Beyond Reflections

by EquineTheta

One Good Start

Town hall’s façade, as simple as it looks, was nowhere near the beauty of Canterlot’s ivory towers. Sadly, those towers no longer stand tall and proud, emanating a sense of resplendence equal to that of her highness Celestia. Their fall from grace only served as a living reminder of what was once great and powerful. Those towers are the inanimate counterparts of the royalty now lost to the throng of commoners who share their hopes and dreams of a brighter Equestria. But with the visual display of architectural power, a secret lies within. Back home, my Twilight showed me the hidden chambers of the Crystal Empire’s castle now desolate and cleansed of his malevolent influence. As is with my home’s secrets, this building also had one of its own.

I joined the others we entered the empty auditorium that served as a courthouse for my previous trial. The stage, now worn away by termite infestation, stood alone in the shadows of the darkened assembly hall. From Twilight’s horn, a magenta-like glow illuminated the path ahead. It turns out the hall wasn’t our final destination, not yet. Luna then used her magic to lift the stage on a hidden hinge.

“This way, everyone,” Luna began.

We all walked a good distance down into the ground. The ventilation system in this place is surprisingly well maintained considering the lack of maintenance staff, let alone being absolutely empty upon initial inspection. We arrived at a lone door lit by a lone light bulb powered by magic. Twilight and Luna led the way in.

“Welcome to the war room,” Twilight said, “only those with authorized access can enter, if there were any authorized personnel that is. Sadly, this room was never used, not even once.”

At the furthest end of the room was a large circular door protected by three locks. One bore the image of a sun, the second a star, and a moon for the third.

“That right there is the vault,” Twilight continued, “items of great importance are kept within. Tomes, amulets, scrolls, and relics are stored there should they be needed. Luna and I recovered most of the items in there, mostly from the Canterlot castle archives. Only the Elements of Harmony aren’t.”

“So, should we get to work? Equestria isn’t going to save itself.”

The six of us gathered at the large table at the center of the room. To my right was Caramel, to my left, Rarity. Across the table were Luna, Twilight, and Shining Armor, now looking better than when I first encountered him. His horn to be exact, the shine reflecting off its surface was difficult to ignore.

“Shining, how’d you get your horn back?”

“Twilight used a piece of crystal,” my counterpart replied. “Jammed it in the hole where my true horn used to be. T’was a piece of living crystal; she enchanted it to accelerate its growth rate before smoothening out the rough edges. Still getting used to the feeling of having a rock on my head but it will do.”

“Glad to have you join us, friend.”

Shining Armor smiled back and added: “Thanks. Same to you.”

Twilight and Luna pulled out a map of Equestria, one marked with red crosses and a highlight around Ponyville. She placed some red marks on the mountainous region near an area labeled Froggy Bottom Bog. My guess is those are Stonesborough and Dimondia.

The Stormriders soon joined us. Spitifire led her team into the room with some documents in their saddlebags. Twilight’s eyes quickly ran through the sheets of paper while taking notes in her notepad she grabbed from the far corner of the room. The pegasus pony team joined us around the table to begin discussion.

“Alright everyone,” Twilight began, “it’s time for us to take action. With limited resources left, we’ll need to get creative. I’m thinking we could head over to Canterlot first; build up a sizable defense around the capital’s walls. If the information received from Spitfire’s team is right, we can use the underground passage and sneak some soldiers in while others will attempt to scale the walls.”

“We can’t risk lives just by trying to enter the walled city,” Spitfire rebuked. “Sentries constantly patrol the perimeter and the streets. Even if we do make it to the castle, a captain and his personal regiment are still guarding it.”

Spitfire carefully inspected the city map once more before Soarin’ joined in on the conversation. “What if we try going directly to the captain, confronting him and lighting a signal fire at the castle balcony? Sombra’s guards communicate with smoke and fire; when our signal is lit with a different color flame, it’s a sign for them to pack up and leave. Red means the post is active and green means retreat. We just need a way to get to the captain.”

Everyone remained in silence. Those of us who sat stared at each other or the walls, or tried crossing our legs hoping to come up with something. Others paced the room back and forth, the clopping sound of hooves against the ground occasionally creating a staccato-like rhythm before being cut off by hooves tapping the walls. Still, others sat so still their minds seemed to be more attuned to the silence, the high-pitched yet soundless environment.

Luna broke the silence with two hooves tapping the table. Everyone quickly turned to her, most reacting to the sound with a squint of annoyance.

“Apologies,” Luna said. “I think I have something in mind. What if we just send a group into the throne room? Teleportation. Advanced teleportation spells require extensive knowledge of the location one wants to travel to. Details need not be specific but the general placement of items needs to be precise. Twilight and I could send some of us here to capture the captain and light the signal fire. Others could wait just by the city perimeter and wait for our signal before entering.”

“And from there, we can use Canterlot as a staging ground for the liberation of other cities,” I added. I pointed to Canterlot’s location on the map while simultaneously studied the surrounding areas. “Canterlot is at the center of the map; we can take advantage of our position to send support to other captured cities before heading to the Crystal Empire.”

“Agreed. So what about the captured citizens?” Spitfire interrupted the conversation, raising one valid point. “We have reason to believe that Sombra is converting citizens into his soldiers, most likely assimilating them by force. They could be under the castle, in the dungeons. We’ll check there to confirm our suspicions.”

Caramel suddenly stood up and started pacing the room back and forth. We all watched him move around before Twilight called for everyone’s attention. I couldn’t keep myself absorbed in strategizing with the others. Something was bothering Caramel; he was uneasy. As he made his way to the door, I quickly abandoned the conversation and approached him.

“Caramel, something’s bothering you. What is it?”

The stallion looked back at the group, then back at me. His gaze shifted back and forth before finally settling down.

“Remember that time we met in the sewers?”

I nodded.

“I wasn’t there because I chose to live there. I didn’t have a choice; I was hunted by the guards for escaping the castle.”

That didn’t seem like something he should be worrying about. I’d call it an achievement because he did it alone and for him to carve out a home in the most disgusting place in the Crystal Empire and putting up with it for who-knows-how-long is a greater feat in itself. Still, his uneasiness wasn’t fading.

“I was a test subject for the King. He wanted to see if it was possible to forcefully assimilate his ideas and ideals and make them my own by altering me into one of his soldiers. He was close but when I was being transferred to another section of the castle, I broke free and made a break for it. I’ve been hiding in the sewers for days on end, hoping he wouldn’t find me. That’s when I met you.”

I couldn’t say anything. I tried to utter a word but something always held me back. I’ve been hanging around with a specimen?! And even if he wasn’t fully transformed, could he have been sending information back to the Crystal Empire? Was this why he kept disappearing and could his disappearances be directly involved with the attacks at Dimondia and Stonesborough? So many questions…

I slowly returned to the table, confusion in tow. Should I tell the others? And how would they react? I soon felt a hoof on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t know whom else to turn to. If you decide to let them know, I won’t be mad; if they decide to take action, please tell them to make it quick and painless.”

As I listened to his words, I felt a pain I’ve never experienced before. Caramel sounded so intent at the thought of letting his life slip away before him like it was nothing but I can’t say that for sure. The way he talked… He couldn’t just let his grief build up inside and he sounded like he was going to let a trickle of tears run to his check and down his face. I couldn’t reply to him either as the pain from his words ate away at my heart. Luna was there, too, eavesdropping on our talk instead of being with the others. She approached Caramel and whispered something into his ear. I could tell he was feeling better about his predicament as his feelings of sorrow turned into feelings of joy.

The three of us then rejoined the others as they were discussing.

“… should try some spells. Purification spells maybe,” Soarin’ said before turning his attention to us. “Welcome back, mi amigos. We’re still thinking about how we can amass an army large enough to take down the king. Any ideas?”

Caramel discussed at length the same things he had just told me. The more he talked, the more the others grew interested and the faster we completed our plans. The Stormriders listened attentively, never drawing their attention away from the speaker. Twilight had a smile on her face the whole time as she scribbled notes without end. She went through three quills and two notepads as she continued to note down everything Caramel said. Whenever one quill broke, she’d quickly pull out another one from the nearby drawer and resume writing as if nothing happened. It’s good to see the Twilight I know so well, even if she isn’t the exact same Twilight I know.

“Still, that doesn’t answer the question. How are we going to boost our numbers?” Soarin’ asked.

Luna and Twilight turned to each other and nodded in unison before looking back at the group. “Leave that to us,” Twilight said as she put her notepad and quill down.

“From Canterlot, we’ll proceed to the inhabited cities nearby. We don’t need to worry about major cities like Manehattan and Phillydelphia for now because its citizens aren’t assimilated into the army. We would have a contingency plan should things go south and a sizeable force large enough to fight back against the king.” As Spitfire ended, the others, including myself, applauded the pegasus. Twilight met with the aerial reconnaissance team to discuss tactics before dismissing them. She then walked with Luna to the door where, Rarity, my duplicate, and Caramel were standing.

“Twilight,” I said, “can I have a word with you?”

Twilight turned around.

“Privately,” I added.

Without hesitation, Luna led the others out, leaving Twilight and I alone in the war room.

“So what’s so important that you needed to speak with me alone?”

“It’s about what happened in the hospital. And what happened after.”

“If it was about what happened in Dimondia and Stonesborough, there’s no need to talk to me about it. Rarity already filled me in on the details.”

“Not that. About the hospital, why’d you lash out at me like that? I know you don’t like me and you don’t want me around, but why would you do such a thing?”

Twilight walked away, turned to the vault and opened it. She then gestured me to come closer with her hoof. I followed.

“I can’t just tell you,” she said. “I have to show you.”

Twilight picked up an image of her family, another one with her friends in it. She handed those to me and asked me to look at them for a long time. She reminded me of how much she had to go through as she lost them one by one. Twilight then directed my attention to the glass container that held the elements of harmony. Only a crown and a necklace were kept within it.

“See these? The only elements of harmony left in possession. Generosity and magic.”

“What about the others?”

“When I lost my friends, I lost their elements as well. Well, most of them. I lost my families, biological or otherwise. I lost Celestia, my friends, mother and father… I was tired of losing those who were close to me that Luna was the only one I could call family and yet, I can’t say that is true because I pushed her away like I did with my friends. When they came for me, I don’t know what happened. I-I pushed them around as if what we had wasn’t there. And I thought the magic of friendship was dead. Some friend I became… All that time, I didn’t know what I was thinking. And then you came along. I just didn’t want anyone getting in my way that I just needed you to leave.”

Twilight handed me a deep gray key and brought me to the far side of the vault. A lone door with two locks on either side stood before us. Twilight pulled out another key and gestured me to unlock the door with her. As we did so, a loud, thundering crack filled the room and the earth shook with moderate force. It was an earthquake but nothing in the room went out of place; the sound of glass shattering or wood collapsing into the room was completely absent.

Within this second vault held a suit of armor that shimmered in the absence of light. It was of a shade of pearlescent white over a metallic bluish silver base. The chest plate had the insignia of a six-pointed star within a circle created by the fusion of the sun and the moon engraved with other gothic-inspired designs. All four greaves had a similar design with some exceptions. These greaves had the individual cutie marks of Twilight’s friends. One had three butterflies, another with three balloons, yet another with three apples, and the last with three diamonds. The helmet looked like those worn by the royal guard with one difference: both side flaps resembled lightning bolts attached to a cloud.

“Your actions don’t deserve this but I think you should wear it anyway. I made a mistake driving those closest to me away and this armor reminds me of that. But you, you made me see how wrong I was.”

Twilight helped me put on the armor, securing the buckles and constantly checking the weight and flexibility of the armor. I recall this being a one-size-fits-all set when I first encountered the suit; a surprisingly comfortable fit, it was both flexible and light. When the helmet rested on my head, the armor glowed with a gold aura. The suit was now a distinct royal purple with gold trims and rivets around the edges just like my suit back home. I admitted to Twilight that I looked rather stylish in the suit of armor. She threw a light kick right at my left flank and chuckled before leading the way out to meet the others.

Previously known as Operation Iron Hoof, Twilight and I were ready to lead the resistance. The newly named Operation Libertas is now ready to commence.

Spitfire and her team, now joined by the remnants of the pegasus royal guards stood at attention as organized regiments assembled around town square ready to receive orders. Canterlot was our primary target. Spitfire and the soldiers would create a distraction at the perimeter to draw attention away from the attack at the castle. From there, Twilight, Luna, and I will go in and do everything according to plan.

The march ahead will be a long and tiresome one. We all marched onward, aware of the sacrifices each one had to offer. This was the first step of a journey that spanned a thousand miles for one simple goal: freedom.

Should we have a successful start, we would have won half the battle already.

Comments

[SageBrony07]

Nice chapter. Well know that everyone is ready for the fight, a battle chapter is coming up. I'm surprised that no one thought Shining could have been a test subject as well.

[EquineTheta]

4212189 Actually, I thought about writing the other Shining Armor as a test subject in an earlier draft and fleshing that bit out in another chapter but I decided against it. It didn't seem to fit well in the narrative from the speaker's point of view. Glad to know you are enjoying the story!

[SageBrony07]

4222084 Best of luck with the next chapter. I also have my suspicions about this worlds shinning armor. It will be interesting to see if I am right.