Fractured

The walls of the New Lunar Republic glistened with armor and weapons. Fires would soon be lit as night fell. Even with constant hunts to keep creature at bay one could never be too sure. The teams of soldiers flashed into the commons as medics raced in to treat the wounded. Uninjured spread out to keep families and onlookers at bay long enough for medics to treat fresh battle scars. Fluttershy quickly darted from her battle group, dodging medics trying to treat her wounds. Suddenly Trixie and Rarity flashed out in front of her. Rarity collapsed to the ground with a small burned hole through her shoulder. A medic barged in shouting,

“Out the way! I don’t care who you are but she needs help, and it’s my job to help her so MOVE!”

Trixie stumbled out of the medic’s way into Fluttershy’s war path. She knocked her down and stood over her, shouting,

“WHERE IS THE REST OF YOUR TEAM?!?”

“This is the rest of my team; the rest fell to her and her guards.”

“Impossible, you had one of the most powerful warriors we have with you. Where is he? Where’s Night?”

“Last I saw him he was taking bolts as he covered our escape, per his demands.”

Fluttershy involuntarily took a step back. Night was smarter than that. Why would he rush into danger like that? It was so… brash. That was Rainbow’s job… Then once again she realized, Rainbowdash is dead, killed by Tyrannus.

“Did you get what we need?” she asked with a stone-faced stare.

“Night seemed to think so but I didn’t have a chance to look over it.”

“Send a message to AJ, Pinkie, and Spike. Tell them to meet us in the war room.”

“Yes Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy had a lot to ponder over. One was Night’s actions. Why had he done that? He knew he was one of the most important assets they had. So why waste his life? While the chances are slim he died, Fluttershy thought, the chances of him going through torture were extremely high. He knew almost as much as she did on the where-a-bouts of most strike groups. He also knew where Luna was hiding. Luna, Fluttershy thought, who was going to tell her the news? How could anyone break the news that her best friend was captured and possibly dead? It was going to be a long day.

In the war room Spike and Applejack were waiting. Trixie came in trailing Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetiebell.

“What are those three doing here Trixie?”

“We can answer for ourselves you know, we aren’t kids anymore.” Applebloom butted in.

“Yes I know, but that doesn’t mean you can just come in here and…”

“We have to help out somehow. We couldn’t go on the attack and now you want to take us out of planning too? No, not today.”

“Let them stay, this concerns them too.” Fluttershy said “they are going with you Applejack.”

“And where exactly am I goin’?”

“To tell Luna the news of... Night's capture.”

The room gasped in disbelieve, save Fluttershy and Trixie.

“Night was captured?” Scoot asked “But I thought he was one of the best fighters we had.”

“And that’s where I last saw him, fighting so Rarity and I could escape.” Trixie snapped.

“Wait, wait, and wait. You left him?”

“Yes, I felt the information we needed was more important! Besides, he told me to leave him.”

Scootaloo scoffed at her.

“I’ll make sure to leave you next time you need help.”

Trixie opened her mouth to yell another retort when Fluttershy slammed her hoof down on the table.

“Enough, both of you! Applejack that is your task, take these three with you just in case.”

“Alright” To Applebloom she said “Grab your friends and let’s get packing, we have a long journey ahead of us.”

“Yes Applejack. Let me help you with your chair.”

Applebloom trotted over to drag Applejack’s wheelchair down the hallway. After the door closed Fluttershy said,

“I still can’t believe the doctors are going to repair her spine after all this time. She might get back to kicking like she used to.”

“Are we going to get started with the book?” Spike asked

“Yes, Pinkie will be here soon anyway. Taking over classes for Cherilee must be difficult to adapt to.”

“Yes I suppose it would be.”

All three turned to the book and began studying the pages. After a few moments Pinkie walked in trailing a small wagon, stacked full of books.

“I thought these might help with finding any answers to questions you might have.”

“Thanks Pinkie, we think we found the answer to our problems.”

“Good, I promised Cherilee I would stop by later to talk with her.”

“Is she still grieving?”

“Losing Big Mac without him seeing there child hit her pretty hard. She needs all the support she can get.”

“Well than you can go. Just leave the books here and I’ll make sure they get back to the library.”

“Thanks Fluttershy.” Pinkie said as she dashed off. With Twilight corrupted, Pinkie still spread happiness but felt happier searching for an answer on why it had happened. It was her form of coping. Trixie Poured over the books while Fluttershy and Spike began planning out their next series of raids. After going through half a dozen books, Trixie finally spoke up.

“Well Fluttershy, there’s good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“I think I can perform the spell.”

“And the bad news?”

“We need a test subject.”

Spike and Fluttershy exchanged glances and then stared back at Trixie. Trixie continued.

“This looks to be a diary of some sort. I think it was Twi-“

She corrected herself when Spike growled at the name.

“I mean Queen Tyrannus’s. It has an odd assortment of spells and some gibberish about something called a human. I can’t male a lot of it out, but it looks like she made the spell and the counter spell at about the same time.”

Trixie looked up from the journal.

“With your permission Spike I’d like to keep it, and go through it. She may have written counter spells to some of the wards on Canterlot.”

Spike waved a  clawed hand.

“Take it, it’s not like I want it. Twilight died a long time ago. Anything to hurt the monster that took her place is alright with me.”

Trixie nodded and stowed the book in her saddle bag. The trio turned to the map that was sitting on the table. “So how should we proceed?” Spike asked.

“Here is a map of all the townships with guards. Most are near our border or the border of the Everfree forest.” Fluttershy responded

The map was old and rotted. The edges were browned and slightly burned, it was probably saved from the library before Ponyville was razed, Fluttershy thought.

“We’ll have to eliminate towns with large or very small watches’. Either is a risk of being captured. Let’s also stay away from the forest. It may give Tyrannus second thought about searching the area.

“With those criteria in mind we have three possible towns in reach. Cliffside, Dragons keep, and Coltsdale.

“Eliminate Coltsdale, it’s too far in.”

“Cliffside is the smaller of the two. The only difficulty is that it is located in a cave. Dragons Keep was used to repel hordes of dragons during the Purge.

“Then I guess Trixie and I are going to Cliffside, because you have to get us close enough to cast a teleportation spell. Trixie shouldn’t be trying any long range spells after the close call at the library. So, let’s get to it. We leave within the hour.”

Fluttershy ran through a quick checklist of what she had laid out for the small raid. One her bed lay a pair of saddlebags, two wing-blades, a small communication crystal, a small dagger and a small canteen of water.

She draped her cloak over her armor. A small piece of paper fell out and fluttered to the ground. Fluttershy scooped up the small picture and sighed. They had taken the picture a few days after the first time the met. Fluttershy sighed again. She felt old. That picture felt like another life. Stowing it in her saddlebags she packed the rest of her gear and walked out of her small bedroom.

Fluttershy ducked into the small tent, and narrowly missed crashing into a medic. The tent stank of sweat and enormous amounts of blood. Holding her lunch in, she made her way towards a small cot at the far edge of the tent. Occasionally she stopped to thank medics or wounded soldiers for their jobs. She could tell she was making an impact, albeit a small one.

Fluttershy finally came upon Rarity, already trying to keep clean in the dirty tent. Watching Rarity squirm brought a grin to her face. It brought back a sense of the normal. Rarity brightened immediately when she saw Fluttershy. They hugged and started making small talk. Eventually Rarity noticed Fluttershy’s battle gear.

“Fluttershy, darling, you can’t tell me you’re going out again so soon? It hasn’t been an entire day yet.”

Fluttershy smiled,

“No rest for the weary right?”

Rarity huffed,

“You really should take better care of yourself Fluttershy; everypony needs their rest, even you.”

Fluttershy smiled and stood to go.

“I’ll rest when we get back Rarity; right now there are more important things to do!”

Rarity smiled and shook her head.

“I’m going to hold you that promise Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy waved goodbye and the made her way back across the tent.

Soon after leaving the medical tent, Fluttershy, Trixie and Spike were flying towards the small town of Cliffside. Fluttershy sharpened her wing-blades while Trixie went through a list of spells in her head. As they approached Spike growled

“Get ready.”

Trixie lit her horn and the two ponies disappeared from Spike’s back.

With a flash the two appeared in a dark alley between two tall buildings. Fluttershy peaked around the corner onto a dark street.  Trixie crept silently beside her.

“Where to?”

Fluttershy pointed towards the only lit part of the massive cavern.

“See if you can’t get us any closer to that.”

Trixie lit her horn and the pair vanished once again with a flash. They appeared in the center of a large gathering of ponies. Fluttershy shook off the teleport-daze and balked at what she saw.  Guards were closing in on her and Trixie had one hoof stuck in the ground. She wailed in pain, distracting Fluttershy for a heartbeat. A guard lunged and Fluttershy reacted on instinct.

With barely a whimper the guard slumped forward in a rapidly growing pool of blood. Fluttershy stood in front of Trixie. She would not be taken without a fight. With a yell she sprang at another guard and plunged her wing-blades in deep.