Golden Dawn: Dusk of an Empire

"Radiant, aren't they?" Rael'ia gazed at the six orbs that lazily orbited her throne. Twilight and her friends had gathered together in the throne/conference room the very next day after their excursion, eager to learn what came next. The Harmony Receptacles, as she called them, bathed the room in the colors of dawn and dusk, an aurora of pinks, purples, oranges, blues and reds.

"Radiant, indeed," Rarity nodded. Pinkie Pie leapt nimbly onto the blue orb, grabbing it in a full-body bear hug despite gravity making her tip upside down as the orb continued to float.

"So, how's it work?" she asked as she enjoyed her impromptu ride. "How do I put Laughter in this thing?"

"Now we've come to the... difficult portion of my plan," Rael'ia lightly bit her lower lip. "As you've heard, the Crystal Mountain was taken by the Humans long ago. These days it's one of their strongest fortresses. To restore Harmony to my land, we'll need to break inside, reach the summit, then perform a ritual to ensure the Sapling of Harmony and these receptacle orbs survive the transplantation process. A ritual which doesn't and has never existed before..." she trailed off as she glanced to the left at nothing in particular. "I've got Aternus and his mages working on that right now. In the meantime, we prepare for a siege the best we can."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, no, you may all relax for the time being... although," Rael'ia cocked her head as she put her hand to her chin, "I don't see the harm if a couple of you would like to check on some things for me."

"Whadda ya'll have in mind?" spoke Applejack. Rael'ia's eyes seemed to spark a little at her response.

"Ah, this may actually even be something you'd be interested in!" she began. "Would you mind checking up on Warmaster Dovah and the state of his alchemy farms? I'm sure he'd love teaching you all about Orcish farming techniques... I know from experience."

"Sounds good to me!" Applejack nodded, turning to Fluttershy. "Hey Flutters, wanna come with? That Dovah seems mighty fond of you anyhow."

"Oh... um," Fluttershy shrank back at first, but stood up straight again after a moment. "I suppose I could... I do, um, enjoy the attention." She lowered her voice for the second half of her sentence, shyly tapping her front hooves together with a small smile.

"Wonderful, I'll arrange for some guards to teleport and accompany you there and back," Rael'ia clapped her hands together. "Just tell him I sent you, he'll go over our ingredient stores and growth reports... you can just ask for a list." With that, she stood up from her throne. "The rest of you, and you two after that, feel free to do whatever you wish until I call for you. I have a siege to successfully plan..." she sighed, dreading the monumental task before her. While Twilight immediately offered to help and research successful siege tactics with her (grabbing poor Spike in her field of magic as she walked forward), the other ponies took their chance to leave.

Rainbow Dash stretched her body, relishing the cold breeze as she flew through the Elven city surrounding Rael'ia's home. She wasn't sure what she expected to see, but found herself impressed by the architecture of the city's tall buildings. Capped with graceful domes or rooftop gardens, each skyscraper seemed painted with pale pastel colors and dotted with elegant, silvery windows. Sheets of sheer silks billowed from windowsills and rooftops, forming canopies and shade for those on the white-paved streets below. Though rigid and rectangular, they somehow still reminded her of clouds. A great swath of waterfalls roared over the mountains in the distance, casting up great blankets of mist into the air. They nourished the gardens above, yet seemed to evaporate into nothing elsewhere.

She gazed down at the streets beneath her. In a peaceful time, there would have been a great deal of room for everyone to walk. But this was not a peaceful time. The streets were filled with tents and makeshift huts, populated by a great many. Elves and Fairies made up most of the refugees. Though they still had homelands to return to, there were also a number of Orcs and Harpies among them. On rare occasion, she even spotted some... things that didn't look like any of the other races she had seen. Survivors of exterminated races, or those that hadn't been able to flee as far as they wanted, she surmised. Yet they all shared one thing in common: they all appeared broken, downtrodden, fearful. Sure, they got on with their lives the best they could - numerous grills and stoves made from refuse filled the streets with a thin fog scented by assorted foods, children ran or flew up and down the sidewalks in play - but she knew they needed better than this. They deserved better. She smiled halfheartedly to herself, knowing that she and her friends brought them all hope that they would get that better life soon enough.

"Oh hey! Rainbow Dash, wasn't it?" a familiar voice called out from above. Rainbow craned her neck upwards to see Skymaster Skrye relaxing on the rooftop of a skyscraper.

"Hey, Skrye," Rainbow answered back, flying up to her level and landing beside her. Skrye shifted her body so she sat upright rather than reclining against a chimney, her legs dangling over the building's edge. Her halberd clanked quietly on the rooftop as her tail gently brushed over it in passing. "What'cha doing here?"

"Just checking up on some things and restocking some supplies. Since you're still alive, I assume our Elven Princess had a successful trip to the White Wastes, eh?"

"Oh, yea," Rainbow began punching at the air excitedly. "But we got ambushed by Human airships! It was up to me to take them out- well, Rae and Aternus and Twilight and Rarity helped too, I guess. You should've seen me go, I took out half their ships with one Sonic Rainboom! It was so awesome!"

"Is that so?" Skrye smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"Heck yea! And once this siege on that Crystal Mountain is all planned out, I bet I can plow a straight path to the summit through those Humans like nothing!"

"Hm... you'd do best to not underestimate those Humans," Skrye warned. "They're a crafty bunch. A resourceful bunch... a dishonorable, dirty-fighting bunch. I bet our Princess was surprised they attacked her while under the guise of 'research at the epicenter', no?"

This statement made Rainbow's bold demeanor melt into confusion. "Actually... yea, she was. What's that got to do with anything?"

"And now she's planning a siege on one of the strongest Human fortresses in the land," Skrye looked away with a hint of disgust. "I'll be honest, but it'll take a grand act of divine intervention for this little plot of hers to succeed."

"Bah, Twilight's helping her with that," Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively. "If Egghead of all ponies can't figure it out, nopony can!"

"I see... poor Princess Twilight will probably lose her mind arguing with her and sabotage the siege out of spite."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow now bowed in slight offense, a small scowl breaking out.

"Look down below you," Skrye pointed. "Many years ago, the streets were not so filled with refugees. Under the leadership of the late Prince Jorath, we were slowly but surely on our way to winning this war. Unlike our Princess, Jorath was trained for war since the day he could hold a spear. He mastered multiple disciplines of combat, both martial and magical. He was a gifted strategist, studying ancient wars and their movements until he could fight his way out of being flanked on all sides, above and below included. He had a way of keeping the Humans away from our many villages and settlements while decimating theirs.

"Now, our Princess... she never learned any of that. While her brother fought for his people, she kept away from the conflict as best she could. She always shirked her royal duties and skipped her lessons on war, acting as disciplined as a common soldier rather than a proper leader. Her little Archmage boyfriend would usually be the one to plan their attacks while she fraternized with her legions... 'for morale', she'd always say. And when her brother fell in glorious battle, she had no idea what to do. Her first move after his death was to obliterate a Human village with zero strategic value, only serving to anger them further, and then after seeing what she'd done, she lost her edge entirely!" Skrye spat for punctuation. "Now for the past couple decades she's gone on and on about ending the war peacefully when it's bloody obvious that'll never happen! And since she seems to have no idea what 'strategy' is, the Humans have all but wiped out those settlements and villages and forced their inhabitants to flee here. They're all over the place now!"

Rainbow Dash had a hoof to her chin in silent contemplation, but soon shrugged. "Eh, nopony's perfect."

"But this is ridiculous! Now she's convinced that six crystal balls and a bunch of rainbows will end the war in an instant! Doesn't that sound ridiculous to you?! Since when did rainbows ever end a war?! I fear she's gone insane from grief... as far as she's willing to go for this 'peaceful' resolution, all she's going to accomplish is getting every last Magikin in Fae killed!"

"Well... after my friends and I won most of our big, important fights, rainbows did have a habit of appearing some way or another," Rainbow coughed. "But this is different! Our Elements of Harmony just blow away all kinds of negativity with no effort at all, generic-brand evil to all-out pony genocide! Maybe Rae's not a great strategerist-"

"Strategist." Skrye grumbled.

"Whatever. Point is, I believe her plan will work, and so do my friends. Because we made it work before, many times." Skrye could only stare glumly at the blue Pegasus before sighing deeply.

"Welp, I agreed to help her until this plan failed, then my people and I can finish what Jorath started. I just hope after this ahem siege of hers, there's still enough Magikin to fight and kill them all off." Rainbow opened her mouth to argue when she spied a dim glow around Skrye's right ear. Skrye put her hand up to it as a faint voice began to speak from the small Magicite gemstone affixed just inside.

"Skymaster, we need your assistance! The Humans are attacking Border Copse!"

"On my way," Skrye's eyes flashed. In one elegant motion she swung her halberd onto her back and dove off the skyscraper, flying upwards and to the east. "Rainbow, why don't you come along? If your battle prowess is truly something to be feared, this little incursion will be over in a matter of seconds with you around," she cawed over her shoulder. "It's not far, just a hundred miles or so."

"Well..." Rainbow quickly thought it over, then puffed out her chest. "...I guess if it won't take long. Then I get to show you guys just how awesome I can be!" Skrye nodded.

"Keep up... if you can." With a flap of her winged arms, Skrye suddenly flew off to the east as fast as a lightning bolt, leaving only a trail of crackling static behind. Rainbow's eyes widened, but she soon chuckled to herself as she took off after her just as quickly, blowing away the static with a rainbow trail.

A short time into their flight, the Skymaster arced her body down towards a particularly tall tree in the Silent Forest, and Rainbow Dash followed. Her head tilted in curiosity as she flew near, finding that the tree was also a structure of sorts. Huts crafted from wooden boards and sticks and camouflaged with leaves and vines lay nestled within the largest forks and branches, further hidden from view from below by the forest's thick canopy. They landed together in the doorway of the topmost hut, finding it empty save for a number of spears and strange pieces of armor lined against the walls.

"I was thinking, it'd be rather reckless of me to send you in without any armor or weapons," Skrye spoke as she walked over to the racks of armor. "Let's see if I can't find you some wingblades."

"That's what those are?" Rainbow asked. She eyed the pauldrons Skrye picked up with great interest. They resembled tubes meant to fit over the blunt edges of wings, crafted from a silvery metal. The edges were outfitted with long, thin blades, with a joint in the middle to allow for the wings to bend normally in flight. Leather straps and buckles dangled from the tubular parts as a means to secure them to a body. "Neat."

"Yea, these should fit." Skrye brought the wingblades over to Rainbow and carefully slid them onto her wings, then wrapped the straps around her back and opposite shoulders to keep them in place. The pegasus flapped her wings a couple times, finding her new weapons extremely lightweight. "All you have to do is fly past a Human with those on, and- schlitt! ...Dead." She explained quickly while attaching a pair of blades to her own wings, making a throatcutting motion with a finger. Rainbow admired her wingblades in silence as Skrye finished strapping her own on, then with a nod they flew off again towards the forest's border.

Even from high above and a few miles away, Rainbow could see the gravity of the situation before her. A cluster of trees with a circular clearing was swarming with multicolored, feathered bodies, quickly falling out of the sky one by one. A few hundred feet away sat strange, mud-green metal capsules large enough to be a carriage, with wheels on their undersides and what appeared to be a giant drillbit at their helms. Humans could be seen entering and exiting them, but most that entered carried bulging, mud-green sacks with them. She gulped uncertainly when she realized that some of those sacks were moving as if something were trapped inside.

"Gods, not another kidnapping," Skrye cursed. As they drew closer, Rainbow could make out the weapons the Humans were using, and that their ammunition was weighted nets. They were shooting Harpies out of the sky by trapping them in Nullium nets and taking them away.

"Kidnapping? What do they want with Harpies?" the pegasus asked timidly.

"Don't know. Don't really want to know," Skrye answered curtly. "All I do know is IT STOPS NOW!"

With a warcry like a hawk's call, Skrye banked sharply down into the fracas, her halberd clutched tightly in her talons. Her body glowed as if she were a lightning bolt and seemed to explode with power as she sailed a few feet above the ground at a dizzying speed. Her wings cut through eight Humans as if they were mere leaves against a blade, and a thin trail of red streaked behind her as she lifted back into the air. Other Humans began shooting their nets at her, but with agile ease she outsped them, slicing the few that did cross her path with her bladed wings before swooping down again.

Meanwhile, Rainbow glided above it all, finding it hard to take in the chaos. Though most of the other Harpies were engaging the Humans in combat, some were trying their hardest to flee. Humans, in teams of two, hunted these down. One kept guard while the other tracked the fleeing creature through the skies, aimed with his net cannon and fired. Sometimes the Harpy was able to dodge, but most of the time the net entangled their limbs and sent them plummeting to the ground. The impact of the fall was generally enough to immobilize their prey; those that continued to fight and flail were simply clubbed into submission with the spent net cannons. Many more Humans still fought against the other Harpies, slashing with swords, shrugging off the occasional Lightning blast against their Nullium armor, avoiding electrified claws and talons and cutting them off. A singular net whizzed past her, snapping her back to reality.

"Alright... time to be awesome!" she mumbled to herself. With a backwards loop she swooped down from the sky, spreading her wings to their full length. As she darted towards a convenient cluster of Humans, she expected some resistance against her wings as she made contact, but quickly found herself flying past without any trouble at all. She glanced behind her to check if she really had flown close enough, finding the bloodied torsos of five Humans were falling to the ground, their lower halves crumpling soon after. At once she felt both a sense of accomplishment, and the sense of regret that always came with ending another being's life. Though her Wonderbolts training had done its best to prepare her for the horrors of combat, it still felt undoubtedly unsettling.

Nevertheless, her training had also taught her it was best to fight first, reflect later. Banking sharply upwards and to the left, she spun herself around and went for another fly by. This time she angled her body and wings as she zipped past many more Humans, striking many more than the previous attack, cleaving them at varying angles. The more fortunate among them only lost their legs from the knee down. Others lost entire limbs, halves of their bodies, their heads. She felt confident enough in her enemy-clearing abilities to land for a moment, skidding to a halt as she glanced over to Skrye. The Skymaster, grounded, wielded her halberd with deadly precision. Her movements were like lightning - swinging, slicing, piercing through flesh and armor alike as she struck down those who opposed her. Reassured she needed no help, Rainbow took to the skies once again, having spotted another group close together. Her hoof had just connected with a Human's mouth when she heard a loud, foreign buzz throughout the air.

"We have reached our quota! All units, fall back!" A female voice echoed through the trees from the direction of the strange vehicles. The Human soldiers still remaining immediately began their retreat, being sure to cover their rear with net cannons. Many Harpies tried to follow them, only to find themselves entangled and wriggling on the ground. Rainbow began flying towards the fleeing Humans as well, self-assured in her ability to dodge the nets, but suddenly felt a fist clasp around her tail and was jerked to a stop.

"It's no use. The fight is over," Skrye spoke in a sympathetic tone. "Going inside a Human's Tunnel Tank is a death sentence for us." Rainbow tried to struggle free, but quickly gave up as she watched the last of the Humans enter their tanks. Large doors swung shut over the vehicles' rears, emitting a hiss as they locked into place, and the drills on their fronts began spinning with a buzz like a million bees. The rear wheels of the Tunnel Tanks then extended themselves, lifting the rears of the tanks in the air and allowing them to begin drilling into the earth, and they sank away in an instant. Skrye released her grasp on Rainbow's tail and joined her people as they flew to their snared kin to release them, leaving the blue pegasus to her thoughts.

She turned around to examine this Harpy village, Border Copse. The trees surrounding the flat, barren clearing contained many more of the same huts she had seen shortly before, seemingly stretching for hundreds of feet beyond. A ring of fire pits, at least twenty of them, encircled another ring of ten, encircling one large pit in the center of the village. What really creeped Rainbow out, however, were the numerous bones of all sizes littering the entire area, repurposed for multiple uses. Femurs and humeri were carved into tools and spear tips. Vertebrae hung from sinews to form wind chimes. Skulls lined the fire pits; skullcaps were used as plates, bowls and cups. Even more bones littered the ground around the trees, forming messy piles of filth and rot for the worms. Strangely, the air smelled pleasant despite the scattered remains; a plume of smoke from a nearby sconce alerted her to the scent of cleansing herbs. She raised her eyes and immediately regretted it - the outermost trees at the edge of the forest were decorated with Human corpses. Men, women, even a few children, were all hanging by their necks from the thickest branches. Some were quite fresh, others were bloated, blotchy flesh balloons that could pop at any strong breeze, others still were gray, moldy and nearly disintegrated from age and exposure. Many were missing arms and legs, presumably eaten by their executioners. Rainbow quickly averted her eyes, gagging at her mind's enduring image of the glassy eyes, swollen tongues and rotten, dripping blood.

A Harpy's voice phased into her ears from her disgusted silence. "-dead, and two hundred-and-fifty missing. Third attack this month. At this rate, Border Copse will be completely unsustainable within another."

"I see. This is quite troubling," Skrye nodded to a red and brown Harpy beside her. "I will send reinforcements to protect and assist you in evacuation to Tender Copse as soon as possible, Head-Huntress Qeew. I don't believe the Humans will leave us alone here until we've been completely wiped out."

"As much as I hate to admit it... I also believe it's time to go," Qeew sighed. "I'll alert the others once the wounded have been tended to." Skrye sighed as well as Qeew fluttered away towards a group of wounded Harpies nearby. She then turned to notice Rainbow Dash's dry heaving, which she had finally begun to get under control.

"You okay, Rainbow?" she asked. Rainbow swallowed and gasped before answering.

"Those... things," she weakly pointed to the hanged bodies. "Maybe that's why they keep attacking...?"

"Nah... if anything, they're meant to keep Humans away from here," Skrye shrugged. "It's always kind of entertaining when they notice... the looks on their faces, heheh! ...The only good Human's a dead Human."

Rainbow failed to reply. Perhaps Twilight was right about the Harpies being a savage race. To say she felt conflicted was putting things very lightly.

"Anyway... looks like our job's done. Shall we return you to Rael'ia's court?" Skrye smirked. "Race ya there."

"Yea... sure," Rainbow forced herself to speak. As Skrye ascended into the sky as quickly as lightning, Rainbow began to turn back towards the trees. She stopped herself from looking again, shook her head and flapped her wings as fast as they could go.

"This... this is nothing like Equestria."