“A direct assault won’t work,” Barrel Roller shook his head; his ear wilted and he chewed his lower lip nervously. “The Changelings reinforced the balconies, especially the damaged ones.”
“If we assault the foundation,” Arctic Lily responded, “the bugs will focus on the square and give your fliers an opening.”
“You’re talking about a suicide attack,” Spike interrupted. “We’ve lost enough crystal ponies today.” He folded his arms and glared down at the mare.
“We’re prepared to die.” Arctic Lily’s coat was bright blue, but her eyes were the color of dull ice. She was naked and her ribs were visible with every exhale. Her stormy gray mane was brittle and cut short.
“Really?” Spike snorted. “You going to join the assault?”
“Enough suicide attacks,” Flurry sighed. “That goes for you too, Rainbow.”
“It’s not suicide if I’m involved,” Rainbow laughed.
Flurry glanced to the side where Sophie Altiert leaning against the wall of the small dining room. The blood loss had taken a toll and the griffon used the wall to keep herself upright. Her wing had been messily bandaged, but she would keep it. The pale gray griffon noticed the alicorn staring at her and slowly nodded to indicate she was still paying attention.
Flurry returned her attention to the map spread out across the table. It was near nightfall, and the Crystal City almost belonged to them. The outskirts had been taken. Her magical fire devastated the eastern inner district and broke the Changeling defensive lines. The veritable horde of crystal ponies aided in overrunning the remaining chokepoints and defenses.
The Changelings had pulled back to the Crystal Palace. As her war table discussed plans, snipers and heavy machine guns on the palace’s balconies fired into the surrounding buildings. It wasn’t safe to try to run or fly across the nearby streets without cover. The central spire and the balconies on it had an excellent view of the entire city. Snipers on distant rooftops fired back at the Changelings, occasionally picking off a changeling flying from one balcony to the other in the open.
The fortifications on the ground still stood. Sandbags were stacked against makeshift crystal walls, along with the final remains of a tank brigade. The tanks fired into the closet buildings and collapsed the crystal architecture, but they had run out of shells and fuel over the afternoon. The changelings inside the panzers now used them as armored machine guns and cover underneath the palace's supportive legs.
“What about the basement?” Flurry asked. “It connected to the mines, right?”
“The bugs collapsed those tunnels years ago,” Lily shook her head. “We could drill and dig, but they’ll hear it and just blow the basement.” Spike crossed his arms and gave the crystal pony another sour look.
“Do you have a problem with her?” Flurry asked him directly.
Arctic Lily had been somewhat unanimously recommended as the mare to talk to for organizing the liberated crystal ponies. A great portion of them seemed to know her name, but nopony knew where she was. A few assumed she was dead. Flurry had been mildly surprised when the mare turned up at the ruins of the Changeling barracks with a herd of armed crystal ponies. The alicorn was more surprised that she wasn’t a changeling.
Lily had been in contact with the ELF and organized the slow disappearance of surplus mining equipment for a rebellion. The intention was to launch a revolt and cut the supply lines to the north once the rebellion grew near, but Starlight’s army broke outside Canterlot. Most of Lily’s team were slowly discovered and taken to the palace by the Changelings. Lily lived in abandoned mine tunnels for over two years, dodging infrequent patrols and living off stolen supplies.
“I’m surprised you offered to help,” Spike said to the crystal pony instead of answering Flurry’s question.
“You think I have no interest in taking back my home, Sir Spike?” Lily coughed.
“Your interests before the war involved joining Stalliongrad,” Spike pointed out. Rainbow gave Lily a suspicious glare.
Flurry blinked. “What, she’s a communist?” she snorted. “I don’t care about that.”
“She was the chairmare of the Red Crystal Workers Party,” Spike revealed. “She wanted to depose your entire family.”
“Stalliongrad is gone,” Lily refuted. “The Changelings reduced it to rubble. I would rather have a Princess than a Queen.”
“Good enough,” Flurry cut the argument short. “Back to the Crystal Palace, how do we get in? We can storm the balconies, but the Changelings can retreat into the ground floor and the basement even if we push through.”
“We’ll have to attack from the air and ground,” Rainbow said, tacitly agreeing with Lily.
“We’ve already taken a lot of casualties,” Barrel countered. “And the army is days behind.” He dipped his head at Flurry. “Begging your pardon, Princess, but you could fly over this city casting that detection spell for a whole day and I still wouldn’t be confident we’ve rooted out infiltrators. We need every soldier we have left.”
“We have a system,” Lily pointed out.
“Yeah, that works for crystal ponies,” Spike said, “but what about the ones disguised as rubble or something? They’re the really good ones. They could hide in the city until nightfall, launch sabotage attacks, everything.”
“I’ll keep casting the spell and flying in a circuit once the Palace is taken,” Flurry promised.
“You could go in,” Altiert suggested in a weak voice. The table turned to look at her against the wall. “You have your shield.”
“She has to drop the shield to cast spells,” Rainbow snorted. “What, you want her to just knock a hole in the wall and rush in? The bugs aren’t that stupid.”
“I meant the other shield.” Altiert raised a shaky claw, curled it into a fist, then splayed her talons out.
“Like in Weter,” Flurry connected.
“You want her to destroy the Crystal Palace?” Spike argued. “That’s insane! The Crystal Heart’s in there, and maybe thousands of ponies.”
“We can’t risk destroying the Heart,” Barrel added.
"We haven't seen the Heart in years," Arctic said. "It must be inside the palace."
“Okay,” Flurry nodded. “I agree with Altiert.”
Spike whipped his head around to gape at her. “Absolutely not!”
“I’ll fly to the Square and blow the shield in the middle of their defensive line,” Flurry explained. “I can limit the power, and crystal is stronger than concrete. I won’t bring down the supports to the spire, but I’ll take out their sandbags and loose crystals. The tanks will go, too.”
“If you do bring down the spire…” Spike started.
“If I do,” Flurry continued, “I teleport out. But I won’t. I know how the spell works; I came up with it.”
“They could try and break through your shield.”
“They can try,” Flurry agreed and let the statement hang in the air.
“Alright,” Rainbow shrugged. “That still leaves, uh, the crystal ponies.”
“Irrelevant,” Lily snapped.
“Very relevant,” Rainbow snapped back.
“I’ll just take out the fortified defenses, not the interior,” Flurry said. The table shared pensive looks.
“Has she seen the Square?” Rainbow asked Spike.
“No,” Spike answered.
Rainbow Dash pushed away from the table and gestured with her good wing for Flurry to follow her. Flurry zipped her flight suit back up. “We got a good view on the roof,” Rainbow said.
They exited the small house and stopped in a busy street. Nearly a division’s worth of Flurry soldiers gathered around the improvised command center, taking over several buildings. One of the Crystal City’s hospitals was on the next block. It was already filled with wounded ponies and griffons, but the Changelings left very little medical supplies stocked. The alicorn flew up to the roof behind Rainbow and laid prone on the angled roof. A griffon was situated on the roof with a pair of binoculars aimed at the Palace.
Rainbow crawled up to the griffon and nudged her. The brown-uniformed griffon startled at the prod of metal feathers, but quickly blushed and slid lower on the roof. “Princess,” she whispered and clasped a claw to her chest.
“We need the binoculars for a sec,” Rainbow said. “Is the situation still the same at the Palace?”
The griffon clacked her beak. “They’ve brought out more.”
Rainbow sighed and hoofed the binoculars up to her eyes. Her magenta eyes squinted and she adjusted her grip. Flurry crawled up to look with her. They were several blocks from the Crystal Palace; the house had been chosen for it’s three-story roof, but it was relatively non-descript. The risk of a sniper spotting them was low. Flurry saw the outlines of the tanks and sandbags at the base of the palace in the fading light, but couldn’t make out any individual changelings. She did notice the lights across the city were out. Crystal and Electric. We don’t have any unicorns to charge them. The Changelings cut the power, or damaged the crystal charging stations.
Rainbow offered her the binoculars wordlessly. Flurry used her hooves to avoid the blue glow of her magic, and turned them to the Crystal Palace. “What am I looking for?”
“The second line of sandbags,” Rainbow said, unusually subdued.
Flurry followed her instructions sweeping over brief glimpses of Changelings sticking their heads up and moving behind the sandbags and crystals. The fortifications were under the palace and its central spire; it was hard to see under the long shadow. She swept over a stationary silhouette, then returned to it.
A pony was sitting up straight behind the sandbags, occasionally turning their head. It was too far to tell if they were a mare or stallion, but the fur appeared to be dark brown. Flurry spotted another pony down the line, then another beyond that.
“Do you see them?”
“Yes,” Flurry said slowly. “Could they be changelings?”
“No,” Rainbow shook her head. “One of the snipers thought so and took a shot.”
Flurry closed her eyes and sighed. “Have they ever done this before?”
“With Starlight,” Rainbow said quietly. “During the uprising. They kept ponies close to deter artillery and air bombing.”
“Trimmel,” Flurry guessed. “He’s here.”
Rainbow spat off the side of the roof. Her mohawk had flattened over the course of the day to a windswept look. Flurry’s short mane was flecked with dirt and blood, including her horn.
“Did it work?” Flurry asked.
“What?” Rainbow asked back defensively. “We weren’t just gonna blow apart our own.”
Flurry slid down the roof and extended her wings to glide to the street. Arctic Lily was waiting with Spike. “You saw the ponies?” Spike asked.
Flurry nodded.
“Anypony that was taken to the palace was never seen again,” Arctic nickered. Her hoof stomp on the cobblestone street was feeble. “It’s a bug trick.”
“We both know it’s not,” Flurry stated softly.
Arctic’s muzzle trembled. “It doesn’t matter, Princess. Even if we attack, they’re still going to be there. The bugs will kill them no matter what. Every second we wait, they dig in more.”
“We can do the combined assault,” Rainbow offered.
“How long do we need?” Flurry asked quietly.
“A few minutes to radio it out,” Spike replied.
“Prepare the assault,” Flurry ordered, “but I’m going in first. Attack on my signal.”
Spike lashed his tail. “Don’t, please. You don’t need to do this. We can save some in a conventional attack.”
“How many more will die?” Flurry snapped, then rubbed at her crown. She pulled the golden band off her head with a burst of magic and unzipped her brown flight suit, pulling it off one hoof at a time and leaving it in the street.
She thrust the little golden band against Spike’s chest. “Hold the crown, and hold it steady.” Spike gripped the small band in his huge claws as Flurry spread her wings. She lifted off the ground and flew over the rooftop towards her home with a flickering blue shield around her.
"You don't have to do this!" Spike roared, but the dragon didn't follow her.
Flurry Heart was not shot at on approach. The bursts of gunfire actually quieted down as the alicorn’s small blue shield languidly drifted closer to the Crystal Palace. Flurry circled the tall spire, scanning over the balconies and shallow holes from impacts. Several planes had crashed against a few of the balconies to take out entrenched machine guns. The Changelings stacked wooden and crystal furniture to fill the holes. Guns stuck out from between gaps in wardrobes and armoires that tracked her, but none fired.
Flurry slowed near her bedroom’s balcony. It was still intact and lined with sandbags. Two changelings swiveled a heavy machine gun to track her. A memory came to Flurry of sitting on the balcony one day, watching her mother oversee a funeral in the square. She didn’t remember the words her mother spoke, but each one seemed to weigh her down more. What happened to you, Mom? Flurry thought.
She circled the spire and drifted down near one of the intersections leading towards the Crystal Palace. She stayed just above the ground in her bubble shield, flapping her wings to slowly move forward. She passed by the foundation for Spike’s statue and snorted. Of course they tore it down. Spike offered hope to the crystal ponies. He defeated Sombra and earned his title and knighthood. Two of the panzers rotated their fearsome black turrets towards the alicorn, but she ignored the sleek, black-plated tanks and kept approaching the first sandbag line.
“Halt!” a Changeling officer shouted in clipped Equestrian. His voice didn’t wobble. “If you approach, we will begin executing the ponies!”
Flurry kept flying forward. Her horn sparked and the shield crackled with magic.
“If you approach,” the voice repeated angrily, “they will be shot! Turn back!”
Flurry drifted up the first line of sandbags and crystals, moving between the two tanks. She got a good look at one of the Ponies along the line. The crystal pony was a stallion; his legs were nearly skeletal and he had trouble standing. The Changelings had tied his skeletal muzzle shut with rope and bound him to a loose wooden post. His glassy green eyes stared out at nothing as he gasped for air. His chestnut coat was patchy and covered with scars.
A changeling in a black cap leveled a pistol against the stallion’s head with his horn. “I said,” he repeated with a near-shriek, “I will kill him! We will kill all of them! Do you think they are changelings?” He waved a hoof at a slumped-over mare with a hole in her head. “Your soldiers have already killed them!”
Flurry looked at the stallion for a long time, committing his cutie mark of cutting tools to memory. She drifted towards the second line, above the entrenched soldiers. A gunshot rang out behind her, and she did not look back. She instead looked down at the soldiers. Some of them were injured and bandaged, but still held rifles and submachine guns in their holed hooves. A few didn’t have helmets. One changeling in an ill-fitting uniform with shorter fangs reached up a hoof to touch the bubble as it floated over him. His blue eyes looked up at her in clear awe.
“Don’t,” Flurry said in Herzlander. “It will kill you if you touch it.” He retracted his hoof.
Another crystal pony was tied up next to the young changeling. She shouted something with a bound muzzle to the Princess with tears in her eyes. Like the stallion, she was almost a skeleton. Flurry committed her cutie mark of a set of kitchen knives and a fork to memory. The young changeling awkwardly put his shotgun against the mare’s barrel, but he didn’t pull the trigger as she passed over him.
More ponies were placed along the third and final line before the palace doors. Some of them simply struggled to breathe with the ropes constricting them. They were spread out evenly in every direction, all around the bottom of the palace.
“That’s far enough, Princess,” a weary, dual-toned voice echoed up in Herzlander from behind the final line sandbags. An old changeling stood up and tugged on his black uniform, decorated with metals. His tall cap was askew, but he carried himself with clear authority. His tired blue eyes scanned the Princess and her shield, and he removed his cap and bowed his head marginally.
Flurry stared back at him. “Hive Marshal Trimmel,” she greeted the changeling with a mild sneer.
“Synovial hold that rank now, Princess,” Trimmel replied. “I am just the governor of this poor protectorate.” His horn glowed as he climbed down from the sandbag line and approached Flurry. An off-white colt, no more than seven years old, levitated behind him. The crystal pony trembled as Trimmel dropped him on his back between his gossamer wings.
Flurry nearly dropped the shield and tore his head off. Trimmel felt the wave of hatred and sighed. “You have your shield, and I have mine. I take no joy in this, Princess.” The colt wrapped his short legs around Trimmel’s neck for balance.
“You take no joy in squatting in my home and murdering my subjects?” Flurry asked in Herzlander. She looked at the colt suspiciously.
“Quartz is not a changeling,” Trimmel guessed her line of thought. “He is an orphan like yourself.”
“And you’re taking care of him out of the kindness of your heart?” Flurry snorted.
“No,” Trimmel admitted. “He’s easy enough to carry and healthy.” He sighed and buzzed his wings. Quartz batted at one with a hoof. “You may speak Equestrian if you wish, but you will doubtless frighten him.”
“I’ve seen what you done to my ponies,” Flurry spat in Herzlander. “You hanged Thorax’s brother.”
“I have only done as the Queen commanded.”
“I suspect I’ll grow tired of that excuse,” the alicorn snorted. Her horn crackled with magic and her shield throbbed. “Look at where that’s got you. I heard she took all your tanks,” Flurry said with a mocking lilt.
“And half my garrison,” Trimmel replied with his own frown. “I could’ve shattered this pathetic excuse of an attack in one morning.” He bared his fangs. “We won the war because she stayed out of the command room, but now she thinks every victory is hers, and every failure one of her generals. I could push that pompous cub back into the sea.”
Flurry folded her hooves and laughed bitterly. “You put her in charge. You won the war for her.”
“I did,” Trimmel shrugged. “Chrysalis is as mad as she is brilliant, but now her madness is ruining everything we fought for.”
Flurry looked up and down the row of sandbags, trying to count the ponies. “This is what you fought for? The right to enslave us?”
“The right to not go hungry.”
“Thorax found a better way.”
“He’s weak,” Trimmel hissed. “The Traitor’s brother earned his death with his incompetence.”
Flurry’s muzzle pressed into a frown. “You’re surrounded. By your own admission, Chrysalis abandoned you. Surrender.”
“I may have fallen from Chrysalis’ favor, but she will never let you take the Crystal Empire.”
“She can’t make it through the storm wall.”
“I’m sure your army is stretched thin.” Trimmel scooped Quartz up and set him down between his forelegs. The colt gaped up at Flurry and her sparkling shield. “All she must do is send some scouting parties to destroy the rails and cut off your supplies from Nova Griffonia. The Reich will kill you quickly.”
Flurry smiled. “You haven’t heard, then?”
Trimmel frowned. “We know the attacks slowed against the coast, but you were a fool to come here and leave your flank exposed.”
Flurry glanced down at her bare flank in mock confusion, then gasped. “Oh, of course you don’t know. I made a deal.”
“He’ll betray you,” Trimmel said with utter confidence. “Chrysalis and Grover are cut from the same cloth.”
“I made a pretty good deal,” Flurry shrugged a hoof. “Surrender. I won’t kill you or your garrison.”
“I can’t,” Trimmel shook his head. “Chrysalis will kill us all when she retakes this city, and she will. We have to hold out.”
“She’ll execute you anyway for nearly losing it,” Flurry countered. “I am only offering surrender to save my ponies.”
“I know,” Trimmel said and his voice hardened. “If you attack yourself, or rush the palace, we will kill everypony inside.”
Flurry’s eyes flicked to the side and she looked up and down the sandbags again. A small crowd of soldiers were watching her. Flurry’s shield crackled and sparked with her horn. “If you do that, every changeling in this city will die. My ponies want to kill all of you, and I won’t be able to stop them.”
“And you care enough to do that?” Trimmel laughed sadly.
“Yes,” Flurry answered with utter honesty. “If you surrender, I’ll protect every changeling here.”
Trimmel licked his fangs. “No, you won’t.”
“I’m not lying, bug!” Flurry snapped in Equestrian. Quartz moved away from the shield and Trimmel picked him back up. “You can tell!”
“Whatever agreement you make out here,” Trimmel said in Equestrian, “you won’t keep once you enter the palace.”
Flurry paused. “What have you done?” she asked lowly.
“What the Queen commanded.”
“I am already tired of that excuse,” Flurry confirmed. Her shield crackled with energy.
Trimmel sheltered Quartz behind him. “I want you to know we had help,” he said in Herzlander. “Ponies were eager to help us for a better life for themselves. Quartz was taken from the mines for an experiment. He was chosen by a pony.”
“If the griffons are right and there is a hell, they’ll join you there,” Flurry promised.
Trimmel stood up straighter. “Are you going to kill us like you killed the Nova Griffonians? You will kill all of your ponies, too.” He gestured along the line of sandbags. “You will kill Quartz.”
Flurry hesitated.
“I do not know what you did in Weter, but I am sure you are the one that did it. We heard your radio broadcasts,” Trimmel exhaled. “Perhaps they are exaggerations, perhaps not.”
Flurry bared her teeth at him. “I hate you.”
“Yes,” Trimmel concurred. “This is the only card I have to play. The hope that a Princess won’t kill her subjects.” He moved aside and draped a hoof over the shaking colt.
Quartz had begun to silently cry during the shouting match. Flurry looked at his bare flank helplessly. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t remember me.
“My name is Flurry Heart,” she said softly in Equestrian. “I was born here.” The shield’s crackling magic slowed and quieted down.
Quartz sniffled. “I-I’m Quartz.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said to the colt, then switched to Herzlander. “Half of the ponies out here won’t survive the night.”
“They will with treatment,” Trimmel replied. “We have the medical supplies here to help them, and I will keep them alive so long as you don’t attack.”
“And if we do, you’ll kill them all.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll kill a foal?” Flurry said despairingly. “The Queen isn’t commanding you to do this. It’s all you.”
Trimmel swallowed and thought about it. “I suppose it is,” he admitted in Herzlander. “I cannot surrender. This city is a trap. Sombra was right to banish it. It can’t be defended. You’re caught in it now, just as I am.”
“My mother defended it.”
“She died doing so,” Trimmel answered. He licked his fangs again. “I respected her for it. A Princess should protect her ponies.”
“She should,” Flurry agreed and looked to Quartz.
“I’m sorry,” she said in Equestrian.
And her shield exploded with the sound of a soap bubble.
The blast was far smaller than Weter, and the crystal architecture was sturdier. The energy traveled along the legs of the foundation and flung the large crystal shards the Changelings used as cover back out into the open square. The cobblestones melted underneath her into a shallow crater of molten rock.
Sand, chitin, and fur stood no chance. The Changeling soldiers were vaporized. The young changeling that reached out to touch her shield burned away in blue fire. He didn’t have time to scream. The unluckier ones at the edge of the blast were fused into melted sandbags, still alive and burning. Their weapons, half-melted, burst with small explosions as the ammunition cooked. One of the panzers melted entirely, and one was flung out from the force, landing upside down near where Spike’s statue once stood.
Trimmel and Quartz died instantly, blown apart into ash. Their ashes mixed together in the wind.
Flurry flapped her wings and reformed her bubble shield. She wiped her muzzle with a foreleg to check for blood, and it came back wet with tears. The alicorn sniffled and inspected the damage. The Crystal Palace’s supports were black with ash, but she didn’t see any cracks. I didn’t put too much power into it.
She swiveled around in her shield to see if any of the ponies were still alive. None of them were. They were all vaporized and died instantly, and Flurry tried to take a shred of comfort in that, but it made her heart hurt.
The balconies above her erupted in gunfire as the sky filled with her soldiers. Spike and a herd of crystal ponies charged from the intersections across the square. They leapt over the burning corpses and around the fallen panzers. Flurry’s horn sparked and she cast a wave of frost below her to cool the molten cobblestones as Spike flapped his wings up to her. His green eyes were wet and he looked at her with pity. Spike didn’t say anything, but offered her the crown back. The crystal ponies below her skidded on the frost, but continued the charge into the palace. The double doors had been blown open from the force of the blast.
Flurry dropped the shield and pushed the crown away with a hoof. “Get to the basement. Kill every changeling inside. They have orders to kill everypony.”
Spike nodded.
“I mean it,” she said, sniffling.
“I know.”
Flurry summoned her bubble shield again and flew upwards towards her bedroom. The Changelings on the balcony couldn’t turn the heavy machine gun in time. She careened into the sandbags with her shield and shattered part of the crystal railing before dropping the spell. Flurry seized one of them in her magic and smashed him against the side of the wall. She took the other changeling her in hooves and crushed his head between her forelegs. The alicorn turned on the balcony and unleashed a wild laser at a higher balcony spraying tracer fire into the air while griffons and pegasi dodged. Mom and Dad’s, she realized after the balcony exploded.
Flurry Heart kicked her balcony doors open with a blazing horn and cast the detection spell; it swept through the Crystal Place in a wave. Her room was now an office cluttered with wooden desks and chairs. Green fire flickered under some of the desks as changelings lost their disguises. Flurry snarled and blew apart the desks and the changelings under them, arcing blue fire across the room. She stormed out of her bedroom to the hallways, moving from balcony to balcony while gunfire spread throughout the walls of the palace. She only stopped to cast the detection spell as she cleared the upper floors.
Flurry Heart did not pick up a weapon. She used her hooves, her horn, her wings. She killed every changeling soldier she came across throughout the night, including the ones that threw up their hooves and begged. The aura of overwhelming hatred and self-loathing she emitted overwhelmed some of the younger ones, who ran hissing and screaming as she flung them down with her magic and ripped them apart. She moved too fast through the hallways for Rainbow to keep up, remembering her foalhood home and everything the Changelings had defiled. Her own soldiers trailed behind the alicorn and kept out of the way.
By morning, the gunfire had stopped as the palace was secured. Spike found Flurry Heart on her bedroom balcony, utterly drenched from horn to tail in blood and watching the sun struggle to peek through the storm wall. He sat beside her, purple scales dented from gunfire and claws nearly as bloody as her hooves.
“We found your mother,” Spike said softly.
“Dead?” Flurry asked, even though she’d known the answer for years.
“Yes,” Spike confirmed. “I’m sorry, Flurry.”
Chrysalis’s black-crowned flag was torn down, and a patchwork purple flag with a white snowflake rose to replace it. Spike took her hoof as she stared up at the flag struggling to catch a breeze at the top of the spire. His other claw kept ahold of the little crown.
The Crystal City belonged to the Princess.