//------------------------------//
// 6 - Assignment 
// Story: Mare of War 
// by zaponator 
//------------------------------//

	Edited by Pilate. By now you should all realize that he is, in fact, a swell zebra.





Twilight stepped off of the train platform, feeling a strange combination of excitement and sadness. She attributed the excitement to the simple fact that she was back in the city she grew up in—it was a natural reaction to have—the sadness however, she felt because she was away from her real home where all her friends were. Canterlot may have been where she grew up, but it hadn’t been her home for years, not since she had moved to Ponyville and discovered the magic of friendship. Ambivalence aside, as she walked down the familiar streets of the gilded city-center she became genuinely curious as to what the princess could want. She had already decided on the train ride that the princess was not going to deploy her, like her brother. There was no way the princess would even consider such a thing.

Right? What if the war is worse than I thought? What if she's deploying all operatives as a last resort?

Shaking her head free of those rogue thoughts, Twilight focused on her hoofsteps upon the perfectly smooth cobblestone. Still, more disturbing thoughts began to encroach upon her already buzzing mind. She had to focus on something, anything, to distract herself. To that end, she found herself examining the scenery on the walk to the castle. The buildings of Canterlot were tall, regal, affairs. White marble and expensive wood was visible everywhere, though in many places it had been painted bright colors instead, or even inlaid with gold. Twilight was sadly lacking in knowledge of architecture, so her observations were fairly limited, besides noticing the incredible opulence saturating every square inch of every building.

Finished with her observations on the buildings, the lavender mage turned her attention toward the ponies themselves. She disliked what she saw almost immediately, there was more than one reason she had never socialized before going to Ponyville. The ponies of Canterlot carried themselves with an arrogant smugness that practically screamed I'm better than you, and I know it. They turned their noses up at everything, literally. It made Twilight wonder if a chiropractor would do good business here, she was pretty sure they would with all the neck problems these snobs must have from spending all day with their noses in the air. Particularly of note was the fact that almost everypony in sight was a unicorn. There was no race discrimination in  Equestria, technically, it just so happened that ponies who worked on farms or any other kind of manual labor somehow never ended up living in Canterlot. The result was that Twilight saw virtually no earth ponies, and an extremely small number of pegasi.

Realizing that these thoughts were only putting her in a bad mood, and that she was nearing her destination, Twilight focused on the task at hoof.

First stop, quartermaster. I'll need to report in, and receive my dog-tags and equipment.

Now with a plan in mind, Twilight approached the castle. After passing through the outer wall, she immediately turned off of the main path, instead opting to head straight towards a squat rectangular building with few windows, none of which were on the ground floor. This particular building lacked any of the opulence of the other Canterlot construction, it was built for utility, and defensiveness. With three stories of the strongest reinforced, spell-interlaced stone, the only building that could withstand more punishment was, perhaps, the central keep of the castle itself. 

This was the headquarters of the Equestrian Armed Forces.

Most soldiers would be outfitted from the armories adjoined to the barracks, but all graduates from the operative division of The Academy were given the rank of lieutenant in the EAF, just as the handlers were given the rank of captain. Even though operatives generally moved outside traditional military circles, this meant that Twilight was technically an officer and was treated as such, including being granted the use of the armory at the HQ. She wasn't about to complain.

The guards at the door recognized her immediately, and snapped a textbook salute at her approach, "Lieutenant Sparkle, ma'am." Twilight was used to this, for the year between her graduation and moving to Ponyville, most guards at the castle had insisted on treating her as the superior officer she technically was. "At ease, and please call me Twilight."

The mare and stallion on guard duty went back to their previous stance at her first command, and then the mare promptly ignored her second. "Would you like us to direct you anywhere in particular ma'am?" She asked with the tone of somepony who had repeated a phrase innumerable times.

Twilight had expected this question. "It's fine, I know my way around, thanks anyway."

Both guardsponies nodded, but the stallion provided a verbal reply as the mare opened the door. "Our pleasure ma'am, permission to speak freely?"

Twilight sighed slightly, before nodding and speaking in a deadpan tone. "Permission granted." She didn't enjoy ordering ponies around.The stallion seemed undeterred by her tone, and started to grin. "You're a living legend ma'am, if you’re finally reporting in for a mission then I look forward to hearing what you can accomplish in the field."

"Thank you soldier." With that, Twilight entered the building. What the stallion had said stuck with her though, she had never really thought of how the rank-and-file of the Equestrian military viewed her. She was a dedicated mare where learning was involved, and she had seen her time at The Academy as just that, learning a new subject. As a result, training had become her life, and she quickly became number one in her whole class. She even held the school-wide record for win/loss ratio in hoof-to-hoof sparring.

Hoof-to-hoof was a fighting style in which the pony would stand on their hind-legs, allowing for attacks with the forelegs. It had replaced the instinctual method of 'bucking' with one's hind legs, which left the pony completely open after each kick with their back to their opponent. Twilight had focused heavily on mastering it during her training, because for all her magic, she knew just how unreliable it could be, the explosion at the library was a perfect example, she had lost her magic for nearly 24 hours with only a slight head injury. Crossbows were an option, but she had never done as well with them, she was good of course, as good as one would expect from a member of an elite military group, but it was nowhere near the level of her close quarters combat.

"Can I help you?" The gruff voice broke her out of her extremely tangential thoughts, and she realized that she had walked all the way to the entrance of the armory, two levels underground, and was now staring blankly at the quartermaster, who was sitting behind a desk next to a large metal door. He was an older stallion, but it was clear that he had aged in that way that only makes one even more tough, his dark green coat was stretched tight over an average sized body that, from what Twilight could tell, was made up entirely of muscle, his head was topped with a jet black mane streaked with grey.

Twilight shook her head clear. "Sorry about that, I was lost in thought. I'm lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, REAMA operative division. I'm here to be outfitted."

The stallion's face remained impassive as he nodded and stood up, retrieving a key ring from under his desk somewhere. "Right then, come with me." He walked over to the door and inserted a key without even glancing at the key ring. The lock clicked, and the heavy door opened with only a small noise on well-oiled hinges. "Seeing as you're an operative, I'm instructed to allow you access to pretty much everything in here."

Twilight entered the room, and immediately stopped, staring slack jawed at row upon row of weapon racks. The cavernous room was long, very long, though only about a quarter as wide. The weapon racks were lined along either wall all the way to the end, and there was another row running lengthwise through the center. Looking over them, Twilight could see every kind of weapon imaginable, she focused on the ranged ones however.

There were the saddle-mounted ballistas and light cannons favored by earth pony troops, colloquially known as 'heavy weapons'. There were hundreds of foreleg mounted crossbows, which tended to be used primarily by pegasi, as having one leg occupied by a crossbow made it fairly hard to get around unless you could fly. Yet another section contained something Twilight had never gotten enough experience with, Spell Matrices.

An average unicorn would tire out extremely quickly while casting combat spells, which were very mana-intensive. So to solve this, ponies developed the Portable Mana-Infused Spell Matrix, or just Spell Matrix for short. Each one could hold a single combat spell in an orb about an inch and a half in diameter. The spell could then be activated at any time with only a small magical pulse from a unicorn. Usually they were used to hold combustion spells, earning them the lesser used nickname of 'mana grenade' among the non-unicorn members of the EAF.

Twilight had received training on how to arm and detonate a Spell Matrix, she even knew the method of performing a timed, or impact, detonation. Creating and charging a Matrix however, was a mystery to her, it wasn't the kind of thing that was taught to the actual soldiers, as it required special facilities, and was really more of a factory worker level job anyway.

Seeing all of these killing implements in one place brought her mind to a clattering standstill, two gears caught moving in opposite directions as she stood disgusted and repulsed, but strangely attracted to each weapon as her training came rushing back to her. Twilight attempted to vocalize her conflicting thoughts, but failed horribly.

"Weapons..." She shook her head, and gathered her thoughts as best she could in order to speak something more insightful. "Lots of weapons..." Giving up, Twilight mentally sighed and resolved to just let it run its course. "Whoa..."

Luckily, she was rescued by the gruff voice of the quartermaster piping up from next to her, kicking her brain back into gear. "S'really something isn't it?" He looked on with pride, smirking slightly, not noticing the purple mare next to him snapping out of it. "I've worked here 20 years, and there ain't been one pony who didn't have the exact same reaction you just did. So go ahead, I'll stay here if you don't mind, but you can go look around, take what you want."

As the stallion leaned against the wall, prepared to wait, Twilight began the search for what she would need on her assignment. Of course there was one minor detail, she had no idea what the princess actually wanted her to do.

I guess I'd better just prepare for the worst then, Twilight thought with a grimace, before noticing an area of the armory that had escaped her initial assessment. Sequestered in the left corner of the room, on the side closer to the door, was a collection of items that performed pretty much the opposite task of the rest of the things in the room. This was the armor section.

Twilight spent a moment being disgusted at herself for noticing every weapon in the room and somehow missing the entire section devoted to stands of various life-saving armor. That done, she began to pick out a set that would suit her. She didn't want anything too heavy, she would probably need to do at least a little sneaking, but at the same time she didn't want to go without protection. In the end she settled on a set of semi-flexible black armor with dark green metal sewn onto the shoulders, and over most of the body, in end, most of her was covered by the thick material and metal plates, but for her head, and her hooves. 

“Impressive, ain’t it?” Seeing Twilight marveling at the flexible armor, the stallion spoke up from his relaxed position by the door. “It’s similar to the leather armor the griffons use.” When Twilight looked like she was about to fling the armor off, he held his forehooves up in a placating gesture. “Now now, don’t worry, it’s completely plant-based, but it has all the same attributes as leather, but with far more flexibility. Should protect well enough, and those plates will stop anything but a straight-on hit, and even then they’ll slow it down.” The stallion looked almost proud as he told her this, making Twilight wonder how much he had to do with its design. “We offered the design to the griffons, but they refused, claiming that ‘the hunt’ was half the point.” He made a disgusted face at that, and returned to his silence.

Now that she was properly protected, Twilight walked over to a rack of crossbows. She had already equipped her Academy graduation knife, so she was all set for close quarters encounters. She might need something to fight at range though, the princess could ask her to do anything. It didn’t take long for the older stallion to break his silence when Twilight approached a rack of crossbows. “So what is it exactly you’re planning on doing? You don’t seem like most that come through here.”

Twilight paused in examining the presented weaponry to answer. “Well, frankly I’m not sure.” She smiled sheepishly. “This is the first time, I’ve been sent on assignment, so I guess I don’t really know what to expect.” When she turned to see if he had an answer, Twilight noticed him staring intently at her with an appraising look. Seeing that the conversation was apparently over, she returned to choosing a suitable ranged weapon.

Maybe she really does want me to run obstacle courses. That thought lasted all of one second, before Twilight shook her head and reached for a large crossbow. It was one of the models that wasn’t meant to be mounted on a foreleg, instead it was meant to be held in both forelegs and braced against the shoulder, usually while lying down, and came equipped with a high-zoom telescopic sight. This was long range killing at its finest. Unfortunately, in order to maintain maximum power, it didn't use the drum shaped 'bolt magazines' that smaller crossbows used, instead it would need to be reloaded after every shot.

Or, better idea, I could just not fire it at all. Yes, I like the sound of that, it involves 100% less killing.

Even as she thought it, Twilight realized how unlikely that was, but she pushed her fear down and focused on attaching the holster of the long-range crossbow to the back of her armor. When she glanced over to the quartermaster, she saw, for a brief moment, a strange look of concern on his face before quickly transitioning back to his standard blank expression. Checking one last time that her crossbow was secure over her shoulder, she walked over to where the Spell Matrices were stored. From there she filled a pack with 10 simple combustion Matrices, attaching it to the right flank of her armor. Finally, she stopped by the ammunition area, grabbing a full quiver of the slightly-larger-than-average bolts for her crossbow and attached it to her left flank.

Giving herself a once over and being satisfied with what she found, Twilight turned to leave. She was stopped at the doorway by a hoof on her shoulder, and a voice that had lost a bit of its gruffness, and was instead low and concerned.

"Listen filly, I've seen many a pony come through here, some of 'em have been fresh faced, looking almost eager to kill something, others have been older and smarter, resigned to the fact that they would have to kill, but taking no joy in it. They all had one thing in common though, they were all killers." The aging stallion looked her dead in the eye, the grip on her shoulder tightening reassuringly. "I can see clear as day that you're no killer, please don't let this damned war turn you into one."

Twilight couldn't say for sure what was going to happen to her, but realizing just how much death she had equipped herself with, and seeing the pleading look in the stallion's eyes, she suddenly became terrified at what she might become. She pushed that fear down with the rest before answering.

"I won't." 

She only wished she believed it herself.


--{MoW}--


The friendly quartermaster's words echoed in her head as Twilight approached the inner portion of the castle, where the throne room was located. She was getting strange looks from the ponies she passed, who gasped at the amount of weapons she had when the guards rarely even had a spear, she didn't care about the looks though, she was just trying to hold herself together.

Am I really going to become a killer? I don't want to, but I may not have a choice. What if I have to assassinate some zebra commander? I guess I am kitted out for it. Should I have taken a grappling hook?

Twilight shook her head before she could get lost in thought again. As she did so, the doors to the castle loomed ahead, guarded by two ponies on each side, none had any distinguishing features of high rank. She approached one at random, a pegasus stallion. "Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, here to see the princess." The guard simply nodded, apparently less talkative than the guards at the HQ, and after a glance at the dog tags around her neck—given to her by the quartermaster on her way out—he opened the door.

The four guards saluted, which Twilight returned before nodding in thanks and entering the castle. The entrance area of the castle was incredible, with gold inlay on everything, beautiful marble pillars everywhere, and a ceiling that even pegasi agreed was high. Twilight ignored all of it, she'd seen it all before and, besides that, her stress was continuing to mount as she got closer and closer to the throne room. Next she found herself trotting through the Grand Hall, below her hooves was the most luxurious red carpet she'd ever seen, and above her on both sides were pictures of her and her friends defeating Nightmare Moon and Discord with The Elements of Harmony. That brought a strange thought to mind, but before she could be bothered too much by it, she found herself before the looming door at the end of the Hall.

It was extremely large, half of it silver and engraved with the moon, the other half gold and engraved with the sun. There was not a single guard on the outside of the door, but Twilight knew that this was by far the hardest spot to get through in the entire castle. Enchanted by both princesses themselves, this door was not going to move unless they willed it, and there really wasn't anything anypony could change about that. Knowing this, Twilight knocked twice.

The beautiful piece of craftsponyship was enveloped in a golden aura before slowly opening inwards. Once the door was fully open Twilight saw that the princess was alone in the room, not even the honor guards were present, making this the first time Twilight had seen the throne room without them.

"Ah yes, my faithful student. I've been expecting you, please come in, we have much to discuss." Princess Celestia's voice was serene, and carried an almost motherly tone. It didn't put Twilight's mind at ease, but it helped a lot. Twilight strode forward then stood at attention before the princess, and performed a near perfect salute. "Lieutenant Sparkle, reporting for duty ma'am." It would have been a lot more impressive if not for the waver in her voice, and the fact that her hoof had begun to shake.

Celestia looked from the shaking hoof Twilight was still holding in a salute, to the scared look that was visible deep in her eyes, despite her best effort to hide it. Her heart went out to the filly, for that was all she was in this situation, a filly in the deep end, trying desperately to stay afloat, knowing that she was going down, and that she could do nothing to change it This thought only lasted a fraction of a second, but it was enough to make her feel bad for not dispelling her student's fears that much faster. "At ease Twilight, and stop worrying, I'm not sending you to do anything against your will."

That was it, at that statement Twilight finally broke. Throughout everything that had happened she had just pushed down all the stress and fear, just like her training taught her, but now it all erupted back up, culminating in Twilight collapsing on the floor in a sobbing heap. Seeing this, the princess rushed forward, laid next to her beloved pupil and draped a wing over her suddenly much smaller figure. After a couple of minutes of wordless crying, Twilight decided to attempt to speak with her mentor about it.

"Princess I'm s-sorry." Twilight took a deep breath. "I was just so worried that I'd have to go kill zebras, and the library burned down and the girls didn't know about the war, and I attacked Rainbow Dash, and I almost broke her wing!" Tears once again threatened to break through. "I w-was prepared t-to break a p-pony's wing! Even i-if it wasn't Dash, they c-could have never flown again!" Once again the princess simply laid there and listened to the purple mare sob loudly, doing her best to comfort her with a wing.

After a few more minutes of this, Twilight had finally vented everything that had been bothering her. She shakily stood up, smiling sheepishly at the princes, who also stood, albeit with far less trouble. "Um, princess? Sorry about that, I kind of lost control there."

Celestia smiled, and it warmed Twilight's heart just to see. "It's perfectly alright my student, to be honest I'm sure that was just what you needed."

Twilight smiled appreciatively, but then switched to a confused look. "Wait, if you don't have a mission for me, then why did you activate me?"

Celestia looked almost as sheepish as Twilight had a moment ago, it was one of the most bizarre sights the young unicorn had ever seen. "Well you see, I do have a... request to make of you, but it's perfectly within your rights to refuse, and in any case, will require a bit of an explanation before it is made. Shall we retire to a more comfortable location?"

A short walk to the princess' study later—during which Twilight was once again given a strange feeling as they passed the Great Hall—and Twilight was sitting across a small table from her mentor, both on plush sitting cushions. She had calmed down after her previous breakdown, and was now sitting up straight, prepared to hear just what the princess could require of her. For some reason, Princess Celestia requested that all guards leave the room, and even cast a sound-proofing spell to prevent outside eavesdropping. Before Twilight had a chance to question her on the extreme secrecy, Celestia spoke. "Twilight, this is about the spell you created."

The student paled, "Oh, did I mess something up on the diagram? In the notes? Please just tell me, I'll fix it!"

Her teacher held up a hoof to silence her. "There were no mistakes, at least, none that any of my top unicorns could find, actually this is about the significance such a spell could have. I'm not sure you have a full grasp of what you've created here my faithful student."

Twilight was just happy she hadn't messed anything up, then she processed what the princess had said. "Wait, what kind of significance?"

The princess gave her a level stare, before speaking in a low tone. "I am not even going to ask if your calculations on the spell's power are correct, I know you well enough to know that they are, and that is what scares me. Tell me Twilight, have you actually given some thought to what this spell could do if put in a fully charged spell matrix?"

She hadn't, other than the fact that it would be big. With a quizzical and somewhat worried tone, she spoke, "I expected that if you wanted to pursue that avenue of research, you had battle magic technicians for that sort of thing. I'm sorry, was I supposed to?"

"No, it's fine, and you're right, I do have technicians for that sort of thing, they had this to say." With a glowing horn, Princess Celestia pulled a scroll from her desk on the other side of the room and began to read aloud from it. "We have completed the analysis of the spell you sent us. From what we can determine, based on its potential power output, this spell would win us the war," Twilight gasped, but Celestia kept going. "Giving us the ability to destroy entire armies, bases, or even cities with a single timed Spell Matrix. However we do not recommend deployment without proper testing, as it would be too great a risk if it failed at higher powers than what your student has already tested at. Despite the spell's low power consumption, it is beyond the ability of any unicorn on staff to cast simply due to its complexity. For the same reason, creating a Spell Matrix of it would take months of work, even if we dedicated the whole team, and right now that is a risk we cannot take without proper testing."

Twilight just stared, mouth agape. One part of that letter had jumped out at her, so she decided to ask about it. "Princess, what did they mean when they said the spell was beyond the ability of any unicorn on staff to cast?"

"Just that," The princess' reply shocked the young mage to her core. "You don't give yourself enough credit Twilight Sparkle, you are the element of magic, is it really a surprise that you are capable of such a thing?"

Twilight mulled it over before speaking. "Okay, so I may have created the most powerful weapon ever to exist, but it's not worth pursuing unless we can know for sure, but we can't know for sure unless we test it, but I'm the only one capable of casting it..." She trailed off as her train of thought reached the logical conclusion. "You want me to test the spell, don't you?"

The princess nodded gravely. "However, as I said, I will not force you to do it." After years of mentoring, she could read Twilight like a book, so she was able to preempt the next question the second her student opened her mouth. "Before you ask, no I cannot cast the spell myself. This may come as a surprise to you, but my sister and I lack the fine control unicorns like you and your friend Rarity have over your magic. Certainly, there are none who match us for power, but in this case, power is not what is required, we require somepony capable of the most complex spells known to pony kind." The princess hated herself for what she said next, but it was for the good of Equestria. "We need you my faithful student."

As Celestia knew she would Twilight only took a moment to think about it. "Of course I will, princess. Where do I need to go?"

"You will be going to Zebranistan—we don't exactly have massive weapon testing sites in Equestria—but you needn't worry, you're going to a base within the Equestrian controlled part of the country, it will be perfectly safe. Besides I think you know the pony in command of this particular base, a certain Captain Armor."

Twilight, who had been looking forlorn at the thought of the trip, now looked extremely excited. "What? Why didn't you say so? I wouldn't have needed any further convincing." She was now smiling broadly.

This is now basically a short vacation, a short vacation where I get to see my brother. This is great! I guess I'll need to send Spike and the girls a letter, I hope they don't mind—

Her thoughts were cut short when the princess cleared her throat, a look of amusement on her face directed at the dumbly smiling unicorn in front of her. "Yes well, there are a couple regulations that must be fulfilled before you leave, this will be an official mission."

Twilight nodded, her excitement only increased at the idea of finally getting her first mission, her first chance to contribute to the war effort, and she wouldn't even have to kill anypony. Well, not directly anyway, becoming the destroyer of worlds via her new weapon was a problem for another time, she was going to see her brother!

Celestia stood, motioning for Twilight to do the same, they stayed in their previous positions facing each other, while the princess began to speak the words spoken before any operative left on a mission for the crown.

"Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, you are volunteering for a mission of grave importance to Equestria. If you are caught or killed, all records of you will be destroyed, and Equestria will deny any involvement in your actions. If you are successful, you will not be celebrated, you will receive no thanks, and nopony will ever know just how much you have helped them. You are to be the unseen hoof in the shadows, your actions will never see the light of day, and you will take the knowledge of them to your grave. Do you understand and accept?"

"I do," Twilight did not hesitate.

"Then go, in the name of Equestria, in the name of the Sun and Moon, and in the name of all ponykind. Sol iustitiae illustra nos."

"Sol iustitiae illustra nos," The young mare saluted as she returned the phrase, her hoof steady as a rock.

Celestia allowed her posture to become a little more relaxed, her speech ended. "By the way, I recommend you keep the equipment you've chosen, my student. I am aware that you will not need it, but it's best to be safe. The sky chariot is outside waiting, seeing as it's still morning I thought you wouldn't mind leaving immediately rather than staying the day and night. Also, I will have the proper letters sent out to friends and family, as you might have noticed when I sent you your activation, I have given the other Elements all a bit of security clearance, I felt it only fair that they be kept in the loop."

Twilight nodded appreciatively, but at the mention of The Elements the thought that had bothered her in the Grand Hall came right back, she decided to voice her concern. 

"I have a question." It was a statement, but Twilight was clearly asking for permission, at which Celestia nodded. "Well, seeing the stained glass portraits has gotten me wondering, why don't we just use The Elements of Harmony on the Zebrans?"

Celestia blinked, but then chuckled at her star pupil's naïveté. "Twilight my most faithful student, The Elements could never be used for such a purpose, as it is against their very nature." Twilight leaned forward, listening intently. This was new information to her, and new information was good information. "You see, The Elements can only be used to restore harmony, against forces of disharmony. In other words, they can only be used for the sake of 'good', against something which is 'evil'."

Twilight looked confused, "How does that mean that we can't use them?" Only after the question did she realize the answer, immediately looking to the princess for a sign that she was wrong. 

Instead, Celestia sighed, before confirming Twilight's realization. "Because in this conflict, ponies are not 'good', nor are the zebras 'evil'. This war is different from fighting something like Nightmare Moon or Discord, they both wanted to destroy all semblance of harmony in the world, and The Elements reacted accordingly to restore peace and safeguard harmony, such are The Elements' definitions of good and evil." Celestia looked downtrodden at the next thought, and for the first time ever since Twilight had set eyes on her, the purple mage could fully see just how old the princess was. "In a war like this, I am not attempting to save the world from chaos, I am only trying to protect the lives of those residing in my portion of it, and in the end, General Kwaad is only doing the same. I wish there was another way to accomplish this, and I still hold on to the hope that the General will someday accept a peaceful end to the war, but I know that wont happen. We have the same goal, him and I, we both desire an end to this war, but an accomplishment of this goal on either side will not bring harmony, only destruction of one side, and harmony only for the other."

Twilight's mouth was hanging open now, she had never heard Princess Celestia talk like this before, but the princess wasn't done.

"This is why war is terrible, my faithful student, it lacks any of the clear definitions that ponies normally take solace in. There is no good, there is no evil, there are no heroes or villains, there is only chaos and death, and in the end, the ones in the right are simply the ones left standing."