Civil War of Harmony

by SC_Orion

Chapter 10

I looked around the table, confirming everypony was here. I went through my mental list, 'Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Captain Light, and Sergeant Bolt.' "Okay Rarity, what have you heard?" I asked. Rarity had been keeping tabs on Princess Celestia through her contacts in Canterlot, and gossip. Most of the gossip she had heard proved pointless, however, occasionally she would hear something useful.

Rarity began, "Princess Celestia suffered two devastating defeats in one day. General Maneuver lost a battle at Stalliongrad, and Princess Luna herself attacked Princess Celestia. They fought each other in combat. Princess Celestia... Lost." she paused to let it sink in.

I frowned, losing two battles in one day was not a good start for her... Princess Luna on the other hoof... "Please continue."

Rarity cleared her throat, "Both of them took pretty big blows to their armies. Princess Celestia's soldiers... Took the bigger hit." Rarity grimaced.

I turned my head to look at Captain Light, "Captain? What are your thoughts on this development?"

The captain furrowed his brow, he looked to be thinking over the information. After a few seconds he responded, "I'm... Not surprised at the outcome of the two battles. Princess Luna took more veteran soldiers with her, and she has more military experience... It will take both of them time to recover from this. I don't believe Princess Celestia will be making any moves anytime soon... Princess Luna on the other hoof may choose to press her advantage."

I nodded at him, "Thank you, captain." I turned to Rarity, "You can go now, unless you want to stay."

"I am rather busy today, darling. I'm afraid I'll have to take my leave of this meeting." Rarity smiled weakly, "Military stuff isn't my... Cup of tea, shall we say."

I nodded at her in understanding, "Of course, Rarity." I turned to Applejack, "And what are your thoughts, Applejack?"

Applejack responded flatly, "I'm not really sure why I'm here."

"To give me advice." I answered with a smile.

Applejack seemed to think for a moment, "Well, I have to agree that I don't think Princess Celestia will be doing anything soon. Personally, I would wait before I did anything, to see what they do next."

I nodded my head as I thought it over, "Sergeant," I turned towards him, "How is the training of... My army... Coming along?"

"It's progressing, they could fight now if needed, but they're still fairly fresh. I would advise waiting before making any aggressive moves." he answered.

I thought for a moment, "Okay, I don't think it would be wise to attack with an army that can't fight...." I thought for a moment, "We need some kind of advantage, or more trained ponies, or something."

"You could... Contact another nation and try to convince them to help you, for one. Another option is to try to get support from more cities. Cloudsdale is currently within our territory and has yet to declare any allegiance. Or you could always try to convince more guards to defect, Celestia's forces would be at low morale currently from their defeats."

All things considered, I had quite a few options, so no pressure to do something stupid. Contacting another nation would be risky, and could start to spread the conflict beyond Equestria's borders. I mentally crossed that option out. Getting support from more cities sounded viable, and Cloudsdale did have the Wonderbolts and their militia, both of which were decently sized and well trained fighting forces... Convincing them would be risky, but definitely worthwhile. Convincing a sizable portion of Celestia's forces to defect would be very risky, and would probably make both Princesses take notice of me... Not to mention even if they have low morale, they were still quite loyal. I would hold this option in reserve.

Looks like only one option is currently viable then, "Captain, any idea of what I would need to do to get Cloudsdale on my side?"

"No, Princess. You could probably pay them a visit and discuss it with them, I doubt they would attack you. I don't think they would be stupid enough to try something like that."

I smiled solemnly, "You're forgetting they could succeed if they tried to kill me."

He waited a moment before replying, "You could... Take a few pegasi guards with you. It might make them treat you with more hostility, but it could also help improve your image as a viable leader."

I nodded my head, "I think it would be worth the risk... But I need to wait a while before doing something like that, I'm still not at full power from..." I trailed off, he already knew. Bringing it up again would... Yeah, I'm not bringing it up again. "Sergeant Bolt, if you could assemble a team of three pegasi and have them on standby, I would appreciate that." Captain Light gave me a certain look of concern, "Rainbow Dash will accompany me also. She's a well-known pegasus, having her with me should increase my chances of success." That seemed to appease the captain.

"Alright, I think that's all." I stood from my chair, I dismissed them with a slight nod. The assembled ponies rose to their hooves and left, going about their business. Rainbow Dash and Applejack stayed behind. Rainbow Dash would be following me around, but I had no idea what Applejack wanted.

Applejack approached me, "You sure you can handle something like that, Twilight?"

I smiled, "I'll be fine."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" Applejack asked.

"Don't you have to take care of your farm?"

"Well, I talked it over with the rest of my family. And with the help you're giving us, we can hire some helpers. That frees me up, and I was thinking-"

I cut her off, "If you're going to try to convince me to let you fight-"

She answered forcefully, "Twilight, I'm a strong earth pony. I know how to fight. We've taken down how many bad guys together before?"

I sighed, "Fine." I shook my head, "Next thing I know, It'll be Fluttershy wanting to be a soldier with the way things are going." Applejack chuckled and Rainbow snickered at my poor joke. I smiled too. 'It seems that the lack of nightmares has improved my mood a lot. I'll have to thank Princess Luna sometime...' I frowned.

Stalliongrad was a war zone. The only other way to describe it would be absolute chaos. 'Even Discord was never this bad.' I clenched my jaw as I walked through the debris littering the street. At the end of the street, a collapsed building blocked the road. "I know for a fact that building was neither there, nor looked like that prior to the battle. Find out who was responsible for this destruction. I will see to it personally they will not cause this much damage ever again." The anger and coldness of my voice helped to affirm I demanded immediate attention to my order.

The guard flanking me to my right stuttered as he answered, "Y-yes, Princess."

I heard his hoofsteps as he galloped off to start gathering information for the report. I looked towards the sky, smoke still clouded the otherwise clear sky. Despite the battle having taken place days earlier, cleanup had yet to begin. Rebuilding would take him. I started walking forwards once more. I cleared a path through the debris of the collapsed building that was blocking the street. Crushed beneath one of the large stones was a stallion clad in armor that looked like the night sky. A unicorn, by the looks of it. He couldn't of been much older than Twilight...

Yet another death to add to the growing count my sister has. I grimaced as I thought about my own count. We both had blood on our hooves now.

I lifted the mangled corpse with my magic and gently laid him to the side, and continued trekking through the collapsed building. The building was formerly a watchtower. Emphasis on 'was'. Walking through the debris was difficult, small debris strewn across the floor. It would be easy to loose one's footing and break a leg or hoof.

I paused when I reached the wall on the other side, it was somehow still intact, despite the force of a collapsing stone tower impacting the ground, and barrage of spells that must have hit the tower. I lifted a hoof and placed it on the cold stone wall, admiring the magic that must have been used to shape and fuse the rocks together into a massive slab of rock for supporting the tower. I returned my hoof to the floor and lit my horn. With precision, I channeled a beam of magic into the stone wall and cut a large circular hole into it. I took the cut out in my magic and set it aside.

The scene on the other side was no different from the one I had come from. Houses, ponies homes... They were destroyed everywhere. I swallowed back bile growing in my throat, while at the same time thanking my foresight to evacuate the ponies that had lived here. There wasn't much left for them to return to now however...

It was better than the alternative.

The refugees from the city... An entire city's worth of refugees... They were now being housed in Vanhoover until we could rebuild Stalliongrad. Under normal conditions, rebuilding would take weeks to a few months. War, however, was not a normal condition. Most labor and materials would be needed by fighting sides for military purposes. It could take months to rebuild, if not years if the war lasted that long.

Of course the damage was only this bad because we had fought and won the battle. Had we left the city to General Maneuver's forces, none of the destruction from the battle would have happened. My soldiers fought hard, forcing the other side to bleed for every inch of the city they took, and then my forces bled them while they were pushed out of the city. The price of victory was heavy, but the cost of defeat would have been worse.

It had been over a thousand years since I had last seen war. It had not changed much since then. The only real differences were soldiers were now far more lethal, healing magic had progressed farther, and advances in material sciences and magics. Sure, buildings were stronger. Sure, we could heal a lot of injuries.

But unicorns had grown significantly more powerful, magically speaking in the past thousand years. They had rendered chemical explosives obsolete with devastating new spells that required more magic than most unicorns of old could be trained to wield. Of course, in the ancient times there were more unicorns that had unmatched powers, such as King Sombra. He could go head to head with an alicorn, and win. He defeated the first crystal princess after all...

Anymore, however, it seemed that the magic had been dispersed more evenly, there were far less higher unicorns now, and they didn't have as much of a comparative advantage compared to normal unicorn soldiers now. However, some of them were stronger than the most powerful unicorns of old...

Still, King Sombra had only defeated a relatively weak and young alicorn, while me and my sister have had thousands of years to increase our magical power... We would have defeated Sombra with ease, if he hadn't-

"Princess!"

I looked over to see a guard approaching me, he bowed in respect before speaking...

"I don't think Captain..." Rainbow trailed off from my glare as I held a crystal in my magic.

"I know what I'm doing this time, it won't drain my magic like the last time I did this." Rainbow didn't reply, I held my stare for a few seconds before returning to the crystal I held. I looked over at the pile of varying other crystals I had. The pile contained varying crystals ranging from emerald, topaz, sapphire, ruby, and many others. They also varied in size from something Rarity could use to something as large as my hoof.

The crystals and gems in the pile were raw, unlike the crystal I held in my magic. That crystal was the crystal I had made a few days ago, it glowed faintly with a warm, light pink light from within. I had been experimenting with storing raw magic and spells within crystals. From my experiments so far, there was something special about the design of the crystal. Not just having no impurities, either. The simple design of the six pointed star resembling the Element of Magic seemed to have an affect. It was curious.

I put the crystal down, and prepared to cast a spell to process the pile of gems into another crystal identical to the one I had previously created. This time, instead of having to design the spell as I went, I had created the spell before and made it as efficient as I could. It wasn't as draining as it had been the last time. After a second, I released the spell at the pile. I opened my eyes and watched as the magic lifted the pile of gems into the air and then turned it into a cloud of gaseous matter. A few seconds passed before I could see the start of a new crystal forming.

"Wow..." I turned to see Rainbow looking at the suspended cloud of matter, her mouth agape. Her pupils were nearly as large as her entire eye was.

I looked back to the cloud of matter, I could see the crystal starting to increase it's growth rate. Soon the center of the gem was complete, and six points started to grow out of it. The glow of magic died down, and I took the new crystal in my magic and levitated it beside the other crystal. They were identical. At least they appeared to be, to me. They should be identical, down to every single molecule.

I looked back over towards the new pile of unused material, it had formed into a single crystal, it was multicolored from multiple types of crystals being seemingly randomly fused together. The crystal was larger than my hoof, and a quick scan with magic revealed it was rich with varying valuable mineral leftovers, byproducts from the spell.

"That... Was awesome." Rainbow's words seemed quite fitting for describing what I had just done, despite being somewhat unrefined.

"It was nothing, really..." I was humble, despite the fact that I knew this was not just 'nothing'. I levitated a quill and paper over, I wrote down some information about the process on the paper and then teleported the items away.

"So what are you going to call them?"

I looked at Rainbow with confusion, "Huh?"

"The crystals, what are you going to call them?"

"Well, I hadn't thought about it any. I don't think they really need names." Truthfully, I was planning on creating as many of these as I could. Who knew what studying them could provide. Granted, the first two... Maybe I should name them.

"Of course they need names, that was awesome enough that they have to have names!"

I thought for a moment, no names were forthcoming. "I'll have to keep it in mind I guess." Rainbow sighed.

"So what are you going to do now?" Rainbow fidgeted on her hooves. It seemed despite the 'awesome' display of magic earlier, she was getting bored.

"Well, I charged the first crystal with magic, and I'm wanting to see what would happen if I charge the second one with dark magic. The-"

Rainbow interrupted, "Wait, are you sure that's such a good idea, Twilight?"

"I'm afraid I won't know until I try it." Yes, it was risky. Dangerous even. I frowned, "Rainbow, can you exit the room for a bit? This might be dangerous."

Rainbow spoke with skepticism, "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Rainbow stood still for a few seconds before slowly walking out of the room. I closed the door with my magic and sealed the room. I turned my attention back to the new crystal. The pink star looked so innocent... I almost felt bad for tainting it with dark magic.

Almost.

I lit my horn, and began channeling dark magic. Once I had enough dark magic, I shot it at the star. The dark magic coursed over the surface of the star, immediately it looked lifeless, possessing a dull grey-blue shade. As I poured more magic into the crystal, I could see it's heard beginning to pulse and glow with a inner darkness. A few more seconds, and I had pumped the same amount of dark magic into the crystal as I had magic into the first.

I waited a few seconds with a barrier spell readied, waiting for the inevitable backlash of what I had done.

Nothing happened.

I scanned the crystal with my magic, it was holding it as well as the first one held normal magic, and with no ill effects currently. My eyes gazed at the heart of the crystal. It looked so lifeless and bleak now. Almost as if I had taken the life from the crystal...

I unsealed the room with my magic and opened the door. Rainbow wearily walked back inside, "Is it safe?"

"Yes." I answered.

There was a flash of light, and a popping sound from behind me.

"Discord!?" Twilight and Rainbow shouted in unison.

I smiled at the two ponies, "Oh! Hello there, Princess Twilight. And would you look there, her bodyguard!" I slithered through space and curled around Twilight's neck. She looked unnerved by my actions, "Fancy seeing you two here!"

"I live here." Twilight deadpanned.

"Ah, yes, well. I knew that...." I trailed off as I caught sight of two crystals sitting on a table. Both of them looked to be identical size, the only noticeable difference... Their color. I frowned. A quick check revealed the two crystals to be identical. Something like that should be... Impossible. Well, with the exception of chaos magic of course. I snapped my talons and the two crystals were floating in front of Twilight.

"Discord! Be careful with those!"

"I'm impressed, Twilight. Hmm..." I lifted a paw to my beard and stroked it, "I find myself wondering, what use could you have for these?"

"Why are you even here?" Rainbow asked.

"Oh. I can sense magical disturbances. Remember?" I waved my talon dismissingly towards her.

"I don't know why you would have sensed this... I was just filling this crystal with dark magic."

I pulled my head back and considered her words. I snapped my talon and reappeared in a flash of light standing next to Twilight. "Hmm. Be careful with these." I snapped my talon and put the two crystals back on the table, while teleporting myself back to my previous location at the same time.

"Discord," Queen Chrysalis hissed, "I believe it's your turn."

I snapped my talons and my cards re-appeared in my paw and I laid back into my new, much more comfortable chair. I looked at my cards, all were jokers. I lifted a paw to my eyes and made sunglasses appear, I promptly threw them off. "Fold."

Lord Tirek smiled, "All in."

"That was... Weird." I noted.

"It's Discord." Rainbow deadpanned. I frowned.

I pondered his words as I walked back over to the table. the two crystals sat beside each other. One glowing with a inner pink light, the other seemed to radiate an absence of light. It was... Fascinating. "I will need to see what I can do with these crystals..." I looked over at the clock, "Uh... Sometime."

"I said you were taking forever." Rainbow commented.

"I'm not late... Yet." I lit my horn and teleported Rainbow and I to my training session with Sergeant Bolt. We both reappeared in a flash of light, Sergeant Bolt looked slightly startled by our sudden appearance. "Sorry." I apologized.

"Princess." he greeted. "You seem to have forgot your armor."

I lit my horn and teleported my armor onto myself. A rather difficult task, but nothing I couldn't handle.

He nodded to himself, "I have something special planned for today. Private Dash, if you would be so kind as to help me."

Rainbow walked over to him. He pulled her off to the side, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. After a few seconds of hushed whispers and nodding, Rainbow turned around grinning.

"You're going to take us both on. At the same time."

I grimaced and let my wings fall from my sides.