OMAI: The Empire of Storms

by VeganSpyro97

Chapter 7: The Commander's Choice

The fact that she was alive was not lost on Tempest Shadow.

She had survived when she should, by all reckoning, have been killed. It felt wrong. Tempest didn’t particularly want to keep living. If living was either suffer as a slave, or serve the king, she would, after many long nights of careful consideration, choose the other option and call it quits on the whole breathing deal.

It wasn’t like she particularly liked the idea of just giving up and dying either. She was quite fond of being alive, even if her life for the past few years had been one of absolute misery. She knew it could be good. She’d experienced some of that as a foal, before the...beatings ...and even as a teenager, growing up with colts and fillies who were terrified of her and hurt her because of that, she had had small glimpses of that better life. Small moments with her parents. One or two adults who treated her with kindness. Even one other filly who at least tried to talk to her. She’d just been too angry to see it.

It was her fault those were gone. But that hadn’t stopped her from hoping, yet.

That hope was very weak now, though, hence her current train of thought. With the supposedly “Unconquered Sun” lying in a cell in the dungeon, and the rest of her kinsponies on the run….it was hard to see how it was even possible to find a way out of this that didn’t involve a particularly lengthy and gruesome death at the hands of those she betrayed- be that of the ponies, or the Storm King.

She found herself drawn back to one particular cell, as she made her rounds. The pony inside seemed to have lost all hope, just sitting there, passively, barely even moving. A far cry from the warrior that Tempest knew her to be.

And yet Tempest couldn’t stop seeing Static Thunder, and how viciously she had fought for what she loved. She couldn’t stop seeing that pony effortlessly cut down a multitude of Jotuns and hold back the King, entirely on her own in many of those cases.

The glimpses she had caught throughout the battle, and the reports she had received...they made this pegasus, a creature the King denounced as weak, and pathetic, look….well, it made her look like a bucking titan in her own regard. It had taken the King himself to put her down, and if he hadn’t had the staff….it was entirely likely that the pony would have been his match. His equal.

That strength...Tempest didn’t believe it was gone. The pony before her seemed to be deadened, passionless.

But Tempest could see it in her eyes.

It was very hard to lie with your eyes. And every so often, Tempest caught it. A flash of that same defiance that she had seen when the pony fought the king.

Looking at this pony made Tempest angry. Angry at the King. Angry at the Jotuns.

Angry at herself.

She hated what she had become. Hated the puppet the King had made of her.

His training sessions were brutal. He beat her when she failed. He deliberately went out of his way to remind her that he was in charge, that he owned her.

She hated all of it. Hated how she had just accepted it. Hated how she had been stupid enough to trust him. Hated how she lacked the courage to just walk away. The way that Static would.

Maybe her death would be doing the world a favour.

….But then again…..maybe her living would be doing it one as well…….

Tempest grit her teeth as she stared through the bars at the chuckling madmare.

If only she had decided to act earlier, when the King was less powerful, when the Princess was still and Alicorn. When Canterlot hadn’t yet fallen. It would be so much easier if she had done something sooner.

If she fought the king now….she’d pretty much be committing suicide. But if she didn’t….then she would also be condemning herself and so many others to life under his boot.

She had to choose.

And she didn’t know what to do.

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Betraying someone isn’t easy. Oh, buck it was not. In fact, now that Tempest was contemplating doing so, every vaguely odd look that any of the King’s soldiers directed in her direction-whether or not it was intended for her- seemed to be the accusing glance of a potential informant about an equally potential traitor. She couldn’t bring herself to talk to anyone that she didn’t need to talk to, her equine need for company doing it’s best to drive her insane with that need.

Instead she kept herself unusually quiet and subdued. She wanted to kick herself for making her discomfort so obvious, but she couldn’t help herself.

Trotting through the halls of Canterlot Castle only compounded her guilt, especially when there were groups of newly collared ponies being lead down the hallway she was in at the time. Seeing their glares, their hateful eyes boring into her...Tempest gritted her teeth. At least her time with the Storm King had been good for teaching her how to keep her emotions hidden from others ...almost all of them, at any rate. No matter how hard she tried, the King always seemed to be able to see how she actually felt about a given situation- but since he had spent the last month playing with his new power like a child with a ball, she saw no reason that she would encounter him in the halls.

Not until the novelty of Alicorn magic wore off on him at least, which, if the erratic patterns of the sun moving across the sky were any indication, wouldn’t be any time soon. She could count on his delight keeping him occupied for at least another few days.

Which left her almost completely free to plan her move.

Almost completely free.

While the Jotuns were no problem to fool, she had a much more difficult time dealing with the King’s “hounds”. The smaller soldiers with their claws and their mad laughter were much harder to fool. They seemed to notice any little twitch ...or rather, their high pitched chuckling always made it seem like they had.

The worst was their commander, but he was still keeping watch over the King’s favourite…..maybe second favourite toy now. He wasn’t due to arrive for another few days.

Tempest hurried on her way. Her rounds inspecting the guard detail for the twentieth time were boring, and kept her busy. It was most likely another way to keep her from forgetting her place. Commanders weren’t usually left with that crap. Usually that sort of duty was left for the lower ranked officers.

Still, it gave her the perfect opportunity to plan.

She couldn’t do much in the castle itself- too many eyes, too many ways that she could get turned around should things go south. But if she could get a weapon to the Pegasus, then maybe Static could get herself free while Tempest caused some confusion.

Any plan she could concoct to help the ponies would be risky, if she dared to try. Especially if the King caught wind of it.

Maybe if she could limit the number of guards around Static somehow, and smuggle a weapon to her, something small and easily concealed somewhere...not that the pony had many places she could hide something. It was pretty much mane, tail or wings.

And what kind of weapon? A dagger? She could accidentally slice herself open retrieving it from wherever she hid it.

A projectile weapon then. A crossbow was too big, and no necessarily lethal enough to pierce a Jotun’s armour. No, it would need to be something she could use in close quarters, something that the guards would not be expecting.

Tempest shuddered at how she was contemplating helping the pegasus kill some of the Jotuns she had been living with for….how long had it even been now? She’d stopped counting somewhere after the fourth year. Guess that went to show just how much she had grown to hate them all. It would give a psychiatrist a field day.

That could wait until it was all over though. Working through her issues would be a full time job, one she didn’t have time for right now.

Tempest found herself missing her horn more than ever. Her brand of magic was hardly what she would consider subtle. She found herself fantasizing about freeing the ponies with some fancy magic learned in some fancy school somewhere, and before she realized it, had walked straight into the throne room without meaning to.

The King was stood out on a balcony, still playing with the Staff of Sycanas like a dog with it’s new favourite chew toy.

That didn’t stop him from noticing his commander entering the room.

“Ah, Commander. Good, I was hoping that you would stop by after your rounds. I’ve reached a decision on what to do with our prisoners downstairs- the unruly ones, at least.”

“What do you command, my King?” Tempest was glad that he hadn’t seen fit to turn around and look at her, or he would have seen her narrowed eyes and gritted teeth before she could do anything about them. She quickly brought them back under control, putting her mask on, hoping that it wouldn’t be necessary to try hiding her emotions from him, since she always seemed to fail at convincing him.

Thankfully, he was too enraptured by Princess Celestia’s magic. He made the sun start whizzing about in figure eight circles, no doubt doing massive amounts of damage to Equus’s weather systems in the process.

“My King, if you continue to play with the sun this way, you might very well ruin the world. There are other ways to play with that magic besides flinging the sun around.” Tempest knew that getting him to stop was a terrible idea at the present, when she was depending on him being distracted, but having the sun itself being treated like a simple bouncy ball by a power mad Jotun in the grips of childish misbehaviour was likely to end in disaster if it wasn’t put to an end.

The King stopped, setting the sun to a more natural course and looking wistfully at the staff in his claws.

“It wouldn’t do to accidentally burn down your entire empire because you mishandled it.” Tempest added.

If there was one thing that the King would not risk, it was his power over others. Accidentally burning them all to death would ruin his fun.

What a travesty, to ruin his fun.

You know what? Screw needing him distracted, seeing that disappointed look on his face was damn well worth it.

The King sighed and turned around, walking back inside and staring at the twin thrones that took up the end of the massive room. He fingered the staff with a single hand, before he leveled the length of crystal at the enormous seats.

“I made a decision on the unruly prisoners, and the Princess.” Gaul reiterated, still eyeing the thrones.

“So you said, my Lord. What decisions have you made?”

The King grinned, staff thrumming with power, and his red eyes crackling. “Execution.”

The Solar Throne exploded in a shower of dust and debris.

“Take the prisoners into one of the buildings near the central plaza, and have your Squadron build a gibbet. Then ready the broadcast spell. I want the world to know that the “Unconquered Sun” met her end on my word.”

Tempest listened with growing horror, her eyes shrinking into pinpricks as she realized what she was being asked to do.

“Y-yes...My lord.” Tempest mumbled, bowing, before turning and walking away, her face pale and her mind numb.

Kill Celestia…..Kill Static Thunder. If she did this…..if she did as she was commanded, then there really was no going back…..and if she defied the King….he would never stop hunting her.

Tempest grit her teeth again, not for the first time, and marched steadfastly out of the Throne room, and went in search of her squadron.

She had preparations to make.

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The Gibbet that Tempest’s troops had constructed was a massive and ungainly thing. Constructed of wood and situated closer to one end of the plaza, with the back of the gibbet facing away from the city center, backed up by the sky.

The ponies due to be executed had been constrained in ropes, chains and magic suppressors in the broken remains of a cafe of some kind. Tempest wasn’t entirely sure about it, since most of the furniture had been smashed up to be used as fire or construction supplies. Tempest looked about at the fair city of Canterlot with wistful eyes. She had been told about it since she was a filly, about how it was full of light and laughter, that the trees were the greenest greens and the walls shone in the sunlight.

Now it was just grey from fallen ash. And brown from mud. Black, and red from fire damage and blood, with nothing left of it’s pristine beauty.

These people had been happy. They had had food aplenty, water to drink, and lived comfortable, safe lives, provided for by benevolent rulers who strove to help their ponies reach their potential.

And now all that was gone.

Tempest remembered some of the many words the King had used to persuade her to his cause. “Magical power, wasted by those that don’t understand what it means to go without. Magical power wasted by those not strong enough or brave enough to use it for something greater.”

Looking at the ponies who were being brought into the plaza, in chains, and remembering how they got there….Tempest couldn’t see it any more. They were vulnerable, yes. They had been caught, yes. But the resentment in the eyes staring up at her…. The burning passion and anger. They didn’t seem unwilling, or too cowardly to use magic.

Tempest stood stock still upon the gibbet’s main platform, decked out in her full armour, and, for once, wearing her ceremonial sword at her side- despite her lack of practice with bladed weapons, preferring blunter weapons in combat. It was a vicious looking thing, but highly impractical, with a jagged edge more likely to get caught on her opponents instead of simply cutting or stabbing them, should she ever try to use it. She was tense, her decision not to decide making the air around her seem to close in as the minutes between now and the time of the execution ticked away.

It was all arranged. The broadcast “spell” as the King called it, had been set up so that he could be seen, and the stage as well. He was standing on the balcony of the city museum, with the “spell” ready to be activated in front of him. It was designed as a bowl with a carefully crafted lens and reflective mirrors over top of it, held inside a copper tube bent at a ninety degree angle. The result was a primitive broadcaster that could pick up imagery and then show the image on the other end of the communication “spell” on the other side of the bowl. Anyone looking into the other end would see what the periscope was pointed at, with dials and knobs on the sides of the tube adjusting it’s angle and focus. It was activated by pouring a precise alchemical concoction that was brewed and then divided into multiple glass vials. When poured into receptacles, the liquid would form a visual and audial connection, hence the broadcasting capabilities.

The minutes continued to crawl by, with Tempest sweating nervously the entire time, stewing inside her armour.

And then she saw the flared light of the potion being poured.

Tempest heard the king loud and clear, since he had always been fantastic at projecting, despite his many other shortcomings, none of which he would admit to- as shortcomings, at least. The King began with a typical greeting. “Citizens of the world. I am Gaul, King of the Storm Empire, and I am currently standing in the Equestrian capital of Canterlot. My agents have distributed the necessary components for this broadcast to your cities. I tell you this, because I want you to understand that there is nowhere in this world I cannot reach.” The King stepped a little closer to the lens, so that he was framed by the copper tubing, central and filling the entire view of anyone who could see and hear him on the other end.

“This broadcast is being made for a particular reason. Today, I have achieved what none before me have. I have taken the Equestrian capital, and captured the so-called “Unconquered Sun”, Princess Celestia of Equestria, and many of her allies.” The King reached up and twisted the viewer around to point towards the stage, displaying the ragged, battered ponies that were being led in a dour procession through the crowd of enslaved ponies, towards the gibbet. “And today, at the moment that I, with the powers I have claimed from the Princess, raise the sun to its highest point over this land, these ponies who resisted my rightful reign over all, shall watch, as their beloved Princess, and her loyal followers, are hung by the neck until dead, like all the best .”

The crowd of ponies below bowed their heads forward in a wave, fear and sadness spreading through them.

“Commander Tempest. Prepare the prisoners.”

This was it. Tempest felt every step reverberate through her body, felt the accusatory stares of every member of the crowd gathered before the gibbet, and the resolute, rebellious stares of those that had ropes being put around their necks.

Save for two. Static wasn’t staring at her at all, and was instead looking at the King. Princess Celestia was staring at the boards under her hooves, her mane still dangling over her face.

Tempest was forced to look into every single pair of eyes of every pony there at the gibbet. And she did it anyway. She put the noose around their necks, and tightened it. She could see her own blank stare reflected in their resentful ones.

Then, once she had finished that, she made her way back across the gibbet, to stand by the lever that would drop the ponies to their deaths. Her hooves found purchase on the wood, and she felt the cold wet of her own sweat pressing against her skin on the frogs of her hooves.

The sun climbed higher in the sky, guided by the King’s staff.

Then it stopped, having reached its zenith high above.

“Execute the Prisoners!” The King commanded, and Tempest went to pull the lever. Only she couldn’t. She couldn’t do it. She felt her muscles seize up, and even though her shoulders were set and she was leaning in to the pull….she couldn’t move. She found herself frozen in time, panic clawing at her. That panic burned, pooling in her chest before igniting into a raging inferno that wasn’t panic anymore.

Tempest’s deadened eyes narrowed, enraged and upturned, to stare the King in the face, so that she could utter one of the hardest phrases she had ever spoken in her entire life.

“No.”

Silence.

“What did you just say, Commander? Perhaps you should speak up?” The King snarled, staff swinging her way.

“I said no.” Tempest growled.

“Say it again, one more time.” The King threatened, staff lighting up in its awful, burning orange.

“NO!” Tempest howled, before she raised her hind legs, and kicked out at the support for the gibbet, smashing through it in a shower of splinters.

A beam of sunfire and lightning detonated in the space she had been standing in just seconds after she had started galloping down the gibbet, sword clutched in her teeth and swinging it through the corded ropes that had been attached to the prisoners necks.

The crowd of slaves went wild, cheers and roars of anger unleashed as they en masse, stood up and charged at the guards all around them, not caring that they were unarmed. The resulting rush of bodies against the line of Jotuns turned the plaza into a chaotic bloodbath, with ponies and Jotuns scrambling to get hands and hooves on anything that even resembled a weapon, so that they could beat the nearest bad guy over the head until they stopped twitching. Many of them swarmed the Gibbet too, rushing to their Princess either for perceived safety or to help maintain her safety instead.

It did not take long for Unicorn horns to be free of the magic blocking rings that had been placed around them, increasing the devastation the enraged ponies unleashed upon the Stormguard. Even with their magic resistant armour, the sheer anger that the ponies were turning in their direction was proving to be more than enough to put them on the back heel, allowing Tempest and other ponies time to get the ropes off the Princess’s cohorts safely. With the Storguard actively trying to get up onto the Gibbet to stop them, the King would be killing his own troops in order to stop them, and since that was-

An explosion ripped the gibbet apart, flinging bodies everywhere, with Tempest and the Princess landing on the ground behind the burning embers of the former execution stage.

“TEMPEST SHADOW!!” Gaul roared over the crowd. “YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO THE EMPIRE!! I SENTENCE YOU TO DEATH!”

Tempest grabbed the Princess and hauled her to her hooves faster than she had ever moved before. It wasn’t surprising to find many ponies hauling tail behind her as she charged down the street that had backed the gibbet.

“COME ON!! THE DOCKS ARE THIS WAY!” Static Thunder called. She was flapping her wings like a maniac, propelling herself ahead alongside a dozen other pegasi, most likely to try commandeering a ship or two so that they could get a larger number or ponies to safety.

With the pegasi leading the charge, and the Jotuns running behind them, much slower, the ponies made their way to the docks, overwhelming the small numbers of Jotuns who they met along the way, since most had been present for the execution, or posted at the walls and city gates.

The docks were crowded with ships, most of them the nasty, massive warships that Tempest had despised since first seeing them- not just because they were the King’s navy, but because their designs were simply unpleasant to look at and focused purely on arms and armaments, instead of maneuverability.

That could not be said of the drafted or captured ships used by the messengers and courier ships. Crewed by their enslaved former owners and captained by a small number of guards and officers of the imperial navy, the ships were much more lightly armed, and had less in offensive capability, but were faster and more nimble.

Such as the one Tempest was looking at.

“THE SKYLARK!!” She cried to the Pegasi, who were already fighting the Jotuns at the docks. “THE ONE WITH THE GOLDEN BALLAST ARMOUR!”

One of the pegasi looked up to her, then to the ship, then back to her, and gave her a quick, curt nod, before leading the other ponies towards the Skylark. The small crowd of ponies following her charged onto the deck of the Skylark and two of its neighbouring ships, overpowering the guards through sheer numbers and booting them overboard. Within minutes, the crews were freed, a mixture of two legged, flightless bird people, and a few other two legged species, such as the cat-like Abyssinians and a few fish like people as well.

One of the Skylark’s freed crew members, a parrot beaked avian with creamy feathers and a bright green head crest, was already barking orders to her fellow crew members, while the ponies held back the retaliating Jotuns as they tried to get them off of the ships. The engines were soon firing up, roaring into life while the docking clamps installed by the Jotuns were broken apart by the magic blasts of the freed Unicorns.

Behind the Jotuns and ponies still fighting on the docks, Tempest could see the Storm King and the rest of the Jotuns, charging towards the docks at full force, roaring- and shrieking in the hounds case.

Sprinting as fast as he could ahead of them, was Grubber.

One of the crew members was retracting the gangplank, making Tempest’s eyes widen as she saw Grubber was about to be left behind.

The Storm King’s staff tore the ship to the Skylark’s starboard side apart in an inferno of sunfire and screaming. Grubber had reached the docks, but the Skylark was already sliding back out of the dockyard.

Scrambling towards the prow of the ship, and then scrabbling up the bowsprit, Tempest reached out for Grubber. “GRUBBER! YOU HAVE TO JUMP!”

Grubber kept running, the Hounds hot on his heels, as the armoured mental patients prepared to skewer him on their outstretched claws. He reached the end of the pier, and leaped, pawed hands reaching for Tempest.

Tempest felt his paw collide with her hoof, relief starting to etch onto both friends faces.

Then Grubber grunted in surprise, with Tempest screaming in surprise as a sudden weight tried to pull her from her precarious perch on the bowsprit. Dangling from the claws that were sticking out of Grubber’s pudgy little body, was one of the Hounds, giggling and cackling at the vicious act it had just committed at the cost of its own life. Grubber looked up at her, with a quick, sad smile, before his grip went slack, and Tempest was left to try, in vain, to lift her friend up onto the ship.

There was a blur of brown, and the Hound went sailing into the empty air beneath Canterlot with a howl, and Tempest was able to haul her friend up onto the bowsprit, which she then fell backwards off of, collapsing onto the deck as the King and his troops shrank into the distance, with the few ponies that had been unable to escape the city keeping the Jotuns from launching their ships and chasing the escaping prisoners.

Static came in to land beside Tempest as she clutched Grubber to her chest, the Pegasus almost keeling over from exhaustion and malnourishment the moment her hooves made contact with the wood.

Tempest ignored her, still wanting nothing more than for her friend to open his eyes and make more stupid jokes about food.

She would never get her wish.

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[Kevin Lee]

Vive la résistance!