Legends of Equestria: HeroSoul

Borders of the New Dweller Republic, twelve days after the war.

Straight ahead and above the group sat the flying city of the Sky Dwellers. It looked a lot more menacing than how Bright Haze and Rainbow Dash had described it. From what they had said it was basically a copy of Cloudsdale. But no, this city seemed to be very evil and very battle ready. Even from this far away Twilight could see the various canons and steam powered weaponry dotted all around the cloud layer. It was also very mobile. The city was around a day earlier than it should have been and was slowly moving toward the general direction of Canterlot. The clouds of the huge city were dark and stormy, rain could be seen falling from the cloud layer and dots of Pegasi flew around the city. Twilight let out a very audible gulp and stepped forward, he wings spread.

"What's the plan Twi?" Applejack asked, the new princess dropped her wings as she realized a lot of her friends weren't able to fly. She looked to each, it was her and Fluttershy with wings, and the timid made didn't look to be very battle ready. None of the group had any weapons, or armour.

"What in Celestina's name were we thinking? We try to storm a flying city, which is at war with Equestria to save Princess Luna." Twilight muttered, a few of her friends gasped at her outbreak.

"Sorry, just. We brought no weapons, or armour and only two of us can fly. And no offense, I doubt Fluttershy would be able to be put across as a Dweller. I may be able to get up there and hide my horn with magic, but my Cutie Mark is a dead giveaway." Twilight added. Rarity ginned and her horn began to glow. Her saddle bags opened and a very regal looking cloak appeared. It looked way to royal to be Dweller. Twilight face hoofed.

"Come on girls, we came here to save the princess. Surely there is a way to get up there." Pinkie Pie said, she hasn't changed back to her party loving self for years now, her hair now completely deflated any insanity had been taken from her. So many ponies had been changed the last few years.

"I could try and disrupt the cloud layer underneath, but those. Things they have would start firing. Haze showed me a picture of them once, canons I believe they're called. Yeah- those canons would shot me down if I got anywhere near. You can't just simply walk into that city. Or fly, to be correct. If I could disrupt the layer, I don't know where to start." Twilight muttered. Applejack grinned.

"Can't you do some detection spell or something?" She asked. Twilight face hoofed again and her horn began to glow. For Twilights eyes only, a faint blue dot appeared near the back of the cloud, it was still pretty far off. But that was certainly the Alicorn they were looking for.

"I found her girls, now. How do we get her out?" Twilight asked. There was a laugh from an unfamiliar voice, the group turned, alarmed. Four Dweller soldiers were standing behind the group, wings outstretched, all wearing gold armour and a strange looking gun saddle. It wasn't something from the Terrans and it wasn't anything brought over during the fight with the Demons. It looked almost, pony made.

"You like our new weapons? Our blacksmith made them. They only shot once so far, before reloading. But it still kills ponies. Not as well as your Decay Guns, you understand. But these things rock." The Dweller said, looking at his gun. "Now, if I were to shoot you, it will probably kill you. But the back of this is fairly strong." The Dweller continues, then moved the end of the gun so fast nopony had time to react. Twilight fell without feeling the pain; blood dripped down her eyes and darkness over took her. There was a shout from somepony, a gunshot. And then, nothing.

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Somewhere in The North, two weeks after the war.

After leaving Darcia the trip was just as interesting as it had been before. We had a couple mountains ahead of us and after restocking in the town, had plenty of food to clear them, but after that we would need to find a town. According to the map there was a griffin outpost just beyond the mountains, unless this was another Void corrupt town, we should get some welcome. I had never actually met a griffin so it should be interesting to see how they react to some random ponies, a knife, an Everfree Serpent and a Terran walking into their camp. Not mentioning how one pony is an Alicorn. Gods we were so weird.

"I don't suppose we can fly over the mountains." Skittles Dash asked. Then prepared to fly, before remembering she didn't have any wings in her new body. I flapped mine and began hovering above the group. Heart Breaker laughed and Rainbow just stuck her tongue out at me.

"Even if we could, it would still take days to get over it. Do you see the size of that shit?" I muttered. Rainbow laughed and replied with:

"Size matters now does it?" Rainbow replied. Heart Breaker, who had picked that one moment to take a drink, started choking on his water. I laughed at that.

"I don't get it." Dari replied. Everyone started laughing again. Whilst we laughed I began to notice figures ahead. Some looked fairly tall, others were smaller, a few small figures were flying in the air. I couldn't tell what they were, but they weren't griffins.

"Guys. Look!" I shouted, pointing a hoof. Everyone calmed down and looked ahead. Steven stepped back, surely his Serpent eyes saw what was ahead.

"What. What can you see?" I heard Nick asked. He was jumping up and down trying to get a view on what was ahead.

"Terrans, about thirty, and a lot of Changelings. There are two more groups like it, but further away, they won't reach us, nor do they look like they are." Steven replied, looking left and right, his vision was incredibly strong. Something I kept forgetting.

"And this group?" I asked.

"Coming towards us, weapons out." He muttered, I nodded and turned to everyone.

"Alright, ponies make a semi circle round Steven, Nick, up front. Crystal, take as many out from long range as you can, but wait till my signal." I ordered, everypony started moving, only Crystal stayed.

"What's the signal?" He asked, I smiled and clicked back my gun, it charged.

"You will know, don't worry about that. Just. Cover me." I replied after a second and set off. Nobody told me to stay back, they knew better than to tell me to stay safe. Yes, Heart Breaker was a human. Hell, so was I. But these, Terrans lost their humanity when they came to destroy Equestria. I half hoped they were like Crystal, but if they had the weaponry Steven was seeing as well as being with a Changeling war party. We certainly had a fight on our hands. I decided to actually try diplomacy first.

It took considerably less time for me to reach them as I had hoped, there were about thirty Terrans as Steven had said, and double the amount of Changelings. I made sure to very obviously check my gun once more. Only around ten of the Terrans had guns, the rest had make shift crossbows or spears.

"Hold up friends, where are you going?" I shouted, the group stopped like they hadn't even seen me. One Terran stepped forward. The rest raised weapons. Come on then.

"Stand aside pony. No more needs to die than already planned." The Terran said. Well that was ominous.

"And what does that mean, pray tell." I asked. Hoof twitching, ready to release Aurora.

"We are going to your capital, shooting the Princesses, and taking over Equestria." He replied, very proudly.

"I see, and ninety Terrans and a small army of Changelings are going to do that?" I asked. The man flinched at that, I smiled.

"Stand down or we will shoot. These men are obliged to do that, they all want revenge." The guy said, raising his gun, I didn't move.

"All Terrans? Well that's a lie. You see, a pony like me, will never be alone. My group of rather, mismatched, ponies. Harbour a Terran by the name of Crystal, and he is very proud to wear Equestrian colours. There is also a Changeling, who has saved my life more times than I have hooves." I paused and let that sink in, the guy was about to talk and I continued. "There is also an Alicorn, a Pegasus and unicorn mix. For those humans among you.-" that peaked his interest.

"How do you know the word human, everything here calls us Terrans?" He shouted, still had his gun risen.

"Because, I'm not finished asshole." That really got them pissed, if they could ready their weapons any further, they did. "This Alicorn, came from Earth, your world. Around the time of 2010 or something like that. I, yes me. Little old blue Pegasus me. Came from Earth a human, four years later. I have been fighting for Equestria for far longer than you have been alive. Behind me is enough fire power to destroy your war ship you brought here. Now, I suggest you stand down." I said, voice rising. A few actually stepped back. The leader laughed.

"If you have all that fire power in a small group, why not destroy the ship when we came?"

"Well that's easy, one; we didn't have your weaponry. And two; because we couldn't of destroyed it when we did since I sent it away." I replied. Now the guy was worried.

"Impossible, you couldn't do that. Only the general had that power."

"And I killed him. After you killed my daughter I shot your general with his own gun and ordered the war ship away, since 'we could handle this'. We had until sunset till the ship came back. If you were all at the battle you will remember that instead of reinforcements coming, something, or, somepony destroyed the rift between worlds. That was me."

"It would have killed you, the explosion we saw."

"Oh it did, then, through magical means. I returned. To tell you this.” I paused again; a few soldiers looked genuinely scared.

"I. Destroyed. Earth. All your families and friends. Are dead. Just like you killed my family, I destroyed the entire planet. Your corrupt, dying world. I destroyed it in a blink of an eye. Billions of people dead, all because you misjudged the power of the ponies." I said finally, before anyone could react to that lie. I raised a hoof and shot the leader; he began to scream and turn to dust. I shot a volley of shots into the crowd and flew away, gunshots behind me. This was going to be a big fight.

I got back to our group with a bit of burnt hair and tired wings. I hadn't stretched them in a while, let alone preening. I landed next to Heart Breaker and heard Crystal begin to fire.

“So...” Heart Breaker began and aimed his gun, firing a volley of before looking back at me. “Diplomacy?” He finally asked, I smiled but didn’t answer. It’s all the diplomacy they deserve. I thought, then released Aurora Lorem and flew up in the air, ignoring the pain in my wings. The Changelings were on us in a matter of moments. Steven managed to swipe a lot of them out of the air and they began to fall to the ground either crippled or dead. One charged at me and I shot it with the Decay Gun and stabbed another with my sword. We were being very quickly overrun by Changeling drones, but they were still as crap at fighting as before. Only a few were armed, the rest were attempting to use hooves. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking when we had that conversation about us all getting old, yes we were. But we were still moving faster than these bugs, easily dodging their attacks. I smiled at that thought and doubled my efforts. More began to fall as Aurora slowly became covered in Changeling blood.

I looked over to see everypony else in deep combat, all except Crystal and Spectra who were shooting at the Terrans trying to take pot shots at us. Aeb was running in-between Changeling targets with an arm sword on each front hoof, where s/he got them from I will never know. Aeb was cutting down dozens of his erstwhile brethren and doing some spins and shit. He seemed a lot more, wanting, to fight Changelings than he did back in Darcia. There was definitely a very concerning glare in his eye, as well as a half smile on the dead mare’s lips. I ran over to the ex-Changeling, struggling to keep up with him and take out any Changelings that tried to cross me, not many as it happened, they seemed reluctant to attack me head on, Aeb they had no trouble with. He didn’t seem to care, I wanted to know why.

“You seem happy.” I commented, catching up to the mare. He dropped his smile and slowed in his charge. Dropping a sword arm, he turned to me, I could actually see tears.

“Now isn’t the time Haze.” He muttered, I looked to him and stepped forward, he flinched.

“Talk to me Aeb.” Again, he flinched at the name but otherwise stepped backwards. The second sword going back into its holster.

“Seriously Haze, not now. I swear to you we will talk about this after the battle, but there are still bugs to kill.” He had never referred to Changelings like that, let alone with such a sour taste in his voice. I nodded, deciding not to push the subject, only adding the comment of:

“You are one of these bugs Aeb, find me after the fighting’s done.” He nodded, I properly shouldn’t have said that, but it needed saying. He muttered something which I swear was something like:

“Not anymore.” I trotted away, Aeb fought considerably harder after that, without a massive grin on his face either.

The battle quickly finished, with around twenty Terrans dead and double the amount of Changelings, there were still the two groups, as well as a couple Changeling reinforcements heading toward Canterlot that Steven apparently saw. But we were too far in to turn around now. I just hoped Celestia could deal with what is coming. After checking on wounds and doing a quick check on the sun for time, we could do at least another couple miles before sunset, I decided to talk to Aeb on the walk, if he was sincere about his earlier offer. I quickly found him alone, already walking north; I hoped the others took the hint to start walking when I followed, I didn’t even look back to find out. Just trotted to catch up to Aeb, he turned slightly at my approach but didn’t say anything.

“I lied.” He finally said. I paused in my step, but didn’t say anything until he put that sentence into context. “I didn’t go to Paradise when I died.” Okay then.

“Alright?” I asked. He turned to me.

“Paradise isn’t for Changelings, no matter how hard I tried to fit into Ponyville those few times we were given rest, I was still a Changeling, feeding off the love you all had for me, I hated it.” He paused, I didn’t say anything. What do I say to that?

“When Changelings die, since we are just drones, nothing more. We fade to nothing, that is exactly what I felt, nothing. I felt nothing and I saw nothing. Every second felt like a year, it was complete hell.” He muttered.

“So what was today about?” I asked, after a long pause.

“I figured, if I killed enough of the enemy, then maybe I will get accepted into pony Paradise. I hate being a Changeling, I hate being the enemy Haze. I saved you because I had had enough of Sap, enough of the Hive constantly in my head.” He began to actually cry. “Do you know what it feels like to have her voice in your head constantly, I fought her off for years after I joined you guys. She only just left the weeks before my death, which is why I was so scared. She just left. Like I was nothing, years of giving my orders, then. Gone. I honestly don’t know what was worse, her in my head, or when she just left. One day, this is going to get sorted out, and I’m going to have to go back in the ground. I don’t want to live forever, everypony has to die, but for me to go back to the nothing I have, whilst all my friends go to such a peaceful land. What I faced was not peace.” His voice was fading toward the end. I didn’t really know what to do here and hugged him.

“I can’t even begin to feel your pain Aeb, let me tell you something my friend.” I said, he looked down, after a few seconds nodded. “I don’t have much experience with Changeling lore or all that bullocks, but let me tell you something: The first time I died, and I mean truly died. Was when I fought and killed Discord. I saw, and felt nothing. Like you said. For two weeks I was a rotting corpse in some forsaken pit somewhere west of Canterlot. Then I woke up like you. Now, we both know I have died a lot more times since then, but when I fell during the Terran invasion, you know what happened?” I asked. He looked up, sadness seen easily in his eyes.

“What?” He asked.

“I went to Paradise, I was at rest with my wife and with my child, you say you’re a Changeling and don’t get to experience the peace ponies do? I’m a fucking human, that’s less of a pony than Changelings are mate. If you show, truly show I mean, that you are good and more pony than bug. I’m sure whoever decides who gets to go into Paradise will let you in.” I replied, after a while, Aeb nodded and smiled.

“Thank you Haze, I will remember that.” He said, nodding again. “Now come on, we got a long journey still ahead of us and it seems there is yet another force moving on our homes.” Aeb muttered and trotted faster, I fell back to see Heart looking at me.

“Did that really happen?” He asked.

“What, me go to Paradise after the invasion?” I asked. He nodded. “No. I felt nothing still, nothing changed, it is how it is. I’m human; I could never get into pony heaven. I don’t think Aeb will either. But if he at least thinks that, he may not go insane.” I replied, slowly. The question is though, will I go insane knowing what awaits in the future.