Part One Hundred & Eight
The asphalt cracked like glass under the heavy crystal greaves. Flurry Heart ignored the rending snaps under her every hoof step. Her eyes, shrouded by her helmet, remained focused on the brittle husks of vehicles collapsing in the wind. The alicorn stopped in front of a hulk that was probably a light tank; it was difficult to tell with only the treads and part of the rotating gears remaining.
Dragon Lord Ember followed the alicorn. Both wore their armor, but Ember’s was light and relatively form-fitting with her tall, lean frame. Her breast plate left her white-scaled neck exposed to gunfire, and the helmet exposed more snout and horns than the alicorn approved. The dragoness’ steps cleaved strips from the road with every clench of her feet. The Bloodstone Scepter hummed between her folded wings, secured by a strap to her back.
“How many escaped to Las Pegasus?” Flurry asked over a wing.
“Less than ten thousand?” the Dragon Lord guessed back. “We kept away from the anti-air in the city.”
Flurry swung her helmet to a large, jagged black dragon scale jutting out from beside the highway. She clicked her teeth and levitated it over. It was nearly the size of her wing. “Any losses?”
“No,” Ember answered. “A few minor injuries from tank shells.”
“Good.”
The dragon scale fell to the road. Flurry stepped over it and continued surveying the vehicles. Her exposed jaw was set into a frown. This was a waste.
The Changelings retreating down the road had seen the initial flyovers. Dragon Lord Ember’s dragons were more marauders than a coordinated fighting force. They slammed into the highway without clear direction. Most torched already abandoned equipment as the soldiers and civilians dropped everything to run. We could’ve used this equipment.
Flurry flapped her wings and the gust blew the ashen legs of a changeling apart into motes. They had sheltered behind the tank when whatever dragon that torched this section of the road flew over. Most had not made it very far, either fleeing off the road into the surrounding armies or getting caught in the crush to Las Pegasus.
The Princess stopped before a troop truck that had melted into slag. Her horn glowed above the purple helmet. After a moment, she snorted. I can’t even tell if there were weapons in here. Ash blew across the road with a northern wind.
“We contained the oil fires,” Ember offered. The Dragon Lord’s voice was smoky, rough with forced nonchalance. Flurry noted how her talons jittered on her bare feet. The alicorn nodded her helmet in acceptance before continuing down the road.
“I would’ve liked to make use of the equipment,” Flurry mused aloud, “but it’s an acceptable sacrifice.” She shoved one of the skeletal bedframes of a half-track off the road with a chime from her horn. “We’ll need this road cleared and repaired for the shipments. Can your dragons assist?”
Ember did not respond.
Flurry Heart fully turned around. The Dragon Lord had stopped besides remains of a four-door civilian sedan. It had been spared a direct blast from the tank beside it, but the glass and entire chassis had deformed from the heat. Flurry walked over and followed Ember’s stare to the driver’s seat.
A blackened skull laid in a pile of ash and bone shards. The seat itself had fused into the remains from the intensity of the heat; Flurry could not tell if it was a mare or stallion with the skull in such poor condition.
Flurry sniffed and smelled overwhelming ash. “Odd for a pony to drive. Either a servant left behind…or a collaborator unwilling to leave their car.” She raised her helmet to Ember. “Do you know how to drive?”
The Dragon Lord’s lips twitched and she refused to answer. A shadow briefly eclipsed the sun as a massive claw ripped the nearby hulk of a tank free from the asphalt and crunched it down in its palm. The metal shards fell to the side of the road.
Flurry squinted and craned her neck high. A massive elder dragon grabbed the remains of an oil tanker with both claws and carelessly flung it out into the flats behind him. It landed with a cloud of dust and ash.
“Don’t hit my ponies!” Flurry said warningly. Her voice kicked up swirls of embers along the road.
The dragon stared down a long, crooked snout at the alicorn barely the size of his orange eye. His scales were a deep blue, pockmarked with dents and gouges. Some looked very old and more scales had grown around scars.
“No ponies out here.” The dragon’s breath blasted heated air across the highway. “Chasing little mosquitoes out in the desert.”
Flurry eyed his colors and compared them to the scale she passed. “Your work?”
The dragon rumbled in tacit agreement. He picked up another car frame and bit clean through it with mismatched teeth. His snout soured and he spat the metal shards off to the side. “Yes.”
“Nice work.”
The rumble twisted to a deep, bassy chuckle. “No work swatting flies.” An eye leaned down and squinted at the armored alicorn. “Forgot how to fight dragons.”
“I’ve never fought a dragon,” Flurry shrugged a wing. Her armored wing joint chimed.
“Use magic,” the dragon offered bluntly. He slapped one claw against his other forearm.
Flurry abruptly ducked her head as a rain of flattened bullets fell around her. Several bounced off her helmet. The dragon shifted backwards off the highway slowly with a deep, rumbling laugh. The only armor he wore was an ugly belt of plate strapped to his underbelly by the wire ropes the alicorn had only seen to secure cranes.
“Keep clearing the road!” Ember shouted up at the dragon. She had retrieved her staff and twirled it between her claws. Her dragon nodded and swiped another truck off the road from behind the two monarchs. It landed in the flats with a muted crash, thrown nearly clear of hearing range.
Flurry kept walking ahead. She stepped over a partial chitin skeleton. “Army Group South estimated forty thousand on the road. Let’s assume ten made it to Las Pegasus and five ran towards my army or the griffons. They don’t matter. Good work.”
The alicorn snorted at the husk of a stretch limousine. It had been blacked by the heat, but just enough of the silver paint job was left behind near the burst wheels. We’ll have to set scouting parties to clear the flats. They might try to reorganize-
“There were ponies here,” Ember interrupted the alicorn’s train of thought.
“I know,” Flurry returned.
“And civilians.” There was a thud as the dragoness buried the Bloodstone Scepter into the asphalt. The dragoness gripped it tightly with one claw as Flurry turned around.
The alicorn flared her wings. “War veterans,” she corrected. “Given grants of Buffalo land to ‘settle’ for the future of the Hegemony. Civilians running plantations or oil wells on stolen land while the blood still soaked into the ground.”
The alicorn looked to the side at the limousine. Probably abandoned. “They strafed our convoys as we retreated to the coast; they don’t get to cry about us doing it to them.” Her helmet swung back to the dragoness, but Flurry kept her head low and stared out the eye slits. “Don’t waste your tears.”
“You didn’t do it,” Ember bared her fangs. “You told us to do it.”
Flurry rolled her eyes. “I would’ve helped if my armor arrived.”
“That’s not my point.”
Flurry refolded her wings with a groan. “What is your point, Dragon Lord? You want the Badlands back? Or the Spa Islands? Would you like a territorial concession or automation help? Do you even have factories on that island?”
Ember turned her snout upwards. “I’m here because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Oh?” Flurry whickered. “Your sense of moral superiority took a hit, then?”
Ember yanked the scepter free from the asphalt and snarled a plume of nearly white-hot fire. “I don’t know how someone raised by Spike and Thorax can be this much of an asshole.”
“When was the last time you saw them?” Flurry said neutrally.
“A few years,” Ember deflated. “Guess Thorax took those assertive lessons to heart, huh?”
“What?” Flurry asked. She raised her stance up, knee joints clicking on her greaves. Sweat stuck to her jumpsuit under the heavy crystal plate. It was unseasonably hot for spring along the highway; the air itself still held traces of heat from the pass overs from the rampaging dragons.
“We met a few times during the war,” Ember waved a claw. “Spike asked me to help him be more assertive on the radio.”
“He tortures VOPS agents to death and ran a criminal empire,” Flurry deadpanned. “Looks like whatever you taught him stuck.”
“I didn’t teach him that,” Ember retorted with a snarl.
Flurry looked past the Dragon Lord. A few of the younger dragons scavenged bits of plate off the few intact tanks, raking their claws against the metal to test its thickness. One about Flurry’s height held up a shard to her chest and judged the size.
Ember noticed her stare and turned around. “I’ve noticed your Thestrals wear war trophies.”
“Same thing?” Flurry guessed.
“We’ve always taken from the dead,” Ember answered. “Add to the hoard.” With her back turned, Flurry could only see her wings flutter and refold while dragoness bent the metal shard into place for a leg plate. The dragons did not seem bothered by the ash or skeletons.
“You mean from those you’ve killed,” the alicorn said. “A little bit like Olenian Vikings from the old days.”
“Where do you think they got the idea from?” Ember huffed. “They tried sailing around our islands a few times.” The dragoness turned back around and surveyed the ruined road. Her eyes stopped on the ruined limousine caught between two military trucks.
Flurry waited for the dragon to gather her thoughts.
“I didn’t come back to the war to be history’s monster again,” Ember sighed. She yanked her helmet off and plopped it down into the ash. “I wanted dragons to move past this.”
The alicorn smiled ruefully. “You think playing nice and smiling is going to make everyone forget? They’ll just notice the sharp teeth even more.”
“I wanted to be a different Dragon Lord,” Ember finally admitted. “I got involved with the war because I wanted to show the world we could be more than this.”
“Mom told me stories about ponies befriending the dragon, not slaying it.”
“Yeah,” Ember puffed a plume of smoke. “'The dragon came down the mountain and befriended all the ponies and ate all the cake and became just a big, goofy, non-threatening idiot. All the ponies wondered why they were ever scared. The end.' I preferred the slaying stories, honestly. Less insulting.”
“I’m not asking you to do that,” Flurry replied after a pause. “Grover wanted to be different, too.”
“You’re really on first-name basis with the Kaiser of Griffonkind?” Ember chuckled. “You know how many of his knightly orders supposedly got started by slaying dragons and stealing their hoards?”
“Did dragons not steal it first?" Flurry nickered. "Actually, are there dragons on Griffonia?”
“Not anymore.” Ember waved her claw. “Dad always said someone was full of shit unless they had the dragon’s skull. You don’t lose something like that. Don't think any of those blowhards actually have one. Probably looted a bunch of Riverponies and made up a story.”
Flurry stared at the husk of the trucks. It was impossible to tell if they had been loaded with Changeling soldiers at the time of the blazing inferno, or if they had already fled farther up the road. Even if they had, they couldn’t run or fly as fast as an elder dragon at full glide. Grover’s plan had worked. The civilians fleeing Appleloosa and all the smaller towns had clogged the road. With the sea escape cut, the remnants of the Changeling Hegemony had to make a stand at Las Pegasus.
“This sends a message,” Flurry said aloud.
“That dragons burn things?” Ember ventured sardonically. She folded her arms across her breastplate.
“Surrender or burn,” Flurry continued. “Same offer I gave the Republicans in the north. They only believed it because I killed Kemerskai.”
“I heard you did far more than that.”
“Yep,” Flurry exhaled. “Canterlot says the Las Pegasus airfields are the priority, not the port. If this turns into a siege, can I count on your dragons as shock units to take the outskirts?”
“The bugs are going to put your ponies in the way.”
“Yes.”
Ember shook her head. “I’m not ordering that.”
“They’re going to drain the ponies if we wait and try to starve them out. If they won’t surrender, we’ll storm the city.”
“Why would they surrender after this?” Ember waved her claw at the road.
“Because they know I won’t fold,” Flurry returned. Her voice was cold. “Trimmel tried it in the Crystal City, then Rainbow Falls, then Canterlot. I will not yield.”
“Leave my dragons out of it,” Ember warned. Her voice softened. “You’re just playing the Queen’s game, you know.”
Flurry cocked her helmet. “What do you mean?”
“I could hear her radio on clear days,” Ember began. She flapped her wings and balanced herself on the melted frame of one of the trucks. It bent under her weight. “She kept going on about ‘my beloved changelings’ and how the world was out to get them, how it was their strength that made the Hegemony and if it faltered all was lost.”
Ember bent one of the bars casually in her right claw. “You’re just proving her right. Proving her right to all her ‘beloved changelings’ as well.”
“I did not invade and enslave a people then lie about why,” Flurry growled.
“The world’s out to get us, so we should get it first,” Ember said flippantly. “Did you meet Smolder’s brother? Red, bad breath?”
“Yes,” Flurry bit out.
“He wanted the same thing during the Gauntlet. A lot of dragons did. Always hated how Equestrians looked down on us as stupid, ignorant brutes. Held up pretty pony Spike as a ‘civilized’ dragon. Always wondered why she had that egg in the first place.”
“Did you want that?”
Ember’s eyes clouded. “Just wanted to prove myself to my dad.”
Flurry ground her teeth and paced along the asphalt. It cracked under her hooves. “Your dragons weren’t shoved into fucking cocoons and mutilated. You’ve seen my Thestrals? You see the scars from the plantations?”
“I’m not saying you aren’t justified, filly. But you’re playing her game, and there’s no winning it.” Ember bent forward, leaning on the scepter. Her wings flared. “Chrysalis said the world was always against them, and now there’s the world stomping towards their door. Just as cruel as she said it would be.”
Flurry tossed her head back with a stomp. “Most ponies didn’t know the first thing about changelings until my parent’s wedding. We barely acknowledged they existed. Chrysalis attacked for no reason, and we should have gone after her.”
Ember hummed and stared at the gem thrumming with power in her scepter. “Wonder if she planned it that way.”
The alicorn scrunched her muzzle. “What?”
“Sets one Tartarus of a first impression,” Ember explained. “Not like ponies were gonna tell bugs apart, either. If she won, she won. If she lost….well, there’s no undoing invading Canterlot and kidnapping an alicorn.”
Flurry gazed west towards Las Pegasus. The army had roughly encircled it and was slowly tightening its grip, but progress was slow. She was close enough to see the clouds that made up the top of the city, and the flashing lights. Probably anti-air and spotlights now instead of casinos.
“How do you want to fight this war?” the alicorn asked the dragon.
“I’ll throw my dragons into the fire,” Ember answered, “but I’m not going to use them to just prove a point. Next time, do your own dirty work.”
“I thought your dad died because he held back?”
Ember’s tail lashed against the metal and bent the frame with the strike. “Don’t twist my words.”
“We’re not made of dragon scale,” Flurry nickered. “We can’t swim in lava and eat rocks. We don’t play her game and we get stabbed every step trying to be the better mare. Chrysalis beat Equestria and the ELF when they were generous. She made them pay for it every step of the way until they bled out.”
“So you’ve decided to beat her at her own game?” Ember ventured. Her scaled brow furrowed. “You’ll never beat her.”
“Why?” Flurry snorted. “Because I’m just a filly?”
“Because you care,” Ember answered. "That's why they're doing it. And they'll keep doing it."
Flurry snapped her mouth shut.
Ember twisted a shard of the metal frame free and raised it to her snout. She bit into it after a moment and swallowed with a grimace. “Dragons can eat just about anything. Told everyone not to eat the dead. I’ve heard from a few that changelings taste terrible anyway. Wonder how love tastes?”
“Thorax told me it tastes like chocolate except not.”
“How vague,” Ember laughed. Her eyes turned somber. “I could tell my dragons to hit the city, and most would without ever thinking of how it looked to the rest of the world. Especially the old bastards the size of a battleship. Back in the day, they could torch some random village without word getting around if it was isolated enough.”
Flurry pinched her eyes shut. “I can’t believe this. You feel bad for them? Changelings started this war. Every changeling living in Equestria lived over ponies. They sense emotions. They weren’t blind. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“Hard not to feel bad for them,” Ember returned. “Most probably can’t even see what their ‘Great Queen’ did to them. Dragons are awesome and everyone’s just jealous of us. Has nothing to do with how we raided and torched towns for gold.”
Ash blew across the road from a sudden gust of wind. Flurry opened her eyes and scowled at Ember. Her horn glowed and she removed her helmet. Sweat ran down from her shaved mane. Her horn winked out and the helmet dropped heavily into a pile of ash.
“Trimmel met her,” Flurry said coldly. “So did Jachs. Every changeling that’s actually spoken with Chrysalis knows she’s a monster. They all followed her anyway.”
“Except Thorax.” Ember set the Bloodstone Scepter against the ruined metal. The dragoness folded her arms. “Spike made friends with him. Your ponies are killing every changeling they catch down here.”
“You’ve seen the pamphlets. You think he’d befriend a changeling after finding Twilight like that?”
“No.” Ember puffed a plume of smoke. “But you’re not going to win playing her game.”
“I’m not trying to win it,” Flurry snorted. “Chrysalis just has to lose with me.” Her eyes swept up the road to the city in the distance. “They all followed her because she won. Let’s see how far they’ll follow her into defeat.”
“You’re not giving them much of a choice,” Ember tried.
“Everyone has a choice,” Flurry shrugged a wing. The crystals sliced through the air. “Changelings eat love, not pride. In the end, they can accept a hoof of friendship with my uncle and come down the mountain to make peace with all the pathetic ponies. Or they can burn.”
Ember tapped on the haft of the Bloodstone Scepter. She ran a talon down the purple, jagged rock. “Any self-respecting dragon would choose death before dishonor.”
Flurry laughed loudly at that, and windchimes rang across the broken road. “What honor, Dragon Lord? Spike had to invent a ‘Dragon Code’ for himself. You’re on the wrong continent for honor.”
“I’m sure changelings think they have honor,” Ember replied with a snap.
“Loyalty to the Hives,” Flurry echoed Thorax’s words in the throne room. “Loyalty to the Queen that killed all the others to secure power.” Her laughter faded as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Any Dragon Lord ever get overthrown for being an asshole?”
“A few tried with my dad,” Ember answered sullenly. “There’s legends. And he never talked about the previous Dragon Lords. It was over a thousand years ago.”
Flurry was quiet for a moment. “You’re right. Chrysalis doesn’t care about them. They sank one of their own ships out there when it tried to turn around. That’s their weakness.”
“What is?” Ember frowned. Her tail whipped against one of the metal prongs.
“Chrysalis wants a swarm that will die upon her command,” the alicorn mused. Wind blew ash into her blue and purple mane. “She never had to test that conviction until now. She won’t break…but they will. This time, they’ll break before we do.”
“Crystal cracks, filly.” Ember licked her fangs.
“Chitin cracks before crystal,” Flurry responded. She shook the ash out of her helmet and turned eastward. “When we’re finished here, I’ll see you in Canterlot. We need to set up a unified war plan.”
Ember watched the alicorn slide her helmet back over her horn. A claw clenched her own helmet to her hip. “Where are you going, Princess?”
“General Mudbeak moved his command up,” Flurry stated. “We’ll offer surrender terms before…” the alicorn trailed off. “You still don’t want to help?”
“I’m not helping you torch your own city.”
The Princess sighed and accepted it with a nod. We’ll have to move artillery up and shell the lower levels. Thestrals and griffons can assault the clouds. She spared one last look at the Dragon Lord standing beside the wreck of a truck in slightly dented armor.
The alicorn flared out her wings and charged her horn. Magic crackled through the air as she primed the teleport. Ember stood her ground and let the sparks dance off her chest plate. “Thank you for your assistance, Dragon Lord.”
“Princess,” Ember shrugged her wings.
As she teleported away, Flurry realized Ember was uncomfortable in her armor. She snapped into a field of canvas tents with a muted smirk. Several griffons squawked in alarm at the flash.
Flurry Heart folded her wings with the sound of clashing crystals. The five nearby soldiers moving crates had not recovered from the sudden crack of lightning in the middle of their tent city. Army Group South had been mobile ever since it left the jungles for the more temperate plains, making a command post along the second major highway every few weeks to relay orders between Canterlot and the southern push.
General Mudbeak prefers to lead from the rear. Flurry glanced over a wing to the west. She could no longer see the clouds of Las Pegasus, but the base was where it was supposed to be at the very least. Griffons in gray standard uniforms still unrolled barbed wire and propped up chain-link fences in the distance.
Flurry rolled her eyes. Changelings fly. Who are you trying to keep out? She finally twisted her helmet down to the soldiers. The alicorn had snapped into the middle of the camp, apparently disrupting a shift change. One griffon had his helmet in a claw, head feathers laced with sweat and damp stains under his wingpits. Flurry felt her own fur chafe with froth under the jumpsuit.
Griffons had also laid down wooden boards for walking on the uneven ground beyond the highway. Flurry’s hooves crunched through the wood from the weight of her armor. She shook splinters off her greave with a small frown. “Where’s General Mudbeak?”
The griffons traded looks amongst each other. They only moved their eyes. If Flurry Heart had not known better, she would think she had paralyzed them with her telekinesis. The alicorn’s muffled ears twitched as the sounds of construction beyond the sea of canvas tents faded.
Flurry picked the least terrified looking soldier, a light orange male barely out of his teens. He clutched his carbine rifle like the Princess remembered holding onto Whammy. Probably only a few years older than me. “Do you know-”
He flinched and dropped his rifle. Flurry caught it in her magic reflexively, and the two griffons on either side of the quivering soldier stepped away. The alicorn gave them an unimpressed look of annoyance through the slits of her helmet.
She thrust the carbine back into his claws after flicking the safety on. “I’ll find him myself.” Her horn continued to glow and the color vibrated. Magic pulsed out across the camp.
Every griffon nearby flinched. One in an open tent dropped a tray of glasses. They ducked back out of sight before Flurry could check if it was medical equipment or not. Fuck it. Find the fanciest tent. She craned her helmet up and shifted her legs.
It wasn’t hard to spot. There was a high-pointed tent with gold trimmings along the drab canvas; the frame was bigger than the ones surrounding it. Flurry trotted towards it alongside the wooden boards to avoid breaking more of them. Shadows in the tents stepped away.
Unlike the massive camp outside Canterlot, Flurry did not see any clear servants. Griffons flew over the tents in stained undershirts, or only had armbands denoting their rank while they shifted supplies and crates. Most had a knife in a sheath or a pistol in a holster under one wing. A few balanced long arms on their backs, wary. Most banked clear of the massive pony stalking through the camp below them.
Flurry smelled the alcohol from the aid station in the wind. She did not spot the tent on her walk, and doubted it would be close to the field command. A screech echoed from somewhere to her right. A radio tower slowly hoisted into view with ropes pulling it upright above a long tent full of ammunition crates.
The Princess gracelessly seized the top of the tower in her magic and pulled it all the way upright. The ropes trying to haul it up went slack. Flurry released the tower and watched it sway in the wind and nearly topple over. She grabbed it again half-blind. A few of the ropes went taut after a moment of silence, so the alicorn released it and continued.
“You’re welcome,” Flurry snorted in Herzlander.
There was no response.
She rounded the long tent and finally came upon the gilded canvas. Flurry had approached it from the side and was forced to trot around. The material looked finer than all the others, but it was well-worn with age. Her estimation of Mudbeak went up slightly at the patched bullet holes in the side. Those aren’t new.
Her estimation went down at the four guards before the sheet metal ‘door’ on the tent. None of them said a word and kept their eyes on the ground, claws flush on the wooden boards. The two closest to the side she appeared from shuffled closer to the sheet metal, then shuffled back as she rounded the front.
The boards creaked under her armored hooves. Flurry smacked her lips and judged the door. I’ll need to duck. “Is this General Mudbeak’s tent?” she asked with forced politeness.
None of the Reichsarmee soldiers answered her. Flurry scanned their collars under dark metal helmets. “Oberleutnant?” she asked a black griffon. “Is General Mudbeak available?”
The griffon’s helmet jittered in a nod, but he kept his beak to the wooden boards so it was hard to tell for sure. Flurry hummed and bent the sheet aside with a flick of her horn. The alicorn had to duck and the large crystals at the ends of her primaries sliced through the canvas on the sides. She ripped them free once she crossed the threshold.
More wooden boards cracked under her hooves. A rug had been splayed out across the width of the tent, but it was more for catching dirt than coziness. Flurry had not spent much time with the old griffon; he seemed perennially nervous to be anywhere near her, always fiddling with his wispy mustache or flapping his hat.
Flurry was surprised by how dull the tent was on the inside. There were two plain wooden desks, cut into segments and slotted together for easy transportation. A cot only slightly springier than her own laid in one corner with carefully folded sheets. Several spare jackets and pants hung from wires along one wall.
Flurry Heart was also surprised by General Mudbeak. He slumped forward in a chair beside one of the desks, casually eating a sandwich with slow clacks of his beak. A pile of folders laid beside an empty plate. His jacket was unbuttoned and the medals hung loosely.
“I said I was not to be disturbed,” Mudbeak grumbled in half-slurred Herzlander. An eye swiveled from the sandwich to the massive armored alicorn shrouding his doorway. Flurry kicked the sheet metal back into place with a clang.
“Oh,” Mudbeak squawked lowly. He bit down into the sandwich again. “Come and go as you please, Princess. Kaiser’s orders.”
Flurry took a deep breath, sweaty and tired. She removed her helmet and carefully set it down beside the door. “I apologize. You guards did not say you were occupied.”
“Why would they?” Mudbeak responded around a clump of roast chicken. He vaguely waved at her with a claw. “Don’t sit on one of my chairs in that armor.”
The alicorn narrowed her eyes. She had cast the detection spell earlier, but the griffon swaying in the chair seemed…
“Are you drunk?”
General Mudbeak laughed with a single, solitary squawk. “I had some wine with my meal. That’s not a crime, Princess.” His tent had windows, but all of them were folded shut. The only light in the interior was two humming crystal bulbs set atop each desk.
Flurry cast her magelight and set it high into the peak of the tent. The shadows receded around the corners of the tent. Mudbeak squinted at the sudden intensity, but it wasn’t enough to hide his glassy, dilated pupils.
“You are drunk,” the alicorn scowled.
The griffon rolled his dull eyes and lifted up one of the folders next to the empty plate. A needle and discarded vial laid on a smaller silver plate. “I am high,” Mudbeak corrected. “As high as the light of Boreas above.”
The alicorn snorted in disgust. She had been given morphine in the Crystal City, but she had been unconscious for the removal of the molten gold from her head. Flurry Heart had awoken in pain from the breathing tube rammed down her throat, and her scraped-together medical staff refused to issue her more drugs in fear of collapsing her nervous system after reaching Critical Magical Exhaustion.
After the first day, she didn’t care. The pain was nowhere near as bad as the Heart. “You’re stealing that from soldiers that need it just for a fix?” the alicorn huffed.
Mudbeak’s cheeks pulled into a lazy smirk. He tapped one of his talons to the loose jacket, and a medal shaped like two folded wings swung in the stale air. “I was awarded a medal in the Revolution, filly. Got four medals, actually, but the Kaiser just gave me one.”
“Very impressive.” Flurry tossed her head back. “I saw the radio tower. When can we move on Las Pegasus?” Or are you too high to do your job?
“The other three medals I received on the shores of the Griffking,” Mudbeak continued like he didn’t hear her. “Artillery shell landed next to my pioneer team. Three shards went in, and the surgeons couldn’t remove them without severing my spinal column.”
The griffon bit into his sandwich, finishing the last bite. Crumbs spilled down. “Still hurts when it’s hot.”
Flurry sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Heard that’s how your father died,” Mudbeak remarked. “I suppose I was lucky that the Gods watched over me…” An eye rolled over to the alicorn again. “Guess his gods didn’t watch over him.”
The alicorn’s horn sparked.
“You look frightening enough like that for the negotiation,” Mudbeak said approvingly. “I’ll offer surrender on the radio, try to meet up with the Hegemony’s command in person to confirm the offer once the encirclement's complete. You can just stand in the back and scowl with your lean little muzzle.”
“I wonder what Grover thinks about your habit,” Flurry ventured.
“He knows,” Mudbeak crowed. “He also knows I was due to retire before this Maar-damn war.” The wispy white mustache dropped around the edges of his beak, but he smirked again. “Maybe the Gods are punishing me?”
The pink horn snuffed out with a golden ember. “I’ll go find…” Flurry wracked her brain. “Major Darktalon? Whoever. Stay here and sober up.”
“I’m the only one in this camp that’s actually going to talk to you, filly,” Mudbeak said languidly. “My guards didn’t say a word, did they?”
“So much for the Reichsarmee’s discipline,” Flurry agreed.
“You see any knights flying around here?” Mudbeak squawked. He drummed a few talons along the desk shakily. “The Kaiser can send his holier-than-thou brigades into the spearheads, but it’s griffons believing in a paycheck that actually fight and move his army.”
“And that’s you?” Flurry asked with a huff.
“I wasn’t paid enough to take three chunks of shrapnel in the Herzland.” Mudbeak poked the medal again. “You think any pay raise is enough to get cocooned or dragged off by those parasites? Most of this army saves a bullet just in case. Half of them think they actually do suck out your soul.”
“They don’t,” Flurry deadpanned.
Mudbeak waved a claw. “I met the Hive Marshal back when he was just a Field Marshal. That little fez made him look like an asshole.”
Flurry thought back to Aquileia and smiled. “It did.”
“Only thing Synovial liked in Griffonia,” Mudbeak chuckled. He shifted around in the chair with sagging gray wings to stare blankly at the alicorn. “The griffons outside aren’t paid enough to stop you, filly. They’re not full of the guiding light of Boreas to believe He’s going to shield them from that horn. They want to get through this and go home.”
The alicorn flexed her wings halfway, limited by the tent. “You’ve seen my home.”
“Celestia watched the Reich burn while we fought the Republicans,” Mudbeak retorted. “Seeing your ponies like this…it’s horrible.” His beak turned downward. “And it makes a griffon afraid of being caught by them. Your family seemed like they were good people. But they weren’t worth a war like this.”
“It’s worth it to me.” Flurry stared down his dull brown eyes with her ice.
“Go kill more of them, will you?” the griffon hiccupped. “My soldiers will like that.”
“They’re terrified of me.”
“Yes,” the griffon acknowledged. “It’s called awe. Like a firestorm that tears through the enemy front. You’re grateful it happened, and you’re praying the wind doesn’t turn and you feel the heat.”
Flurry’s horn glowed and static built in the air. “Are you going to be capable of accepting their surrender, General?”
The elderly griffon blinked several times under the magelight and his eyes cleared slightly. “The radio tower won’t be operational for several more hours. I’ll be fine.”
Flurry eyed the syringe half-exposed by one of the folders. Her horn dimmed. “You know that’s going to kill you.”
“It hasn’t killed me for several decades,” Mudbeak squawked. He stood from the chair and buttoned his jacket slowly with uneasy claws.
Flurry watched him, then cast a spell. The griffon’s graying feathers flashed gold for a moment. His claws twitched and cleaved a button off his jacket while his wings flushed. Mudbeak took a deep breath in surprise with a lashing tail before visible confusion furrowed his eyes.
“Pain relief spell,” Flurry snorted. “Doubt it lasts as long as a morphine high, but it won’t kill you.”
Mudbeak was silent for a heartbeat. “I’m sorry for the remark about your father.”
“You didn’t kill him.” Flurry shuffled her hooves. The wooden floorboards creaked from the strain.
“I ordered the artillery strike as we crossed the river to Flowena,” Mudbeak answered. “Technically, I suppose I did.” He finished buttoning up his jacket and ran a talon across his cap. The general held it in his claws and looked away.
The alicorn’s muzzle twitched and her eyes went to the syringe. My father did not die to a drugged-up, pathetic excuse for an officer. “My father chose to stay.” Her eyes snapped to the medals hanging on the griffon’s jacket. “Did you get a medal for that, too?”
Mudbeak pointed to a medal on his jacket. “For taking Flowena.” It was a golden cross with black inlays. Flurry ripped it free and crunched it into a ball of molten shards, then blasted a frost spell across it. She let the warped marble fall to the floor.
The griffon sighed in a mix of relief and surprise. “I…I thought you might kill me over it.”
“No,” Flurry nickered. “It was war. Why even say anything?”
“The Kaiser would tell you eventually, I imagine,” Mudbeak answered. His stare turned wry even with glassy eyes. “I suspect he does not like me.”
Flurry did not respond to that, so Mudbeak shrugged a wing. “I did not intend to kill him. The Changeling Embassy wished-”
“Never talk to me about this again,” Flurry ordered. “Get the radio working. Las Pegasus is going to surrender or burn.” Her horn glowed and she snapped away.
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Just naturally gifted, I suppose.
If only Benito was present to share his wisdom with Flurry during these trying times...
Really wonder where the Hegemony will use the bomb, but if it follows their recent actions (completely irrational and ineffective) I am gonna guess either Las Pegasus or some random Empire divisions. I previously thought they might try and strike a major city, like a griffonian major city or Canterlot, but it seems technological development stopped after the war, so I really doubt they have a bomber with range for that. I also wonder if they will be able to make more than one bomb, since if I remember correctly there are crystals in the north (the material used in the bombs, atleast in-game).
Interesting chapter, glad to see the Dragons aren't just tools to make Flurry even more OP, now we just need a scene of dragons doing that poetry singing thing from that terrible late season episode of FiM.
I was right!
Spike is just as much of a traumatized asshole as Flurry and Thorax decided to give Chrysalis a taste of her own medicine. Not very good parental figures.
Equestria is dead. Long live Equestria.
Also Mudbeak's character writing here is bloody perfect.
He joins Applejack in the group of depressed people trying to provoke/torment Flurry (using her family) to get themselves killed. That is fucked up beyond measure considering she's a bloody teenager.
As simple as it may sound: I think it's a great concept that the most terrible people Flurry meets on her journey don't necessarily have to be fanatical shapeshifting nazis
And this will not do any favours to how she'll end up seeing the world when she's older...
"Only think Synovial liked [...]"
Your power is fading professor.
11725759
She probably sees the same things we see, and we know that there are certain thoughts she keeps so locked up that even we readers never see them until one suddenly slips out.
It doesn't feel like she's looking forward to life after the war's end.
Indeed, from all her talk of mutual "cracking" in this and numerous previous chapters, I expect she is neither expecting nor intending to survive this war, so long as she takes down Chrysalis.
She hates administration and ruling, and we know how she sees herself, especially in light of her talent.
Weapons have no place outside the battlefield.
I hope people who love her can get through to her, but the tragedy is that they, too, are flawed and kept very busy by their own very real problems.
11725704
I predict Chrysalis will use it on her own capitol like the Helghast did in Killzone 2.
11725799
You try writing chapters in between classes.Fixed.11725759
11725808
Mudbeak wasn't necessarily trying to get killed, but he's lost his internal filter. He's been a joke for awhile. He knows he's a joke. He knows his Kaiser thinks he's a blowhard; he was planning on retiring and he's stuck on another continent fighting shapeshifting bugnazis. Grover interacts mostly with knights and dogs. They're the elite of the Reichsarmee and there's a lot of pageantry and tradition. They're fighting the Second Grand Crusade.
The average Reichsarmee soldier is a conscript/draftee in "Bird Vietnam." That's Army Group South under Mudbeak. He's aware of it. The average griffon does not want to go anywhere near Flurry Heart for any reason, and they're terrified of changelings after seeing the cocoons and the general condition of Equus. (They were told all their lives that alicorns were a joke. Hah! They almost lost to a foal! Who's Luna? Flurry dispels that narrative pretty damn hard.) The protests during Grover's coronation were partly fueled by war exhaustion from the reunification. Grover doesn't think highly of the common griffon; he's aware of the large-scale issues facing his empire, but he's not thinking of the average soldier.
As for Flurry Heart, she thinks she's an awful Princess of Ponies. She's said as much. She's the Princess because she has to be. She "lost" the game against Chrysalis the moment Trimmel dragged out Quartz in the Crystal City. She's internalized that the Changelings are going to be assholes until someone beats them to the breaking point. Thorax has explicitly told her to keep going. The "best" of the Changeling Hegemony didn't have a change of heart during the ELF rebellion.
Ember is smart/introspective enough that she can see the similarities between dragons and changelings and how they're viewed by the rest of the world. Seeing what's happening is pushing Ember even harder to at least try to rehabilitate the image of dragons.
11725759
11725901
For how snozzled Mudbeak was (compelling story behind that bit, too), I really liked how coherently he described the situation.
I liked how he was willing to sincerely speak with Flurry at all.
I hadn't appreciated - like, truly stopped to consider - what the typical rank-and-file would think of things. We really have mostly been visited by those either higher up the chain like career officers or outside of the typical structure altogether like the honor-driven, crusade-fervored knights.
Your comparison to Vietnam draftees is particularly apt, especially in light of their changeling foes.
Guerilla-fighting, backstabbing, camp-infiltrating, tunnel-digging, sneak-attacking , trap-setting opponents are bad enough.
Ones that can fly and use magic?
And can alter their appearance to look like your fellow soldiers?
Your commanding officers?
Your bunkmates?
And then soldiers having to make the grim choice of saving a bullet for themselves to avoid capture?
Knowing that a prolonged and likely permanently ruinous draining of their very vitality is not only possible but the enemy's favored tactic?
With photographic proof, graphic and gruesome?
Having to live each day with the knowledge that they might have to shoot themselves because death would be better?
Terrifying.
Soul-crushing.
I'd just want it all to end.
And Flurry really is a force of nature to any common soldier, no matter how politely she behaves towards them. (I'd freeze up, too, if the heavy load I was hefting suddenly hefted itself.)
Whether she would just smite any hapless griffon is less important to them than the certainty that she absolutely could, and there's nothing in the world that could stop her.
And the ponies lost the first war?
And there's standing orders from the Kaiser himself regarding conduct towards her?
Terrifying.
Twice the hassle from higher-ups.
Twice the dread towards the enemy.
I'd just want to keep my head down, stay out of trouble, and hope I make it home alive.
And then Mudbeak went and confessed responsibility for his part in the death of this war goddess's father's.
It's a good thing she seems to appreciate earnest tales of the last war from those who lived it as much as she appreciates earnest apologies, even when it hurts.
I really feel for Mudbeak, here. It's interesting hearing how close he was to avoid enduring the tribulations of yet another war. To escape the job of taking other griffons with him into the mud and blood and suffering.
Well done, author.
Shame he brought up his (narrowly-missed) retirement just before a major operation. I was beginning to like having him in the story.
At least he didn't show Flurry photos of his family or any sweethearts.
Yeah. Oof.
Doesn't leave her with much reason or leeway to be too loose with mercy, especially since exploiting (or punishing) that is standard military doctrine in Chrysalis's army.
The last time she tried to accept surrender, the changeling army killed their own instead.
11725918
The dragons under Ember don't seem to be too interested in rehabilitating their image. The Dragon Lord has an uphill battle. She didn't fight in the Great War herself, nor did she get involved with the ELF or the initial invasion. This is her first taste of war since her father died. In the show, Ember's hot-headed and quick to pick a fight. Now she comes off as moderate compared to Flurry Heart.
Torch's death was a surprise. It shouldn't have been. He was a massive target and armor-piercing rounds exist. Add trying to limit collateral damage and that's almost a guaranteed death sentence. Back in the day of sharp sticks, you could probably be a little picky and casual.
Her smirk is a little mean, but Flurry realized that Ember's out of her element in an actual war. Dragons don't really know about supplies or logistics or battle plans. They're dragons; they've never needed factories. The dragons young and small enough to handle firearms and work in teams are going to be more useful than "Smaug the Destructor."
I don't know what I'm more excited to read; the liberation if Las Pegasus and the capture of Rockefeller plus the Flim Flam Brothers or the war council where Grover has to balance between Flurry Heart, Dragon Lord Ember and Velvet. Will be interesting no matter what.
Honestly, this is Flurry's biggest strength and weakness. Her complete refusal to relent or compromise when it comes to this war means the Changelings have nothing besides their armies to dissuade her with. Any attempts to emotionally manipulate her or leverage hostages are met with stone-cold silence and the pop of a bubble.
At the same time, it does not endear her too much to many of the people on her own side. As others here have speculated, part of me wonders if Flurry has a deathwish. That she hopes to win this war and die trying, because weapons are meant only for war.
I think she will survive this whole thing, though. She's still needed. More than anything, the post-war cleanup is looking to be even more grim, and we still have a potential nuke to worry about, too.
Despite the fact that the whole Canterlot arc has been finished for a while, is there going to be any reference or mentions of Rarity's alter ego of Gloriosa, the unicorn supremacist and collaborator with Jachs?
11726241
I think you skipped Part 86.
Dammit it man, why couldn't it have been August Duskwing, or Oskar Silverfeather Flurry met. Those two are the backbone of my army whenever I play Empire, any plans to include them? Or are they just gonna sit on the Riverlands Border and wait for the fireworks, do you think?
I'm still a little worried about when and where Chrysalis plans to use the bomb. The thought has been in the back of my mind for a while.
Taking into context the way she's been thinking so far in the story I'm guessing she'll try to use it on a city with a large population like Vanhoover. Here's the twist though: she'll detonate it BEFORE it's taken by the Reich or Equestria. Worst part is if she's got enough of them (which I doubt) she could just create an impassable barrier of radiation to stop the advance.
11726252
Ah, very sorry about that, must have forgotten. I’ll be more thorough next time.
11726307
Belka did nothing wrong
11726307 A nuclear bomb doesn't create an impenetrable barrier of radiation.
If you want to look it up there's some videos on Operation Desert Rock which was the U.S. testing of combat capabilities on a nuclear battlefield.
I'm 99% sure the USSR, and some other countries did similar tests marching and combat training immediately following a nuclear blast.
I'm also very sure many of these soldiers died from cancer, but that generally takes decades.
The idea of using nukes for creating an impenetrable barrier was used in the book the White Plague by Frank Herbert. My memories not the best but I believe it worked for Israel, but did cause a bit of a kerfuffle when they dropped approximately 1K nuclear bombs in all their immediate neighbors.
Everyone in this story is broken somehow. When this war is finally over there will be a generation of traumatized creatures that will muddle through until they die or there is another war.
11726602
I don't think you should underestimate ability of sentient creatures to move past trauma. As a dude from Europe I can tell you that at least in my country people moved on quite easly with their lives despite all of the horrors of war. Like if you ask any one here about their family history it's always the same story. Family members killed in the war, send to concentration camps alongside the jews, killed while working in a resistance or in a retaliation directed against civilians for resistance attacks. Yet people moved on with they're lives.
Something I've begun to think on within this story is Equestria after the war, during peace time what will this society look like. We effectively have a RUINED continent with a scared population. The post war government is GONNA be a clusterfuck of ideologies forced into cohabitation by a near absolute monarch who is not afraid to kill her political enemies. And thus government will be ruling a population divided, from those who suffered, skirted by, and the militants who spent a good ten years fighting a guerilla war. I'm imagining there won't be much trust in the government and many will fall into family units looking out for themselves, so expect a lot gangs to pop up, and a lot paranoia. Then we have the fact that this nation will be working as the lesser partner of a Unoin between two monarchies who have spent most of their shared histories in a sort of cold war, and the main partner of which is going to hold your economy by the throat for a good few generations. Oh when this war is one guess what? There's a great chance of another war right after this one, if not more. I don't think Flurry will know peace for a good 70 years.
11727642
Griffon
11727022
I think the opposite is gonna happen with the help of the Griffonian Reich and Crystal empire fanatics there is already a strong power base of support for the government and something that pretty much all these ideologies have in common is loyalty to the crown so while there is going to be crime and all of that it'll most likely be crushed pretty quickly by the military government.
11726825
That may be true when looking at it from a generational perspective. Most, would likely recover after a couple of decades. Others won't. Those with children won't try to transfer their trauma onto them.
I actually agree that people bounce back pretty quickly, but it's about those that won't or can't, which raises questions. The reprisals and witch hunts probably won't stop for a year or two. The xenophobia and resentment towards the changelings won't for another five and will likely take upwards to a decade or one and a half to diminish completely. Those with lingering trauma, no matter if they're pony or 'ling, will pass their hate/ fear/ paranoia onto their children.
It won't be as bad as I'm making it sound in regards to the generational transfer of trauma. However, the story seems to be culminating into a point where Flurry will have to choose between upholding her virtues, or foregoing those to prevent further tragedy, and in doing so, will cause an even greater tragedy. Whenever that happens, it'll dictate how postwar changeling and pony society will function for years to come.