Game of Harmony

by CommanderApplejack

Chapter 5: Appleoosa

Chapter 5

Appleoosa

"How far are we from Appleoosa?" Applejack asked Twilight, the group had left the Everfree days prior and were walking in what Twilight and Rainbow had determined to be a straight line Towards the earthpony capital. Applejack had been giddy to get to earthpony territory, which Twilight guessed was because she wanted to find her brother.

"We're a couple of hours away at worst, AJ." Twilight responded to the earthpony, turning her attention back to Moonlight. While walking the thestral and unicorn had been having conversations about the batponies and how they had kept themselves hidden. As it appeared the batponies although having hidden for nearly a millennia had been spying on the other races and actually had a reasonably accurate picture of all of them.

"I think I can see the outer walls!" Rainbow shouted as she flew back to the ground, the pegasus had been flying almost non-stop since they were out of unicorn territory. "It's about six leagues out I think"

"If so then it might be a good idea to stay on the ground for a bit, Rainbow. The earthponies will not appreciate a pegasus casually flying around their airspace." Moonlight advised the pegasus, she grumbled but landed moments later, getting herself involved into the conversation Scootaloo and Applebloom were having.

The batponies had given the group various items the group could use on the road but the most notable of those items was earthpony currency. When Twilight had asked how the batponies had gotten their hooves on it Moonlight didn't want to elaborate, making twilight think it was probably stolen in one of the batponies' espionage actions. Moonlight and Twilight continued their conversation for another hour, this time the topic being the curse placed on Luna or 'nightmother' as the bat-pony called her. The curse apparently was turning the pony into a twisted and corrupted version of her true personality and when daymother had tried to purge the taint, the elements had locked the younger sister away instead of healing her.

But that wasn't what baffled Twilight the most, the fact that Moonlight told the story as if day- and nightmother had both wings and a horn. "They do." Moonlight answered as Twilight asked if they did.

"WHAT!" I mean... I..." Twilight struggled to form words while Moonlight was grinning, disturbing Twilight slightly as she wasn't quite used yet to the sharp fangs the thestral possessed.

"You'll see when you meet nightmother on the summer solstice next year." She said as Appleoosa came into view of the walking group. The city was truly massive, its grey walls of solid granite standing more than twelve meters tall and watchtowers dotted the outer wall. Outside of the city, massive fields of grain and fruit orchards spanned to the horizon in the south and were being tended to by hundreds of ponies. To the west lay the large granite quarry that was responsible for the city's building materials.

"What ya all starin' at?" Applejack asked as everyone had slowed down to look at the city, "Let's go!"

Moonlight who had been wearing a cloak put up the hood so the ponies wouldn't immediately recognize her as an unknown species. Following the road to one of the city's gates, they passed small groups of earthpony farmers who mostly bunched up and whispered to each other. As they approached the gate the group could see eight earthpony soldiers standing guard outside of the open gate, one of the guards spotted them and seven of them immediately attached their spears to their armour facing forward, while the eighth ran into the city.

"HALT!" The leader of the squad shouted, "State your business, unicorn." He said as he singled out Twilight as the leader of the group.

"We seek shelter for the night and information about a family member of one of my companions." Twilight responded, meanwhile a couple more guards, one clearly an officer, had come outside and Twilight could see a couple of the large ballistas lining the wall aimed at them.

"This is not a decision we can make, Unicorn, it is for the King to decide to allow your peculiar group access or not. Relinquish your weapons and give your supplies to the guards." The officer ordered, Twilight nodded to the others as they once again had to remove their weapons and give them away. The officer raised an eyebrow as Twilight threw the sword down she had gotten from Applejack. "Tell me, Unicorn. How is it you carry an officers sword?" He asked suspiciously, Applejack stepped forward as she had already removed her gauntlet.

"Ah gave it to her, Sir. Ah got it after me and mah fellow earthponies killed a unicorn in the narrow streets of Ponyville." She told him.

"Fellow kin from ponyville no less." The officer said, seemingly glad, before turning to Moonlight. "Remove your cloak. We will not have you walking through our city like that." He told her. Moonlight, who had already thrown several blades onto the ground of which not even her companions had known, unclasped her saddlebag and lifted the cloak from her body with her wings. A couple of the guards took a step back as they saw the leathery wings and fangs, and most spears could be seen drifting a little in the direction of the bat-pony.

"What in the King's name are you?" The officer asked Moonlight.

"The fact you have to ask that question means my kin have done their work well." She answered, "My species is called Thestral, or bat-pony. To me it matters little which you pick."

The officer thought for a moment, "Take them inside, lock them up in the guardhouse. The king will decide its fate." He said, the guards leading the group through the gates and into a building on the inside where they were locked up in a large holding cell.

"That went well." Rainbow commented as she sat down in a corner of the cell, keeping Scootaloo under a wing protectively.

"We're not dead." Moonlight deadpanned.

Rainbow just grunted. "As I said, went well."

Applebloom and Applejack went to sit in another corner of the room while Twilight sat down on a bench against the wall, Moonlight saw the earthpony guard who was left by the door eyeballing her but whenever she looked at her she'd turn away again. "If you have other questions you want to ask, ask them." She flat out told her.

The red maned guard uncomfortably turned to face the cell's inhabitant, "It's just that you said that your kind did its job well if we didn't know about you. Have you guys been hiding among us or something?"

"No, not exactly. I'm not going to tell you where the rest of my kin lives but it isn't in earthpony territory." Moonlight said from her sitting position, the guard shuffled again as she had another question. "So the fangs..."

"No, I'm not a vampony." Moonlight cut her off, "I'm an omnivore, I eat both plants and meat." the bat-pony said as she pulled aside her cheek to show a set of grinding teeth behind her canines. The Guard relaxed slightly and flashed a grin, "I think I just won a bet." She said as she returned to her post. About fifty mind-numbing minutes later the officer from the gate with a few other guards came walking back into the guardhouse, "You seem to be in luck, the king has taken an interest in your little group, unicorn." He said as he opened the lock to the cell and led them outside where more guards joined them. The guards tied Rainbow's and Moonlight's wings to their barrels before they were allowed to join the others.

The group was led to the inner city by the guards who completely surrounded them to cut off any avenue of escape, earthponies stopped at the side of the street to look at the convoy of ponies as they passed. Twilight looked around the city, they had passed several large parks already, something you wouldn't see in unicorn cities. She had heard about the affinity to nature the earthponies had before but to experience it was still strange to her. After almost forty-five minutes of walking the group passed into the inner ring and saw the main keep in front of them, it wasn't as tall as unicorn structures typically were but it was very clear that the thick granite blocks could withstand serious punishment if they ever would come under siege.

The door to the keep opened and the ponies were led into the castle and after walking to the end of the main hallway, the throne room. A large brown Stallion sat on a throne, he wore the same type of armor as all the other guards but it was augmented by a small dark green cape hanging from one side of the armor.

"Presenting his majesty, King Iron Hoof. Lord of Appleoosa, Guardian of the Earthpony realm and rightful ruler of the northern Earthpony cities!" An announcer shouted, the King looked inquisitively at the group. Twilight, Applejack, and Applebloom bowed for the king, Rainbow and Scootaloo stood rigidly and both made a salute with their wings, and Moonlight just stood confused between the five other ponies not sure what proper protocol was.

Seeing all the different responses the king burst into laughter, "Rise." He said with a deep rumbling voice, "I must say I find you an intriguing group of ponies. It is not every day you see earthponies, pegasi, a unicorn, and an entirely new species travel as a single group as opposed to bashing each other's skull in." He thundered.

None of the six ponies present knew how to respond the casual tone the king had spoken with, Twilight was especially baffled as any casual talk around the Empress would usually end in an execution. "Are any of you going to talk or what? I'm not like that empress or the pegasi with their sticks up their buts, I'm an earthpony. I worked to get where I'm right now."

"Nice to meet you, King Hoof." Applebloom weakly said, The king raised an eyebrow.

"You're going to have to say it a bit louder than that if you want to be heard, little one."

"Nice to meet you, King Hoof." Applebloom repeated a bit louder, a smile crept onto the king's face.

"Come on! You're an earthpony, Louder!"

"Nice to meet you, King Hoof." Applebloom said with her regular volume.

"There we go!" He said satisfied as he got off his throne and stepped down the stairs closer to the group of ponies, "Now I know the unicorn is a former officer because of the way she bowed, the pegasus is a former regular and you're both deserters because your two nations hate each other too much to team up to fuck me over." He walked over to Moonlight, "I trust that my kin over there is truly a former Ponyville resident but that leaves you, abomination, what are you?"

Moonlight gulped at the massive stallion standing before her, almost towering a full head above her. "I-I helped lead them safely through the Everfree and I wanted to see the world after hearing the stories various members of my kin told about the outside world." She explained, Applejack had to stop herself from physically cringing at the explanation as Moonlight was lying by omission.

"Hmm, so your kind lives in the Everfree. That would explain how you've been able to hide from the rest of the world." The king said, Moonlight's grey fur seemed to lose a bit of colour as the king correctly guessed where her home was. "But I don't think they'll become a threat since your kin probably doesn't have the largest population. I don't believe the creatures of the Everfree would allow it." He walked back up to his throne and sat down, staying quiet for a moment as he thought through his next course of action.

"King Iron Hoof, we-"

"Silence, pegasus," the King cut off Rainbow. "Your group my be intriguing but not think we have forgotten it is your kind that enslaves our northern kin."

Rainbow didn't dare talk again as the King thought before speaking up again. "I cannot allow you to just roam freely through my realm but I do not believe you pose a threat to my ponies. I will have you escorted for as long as you reside within the city and my quartermaster will make sure you are housed in one of the barracks in the lower city." He decided, "In return, the unicorn will give us as much information about the current state of the Empire's forces. Other than that I also want you to help train my troops, it will be useful for them to have actual experience fighting a unicorn, bat-pony, and a pegasus."

Twilight listened to the demands, She didn't know that much about the earthpony front with the unicorns but she could at least give them a general state of affairs.

"As for you, my fellow kin, I hear you are in search of a member of your family who left you after the raid of Ponyville." The king said to Applejack, "Yes, my lord." She answered.

"Follow one of my scribes, he'll look through the archive for you to see if we have records on your brother." The king told her, he motioned to a couple of the ponies around the room and they led each of the ponies on their separate ways. Rainbow, Scootaloo, and Moonlight were being taken to a waiting room, Twilight was being led by a couple of officers who seemed eager to talk to the unicorn, and Applejack and Applebloom followed a scribe and a guard to the archive.

A familiar guard waited in the room where Rainbow, Scoots, and Moonlight were led into. "Aren't you the guard from the gate?" Scootaloo asked the guard who stood by the table.

"Yes, little pegasus. It seems because I volunteered to guard you over at the gates they now want me to keep an eye on you in the city."

Rainbow walked up to the table and sat down on a bench, "Well if we're going to be stuck together then we should at least know each other's names," Dash said while holding out her hoof, "Rainbow Dash." The guard stepped forward and shook Rainbows hoof, "Cherry Petal" She said, Scootaloo and Moonlight introduced themselves after Dash. Twilight came walking back into the room followed by a slightly disappointed officer about half an hour later and was shortly after followed by Applejack and Applebloom. "Any information on your brother, Applejack?" Twilight asked the seemingly happy earthpony, "Eeyup, He apparently joined up with the earthpony military and has seen various deployments. His unit is supposed to be stationed at the Dustwatch right now."

"Awesome! We should go there after we've helped the earthponies train over here." Dash said, "Also we have our escort here." She pointed at Cherry. "Ah heard, seems like ya aren't rid of us yet." AJ said, "Ah'm Applejack and the filly here's Applebloom."

"Pleased to meet you two." Cherry responded and put her helmet back on as she had taken it off while she had talked to the other ponies. "Now you're all back here we should head down to the barracks, I must inform you that if any of you get separated from me in the city you are to report to the nearest guard you can find. If you do not you'll be arrested and trialled when found. Am I clear?" She asked, all the other ponies nodded. "Good, follow me."

Twilight, Rainbow, and Moonlight were sitting in a dressing room, Rainbow had gotten a new set of pegasus armour, including the helmet this time, to use while training. Twilight had gotten a set of captured unicorn armour and Moonlight only took the torso of the pegasi armour with the undersuit. As for weapons Rainbow and Moonlight got a blunted version of the extendable blade while Twilight got a blunted shortsword. While Rainbow, Twilight, and Moonlight would be training the earthponies, Applejack, Applebloom, and Scootaloo would go roaming around the city with Cherry to visit some shops and maybe buy some equipment with the money from the bat-ponies. Outside the dressing room they could hear a group of earthponies being informed about the training, a couple of the earthponies could be heard laughing as they seemed to think it was a joke of some sort.

"Come on out you three." An earthpony shouted into the dressing room. Dash grinned "Let's go show them a couple of moves shall we." She said, as she spread her wings and blasted off through the door. "Let's follow her before an earthpony ballista accidentally shoots her." Moonlight muttered, a bit grumpy that the earthponies didn't have the type of knives she usually carried so she'd have to do with the extendable blade. Outside they could see about sixteen earthponies, Two full squads, who were all focussed on Dash as she landed in the middle of the training arena. "The first squad will train with the pegasus and the second one with the unicorn." The officer in front of the soldier told them, The group breaking up into two squads.

Twilight saw a drill sergeant walking towards her, "So before we start I want to take stock of you, unicorn." He said, the squad forming a half circle around them, a bunch of other soldiers had taken place on the viewing stands of the training arena as they wanted to spectate the training fights. "Fine by me." Twilight replied, unsheathing the sword and giving it a few experimental swings. She also quickly cast a spell on both herself and her opponent without anyone realizing it. Rainbow on the other side of the arena seemed to be challenged by her respective drill sergeant while earthponies just seemed to try and avoid Moonlight.

The sergeant picked up a spear and started circling Twilight, the unicorn mirroring him. The earthpony suddenly jumped forward in a stabbing move, Twilight beat away the spear and slashed at the earthpony but he rolled out of the way before the sword could hit. The two started circling again as the sergeant got back on his hooves, "What is it, Unicorn? Too afraid to attack?" He tried to taunt her, Twilight just raised an eyebrow. "Afraid? I'm just giving you the chance to attack me." Twilight replied as she poured more magic into her horn in anticipation of another spell.
Twilight saw the sergeant looking at her as if he had already won, How about you suck on this one. Twilight feigned a stumble, the sergeant immediately took the bait and charged forward again. The small crowd cheered at the supposed imminent defeat of the unicorn but just before the spear hit twilight she disappeared in a flash of light and appeared a meter to the left, savagely grinning she brought down the flat of the sword against the exposed neck of the earthpony as she simultaneously turned and bucked him in the side. The cheering from the stand stopped as the sergeant bit the dust, a large red mark where the sword had hit.

"Before we started our duel I cast a spell that would show the severity of any potential wounds." Twilight stated as she brought up her dull sword and sliced it past her throat, a yellow line appeared. "Yellow indicates a superficial wound." Twilight pressed the sword a bit harder to her throat and the line turned from yellow to orange and then to red, "Orange is a critical wound that would kill you if you don't immediately treat it and red means the blow would have been lethal."

Having finished her explanation Twilight resheathed the sword and lifted the spell, the red lines disappearing from both the ponies their necks. "It seems I underestimated you." The sergeant said as he got up from the ground. A cheer suddenly came from the crowd watching as Twilight saw Dash getting bucked on her armour and flying into the wall on the side of the arena.

"Don't worry, sergeant. There are very few unicorns that can pull off a short-range teleport like that." Twilight said as she saw Rainbow being pinned to the ground by her opponent, forcing her to concede. "Anyway, with that out of the way, shall we start the training now?" The sergeant nodded and the group huddled around to listen to Twilight explaining everything she knew about unicorn tactics against earthponies.

"It's not going to happen, Cap." Comet said, "Canterlot blocked us from entering the forest and even if we went in now without their permission, there is no way in Tartarus that we can find any meaningful tracks from them. They're gone, they've slipped through the cracks."

Shining was fuming at his desk, his superiors in Canterlot had found it a waste of resources to pursue Twilight into the Everfree. Some horseshit about the Everfree wildlife finishing them off before they would reach earthpony territory. "I know they don't want us to go into the damn forest but I know for sure none of the creatures there would be able to stand up to her."

Comet raised an eyebrow, "How can you be so sure of that? There's some terrifying crap living in that forest, I mean if you run into a hydra you're pretty much bucked."

"I know she's going to make it out because she is one of the most talented and creative magic users I know and I personally taught her how to swordfight." Shining responded, Comet tried to come up with a rebuttal but couldn't. Shining's training would tip Sparkle's odds in her favor.

"Anyway, what has Swift Star been doing? She's only been here a couple of times the past few days and I've seen her send multiple messages to who knows where." Shining asked Comet who just shrugged, hell did he know where his female colleague was or what she was doing.

"I've been doing my own thing." The blue mare said as she walked into the tent. Shining looked at her, "And your own thing is?" He asked. The unicorn threw a file on his desk, "That's straight from intelligence, don't ask how I got my hooves on it."

"How the hell did they get to Appleoosa already?!" Shining shouted as he read the report. Swift levitated another parchment to Shining, "Apparently they're travelling with some sort of vampony, that's probably how they got through the Everfree as quickly as they did."

"Let me get this straight, not only did they travel through a bucking monster-infested forest in no time at all, they also managed to get to the earthpony bucking capital." Shining slowly asked the lieutenant in front of him, she nodded. "Can whoever got you that info also kill them?"

The lieutenant nodded once again, "For the right price."

Shining pondered for a moment, "Do it." He eventually decided, "I'll pay myself if I have to." Swift Star saluted and left the tent to get it done.

Comet watched his superior with surprise, "What happened to 'asking her personally'?" He asked Shining.

"She's too much of a potential asset for the earthponies, I'm not going to have my personal feelings stand in the way of the safety of the Empire and the Empress."

Comet nodded, "probably going to be a helluva surprise for her when it happens when she thinks she is safe."

"Yes, it is." Shining responded, he knew that he had to do it but somewhere it didn't feel right. He pushed the feeling back down, the traitor had made her call and this was the only appropriate action... Wasn't it?

Author's Note:

Updated to the current timeline.

Comments

[aline1]

Well, that is going to make for awkward dinner conversation after this is all over assuming Shining is still alive when this is all over.

[dvdspires]

earthpony capitol

Capital.