A New Dragon in the Crystal Empire

by Vedues

Chapter 15

Spirit didn’t exactly know how to feel as he looked around. The Alliance’s troops were only specks in the distance, and the Everfree Platoon had somehow made it through the insanity without losing a single fighter, but Equestria hadn’t been nearly so lucky. The earth pony companies on the eastern side of the valley had been hit hard by all those drakes, and things up in the Sky Base had been even worse if the amount of blood dripping through the clouds was any indication.

Compounding the problem, almost all of their supplies had been destroyed in the attack. The Crystal Empire was only about a twelve hour march away, but it was looking like most of their soldiers would have to make that march on empty stomachs, and apparently the Crystal Empire was the Alliance’s control anyway.

A group of ten wyrms, Everfree’s medics, were being lowered by pegasi from the Sky Base. As soon as they landed, Bone Mender, their leader, barked, “Spirit, you’re coming with us. You too, Autumn.” He started running toward the earth pony companies without even waiting for a response.

Spirit joined with Autumn and the rest of the medics in running to keep up. “How bad were our losses up there, Bone?”

“Spirit, I’m a medic, not a mortician.” The cantankerous wyrm sounded strangely tired as he answered. “My job is to keep everyone alive. You can get someone else to write you a list of the ones that died before we could get to them.”

“Sorry.” Spirit wasn’t sure why he was apologizing, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

Bone didn’t respond, and the group remained silent until they reached the earth pony camp a few minutes later.

Army doctors were everywhere, working to stabilize wounded ponies among the debris and carnage that the battle had left in its wake. The only things that there seemed to be more of than doctors were dead or wounded soldiers. Ponies made up the majority of those as well, but here and there, Spirit saw a dragon body crumpled on the ground. He could only stare in horror at the blood and body parts scattered randomly across the area. One drake corpse still had a dead earth pony stuck in its teeth.

Nausea filled the link between Spirit and Autumn as the two of them struggled to keep from puking.

If the sight affected Bone Mender at all, he didn’t show it. “Spread out and heal anything that still has a heartbeat; I don’t care whether it’s a pony or a dragon. Now move!” He turned to Spirit and Autumn. “Spirit, link with me then get healing. Autumn, start detaching the magic batteries from your suit. They hold enough raw magic to let us heal at least fifty more wounded.”

Spirit quickly formed a link with Bone then ran to the first injured pony he saw. She was an unconscious earth pony that had lost most of one back leg.

Two unicorn doctors, one of them a white stallion and the other a dark blue mare, were frantically trying to prevent her from bleeding to death.

“Here, let me help,” Spirit said, coming up to the duo.

They looked at him for a moment, then the dark blue unicorn mare turned to her companion. “Go check on the field hospital. Tell them that a group of Everfree’s wyrms has arrived to help.”

The stallion nodded. “Yes, Doctor Artery.”

Spirit took that to mean that they were fine with accepting Everfree’s help, and knelt next to the unconscious earth pony.

“You’ll need at least tier four healing magic for that,” Bone supplied through their link. “Can you do it?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” After embracing the Stillness, Spirit created the emotions of hope, wonder, love, and joy in his heart, then imagined a sprouting seed and threw his willpower into making the spell real. His right palm began to glow in response, and he placed it over the bloody stump that had once been this pony’s back leg.

Blood flow stopped immediately, and the stump slowly began to extend, pushing Spirit’s hand back with it. The drain on his willpower made him feel a little weak, but within a minute, the earth pony mare had a whole leg once more.

“Spirit, you idiot!” Bone Mender sent. “You need to conserve your willpower. Just get them to the point that they won’t die and move on. We can worry about healing them completely later.”

Unaware of Spirit’s chastisement, the unicorn doctor stared at the restored limb in wonder. “That’s amazing.”

Spirit nodded, fighting down a combination of shame and lightheadedness. “Could you direct the eleven of us to your most critical cases? The ones that will die without our help.”

“Yes, of course.” She motioned for him to follow her. “We’re setting up a field hospital just over that way. Everypony that can be moved is being taken there.”

Spirit passed the message along to Bone and set out after the doctor.

The ‘hospital’ was more of a large tent, with rows of wounded ponies covering nearly every part of the floor. Screams of pain mixed with cries of loss, a constant background noise that all the staff had to shout over to be heard, and blood was everywhere. The smell of it filled the area, making it even more difficult to resist the urge to vomit.

The wounded had been loosely divided into three groups: ponies that could wait, ponies that needed immediate attention, and ponies that were beyond saving. That last group was quickly renamed, ‘ponies that needed healing magic to be saved.’

Spirit knelt beside the first in a long row of seemingly hopeless cases, a brown pegasus stallion with a shattered skull, a broken neck, and a missing wing. Blood from the severed wing had stained most of his back and soaked into his cream-colored mane.

Fighting down the bile in his throat, Spirit followed Bone’s advice and healed the stallion just enough that he wouldn’t die for at least a few days. Spirit washed himself quickly with a pot of near-boiling water and moved to the next pony in line, an earth stallion with multiple deep puncture wounds across his chest and stomach.

Next was a case of severely crushed legs, after that was a broken neck, then third degree burns, then more puncture wounds … The patients started blending together after a while. Maybe it was a defense mechanism. Spirit knew, for example, that he had healed at least one pony that had been disemboweled and was barely clinging to life, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what that pony had looked like.

He had a feeling that it was for the best. The patients that he could remember were already enough to ensure that he would have nightmares for the rest of his life. Nearly all of them had been crushed, sliced, burned, or mangled almost beyond recognition. Many died before he could even get to them, and the rest were all at risk of serious infection because healing magic did very little against bacteria or viruses.

Time quickly lost all meaning, but eventually ponies started saying that Celestia would be leading them somewhere safe as soon as they were able to travel.

Spirit didn’t know why, but that thought finally pushed him over the edge, and he emptied his stomach onto the ground.

Thankfully none of it got on anyone. Dragon stomach acid could dissolve diamonds.

Spitting the last of it out of his mouth, Spirit muttered, “Travel rations. Not as good the second time around.” Then he kicked some dirt over it and moved on to the next wounded soldier. His meltdown would have to wait until later; these ponies still needed him.

-_-_-_-_-_-

“… Now that you’re all cleaned up,” Rainbow Dash’s gentle voice reached Fluttershy.

Groaning softly, Fluttershy opened her eyes. At first, all she could see was the light gray canvass from their tents, but then Rainbow Dash came into view looking concerned.

“Heya, Flutters. How are you feeling?”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and pressed a hoof against her forehead. It was strangely hard and cold, but she couldn’t understand why. Her eyes also ached, like she had been using the Stare a lot recently, and her throat burned. “I-I’m okay,” she lied.

“Are you sure?” It sounded like Rainbow was leaning closer to examine her. “You had us all worried when you passed out.”

“I passed out?” Fluttershy thought back. They had been traveling north toward the Crystal Empire, then an army of dragons ambushed them and … She groaned as the pain in her head suddenly got much worse.

“Whoa, easy now.” Rainbow helped her sit up and pressed something into Fluttershy’s hoof. It was about as wide as her hoof, the same height, but less than half as thick, and made entirely out of metal. “Here, I bet you’re thirsty.”

Fluttershy opened her eyes enough to recognize the object as one of the dimensional pockets they all carried. A metal straw was sticking out of the top, though it seemed to shrink and fade from existence just before it reached the dimensional pocket itself. That was because the metal object was really just a generator for a gateway to the small pocket of space-time where everything was held. The gateway was actually a few millimeters above the device, and large enough to fit a hoof through with ease. Fluttershy knew that, but the sight had always fascinated her anyway.

She drank some of the water, swishing it around to rinse the rancid taste out of her mouth, before giving the dimensional pocket back to her friend. “Thank y-”

Rainbow Dash was wearing her battle armor. Looking at her own metal-clad hoof, Fluttershy realized that she was as well. At that moment, everything came rushing back to her. The battle. Cliff yelling at Rainbow to kill Heart Echo. The blood that had covered both of them.

She began to shake.

Rainbow dropped the pocket and grabbed onto Fluttershy’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Flutters. You’re safe now.”

Fluttershy shook her head. Things would never be ‘okay’ again. There were still flecks of blood on both of their suits. There would always be blood on their hooves. They were killers. “Help me take it off,” she begged, already reaching for the clasps around one hoof. “Please!” The first clasp was stuck.

She looked more than a little worried, but Rainbow nodded. “You have to undo the Arcsteel enchantment first, remember?”

That was right. Fluttershy tapped her forehooves together twice and got back to work. The clasps came undone easily this time, much to her relief. With Rainbow’s help, it only took a few minutes to get everything off.

Fluttershy backed away from the scattered pieces of armor until she hit the wall of the tent they were in. She hugged herself with her wings.

Rainbow moved between Fluttershy and the armor, blocking her view of it. “Do you need me to take mine off too?” she asked softly.

“… If you don’t mind.” Fluttershy looked away, noticing for the first time that the tent was completely empty except for the two of them and the pieces of armor.

Neither of them spoke as Rainbow Dash took off her suit, but there were plenty of sounds from outside, yelling, mostly. Fluttershy couldn’t pick out any one voice well enough to understand what they were saying, but they sounded angry and scared.

“There,” Rainbow said once the last piece of armor came off. “This is better, right?”

Small bloodstains covered her friend’s blue coat, but Fluttershy nodded.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, I’ll go get Cliff. He’s really worried about you.” Rainbow turned to leave. “Oh, and Twilight and Celestia are finally back. They arrived not long after the battle started.”

Thinking of Cliff made Fluttershy remember the last time she had seen him, covered in the blood of the dragons he had killed, but looking at her with warm, concerned eyes.

A brutal killer … A loving husband … Fluttershy’s head begin to ache again. She winced and pressed a hoof to her forehead. “W-would it be alright if you got Twilight instead?”

Rainbow paused at the doorway. “Are you sure?”

Fluttershy couldn’t fight the rising shame as she nodded. Just thinking about the battle, or the suits, or Cliff, made her stomach churn and her head pound. “Please?”

“Alright,” Rainbow almost whispered, “I’ll be right back, so just wait here, okay?”

Fluttershy nodded again.

After Rainbow Dash left, Fluttershy sat down to wait and did her best to avoid looking at the suit parts that were still in the tent with her. She also tried to avoid thinking about what had happened.

A few minutes later, Twilight opened the tent door and stepped inside. Her fur was damp for some reason, and her mane and tail desperately needed to be combed, but she managed a kind smile. “Good morning, Fluttershy. How are you feeling?”

Fluttershy tried to smile back, but failed. “I’m okay,” she lied again. “Is it really still morning?”

“Yes, eight seventeen, to be precise.” Twilight moved cautiously forward. “You were only unconscious for about thirty minutes.”

It wasn’t even noon yet? How? The battle felt like it had been days ago. “Are you okay, Twilight? We were all worried about you.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed me.” Twilight reached the yellow pegasus and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Shining and the others are hiding in a cave system beneath the Crystal Empire. It’s safe, but there must be some anti-magic rings between here and there, because none of Spirit’s messages got through to us, and none of our messages reached him either.” She pulled Fluttershy into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

Fluttershy hugged her back, savoring the warmth and compassion. Twilight was still Twilight, she didn’t want to kill anyone. “Were Cadance and Luna okay?”

“They will be.” Twilight sighed. “They were both unconscious and suffering from extreme magic exhaustion when we got there. I was able to use a magic battery to get them out of danger, while Celestia healed the wounded soldiers.”

Fluttershy nodded, trying not to imagine how terrifying everything must have been for poor Flurry.

“The army needs to move out soon,” Twilight said after a moment. “We’re too exposed right now.”

Fluttershy nodded unhappily. The last thing she wanted to do was go back out there and see all the death and carnage that she had helped cause, but she couldn’t put everyone at risk because of her own selfish feelings.

Twilight must have sensed her unease, because she hugged Fluttershy more firmly. “Don’t worry, the wyrms were able to provide emergency healing for all of the most badly wounded, and Celestia and I have worked out a way to move the army more quickly. Celestia knows a variant of the Cloudwalking spell that can be used on large groups. We’ll load everyone onto the Sky Base and have the pegasi push us as fast as they can. I’m sure it will be a bit cramped, but if it’s only for a few hours, we should be able to manage. I’ll just lift you and this tent up to the base when the time comes, if that’s okay. You won’t even have to look at the place where you fought.”

“If I don’t have to see it, I think I’ll be okay,” Fluttershy said quietly.

Twilight rested her head against the other mare’s neck. “Okay, that’s what we’ll do.”

“Thank you.” She finally mustered a bit of strength to hug Twilight back.

“Rainbow told me what happened after the battle.”

Fluttershy stiffened.

“Are you angry at Cliff?”

Cliff. She remembered the blood on his suit. The blood on her own suit. Death everywhere. Death that she had helped cause.

Fluttershy began to shiver. “N-no,” she gasped. “It isn’t like that. I just … I can’t think about him, or the suits, or Fire Eyes, or anything like that without remembering …” How many hatchlings did she make into orphans?

She didn’t deserve Twilight’s kindness. Fluttershy tried to pull away before she could somehow infect her friend with what she had done, but the alicorn’s hooves remained firmly around her.

“I’m so sorry for what you had to go through, Fluttershy,” Twilight whispered, “and you aren’t weak for feeling like this. Hundreds of soldiers are reacting the same way.” She squeezed her friend tight. “It’s okay to cry, if you feel like you need to.”

A low sob escaped Fluttershy’s lips. “Oh, Twilight. I killed so many …” She broke down and wept, letting all of her sorrow and despair come pouring out of her.

Twilight didn’t say anything as Fluttershy slowly cried herself out. She just held the yellow mare until her sobbing calmed and she drifted back into sleep.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Cliff was wrapped deeply in the Stillness. There were lots of things that needed to be done, and his emotions would just get in the way. He lifted another tarp-covered body into his arms and carried it into the Sky Base, which had been lowered to the ground to make things easier.

One of the advantages of a cloud building was that walls and doors could be added or removed at will. The cargo hold on the lowest floor of the base had been given several large doorways and converted into a morgue for Equestria’s fallen soldiers. The dragon bodies were being placed into a mass grave at the eastern end of camp, except for the ones that they wanted for research purposes.

The earth pony in front of Cliff placed a body in the long line of covered forms.

Cliff stepped forward after him and did likewise before returning to the pile of bodies outside and continuing with the grim work. He did wonder briefly why they hadn’t bothered to give every floor the same enchantments as the cargo hold, which let it support any creature or object, even without the Cloudwalking spell. The only thing it wouldn’t hold was liquid, which was why the hold floor wasn’t covered in blood. Idle thoughts like that were good. They kept his mind off the bigger concerns.

Eventually, all the bodies had been loaded. They took up almost all of the spare room in the cargo bay, requiring them to be stacked nearly to the ceiling in places, but at least they all fit.

While the other workers left to the upper floors to find their squad-mates, Cliff turned off the lights and sat against the wall in the small empty space near the stairs.

There was some shaking a few minutes later, which he had to assume was from the base taking off, but then everything went still and it was impossible to tell if they were moving or not.

Some light and noise came from the top of the stairs. It wasn’t much by pony standards, but it was enough to give Cliff a clear view of the seemingly endless stacks of covered bodies. Two thousand five hundred and thirty-one casualties total, from what he had overheard, most of them pegasi.

The sad part was that most of them could have been saved if healers or doctors had been able to get to them in time. One of the batteries in Cliff’s suit was still completely charged because, by the time he had finished draining the other two, everypony on the base was already either stabilized or dead.

After some amount of time, Cliff wasn’t sure how long, he noticed movement from the top of the stairs.

“There you are,” Rainbow Dash said, squinting down at him. She was wearing her armor again, unlike when she had come to Cliff earlier with some distinctly bad news. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” When he didn’t respond, she sat next to him and took her helmet off. “How are you holding up?”

He shrugged. “Fluttershy is probably going to be messed up for life after this.”

Rainbow put a hoof on his shoulder. “Hey, I know it seems really bad right now, but Fluttershy’s a lot stronger than ponies realize. She’ll pull through this.”

Cliff shook his head. “Lack of strength isn’t the problem here. Fluttershy is a caregiver. Hurting another creature is against everything she believes in and stands for, and because she’s so strong in that conviction, she will never be able to forgive herself for what she did today.” He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall. “Maybe it would be best if she can never look at me again without feeling sick. I don’t deserve to be her husband after this.”

“Don’t even say something like that,” Rainbow said. “Seriously, Cliff, you’re the best thing that ever happened to her. The Fluttershy from four years ago was too shy to sing in public, even though she’s amazing at it. She was scared of almost everything. Just doing her shopping was hard on her. Then you came along, and she started becoming more confident, more determined, and, I don’t know, happier.”

The two lapsed into silence as they looked at the bodies surrounding them.

Cliff thought back to the fear he had felt when Fluttershy passed out in the aftermath of the battle. He had worried about her all through the frantic rush to heal the wounded still on the base, but at least there had been something to keep him distracted.

Then the rush ended, and there had been nothing to do except pace and worry. Unfortunately, his worries had proven justified when Rainbow came up to him and explained that Fluttershy was awake but didn’t want to see him.

He realized he was clenching his hands tight enough to hurt.

“Cliff?” Rainbow asked after a few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“Does it bother you, all those dragons we killed today?”

He shook his head. “I guess I’m used to it. Before we learned about that unicorn memory spell, killing was pretty much all we could do to stop berserkers when our friends and family transformed.” He looked over at Rainbow Dash. Her prismatic mane was even messier than usual, and there was a deep sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there earlier. “It’s bothering you, though, isn’t it?”

Rainbow’s ears fell down against her head. “I guess a little.” She sighed. “Everyone keeps telling me how great I am for killing so many dragons, but I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that they should be looking up to me for, ya know?”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent again, each lost in their own thoughts, until a small amount of shaking announced that they had landed.

The doors to the outside opened again shortly afterwards.

Cliff winced from the sudden change in light, but got up anyway to help unload their ‘cargo.’

Rainbow silently joined him.

A body across his back, Cliff stepped out into the snow and looked around. They had entered a fairly sizable valley. He could make out the top of the Crystal Palace over the mountains to the east, though it looked a little warped through the massive illusion spell that Celestia had placed around them. He idly wondered what they looked like on the outside.

Several hundred soldiers were already on the ground, including the Everfree Platoon, and more were coming out of other doors in the Sky Base every second. They were quickly running out of room on the valley floor.

Celestia’s height made her easily visible over the crowd. The Princess of the Sun looked unusually tired as she stood next to a sheer cliff face on the eastern side of the valley. Twilight probably stood next to her, judging from the bits of purple that Cliff could see through the crowd.

A purple horn that was probably Twilight’s tapped against the mountainside. At first nothing happened, but then a large part of the wall sank away to reveal an equally large set of stairs, which also happened to be filled with crystal pony soldiers, all of whom hurried out to lend a hoof.

“I know you are all exhausted,” Celestia said. Even though she spoke softly, magic carried her voice to the entire crowd. “But please move quickly to unload everything. I do not know how much longer I can maintain this invisibility field.”

Twilight flapped into the air just enough so that she was clearly visible. “Whether you’re carrying supplies, wounded, or casualties, please follow me.” Several large boxes and one tent floated into the air, suspended by her purple aura. Then she landed and started down the stairs.

Cliff and Rainbow joined the line of ponies making their way toward the stairs. Most of the Everfree Platoon was there as well, but Cliff couldn’t see Fluttershy anywhere.

A certain part of the young dragon was grateful for that. Seeing him carrying a dead body around would probably just upset her, and seeing that wouldn’t do his troubled emotions any good either.

They finally reached the stairs, which were wide enough for seven ponies to walk abreast, and began a long descent. Cliff had been expecting more darkness, but glowstones in the ceiling provided enough illumination that even the ponies could see clearly. Eventually the stairs leveled out and opened up into a large cavern with several tunnels at the far end. The cave was also full of crystalline wagons for some reason.

“Put supplies in the wagons over here.” Twilight placed all of her boxes against one cave wall, leaving just the tent in her aura. “Casualties go in the ones over there. Leave the ones to the left and right of the stairs for injured ponies. Once everything is down here, we can start making our way to the safe house.”

“And how far is that?” Fire Claws asked.

“It’s under the Crystal Empire,” Twilight shifted her stance nervously, “so about ten miles.”

Cliff sighed. Wonderful, today hadn’t sucked quite enough yet.

-_-_-_-_-_-

Spirit numbly put one foot in front of the other. He had no idea how long he’d been pulling this wagon full of injured ponies with Autumn. An ice age or two, maybe. It was hard to keep track of time when there was nothing to do but watch the back of Twilight and Shining’s wagon as it rumbled down the tunnel in front of them.

Autumn bumped into him with her shoulder, drawing him out of his stupor. “You said,” she panted, “that I should be more open with my desires, right?”

“Y-yeah.” Spirit grit his teeth and pulled a bit harder to get the wagon over a bump in the path.

“Then … will you please … make up your mind about sex?”

Spirit turned to look at her. It was supposed to be an incredulous expression, but that probably didn’t come across very well while he was gasping for breath. “Please tell me … that you aren’t the type … that gets turned on by violence.”

Autumn rolled her eyes. “I’d slap you if I had the energy.” She took a deep breath. “Call it … a new appreciation for life.”

“Or a lot of aerobic exercise.” Spirit smiled weakly.

Autumn just looked at him in confusion.

“Never mind.… Inside joke with Cliff.” Spirit yawned. “Although, I don’t … think I’d be able to … do that even if I wanted to today.”

“Wuss,” a new voice said.

Spirit looked back and saw that one of the wounded ponies, a blue earth pony with his right foreleg in a makeshift cast, had leaned up against the front of the wagon and was watching them with an amused smile.

“I had a drake land on me and I’d still be up for it if a beautiful mare asked me to take a roll in the hay.”

An orange hoof came into view from the wagon. “Same.”

“Flattering,” Autumn said between gasps of air, “but the offer … wasn’t to either of you.”

“What about me?” a third voice asked.

“No one is allowed to sleep with my marefriend but me!” Spirit paused. That had come out a lot louder than he’d expected.

The wagon in front of them ground to a sudden halt, and Twilight’s head poked around the side of it. “What did I just hear?”

“Nothing,” Spirit said quickly.

“Twily,” Shining said, “what they do in private is none of our business.” His head poked around the other side of the wagon. “I can find private sleeping quarters for you two if you want.”

Twilight gasped. “Shiny!”

“Cultural norms are different in the Crystal Empire,” Shining said calmly. “Although it’s usually frowned upon to have multiple partners at once.”

“Wait,” Twilight turned to Autumn, “that’s what you were suggesting? Oh my Celestia! I can’t believe that you’d actually want to do something like that …”

Autumn groaned and facehoofed as Twilight continued on her rant. “On second thought, I’m retracting my offer.”

Spirit facepalmed as well. “Are we there yet?”

Comments

[Steadfast Hoof]

Has spike's spirit shield's power been explained yet? I remember in the first story that Cliff said he had advanced in a short time, what took cliff 8 years. It's been three since then.

And spike spirit shield performed tier 4 healing spells. How competent is he now? I was actually hoping to see him in that battle, but his head of command position was understandable given his upbringing around leaders of the country.

[cosmic flash]

Autumn groaned and facehoofed as Twilight continued on her rant. “On second thought, I’m retracting my offer.”
Spirit facepalmed as well. “Are we there yet?”

This bit at the end was hilarious.

[Yurtus]

Fluttershy you are a warrior! Warriors wage war. Embrace it and keep walking on the eightfold path. That path leads to the skullthrone. You will become the Bloodgods favorite pony. An immortal demon steed and wherever your hoofs touch the ground blood and carnage will follow.

But in all seriousness the last 2 chapters are extremly good. The fighting and the aftermath (plus the little Star Trek reference) was great. And it drives home that there are still cultural diverences that have to be adressed.

[Toa Coy]

7660612 well it does have a mind of it's own so could just as easily curse those that touch it so has a counter to it's power, but I have a deal with it. plus so long as it aint the main characters I aint going to invoke it, if I want to do that I would just use the dragon balls I have and wish all those that died in this war alive and healed.

[GrimmWolfDragon]

Very good chapter.
_Now there is a time for healing and reflection on the battle.
_Now what are the platoon next move two defeat the dragon alliance?
_Will spirit AKA Spike get laid.
_Highlights: Rainbow Dash, Spirit AKA Spike.
Very good chapter

[Toa Coy]

Robot: how many this time?

Me: several, mostly m.a.s.h.

Robot: fits *plays clip*

best way to show how to deal with this

and this should be echoed here, but hey just my thoughts but Spirit might have a similar mind after this

a bit of duality of cliff and fluttershy

well Spirit might have to reach to just say no.

Robot: *ends clips*

Man one day and it aint even lunch, or is it dinner as time stopped meaning things when we get to Cliff. Great story as it is something we all knew that the theme during this whole chapter.

[Truthseeker]

Cliff and Fire Eyes were right, Dash should have taken out Heart when she had the chance. In war you cannot allow anything to get in the way of your cause. In this case, killing Heart would have saved a lot of lives in the future. Ponies are more numerous and suffered FAR more casualties than the dargons did. If all sapient lives are equal and the numbers count, killing Heart would have been the smartest tactical decision.

With one less figurative heavy-hitter, the Alliance would be far less capable of slaughtering in the numbers they have been. There is a reason you take out commanding officers and heavy-hitters in a battle. Once the enemy knows their command structure and their most powerful weapons have been taken out, their morale takes a huge hit and they are MUCH more likely to surrender, thus saving lives on both sides.

[Vedues]

7660846 Spike/Spirit can cast tier 4 spells, and he specializes in illusions. If he needs to harm something, he concentrates light and releases it as a burst of electromagnetic radiation. In other words, he microwaves whatever he hits with it.

His talent and growth in magic were mostly thanks to all of his experience studying with Twilight. He understood unicorn magic really well, which gave him a frame of reference for wyrm magic. He's also extremely dedicated after acting as Twi's personal assistant for most of his life, which helped him learn the emotional control needed for wyrm spellcasting.

[Vedues]

7660876 I'm glad. The rest of the chapter was pretty heavy, and I figured we could all use a bit of a laugh.

[Vedues]

7660902 You're the first person to catch that Star Trek reference. I was originally going to have Bone say the traditional "Damn it, Spirit, I'm a doctor, not a [insert whatever here]!" but "Damn it" didn't seem like a normal phrase for a wyrm, and I couldn't think of a good alternative, so I just left it out.

[Vedues]

7660920 I'd usually cast Raise Dead, but I'm all out of diamonds for the material focus.

[Vedues]

7661083 I can't say I blame you, although I do feel sympathy for some of the dragons in the Alliance. Specifically, the ones who got dragged into this war with very little say in the matter.

[Vedues]

7661103 Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[Vedues]

7661132 I'm glad you enjoyed it. This was actually the point in the story that I thought might drive people off the most.

[Vedues]

7661138 You'll see more of that exact mentality as the story progresses.

[Truthseeker]

7661544 An unfortunate part of war.

[Toa Coy]

7661533 I can see why

[Toa Coy]

7661539 given what I have seen this just makes us more interessed