How to be Cruel

by Erisn

Chapter 8b: Terrible War

Fluttershy was hovering over the map of the Everfree Forest when the first casualty was carried in. She froze, one hoof holding a small carved changeling figurine and the other a red flag to indicate victories won as four mice carried a crow in on a stretcher.

He was missing one of his wings. Bone poked through his skin, but Fluttershy’s eyes were drawn to his face. Part of his beak was cracked, the rest missing. He had been pecking something, so hard that his beak had shattered. The crow lay motionless as the mice laid him down, but Fluttershy could see his body trembling as small droplets of blood oozed from his wound.

The mice left, and Fluttershy alighted on the floor. She stepped towards the crow, already thinking of the bandaging, rehabilitation, and artificial beak that would have to be made to help him recover, but her path was suddenly blocked.

A stream of other mice flooded around the crow, holding an assortment of medical instruments. Bandages, scissors, cotton balls, even an extra-strong bottle of Sweet Apple Cider that was really more alcohol than cider. They surrounded the crow in an instant, carefully wrapping his injuries while they dosed him liberally with the alcohol.

One of the mice held the crow’s remaining wing and chittered to him in a soft, soothing tone while they worked. In minutes, they had the crow whisked away to a low-hanging suspended from Fluttershy’s ceiling where the crow could sleep, and the mice were logging his details on a clipboard propped up against one wall. They were efficient, meticulous, and caring, and for good reason. They had been trained by an expert, and they gave just as good care to their patients as Fluttershy herself. They made her feel as useless as dirt.

Fluttershy’s head turned as the door opened, as another patient was brought in. This time it was a beaver missing his tail, and it took two other beavers and several squirrels to carry him in on the stretcher. Then another patient, a blue jay as brought in, and then a sparrow hawk. And then the door opened wide, and the injured flooded into the room.

Fluttershy watched as her medical teams sprang into action, the larger animals tending to their kind while the smaller rodents and birds helped the ones they could manage. She didn’t step in, although there was now no lack of patients and a distinct limit to the medical help available. Instead, Fluttershy grabbed a passing squirrel as he ran for more bandages.

“Find me someone who can talk. Now.”

The squirrel darted away into the mass of bodies as Fluttershy watched her staff try to deal with the sudden influx. They knew the principles of emergency work from her, and she had learned it from Twilight’s books. The most badly wounded were tended to first, while those in less dire need were given alcohol and left to wait. Those who were too close to death were left alone, in order to maximize the chances of saving someone else.

It was a traditional medical practice used in war called the triage, but the problem was, there were far too many seriously injured and not enough lightly wounded for the technique to work. Even as Fluttershy watched, she could see the injured slowly slipping away no matter how fast the animals worked.

The squirrel returned with another rabbit missing the tip of one ear to find Fluttershy tying a knot in the tourniquet she had fashioned for a squirrel. She turned to her next patient, caught sight of the rabbit and motioned him forwards with one hoof as she gently picked up a robin and examined the bones poking through his left side.

“Report,” she said crisply.

Fluttershy half-listened as the rabbit talked, pressing bandages to flesh, tying knots, and holding the dying in her hooves. Only when he reached the part where the second changeling group appeared did Fluttershy put down the bandage she was holding and turn to the rabbit.

“They came out of the trees behind the first group, Swift Foot? You’re sure it wasn’t just another scout group that appeared by mistake?”

Swift Foot shook his head vigorously. The second changeling party hadn’t even hesitated, but charged the animal line before they could react. The animals had tried to overwhelm them, but the changelings had only fought for a few minutes before they had withdrawn, with half their number down but having decimated the animal group. Reinforcements had then arrived, but too late, as the remaining changelings fled back towards their camp.

“Impossible.” Fluttershy whispered this time. She turned to Swift Foot. “Can you still move?”

Swift Foot saluted in reply.

“Good. Then, run to Angel and have him pass the world to every group: fall back. Get out of their ambush spots and await further orders. Somehow Chrysalis is predicting where we’ll strike. I need to reassign everyone, so only engage changelings when you have four times their number, and preferably, have Harry with you. Got that?”

Swift Foot nodded, and true to his name, was out of the cottage in a flash. Fluttershy turned and slowly walked back to her map. She stared at all the carefully arranged pieces representing different ambush groups and then swept them all to the floor with one hoof. Mice squeaked in alarm as the pieces hit the floor.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Fluttershy bent and picked up one of the pieces a mouse held up for her. She moved to place it back on the map, but hesitated. First her hoof hovered over a pond, but then she shifted to a clump of trees. The mice retrieved the other pieces, but Fluttershy made no move to pick them up. Instead she stared at the map, slowly shifting from place to place without ever setting the piece down. Beads of sweat started to trickle down her forehead.

A sharp rapping at Fluttershy’s door jolted her out of her reverie, and into panic. She looked up. The sun was lower in the sky for some reason, but the sea of wounded animals were still there. But the knocking had come from outside, and no animal would have knocked on the cottage door.

Fluttershy looked at the map and figurines in front of her, to the wounded and bleeding animals, and then the rest of the cottage, which was lined wall-to-wall with all the stolen weapons, medical equipment and other misappropriated goods. She took all this in in one moment of agony, and then ran for the door.

----

Rarity was just about to try the handle when she was nearly thrown off her hooves by Fluttershy as the pegasus crashed through the door before slamming it shut.

“Fluttershy!” The pegasus had to catch Rarity before she fell over. “My goodness!” Rarity continued when she had gotten her breath back. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Oh, nothing much.” Fluttershy edged back so the door was right behind her. “I’m uh, just in a bit of a hurry, that’s all. Lots to do and all that.”

“Surely not so bad that we can’t stop to have a cup of tea?” Rarity asked wistfully. “It’s been so long since we had a conversation last, and you know, everypony else is really missing you. It seems all you do is stay in your cottage, and while I personally have no objections to the company of animals – for a while at least – I do wish you’d think of your pony friends.”

“Uh, I’m so sorry Rarity.” Fluttershy edged back to cover the door handle. “It’s just been a bit hectic up here, what with some spring cleaning and redecorating. I’ve…been thinking of repainting the cottage, to tell the truth."

“Oh? What color?”

“Green. But uh, the paint’s too acidic and tarnishes the wood. So that’s a real problem. Anyways, the inside is just horrendous right now. Too much red…paint. Clashing colors. I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to stand it.”

“Ugh, yes. Green and red together?” Rarity shuddered. “You’re quite right and quite considerate of my sensibilities, Fluttershy. I suppose tea will have to wait for another day.”

“Absolutely, I can’t wait.” Fluttershy agreed. “I’d love to chat sometime…later.”

“Well, while we’re on that topic, the real reason I came here was just to ask whether we’re still on for our weekly spa get-together later this week. I know we always do it, but I hadn’t seen you this week, and so I was just wondering…”

“What? Oh, the spa!” Fluttershy raised her voice as a crow inside started shrieking loudly. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Yes, I’ll be sure to be there. I’m quite, quite busy at the moment, but I’ll be sure to let you know it something unavoidable comes up. Which I’m sure it won’t. Because I love the spa.”

“Yes.” Rarity gave Fluttershy’s door an odd glance and took a step back. “Well, it seems like you’re swamped with work, so I won’t keep you. Are you perhaps tending to some baby birds in there? They sound quite distressed.”

“They’re a bit unhappy, but it’s not their fault.” Fluttershy winced as the crow’s shriek cut off midway with a croaking gasp. “There’s been a bit of trouble, but I’m dealing with it.”

“Oh, one of the animals is getting hard to manage? Really, there’s no need to let them carry on so, Fluttershy. You just need to be a bit firm like I am with Opal and everything smoothes itself out wonderfully.”

“Of course,” Fluttershy smiled again. “You and Opal always get along so well. But I intend to be quite firm with my troublemaker. Don’t you worry, Rarity. I’ll see you at the spa, then!”

Fluttershy waited until Rarity was well away before she opened the door to her cottage. She had to hold it open for a while, because the mice had to carry the crow’s body out as well as another robin. Fluttershy watched them leave with her head bowed before stepping back inside.

Swift Hoof had slipped in the cottage while Fluttershy had been talking to Rarity. He reported that all the ambush groups had indeed pulled back, and that Angel organizing them into larger teams as well.

“Good. We’ll only set up ambushes when we’re sure there are no other changelings lying in wait. If they do get closer, we’ll hit them with overwhelming numbers.”

Fluttershy forced a smile, but it slipped away like mist. One of her hoofs began to tap unconsciously on the table.

“Tell Harry that I want him on patrol all day. We’ll have more reserve squads ready for tonight, but I think today’s not going to be a quiet one.”

----

Two more changeling groups entered the forest that day. One walked into another ambush and was routed with no casualties, but the second had a squad of four changelings flying where the animals couldn’t see them. They fell on the ambush group from behind and would have completely slaughtered them all were it not for Harry, who led a reinforcement group and caught the changeling warriors in a pincer.

The changelings were crushed, but at the cost of twice their number in animal deaths. Two changelings got away in the resulting chaos, while the animals withdrew further in the forest to tend to the injured and the dead.

The next day, five changeling parties entered the forest and withdrew only after sustaining heavy casualties. Animal deaths for the day exceeded a hundred.

----

“Again?” Chrysalis looked up from her map and scowled at the squad commander, but without any real rancor this time. She had initially rewarded any bad news with death for the commander, but after repeated failures and a subsequent lack of officer changelings, she had given up the practice.

The squad commander nodded nervously. Another fifteen changelings had been forced to retreat back to the camp, but the real tragedy was that they had been thirty when they’d set out. A combination of traps and hit-and-run strikes had whittled down their numbers, and while they thought they’d killed some of the enemy, there were as ever no bodies or any evidence of their success.

“You were sure it was just animals this time, right?” The changeling leader nodded again and Chrysalis thumped one hoof on the table in disgust. “Blast. I thought you’d run into ponies for sure, but whoever’s leading this force won’t commit to any real battle. If it’s a large group, it’s just attack with animals and run, but if it’s a smaller group, they’re wiped out in one go. And if a large group tries to make it deep into the forest…”

The changeling commander winced, along with every other changeling in the war tent. That had been tried twice, with groups of sixty and then eighty changelings. They’d been wiped out completely, with no signs of how successful they’d been, nor who the enemy was. For all Chrysalis knew, they might have done well, but she was in no mood to waste troops she didn’t have. These engagements were already costing her too many changelings when she needed most of them for her conquest of Canterlot.

“Well, grab any changelings not on duty and send two thirty-changeling parties into the forest this time at the same time. But have scout groups of five sent ahead of them, and send fliers to keep in constant contact. You’ll be heading into newer territory – try go to around the waterfall area this time.”

The squad commander nodded and saluted. The remaining changelings from his squad formed up behind him as he turned to go.

“No, wait.” Chrysalis held up one hoof and the changeling froze. She studied the map carefully. “Go around that point and mount a pincer attack around the waterfall. There’s probably a cave in there, and enemy forces will be waiting to ambush you.”

The changeling captain nodded and led his squad out. Chrysalis sat back and smiled.

“Another mistake,” she said, addressing the map of the Everfree forest. “A spot like that is perfect for an ambush, so that’s exactly what you’ll do. This mystery general is quite intelligent, but she doesn’t know how to play mind games. She’ll always take the move that seems most advantageous, which makes it easy to counter her. Whoever this pony is, she’s book-smart but experience-poor. I rather think it is Twilight Sparkle, trying to outsmart me. Well, she may be Celestia’s favorite pupil, but she’s only a novice when it comes to war.”

Chrysalis gestured with one hoof and one of her advisors ran up with what had been a beaver’s leg. Food was hard to get for some reason, and most of the animals seemed to be in hiding. Chrysalis tore off a strip of raw flesh and chomped contentedly as she surveyed the map.

“And if it doesn’t work this time, I’ll try again and again,” she whispered to herself. “You’re making mistakes, whomever you are. It’s only a matter of time before you make a really big one, and then I’ll strike.”

----

Sixteen changelings spread out through the Everfree forest, scattered at intervals among the trees. They moved at a slow but steady pace, testing the ground in front of them and watching all around for signs of movement. One of the leading changelings raised a hoof and the entire group halted as one as the changeling investigated.

Two minutes later, the tripwire connected to the plank of wood with nails hammered into it was disabled, and the changelings advanced once more. This was the eighth trap they’d disarmed in the last hour, and the frequency of traps and their deadliness was increasing. This was the farthest any scouting party had penetrated, and the changelings knew that Ponyville was a little over five kilometers away. If they could just bypass this last area…

Something crashed into the leading changeling and left only a smear on one of the trees. The changelings reacted at once and charged the mysterious attacker. They paused only for a second when they saw it was a bear, but then jumped at him, tearing and biting from all sides.

Harry slashed left and right with his claws, cutting changeling armor to ribbons and the changelings themselves into pieces, or simply hurled them away with enough force to break their bodies into pieces. But the changelings were quick, and they attacked in groups so he couldn’t get them all. When he turned to cover his left, the changeling would attack on the right.

The silence of the Everfree had been broken by the changeling’s shrieks, and Harry’s roars of rage and pain. But silence flowed back now as the crashing and poundings of battle slowly died away.

A changeling stumbled out of the trees. He was missing one of his wings and his chitin was badly cracked and oozing blood. He seemed slightly dizzy, but still in relatively good shape.

A bear burst out of the trees behind him, and the changeling took off like a firework. The bear lumbered forwards a few steps, but slowed even as the changeling raced away. The bear was covered in green blood and black fragments of chitin, but there was red mixed in with the green.

Slowly, Harry sank to the forest floor and remained there even when the animal patrol group found him. He didn’t move even when they loaded him onto the makeshift stretcher, nor when they slowly dragged him along the forest, an effort that took nearly every able animal in Fluttershy’s army. He didn’t twitch. He barely even breathed.

----

Despair.

It was a word Fluttreshy had never understood before. An unknown concept. An abstract idea. She had known many emotions over her life. Fear. Disappointment. Anger. Guilt. Sorrow. Hatred. She thought she knew them all.

But now a stronger emotion gripped her and dragged her down into the pits of hell. Its name was despair, and it was all around her.

Animals lined the walls of Fluttershy’s cottage. They lay propped up with pillows, or in small beds. This wasn’t the tidy field hospital that had been there a few days earlier, however. The animals were everywhere, not just the few injured but almost every one sporting some kind of wound. The lucky ones were merely cut or nursing broken bones. Many had lost limbs, and some would never fly or walk again.

A team of mice held one blue jay down as it tried to move, holding a compress against where it’s wing had been. Already the pad of cloth was stained red with blood, but the blue jay’s blood was only a drop in the sea of injuries that filled Fluttershy’s house. Red was everywhere, and the screams and moaning of the wounded filled the air.

Fluttershy stood to one side, head against the wall. In front of her was a map on a desk, covered with small pins and flags to illustrate the changeling movements. Fluttershy stared at the map blankly for a while and then violently swept it off her desk. The team of medical mice ducked as they went back for another resupply of bandages. No one of the other animals said a word, but all avoided looking at Fluttershy as she put her head in her hooves.

Angel hopped up, accompanied by two squirrels who held up a tray with a glass of water and some alfalfa on it. Angel indicated through gestures and verbal scolding that Fluttershy should eat something now, since she hadn’t had any breakfast. Fluttershy ignored him and didn’t touch either food or drink as the squirrels carefully placed it on her desk. Angel waited in front of her, patiently, but Fluttershy’s gaze was unfocused as she stared at the far wall.

“She’s going to win, Angel.” Fluttershy spoke to the empty air above the rabbit’s head. “She’s still got over four hundred changelings with her. At least. And she’s not gone into battle herself yet. She once took down Celestia in a duel unaided, and we’re down to only a hundred animals. Those of us that aren’t dead or injured have fled or are hiding in their homes.”

Angel hesitated, and then hopped closer and gently kicked Fluttershy on one hoof. When she blearily looked down at him, he pointed to himself, to her, and then to the wounded animals. He thought for a moment, and then drew a “2” on the floor. Then he mimed boxing, shadow fighting an invisible enemy with lots of energy. Angel looked up hopefully, but Fluttershy’s face didn’t change.

“We don’t have two days, Angel,” she said quietly. “Even if we could hold out that long, we can’t expect everyone to keep fighting. Most will need another week at least, and some…some won’t walk or fly again, let alone fight.” Fluttershy gave a hollow laugh. “I’m sorry. I know it’s terrible, but even though so many of my friends are terribly wounded, all I can think of is how we’ll repel the next assault.”

Her gaze went back to the map of the forest and her voice dropped ever further. “Because if I don’t figure out a way to stop Chrysalis, there will be no one left at all. There has to be a way. But, but…”

Angel looked up at Fluttershy, and saw she saw crying. Her body shook as tears rolled down her cheeks, but not from sadness. The map crumpled as Fluttershy pounded a hoof down.

“She’s a better strategist than me! Whatever traps I come up with works only once, and then the changelings never fall for them again. She sets up ambushes for my ambushes and she’s been increasing the frequency and size of her attacks. Whenever I try to outmaneuver her, she hits harder. Whenever I try to strike back, she’s there with twice the strength I have.”

She turned eyes full of helpless frustration to Angel. “How long has it been? One month? It feels like years. We did so well at first, but we started losing ground after a few weeks, and we’ve kept losing ever since. Even though Chrysalis outmaneuvered us, we still managed to score a lot of draws, and kill hundreds of changelings. But it doesn’t work. She’s still got a massive army and we’re…we’re finished. There’s no one left who can fight.”

Angel tried to say or do something, but all of his encouragements, all his false reassurances had fallen away at Fluttershy’s words. She had said it.

They had lost.

The cottage door burst open, and a sparrow hawk darted in screeching in alarm. Fluttershy looked up, listened intently, and then sprang up with a cry.

“Harry’s down!?”

At once, the other animals in the room looked up, even the wounded, and every eye was suddenly fixed on the sparrow hawk. It twittered as fast as it could, explaining.

“If you have him on a stretcher, you’ve already bandaged him, right?”

The sparrow hawk explained that the mice were trying as they dragged him, but he was just too big, and he was covered in changeling blood besides.

“Take all our medical gear and any on-duty medical staff you can and get out there. When he gets here, I’ll tend to him personally.”

The sparrow hawk bobbed it’s head once and flew out the door, pursued by a small army of mice and squirrels carrying medical equipment. Rather to Angel’s surprise. Fluttershy sat down at her small desk again. She stared at the map, and slowly removed the carving of the bear from its positon on the map.

“Without Harry, we’ve only got enough for one, maybe two squads.” Fluttershy said slowly. “Not enough to do more than hold off the changelings for another day, if that.” She stared at the map again. “It’s over.”

Angel held his breath as Fluttershy slowly swept the remaining pieces off the map. “Tell the ambush groups to fall back to our final ambush point, and arm whatever traps we have left. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Twilight and talk to her. But I need to tend to Harry now. Changeling blood is toxic in those quantities, and we need to flush his system.”

Fluttershy slowly got up from her desk and walked towards the door of her cottage. She turned, once, to look back at Angel. He saw the tears in her eyes, but they didn’t fall.

“I’m sorry, Angel. I failed.”

And then she opened the door and ran out, leaving Angel among the dead and dying animals.

----

That night, a large changing force nearly made it to the edge of the forest, but was hit by traps and an ambush party let by rabbit. Casualties were devastating on the animal side, but not a single changeling escaped.

----

Chrysalis stared at a wall and said nothing. The changelings around her said nothing as well. There was not much any of them could say.

One month. That was the issue. Six hundred changelings, give or take. That was another part of the issue. The changeling army had never been stopped, never known defeat under Chrysalis’s command. But they had been stopped, and suffered as many defeats as victories, all by a force they couldn’t see in this forest on the outskirts of Equestria.

At last Chrysalis stirred herself. “What did you say the war party ran into? A bear?”

The changeling advisors in the tent conferred briefly voiced confirmation.

“And it killed how many?”

More muttered discussion, before the number fifteen was tentatively offered.

Chrysalis closed her eyes. “Fifteen. By one bear. And we don’t even know if we got it, do we?”

The changelings trembled in fear, but Chrysalis didn’t seem inclined to one of her infamously lethal outburst. Instead, she just went back to staring at the wall of the tent. The advisors traded looks. They had never seen their queen like this.

“Who,” Chrysalis whispered at last, “is she?” The changelings around Chrysalis stirred, but remained silent.

“Suicide attacks, ambushes at night, traps that impale changelings on spikes and burying the fallen so we can’t even find how many we’ve killed…this isn’t how ponies fight. No Equestrian commander in the world would come up with these tactics.”

Chrysalis suddenly began to pace back and forth, slowly, and then feverishly as she looked at the map of the Everfree.

“What was that last trap our scout group ran into? Squirrels dropping pots of burning oil and an ambush party hiding inside a tree trunk? That’s madness. And genius. If we had a commander half that brilliant here, I wouldn’t need to take charge of our war strategy.”

Chrysalis turned to glare at her advisors. As one, they flinched.

“Regardless, she’s still given ground to us. She’s made it hard going, but it’s clear that whatever force is hidden in the forest, it’s not nearly as strong as ours. We still don’t know the enemy numbers, but we’ve managed to nearly break through the forest several times. We must have them on the edge.”

This was true, but the statement didn’t bring much cheer to the changelings in the tent. ‘Nearly’ was the same as ‘not quite’, which was equal to failure in Chrysalis’s private lexicon. Besides which, despite their gaining the upper hand, none of the changelings would have called their current situation anything like a victory. They’d fought and lost blood for every step they’d gained, and the cost alone had been six tenths of their army. But Chrysalis wasn’t’ done yet. She continued to pace back and forth, but now her mind wasn’t on their losses, but something else.

“This isn’t Twilight Sparkle. I know her, both from our interactions in Canterlot and from popular rumor. She’s a bookworm, an academic. She doesn’t have the apples to fight like this, nor the ruthlessness needed to set those traps and conduct such a bloody war. But if not her, then who? Celestia? Bah. None of the princesses would abandon their posts for so long, which only leaves the commander of the Wonderbolts or the head of the Canterlot Guard. But Shining Armor doesn’t have half the military genius of this pony, and the Wonderbolt’s leader is only good at aerial tactics. So then who is it?”

Chryalis turned and regarded the map of the Everfree. It was now covered in red flags to mark battles taken place, and markers indicating pitfalls, traps both sprung and unsprung, potential ambush sites. She looked at all of it carefully, and then turned back to her changeling advisors.

“Knowledge of the forest, some kind of link with the animals, superior strategic skill and the ruthlessness to do whatever’s necessary to achieve victory…frankly, I’m forced to only one conclusion as to who our mysterious general is.”

The changelings held their breath as Chrysalis slowly picked up an unused figurine and put it on the map on the opposite side.

“Zecora. All our reports indicated that she was just an alchemist zebra from across the ocean. But what better way to conceal her true nature? She’s a strategist, probably one of the best among her people. It was quite clever of Celestia to bring her in under that guise. This Zecora might not have been able to take action during my invasion of Canterlot, but she’s clearly been sent to stop us here.”

The changelings murdered at this, but none of them voiced an objection of Chrysalis’s declaration. Chrysalis continued pacing back and forth, still thinking out loud.

“But why then haven’t we been attacked in force if this Zecora knows we’re here? It’s been one month, and yet there’s been no counterattack from Canterlot. Celestia wouldn’t have remained idle this entire time. Therefore, it’s a sure bet that what we’ve been facing has been the Canterlot Guard. Their so-called army is a small force of less than two hundred ponies, which we’d normally overwhelm in an instant. But under this Zecora’s command, she’s managed to draw a stalemate by using the animals as supplementary fighters. She hides the bodies of the ponies so we don’t know who are true enemy is, but she must have lost a lot over the past month if she’s using bears to support her forces. Very clever. I suppose the reason why we haven’t seen the Wonderbolts is that they’re needed to keep order throughout Equestria.”

The changeling advisors nodded at this. The Wonderbolts were useful scouts, but not much suited for forest battles, least of all prolonged engagements. Chrysalis pounded one hoof into the ground and suddenly grinned in delight.

“Hah! Celestia fears to attack us. If she fights a pitched battle here, she risks invasion from another country, and if we beat her, there’s no one left to defend Equestria. Her other sister’s useless in the daytime, and they must be worried we have another army ready to attack once their backs are turned.”

Suddenly Chrysalis stopped, and turned around to look at the map of the Everfree. She regarded it for a moment, and then a bolt of green magic leapt from her horn and struck the table the map was on.

Changelings dived to the ground as fragments of figurines and splinters of wood flew everywhere. When they dared to look up, they saw Chrysalis, standing in the center of the tent. She was no longer slumped over, but standing tall and erect. Her eyes blazed with green fire, and she vibrated with energy and bloodlust. One by one, the advisors slowly got to their feet. They knew what was coming next.

“Bring the soldiers in. All of them. We regroup tonight and we’ll attack tomorrow with the dawn. No more games, no more war of attrition. We should have done this from the start. No matter how many traps this Zecora’s laid, she doesn’t have the numbers to stop us. One full-scale attack with every changeling, enough to wipe out Ponyville and whatever remains of the army Zecora has left. This time, we’re going to burn down Ponyville and hang the corpses of Twilight Sparkle and her friends on the gates of Canterlot itself. Move out!”

----

Fluttershy held Harry’s hand as the bear writhed and twisted in agony in what had been her room. Like all the other parts of her house, it had been repurposed as another medical area, this one for animals who needed isolation or special care. And while every other space was packed to the rafters with the injured, only Harry was in this room. Partly because the other animals respected Harry and his unceasing energy and strength in fighting back changelings attacks…but mainly because no one wanted to be squashed when Harry rolled over.

“Just try and relax Harry,” Fluttershy said soothingly as the bear stifled a roar of pain. “Zecora’s medicine should work in a few minutes. Can you hold on until then?”

Harry paused, his face a mask of torment, but he nodded and loosened his muscles at last. He let out one labored sigh, but he didn’t thrash around, merely lay there, breathing heavily.

Fluttershy patted his arm. “I have to go Harry, but I’ll be back to check on your in a little bit. Just a few more minutes and the pain will be gone, okay?”

Harry nodded stiffly, and Fluttershy left, quietly closing the door behind her as she did. As the door closed, she could hear Harry stifling another roar of pain, but she pretended not to hear.

Fluttershy walked quickly down the stairwell and met Angel at the bottom. He was badly scratched up from the battle yesterday, but he was unharmed. The same could not be said for the animals around him. The already-crowded living room of Fluttershy’s home was now beyond full, and the wounded lay next to the dead.

There were no longer enough medical staff to care for the wounded, and dead now began to outnumber the living as mice scurried from patient to patient. There was little noise however; only the scratching of the mice’s feet and the occasion moan from a wounded animal. But it was silent for all that. Death brings silence with it.

Fluttershy wanted to go and help tend to the wounded, but she had something else more important to do now. She had put off her visit to Twilight as long as she could helping bandage Harry and settle him into her room, but she had no more room to escape now. Reluctantly Fluttershy bent down to tell Angel to keep order while she told Twilight everything.

A shrill birdcall shattered the deathly silence of the house and Fluttershy’s head jerked up as she stared out a window. That was the alarm call for the most dire and pressing of emergencies. Not code orange, or even code red. Code black – the panic alarm call. Normally, a bird would be at the window, but instead she only saw flashes of movement from outside.

Fluttershy burst out of the door to her home and saw furious movement, shapes of every color darting around her. Birds whirled and screamed but she could make nothing out as all of them shrieked as one. But there was more movement, from overhead.

Fluttershy looked up.

High above her, a swarm of birds of every kind circled and shrieked warnings. Fluttershy counted numbly. Over forty birds in the air. Every last scout in the Everfree had arrived and they were all shouting the same thing into the air.

Attack.

Fluttershy leapt into the air and grabbed a robin. It shrilled in alarm, but she ignored niceties, bringing the bird close to her face she said only two words: “Tell me.”

The bird told her. Fifteen changelings it had spotted as it took wing, advancing in a solid line in the forest. It had seen fifty more even as it circled to go. They were marching in-step, and advancing behind a large, large changeling with green hair. Fluttershy’s blood went cold.

Other birds volunteered the same story from different angles. Each had seen many changelings, in some kind of pyramid formation with Chrysalis at its head. They were marching from what Fluttershy had identified as the changeling’s probable base camp, and heading straight for Ponyville. In about three hours they would clear the forest.

Fluttershy landed on the ground slowly, releasing the robin who flew up with the other birds. Their birdcalls were suddenly much quieter, as if they were now separated from Fluttershy by a bubble of air. It was quite silent around Fluttershy, but she could hear a roaring, a thundering beat that seemed to fill her entire body.

Angel hopped forwards slowly, while the rest of the animals cowered in fear or stared at the sky with empty expressions. They could understand the bird’s speech as well as Fluttershy. She looked down, and saw that Angel knew what she was about to say.

“Sound the evacuation.” Fluttershy’s voice sounded dead to her own ears. “Get the wounded on stretchers, and have scouts move everyone down past Ponyville towards Canterlot.”

Angel looked at Fluttershy in confusion.

“We’re not stopping in town. They’ll need to evacuate as well. Chrysalis has too big an army to be stopped by anything short of a full-scale assault, and there aren’t enough ponies in Ponville to stop an army half that size. We need to get word to Celestia, and have her call in every pony who can fight if we want to stop Chrysalis now.”

Angel didn’t move. His eyes were huge and wide with the enormity of what Fluttershy was saying.

“Get moving Angel. We have only a few hours left!”

Angel snapped to life and screeched something at the other animals, who snapped into frenzied motion as they ran or flew shrieking back to spread the alarm. Fluttershy meanwhile looked out towards Ponyville, where she could see the rooftops of houses poking above the tree line.

“I’m going to Twilight. I need to tell her everything.”

Fluttershy took two steps and halted. She looked back, and saw Angel staring at her as the animals around her ran and scurried and screamed in fear and panic.

She ran.

----

Flutershy ran. She dashed down the sloped path leading up to her home, rounded a bend in the road towards Ponyville. And stopped.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, standing on the center of the road. “Is now a bad time?”

Fluttershy stopped. She stared at Twilight, at a loss for words. Her friend was standing in the center of the dirt road, a look of deep concern on her face.

“You’ve barely shown your face in Ponyville these last few weeks, so I thought I’d better check and see if anything’s wrong. You know you can always call on me if anything’s the matter.”

Fluttershy quivered. She opened her mouth and closed it several times. She looked at Twilight.

“Is there something the matter?” Twilight looked with concern at Fluttershy’s face. “You look very pale. Fluttershy, if you’re worried about something, please tell me.”

That was it. The gates broke down. Fluttershy felt her mouth opening, and what emerged was her voice, choked, afraid, and full of the honesty she had tucked away for so long.

“I—” Fluttershy said. “I—I wanted to talk to you Twilight. But I never had the courage. I wanted to say something the entire time, but I thought it would be a mistake. And now I…”

Twilight stepped closer. “Talk? About what?”

“You see, it all started a month ago…but I can’t tell you now. It’s too late. We need to hurry.” Fluttershy’s eyes began to glisten. “I couldn’t stop it, and now it’s too late to do anything.”

“Fluttershy?”

“Oh Twilight,” Fluttershy’s eyes were full of tears. “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“What? Why?” Twilight touched Fluttershy’s face and found she was trembling. “Fluttershy, what’s wrong?”

Tears began to fall from Fluttershy’s eyes. “It was so easy at first,” she whispered. “I thought I could do it. I thought that if nopony else was involved, only I would have to suffer. But it didn’t work.”

“What didn’t work?”

“It went perfectly at first,” Fluttershy said, “but then I started losing friends. I thought it was just my mistakes, but it wasn’t. She was too smart, too cunning. She caught me at every turn, and my friends suffered for it.”

“Fluttershy, I don’t understand.” Twilight put both hooves on Fluttershy’s shoulders. “You’re not making sense. You’re incoherent. Please tell me what’s going on?”

“They’re coming, Twilight. We have to run. Run now! It’s too late to prepare! We need to talk to Celestia, and rally the Canterlot Guard!”

“Fluttershy!” Twilight gripped her friend as hard as she dared and eventually she felt Fluttershy relax. “Calm down and explain things. Who’s coming? Why are they here? Who’s ‘she?’ This isn’t about the skunks again, is it?”

“No! No. It’s not.” Fluttershy took a deep breath. Twilight could feel her entire body shudder as she did so. “It’s just. I—Twilight, how do you beat someone who’s smarter than you are?”

“Well, I’d say that calling anyone smarter that you is just silly Fluttershy. You’re quite an intelligent pony even if you—”

“Answer the question, Twilight.”

Twilight hesitated, but the look in Fluttershy’s eye didn’t make evasion an answer. “Honestly? I don’t know the details Fluttershy, but if it really was a smarter pony, than anything you did they’d be able to beat because they’re smarter. You can’t win by playing their game, so you’d have to completely surprise them to win. Something totally unexpected.”

“Totally unexpected.” Fluttershy closed her eyes. “And it would only work once. And it would have to be big enough to take care of all of them.”

“All of who? Now look, Fluttershy. If this is some kind of problem with your animal friends, why not ask us for help? We can deal with a lot of things you can’t. For instance, if you need fashion, well, Rarity’s the one to talk to for that. I’m not going to try to lift a bookcase by myself, I’d ask Applejack for that. Pinkie Pie knows all about food, and Dash is a good weather pony even if she’s not always reliable. Remember how she put out that fire last week with a single raincloud? And of course, I know a thing or two about magic. Not to brag too much, but I’ve read every one of Starswirl’s books and—”

“Raincloud? That’s it!” Fluttershy shouted, cutting off Twilight’s monologue. “That’s the key! It can work!”

“Wait, what?” Twilight had to grip Fluttershy harder to keep her still. “What did I say? Rainclouds? What will work Fluttershy?”

“I-I have to go.” Fluttershy tried to fight her way free of Twilight’s grip. “I can still make this right. I know what I have to do now.”

Twilight tried to hold Fluttershy still, but it was hard. Twilight wasn’t the strongest of ponies, and Fluttershy was struggling with more strength that Twilight knew she had.

“Just calm down Fluttershy! Explain it all to me first. What’s going on?”

“I have to go! Please let me go, Twilight! I can still save everyone! I have a plan that will work! Even if she’s smarter than me, I can still be crueler! I can do it! I can!”

“Cruel? What are you talking about?” Twilight was nearly dragged off her hooves. She planted her legs firmly and concentrated. “Fluttershy, you’re hysterical. I’m going to have to hex you.”

“No! Don’t!”

“I’m sorry, Fluttershy. You’ll thank me when you wake up.” Twilight’s horn began to glow with purple magic. Fluttershy fought frantically, but Twilight was still stronger than her.

The magic of Twilight’s horn grew brighter and brighter until it was a searing white. Fluttershy looked in desperation into Twilight’s eyes and saw only kind concern. Twilight looked Fluttershy straight in the eye, opened her mouth, and then her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed.

Angel hopped over Twilight’s prone form and looked at Fluttershy. He had a rather large flying pan in one paw, which was also being held up by two more squirrels, five mice and three birds. He gestured and more animals came and dragged Twilight behind a bush.

For a long moment Fluttershy looked down in stunned stupefaction at Twilight as the animals carefully arranged her behind the bush, pushing as many branches in the way as possible so no passerby would see her.

Angel hopped over to stand before Fluttershy, leaving the pan on the ground. He was clearly unsure whether he would receive a scolding or praise. He had hit Twilight, the pony whom Fluttershy was going to talk to on the head with a frying pan, but on the other hand, she had been menacing Fluttershy with magic. He had acted to protect Fluttershy, but he didn’t know how Fluttershy would react.

Fluttershy knew what she was going to do. She bent down slowly, and kissed Angel on the forehead.

“Thank you, Angel.” She said as her rabbit squeaked in surprise and blushed. “You saved me. You always do.” She straightened, and looked back at the Everfree Forest. “And now, I’m going to save everyone.”

Angel looked up at Fluttershy in confusion. Her expression of fear had disappeared, and there was something else in her expression. Serenity, perhaps. Fluttershy turned back to Angel, and he saw just for an instant what looked like a smile on her face. She bent down, and looked him straight in the eye, nose to nose. She said it quietly.

“Angel, do you trust me?”

Angel didn’t hesitate. He nodded.

“Even if it sounds crazy? Even if you don’t understand what I want you to do?”

Angel paused this time, but only for a second. He nodded.

Fluttershy straightened. “Thank you, Angel. Then here’s what I want you to do. Cancel the evacuation. Gather every animal that can move and have them follow my instructions. I’ll be heading out to the Everfree and then to Ponyville, but it is essential that you finish all your tasks before Chrysalis gets through the forest. We need everything done before she reaches Ambush Point Omega – that means we have to do all of this in less than three hours, okay?

Angel nodded. He waved to the other animals and they off, racing for the cottage and the Everfree Forest. He stood tall and looked at Fluttershy, waiting for instructions. There was no doubt in his eyes, only the expectation that Fluttershy would tell him the right thing to do, a certainty that was stronger than steel. She hoped she would never let him down. Fluttershy took a deep breath.

“The first thing I need you to is get as many animals as a you can, and build a really, really deep ditch…”

Comments

[shyguy7829]

Is she really going to put them in a ditch again? That didn't work the first time...
Wait, raincloud? By Celestia's mane, she's going to drown them all?!

[terrycloth]

*strangles Fluttershy for clinging desperately to the idiot ball* *gets clonked by Angel* Stupid rabbit.

[peace corps general]

Umm...a rain cloud IS SHE GOING TO DROWN THEM?!