Civil War of Harmony

by SC_Orion

Chapter 23

Twilight Sparkle

I pushed open the door and strode into the room as professionally and with as much regality as I could. Immediately, everypony in the room stood at attention as I entered. I gave a courteous nod to them and walked with purpose to my chair and then sat down. The chair I sat in at the head of the conference table really wasn't very comfortable, and I struggled to find a comfortable position. 'I should replace this thing.' I told myself. Rainbow Dash walked behind me and took her position on my right side. In reality, she probably should have been to my left so she could protect me better, but this was more symbolic. After I rested my hooves on the armrests, everypony who stood at my arrival calmly sat down. "What do we have?" I asked.

Spitfire sat up a little straighter, proudly displaying her dark blue uniform, decorated with stars on her shoulders and bars on her chest. She wore the uniform with a more pride now, or maybe it was just me. "A lot of good news, and some bad news, Princess." Spitfire started. She looked back at a pony standing off to the side and nodded at him.

Almost immediately the pony strode forward and went around the table, handing out manila folders. Each time she deposited a folder, she was met with either a 'thank you' or a nod of approval. I nodded and took the folder in my magic and parted it open to browse its contents. 'This is going to be a long meeting...' I thought glumly as I realized the massive stack of paper that had somehow been fit inside the folder without making it appear as massive as it really was. I frowned as I closed the folder and then opened it again. 'I swear this thing's enchanted...'

"I'll start us off with a brief overview of our military preparedness," Spitfire said, drawing my attention back to her. She looked around the table and met everypony's eyes before looking back at me. "Since Princess Twilight led a rescue mission into Princess Celestia's terriroty, I think it's time we get down to business," she was met with a murmer of agreement, and I was curious about where it was going. "As of yesterday, we have twelve thousand five hundred and thirty-seven combat ready soldiers... Some more combat ready than others..." she shook her head. "As you are all well aware, the bulk of our forces are pegasi and the best of the best. Our strategic analysis suggests we can easily achieve complete air supremacy, despite being outnumbered. But, we have to make a few adjustments and modernize to achieve that. It's been centuries since the last major conflict Equestria has been, and since then we've enjoyed a state of relative peace and prosperity." Spitfire paused to sort through a few files and then picked one up with a wing. "Page three," she said.

I quickly pulled out the requested file and skimmed over the information. I scowled at it. 'Celestia...'

I looked back at Spitfire. She waited until the sounds of pages turning ceased before continuing, "The Wonderbolts and Wonderbolts Reserve can outmatch the combined pegasi forces of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, even with being outnumbered two to one. But, we cannot match ground strength with them. Control of Cloudsdale and the bulk of Equestria's weather resources gives us several options and force multiplier tools. While they may help, they aren't enough to win the war when Princess Celestia's forces possess enough unicorns to make any offensive weather front a suicide mission."

"So we should rule out using the weather?" I asked. The more I heard from the meeting, the more I started to realize I really needed to get a strategy down to win the war. As of right then, I couldn't go on any major offensives. The only thing I might've been capable of doing was attempting to capture Princess Celestia or Princess Luna, neither mission would probably end well for myself, however.

Spitfire shook her head, "No, Princess. It will be useful for defensive tactics. However, the weather factory is capable of producing bottled lightning. It wouldn't take much to convert bottled lightning into military grade weapons, but it wouldn't be all that effective."

"Maybe we can improve on it..." I suggested. "The lab should be running by next week. I'm sure the scientists can figure something out."

Spitfire nodded in agreement. "Even still, it wouldn't be enough. Unicorns would be able to take down pegasi close enough to the ground to pose a threat. Dropping them from high altitudes where they are out of range would be too inaccurate unless they were carrying hundreds of bottles."

I frowned in thought. That was quite the problem, and when I pictured a pegasus carrying that many bottles of lightning I almost snickered. It sounded like something out of a cheesy comedy movie. I sighed and shook my head, nothing was coming to mind.

"Our main problem is not having enough ground support. Earth ponies aren't exactly a threat to pegasi, but unicorns are deadly." Spitfire continued.

"And Princess Celestia's army is mostly unicorns..." I trailed off with a scowl.

Spitfire nodded, then looked back around before pulling out another document. "Page seven," she said firmly. I flipped through the documents and pulled out the page numbered seven. After a few seconds, the sounds of paper ceased and Spitfire continued. "I believe the best strategy we can use as of right now is to double down on our advantage of air supremacy. Military-grade cloudcrete. Inexpensive, strong, capable of supporting non-pegasi, and easy enough to move."

I went over the paper with the information on it. I hesitated when I reached the suggestion box, and then read alongside Spitfire speaking, "Building fortresses in the sky out of cloudcrete on its own isn't going to help much. It'll give us better control of areas, but it's not exactly going to win the war."

I reread a section and felt a smile tug on my lips. I looked back up at Spitfire, who met my gaze. "You want to turn them into weapons platforms." I could barely hide my excitement and contain myself. As it was, I bit my lip to hold back my smile. Spitfire nodded. It was a good idea, but it had problems. I sighed internally. "We don't have that kind of capability," I said evenly.

"Not now," Spitfire nodded. "But your crystal program has the potential to enable us to turn the fortresses into mobile weapons platforms."

I frowned. For a few seconds until I saw what she meant. I smiled and nodded. "The simplest way would involve high power magimagnets. You want to build magic accelerator cannons."

Spitfire shrugged, barely containing her smile. "I don't know the science behind it. That's Fleetfoot's specialty. But yes, it would allow us to at least partially match unicorn firepower."

I nodded, my mind was already racing with ideas. I wouldn't admit it, but I hadn't even considered what she had suggested. It was so simple, so obvious. 'I'm not militarily inclined,' I reasoned. I nodded again and met Spitfire's gaze, "Alright, from there we could potentially solve the delivery of bottled lightning... What else do we have?"

"Military-grade explosives. Chemical and magical. We don't exactly have a lot of industrial infrastructures, which we can make up for partially with the weather, but we have the raw resources to build explosives," Spitfire said evenly. "It would take some doing, but we could use accelerator cannons to fire them at a great distance."

I pursed my lips and squinted. "Explosives are dangerous..." I immediately winced. 'This is war, come on focus... Sacrifices have to be made!' "Err... Expensive?"

"Page fifteen," Spitfire said casually. Once more, we all flipped through our folders until we reached page fifteen. "Princess Celestia's special operations forces utilize explosives and chemical weapons, but only rarely. Why this is, and why they aren't in use for the main military force, I have no idea. Using explosives could really even the odds, but once again, we run into the problem of not being able to deliver them both accurately and safely. Also notable, Princess Luna seems to be ignoring artillery, for the time being. And while Princess Celestia has some artillery, she has not fielded it at all according to our information, she has instead relied on her unicorn forces. Princess Luna is at a disadvantage in terms of unicorn firepower, and she may realize this and field artillery to compensate, but we have no indications she's currently working on this problem. Next page."

I put page fifteen down and pulled out page sixteen. I felt a shiver run down my spine and I licked my lips. "We have limited experience in using rocket technology, and most of the time it's blown up in our faces. Literally. However, if we could perfect the technology, we would have a significant-"

"And expensive," I added.

Spitfire frowned at me, "-advantage." She paused and shifted her weight. "Rocketry could potentially allow us to have long-range artillery, which would easily outmatch anything any nation on Equis can field. Equestria hasn't exactly had much experience with artillery warfare. We've always had an ample supply of unicorns, but we don't have access to the forces for that." She paused and looked around the table once more.

"This has been very... enlightening, General," I said. "I need to go over this." I pursed my lips and skimmed through the page numbers. 'That's a lot of information to go over...' I nodded and looked back up. "With the research lab coming online soon, we have ample opportunity to explore these options." I was very eager to see what some of the best minds we had would say about the suggestions Spitfire and Fleetfoot had. The meeting also pointed out that I needed to improve my strategy skills. A lot. I had practiced fighting and led a mission, but it wasn't anywhere near the scale of what I needed to pull off. I made a mental note to thank Spitfire deeply for all the hard work, time, and effort she put into helping me.

"If I may cut in, Princess?" Lieutenant Soarin looked at me, almost pleadingly. I nodded at him, granting him permission to speak. "Right... I feel I need to point out something important to consider. Pegasi generally don't use weapons. Not for lack of wanting to, but finding a weapon to work for us is... difficult. Blades attached to our front hooves are often the only weapon you'll see us use, aside from ceremonial weaponry. That said, Princess Celestia never really invested a lot into weaponry for pegasi. Our tactics more than made up for it, but times are changing. We don't have ground forces to back us up, and we need to be as competitive and lethal on the ground as in the air. There was a point in time when we used lances, but it never really took off. Mounting them onto our bodies under our wings worked but they were unwieldy and difficult to use in the air."

I mulled over what he said. I knew for a while I'd eventually be faced with this problem. The easiest and most obvious solution was to start handing our hoof blades like he said, but a problem with that was they'd still be vulnerable on the ground against earth ponies. Earth ponies were the strongest of the three pony subspecies. Excluding alicorns, of course. And unicorns were the weakest physically. Pegasi were somewhere between them, but very agile. Pegasi engaging earth ponies from the ground were bound to have problems. 'I either need a way to make my pegasi capable of matching-'

My train of thought was derailed when the door to the room was thrown open, and a panting pegasus jumped inside. "What is the meaning of this, soldier?" Spitfire asked in a less than pleasant voice.

"G-General I um..." he stuttered. He looked around the room and then stopped when his gaze fell on me. "Princess!" I stood up as he ran over to me. He bowed deeply when he came to a stop in front of me.

"What is it?" I asked quickly. His demeanor raised a red flag in my mind.

He quickly rose from the bow and bit his lip. His eyes darted around the room, and I saw a bead of sweat fall down his forehead. "U-um... One of the diamond dogs reported that the crystal mine in the Everfree Forest was under attack... b-by an ur-ursa maj-major."

I clenched my jaw tightly. 'I must be hearing things...' "Can you please repeat that?" I asked. 'I would have sworn he said ursa major...' That was silly, though, there were only a handful of ursa majors in the world. The likelihood of one being in the Everfree... Forest... 'Oh...'

"One of the diamond dogs said there was an ursa major attacking the Everfree crystal mine!" he repeated.

I bit my lip and held my breath for a few seconds. Everypony was very quiet, and all of them were looking at me. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Alright... I..." I froze. 'No, it's not an ursa major. That's... not very likely...' Okay, it was possible that it could have been an ursa major. But it was much more likely it was just an ursa minor. I had taken care of one of those before. I wasn't even an alicorn then! 'Alright, I can do this...' "I'll... take care of it myself..." I said. I certainly didn't want to deal with an ursa major, which it wasn't, but I could handle it. I glanced around the room and felt my hoof touch the crystal in my regalia. I looked down and frowned. I didn't remember lifting my hoof, but I was certainly glad I had my regalia, it would be good to have just in case.

I lowered my hoof to the floor and looked around the room once more. I heard Rainbow calmly walk to my side. "Right well..." I trailed off. "I," I forced myself to sound confident, "will be back. I can read the transcript of the meeting later, please continue. If anything important comes up, General, please inform me as soon as possible." Spitfire saluted. I quickly walked over to the door and strode out into the hallway, followed by Rainbow Dash. I bit my lip and looked at her. I waited until the door closed before speaking, "You should stay here, it'll be dangerous."

Rainbow looked at me incredulously. Which, I should have seen coming. She probably took my suggestion as an insult. "You're kidding, right? Let you go into danger alone? Without help? Yeah. Not happening."

I smiled sheepishly. "I can handle it myself..." 'Probably at least.'

Rainbow groaned, "Tw... Princess, It's my job to protect you."

'We're wasting time...' I grimaced at the thought. "Alright fine. Let's go."

---

'That's an ursa major.' I noted as I saw the top of its head over the tree line. It was easy to tell it was a major and not a minor. The color was wrong, for one, being purple instead of blue. Oh, and the biggest clue was the size. "That's an ursa major," I stated aloud.

Rainbow nudged my shoulder, "Come on Princess, you got this!" she assured.

"That's an ursa major," I repeated, still watching it from the safe distance of not even in the forest. It lifted one of its massive paws and swatted at a speck. 'Wait, that was probably a pegasus!' I felt a twinge of pain and fear in my chest, but I still didn't move. I violently shook my head, 'Get a hold of yourself! Lives... and my economy... are at stake!' I took a deep breath and relit my horn. "Let's go," I said as calmly as possible. It was almost a squeak. I flared my wings out and beat them, propelling myself into the sky. Soon Rainbow's wingbeats joined mine, and we flew above the forest towards the massive creature. I shivered at how fast the creature's apparent size grew. It easily dwarfed the ursa minor by a factor of at least three.

I had to concentrate on my wings and flying otherwise, I would have turned around and flown away. I forced myself to keep going even when I realized the creature was sitting in the pit mine. The bulk of the ursa's body was hidden beneath the ground, and I could almost feel the blood draining away from my face. I found myself regretting not finding Fluttershy and bringing her along. Sort of. If she couldn't reason with the thing, she'd be in danger very quickly.

I looked to my side to make sure Rainbow was still flying beside me. I smiled, she was. I looked back forwards and the smile left my face. 'Alright... kicking an ursa major's flank... right... piece of cake... I wonder if Celestia would be impressed or proud of me...' I pushed the thought aside and banked right, away from Rainbow. 'In retrospect, I probably should have put on my armor. Though it wouldn't offer much protection, if any. It would have slowed me down... Maybe it's a good thing I didn't wear it...'

The ursa roared and I pressed my hooves firmly against my ears. Sure enough, there were about... eight pegasi attacking the ursa. They weren't doing much but antagonizing it, granted antagonize it enough and it might go away, althought it was unlikely. I prepared a spell in my mind and then dove at the ursa's back. I fired the spell, and a brilliant lavender pillar of light erupted from my horn and firmly collided with the ursa's back. The crack of the impact, followed by the roar from the ursa was disorentating. I barely avoided the ursa's paw, and immediately my heart rate doubled, if not tripled.

"Princess!" a nearby pegasus called. I didn't recognize his voice, but I quickly turned towards him. "It's good to see you! I don't think we could have handled it on our own!"

I grimaced at that. 'Probably not...' "Where did it come from!?" I called back.

"We don't-"

"Look out!" another pegasus called. The first pegasus fell into a dive and barely avoided getting hit by the massive paw of the ursa. The turbulence left in its wake caused him to tumble uncontrollably for a few seconds. I bit my lip in fear, but fought through it and grabbed him in my magic and pulled him closer to me.

"Th-thank you, Princess..." he said in a quivering, uneasy voice.

I nodded. "You and your team should go back to Ponyville... I'll handle this..."

"Pr-Princess?"

"That's an order," I clarified firmly. He looked at me fearfully. He hesitated a few seconds before turning around and issueing an order to retreat. I kept an eye on the ursa while the pegasi flew higher into the sky and headed off towards Ponyville.

"So what's the plan?" Rainbow asked from my right.

I quickly glanced at her and then looked back on the ursa. It had uprooted a tree and was using it as a toothpick. I didn't want to know why it was, and I shivered at the thought. "I... have no idea."

"You... can do this, right?" Rainbow asked, a hint of fear seeping into her normally assured voice.

"Um... maaaaybe?" I replied. I felt bad for not being able to reassure her. "I mean... it's not like there's a spell designed specifically to deal with..." I paused, trying to come up with the proper word to describe the situation: an ursa major sitting in an open pit mine. I finally settled on "This." I looked at her and shrugged. She looked at me blankly. "What? It's not like there's many unicorns who have the magic to create high tier spells to deal with this sort of thing..."

"Can't you use... other spells then?"

I nodded. "Yes. I can. But it's not as efficient as it could be. I'll have to seriously overcharge anything I throw at..." I paused, 'what gender are you?' "Her? And overcharging spells suffers from diminishing returns, so... I hope you didn't have any plans for tonight."

"Uhm... no. Not really," Rainbow replied at length.

"Good," I said. I turned back to look at the ursa. I felt another shiver run down my spine. 'That thing could crush me on without even... trying.' I tilted my head to the side and took a deep breath. I met Rainbow's gaze, "I feel like doing some research. Want to help me?"

"Um..." She didn't really answer, but the look on her face said she was disturbed by what I could possibly mean by that. I toned down my smile, and that seemed to put her at ease.

"Right." I looked towards the ground, searching for something that with enough mass and density to serve my purpose. I flew a little closer to the ground and looked over a nearby tree. It was an oak tree and a large one at that. It wasn't very straight, but it could work. I grasped the tree with my magic and uprooted it. I squinted as I looked over every detail of the tree. I violently shook it until all the dirt fell off of the roots, and then I flew back into the sky towards a slack-jawed Rainbow Dash. "What?"

Rainbow closed her jaw and said nothing. I shrugged and pushed it aside. I looked at the tree and focused on it intently. I went through the processes and formed a barrier around the tree, and compressed it as much as I could. Every megajoule of magic I put into the tree caused it to compress further. Eventually, I felt beads of sweat rolling down my face from the effort of compressing the tree into an object the size of a needle. I looked down at my regalia's crystal and smiled a wry, solemn smile, disappointed at how much magic it was taking to enact my plan. I looked back at the tree needle. 'Treedle?' I took a deep breath to calm down. It took a lot out of me to compress the tree to that level of density, and maintaining the barrier around it for the next part was going to be a challenge.

I slowly started to apply heat the needle. The wood started to char, turning into charcoal and then heated up to the point where it would combust. If it had access to oxygen, which it didn't. I applied more heat energy to the needle and more magic to the barrier surrounding it, then I carefully flew behind it and lined it up with the base of the ursa's neck, where I assumed the backbone would be. 'Please work...' I did not want to imagine it failing. I had no idea if it would work, but physics said it would. As to whether or not it would be lethal to the ursa...

Ursas were resistant to magic. Ursa majors even more so than minors, to the point of being almost impervious to magic. Combined with a lack of spells designed to use alicorn levels of magic, and diminishing returns for low tier spells, it was a good thing ursa majors were so rare, because taking one down was difficult. 'Not difficult... impossible. Nowhere in recorded history has anypony actually... killed... an ursa major...' I shivered at the thought but I didn't let it distract me.

I channeled more magic into the needle and accelerated it towards the ursa. The needle flew towards the ursa at a rate that put Rainbow Dash to shame, but it took quite a bit of effort on my part. I panted heavily from the effort, 'When this is over, I'm taking the day off,' I promised myself. Sure, the needle was tiny, but it had the mass of an entire tree in it. And I had accelerated it to speeds faster than Rainbow Dash performing the Sonic Rainboom. I quickly lost sight of the needle as it blended in with the ursa's... coat? I frowned, we really didn't know much about ursas, so I couldn't properly describe it.

The ursa was thrown to the ground from the impact and it's paw flew to the back of its head, grasping at the point where the needle hit. Its roar was more fierce and in pain than anything I had heard before, and my heart felt heavy. The creature struggled to stand on three paws for a few seconds before using both of her front paws in an attempt to claw out the needle to no success. The needle when it hit would have buried itself deep into the ursa's neck, and the barrier surrounding it would have collapsed. With the source of compression lost and the amount of heat in the needle, it would have expanded rapidly, and possibly explode, among other things...

'Never do that again...' I told myself. It was far too taxing to be practical, but it was a good exercise for me. 'I definitely pushed my limits there...' I thought while suppressing the urge to yawn.

I frowned as the ursa's coat started turning black and dull, lifeless. Its attempts to claw the projectile out of its neck doubled in intensity but looked sluggish and inaccurate at the same time. Eventually, her paws fell to the ground, and I felt a grimace tug at my lips as pink and blue flames erupted from the back of its neck.

I felt pity for it. Minutes passed in solemn silence as Rainbow and I watched the ursa's body fade. The fire continued to rage on, wisps of magical energy continued to be burnt off and evaporate into the air, returning to the forest, or perhaps being captured by nearby crystals. We watched it burn for a good ten minutes before it disappeared completely.

"Huh... That was easy," Rainbow commented.

I looked down at my regalia, more specifically, the crystal it held. I felt an ache in my heart, seeing the once bright pink gem now completely drained of magic. "Not really..." I trailed off with a yawn.

"You doing okay?" Rainbow asked as she flew over to me and put a hoof on my shoulder.

I nodded. "Yes... That just took a lot out of me... Okay, most of what I had..." I hated to admit it, but it was the truth, and she deserved to know. It would take weeks to recharge my regalia... 'Do I even have that kind of time?' I doubted it, and I felt a knot growing in the back of my throat. It was a familiar sensation, fear.

"You don't look okay..." Rainbow's uneasy voice drew my attention back to her.

"Let's just... get back to the castle..." I mumbled.

Author's Note:

So Twilight just took down an ursa major, what's next?

Feedback is, as always, appreciated, and I would like to take this time to thank everyone for their support in writing this, whether it be writing a comment, liking the story, or just reading it. I really appreciate it. I know wait times for a new chapter can be painful, and I hope none of you find the wait times for new chapters in this painful. I try to keep a reasonable schedule and balance my life with writing, which I thoroughly enjoy. I'm also working on a few other stories while working on this one, and that eats into my time also, but I am close to finishing one! Although I have a sequel to one of my stories coming out soon...

Until next time, best wishes from SC_Orion! Does that sound awkward? Is "best wishes from me!" preferred?

Special thanks to Skydrake for prereading and feedback! (No I am not just copy pasting this, I am taking the time to write it out.)

Comments

[Tarlek]

Great chapter, was really interesting seeing Twilight's solution to dealing with the Ursa major.