//------------------------------// // 74 - An Empire at War // Story: Re:Harmony // by starcross7 //------------------------------// Chapter 74 - An Empire at War   Microscopic space was just as vast and fascinating as macroscopic.  As Dr. Stable and Nurse Redheart tended to Sunny, Twilight Sparkle peered through a hoofmade microscope specimen of a piece of her alicorn friend's feather fragment.  Half of it remained untainted, but just seconds upon removal from Sunny's body the Silvercurse encrusted their infection upon healthy pegasii cells.   This "curse" had turned out to be a germ warfare weapon: a pathogen designed to slowly weigh down the enemy in a one-in-one fight.  In Blueblood's case, it was the perfect weapon to delay his pursuer's flying chase.  The Silvercurse itself also turned out to be a living colony of machine-like organisms, or nano-machines Twilight had read about in the numerous scientific journals she found washed up in the underground river shores of the Great Chasm.  A slight application of her magic had a mild effect on the Silvercurse, but without a cure, magical or technological, only a unicorn of the highest caliber would only able to.   She feared the good doctor's conclusion, but was relieved that amputation was not necessary.  It confirmed Twilight's theory that Sunny's natural alicorn magic confined the Silvercurse's invasion to a quarter of her left wing.   "It does pique my curiosity, though," said Dr. Stable.  "Alicorns are extremely rare, a once in a thousand-year occurrence.  Queen Mi Amore Cadenza's birth was foretold with good tidings, but the Bishops prophesied that the appearance of a second is an omen.  Although the appearance of a Twilight is another thing altogether."   "It's okay doctor," said Twilight.  "I am well aware of my namesake's reputation."   "Don't worry.  I myself don't take the Starswirl Prophecy as seriously as many do.  You coming here helped me further develop my magic medical knowledge.  The notes you provided will help me treat similar curses."   "Diseases, doctor.  It might appear to be a magical curse, but even magic has a basis in science."   Upon her dismissal, Sunny leapt of her bed and gave a quick peck on Twilight's cheek.  Nothing slobbery like a lick, but the unicorn did miss those times when they were separated.   She gathered her saddlebags that once contained the notes she gave to Dr. Stable, which were now filled with his notes and medicine to apply on the Silvercurse infection on Sunny's left wing.  Once she and Sunny left the castle's infirmary, she heard the familiar voices of Rarity and Applejack, and honing in she gravitated towards the excitable activity.   Twilight remembered she had promised to have breakfast with them, but it seemed her friends had beaten her to the punch, skipped eating, or had a quick one.  She watched Rarity, Applejack, two little fillies, and a trio of Geosense Royal Guards descending to one of the four corner exits of the castle and disappeared from Twilight's sight.  In her heart, she felt left out, and found herself leaning down towards the stairwell in a half-hearted attempt to follow them.   "Do you wish to go with them?" Sunny asked.   "Maybe another time," replied Twilight as she regained her balance.  "I still need to find a way to eradicate the Silvercurse that's affecting your wing."   "And you know well I appreciate your concern for me, but I believe I can hold it off with my magic."   "That's the thing--you just got your horn, but you might not remember how to use magic.  I can't leave you alone until I find a cure.  Once I locate Spike, we can increase our research efforts in the Royal Library.  If we don't find anything there--"   "Ungh!"   "Sunny, what's wrong?  Is the Silvercurse hurting you?"   "That's not it.  Twilight, can you feel it?  The disturbing force of an evil power?"   "I don't think so."   "Then come with me."   Even with an afflicting curse and a bad wing, Sunny galloped as fast as Twilight remembered.  Soreness from the battles from days before resurged in the unicorn's legs, forcing her to hobble almost every ten steps in her chase.  Her alicorn companion had already sprinted far ahead and out of sight, but Twilight knew where she was going.   The throne room.  It was empty today, and nopony stopped them due to the lack of servants or guards telling them so.  The alicorn stood in a center of the room equidistant from the throne and the doorway, and shot out a bright sun-like magic spell to the crystal headpiece decorated on the top of the throne itself.  The crystal shone a circular light on the floor, revealing through the red carpet a large, circular snowflake engraving that was the Empire's symbol.   "Here, Twilight!" cried Sunny.  Before the unicorn could even step into the room itself, Sunny surrounded her in a golden-yellow aura and then magically levitated her to her side.  Upon her putting Twilight down, three light-rings fell from the ceiling and surrounded the two ponies in the same diameter as the engraving.  When the light-rings rose, so did the two ponies, and their floating bodies easily phased through the dimensional magic subspace to instantaneously arrive to the top of the Spire.   The floor had not yet been cleaned since the defeat of Blueblood and his Cabal.  The crystalline computer console remained in ruin until Sunny trotted over to repair it as hastily as she could.  Twilight wasn't too sure if the alicorn could have saved the Empire if she had the time to rebuild the console, but due to its complexity, Sunny managed to jerry-rig into a messy but partially working machine with misaligned panels and exposed wires.  Only two magic monitors flashed on before them with snowy images.  Only with Sunny pulling switches and twisting dials with her front two hooves and good wing did she bring forth a clearer image of the snowfield past the protective barrier of the Crystal Empire.   On screen, Twilight beheld the familiar snowfield that nearly took the lives of her and her friends prior to the arrival into the Empire.  It was hard to tell if there was any blizzard activity due to the constant static in the live magical image feed, but that did nothing to stop the advance of a massive Gaean army.  There were hundreds--no, almost a thousand tanks ranging from small to very large, and several dozen land battleships.  In the center of its formation was something so large that Twilight could not believe her eyes.  Twilight had always had a fascination with Gaean culture, but the mechanical monstrosity made her feel both frightened and regretful of her early interest into science and technology.   "This is too soon," said Sunny.  "We'll need to fortify the Empire's barrier at full capacity."   "Sunny, is there something we should have known?"   "I should have told you before, but I did not want to cause alarm to you ponies since the barrier protecting the Empire hinges on the emotional state of its citizens and their Queen.  Twilight, you must summon your friends, the Royal Family, and anypony you can trust, and you must be discreet about it."   "Okay, but what do you think is going to happen?"   "The Empire is going to war."     Even with the existence of the magic elevator speeding her down back to the throne room, the rush to find her friends and the Royal Family pumped her heart so hard that she did not know who to contact first.  Hoping that that they would not sense her panic, she asked the few guards milling about the castle for the whereabouts of the Royal Family.  Princess Rarity and Princess Sweetie Belle she could account for, and apparently Lord Umbra, Queen Cadenza, and Captain Shining Armor were visiting the bishops at the cathedral.  She couldn't ask anypony to contact them immediately, though they did promise that they would mention that she was looking for them.  So Twilight hurried off, hoping that they did not catch wind of her emergent urgency.   Who else she could trust?  Twilight galloped further downstairs and noticed Spike trying to pull off an angry Opalescence off his scaly spines.  That was it!  Quickly she ran into Spike, told him and Opalescence to look for Rarity and the others before running off to the garden atrium in the castle's lower levels.  Here, she saw the owl and the dog frolic in the trees and the grass respectively, and she could only assume that the toothless baby alligator and the aggressive white rabbit were with their respective owners.  She called out to Owlowiscious and Winona for their attention to, as best as a unicorn could speak to animals, ask them to head over to the cathedral for Lord Umbra and his company and then to the colosseum to find Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Ingrid, Bella, Lyra, and Bon Bon.   She might not be Fluttershy, but Owlowiscious and Winona picked up on the gist of what she said and then immediately flew or ran off to find their equine friends.   Twilight returned to the throne room to pace on whether she did the wrong thing delegating Sunny's orders to Spike and the animals, but a few tense pacing minutes later, it paid off.  Lyra and Bon Bon arrived explaining that they were hanging out with Fluttershy when the Border Collie whimpered and barked, and that Fluttershy perfectly understood what Winona was saying.  Fluttershy, they said, had flown off with Winona following behind her to look for Pinkie Pie and the others, which might explain the pegasus's current absence.  Still, two ponies were better than none, and the couple's arrival as perfect.   The three mares took the magic elevator back to the top of the Spire that was once their prison.  Sunny had further repaired the crystal computer console, and with new arrivals, she stepped aside so that Bon Bon and Lyra could take over.  Two more magic screens had popped up, but while they retained their snowy image, the main monitor became clearer than ever thanks to Lyra's adjustments, and she could zoom in further to the advancing land armada.  Even Bon Bon with her experience in the Gaean military, she too was astonished by the engineering feat of the flagship tearing through the snowfields.   "No mistaking it," said Bon Bon.  "That's the Terrae Excelsus, Gaea's largest war machine yet.  I heard rumors it was going to be purchased by the Zebras in their civil war against the Abadians, but I shouldn't be surprised considering Pegasopolis is right next door."   "Would you happen to know anything more about it?" asked Twilight.   "Only hints so far.  Like the other land battleships, it is a carrier-type capable of housing and launching two hundred F-35B Black Dahlia strike fighter jets and eight ballistic missile silos.  It probably needs four nuclear engines and a minimum of one-hundred and fifty crewmembers to keep it running."   "I thought they scrapped the idea of Excelsus being deployed on this continent," Lyra said.  "Weren't they going to use a new-model dreadnought-type airship against Black Cloud?"   "They could use that, but they wouldn't divide their military like that just to invade an invisible country.  There's something off about this, and I can't seem to wrap my head around it."   Soon, more and more of their friends arrived into the Spire via magic elevator, starting with Lord Umbra, Queen Cadence, and Shining Armor.  Next came Applejack, followed shortly by Spike, Rarity, and the three former Crystal Rebels now turned Royal Guards.  Several minutes had passed, and the two other Element Bearers had not arrived yet.  This could not wait.  Twilight needed to convene with the ponies as soon as possible, but then her open mouth snapped tight at the sound of four panicked and screaming mares just outside the Spire's windows.   With her tongue hanging out in glee, Pinkie Pie launched into the Spire's top floor with her Pinkie Gear blazing pink and white while carrying four ponies on her.  She was not fazed when Fluttershy covered her eyes while hanging on to dear life on her head.  The weight of Ingrid and Bella on her back and North Star hanging on her tail did nothing to weigh her down.  The four unwitting passengers quickly collapsed themselves to the ground once the Pink Wonder slid coolly to a halt.  Fluttershy kissed the ground in praise, and Ingrid, Belle, and North Star took their time to balance themselves back in their hooves.   "We're here!" cried Pinkie.  "Are we watching a movie?  Or some TV?  Can I get some popcorn?"   Everypony shushed her, for the advancing Gaean forces stopped just several miles from the Empire.  All eyes were glued to the main magic screen with everypony remaining cautiously quiet.   "Lyra, zoom into the fore of the Excelsus," said Bon Bon.  "I think I see somepony there."   The green, earth-born unicorn with the shaved horn nodded.  With a twist of dial, they beheld a close-up of the terror the Element Bearers have the displeasure of fighting before.   Trixie.  With her chest pushed out, she did not care to magically obscure the horn on her head.  Her living black-crimson cloak gnashed its many saw-like teeth as it blinked its demonic eyes in the cold tundra winds.  The blue unicorn's eyes flashed red right as she turned to face everypony watching her devious grin to utter ominous yet unheard words not to herself, but to her viewing audience.   "Twi," said Pinkie Pie whose tail began twitching anxiously.  "Trixie had just said, 'I know you're here, Twilight.  Prepare yourself'."   Trixie's living cloak instantaneously dug through the hundreds of thin cracks of the hull of Terrae Excelsus.  Behind her a massive trap door split open to reveal a rising and dark magic-infected gunmetal cannon almost as long as the landship itself.  The angle had been set, and from within its dark barrel the cannon charged a crimson blast.   "Aegis Crystallis," cried Shining Armor.  "Protect the Empire!"   He cast the protective geodesic barrier spell moments before the unholy union of dark magic and cold technology fired upon the crystal nation.  The barrier shuddered as the crimson spell profusely diffused on its surface in its bid for aggressive invasion and domination.  Yet the sustained blast was too much, and Shining Armor wobbled and grunted as he struggled to maintain his strength and focus.  His body lowered into a collapsing position as the cannon's dark spell slowly ate away the Aegis Crystallis.   Twilight had always remembered her brother being a powerful spellcaster, maybe more so than herself, but he shouldn't have taken on the sole responsibility of protecting the Empire in light of Trixie's ever-growing power.  The purple unicorn readied to assist him by combining her spell with his, but she barely lifted her hoof when Queen Cadenza beat her to him by means of flight.  Nothing prepared her for what Cadence did to her brother in a span of mere seconds.  Cadence gave him a reassuring kiss on the cheek and nuzzled his neckline in a recognizably intimate way.  The Alicorn Queen stood just hooves away when she cast a heart-shaped spell that flowed from her horn and into his.  The spell surged through the stallion's body, giving him a brightening boost to fully reflect the Excelsus's cannon blast.  Trixie barely moved as the reflected crimson spell shattered the cannon and destroyed half of her land battleship's treads.  She made a quick glance at the metal wreckage behind her, before turning to face Twilight and the others through the magic screen with no change in her cocky expression.   While the ponies around her danced and cheered, Twilight directed her concern at intimacy her brother shared with the Queen.  Worry befell her as she began to think that her brother had, all this time, plotted to overthrow the King ever since his arrival with the Queen's support.  After a second observation of the possibly offended parties, Lord Umbra expressed no surprise in his reaction.  Applejack's expression also remained unsurprised.  She knew too.   "When were you going to tell me, brother?" asked Twilight. "And Applejack, you knew too?"   "We planned on announcing it after the Crystal Fair," replied Shining Armor.  "That's why we went with the King to the chapel to complete the annulment papers."   "And to legitimize my abdication," added Lord Umbra.  His low, baritone vocal, barely heard amidst the celebration, caught the attention of almost everypony else, thus stopping the dancing and cheering to make way for a wave of gasps.   "Therefore," he continued, "all royal decision-making have been transferred to Queen Mi Amore Cadenza--or Cadence as her Royal Highness prefers.  It is a decision I have decided upon after the events with Blueblood."   "I don't wish to question you, my lord," said Aurea, "but this couldn't have come at a worse time.  We need your leadership to help defend our Empire more than ever."   "I will continue to help anyway I can, but I am not a ruler experienced in the art of war.  Right now, I can't think of a better pony than Shining Armor with his vast experience in the outside world and his raw magical ability.  He has stopped their advance fleet."   "I'm sorry to interrupt and break out the bad news," said Bon Bon, "but it's not over yet.  The Excelsus is launching all two hundred of the Dahlia strike fighters in addition to the hundreds already in the air."   "Surely these machines are weaker than that battleship's cannon, are they?"   Bon Bon turned around, and her grave expression answered Umbra's question.   The citizens of the Empire panicked when the Black Dahlia's began the carpet-bombing upon the geodesic spell barrier.  It held up so far as Shining Armor and Cadence reinvigorated their enhanced Aegis Crystallis.  The couple stood firm on all their hooves, breaking little or no sweat as the detonated bombs appeared as orange circles expanding from a single dot and dissipating when it reached its diameter apex on the barrier's surface.  The initial attack appeared to be dying down, but from Twilight's vantage point, the fighter jets reverted back to their groups of V-formations and launched their missiles in sequential order.  The impact of their new tactics and technology punched a hole through the Aegis Crystallis, and six Black Dahlias dove in to rain indiscriminate war and terror on the land below.   It was like the Spire Cannon all over again, and this time it was an actual invasion.  Twilight immediately galloped to the nearest window to charge her magic power into her horn.  Her long nights pouring over the old fighter jet schematics needed to pay off, and it did.  Twilight downed two jets with a Psi-blast before they could drop their bombs or fire their missiles.  Sunny magically shot down two more jets, and Umbra, taking the cue from the other magic users, downed one for himself.   However, the sixth narrowly avoided Umbra's next attack and banked around the Spire and out of range of any magic defense.  It sped up as if it was going to ram itself to the top of the tower, but it slowed down to, as if by magic, hover like a pegasus in mid-flight.  This Black Dahlia was a vertical takeoff model, useful of sustaining a position in midair as it fired a missile into the Spire's top floor for the kill.  Twilight, Sunny, and Umbra were too far to stop the attack.   Boom!  The jet instead exploded, and its pilot ejected to safety from afar.  Never mind him--Twilight, Sunny, and Umbra looked at one another and wondered if any of them used a special spell that deflected the missile back to the shooter or had magically altered time.  All the other ponies had either ducked for cover or bravely protected Shining Armor and Cadence in a circle.  As it turned out, Fluttershy had one of her Butterfly Stars pinned to herself, and the other, in all likelihood, pinned to the downed jet where she had successfully transferred all the damage.  Suddenly exposed for her bravery, she immediately landed and hid underneath her wings.   "Shucks, I faced armies before," said Applejack, "but never like this."   "We brought them here, Applejack," said Twilight, "and we're going to drive them back."   "Lady Twilight, this is not your battle to fight," said Cadence.   "Your Highness, Applejack and I have a lot of experience in fighting the forces of Gaea.  Let us help you fight for your Empire."   "Saving the Empire from Blueblood is enough.  It is now up to the ponies of the Crystal Empire to stand up and fight for our country and for their freedom against an invading oppressor.  Besides, I believe your fate lies elsewhere."   "The Queen is right," said Sunny.  "If you want to protect the Empire, we must end the thousand-year war between Gaea and Pegasopolis.  To do that, we must find the rest of the Elements of Creation and their bearers, and the fifth one should be…"   The white alicorn pointed her horn westward to which she shot a single of beam of light towards the skies beyond.   "Pegasopolis?" Twilight asked.   "I know that it will be a long journey," said Sunny, "but we must leave as soon as possible."   "But I just reunited with my brother, whom I just learned has been sleeping with the Queen this whole time."   "Not yet," Shining Armor smirked. "Twily, I know this is going to be difficult, but you have to get going now."   "What about you?"   "This is my new home now.  I must stay to protect it and my love.  I hope you'll understand."   "Well, we're going to have a long discussion about this when I get back.  At the very least, I can say goodbye."   "But not for long.  If you see mom again, tell her I still love her."   "Lady Twilight of Unicornia," spoke Cadence, "I will take care of your brother.  That's my promise to you and your clan.  Oh, and please call me Cadence."   "And just 'Twilight' will be fine," replied the purple unicorn.   "Wait, you two!" Pinkie cried as she jumped in between Twilight and the Queen.  "You two have to do a Pinkie Promise for each other!"   "What's a Pinkie Promise?" asked Cadence.   "Twilight, show her!"   Twilight half-expected Pinkie to show the Queen, but for some reason bad things would happen if she broke wide grin on the Pink Pony if she didn't do it.  Once she sat on her haunches, Twilight immediately went through the motions of crossing her heart and hoping to fly before accidentally poking herself in the eye.  Even as jets pierced through the barrier and explosions rocking the sky, Shining Armor and Cadence shared a chuckle at the young mare's expense, before it was Cadence's turn to do the Pinkie Promise.  For a first timer, her smooth movements were flawless, if not regal.   Cadence might not be so bad for him, thought Twilight with a smile.