Prelude to War
The walk back to Arias was anything but quiet. As they walked, Adray loudly congratulated Sophia for her victory in her duel against Albel. While her win was not as clean as Lyra’s was, since she did get a few cuts, Sophia still displayed her dominance as she intended. She could only hope that her words got through to Albel.
As they walked, Lyra noticed that Sophia’s wounds were quickly closing up and vanishing as if they were never there. She had heard about her rapid regeneration abilities, but the reports mentioned that the cuts she sustained usually healed within hours. This time they healed within minutes.
Lyra had to wonder if her infestation powers were getting stronger as her psychic powers grew. She noticed that her alien sides were highly competitive while she peered into her mindscape.
She feared what might happen if the balance within her was broken. If her psychic powers overtook her infestation, her psychic power might tear her apart. On the other hand, if her infestation grew too strong, it might overtake her body and drive her insane. She had to wonder what Sophia’s grandfather was thinking by putting her in such a dangerous position.
These thoughts would have to wait as they had returned to Arias. By then, Sophia’s wounds had completely healed. Unless they were observant enough to notice the tears in her clothes, nobody would know that she was actually harmed by Albel if the ones who knew didn’t say anything.
“Sophia, are you hurt?” Fayt asked as he ran up to her.
“Do I look hurt?” Sophia shot back.
Fayt deadpanned, “I’m not an idiot, I can see the cuts on your clothes. Your skin may heal, but your clothes don’t mend themselves.”
Sophia clicked her tongue. She would have to find a way to create self-repairing clothes at some point.
“Congratulations will have to wait,” Nel interrupted. “We have reason to believe that one of Airyglyph’s spies has relayed information on the Thunder Arrow. They will surely be sending everything they have against us in hope that they can prevent us from completing it.”
“Has the copper made it to Aquios?” Sophia asked.
Nel nodded. “Also, we need to speak with Her Majesty at once about the imminent attack.”
As everyone left the mansion and headed toward the east gate, Twilight requested to make a slight detour that would take a few minutes. However, that became unnecessary as the person that she wanted to see came to her. With the village beginning evacuation for the coming battle, the clergy was also being evacuated. The clergywoman, Milenya, was just now leaving since all of the sick and injured had been evacuated first.
Twilight got the woman’s attention and convinced her to sign a contract in exchange for enough fol for the clergywoman to afford ingredients for her medicines.
With that distraction complete, the group headed straight for Aquios.
On the way there, Grape Vine had buzzed her again with more profiles on three new inventors.
First on the list was an old doctor whose medicines were questionable, yet somehow they work. Twilight could only sigh as she read more on the doctor’s, Gossam’s, profile. His talent in making medicines was amateur, but the worst part was that he was a womanizer. He apparently spent more time chasing women than he did on perfecting his craft. Apparently, he was looking for some way to be young again to chase his delusions.
There was no spell that could reverse the aging process so Twilight would have to find some sort of placebo if she really felt like she wanted to recruit the old pervert.
His last known location was somewhere in Peterny.
The next inventor was a talented alchemist named Mackwell. Based on the profile, he was practically the father of the Thunder Arrow as he derived the unification theory between channeled force and magnetism, which amounted to channeling electricity through a wire. After developing the theory, he quit the research team because the head researcher was a total slob. He chose to steal one of the head researcher’s books in lieu of a retirement package. Mackwell believed that his time was precious and scheduled his daily activities.
Apparently, there was a rumor that he desired a certain book but had no idea where to find it. Twilight felt that she could relate to him a little.
Last on the list was a young noblewoman named Rigel who was extremely fussy when it came to food. She had been known for being quite eccentric and wouldn’t work while she was hungry. She became a very talented chef in the process of hounding her family’s chef to ensure her food was prepared to her ridiculously high standards. It would take cuisine that the Canterlot Nobles would trample over each other for a taste to get this woman to sign a contract. Her last known location was Kirlsa.
Back at Peterny, Fayt wanted to pay Ameena another visit, only to find out that she had disappeared and the woman who was taking care of her had no idea where she went. This made Fayt panic and he ran back to the others to tell them what happened.
Sophia sighed and gave Fayt a stern look, “I’m sorry Fayt, but we don’t have time to go looking for her now.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll go looking for her myself,” Fayt growled.
“No, you’re not,” she stated with finality. “Airyglyph will be moving against Arias soon and we don’t have any more time for detours.”
“But I can’t just leave her like this!”
“Let me ask you this, which is more important: the safety of a terminally ill girl or the safety of a nation? If Ameena wants to risk her health by wandering off somewhere, that’s her choice and she should be prepared to face the consequences of that choice.
“Now come!” Sophia paused for a moment to briefly consider something. “Also, if I catch you trying to sneak off to find her, I’ll knock you out and carry you to Aquios.”
As they walked through Irisa Fields, Cliff walked beside Sophia. “A little harsh, don’t you think?”
“I know his heart’s in the right place Cliff, but this isn’t the time to go looking around for her when all hell’s about to break loose,” Sophia explained. “We can’t afford to have him running off blind, especially since some of us would end up following him to keep him out of trouble.”
“True,” Cliff considered.
“Also, his feelings toward the girl need to be dealt with. You know that once we return to space we can’t take her with us and with her terminal condition, it’s just going to make the heartbreak that much more painful.”
“Yeah, there’s also the fact that her feelings are for some other guy she hadn’t seen in years.”
“All the more reason to be harsh with him. If he’s fallen for her, then it’s an unrequited love that’s fated to end in tragedy.”
“Wish I could argue about that,” Cliff thought. “But she does have a point. Given the kid’s power, an emotional blow like that might trigger his awakening. I don’t wanna be anywhere near him if that happens.”
Sophia read his mind, but didn’t respond to that. Her mind reading abilities have improved a lot recently.
The group crossed the Irisa Fields and entered Aquios. After they crossed the bridge into the city, something caught their attention.
Two individuals were in the middle of the street. One appeared to be lying down while the other was checking on the first. The second figure kept themselves hidden under a cloak while the first was not identified until they got closer.
“Ameena!” Fayt shouted as he ran to her.
“Hey, is she okay?” Cliff addressed the cloaked figure.
“Yes, but we need to get her to a doctor immediately.” Spoke the cloaked figure in a voice that was very familiar to the non-Elicoorians. She turned her head to reveal her familiar face which they recognized immediately.
“Well, if it isn’t Mirage,” Cliff said.
“I see everyone is in good health. It was easy to keep track of you with all the stories you left in your wake. Sophia will probably be able to handle you in a fight pretty soon at the rate her skills are developing.”
“No need to give her a big head, Mirage,” Cliff grumbled.
“Let’s save the banter for after we get this girl off the street,” Sophia said.
“Yes,” Nel agreed. “I’ll go summon the doctor and meet you at the inn.”
Later at the inn, Ameena was placed in a soft bed with a canopy. The doctor did her best to stabilize Ameena. She sighed as she addressed others in the room.
“She’s stable at the moment, but her condition is still serious. For now, make sure she gets plenty of rest.” The doctor left the room.
Fayt punched a wall in frustration of being unable to do anything for Ameena. Cliff made Fayt calm down.
“The disease is in her lungs,” Mirage said. “If the Eagle were operational, I think we could heal her.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not an option at this point with Airyglyph on the warpath,” Sophia said.
“What about your ship, Twilight?” Fayt asked.
Twilight shook her head. “While my ship may have the necessary equipment to heal her, it’s not here. It’s currently transporting your parents to Moonbase. While it should return soon, it won’t be soon enough to save her. The disease is already on the verge of claiming her life.”
Fayt growled. “There has to be something we can do.”
“Would you quit acting like the burden of the world is on your shoulders?” Sophia snapped. “It was adorable at first, but now it’s starting to become annoying. You can’t save everyone you see. This isn’t some superhero fantasy where you save the world on a daily basis. We aren’t deities who can perform miraculous feats. You need to be prepared to face hardship in life and accept that some things are beyond your ability to do anything about.”
“But…”
Sophia’s glare intensified. “Unless you have a logically sound counter to my argument, then save your ‘buts’ for when your arguments aren’t coming from your emotions.”
As Sophia was about to leave the room to cool her head, Nel, who had just returned from speaking with the queen, entered the room. Sophia tried to school her emotions too late to hide her frustrations from Nel.
“Is there something wrong?” Nel asked.
“I need to get some fresh air,” Sophia answered before she left the room and the inn.
Nel looked at the door in confusion, “Was it something I said?”
“Nah, I think she’s frustrated with a lot of things,” Cliff answered. “She understands that we can’t help Ameena, but Fayt was only making things worse and I guess that worked her last nerve.”
“I’ll go talk to her,” Lyra offered and left after Sophia.
“So how bad is it?” Cliff asked Nel.
“It’s just as we feared, Airyglyph knows about the Thunder Arrow and is mounting an invasion with all three brigades,” Nel explained. “Vox, the captain of the Dragon Brigade, is leading them.”
“And the other captains?” Fayt inquired.
“My sources inform me that Albel is not taking part in the battle. I doubt Count Woltar will take part due to his advanced age.”
“So, all we gotta do is take out this Vox guy and we can end this thing before it really starts,” Cliff figured.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Vox is still a formidable warrior, he must not be underestimated.” Nel paused briefly. “At any rate, Dion will head to Arias with every completed weapon at our disposal. I don’t know how much he’ll be able to accomplish.”
“Dion…?” weakly spoke the voice of the girl lying in the bed.
“Ameena, you have to stay in bed!” Fayt ordered.
“Fayt?”
“Don’t worry about me right now. Why did you push yourself so hard?” Fayt demanded.
“Because my friend…an old man I know told me that I could find him here, in Aquios.”
Twilight hummed, “You mentioned ‘Dion’.” She looked at Fayt, “Could it be the same Dion that Nel just mentioned?”
Nel approached Ameena’s bedside and lowered herself closer to the floor. “Do you happen to know Dion Landers?”
Ameena gasped, “Yes, that’s the name of my old childhood friend from before I moved away.” She then went into a fit of coughs.
“Don’t exert yourself,” Mirage warned.
“Yes,” Nel agreed. “Right now, he has something important to do, but once we end this war, I’ll be sure to bring him to you.”
Fayt begrudgingly remained silent. As much as he disagreed with waiting until the war ended for Ameena and Dion to be reunited, Sophia did have a point that he had been acting on his emotions too much. With a sigh, he said, “She’s right. You’re in no condition to be going anywhere and Aquaria might suffer if Dion isn’t focused on the battle.”
With resignation, she laid back down on her bed. “Alright, I’ll wait.”
“Mirage, please keep an eye on her.”
Mirage nodded. “Leave it to me, I do have some medical expertise.”
Elsewhere, outside the inn, Sophia was taking some deep breaths to try getting her emotions back under control. She had grown used to Fayt and his tendency to act without thinking. Sometimes she would just let him do his thing and let him deal with the consequences, unless such decisions would prove suicidal, such as the incident on Hyda. Despite him being three years older than her, she sometimes felt like his babysitter.
There were times when she felt like she should just leave him to his fate. A part of her believed that he wasn’t fit for surviving in reality and that nature should take its course and leave him dead in a ditch somewhere. She had to crush those feelings sometimes, much more often recently.
“You doing alright?” said Lyra from behind her.
Sophia took one more deep breath. “Sorry about what happened back there, I guess even my patience has limits.”
Lyra smiled faintly, “Don’t be, I remember this one time a long time ago where this one pony was friends with this really obnoxious pony and the obnoxious one really got on her nerves. She didn’t want to blow up on the annoying one for the sake of their friendship and just bottled up her anger which ended up exhausting her emotionally. Things got a little messy when her temper reached a boiling point. Thankfully, their friendship wasn’t damaged.”
“How do you deal with idiots when you can’t get rid of them?” Sophia asked.
“You mean when you can’t afford to get rid of them?” Sophia nodded to the question. “I will admit that there have been times where I felt like we should leave Fayt behind when he tries to drag everyone on one of his detours, but it’s like you implied: we can’t afford to get rid of him.
“Whether Fayt likes it or not, you are the one leading the group at this point. I could tell that Cliff, Roger and Peppita have already acknowledged you, Adray is still deciding, Nel respects you so long as you don’t make stupid decisions, the same goes for me and Twilight. Fayt just needs to accept that he won’t get his way all the time.”
Sophia smiled a little. “Thanks, it makes me feel better to hear you say that.”
Lyra’s smile widened a little. “No problem.”
A gravelly voice was heard grumbling about something as he walked down the street. Coming out of an alley, Sophia and Lyra spotted Adray, who looked like he was in a foul mood, walking down the street from the castle. The duo were close enough to hear him.
“Stupid Lasselle, always talking out his arse,” he grumbled. “Our kingdom is in danger and he thinks I’m needed in some faraway land.”
“Guess I’m not the only one dealing with infuriating people right now,” Sophia said as she approached the old veteran.
Adray chuckled awkwardly, “Err…you didn’t hear that, did ya?”
“Just the last part, though my problem wants to put the important matters on hold to go around playing the hero. One of these days, I’m just going to let him run off somewhere and let fate decide whether he lives or dies.”
“Hmph…I have my own problems with Her Majesty’s advisor. He just wants to get rid of me because he doesn’t know how to handle me.”
Sophia smirked, “Most people probably wouldn’t, given your personality. You’re like a predator in a kingdom of prey.”
Adray stroked his beard and drew his own conclusion, “You’re right, these little sheep need to be toughened up to be real soldiers. Too bad we don’t have the time right now or I’d handle their training myself.”
“Not what I had in mind,” Sophia thought. “Of course, in this case, either Adray changes himself for the kingdom or the kingdom toughens up to fight alongside Adray. Either way, something’s gotta give.”
Eventually, everyone regrouped and with the matter with the queen finished, they returned to Arias.
Back at the Arias command center, Clair was providing the strategy for tomorrow’s battle.
Every now and then, Sophia asked about the capabilities of the troops and frowned as she heard the answer. The troops were not trained in guerilla tactics that could be used to thin the numbers of the ground troops or in how to place traps to weaken the advantageous positioning of the enemy’s strongest resources, namely the dragons. Thankfully, since one man was the main general of the whole army, taking him out would throw the enemy into disarray. Clair assigned her and the group to take out Vox.
Still, Aquaria could use all the help they could get in terms of military capability. Having artillery was a start, but the troops could use more training.
Sophia asked for a piece of paper and a quill for her to write with. While Clair was going over the details of the operation, Sophia wrote down a number of suggestions for what to train the soldiers in for future battles. When she handed the paper over to Clair to read, the commander gasped as inspiration filled her mind.
“I had no idea that you were so versed in battlefield tactics,” Clair commented. “Many of these tactics I have never even heard of, but they do make sense. Are these perhaps some battlefield tactics used in Greeton?”
“Yep,” Sophia lied. “I know that it’s too late to instill this knowledge to the troops for this battle, but in case you run into future enemies, it might not hurt.”
With the strategy decided, everyone went to their assigned rooms to get some sleep before tomorrow.
That night, Sophia decided to check the next memory in the crystal. She merged the newest shard with the growing crystal.
“Alright, time for part three.” The crystal grew brighter and the familiar feeling of her consciousness shifting was felt.
Once more she saw Gerald, but this time he was standing inside a ship that appeared more advanced than even the Federation vessels. Of course, the design looked pretty gaudy with the gold color and all the lights.
“Today, I would like to introduce you to the second part of your genetic heritage. This ship belongs to a race of psionic warriors known as the Protoss. In their language, it means the Firstborn. There is not enough time to go through their entire history, so I will briefly go over the parts that matter for the sake of this memory.
“As far as the records show, the Protoss were among the first races ever conceived in their universe. Though in the beginning, they squandered their psychic gifts to pursue tribal warfare. It was through the actions of a race of cosmic ascended beings known as the Xel’naga, that the violent race sought scholarly pursuits.
“Millennia passed and eventually the Protoss began to become self-sufficient and took to the stars. This also created a growing sentiment that the Xel’naga were no longer needed and that they would forge their own future from then on. They saw other races as lesser and agreed that they must be protected.
“Despite their independence, however, religion forever divided the Protoss into several factions, and with it, different styles for the Templar Arts.
“Yes, my granddaughter, part of the reason, though small, that I sent you to that universe in the first place, was because I knew that you would find a teacher who would teach you the Templar Arts as is part of your heritage.
“Through your Protoss abilities lies power and guile. You should be well aware by this point that your psychic powers come from this side of you. Be warned, you bear massive levels of psionic power within you. Your body must be able to keep up if it is to make use of that power without destroying yourself.
“Come, I will show you the three styles and the techniques that your teacher has yet to show or is hesitant to show.
The rest of the memory was spent showing Sophia a number of different techniques from the Khalai, Nerazim and Tal’darim styles of Templar Arts. The knowledge had certainly advanced her training greatly, but she had a feeling that she would really need to fortify the foundation of her training before she could make effective use of the new techniques. She could foresee plenty of meditation in her future.
On a side note, she also learned about the amazing uses of Protoss crystal technology.
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The Crystal Memorys are my favorit of the story.
Fayt is a Darwin Award winner waiting his chance to receive his price
Lyra and Bon Bons story... Sooo cute ♡
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It's pretty easy to guess what the next memory is going to be about.
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Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows?
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How did you guess? I guess I can reward you with a preview of the next vision.
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Only thing missing is Chrysalis and Fluffelpuff sitting on a Marker kissing, while Marksaline eats a snockers 
Military as sound as Celestias canon royal Guards.
On both sides...