Battalion Wars: Equestria

by mathwiz617

Chapter 11

1:00 PM, January 17; Canterlot

The two sides stared at each other uncomfortably. An awkward silence hung between them, broken only by the occasional cough. Somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.

Suddenly, one of the Frontier flame vets leaned over to his neighbor, a grunt. “You owe me thirty dollars,” the vet said. “I told you unicorns are real.” The grunt growled, pulled a small stack of cash from his pack, and handed it to the vet. This drew a chuckle from a few of the ponies, and a more than a few humans.

Once the laughter died down, Shining Armor stepped forward, the tension now broken. “All wagers aside,” he said, “you were sent here to train us to use human weaponry proficiently, correct?”

“Yes,” one of the assault vets said, taking charge while General Herman was away. “Now, how many of you can hold a gun?”

“Just us unicorns,” Shining said. “We can use our telekinesis. If my sister earlier today was any proof, the stronger ones should be able to hold two or more.”

“Well, that’s fine,” the assault vet said. “We were anticipating having to modify everything anyway. This just makes it easier on the engineers. I’m guessing the pegasi are natural flyboys?”

Shining nodded. “They may not be the fastest, but my soldiers are completely comfortable at any altitude. There’s also the Wonderbolts, Princess Celestia’s honor guard, who also double as a stunt team.”

“Right then, I guess you guys get the aerial vehicles. That leaves the ground vehicles to the rest of you. Unicorns to the firing range, everyone else to the simulators.”

3:15 PM; Ponyville Library

“Empress, are you sure the Staff is secure?” Herman asked. “I have a feeling that that’s going to be Xylvania’s first objective, now that their invasion of Equestria has been turned aside.”

“I an absolutely sure, General,” Lei-Qo said. “I carry one of the two existing keys to the vault it is stored in. The other is sealed in a hidden bunker, deep in the heart of the Dune Sea. I am certain that Xylvania does not yet know of its location.”

Twilight grimaced. “Why go to such lengths to protect something so dangerous? Wouldn’t it be easier to just destroy the Staff?”

Celestia shook her head. “You don’t understand, Twilight. The Staff was built to resist the power of the sun. There’s only one thing that can destroy it, or, rather, thirteen things.”

“The Elements of Harmony and their Bearers, as well as a large explosion?” Twilight guessed.

“Not exactly,” Celestia said. “The Elements were used to create the Staff, so they can’t destroy it by themselves. It’ll take a balance of harmony and chaos to destroy it.”

“So, what do we need to do?” Discord asked. “Blast the darned thing with my power and the Elements at the same time?”

“I wish it were that simple,” Celestia replied, the room now rapt with attention. “While you were sitting in the gardens for however long it was, I decided to siphon off some of your power. It-”

“Wait, just a second,” Discord interrupted. “You did what? And how did you do it? Most importantly, why?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “I did exactly what I said. I took some of your power. I’m not going into how, but this was after I banished Luna. I lost my connection to the Elements, but I knew that others would eventually be found. Therefore, I wanted a measure of chaos, just in case the next set of Bearers decided to try to overthrow me. I was distraught, and the nobles of the time were ruthless. Anyway, as I was saying, the pure chaos I drained from you crystalized. It formed seven large gems, each a different color, though all the same size and shape.”

“Why stop at seven?” Lei-Qo asked.

“Well, it just felt right,” Celestia said. “I presume if we could bring all seven Gems of Chaos together with the Elements of Harmony, we can destroy the Staff.”

“Well, that sounds relatively simple.” Herman said. “Where are these gems?”

“That’s the problem,” Celestia sighed. “They are scattered all over the world. I gave them to various settlements for safekeeping. I sent the green and red ones to the west, and the white one to the Solar Empire. The blue one went to a civilization in the Dune Sea, which I believe was conquered by the Iron Legion, and the yellow one I gave to a group of humans to the southeast. One of the others was sent to Vanhoover, while the last was kept in Canterlot.”

“I’m guessing there’s going to be some kind of hitch to collecting these gems,” Herman said. “It can’t be simple.”

Celestia nodded. “The light blue gem in Vanhoover has been passed to the Crystal Empire, and should be relatively simple to collect, but I fear that Chrysalis and the changelings took the purple one. She always was a sucker for big, shiny things. What’s more, I think Xylvania holds the blue gem now.”

“I assume that, as pure chaos without any control,” Nova mused through the radio, “strange things tend to happen around these gems. Am I right?”

“That is correct,” Celestia replied.

“That sounds like the crown jewel of Tundra,” Nova said. “It drove many tsars mad with power before it transformed the crown into a simple hat.”

“You know,” Herman thought aloud, “that does remind me of one of the Frontier’s national treasures. I’ll see if Austin can get it out of the vault.”

“Very well,” Celestia said. “It seems we have come to an agreement. I shall lead a campaign against the changelings. After that, we shall strike at Xylvania.”

As the meeting was adjourned, Spike raced down the stairs and tugged on Twilight’s mane. “I don’t think you’ll need to go very far.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked. Then she heard it. A low buzz, like a fly passing by her ear, gradually growing louder. Looking outside, she noticed ponies running around like mad as what looked like a large, black cloud blotted out the sun.

Comments

[Fireheart 1945]

Very happy to see this story update again.

[Cmmdfugal]

It lives a good battalion wars story exists