They say before you start a war, you better know what you are fighting for

--Angel With a Shotgun

There was a full five seconds of awkward silence before Reinhardt cleared his throat and attempted to defuse the situation. After all, even for an agent of Overwatch it’s not everyday you meet sapient horse esque creatures, let alone creatures that can talk. And that’s exactly what these quadrupeds were. Quite a bit shorter than horses you might find on a nature preserve; certainly more colorful. The only thing that was still throwing Hana Song off were the different appendages. Some had wings, others had what appeared to be a horn, and yet others didn’t seem to have either. At the moment, however, her attention was pulled to something other than Reinhardt and his gruff embarrassment. D.Va was picking up something huge headed their way, and it showed no signs of deviating. The pilot turned her walker one eighty degrees, straining her eyes to peer through the far off treeline. The others hadn’t noticed the movement yet, too busy with their discussion with the locals. As the thing grew ever closer on the sensors, Hana let out a muffled gasp. The thing was every bit as big as the omnic that attacked Korea on a regular basis.

Immediately the young woman slammed her palm against the communications override, instantly silencing the comms of the other three and causing them to pause mid-conversation. “Get them inside! Quickly! We have a mammoth class omnic heading this way!”

They didn’t waste any time. As the original four locals darted for the safety of the narrow tunnel they had been standing in front of, Pharah and Mercy dashed out. They quickly herded the scattered groups into the same tunnel, and no sooner had they done so than the giant monstrosity came crashing out of the trees, flattening entire swaths of forest with its bulk. Getting a good look at the thing, Hana deduced that classifying it as a mammoth omnic wasn’t too far off the mark. It was black shelled, like the creatures they had fought earlier, with acid green eyes and what looked like had once been a mane. Its wings were entirely too small to support flight, but that didn’t stop the gossamer appendages from buzzing in agitation. Song would have found it funny if the ugly creature wasn’t currently barrelling towards her.

The massive thing crashed into her without stopping, rolling D.Va around under its impossible bulk and filling Song’s vision with nothing but glossy black. It also smelled awful, like it had been sleeping submerged in a muddy swamp while rolling around in sewage at the same time. Hana wasn’t entire sure how that analogy made sense, but she couldn’t think of any other way to catalogue the stench. The creature seemed perfectly content to continue its smothering attempts, but Hana had other plans. She jammed both of the walker’s weapons into the expanse of black before her and pulled the triggers. She was rewarded with a keening cry as whatever it was tried to get away from the thing that hurt, trailing acidic green ichor as it did so. It finally managed to wrangle its bulk a short distance away, and Song realized that her attack hadn’t really done much more than irritate it. It stared at her with beady green eyes, almost as though puzzling why she wasn’t dead yet. There was movement to her left, and D.Va knew it was Reinhardt.

“Crusader, you might want to wait this one out.” Song’s voice was deadly calm, and certainly not what Reinhardt ever expected to hear from the girl. “Whatever this is, it's bigger than that omnic I fight on a regular basis. Even with that armor, it would crush you beneath its weight.”

“You cannot fight this alone,” objected the knight. “You’re worried about me, but what about you?”

Hana actually giggle snorted at that. “This sort of thing is what I was drafted to handle, Reinhardt. These combat walkers, they’re designed to take a beating from anything short of nuclear weaponry. I’ve seen one of us take an omnic railgun to the face, get buried under several tons of rubble, then get back up like nothing had happened and continued the fight. All you can do right now is keep those behind us safe.”

“I do not like it, but I will follow your lead in this. You know that mech better than I.” As the metal clad man moved off, Hana’s focus returned to the monstrosity before her. It was still sitting there, and it was starting to unnerve the pilot a bit.

Why isn’t it… oh. The droning hum of thousands of wings pierced the air, and Hana now understood what it had been waiting for: reinforcements to take care of the other Overwatch agents. As soon as the smaller bugs swept in and started hammering at Reinhardt’s ever ready barrier, the giant one lunged at D.Va with an astounding amount of agility. Yet as fast as it was, Song was faster. Her hands were already a blur on her controls, juking the combat walker to one side in a display of swiftness even more impressive than the opponent she faced. She strafed to the left casually, instantly discovering that the creature wasn’t very good at turning around. Song used this opportunity to fire directly into its sides, earning herself even more angry screams as she did so. The creature flexed suddenly, and the lower half of its body crashed into the Korean war machine. Song grunted softly as she landed, the whine of servos increasing slightly as she kept D.Va from toppling over backwards. The thing was on her before she could even recover her bearings; with a jerk of the controls D.Va was again airborne, circling around the titanic being and spraying it with more flak as she did so.

Reinhardt, meanwhile, was doing what he did best: Be a meat shield. Anyone else might have been offended at such treatment, but the seasoned Overwatch agent took pride in being the barrier between the forces of evil and those in need of protection. Pharah shot rockets out past the barrier shield as fast as she could load them, but without her flight capabilities she was stuck hitting the enemies straight on as they approached. Even Mercy had joined in the fray, her tiny pistol emptying clip after clip. Once, when one of the black things had decided to just walk past the barrier in the way, she had taken her short sword and ran it through the bug’s face. At this moment, though, Reinhardt was more concerned about his shield. Contrary to popular belief he could not keep it up indefinitely, and the ever increasing cracks in its surface said it was going to break soon. “Barrier’s not going to hold forever! Any idea what we do when it goes down?”

“Charge in and swat them?” Most of Pharah’s sentence was drowned out by the surprisingly loud roar of her portable rocket launcher.

“Some plan that is,” Mercy muttered. “This is just like London all over again.”

“You and I are remembering London very differently, little Mercy. Besides, we managed to triumph there, yes?”

“Yes. But Null Sector didn’t have an unlimited amount of omnics they could send after us. These guys just keep coming. If it weren’t for Hana’s IFF transponder, we’d have no way of even knowing if she still lived.”

Right as the Crusader went to say something else, his shield shattered into a million motes of light. Countless acidic green bolts were already flying right towards the space he occupied. The big man braced himself; he wasn’t entirely sure if his battle worn armor would stand up against this strange new weaponry. Before the attacks could hit him, however, a brilliant magenta wall winked into existence. The balls of green energy hit the barrier dead on and rebounded back the way they came. All three Overwatch agents stood there, more than a little stunned. The soft clopping of hooves approached them from behind, and only then did they look down, even more awed at what they saw.

The one called Twilight Sparkle was radically different from the first time they had laid eyes on her. Her once straight as a ruler mane was sticking out in all directions, waving as though caught in an electromagnetic current. The bony protrusion jutting from her head, what Reinhardt was pretty sure was actually a horn, was blazing with purple light. Her eyes, though, her eyes were what really caught the attention. They were white. As in, all white. There were none of the purple color that had been there before, no iris or pupil. On closer inspection, her eyes even seemed to be leaking white mist from their corners. As Reinhardt slowly came to grips with her eyes, he realized that she also had appendages he hadn’t even noticed before: Wings. Considering the fact that they were the same color of the rest of her, it was no mystery how the wings had been overlooked when first encountering these bright creatures. Lastly, Reinhardt noticed that she was far taller than she had been previously. She actually came up to his just above his waist, with her horn leaving her total height at his upper torso. When she finally spoke, her voice had an echoing thrum to it. “Go, stallion of metal, mare of flight, and mare of light. I will hold this shield until I can no longer do so. Go, and save what’s left of ponykind.”

Reinhardt stood there for a few moments longer, his mind just now accepting the fact that he had been called a stallion. This realization was quickly shunted to the side as he finally caught up to what had just happened. He gave the mare a nod, hefted his hammer, and charged into the fray. His war cry thundered through the drone of insectoid wings: “Die Crusader Stehen Wache!”

D.Va heard the Crusader’s call and knew that Reinhardt had took to the field of battle. While she figured his addition to the fight meant that the pony creatures were safe, it also meant that a vast majority of the smaller black blurs were focusing on the other agents of Overwatch and not her. Which, incidentally, left the two giants in their midst to do battle. This honestly suited Song just fine. The only problem was, this behemoth was proving extremely difficult to kill. It was practically bleeding rivers, the green sludge coating the ground. Still, it kept on. It dogged the Korean pilot relentlessly, and Hana was beginning to fear the thing was simply unkillable. More than once Hana had almost activated D.Va’s self-destruct sequence, but every time she discarded the idea. Without the Combat Aid Network to reconstruct the mech after it had been destroyed, if Song was careless and lost the walker she would effectively be out of any fights that might break out in the future. Mercy’s nanites were good, but not “reconstruct a war bot in the time it takes to blink” good.

The monstrosity lunged at D.Va again, this time coming from the side and catching the pilot off guard. It settled its full weight upon the mech, and at the same time Hana felt the arms of the machine jerked roughly to the right. She struggled to move the arms back on target so she could shoot. Aside from the servos practically screaming, she didn’t accomplish much. As Hana’s mind raced to find a way out of this situation, her surroundings suddenly changed. At first, Song wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It was pitch black, and suddenly wet. Had she landed in one of the thing’s wounds?

Then the walker pitched forward, and Song realized the damn thing had managed to fit D.Va in its mouth and was in the process of swallowing the Korean piece of equipment whole. She cried out in disgusted shock as a puddle of saliva smashed her in the face, causing her to immediately start hacking and coughing. It tasted way, way worse than it had smelled. She tried to get D.Va’s clawed feet under her, but to no avail. She kept sliding downwards, entering the behemoth’s throat. Song hit the thrusters, and D.Va spun slightly so that she was sideways, but still going down. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope!” Hana chanted to herself. With a vicious growl the young pilot squeezed the firing triggers as hard as she could. The dull crack of the flak cannons was deafening in these confined quarters, and over their song of death Hana heard the titan yowling in agony. She kept firing, glad now more than ever that her cannons didn’t need to reload.

She caught glimpses of moonlight as the hard carapace of the mammoth creature parted before her guns. With another application of her thrusters, Hana set D.Va to spinning like a top, still discharging pain with her weapons. Then, at long last, Song was free, soaring through the air as she literally decapitated her gigantic foe from inside its esophagus. The thing thrashed in its death throes, causing a miniature earthquake to ripple through the clearing. D.Va landed with her feet under her and immediately spun, cannons firing non-stop as she made sure the damn thing was dead. By the time she finally stopped shooting, the area around her was deathly quiet. She was breathing heavily, hands slightly trembling upon her controls. And then the clearing suddenly exploded into cheers and whistles. Song slumped back against her repaired harness, exhausted. She noted with a detached, grim satisfaction that the remainder of the enemy were fleeing once more, and those that had been too slow were already being cut down, by the ponies they had come to rescue, no less. Though none of them seemed to carry any physical weapons, hooves and horns seemed to work just as well.

Hana finally straightened her posture and turned the mech around. As she did so she caught sight of the other agents, their faces conveying a mixture of shocked disbelief and delighted excitement. But what caught her attention as she fully turned was the radiant being standing a little ways off from the other three. It was tall, taller than the first they had seen her, with wings spread serenely and hair waving gracefully in a non-existent breeze. Even as Hana stared, slightly open mouthed, she could see little motes and sparks of light flaring through the mane. However, with her eyes fading to the original purple there was no mistaking it: This was the very first creature they had met. And then, without even realizing what she was doing, she bowed. Not just any bow, either-- a full on Hanguk-in bow, like the sort she’d give commanding officers or officials she really respected. Palms crossed, face down upon her forehead, staring straight down to the grass. D.Va mimicked her pilot, dropping down to its left knee and keeping its right out. The flak cannons, so recently discharging their cry of destruction, fell to either side of the war bot to complete the picture of deep respect.

The gesture wasn’t completely missed by the other agents, but all three of them held their tongues; this was a very unique moment. The majestic creature stepped forward a little bit and finally spoke. “Please rise, stranger from another world. You are not my subject.”

Hana shook her head as she resumed her footing. “That doesn’t matter. You… you have an aura around you. I feel as though you are someone to be feared, yet also someone who should be respected and loved.”

Twilight surveyed Song in quiet contemplation, before she finally broke into a rather delighted grin. Song discovered that the simple smile broke the spell a little bit. “It's not every day any more that I can create such a reaction from one who is not a pony, much less one who is not from this world.”

“Is that what you are? A pony?” This came from Reinhardt, who still sounded like he wasn’t entirely sure what he had just witnessed.

“A variant of pony, yes. Follow me, please. I believe the changelings will not return any time soon, so for the moment we can talk without fear of being attacked. I will tell you as much as I am able, and in return I would like some answers from you.” She caught sight of Pharah starting to reply, and with another smile the Egyptian was interrupted. “I won’t ask anything too sensitive. I gather that you are soldiers, of a sort, and I’ll be sure to avoid questions pertaining to that line of thought.”

Pharah shook her head. “I was actually going to ask why you were being attacked, but in hindsight it would probably be better to just let you explain things.”

“Thank you.” The pony gestured towards the same tunnel with a wing, and Hana noticed that almost every other pony had long since disappeared within. The ones that stayed behind seemed to be scanning the skies for threats, and Hana felt as though they might be guards. The four agents of Overwatch followed the pony as she began to speak. “I suppose I should start with an apology, for deceiving you. The form you first saw me as was not entirely my own; merely a disguise I had used in attempt to hide myself and the others under my care from our enemies.”

“Apology accepted, young pony. We understand the desire to protect those who need it.”

Twilight glanced at the Crusader thoughtfully, then chuckled. “Young? I have not heard someone call me that in a long time. I am well over ten thousand years old, man of metal.”

As one, the agents stopped and stared at their guide incredulously, Hana even craning her neck a bit to see better. The purple creature stopped and glanced back inquisitively. Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Ah. Most other creatures do not live as long as an alicorn does. How long do your people normally live?”

Mercy was the first to find her voice. “Usually a hundred or so, although nanobiology has been making great strides in helping humans live longer. Reinhardt for example, is sixty-four, and is often seen as being in his final stages of life despite the care he now receives. Myself, as another example, don’t seem to age any more. I pioneered a breakthrough in applied nanobiology and as a result, even though I’ve been alive for forty years I haven’t really aged at all since I was twenty-seven.”

“Interesting.” Twilight began walking again. “Still, this actually ties into the rest of the little history lesson. We, as a whole, are ponies. These ponies are divided into four subtypes: We have earth ponies, who have neither horn nor wings. To compensate for this, the magic an earth pony possesses reveals itself in their unparalleled strength and unique affinity for nature. We have pegasi, who have wings. Because of the wings their magic is easier to conduct, giving them an affinity for the elements; rain, lightning, snow… Some are even rather adept at flames. The third are unicorns, with horns. A unicorn has the easiest time channeling magic, and because of this, they are also the most varied in what they do. Some are rather powerful, capable of casting large spells. Others lack this power but have good control, allowing them to cast multiple smaller spells at the same time. The fourth archetype is what I am: An alicorn. Essentially, we are the embodiment of all three pony tribes: The strength and endurance of an earth pony, the agility and and swiftness of a pegasus, and the magical prowess of a unicorn. The longer we live, the more power we gain.”

“You say magic,” Hana interjected. “Do you actually mean magic?”

“Well,” Reinhardt drawled. “She threw up a massive purple barrier that reflected attacks back at the attacker after mine failed. Her horn was lit; that barrier was like no technology I’ve ever seen.”

Twilight actually giggled a bit at that. “I’m assuming your race is purely technological. Well, yes, I did mean magic. Thanks to science, we even used to have a nice marriage of magic and technology called arcanotech. Once upon a time, we could do some amazing things with it. For now, let's shelve that discussion until I get to it. To answer your question, yes, I mean magic. There is actually two different types of magic; sorcery, and wizardry. To use these magics, we interact with what we call the Thaumaturgic Field-- it’s basically a field of energy that seems to exist everywhere in the universe. It interacts with all energy and matter, including itself. When something interacts with the field, the field imparts properties to that energy or matter.

“A quark is a quark because the Thaumaturgic Field told it to be one. The field works under what we call natural physics, which are kind of like the default settings of the universe. Energy can interact with the field not just going one way, but both ways. Because of this, since biological process uses electricity, organisms with the ability to arrange energy in very specific ways can change what the field will do with the matter and energy nearby. However, it can be hard to make these changes, because the field does have quite a bit of resistance. It wants to stay the same, so it takes a lot of energy to change things, both physical and mental. This is basically all sorcery is: using thought patterns to override the field’s natural state so that it changes something in the world the way to want. Wizardry is a little different because it involves both sorcery and science at the same time; a sorcerer creates ice by thinking in a thought pattern they found that just freezes water. A wizard creates ice by thinking in a refined pattern that induces an endothermic reaction in the water, resulting in ice. Sorcery is more like brute forcing changes, which takes up a lot of energy, while wizardry takes up far less energy because it works with the natural physics to make the change.”

“Huh. I actually understood that,” Reinhardt admitted slowly.

Pharah snorted a bit. “Even I understood that, and I’m not a scientist.”

Twilight laughed. “That was the overly simplified answer; anything more complicated than that and I would expect you to be a mage yourself. Back on track, I am an alicorn. Being an alicorn means I simply do not age. It’s not true immortality mind you-- I can still be killed by any means, although my power levels mean it would take a lot of effort. We never were entirely sure why alicorns don’t age. Some said it was because we were a mixture of all three tribes. Others theorized it was our magic, while others attributed it to the fact that we represent a force in the universe and act as that force’s guardians. Even us alicorns never knew.”

“You keep mentioning ‘us alicorns’. Are there more of you?” D.Va found herself surprisingly interested in this history; surprising, considering she never really cared about such things.

“There were.” Twilight was silent for a long moment, and then when she next spoke, there was a barely hidden pain in her tone. “Once, we were four. Celestia, Diarch of the Day, and Luna, Diarch of the Night. The Eternal Sisters were the original founders of Equestria, forging the nation after centuries of conflict and dissent among the three pony tribes. Celestia was in charge of the Sun, guiding the heavenly body across the sky, while Luna ferried the Moon.”

“Wait.” Reinhardt's accent became really prominent as he got excited. “You mean they actually moved the sun and the moon?”

“That is exactly what I mean. Our celestial bodies orbit us. Continuing my discussion, the third alicorn was Cadance, Avatar of Love. While Celestia’s and Luna’s embodiment was physical, Cadance’s and mine were metaphysical. Cadance kept love alive, and in doing so, made sure that Equestria was always a bastion of harmony. As for myself… I am the Avatar of Magic. That pretty much means, I am magic. If magic as a whole had a face and a name… well, that’s me.”

“What… happened to them, then?” Mercy’s voice was soft, compassionate, just as it would be if she were talking to a patient in her office.

“Gone. Well, not really gone-- dead or what have you. Last I saw, Celestia and Luna had been sealed within the sun and the moon respectively. Cadance, as far as I’m aware, sealed herself and her Crystal Empire in time far to the north, to await such a time that Equestria was ready to begin the march to free our home.”

As Twilight finished her words, the group came upon a rather cavernous space. Glancing around, Hana had the distinct impression that they were standing in a hanger of some sorts. There were numerous bays, twelve in total, that looked as if they could fit D.Va comfortably. She had been so engrossed in Twilight’s words she hadn’t even realized the tunnel had widened out to become what appeared to be the mouth of the hanger. Her roaming eyes also caught sight of the ponies she had helped rescue, huddled in groups and looking hopefully towards their leader. As Hana studied them in greater detail, she realized that they all seemed to be mares. Every one of them, even the young, shared the general soft facial structure that Twilight did.

“Well, here we are. Some two-hundred odd mares and fillies, all that’s left of ponykind for the moment. I don’t doubt that there are more out there, but even if we knew where they were we have little means of rescuing them at this point in time.”

“So… what happened to you guys? It sounds like this Equestria had technology on par with ours. So what happened?”

“Queen Chrysalis and the Swarm happened.” Twilight said bitterly. “Those creatures we fought outside? Those are her changelings. Poorly equipped and poorly trained changelings, but changelings nonetheless. Equestria was never really hesitant to share its technology with the rest of the world, and that single mistake cost every other nation twice over. The changelings are parasitic shapeshifters; they feed off of emotional energy, especially love. It’s all they need to survive, and they can freely change their shape to anything they wish in order to get their food. Loved ones, friends, family... Equestria has always had vast amounts of positive emotional energy. Their Queen, Chrysalis, attacked once before a long, long time ago. She was fought off and defeated. We figured we’d seen the last of her. We were wrong.

“They came at us out of nowhere, wielding our own technology against us. How she managed to mostly copy everything we had we still don’t know; biometric locks should have prevented her from gleaning anything useful. Best guess is that she simply had some of her changelings shapechange into whoever was in possession of whatever it was that she wanted and disabled the locks. Well, ponies aren’t usually a violent species. Sure, we had airships and the like outfitted with cannons, and even smaller firearms mostly used for sport, but we never imagined using such things to kill others. Or rather, we knew it could be done, but never imagined our technology could be abused in such a way. And we paid for it. Within two months of the invasion she had completely taken over Equestria. Pockets of resistance were stamped out swiftly, and after she discovered an Ancient Spell to force Celestia and Luna into their heavenly bodies there wasn’t much of a will to fight any more.

“I watched my nation burn as she got rid of my fellow Princesses, two alicorns even older than I. I watched from a prison hanging from the highest spire of our capitol as she decimated everything we had worked to build. My wings had been ripped from my body. My horn shorn off and used as a trophy she wore around her neck. I had been beaten, mutilated, raped, and stuffed in a cage as the ultimate revenge, as I was the one who originally defeated her the first time. I was in that cage for fifteen years as the rest of the world fell to her armies. Those who didn’t join her willingly were killed outright or sent to fuel her war machine. But her greatest mistake of that day was not killing me outright. If not killed, an alicorn can heal anything with enough time. I repaired the damage done to my body. I regrew my wings, regrew my horn, and fixed my shame. And through all of that time, I plotted. I had no delusions of rescue, but I still planned. Then low and behold: A veritable army of mares flooded into the now abandoned capitol with the sole intent of rescuing me. Even greater, they had knowledge of a single piece of Old Equestrian technology sitting derelict and still hidden.”

There was a long bout of silence after Twilight’s tale came to a close. It was a lot of information to take in at once… and yet, all four of them could emphasize with the talking purple pony. After all, the first and second Omnic Crisis were just as brutal. It was Reinhardt who broke the silence first. “I am Reinhardt Wilhelm, little pony. I am a former Crusader, a knight order of my home country Germany. Currently an agent of Overwatch, still sworn to protect the innocent wherever it is needed.”

“I am Fareeha Amari, otherwise known as Pharah, formerly a soldier of the Egyptian Army. I am currently the chief of security for Helix Security International, on loan to Overwatch as a show of good faith between the two organizations.”

“Doctor Angela Ziegler, otherwise known as Mercy. Currently head of Overwatch’s Head of Medical Research.”

Everyone looked to Hana next, and she couldn’t stop the little smile lighting up her features. “Name’s Hana Song, callsign D.Va. Or Pilot Hana Song of the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean army if we’re getting fancy, but we’re not getting fancy. Either way, we’re here now with no way of going home. Let’s see what some of Overwatch’s best can do to help ease your burden.” Hana wasn’t exactly sure where all this confidence was coming from, but she rather liked it.

Twilight paused in the middle of approaching her ponies. “You would do that? Help aliens you barely know? I cannot pay you. I can’t even guarantee your safety.”

Reinhardt let loose his rumbling chuckle. “Our gear isn’t just for show, you know. Overwatch has always been about fighting the good fight, despite what the rest of our world might think. We’re unable to go home, and we have experience in battle with equipment to match. Let us help you.”

Twilight stared at the four for a long moment, like she was seeking for deception. However, she found none; the faces before her appeared resolute, and above all, trustworthy. And the one called Hana had dealt with a behemoth by herself… “Well, I’m not really in a position to refuse. I will accept your aid, whatever you may provide.”

“That is good to hear.” Pharah finally holstered her rocket launcher, only now realizing she had been carrying it in ready position the whole time. “So, you mentioned that your rescuers had knowledge of something that might help in your fight? Where is it? We may be able to help in its retrieval.”

Twilight smiled again, and Song found she really liked that expression despite the fact that it was still tempered by weariness. “You’re standing in her. Welcome to the EAF Spellflare. The only known airship to have survived Equestria’s fall.”

Author's Note

This chapter was brought to you by:

So... yea. Not entirely sure what I feel out this chapter. This is the direction I had decided to take it in long ago, but... I dunno. Feel like readers simply aren't going to like it. Although that could be because I just pulled an all-nighter to finish this chapter and start a few other chapters I need to get done... I'm probably just really tired.

I also feel that Angel with a Shotgun is a song that really fits D.Va (even if her mech weapons aren't technically shotguns) and I kind of tried to capture that theme here. How did I do?

Hope you enjoy nonetheless, and a big thank you to MeeptheChangeling for allowing me to borrow the most simplified explanation of magic I've ever read!