Proof reader/Editor: Biker_Dash
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming,” Saral began as the High King of Griffin Kingdoms entered the room, alongside Chrysalis and guards. “I will cut straight to the point. The enemy is coming and we need to be ready. I know we are still recovering, but we don’t have luxury to decide the time when we face the enemy.” She placed a small hologram projector on the table and tapped her PDA. A map of southern Equestria floated in out of the device.
“Our satellites picked up enemy movements and it is clear they are going to strike now.” An arrow appeared, moving from the former human base towards the central Anti-Magic Core. “I have already given the order to evacuate outlying settlements, but it will not be enough. We can’t allow them to march right through these lands. We need to face them in a battle soon.”
“We have suffered heavy casualties, none of us were ready for enemy such as this. What if we fail?” the Zebra Union representative asked.
“I would not rather worry about that. If our enemy wins here, we will lack any sort of force to repel them. They will win this war,” Saral said, giving each them a stare. “I trust I don’t need to explain why that is a bad thing.”
“So, what do you plan to do?” Chrysalis asked. Saral gave her a quick look of disapproval. It was no secret that the humans preferred to just blow up the hive and were not exactly thrilled with the idea of shapeshifting insect vampires, as they called them. Still, she was not going to turn away help.
“I plan to have our armies gathered and then meet them head on. They have advantage of being able to maneuver around us. So we can’t just lay down defensive line, they would simply go around it and we can’t stretch ourselves too thin. Neither can we take the fight to the Core, as it would be too risky. Which leaves us...”
“Head on assault, like the good old days,” High King said, stroking his chin. It was a battleplan that griffins were familiar with.
“We have received shipment of extra APCs, which gives us total of ten APCs with AA-cap-”
“A what with what?” Chrysalis asked, not familiar with human terminology.
“Armored Personnel Carriers with Anti-Air capabilities, along side with around 80 ACES suits,” Saral said, annoyed. There was just something wrong with Chrysalis that made her want to just shoot the creature. Unfortunately, it would be poor judgement on her part to act on the impulse.
“Doesn’t sound like it would be enough. We will need everything we can scrape together,” Celestia said, giving Chrysalis an expectant look. Chrysalis simply nodded.
“Of course. My hive, or what is left of it, will be ready to assist. What little warriors I can gather will be there.”
“How do we know which ones are on our side?” the Zebra Union representative asked. Saral nodded her approval. It would not do well to have them fight against their allies.
“I will have them pain themselves white. It should be enough, I trust?” Chrysalis said. Zebra representative nodded, as did the High King. Celestia nodded her approval too. Saral looked at the other leaders before nodding herself.
“It will have to do,” Saral relented. She couldn’t afford to turn down any assistance. “We have taken a quite a beating, we never expected to face anything like this in such a short time. I will inform our troops of your... assistance.”
“What else do we have?” Celestia asked looking at the map that was being projected.
“Not much at this point. They can choose where we fight. We can choose when, but that’s about it,” Saral said. “I worry about how much we, the humans, can help ultimately. You are aware that we are not exactly master of melee?” It was not something that humans tried to hide. It had become very clear during The War that the human specialty was long range combat. At melee range, everybody else held much greater advantage.
“Yes, I can see the problem. Without chance to create defensive line, your troops will not have much more than fox holes and whatever ad-hoc walls they can set up,” Celestia nodded. “Without those, it is very likely that the enemy can close in the melee range.” She left out the part that once the melee battle would begin, human lines would be the most likely to fall. Unless their machines could keep the tide down, their infantry would easily be overrun.
“That is a problem, but we have to do. Each soldier of United Nations Army has pledged to give his life is so demanded,” Saral said in grim determination. “If so required, we will all die before we let even one of them pass.”
“So, to sum up, Dash is out of commission. She won’t be released out of hospital for another month, not with her damaged nervous system essentially making her unable feel anything. Twilight has been given explicit order not to participate and she agrees. And lastly, we are going to face full might of Discords army in worst possible conditions.” Spike summed up, having just brought the news to others.
“That’s not a very good plan, it ain’t,” Applejack said. “Ah can’t believe ya guys came up with that.”
“It could be worse. It could be use charging against human guns. It’s still suicide mission,” Her double said.
“All or nothing. That’s pretty much what it is,” Spike said. “The humans are pretty worried. This is exactly type of fight they don’t want.”
“So... Who is going to use the Elements?” Fluttershy asked. “If three are missing, they can’t be used and...”
“You six are going to use the Elements. They work with you and that’s best we got at this point,” Rarity said. “Without Pinkie, Dash and Twilight, the Elements are useless to us, yet, we need them to defeat Discord.”
“Unfortunate, but true,” Twilight said. She had been very silent so far. “The princesses can challenge Discord, but they alone are not enough. Especially now that Discord has powered himself with ambient chaos energy.” Rarity nodded her agreement.
“Lots of things have changed from the old days, but one thing remains: the Elements are the most powerful magic in this world. They trump everything,” She said.
“Luckily they have some very powerful restrictions on them, to make sure they are only used for good,” Spike said and stood up. “Now, excuse, but I need to prepare. I need to get my armor.”
“Armor?” Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, Dash and Applejack all said, all with varying degrees of confusion on their faces.
“Armor, you know, bunch of plates covering the body,” Applejacks double said. “He might not have used it during our little raid in the hive, but he has one rather nice armor suit done for him.”
“It was commissioned late in the war. I needed something to protect me, “Spike said, tapping his scales on his hand. “Back then, my scales had not yet hardened to level they are now. Heh, I guess twilight was wrong on how quickly dragons body can change...” There was a small sad smile on his face. “I miss the old days. I miss the innocence.” With that, Spike left the room.
“Yo!”
“Dash? What are you doing here?” Big Mac asked when Dash walked in his room.
“Came to see you. I am still stuck here for at least a month and I am bored,” She said, taking a seat next his bed. “So, how are you?”
“Could be better. Then again, they are doing very good job. I didn’t know Zebra medicine was this advanced. I should be able to stand on my own legs in few weeks and then we can start to work on walking.”
“Zebra? What...” Dash started before realizing what was going on. “Oh right, that new treatment, yeah, right...” She finished lamely.
“So, what are you doing here?”
“Learned that I won’t be doing much of a flying anymore.” She said, becoming depressed. “I participated in a military operation, lots of bad stuff happening right now. Was a major success, in sense... Heh, ‘sense’...”
“Something happened to you, didn’t it?”
“Got hit my rather powerful magic. Lost nearly all my sense. Taste is gone, so is ability to feel pain. Kinda weird, to be honest. They have been poking me with lots of stuff and I can’t feel them. Worst is, I can’t feel even the basic wind. Makes flying very hard.” She sighed before continuing. “They are trying to help to get back to basics, to learn to fly without feeling things... but it’s not the same. Heh, never thought I would envy Fluttershy on flying.”
“Ouch,” Big Mac winced. Sure, he was an earth pony, but he could still sympathize. He had lost ability to move and was learning the basics again, so he imagined it was same kind of position for Rainbow Dash. “So... lots of bad things? What exactly is going on?”
“Discord is stirring up trouble. They got it under control now,” Dash lied, though she was really wishing they had it under control. Last she knew was that all major military groups were being pooled together for one big final fight. “Apparently he enlisted help of changelings. The operation I told you? Big loss for them.”
“Huh, good to hear it’s not all bad... though...” He gave an expectant look at Dash.
“...Yes, it’s true. We lost Pinkie Pie. Celestia damned bastard killed her. We avenged her, of course, but it does not bring her back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. She is... was a good mare.”
“Yeah.” Both fell into silence. Eventually Dash stood up. “I’ll come see you again. Right now, I guess I need to head back to my room. They are supposed run yet another test on me. Sometimes I feel like I am more of a guinea pig, rather than patient.”
“Progress?” Celestia asked Spell Nexus who was buried under several books.
“Some, Your Highness. We are pretty confident we can open one-way portal into their world, but getting you back is going to be a problem,” Spell Nexus said, not raising his gaze and scribbling something down. “However, I think there could be a way around that particular problem, but we need to confirm the calculations involved.”
“How long?”
“I can’t say for sure. The last time that magic like this was attempted was during the time of Star Swirl the Bearded and his notes are... less than helpful. It’s the way he wrote it and his tendency to write in codes.” Celestia silently cursed her luck as Spell Nexus explained his problem.
“How bad is it?” She asked. Spell Nexus picked up one of his notes and began to read.
“On the sixth gem of fourth son shall light of darkened moon follow the path of silent order, for it is his duty to guard upon neither of lands and skies to forever to be, to not to deny, for...”
“Okay, I get it. He has... interesting way of putting things.”
“Yes. We have been decoding what he means by it. We have pretty good idea, but there are still details that we aren’t sure of. We are not ready to take the risk that something goes horribly wrong. One theory is that uncontrolled spell could cause our world to merge with theirs, or other way around, can’t really say.”
“I see. Keep working on it. The last time we looked into their world, it seems we are running out of time.” They had done second peeking few days ago and what they had seen had not been good. Apparently, Discord had returned to his ancient, or it would be better to say, old tricks.
He had had a cult of followers who did his bidding, in hopes of him granting them beneficial boon in turn. Of course, Discord being Discord, half of the time these “benefits” backfired horribly on those who they were granted upon. However, it had never been on the scale that her counterpart had talked about. It sounded like he had gained an entire army of followers.
She returned to the throne room, where she saw her sister waiting for her.
“Any news?” Luna asked. Celestia had not told about what she had seen in the dimensional window, apart from basic details. She had not told about what her sisters counterpart looked like.
“Not much. They are nearing the solution, but there are still problems they need to fix. I agree with them, even if I wish to hurry. We can’t risk a world ending scenario. To risk millions to save six... sometimes I hate the responsibility we have.”
“I know what you mean,” Luna said. “Yet, we can’t ignore those who look upon us for guidance. I trust that Spell Nexus will find a way. As long as he can find a way to create two-way portal, there should not be problems, right?”
“Yes. I just fear that we run out of time before that happens.”