her - you have to! Please, I can’t lose her!”
Gusty blinked. “I - I’m sorry, but I don’t know how-”
Essence broke down sobbing, collapsing next to Pennie, a puddle forming in between her hooves. Seeing this made Gusty hesitate. How could she do this when ponies would get hurt, their hearts shattered if friends and loved ones never got back up? Perhaps it would be better to take the safer route - no more ponies getting hurt. She was just about to tell Fire Storm to send everypony home when Maggie stepped forward.
“I know,” she said quietly. “I’ve never done anything quite this bad before, though…” She sighed when she saw Essence’s face light up with hope. “But I can try.”
All three ponies stepped back as Maggie lit her horn, concentrating. The unicorn on the ground was surrounded by a green light, and the burns began to fade. Her breathing became easier, and Essence gasped. Maggie’s light flickered, then disappeared entirely. Pennie’s burns returned, and her breath was ragged.
“I can’t do it,” Maggie gasped, looking ready to collapse as well. “There’s too much…”
“Try again,” Fire Storm commanded. Maggie looked at him doubtfully, but there was something in his expression that told her to listen. She once again lit her horn, and Pennie began to heal.
Just when Maggie looked about to crumble, Fire Storm lit his own horn and sent a massive beam straight at Maggie. Gusty cried out in fear, worried for her friend even though she knew that the colonel would never, not in a million years, hurt another pony on his side, but Maggie gasped like it was the most amazing feeling in the world.
Fire Storm fought to keep the connection open, and Maggie fought to keep the healing spell working. With one last push, the light dimmed, and Pennie opened her wide brown eyes. She sat up with a gasp, her dark pink mane with a single purple streak in complete disarray.
But Essence didn’t care. She let out a cry of joy and threw her arms around the neck of her best friend, and then they were both crying and not caring about anything else other than the fact that they were together.
Fire Storm let his horn go dim, his knees buckling. Gusty dashed to his side and held him up as he caught his breath. “What was that?” she asked.
“I was lending her my magic,” Fire Storm explained in a quiet voice. “It was the only way. Unfortunately, it means I’ll be unable to fight for a while until I get enough strength back…”
“Thank you,” Essence told Maggie, her eyes shining. “Thank you so much.”
She shuffled her hooves. “No problem. May I ask… how do you two know each other?”
“We’ve been friends since foalhood,” Pennie explained in her quiet voice, doing her mane up in a bun to keep it out of her face. “We both loved to write, so we promised each other that, when we grew up, we would open our own printing shop and write books and newspapers and things that would help topple Grogar’s throne. We don’t care what it takes.”
“We will fight,” Essence said. “We’ll fight for Equestria, and we’ll fight for each other.”
The two stood up and ran off to join the other unicorns and earth ponies, who had formed a wall around Manehattan. Maggie stared after them with a strange expression on her face.
Gusty turned back to the forest and gasped.
Peering out from the trees were dozens of pairs of glowing eyes, glaring at her. She felt like every single eye was fixated on her - these monsters knew just who she was and what she had done to one of their own. She gulped and stepped forward. Her horn was lit, though she had no idea what she was supposed to do with it.
In the end, though, it was the monsters who fired the first shot.
“Cockatrice!” shrieked a voice. Gusty glanced up to see a pegasus barreling towards them, crashing into the ground. He staggered to his hooves and gasped. “Cockatrice! A whole… flock of them! Ponies… turned to stone…” He swayed and fainted on the spot.
A scream erupted somewhere down the lines as massive black-and-white bears with huge stingers and bee wings emerged from the dark cover of the trees, roaring and scooping up ponies by the dozen.
Cragagators slid into the water and swam across the channel to the island. Cockatrices swooped down on the brave defenders, hissing, their eyes wide. Ponies looked away, only to be swept up in the crushing arms of bugbears or tossed into the river with hungry cragagators. Chimeras roared Fire in every direction, causing ponies to scatter. Manticores and sphinxes by the dozens bore down on the rag-tag soldiers of the Equestrian army, and they were completely overrun.
Unicorns struggled to keep up shields to protect them from chimera fire, but they could do little about any of the other monsters except for occasionally firing magic beams at them, most of which missed. On the rare occasion a cockatrice’s wing was hit, or a manticore’s tail singed, the offender would have little time to celebrate the small victory before they were under attack from a dozen other monsters.
The pegasi could dodge the blasts of fire and avoid the other flying creatures decently well, but they were all so close that usually, when they did, they crashed into each other, making them easy prey for a corckatrice lurking nearby, or dropping into the cragagator infested water. Stone pegasi fell from the sky, and a few unicorns were running around like crazy, catching the statues before they shattered.
The earth ponies had it the worst, however. The monsters didn’t care whether or not the pony they crushed had wings, a horn, or none, so with no natural defenses, earth ponies were easily turned to stone, thrown into the water, or were squeezed painfully in the arms of bugbears. A few were running around like chickens who had lost their heads, not looking where they were going, and fell victim to chimera flames.
Gusty whirled in a circle, trying to discern where she was needed most, but everywhere was complete chaos. She took a step towards Fire Storm, who was fighting a multi-headed hydra, when a voice screamed in her head, GUSTY, DUCK!!!
She dropped to the ground as flames whooshed over her.
Whistle? she asked. You… you can see what’s going on? A thought suddenly struck her, and it made her feel like the ground had disappeared from beneath her hooves again. No. NO. She staggered to her hooves and stared longingly at the forest, so temptingly dark and secluded and alone…
Fire Storm shot a magic blast straight at the hydra’s chest, and it flew backwards, crashing into the ground with a mighty thud. “Everypony listen up!” he roared, and ponies paused to glance at him. Thankfully, the monsters did, too, so nopony got fried. “We have to work together! Pegasi, spread out and bring the monsters further away! Earth ponies, back up the pegasi, and unicorns, back up them both with your magic! We can still win this!”
A new, set, determined look flashed over everypony’s face, and the pegasi suddenly dashed away from the bulk of the group, cockatrices and bugbears hot on their tails. Earth ponies did the same, leading the chimeras and manticores on a wild goose chase. Whenever the monsters retaliated, their flames or poisonous tails or paralyzing glares were met with unicorn shields, and the beasts roared in fury.
Earth ponies and unicorns also jumped on the backs of cragagators and leaped from one beast to the other, their hooves slamming into the creatures’ snouts, making them roar in pain and swim desperately for the banks to avoid getting hurt. Slowly but surely, the waters began to clear. Unicorns stopped jumping on cragagators and started using their magic to try and free the ponies that had been turned to stone, with varying degrees of success.
With all the creatures spread apart, it was much easier for the ponies to knock them down, and each time they did, it took the monsters longer to get back up. Bit by bit, the Equestrian army was winning.
But Gusty couldn’t feel relieved - if anything, she felt worse.
Gusty, BEHIND YOU!!! Ocean Breeze roared in her head, and she whipped around to see a manticore creeping up on her, its poisonous tail raised over its head threateningly. Dazed, Gusty shot a beam of magic at the monster that made it dodge to the left… and that was when she saw Maggie.
Her friend was helping a soaked pegasus out of the water, fending off snapping cragagators as she did so, only to turn around and come face-to-face with a hissing cockatrice. She seized up, and her back hooves and the tip of her tail began to turn to stone.
Something snapped inside Gusty. Here were these ponies, bravely putting themselves between monsters and their home, fighting for the basic right to be free, and all Grogar was doing was hurting them.
They didn’t deserve it, they knew it would happen, yet here they were, still fighting. Getting back up when they got knocked down. Never losing hope.
These ponies had friends, families, lives. And they were willing to throw all of that out the window for this. For freedom. For something that might not even happen. Still, they were willing. Willing to try. Willing to hope. Willing to be free.
And Grogar was trying to keep them in chains.
Why couldn’t there be a happy world, a safe world, where there were no traitors, no hatred, and everypony got to be who they wanted to be, be friends with whomever they wanted, and they were all free? Why couldn’t that be the world they lived in? Why couldn’t they fight for that world?
Blind, raw rage filled Gusty, and her horn glowed white hot. She leaped forward, ducking flames and soaring over tails until she was close enough to launch a pure white rope at the cockatrice that was turning her friend to stone. She lassoed the creature and flung it through the air, higher and higher until the shocked monster flew out of sight.
The high-pitched screams of the cockatrice caught everyone’s attention, and monster and pony alike turned their gaze to the panting, wild-eyed unicorn glaring back at them.
“WHO’S NEXT?!?” she roared, taking a step forward, her horn sparking dangerously. “WHO ELSE WANTS TO HAVE A GO?”
The monsters all looked at each other… and then they all attacked at once. Gusty didn’t care. It didn’t matter to her. She whirled around, hitting monsters with magic and blasts of pure rage. Her vision turned red as she threw back three monsters at once, inflicting heavy injuries.
And still they kept coming. They kept coming until every monster there was piled on top of her. Gusty was no longer throwing them out, but just barely keeping them from annihilating her.
Gusty took a deep breath… and let go of it all.
With a wordless scream, all her anger, confusion, sadness, hope, her sense of belonging, her sense of being lost, all of it came pouring out.
A singular beam of white-hot light shot into the sky, blinding anypony who tried to look at it. With a massive boom, a small ball of light appeared at the base of the light, rapidly expanding until it covered the entire city, pushing out monsters and shooting them into the sky, blasting every single monster all the way back to Canterlot.
All that was left, as the magic cleared and the sun began to rise, was Gusty, gasping for breath in the middle of a ginormous crater. She collapsed to the ground as Maggie and Fire Storm ran over.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked, fretting. Gusty nodded, looking winded and a bit queasy.
Fire Storm grinned as she staggered to her hooves. “You did it, Gusty,” he said. “You really did it.”
She gave him a smile that was entirely heartfelt.
A voice suddenly rang out in the silence: “What is going on here?”