The Daughter of Maar
A violent lightning strike cracked through the sky above the Duskwood. The figure that arrived in the flash hung in the open air for a heartbeat. It was a massive pony, completely armored except for the bottom of their light pink jaw. Blood smeared down their fur into the gorget connected to the purple crystal plate.
The armor was scarred with gouges from ricocheted bullets and direct hits. The horn tip above a purple helmet spiraled to a blackened tip. The helmet itself burned, six small spires smoking with the remnants of golden magic.
The figure’s tattered wings were folded tight against their side as they hung in the sky. The feathers were bloody; shards of crystal extended from their armored wing joints. Heavy hooves curled against the barrel; the greaves were flecked with oil, mud, and blood.
Underneath the half-helm, the lean, narrow muzzle was streaked with thin trails of blood from the nostrils. The muzzle marked the figure as a mare, albeit one of the largest mares in the world. Without a mane or tail, it was nearly impossible to tell. Her eyes were closed.
A plane screamed past the figure as gravity reasserted its grip on the pony. She fell, tumbling horn first towards the earth below. The blacked horn tip glowed with golden light as she spiraled.
The wind screamed past her while she pressed armored limbs to her barrel. She continued to gain momentum, no longer tumbling, but falling like an arrowhead towards the burning forest below her. The tree line was aflame with golden fire.
The mare breathed in and opened her icy eyes, a striking pale blue that shimmered under the helmet. She squinted against the howling wind. Her large pink wings snapped open; the crystals in the feathers sliced through the air with the sound of windchimes.
Her wingspan was massive, almost twice the width of her armor. If she stood unarmored and let them droop, her wingtips would drag across the ground. They were the only thing that turned the near-terminal velocity fall into an abrupt glide.
She soared less than a hundred meters above the treetops, moving as fast as a fighter plane. Her tattered wings trailed wisps of magic and drops of blood as the mare pushed her pegasus magic to the absolute limit. The mare tilted her armored helmet and horn tip down towards the trees.
Flurry Heart unleashed a third gout of fire down upon the Duskwood Forest. The funnel was more akin to a burning ray of intense heat than a flamethrower. The flames exploded up around her and behind her as she soared. Golden tongues of fire licked at her armored hooves and spread across the purple crystal. The alicorn trailed fire across the sky, riding an inferno of magic towards a pink-tinted sky.
Below her, the ground was ripped asunder from the force of the continuous blast. Trees burst into ash directly under the wide beam, and those along the sides were ripped away from the sheer concussive force behind the magic. They fell into the forest or shattered against the Celestial Plain to the east. The mare flew south-to-north in a wave of fire.
A Changeling fighter trailed her, tearing down from the sky and pouring machine gun fire at the armored figure. She was an easy target and moving in a straight line. A burst of flak intended for Flurry slammed into the cockpit of the plane; the fighter spun out in a fireball.
The alicorn was too low for the anti-air to hit her. She was moving too fast for the lobbed mortars and burst-fire shells to accurately target her. The air was still filled with shrapnel that tore against the crystal armor. Flurry kept her head down and jaw tight. Her feathers weren’t as lucky. She felt another primary feather tear away with a trickle of blood.
The wave of fire scorched away the entrenched positions at the edge of the forest. Changelings below her shrieked as they burned. The lucky ones in the path of the beam died instantly; the unlucky ones at the edges burned slow, chitin boiling with magical golden fire that would not extinguish.
Despite the inferno, guns still fired in the Duskwood against the tanks moving north across the Celestial Plain. The trucks and half-tracks pushing up behind them were easier targets, and several dozen targeted them. A few Changeling units charged out of the forest to engage the rear guard, battling through the flames or taking obscured trails.
Flurry couldn’t be everywhere; she couldn’t cover the whole forest. It stretched to the horizon, several thick miles of pine trees and foliage. The alicorn began to descend as she slowed down. Her armor was too cumbersome to properly fly in; she had to glide, and gliding only worked for so much distance.
The helmet turned to her right. Half-tracks fired at Changelings advancing out of the forest. The flames had cut them off, but more forest stretched out ahead of her as her hooves descended too close to the treetops. An armored hoof kicked the top of a tall pine apart.
This is taking too long, Flurry thought. She couldn’t just fly over the entire forest and burn it. The magical fire wouldn’t spread far enough. It wasn’t like dragonfire.
Her right eye moved up. Mount Canterhorn was burning to the east, stretching high above the Celestial Plain and below the midday sun. Smoke poured off Canterlot. The alicorn abruptly cut the stream of fire from her horn. Flurry took a deep breath and snorted blood from her nose.
The Princess folded her wings and dropped like a rock. She crashed through two pine trees, shattering the trunks apart and taking the hit before extending her legs. Her momentum carried her forward as she hit the earth, plowing deep furrows up to her armored fetlocks. Flurry grit her teeth from the shock as she came to a stop. A large cloud of dead grass and debris obscured her landing; she squinted under her helmet and pulled her legs free. With a powerful wing flap, she cleared the air.
A Changeling soldier holding an anti-tank round between his forehooves stared back at her. He was less than two forelegs away. The other two changelings crewing the half-buried gun had taken shelter in a low dugout. They poked their helmets up with wide eyes.
The Princess stared at the Changeling. She flared her wing and the crystals sang as they sliced through the air. The large, knife-like crystal at the end of her wing extended from her feathers as she swept it towards him.
The Changeling’s head rolled into one of the dugouts with his comrades. Flurry ripped the pistol from his headless body and fired through the torn-off holster; she emptied the clip into the two soldiers cowering in the hole as they tried to raise their rifles. When they were dead, she tossed the pistol down from her smoking horn.
She landed in the middle of a line of seven entrenched guns. Smoke filled the forest; the trees burned slow around the long gouges in the ground. The Changeling Heer, whether out of fear or loyalty or stubborn determination, stood their ground along the forest as it burned from above.
Flurry Heart stood tall next to the dead gun grew and spun in a circle, looking over the Changeling soldiers nearby. Several dropped carried shells or held up their rifles, hesitating to fire. Flurry lowered her head to shield her jaw.
An officer in a tall black cap leaned atop one of the guns. “You’re surrounded!” he screamed in Herzlander. At his shout, the stunned changelings grabbed up their weapons with their hooves or horn. Flurry closed her eyes and felt them.
“I am surrounded by the dead,” Flurry answered and tore the guns from their owners. One Changeling had wrapped the strap around his foreleg; his hoof went with the rifle. Shrieking filled the air as he collapsed with a stump. The guns whirled around and fired at their owners.
It wasn’t accurate. Flurry simply squeezed the triggers until the floating submachine guns, pistols, and rifles clicked dry, then flung the weapons at any surviving changeling. One nearby mare grabbed a shovel as a bayonetted rifle slammed through her head.
When it was done, Flurry stood over several dozen dead or dying changelings. She eyed a narrow, well-worn path through the tree line and sprinted towards it. Her horn pulsed with the detection spell. Several changelings reappeared, having dropped into disguises with their meager magic.
A rock to her left had a black jacket quivering atop it. It burst into green fire as the spell shattered the illusion. The changeling screamed as Flurry shoulder-checked him through a tree and blasted apart the trunk. The others nearby ran. Flurry kept moving, deeper into the forest and following the trail.
Supply trucks drove towards her; some camouflage nets were strung in the tree tops, covering expanded trails from any planes. Above the forest, the Reich and the Changeling Hegemony still dueled in the sky. Pieces of shattered planes fell into the trees. A few intact fuselages had started their own fires deeper into the interior.
Flurry blasted an open-topped truck apart as she fired wild lasers from her horn. The golden flashes could be seen through the smoke and trees. She picked up the next truck in the convoy as it tried to reverse, seizing it with her horn. The driver dangled out of the open cab, reflexively grabbing onto the wheel as the tires spun.
Flurry slammed it down like a hammer on the truck behind it. It was carrying ammunition for the frontline. Both exploded in a hail of fire and shrapnel. Flurry felt a chunk of metal or a cooked bullet scar across the helmet before she lowered her head again. Another piece hit the metal kneecap on her right foreleg, but the enchantment held.
The alicorn leapt atop the burning wreck, landing hard enough to dent the already mangled metal. She fired at the trucks as they tried to turn around; the path was too narrow. A few Changelings had simply abandoned the vehicles and fled on hoof.
“Where is your Queen?” Flurry shouted. Her voice rolled through the forest. “Where is Chrysalis?” Her blasts finally destroyed the last truck in the convoy after it crashed into a tree in a panicked reversal.
She leapt down as the fire licked at her greaves and kept running. Blood dripped down onto the metal gorget from her nose. Flurry snorted as she ran. Her pink coat rubbed against the padded jumpsuit under her armor, now damp with sweat and itchy. She was frothing underneath the heavy crystal plate.
The flames around the forest roiled in the purple crystal as the alicorn charged down the trail, chasing the retreating soldiers. She couldn’t outpace them; they flung their equipment down to move faster. A few took low flight and tried to buzz through the branches.
A younger stallion, probably about her age, slammed into a heavy branch and crashed down onto the trail. The Changeling rolled over in time to see the alicorn trample him with her long strides. Her armored hooves crushed his chest and blood sprayed from between his short fangs.
Flurry’s ears, sweaty and pinned under the helmet, prickled at distant orders shouted in Herzlander. She turned off the trail and ran towards them, leaping over tree roots and ducking between thick low branches. She simply charged through smaller branches, shattering them with chaotic snaps.
There was another trail. A boxy, thin tank trundled down it; the first in a line of a dozen escorted by Heer soldiers. Flurry recognized the model from old pictures she saw in the Crystal Empire, back when her parents were alive. It was one of the first proper Changeling panzers, the first true tank on Equus. Chrysalis’ trident was stamped on the side.
Flurry remembered the glorified armored tractor that her father had stared blankly at the next day. The crystal ponies were already a thousand years behind Equestria and scrambling to catch up. He promised her the next ones would be better. They never got any better.
The Changelings escorting the tanks on-hooves screamed up warnings at the panzers. Heavy machine guns were bolted near the hatches. The commanders grabbed at them and twisted the barrels to the forest as the soldiers below braced their weapons.
Right as the gunfire tore apart the trees, Flurry’s horn flared and she teleported.
She landed atop the first panzer, right after the commander had racked the ammo belt into place and fired a spray of bullets into the forest. He had time to turn his head and gape up at the alicorn with open fangs. Flurry punched him.
The bottom half of his corpse fell into the tank.
Flurry seized the heavy machine gun with her forelegs. She ripped it off the mount. Her armored boots were too clumsy to properly wield a gun; the alicorn smashed the trigger down with a hoof and crunched through the metal. The barrel sprayed bullets at the escorting changelings as they broke position and sheltered behind the tanks. Several dozen did not react in time as they were cut down.
The Princess reared up onto her hind legs, balancing the machine gun against her barrel. Her horn burned gold. Bullets sparked off the crystal armor as a few of the nearby soldiers returned fire. The commander in the second tank twisted the heavy machine gun back around with obvious fear in his red eyes.
A laser punched through his tank, and the three tanks behind them. It stayed a continuous beam that traveled forward, slicing through each tank in the line until it reached the end. The air boiled around the beam; the Changelings that were not bisected recoiled from the heat or cooked in their chitin.
Flurry jerked the laser up and it hit the fuel tanks. The eleven panzers burst into shrapnel and fireballs, throwing the surviving Changelings into the woods, covered in metal and burning oil. Flurry’s pilfered machine gun ripped through the trees after any moving survivors.
She fired until the belt ran dry, then flung the gun down with a crash. The turret she stood atop rotated as the crew inside screamed at the corpse of their officer and the fighting outside. One of the crew reached out and shut the hatch; Flurry noticed it out of the corner of her eye.
Flurry reared around and glared down at the driver’s small window. The Changeling looked back at her and fell out of the seat, retreating into the tank. Flurry grabbed the barrel on the turret and bent it to the side between her forelegs.
“NOTHING WILL PROTECT YOU FROM ME,” Flurry roared at full volume. The pine trees around her swayed from the sheer force of her voice. Her hooves pounded the metal on the turret, punching through and bending it apart like tin foil. The thin armor screeched as it came apart.
Flurry stared down at one of the crew from the gap. He looked up at her, nearly muzzle to muzzle. He inhaled to scream.
“NOT SOLDIERS!” Flurry shouted directly into his face. His ears burst and his eyes wept blood. The Changeling fell back. A mare pulled a knife behind him and held it between shaking forelegs.
“NOT WEAPONS!” Flurry ripped it from her hooves with her flaming horn. Liquid fire dripped from the blackened tip and curled down the spirals. The six points on the base burned like a crown. She drove the blade through the mare’s head, all the way down to the hilt and pinned her to the side.
The driver flailed, falling back into the tank and hiding between the forward seats. He was the last one left. Flurry snarled at him, teeth gleaming under the half-helm. She punched her way through the metal, tearing through the interior towards him.
“NOT ARMOR!” Flurry ripped out the command seat and tore the entire small turret free from the tank. Her hooves crunched against the controls and gears inside. The driver pulled a pistol free from his black jumpsuit, fumbling it with his hooves.
My muzzle. Flurry tilted her head down and rammed herself forward.
The driver shoved the pistol under his own muzzle and pulled the trigger with a sob.
The forest fell silent after the gunshot. Flurry stared at the corpse through the eye slits of her helmet. He was a hoof away from her sharp horn. The alicorn grimaced, then extracted herself from the wreckage. Oil leaked around her hooves and the engine sputtered. Flurry climbed off the tank and leapt down to the burning forest.
The oil and petrol from the burning panzers had started a fire, but the ground was still damp under the trees. Flurry trotted down the line. A small puddle of burning oil ignited her hooves; she let the crystal burn. I can’t feel the heat, and it’s enchanted anyway.
A dying changeling mare crawled under a destroyed pine. She had been shot several times through the barrel. She stopped under the tree as the fires began to spread towards her. The changeling breathed raggedly with oil dripping across her black uniform.
Flurry paused to stare at the mare. She stared back with unfocused eyes. Her mouth moved in what might have been words, but no sound emerged. The alicorn continued down the trail as the flames crackled. After a moment, Flurry closed her eyes and sighed. She looked at the bodies around her, then pulled a pistol free from a flank holster and returned to the mare.
The fires crept closer to her. My own hooves don’t help, I’m sure. The Changeling pushed herself up against the broken trunk; blood and oil mixed in a pool below her as the flames began to lick at her hooves. Flurry raised the pistol and shot the Changeling through the head, then tossed the weapon deeper into the forest with a flare of her horn. The spreading fire engulfed the body as she walked away.
The forest was quiet. Flurry took a breath. “Changelings of the Hegemony!” the alicorn called in Herzlander. Her voice echoed through the burning forest. “Your Queen sent you here to die!”
Flurry heaved deep breaths as she trotted forward on brisk hooves. Blood continued to drip from her nose. The trail widened as the mesh canopies above her grew more intricate. She risked a glance upward. The sky was dotted with fighters, but far, far fewer in number than before.
Music drifted through the trees as the trail ran west. Flurry galloped towards it until a forward camp solidified through the drifting smoke. The wind blew it into her muzzle.
Flurry slowed on approach, eyes squinting through the lingering clouds. The fire around her hooves had sputtered out from the grass and mud. It was a supply camp, lean-tos and wooden buildings surrounded by parked canvas trucks. Flurry licked her lips and counted the trucks.
At least a hundred, she guessed. Several dozen were covered in branches and additional camouflage. She looked to both sides, spotting several more wooden structures further to the north and south. The alicorn faced west, deep in the Duskwood, and completely alone.
Flurry’s horn glowed with the detection spell, but she cut the spell after a moment. The supply base looked quiet, abandoned in a mad rush. She trotted forward down the trail, following the drifting music. The Princess recognized the base of the tune; it was an old Sapphire Shores song, but redone with changeling instruments.
A few vehicles still had their engines running and doors left open. A crate of rifle ammunition was spilled onto the grass. Several large oil tankers were parked under heavy canvases and sheltered separately. Flurry peered under the trucks she passed, heading towards the wooden shacks.
They were several weeks old, at best. Tree stumps littered the camp. The Changelings were tactical in which trees they used for lumber; they cleared trails and left enough coverage so it wasn’t obvious where the supply point was from above. The buildings were squat and fairly simple, but a few gas generators hummed next to the larger bigger ones.
Flurry followed the song floating through the air. It repeated. She scanned over a truck full of spare uniforms; a piece of glass crunched under her hoof. Flurry nickered softly and wiped the pink fluid left behind on a patch of grass.
There was a small clearing in between several of the cabins. A table and gramophone sat in the middle, with several stools knocked aside. Scattered cards fluttered in the smoky wind.
“Please!” a voice cried in Equestrian. “Anypony!”
“Hello?” Flurry called out.
“P-please!” the voice stuttered. Flurry trotted forward, next to a lean-to and a tree. A mare had been chained to a stump to the west, across the clearing. She saw Flurry and wept with relief.
“Oh Princess!” the pegasus screamed. “Thank you! Thank you! Please, hurry!”
Flurry angled her helmet to the side. “Who are you? Where are the Changelings?”
“They fled!” the pegasus sobbed. “Oh, Sweet Celestia, please! My name is Windbreak! General Pagala kept me as a trophy!”
Flurry hummed. Her horn glowed and she sensed the weapons strewn about the camp, all discarded and laying on the forest floor, from pistols to rifles to machine guns and even recoilless rifles. She took a breath and focused. “Okay, hang on.”
A changeling began to sing on the spinning record.
“There is a house in New Canterlot; they call the Setting Sun…”
“Which way did they go?” Flurry called out.
The mare pointed a hoof west and wiggled her other hoof against a loose chain. “That way!”
Flurry’s horn glowed as she stepped into the clearing. She took a long-legged hop over a patch of disturbed earth. The mare smiled viciously and burst into green fire. The small mouse slipped through the chains and disappeared into the grass. A shield snapped around the alicorn at the same time.
Several recoilless rockets slammed into Flurry’s bubble shield. Buried mines detonated under the edges of the field, churning up the earth and raining clumps of dirt down onto the bubble. The alicorn stumbled forward into the table; it crunched against the bubble shield and the gramophone fell through, smoking and half melted. The voice warbled on the recording.
“…been the ruin of many a poor ‘ling…”
The record skipped and repeated.
“…the ruin…the ruin…the ruin…”
One of the cabins was blown apart by an errant rocket ricocheting off the bubble. The naked Changelings were arrayed in a half-circle to the west; teams dropped their disguises as parts of the forest or tree trunks and picked up the scattered weapons. Most laid prone and fired. Rifles, submachine guns, pistols, and heavy machine guns fired on the shield in a discordant symphony of noise.
The bullets sparked off in every direction, flying back into the trees, the trucks, the buildings. The true firepower came from the teams of two soldiers loading their shoulder-mounted recoilless rifles. One changeling sat on his flank as another loaded the rockets, keeping up a stream of steady fire upon the golden bubble.
Much of the incoming fire sparked off the shield, but the golden bubble rippled with blue arcs of electricity from direct hits. Flurry shook her head. Dust clouded the bubble and the surrounding area; the changelings fired at the golden glow in the center of the storm. More dirt and debris flew into the air from every hit.
Flurry ground her teeth at the hundreds of soldiers to the west. The alicorn could only see the flashes at the base of the trees. She stepped forward in the bubble, towards the crescent firing line. Officers screamed orders in Herzlander, muffled by the sounds of the explosions.
“You think this will stop me?” Flurry challenged. “Where is your Queen?”
Another round of rockets slammed into the shield. Flurry flinched as her horn throbbed. Blood dribbled down her nose in a steady stream as the shield reformed. Blue arcs of electricity throbbed across the bubble from the withering gunfire.
The Changelings began to fall back in staggered groups. Flurry laughed at them; her high-pitched, shrieking giggle amplified by the Royal Voice. “You can’t run far enough, little ‘lings.” She stepped up to the half-melted record as the voice skipped again.
“…Had I listened to the Queen…the Queen…the Queen…”
A Changeling braced the long tube of the recoilless rifle against his shoulders, sighting the alicorn ahead of him. Flurry took another step forward under her bubble shield. He closed his eyes and fired as his partner grabbed another rocket. The rocket slammed home directly in front of the alicorn’s muzzle.
The Princess stumbled back. Her horn throbbed in pain and blood oozed from her nose as the shield crackled under the constant pressure. She’d been casting spells all morning, intense spells that left her coat frothy and wings ragged. The tip of her pink horn was visibly burnt.
Flurry took a deep breath and tasted blood in the back of her throat. She remembered the Crystal Heart, how the bloody foam spilled over her mouth and the pain as her magic exhausted itself. The same sharp knife was in the base of her horn underneath the helmet.
Trucks pulled up along the western trail to evacuate the Heer soldiers. The other supply lines on the far side of the forest had been rushing equipment through all day to the Celestial Plain. Changelings climbed into the trucks with their scavenged equipment.
Flurry shook her head as another barrage slammed home, exploding directly against the shield instead of bouncing away. The bubble reformed as her horn glowed with golden fire, filling out from an elliptical shape back into a proper half-circle. Flurry bit her bloody lip and backed up, stepping over the gramophone with charred greaves.
“…Not to do…to do...to do…what I have done…”
Flurry snarled down at the gramophone as drops of blood spattered onto the leaves. Her shield flickered when another barrage hit home. She backed away and the shield moved with her slowly. Changelings saw the golden bubble move east.
She’d have to drop the shield to teleport. It would take an instant, but her horn was beginning to truly hurt as Magical Exhaustion set in. The shield sparked with bits of blue electricity; the arcs scorched across the ground as she stepped backwards.
An anti-tank round skipped off the back of her shield; it careened into one of the abandoned trucks and exploded. Bits of black cloth and pieces of Hegemony uniforms scattered across the supply depot. A second later, another hit home right against her flank. The enchanted tip nearly pierced the shield before the shell exploded in a green fireball.
Flurry screamed as the pain in her horn doubled. She turned around, staring through the dust and falling debris as four anti-tank guns rolled into position on the path she trotted up. She hadn’t burned the entire tree line. A few of the guns repositioned, falling back deeper into the forest. The crews moved low to the ground, errant shots from the other side flew near them.
A mortar exploded to her left, blasting apart the pine trees and peppering the area with wood shrapnel. Another mortal shell landed a moment later, slightly closer to her shield. Flurry stepped forward, moving back east and towards the anti-tank guns.
A tank crunched its way through the trees from another trail behind her. It moved slowly, wedging itself between trees and guided by a squad walking in front of it. It was one of the newer, sleek panzers that charged across the Celestial Plain.
I thought I destroyed all those, Flurry blinked. The panzer was wedged between two pines, having run a third over and the treads spun uselessly against the fallen log. The turret still rotated towards her and fired. The tank rocked back; the shell sparked off the shield with a roar and spun into another lean-to.
The Changelings in the trucks to the west noticed the alicorn backing away and left the evacuation, returning to the firing line with more explosives and grenades. They flung the stick grenades with their horns towards the distant alicorn. Most fell short. Heavy machine guns buzzed against the shield, ricocheting bullets in every direction.
Under the small shield, the constant stream of explosions and gunfire was deafening. Flurry blinked and looked around, squinting through the hail of metal. The panzer was to the north. The anti-tank guns were to the east. The line of rockets and small arms fired to the west. Another barrage of mortars slammed down, this time landing directly atop her shield. Flurry was in the center of a proper clearing now; the trees had been blasted away from the continuous gunfire.
Flurry snorted blood from her nose and ran south on stumbling hooves; the shield moved with her. She tried to gain momentum and slam through the trees, but her steps were sluggish. The alicorn shrank the shield down.
The Changelings stopped firing as she fled the clearing, then pursued with screamed orders. Flurry galloped deeper into the center of the Duskwood, though it was more an awkward shuffle than a true gallop. The shield wobbled under a stream of continuous fire by the pursuing Changelings.
Flurry pushed herself for several minutes; her horn felt like a knife ran through it. She nickered in pain and tumbled over an exposed tree root, shoving herself upright under another barrage of gunfire and shells. A green-eyed manticore panting pink foam shoved an anti-tank gun through the trees as the Heer chased her. More green flashes followed to the north.
The air was thick with smoke from the fires and debris from the attack. Flurry struggled to see through her crackling magic. She ran for several more minutes, trying to avoid the supply trails as half-tracks sprayed continuous streams of bullets from their turrets as the mechanized Heer ran her down.
Just as the incoming fire slowed enough for Flurry to risk a teleport, a wall of muzzle flashes erupted in front of her. The surrounding trees were shattered by the hail of shells. Flurry’s shield took several direct hits and she screamed again.
Flurry ran directly into another supply depot. Radios, she thought numbly. Price said the shield makes a great target. She laughed and tasted blood.
Rockets slammed into the shield from the west, then the north, and shells fired from the east. More tanks appeared from the far east, redirected towards her position and firing blindly at the small golden bubble. The shells blasted through the woods around her, whatever was left.
Flurry was soon standing still in another clearing of churned dirt and fire. The shield shrank around her again; the top of the bubble was just above the tip of her horn. Flurry swayed on her hooves and picked a direction: back east, back towards the Celestial Plain and reinforcements. She forced her hooves to move.
Flurry made it two steps before the mortars crashed down on her again. She gasped and fell to her knees as her horn burned. The shield shrank down and vibrated with blue arcs of flame. The Princess forced herself back up to her hooves, bending her head forward to avoid brushing against the top of the shield.
She managed another step east. Three tank shells fired from the north and hit the base of her shield. Flurry fell to her knees and the shield stabilized, now too small for her to stand.
Flurry took a deep, shuddering breath and coughed. Her shield was under a continuous hail of explosions now. Blue jets of flame extended from the bubble as it continued to shrink down. It was no longer a proper sphere; the magic twisted, deforming underneath the blasts before snapping back into place for the briefest moments then coiling again. It took all her focus to keep pouring magic into it.
Flurry was forced down to her side after several minutes. The shield continued to shrink. The alicorn was literally pressed deeper into a shallow crater from the hail of incoming fire. Her hooves curled against her barrel to avoid touching the edges of the wild magic. It took every last bit of concentration she had to hold onto the spell. Her helmet fell to the ground as she gasped for breath.
The shield vibrated around her, deforming with the kinetic energy of the spell and a constant stream of incoming shells. Her entire horn burned black; liquid fire poured from the tip onto the ground above her muzzle, mixing with the blood streaming from her nose.
Mom died like this. The thought made Flurry weep. Her eyes hurt; she felt blood collect with the tears. Not like this. I can’t die like this.
“STOP!” Flurry screamed out as her voice broke into wet rattles. “STOP! P-PLEASE!”
Surprisingly, the incoming fire stopped. Flurry struggled to lift her head from the ground, and failed. She looked around across the blasted field as the dust settled and smoke poured from the sky. Her shield crackled, barely holding itself together after many long minutes. Her horn tip nearly touched the edge, even as she curled against herself.
Flurry brushed her unarmored jaw against the broken earth as she turned her head. She was surrounded in every direction. Tanks to the east and south. Anti-tank guns and teams with recoilless rifles to the north and west. Trucks and half-tracks arrived from behind with more ammunition for the encirclement.
Music drifted from a loudspeaker installed onto one of the sleek black tanks. Flurry realized it was the same song from the camp, the awful Sapphire Shores cover. The jaunty polka hummed with latent static as the song replayed from the speaker.
"I was young and dumb..."
The Heer of the Changeling Hegemony surrounded the last Princess of Ponies on Equus. Changelings stared at her, but she couldn’t make out their expressions. Her eyes were blurry and they were too far away.
“I…I surrender,” Flurry called out weakly. She swallowed and scraped blood off her tongue as her horn throbbed above her. It burned with golden fire. “Please…”
There was a long, heavy moment where only the song played on.
A shell crashed into her shield. The explosions rained down on her again as the Hegemony moved to finish her off. Flurry breathed shallowly on the ground. Her wings didn’t even move from her soft inhales. The alicorn’s charred-black horn sputtered. She thought about the Crystal Heart to the north, about the pain, about her mother and father and what a disappointment she was to everypony. She let the despair fill her and sobbed.
More trucks arrived. One of the green-eyed manticores seized in the middle of carrying a pack of shells; pink foam dribbled from his mouth as he flailed on the ground. Several of the nearby soldiers downed pink vials to continue loading the anti-tank guns with frantic hooves. Eyes wide and snarling, their shots were inaccurate and careened around the field.
Atop one of the sleek panzers, an officer directed fire with his binoculars, shouting to a radiomare next to him. His black, high-ridged cap made him a general at the very least. He pointed a wild hoof around the encirclement, barking commands between his fangs at the mare below the turret. The shield in the center of the clearing was now a wild, rolling mass of magic; it held no consistent shape, flaring around the dying pony like a golden candle.
For one impossible moment, the Changeling officer locked eyes with the Princess in the center of the field. He saw the tears in her eyes and licked his fangs at the emotions rolling off the alicorn in the middle of the storm of steel. He smiled underneath his binoculars.
From the ground, Flurry Heart smiled back with bloody teeth. She lifted her head up and let the tip of her horn touch the straining shield above. Blue fire arced across the surface as the barely contained spell flexed one final time.
It burst with the sound of a soap bubble.
He did not have time to frown.
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I can tell I’m not going to sleep until I read this.
That was awesome. Is Flurry dead?
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We already know Flurry has the habit of surviving when it is impossible.
Though it would be most trollic if she dies and the story f*cking ends immediately.
Oh dear.
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IMO, if Flurry was dead the story would be Complete. It's not
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The end was Flurry pulling her signature "nova" spell, basically annihilating everything in a radius around her. So she's alive, even if I wouldn't go so far as to say she's "fine".
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I never said I thought she was dead.
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Never Mind
Emily Litella (SNL)
Why is it always war crimes, ugh
Here's a question: when will the other nations start interacting with Flurry's regime? I know we have her and Grover interacting, plus the communists of Baltimare. But the wider world is kind of just ignoring her at the moment. They are more acting towards the Empire rather than a potential new player goe politically.
And there are a few nations that have an interest here. Mainly the River federation (who I think maybe are actively trying to remove Flurry, but that's just a theory) who would rather not have a Griffonian Empire-aligned Equestrian Empire. Plus, we have Zebrica, who may like to make friends with this potential secondary power. I understand waiting till the war is over and all. But it seems like an excellent move to make overtures now while the Iron is hot. And people may be like the Hegemony retaliation. But everyone with a brain can see that if they win, everyone is doomed, so best to do what you can to stop them now when there's a good chance.
I'm not stuck with you, you're stuck with me.
I knew she was planning something when she "gave up", her parents and aunt didn't, so she won't either.
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I also think that Riverland will not recognise Flurry, as they probably still have some sort of government-in-exile. Well, until Nixon moment happens or something.
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/ac56c709-6ca1-4e86-8b38-284a3b5bf12a/dc0or84-b889b6f7-8875-4b1f-b74a-83ea6842a46d.png/v1/fill/w_1280,h_720,q_80,strp/surrounded_by_darkwraith_turk_dc0or84-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NzIwIiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvYWM1NmM3MDktNmNhMS00ZTg2LThiMzgtMjg0YTNiNWJmMTJhXC9kYzBvcjg0LWI4ODliNmY3LTg4NzUtNGIxZi1iNzRhLTgzZWE2ODQyYTQ2ZC5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.ik8UnkKOPjsWzZQXdQ28sSjt2VX3iT3dSSGnsPm2qXI
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Because when you are in an all-out war it's very easy to commit them. Especially since there doesn't seem to be international agreements about war crimes, unlike here in the real world. What we consider a war crime hasn't been designated as one in Flurry's world.
The invention of the nuke was one of the worst moments in mankind's history, as now we had the capacity to literally destroy the world with the push of a button.
We could, in theory, shoot down a nuke.
What happens when the nuke can take down an army, take hundreds of rounds, can talk, can be diplomatic, can have friends, can believe, can hope, and wants revenge.
You get Flurry heart.💀
Flurry just dropped the walking bomb on legs spell she did during the Great Republican Trolling. And false surrender as well? The Princess of War Crimes continues doing her thing.
The princess of war crimes will probably be a more fitting name.
Although who would say that to her face I don't know.
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Considering that a very, very simple rule is "Don't wear enemy uniforms" and the Changelings are shapeshifters...
By our standards, Equestria at War is a War-Crime-A-Palooza. But it is a fantasy world of talking animals and magic.
Flurry 'surrendering' to really sell the desperation as her shield charges isn't exactly a noble decision.
But Flurry's not exactly a noble pony.
Would be a really good time for Grover or Elias to show up. Maybe Fluttershy will finally make an appearance?
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That depends on whether the princesses want to contest the Throne of Equestria. A referendum could go either way between Flurry and her aunts. Plus, the best they can do is stir up rebellions in Flurry's empire. They could also do what the USA does with China regarding Taiwan, not recognizing the Princesses as the rulers. Buy supporting them nonetheless.
They may not like Flurry (and if my theory is correct, they really don't like her). But antagonizing her is one sure way to look like the bad guys while the shit the Changelings did starts to spread. Information can only stay secret so long, and denying the mountains of evidence that Flurry's government will have is a surefire way to turn the wider international community against them.
We'll see what the Federation does when the wars end and see what they do.
What a gentlemare, waiting to see if they would accept her surrender before releasing her longest-ever-charged Nova shield.
Her pursuers got played.
(So did I...)
In some ways, this is the scariest part of the chapter. She successfully tricked and misled empaths. Still lost that poker game, though.
If i were a changeling and i herd the most powerful weapon the enemy had shout “You can’t run far enough, little ‘lings.” in my general direction i don't think i would consider taking her prisoner either. also Little 'lings and Little Wings sound eerily similar.
Flurry went full on Alex Mercer in this one.