Warfare Equestria

    Windows and doors banged shut as they walked through the streets of Cloudsdale. "I bet everybody saw what happened there. We are in such trouble." Rainbow laughed.

    "I for one find it the least bit funny that the Lunar Rebel guards will be on us any moment." Rarity glared at Rainbow who shrugged dismissevely.

    "How about focusing on the one thing we're here for: Finding Twilight." Pinkie snapped at the two.

    "Sure, sure, whatever." Rainbow made a shooing gesture with her hand. Rarity humphed. They had been walking for a while without anyone attacking.

    "I wonder where everybody went to." Applejack looked around still expecting an attack. "I mean, we have a fugitive, a murderer and a person who is due for executi—" Applejack gasped midway. "The execution! Quick! We haven't got a second to loose!" Applejack made her way towards the center of the city followed by Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.

    "Why the hurry?" Rarity asked between breaths.

    "Yeah! Why are we running for our lives?" Rainbow crossed her arms in air.

    "I just realized why nobody's around!" Applejack panted. "Twilight is due for execution and I think it's a public one which means everybody must be at that arena!" Applejack pointed to a small arena in the center of the city.

    "Does that mean Twilight could already be—" Pinkie made a gulping sound.

    "I'm not sure but we might still be able to make it." Applejack said stopping for a breath. She leaned on her knees and coughed and spluttered. Rarity put a worrying hand on her back tapping slightly. Appeljack straightened up as Pinkie sped past her in a pink colored cloud of smoke. Fluttershy stretched her arm out as if just by making a certain move she could stop Pinkie from speeding into the arena. Obviously it couldn't.

    People cheered and yelled as Pinkie reached the arena. She shook her head a couple of times fearing for the worst. As she opened her eyes she breathed in relief. Twilight was alive but chained up on a pole. The view was completely from the middle ages as avians came and layed timber down on the floor all the way around the pole. Pinkie growled under her breath as a Goddess she'd never seen before carrying a torch approached the pole.

    "A genius plan if I do say so myself." The goddess laughed. "Turning all these innocent little people against the Goddesses."

    "You'll never get away with this Chrysalis!" Twilight spat. "Once I get to Canterlot the Goddesses will hear all about you!"

    "From you? I doubt they'll believe a betrayer like you!" Chrysalis laughed. Twilight looked down with a single tear drop.

    "As for you, human, I believe I have something for you to do." Chrysalis turned to Pinkie Pie. "Take my torch. Now." As Pinkie Pie shook her head defensively Chrysalis laughed. "Thought so. Obey." A shocking pain went through her body like lightning. Her head was splitting  with the feeling and she screamed. "Obey." The words rang in her head like a bell. "The pain will stop once you obey." Slowly, each movement causing a new stab she stepped forward to take the torch. "Excellent. Light the timber up. Obey, peasant."

    Pinkie Pie looked at the desperate Twilight who looked like she was already in great pain without the timber being lit up. "Obey." A small jolt went through her body. It wasn't nearly as bad as last time. A much softer voice soothed the pain away.

    "Put the torch down Pinkie Pie. Please." It wasn't causing any pain at all. It was blowing it away. A gust of wind played with her hair and she closed her eyes and set down the torch. She heard a sigh of relief from Twilight.

    "What! An impossibility! How can you resist such pain?" Chrysalis asked shocked. Twilight closed her eyes in deep concentration and poof, she wasn't chained to the pole anymore.

    "Maybe you haven't heard of it but there is such thing as magic." She shouted happily as she grabbed Pinkie's hand and flew up in the sky. "Come on everybody! This is your one chance to get out of here she shouted at the rebels.

    "So Celestia can capture us?" Came the reply.

    "So that we can starve in a week?"

    "To be used for slave trade?"

    "No thank you!" They shouted in unision.

    "Our lives ar perfectly fine thank you very much." A woman carrying a small baby avian shouted.

    "We are all even here. Unlike anywhere else." A man spat crossing his arms.

    Twilight watched tearfully as each one of the villagers denied her offer, they truly thought they had good lives. Twilight wiped her eye several times as they flew  out of the arena. As they reached outside the group cheered happily. "Twilight! You're alright!" Was repeated several times. "We were so worried that you were, you know..." Applejack coughed. Twilight didn't join in the celebrating, the villagers had all denied her offer, no-one had even hesitated. Something about that bothered her, how could someone deny an offer of a good life, balanced with money, food and a job It was unsettling.

    So what had this Chrysalis done to them? What had rocked them off balance so much that they couldn't see their own lives? She breathed through her nose annoyed. Pinkie, on the other hand was perfectly fine, seeing as she hadn't seen it all. The bloodthirst in their eyes, the madness in their voices. Who had replaced them with emptied shells? Was it Chrysalis? Or someone else? Maybe it was Princess Luna? Possibly.

    The questions ran about in her mind and she felt tired. They set camp within magical boundaries and safety spells. No-one could walk in. All others fell sound asleep after probably the most terrifying day in their lives of being captured and nearly executed and almost murdering someone.

    Twilight still layed wide awake.

    She tossed and turned in her sleeping bag but nothing. Not even the hint of tiredness washed over her, although moments ago she could have fallen asleep in no time. She rose into a sitting position and stared at the tent wall.

    She got up slowly, carefully not to wake anyone and snuck out. The sun was deep behind the woods and it was dark. She pulled her hood over her face and walked to the edge of the city. She smiled as she flew up easily to the edge. She was going to learn something new!

    No-one was out there on the streets either. Except one girl. She was crouching under cardboard, something that was obiously her home. Twilight's heart jumped of sadness. The conditions they lived in

    "Hey there, little one." She whispered with the calmest of tones.

    The girl looked up her eyes wide as the moon. "H-hello." She whispered back.

    "Don't be afraid. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know your name." Twilight stated softly crouching to the girl's height.

    "O-okay. But I don't really have one." The girl sniffed.

    Twilight stared at her in horror. "You don't have a name?"

    "The villagers call me 'kid' but I don't think that counts." The girl nodded. "I hate it here on the streets but there's nowhere else. Everywhere I go I'm hated. All the time." She leaned her face in her palms.

    "You're not hated. I don't hate you." Twilight's slightly developed maternal instinct wrapped a comforting hand around the small girl.

    "Really? But. . . You're one of them. The racist people. The race dividers." The girl sniffed.

    "I used to be one. But I'd rather give it all away than see everyone suffer. Can you tell me why no-one leaves this dump and serves that Chrysalis?" Twilight stroked the purple spiky hair.

    "I don't know why. I'm just the kid. Nothing more." The girl sniffed.

    "But you know the most. Because you can't avoid conversation. Anything. It all passes down to you once and then it goes round again, doesn't it?" Twilight smiled.

    "I guess. . . But this is just what I've heard. A while ago, when the rebellion had just started, a strange goddess came to Cloudsdale. She didn't say what she wanted but she told us that the goddesses were evil, and had to be stopped. She came and she never went. I've seen it. I've seen it all. I've seen them, their eyes the way they look. It's like they can't trust what they know anymore. I've been avoiding her. I don't want me to disappear. I don't want to become an empty shell like them. I want freedom." The girl sniffed. "They don't listen to their senses anymore. At all. They're like machines. Fake things."

    Twilight sobbed once. It had been the Canterlot Wedding all over again. Except now the victims can't do anything anymore. The girl started crying harder, of fear of everything happening to her too. She sobbed loudly and Twilight stroked her hair and hushed her, cradling her ever so slightly.

    "I have a story to tell." Twilight finally managed to say. "Once upon a time, in a beautiful land, people were divided. Two lovers and their child were separated and the child was left to fend for herself. For years and years she searched. She cried for her parents but they never came. All night long she searched, and all day long she worked to keep herself alive. But it wasn't enough to keep her healthy. Unnamed and forgotten she stayed on the streets mourning. But one day, a woman came by. She saw her crying. She sat down and listened to her tale and took her under her wings. Ever since then the girl lived happily ever after. She even got a name. It was Scootaloo." Twilight finished her tale, giving a soft kiss on Scootaloo's forehead.

    "Thank you, Twilight." She sobbed into Twilight's cloak. "Thank you ever so much." She cried.

    "Scootaloo." Twilight whispered. A name she would have given her child.

    Slowly, Scootaloo's eyes started fluttering and she fell asleep on Twilight's lap. "Hush, baby now. Let the worries slip away." Twilight sang softly. "Hear the flute as it hums you to sleep. Hear the cello which soothes you with it's bass voice. Sleep quietly, my child. And let the worries slip away." Twilight finished and took Scootaloo in her arms and walke out of town, minding her step.

    She wasn't greeted a pleasant surprise.

    "Twilight! I've been so worried!" Pinkie shrieked and scrambled to her giving her a huge embrace "Where were you?" She scolded.

    "I'm sorry Pinkie. I needed to hear the full story." Twilight murmured liftin

the sleeping Scootaloo.

    "Who is this?" Pinkie asked crouching slightly. "She looks like she's had a rough day." Pinkie scratched her head.

    "Twilight giggled ever so slightly kissing Pinkie's cheek. "This is Scootaloo. She lived on the street but. . . She deserves so much better." Twilight gave another soft sob.

   "Mmkay. So she's with us now?" Pinkie asked. Her inability to comprehend serious situations other than her dying lover was quite funny and Twilight whispered:

   "Where else would my child go?" Pinkie's face blanked out for a moment then her expression widened.

   "You have a child?!" She asked freaking out.

   "No silly. But Scootaloo has, overnight formed a very strong bond with me and I find that she should stay with us. And I think I could. . . Qualify slightly as a mother. Don't you?" Twilight teased trying to lead Pinkie her way.

    "So. . . I'll be the father?" The excitement on her face was indescribable.

    "For now, I don't think we should be parenting her. But soon. As she adaptates." Twilight smiled.

    Pinkie smiled widely. It was happening! As long as the war could come to an end then everyone would be happy.