Lightning’s Aura Strike
Lightning stood at the front of a large battalion of ponies ranging around 20,000, along with a couple griffins, a few zebras, three dragons, and a tribe of buffalo. The majority was comprised of pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies, all of whom had rallied to Lightning’s cause and felt that they had been betrayed by Celestia and Luna. She had seen many of these ponies walking around with nothing but a frown. Just because Equestria looked happy and peaceful didn’t mean it didn’t have problems: homelessness, drunkenness, severe weather, etc., and the Princesses did nothing to try to correct the problems.
Lightning looked at the group, assessing skills of each species. She wasn’t concerned about her job as leader. While at Twilight’s library, she had read many books on pony leaders in the past and, in disguise, played the part of an excited filly in town asking veteran ponies about how to be a great leader. The elders were more than happy to supply information of what they could remember about their experiences of combat and their leaders.
Lightning had even asked Twilight what she knew, and Twilight had spent the rest of the day convincing Celestia to let her borrow a book about Equestrian military methods and skills. Celestia scanned Twilight’s tree house to make sure she wasn’t hiding Lightning inside, and then reluctantly relinquished the book to her pupil. Since then, Lightning had read over the top secret military strategies for several days and nights with no rest. When she finally did collapse from exhaustion, Twilight let her rest in her bed and she slept for several days without waking up. Twilight would check on her every couple days to make sure she hadn’t passed away. When Lightning woke up, she was so weak she couldn’t even get out of bed. After 2 weeks recovery, she was back to her old self and ready for an assault on all of Canterlot.
Twilight had convinced her to stay for a few more days and secretly gather troops within Ponyville. She then sent each of her friends to each of the big Equestrian cities to gather more recruits. Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Ponyville, Crystal Empire, Manehattan, Baltimare, and Las Pegasus were all reached. Each of the ponies had found a couple hundred recruits in each city.
Lightning looked at the list she had compiled. Cloudsdale had fast flying ponies, Canterlot had retired royal guards and weapons, the Crystal Empire had a royal couple who knew royal secrets. Manehattan, Baltimare, and Las Pegasus had strong Earth ponies combined with ponies in nursing and doctoring, and Ponyville had a mix of Earth, Pegasi, and Unicorn. Lightning herself had even gone to the Bad Lands and rallied the help of a couple dragons. She had assigned the task of weapon and armor-making to the Canterlot ponies, and got the rest of the squad training and practicing tactics, including hoof-to-hoof combat.
Several months had gone by like this. Lightning had been watching and had chosen her leaders of each wave. Of the Cloudsdale team, she had chosen Rainbow Dash and the grey mare with lopsided golden eyes. Rainbow was fast and fearless, and Derpy because, despite her crazy eyes, was ruthless and precise to a frightening level. One of the guards had discovered a Canterlot spy in the camp and was given to the interrogating crew to extract all the information they could from him. After much torture, they handed the spy to Derpy, who tied him to a tree and, from 500 hooves away with her back turned, threw a knife and hit him in the dead center of his chest.
He hadn’t been the only spy either. Two months after Lightning had started training troops, a group of about 10 ponies came up to her and asked to join their cause. Lightning agreed and started them on training right away, and that night, they snuck off back to Canterlot to inform the Princesses of what they saw. The next morning, five pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies set off in pursuit of the 10 traitors. Lightning used the unicorns to sense magic, pegasi to fly above and spot ponies below, and the earth ponies to buck trees to knock frightened ponies out of them. At least one pony had made it back to Canterlot with enough sanity left to tell the goddesses what he knew of Lightning’s operation. Celestia was so enraged that her entire body glowed yellow-white and the survivor was vaporized. She sent out a reward for anypony who could bring back any information on this operation. Since then, Lightning and the others had caught, questioned, and executed over 20 Canterlot spies. Lightning was certain that no more information had gotten out.
Her 17th birthday had long since passed and she started approaching her 18th. She was thinking about when Twilight got her out of prison. She had spent 6 months in that hell-hole, hoping every day that this would be the day that Twilight would spring her. But no. Each day, she was dragged out of the cell, and either strapped to a crossbeam and whipped with bladed whips, or chained to a rack and stretched. Celestia would oversee the torture every day. Lightning knew she just wanted to hear her scream, so she would keep her mouth shut, occasionally letting out a whimper. She would then be taken back to her cell, shackled to the wall, and one of the guards would always kick her on his way out. At one point she had managed to shock a guard after he removed her collar, sending him flying out of the cell. After that, the collar was instructed to never come off, and the Princess had used a spell to alert her if the lock was opened. Lightning was forcibly drugged every day, the guards sliding a tube down her throat into her stomach, and dripping a liquid through the tube.
Lightning shook her head to bring herself back to the present. The day was drawing to a close and the troops needed rest for the assault tomorrow. She trotted over to a strange contraption on a raised podium that Pinkie Pie had made at her request. Pinkie said that it would get everypony’s attention and let them know the leader required them. It was a box shape, with a black disk on the top, a crank on the side, and a large cylindrical object on top that fanned out. Lightning cautiously placed a needle attached to an arm on top of the black disk. Instantly, Pinkie’s voice, amplified several times, boomed out over the field, “PARTY!!” All the troops instantly stopped their activities and looked over to Lightning. She stepped down from the podium, hair blown straight back. She pulled it back down as Pinkie jumped out of the sound piece of the device and bounced in front of Lightning.
“What did you think? I call the ‘Party Phonograph!’” she asked excitedly.
“Well, Pinkie,” Lightning said, trying to get her ears to stop ringing. “It was certainly loud. And you.”
Pinkie hopped away happily. Lightning wondered how anypony could be happy with a war just hours away. She walked out to the front of the group that had gathered and spoke.
“As many of you know, tomorrow is the day we enter our war with the Equestrian monarchy. It has been a tough year and a half, dealing with betrayals, my commands, and training. But all that will prove invaluable tomorrow morning as we move to wipe the true injustice from this world. But to first do that, we must get the required amount of sleep to heal any injuries we have obtained. Anypony with injuries please see Rarity and Fluttershy for medical attention before retiring.”
Lightning turned and headed to her tent as the ponies behind her dispersed. She flopped down on her sleeping bag as there was a tapping on the canvas tent. She flipped onto her back and produced her magic knife from her hoof. It crackled with electrical energy as she said, “Come in.”
A nervous looking colt entered, eyes widening at the sight of the blade, which Lightning quickly retracted. She motioned for the colt to come in. He did so carefully, as if the tent contained many valuables. He sat down on the sleeping bag next to Lightning and started twiddling his hooves. Lightning looked to him. “What is it, Rumble?”
Thunderlane’s younger brother looked up to her with tears forming in his eyes. “Miss Strike?”
Lightning leaned to meet his eye level. “You can call me Lightning. What is it?”
Rumble swallowed. “Will my brother be safe?”
Lightning took the question into consideration and chose her next words with care. “Rumble, I can’t guarantee everypony’s protection. Most of them have to watch out for themselves. The rest will be in pairs or groups, giving them a better survival rate. I believe I placed your brother in a two pony group. But I’ll tell you what,” she smiled gently as she lifted the tearful colt’s face to hers, “I’ll keep a close eye on Thunderlane and make sure he returns home safely. How does that sound?”
Rumble sniffed and rubbed his nose with a hoof. “That sounds cool. Thank you, Miss St- I mean, Lightning.”
Lightning smiled again and kissed his nose. “It’s no problem, kiddo. Your brother’s lucky to have somepony who cares so much for him. Now, you better be heading back home.”
Rumble stood up, gave Lightning a hug, and exited the tent. Lightning laid back on her bag and sighed. She knew the hardship that families faced with a loved one in the war. Not all the troops were going to make it home, she knew that. If half of the troops made it out alive, it would be a miracle. Even for those who didn’t lose a loved one, they would almost certainly lose a friend. Everypony was going to either be emotionally or physically broken by the end of this war.
Lightning shook her head. No, I will protect all the ponies the best I can. No doubt that some royal forces will descend on Ponyville and nearby towns to cause mayhem and destruction to hurt us. Also, I’m certain that there will be troops protecting the Princesses. If we wipe out enough of the royal army, I can go after the Princesses with little or no trouble. Either way, I will protect any of my troops that I can. I swear. I promise! She thrust a hoof into the air before fatigue slipped into her eyelids. It will be worth it, Mom.
===
Lightning woke up several hours later and exited her tent. She blinked and looked at the sky. It was cloudy, and every cloud was blood red.
“So, Celestia wants blood,” she mused out loud, before looking out to her troops tents. She sent a tendril of her cutie mark to her throat and opened her mouth. White magic poured out as Lightning’s amplified voice bellowed out over the field.
“Rise and shine, troops! Today is the day we begin our fight for freedom!”
The tent flaps started opening and bleary-eyed ponies started stepping out onto the field.
“Morning troops! As you see, Celestia has sent us a red sun!” Gazes looked up and returned to Lightning. “This signifies that she wants this battle! She wants spilled blood, so we will bring it to her, but it won’t be our blood, dammit! It will be hers, her troops, and all others that oppose us! We will cut them down! We will take back what was ours! WE WILL BE FREE!!!”
A deafening cheer rose from the troops, as well as a few roars from the dragons that had returned for the battle. Lightning smiled as her cutie mark retreated back to her flank. She disappeared into her tent as the rest of the ponies packed their few belongings up. She emerged a few minutes later wearing a black chain mail jumpsuit, as well as thick leather boots that extended all the way up her legs, with an electric blue sword on a belt attached to her waist. She had the sword custom made for her by the retired Canterlot guards she had recruited. They had added a feature that when she shocked it, it would send voltage high enough to heat up the blade to impossible degrees. She had swung it at a tree after activating it and it cut through the tree cleanly with little resistance.
Her hair was up in a ponytail, as she had a blue pony with a pink mane from Ponyville cut it for her. She had it shorter because it could get in the way during the fight which, in a full-scale war like this, could prove fatal. She also had her tail trimmed to match her mane. Her fur had grown out the burn spots from training with Twilight, leaving her trademark red coat blending in with the red haze. Twilight. They hadn’t seen each other in a year, mother and daughter. I guess if I don’t make it through this, good-bye, Mom. Lightning wiped her eyes and straightened up. It was no time to get emotional now. She had almost 25,000 troops to control, and minutes away from the war of the century. No other force in history had taken out two Princesses, and no force would ever again.
“Ok everypony,” she yelled, voice magnified again. “Grab a partner and have a quick sparring match! This is for wake up purposes only! Do not break anypony, or else you’ll have to explain to me why you broke my simple rules! Dismissed!”
She watched as ponies broke off into two (or three in some cases) and struggled against each other in hoof-to-hoof combat. After ten minutes, she stopped the troops. It was finally time. Time to make history. Her red wings shot out of two slits at the top of her jumpsuit and extended to their full length. As Lightning and her troops stood on the battleground of change, shadows stretching long across the red sun lit field, the Princess of the Sun gazed at the large battalion from the highest tower of Canterlot, fully decked out in her golden sun armor and battle ax.
“Let them come.”
To Be Continued…