Overwhelmed
"All of the booths are set up?"
"Roger, Prince Antares."
"The balcony for the speeches at maximum sound quality?"
"Check."
"Food?"
"Good to go."
I nodded and took a deep breath. So far everything seemed to be going well enough. Given that this was the first of the annual Veteran's Day celebrations in Canterlot, I wanted everything to be perfect. Maybe not on the level that Twilight would want, but we were honoring ponies who had fought and died in the worst war in the planet's history. I didn't want to half-ass this. Celestia insisted that I was doing a good job, which, if I'm being honest, is probably because her and the other princesses are helping out. We've even found a few odd jobs for Nymeria and Maia.
"I guess if I can organize a war I can organize a much smaller event like its memorial celebration, Captain Blaze," I mused. "Unlike the war, I don't think ponies are going to care if this doesn't exactly go according to plan. As long as we pay our respects and enjoy the freedoms that thousands of ponies fought and died for so we could have..." I shrugged. "I'm not too worried about it."
"Makes sense, Prince Antares." Blaze stopped and stretched out his legs. "But I'm just glad to be out of my armor at a thing like this once. I can't remember the last celebration or festival that I didn't have to work security for."
"Yeah, I just don't see ponies being open to the idea of soldiers everywhere, at least, not outside the actual veterans. That's a little different."
"Fair enough." Blaze and I walked down the main road of Canterlot, where dozens of ponies were setting up stalls and memorials. Many of them bowed to me when I passed, and I raised a wing at them in acknowledgement. Everypony seemed fairly self-sufficient here, which made my job a lot easier.
"So how are your fillies, Prince Antares?"
I smiled at the mention of a topic I rather enjoyed. "Both of them are helping out their respective mothers, I believe. Celestia and Nymeria are making sure the Canterlot Memorial is well decorated for the actual ceremony, and Maia and Luna are gathering flowers from the royal gardens."
Blaze snorted at that. "They don't want to help out their daddy with anything?"
I rolled my eyes. "Eh, I'm not really doing much other than a little managing here and there. They'll let me know if they need any help. Besides..." I smirked. "I don't know a darn thing about flowers. I've been a pony for over eight years now, and I'm still having a little trouble figuring out which ones are edible. That's more Maia's thing."
"Of course, speaking of your family..."
I smiled and put on a little speed as I saw my family around the memorial. Nymeria was on Celestia's back, pointing out different observations she had about this and that, while Maia was placing flowers around the edges of the memorial with Luna. All four turned around when they heard me coming and smiled.
"Daddy!" Nymeria cried, flying up to me to wrap her hooves around my neck. At least, as best as a five year old filly could.
"Hey, Nym," I said, putting a hoof around her to return the hug. "You being a good filly and helping Mommy?"
"Oh yeah, lots!" Nymeria said happily. She wiggled out of the hug and flew up to land on my head. "See, Mommy wanted to put the ribbons over there, but I said that we couldn't see some of the names, and that would be a bad thing." Given her tone, I could almost hear the pout in her next words. "But Maia isn't listening to me when I said the flowers are dumb."
"No they're not!" Maia insisted, turning back to Nymeria with wide eyes. "They're really pretty!"
"Nymeria, be nice to your sister," Celestia said, slight reproach in her voice.
"But Mooooommmm!" Nymeria whined. "You said today has gotta be perfect!"
"And dear Maia is doing a wonderful job at achieving that goal," Luna said, leaning down to nuzzle her daughter. Maia beamed with happiness and nuzzled Luna back.
"Something the matter?" a voice said behind me. I turned and saw a green pegasus with a blue mane walking up to us. "You and Maia aren't bickering again, are you, Nym?"
"Nuh-uh, Aunt Kristen," Nymeria insisted, flying off of my head to land in front of my sister. "I was just saying that Maia's flowers are dumb." She pointed back to the flowers. "They are, aren't they?"
"Now--"
"Aunt Kristen is gonna agree with me!" Maia said triumphantly. "She's got green fur like me, so she's gotta."
Nymeria stuck her tongue out at Maia. "No, 'cause she's got a blue mane like me, so she's gonna agree with me."
"Yeah, uh..." Kristen began backing away. "Not even gonna get involved in that one."
"That's 'cause--"
"Alright, Nymeria, that's enough of that," Celestia said, lighting her horn and levitating Nymeria onto her back. "How about we go check on some of the food stalls? You can start seeing what you might like to try when the celebration begins."
Nymeria instantly perked up. "Yeah! Maybe there's a pony selling ice cream! Ooh, no, funnel cake! Wait, wait, actual cake, with chocolate frosting and..."
Nymeria's voice faded away as Celestia walked down a nearby street, and I watched them go with a small smile on my face. I'd always suspected that Nymeria would have a bit of a sibling rivalry going on with her sister/cousin, but I didn't predict that Maia would go right along with it. I chuckled and turned back to my own sister.
"We were never like that, right?"
Kristen gave me a flat look, but couldn't keep the corners of her mouth from twitching up ever so slightly. "Uh-huh. Never. You never came home and insisted to our mother that you had better grades than I did."
"To be fair, I did."
"Did not."
"Did too. I might have sucked in that math class, but I had a better GPA."
"No, I had--"
"So what I am seeing here is that you two never really grew up, and you do not expect our children to either."
I turned back to Luna and rolled my eyes, ignoring Maia's gleeful expression. "Come on, I'm sure you and Celestia were the same way. It's practically in the sibling code."
Luna's eyes narrowed, and she glanced down to Maia. "Absolutely not. We are princesses. The height of class and sophistication." She put her hoof up to her mouth in a "shh" motion. Yeah, that's what I thought.
"So sibling rivalries aside, how are preparations coming on your end? Everything all set?"
"Yeah, Twilight and her buddies seem like they have everything in hand. Twilight's making sure that they're doing everything that they should, so it's not like I really had to do much," Kristen said. "I might have had to nudge them to be a little quicker, especially Rarity, but other than that..." She shrugged. "Nothing of note."
"Good, then it seems everything is going smoothly." I took a deep breath and glanced over to the nearby clock tower. The ceremony started in half an hour, and I'd wager that the trickle of ponies coming into Canterlot had turned into a tide, most of them coming to the palace to hear the opening speeches. That meant that Celestia, Luna, Cadance and I had to start making our way to the balcony to get ready. So of course Celestia had chosen that moment to walk away with Nymeria.
"Hey Kristen, can you go see if you can find Celestia and Cadance? We need to get this show on the road soon."
"Yeah, sure." Kristen spread her wings and flew a few feet into the air. "You want me to tell them to just go to the palace?"
I nodded. "Yeah, that should be fine. Tell her Luna and I will be there."
"And me, Aunt Kristen! Don't forget to tell Aunt Celestia that I'm gonna be there too!" Maia said, flying up to land on my back.
"Yes, and Maia. Can't forget about her."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Kristen said, giving me a small salute before flying down the road Celestia and Nymeria had gone.
"Alright, let's see..." I checked over the flowers Maia had placed around the memorial and nodded. "They look great. You did a very good job, Maia."
"Indeed she did," Luna said, getting to her hooves. "Do you want to be with your mother while she gives her speech, Maia?"
"Yeah!" Maia said happily, flying over to land on Luna's back. "You're gonna do great, Mommy!"
"As long as you've gotten enough sleep," I pointed out as the three of us walked over to the palace.
"I have become more diurnal since Maia was born, thank you very much," Luna said, sticking her muzzle in the air. "I'm an alicorn the same as you, Antares. I endure."
"Right. That's probably because Maia wasn't anywhere near as colicky as Nymeria was."
"Yeah, and that's why I'm the bestest!" Maia said. "I didn't cry at night and stuff."
Luna grimaced and her ears flattened. "No, you did not cry during the night. You cried during the day when I was attempting to sleep."
"Yeah, well, not anymore."
I chuckled and shook my head as the three of us entered the palace and made our way to the room adjacent to the balcony we gave our speeches on. A quick glance at a nearby clock told us that we still had twenty five minutes.
"Now Maia, you can be there with me when I give my speech, but--"
"Don't interrupt you. I know, Mom."
"Good. And you needn't fear being with me in front of all of those ponies. They're quite happy to see you."
Maia buried her head into Luna's mane and grasped onto her neck. "It's still scary. There are lots of ponies."
"You will grow accustomed to it, my dear," Luna assured her. "In time you will be giving your own speeches without fear."
"But that's a while away, Maia," I said, putting a hoof on her back. "Don't worry about it for now. You can just stand next to your mother and smile. That's not too hard, is it?"
"I guess not," Maia said, nuzzling Luna's neck.
It wasn't more than a few minutes before Celestia, Nymeria, Cadance and Kristen arrived. They were escorted by Blaze and Rapids, alongside Night Stalker and Raining Skies, the captains for Luna and Cadance respectively. I nodded in Cadance's direction, and she returned it before rushing over to fawn over Maia. I didn't want to say that Maia was Cadance's favorite, but... their personalities aligned a little more that her and Nymeria. She always insisted that she loved them equally, though.
"So, did you find any desserts you wanted to try, Nym?" I asked as I walked up to my wife and daughter.
"Oh yeah, there was a ton of good stuff!" Nymeria gave Celestia "Bambi Eyes" and nuzzled her leg. "Can I try them all, Mommy? It's a special occa-- uh, occat... special day!"
"Let me think about it," Celestia said. "However, you must remember the last time I granted that request."
"Uh... yeah, but they don't have as many this time. I'll be fine!"
Gosh she sounded like her mother. At least, I could see parallels between Nymeria's behavior and the stories Luna used to tell about Celestia at a young age. I was never a huge sweets guy, so she couldn't have gotten it from me.
"Maybe I'll spoil her when Celestia's not looking," Kristen whispered to me, a conspiratorial grin on her face. "It's my duty as her aunt."
"Okay, one: I doubt Celestia will let you just take her for that very reason, two: you do know I'm her father, right? I don't really want my daughter hyped up on sweets for the entire afternoon, only to go to bed with a stomach ache."
"Fine," Kristen grumbled. She raised an eyebrow before glancing over to Maia. "So maybe Luna would let me watch Maia for a bit, then?"
"And you run into the same problem of me being Maia's father and not wanting a sugar rush followed by a stomach ache."
"Oh come on, TD, you don't--"
"Oh look at the time, we should really get those speeches started, don't you think?" I said, making my way to the balcony entrance. "Celestia? Cadance? Luna? You three ready?"
"Sure am," Cadance said, following behind me with the rest of the princesses. "And maybe once that's over I can join Kristen in spoiling my cousins rotten."
"And I thought Kristen was the only chaos god here," I grumbled. "Besides, don't you have your own foal to spoil?"
"Oh, I'll get to that. Shining has her right now. Besides, she's too young to be eating a lot of dessert anyway."
I rolled my eyes and grumbled something under my breath that I really didn't want my daughters to hear. Sure, I could see why Cadance and my sister would want to spoil their young family members, but they weren't the ones who had to deal with the fallout of two young alicorn fillies quite literally bouncing off of walls. I pushed the thoughts of hyper daughters out of my mind. I had more important things to take care of at the moment.
"So all of that aside, who should go first? Do I get to because all of this was my idea, or...?"
"If that is the way you wish to do it," Celestia said, moving to stand beside me. "If you are ready."
I waved my hoof. "Oh yeah, I just wanted to make sure we were all on board with the order. So me, then Celestia, then Luna, then Cadance?"
The three princesses exchanged looks, then nodded. "Yeah, sounds good to me," Cadance said.
"Good, because it's about time." At those words, whatever happy mood I'd been in slowly faded away when it hit me just what this celebration was for. Sure, we were all hopefully going to have a good time today, but at its core the reason for all of it was the ponies who had fought and died so we could have a fun day like this. If Purgle had won the war... I don't even want to know what he would have done to my subjects. Enslavement? Mass death? Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Nymeria and I would all be dead, that's for sure.
But that hadn't happened. We were safe from the likes of him.
"Alright, ladies, let's do this."
The others gave assenting grunts, and we all made our way out onto the balcony. Thousands of ponies stood below us, and when they saw us appear, a deafening cheer went through the crowd. We all smiled and waved, as royalty should. I glanced back at my family. Kristen had gotten pretty good at the 'royalty wave'. Nymeria was a bit more enthusiastic about waving to the crowd, while Maia stuck to Luna's side like glue. I'd be surprised if anypony below could see her.
After a few more moments of cheering, I raised my hoof and the crowd instantly went silent, save for a few murmurs here and there. I lit my horn to check the sound quality, then stepped forward for my speech.
"Mares and gentlestallions. Fillies and colts. I welcome you today to the first annual Equestrian Memorial Celebration." The crowd applauded for a few moments before I continued. I was glad to see it was respectful applause, not rambunctious cheering. "Today is a day to enjoy yourselves, however I urge you to not forget the purpose of today. We can only have a day like today because of the brave sacrifices of countless ponies who were injured or killed in the protection of this great nation. Their sacrifices were not in vain. Our nation is free from the attempted tyranny of Purgle and his kind.
"Never shall we forget what they have done for us. The memorials set up in every town and city in Equestria will stand as a testament to that for the rest of time. All ponies from now until the end of all things shall remember their valiant actions. We all suffered losses in the war."
I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and I glanced over to see, of all things, freaking storm clouds rolling in. What the heck?! Somepony didn't do their jobs right. Whatever, I'd finish my speech and find Rainbow Dash so she could get it all sorted out. Probably just a scheduling error or... something. I pushed the thoughts aside and returned to my speech.
"Even we lost ponies close to us. Good and loyal ponies who should still be at our sides, helping us serve Equestria. But when the time came, they didn't hesitate to give the ultimate service to our great nation, and..." I looked over. Yeah, the storm clouds were getting a lot closer now. I grimaced and had to stop myself from rubbing my temples. Not the right time.
"Um, TD?" Kristen came up beside me and did her best to whisper in my ear. "Those clouds are coming in rather fast and I don't really feel any wind, do you?"
I exchange an uneasy glance with the other three. Yeah, come to think of it, that didn't make a lot of sense. It seemed like we needed to get this settled now, because I could already see and hear the crowd below us muttering in uncertainty at the rapidly approaching storm.
"I'd say we need to find Rainbow Dash, but I'm not sure this is something pegasus made," Celestia said, approaching the edge of the balcony to get a better look.
"No, neither do I."
"Is it gonna rain, Daddy?" Nymeria asked. "I thought you said it wouldn't!"
I turned to my daughter and gave her a comforting smile. "No, we're going to get it all figured out. It's just some silly mistake. Nothing that'll be difficult to sort out."
"But Aunt Celestia said the pegasuses didn't make it!" Maia pointed out.
Sharp as a tack, that one.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it won't be an easy fix," I assured her. I turned to the quartet of guards behind us. "Blaze, you wanna take the two of them for a little bit while we get this settled? Shouldn't be too long."
Captain Blaze saluted, then began herding the fillies inside. "Come now, children, let’s go inside while your parents fix this for a second. Hey, maybe we could get something to eat while we're waiting. You know, just some snacks."
"But what if I get too full and don't want to eat anything else?" Nymeria said.
"Well, then don't eat too much. Just a hoofful of chips."
I shook my head as I watched Blaze escort my daughters to the kitchens. I didn't want them around in case this got a little messy. I'd hate to need to keep an eye on them while the five of us had to do a repeat of when Flurry Heart was born and broke the Crystal Heart.
"Antares!"
I instantly wheeled around at the sound of my wife's voice. I hadn't heard worry in her voice like that since Luna gave birth. I rushed over to the edge of the balcony and looked to where she was pointing. My heart dropped at the sight. Large metal airships were coming along with the storm, which was moving faster than any storm I'd ever seen. They'd arrive in minutes. I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a clearer look at them.
"They have flags on the sides. I don't recognize the symbol, do you?" I asked.
Celestia shook her head. "No, these are not beings from the known world as far as I can tell. I've never seen that symbol before."
"Uh, yeah, so I know we're all about friendship and stuff like that, but..." Kristen walked up beside me and uneasily rubbed her leg. "I'm guessing they're not here to ask for a peaceful exchange of culture and ideas."
"Nope, I don't think so either." I turned to the remaining officers. "I want the three of you to gather every guard you can and arm them. Keep them back a little bit just in case we're wrong, but my gut says something's about to go down."
Rapids whimpered, but she stayed on her hooves, though I could see her shaking like a leaf. Raining Skies put a wing on her back and gently nudged her back into the palace, followed by Night Stalker.
Dang. Right. Rapids. She'd gotten a lot better since the war, but something like this wouldn't help her. I briefly thought about going after them to send Rapids into a room to calm down until it was all over, but she'd just say she was fine, and that would waste what little time we had until these mystery beings showed up.
Before I could think of the next thing to do, I heard the ear-splitting sound of metal crashing into stone. I spread my wings and began flying down with the rest of my family as the airships, which had crashed into several buildings and knocked over the rooftops, began landing. Yeah, either these people were drunk drivers, or we were about to be in a bit of trouble.
I stood next to my family in front of the largest ship, which touched down in the middle of the square. I exchanged a worried glance with Celestia. Today of all days was not one to get involved in another war. If they just wanted a ton of gold and gems, I privately wondered if we should just give it to them. We were a prosperous nation, after all. Regardless of what they wanted, Equestria couldn't handle another war so soon after the last one.
The airship in front of us landed, the weight of it cracking the stone street. The four of us took defensive stances, while Kristen stood behind us as backup, ready to fight whatever came out of the ship. I rued that our guns would be largely useless in this scenario, at least if the fighting got really heavy. Gatling Guns aren't really suited for urban combat, and tanks even less so. We had a few positions we could use, but if those were overrun we'd need to fight the old fashioned way.
I flattened my ears as a loud creaking noise like metal scraping against metal filled my ears. The door of the airship lowered, and crashed onto the stone ground. I couldn't see inside, as it was filled with fog so thick I couldn't see more than a few inches past the door. I briefly wondered if we were about to be charged by Stormtroopers.
The fog inside swirled as though somepony was walking through it, and after a few seconds, a figure emerged from the fog. My eyes narrowed when I saw that it was a pony. She was dressed in black armor emblazoned with the same symbol on the airship where her cutie marks should have been. Her most instantly noticeable feature was the broken horn on her head. There was barely anything left. I gathered it was broken in the same event where she received the scar that ran down the right side of her face.
"This isn't good," I whispered to Celestia. "She strikes me as a leader. Should we just open fire now and decapitate the leadership?"
"Perhaps," Celestia whispered back. "Let us take stock of the situation first. I do not believe she is here for peaceful reasons, but there still may be a peaceful resolution."
I really doubted it. If I really thought this was going to go wrong, I'd incinerate her and deal with Celestia being angry later. I could handle being chewed out.
Before any of us could say anything, a weird looking hedgehog-like creature rushed out of the airship, pushing what looked like some kind of megaphone on wheels in front of him. He stopped at the end of the ramp and cleared his throat before pulling the end of the megaphone down to his level.
"GREETINGS TO YOU ALL, PONIES OF EQUESTRIA!" he said in a voice that instantly grated on me. "IT IS MY HONOR TO PRESENT TO YOU IN THE NAME OF THE STORM KING, THE ONE, THE ONLY, TEMPEST SHADOW!"
The unicorn without her horn rolled her eyes, but stepped forward off of the ramp with perfect posture. A slight smirk crossed her face at the sight of the four of us.
"Ah, all four of Equestria's leaders here. Perfect."
"Tempest, is it?" Celestia said, taking a small step forward. "What can we do for you?"
Tempest's smirk widened ever so slightly. "Oh, I'm so glad you asked. How about we start with your complete and total surrender?"
"Yeah, not going to happen," I growled, stepping alongside my wife. "I take it you haven't been following current events lately, but we just finished a war where we crushed the most powerful military on the planet." My expression hardened into a glare. "I'll paraphrase one of the generals from my home world: we are a peaceful nation. We do not have weapons trained on you. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with us, we'll kill you all.”
"A little touchy after the war, aren't we, Antares?" Tempest said with a sneer. "We know all about your new weapons. We've been studying your nation for a long time. Here's the deal: I need your magic, and I need it now. Give it up nicely, please, or we make it difficult for everyone."
"And we are giving you one chance to turn around and leave this place," Luna growled.
"If you leave we'll just pretend this never happened," I agreed. "Tell your Storm King to leave us be, and that will be the end of it. What you have already damaged can be easily repaired. If you do not leave now, things are going to get ugly."
Tempest let out a quiet, almost inaudible chuckle. "I do love it when they do it the hard way."
Not good.
I lit up my horn for an attack. It was time for a preemptive strike, and she seemed to be a leader of some kind. Cut off the head of the minotaur and the body dies. A leaderless force is a lot easier to take out. I fired a beam of magic that would have incinerated her instantly had it made contact, but before it could, Tempest actually backflipped like she was an agent in The Matrix. My spell whizzed past her and hit the hedgehog thing behind her. He evaporated before he could even scream in terror. Instantly the other princesses lit up their horns and shot beams of magic at her, but she dodged each one of them with ease.
I gritted my teeth and lit up my horn for a more powerful spell. I didn't like this. She wasn't the usual type of Saturday morning villain, that much was certain. Whoever this Storm King was had trained her very well. It didn't really matter. We'd hit her eventually then figure out exactly what was going on.
Though, if that was the new plan, I probably shouldn't have tried to hit her with a spell that would have killed her instantly.
After dodging a few more beams, Tempest landed on the ground in front of the megaphone the recently deceased underling had been using. Her smug grin hadn't slipped an inch.
"Well, this has been fun, ladies, but the games are over. If you insist on doing this the hard way, let's get this party truly started. Ready to meet the Storm Creatures?"
Before we could do anything, Tempest shot a giant beam of pure lighting out of her horn straight into the air. Instantly the other airships began landing, crushing anything unfortunate enough to be underneath them. The moment they landed, the ramps came down and creatures I couldn't even begin to recognize poured out of them, all armed with various nasty looking weapons.
No doubt about it now: we were once again at war.
I turned back to Tempest and poured more magic into my horn. The very ground beneath us began crumbling into gravel that I called to myself. With another quick spell, the stone formed into a war hammer that I quickly smashed onto the ground just to show I meant business. Anything I hit with this wouldn't even feel the blow before death.
I spread my wings to fly at Tempest to turn her skull into a fine powder, but before I got anywhere near her, dozens more of her soldiers poured out of the airship, all pointing their weapons at us.
"I need the alicorns alive," Tempest said as her minions rushed past her. "Do what you will with anybody else who resists."
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
I swung my hammer at the nearest creature. It collided with his head, which burst like a ripe pumpkin on the wrong end of a shotgun. Seeing the oncoming army, the princesses lit their horns and called up their own weapons. Celestia drew power from the sun and produced a blade of pure fire. I could feel the heat radiating off of it even from where I stood. Luna summoned any speck of shadow over to her, then when she had enough, she formed a razor sharp spear, which she instantly stuck through the gut of a rushing Storm Creature. Cadance drew the moisture from the air around her and conjured up twin ice swords, which she instantly used to slice up any of the creatures that came near her.
The four of us could only hold our own against the onslaught for a short time. Even with our powers, we couldn't stop every one of the Storm Creatures, and more rushed from us on all sides as airships continued to land around Canterlot. I wheeled around and smashed another head in, then turned to meet an enemy rushing towards me, his spear at the ready. Before he could even get within five feet of me, a bullet collided with his skull. He dropped instantly. I turned to where the shot had come from and my heart leapt when I saw some of my soldiers firing a Gatling Gun into the oncoming crowd of soldiers, with more pushing additional guns into place. If we could hold those positions, we had a chance at driving them back. Of course, that did rely on having enough ammunition for a long-term battle.
With some desperately needed cover backing us up, I returned to the battle at hoof. Scores of dead Storm Creatures littered the ground at our hooves as we cut through them with unmatched skill. I looked up and saw Kristen casting magic from her hooves which turned the ground underneath a few Storm Creatures into molasses. I flew over to them while they were distracted and quickly dispatched them.
And still more Storm Creatures arrived as more airships landed. Several guards had grabbed their traditional weapons and joined the fray in the vain hope that we could fully push them back now and end this war before it got too out of hoof.
As if it wasn't already.
Tempest. I needed to kill Tempest. Forget interrogating her, a leaderless force was much easier to defeat. Even if they won here in Canterlot and we needed to retreat, they'd have a harder time organizing a quality defense without the pony whom I could only assume was high-ranking in the Storm King's army. If nothing else, killing her would be a huge blow to them. I flew into the air above the attacking army and looked to where I'd seen her last. She wasn't there. Of course not. It'd be stupid of her to just stand there where we could easily find her. I scanned the mass of creatures below us, hoping to spot her more distinctive dark purple coat. If I spotted her for even an instant, I didn't care how much agility she had. I'd hang up what was left of her corpse on Canterlot Castle as a warning to anything that would dare cross us. Unfortunately, all I could see was the mass of Storm Creatures and the other royals fighting them.
Before I could do anything else, a black orb flew through the air and collided with Cadance's side. It instantly shattered, and obsidian began covering her from where it had hit. She barely had time to scream in terror before she was nothing more than a statue.
With one of the princesses taken out, the Storm Creatures took their chance to swarm Celestia and Luna. I called upon the ice dagger spell that Luna had taught me and sent dozens into the crowd. Many Storm Creatures fell at my hooves, but not enough to hold the tide at bay. I flew down to help my wife fight, but just as I landed, another orb flew through the air and collided with Luna's head before I could even react. She let out a quiet, choked gasp before the obsidian completely overtook her and she joined Cadance as a statue.
"Celestia! We have to go!" I cried, glancing up at Kristen who was doing her best to cover us from above. "The only way to save Cadance and Luna is to fall back and regroup!"
"And then what?!" Celestia roared, slashing a nearby soldier in half.
"We gotta do something! We're about to lose Canterlot!"
Celestia slashed another soldier, then backed up so we were side-by-side. "I know of one magical society that could help us. They're past the badlands to the--"
A third orb sailed through the air. I lit my horn in a vain attempt to catch it, but it moved quickly enough that even my reflexes weren't enough. It hit Celestia right in the leg. Stone instantly began crawling up her body, and she only had enough time to gasp out one word.
"Childre--"
Children. Maia and Nymeria!
Knowing there was nothing I could do for my wife now, I flew into the air and pulled Kristen in the direction of Canterlot Castle.
"Kristen, we have to get Maia and Nymeria out of here!" I cried.
"What about Celestia and Luna and Cadance?"
"There's nothing we can do for them now. We'll come back for them when we're more organized, but we need to get Nymeria and Maia out of the city!"
As we flew, I looked down at the carnage below. The Gatling Gun positions had been totally overrun and their crews slaughtered. What few soldiers we'd managed to muster were being massacred by the seemingly endless wave of Storm Creatures Tempest had brought against us. I looked out into the horizon and saw even more airships approaching.
Who were these people?!
"TD, look!"
I looked to where Kristen was pointing and my heart sank when I saw an airship floating next to Canterlot Castle. More Storm Creatures were rushing out of the ship onto the balcony. It wouldn't be long before the castle was overrun completely. I lit my horn and encased Kristen in my magic, then flew straight through the nearest window, completely shattering the glass. My momentum carried me forward a few feet when I landed, but I quickly regained my balance and charged into the castle with Kristen running behind me.
"You need to do whatever you can to stop these things!" I growled back at her. "You're the god of chaos!"
"I know, I know, but... I'm not sure what to do that won't kill them!"
"In case you haven't noticed, we're in a battle!" I roared. "It's time to start killing things!"
"But--"
"We're not going to win if we don't use everything at our disposal, and that includes you!" I growled and turned a corner. "I think Blaze said he was taking them to the kitchens. Maybe they're still there."
I prayed that they were and even more that they were safe. If the Storm Creatures hadn't found them yet, I could get them out of Canterlot and to a safe place. The kitchens were close. I could get to them soon.
Even as I drew closer to the kitchens, I saw the blood staining the floor and soon after that, the first dead Storm Creatures.
"No," I whispered as I put on speed. "No, no, no, no, no."
I instantly saw the blood on the kitchen swinging doors. I couldn't miss the bloody hoof print. I burst into the room, my hammer at the ready to destroy anything that stood in my way. No enemies attacked me, but what I saw was far worse. Captain Blaze laid on the ground, blood pouring from several spear wounds presumably from the half a dozen dead Storm Creatures lying next to him.
"Blaze!" I cried, rushing over to my most valuable soldier. I lit up my horn and began casting every healing spell that I knew. "Come on, Blaze, just hold on!"
"TD," Kristen whimpered from behind me. "I don't know--"
"Get over here and help me!" I growled.
"I don't know any healing spells, and my magic isn't permanent anyway..."
Before I could respond, Blaze coughed, and groaned. "P-Prince Antares," he croaked out. "They took them. They took Nymeria and Maia."
"Where?" I cried. "Where did they take them?"
"One of their ships. It was only a minute ago. I think you can still catch them."
I turned to Kristen and pointed towards the door. "Go. They can't hurt you. I don't care what you do to them, just help me get my daughters back! I'll be right behind you once I..."
I turned my attention back to Blaze in an attempt to cast more healing magic on him.
But he didn't move.
I took in a deep, shaky breath and cast a vital signs spell on him. Nothing. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. He just stared at me with blank, empty eyes. I stared into them, hoping beyond hope that he'd blink and I could help him. But nothing happened. I shakily got to my hooves and walked out of the kitchen. I couldn't let his sacrifice be in vain, not when my daughters were still in trouble. I picked up my hammer, spread my wings, and flew down the corridor as fast as I could. Kristen took to the air as well, barely keeping up with me.
"We have another fight on our hooves," I growled. "Use any means at your disposal to stop them. Kill them if you must."
"TD, I don't think my chaos magic works like that!" Kristen insisted. "I can't just stop their hearts or break their necks. It just... wouldn't work. It doesn't work with my magic because something like that isn't chaotic."
"Use your imagination!" I snarled.
"But--"
We reached the end of the hallway and burst into a larger room with another balcony. I was greeted with the sight of dozens of Storm Creatures gathered around the ramp of an airship. The one closest to me didn't even see me coming before I smashed his head into a fine mist.
"Give me back my daughters!" I roared, crushing another nearby Storm Creature.
"Daddy!"
I paused for a brief moment and turned toward the sound of Nymeria's cry. She banged on the bars of the cage the Storm Creatures had stuffed her into, while Maia merely laid on the floor of her cage sobbing. White hot rage boiled up inside me. First my in-laws, then my wife, and now my daughters? Not going to happen. I will ensure the extinction of the entire Storm Creature race before I let them take my children from me.
I'm instantly rushed by more than a dozen Storm Creatures. I swing my hammer wildly at anything that got even close to me, bating the walls of the palace in blood and brains.
"Daddy!" Nymeria moaned as the Storm Creatures carried her cage toward the airship docked at the balcony. I spread my wings to fly toward them. I didn't want Nymeria and Maia to be splattered with blood, but it was better than them being taken away to whatever fate the Storm King had for them.
Unfortunately, Nymeria's cry distracted me for too long. I cried out as my side exploded with pain. It hurt enough that my hammer fell to the ground and shattered without my magic to keep it together. I dropped and grabbed at my side, my eyes widening when I saw a spear sticking out of it.
A Nightmare Weapon? How did...? No, I didn't feel any black magic with the pain. This was something else.
I groaned in pain as blood poured from the wound. I had to get back up and save my daughters! They... The Storm Creature who stabbed me pulled the spear back out, and I cried out again as the blood flowed more freely. I grabbed at the wound to put pressure on it before I bled out. I couldn't die here. Not like this. I needed to save my family.
I became aware that Kristen was standing over me, shooting any magic she could think of at the Storm Creatures. They backed up to get out of the way of her wild spells. Not that she was in the mental state to fend off the entire army if they wanted to kill me.
"Kristen," I groaned, trying to block out the pain. "We gotta--"
Before I could finish my thought, electricity crackled through the air, and the smell of burnt fur wafted through the room. At first I thought Kristen had been attacked, but it wasn't her screaming in pain.
"I believe I requested that the alicorns be left alive."
Tempest.
I slowly raised my head and saw Tempest walking over to us, leaving the charred remains of the Storm Creature who had stabbed me behind her. She stopped a few feet away and examined me. "Hm. He'll live. Get him out of here and tend to his injury before we begin."
"Not gonna happen!" Kristen roared, flying between me and Tempest. "Just--"
"I have complete control of Canterlot and the rest of the alicorns," Tempest said calmly. "Soon I will have control over all of Equestria. Stand aside, whelp."
Kristen shot her hoof forward, shooting ropes out that would have completely stopped Tempest if they'd made contact. She merely lit her broken horn and, with another crackle of electricity, shoved them aside. The barest smirk crossed her face. "Ah, you must be the new chaos god I've heard so much about. The Storm King will have many uses for you. You will comply with him if you do not want your brother to endure torments the likes of which neither of you can imagine." Her eyes narrowed and electricity began crackling out of her horn again. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
"I'm warning you, I'll--"
"You will do nothing. You do not yet have the skill that Discord possessed. If you did, it might have actually been a small challenge to take over Canterlot." Tempest motioned to the two of us. "Take them away. If Antares dies you will endure the Storm King's full wrath. If she doesn't cooperate, well, we do have her brother and nieces."
I lit my horn for any kind of spell that might get us out of this mess, but that only aggravated the wound on my side. I couldn't do anything as the Storm Creatures drew closer. This couldn't be the end. I wouldn't let us suffer under the rule of this tyrant, not after we just won a war defeating another one. But what could I do? I was in so much pain that I couldn't even muster a spell to defend ourselves. We needed to run so I could heal, but if I couldn't cast spells there was no way I could fly away.
Fortunately, Kristen actually had an idea. She threw herself over me and touched the floor beneath us. Instantly the floor became liquid, and we sank into the ground. I heard Tempest shout something in anger, but we kept falling. It wasn't more than a few moments before we reached the bottom of Canterlot Castle and sunk into the mountain itself. Liquid rocks rushed all around us as we fell, solidifying above us once we'd moved past them. The journey wasn't doing my sides any favors as I continued bleeding heavily. It was better than being under Tempest's control. At least now we'd gotten away.
It wasn't more than a minute before we shot out of the side of the mountain and landed in the waterfall. I spread my wings hoping that I could stop the fall and we wouldn't hit the ground below us at a speed that would hurt the hell out of me, alicorn or not. Kristen's arms wrapped around my barrel, but she wasn't strong enough to prevent us from plunging into the water below. Just before we hit, she turned the water below us into a marshmallow, and we bounced harmlessly off of it. Good thing, too. Hitting the water at those speeds otherwise would have been like hitting concrete.
Now that we'd come to a stop, Kristen was trying to push me onto my hooves. "Come on, TD! We have to get going! I don't know if they're going to come looking for us or not. We need to get out of here!"
"C-can't," I groaned.
Kristen growled and turned the water into flat stone which allowed me to get a grip and push myself up from something solid. With her help, I shakily got to my hooves and walked out of what used to be the water into the forest. My head began spinning. I'd lost a lot of blood. I needed to stop the bleeding or I'd die before I could even get back to civilization. I made it about fifty feet before I collapsed.
"TD, we need to go! Come on, you can do it!"
"C-can't," I repeated, rolling onto the side that wasn't pouring blood. "Need to... stop the... bleeding."
"Right... right, stop the bleeding." Kristen took a few shaky breaths. "Stop the..." She sat down next to me and began trying to conjure up bandages. She gritted her teeth as her first few attempts fizzled out into nothingness. "I can... just..."
"You gotta relax," I croaked. "Just focus and--"
"I know!" Kristen roared. "Just give me a second! I'll have it..." Kristen took a deep breath and tried again. This time a roll of bandages appeared. She snatched them out of the air and instantly unrolled them to wrap my wound. I put a hoof out and pushed them away.
"Gotta... close it first," I said, painfully lifting my wing to reveal the injury.
"Right. Close it." She took another shaky breath and put her hooves on my wound. I hissed in pain as the wound began closing by itself. At least the bleeding had stopped. "It's not going to be permanent, so this is just until you can fix it yourself." She wrapped the bandages around my barrel until the roll she'd conjured was gone. "I don't... I don't think you're gonna..." Her breaths became shakier. "You're gonna be..."
She put her head in her hooves and began screaming. I couldn't blame her. Everything that had happened would have broken most beings, but we needed to focus. I reached out and put a hoof on her shoulder.
"Kristen, we need to go."
"It's m-my fault!" she wailed. "If I had j-just fought them ins-instead of being afraid w-we could have won and they wouldn't have t-taken your daughters a-and we... we could have..."
"Hey, it's not your fault," I insisted. "We all got overwhelmed. I froze the first time I was in battle, too."
"Yeah, but you actually got over that and fought. I wanted to. I just... I was scared. I didn't w-want to hurt anything."
"I know, but it's not your fault. It's theirs. We're going to take Canterlot back, okay?" I shakily tried pushing myself to my hooves again and hissed at the pain in my side. It seemed to have stopped bleeding, so that was a plus. Maybe I'd actually survive this thing. "We need to move. They're going to be looking for us."
"Okay," Kristen whispered, wiping her eyes and getting to her hooves. "Where are we going?"
"I don't know right now. First we need to find out if they've expanded the invasion to the rest of Equestria. If not then we can gather a counter force. Baltimare has the best weapons right now. It's where a lot of the guns and tanks are. If we can just get there we have a shot at beating them back."
"Won't they have the weapons in Canterlot, though?"
I grimly nodded as I limped down the dirt road through the forest. "Yeah. This..." My ear twitched. "They might have just started World War Two here. If they've taken over Equestria, they're probably not going to stop there. We need to get allies from other countries to fight them back."
"Okay," Kristen muttered. "So who first? Saddle Arabia or...?"
"Celestia said something about another society to the south past the badlands. That way's our best bet."
"Isn't the badlands just a giant desert?"
Nopony said this was going to be easy.
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Holy crap, I really did not expect this! I was wondering why updates were taking so long but it was worth the wait!
I will never not be excited to see a TD story.
Hmmm....what happened to Titus? Or is Nymeria just Titus renamed?
8553271
Titus renamed.
I'm pretty psyched to check this out. *cracks knuckles* Let's see what you bring to the table this time around.
First chapter in and you’ve already solved the biggest problem I had with the movie, that being the storm kings forces not seeming like much of a threat.
8553233
Three more chapters in the next three days or so.
Totally gonna read it.
Is this an AU to you own Resurgence?
8553365
Yeah, sort of.
Cool I was curious how you were gonna handle the movie can't wait to see how the rest of it goes.
Damn, Te pest was even more badass than in the movie, though Antares and the Princess put up more of a fight than in the movie’s version, so that made it better. It’s saddening that Blaze passed away and that Antares was wounded and forced to leave for the Hypogriphs with Kristen. Keep up the great job.
I can't help but be slightly disappointed. After reading your stories, I thought you'd be able to discern a good adventure story from a terrible one.
8553693
I'm not saying it was Oscar worthy or that it didn't have major problems (see: Grubber) but it was fun enough.
8553717
Grubber wasn't that bad he got a slight chuckle out of me. That said he is inconsequential to the story, get rid of him and all you lose is a comic relief.
Okay now that I'm off work, I now have time to give a proper review. This first chapter has completely blown me away! The changes you have made compared to the actual movie have really highlighted the severity of the situation. (But I must confess I was sad to see Grubber go.) And given TD has seen his foals taken, I think Tempest will joining the Storm King in the afterlife...
Just curious...will we see the Mane 6 at all here?
Really can't wait for the next chapter, along with "Resurgence" and "TD vs Equestria Girls." Glad to have you back!
I'm cautiously optimistic about this story. One thing I always worry about with MLP fiction, is how new content, is going to affect stories. Sometimes you get massive rewrites, other times you get things shifted around, and here it's a more brutal invasion. In an entirely new story to boot. The butterfly effect seems to be strong here, Grubber's gone i.e, the villain comic relief. The invasion is a lot more bloody and happens on a remembrance day of all things. The chaos god isn't just absent, but an entirely new person, learning the ropes etc.
Things that I think you'll need to change, for the story.
1. Open up your eyes - Great song, but TD's already been exposed to hardship, loss of friends, losing everything he grew to care about etc. Plus I can't see singing fitting in here. So it'll have to be cut.
2. The Storm King - He's presumably a smarter, more strategic villain in this tale. But having him be uber-serious and grim, could get old. So try to find a balance, that shows off his effectiveness as a villain. Like....Invading other parts of Equestria, or consolidating his forces and turning Canterlot into a meat grinder, against enemy attacks. A good example of the kind of villain you might wanna use as a base, is Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2.
3. Diplomacy - Time for TD to display those diplomatic chops, when going out, to get help, to save his country. Maybe working with unscrupulous characters or former enemies. As TD goes to recalim the nation. Make him the stallion we want in charge. #AntaresforKingofEquestria
Went David Drake on me again... TD, on the subject of his children being held hostage,as voiced by Colonel Alois Hammer on his friend:
Tell them, Danny. Tell them that I don't know if I can release Donald Slade alive by force... But I'll burn their planet for his funeral pyre if I can't!"
8553717
I thought Grubber was better than most Disney comic relief characters. He's the least of the movie's problems.
The movie's story itself was a big problem IMO. It was terribly structured: get to a new place, meet someone, mediocre song to advance the plot in a cheap and easy way, almost immediately drop the new place and character, and they did this THREE times in a row, leaving the first half of the movie consisting of nothing more than a lot of noise and nothing of note. Then they quickly abandon the whole adventure's goal, effortlessly undo all the adventuring by just returning to the starting point off-screen, and have almost the same situation they had at the start of the movie, only with Twilight caged and Storm King's forces being firmly entrenched in Canterlot, and they just win this time for no reason (I guess the funky bunch of characters who really shoudln't have become their friends sort of helped, but it didn't seem like a significant enough difference). The movie rushes through too many ideas without giving any of them the time necessary to engage. And for how much people seem to love her,
TempestFizzlepop is an extremely cliche character that just borrows from the show's existing reformees (I mean, seriously, "That's what friends do" again? Helping with fireworks again? A unicorn whose faith in real friendship was destroyed in her childhood?) and adds a distinct flair of an OC from a bad fanfic on top (badass red and dark design, wild mane, calm and confident, oh-so-tragic backstory, forgiven even more easily than Starlight despite actually knowingly threatening the whole of Equestria).8553816
Well whatever the case may be, I hope you enjoy this story more.
8553811
If you never read the prequel comics Storm King is portrayed really well in that, the perfect blend of goofy and menacing. Honestly I just hope he's done justice in this story. I love the Storm King he was a blast whenever he was on screen and could have easily stolen the show if given more screen time.
I realize that everyone's jazzed about the movie and all, but is starting a new fic before you finished the last one a great idea? It just seems like you've trivialized or otherwise rendered irrelevant the last story, because unless you start throwing in references to things that haven't happened there we know that whatever else went on wasn't important enough to recap here.
8553868
I'm doing what I can on that. It's planned to be a giant story, so we'll see about that. I had inspiration on this one, and I actually managed to do stuff with it. The only things that were revealed in this that haven't been revealed in the canon story was the name and gender of Luna's foal. Most of the stuff here is non-canon.
8553863
Nah I don't read the comics, I did hear about the Storm King being more competently portrayed in the comics though. Random thought, but in the episode, where Twilight sees all the bad, alternate futures, caused by Starlight. Do you think the one, where Equestria was obliterated, was caused by the Storm King? I mean he does hate Equestria, and cute stuff, and seems like the kinda villain, who might, destroy a whole nation, with all that alicorn power. Also was I the only person, who initially thought Grubber was a diminutive Diamond Dog.
8553868
I did have that concern myself, but he's been updating TD Punches everything in the background. Hopefully anything important that needs to be addressed will get brought up, and included retroactively in the other story. Although that runs the risk of making it less appealing, since parts of it, have been spoiled...
I always wondered what some older fics would look like, after later seasons of the show and the movie. I think stories like Fallout Equestria worked so well, because they were written, before the MLP world was shown to possess dark forces, with armies at their beck n call. Before it was this colourful, mostly-innocent world. With a few Big Bads, popping up, until Chrysalis, where you see a whole army, of bug-pony invaders. Hence why season 2 was the cut-off for that fics timeline, before the FoE one took over. Heh now I can just imagine the Storm King serving as a mercenary or gettingh is arse blown up, in a balefire megapsell. Sorry kinda rambled on there
Ooooo boy. This'll be great.
Hey BronyWriter,
great story and interesting prequel.
But I don't understand how Antares didn't went all "blazing red sun" and
didn't summoned shadow scorpions and death all over the aggressors ?
(especially after they have taken his children)
8557018
Well he was magically surging when he did that.
I actually chuckled when Grubber was taken out. I could tell you were a fan of him about as much as I was. Dealt with before he even got so much as a line.
This looks a lot more interesting than the movie's beginning as far as the conflict goes. The ponies didn't even fight back in the movie - they just ran away until they eventually fell down a waterfall. Even though I felt like if they fought back they probably would have blown the army away. But I guess I'll stop myself there since I'm not trying to review the original movie.
Ultimately you write war scenes far better than whoever wrote the script for the MLP movie does.
But I do sorta miss seeing the mane 6 being the movie focused on the six of them (well technically Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy were almost totally "just there" - especially Fluttershy). The fact that they're all absent feels like we're missing something.
Nooo you killed blaze. Does this happend around Resurgence?
8572321
A few years after the start of resurgence.
aww I was hoping derpy was gonna be a big hero again and shove Antares out of the way of the fourth orb like the movie unless she died in past stories and I missed it. oh well still liking the start.
Ya know, invading a country filled with a lot of discharged soldiers is a stupid thing to do. The resistance will not be futile.
Canon equestrian army is really just decoration.
Nightmare Moon - they where only those posted in Ponyville, thus their prowess could not be quantified. PASS
Discord - facing a reality warper military is obselete. PASS
Changelings invasion - commander was compromised, still they were suposed to be in high alert mode. FAIL
Vines kidnapping two nation leaders PASS (noone could have forseen that)
Tirek - magic was drained reducing everyone capacity. PASS
Alternate timelines
NM timeline: They got restructured to serve the night queen. NA
Chrysalis timeline: None are seen as part of the resistance. FAIL
Sombra timeline: Actually they're seen doing their job. WIN
Flim Flam timeline: there's nothing to do legally. PASS
Armageddon: everything is dead. EPIC PASS
Changeling kidnapping all nation leaders FAIL
At most15 transport Zepplings crash party and three nation leader are captured on home turf with numerical advantage and experience in facing invasion. EPIC FAIL.
8717094
Yes. A-and? I upped the numbers in this one. They took over all of Equestria in a few days in this story.
8553816
I agree with those points. My problem with the movie is that they just took their usual bad guy tries to take over season finale and stretched it out to movie length.
8717094
The way I see it, we never see the actual army in the show, just the royal honor guard, and due to limitations of the medium in which the show is presented plus the intended audience, much of the scope of the invasions and the combat involved occurs off screen or is drastically toned down
So expecting the Royal Guard to repel an invasion force would be like expecting the guards at Buckingham to repel an actual army. Yes, they are highly trained elite soldiers, but their purpose is to repel small, localized threats or buy time for the royal family to evacuate to a more protected location.
The reason we never see the actual Equestrian military is either due to Equestria not having a standing active-duty military or because the invasions we see in the show are essentially Pearl Harbor scenarios where the standing military is not at full combat readiness or does not have time to deploy before they are overrun (what I suspect occurred with the Storm King's air-mobile forces) or possibly are engaged by enemy forces elsewhere and are unable to reach the area (as most likely occurred during the Changeling invasion of Canterlot).
But like I said, that's just how I see it, everyone is free to to their opinion.
If you'd like me to go into greater detail about my reasoning in a civil conversation, I'd love to discuss my observations and conclusions with you, however I'm not sure the comment thread of a story is the best place for it.
I'm all set to read this and enjoy it, but the premise of the movie has hit an enormous plothole when combined with the Princess TD timeline. This Equestria fought and won a large-scale war, with several allies sending reinforcements and a very capable fighting force being raised from the ponies themselves. I get that most of their troops were drafted and released from service, but TD and his guard were the motivation for the war in the first place.
It doesn't make as much sense, in the Princess TD timeline, to go looking for allies in a new race that they've never heard of before and who didn't come up at all during the previous war. If they had any ability to contribute meaningfully, they would have been tapped to fight the minotaurs. Plus, as TD mentions at the end here, all his human weapons are back in Baltimare.
10337629
Well, it'll be easier for me to rebut once you've read the story.
10337844
Totally fair, and I'm looking forward to finishing it. This was just my observation at the start here, and it tripped me up while reading. I've enjoyed your stories, in case it seemed I was just ragging on them.
The hippogriffs bro!
10337848
So I'm actually with you on this one. Twilight at least had Tia to tell them about the Hippogriffs/Seaponies, but here she tells them to get the children... Sure she says there's a race beyond the Badlands, but that's vague as all hell and can lead to some heavy misinterpretations. Good story series, don't get me wrong, but major plotholes here... Can't wait to see how he resolves them!
10974867
Definitely worth reading through.