Fallout: Lavender Wastelander

Raking lines of ruby light peppered the ground around Twilight, nearly hitting the wounded guard stallion both she and Daniel co-levitated in their magic.

Twilight had never liked violence. Even before she'd become the Princess of Friendship, she had always preferred using words over fighting; and when words failed, none of her spells were meant to kill. During the chaos of the changeling invasion of Canterlot, she’d only used stun spells and light blasts of magic.

But as the armored shapes in the night sky descended firing indiscriminately at running ponies, explosives raining down alongside their armored bulks, Twilight knew that true, bloody violence was unavoidable.

However, unless something changed, she needed to make it inside the School of Friendship before she could do anything.

More laser beams popped the dirt around her hooves; causing Twilight to stumble. She looked back to spot Princess Celestia quickly conjuring a shield over the school. It stopped any more power-armored gryphons from getting in, and blocked the explosives fired from the mortars.

That changed things.

Twilight let go of the wounded stallion. Daniel caught himself when he took the soldier’s full weight in his telekinesis. He craned his neck back to her as she slowed and turned towards the attackers.

“Get him to safety, I’ll catch up!” Twilight called to him. He didn’t protest as she summoned her spellbow and took aim at one of the ten gryphons trapped on the wrong side of Princess Celestia’s shield. Her arrow flew out and hit true, slamming into their power armored chest. The gryphon pitched to the side as they fell from the sky. She didn’t hesitate to nock another arrow.

The gryphons were attacking her people with the intent to kill. It was fair game to respond in kind.

Twilight loosed the second arrow, the shaft of light scraping paint off of a gryphon’s helmet as they ducked their head. The gryphon focused their attention on Twilight and responded with rapid-fire globs of green plasma from their weapons. Twilight leapt to the side, her leg brace squealing as she landed close to Princess Celestia, who was making her own defiant stand.

Princess Celestia took aim with her glowing horn. The energy on the spiraling bone built until the air around her thrummed with energy. She lanced the gryphon that Twilight had targeted through the chest with a beam of golden light.

Twilight had only seen such a spell once before, in a potion-induced vision of Nightmare Moon’s betrayal, and the following castle-destroying fight between the Princesses. The gryphon’s power armor failed to stop the spell that could tear castle walls asunder.

The result was nearly the same as vaporized material and chunks fell from the sky.

Twilight couldn’t register the falling pieces as once being part of someone. Too many disparate parts, like a scrambled jigsaw puzzle that had been set on fire.

True, bloody violence.

Twilight clenched her teeth, wishing she could return back to the days where she could gently swat an opponent with magic and the fight was over, rather than having to end their life. She prayed that Princess Celestia’s overwhelming show of force would scare off the others. Let the battle end. Unfortunately, Princess Celestia’s power did not seem to dissuade the gryphons at all, as they returned fire with their harness-mounted weapons. Crimson beams and globs of plasma criss-crossed through the sky towards both Twilight and Princess Celestia, but a midnight blue shield blocked the assault.

“Princess Luna!” Twilight called out as the princess of the night teleported herself within the shield bubble.

“I knew something was amiss when all of the sleepers in Ponyville awoke at once,” Princess Luna said, her black armor gleaming in the silvery moonlight. She glared at the eight remaining gryphons as they landed around them. Their lasers and plasma bolts hammered against her shield. She pointed one of her machete-like swords at the closest one. “Are these SOCOM troops?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied. ‘Yes’ was the most likely answer. They had Enclave power armor, so unless Applejack had gotten some funny ideas and a portal, they had to be SOCOM. “At least they’re focusing on us instead of our troops.”

Twilight glanced back at the school. The guards had made it inside, excluding the dead. Shots fired from the School of Friendship's windows pinged off the gryphons’ armor, impacted against Luna’s shield, or chewed up the mud around their group. Accuracy was still something to be desired with Equestrian soldiers.

“Surrender, Princesses, we have you surrounded!” one of the gryphons yelled over the sound of combat. The mortar shells continued to fall onto Celestia’s shield with explosive bangs that reverberated through the glowing golden dome. Small but noticeable cracks had already formed on the semi-translucent surface. Princess Celestia was no Shining Armor when it came to large-area shields.

Twilight leaned towards Princess Celestia, holding up a hoof to hide her muzzle from view in case one of them could read lips.

“We’re just going to teleport inside, right?” Twilight asked in a stage whisper to be heard over the noise. She noticed a bead glowing in Celestia’s ear, then narrowed her eyes, trying to guess what Princess Celestia was up to. Princess Celestia had her attention to an empty patch of mud behind the speaker.

“It seems that you do have us surrounded,” Celestia said with a calm, resolute tone. Her expression was just as hard and determined. She nodded, the bead in her ear flashing twice as she pressed it off and on. “It’s a shame that you’ve managed to herd all three of us into a very small area.”

Hoofprints appeared in the mud before a dark-gray cylindrical object rolled between the gryphon who had spoken and another gryphon. Then another cylinder appeared between a separate pair, along with a third one dropped between another pair. The three objects came to a rest, and Twilight recognized what they were.

Grenades.

They burst with static. Blue lightning blossomed in a dome, arcing over the metal plates of the power-armored soldiers. Six of the gryphons fell over in smoking, twitching heaps. The last two whipped around, searching for the attackers, only for Princess Luna to wrap her shield around them.

Twilight summoned her bow once more in time with three of the ESS agents dropping their invisibility spells. It was probably the only time Twilight had ever been thankful to see the ESS. She approached the gryphons caught in the magical cage with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna flanking her sides.

“Cheating ponies!” one of the gryphons spat, ripping off his helmet and throwing it at the shield. It bounced off the shield wall and nearly hit the second gryphon, who had removed his helmet as well. The first roughly shoved his talons into a utility pouch on the armor’s belt, not caring that he ripped the pouch in two with his armored claws as he retrieved a fragmentation grenade. The second gryphon retrieved his own grenade.

Twilight’s eyes nearly bugged out of her skull. Without helmets inside the enclosed space, a detonation like that would be suicide.

“Wait! You’re not going to—”

“EQUESTRIA WILL BURN!” they screamed in unison before they hooked the pins in their beaks and pulled. Twilight’s jaw dropped in horror as they released the spoons nearly at the exact same moment. Like they had rehearsed taking their own life before this mission. “Long live the glory of Gryphonstone, death before pony subjugation!”

Princess Luna’s shield turned the force of the explosions back in on themselves. Shrapnel ricocheted off the curves of the bubble encapsulating the pair, turning the interior into a blender. The smoke cleared seconds later, revealing that the zealots were dead. Twilight averted her eyes from the headless corpses each missing a forelimb. Her gaze landed on Celestia, who shook her head sadly.

“Crimson Talons,” Princess Celestia muttered. She punted a dirt clod halfway to the shield surrounding the school as she snarled in a very un-Celestia-like way. “Son of a bitch, leave it to the humans to fight us with proxies!”

Twilight felt like she had been slapped. Steelbeak, the leader of the Crimson Talons, was the one and only gryphon permanently barred from entering Equestria for his past crimes. With human technology and only gryphon attackers so far, it pointed to SOCOM arming and training Gryphonia’s most vocal, violent, and extremist anti-Equestrian gangs.

“Well, we’re not fighting the best of the best humanity has to offer, just well equipped gryphon separatists,” Twilight said as she started off towards the school. She called over her shoulder to the other princesses. “We have to get a counterattack organized before they get bored pounding on the shield and turn on Ponyville.”

With the Crimson Talons given the tools to advance away from angry protests and claw-fights in the streets of their own country, it was likely that many of them had turned their rage onto Equestrian civilians. They needed to hurry.

“Can you still teleport with your damaged horn?” Princess Celestia asked. Twilight nodded, then she jumped as another mortar crashed above. The crack spread further across the golden dome. It wouldn’t last longer than a minute or two by Twilight’s guess. Princess Celestia’s voice dragged Twilight’s attention back to her. “Good, I’m going to cause a distraction. You and Princess Luna teleport over White Tail Woods and try to find those mortars. Look for metal tubes on bipods with multiple crews around them.”

“Sister, what art thou suggesting?” Luna asked pleadingly, slipping back into her old accent as she pointed a blade to the crowd hammering on the outside of the shield. “Thou wouldst distract nearly a dozen more gryphons alone in this grim and terrible night?”

“I have the royal guards,” Princess Celestia said as she shook her head, the bead in her ear glowing again as the strands of mane left exposed by her royal guard helmet turned to flame. She pivoted to face the gryphons pounding on the exterior side of the shield while her eyes glowed like lighthouse beacons. She raised her voice in the Royal Canterlot Tone, her voice repeated back by the school PA system.

“ENEMIES OF EQUESTRIA, THOU HAST COME HERE TO DIE! BEHIND ME ARE THE MARES AND STALLIONS OF A WOUNDED LAND, ANGRY AND DETERMINED TO FIGHT WHAT IS IN FRONT OF THEM TO DEFEND WHAT LAY BEHIND! YOU WILL BLUNT YOUR CLAWS AND BREAK YOUR BEAKS AGAINST US, FOR WE ARE THE DEFENDERS OF EQUESTRIA, AND WE ARE A LIVING, UNYIELDING, AND UNBREAKABLE BASTION AGAINST YOUR EVIL!”

The double doors to the School of Friendship burst open as dozens of fully armed and armored ponies answered Celestia’s call, Deathclaw Joe towering over them. They weren’t the only ones to answer Princess Celestia’s summons. Twilight’s jaw slackened as dawn came from the wrong direction, the very sun dragged backwards across the sky.

The gryphons outside of the shield stopped shooting, their voices raised high enough to be heard over the explosions as they screamed in agony. Night became mid-day bright in less time than it would take to turn off night vision goggles.

One gryphon ripped off his helmet and threw it away, rubbing his eyes, confirming Twilight’s suspicion.

Princess Celestia dropped the shield around the school as she charged at the head of a small army of Equestrians. Part of Twilight wanted to stay and watch the fight unfold, swept up by Princess Celestia’s awe inspiring aura, but she had been given a mission to do.

She turned to Princess Luna and shared a nod.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight appeared high over White Tail Woods with Princess Luna beside her. The forest below them was a multi-acre, irregular rectangle opposite from Ponyville to the Everfree Forest, leaving the town flanked on two sides by woodland.

From her high vantage point, Twilight didn’t even need to fly around to spot the forest clearing now that it was broad daylight. Seven gryphon in dark black power armor occupied the clearing. Three teams of two worked the mortars. One gryphon walked between them with a large metal backpack fitted with antennas.

“What do you think the mortar teams are doing?” Twilight asked Princess Luna, pointing to the one with the antenna backpack with her pistol. They were directing the other mortar teams to reorient the green metal bipoded tubes.

If the mortar shells had a consistent propellant charge, then after estimating mortar range from White Tail Woods to the School of Friendship, the new angles and direction the mortars were facing would send the shells…

“They’re about to hit the hospital!” Twilight yelled. Pinkie Pie and dozens of burn and radiation victims from Canterlot and Cloudsdale were in danger. Twilight didn’t spare any more time to think, she acted.

She appeared between a pair of gryphons. Pushing her healing horn to its limit, Twilight summoned her spell bow and fired it point blank into the helmet of one gryphon as she telekinetically shoved the barrel of her pistol into a gap in the other gryphon’s armor plating.

She fired six times. The lead slugs burrowed deep into the gryphon’s heart and lungs as Twilight shot through the rubber covering their armpit. Princess Luna appeared behind the middle of another pair, her twin swords arcing away from each other like a pair of opening scissors. Her two targets collapsed, missing their heads.

Princess Luna then pulled the same trick from before and wrapped the other mortar team in a magic bubble. It left Twilight with only one target. She aimed her bow at the gryphon with the backpack. Her arrow penetrated their chest with ease, sending them sprawling over as they clutched the magical shaft of purple light.

Twilight stomped towards the wounded gryphon. She was halfway there before a loud krump signalled that the ones trapped by Princess Luna had recreated the other gryphons’ suicide-pact from just a few minutes prior.

To keep the one she was approaching from performing the same trick, Twilight telekinetically emptied every pocket of the wounded gryphon. They gave no resistance nor moved to stop her. It was only as Twilight made it to within a few hooves of the stricken gryphon that she realized they had already succumbed to the chest wound.

Twilight turned her attention to the backpack. It was dedicated to a single massive radio, covered in dials and knobs. Wanting to listen in on the enemy communications, Twilight removed her helmet and picked up the telephone-like receiver.

She winced as her ears were assaulted by unfiltered, angry Gryphic mixed with the Ponish words that had no translation. Most ponies didn’t bother learning Gryphic, as it was nearly impossible for most ponies to speak since they lacked the ability to flawlessly make both avian and feline noises. But Twilight wasn’t most ponies.

“You pony-screwing featherbrains, we need those pony-screwing bombs now! The hospital is too well defended! Some pony-screwing pony has a grenade machine gun! Unless you drop those pony-screwing bombs right now, we’re leaving this to the humans and you pony-screwers are staying behind with them!”

Twilight furrowed her brow. She needed to use their confusion to her advantage. She looked around, her eyes landing on a piece of paper on the ground by the dead radio gryphon. Twilight’s eyes widened.

“Give me your pony-screwing coordinates then so I don’t hit you!” Twilight yelled as her horn glowed. The magic wrapping her throat forced her voice box to roughly mimic the combination of chirps and meows that composed most Gryphic words. Like the word ‘krelk’, a derogatory word for a gryphon who has relations with a pony. It seemed to be the favorite insult of the gryphon on the other end of the line.

“What are you—” Princess Luna asked, but Twilight silenced her by levitating the radio operator’s map of Ponyville off the ground. The map was separated into nice, easy to read grid squares with ranges to targets already annotated.

<>~<>~<>

Steelbeak slammed the receiver back onto the receptacle of the backpack radio carried by one of his loyal soldiers. The plan was falling apart before his very eyes, and he was surrounded by incompetence. The mortar team couldn’t even remember the coordinates of where they WEREN’T supposed to bomb, let alone where they were actually supposed to fire.

He had to micromanage everything. And of course the humans had given him bad information. Princess Celestia wasn’t a depressed, apathetic wreck waiting to die like the humans had suggested, but instead she had rallied her troops and joined the combat.

And if the panicked reports were true, then there was also a male alicorn fighting alongside Celestia. The ponies had far more fight in them than he had expected after the poor showing from the border guards. He glowered at the third story window of the hospital.

He caught a flash of pink before another wave of detonations chewed at the front of the treeline he and his soldiers were hiding behind. They needed the extra protection, since most of the power armor was doled out to the soldiers dealing with the pony troops.

“It was like that pony knew we were coming,” Steelbeak cursed. “Where are those pony-screwing mortars?”

Three cracks came from deeper within White Tail Woods. Then three more. And three more again.

He grabbed the radio and yelled into it, just as the first shells started to land far too short of the hospital.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight counted down the mortar shells levitated in her magic. She dropped them one after the other into the tube. Luna did the same, her magic strong enough to operate two of the weapons at once. “Five, four, three, two—”

“You pony-screwing idiots, you’re dropping them right on us, stop firing!”

“Thanks for the cooradiants,” Twilight responded in Ponish.

She dropped the last shell in.

“Traitor! Equestria will bu—” he yelled, but cut out mid-sentence as sixty millimeters of explosive packed fury landed too close to him.

“Maybe,” Twilight said to the static-filled connection. Even if the gryphon on the other end was dead, she knew they would be listening in. Colonel Autumn had said that they always were. “No matter what dirty or underhanded tricks you use, we will learn from it and take down as many of you with us as we can. General Beckett, make peace with your preferred deity because you will see them soon.”

The static cut out as the connection terminated. No one held the line open to listen in.