When Angels Lose Their Way

~ * ~

        The map room, as it had come to be called, was normally a quiet place. Though technically the throne room for Princess Twilight and her friends, they really only ever used it when they needed to see what part of Equestria needed them most. But the Sparkle Guard had transformed it into a war room, bustling with activity as SG captains rallied troops and quartermasters distributed supplies. The map of Equestria in the center of the room had shifted to a map of Ponyville, tracking the centaur invaders as well as the Sparkle Guard and civilians.

        Trixie—no, Colonel Trixie, Fluttershy reminded herself—pored over the map. Big Macintosh stood silently nearby, watching over her. When Twilight was first organizing the Sparkle Guard, she wanted the best of the best to lead it, arguing in Trixie’s case that her skill with magic, the skill she’d proven in the Alicorn Amulet incident, made her by far the best choice.  Fluttershy had argued she was too… mean, but Twilight figured she deserved the second chance anyway. Maybe. She hadn't messed it up yet, at least. Big Macintosh serving as her co-leader helped keep her on a fairly tight leash even when Twilight wasn’t around.

        “Ah, Fluttershy!” Trixie snapped off a pompous salute. Big Macintosh gave Fluttershy a more demure and respectful nod. “Excellent. Come, look at the map.” Fluttershy stared at the many colored dots moving around the streets and alleys. “Civilians are blue, our guard are green, and the enemy are in red.” Fluttershy winced at just how many red dots gathered outside the town. “There's only a couple of dozen or so inside town, nothing the Great and Pow—ahem, that is, that Trixie couldn't handle by herself.”

        Considering how easily that one centaur had slain a trained, combat ready Sparkle Guard pegasus, Fluttershy doubted that.

        “There are hundreds outside,” Trixie continued. “Maybe thousands; we've not been able to gather accurate numbers. They came upon us so fast.”

        Fluttershy whimpered. “Oh dear... where did they even come from?”

        Trixie waved her hoof. The map zoomed in to show a scintillating orange glow just outside town, surrounded in a sea of red. “We think this is a portal bringing them from elsewhere, probably the centaur homeland.” Trixie's normally bombastic expression melted into a worried frown. “We barely got the town's shields up in time; they must've been planning this for ages, to hit us so hard so easily.”

        She sighed. “It's grim, Fluttershy. We don't know how we'll be able to stop them. If we can stop them. There's just too many.” With another hoof wave the map zoomed out, showing the weakening shields. “They'll probably break through within the next couple of hours. After that...”

        “They're going to kill us all!” Spike burbled in a panic. Fluttershy paled, quivering.

        Trixie glared at the little dragon. “Thank you so much, Spike, for putting into grim and depressing words what Trixie had been trying to put delicately! It’s not as if Trixie has had a hard time with morale! Perhaps you could give our soldiers a speech on how the centaurs will murder them and then violate their corpses! See how many you can inspire to desert!”

        That only seemed to make Spike--and Fluttershy, for that matter--even more panicked. A flash of guilt crossed Trixie’s face, becoming more than a flash when Big Macintosh gave her a steely stare. “Trixie was joking, Spike. Trixie was told you do that in crises? Trixie believes she has her old hat around somewhere, if you need some comic fodder.”

        “...Nah.” Spike smiled weakly. “Too easy.”

        “Hmmph. My hat was dignified.”

        Fluttershy, shaking like a leaf, finally found the strength to say, “No... no they wouldn't! They couldn't!” But the shrieks of ponies and booms of cannon fire told her all too plainly how foolish her words were. “C-Can't we call for help or something?”

        “Nope,” Big Macintosh said plainly. “We've tried, but all our wireless frequencies are bein' jammed. They cut the telegraph cables too. Even the underground ones.” He snorted.

        Spike raised a claw. “Why can’t we just send a pegasi with a message?” Big Macintosh and Trixie shook their heads. “You know… fly… straight up… to dodge arrows… no?” He held out his paws. “Why not?”

        Trixie snorted. “You’ve been Twilight’s ‘number one assistant’ for this long and failed to catch on to such a basic principle in arcane technology?” She lit her horn, creating an image in the air of a cartoon village covered with a shield. “Any sufficiently powerful magic is inherently disruptive to all other forms of magic around it.” A cartoon pegasi in flight came over the village and instantly plummeted. “Pegasi flight is magical in nature. The shields over Ponyville are large enough and powerful enough that they disrupt any form of magic above them for miles in every direction! You could fly inside the shield, but outside, you could not fly more than fifty or so feet over them before your wings would simply stop working.” She let the images dissipate. “Not even an alicorn’s magic is powerful enough to fight through the interference over Ponyville.”

        “So, we're on our own,” Trixie declared.

        Fluttershy's lips trembled. “But, but surely Princess Celestia or someone in Canterlot—”

        “We're on our own! Riding solo, abandoned, on our lonesome, lone wolves, all about ourselves, in solitary confinement with the centaurs as the prison! How many ways must Trixie say it?” Trixie said. “Canterlot's under attack too; we can clearly see their great and powerful shields if we just so much as glance out a window! There's no help coming, Fluttershy.” She shook her head, leaning against the map table. “What're we going to do?”

        “Panic?” Spike asked.

        It sounded like a very good idea to Fluttershy. Losing herself in panic... she'd done that so much in her life. But that was before she'd become one of the leaders of Equestria. As much as she wanted to run and hide, to scream like the rest, to cuddle under her blankets until the mean old centaurs went away... they weren't going to. The lights of blue, of innocent civilian ponies, winking out all across the map told her that much. For whatever reason the centaurs wanted them all dead.

        And that was enough for Fluttershy to rally herself. She clenched her jaw, and set a hoof on Trixie's. “We won't give up.” She puffed up her chest, trying to project more confidence than she honestly felt. For Trixie's sake. For all their sakes. “We can at least buy some time!”

        “How?” Trixie looked at her pleadingly, tears brimming in her eyes. For all her bombasity, for all the authority of command that she'd held for the last year, since the formation of the Sparkle Guard, Fluttershy could see Trixie was about to fall apart if Fluttershy didn't stop it. “We only have a hundred or so trained guards!” A couple of green lights winked out on the map. “And that number is shrinking fast… too fast! Need we send more to their deaths? Trixie is… I am tired of that burden. But I cannot stop them myself! I’m no Twilight Sparkle; I cannot just whisk them all to Tartarus while sipping tea and reading a romance novel! All I can do is… is hide behind this blasted map!”

        Fluttershy shook her head. “You also have me,” she said plainly.

        Trixie laughed bitterly. “You? Of course! Perhaps you can cower at them with your oh so vaunted cuteness, make them feel so much pity that they drop their weapons, feel the magic of friendship, and dance around a campfire with us! We could even do a musical number!”

        That almost unnerved Fluttershy right then and there, until Big Macintosh set a hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “Maybe we should let her explain what she means,” he said pointedly.

        Fluttershy took a moment to breath deeply, gathering her strength. She waved a wing at her throne. “Remember how we defeated Tirek?”

        Trixie glared. “No, because Trixie was not living in Ponyville at the time, if you recall!”

        Spike's eyes popped. “Oh, she means her Rainbow Power!”

        Trixie stared blankly. “Her what?”

        Spike rolled his eyes. “It's an empowered state, enabled by the Tree of Harmony! It's like... did you ever read Pony Ball comics?” Trixie's icy stare answered that question. “Okay, okay, jeeze. It's basically, like... oh! Remember how the Alicorn Amulet enhanced your power? It's kind of like that, except it enhances everything Shy does! She can hit harder, fly faster, carry more, have lots of stamina; she can do everything better!”

        Trixie made an “o” of understanding with her lips. “Ah!”

        “So yes,” Fluttershy said. “I can fight.”

        “Nope!” Big Mac shook his head furiously. “No way. Nuh uh. Fluttershy, you're not a trained fighter.”

        Spike piped up, “And I uh, I thought that only worked with all six of you together, anyway.”

        “Not true,” Fluttershy insisted, to both of them. “Twilight worked out a way for us to power up by ourselves. In case we ever needed to, she said.” Fluttershy left out the warning Twilight had given her about how using it by herself could be overwhelming. The power was meant to be used in Harmony with the other Elements. Any one, even Kindness, by itself, without at least one other, might be too powerful to handle without losing control. But Fluttershy didn't see in any other choice.

         “And I am too a trained fighter,” she added to Big Macintosh, with an offended glare. “I'm not as good as Rainbow Dash, but I have a first degree black belt in karate.” At Trixie's disbelieving snort, she said, “Rainbow Dash has been training me privately.”

        Spike puffed up his chest, drawing the short sword at his waist. “And I can fight too!”

        “Nope!” Big Macintosh glared.

        “No!” Fluttershy shouted at the same time. Spike shrank away, deflating. “No,” she said more softly, giving him a smile. “Twilight would never forgive me if you were hurt. But you can help out here, I promise.”

        “Okay,” Trixie said, swishing her hair and turning up her nose, as if trying to forget her few moments of weakness. “Okay. This... ‘Rainbow Power’ gives us an edge. So what's the plan?”

        To be honest, Fluttershy still wasn't quite completely certain herself. She studied the map, looking at the twin sets of shields covering the town and the castle, remembering something Twilight had said when they were installed. “The castle shields are much stronger than the town's, right?”

        Trixie smirked. “Of course! Trixie helped Twilight.. and a few others... in constructing and enhancing the shield generator! Under this kind of bombardment it could easily last for weeks!” She snorted. “If only Twilight had listened to Trixie when Trixie told her the town's shields should be just as strong. But no, Twilight wanted to argue about “square-cube ratios” and “cost effectiveness” and a load of other rubbish. Pah!”

        Fluttershy rubbed her chin, looking at the map. She noticed the various points of blue were steadily moving inward, sparking an idea. “Oh! What if we get everypony inside the castle? We can at least protect them better in here.”

        Big Macintosh nodded. “Eeyup.” Then he frowned. “Nope. We don't have enough food to keep everyone going. Not unless we stretch it super thin.”

        “Nevermind that,” Fluttershy said. “When the centaurs break through the town's shields, they're going to destroy everything they can get their hands on! Including ponies.” She pointed at the blue light near one red light that winked out as she spoke.

        Big Macintosh nodded sadly. “Eeyup. Yer right, Fluttershy. Can't let that happen.”

        Trixie shrugged. “Trixie supposes. Of course such a plan could be incredibly short-sighted enough that it bites us all in the rear end later, but if this is going where Trixie thinks it is going, it’ll likely be someone else’s problem.”

        Fluttershy took one last look at the map, and steeled herself for what she was about to suggest. “So, um, I think Trixie and I should lead teams, then, out into town.” She pointed at the groups of red dots. “We can distract the centaurs inside town, keep them pinned while everyone else, led by you, Big Mac, get as many townspeople inside to safety as we can.” She smiled at Spike. “You can help set up places for ponies to stay while they're here.”

        Spike saluted, beaming. “Sure thing, Fluttershy! You can count on me!”

        “I'm glad,” Fluttershy said, meaning it with all her heart. Spike was precious to her; she didn't ever want him to come to harm. But she knew how much he always wanted to help too, so making sure he could... well that was the best way to keep him safe.

        “As Trixie thought,” Trixie said. “She is going to be a corpse on the street.” She curled her lips into a frown, and furiously shook her head. “But no matter. Trixie would be aghast to let Fluttershy fight when she did not! Let us get this plan started. The quicker the better. Amethyst!” She started barking orders to her Guard.

        Big Macintosh nodded to Fluttershy, then gestured for her to follow him. He took her off into an isolated corner. “What is it?” she asked him.

        He placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Listen, Fluttershy. I'm going to tell you straight: it's gonna be kill or be killed out there. You're not gonna get away with only knocking them out. Ya hear me?”

        Fluttershy shook her head. “It doesn't have to be that way, Big Mac. I'm... with Rainbow Power, I'm strong enough to not have to use... lethal force.” She shuddered at the thought. She'd never be able to do that. Not ever!

        Big Macintosh's eyes narrowed into slits. “Now you listen, Fluttershy,” he said. “I'm not lettin' you go out there with big ideas of bein' noble! If you leave them alive on a battlefield, you're just leavin' chances for them to stab ya in the back!”

        Fluttershy held her ground with a glare of steel. “No. I won't.” She flared her wings. “I'll fight! But I won't kill.”

        “Don't be a durned fool!” he growled. But she refused to budge. He sighed. “I'm not gonna convince you, am I?”

        “No,” she said simply. “Sorry.”

        He scowled. “Fine.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “But you'd better make damned sure you don't mess up.” He twisted his mouth into a half frown. “And I get where you’re comin' from. I do. I hope you'll end up right, in the end.”

        Fluttershy nodded, giving him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Big Mac.” She hugged him, and stepped back. “I need to, um, power up now.”

        “Eeyup.” Big Macintosh saluted. “I'll gather you up some pegasi to go with you.”

        “Okay.”

        Fluttershy stepped away from the crowd of ponies. Twilight had warned her not to be standing too close to anyone; the force of a single power up tended to flare, she had said. Inwardly, Fluttershy quavered at the thought of what she was about to do. Fighting for Ponyville... well, yes, she'd done it before, but never like this. Not even the Changeling attack on Canterlot had been as brutal as this would likely be. A small part of her, deep inside, kept trying to tell her that Big Macintosh was right, that she was being a fool. She took that part of herself and threw it down a deep hole. She was Kindness. She wouldn't kill. She wouldn’t be so… so weak.

        She wouldn't.

        She took a deep breath, and focused. In an instant she was lost in the glow of the Rainbow Power cascading through her.

~ * ~

        Okay, Maybe Twilight was lying to herself. Maybe she really did get crushes on ponies. In truth, as she had watched the wing power dial, seeing Fluttershy give the tornado the final burst of power it needed to carry Ponyville's water to Cloudsdale, she'd felt such a surge of pride in her breast. A feeling of “that's my girl,” as it were.

        A feeling that had crumpled like a wadded paper when she saw just how much Fluttershy clung to Rainbow Dash, swooning under every word of praise. Jealousy was not an emotion Twilight was used to experiencing. But jealousy filled her nevertheless. Then naturally guilt followed the jealousy, because what kind of pony, what kind of friend, did it make her if she was so jealous of her friends? A bad pony, and a bad friend, that’s what! Which only left her feeling more bitter at Rainbow and Fluttershy for making her feel like that, then guilt and shame at blaming it on them, and so on and so forth in an infinite loop spiraling ever downward.

So when the parade had reached Ponyville proper, Twilight politely broke off, leaving Spike to celebrate with them, whilst Twilight found a quiet corner of a nearby restaurant's outdoor seating to try to banish the ugly feelings from her heart. Or at least get in a good moping session while she watched them have fun without her.

        “Hey, Twilight!”

        Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin, spilling the drink she'd been nursing as an excuse to stay at the restaurant. “Pinkie Pie!” she growled. “What have I told you about sneaking up on ponies?”

        Pinkie giggled in her typical snorting fashion. “Sorry, Twi! I'm just so so excited to see you again!” She gripped Twilight in a vice-like grip that resembled a hug in much the same way an iron maiden resembles a tanning booth. “What'd I miss?”

        Twilight wriggled out of Pinkie's hooves, grimacing. Pinkie smiled sheepishly, softening Twilight's gaze. She pointed at the crowd not far away. “The pegasi were scheduled to perform the annual water carrying tornado today. And Fluttershy saved them from failing! It was so amazing...” Twilight sighed dreamily, momentarily forgetting how bitter she was feeling.

        “Really?! Wow!” Pinkie's eyes popped. She joined Twilight in watching the celebrating pegasi. “I should totally plan a party to celebrate!”

        Twilight smiled. “A party? So soon? But you just got back from a week of helping your family's annual rock harvest!” Twilight still didn't fully understand petrology, since it was not one of the subjects she enjoyed, but she knew enough to know the rock harvest was extremely hard work. And as frustrating as Pinkie could sometimes be, she was one of Twilight's closest friends. Seeing her again made Twilight realized how much she'd missed her, more than she expected. It was… very helpful right now, to feel that. Instead of jealousy.

        Pinkie glared, setting her hooves on her hips. “Puh-lease Twilight! Parties are my soul, my very purpose for being! Telling me not to throw a party is, is like telling you not to read books, or check out Fluttershy's tail!”

        Twilight grinned, holding up her hooves in defeat. “Okay, okay, point take---wait, what?!” she exclaimed as she finally realized what Pinkie had just said. Her jaw twitched as she sputtered, “What did you just say?!”

        “Oops.” Pinkie backed up a step or two from the twitching unicorn. “Hehe, I, uh, promised Rarity not to say?” She grinned sheepishly.

        Twilight arched an eyebrow cooly. “Pinkie Promise?” she asked in a tone promising danger if Pinkie didn't give her the right answer.

        Picking up on her tone, Pinkie shrugged. “Nopearoni! Rarity just didn't want to upset you! Buuut I guess it's too late for that, huh?”

        The fury fizzled away. “Ugh,” Twilight said. “I don't check out Fluttershy's tail!”

        Pinkie's eyes twinkled merrily. “Sure you do! You check it out like all the time! Just like you checked us all out when you first came to Ponyville!”

        Twilight's mouth fell open. “W-what?! I did not!” This was absurd!

        “Oh yes you diiid!” Pinkie sang. “I specifically remember you looking at my tushie and doing this with your face!” Pinkie bit her lower lip with her upper row of teeth and made an “Mmph” noise. “I don't blame you. I've got a pretty sweet tushie.”

        Twilight snorted in outrage, throwing up her hooves. “I don't believe this. You're... you're making me sound like some kind of pervert!”

        “No way!” Pinkie proclaimed with a dismissive wave. “You're just a healthy young mare who likes other mares that has a healthy interest in their sexual attractiveness. It's all perfectly normal.” She set her hoof to her chin. “Although... you might wanna stop stalking Fluttershy around just so you can check out her tail. That can be a bit weird. I mean, it was cute the first time, when you did it to me, pretending it was ‘for science!’ but the second time it gets just a liiiiiiitle creepy. No offense!”

        “For your information, Pinkie, I am not stalking her!” Twilight hissed. Their conversation was starting to attract attention from the other restaurant patrons and she really, really did not want to have to deal with rumors flying around about her sexual behavior. Again. “I'm sulking.”

        “Ooooh, I gotcha!” Pinkie nodded. “I totally get that. But what's got you sulking?”

        “Because! I...” Twilight stared down at the table, sighing. “I felt... jealous about Rainbow Dash. And Fluttershy. Together.” There. She’d said it. And now that she had, she felt like a fool.

        “Ah hah! So you do like her!” Pinkie cried in triumph.

        Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes. As a friend, Pinkie. Nothing more.” She hoped Pinkie would buy the lie she didn't even believe herself for a moment.

        Pinkie just smiled and shook her head. “Okie dokie lokie, Twilight.” She nudged Twilight with a hoof to the shoulder. “But hey, at some point, you gotta tell her how you really feel, or else it's gonna eat you alive! Believe me, I know. So when you're ready to come clean, come find me! Your Auntie Pinkie'll have plenty of sweet tips to help you catch your mare.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some party plannin' to do!” Pinkie galloped away, humming a merry tune.

        Twilight glared at the retreating pink mare. “Ugh, Pinkie. Why do you have to be...”

        She flopped down in her chair. “So right.”