Twilight Sparkle the greatest strategist of Celestia’s army and Rainbow Dash the greatest warrior in Luna’s army start a rebellion.
Twilight Sparkle the greatest strategist of Celestia’s holy army. Rainbow Dash the greatest warrior of Luna’s holy army. Both disillusioned and want to be more then puppets to ones who claim to be gods. They make a deal. They will rebel and open up a third front in the eternal war.
“So have you come to accept the proposal?” Rainbow looked at the mare standing in front of her, the legendary Twilight Sparkle, the greatest strategist of Celestia’s Holy army. A natural born Alicorn.
She had sent an offer to Rainbow Dash, the greatest warrior pegasus of Luna’s Holy army, made to be biologically immortal so age could not stop her. And so she may fight forever in her leader's name.
But the alicorn in front of her sent her an offer by magic that landed it in her room, somehow.
Had any other general of Celestia’s army sent her a letter, the pegasus would have assassinated them in front of their personal guards. Yet here she was in a hidden cave deep in a frozen mountain to the north. One that Twilight made just for this meeting. Normally just talking to the other side was grounds for execution, for both of them.
But she knew she had to talk to Twilight. As she had been betrayed by the one she was once loyal to, Luna. Hate filled her mind at the thought of her ‘Holy ruler’ who had left her behind to die. That event had shattered what little world view the pegasus had at the time.
“First tell me why.” Rainbow stated, this question had been burning her for the inside since that battle three months ago. The one where she had been sent to kill the mare in front of her. “You had outsmarted me, had me all but dead. But you didn’t kill me, you saved my life instead. Why?”
The alicorn standing a mere meter away, answered. “Because I saw myself when I looked at you. A tool, an unwilling puppet for your Goddess. Groomed from foalhood to be a living weapon for your ‘God’.” Twilight said the word ‘God’ with absolute hate in her voice. Rainbow understood the hatred Twilight felt perfectly.
Rainbow unfurled her wing revealing a shiny black medallion that was about the size of her hoof. It had the words “Nightshadow Rainbow Dash” written on it. The medallion had been given to her by Luna herself. If somepony had asked her to give it to Twilight four months ago she would have hung them on the spot. But now she would give it away in a heartbeat if it meant freedom from Luna and that was exactly what she was going to do. Rainbow held out the medallion on her wing to Twilight. “I accept your proposal Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight’s eyes widened in surprise. She had been expecting a ‘no’ from the rainbow maned pegasus. Twilight quickly levitated out a bright white medallion that read “High Priestess Twilight Sparkle”. She laid the medallion on the pegasus’s wing and took Rainbow’s medallion in her magic and placed it on her own wing. A shiver went up both of their backs at holding what had been taught to them as an evil object that would do horrible things to them.
After nothing happened Rainbow spoke first. “So what's our first move?” Rainbow asked.
“We need supplies first and foremost and a lot of them. If we’re going to run a rebellion.” The alicorn said. “So how do we get them? I can't just steal from Luna’s army, she will notice.” Rainbow asked. “Same, Celestia will notice too.” Twilight levitated out a piece of paper and put it on the ground between them.
“But I have a better idea, you steal mine.” The paper was a big map that showed the surrounding areas. The map had several towns, a few military bases from both sides and other landmarks. It also had several lines drawn on it connecting place to place. Each with their own labels.
“This map has the nearby supply routes of Celestia’s army on it. I don’t know the exact time the shipments come through for all of them, but one.” Twilight pointed to a spot on the map that was in between a fort named Lights Hold and a city named Guiding Light.
“Its a weapons shipment that will occur in two weeks time. But until then I would like you to raid other minor shipments.” Rainbow nodded, it would be easy. “Anything you can tell me about them, just to make my life even easier.” Rainbow started to study the map. “All food shipments have double the guards due to it being winter, and food is running low. So eight instead of four.”
“Should I focus the food then and take it?”
“No I wouldn’t, Celestia will go in to panic and ask me to personally oversee shipments. And I can't risk my cover by failing to protect the shipments. But anything else is fair game.”
“So kill the guards and take their stuff nice and simple. But how will I carry the stuff? Normally I Just burn it, but we need the stuff.” Rainbow asked. “With this.” Twilight gave the assassin a small wooden stick about a foot long that had a blue gem embedded in one end. Rainbow could almost feel the enchantments the staff gave off. Rainbow held it in her wing. “That Staff will allow you to teleport the raided supplies. Just drawn a circle around the supplies and then after a few seconds the supplies will be teleported to this cave for storage. However it takes time to recharge about two hours.”
“Really? That’s forever.” Twilight seemed to ignore this comment.“It also doubles as an emergency escape if your cover is blown. Smash the gem with your hoof to do so.” The pegasus put the staff in her saddle bag. “Anything else?” Rainbow asked instinctively.
Twilight nodded. “Yes I have a list of ponies you do not kill or harm under any circumstances. As I may be able to recruit them to our side. And killing them will prevent that.”
”Fine but I want something from you that only you can give me.” Rainbow asked dread filling her voice at the request she was about to make. She had to ask it cause if she didn’t things could get worse for her. “Sure what is it?” Twilight answered eager to work with her fellow rebel.
“Could you teach me things like math or anything else really.” The alicorn looked surprised at this request and indeed she was. “You want me to teach you math? Why?” The pegasus nodded and sat down in front of the lavender mare.
“You know the rumor about me being made to kill? To be the greatest fighter ever made by Luna, to fight forever and I mean forever by her side.” Twilight sat down and nodded her head in affirmation. She had heard about the many rumors of the ‘Rainbow demon’.
“Its all true, everything from the fangs to being as dumb as a rock.” Rainbow opened her mouth showing off her fangs. “From what I know, Luna kept me as dumb as rocks. So I couldn’t think for myself. So I would just do as told, kill what needed to be killed. Then sit like a puppet in my room. Till I was needed to kill again.” Rainbow voice as filled with a mix of anger and sadness.
Unknown to Dash the alicorn had started to tear up, eyes filling with water upon hearing how Rainbow was basically uneducated, intentionally. So she wouldn’t be able to be more than a slave. Before Dash could even react she felt a pair of lavender wings wrap around her. Holding her in what should have been a terrifying grasp. But instead it felt good, she liked being hugged apparently.
Everyday she was learning new things. The alicorn made eye contact and looked directly into the pegasus’s magenta eyes.
“Of course I will teach you. I will teach you as much as you want to know.” The alicorn got up out of the hug and walked over to her saddle bags and pulled out a book that was no bigger than a card. Rainbow noticed It could easily fit in her rainbow mane if needed. “This book will let us communicate-er-talk by letter over long distances.” Twilight said as she put the book next to the map. She thought for a second then asked. “Can you write?”
The assassin hung her head in defeat. “Nothing but my name and a few other words.”
“Can you read?”
“If the words are simple then yeah.”
“That’s fine just look at the book a few times a day or when it glows. I will send you a message a day before I'm able to meet with you here. As this cave is where we will meet each time. It also holds the description of the Ponies you are not to kill in it.”
“Description?” Rainbow tilted her head at the word.
“Their names and what they look like.” Twilight answered catching Rainbow’s confusion that the word. “Ah” Rainbow nodded in understanding. Twilight looked at a watch that was in her saddle bags, then looked at the cyan mare. “I have to get going. I have been gone for a bit too long.” Twilight said as she picked up her saddle bag.
“It was nice to meet you Rainbow Dash, take everything on the ground with you. I hope to see you again as soon as possible.”
Twilight appeared in a flash of magic in the middle of her room. A loud yelp of surprise sounded from nearby her. Twilight quickly looked around her room looking for anything out of place. Bright white walls, check. Bookshelves running across the wall in front of her, check. A white bed that was huge compared to her behind her, check. The war map to her right untouched. The door to her room on her left - ah.
She had found the source of the yelp. It had been Applejack, her personal guard who was wearing only her hat. She was laying on the ground in a battle stance in the doorway. Ready to attack anypony who foolishly tried to infiltrate Twilight's room. Once she saw the lavender alicorn she calmed down a bit and stood back up straight and readjusted her hat .
“Heavens Dammit sugarcube you nearly sacred me to death, I was about to jump ya.” The guard shouted.
“Sorry, AJ you ok?” Twilight asked.
“Yea I’m good, but more importantly how’d it go? Did she accept your offer?” AJ said with hope in her voice as she walked over to the alicorn.
Applejack was one of the few ponies who Twilight trusted completely and would most definitely call her a friend. Twilight had met the orange mare early in her military career. When Applejack had been first assigned to Twilight she was downright terrified of her. Worried that one wrong word would get her punished severely or even hanged, if the rumors were to be believed.
It had taken Twilight nearly a year to get the guard to open up and be more than a silent sentinel. But when she did it was wonderful. Because she could talk to somepony without the filter of religion or her High Priestess title getting in the way. Twilight would now regularly get Applejack’s opinion on her war plans. While AJ was no strategist by any means. It was just nice to have another opinion that wasn’t colored by ‘yes’s” and ‘of course General’.
Applejack was also one of very few she told about her plan to rebel against Celestia and start a new kingdom.
Twilight was interrupted from her thoughts by Applejack. “Did Rainbow Dash accept your offer or not?” Twilight magicly put her saddle bag on the war map. “She did AJ.” Twilight answered almost squealing in excitement. “We have one of Luna’s best soldiers on our side.” Twilight flew into the air as the rush of success hit her like an arrow to the face.
“Two months of planning and preparation a success! Just think of what we cou-“ A loud shushing sound interrupted her in her revelry. “Heavens Twilight, not so loud. A maid or somepony else could hear us. Then it won’t matter what happened.” The orange mare peaked out the doorway looking for any of the fort’s staff that could have overheard the alicorn's excitement. The hallway which Twilight's room was at the end of was dark. Save for the moonlight that entered through a window at the other end of the hall.
Sighing in relief at the empty hallway the guard closed the door, turned and looked up at the still flying Twilight Sparkle. “Looks like we’re in the clear sugarcube.” AJ said then rose an eyebrow at the general. “Y’all coming back down? I want to know what the ‘Great Rainbow Of The Night’ is like.” AJ sat down on the huge bed looking at Twilight expectedly.
The mare laughed sheepishly and landed on the bed. A metallic thunk emanated from behind her.
Both heads of the mares whipped around to see a shiny black medallion laying on the floor that read “Nightshadow Rainbow Dash“. At this revaluation Twilight let out a most Priestess like curse of “oh shit”. Then teleported over to her saddle bag and levitated everything out searching for her medallion and did not find it. “Rainbow must have my medallion if I still have hers.” AJ had been Twilights personal guard for quiet a few years now and she knew the signs of a Twilight freak out. Applejack decided to stop it be for it began.
“You gave her that message book. Right Twilight?” “I did, but how does that help me? All it can do is let me talk to-oh.”
Twilight took out the message book and held it in her magic. She also grabbed a quill magically from the war map. She opened the book and informed the pegasus of the fact she had her medallion. Twilight walked back to the bed and sat down. “Thanks for the save, there AJ.” The guards pony smiled. “Your welcome sugarcube.” “Now what’s she like, is what they say about her true?” “Some things are true like the fact she has fangs like a bat, but you can't see them with her mouth closed.” A shiver went up AJ’s back “creepy”.
“Others are not, like her having bat wings or glowing eyes. But I think I know why she agreed to help us.” The alicorn’s eyes saddened as she remembered what she had learned about the rainbow maned pegasus. “She's a puppet, a tool, like us but she has it so much worse than we do.” “How is that possible? We say one wrong word to the wrong pony and it’s to the gallows.” AJ looked over to Twilight but was surprised to see tears in her eyes.
“She doesn’t know how to write more then her own name and a few words.” Applejack’s eyes widened in shock. “Really?” AJ knew that to Twilight knowledge was one of the most important things a pony could have. To Twilight Sparkle to deprive a pony of knowledge was the one the worst kinds of evil imaginable. “She said she was kept as dumb as possible.” “But why would they do that? Make one of their greatest fighters stupid, seems dumder then giving a recruit a crossbow.” The orange mare questioned Twilight. “No, it makes perfect sense.” “It does?” Twilight nodded “It’s much easier to control a pony who can’t even fathom the idea of questioning something. Much less the idea that there is more to life t-then executing orders as told and killing as told. B-being just a body a-and nothing else. The perfect slave, that’s what she was.” By the end of the explanation Twilight had started to lose her composure. She started shaking in a mix of anger and sadness. The fact that Luna had done that to a pony enraged her. It made her want to kill Luna for what she did to Rainbow. “My Stars.”
Twilight wiped her face free of water. ”She asked me to be her teacher, that was her main request of me.” “So was she also under a spell like you. Was it like the one that made you not question authority?” Applejack asked, taking a guess. “I have no idea. All I know is that something I did during the battle of Saint Silverhoof helped her break free.” The message book lit up, signifying that a message had been received. Twilight opened the book and read the response. “Ok” was messily written in the book. The alicorn let out a sigh. “She responded.”
Applejack could feel the sadness in the room, it hung in the room like a fog. A fog that she tried to lift. “So, was Rainbow Dash still the sexiest mare you have ever seen?” An impish smirk formed on the orange mare’s face as she said those words.
“AJ!” Twilight started blushing madly, her earlier sadness forgotten replaced by embarrassment.
“Y’all said it.” Applejack’s smirk widened at her plan working as intended.”and right after she nearly killed ya too. ”At this point Twilight had buried her face in her forelegs. “AJ!” Twilight magicly flicked Applejack's hat over her eyes. “I’m only messing with you sugarcube.” Applejack said, fixing her hat , laughing at Twilight’s embarrassment.
A bell rang out over the fort.
“Dammit, its curfew already.” Applejack got up and moved to sit next to the bed, on the floor. Stealing a pillow while doing so. “We best get to sleep.”
“Yea” Twilight agreed
The next morning
Applejack woke up to the sound of a bell ringing out over the fort. “Morning Twilight.” AJ said as she stretched out, loud popping coming from her back. “Good morning AJ.” Applejack got up and walked to the war map where Twilight always sat in the morning. She was sitting drinking a cup of tea, that sat on a cart full of food. She was looking over both her plans and the army’s.
“Hey Twilight, when am I getting my new armor? I feel a might bit under protected.” Twilight turned her head to look at the guard. “I think Rarity should be done with it today in fact.” Twilight lifted an apple off the cart with her magic and took a bite. “We should be able to go pick it today at her forge, why don’t we go now?” Applejack shook her head no. “Breakfast first then we pick up my armor.” Applejack sat next to the cart and started to eat. “Fine.”
Once they had finished breakfast then exited Twilight’s personal room into the white stone hallway. Four banners with the picture of Twilight’s cutie mark against a white background were spaced out on both sides of the hallway. The hallway ended in a T junction with a widow in the middle. The endings of the T junction led to the main keep which due to it being the middle of winter, was full of boxes that held various items the army needed.
Twilight looked out the window that overlooked the keep. As she and Applejack walked by and she spotted something she hadn’t been expecting to see, well more like somepony. The Alicorn held out a hoof in front of AJ stopping her. “What is Sunset Shimmer Doing here? She shouldn’t be here till tomorrow.” Twilight asked, quickly analyzing the situation. Sunset had her red fire mage robes on that looked fine if a bit dirty. But her face was one of fear and panic. She had been in a fight recently, a bad one too. Because very few things scared the fire mage.
To Twilight, Sunset Shimmer was also a friend and also one of the very few that knew about her plans. Sunset had come to her one day to ‘ confess her sins of doubting Celestia ’. And when she did Twilight jumped at the chance to bring her best fire mage into the fold. But seeing the now panicked look on the light amber mare face worried her greatly.
Sunset spotted Twilight in the window and disappeared in a flash of red magic and reappeared it front of Twilight.
“High Priestess ther-“ Shimmer was cut off by the alicorn who pointed a hoof at Applejack. “She knows about ‘it’.” Twilight couldn’t stand being called Priestess after all she learned. Sunset nodded. “As I was saying the shipment I was escorting got attacked. I was the only survivor.” At this Twilight already had a sneaking suspicion of who had attacked the shipment. “Who attacked you?” Twilight asked hoping she was right.
“The Rainbow demon attacked the shipment, it happened so fast.” Sunset said with fear in her voice.
“It happened just before sunrise. Then all of sudden, one of the guards next to me disappeared. He was gone just like ‘that’. Then the other two fell over dead. Then she flew towards me but stopped, then took out a little book, next thing I knew she told to teleport away or she’d kill me.” Shimmer looked at the stone floor of the hallway in shame. “And I did without thinking, like a coward.”
Twilight was ecstatic hearing that Rainbow had listened to her. “It’s fine Sunset there was no way you could challenge her alone. Besides it’s a good thing you did.”
“What, why?” The light amber mare looked up at Twilight confused. Twilight decided that she might as well tell Sunset about their insider in Luna's army.
“Sunset, remember when I said that I may have found a pony willing to work with us in the Lunar army?” Twilight could see the pieces fall into place behind the mares eyes.
“N-no way you got the Rainbow demon to work with us in-” Shimmer quickly looked around the hallway for anypony who could overhear them. “-The rebellion.”
The alicorn simply nodded her head in silent confirmation.
”How? She’s supposed to have unbreakable loyalty. How did you manage that?” Sunset asked, starry eyed. Even though Sunset Shimmer was slightly older than the alicorn she looked up to Twilight in a strange way. She was her commander after all and she had led her though countless battles and brought her back alive. “She came to the same realization that we all have.” Twilight said.
“That we’re fighting for nothing.” Applejack replied.
“That scripture is nothing but lies.” Sunset answered.
Twilight nodded. “Yes” Twilight paused then added. ”Sunset we were heading to Rarity to pick up Applejack's new armor and check on the progress of mine. Would you like to accompany us?”
“Yeah sure, but I have a question.” Twilight started to walk forward, towards the staircase that led to the keep. Sunset moved out of the general’s way and fell in behind her.
“Why didn’t you tell me Applejack knew, who else knows.” She kept her wording vague just in case as they had exited the hallway into the cold keep.
“Because if one pony betrayed us only I would take the hit. As they’d only know about me and I would most likely survive it.” Answered the alicorn.
To Sunset the fort was also felt weirdly empty. “Where is everypony?”
“Cold Stone needed reinforcements” Answered Applejack.
The group turned left into the forge exiting the keep. The ringing of metal being hit by a hammer entered into their ears. Much to Sunset’s utter delight the forge was not colored white like everything else under Celestia’s damned rule. But instead a sooty black, most likely from said soot and ash from the forge.
Which had the aforementioned white unicorn Rarity the ‘armorer of the North Point Fort’ as she loved to say. Although Sunset would disagree with the name fort, as in the winter it acted more like a storage depot then a fort. Working on some piece of metal next to the furnace. Sunset heard the lavender alicorn clear her throat.
“Rarity is my personal guard’s armor done?” Twilight had fully switched into her Priestess slash army general role.
“Why yes of course Priestess. It’s in the back, let me get it for you.” The alabaster unicorn said as she went to a door in the back of the room and went to grab Applejack’s armor. After a few seconds a ponyikin came floating out in a blue magic aura followed by a nervous looking Rarity. The manikin was wearing what must have been the Applejack’s armor. Shimmer heard AJ let out a loud whistle at the armor. Sunset just sat there stunned.
The armor covered everything up to the head, leaving room for Aj’s hat. It was colored silver with orange highlights around the sides of her legs. The gauntlets that covered each hoof had hoof blades built in, making each hoof a way to stab an enemy. Most ponies were lucky to get two, even pegasi as they took time to make. Time the army usually didn’t have but Twilight made time for it. Where Applejack’s cutie mark would be was a purple 6 pointed star, big enough to hold Applejack's cutie mark inside. But what stood out the most was a rail that ran along the right side of the armor that had a small box above it. “Suga-Priestess is that a crossbow mount?” Applejack asked, shocked to see something so expensive on her armor.
“Yes, and you will learn how to use it.” “But who w-“Applejack saw Twilight’s left ear flick which was the sign for, I will explain later. “Of course Priestess.”
Twilight approached the armor and put a hoof on it, inspecting it. “Is it ready for enchantments?” Rarity answered immediately. “Yes it is your Holiness. Want me to get Sunburst to enchant it?” Twilight scoffed at that.“Nonsense, I will personally enchant it.”
Now Sunset was jealous of the guard pony, Twilight herself was going to enchant the armor. With her ridiculous magic reserves and alicorn magic, Applejack may end up with armor that has enchantments that could deflect magic artillery spells. “Now, I Would like to check up on my armor. Please lead me to it.” Twilight requested. “Of course follow me” Rarity pointed to the back room. Then went in with the alicorn following her.
After a moment Twilight reappeared with what could be best described as a giddy smile on her face. Which she quickly wiped away. “One more thing Rarity and I will be out of your way.” Twilight said as she regrouped with her friends. “The first is to have AJ’s armor delivered to my room by noon.” “It will be done Priestess.” Answered the unicorn. And with that they left the room.
Rainbow Dash was sitting in the cave again, this time waiting for Twilight. They had taken each other’s medallion by accident last time they talked and she had come here to get hers back. But she also had a question to ask the alicorn. How did she break free of Luna’s control? Cause Rainbow didn’t really know how she broke free. She didn’t remember much except for some bits and pieces. So maybe Twilight knew.
Thinking back, the first thing she remembered was flying at Twilight. Who was in a white stone hallway with a glass room with its door opened behind her. She had her hoof blade extended ready to strike. Then the alicorn teleported out of the way and she flew into the room. But when she flew into the room, she hit something. Rainbow didn’t know what she hit as it wasn’t physical like a pillar or a wall. She felt a wave of something wash over her, then she blacked out.
The next thing she remembered was Luna herself looking into the room with one of her personal guards at her side. She didn’t know which one as she couldn’t see them. But was able to just barely see Luna’s as she had landed on top of something and smashed it. The look Luna gave her was one of disappointment.
“Goddess want me to go in and get her?” The guard asked. “No, she is useless to us now. Besides, I was going to replace her soon anyway. She’s too unstable.” Rainbow didn’t believe what she heard at the time. But the words rang in her head constantly now. Luna said she was going to be replaced. “But what about the gifts you gave her?” “She will keep them as I can not remove them. But it won’t matter as Celestia will kill her on the spot.” “What if she survives?” “She won’t, but even if she does she won’t remember any of this.” But Rainbow had remembered everything she said and with frightening detail. “Tell general Starlight to retreat. I got what I came for and Celestia will be here soon. Let Celestia think she has won this battle because she killed an unstable pawn of mine.” She blacked out again.
The next time she came to she saw her target, Twilight, entering the glass room. To finish her off, Rainbow had thought at the time. Twilight looked at her and nodded her head, muttering to herself. Rainbow could not make out all the words the general said as she approached her still form. “It's all lies on both sides .-Unintelligible- maybe it could work. With her those loyal to Luna -unintelligible-.” The alicorn now stood next to her. Rainbow had been ready for the final blow but instead she felt herself get picked up by the alicorn. She had blacked out once again, in the hooves of the enemy this time.
Rainbow had expected to wake up in front of a crowd ready to be show off as a victory for her target. But instead found herself in the woods alone with her stuff and she had a huge headache. But she also felt the most ‘all there’ she had ever felt in her life.
Rainbow Dash was broken from her thoughts as a flash of purple magic lit up the cave walls. Twilight appeared with Rainbow’s medallion floating next to her. “Sorry about that Rainbow, I didn’t mean to borrow your medal.” The alicorn said as she walked over to Rainbow and gave her medallion back with her magic. Rainbow gave Twilight’s back as well.
“Now, you wanted to ask me something?” Twilight asked. In the message book she had received a message at about mid day saying ‘want ask’ so Twilight assumed the pegasus wanted to ask something. “Yeah, I want to know how I broke free of Luna’s control. Was there a spell on me that made me not think?” Rainbow answered as she got up. Twilight put her hoof on her chin in thought. “I’m not sure what I did honestly but, I have an idea.” There was a monument of quiet before Twilight’s eyes lit up as she thought of something.
“I could show you what helped me get free from Celestia and it may help us figure out how you got free from Luna. I’m not too busy as it’s winter.”Rainbow thought she might as well who knows what she could find out by following the alicorn. “Where is it?” “It’s above us.” Twilight answered. Rainbow tilted her head. “What.”
“Just follow me please” Twilight spend her wings and flew to the cave entrance behind Dash. Pushing some bushes out of the way that hind the entrance from view. Rainbow followed her outside. Twilight pointed a hoof upwards, towards the snow covered topic the mountain. Rainbow nodded to the alicorn and continued to follow her.
Once they reached the top Rainbow looked down seeing only trees and snow below her. At not seeing anything out of the ordinary, Rainbow yelled “I don’t see anything!” At twilight who responded with “I know it’s hidden, just give me a second to find. It’s hard to see it at night and I don’t want to risk lighting my horn up. Lest somepony sees it.” After a minute or two, Twilight saw it. A vertical gap in the snow was what she had been looking for.”Found it! This way.” She said with a hoof wave and flew down with Rainbow following her.
The Steel mountain Observatory
Was stamped on the double doors in front of the mares. “I thought this mountain was named Greentail.” Rainbow stated eyeing the doors suspiciously. Twilight pushed the door open with her magic revealing a bronze colored hallway with two big pipes. One in the top right corner, the other in the top left of the hallway. Both going down the hallway for a meter before following the hallway as it turned into a stairway that led down.
“Ok Rainbow when we go down there, watch your step and don’t touch anything yet. Let me explain what this place is first or at least what I think this place is. Cause I don’t know what an ‘Observatory’ is and I assumed you don’t as well Dash.” Twilight looked at her rainbow maned companion, who nodded. Then they both started down the stairs.
Once they reached the bottom of the stairs Twilight watched Rainbow’s magenta eyes widen. “Whoa.” Twilight smiled as she had the same reaction as Rainbow Dash when she first saw the room. The room was huge by most standards. It was circular in shape with the walls being a dirty gold color. Lamps hung from the walls lighting up the room, each letting out a small hissing sound. The left wall had what looked like many levers and other things on it. The right wall had a doorway in it that led somewhere. The back of the room had another doorway. The roof was a mess of gears and cogs. Many with their own shape and size. Just looking at it made both pony’s heads spin.
In the middle of the room was a yellow and orange metal sphere as big as Rainbow, herself even with her wings flared out. It had the words ‘The Sun’ on it and around it were five much smaller spheres of different colors and sizes. Each one was a different distance away from the center sphere sitting on a pole that connected to a separate metal ring on the floor. Four of the smaller spheres had even smaller spheres around them. Making Rainbow’s head spin.
“What is all this?” The pegasus asked trying to under stand what she was looking at. “What an Observatory is, I think” Rainbow made to go into the room but was stopped by Twilight holding a hoof out. “For full transparency there is a grounding stone in the room.”
Rainbow recoiled at hearing that. “That thing will kill us both as soon as we enter, are you fucking insane!” Twilight shook her head. “It's a lie, here I’ll show you.” Twilight walked into the room. she immediately felt her magic get pushed into, what could be best described as a small ball deep in her chest. Twilight looked back at Rainbow who was standing in the doorway in shock. “See, I’m fine. It just feels weird that's all.” Rainbow, trusting the alicorn, slowly stepped into the room. “That feels weird.” Twilight nodded in understanding.
“Now I think I know why we were told it would kill us. Because I think it broke the mind affecting spells.” Twilight pointed a wing above the doorway they came though. Rainbow looked where Twilight was pointing. Above the doorway embedded in the wall was a black stone. “I came here off of a rumor to find artifacts or weapons to use in the upcoming battle at Saint Silverhoof. When I walked in this room I blacked out. Then when I woke up it felt like a fog lifted off my head. A stone just like that was in the glass room you flew into. When you blacked out I came to the realization that you also had some spell put on you. Although I'm still not sure.”
Rainbow spoke up “No I think you're right about the stone freeing me. Because when I woke up in the forest, my eyes felt open for the first time. If that makes any sense.” Twilight rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “To be honest I was hoping the stone would kill you.” The cyan pegasus laughed at that. “I was trying to kill you so you’re cool.” Twilight nodded then sighed “Then I heard Luna and left. When She left I saw you were still there left to basically die. Cause when Celestia would arrive she would have definitely killed you. And you know the rest of the story from there.”
Twilight huffed. “Now that alone is not nearly enough for me to rebel against Celestia. I’d write it off as she knew better. She was a god after all. However” Twilight turned around looking at the spheres again. Then she growled with absolute hatred. “This most certainly is.” Twilight walked over to the left wall that had the panel with all the levers on it.
“This machine is able to predict what the night sky will look like with perfect accuracy.” Twilight said. Rainbow wasn’t impressed by this. “Ok so?” The alicorn turned around and looked Rainbow in the eyes. “It's supposed to be impossible as Celestia and Luna are fighting over the sky constantly. Yet this machine is right every time.” Twilight pulled a lever on the wall.
A loud metallic thunk was heard. Followed by the grinding of gears. The spheres started moving clockwise around the sun in the middle. Now that Rainbow could look closer she noticed the medium sized spheres had different colors. The closest was a grey. The next one was green and blue, it had one smaller ball going around it. The third one out was the biggest of the medium spheres, it was red and had at least ten smaller balls going around it. The fourth sphere out was yellow and its size was in between that of the red sphere and the blue and green one. It was the fastest through, zooming past the other spheres with its own set of five smaller balls around it. The farthest one out was a little bit smaller than the yellow one and was blue color. It had seven smaller balls around it.
Twilight had walked next to the rainbow maned pegasus during her inspection of the machine. “Isn’t it beautiful.” The alicorn said. While Dash thought it looked nice, she still didn't understand what she was looking at. “Twilight it’s pretty and all. But how did this make you stop following Celestia?”
“It wasn’t just this Dash. There is a library in that room to the right that holds books that explain all of the science behind this machine.” Twilight said as she walked to the door that led to the library. Then looked back at the pegasus “You coming?” “Right.” Rainbow caught up to the alicorn.
Twilight pushed the door open with a hoof. “I thought I left the lights on, strange.” Twilight moved to where she found the lever last time she was here, which was just right of the door, and pulled it. After a second of loud hissing of what the alicorn theorized to be steam, the lamps that hung for the ceiling lit up. The room was filled with books on metal shelves that lined each wall top to bottom. The floor was the same color as the main room. There was a chair in the middle of the room that had a, once again, metal desk in front of it with many open books on it.
“See all of this.” Twilight pointed to the room at large. “It all directly refutes Celestia’s scripture.” The alicorn walked over the desk and picked up a book that was bright white with Celestia’s cutie mark in the middle. “I think the spell Celestia had me under stopped me from questioning her and the scripture.” Rainbow walked next to the alicorn without thinking. “But without that filter I started to question all of it. Like why we had seasons or why the moon every so often is in front of the sun. Even why the day is longer in the summer and shorter in the winter.” Twilight put down Celestia’s book back on the desk and pointed at the other books on the desk. “These books explain every question I had with scripture with math and science. They also show that Celestia does not raise the sun. Nor that Luna rises the moon.”
Unknown to both ponies a pair of blue eyes were watching them from the doorway to the main room. They were studying the mares who had entered the Observatory. The blue eyes were accompanied by a pair of red eyes that were also watching the ponies.
“Twilight do you know who built this place?” Rainbow asked. “If the rumors are to be believed then dragons built this place.” The alicorn answered. Rainbow laughed at this. “What?, you can’t be serious dragons are big dumb creatures. There’s no way they built this.”
“Hey! Clocky’s not dumb or big.” Shouted a voice.
It came from the doorway into the library. Both rebels snapped their heads to the door, looking at who caught them. “Who are you!?” Rainbow shouted instinctively her magenta eyes narrowing on the source of the sound. While Twilight tried to emergency teleport herself and Dash out of the observatory, she found she couldn’t due to the grounding stone that was affecting the area.
“Bloody Hell Pinkie! Why!?” In the doorway were two creatures. One was an earth pony mare so pink that she had to be the one named Pinkie. The other was a male dragon that was about a meter and a half tall with orange scales. He had two silver horns pointing backwards from his head, which held two red eyes. He was wearing a light brown duster jacket. His face wore an expression of surprise and was looking down at the pink mare. While said pink mare wore one of happiness.
“Because they insulted you Clockly, duh.” The earth pony replied to the dragon’s question as if the answer was obvious. Then she quite literally bounced into the library. She looked like she was trying to get to the desk in the middle of the library but was stopped by Rainbow. Who moved to block the pink mare with her wings out ready to attack.
Twilight, seeing that they had no way out of the room without fighting, with the dragon blocking the doorway. She decided that it might be best to talk to these two. They hadn’t attacked them and they easily could have. But one of them was also a dragon.
When she was a filly the Goddess Celestia herself had told Twilight that dragons were nothing but big monsters that would attack towns and spread heresy to any who listened. She had also taught her that you must attack them on site, before there cursed words could corrupt you. But what if that was just another lie perpetrated by Celestia so she wouldn’t talk to them. What could the dragon know that Celestia didn’t want her to know? That possibility alone was enough to make her want to talk with him.
But with Rainbow slowly getting more aggressive things could go bad. Twilight placed a wing on the pegasus’s back trying to get her to back down. She didn’t. “I’ll say it again. Who are you!?” The pegasus shouted angerly.
“Hiya I’m Pinkie Pie and my dragon friend here is Clockwork. It's nice to meet you.” Now the pink pony was bouncing in place. The dragon now known as Clockwork spoke up. “Yes I am Clockwork like Pinkie said. And if I’m not mistaken you” he pointed his right claw at the rainbow maned pegasus “must be Rainbow Dash and you” he moved his claw to point to the lavender alicorn “must be Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight nodded while Dash just growled. The dragon continued on “Which leads me to a question. Why are you two here?” “Well the alicorn’s been coming here for months.” Pinkie interjected mid bounce. Rainbow answered the dragon’s question first. “We don’t have to tell why we’re here.” Twilight walked in front of Rainbow and looked her in the eyes. “Clam down Dash I don’t think they’re here to harm us or blown our cover.” Rainbow’s glare broke at looking into Twilight’s eyes. “How can you be sure?” Twilight turned and looked at Pinkie. “You said you knew that I have been coming here for months now.” The bouncing mare nodded. “So haven’t you stopped me?” “That’s easy, so you could see that Celestia and Luna are big old meanie liars.” Pinkie answered as if it was obvious.
The dragon spoke up. “Pinkie is basically correct. We let you come to your conclusion about Celestia and how you want to act on it.” Pinkie nodded again. “Yep, so what are you going to do about sunbutt?” Twilight snorted at the use of ‘sunbutt’. She was keeping that one. Twilight chose to answer the pink mare and dragon.“I plan rebelling against her and Luna with Rainbow and others.”
Pinkie Pie held out a hoof towards the dragon. ”I’ll pay you later Pinkie.”
Silence reigned over the group except for Pinkie's continuous bouncing for a second or two. Then Twilight spoke. “So are you an ally? Or neutral, because judging from how you have acted you're not an enemy.”
Clockwork answered the alicorn. “We don’t quite know yet. It depends, mainly it’s because if we do help there is a chance others, who can not fight, may get caught in the middle. But we will help you get a technological edge as you are correct about the fact that dragons built this observatory.” Twilight’s eyes widened when the dragon said ‘Technological edge’. Her mind ran wild with ideas of new weapons she could employ against Celestia.
Pinkie spoke next. “I have an idea why, don’t you come back in three days. Then we can all talk and become bestest friends! But both of you should really get going anyway as it’s getting late. You don’t want to lose your cover.” The dragon looked at Pinkie questioningly then rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, Pinkie sense?” “YepRooney” “Wait what time is it!” Twilight was surprised by the panic in Dash’s voice. “About 9:45” answered Pinkie.
“Shit! I have to report to Starlight by ten.” The cyan pegasus shoved all creatures out of the way and ran out of the Observatory. Twilight sighed internally. She had to get going to if it was 9:45
Clockwork looked back at the alicorn. “Twilight when we meet in three days, could you bring a list of those who are in this rebellion so I can know what you’re bringing to the table.” Twilight didn’t trust him nearly enough to potentially sell out her friends. “I am sorry but I can’t do that. I don’t trust you two nearly enough to do that.” Twilight said apologetically. Pinkie wined in disappointment. The dragon sighed. “I understand. Anyway Pinkie said you should get going and knowing Pinkie she’s most likely right about that.” Twilight looked at both creatures. “So till we meet again?” As she too started to exit the observatory. Clockwork replied with a “Hopefully” and pinkie with a “yep”. Twilight exited the area of influence of the ground stone and teleported back to her room.
When she popped into existence she ignored Applejack’s yelp and went to the war map. The alicorn had a lot of thinking to do.
Rainbow could see general Starlight Glimmer in the next room, waiting to give her orders for tonight. Rainbow hoped tonight would be easy, maybe just hitting shipments.
The smile on the unicorn's face made her doubt it unfortunately because Starlight only wore a smile while talking to Rainbow when she had a big target she wanted the pegasus to get rid of.
Rainbow entered the room. The room held one table in the middle that had papers and maps all over it. On The back wall was Luna’s cutie mark with the words Lunar Kingdom under it. The right and left wall were made of some black stone with various papers hanging from them. Behind the table was Starlight Glimmer, a unicorn that Rainbow hated almost as much as Luna herself. The main reason being that she used the pegasus like a tool that could be easily replaced. Which she supposed she was. Having Twilight as a friend had, even after only three brief encounters, opened her eyes quite a bit.
“Nightshadow Rainbow Dash, Your assignment for tonight is to assassinate commander Clear Sky. We finally know his location. That being in Cold Stone Fortress. Which is shown on this map” Starlight telekinetically hoofed over a map with a red circle around the Fortress in question.
There was also a drawing of the stallion in the top right. He was a pegasus that had a white coat with a blue mane cut long. His cutie mark was that of a sun bursting through clouds. Starlight continued “You’re going to cause as much chaos as possible. So kill everypony you can. You leave at 10:30. Dismissed.” Starlight Pointed a hoof out the door Rainbow had entered when she finished talking. Rainbow left the room.
Rainbow entered her room. Her room was small, it had just enough room for her bed ,a bathroom, weapons rack and armor stand. The roof of the room had Luna’s cutie mark on it and the walls were black stone and so was the floor.
As soon as she closed the door Rainbow punched the wall leaving an indent. She was to attack Cold Stone Fortress, the most guarded fort during the winter. And kill some stallion who she has never heard of before. Then kill as many ponies as possible. This was a suicide mission! But maybe that was the point, Luna had said she was going to replace her soon anyway.
Rainbow walked to her armor and gave it a once over. Her armor was colored a dark black except for the hooves which were a dark red. The armor covered most of Dash’s body except her head. She had a helmet but she couldn’t hide things in her mane like Twi’s book. The armor also didn’t cover her wings so it didn’t slow her down. It also came with built in weapons like two hoof blades on the forelegs and a mounted crossbow on her right side with ten bolts. It held Twilight’s teleport staff in the armor’s built in saddle bag. The armor over all was designed to make her look like a monster as that was her job, to be Luna’s monster.
The pegasus put the armor on then walked to the weapons rack. Looking at the selection she noticed something that made her smile slightly. Her wing daggers had been restocked.
A wing dagger was a weapon that could be stored and hidden in a pegasus’s wing, then thrown by flicking their wing in the right way.
They were by far Rainbow’s favorite weapon. The ease-of-use and the fact you could hide them in your wing made it so she didn’t have to carry anything. Were the main reasons as to why the pegasus favored them.
She always had one on her just in case. Having one on her gave her a sense of comfort. Normally she only had two to four at any time. But when they got restocked, which was rare, she ended up with ten. Ten! Few things made her happy , good food, Twilight and having ten wing blades. Rainbow stopped at the thought of Twilight, why did the alicorn make her happy? The rainbow mare shrugged, maybe it’s because Twilight was her first friend.
Anyway normally she’d return the wing dagger’s she had previously so they could be fixed. But things weren’t normal, so now she had 12 in total. Rainbow hid three in each wing then put the rest in her armor’s built it saddle bag.
Rainbow looked at the clock on the right wall. It was 10:20, she had ten minutes of free time and had nothing to do. Rainbow chose to think back to the ‘Observatory’ and what she had learned today. It still surprised her that Luna nor Celesta controlled the sun and moon. She had no clue how it was possible or how it worked but she trusted Twilight.
Then meeting Pinkie and that dragon named Clockwork. Rainbow had always been told that dragons were creatures that walked on four legs, were huge and were dumb animals. That they were unholy monsters that needed to be killed on sight. The fact that one had talked to her only made her believe Twilight’s claim more.
Rainbow looked at the time again 10:26. She still had 4 minutes. She decided that she might as well tell Twilight what she had assigned to do tonight. She took out the message book and grabbed the quill and inkwell hidden in her bed and slowly wrote, “I hit cold ston for tonight” and closed the book sending the message. A second later Twilight wrote back “ok.” She hid the quill and inkwell back in her bed. Then put the message book back in her mane and waited. A minute later her door was opened by some stallion she didn’t know. “You’re cleared to go. “Understood” Was her reply.
By the time she reached the fort it was 11:00 going by the position of the moon. This normally meant most ponies in the fort would be asleep by now. However due to it being winter and Cold Stone being so close to the front lines meant it was fully awake. Ready if the ‘Goddess’ Luna or General Starlight tries a night attack.
She’d usually burst down the front doors of the Fort and make her her way to the target killing those who dared resist or get in her way. She couldn’t do that this time though there were just too many ponies in the Fortress, they’d tear her apart easily.
Rainbow couldn’t believe how four months ago she would have just mindlessly flown into the fort and start attacking, like she been told to, and most likely get killed. This time she had to do this differently. She was going have take out as many ponies as possible (besides it would make rebelling easier if Celestia’s army was weakened) and take out the target quietly and quickly. She would not be giving nightmares to ponies that night.
That’s why Rainbow had snuck her way past the outermost air patrols and landed on the west roof of the fort’s outer ring. The fort from above looked like somepony had drawn a big ring then put a smaller ring inside that, then to finish it off put a plus shaped building in the middle of the smaller ring. She’d have to make it past the inner ring then across the keep. To the plus shaped building in the middle where Clear Sky was most likely.
Rainbow ducked down next to a box that was on the roof as two Pegasi guards in gold armor landed near by her. Rainbow peaked around the corner of the box finding that they had there backs turned facing her. The mare smiled and was about to throw two wing daggers at the pair then stopped. Where was she going to hide the bodies? If the bodies where found the alarm would raised. She had never thought about this before as she’d never needed to.
Rainbow looked around but couldn’t find anything to hide the bodies. Then she looked at her hiding spot. The box could work as a place to put the bodies. She found that the box was empty.
Smiling again she threw two wing daggers in quick succession. Hitting one in the back of the head, the other in the neck. Dropping them both to the roof. Rainbow flew over and grabbed the bodies. Taking back her wing daggers in the process and put the evidence in the box.
Rainbow moved northward along the roof for a bit constantly checking the sky for pegasi. After a bit she found a staircase that led down into the building below her. She followed it down finding it to lead to the kitchen which was running at full capacity with three ponies going back and forth. She would have been able to take the three of them out easily. But she couldn’t see behind the staircase and didn’t want to risk some unknown unicorn firing a flare spell and raising the alarm.
The staircase ran along the right wall and was completely exposed to the cooks on the left. Past the cooks was a door that must’ve led to the first keep. But a ways down about three meters from the bottom of the stairs was an opened door. Rainbow looked at the cooks and waited till they all had their backs turned to her.
When they did she darted to the open door and went in finding herself in a storage room full of food and no way out. “Shit” She whispered as she quietly closed the door. She looked around for anything to help her. Dash was hit with a wave of hunger looking at the barrels of food. There had to be at least ten of them, then an idea hit her. She took out the teleport stick thing and drew a circle around the barrels. They disappeared a few seconds later but not before she grabbed an apple from one and ate it.
Rainbow’s ears perked up at a certain sentence she heard. “Carrot I’m going to get more apples for the soup.” Then she heard hoof steps heading this way. “Shit” She quickly moved to stand flush with the door back against the wall.
The door opened and Rainbow watched as a blue earth pony mare ran into the room, past her, saying. “Where’s the food it-“ Rainbow cut her off by cutting the mare’s neck with a hoof blade. The body hit the ground with a loud thud. “Sesame you ok?” Rainbow moved the now know Sesame’s body to the corner of the room and did the same thing she did for Sesame.
This time an orange unicorn stallion entered the room. Before he even spoke she cut him down and put his body in the same place as the other. After a minute the last cook spoke up “What the hay happened to the other two?” Rainbow was not expecting to hear somepony reply “No clue I’m going to find out, I swear if you two are going- “ he died as soon as he entered the room.
“This is getting silly.” The cyan pegasus muttered to herself as she walked out of the storage room and threw a wing dagger at the last pony in the room who was a blue pegasus mare. Her body hit the ground with a thud. Dash also hide her body in the storage room.
Now that she was alone she was able to look out to the keep that separated the first ring from the second. Through the door she could see a thin layer of snow covering the ground as it was starting to snow lightly. Rainbow could see two sets of guards patrolling from her current position due to the lamps they were holding. Directly across the keep from her position was the set of doors that led into the second ring. It was a straight shot she could just zip to the other set of doors. So that's what she did.
The pegasus quickly looked left and right, the two sets of guards weren’t looking this way. She also quickly looked at the sky to see if there were any pegasi in the sky. Not seeing any, she zipped across the keep covering the distance in a second. She opened the set of doors and closed them behind her.
Rainbow took a second to look around the room. She had ended up in a mess hall going by the two rows of wooden tables on either side of her. She also realized she wasn’t the only pony in the room. To her right was an earth pony stallion with a red mane and brown coat, who just now noticed Rainbow’s entrance. Rainbow flew over to him and sliced his throat.
Instead of him falling over and dying she received a hoof to her face that sent her crashing into a row of tables. She looked at the pony that should have been dead and found out why he was not dying in a pool of blood. The pony was a Steadfast.
While unicorns had their magic spells and pegasi could fly, earth ponies had two things: their strength and their faster healing rate which was dependent on the amount of earth pony magic they had. The more magic they had the faster they healed. And sometimes earth ponies were born with a large amount of magic such that they are able to heal blows that would kill a unicorn or a pegasus. The Apple family in particular were known for the large amounts of earth pony magic they were born with make most of the Apple family Steadfasts when born. But give that pony a set of armor that amplifies that even more and you get a Steadfast. Ponies that were very hard to kill even for Rainbow.
She watched the cut on his neck heal in front of her, Great. He jumped over the table and ran towards the pegasus intending to kill the intruder. Rainbow knew she had to kill him fast before he could warn somepony else or their fighting alerted other guards. She had two options; one hit him with one big blow killing him instantly or two whittle him down till he ran out of magic.
Rainbow rolled out of the way of his charge and tried to take to the air but was stopped by him grabbing her hind leg and pulling her back down to the ground. Landing on her chest. Rainbow turned around to stop the stallion from crushing her head with a stomp by raising her armored forelegs in front of her face blocking the blow. Rainbow realized the stallion had made a mistake by placing his chest above her right wing.
Rainbow flicked her right wing twice throwing two wing daggers up at his chest. First one clanked audibly off his armor, the second one went through the weak armor stabbing his chest. He recoiled off the pegasus in pain and Rainbow pushed the advantage immediately. She leapt at the earth pony and extended out both hoof blades and sank them into his neck and sliced upwards leaving two deep gashes in his neck, but the rainbow maned pegasus didn’t stop there. She stabbed her right hoof blade where his head met his neck, He died instantly as his body slid off her blade.
“That was close.” Rainbow muttered as she collected her stuff, both of the daggers she had used during the fight were ruined bringing her total down to ten much to her annoyance. The cyan mare sat down taking a second to check for injuries. The pegasus checked her forelegs and found that her left foreleg was starting to bruise badly under her armor. “Stupid earth pony strength.” She didn’t know if he had broken the bone which could be a very real possibility.
She put a bit of weight on her left hoof checking if she could walk on it. She found that she could with minimal pain in her foreleg. There wasn’t much she could do about it now and she could feel it getting worse. Rainbow couldn’t help but wonder why it hurt so much. She had taken far worse hits before. Maybe Luna’s spell reduced the pain she felt.
The pegasus filled that away as not important right now and looked for the door way out to what she hoped was the next keep. So she could kill the target and get out of here. She found the door in question, it was directly on the other side of the room from where she entered through.
She opened the door slowly to see how many guards she was dealing with. She counted eight guards patrolling the innermost keep. After she had stumbled into a Steadfast she didn’t want to again. So the pegasus took a second to try to get a better look at the guards. But had no such luck due to the combination of it being night time and lightly snowing. Even with the lamps they were carrying.
Rainbow turned her gaze to the building that held her mark. The plus shaped building was built out of white stone like most things built in Celestia’s name. The second floor had a balcony that led into the building, but there were no ground floor doors that she could see from her current position. Making her best bet to fly in through the balcony.
An idea hit her as she noticed the balcony had a door with a window in it. And coming through that window was light. The pegasus made sure she was clear then flew up to the balcony and looked in the window. She spotted Clear Sky standing at a desk looking what she guessed were plans of some sort. He wasn’t alone; he had a blue coated and black maned unicorn mare standing in the room with him. She wore mage robes so Rainbow assumed that she was his personal guard.
She went to open the door but found it was locked. The assassin groaned at this revaluation. What was stopping her from killing her target was a door. She couldn’t just knock the door down, that would alert everypony nearby.
The pegasus took a moment to think. She was used to banging down the door and just making a mess. What happened in the kitchen crossed her mind. Rainbow figured it was worth a shot. Rainbow knocked on the door hoping for the best. “Come in.” Rainbow watched the door get opened by a wave of blue magic.
The assassin walked in the room lazily and threw two daggers. One for each of the room’s occupants. Both died before they could even react. “That actually fucking worked.” Rainbow stood there stunned in the middle of the room still not quite believing that worked so well. She shook her head then she quickly looked around the room for any threats, she found none.
Rainbow started to look around the room for anything useful she could teleport with Twilight’s staff. She found a few things, piles of important looking papers, the commander’s and guard’s uniforms and weapons and a medical kit. Which rainbow tried to use to mend her bruising foreleg but when she opened it she didn’t recognize anything in the kit other than bandages.
Sighing at the fact she couldn’t mend her wound she added the kit to the growing pile of stuff on the commander’s desk. After a little longer Rainbow looked at the pile. Thinking she had enough stuff she reached back and took out Twilight’s staff from the armor’s built in saddle bag and drew a circle around the pile and watched it teleport to the cave. With that last act she was done here, much to her relief.
The pegasus looked outside and found it was starting to snow heavily. Which met it would be harder to see her or any pegasus in the sky, making her escape an easy one as she flew into the sky.
“There you are.” A lighting trail started to follow the the rainbow one.
Rainbow was lost and it angered her to no end. What had been heavily snowing earlier was now a blizzard making it very hard to see far. Even up in the sky where she was right now trying to get back to base and Rainbow’s left foreleg was not in good condition going by the amount of pain the pegasus was feeling. All of this infuriated the pegasus. “I swear this night jus-“
Whatever the rainbow maned pegasus was saying was cut off when an arrow hit the left side of her barrel, right under the wing preventing her from flapping.
Rainbow tried to control her fall and did for the most part. She managed to slow down her velocity by crashing into as many tree branches as possible. She landed finally in a snowbank with a groan of pain. She dug herself out of the snowbank to find she had landed in the middle of a snowy forest. Any pain she had previously felt was gone replaced by adrenaline.
“Who hit me?” Rainbow asked as she looked around for her assailant but couldn’t find them in the blizzard. She now had not only a possibly broken left foreleg but an arrow under her wing stuck in her armor making it very difficult to fly. Also judging by the drops of red that colored the snow nearby she was bleeding from where the arrow hit. Thankfully Dash still had everything on her even after the crash.
She heard the sound of flapping wings above her and looked up at the source of the sound. Landing in front of her was a mare with a light turquoise coat and a mane with mixed amber and gold stripes. She was wearing armor that matched hers but without anything covering her hooves.
“I’m Lightning Dust.” Rainbow watched the mare turn into actual lightning that held the shape of a pony and zipped over to the cyan pegasus. Landing a punch to Rainbow’s face that sent the mare flying back first into a tree, knocking snow down off the branches.
“And I’m your replacement.” Rainbow didn’t even get a chance to respond. As the mare zipped up to her and went for another swing. Rainbow ducked her head under the swing and kicked her ‘replacement’ in the chest with her hind legs sending her back a small distance. Dash quickly got up to her hooves and threw a wing dagger at her.
Lightning Dust batted it away sending it off to who knows where with a lightning covered wing. Then the turquoise mare pointed the same wing at Rainbow sending a lance of lightning at the cyan pegasus. Rainbow dove to the ground in shock, feeling her fur stand on end at the electric charge that pasted over her and exploded on the tree behind her. Sending charred bits of wood everywhere. This ‘Lightning Dust’ had just shot a bolt of lightning out of her wing and nearly hit her! How!?
Rainbow didn’t get to question the lightning shooting out of the mare in front of her much longer. As the sound of sparking warned her of the next blast the turquoise mare was preparing. Rainbow dashed towards the pegasus trying to close the distance before Dust could fire another bolt of lightning.
“You’re going to have to be faster than that.”
Lightning Dust vanished with a flash of blue light and a clap of thunder. The rainbow maned pegasus heard another clap of thunder come from her right and turned her head to face it. Lightning Dust might as well have teleported with how fast she had moved. The turquoise mare had her now glowing hoof out going for a strike to Rainbow’s right side.
Rainbow tried to shift her body out of the way of the incoming punch that was headed her way but couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. The hoof landed on her right side. Hitting her wing right on the bone. Rainbow heard a sickening crack come from her wing as she felt the bone give out. The force of the blow had broken her wing and sent her rolling into a snow covered brush with a scream of pain.
“So this is the mighty Rainbow Dash.” The turquoise Pegasus walked up to the injured rainbow pegasus and looked down at her. Then lazily kicked Rainbow’s head like a bored foal would kick a ball.
“Doesn’t look like much to me.” Rainbow looked up at the assailant and replied to the statement the pegasus had made. “What are you?” Lightning Dust laughed at the downed pegasus. Lightning Dust’s laughter was that of a pony who knew she had already won the fight.
Then she held up a forehoof and it started glowing. There was light blue electricity jumping from hair to hair making a small crackling sound with each jump. Rainbow could feel her coat stand on end. She could even feel heat coming off the hoof. “Like I said I’m your replacement.”
“Why? What did I do wrong?” Rainbow knew she was stalling, trying to find a way to escape. The rainbow pegasus knew she couldn’t win this fight, this mare could shoot lightning out of her body and move faster than she thought was possible. She had to think of something. She couldn’t fly away and her broken wing saw to that. She also couldn’t run away with her possibly broken left foreleg and Lightning Dust would just catch up with her, going off of what had happened earlier when she tried charging the mare. The pegasus came to the conclusion that Twilight’s staff was the only way out.
“I don't truly know our glorious goddess’s ways. But if I had to guess it’s because I’m better than you and now you're just a loose end.” Lightning Dust had leaned her head down so she was eye level with Rainbow as she spoke. “and that means you die here.”
Rainbow saw an opening and took it, she head butted the Lightning pegasus sending her back a step giving her enough room to get up and out of the bush. Rainbow reached for her armor’s built in saddle bag, that held Twilight’s staff and pulled it out. Twilight had told her that if she smashed the gem it would teleport her to the cave and that's what she intended to do.
She dropped it on the snow covered ground and raised her hoof to smash it. But was interrupted by a bolt of lightning hitting her along her left side. It melted her armor and burned her fur and the skin underneath leaving burns all along her left side. Worse still she felt the arrow fall out of the wound it had plunged up and now it was bleeding heavily.
Then Dust was in front of her looking her in the eyes. “What do you think you're doing?” Rainbow could barely stand, every nerve on her left side was yelling in pain. “Know what doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t miss this time.” Lightning Dust pointed a glowing blue wing at the rainbow pegasus’s chest. Rainbow stomped on the gem as she shot another bolt of lightning.
Dust looked around for the mare's body then laughed. “Must’ve blown her to dust.”
Rainbow appeared in the cave and tumbled to the cold cave floor. Rainbow immediately tried to get back upon her hooves. But when she did, she’d fall to the cave floor again after taking a step. After a few more attempts at getting on her hooves she finally accepted that she couldn’t stand.
Rainbow also noticed the large stain of blood that she had left behind as she tried to walk. She found she was bleeding heavily from where the arrow hit her left side. Her ‘replacement’ had missed the arrow wound with her Lightning bolt, letting the wound bleed openly. “I’m going to bleed out.” She said as panic started to fill her voice at the realization.
Rainbow remembered sending the med kit to the cave with the desk earlier. She looked around the cave and found it. It was only a meter or two away lying on the desk she had sent he. Rainbow tried to lift herself up to her hooves but couldn’t as her left foreleg could no longer hold her weight and fell as her balance was lost. The pegasus landed on her right side, directly on her broken wing. Rainbow roared in pain as she landed on the wing.
“I’m going to die” Rainbow started to cry as the hopelessness of her current situation set in. “I can’t even get up. Even then what am I going to do? Get the med kit that I am to fucking stupid to use.” She remembered she couldn’t use the med kit earlier so what made her think she could now? She had been replaced, what use was she now? What use was a replaced pegasus to Twilight? To anypony?
“NO!” Rainbow shouted. Rainbow grabbed her mane in frustration. She wouldn’t just sit down and die, she had to do something. “What am I going to do? I can’t just sit here and die. Come on, think Rainbow think.” She felt her hooves touch something in her mane and she yanked it out angrily wondering what it was.
It was hope in the form of Twilight’s message book. Rainbow immediately put the book down on the cave floor and looked for ink. And didn’t find any. “N-No” Then Rainbow made a noise that sounded like a angry wolf. “W-Why can’t you just let me have a BREAK!” Rainbow shouted in anger and slammed her not useless hoof down on the book in rage. She looked at the book with anger and pulled her right foreleg up to slam it back down on the book again. But stopped when she saw the crimson hoof print on the page.
Rainbow didn’t think she just did. She started writing the word ‘help’ and ‘cav’ with her bloody hoof on the page, using the tip of her hoof like a quill. When the pegasus finished writing she closed the book, sending the message.
Now all she had to was stay awake till Twilight showed up. “If she does. No she has to.” Rainbow knew how she would try to stay awake. She just let her anger fill her mind. She was angry at the stupid Steadfast in the fort for breaking her leg. She hated this Lightning Dust. The fact she could shoot lightning drove the mare livid. She couldn’t stand the fact she couldn’t use a simple med kit. She hated how fucking stupid she was. She.....
Twilight was pulling an all nighter, again, much to her guard’s dismay. How could she not? Today she had shown Rainbow the observatory and met an actual dragon. A dragon! There was so much she could learn from him. She had so many questions She just wanted to ask but couldn’t due to how little time she had left.
So Twilight sat down at the war map in her room and pulled out some quills, ink pots and sheets of paper. She started writing every question she thought of, all the way from “What do you eat?” to “What’s your strongest weapon.”.
Unfortunately for her personal guard the sound of quill on parchment filled the room. Making it impossible for Applejack to get any sleep. AJ had already written tonight off as a lost cost. She knew Twilight plenty well enough to know that once the general got one of these moods where she was writing furiously and was basically unresponsive to questioning, there was absolutely no stopping her.
Applejack had decided to read some of Twilight’s battle plans on the floor to pass the time. She was currently reading about Twilight's plan to beat back some general named Star Sight who had, in Twilight’s mind, overextended his force’s making him easy to flank.
As the orange mare turned the page to continue reading she saw the alicorn’s saddle bags light up. She was right next to them so she figured she might as well check it out, besides the alicorn wouldn’t mind too much.
The mare reached out a hoof and dragged the bags over to her. AJ opened the top of the saddle bag and pulled out the glowing message book. AJ opened it not expecting much, maybe at most a request to meet with Twilight. What she found was terrifying, the words ‘help’ and ‘cav’ were written in blood across the page, going by the color and the smell.
AJ grabbed the book in her mouth, ran over to Twilight and shoved the alicorn out of her seat and onto the floor with a thud. “What the hell was that for Applejack!? You better have a damn good explanation for-“ Twilight stopped talking as she saw what was in the earth pony’s mouth and while it was upside down from her point of view. She could still easily make out the word “help cav” written in blood.
Twilight magicly grabbed the medical kit stored under the bed while AJ put the book down and ran to her new armor and put on a gauntlet on her right foreleg. Then ran back to the alicorn who was standing in the middle of the room. “Ready?” Applejack nodded. “I reckon so.” Twilight lit her horn up and teleported them to the cave with a flash of purple magic.
Twilight could smell blood when she and Applejack appeared in the cave. The smell was strong even by her standards as she didn’t have as strong a sense of smell as Applejack. But the alicorn didn’t need a sense of smell to find the source as she could see it.
Near the middle of the cave was a streak of blood on the cave floor that led to Rainbow. Who was laying on her right side, head laying on the cave floor. She was covered in blood and had a line of burns running most of the way down her left side. Her armor had somehow melted in her fur binding it to her body where it melted. There was also a large line of blood coming from just under the cyan mare’s wing and a growing pool of red under her.
Rainbow must have heard the sound of Twilight’s teleport as she lifted her head and looked up pleadingly at Twilight. Rainbow was crying, heavily too judging by the tear stains. Twilight felt something change in her that sight as Rainbow’s magenta eye’s made eye contact with Twilight’s purple eyes. Rainbow spoke to the alicorn, her voice was raspy even for her. “T-Twilight help please.” With Rainbow’s plea for help in Twilight’s mind she acted.
Twilight applied pressure to the open wound with her magic stopping the bleeding. She ran over to the pegasus and put down the medical kit she was holding in her magic aura and opened it. Twilight vaguely heard Applejack say “Whoa nelly” in the background as she pulled out bandages. “Rainbow you need to stay awake.” Twilight told the wounded pegasus as she magically ripped off the armor that wasn’t bonded to her body. Rainbow’s head had fallen to the cave floor but this time facing Twilight.
Rainbow looked at mare who had saved her life twice now. “I’m trying T-Twi.” Rainbow’s voice was weak.
Twilight knew the pegasus had lost a lot of blood going by the large strains of red on the cave floor and the pool that had formed. She was going to need a blood transfusion without a doubt. “Rainbow do you know what blood type you are?” Twilight asked hoping that the pegasus knew.
“What’s blood type?” Rainbow answered.
Twilight started to panic at Rainbow’s answer. She had no way of telling Rainbow’s blood type and the alicorn couldn’t use healing magic on the pegasus because it was her magic, not Rainbow’s. The pegasus’s body might react violently reject her magic causing more harm than good. She was going to lose Rainbow and there was nothing she could do.
Applejack spoke up interrupting the alicorn’s thoughts. “Twilight she’s got a broken wing on her other side.”
Twilight remembered who her guard was and nearly smacked herself in the head for her absolute stupidity. She had one of the Apple family as her personal guard. There was a list of reasons why Twilight, one of if not the best general in Celestia’s army, was protected by an earth pony of all things.
One of them being the fact that AJ was one of the strongest Steadfasts of the Apple family and the Apple family was famous for the strength of their Steadfasts. Applejack had been born with a ludicrous amount of earth pony magic.
Another, and right now more important, reason was that AJ had an O negative blood type. Which meant Twilight (in Celestia’s mind) had a supply of O- blood type around her at all times. Which was the only blood type that would work with the alicorn’s one of a kind blood. It also worked with any blood type which meant she could use Applejack’s blood to save Rainbow’s life.
“Applejack we will worry her wing later, Rainbow needs a blood transfer and fast.” Twilight pulled out a tube from the medical kit that would allow Applejack to donate her blood to Rainbow. Applejack nodded and moved to sit next to Rainbow as Twilight simultaneously bandaged closed Rainbow’s wound and connected the tube to AJ and Rainbow in the correct places. Then turned on the magical runes on the tube and started the blood transfer.
“Twilight we need to get Doc. He's better at this than either of us and heavens knows what that broken wing is doing to her.” The guard pony said as she knew they couldn’t just stay in the cave. “I know AJ just needed to stabilize Rainbow a bit. So I could safely teleport us back to the infirmary.” The alicorn replied.
“Rainbow you still awake?” Twilight got a response that sounded like a heavily slurred “Yeah” from the rainbow pegasus. Twilight didn’t like what she was about to do as it might blow her cover but Rainbow was worth risk to her. “I’m going to teleport us to the infirmary in three, two, one.”
Doctor Light Quill was a light brown Griffin, an unusual sight to be sure but not uncommon in Solaris. And for once he was having a slow morning (if 4:00 am was morning) most likely due to the blizzard last night but he wasn’t complaining. Not a single one of the 20 beds in his office were being used, not a single patient this morning.
He loved winter for that reason, battles were uncommon due to snow getting in the way of troop movement and if they did somehow occur they were usually smaller battles. But what he liked the most was the fact that he wasn’t in a tent. For all of Priestess Twilight’s tactical genius sometimes his medical tent got put in weird places. But Quill would never say anything.
No patients meant free time to do things like take inventory of his supplies . Which he was in the process of doing when he got interrupted by a bright flash of purple light with an accompanying loud pop signifying somepony had just teleported into his office. He knew the anti teleport wards were still up, so it wasn’t some enemy unicorn popping in. That meant somepony with access had teleported into his office.
The griffin turned his head to look at where the pony who teleported into his office was. What he found was not one pony but three and one of them is the Priestess Twilight. With the Priestess was her personal guard Applejack and a pegasus mare. The pegasus was in terrible condition, she was covered in blood and had a burn mark running down her left side from just a quick glance alone, who knows what other injuries she could be hiding.
The griffin doctor moved from the cabinets at the back of the room to the group of ponies. As he approached Priestess Twilight spoke to Quill. “I need an isolated medical room doctor.” Quill answered quickly pointing a claw towards the back of the room, at a door. “The most isolated room I have is the surgery room Priestess.” The alicorn nodded. Then carefully picked up both mares in her telekinesis and moved into the operating room. Opening the door as she went.
The room had one table in the middle that was covered by a white sheet. There was a bright white shining gem directly above the table. It lit the room up with a harsh white light. The rest of the room had counters running along the walls with various medical tools on them that no pony in the room could tell what they did.
Twilight carefully put Rainbow on the table belly down, then placed Applejack down nearby as the guard was still giving the pegasus blood. Applejack looked none too happy about being picked up in magic and was now standing next to the table. Applejack looked like she wanted to say something but instead simply pointed with a hoof to her hat which had fallen off. Twilight rolled her eyes, picked up the hat and put it back on her head as the doctor followed them into the operating room.
Dr. Quill didn’t dare question the Priestess as to who the pegasus was as he already could tell it was the Rainbow demon. She had a rainbow mane and a cyan coat. He didn’t know of another pony with the same base description. But why the heavens was she here in his office and why did the Priestess herself bring her in to get treated?
The griffin chose not to ask those Questions. As he liked his head where it was and to increase his chances of keeping it there he got right to work. “So what injuries does she have? Priestess.” He asked as he went to the counters and grabbed basic tools.
“Under the bandage is an arrow wound about an inch deep.” Twilight without knowing it had put her gently hoof on Rainbow’s head. “She has a line of burns running down her left side.”
Applejack watched as the alicorn continued to tell the griffin about the pegasus’s injuries. Then she started smiling as the orange mare saw Twilight’s hoof start to pet Rainbow’s mane without the lavender mare noticing what her hoof was doing. Then Applejack had to force down laughter as she watched Rainbow, who was still barely awake, start to smile weakly at her head being petted.
Applejack had to push her hat down to hide her face slightly as she couldn’t suppress her smile. Her friend had unknowingly developed a small crush on the rainbow maned pegasus, the first clue was how Twilight babbled about the Rainbow demon right after the battle of Saint Silverhoof and had said quote ‘Rainbow is the sexiest mare I have ever seen’. Which AJ would never let go of.
Then there was the fact Twilight actually cared about her, like actually cared about Rainbow’s well being. Cared enough about her to risk her plans of rebellion. AJ knew for a fact if it hadn’t been Rainbow or herself lying on that cave floor Twilight would have let them die. As saving that pony would risk her plans.
AJ had a theory, for most of the time the guard pony had known Twilight. She had been uncaring to everypony she met except for a select few, one of those few being her. But after Twilight broke the spell Celestia put on her, she had made two friends in a few months, those being Sunset and Rainbow. More than she had made in most of the years Applejack had been her personal guard.
Celestia’s spell must’ve not only made her not question those the spell perceived as authority. Most likely scripture and Celestia herself in AJ’s mind. But also made it hard to make empathetic connections or form relationships. But Applejack had no idea why Celestia would do that though.
After Twilight had finished telling Dr. Quill about Rainbow’s injuries (and unknowingly petting Rainbow) he got to work. Rainbow had passed out by now so ee started by stitching the arrow wound closed. Then he closely inspected how the armor bonded with her skin, the griffin found that it bonded loosely with the pegasus’s skin. Which meant he would have to dig out each piece, so surgery was going to be needed . “Priestess I’m going to need Applejack to stay with me most of the day cause Rainbow may need more blood later. That being said” the griffin walked over to Applejack and disconnected her from Rainbow. “Rainbow can only handle so much new blood at once.” Applejack nodded and moved to sit down away from the table.
Twilight looked at the pegasus broken wing. “What about the broken wing doctor?” Doctor Quill sighed and walked over to the right side of Rainbow. “Priestess I’m sorry but her wing may not heal properly, whatever hit her wing smashed the bone in to too many pieces. I don’t dare attempt surgery, my claws are not nearly precise enough nor would magic work as the most you’d get is bone cancer.”
Twilight sighed she’d have to think of something to fix Rainbow’s wing. Maybe the Dragon had something or knew how to fix the broken wing? That was most likely her best bet as she couldn’t go running around Solaris with a national enemy asking for help healing her. The orange dragon and pink mare weren’t enemies and had clearly better technology. Twilight remembered that they had wanted to meet at the Observatory in three days, so she knew where to find them
Maybe that's when she and her friends should disappear. There wasn’t much left to do, her new armor would be done tonight at latest. But Twilight knew she couldn’t make a decision without talking to Pinkie and Clockwork first to see what they get out of this deal.
All that didn’t include what happened to Rainbow as the alicorn had no idea how the pegasus ended up in this state. Maybe her cover was blown. Heavens knows what ramifications that could have if that’s what happened. Twilight sighed internally she’d have to ask Rainbow what happened to her when she woke up.
“Doctor Quill, how long till she can walk on that hoof.” Twilight asked, she needed to know if she could bring Rainbow to meet with Pinkie and Clockwork, if it came to that.
“Luckily the hoof is not broken, she has a minor fracture. If it’s an emergency and she needs to walk on it she must do so gently and slowly.” The griffin paused, then continued. Now I am going to put a cast over both her hoof and wing.” With that the griffin was about to get to work when Twilight spoke again. “Now Quill, not a single pony is to know about her existence except me and my guard. Understood?” Twilight’s voice held a threatening tone that made the griffin gulp. ”I understand Priestess.” Quill once again liked his head where it was and the priestess could kill him easily with her magic alone. He’s seen the Priestess in action.
Twilight walked over to her guard and sat next to her and waited as the griffin doctor started to get to work. “So what's the plan sugarcube?” Asked Applejack in a low whisper. Twilight silently signaled that she’d answer later.
The hours passed by as Light Quill worked on mending the pegasus till about 1:00pm when a voice entered the infirmary outside the operating room. “Dr Quill! Have you seen Priestess Twilight? I need to find her.” The griffin looked back at the alicorn who was getting up.
Twilight was surprised to hear Sunset’s voice enter the room nearby. Opened the door and walked out to see what the amber mare needed. “Sunset what are you doing away from your post?” Twilight answered annoyed for some reason she couldn’t place. “I’m running a message from the courier.” Sunset answered in a annoyed tone as well, that if any pony else had used, Twilight would have disciplined them moderately. “And what would that message be?”
“Priestess you're needed at Cold Stone Fortress to command the garrison as commander Clear Sky is dead and Starlight Glimmer’s forces are moving in. The order’s from Goddess Celestia herself.”
“High Priestess you're needed at Cold Stone to command the garrison as commander Clear Sky is dead and Starlight Glimmer’s forces are moving in. The order’s from Goddess Celestia herself.” Twilight sighed internally there was no way she was getting out of orders directly from Celestia. No matter how much she wanted to stay and make sure Rainbow was safe.
Twilight looked at Sunset. “Sunset I’m going to need you to act as my champion normally Applejack would but she is busy at the moment.” Twilight ordered. Sunset was both ecstatic and terrified at the order to be Twilight’s champion in Applejack’s place. “High Priestess I’m honored.” The hesitation in the amber mares voice tipped off Twilight. “But?”
Sunset sighed “It's that just I’m a fire artillery mage not a duelist.” Twilight disagreed with her. “Sunset don’t sell yourself short, you’re my best fire mage for a reason. We both know you can easily duel another pony if needed to.” Shimmer felt her confidence come back to some degree. Twilight continued talking “ and Starlight loves calling for an honor duel and I need you to accept the duel so I can continue commanding the army.” Sunset nodded, she could keep Starlight Glimmer busy in an honor duel.
In a Honor Duel it was seen as dishonorable to kill your opponent. So Sunset didn’t need to worry about getting killed. But if she lost the duel or was forced to retreat, it would be a huge moral loss for Twilight’s forces.
“I’m going to teleport us outside Cold Stone Fort, Ready?” Sunset nodded. “Ready.”
Cold Stone Fortress Outside east gate
Cold Stone was built on the highest hill that overlooked a large flat forest that ended in a large open field. The forest was heavily snowed in because of a blizzard that happened the night before, leaving fresh snow everywhere. All of this snow got in Twilight's way as she needed some of the land in front of the east gate to be cleared, so she could have room to organize the Fort’s garrison and the reinforcements that had been sent from North Point a few days ago.
So Twilight ordered the land in front of the east gate to be cleared of snow and trees and thanks to unicorn magic it was easily done in 30 minutes. With that done Twilight looked over what forces she had to defend the fort. What she found wasn’t great but not terrible either.
She had two EPGs (earth pony groups) made of 300 ponies each making 600 earth ponies in total. Of the earth ponies there were 49 Steadfasts. Which meant that she was missing one, as tewtiy five Steadfasts came with each earth pony group. She had two EPGs so she should have 50. When she demanded to know why she was missing a pony, she was informed that he was found dead in the mess hall last night.
Annoyed that she was down a Steadfast. She checked what weapons they were armed with. She found a mix of spears and mouth held swords. Then she briefly looked over their armor finding most of the soldiers were wearing standard gold colored iron armor. With some of the earth ponies having banners with Celestia’s cutie mark on it attached to their back by a pole.
The realization that Twilight would not have to wait too much longer to replace those banners with her own made her smile. Which she had to quickly suppress as she moved on to the pegasi.
She had two pegasus groups numbering 150 each. One unit was a pegasus vs pegasus equipped with leg blades. Leg blades are different from hoof blades as they can not retract and let the user walk correctly on all four hooves.
The other was a mix of 50 archers and 100 spear droppers. A decent number for the winter. But their usefulness would be limited due to the cold. While pegasi were resistant to the cold a fair bit. It got way too cold for them to fight effectively above 100 meters.
When she moved on to the unicorns and what she found made her less than pleased. She had one half of a unicorn unit totaling 50 unicorns. When she asked why she had half an unicorn group a pony had informed her that they were needed elsewhere. At this she had nearly lost her cool. Who the hell ordered that and why?! Better, who had the authority to do that!
But Twilight had an appearance to maintain so she refocused back on the half unicorn unit. 40 were magical artillery unicorns and seven barrier unicorns. She also had three unicorns who would cast flare spells to relay her orders to their assigned units, as blindly teleporting around the battlefield to each unit to give orders was a sure fire way to end up materializing with an arrow in your body.
With there being only 47 unicorns who were trained for battle at the Fort. Twilight knew another reason she was ordered here. It was to patch the hole that was the lack of unicorns.
With Twilight being an alicorn who had ridiculously deep magic reserves, then combine that with her special talent being literally the use of magic in all its forms. The lavender alicorn had the equivalent magical power of about 200 to 300 artillery unicorns. That fact made Twilight a piece on the board that had to be accounted for, as she could swing the battle with a well placed spell.
After Twilight analyzed her forces she waited for the scout pegasi to come back with information on what Starlight Glimmer would be arriving with. But regardless of what Starlight brought the alicorn knew she needed to keep at least half of a unit of earth ponies back to protect her unicorn line.
When Twilight finished giving that order to the army the scout pegasus arrived. He looked like he was freezing cold even with the jacket he was wearing.
“High Priestess I have scouted the enemy’s forces. Starlight has two pegasus groups estimated at 300 ponies. Two earth pony groups, the best estimate I could get was 500. I have no counts on how many Steadfasts they had.” The pegasus took a breath of the winter air then continued.
“Finally Glimmer brought three unicorn groups I estimated about 300 ponies. The enemy should be arriving in one hour and 30 minutes.” Twilight put a hoof on his shoulder and smiled warmly. “Well done scout now go warm up in the fort you have earned it.” His eyes lit up slightly, surprised. “Thank you High Priestess.” He flew towards the fort afterwards.
At hearing what Starlight was bringing Twilight though for a second. Why would Starlight bring 300 unicorns, 150 to 200 Twilight could understand but 300? In the middle of winter no less. The cold air would make fire based spells significantly weaker the longer they flew towards their target and if they took too long to get to their target they'd be snuffed out entirely before they reached it. Twilight looked at her measy seven magic barrier unicorns and figured out why Starlight had brought 300 unicorns.
Starlight had most likely come to this battle expecting to be able to freely fire magical artillery uncontested by enemy artillery unicorns or barrier spells and batter the fort into submission.
Twilight couldn’t hide the almost evil smirk that formed on her muzzle at realizing Starlight’s simple plan and how her mere presence ruined it. As Twilight would not let Starlight fire freely and with that Twilight called over the commanders of each group and started giving her orders. Starlight had to come to her and she would use that to her advantage.
She told the commander of the one full earth pony unit she had left to move up into a clearing that was past the tree line. The forward unit of earth ponies were given five barrier unicorns to protect against magicly artillery sent their way and orders to hold position and charge when given the order. Twilight had the 50 archer pegasi back them up giving the earth ponies some minor projectile cover.
Next she gave the remaining earth ponies the order to act as reserves for the first group. Twilight didn’t expect any massive earth pony based flanks by Starlight due to the 10 inches of snow that covered the ground. The snow would make any flank take ages to reach their target and by then the battle may be over. But having the earth ponies in reserves would help her push back a flank from Glimmer if she tried one.
Next she told the pegasus vs pegasus unit to do what they were trained to do. Stop any pegasus units from getting too close and attacking any of her forces from the sky. Finally she ordered the spear droppers to hide in the tree line and wait for further orders. Now Twilight was at the hardest part, waiting for Starlight to arrive.
Sunset, having watched Twilight give out her orders to the small army. Had a question as the commanders left to go to their respective units and relay the alicorn’s orders to their ponies. “Twilight I have always wanted to know how you do this.” Sunset asked as she waved a hoof towards the army around them that was moving into position. “What do you mean?” Twilight turned her head to look at Sunset, not fully understanding the question the amber mare had asked.
“You give out orders like it’s nothing. Make battle plans on the fly without cracking under the pressure. Twilight you, in a way, send ponies to their deaths with each choice you make. How do you deal with it all?”
Twilight Sparkle sighed. “Sunset you have to understand I was groomed from the moment I was born to command Celestia’s armys. There’s a reason that if you asked me what any of the commanders I just talked to looked like, I would not be able to tell you. My brain has been designed not to care. Cause if I did care I might make a bad choice based on emotion. To be honest Sunset all of these ponies are just numbers.”
Twilight pointed her hoof at the sea of ponies clad in gold armor. “Numbers that I put in some equation to equal victory. I have tried to care about each pony I send out to fight, but I just can’t. It's like something in me just doesn’t care.” Twilight took a breath of the winter air.
“So what makes you care about me?” Sunset asked as she wanted to know what made her, a simple fire mage, special.
“I don’t know Sunset. I don’t know why I care about you or Applejack so much. I don’t understand why after Rainbow tried to kill me and only having talked to her a few times after, I care about her like I care about you two. But it's weird I want to be with Rainbow every chance I get. Maybe you know why?” Twilight asked with hope in her voice.
Sunset couldn’t believe what she had heard. Twilight Sparkle, the greatest general in Celestia’s army and the one planning a rebellion. Might have a crush on the Rainbow demon. Twilight had just described the beginning stages of a crush (plus if what Applejack told her about Twilight saying Rainbow is ‘sexy’ was true). Sunset had her fair share of coltfriends when she was younger and even one marefriend though it didn’t last long.
But Sunset couldn’t be sure, as this could be her simply overthinking Twilight’s words and she didn’t want to add another thing to Twilight’s list of things to worry about. Although at the same time she couldn’t say no helping the alicorn after all she’d done for her. So Shimmer in the end chose a middle ground.
Sunset answered the general. “I don’t Twilight. But let me know if it gets worse.” Then Sunset added on sarcastically hoping to lighten the atmosphere. “Now we wait. Woo!” Twilight snickered at that. “Yea I know.”
A pegasus landed near Twilight. “High Priestess Twilight, Starlight Glimmer's forces are within sight.” Twilight nodded and dismissed the pegasus.
Sunset groaned as she got off the ground stretchIng as she did so. “Finally! One hour and 30 minutes my ass. It’s nearly my namesake.” Twilight rolled her eyes at the amber mare. “Sunset quit your whining.” Her tone held no room for arguing.
Twilight opened her wings and flew up just over the tree line so she could just barely get a look at how Starlight Glimmer had organized her forces. Starlight had put her forces into two parallel lines. The closer of the two lines were made up of earth ponies and pegasus units wearing the Lunar Kingdom’s black armor that stood out against the snow making them easy to see. Behind the first line was the artillery unicorns.
Starlight was clearly planning on just firing artillery spells from a safe distance of 2-3 kilometers away. Twilight, happy that her guess was right, landed next to Sunset. “Sunset I need you to fire a single spell so-” Twilight was cut off by the sound of thunder cracking across the battlefield.
Both ponies watched as hundreds of lines of blue magic flew into the sky all going different directions. Twilight could tell that this volley of magic was an attempt to get the defenders to raise magic barriers and reveal their locations.
“No barriers!” Twilight ordered. The spells landed all over the battlefield leaving small holes in the ground where they landed.
Twilight after running some calculations in her head, had a rough idea were Starlight’s unicorns were located.
“Sunset, act as artillery.” Twilight ordered. The fire mage nodded saying “Got it“.
“Prepare to return fire. Spell type Magic Missile, follow my spell.” The unicorn unit in front of her replied. “Yes High Priestess!”
Twilight started charging her horn causing the ground under her hooves to shake slightly. Twilight could see a few unicorns sneak glances in awe at her power.
After ten seconds the alicorn‘s spell was ready. She aimed her horn towards the sky and released the spell. The world turned purple for a few seconds as a line of purple magic flew into the air. Then after a second it slowly arched back down towards the enemy’s lines.
Twilight watched as Starlight’s unicorns raised magic barriers to try to block the alicorn’s spell. The attempt was laughable as Twilight watched the barrier she hit shatter into thousands of pieces letting the spell through and explode in a flash of purple on one of Starlight's unicorn groups.
“By The Sun!” Twilight watched her unicorn unit plus Sunset fire a follow up volley of dozens of green Magic Missiles that simply added insult to injury.
“How long till the next volley?” Twilight asked her unicorn unit.“Three minutes at most, High Priestess.” Replied some pony from the unit. Twilight was fine with that as she would need a minute as well.
“Sunset, Starlight may challenge you to an honor duel soon so save your magic also from what AJ tells me Starlight loves to teleport.“ Twilight told the amber mare. Sunset hesitated slightly then spoke. “Understood High Priestess.” Twilight could tell Sunset was nervous about the prospect of her dueling Starlight. Twilight wanted to say something but she knew she didn’t have the time to comfort her.
As Twilight needed to know the state of the enemy lines. “Somepony get me a scout pegasus!” After a second a pegasus landed and saluted. “Orders? High Priestess.” Twilight pointed east, towards the enemy lines. “Find out the state of the enemy.” The pegasus saluted and flew off.
Twilight heard the sound of another volley being fired by Starlight’s unicorns. This time the sky filled with hundreds of yellow spheres of magic that would land near the tree line. “Barriers up!” Twilight ordered as she put up her own purple barrier blocking some of the spells as they exploded harmlessly against her shield. She lowered her barrier when the volley ended.
A bright continuous beam containing Starlight’s cutie mark appeared over the enemy lines signaling that she wanted to challenge the enemy to an honor duel. Twilight turned her head to look at Sunset “Sunset that’s your cue.” She nodded nervously then lit the sky with her own beam that held her cutie mark and started to move forward hesitantly. Then when Starlights beam started moving closer Sunset knew there was no going back and went into a full gallop to meet Starlights in the middle of the snowy battlefield.
The earth ponies in front of the amber mare parted giving her room to pass through. When Sunset hit the leftover snow that separated the two sides she quickly casted a spell that heated her hooves hot enough that they melted through the snow that her hooves touched. Allowing the fire mage to not slow down and keep her pace.
A few seconds later Sunset saw Starlight come into view. Starlight was wearing black robes that had a crescent moon design on the front. She was also wearing a pendant that held a gem that was glowing a soft blue.
Both unicorns stopped signaling their position as they got closer and started to ready their first spells. The fire mage chose to go with a simple fireball as her first spell. Sunset’s heart started to race as she got closer to Starlight. Once they were ten meters apart, Starlight yelled out “In Luna’s name!” And fired a beam of light turquoise magic at Sunset.
At her opponent's war cry Sunset remembered she was supposed to do one as well. “In the name of Celestia!” Sunset hated each word as it left her mouth. Then she released her fireball towards Starlight’s spell hoping to overpower it.
However the amber mare had underestimated just how much power Glimmer charged her spell with. As it ripped straight through her fireball snuffing it out like a bucket of water to a candle and hit her on the right side of her chest. Sunset’s robes removed some of the spell's power thanks to the enchantments. But didn’t stop it entirely and Sunset knew that hit was definitely going to bruise as the hit sent her to the ground.
Sunset got up as fast as she was expecting Starlight to press the attack but when she looked at the mare she looked confused. “Where’s the orange earth pony?”
Sunset had also not expected to be asked a question leading her to answer dumbly. “S-she’s not here.” Sunset watched as the lilac mare inspected her. “And you are?” It was less of a question and more of a demand. “Sunset Shimmer.” Starlight replied “This should be quick.” With that Starlight teleported.
Sunset remembered that Starlight loved to teleport and got ready. When the pop of reemergence sounded to her right she swung her head in that direction sending out a wave of fire to Starlights perceived location.
Sunset had been a fire mage long enough to know what it sounded like when her fire magic hit. She heard that sound play out which was followed by the pop of teleportation.
Starlight reappeared in front of Sunset a meter away with a loud pop scaring Sunset half to death, causing her to inadvertently duck under the lightning bolt Starlight had prepared. Then Sunset threw a quick fireball at the lilac mare who blasted it with another lightning bolt, canceling both spells.
Both mares were interrupted from firing more spells by one Twilight’s artillery spells roaring overhead shaking the ground as it passed. Both mares ducked instinctively as the ridiculously powerful spell flew by.
“Stupid alicorn.” Starlight growled as she got up. Sunset saw an opening and threw a fireball directly at Starlight’s front. The fireball landed, sending Starlight back a few feet and landing in the snow. Starlight teleported as soon as she hit the ground. Then reappeared directly behind Sunset and fired a light turquoise beam at her back. Shimmer didn’t have time to react as the beam hit the back of her neck knocking the amber mare over and face first into the snow.
“There, now we’re even.” Starlight gloated. Sunset got up and turned to look at Starlight who had snow in her mane and covering her black robes. Sunset knew she was probably the same way as she could feel the snow in her mane. “Eh, fair enough.” Sunset replied then continued awkwardly “So do we just continue fighting? I’ve never done an honor duel before.”
“I can tell.” Starlight replied with neutrality then fired a lightning bolt spell which Sunset blocked using a fire spell. Sunset decided to step up her game.
Sunset lit her horn and raised her front legs then she stomped them on the snow covered ground, causing a crack in the ground to start to form. The split in the ground raced towards Starlight shooting fire as it traveled.
Starlight dodged right and retaliated with a light turquoise barrier wall that she threw toward the fire mage. Sunset fired a steam of flames at the barrier melting it in the middle so it passed her harmlessly. Then Shimmer backed up as she fired a wall of flames, Sunset hoped she could make some space between them.
Starlight didn’t let that happen as she charged around the flame wall and fired three beams of magic at the fire mage. One beam bounced off her robes, the enchantments holding. The second beam missed Sunset entirely and flew off into the distance. The Third hit her barrel knocking air out of the fire mage’s lungs.
Sunset was now back peddling, trying to get air back in her lungs as Starlight continued to close the distance between both mares. Starlight released even more light turquoise magic beams towards the amber unicorn as she got closer overwhelming Sunset with sheer numbers.
Sunset managed to block a few of the beams but with her focus on blocking the spells she didn’t notice Starlight throw a punch at her face shouting “Luna’s Frost!” Sunset was sent rolling through the snow by the unnaturally cold punch.
Sunset had heard of spells that had a vocal component to casting such as Luna’s Frost and usually those spells were quite strong. One could also shout the name of some spells to give it more power, but this came at the cost of telling your opponent what spell you were casting.
Sunset was forced to melt the ice now covering the right side of her face using her magic. As she got back on her hooves Starlight teleported next to her. “Are you done yet?” Sunset wasn’t sure about her answer but she wouldn’t let her friend down. “Not yet.”
Sunset had one trick up her sleeve left. It was a hell of a gamble as it could blow up in her face, quite literally. What she needed was room so Starlight didn’t interrupt her spell. Sunset threw her own punch at Starlight hoping to make her teleport away. Thankfully Starlight did teleport away just far enough to give Sunset the opening she thought she needed.
Sunset acted quickly as she lit her horn and made a ball of fire in front of her. It was about her size in diameter and colored a bright red mixed with bright yellow. Then she compressed the fire magic into the shape of a sword. “Come on work.” The sword started becoming a solid orange color with red wisps of fire coming off of the sword at random points.
Starlight watched in amusement at what the random fire mage was attempting, expecting her to fail. She believed this Sunset Shimmer was getting desperate as the mare was trying to do something even she couldn’t do. But when the hilt formed, then the cross guard… Starlight recognized that she had made a terrible mistake in letting this mare get away with this.
“No you don’t!” Starlight teleported back to Sunset to try to stop her, Lightning bolt spell ready. But Starlight reappeared too late as Sunset finished the spell with a shout of the spell’s name.
“Dawn Blade!”
Starlight watched, in horror as the sword finalized its shape with those words. This random fire mage had just made a sword out of her magic, an elemental magic sword to boot. Finding a unicorn that could make a sword out of their magic was rare. But a unicorn that could make an elemental magic sword, that was extremely rare and dangerous.
Starlight had only seen a few other ponies in her life that do such a feat. The lilac mare could also feel the heat the sword gave off three meters away, in the cold winter air. That meant this random mare also knew how to use it properly and that made her terrifying. Just who was this mare?
Sunset on the other hoof was ecstatic that her gamble paid off. She had in no way expected that to work. Yet here she was holding the elemental blade she had spent months learning how to cast and use. She took a second to look at her elemental sword. It was no bigger than an arming sword in total size with molten magic fire making the whole of the blade. The fire magic flowed like lava and would sometimes drip off the sword.
Sunset had a cocky grin on her face as she pointed the burning sword at the lilac unicorn. Starlight watched molten fire magic drip to the ground vaporizing the snow it landed on. Sunset feeling very cocky repeated what Starlight said earlier.
“Are you done yet?”
“Oh fuck you.”
With that Sunset swung the flaming sword in front of her making a cut of fire fly towards Starlight and leave her sword. The lilac mare moved out of the way just enough so the slash of fire would hit the ground next to her and shot a beam of magic at the fire mage. Her beam got cut off half way as an explosion ripped across her right side throwing her into the air.
Starlight realized that the slash of fire had exploded on impact. What else could this stupid sword do? Starlight thought to herself as she got up. As from what the mare knew each pony’s elemental sword was unique. Starlight heard the sound of another cut of flames that was headed her way and teleported to avoid the attack.
Sunset heard the sound of the lilac mare reappearing above her shouting “Luna’s Frost!” As she fell. Sunset swung her sword to block. Causing burning sword to meet freezing hoof for a second before gravity reasserted itself and gave Starlight the upper hoof. As the rest of Starlight’s landed on the amber mare, the lilac unicorn’s hind hooves landed on her back freezing it and her other forehoof hit her neck. Causing it to start to freeze over as well.
The amber mare had to do something to stop herself from being encased in ice and with Starlight on her back she couldn’t just melt it as Glimmer would just add more.
Sunset looked at her Dawn Blade then came up with a plan. The plan would hurt like hell, but it would stop her from freezing over and knock Starlight off her back at the same time.
The fire mage braced herself and shot a cut of flames at herself and the mare on her back. The flame hit then exploded, sending both mares flying and rolling respectively. As they flew another exchange of magic artillery occurred over the two mare’s heads, shaking the ground as the spells passed by.
As Sunset stopped rolling across the snow covered ground she found that her prediction was correct. Hitting herself with the projectile flame of her own Dawn Blade did, indeed, hurt like hell. She noticed that the explosion had ripped a gash on the top of her robes, on the right side. Sunset groaned, she wished she could have just stabbed Starlight and be done with it. But this was an honor duel she wasn’t trying to kill Starlight.
Lest Starlight actually try to kill her. So Sunset got up out of the snow with her sword still in her magic melting the snow it passed over. She looked around for the lilac unicorn finding her getting up out of the snow just like she did. Glimmers robes had a hole blown into its left side and her mane had been slightly singed from the heat of the attack.
Then Starlight disappeared in a flash of turquoise.
Sunset raised her sword.
______
Twilight was annoyed. Whoever Glimmer left behind to command the army was pathetic. Well, at least to the alicorn.
While Starlight wasn’t a brilliant strategist she at least managed to surprise her once or twice, making battles interesting from time to time. But whoever she had left in charge was boring and utterly predictable.
This battle had simply turned into a slugging match using unicorn artillery. And to Twilight a slugging match was boring as there are no interesting troop movements, surprise flanks or pegasus dives.
With the snow covering the ground she couldn’t just end the fight with a well designed earth pony charge and cold air made using pegasi impractical and wasteful. So she was left to use the most boring tactic, fire artillery.
But this left her time to think about what she was going to do about Rainbow.
Her plans had changed whether she liked it or not with Rainbow out of commission for the foreseeable future. Unless the Dragon had some way to fix her with his technology. Which was possible, but she doubted it.
But that asked the question, what was she going to do with her? For some reason the alicorn couldn’t explain she didn’t want to replace her. Like she would with any other pony who had become useless.
So where could she put the mare in the meantime? As she couldn’t stay in the infirmary. The cave was the most obvious answer as they knew it was safe to some degree and had food thanks to Rainbow. But the Observatory was an option as well.
A scout pegasus landed in front of her. “Priestess Twilight enemy pegasi archers have been spotted moving towards our left flank. Orders?” The scout pegasus asked as he landed.
Finally something different than artillery.
It took all of two seconds for the alicorn to come up with an answer for the pegasus. “Tell the pegasus archers to reposition to give covering fire while the anti pegasus group spits in four and attack from four angles. Watch for earth pony charge from the enemy. Go.” Twilight ordered.
The pegasus saluted then took off to deliver the orders Twilight had just given him.
The alicorn watched him fly off then went back to thinking about the Observatory. It would be a good place to store Rainbow as it was impossible to teleport into the main room as the grounding stone prevented magic from being used. With it also being hidden fairly well. She could also just teleport to the entrance of the Observatory with the pegasus as she knew the location of the entrance. Maybe Clockwork was there as well so she could ask him questions.
“High Priestess we are ready to fire!” Twilight heard her unicorn commander call out.
“Understood” Twilight casted her artillery spell after a few seconds of charging it. The beam of purple magic went flying through the sky followed by her unicorn's own magic spells.
Twilight waited till the return volley of magic came her way. Once the sound of her magic hitting its target rang out across the battlefield. A much smaller wave of magic started heading her way. She raised her barrier along with her unicorns. The spells collided harmlessly with the barriers.
She also might as well show Sunset and Applejack the Observatory as well, it wouldn’t hurt.
Now what to do with the doctor. He was a griffin so nopony would question it if she just made up some lie about him being a traitor and kill him. But he could still be useful as he was a doctor and a decent one too. Plus him being a griffin might make him more willing to join her rebellion as he was a third class citizen. He might get something out of the rebellion.
“High Priestess the pegasus flank has been repelled.” The scout pegasus from earlier reported as he landed.
“Casualties?” Twilight asked not bothering to look at him.
“Still being determined but it looks like the numbers will be low to moderate.” He said.
So about ten to fifty pegasi dead. Twilight put the new number of pegasus vs pegasus she had left in her equation.
“Good return to your post.” Twilight said with a wave of her wing.
He flew away as ordered.
Twilight looked at the state of her artillery unicorns. One green mare was having trouble standing and was leaning on some grey stallion who wasn’t doing much better than her. A few other ponies were in similar shape but most were standing at attention ready to fire another volley.
But most of them were shivering from the cold and having her arty (arty was a term she used to communicate quicker. As arty meant artillery.) unicorns collapse from the cold would be annoying. It would also make her rework her equation.
“Cease bombardment and light a few fires to warm up your ponies.” Twilight ordered.
“Right away High Priestess.” The commander answered then started to give orders to the unicorns.
Twilight watched as they got to work settings up some piles of wood to burn. As she did so Twilight overheard some ponies talking quietly thinking they were being sneaky.
“I still can not believe Twilight Sparkle is here!” Sounded like a mare who said that.
“Who knows how many Lunar scum she took out with that first spell?” A stallion said this time.
“I bet she knows.” The mare said. “Of course she knows! She is Twilight Sparkle after all! She’s the Goddesses’s chosen one. She must know everything.” The stallion made Twilight almost roll her eyes at that statement.
“I can’t wait for what new weapon or spell the High Priestess will show off this Winter Solstice Celebration. Remember when she showed off the Flamebolt! ”
“Didn’t know fire mages could be happy till she showed that spell off. It’s in a month right?”
Twilight decided to answer that question “Twenty eight days.” She said not even looking towards the group.
The ponies who were talking immediately started to stutter as they had been caught, by the High Priestess no less. “Go back to your group.” Twilight ordered the two ponies with a hoof pointed to where the arty unicorn group was.
“O-of course High Priestess.” Both ponies said as they ran back to their group.
Twilight went back to her thoughts once the soldiers got back to their group.
Another ten minutes past meaning Sunset and Starlight should be finishing that duel soon and while she ex-
A Red flare spell flew into the sky above the Lunar forces. The bright red light standing out in the darkening sky. The enemy had singled to retreat to all of its forces.
Using a spell to amplify her voice Twilight shouted “Hold your positions!” To her troops. She then flew up into the cold winter air to personally get a better look at the enemy forces. Casting a shield around herself as she did so that not only protected her but also kept her warm.
She spotted the retreating army thanks to their black colored armor once again sticking out against the snow. She watched as the army’s troops retreated in a somewhat orderly manner.
She then spotted wooden carts full of what must have been bodies of Starlight’s unicorns being pulled by earth ponies. Most likely ones that got killed in the bombardment duel. So the enemy was actually retreating considering they took the time to gather the bodies of the dead.
Twilight prepared to strike the retreating troops with her signature artillery spell, but some tiny part of her told her she shouldn’t.
She ignored it and fired the spell. Making the world turn purple as magic rained from the sky.
Sunset was happy, her first honor duel had been a draw, which was better than she had been expecting honestly. The duel ended thanks to the enemy retreating leading Starlight to tell her that she wanted a rematch. Which was something that she wasn’t really looking forward to.
The mare took a moment and looked at her robes, they were now a complete mess. A thin layer of ice was covering her right hind leg. A rip went down her back and a few holes littered her robe. They were going to have to be replaced thanks to Starlight.
She then looked at her elemental sword, Dawn Blade. She wasn’t actively fighting with the sword so she was only fueling it with just enough magic to keep it stable. This made the blade burn softly and barely let off any heat in the Operating room.
Sunset looked around the room next. She had been quite surprised when she had spotted the Rainbow demon laying on the operating table. It was bizarre, the pegasus laying in front of her had killed easily an estimated five hundred troops over the years. But Sunset knew that was a lie as there was no way she had only killed five hundred ponies. Regardless, the Celestial army even used the mare in front of Sunset as a horror story of what happens to those who don’t follow orders. That she would find you when you disobeyed and kill you with her fangs or somesuch.
But here she was right in front of her laying on a table injured. Rainbow was part of the rebellion as well which was weird too Sunset as she didn’t expect her to betray Luna. But Sunset knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth and currently Rainbow was inspecting her just as much as Sunset was inspecting her.
To Rainbow this Sunset Shimmer was.... interesting, the orange-yellow mare didn’t look like much on the outside. But the flaming sword she had in her magic was something that Rainbow had seen a few times in the past. She didn’t see magic swords often.
So in the assassin's mind this fire mage she had only spared because Twilight’s list said too, was able to use what seemed to be really advanced magic. Considering how little she had seen swords made entirely of magic in her life. Sunset Shimmer was more dangerous than her appearance would suggest. Good thing she listened to Twilight’s book and didn’t kill the mare.
Applejack was sitting just watching everypony in her own corner of the room. She had spent most of the day with Rainbow and she had learned a few things about her in that time. The first thing she learned was Rainbow had trouble sitting still. She could stay in the same general area but the pegasus was constantly moving her legs or her one movable wing. Like she could not handle being in one stop for too long. Much to the Doctor’s annoyance.
The second thing was how normal she seemed to be. Twilight had told her about the mare but seeing it for herself made it more real. Honestly if she didn’t have the fangs, Rainbow would look like a normal pony that lived under Celestia’s rule as she wasn’t as demonic as the stories made her out to be.
Applejack looked over at Twilight who was talking to doctor Light Quill. She decided to listen to the conversation.
“So High Priestess I either have the choice of joining you in this rebellion or I die because I’m a risk.” The Griffin said looking back at the lavender alicorn.
“Yes doctor, that is my offer.” Twilight answered with her normal cold and uncaring gaze. The gaze meant that you were just a number to the alicorn. An object to be used then thrown out once your usefulness was over. It was a gaze Applejack had seen the mare use most of her life when talking to most ponies or soldiers. But the guards pony had to admit she was seeing less and less of that awful gaze nowadays which was a good thing in AJ’s mind.
“And why do you think I won’t betray you?” Asked Quill with a claw raised in a questioning manner.
Twilight rolled her eyes like it was obvious to anypony with half a brain. And to Twilight it was probably extremely obvious from her point of view. “Because not a single pony would believe you, a griffin, over me the High Priestess Twilight Sparkle. You would most likely be accused of heretical lies or attempting to cast doubt on a Chosen of Celestia. Both will get you killed without my involvement even being necessary.” Twilight explained bluntly to Quill.
By the way the Griffin acted he was clearly nervous about talking back to the alicorn but he continued on. “So I join your rebellion, what happens? I assume I am to be the main doctor of this rebellion but what else?” Light Quill asked.
“Yes that will be the case doctor and everything else will be on a need to know basis, understand?” Twilight answered the griffin with a flat look.
Light Quill nodded.
“Now is Rainbow able to be safely teleported?” Twilight asked as she looked at the pegasus in question.
Quill was silent for a moment thinking about Twilight’s question. “She is safe to transfer but how long will she be gone for as I would like to change her bandages once more.” Quill answered the lavender alicorn.
Twilight sighed “I was hoping to move her permanently to another location as it's risky to keep her here in the Fort.” Twilight stated as she looked back to the griffin.
The doctor put a claw to his chin in thought “The most she needs right now is her bandages being changed regularly and to keep movement to a minimum. So if the place you're moving her to can handle the basic changing of bandages and feeding her. Then it would probably be fine.”
Quill pointed to the table the rainbow maned pegasus was laying on with his right talon. “Although I don’t think it would be wise to teleport her with the operating table. As it's not the most comfortable place to heal and rest. I also may need the table if somepony does something stupid or gets hurt.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow “Can’t you just use one of the beds in the infirmary proper?” Twilight did not want to lift the injured pegasus in her magic and move her so she didn’t hurt Rainbow accidentally.
“Because High Priestess-“ Quill was interrupted by the alicorn.
“If you’re a part of my rebellion and we are not in the company of others who don’t know about the rebellion. Don’t call me High Priestess and especially don’t call me Demigoddess as some idiots do. Understand?” Twilights said with mild annoyance in her voice as her wings twitched in irritation.
Quill nodded nervously “Then what do I call you?” He asked.
“General or just Twilight is fine.” answered the alicorn.
The griffin nodded “Ok General the reason is the operating table is not something I can easily replace and it’s hard to do surgery on a mattress. And if she is going to be transferred to another location she is going to need to rest and a bed is better for that.”
“Fair” was all Twilight replied with as she turned her head to look at Sunset.
“Sunset please bring one of the beds from the infirmary proper in here.” Twilight asked the fire mage.
“Got it.” Sunset entered the infirmary, picked up the closest bed in her magic and turned it ninety degrees so it fit through the doorway. Once it was in the operating room she placed it next to the table Rainbow was laying on.
“Rainbow I’m moving you to this new bed so I can teleport you to the Observatory.” Twilight explained as she picked up Rainbow in her magic and moved her over to the new bed.
“Ok” Rainbow knew she didn’t really get a choice in the matter so compiled without complaint.
“Applejack you're coming with us, Sunset stay here with the doctor.” Twilight ordered.
AJ nodded and moved to stand next to the alicorn ready to be teleported to the Observatory. She had heard Twilight mention it quite a few times in the past few months and was curious to see this place for herself.
“You ready?” Twilight asked Rainbow and Applejack who both nodded that they were. Then they disappeared in a flash of lavender light.
Then as soon as they left Sunset spoke up. “I’m sleeping in one of the beds and you can’t stop me. Good my name sake.” Sunset said as she left the room to use one of the beds.
