Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Look Out Below

Corporal Breeze crouched low once again. He was finding that coming under enemy fire was an all too common occurrence in his life, even for a guardspony. Surely this fight had to end eventually, sooner rather than later, preferably. The enemy could only throw so much at them, even with their Daemonic allies, before their resources began to run dry, or before they decided to cut their losses and not risk losing any more. There had to be a cutoff point.

But it didn't seem to have arrived just yet. From his position behind a sandbagged street barricade, Breeze could see enemy infantry pouring into the square, seemingly heedless of the heavy gunfire that greeted them and supported by several armoured vehicles that were helping them make a determined push on the friendly defences. There were shouts from both Imperial and pony troops, calling for heavy weapons to counter the oncoming vehicles, which advanced line abreast, presenting a clear target to any gunner who manned a weapon capable of breaching their armour. But those were relatively few and far between. Two pony field guns tried their best, but their best armour-piercing rounds, designed to penetrate armoured trains, airship gondolas and the hardened skin of dragons and similar creatures, could only bounce off the thick ceramite and reinforced plasteel hulls.

A human missile crew achieved greater success, smashing the turret and main cannon of one enemy tank. But the trail from their missile marked their position for the other tanks, and before they could reload, a heavy shell had gutted the whole second floor of the building in which they had set up station. Their lifeless bodies tumbled out onto the street like ragdolls. One of the tanks shattered the ornamental fountain at the centre of the square beneath its treads, firing its main gun and killing half a dozen ponies as their sandbagged barricade, much like the one Breeze found himself behind, erupted into a cloud of dust and torn sacking.

'We can't fight those things!' somepony shouted. 'We can't!'

'Pull yourself together!' somepony else snarled in reply, a sergeant or officer. 'Don't worry about their vehicles, concentrate on their infantry!'

Breeze followed the same principal; he couldn't harm the tanks, but he could kill the Chaos infantry. He had been resupplied with ammunition at the defensive line, and he had plenty of bullets for any willing customers. He took aim and fired, worked the lever, fired again. All along the line, ponies and men did the same. A lascannon struck one of the tanks, causing only minimal damage. In return, the vehicle put a shell through the window, and the lascannon's power pack detonated with a powerful thud, hurling debris across the plaza as part of the building above it came down in a cloud of masonry dust.

'Storm Shadow 5-2 to Fleet Command, requesting air support!' a human vox operator was calling, in the building behind him. 'Enemy armour in the open, east side of the plaza. Bring it in danger close!'

Air support, Breeze reasoned, would be nice to have right now. An airship was the usual method of ponies obtaining help from above, either that or Pegasi being sent to elevated positions. But these humans were talking about aircraft, fighters and bombers they called them, which dove down from the heavens to strafe a target area, showering it in ordnance that could catch their enemies completely unaware. The speed with which these aircraft moved was unmatched by anything except the Wonderbolts during one of their high-speed shows- and even they would likely find themselves unable to keep up if the aircraft really opened the throttles. After all, he reasoned, though he knew little of orbital mechanics, he did know that a huge amount of thrust and speed was necessary to launch any object into orbit, and orbit was where these aircraft apparently came from. The technology required was mind-boggling, and to fit it into such a small and sleek craft was even more so.

The human aircraft were quite a contrast to their tanks; bulky, lumbering, belching out smoke from their exhausts. In the right place at the right time, however, both could be just as devastating in their effect. The enemy tanks were pressing hard, guns blazing, striking out at multiple targets at once. As Imperial heavy weapons revealed themselves, they destroyed them systematically in turn. There were no friendly tanks in the area; there were not many in the city as a whole, as the priority had been to shuttle in infantry, under the assumption that tanks were not suited for urban warfare, especially in the narrow alleys and streets of an old city such as Canterlot. In most cases that was certainly true, as tanks would be exposed to enemy fire from all directions, above and below as well. Anti-tank grenades and melta charges, plasma bombs and heavy weapons could lie in every possible window, doorway, subway or sewer entrance, and in every pile of rubble. These enemy tanks, at least, were being well escorted by infantry to deal with such threats, and they were lucky enough to have been able to find a fairly wide plaza into which they could launch their attack, which minimised some of the risks for them.

It did not, however, protect them against air attack. If anything it made them more vulnerable to it, because it meant that they were sufficiently far from Imperial and Equestrian defensive positions that an air strike could hit them without hitting friendlies, though it would still be a near thing- danger close, as the Imperials put it.

'All units, be advised, friendly air strike in bound. Heads down!' The message was repeated through every vox set in the line and shouted in relay to the frontline units and the ponies who had no vox capabilities. Everybody ducked low, keeping their heads below the parapets or window sills. There had been plenty of aircraft wheeling overhead for the duration of the entire battle, and there had been numerous air strikes all over the city, but Breeze, at least, had not seen one quite so close as this one would be. Part of him was curious to keep watching, but they had been told to take cover for a reason. He kept his head down.

Two strike fighters swept in, Lightnings loaded with anti-tank and anti-infantry weaponry. They had been told by the air liaison that the friendly forces would be marked at the west edge of the plaza with red flares; everything to the east was fair game. Both pilots had full missile racks and ammunition belts, and they made a rapid pass, locking on to the enemy vehicles and unloading. Half a dozen missiles made short work of the tanks, pummeling them with heavy armour-piercing warheads and showering the plaza with shrapnel that rained down from the shattered hull armour. Incendiary bombs sprayed burning gel over the hordes of advancing infantry, thinning their ranks significantly in a most agonising fashion. More enemies were still advancing, and so the jets looped back for another run.

The Chaos forces were left in disarray by the first run, and in a shambles after the second. More firebombs dropped and spread flames across them, the screams filling the plaza and the ears of the defenders. The jets raced off, their task complete, the enemy attack broken. Some of their soldiers turned and fled, while others ducked into cover from the gunfire that was now erupting from the defenders once again. They had been shaken by the explosions, but the marking flares had done their job and kept the pilots' fire focused on the correct location and away from their ground troops.

Breeze peeked over the sandbags again. The plaza was awash with flames. Luckily the buildings around its perimeter were made of stone and concrete, rather than wood like much of the city, and thus there was little risk of fire taking hold and spreading through the entire district. There was no way firefighting operations, like those he had seen in action when the armoury building had been set ablaze, could possibly take place with a battle raging on.

But perhaps the battle was one step closer to being concluded. The enemy had been halted rather decisively here, and while they may still yet force a breakthrough elsewhere in the line, more Imperial reinforcements were en route to the city to help defend it. With any luck, they would arrive soon, and could be put into the line to strengthen it against any final enemy push, or against a resurgence of the Demons that were still flying from the warp rift at regular intervals. The fight certainly wasn't over yet, but Breeze felt himself able to relax a little bit as he watched the enemy survivors flee from the square, broken by the air attack and the loss of their tanks that had robbed them of their heaviest firepower. The ranks of enemy aircraft had been heavily thinned, as well, by friendly pilots flying continuous sorties over the city. The largest threat that still remained came in the form of the Daemon and the Queen, and a glance skyward told Breeze that they were still both very much active.

In fact, though they had climbed to a high altitude above the city, it seemed as though they were getting closer again. Yes, they were, definitely. They were descending, racing down toward the city once more. Breeze just hoped that they weren't on the hunt for his unit.

Twilight and her friends crouched low on the rooftop, peering out across the city. They had a decent view of much of the district, though the buildings all around prevented them from clearly seeing enemy ground forces. They could hear the gunfire, though, and being above the rooftops meant they were more able to pinpoint the direction from which it was coming. Smoke rising helped them narrow it down even more. A battle was raging all along the line, obviously, but there was heavy combat just to the east of them. That was where they had promised Shining they wouldn't go, and that was why they had stopped on this rooftop.

Overhead, they could also observe the combat between Celestia and her foes. It was true, then- that was most definitely Chrysalis up there, despite her apparent earlier demise. She was still alive. Twilight felt a mixture of fear and anger. She was supposed to be dead. Celestia had said that the humans had killed her with their huge starship-killing weaponry, but that was not the case. Either the Princess or the humans were mistaken about that, quite clearly.

Twilight was sure that Celestia would not have wilfully misled her regarding Chrysalis. The humans had seemed convinced enough as well that she was gone, so they must be experiencing the same state of surprise as she was to see the Queen returned. If she could survive the humans' most powerful weaponry, then what, exactly, was going to actually be able to stop her?

Perhaps the Daemon. They seemed to be fighting each other, as well as Celestia, though it was sometimes hard to tell due to the nature of the combat. There was plenty of teleporting into and away from the attack, appearing behind each other or above their enemies. There were beams and balls and flashes of magic being exchanged in all directions, great power being unleashed above the city. Twilight could not tell which creature had the upper hoof in the fight. It seemed to ebb and flow, with Celestia having the apparent advantage, before falling back and allowing the other two creatures to attack each other. They would do so, before one or both of them turned their attentions on the Princess. What did seem to be the one constant was that they appeared to be unable to decisively break through each other's defences. Chrysalis and Celestia had their magic shields, and the Daemon was able to block incoming attacks with its staff, which produced a similar effect to deflect or stop magic.

'How can the Princess beat both of those things at the same time?' Rainbow asked. 'I mean, I know she's the Princess, but...Chrysalis already beat her once before, and she couldn't beat her when they went to rescue you from the volcano, either. And that was with Princess Luna, too! What happened to her? Is she dead?'

'I don't know...' Twilight replied, with a small shake of her head. She couldn't believe that Luna was dead; if Chrysalis had survived her apparent destruction, then Luna could survive whatever had happened to her...couldn't she?

Then again, Chrysalis had quite clearly become much more powerful than either Luna or Celestia. That was what she had explained to Twilight when she had been imprisoned in the Hive. She would gain in strength steadily as she was able to gain more love energy from the humans as well as ponies and other creatures. That seemed to be what had happened, and that was a terrifying thought. If she had been able to gain enough power, then she might be truly unstoppable. Celestia was the most powerful magical being in Equestria, with the exception of Discord, who had seemingly absented himself from proceedings entirely. Perhaps he was trying to teach the ponies a lesson; don't rely on me to solve your problems. You need to learn to stand on your own four hooves against all kind of threats.

Or,perhaps, even Discord knew that he would be unable to help against an overpowered Chrysalis and a Daemon from another dimension. Maybe he was just being pragmatic and keeping his own skin intact. Twilight would not be surprised to learn that was the case.

'Shouldn't Princess Cadence be helping Celestia?' Rarity questioned. 'I know she is powering the shield, but...'

'She has to keep the civilians safe,' Twilight replied. 'She's the only thing standing between them and the enemy...enemies, I should say. Both the Changelings and Chaos wouldn't hesitate to massacre all the foals, mares and stallions alike. They don't care. We've all seen that many times.' Her friends nodded; they knew she was certainly right. Both the drones and the human soldiers would show no compunction in killing anypony who got in their way, the only exception being that the Changelings might decide to take at least some ponies as captives in order to feed on their love, a reliable and consistent source of the emotion so long as the prisoners were kept alive. They would certainly not be the first ponies to be taken and used in such a way down the years.

'But Celestia needs help!' Rainbow called. 'If she fails then what's to stop Chrysalis just attacking the shield and killing everypony anyway? And this Daemon thing...we don't even know anything about it! Not really. The humans won't tell us anything. It's all classified or whatever! They keep saying it's information that we shouldn't have access to, but how can anypony fight it properly if they don't know what it can do?'

'I don't know!' Twilight sighed. 'I don't know anything anymore. Only Princess Celestia knows anything about these things. She's talked to the human admiral. She's been on their ship. She just wouldn't tell me about it. I guess she figured it wouldn't make any difference anyway. Maybe there's nothing we can possibly do. Maybe she knows the Elements wouldn't work even if we could get mine back.'

'But if the Elements won't work, what makes her think that she can beat that thing herself?' Rainbow asked, watching the fight overhead with wary eyes. 'Isn't she just going to get herself killed? I mean, if she can actually die...can she die, Twilight?'

'I don't know...' Twilight had to reply, her own standard mantra in the recent days. 'I mean...I guess, if something powerful enough hits her? I've never actually asked her.'

'Well let's just hope we never have ta find out...' Applejack muttered, adjusting her hat. 'Ain't there somethin' you can do, Twilight? Can't ya help her with some spell?'

'I can't think of a spell that would help her,' she replied. 'I might just make things worse. There is no single spell that can defeat an enemy like this. Not that I know of, anyway, and I've been studying every book I could find that was packed away in the catacombs and whatever was left of the palace library. I couldn't find anything.'

'Well...ah guess we just gotta wait and see...' Applejack replied, before Rainbow gave a shout of alarm.

'Hey, they're coming down!' She pointed with a hoof. Chrysalis was indeed diving toward the city, with the Princess in hot pursuit and the Daemon almost lazily following on behind.

'Where are they heading?' Twilight questioned, looking up.

'They're coming right for us!' Rainbow warned. 'Twi, we gotta move, fast!'

Twilight leaped into action. 'Everypony gather round!' Her friend formed a cluster around her, and her horn glowed. With a flash, she teleported them off of the roof and back to the street, closer to the palace shield. She looked up again. Chrysalis had not been fooled, and she had adjusted her trajectory accordingly to track them. Her horn began to glow.

'Look out!' Applejack shouted. 'Run!'

The six Elements scattered, scrambling in all directions. There was no time for Twilight to recharge another teleport jump for them all with sufficient magical power to get them through Cadence's shield, if that was even possible. She hadn't tried to teleport through a magical barrier before, but it didn't seem like the best time to be experimenting with such things. Staying in a small cluster would be painting a target for the Queen, who now had six to choose from, whatever her intentions may have been. Her horn flashed, and Twilight, alert for the danger, teleported herself away as a blast of magic shattered the cobbles and sending up a cloud of dust. Several of her friends ducked into buildings for cover and shelter, and in the hope of causing Chrysalis to forget about them until Celestia or the Daemon took her attention away from them again in order to defend herself.

Twilight materialised on the roof of another nearby building. She had only just avoided the attack, and now having teleported twice in quick succession, she was feeling rather disoriented. Not light headed as such, but something akin to it, like something was inside her head that shouldn't be there. She tried to shake it off and looked around urgently to locate Chrysalis before she could attack her again. Twilight knew that she couldn't compete with the Queen in a fight. As powerful as her magic was for a regular unicorn, Twilight was just that; a unicorn. She was not an Alicorn and did not possess the same abilities as the Princesses, and even Celestia and Luna together had been unable to stop Chrysalis in her current state.

The Queen spotted Twilight a moment later, and turned upon her again. 'Celestia's little pet!' she snarled. 'I got what I needed from you; perhaps I should have simply killed you then and there instead of leaving you alive. But your love for your teacher was so rich in flavour!' She laughed. 'If only you could see the truth of it, Twilight Sparkle. If only you knew the reality. Should I explain it to you? Perhaps your friends already understand it, but you. You are too blinded by loyalty to see that you have been used, used since you were born!'

A blast of magic left her horn and demolished most of the building Twilight had been standing on. But again she had teleported away, just in time, much to the Queen's evident annoyance. Celestia swooped down to interfere, but Chrysalis swatted her away with a repelling field of magic. Celestia stabilised her flight and attacked in retaliation, a glowing golden blast that was absorbed by Chrysalis's shield. Again, the Daemon was content to take a back seat and watch proceedings. It was clear that Chrysalis now had a new obsession; killing Twilight instead of her real foes. Perhaps it was just to spite Celestia, or perhaps for the practical aspect that Twilight represented a potential threat if she somehow regained her Element. Either way, Chrysalis had turned her back on the Princess and the Daemon, which ordinarily would have been a costly, perhaps fatal, mistake to make.

But this was no ordinary Chrysalis any longer. She had grown far more magically powerful than any creature was ever supposed to become. The natural order had been broken. There was an upper limit of magical power, reserved for the greatest beings of Equestria; Celestia, Luna, Discord. Nothing was capable of being more powerful than they, not naturally, and while Chrysalis lacked Discord's magical peculiarities- the control over randomness that seemed to so delight Malaranth and his god- she made up for it in sheer power and strength. Even the Daemon from another dimension seemed wary of her, of the thing that it professed to have created. For it was the machinations of Chaos over the countless years that had led to this point, according to Malaranth. They had engineered everything from the start, just as they claimed to have engineered every change and every development throughout the galaxy. The only reason Chrysalis had become so powerful was because Chaos wanted to use her as a weapon against the Imperium, against the Emperor. For if no Psyker could challenge the human god, then perhaps they would have to try a subtly different approach.

Chrysalis, they had seen, had limitless potential, if only the circumstances were right. That was what Malaranth had explained to the Queen, and that was the part she had agreed with. It was the rest of his argument which had invoked her ire. That the course of her life had been manipulated from afar, even before she had been hatched. That the opportunity she had been granted had not come about by chance, and while she had seized it of her own volition, it had been placed before her for one precise reason; for someone else's ultimate gain.

That was exactly what Chrysalis now tried to tell Twilight. She, the young Miss Sparkle, had been used by Celestia, ever since she had been born, for the Princesses' own ends. The Elements had been brought together so that she could redeem her sister and reunite with her. There had been no need for Twilight's life to have been scripted for so long, no great ultimate purpose that had guided her friendship with the other Element Bearers. They had not been needed to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, for Celestia could have done that herself. Luna and the spirit which had gripped her soul had been weakened by their long imprisonment, enough that Celestia wouldn't have even needed to wield the Elements herself to defeat the Mare In The Moon. Her own magic would have sufficed.

'You do not want to hear it, Twilight Sparkle, I know that. I understand now, for it seems that we have something in common. I have been used my whole life, as well, though unlike you, I could not have possibly known that until this point in time. But you! You could have seen the truth any time, if you had only opened up your eyes and accepted that it might be possible.'

'Enough, Chrysalis!' Celestia boomed. 'You have said your piece, now face me! Your quarrel is with me, not with Twilight.'

'I know,' Chrysalis replied, with a sinister hiss. 'I was merely attempting the impossible, I suppose. You have indoctrinated your student well, Celestia. Well enough that she will never believe me, will never side with me. But even if it will not alter anything, she deserves to know the truth about you. All your citizens do, those that are still alive. Oh yes, you have done a fine job of protecting Equestria, haven't you, Princess?'

The anger in Celestia's gaze was almost coalescing into a physical presence as she stared down the Queen. 'You have said your little piece, spat your lies. Are you quite finished, Chrysalis?'

'No, but you are,' the Queen replied. Her horn flashed, and a roar rang out across the land as Celestia was suddenly struck by a tornado of magic. She rapidly threw up a shield around herself, but the protective bubble cracked, wavered, wobbled, and failed. The Princess was engulfed in green flame and then hurled bodily away, pushed by the kinetic force of Chrysalis's magic and thrown far, far across the valley. Neither magic nor her wings halted her flight, and her limp form disappeared from sight.

Twilight, standing dazed on the street below after three rapid teleports, gasped, and then screamed in agony. 'Princess Celestia! No! Please, no!'

This can't be happening.

There's no way this can be happening. Please, somepony...wake me from this dream, this nightmare!

Chrysalis stared down at her and laughed maniacally. 'That is all she deserves, Twilight Sparkle! You can still be saved. I'll offer you one single chance. Kneel, Twilight. Kneel, and swear allegiance to your Queen!'

Twilight stared up at her, aghast, shaking, broken. She could only think of one thing to say in reply.

'Go to hell!'

Chrysalis laughed again. 'So predictable. Just like your beloved Princess! So be it. You shall suffer the same fate!'

But Chrysalis had forgotten, momentarily, that the fight was not over. The Daemon, Malaranth the Infinite, was still floating above her, and it made sure she remembered that. Its staff glowed with eldritch power, and hurled a great fountain of warp energy at the Queen. It was not enough to seriously harm her; she had grown too powerful for that. But it caught her off guard, and stung her shield enough that, in her distracted state, she had not been providing it with enough magic to stay intact. Her shield popped like a balloon, and she snapped round to face the Daemon, now the only thing that stood between her and total control of the city. She was ready to destroy it, too.

Above Malaranth, however, a sickly purple and red gash was opening in the fabric of reality. Something tore its way free, and with a feral roar that rang out across the valley, it began a death plunge down onto Canterlot.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

Oopsies.

Something is seriously cheesed off.