Fallout Equestria: Crystal Reborn

Chapter 9: The New Canterlot Republic

"I'd like to be a tree."

I woke up to the sound of sirens going off, I jumped out of bed and scrambled to the door, I looked up at the sky saw a giant airship was flying over the city. It was a large flying battleship attached to a zeppelin balloon. I've never seen anything like this. It was like a flying fortress, there were large guns mounted all over it.

"Um... Hello? Is this thing on, oh! Attention everypony. This is Fluttershy of the New Canterlot Republic. We come in peace and..." The voice began to trail off. That sounds just like Fluttershy. The voice returned "We will be docking at the Crystal Palace Airfield. We mean you no harm. We seek only to aid and protect you," the palace airfield is where the Minutemare's are. Heliotrope was standing right behind me.

"I see... They use Fluttershy's voice to preach peace while they drop bombs on us."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The New Canterlot Republic is a war zone right now, ever since their founding, the cities under their control are not there by choice, but by force. From what we hear from traders, the Republic is in the middle of a civil war between them and the Legion of Celestia. The whole Equestrian Wastes is a warzone between the raiders, the rogue alicorns, and the band of legion raiders. I heard over the radio that the Minutmare's took over the Palace."

"Yes they did, I aided them and that's how I met the Quartz family. Rose Quartz couldn't bring herself to fight me. Smokey Quartz stayed behind to watch over Rose Quartz after we were knocked unconscious," I replied. I kicked open the door and ran to the radio on the table and tuned it.

"This is Bullseye calling all Minutemare patrols back to the palace. We have come under attack by some flying doohicky. We have no idea what it is but it ain't friendly. We can't hold out for much longer, hurry please!" The message began to loop again. The sound of gunfire was prominent throughout the message.

"We need to leave now! Silver! Ember! Let's go!" I yelled.

"Not so fast there princess, we'd never make it in time. It took us a few days to get here. With all the rubble blocking the way it's going to take us some time to get around, not to mention a building almost crushed us," Milky interjected.

"Milky in order for me to save our friends back at the palace I'm going to have to fly there alone."

"I could perhaps teleport you their... but I could only teleport three of you... or I could teleport with you and lend my support, knowing the Republic they probably brought at least three alicorn divisions with them.

"I can't possibly ask you to join us in a battle. You have a family to take care of and besides..." I was cut off.

"Milky could stay here and watch the fillies while we go, although we would be leaving two behind," she added.

"Heliotrope our sisters are back their not to mention our mother. I should go, I need to help them," Milky exclaimed.

"Milky Quartz this is no time to argue, only the Destroyer could ever defeat more than one of us at a time. Normal ponies are no match for them but maybe I could get them to stop," Milky was about to interject but remained silent. Alicorns must be tough if they are this hard to kill.

"Heliotrope, can you teleport, Ember, Octavia, and Milky? If you can do that me, you, and Silver can fly there. It should only be a few hours of flight. That way Milky and Octavia can help out with the fight and Ember can tend to the wounded.

"I can but I won't be able to use my magic for a while, it's easy to teleport with me included but to cast a teleportation bubble around them and back will cost me a lot of magic," Heliotrope responded.

"Ember, Octavia!" I yelled, "Ember came walking out of the guest room yawning with Silver following close behind. "Ember we are going to teleport you back to the castle with Octavia and Milky. We are going to fly to have to fly there. We will try to get there as quick as we can, gather your things. Octavia, I need you to keep Ember and Milky safe. I need you to stay with Milky and help engage her targets, got it."

"I understand, I will help in any way possible," Octavia said. Ember grabbed her saddlebags and stood in front of us.

"Do be safe now please," Ember said. I looked at her and smiled.

"Good luck princess. May Celestia keep you safe," Milky put a hoof on my shoulder then stood next to Ember.

"Alright, I can't promise that the teleportation will get you to the castle but I can say it will get you near it. Good luck we will meet you there," Heliotrope responded. Her horn began to glow, it was a nice soft pink color. A sphere of color began to engulf, Ember, Octavia, and Milky and just like that, they were gone. It's odd seeing someone teleport. Here one second, then gone the next... Just like death. Heliotrope began to walk to her closet and opened the door. There she donned a battlesaddle with armor that stretched out along the wings. I noticed bombs were hanging from the underside of her battlesaddle and on one side she had an anti-machine rifle attached. Heliotrope gave me a battlesaddle and attached three small bombs underneath them. "When we encounter them drop these on top of them before we land. All you have to do is pull the cord here," she pointed at a small cord by my face. I nodded and we walked outside, Heliotrope wrote a note and left it on the table.

"Well we better get a move on," Silver Wire said tightening her saddlebags. I nodded and we took to the sky.

I noticed quickly that I began to lag behind the other two. I wasn't used to flying let alone flying with bombs and my saddlebags strapped to me. I tried to speed up but just became more tired. I began to look down at the city below. It was empty. The only gunshots I heard were coming from the castle and from the battleship raining fire on from down below.

"Hey Heliotrope, why don't we bomb the airship?" I asked.

She shook her head, "These bombs won't do enough damage to a war machine like that, these are anti-personal bombs meant to be dropped on ponies. In order to hurt that thing we will need a big missile of some kind."

After about an hour of travel, we came closer to the castle. The fighting seemed fierce even from far away. Once we arrived Silver broke off from us and landed on the balcony to help with the fight inside. Tons of ponies swarmed the airfield and we began to dive towards them. I saw a group of ponies hiding behind some broken airplane parts. I pulled my cord and the bombs dropped. As they fell they emitted a sharp whistle, I heard an explosion. I couldn't look back. I met back up with Heliotrope and landed near some Minutemares hiding behind a barricade.

"What's happening?" I yelled.

"They came out of nowhere, these small ships started dropping them off and they began shooting at us when we approached them. They have been using that battleship to shell us when we try to leave the castle. We are all spread thin and they just keep coming!" one of the Minutemares responded.

All of a sudden a pony came running at us and jumped over our cover, Heliotrope shot him from near point-blank. The bullet tore through him with ease. He dropped to the ground and I peeked my head over the barricade to see what's out there. It seems we lost the battle out here as the soldiers were killing and wounded survivors.

"Attention ponies on the airfield. I ask you to please surrender, we mean you no harm, we just wish to speak with you. If you surrender we promise we will help you live a better life," Fluttershy voice emanated from the battleship. I looked up and saw one of the cannons aim at the castle. "Please surrender, I really don't want to do this."

"Heliotrope we need to stop that cannon!" We both flew up at it. The cannon fired and my horn began to glow. I used my magic to try to slow the shell down but it wasn't working. I wasn't strong enough. Heliotrope used her magic to help me push it back. It just wasn't enough. The shell kept getting closer I put up my hooves and pushed against it using all my strength and magic.

"Cadance, only this once will I lend you my strength, I will not allow these invaders to destroy the Empire as I did." Sombra's voice echoed through my head.

"For once I think we agree," Cadenza's voice followed Sombra's.

My horn began to glow black as Sombra's power flowed through me. The shell began to stop and as I gripped it and threw it back at the ship, a roar was let out of the shell as if it were a monster, then Sombra's shadow form encased the shell laughing. As it hit the ship a dark wave of energy flooded over the ship causing its guns to go silent. Pieces of the ship began to rain down from the sky and for a moment there was silence. NCR and Minutemare soldier's alike were baffled by the power they had just witnessed.

I flew up into the air, using my royal Canterlot voice I yelled, "Ponies of the NCR under Celestia Wartime Convention you will drop your weapons and surrender, failure to comply will result in the complete annihilation of you forces.

NCR soldiers began to drop their weapons and surrender. I heard a cheer from our side, our soldiers celebrating their hard-fought victory. The Minutemare's rushed out to collect the prisoners of war. Then several small aircraft launched from the battleship.

"Hold fast my troops. Don't shoot unless shot at!" I yelled. Then a dropship landed and pony waving a white flag stumbled out. I flew down to greet her. Then a yellow mare with a long pink mane with gray streaks stepped out of the aircraft.

"Oh my, Princess Cadance? Is that you?" Fluttershy asked.

"Fluttershy? But how? I have so many questions. How did you survive the war? How are you alive 200 years later? What happened to Twilight and the rest of your friends?"

"Now, now Princess Cadance, patience we will get to that later. I apologize for the Republics attack on the castle. It wasn't my intention for them to hurt anypony. We were sent by the leader of the NCR as an expeditionary force to the north. Unfortunately, I'm not that capable of a commander in battle. I was hoping for no bloodshed."

"Sorry about your ship Fluttershy, I think I went a little overboard on the damage..."

"Oh no Princess, you were rightfully defending your castle from foreign invaders I completely understand."

"How are you going to fix the damages. The shell I threw back seems to have done more damage than intended.

"Well with your permission we would like to dock here and use the facilities here to repair our ship. I heard that this place had a huge repair bay for large attack zeppelins back in the old days."

"I have no issue with you using our repair bay but what about your wounded?"

"Oh don't worry about that either Princess," she pointed over at the ponies setting up four strange pylons around the airfield. Then a loud sound almost that of a magical explosion cut through the air. I looked around and saw the wounded begin to stand, their wounds completely healed.

"Fluttershy... What just happened?" I looked around and ponies who were fatally wounded were healed, ponies who had been cut in half by explosions have been repaired and mended, gunshot wounds were healed, cuts scrapes and even the energy of all the ponies were restored.

"This was the original purpose of megaspells, it was meant to heal those wounded on the battlefield. Much to my dismay however the dead will remain dead. Pinkie Pie stole the plans and wanted to develop them into a weapon to use against the Zebra's. Twilight wanted to find a way to end the war fast so Pinkie, Twilight, and Applejack modified my healing spell into a city-destroying weapon," Fluttershy looked down at the ground. "Equestria... My home... My friends... All destroyed because of me..." Her voice trailed off. I gave her a hug.

"Would you like to go inside for some..." I paused. "I guess tea isn't a thing anymore."

"Actually when the NCR raided the Enclave Cloud city over Ponyville, we found that they grew tea and other spices. I actually brought some with me."

"Shall we head to the meeting room then?" I asked, Fluttershy nodded, and off we went, the NCR and Minutemare's began to collect and count their dead.

Once we were inside the meeting room the negotiations began. Fluttershy had her attendant bring us tea and we began to talk.

"Fluttershy, the amount of damage to the castle is immeasurable. The times haven't been kind to her, especially with the battleship damaging the surrounding area's the underground tunnels and storage's may be damaged beyond repair."

"I'm sorry that the NCR was so foolish to think that the ponies here were nothing but raiders. Most ponies consider it rare to see a Pegasus much less a flying battleship. As far as we knew our losses are around three hundred fifty who are dead, the megaspell saved so many lives, I'm afraid that without it we would have lost so much more."

"It's good to know your losses were minimal but we as of right confirm around one hundred twenty-five dead, both civilians and soldiers. Lots of ponies came to the castle after the Minutemare's established it as safe haven. Fluttershy our population before that including soldiers and the families was only three hundred. Almost half of the population was wiped out and the rest are traumatized," I rubbed my head with my hooves, I looked out the window and saw the ponies salvaging the destroyed houses and burying the dead.

"Cadance, these losses here dwarf the losses of the NCR's last major battle against the Legion of Celestia. In the Third Battle of Shatteredhoof, the casualties on the first day numbered in the thousands on both sides. Shatteredhoof is the only fortress repelling the Legion of Celestia from entering the Capital of Junction town. The battle has been in a stalemate for the last three months."

"As of right now, Equestria's issues aren't my primary concern. The Griffon Kingdom kidnapped Shining Armor and I need to find him."

"Oh my... I'm so sorry I didn't know. I know what its like to lose somepony you love," she walked up beside me and hugged me. "While I'm here I'll help in whatever way possible. Regina told us to win the favor and help the ponies of the Crystal Wastes," Fluttershy pulled out a map out of her saddlebags. "We are here," she pointed. "This is Griffonestone, the capital of the Griffons. If anything Shining Armor should be there. The battleship with the damage we sustained..." she began to think. "I believe we need about three weeks to at least patch the breach in the hull and another week to fix the weapons and engines."

"What do we need to repair it?"

"The airfield should have everything we need to fix it. We will send engineers to collect what we need and I will send another squad of engineers to help rebuild and build power supplies. I also will have my troops work and train with yours to increase the effectiveness."

"Alright that sounds good let get to it!" I yelled excitedly.

Footnote: Level up.
Perk added: Magical Surge- Your large scale magic is power is so strong and so uncontrollable it will surge out of control increasing the damage of the spell while damaging the user.