Harmony: Equestria at War

Second Celestial Era, March of Year 10

Eclipse continued to spread his destruction along his path, annihilating anything he had within his vision. At first, he was at the outskirts of major cities, which didn’t affect to lands too much. However, as he reached a major city – Ponyville, things started to get serious. His rogue actions drew the attention of the 2 Royal Sisters at Canterlot, as an emergency. A quick response force was sent to take him down before he does any actual harm at any of the citizens there. The QRF was losing at first, a few of the members were injured by Eclipse’s dark magic. The team, however, had quickly adapted to Eclipse’s attacking patterns and his defection in fighting. With a few rolls and dodges, the team had successfully subdued the rogue stallion and knocked him out.

By the time his consciousness was restored, he was in an unfamiliar place. Everything around him looked so fancy and valuable. Crystals, malachites, gemstones and marbles decorated the large room. His power was still weak after his awakening, so he can’t do any damage to anything. He realised that his bondage was gone and he could move his body freely.

“You’re awake. That’s good. Tell me, why and how did you reach this land with such destructive powers?” A female voice started from a short distance ahead of Eclipse. As he looked forward, two majestic figures were sitting there on their jewelled thrones. The taller one with white coat asked him the question.

“What is this place…? Why am I here?” Eclipse however, had no awareness to his surrounding at all. The dark calling was the only thing making him destroy.

“You know, you had caused quite some trouble for our quick response force members. They said you weren’t easy to deal with. And with powers like this, I reckon you’d like to have a way to use it, in the correct way, of course. We Equestrians could really use a stallion like you in our nation defence.” Her horned glowed with a golden yellow aura. Eclipse felt dizzy and week as he sensed a bright yellow beam collided with his forehead. It was a purge spell, to drive away the dark calling within Eclipse, and locked away his previous memories.

“Now you’re good to go. I would very sincerely invite you into our national defence units. You looked like a good flyer, so I’d recommend you to go and give it a try. The main base of Wonderbolts are in Cloudsdale, a floating cloud island for pegasi.” She informed Eclipse. “Now go. I hope to see you as one prestigious and tough stallion in the team one day.”

Eclipse stepped out of the castle dour as he followed a guard to the gate. He sat down on a bench near a park outside the castle and stared at the sky. He was trying to make his mind clear to consider her offer. After the purging spell, he had lost all the memory of him destructing the lands. He was quite literally starting a new life.

“Well then. I guess I didn’t have a choice anyway.” He sighed as he stood back up. He stretched his wings and flew towards the direction he was instructed to head towards. As he flew high in the sky, he looked around at the beautiful scenery of the Equestria lands. It’s wide, peaceful and Majestic. Everything seemed to be acting with one another harmonically. No chaos, no disturbance, just calm and peace.

It wasn’t a long flight from Canterlot to Cloudsdale as the two locations are rather close to each other at that time, thanks to the movement of the floating city. Eclipse landed on the cloud-made floor of the city. Around him are the whiteness of fluffy and clean clouds, and the vivid and lively flow of rainbows making their way down like a waterfall.

It was clear for where he should go – the Wonderbolts Headquarters. It didn’t take him look to find his destination. A walled facility with flags of the Wonderbolts symbol hanging all around the facility. He didn’t quite know where he should continue going next, so he stumbled his way to a checkpoint.

The guards on duty stopped him from going in. “Halt. You’re trespassing here. You better clear out.”

“Uhh, I was wondering where should I head for joining the military, as Princess Celestia had sent me to.”

“Oh! you’re that nominee that Her Highness mentioned to our Captain earlier this day. Please forgive my rudeness. Please, follow me. I will lead you to our Captain. He is expecting you.” The guard apologised after knowing who the trespasser was. He led Eclipse straight into the Headquarters to an office inside the main building. The guard knocked on the office door for Eclipse.

“Come in. This better be important.” A deep male voice responded.

The guard opened the door and signalled Eclipse to step in. Eclipse did as the guard instructed and the guard shut the door behind Eclipse. Inside the room was one grey-coat stallion with a Captain cap on. That stallion looked like a veteran for sure, as he had 4 shiny badges hanging on his coat in front of his chest. He looked not young for sure, as apparently, the marks of war and justice had scarred his face.

He was scribbling something on some sort of documents at that moment. Eclipse stood there without moving a muscle, or moving his mouth. He just looked at the stallion in front of him, waiting for a response.

The stallion lowered his pen and raised his head to look at Eclipse with his old, velvet eyes.

“So you are Her Highness’ new protégé huh? Didn’t seem like much to me. Tell me kid, what’s your name?”

“Uhh, name’s Eclipse… sir.” He replied to the stallion. He didn’t really know how to react to his questions.

“Now listen closely. My name is Captain A. Windspear, the one stallion that is in charge of all of Wonderbolts. You may be nominated by the royalty, but I am not going soft on you. Understand rookie?”

“Yes, sir. I will do my best.”

Second Celestial Era, July of Year 13

2 years had passed since Eclipse first joined the Wonderbolts, and Eclipse had proven himself to be a fast learner and a true soldier. Victory after victory, his team had won numerous battles against rebellions and threats all around Equestria. He had proven himself to be loyal and reliable under command of Captain Windspear. He was promoted to lieutenant between that time, as a symbol of his ability and service. As he had earned Windspear’s trust and respect, Windspear treated Eclipse more like a friend now.

Little did anyone knew, Eclipse’s big brother over in Shadow Realm, had already located Eclipse, and was about to deliver his plans to retrieve his brother back to the realm.

It was one typical day in Equestria as Eclipse patrolled around the base with his best buddy Sky Striker. Everything looked fine, and Eclipse was enjoying his duties of walking around and chatting with his pal. Not until the sirens went off, at least.

Eclipse and Striker headed back into the Headquarters upon hearing the sirens. Captain Windspear, who had been a good friend with Eclipse after the years, pulled Eclipse over and prepared for the mission. Sky Striker rendezvoused with the rest of Alpha Team, awaiting for further instructions from the Captain.

“Alright there Lieutenant Eclipse, now listen up. Base Frostbite at the Crystal Mountains had been ambushed by unknown force. They’re losing ground and we are sent to assist them. You will be the Second-in-charge of this operation and lead the Alpha Team with me. Now get to it!”

“Roger that!” He headed into the armoury to get his equipment at once. Within a minute, he rushed back out with his battle attire and a fully loaded assault rifle and returned to Windspear, waiting for his next order.

“Flying will not be fast enough, so the plan here is to flying in with the pave low and drop off from the air! Take out any hostile in sight, and destroy the armoury there if we couldn’t fight them back. We can’t afford to let those weapons land onto enemy hooves.” Windspear continued to explain his plans as he hopped onto a Pave Low helicopter. After the Alpha team that he was leading all went aboard, they departed from Cloudsdale towards their objective.

Around 10 minutes on their flight, they could already see the Crystal Empire from afar. The crystal castle shined a bright white aura as they flew past it, with a bright light blue dome of protective aura covering the entire Empire. They were supposed to jump off the chopper and land in the base after around 5 minutes as they approach Base Frostbite in the mountain range, but the enemies had thought one step ahead. 3 figures flashed by the chopper and flew away. No one saw what happened properly, but it was something bad for sure. Within seconds the chopper’s rotor wings failed with black smoke coming out from it and the aircraft started to shake vigorously. The craft went unstable within seconds and they were forced to jump off.

“Mayday mayday, this is Winglet 2-2, we’re going down!”

Windspear led the team as well as the pilots to jump off the aircraft, and was the last to jump off. The chopper was engulfed by flames within seconds, just as Windspear cleared out. They all unfolded their wings and quickly regroup in the air. Eclipse reached out a limb to pull Windspear over towards the team.

“Alright gents, change of plans. We will land dead centre in the base. Provide supporting fire for our colts down there, and clear out the site. Let’s move!” Windspear gave the team one last briefing as they fell through the sky.

They readied their weapons. Eclipse felt the adrenaline building up inside him as his heart beat faster and he started to sweat, even though it was ice cold up the mountains. There was a snowstorm brewing up, as they all felt the wind became stronger and stronger. They all tried their best to stay together in the wind, but eventually the wind out-powered them, and flung them off one by one. The remaining ones started to lose control of their direction as they rolled and spun helplessly in the air. Windspear grabbed onto Eclipse the moment before both of them landed hard on the ground. The snow had helped muffled their fall, and both of them survived.

Eclipse stood up and shook himself awake right after the impact as he heard gunfire all over the place. He was alright and didn’t got hurt from the fall. Windspear, however, found himself incapacitated as he was unable to get on his legs, which also hurt a lot at the same time. Eclipse reached Windspear, only to see Windspear’s hind legs slightly distorted. It seemed like that Windspear had crashed onto the ground too hard that he broke his legs.

“I’m sorry mate, but I guess you’ll have to carry me. Set me down somewhere that I can land a clear shot.” Windspear said, as he gritted his teeth in pain. He grabbed his Mark 14 rifle that got flung off a meter away from him.

Eclipse dragged Windspear behind a pile of crates and tried to contact the rest of the team.

“Alpha Team, this is Alpha 0-2. Does anyone copy?” He waited for a response, but he heard nothing but silence. Not even a slight static could be heard. He tried again, but the results were the same, utter eeriness.

“Ahh this is not happening…” Eclipse mumbled to himself. He realised that with no one around to help him and Windspear, he would need to complete the mission on his own. May their highnesses bless his team.

“The storm is too strong lad. I don’t think much signal can be transmitted through this blizzard. Sigh, let’s just hope they’re alright.” Windspear suggested, as he peeped around the corner of the crates with his Mark 14 Enhance Battle Rifle, looking for enemies.

Eclipse activated his magic field sensor on his well modified ACR. The amount of dark magic individuals was surprisingly high. He took a deep breath, thinking what his next move would be. One impulsive move, and he would perish. He knew he would have to do this on his own, but he never had a choice.

Taking advantage of his cover, those standing within his vision dropped dead before they even knew what happened. Windspear pointed at a warehouse, signalling Eclipse to destroy it. If they couldn’t make use of the weapons to expel their intruders, neither could the enemies.

With a skilful roll, he neared the warehouse. A few bodies lied on the ground with puddles of blood beneath them. Those bodies were the members of Alpha Team, all of them. Their navy-blue coats were covered in red, along with lots of bullet holes and fatal slashes on their skin. One of the faces caught his attention, which he took a look. He was shocked, it was Sky Striker, lying on the ground, soaked in blood, dead. There was a bullet hole He took their dog tags and continued to proceed. There wasn’t anything he could do for them now. Their death, however, gave Eclipse a hint of the danger ahead.

The door was still locked and intact. It seemed like the team had failed to even bust through the door. Eclipse tried to scan through the walls for any enemies, or any allies alive, but his sensor went glitchy and finally unresponsive. Without any support or other aids, he was at high risk of being surprise attacked or outnumbered.

Without any door breaching tools, it was impossible for him to breach through the door by simply bashing on it. He looked around for anything useful and searched his teammates’ bodies. With a quick search, he found his tool of busting into the warehouse – a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, owned by Sky Striker. A few shells should be enough to break the warehouse door hinge.

The hinges were broken and Eclipse bucked the door opened. Before anyone inside could react, he sent fatal shots right through their brains and neutralised any resistance inside. There wasn’t much left in the main room of the warehouse, apparently, it had already been raided before he came in. The remaining was either on fire or broken. Gladly those were just food and some living essentials, rather than some high-end weaponries.

“How? If the door wasn’t opened for all this time, then how did they get in here? Can they teleport or something?” Eclipse was dead confused, but he quickly shook himself awake again and continued the mission. He headed downstairs into the armoury cautiously. The armoury was sealed with magical barriers and should therefore be impenetrable. Inside the armoury were dozens of armoured vehicles and missiles, which are only accessible by technicians and government authorities. Those equipment was very expensive, but all must be destroyed.

He searched around and opened the door with a key card and retina of a dead technician. His body was still warm, indicating the enemies haven’t been in here for long, and he still had a chance to destroy the valuable resources before they landed into the enemies’ hooves. He placed a strap of thermite onto a ballistic missile and activated the charge. He ran outside as fast as he could and returned to Captain Windspear. He pulled Windspear up on his back and carried him away from the blast radius.

As they moved away from their original position, more enemy infantry closed in towards them quickly. Eclipse had no choice but to drop Windspear down from his back and deal with the incoming forces.

Enemy troops fell one by one, giving him some breathing room to take Windspear to safety. Eclipse didn’t sense one thing however, was that one sniper standing on a watchtower, had lined up a clear shot at Eclipse. Eclipse was oblivious about it, but Windspear saw the strobe of light from the sniper’s rifle scope. Windspear knew countering him with his rifle would be too slow, so he grabbed Eclipse’s thermite detonator from his belt.

He held down the trigger, triggering an instant explosion from the warehouse. The warehouse burst into flames in the blink of an eye along with a massive shockwave that took the watchtower, the sniper and anyone unfortunately within the explosion radius with it. The sniper however, still managed to fire a shot at his target. The bullet didn’t reach Eclipse’s heads, but it still hit his right wing. The bullet was an explosive incendiary round, which caused a mini-explosion, following a small burn on his wing. His wing almost broke off in one whole piece. Eclipse yelled in pain as he felt his wing got hit. He dropped down onto ground growling in pain. The feathers on his wings caught on flames, and he rolled on the floor desperately trying to extinguish the fire and stop the burning.

“Alpha team, this is command. Do you copy, over.” The radio transmitted a blurry and unclear message with heavy statics. Eclipse, still drowned in pain of his wing injury, was unable to reply.

Windspear grabbed his transmitter and replied for reinforcement. “Command, this is Alpha 0-1. We are combat ineffective here! Multiple KIA and 2 wounded. Requesting immediate medivac, over!”

“Roger that Alpha 0-1, reinforcements are on the way ETA 10 mikes. Just hang tight. Command out.”

Windspear looked at Eclipse as he held on to his rifle. Eclipse was lying down screaming in pain. With Eclipse no longer able to fight, he must defend them both until reinforcements arrive.

There was nothing to be heard for a good 5 minutes but the flames burning in the warehouse, the blowing cold wind and Eclipse’s growling. Windspear never let his guard down for a single second. He could even hear his own breath and feel his heart pounding. Although he felt pain in his legs, it wasn’t intolerable, at least for him.

However, just as he thought things had calm down, he heard speaking voices and hoof steps becoming louder and louder as they neared them.
Windspear held tight on his gun as he nervously tried to see who were coming at them. The storm had slowly calmed down that he can see more details than just silhouette of things. A black figure walked towards the two stallions along with a couple of other enemy soldiers. And the next thing he knew was that, his vision went dimmer and dimmer and finally totally unconscious.

Eclipse experienced something similar to his Captain, but he slowly restored his mind. He looked around with blurry vision. It didn’t look like anywhere familiar for him. It looked like a luxurious palace with gold and crystals, and was far warmer than the field. The ground wasn’t freezing cold cement, but warm and soft carpets. Eclipse’s vision slowly became clear once again, making it easier for him to look around. He tried to bear the pain on his back and stand up, but he can barely do so. The black figure slowly approached him with a blade in his hoof. Eclipse felt defenseless without his gun, and started to breath heavily and rapidly. His heart beat so hard as if it could jump out of his chest at any second.

The figure stopped within arm’s reach in front of Eclipse. The figure slowly faded in with neon blue and turned from a blur of pale black smoke to a stallion. With a deep voice, he started,

“ Remember your brother?”

Eclipse had no idea what was happening, how did he ended up in this place, or who this stallion was. His mind was practically a blank, dead confused.

“What…”

The stallion smirked.

“Oh look at you, brother. Serving the lights for too long and you have forgot who you are already, have you? Doesn’t matter though, I can remind you about something…”

With that, his horn glowed a neon blue aura and Eclipse felt like something hitting his head. A sudden flush of images and memories filled his mind of his previous destruction and his birth, something Celestia was trying to hide from him forever with the purge spell.

Eclipse was stunned and horrified about the images he saw within his mind. This was him? A savage beast that was born for nothing but cause utter destruction? His body was frozen in place as he witnessed the long-lost memories.

The figure felt like that was enough to recall his memory, so he stopped. His horn’s aura faded away, and Eclipse was drawn back to the real-world vision from his mind.

“Who are you…” Eclipse shivered a little as he asked the stallion.

“Me? I’m your brother Shadestep, silly. Or else why do you think I would target you to replay your memories?” The stallion replied.

“What do you want from me? I would never be a savage, uncivilised beast that annihilate anything in sight. And I am sure as hell I won’t submit to my enemies!” With a portrait tone, Eclipse declared.

“No no no, my brother. I am not a savage beast like you mentioned. I’m here to find you, lead you, guide you. You will be restored as a Prince of the Shadows. I used to be one of those beasts you say, but I realised who I am, what my duties would be. Eclipse, my brother, let us be allies.”

“And why should I believe you on this? Just because you can mess with my memories with your fancy little magic doesn’t make your point valid.” Eclipse was a calm and logical stallion, and would not easily fall for daft hoax or anything like that.

“How about this?” Shadestep chuckled. His hooves were covered in purple and lime green beams of light that shot towards Eclipse. Eclipse felt a sudden powerfulness building up inside him, making him feel much stronger and tougher than he had ever been.

“Now try a few spells, I assume?” Shadestep guided Eclipse as he activated Eclipse’s true inner power that was once held captive by the purge spell. It was a step of taming a wild beast to make good use with his power. Eclipse tried some deflecting spells and realised how much power he had.

“Now, welcome back to the family, Your Royal Highness. Bring this message of alliance back to your lands and let us see both realm grow, hmm? Now go get that wing fixed up.” Shadestep spoke to Eclipse before he vanished in front of Eclipse with a boop on his nose.

He was quite confused by everything that happened. He turned around, only to see a purple-framed portal leading straight back to the mountains appearing right in front of his very eyes. He could even feel the chilling winds blowing towards him through the portal. Windspear was still lying in front of the portal motionlessly. Eclipse, now feeling stronger, pulled on Windspear’s blood-stained uniform and landed him on his own back. He trotted back to the mountains, before the portal shut off behind them. At this time the reinforcements had arrive on scene and all “enemy” forces had driven out of the base.

Two privates approached Eclipse and Windspear in a hurry.

“Sorry we are late, Lieutenant. We’ll take care of this place for now. Now get on the chopper, we’ve got medics here.” A private spoke as he helped Eclipse get Windspear onto a chopper. Eclipse remained silent for this entire time as they boarded the chopper and took off from the mountains.

The chopper took off as the medic bandaged up Eclipse’s wounded wing. Eclipse stared out the open door of the chopper at the raided base. Even after flying a good distance from the base, a big patch of red – mixed with blood and flames – could be seen from his position.

Current War Casualties: Allied Force - 200
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17th July, Year 13 of 2nd C.E. Snow Storm

Dear Diary,

So much had happened today. It seemed like the Royal Sisters had tried to seal something away from me, as that Shadestep said. If I really am a Shadow Realm Royalty, why now? And how is that even possible?

Windspear is still in a coma. Maybe because of blood lost, maybe the dark magic. I haven’t asked the medics. My wing however, is pretty much done for. With this kind of injury, it’s pretty much impossible to heal. That medic told me it’s gonna be amputated at some point, which I guess that would mean the end of my service.

Sky Striker, one loyal teammate and a good friend of mine, died on the field. He was supposed to be promoted to Master Sergeant next month, but looks like he won’t have the chance anymore. That shotgun I picked up used to breach the door, was actually his. I can’t believe how cruel his death would be. The gun was stained with his blood, his body dotted with bullet holes and covered in deep slashes.

I can’t bear the pain to even handle his belongings. His dog tags, his coat, or his rifle. After that explosion from the warehouse, their bodies were literally burnt to a crisp. I can’t even bear to look at his severely burnt body, I could hardly recognise him. He is now buried in the Hall of the Dead, with the rest of the team members, that fought with him to the dead.

Yet something is telling me, this is only the beginning…