Shattered Harmony

IX

   Time still moved at a crawl in the days that followed. Twilight, with castle on lockdown, spent her time with Spike in the library staring at books. She couldn’t focus on the words nearly enough to read them; instead she just stared on. Occasionally she would fail to hold back her tears and go into fits of quiet sobbing, but as the days passed they became few and far between. She saw very little of Luna in this time, she’d spent most of her time in her chambers or with the captain of the guard. She’d ordered all transit to Canterlot ceased until further notice, and even had them recruit more guards to replace those lost when the caravan Twilight had negotiated an escort for was ambushed, something that did not weigh lightly on Twilight’s mind.

   She’d also seen nothing of Falling Star, something that mildly worried her. The only thing relating to her that she’d heard about was that she had been relocated to Luna’s chambers after the funeral. Thinking of the prisoners Luna had brought up there as well, Twilight could only think of what unnatural punishment they had been given.

   But all in all things had been quiet, too quiet in fact. The constant silence did nothing to help Twilight’s mood, and the fact that Luna had cut off Canterlot from the rest of Equestria meant that she would also not receive a return letter from her friends, something that greatly saddened her. She figured she would send them another letter just to reassure them once again, knowing that the news of the funeral disaster would reach them soon enough. It wasn’t until six days had passed after Celestia’s death did the news finally arrive that things were only going to get worse.

   It came in the dead of night, in form of a band of guards from the north western settlements of Van Hoover and Tall Tale. There were three in total, one was severely wounded, and the other two wore bandages to cover their lighter wounds. While the most wounded guard was escorted away to the infirmary the other two were brought before Luna. Twilight had been asleep at the time but had been briefed in the morning by Luna.

   Van Hoover and Tall Tail had been overrun over the course of two days. It all started the day Celestia was assassinated, there were large explosions at the guard barracks in both towns, followed a sudden rush of attackers, some armed with basic weaponry such as clawed gauntlets and bladed bracers, though the majority of the attackers were armed with mere farm implements or mining tools. After two days of token resistance by the guards of Van Hoover, they were overrun and forced to flee the city, most were cut down as they fled while some managed to make it to the wilderness and escape to unknown fates.

   Tall Tale fared no better, most of the city guard were killed in the barracks by the explosives the rebels had set. After mere hours of trying to hold back the onslaught that overwhelmed them so quickly they were also forced to retreat into the wilds. They also reported rebel camps in the woods surrounding the cities, the most wounded of their party had been saved by the other two when his group ran afoul of a patrol from one of these camps. The guardsmen also reported finding dead guards from two other settlements in the wilds as they fled to Canterlot, by the looks of the fallen guard’s armors, Highwind Pass and Horseshoe Bend had also fallen to similar attacks.  And as the guards followed the railroad to make their way to inform the crown of the rebel activities, they’d seen that the rebels had blasted the railway to keep Canterlot from quickly reinforcing the north.

   Their situation was dire; Luna’s mocking estimations of an army of senseless cowards was far from the truth. The enemy had planned for their victory, and if something was not done quickly, they would have it.

***

   “Goddess I remember the morning Luna told me about the actions in the north west.” Twilight commented on their recollections. “To think that they remained undetected for so long. They caught us completely by surprise, even after Luna found out about them! No one expected them to just overthrow whole settlements in a matter of days. To think that they destroyed our garrisons so quickly, it made us look so weak.”

   “Truly impressive for an army of peasant farmers and miners.” Replied Spike, “Their resolve was admirable… poor fools, if only they’d known.”

   “We wouldn’t be standing here today if they had. I’ve come to believe though, that of all those involved that we came out with the worst end of everything. Immortality has a way of making death not seem as such a bad consequence.”

   “Quite.”

***

   It did not take long for Luna to respond to the news, the day after she was informed of the rebel activities Luna had it made public knowledge that there was a rebel army destroying Equestria’s northern settlements. And she masterfully fueled the public’s outrage into an expedient recruitment drive for the understrength royal guard. Trains were dispatched from Canterlot with recruiters and a small detachment of guards, one set to stop at Ponyville and Dodge Junction before heading to Apple Loosa to garner recruits, while the other was sent to the eastern cities of Manehattan, Filly Delphia, and Baltimare to do the same.

   It would be a week before both trains were set to arrive back in Canterlot, so Luna did her best to personally rally recruits in the royal city. By the time the trains had arrived again, she’d already recruited half of Canterlot’s able bodied citizens for a total of seven-hundred new guards. When the trains finally arrived back in Canterlot, the numbers of new recruits swelled to well over twenty-five hundred.

   Canterlot Castle was turned into an enormous barracks overnight. New recruits were herded into the ballrooms where they were given hastily made cots to sleep on and a small foot locker for personal possessions. They would spend their nights closely watched over by the castle guards, including the royal elite, and their days were spent in the courtyards under intense physical training and drill. Steel Hoof the newly appointed regimental commander to lead this new army of guards had given Luna an estimation of twelve weeks to fully train their new soldiers for complete combat readiness; Luna had given him a month.

   So each day the drills were brutal and unrelenting, the drill sergeants pushed each recruit to their absolute limit each day. After two weeks of solid drill and basic combat drills the physical demands proved to be too much for many of them, and large numbers washed out. The third week signaled the beginning of combat training, and Twilight received a summons from Luna telling her to report to the courtyard the following morning to meet with the battalion commanders to assist them with their newly formed battlemage companies. By this point in time Twilight had overcome her bursts of uncontrollable tears, but was still quite melancholy most of the time. She had also spent much of her recent time reading up on offensive spell casting, something that would come in handy in the days to come.

***

   Twilight awoke early and stumbled from her bed to bash the magically shielded alarm clock on the vanity. It was much earlier than she was used to waking up and the repetitive wail of the clock made sure she arose, even if she didn’t exactly want to. The rising sun was still just a glow beyond the horizon as she picked up her brush to even out her unruly hair and she used her magic to light up her room enough to see her mane in disastrous condition, as she squinted her eyes at the sudden burst of intense light. After brushing the awkward curls and tangles from her mane she turned around and carefully stepped around Spike in his little bed beside hers. She figured he would appreciate being left to his sleep.

   Groggily making her ways through the halls she was beset by no one on her trip. Due to the change in her sleep pattern, she’d decided to give herself time to make her way to the castle larder to find herself something to eat. Upon arriving she moved through the empty kitchen unabated and opened the pantry where she rifled through its contents before coming across a simple bag of oats, it would do nicely. Picking up the bag with her magic, she toted it over to the preparation table in the kitchen and tore it open with a simple spell. Without any regard for the staff’s normal cleanliness procedures she began lazily eating out of the bag on the preparation table. She didn’t figure it mattered, most of the kitchen staff had been sent home until further notice, and this imparticular kitchen hadn’t been used in almost a month.

   After finishing her small bag of oats, she proceeded to the courtyard. Once more she was assailed by the depressing emptiness of a once bustling castle. The darkened chambers and rooms void of life offered nothing in the way comfort for one such as Twilight, so she sauntered on to her destination trying not to think about how the castle once was.

   It didn’t take long for Twilight to arrive at her destination; in the courtyard, behind who Twilight could only assume to be the company leaders, was a large group of unicorns doing a set of demanding exercise drills with consummate ease, the intensity of their brief training period had paid off. As she approached the two unicorns in front of the others they stopped the recruits and turned to Twilight with a bow.

   “Good morning Princess Twilight.” They both said simultaneously. The pony to her left was a stallion about her height. His coat was a light blue, and he wore a grey officer’s jacket and a beret that had a hole in it for his horn. The mare next to him was about slightly smaller with a uniform like that of her comrades, and a coat just as white as Rarity’s, but that’s where her similarities to her Ponyville friend ended. The mare in front of her bore a vicious scar across her left eye, which was glazed over after being rendered blind by whatever had given her the scar on her face.

   “I’m Captain Ice Horn of Fifth Company Battlemages, Moon Battalion,” said the stallion to her left, who then pointed to the mare to her right, “and this is Captain Mystic of Fifth Company Battlemages, Sun Battalion.”

   “Pleased to meet you Princess.” Captain Mystic smiled genuinely and bowed her head once more.

   “We’ve asked Princess Luna for your assistance as it’s been displayed that your level of mastery over magic is quite high.” Spoke Ice Horn, “We feel that it would be more beneficial to our soldiers if you were to assist us for the week in training our new battlemages in the art of magical combat.” Ice Horn turned to the recruits behind him, “Before you stand the top two-hundred unicorns who qualified for the each battalion’s battlemage company. They’ve shown the highest magical prowess of their peers and wish to serve her majesty on the field as battlemages, and we hope that you can assist us in teaching them the finer points of magical combat.” Ice Horn was very cordial in delivering his, what seemed practiced, speech to Twilight. Meanwhile Mystic stood by him with a smile on her scarred face.

   “What exactly do you want me to do?” asked Twilight.

   “Well, your majesty, we’ve still got very much to do such as requisitioning supplies, training our newly recruited healers, and meeting with the regimental and battalion commanders. So we more or less need you to teach our cadets here these lessons in magic before the week is out.” Ice Horn levitated a small list that was tucked in his jacket’s pocket. “We do apologize for the sudden burden we’ve shackled you with, but we simply have no other choice due to our time crunch.”

   “Okay then.” Said a confused Twilight, wondering how she was going to teach to the large group in front of her, “I guess I can do that.” She smiled nervously as she took the list hovering in front of her.

   “We surely hope so; all in all you don’t have to teach anything too advanced mainly just simple levitation and projection. But focused energy, teleportation, and disarm spells must be refined on before they are sent out into the field.” Mystic spoke very gruffly, “We recommend spending a day on each of those four lessons to make sure they master them, if you have any other things to add once those are locked down feel free, but also be sure they get a few days to practice it in duels or team battles. Try to keep them from getting too hurt, but make sure they get a chance to try out their magic in a combat setting. “

   “And be sure that you meet all of them, it’ll be a great morale boost.” Ice Horn added in his last bit as he and Mystic looked to one another to see if either had anything to add. When neither had anything further to say they wished Twilight good luck and informed the recruits that they were to be taking orders from Twilight for the remainder of the week before exiting the courtyard leaving Twilight standing there quietly with two hundred unicorns staring at her. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Twilight smiled to the crowd and clumsily began.

   “Well, uhm… good morning every pony.”

   “Good morning princess.” Responded the unicorns in unison, they’d obviously practiced to respond accordingly.

   “I guess I’ve just become your new teacher, so before we begin let’s get introductions out of the way. There’s quite a lot of you so should I forget your name, please bear with me. So… form a line for me real quick and I’ll just go down the way getting everyone’s name.” The cadets looked at one another, exchanging awkward glances before shuffling into a surprisingly straight line where they organized themselves by squad and rank. Walking down to the far left of the now, quite extensive line, Twilight began to make introductions.

   “Private Fire Ball, Fifth Company, Sun Battalion ma’am. Pleased to finally meet you.” began the burnt orange unicorn at the end of the line in front of her, his hoof held aloft in salute.

   “Pleased to meet you Fire Ball, I look forward to working with you.” And this went on as Twilight moved down the line for an extended period of time. Each new face raised her morale to see them greet her with such anticipation and vigor, half way through she was legitimately excited to teach the cadets whereas before she was begrudgingly pessimistic about her conscription into being a teacher. As she was almost finished, she was greeted by a familiar face that caught her completely by surprise.

   “Sergeant Silver Flare, Fifth Company, Moon Battalion, happy to meet you Princess.” said the second to last recruit in line.

   “Glad to make your acquaintance Silver Flare.” Twilight turned to the last unicorn in line and could hardly believe her eyes.

   “Nice to see you again Twilight Sparkle.” said the blue unicorn at the end of the line, “Lieutenant Trixie Lulamoon, Fifth Company, Moon Battalion, at your service.”

   “Why a-” Twilight began before being cut off by her old rival, much to the dismay of her peers.

   “Am I here? Trixie is no traitor Twilight Sparkle. I may not exactly be your biggest fan, but I will not stand by while those ingrates threaten my home. So here I am, the great and powerful Lieutenant Trixie.” Trixie’s final sentence was spoken without the old vigor and emphasis that it once held, instead her demeanor was sarcastic and harsh, it had apparently been some time since Trixie had last gotten a win under her belt.

   “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re here then.” Twilight awkwardly tried to move the conversation along, “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

   “I know I will.” Trixie spoke with stoic arrogance. “At least she’s not talking in third person anymore.” thought Twilight.

   “Alright then,” yelled Twilight to the group of recruits around her “did your captains leave you any supplies to help with the training?”

   “They said they left us everything we’d need in those supply crates over there.” called out grey unicorn who Twilight had already forgotten the name of as he pointed to a stack of large crates near the walls of the courtyard.

   “Thank you!” replied Twilight with a wave before heading over to the supplies she’d been given. Cracking open the crates she found several large metal rings she’d seen used for teleportation targets, several magically regenerating circle targets about three feet wide, quite a few sets of bladed gauntlets, shields, and helmets, and an entire crate of short spears she only assumed were to be used as projectiles for the targets. Calling over several cadets she had them collect the targets, twenty in all, and evenly distribute them along a windowless castle wall. After that she had another group take the boxes of spears and give each unicorn one as she began to speak.

   “Alright then, today we’ll be practicing levitation and projection, or simply put, picking up and throwing things.” Twilight thought quickly, trying to think of something that wasn’t just throwing a spear over and over at a static target. She figured she’d have them start out with some practice shots, she could think of something while they did that. “As you can all see, you’ve been provided with a short spear. For the time being, form up into groups of ten, and each group take a target. Just take turns throwing spears and retrieve your spear with your magic after you’ve thrown it, I don’t want to see anyone using their hooves for the remainder of the training.”

   Twilight looked to the cadets in front of her, each of them looking at her with a look of moderate confusion before they began to look at each other trying to figure out who to form their group with. Twilight didn’t exactly take into account that she just asked two-hundred ponies to form groups, though they were grown-up, it was still like asking children in class to get together for project, they’d find their friends and some people would be left in odd groups, and it would take them forever. She needed some form of knowledge on their organization, so she’d have to ask. In her panic, she’d also forgotten almost everyone’s names, everyone except one.

   “Lieutenant Lulamoon, I have a question for you.” Twilight called out to the shuffling crowd, after a brief moment, the form of Trixie could be seen approaching her.

   “Yes Princess?” asked Trixie in a much more indifferent and disrespectful manner than her peers would have.

   “So after I asked them to form groups on their own, I realized this would take a while, so I need to know something… how exactly are your companies organized?” Twilight asked with an embarrassed smile.

   “Well, what we have here is two companies; at the head of each company there is a Captain who gives orders to the five lieutenants, such as myself, who each lead a platoon of twenty soldiers including themselves. Each Lieutenant leads the first squad of their platoon, made up of ten soldiers, and they have a sergeant that leads the second squad of their platoon which is made up of the other ten soldiers. Is there anything else you need, Princess?” Trixie mockingly emphasized the last word of her question. Though she would normally be reprimanded by her superiors for behaving such a way toward Twilight, she didn’t care to practice restraint with her dislike of her country’s newest leader.

   “Judging by the number of targets, I guess they intended for target practice to be by squad then,” Twilight’s contempt with Trixie was detectable in her voice, “we’ll just do it like that then.” Twilight turned to the crowd, who by now had become quite loud, as they conversed with one another in their search for those they wanted to spend the day with.

   “Excuse me everyone, if I could just get your attention for a moment.” Twilight was as commanding as your average doormat; she ultimately went ignored as her attempt to get everyone’s attention was lost in the banter amongst soldiers, who were still trying to get into their desired cliques for target practice. “If I could just… ugh!” Twilight groaned in frustration.

   “Wow Princess, great job leading your troops.” commented Trixie, who was still standing at her side.

   “Well, I’d like to see you do any better oh Great and Powerful Trixie.” Twilight had given up on her niceties and spat her words at Trixie in similarly mocking fashion.

   “Will do your highness.” Trixie turned to the crowd, “5THCOMPANY, MOON BATTALION!” Trixie’s voice was deafening from such a short distance away,“FORM RANKS BY ORDER OF THE PRINCESS!” The crowd abruptly split into two distinct parties. Those of Moon battalion, who quickly formed back up to how they were before when Twilight had given them the freedom of choice, and those of Sun Battalion, who looked momentarily at Trixie who was trotting to her spot in her company’s formation before quickly shuffling into their own ranks adjacent to the Moon battalion unicorns.

   Twilight grunted a defeated grunt and didn’t even bother to look at Trixie, whom she’d just given a reason to be smug. “Each squad will form into a group and take their own separate target. Sun battalion will take the first then targets starting from the right, and Moon battalion will take the first ten targets starting from the left.” Twilight’s exasperation over her most recent annoyance was palpable. “Now then, split up and form a line here where the tiles in the courtyard change.” Twilight pointed with her hoof at a line where the courtyard’s tiles changed from interlocking stones, to diamond shaped marble that formed a straight line down the middle of the courtyard approximately thirty yards from the targets. A suitable distance to practice from, thought Twilight.

   Each company fluidly formed into their respective groups under the shouts of their lieutenants and sergeants and they formed orderly lines in front of each target behind the courtyard’s differing tiles as per Twilight’s instructions. After a few awkward moments of silence and inaction, Twilight figured they were waiting for an order, something that was starting to become an annoyance that she knew she would have to keep up with.

   “Begin when ready.” sighed Twilight. No sooner did she finish talking did the whistling sounds of flying spears fill her ears. The twenty spears that made up the first volley all flew gracefully and true before slamming into their targets on the walls behind them. After seeing this display of marksmanship on the part of her temporary students, Twilight figured she would have to ramp things up if things continued as such. After the first group pulled their spears from the targets the second group came forward and intermittently threw their spears as they came up to the firing line. Each one hit that was thrown hit the target, a few of them came a little close to missing, but they hit them none-the-less. Then the third group, and the fourth, and so on, this continued on for almost three hours as Twilight thought of something they could do.

   The cadets were visibly bored by the repetition of this task, and their accuracy by this point was phenomenal. After three hours of trying to think of something for them to test their skill, Twilight finally had something she thought was good enough.

   “Alright recruits, that’s enough.” Muffled sighs could be heard all throughout the crowd. “Now we’re going to switch to something a little more challenging,” Twilight walked out in front of her figurative students, “For this next exercise, I want the last person who threw their spear to pick up the target and move it around in front of your group. The pony behind you will try to hit it, and then after they retrieve their spear, you pass them the target and move to the back of the line to await your turn to throw. If the first in each line would please pick up the targets now, we’ll begin.”

   All along the wall the targets began to bounce and fly in all directions, at first they were a tad crazy and disorganized but after a few moments of ponies trying to find their respective targets they began to calm down a bit and stay in the areas in front of each group. As spears began to fly Twilight was impressed by how many managed to hit some of the more sporadically moving targets. While a few spears still flew into the wall behind the targets most of them found their marks in the bouncing targets in front of them. Twilight even noticed that more and more of them were being manipulated mid-flight to make sure they hit.

   As the recruits continually nailed their targets over and over despite crazier movements and less predictable patterns by the target controllers, once more boredom began to set in amongst them. The day was still young, only four hours had passed since Twilight began their lessons and Twilight still had four hours of their time to fill before she was dismissed and the Captains return to begin their normal physical drills at their regular time, or at least she hoped they would. She had to yet again think of something to advance their skills. Although for the time being she figured that the recruits had done more than enough target practice, as they never missed, and didn’t even strain to achieve some amazingly difficult shots on erratic and unpredictable targets.

   “Alright then every pony!” Twilight called to them, “Put your spears back in the boxes and we’ll move on to teleportation, you all seem to have projection down to an art by now. Just form back into ranks when you’ve put your spear away” The crowd of recruits shuffled over to the box in a line and deposited their spears before shuffling back over to their ranks and took up their positions on the exact tiles that they were standing on when Twilight came into the courtyard.

   Twilight, meanwhile, walked over to the boxes to retrieve the four metal rings she’d seen earlier. Levitating them at her side she thought of a way to introduce some friendly competition into their dull morning. As the last of the recruits made their way into their ranks Twilight was coming back from the other side of the courtyard where she placed two of the rings on the white tiles of the courtyard’s edge. Upon stopping in front of the ranks she hovered the other two rings out to either side of her and placed them on the ground about twenty yards apart.

   “Alright then, so I’ve come up with a little competition for you all. To either side of me you’ll see a ring on the ground. And on the other side of the courtyard fifty yards away you’ll see another set of rings just like them. First we’re going to see who all can teleport with ease, then once everyone can do it fairly easily, we’re going to have a race between each battalion. So to begin, I want you to once again form a line for me like when we were doing introductions.” The rank and file formed from a gridded pattern of ponies into a straight line across the courtyard as Twilight made her way to the end of the line she started on before.

   “Now then, as I walk in front of you, I want you to teleport as far as you can to the other side of the courtyard. If you find yourself unable, simply wait for a moment while I go down the line and I’ll be more than happy to assist you. Now let us begin.” Twilight then started to walk down the line. As she passed in front of the ponies, one by one, they all seemed to make it across the courtyard the moment she crossed in front them with fair ease, each disappearing with a small flash of light and a magical pop. At the end of the line she was greeted by Lieutenant Lulamoon who simply stood there staring at her.

   “Can you not teleport Trixie?” Twilight asked her trying to hold back a laugh. Trixie didn’t take kindly to the insult and began teleporting all around Twilight.

   “Yes.” Said Trixie as she jumped behind Twilight, the moment she turned around to see her she teleported again, “I.” same as before Trixie jumped again as Twilight turned to meet eyes, “Can.” This time she stayed still when Twilight turned to see her. “Do you think this is magic kindergarten Twilight Sparkle?” Trixie sounded quite insulted by Twilight. “The captain even told you,” Trixie held one leg up in the air and bent her hoof down to make quotations in the air, “‘They’ve shown the highest magical prowess of their peers’ we fully understand the basics of magic, and you’re not going to help any pony here by trying to go through this like you’re teaching foals.”

   “But what if some pony can’t teleport as well as the others?” Twilight questioned Trixie with hints of rising anger in her voice.

   Trixie turned to the line of recruits across the courtyard with a resounding yell, “5THCOMPANY MOON BATTALION, TELEPORT BACK INTO RANKS!” Suddenly Trixie disappeared and after an abnormally bright flash of light and a rather loud pop Twilight found herself surrounded by ponies in perfect formation, “TELEPORT, TWELVE O’CLOCK, FIFTY YARDS!” To the same flash of light and loud cracking pops the group disappeared from around her and she turned to see all of them, once again in perfect formation a short distance away. “ABOUT FACE!” Twilight watched them all rotate their formation to face her like it had before with the same orientation, rather than just each pony turning around, all except for one.

   “You see Princess?” Twilight, almost becoming dizzy from her recent bout of spins, turned around once more to the annoyed glare of Trixie, “We’re going to be battlemages because we’re the best that volunteered. We’re not beginners, we all know levitation, we all know projection, and we all know teleportation. Most of us can already do disarms spells, and some such as myself, can even do focused energy beams. I know it’s all great in your castle, but we’re going out there to fight. If you want to help us at all, you need to teach us what we don’t already know, and stop treating us like foals who barely know anything.” Trixie finished her tirade by saluting and teleporting back into her formation. A brief moment after she did, Sun Company appeared right next to them in their formation.

   Twilight turned to face them all in front of her where most stood with their faces forward, but their eyes jumping back and forth between Twilight and Trixie nervously, unsure how Twilight would react to Trixie’s blatant disrespect of a princess. After a moment of collecting her thoughts she spoke to her ‘students’.

   “Okay then, show of hooves, how many of you can perform a disarm spell successfully?” a good three quarters of the class raised one hoof as per Twilight’s request. “Alright then, now how about focused energy beams?” About half of them raised a hoof at this question. “Now how about deflection shields?” even fewer hooves went up, “Come to life spells?” about twenty raised their hooves, “and what about paralyze?” only Trixie and two others raised their hooves.

   “So then, it seems the lesson plan has changed. For the remainder of the day I want you all go to the library and read up on disarms, focusing energy, and come to life spells. The library is quite extensive and you have about three and a half hours by my count until your normal physical drills begin. I in the meantime will gather up everything needed so that when we begin tomorrow we’ll be able to quickly move through learning into practicing and we won’t have to spend all day grinding out remedial chore-worthy tasks learning simple spells you already know. And who knows, if you’re able to quickly get a hold of those spells, by then end of the week we might move on to even more advanced magic. Until tomorrow, you are all dismissed, use your time wisely, I shall meet you back here same time tomorrow morning.” Twilight nodded to them all and began walking to the barracks to see about getting some more supplies for the next day. The recruits formed into tight formations and began making their way to the door on the other end of the courtyard. She would be much more prepared the next time they met and as she made her way to the barracks, more and more ideas began to form in her head. “Tomorrow is going to be most fun.” She thought.