Canterlot's Red Day
For a moment Twilight saw the leering faces of the brainwashed royal guards, the realization they saw her as helpless, as pray, struck her deeply. Even as the dark flutter of bodies blocked her vision she recalled in vivid detail Princess Celestia’s description of how she had been mistreated by her own personal guards. No ‘mistreated’ was too soft a word, Twilight was a realist if nothing else. She knew the right term was ‘rape’ and in a few moments she would be experiencing it first hoof.
The dark fluttering bodies blocking her vision, sucked out all her reserves of hope and she closed her eyes to block out the inevitable.
“Wait a second!” Twilight thought, “Fluttering? Wings! The cult doesn’t allow pegasi!?”
Opening her eyes again, this time she was able to focus on the ponies standing with their backs facing her. They weren’t as dark as she first thought, no, they each wore a bright blue body tight uniform. Five pegasi stood in battle ready poses in front of her, and another half dozen flew in low formation over their heads. She knew that uniform, she even knew a few of these pegasi by name!
“Wonderbolts!” she cried out in surprise and joy.
With a confident but serious smile the fiery maned lead pony, Spitfire looked over her shoulder at Twilight, and said with a wry voice, “At your service your highness!” Then changing to her serious command tone, “Fleetfoot, Wave Chill, escort the Princess to safety while the rest of us take out this trash!”
Spitfire jerked a wing back behind her, away from the castle, “Your darn tootin we need you! There’s another dozen trainee Wonderbolts and at least two score city guard marching up the main street! They need a leader, a general, and frankly mam, I’m a flyer and a fighter not a tactician! Get back there now and lead them! Besides I don't’ have time to keep an eye on your royal butt. Princess you don’t know our tactics and maneuvers! Once you got your breath back, if you want to blast them with your best mega magic from a safe distance, go for it! But for now, get your tail out of here!”
Twilight was about to protest again, but by this time the distance between the two fighting groups had dropped to next to nothing and there was no more time. Just to show she wasn’t beaten, she fired off a blast of repulsive magic towards the approaching Cult guards. It was just a useless gesture, as the standard anti magic charms all guards wore, was able to deflect such a weak spell. If she was going to be effective with her spell casting, Twilight would have pick out individual targets and plan her spells carefully. Now, there just wasn’t time.
Fleetfoot pulled on Twilight wing, and gestured for the Princess to follow, with a sigh, Twilight took off after the two Wonderbolts, her ears twitching at the sounds of conflict behind her.
As she was led, nearly dragged, to the end of the bridge that connected the main entrance of Canterlot Castle to the adjacent city, Twilight pulled out of Fleetfoot’s grip and yelled, “That’s far enough!” and turned to watch the conflict she left behind.
In the end close to thirty earth pony guards had ran out onto the bridge, outnumbering the Bolts by more than three to one. All the pegasi were now in the air, circling and dodging spears and blows from the guards. While the Wonderbolts had little trouble dodging the spears, they had not come equipped with any distance weapons of their own, so had to come down close to keep the guards engaged. At first Twilight didn’t think they had any weapons at all, but when Soaren did a low pass though what appeared to be a thicket of spears, and left behind just a line of neatly cut headless sticks, she realized they wore wing blades.
Not to be outdone, Spitfire followed in Soaren’s wake, diving in to a pile of the guards, and with a spinning back leg roundhouse kick she knocked two of the guards off the bride and down into the river.
A bit surprised at the pegasi Twilight wondered out loud, “I know the history but thought the modern Wonderbolts were just entertainers!”
Hearing this Fleetfoot told her, “No mam! We’re the oldest division of the UEP, all our shows are based on real combat maneuvers!”
Nodding her head, Twilight spotted a few more Cult guards canter out of the Castle’s gates holding crossbows. These would be a real problem for the Wonderbolt’s whoms uniform were for show and not armor.
Concentrating She ignited her horn and rather than targeting the soldiers bodies with their charmed armor she concentrated on the bolts, capturing each one as they were fired in a web shield spell.
The brainwashed guards looked at the floating bolts with some astonishment as that was not a common spell effect. In mass they turned to run back to cover in the castle, as it would take some time to rearm their crossbows. Twilight harried them along by poking them on the plots with their own bolts. She didn’t use enough force to create real injury though more than one cult guard would be walking funny later on.
Now that she had caught her breath and cleared her head, Twilight started planning and thinking of ways to use her magic to aid in the fight. Soon she was targeting individual guards and powering through their protection charms. One by one the number of stunned guards started to increase and the odds for the Wonderbolts were no longer so one sided.
With a smirk Twilight spotted one the enemy unicorns in the towers, and was able to easily block the fireball spell he was casting. Knocking it back in though that same window and seeding confusion in the tower. One unicorn jumped out of a window to escape the tower and landed on one of the open balconies two stories below, her tail still smoking from the flames.
Twilight would never be one to admit to enjoying a fight, but she did momentarily wished her friends from Ponyville were there, especially Rainbow Dash, as Twilight was sure the brash Pegasus would be jealous of this opportunity to fight alongside her hero’s, the Wonderbolts.
She was grinning as she imagined ways Pinkie’s Party Cannon would have come into play. The grin was plastered on her face as she thought they were winning. Unfortunately that was the moment one of the cult guards got lucky.
Fire Streak, a male Wonderbolt with similar colors as Spitfire, had flown close to the earth ponies and had to dodge a spear during his run. He succeeded in dodging it, but had to slow his flight too much, one of the guards managed to get a grip on his tail and stopped the fighting pegasus in mid air. The bolt nose crashed at speed into the ground and was instantly surrounded by angry earth pony guards. Guards in armor which included for earth ponies, weighed shoes with sharpened edges, stampers they were called, and they were deadly.
Even from her vantage point at the far side of the castle entrance bridge, Twilight was able to see in horrifying detail the splash of blood and hear the crack of crunching bone.
Her triumphant grin morphed instantly into a grimace of horror. “Nooo!’ she yelled. Up that moment the battle, while scary, had been mostly bloodless. Stunning spells, embarrassing pokes, and black eyes, but this was suddenly deadly serious.
Twilight who had seen death before, and fought many battles, shouldn’t have been stunned, but she was. She stood there mouth open and in shock for several dangerous seconds. But the guards, and Wonderbolts, whose training had been much more formal, barely reacted to the blood. That included the unicorn mages in the overlooking towers.
One of the battle mages saw Twilights stunned look and took advantage of it. He charged up his horn, levitating every piece of broken glass and shattered armor in range and started accelerating them into a deadly line. Straight towards the purple Alicorn.
Only at the last possible second Twilight noticed the magic bullets flying at her, she opened her mouth to scream. The sharp points of glass just inches from penetrating her still open eyes.
Suddenly a blue shield spell snapped into place, barely fitting in that tiny space between the terrible missiles and their target. The glass bits struck the shield at speed and like fireworks, smashed into sparkly dust which splattered away from Twilight, filling the air in front of her with splinters of glass and flickering sparkles.
It was surreal the cloud of particalized glass drifted in a half circle away from Twilight as she tried to make sense of the situation. Only when she turned to look over her shoulder and saw a small herd of the blue plated city guards gallop toward her, did she put the pieces together.
At the lead of the city guards was one royal unicorn guard, Spring Kicker and it was his horn’s glow that was casting the shield spell around Twilight. She let out a small sigh in relief. That surprise attack had been a near thing.
Before Twilight could express her gratitude, indeed before the newly arriving guards fully reached her, Spring Kicker was already calling out to Twilight. “Princess! You have to come with us!”
Twilight shook her head and turned back towards the Castle’s bridge, selecting new targets. “No! Guard Kicker! What is it with you guards, always telling me to run away! I maybe a Princess, but I’m also the strongest magic user in all of Equestria! I will not run from my duty to defend our land!”
Spring Kicker put an armored hoof on Twilights shoulder to draw her attention back. “No! your majesty! You don’t understand! The cult fighters in the castle, they’re just a feint! Most of their forces are already in the city, getting set to flank you and the Bolts!” He pointed back the way they came. “We got lucky and ran into some of their forward scouts, but by only a few minutes.”
It took Twilight only a moment to do the mental math. They had been fighting about twenty five earth ponies and at most five unicorns, and most of them holding back in the towers. The number of Cult guards should have been at least three or four times that. That meant the majority of them, including almost all of the unicorns were already out in the city streets causing who knows how much trouble.
Twilights first reaction was to charge off to wherever the Cult guards were now. Then she looked at the faces of the city guard before her, all looking for guidance and the sounds of the Wonderbolts still fighting the castle defenders.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, letting her mind have the moment it needed to think. “We can’t ignore the enemies in the castle, I want fiveteen of you…” she pointed to the ponies on her right side where there was fair mix of Earth, Unicorn and some Wonderbolt pegasi trainees. “.. to stay here and help the Spitfire finish off the Cult guards still in the Castle. If you can, secure the throne room and the lower courts. We’ll chase out the stranglers after the main force is subdued.”
Twilight let the fresh force past her trusting that Spitfire would know how to deploy them. She then motioned for the rest of the herd to follow her. Motioning for Spring Kicker to lead the way, “Quick lead me to where you saw them last!” She told the last remaining free royal guard.
Spring led them through the commercial district, dodging and weaving around abandoned carts and street debris.
“The fighting got this far?” Twilight asked.
“No, this is just from the ponies fleeing. Words quickly got out for everypony to get away from the Castle.” Spring Kicker’s voice dropped in tone, “I ran into many fleeing groups when you sent me to find the Pegasi guard captain. Ponies fleeing in panic is never a good thing. Some had already been hurt badly just due to the crush of crowds.
“What did the captain say, I’ve only seen the Wonderbolts and their trainees, are the other pegasi on their way?” Twilight asked.
“Not sure, the castle cook really did a number on the Castle Pegasi guards. They are all sick with food poison, and a few are already in the hospital. The captain was going to rally as many as he could, but he was barely moving himself. He remembered the Wonderbolts were in Canterlot for a race at the city track and gave me written orders to activate them.”
By this time, they had crossed several streets and were circling around the castle, away from the office buildings of the financial zone and more towards the warehouses of the industrial zone.
Spring slowed to a trot and motioned for their troop to slow down. “We’re getting close and I think I hear them up ahead.”
Twilight turned and gave the best instructions she could think of in whispers and told the word to be spread. “Wonderbolts! Your our air cover. Harri them but don't’ get too close. Earth Ponies, straight down the front. Stun or knock as many of them off their hoofs as possible, but don’t turn around until you find some cover. Unicorns, if you know how to cast shield spells, you’re coming with me, behind the Earth Ponies to provide cover and protection. If shield is not your strong spell, then get onto the second floor balconies around us, snipe with stun spells any enemy unicorns you see!”
The pegasus shot to the sky above them, while about a third of the unicorns ran into the adjacent buildings to look for stairs to the second floors. The rest of the magic users moved behind Twilight, so they could cast their shield spells in unison.
Spring Kicker felt he was better used to helping guide the less thoroughly trained city guards by taking point in front of the Earth Ponies. He guided them into a semi circle to protect the Unicorns both in front and on their flanks.
Once in formation, they marched forward, turning the corner as a group.
The cult guards we’re already dug in and ready.
The cultists had dragged a wagons and barrows into a pile to form a sizable blockade. It was more than three stories high and completely blocked street. They were split into two groups, the cult earth ponies about twenty five in number were in front of the blockade with wooden shields raised to protect them, while the cult unicorns making up their bulk were scattered around and behind the barrier. Their heads and horns sticking out of improvised holes, but leaving them mostly covered.
Twilight frowned. She had faced enemies of Equestria before, monsters and ponies. But these were Cult dammed guards were familiar faces, she knew the name of at least half the ponies in front of her, some of them she knew about their spouses and foals. Now she was aligned against them, and part of her knew that they couldn’t just scare them off, or allow them to escape. Her goal had to be capture them for treatment but if they can’t be safely captured. Twilight gasped as the depth of the situation suddenly struck her. Any they couldn’t capture, could not be allowed to escape … alive.
For a long moment she froze, she couldn’t do it. She was not going to be able to order the city guards forward. The two groups stood facing each other, not sure who would move first.
In the end, neither did.
A yellow bird, completely oblivious of the armored ponies facing off in the street, flew down onto the street, its little mind only intent on a juicy worm that had stuck it’s head out of a small crack in the road. It mercilessly grabbed its squirming dinner and did not notice the small stone it dislodged in its wake.
The stone rolled along the side of the street into a gutter, it hit a hole and fell a few inches.
DINK!
Then hell broke lose.
There was fire, spears and rocks in the air crossing and bouncing every which way. With a cry of pain that was truly terrible to hear, one of the earth pony city guards took a spear in his flank just inches to the left of Twilight.
In no time at all, the earth pony city guards were on the move, the cult earth ponies in front of their barrier braced themselves as they dug in their hoofs and prepared for impact.
Twilight and the other shielding unicorns ran behind them. Proving cover to the rain of stones and throwing spears that fell from the heights of the barricade. Despite their efforts stopping inbound missiles, several more ponies got serious wounds, as crushed spear shafts were kicked up exposing their poorly armored undersides to jagged pieces of wood by their passing.
Twilight tired to also shoot off some stun spells but in the wild stampede there were no single targets to shoot. All were the same, covered in clouds of dust and smoke. The increasing number of wounded ponies, screaming and spraying blood drove them forward in blind instinctive frenzy. In front of her was suddenly a bulky cult earth pony guard, his body type more like Bulk Biceps than the typical guard.
He roared a battle cry that was to her ears something as unearthly as if it was a dragons roar. She stumbled, surprised and with no more time to think, the monster pony was shadowing over her, a mountain falling in an avalanche on top of her. She tried to switch spells, charge her horn, think of something else, or yell for help.
She didn’t have time to do any of these things.
The full weight of the monster fell on Twilight, all she could do was stare at the descending shadow and cry as darkness covered her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just moments before, a lifetime earlier in the timescales of battles. Spring Kicker had led the city guard at the very point of their attack.
He didn’t have the benefits of earth pony strength, so relied on his small shield spell to knock aside the beefy earth ponies they slammed in. With a wave of his horn, he blocked or cut at a thicket of sharpened spears pointing at their approach. With a smash, spear heads went flying.
Suddenly Spring Kicker was face to face with a group of surprised cult guards holding useless spear shafts. With a kick, Spring jumped over the shocked faces and momentarily landing on their backs, leaped again and was now the first loyalist on the blockade.
Smiling Spring Kicker found himself nose to nose and horn to horn with one of the cult unicorns and blasted the surprised cultist out of her hiding spot. She tumbled down, and for the first time Spring could see what was hidden behind the large barricade.
Spring Kicker’s eyes opened in surprise and he turned back to yell “Princess Twilight! Princess!”
Looking around he didn’t see Twilight, but did see the bulky guard laying on the ground, close to the last place he saw her. “Oh no!” Spring cried, and taking advantage of the height jumped down. Landing again on the same back of the Cult guard he had leapfrogged over in the original charge. This time he hit the earth pony with enough force to knock the surprised cultist over.
Spring didn’t stop to check on his victim, but continued to leap over the heads of his own troops and stopping at the collapsed body of the bulky earth pony cult guard. To his horror he saw purple legs squashed out from under the large pony.
“No! You can’t be hurt!” Spring called.
In the mad sound of battle there should have been no way Spring could have heard the muffled groans from under the bulky pony, but somehow he did. With desperate strength he lay on his side and used all four hoofs for leverage to roll the large pony off his squashed victim.
After a tense moment, Twilight rolled out from under the shadow of the monster pony. Coughing and sputtering, but very much alive, but not unhurt.
Spring fussed over her, as blood covered her face and horn. He started ripping bandages out of his kit when Twilight stopped him.
“Not my blood!” she coughed, then looking sadly up at her horn which was undamaged but covered in gore, “That is not how I thought I would be using my horn in this battle.”
The bulky pony shifted a bit, Spring realized the cultist was still alive, but Twilight’s horn had knocked him out and done enough damage that the big guy wasn’t getting back into this battle.
Twilight spotted this and bent down to look at the fallen giant. “We have to help him! He needs a hospital!”
Spring Kicker dragged her away. “Sorry Princess, not now, he’ll have to hold out until the medics get here. We have bigger problems!” He pointed to the barricade in front of them. Most of the fighting was in groups scattered in front of, or on the forward sloping piles of rubble that made up the barrier.
Seeing where Spring was pointing Twilight asked, “What’s wrong?!”
“I got a good look behind the barricade! There a group of unicorns back there, and they're doing some complex ritual spell. It’s like nothing I’ve seen from any guard training!”
“What did you see?”
“There was a bunch of circles and polygons drawn out, with small fires smoking at the points. All in a larger circle with robed unicorns, not guards, standing in traced out patterns, casting something...and there was…” Spring Kicker paused not sure how to continue to explanation.
Twilight looked at him firmly and finished for him, “and there was a young mare or perhaps filly in the center of the circle.” She closed her eyes and asked in a voice that sounded detached and clinical but the shaking of her hoofs told the lie, “Was she dead yet? It would be a blade to the chest with the knife left in for the duration of the spell.”
“I didn’t look closely enough to tell. You know what they’re casting?” Spring Kicker asked.
“Not exactly, but none of the possibilities are good ones. We have to get there now!”
Spring looked at the barricade and thought how hard it had been to climb it the first time. “I don’t know how to teleport!”
“I do!” Twilight reminded him.
“Not by yourself!” Spring Kicker yelled back, afraid she would disappear immediately.
Twilight blinked once as she did some mental calculations. Then she nodded in agreement. “Stand next to me!”
Spring pressed against Twilight and bit his lip waiting for the port. Teleporting was too rare a skill for it to be part of normal guard training and with the exception of extraordinary unicorns and the Princesses it left most mages too drained to risk using in combat tactics. He had only one experience with teleport before. Princess Celestia had teleported all the staff out of the court on a day he had been on guard, when a smoky fire had broken out due to a knocked over catering table.
So the feeling gravity shifting and the sense of being in two places at once, wasn’t completely unfamiliar to the guard pony, but that didn’t stop him from feeling both sick and dizzy. He had to spin nearly a full three sixty on shaky legs to get his orientation back.
Twilight had landed them on the sidewalk to the side of the street behind the barricade. She gripped the guard and help him shake off the dizzy spell by pointing him in the right direction.
In front of them was the darkest magic ceremony that Spring had seen. Multitasking, even as both Twilight and Spring started galloping forward towards the magic circles, Twilight had already seen an additional complication. Ahead of them around the magic circle were robed unicorns. “Those aren't brainwashed unicorn guards! Ponies from the main force of the Cult must have joined up with them! That means there more of them that we counted on!”
There was no more time to comment, both ponies drew closer while Twilight scanned over the ceremony trying to figure out it’s purpose.
In those very short number of seconds, one of the robed cultist trotted towards the center of the circle, brandishing a silver and gold knife. The motion drew Twilight's eyes to the center of the circle and with wide eyes she saw the young filly tied up with glowing red ropes.
“No!” Twilight Screamed and without a moments additional thought, Twilight reached out with her magic and pulled at the fillies body.
The young girl pony flew up into the air, powered by the Alicorn's magic. And for a second it seemed like she was free, but the red rope she was tied to was also fastened to the ground.
Like a macabre kite, the filly floated about six feet off the ground, the knife wielding cultist reached out with a hoof and started to pull the rope back down. The glowing magic on the rope, weakening Twilight's grip and prevented the Alicorn from just breaking the rope.
Twilight paused, closed her eyes, and started tunneling more and more power into her magic, trying to free the child. Her horn started shooting sparks and flames ran along Twilights back. The cultists kept up their ceremony chanting and empowering the spell, though more than one glanced nervously at Twilight, none moved.
The power of the cultists acting together where a match for Twilight's efforts and the young filly, now clearly and loudly crying for help, was like the rope in a deadly game of tug a war. Twilight wouldn't allow the tied up pony be pulled closer to the knife wielder, but she couldn't add any more distance. They seemed stuck at an impasse.
Then Spring Kicker once again proved his namesake ability to leap, jumped into the circle.
There was a roar of anger from all the cultists, but they didn't move to stop Spring from knocking the knife welder back, and then he used his own horn to break the rope. Sparks flew and there was an eruption of magic as the red glowing rope was severed. Twilight’s magic whisking the filly into the air and set her gently on the ground behind her. An explosive rumble filled the air and the knife wielding cultists was again knocked back by the rolling magic.
Spring was in the eye of the storm of magic, seeing it whipping around him like a spinning top. He knew enough of this sort of thing to know he had better get out, and that’s what he did next. He leaped high, passing over the heads of the still chanting cultists. They gave him nasty looks but apparently feared stopping their spell more than they hated him.
Spring galloped over to Twilight and using his magic started to untie the filly while asking, “Did we stop them? Don’t they need the girl?”
“I don’t know” Twilight answered uncertain. She had put up a powerful shield between themselves and the magic circle but none of the Cultists were stopping their spell casting. “They should have given up now! The can’t complete a ritual like that without blood!”
As if in answer to Twilight, the knife wielding cultist from before, had worked his way to the center of the circle and stared at Twilight and Spring until he was certain he caught their eyes.
Then with a grim echoing yell, the cult pony took the silver knife and slashed his own throat.
Blood splashed on the ground as if it was being dumped out of buckets. For ten seconds the dying stallion stood there is some sort of person shock. Then he collapsed in the center of the circle.
With wide eyes Twilight’s deep understanding of magic gave her just a brief moment to understand what was about to happen next and she dived to the side, knocking Spring and the filly to the ground. While as the same time increasing the power and opacity of the shield spell, blocking at all light and sound.
She was just in time.
The cult spell was empowered and in a flash of incredibly bright light, a pulse of magic shot out of their circle, it smashed through the barricade like it was paper. There were cries of surprise and pain from the ponies on the barricade, but they didn’t last long.
In moments the street was clear, just the fighting cultists, who seemed unaffected by the spell remained standing. All the city guards, and wonderbolt trainees and who knows how many bystanders, were down, smoking. None were moving.
The unicorn cultists that had cast the deadly spell, were also unconscious, but their fellows put them on their backs, hooting and hollering the victory.
The cultists cheered and charged down the street. Perhaps because all the unicorns on this side of the barricade had been knocked out, none of the remaining cultists thought the extra dark shadows near the sidewalk could be anything important. Only after their cheers had started to fade down the street, did Twilight allow the shield spell to drop.
Twilight and Spring gave each other equally shocked and furious looks.
Slowly they approached the bodies of the city guard. Closeup view didn't give them any good news. Twilight started to choke up.
Spring Kicker turned to her with an angry glare. For a moment Twilight thought he was angry at her, but then with a glance she saw his anger was directed at the cultists.
“There’s no time for that!” He said firmly. “Those.. “ Spring looked down the street the way the cultists had gone. They had been co-workers, fellow royal guards, once. “Those Monsters” He declared firmly. “They are going to surround the Wonderbolts and do this to them as well if we don’t find a way to stop them. Come we have to try to do something.” Then after a pause as he suddenly remembered his manners, “Princess, please now!”
Twilight nodded, then remembering something, she turned to the little filly, “You can’t come with us. I know you’re scared, but you have to go down to the train station, find an adult and leave Canterlot, this place is no longer safe.”
With scared tears in her eyes, the little girl pony nodded to the Alicorn and stood watching as Twilight and Spring Kicker ran down the street, disappearing in a haze of smoke and war.
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3334087 When I read this I immediately thought of:
You may want to consider adding the 'Dark' tag.
heh
where is Banyan