//------------------------------// // Chapter 11: The Battle for Los Pegasus // Story: Red Dead ReDerption // by CompleteChaos21 //------------------------------// Chapter 11: The warm air was dissipating, coolness began to unfold upon the area. “Ah, most fabulous!” Rarity Reyes smiled as Joan and 4 Lunar Republic members climbed the hill to meet her. “Did your scout provide any information?” She said as the cool wind blew into her poncho. Joan glanced at Light Chaser as he stepped forward. “The Tunnel’s lead to a small drainage ditch outside of the main palace walls, an obvious blind spot. We can sneak in from there. But it’s a small fit so we can only get so many through at once.” Reyes sat down for a second and twirled her mane. She looked towards the city she was prepared to storm, her eyes darted to the troops and then to the city that was afire from the setting sun behind it. She stood up and trotted to the edge of the small hill, her ponies below her. “Today, today is the day. My friends, my family. We have all lived and died in this land. It has always been ours, when they came here they brought oppression and corruption to us. We have been fighting for years, for years on hand we have sought to abrogate the rule of sanguinary officials. Trixande’s right hoof is gone, her left, her weakest. She must be on her back legs right now, she has eroded our harmonic balance. I will restore this land, neigh! Not I, but Us! We! We will restore the land.” She stomped a hoof down and like a fire her words spread out to her troops, they began to jump and cheer as the moon arose behind her and its glorious light shined upon her sparkly poncho. “Would you rather reward a pony for the deaths of the innocent? Or would you rather return it to the hooves of liberty, of freedom, to those who built this land. I fight today, for the land that we once inhabited, who will fight with me?” The crowed was uproarious, a collective cheer rang-out. “Such an orator.” Princess Luna said as she trotted over to Joan. With her left eye, Joan could see a silver pony gallop up to Reyes and begin to speak into her ear. With her right eye, she concentrated on the Princess. “She gives better speeches then my sister ever did.” Rarity Reyes’s head shot over towards Joan and the princess, she gamboled over to them. “Great news! Absolutely fabulously brilliant news! Our psychological warfare worked, the city is in panic. We must go now and strike. The Lunar Republicans will strike through the tunnel system. Would you join me one last time Mrs. Derpston on the helm of battle?” Joan smiled and nodded. The princess looked warmly upon the two and nodded that she was ready to move out. ----- The battalion waltzed upon the city streets, mares and stallions panicking around them running and hiding, whispers and stares. They knew what was happening, but they did nothing. A small group of golden armored soldiers walked up to the group, there weapons slinged upon there back. They bowed there heads to Miss Reyes, she smiled and touched their golden helmets. Then they fell in-line with the rest of the soldiers. “Traitors!” a stallion yelled from a 100 yards back. He drew his gun, but he was shot down. The barrel of a Celestian Army rifle smoking from amongst Reyes’s ranks. “They are the real traitors.” The stallion said. As the palace grew closer and closer, the battalion grew larger and larger. The walls stood before them, and so did the little faithful that Trixande would have left. A golden armored mare stood in front of the gate inwards. “Why have you betrayed us, you soldiers swore to protect what was good. And you citizens swore to do what was good.” She asked tearfully seeing her friends and even her family among the ranks. “Miss Reyes IS fighting for what is good. Trixande fought only for her good and for that other mares good. Did you not see the bodies all those that she had murdered, the smell, what of their screams too! Do you not remember what you heard or saw?” The mare looked distraught but she soon fell to the ground crying. Rarity walked up to the mare and placed her hoof upon her shoulder. “Don’t ye worry. The end of this nightmare is upon us. Join us if what you believe we are good. But be prepared to perish if you choose the evil inside.” The mare shot up and jumped upon a mare and stallion amongst the ranks, crying upon their shoulders. “Everypony spread out we will have to fight those who are left. On my words we will attack and move forward.” Looking up the hill towards the palace. Trixande was there, Joan felt the deathly cold she had felt when at Fort Cloudsdale, Schizo was here too. A small breeze flew into Joan’s mane. She turned to see Princess Luna behind her looking hopefully towards the palace. Soldiers popped up along the wall, shouting traitors and obscene things towards the battalion. Silence battered the hill now, nopony spoke, nothing came, no noise at all. A bright flash erupted from the palace walls followed by a distinct bang, they had begun firing. The battalion ducked behind their cover, Luna gazed towards the palace from her cover. Joan’s perplexed derp expression caught her attention. Luna shot an amazing beam out of her horn and it hit the soldier in the corner tower. Suddenly shadows swept across the walls, and many soldiers fell. Rarity yelled, “FORWARD!” They charged! They burst into the gates, the LR members had stormed them from the side and caught them off guard. The rebels stormed in and began to fight some of the soldiers hoof to hoof. Rarity and Joan began searching among the fighting ponies. Rarity dashed to her left and jumped onto a light blue mare, Trixande. Joan looked around the clearing, ‘where could she be, where is schizo!’ She thought. She glanced around the clearing while avoiding the flying bodies of army soldiers and rebels fighting. She felt it though, the cold presence bearing on her, colder than any northern wind. Then it came, like an arrow through the psyche. That stare, piercing eyes, the wicked smile, the lustrous allure. The darkened windows couldn’t hide her eyes as they glowed red. Joan’s heart beat shook through her for a second, Schizo was staring right at her. Joan dashed towards the mansion doors weaving in between flying and wrestling ponies, she couldn’t see it now, but the rebels were winning. The air felt tenser and the temperature to Joan dropped the closer and closer she got till she could almost see the sickening glow of Schizo’s eyes. She burst into the mansion and swung around the side of the door, as she suspected Schizo was waiting with a chair in her hooves. She swung but missed by an extraordinary space. Before she could react, Schizo had scurried to the end of the grand table. Then she jumped atop the amazingly well stocked table, a feast had been prepared for something. “Good evening, a Joan! It has been…such a…what would you say, delightful time I have been having here. Playing…with you…” Schizo spoke out with her voice changing tone and pitch with each pause she took, this estranged talent or mistake in her forsaken genetics is what made her the best liar in the gang, and probably the reason that Dyslex fell for her. Joan shifted slightly from her defensive position, “Good to see you to Schizo” she said with utmost sarcasm. “Nice to see that…that you haven’t changed at all.” In truth she hadn’t since the last she’d seen her. Schizo was a cream colored mare, although she was tanner than cream cause of how dirty she always was. Her hair although naturally swirly, was matted and unkempt with many strands going askew. The only thing natural about her hair was its color, it never changed no matter how dirty and matted it became. The same cobalt blue and light fuchsia swirls. Although always dirty her body never had any scratches. Lastly her eyes, the demented looking earth pony had something else even stranger on her, her left eye was an arctic blue, it wisped cold into your heart. While the right eye was bleeding red, or more like it was burning your presence with red. Although from far away her red eye eclipsed her blue eye. “Ah yes! I have been having so much fun here. I heard you killed my ex-fiancé, how sad, she was a nice mare.” She slowly walked towards Joan weaving in between the meal courses laid out on the giant table. Her hips popped out in a seductive fashion which revealed the stitch on her backside. Schizo was the only pony in the gang that ever had a cutie mark, she was also the oldest in the gang, though she never aspired to be leader. She once described her mark as being, the heads of ponies talking to each other, we all assumed it was for her oratory skills. But before she joined the gang or more accurately, when she went insane, she sliced it off and stitched her skin back together. “What ever happened to that doctor fellow, did Dyslex kill him. Or is he at home, waiting for his, mare in bloody bandages to come crying home.” She spoke, she came closer and closer. Joan’s forehead was furrowed, ‘how dare she!’ she thought. “Ha…ha…I’m so amused at your wise cracks that my psyche is obviously in disrepair.” She moaned out in an uninterested sarcasm. Schizo’s red eye flared up while her blue eye stayed perfectly still, a simple smile then graced her face. She spoke to her left, “Leo, Rusty” she spoke to somepony that wasn’t there. “Are you watching cause its time for your favorite past time…” Suddenly she lurched forward and jumped at Joan. Joan stood up and was knocked onto her back as Schizo began to grapple for her, but she reacted quickly enough and launched the crazed mare into the air by swinging her haunches upward and kicking. Schizo flew gingerly through the air and landed awkwardly on her two back hooves. Joan charged after her, wings flapping furiously to get there. Schizo threw a downward punch which made contact to her head. Joan pressed her left hoof down and spun around kicking Schizo’s legs out from under her, she scrambled to her hooves. “I know Leo, stop yelling at me!” Schizo said to the air on the left of the table, she lurched upward and overtook Joan with her strength. She threw some punches that connected with Joan’s muzzle. Small trickles of blood began to pour from her nose. Schizo laughed when she saw the blood, Joan took the open chance and pulled Schizo’s face towards her, and she flew her skull full force into her face. Schizo jumped up and fell backwards on her haunches grasping her nose. “Leo! I think she broke my nose!” she said once again to nothing. “Rusty stop laughing!” Joan flew up and tackled her throwing her head into the ground, Schizo retaliated by throwing Joan into a tall candle stick near a window. The candle stick struck her back awkwardly, which made her wings buckle to her back. Schizo charged at the disorientated mare, picking her up and smashing her into the wall, then flinging her around and throwing her into the table where she flew over it and took half the food on the table with her. “Sorry for the close call, Rusty. You should be more kind next time.” Once again speaking to a pony that wasn’t there. She trotted over to Joan and grabbed Joan’s survival knife from her satchel. She sat her body down on Joan’s hips, preventing her from kicking up. She launched the knife downward, the blade horizontal. Joan grabbed Schizo’s hooves and tried to stop her, but she was stronger than her, the knife slowly jerked downward. Joan’s hair flowing out, her hat had been knocked off of her head earlier. Blood wetted her silky blonde hair and Schizo’s mouth had blood around it from smearing it from her nose. “Joan, seems like your final chapter has been written, the story ends here…” Suddenly, Joan felt a cool breeze overcome the intense icy feeling that she was feeling, it pushed its way through her hair, calming her. The blade neared Joan’s neck, “HAHA!” Schizo laughed, “HA-heWHA!?” The pressure was alleviated form her haunches. “Leo! Rusty! What’s happening!” Schizo cried out as she hovered in the air surrounded by a thin blue aurora. Princess Luna stood near the table, she had grabbed Schizo. She narrowed her eyes and magically tossed her into the wall. “AH!” she screamed in pain. “I’m usually the one pinning ponies to…walls.” Schizo laughed as she coughed up a little spit of blood. Luna approached her. “How dare you! How dare you! How dare you attack my friend, how dare you suppress this land and bend it to your will.” Luna’s powerful voice ripped into the now terrified looking mare. Luna’s eyes began glowing and her body even began to glow. “You disgrace this land! You are but nothing, a murderer, a rapist, a manipulator of heresy. You are NOTHING!” Schizo let out a scream of terror as Luna’s blue body became consumed in the swirl of her mane. When the swirl settled down, the mythic dark mare stood there instead of the Princess. “Mwahaha!” She laughed. “I will make you feel a terror more intense than anything you put your victims through.” Schizo let out a scream, a scream like nopony had ever let out before. That nightmarish mane swirled around and around consuming the two horses inside of it. More screams arose from the swirl, small spits of blood fell to the floor below the swirling mass of nighttime blue. Joan tried to look up, her vision fading, she had been bested, she should be dead, but she wasn’t, but alas she could only lay there. The fiery blue mane of the now nightmarish princess dissipated, her magic ceased to hold up Schizo as her body fell to the floor, her limbs scrunched up in the fetal position. Joan could feel and hear her getting closer, yet she did not show the same fear. “P-Princess…” she muttered weakly, her strength fading. The wind picked up again and blew into her being, she felt calm once again, a feeling she had come to welcome and know well. The blue aurora wrapped warmly around her, she became weightless and floated up gently. The dark horse spoke. “I am no longer that princess. I am once again Nightmare Moon. Wicked I may be seen, but justified my meanings have always been. You showed something nopony ever did to me before.” Her magic began to float into the weak mares body, Joan felt it tingle and go into her, the cold breeze wrapped her up and she felt the energy the night always made her feel. “You have shown us something we will never forget. When our New Lunar Republic exists, if your life still breaths with you, you shall be welcome.” Joan floated to the ground, she stood firmly no longer feeling defeated as she once did, no blood upon her face. “No longer can I exist here, to weak I have become. I will speak to you once again!” The swirl of her mane consumed the fearsome looking mare, “In the NIGHT!” she screamed one last time and she disappeared in the blue of her mane. Shivering, whispering, mangled, and messy. Schizo lay upon the bloody floor, scratches and scars scissored into her body, she stroked her mangled tail as she spoke. “So cold…so cold, so dark and cold. The darkness, the freezing isolation, so alone, so alone. The rock, so cold, space, can’t breath, can’t breath.” She continued to sputter out in her painful phrases. Joan, sighed and reached for the rope slung around her satchel. She began to tie up the ravaged pony, “So cold, so alone, so dark, the night, the night, so much pain, I feel it, all that she felt, so much pain, so dark, so alone. Save me, kill me, so cold, so cold, warmth here. Warming bodies, more light, see the light, so cold. See Leo, hi Leo, oh Leo…kill Rusty, Leo. Do it, he is dark he is cold, looks like her so cold, kill him…so cold…” Joan shivered as the crazy pony talked, she was in shock, her limbs had to be forcefully moved as if her body had gone into a living rigor mortis. She had dilated pupils and her eyes were both icy and cold. Joan shuttered, as she slowly arched her head towards her. “IT IS OVER!” She slammed her skull into the ground and looked forward, “Take me away” she said in between rushed and petrified breaths. ----- “We are victorious!” Rarity Reyes shouted out across the courtyard to the Rebel troops still standing. A cheer chorused through the palace lot. “The evil of this land is gone, the harmony has been restored, I thank you all. Those who always stood in the face of corruption and those who came to realize the face of corruption. Trixande is in the dungeon, she will never again see the light of freedom, for her crimes are too great. I will try my best, to not only be the leader I promised…but to be one even better then I promised.” She nodded and Light Chaser stepped up to join Miss Reyes’s side. “And the Lunar Republic thanks you, Miss Reyes, and all who risked it all. If only Shadow Striker was still alive, this would have been a glorious day for him to have seen. We thank you for this time we now have. We are now free to walk the light of day and the dark of night, now we can walk without fear of Trixande’s power mind. As she would have had us executed on spot. Now, we once again are free, for this we had made something special, a symbol of our appreciation and for the well being of your new government.” The silver muzzle of Light Chaser nodded to the palace walls, Master Night Stalker signaled to other LR members around the wall and banners flipped down to cover the old and torn Celestia Sun banners. The new ones displayed 2 mares spinning around each other, one side held a Sun, the other side held a moon, in the middle was an equal solar/lunar eclipse within the eclipse was a small blue and orange diamond. The crowd of rebels cheered, the land was now freed. ----- “Where will you go now, Joan?” Miss Reyes asked. Joan looked over at the tied up but shivering body of Schizo, “I have to give that mare back to Celestia and the futurists.” Schizo kept yelling about how cold and terrified she was. Light Chaser approached the group, he interrupted, “Miss Derpston, where is the Princess?” Joan looked up to the moon, she somberly smiled, “She’s gone.” Light Chaser gasped, “Is she…” He glanced over at the crowd of mixed rebels and LR members, he began to whisper, “Is she dead.” Joan smiled, “No my friend, in fact she is far from it. She’s gone back to the moon. I’d believe she is planning and getting ready, for when she will return again. As she told me…as she told me when she saved my life. I owe it to her twice over.” The robed LR member sighed briefly, “That is our Princess, and her kindness brings us the cool to relinquish the burning of the sun. She always watches those who are in need of a little saving.” He bowed his head and walked back towards the LR members, this would be the last time Joan would see them. “So I assume that you’re off to Canterlot?” Miss Reyes said. “I wish you good luck, and I hope your family is safe.” She bowed her head to the grey pegasus. “I will always remember what you helped us do. Our debts are equal I’d say, but Nuevo Equestria will never forget your name.” She bowed once more, Joan returned with her very own bow, the wind blew about coolly, Joan felt calmed as the wind flew into her mane. She gazed at the moon, smiling warmly at it.