Attack of the Starbridge

Twilight and her friends gathered at the edge of the Ever-free forest, waiting for Celestia and Luna send up their signal. While everypony was getting ready, Spike had gotten a letter; because of all the talking and chatting, no one had seen the dragon burp up the letter. After everyone was done they looked over at Spike and he was sitting there holding the letter up, waiting for Twilight to take it.

Twilight grabbed it and started to read of the plan to the group of friends, “Twilight, because you are one of the strongest magic users I know, I am going to need to put you near enough the enemy so you can strike them but far enough away so that you can survive through the battle. You will be in the sky with the other pegasi; I will have some of my own guards there with you so they can protect you from any enemy arrows. Rarity, because of your armors ability I will need to see you whenever I send up a signal to the sky, follow it and you will find us. I will then tell you where to go so that you can gather information on the camp. The rest of you will report to the Battle Tent outside of the Ever-free Forest near Ponyville.”

Twilight put the scroll away and told everyone to get going. “I’ll see you girls on the other side, best of luck out there.”

Rarity was the first to tear up; being separated from her friends in this situation was something that she did not want to happen and the thought of loosing them was enough to bring her to her knees. With the end not in sight and no way to know what would ensue in the battle ahead she started to cry.

Her friends gathered around her, “I don’t want to go!” Rarity sobbed, “Why did Celestia have to choose me, choose us?” She shouted past the tears and feeling of hopelessness.

Rainbow spoke up, “Hey.” Rarity looked at her friend, remembering everything that they had been through, The Young Flyers Competition, Manehatten and every single promise that she had fulfilled. Rainbow continued, “I’ll see you later, we’ll be together and no one will be able to separate us. All of us will be together again. But right now I think that you need to go protect Equestria.” Rarity sniffled and stood back up and gave her friends a gentle smile, then glanced back into the forest and saw a signal flying into the sky.  “Get us some good information.” Twilight said.

She gave a soft laugh, “I will. Don’t put yourself in danger, or I will be sure that you don’t hear the end of it.”

Her friends laughed together. “We will do our best.”

Applejack spoke up, “Don’t forget to be quiet. Your armor is new but you aren’t used to it; be a silent as you can.”

Rarity looked down at the armor; it was true, she still wasn’t used to it. “I’ll be sure to do that. Bye.”

The group was crying now, there was no holding back; they didn’t want it to end this way, but there wasn’t a choice. They had to do this, for Ponyville, for Equestria, for themselves, for their friends.

As rarity was walking away, Twilight called out through the tears, “We love you Rarity!”

She turned around, almost out of sight because of the fog, “I love you all too. Do you jobs well and we will make it out together.” She then turned and disappeared into the fog that hung low to the ground. It was because of this fog that these Ponies couldn’t see Loki waiting for the opportune moment to do what he planned for a lifetime, but he held back.

This was a display that he had never seen before; he’d been a part of war his whole life and had never once seen friends willing to do what they had just done. “Perhaps their little phrase is correct, maybe friendship is magic.”

It was with this conclusion that he teleported back to the base camp where Celestia and Luna were preparing for battle. Both had their armor on, Celestia’s was a bright, golden set of armor with a deep navy blue on the edges, while Luna was that same deep blue and had gold outlines. Both looked exhausted and flustered; neither could have seen this day coming. There was only one pony that was strong enough to defeat an entire army with just that pony’s arsenal of magic, but that pony died some time ago. Somepony like Starswirl the Bearded.

The table that the two Princesses were standing by was littered with papers about Starswirl and the magic that he created, ranging from summoning spells to battle spells. They had no way to calculate the exact amount of troops that the Asgardians had until Rarity got back from her scouting mission which could be another hour and a half.

“We need to find a spell that can aid us in battle.” Celestia motioned, Luna nodded, “With the elements gone we can not hope to defeat them in the way we first did.”

Princess Cadence and Shining Armor stepped in. Cadence spoke first, “Sorry that we’re late, what did we miss?”

“Nothing, we just got out the scrolls and we are trying to find one to aid us. If you could help us we would be grateful.”

“Of course” Said Shining Armor with upmost respect. These were some of the strongest magic casters in Equestria all in one tent, all striving towards one goal, wanting just one thing. They wanted to protect Equestria and send these invaders away and all their hope was relying on one pony to get information while they tried to find a spell in the midst of thousands.

Ω

Rarity was galloping towards the enemy camp, she had been waiting for about 27 minutes waiting for the action to cool down and noticing the little things, just like she did with dresses.  When she got within her hearing range, which was much better than theirs, she slowed down to where she could only hear her breath and heartbeat. Behind the brush and tall grass of the Ever-Free Forest she was invisible to them but she could clearly see them. She did a quick head count and lost after 400. That was just one section of the camp too; there were at least 10 sections to each camp and not to mention the ones that were scouting, or at least attempting to scout.

Celestia put a spell on the camp, a spell of concealment, that wouldn’t let any thing other than a pony see it unless they were inside it. Rarity shook her head, she needed to focus; the invaders were all at least twice her size and had menacing looking weapons that could easily take her life with one swing. Not to mention the arrows and the even BIGGER arrows that were loaded into machines that could launch them. Rarity wasn’t sure how Celestia was going to manage defeated these people but she was sure that she would somehow be able to.

Rarity duck quickly, an enemy was coming towards her, she wasn’t sure why but knew that she couldn’t be seen.  He came over and glanced around quickly, to make sure no one could see him, dropped to his knees and started to cry then started to say something that she couldn’t understand. She casted a quick spell to understand and she heard, “-Make it back to my family, I don’t want to have to do this but Thor is making me. I can only imagine what he would do to a deserter and don’t wish to find out. Odin, why do you have to hurt me? I didn’t want to have to wipe out an entire race but I will do it, if only to protect my family.” Rarity almost gasped out loud but caught herself.

The man stood up, wiped his eyes and walked off, he said to the men, “Don’t go over there, there is a gas or something that makes you tear up.” Rarity smiled, he just inadvertently helped her. She chuckled quietly to herself, and went back to scouting. She cast the spell that made her armor turn invisible and went into the camp, making sure that every move had a purpose and was silent. She learned a lot when she was in the camp, probably knew more about these people than anypony would ever care to know. When she got back to camp, she was ready to suggest a plan to Celestia and the Princesses, they needed to attack now, in the dead of night so that they would be weak and tired. They could just send in some pegasi with hot coals and light the camp on fire. Then the ground troops could move in and take out anyone that wasn’t burned to death.

The Princesses were surprise at her confidence in her plan; Rarity had never shown interest in that part of life but now was thinking and suggesting like a commander. Twilight was also there and she was smiling, Rarity was changed somehow, she might’ve heard something or seen something but she knew that she was different.

Twilight would ask her later, “I think that it will work, we should attack as soon as we can.”

Luna and Celestia looked at one another and nodded, “We will inform the troops,” Luna said, “go to your friends and make sure that they know what to do.”

“I will.” Twilight turned and started to run off, with Rarity of course. While they were going they talked, talked about what Rarity had seen and heard.

At one point, Twilight physically stopped moving and had to clear something up with Rarity, “You do know that they are the enemy right.”

Rarity looked up, “Why of course I do, I also know how to beat them.” She beamed with pride.

“Well, you sounded there for a second like you wanted to try and win them over diplomatically.” Twilight began trotting again. Rarity did too but she lagged behind, she thought to herself, ‘Do I want that? Do I want to not have to kill them?” She came to the realization, ‘No. No, I don’t want to hurt them. I want them to just go away and not come back.’ She stopped for a moment, ‘I’ll just inform the Princesses when I get back to camp.’

“You okay Rarity?” Twilight called, having stopped herself to make sure that Rarity was okay.

“Yes! I’m fine.” She trotted back up to Twilight. “Just thinking about things that I should do after we win.

“Well, we don’t know that yet. But I like your confidence.” Twilight replied.

When they got back to camp, together they explained the plan. Mostly Rarity but Twilight would interject every once in a while. When they finished they group hugged and they all went to their designated area’s so they could be briefed and prepare for the upcoming storm. This was going to be a severe storm though, and like waves on a sea they were going to be tossed to and fro. The magic of friendship would be tested and their hearts would be tried, they all knew this in their mind. None of them said anything though.