//------------------------------// // The Army of Equestria // Story: A Splendid Little War // by Eh //------------------------------// Spike climbed up to the messenger pole. At the top was a little house for all the messenger pigeons the various armies of Equestria across the country used to communicate with each other. He wore a custom made little blue uniform and wore on his collar the rank of Captain. He checked the holes and frowned deeply, for only two pigeons have arrived this afternoon. He knew of the resistance sects in Baltimare, and of the awaiting regular army units up in Tall Tale, and of Rarity commanding the meager airship flotilla, and of the besieged Manehatten. He pulled the messages out of the pigeons carrier bags and checked the stamps. A trio of diamonds in an inverted triangle, Rarity and her airships. An Orange in front of an M, General Orange in Manehatten. He sighed. He enjoyed status reports from Rarity, it was his only kind of correspondence with her. Two months ago, the situation had deemed it necessary that Spike stop his frequent letters to Rarity. Spike knew he had to soldier on however, he at least had Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy to talk to. Unfortunately for him, talking had to wait. Even winters in the south were cold, especially at night. This particular night was far colder than most and even though dragons could survive excessive heat, excessive cold was a completely different story. He had to thank whoever stitched his thick wool coat for him. Despite being made for dragons however, it was stifling at best in warmer climates, and he'd gotten some pretty resentful and envious looks from the common soldiers. Spike trudged through the slushy ground. With the weather factories having no one to run them, the weather had been become completely unpredictable. One day, it'd be sunny, the next it'd be a complete blizzard, yesterday it rained frogs on the coast for no particular reason. Thankfully, it snowed relatively little the past week or so and that meant the Army wouldn't suffer as much. He hated thinking about the winter up in Manehatten, how the snow comes up to a pony's neck, or how General Orange even manages it all. He walked past a group of soldiers. Earth ponies, huddled together around a fire. They warmed themselves with what blankets they had and what warm food they had left. Despite being near one of the major ports, Twilight had made a serious miscalculation as to how many resources the army would need. The result was that real edible food was incredibly valuable while ammunition and spare shootstick parts were abundant enough to be used as currency in unofficial trades. Warm clothes were also a rare commodity in that in the rush of the beginning of the war, no one had enough to time to mass produce a winter uniform for the ponies. There was another thing Spike noticed, and it was something that incredibly unnerved him. He himself had never been in combat, but he knew ponies like Junebug, Lyra, or Bon-Bon that had. Nearly all of them had this strange unfocused look in their eyes, as if staring off into the distance. They seemed fine mentally and physically, they could hold a conversation and even tell jokes, but the eyes told a much more different story. Spike was glad, and often hated that he was glad, that he had never seen combat. Being Twilight Sparkle's Chief of Staff made sure of that. He could see the faint light of a lantern. Spike could see Twilight, even despite her being silhouetted in the warm orange glow. He could also make out two more silhouettes of other ponies, a unicorn by the looks of it and maybe an earth pony. He made his way over, keeping his face low into his coat. He could already hear them talking. "... and there is a corps here, covering the ford, that's approximately 20 or 30,000 griffons." Twilight was explaining something. Spike could see here pointing to a map, spread out on a spare ammo crate. The other ponies must have been General Lancer and General Fancypants. "And over here is another corps we have yet to identify, either their commander or their numbers. We have to assume they're in reserve considering their location. All in all..." Twilight exhaled deeply and leaned forward on the crate. Spike had walked up next to her, she hadn't noticed, she was too deep in their situation. "It's an army over twice our strength at least." Major General Lancer nodded. He was an old Earth Pony, his blue mane was nearly overtaken with streaks of gray. "We're 80,000 strong for now. We've been reinforced by Los Pegasus militia, it's only an extra thousand or two but they'll have to do." "We can't rely on militia forever." Fancypants quipped. Lancer huffed at Fancypants' interruption. "We can't sit here forever." Twilight piped up. She didn't need another sparring match between Lancer and Fancypants again. She looked over at Spike, her eyes had briefly widened then returned to their exhausted appearance. Spike handed her the letters and she quickly tore out the contents of both. She read the correspondence from General Orange first. General Sparkle Griffons are beginning token assaults into inner city. Am not confident we will hold. Ponies are starving to death if they are not freezing. Send any help you can. General Orange She cringed at "starving to death." She pondered how it really could have come to that, ponies dying of hunger rather than the open battlefield. Freezing to death wasn't a preferable alternative either. The thing that got her most was "send any help you can". As if she could considering they were on opposite sides of Equestria with three griffon armies in her way, not to mention having supply issues of her own. She placed the correspondence down and opened the next one from Rarity. Twilight Have raided several supply depots in east. Will try to keep Manehatten resupplied as long as possible. We continue to avoid griffon airships with ease. Do not worry for us. Rarity Well, at least she didn't have to worry about that. For a dressmaker, Rarity made a fine commander of the remaining airships after the initial Baltimare attack. However, Twilight had lingering doubts as to how Rarity could supply Manehatten's army with only five airships at her disposal. They weren't even particularly large airships anyway but they evaded the larger griffon airships well enough to last five months and still continue on. Most damning of all things was the fact that she still haven't heard anything of the ponies up in the Northwest. Five fresh divisions could surely help the army. Yet, nopony was coming down, nopony was even communicating to Twilight. The other correspondences were at least pretty honest with their situation. For all she knew, Tall Tale and the surrounding area were now aligned with the griffons and those five divisions of ponies were now foreign auxiliaries that will get thrown at her army like double canister from a cannon. Across that river was an army of griffons twice her size, commanded by a General who knew more about war than she ever could. That General who commanded even more generals who knew exactly what they were doing and those generals commanding large units of griffons lusting for the blood of ponies and still eager to avenge the destruction of the Monoceros over five or six months ago. There was no conceivable way of escape except by the sea or heading south into the desert where inevitably the army would disintegrate from lack of food. Trying to attack the griffons meant losing ponies, and losing too many ponies could effectively cripple her before reinforcements could arrive, if they ever did arrive. Where would she go if she did claim the day? The Crystal Empire maybe. The griffons recognized them as a separate state from Equestria and thus would respect their neutrality, but certainly the griffon army in Canterlot would intercept them and most likely crush them. She couldn't go south for Appleloosa or Dodge City because there was little to no grass in that area for the ponies to pasture over and most likely they'd all starve. Going out to sea with the entire army was very much impossible due to the lack of ships. She could try going over the griffons if she could cast enough wing spells for every unicorn and earth pony in the army, which probably wouldn't work anyway because the griffons all have guns and rockets at their disposal. Tunneling wouldn't work either. "Ma'am?" Twilight barely heard Lancer trying to catch her attention, for the situation was just about dawning on her: The Army of Equestria was going to be destroyed. "Twilight?" Spike tried to catch her attention too. With a huff, Twilight put Rarity's message down gently and then smacked her face on the map.