//------------------------------// // LIII - Town Defence // Story: Mortal Coil // by Reeve //------------------------------// Sufferthorn had found us an empty house near the town square; no doubt in case we were required urgently, she wanted us as close as possible. She didn’t mention who the house belonged to, but the pictures that had been left up suggested it had been somepony who had either left Pivot before the attack, or hadn’t complied with the Children of the Earth and ended up fuelling their fires. Pinkie found a board game in one of the bedrooms and insisted we all play it together, I agreed just to try and take my mind off the idea that it was a foal’s bedroom she had found it in. Applejack seemed more than glad to engage in something light-hearted, the work around the town apparently being very draining. But Twilight outright refused to join us, instead pulling out a book from the shelves and reading it in the corner with a soundproof bubble around her. “Is somethin’ upsettin’ Twilight?” Applejack asked as we played. “She doesn’t like Pinkie Pie,” I informed her. “Is that it?” Applejack asked, a little surprised. “How come?” “Oh Twilight and I go way back,” Pinkie said happily. “Oh, she’s always been pushing me and I’ve always been pushing her… then occasionally push turns to shove and shove turns into all out magical warfare. It’s pretty fun, you should try it sometime.” “Sounds like that would be pretty one sided,” Applejack commented. “What with you not bein’ a unicorn and all.” “You just keep thinking that,” Pinkie said slyly before passing Applejack a box of chocolates that hadn’t been there a second ago. “Chocolate?” “Thank you,” Applejack replied happily as she popped one in her mouth. “So, any fun stories you two have together?” “Oh, loads!” Pinkie declared. “Anytime we get together, you just know something hilarious and fun is bound to happen. I still remember our first meeting, this was way back when she was still Celestia’s student. Oh she was so cute, and so eager to impress Celestia. Well one day I’m breaking into the Canterlot archives, I had some late books and I wanted to return them without having to pay the fee… and if I happened to stumble into the forbidden section and pick up some light reading material while I was there, that was fine too.” “Yeah, that sounds completely legal,” I mumbled. “Can’t see why Twilight would ever get annoyed about that.” “Yeah, well I ran into her while I was perusing my choices,” Pinkie continued. “Turns out she had full access, being Celestia’s protégé. She was making full use of her privileges by staying up one night, practicing a spell that would allow her to stay up at night without falling asleep.” “Why is it when you say stuff, mah head hurts?” Applejack muttered dully as she moved her piece across the board. “Well she started giving me this big lecture about obeying rules, and it was so boring!” Pinkie went on, giving exaggerated gestures as she spoke. “So just to lighten the mood, I opened a doorway to Void of Endless Torment. She didn’t seem to appreciate the effort I was putting in to making our conversation more fun… particularly when the pain elemental crawled out.” “Void of Endless Torment?” Applejack repeated. “Why do ah feel like ah missed a step?” “Pinkie worships Discord,” I explained casually. “Oh yeah, ah had a cousin who was into that stuff,” Applejack muttered, not appearing disturbed in the slightest. “Ah’m pretty sure she invented the fruit-bat… sorry Pinkie, go on.” “Well, I quickly learnt that Twilight has a bit of a temper when books get destroyed,” Pinkie told us. “And when she gets mad… you’d better be sure you packed your everything-proof shield. By that point I decided it would be for the best to skedaddle out of there, so I grabbed the book I was looking for, hopped on the Pinkie-copter and flew the coop.” “Did Twilight ever get the book back?” Applejack asked, sounding genuinely entertained by the story. “She did…” Pinkie began before grinning mischievously. “But not before I rearranged all the pages and removed the numbers.” The conversation kept up like that until the game was over, Pinkie Pie having won of course, and we all decided to go to bed. Twilight did not, she was too enamoured with whatever she was reading that she didn’t see us waving frantically outside her bubble to get her attention. We quickly gave up, just hoping that she had indeed mastered that no sleep spell since the time of Pinkie’s story. In retrospect, we should have gone to bed even sooner than that, as Sufferthorn had the drill sergeant thing going where she came hammering on our door before the sun had even risen. She had us packed up and loaded onto a new cart and ready to hit the road before we had even finished rubbing the sleep from our eyes. There was a private dock directly north of Pivot, not unlike the one north of Glean where Salty had lived; only this one was designed to manage a few more vessels than just one barge. Sufferthorn hadn’t left the city with us, but she sent word ahead and arranged for a small fishing boat to carry us over the Neptune to Anchorage. While we waited for the owners of the boat to finish readying it, after offering our assistance and having it turned down, I thought of Rainbow Dash and whether she would still be in Anchorage by the time we arrived. It had been a few days since she set off for Anchorage herself, and considering how quickly she was able to smooth things out with the mayor of Breakwater, it was very possible that she had arrived and moved on already. I was feeling hopeful however, as was Pinkie Pie, who claimed I still owed her a new friend after the last one turned out to ‘only’ be Twilight. Things definitely seemed to move faster when Maverick was dishing out the orders, we were on board the boat and setting off before midday, and the ponies who owned it promised to have us in Anchorage around early evening. While we travelled, Applejack got the lend of some fishing rods, not that we’d be able to catch much since the boat was continuously moving, but it gave us something to talk about as together we demonstrated to Twilight and Pinkie some techniques. Just like my knowledge on boats and sailing, I only knew so much about fishing from what my father had taught me growing up, never having taken as much of an interest as I probably should have. As we talked however, and I began to remember little bits of information and learnt new things from Applejack, I found myself more fond of it than I ever remembered being. No doubt it was due to growing older and having a change in perspectives, whatever the case may be, I was even considering taking it up when all the craziness was over, it might even give something for my father and I to bond over. While Applejack was guiding Pinkie through the motions of casting, I was called up to the bow by one of the ponies we were travelling with. He had a grim expression on his face, and as I joined him at the bow I quickly saw why. Anchorage was just visible on the horizon, a much larger town than Breakwater being the primary fishing village, but relatively similar in style. The sun was sinking low in the sky, but even with the still strong light, I could make out the soft orange hue hovering over Anchorage. My memories immediately leapt to Timber, there was no doubt in mind that something was on fire, I wasn’t sure whether it was better or worse that it wasn’t green. “You weren’t coming this way to fight in some battle, were you?” the pony asked in a worried tone. “That wasn’t the intention, no,” I replied, never taking my eyes off the town. “Give me a second.” I levitated out my spyglass, extended it and peered through. None of the buildings around the dock seemed damaged in any way, and they certainly weren’t on fire, the source must have been the far end of the town. I could see ponies scurrying about on the docks, after watching for a moment, I caught a flash of silver. It was one of the Dragoon soldiers, he seemed to be directing citizens, I sighed with relief as I returned the spyglass. “It looks like our allies are holding this part of the town,” I informed him. “You can take us straight in. Unless they need ponies evacuated, you should be able to leave as soon as you are able.” The pony nodded, walking off to inform his two friends while I did the same. When I returned to the other end of the ship, I found Applejack guffawing with laughter as Pinkie dangled Twilight from the end of her fishing rod, the unicorn’s horn glowing dangerously as she growled. “Enough playing about!” I ordered in an oddly authoritative voice. “There seems to be trouble in Anchorage, I can see the Dragoons are still about, so we need to get in there and help them.” Twilight teleported out of the fishing line and went about getting ready, I wasn’t sure why she hadn’t just done that to begin with. Pinkie dropped the fishing rod overboard as she hurried to get ready herself; Applejack simply stared after it, unable to do anything as it splashed into the water. She paled when she realised she was probably going to have to pay for it, so I hurried over to the edge of the boat and pulled it back up with magic before I lost sight of it. Applejack took it back appreciatively and went to return it while I walked over to where my satchels were lying. It didn’t take long before the boat arrived at the pier, Applejack, Twilight, Pinkie and myself were already standing at the edge of the deck, ready to jump off as soon as we were close enough. Landing on the wooden pier one after the other, we quickly galloped towards the town, making for a Dragoon solider who was shouting instructions to the locals. “Soldier!” Applejack called out to get his attention. “What’s the trouble?” He turned and I saw a look of relief on his face, I wasn’t sure whether he remembered me from Olympus, or if he just thought that four heavily armed mares couldn’t be a bad thing at this point. “A hostile force is attempting to breach the northern gate,” he explained. “Marshal Rainbow Dash is leading the defence at the wall.” “Has an evacuation been ordered yet?” Twilight asked, casting a quick glance back at our own boat. “Not yet Miss,” the soldier replied. “So far we’ve just been ordered to get everypony indoors.” “Thanks,” Applejack said with a tip of her helmet before charging off towards the town. We all followed, Twilight and I running behind Applejack, while Pinkie bounced behind us. “Let’s find Rainbow Dash!” I called to the others. “Hopefully this isn’t what I think it is.” The town was bigger than Breakwater, but when running through it at top speeds, it didn’t feel like it. Anchorage was one of the rare towns with a wall around its perimeter, although it was only a wooden structure, no taller than three ponies. We reached the gate and found it bustling with activity, both silver armoured Dragoons and local ponies in mismatched leather armour were running about. The source of the fire was obvious; the entire middle section of the wall was engulfed in flames, including the gate. Dozens of ponies were running up and throwing buckets of water over it, while in the sky, rainclouds were pushed into place by pegasi. But none of it was tackling the fire fast enough, and it was already spreading further and further in each direction. Thankfully there was a stretch of empty land between the wall and the outer most buildings of the town, so there was little risk of the fire spreading to the houses. It was there in that space, right in front of the burning gate that Rainbow Dash stood, bellowing orders over the roaring flames at her soldiers. “Rainbow Dash!” I called out; she turned around and was immediately relived to see me. “Rarity, thank Celestia,” Rainbow muttered in an exhausted voice. “I told you I wasn’t cut out for this, you have to help me put this fire out or we’ll be wide open to attack!” I looked over at the ponies feeble attempts to extinguish the fire and frowned uncomfortably. “Clearly this will require some magic,” I pointed out, turning to face my companions. “I can take care of this!” announced both Twilight and Pinkie at the same time, before they both snapped around to glare at one another. “You?!” Twilight exclaimed. “What could you possibly do that would put out a fire? Smother it in confetti?” “I was actually going to remove all the oxygen from around the wall,” Pinkie stated. “But that could have terrible side effects!” Twilight exclaimed. “Have you even done that before?” “No, but it should be pretty simple,” Pinkie admitted. “But more importantly, it will get rid of the fire quickly. Let me guess, you were going to use water magic, boring!” “It’s the safest and most rational solution!” Twilight snapped back. “Look, I don’t care which of you does whatever!” Rainbow shouted over them in a panicked voice. “But would one of you do something?!” “Water!” Twilight declared, bringing forth her sceptre and conjuring a liquid tornado to sweep over the wall. “You’re just damaging the wall more!” Pinkie exclaimed. Indeed the force of the water was causing the already terribly damaged wood to peel and chip off in certain areas, although it was hardly a great deal worse than what it would have been if the fire had remained. “Maybe if I could focus without you yammering on, that wouldn’t happen,” Twilight hissed back. After a couple minutes, the fire was completely extinguished, and the pegasi were left to flap away both the smoke and the steam that was rising from the charred and now soaking wet wall. Rainbow took to the air, swooping over the wall left to right to make sure it was all okay before returning to hover over the gate. “Take that you assholes!” she shouted out beyond the wall at whoever was attacking. “You’re not getting past this wall so long as we’re alive!” As she flew back towards us, she began shouting out orders for to her soldiers to mount the wall or take to the skies and shoot arrows into anypony they saw approaching the wall. When she dropped back down in front of me, she let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thanks a lot,” she said to me, brushing her sweaty mane out of her face. “Don’t know how long we could have kept that up; it takes time to make rainclouds after all.” “Rainbow Dash, what happened?” I asked her in a wary tone. “Who’s attacking?” “Those guys you warned me about,” Rainbow replied, kicking the ground in agitation. “Those crazy ponies from Cragsburg, the ones in the green robes.” “The Children of the Earth,” I muttered angrily, looking back to see that Pinkie and Applejack had also scowled at the mention of their name. “Yeah, they arrived shortly after we did,” Rainbow explained, leading us left from the gate towards one of the ramps that would take us to the top of the wall. “They tried at first to launch a full assault at the gate, but when they saw we were home, they pulled back. They launched the fire attack not long ago, clearly trying to burn right through our defences so they could just walk right into the town.” “Cowards,” Applejack muttered. “Cunning, but cowardly.” “Who’re these guys?” Rainbow asked me, looking over my shoulder at Twilight, Pinkie and Applejack. “Not that I’m complaining, the more able soldiers we have, the better. Luckily this town has its own militia, but… they’re not well equipped… or well trained.” “These are some of my friends,” I informed her. “Pinkie Pie was at Brine with us, Twilight Sparkle is representing Equestria, and Applejack…” “Applejack?!” Rainbow exclaimed, doing a double take at her. “I knew I recognised your name, you’re with the Rebellion, aren’t you?” “Well, ah guess ah am again,” Applejack muttered, a little annoyed at having to admit that. “I mean, you were at Olympus, during the war,” Rainbow elaborated. “I remember seeing you, you totally kicked ass.” “Oh, uh, thanks… ah guess,” Applejack replied. “It’s Rainbow Dash, right? Sorry, I don’t really remember you.” “Well I was in the air most of the time,” Rainbow justified. “Although I find it incredible that anypony could forget me.” “Ah’m sure it’ll come back to me,” Applejack assured her, rolling her eyes slightly. “But if you’re the Marshal now, ah figure you kick a lot of ass too.” Rainbow smirked at that, it was nice that those two were able to hit things off so well, I only wished my other two companions could do the same. “Come on, let’s take a look,” Rainbow suggested, taking the lead up the ramp and onto the wall. I followed up behind her, with my friends following in single file behind me, the wall wasn’t exactly the safest structure to be standing on any more. It felt a little bit rickety, and more than a few times my hooves skidded slightly on the wet wood. Once we were standing at the top, we could see the Children of the Earth army hunkered down some distance away in the Pastures, they had cleverly put themselves just out of range of Rainbow Dash’s archers. The archers were however shooting at the half dozen or so ponies who were zigzagging across the plains, carrying burning torches, it was clear they weren’t about to give up on their fire attack. Most arrows would bounce off their armour, but it only took one well aimed arrow to burrow into their skulls and nullify the threat, not a single one of the torch bearers made it to the wall. “So what’s the plan?” I asked Rainbow. “Well we aren’t meeting them head on,” Rainbow began. “It’s hard to tell from this distance, but they outnumber us four to one, and that’s including the town militia.” “Most of your soldiers are pegasi,” Twilight pointed out. “Could you not simply fly over them and shoot them from right over their heads.” “We thought of that,” Rainbow admitted. “But they’re armed with slings and crossbows, and they’re pretty good at aiming. We already lost two guys trying to do that, and we only had twenty four to begin with.” “Are they likely to retreat?” Twilight asked. “Sufferthorn said they fled Pivot when they moved to take it back, maybe they won’t risk meeting you head on if you present yourself as a bigger threat than you actually are.” “They probably think you’ve got a whole army behind this wall,” Applejack added. “That’s probably why they pulled back in the first place, and why they aren’t throwing everything they have at the wall now.” “I have an idea,” Pinkie announced randomly. “Sweet,” Rainbow replied. “Tell me what you’re thinking?” “We surrender,” Pinkie stated calmly, Rainbow’s face dropped slightly at that. “Oh… I was hoping for something a bit more positive,” Rainbow muttered. “Wait, I haven’t finished,” Pinkie said quickly. “We make them think we’re surrendering to lure them close, and then we spring the trap!” “What’s the trap?” Applejack asked curiously. “I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Pinkie admitted. “But I just know it will save the day.” “Oh for the love of… don’t listen to her, she’s just wasting time,” Twilight snapped. “What we need to do is have your ranged troops maintain their positions and wait until they make the first move, we can’t meet them out there, but nor can we plan when we don’t know what they’re going to throw at us.” “Hey, I happen to be an expert when it comes to traps,” Pinkie retorted. “They rely on the element of surprise, which is my speciality. I can think of something, I just need to know what all we have available to us.” “Ah think,” Applejack cut in, literally stepping between the pair of them. “We should let Rainbow Dash decide, she is the boss here.” Rainbow grimaced slightly at that, but didn’t remark upon it. “I’ll go with what… Twilight, isn’t it? I’ll go with what Twilight says for now,” she stated, Twilight shooting Pinkie a smug smile as she did. “But if Pinkie can come up with a good idea, I’ll hear her out.” “Well whatever you do, just be careful,” I warned her. “These ponies are complete zealots; they’ll fight and die if they think it will end in our defeat.” Indeed, the few Children that had charged the wall with torches, did so with such fanatical abandon for their own wellbeing that they might as well have been running at us with bombs strapped to their chest. Once that was decided, we made our way down from the wall, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle all started off towards the town at Rainbow’s suggestion, the latter two pointedly ignoring one another. “Those two seem… tense,” Rainbow pointed out awkwardly. “Yeah,” I replied with a little sigh. “But I can deal with that, how are you?” “I’m alright,” Rainbow replied with a non-committal shrug. “I hate being a leader, but what else is new?” “Well don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ve spoken with Maverick, and he’s already making arrangements to come meet with you and get this all sorted out.” “I’m glad,” Rainbow responded, sounding genuinely relieved. “Hopefully this won’t take too long, then I can get on my way back to Brine and see how Fluttershy is doing.” “Well you can count me in on that journey,” I told her. “I hated leaving her behind, but I’m sure she’s handling things marvellously.” “Hopefully, anyway, you should go get some rest,” Rainbow suggested. “If things do kick off here, I’ll need you all at top performance.” “Alright, but be sure to take your own advice at some point,” I said as I started after my other friends. I caught up to them outside a café that was open late, I had wanted to follow Rainbow’s advice and go get some rest, but I figured we could stop for a bit and get a cup of tea. “At some point I’m going to have to ask around about Blueblood,” Twilight reminded me. “I should be fine on my own, I’m sure you want to help Rainbow Dash… and you all want to get back at those Children of the Earth for what they did at Pivot.” “You’re darn right about that,” Applejack declared, slamming her cup on the table. “But I’m sure we’ll find time to help you as well,” I added. “Yeah,” Pinkie agreed, her mouth stuffed full of muffins. “We’ll cover more ground if we all help search.” Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie, I too was feeling rather bewildered at her sudden shift in attitude. I didn’t have time to ponder it however, as a Dragoon soldier flew right past us, stopping, and finally backtracking until he was next to us. “Miss Rarity, the Marshal requires the presence of you and your allies,” the soldier explained. “The Children are making a full assault on the wall and she wants all hooves on deck.” “Tell her we’re on our way,” I instructed, standing up immediately and throwing some bits onto the table. “Come on girls, let’s…” “Help!” a voice screamed form the direction of the dock. “There’s a monster in the water! Somepony help us!” I looked between the screaming mare near the docks and the soldier who was flying off towards the gate. I then looked down at my friends who shared my worried expression, and then I gulped as I tried to decide what to do.