The Battle of Alkatin Pass

Chapters

Strangers
Comrades
Acquaintances

Strangers

“Good morning, Equestria! How are my favorite ponies in the whole wide world doing? Great? Spectacular? That’s good to hear! I’m great too, thanks for asking!

“As we all get ready to start another wonderful day in Equestria, let’s take a moment to be thankful for everything good we’ve got going for us: the sun, the moon, the Princesses, our friends and family, and our very way of life. But, most importantly, let’s make sure to keep our soldiers in our hearts and prayers. They’re the ones keeping us safe, after all!

“I know it’s hard to go so long without hearing from your loved ones, but just remember that they’re fighting and doing everything they can do to keep us safe back at home. After all, if it wasn’t for them, the Hives would have swarmed across Equestria ages ago! They try so very hard to keep us all safe, and the least we can do is remember that and do what we can here at home to support them. And remember, we’ve been doing this for ten years now. What’s a little more, right?

“But I’ve got some exciting news for you all! I’ve just heard from my friends in high places that there’s going to be a decisive battle at Alkatin Pass in the coming days. This could be what we’re all waiting for, everypony! This could be the end of the war! Finally, after ten years, our families can come home and we can all sleep safely at night without worrying about infiltrators watching us wherever we go! Finally, after ten years, our dear Celestia can come home and bring peace to Equestria once more! I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a reason enough to party to me!

“Let’s keep our hooves crossed and wait for news from the front! You can bet that as soon as I hear something, I’ll share it all with the rest of you! Stock up on those party favors and confetti, because we might have reason to celebrate in a few days’ time!

“I’m your hostess… well, you all already know who I am! And keep your sound stones tuned to this resonance, because I’m not going anywhere!”

The Major finally opened her eyes as the Hostess’ voice faded out. She stared up at the coarse canvas of the tent above her head as a simple tune began to hum its way out of the sound stone next to her cot. Without even looking, she stuck a wing out and brushed the runes carved into its surface, silencing the rock and leaving her alone with her thoughts. She would need a few minutes of quiet reflection to prepare herself for the day ahead.

She didn’t even get one. Her sensitive ears, honed from years of listening for infiltrators scurrying around her camp, immediately picked up the sound of horseshoes crunching dust approaching her tent. Sighing, she sat up and rubbed at her temples, her sweaty mane falling in front of her eyes. Before the newcomer could finish clearing their throat, the Major had brushed her mane out of her face and glared at the door. “Enter.”

The soldier did as ordered, stepping inside the tent and immediately adopting a formal salute upon making eye contact with the Major. Silvery armor practically glittered like pure moonlight in the early dawn sun. The soldier’s face, still protected by their half helm, dripped sweat onto the dirt floor of the Major’s tent. Though the sun made it intolerably hot during the summer in the Badlands, the Major knew that it wasn’t yet hot enough that a soldier would begin pouring sweat just from standing around. That observation made her ears perk the tiniest amount, and she leaned forward on her cot. “Speak.”

“Major,” the soldier began, dropping her salute. “Our pickets spotted drones probing the rocks and passes around Alkatin. You said you wanted to know the moment they began mobilizing reconnaissance units in numbers.”

The Major raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Fifty or sixty drones across a three mile front,” the soldier answered. “Our mages drove them off when they got too close to our positions. But their movements seemed to be concentrating around the Twins.”

“I see.” The Major nodded her head once. “Is that all?”

“Our sentries reported dust from the canyon to the south leading up to the Twins.” The soldier faltered and swallowed hard. “More dust than at Dead Mare’s Gulch.”

The Major frowned down her muzzle. “Beasts and behemoths, then,” she said. “They’re desperate. Alkatin is the door into the hives, and after we took the Twins, they know they need to drive us back now or lose the war entirely.”

The soldier nodded and stilled her trembling shoulders. “That’s… that’s good then, right?”

“We’re stretched thin but we’re stronger than they are,” the Major said. She grunted as she swung her legs off her cot and began to stretch in preparation of a difficult day. “If we win, it’s over. If we lose, the war drags on for another five years as we reconsolidate and try to stop them. Whenever the Hives punch through our lines, they ravage the land for dozens of miles before they’re finally stopped. And with everything we have spread across the Badlands, it’ll take months just to put everything back into position to stop them.” Her eyes flicked to the soldier. “You remember Appleloosa.”

“Don’t we all,” the soldier said in a quiet voice. “If we’d just had the griffons—!”

The Major silenced her with a glare. “The griffons have their own problems,” she said. “You know as well as I do that they’re still recovering from their succession crisis. They hardly have enough food to feed themselves and soldiers to police their land, much less send anything over here.”

“I… I know, Major.” The soldier sighed and hung her head. “This war could have been over much faster if we had their help.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to stand tall and shoulder our own burdens.”

Cracking her neck from side to side, the Major grabbed a comb and began to run it through her mane. “Is there anything else?”

The soldier shook her head. “No, ma’am. That was it.”

“Good.” After fussing with her mane for a few seconds more, the Major turned to her armor stand and began to lift the pieces off of it with her wings. “Rally the company, Lightning Dust. We need to have everypony wearing their armor within the hour. Once you see the dust, a fight isn’t too far off.”

Lightning Dust saluted the Major one more time. “Yes, Major,” she said, her hooves neatly snapping together in military fashion. She held the salute for two seconds before abruptly pivoting on her hooves and marching out of the tent, and the Major waited until she heard the soldier’s wings beat at the air before she continued donning her armor.

It would be a long day indeed… maybe the longest of her life.

“Is this really all we can muster? Is this really all we have?”

The Quartermaster frowned down at the scrolls in front of her. Numbers and lines etched across the parchment, all of them too low and too little for her liking. Growling, her horn surged as she angrily spun the scroll around and shoved it into the face of the mare on the other side. “How are we supposed to feed our soldiers for the next week, Coco? How are we supposed to give the chiurgeons everything they need to stop our ponies from bleeding out and dying after a drone bites through their shoulder?!”

The Quartermaster’s assistant shrank back from the paper in her face. “I-I’m sorry, but that’s just the best we can do!” she squeaked. “Supply lines are stretched thin enough as they are! Our trains keep getting attacked by infiltrators and guerilla soldiers too far away from our camp for Celestia’s clairvoyance to detect! It’s all we can get in, all things considered!”

The Quartermaster sighed and slouched back in her chair. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling of her tent, where she’d attempted to cut and stitch sheltered windows and holes into the canvas to try and get some air to circulate in the barren dryness of the badlands. It would have been a good idea if there was ever any wind out in this Celestia-forsaken hellscape, but the only times they had wind, it came with sand. The coarse sand ruined her mane and chewed through her makeup, stripping her of the only pride and vanity she’d been allowed to take into the military when drafted.

“Army Group Center has no fewer than thirty-two thousand and nine-hundred and fifteen ponies, counting all the support staff along with the soldiers,” she slowly said, pulling the numbers from the summation report she’d read the night prior. “We only have enough grain to feed them for three more days. If this war doesn’t end soon, we’re going to have to pull back to Appleloosa to shorten our supply trains.” Growling, she lunged forward and slapped her hoof on the desk. “And yet when I bring this up to the Major, she has the gall to claim that her soldiers would be much better utilized elsewhere, like on weather patrol or establishing picket lines! Doesn’t she understand that the very moment the next grain wagon fails to arrive we’re going to lose our army?! Who will win the war then?!”

The assistant opened her mouth to say something in reply, but the Quartermaster ignored her entirely. “The soldiers are practically mutinous as it is. We’ve been gone for ten years. Celestia, I would pay any price to return to my sister and my family again. And after all we’ve struggled and fought for, I know for a fact that there are many soldiers out there that would throw away their swords and bows just to go see their foals again! So if the grain doesn’t come… if the supplies don’t make it here in one piece…”

The Quartermaster threw herself back in her chair once more and practically seemed to deflate. “The generals think war is won on the battlefield. I know better. An army only fights on its stomach and only holds a lance so long as they’re content. In a few days’ time, we’re going to see mass desertions. I guarantee it.”

The assistant swallowed and nervously opened a scroll on the Quartermaster’s desk. “What would you have me do then, ma’am?”

The Quartermaster frowned and knitted her brows together. “We’re going to need to cut rations back again,” she said. “We need to make what we have last for six days, not three. Additionally, I want a message sent to the Major saying that we need better protection along our supply lines or we’re going to lose the army. This is non-negotiable.”

She tapped her chin as her assistant scribbled her orders down. “Make sure the Princess gets a copy of that as well. If the Major won’t listen to her quartermaster, then maybe our benevolent leader will.”

A few more seconds of a quill scratching across the paper, and then silence. The assistant folded up the scroll and looked to the Quartermaster. “Anything else?”

“I would kill for a glass of wine, but if our grain stores are as empty as I’ve been made to believe, then I doubt you can help very much with regards to that front.” The Quartermaster sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “Celestia, the price I pay to keep this army functional…”

After a brief moment’s hesitation, the assistant stepped forward and placed her hoof over the Quartermaster’s. “You’re doing a great job,” she assured her. “Nopony else could do better.”

“I can’t believe I left a boutique for this,” the Quartermaster grumbled. “In any event, once this is over we’ll either be heroes or living out the rest of our days in cocoons. I think I’ll take my rest then, however it comes.”

The assistant nodded, but both ponies froze when they heard the shouting of soldiers outside. After a few seconds to decipher their words, the Quartermaster groaned and hung her head. “And there’s going to be a fight today,” she muttered to herself. “I suppose I better eat my breakfast now before the wounded start rolling in.” She abruptly stood up and stormed around the table, leaving her assistant to scramble after her. “It’s been ten years, but I still can’t get over the sight of a bloody, mangled leg…”

A tug on her ear woke the Chiurgeon from her sleep. Of course, she could hardly call it sleep when she’d spent the past sixteen hours alternating between a few hours at bedsides and thirty minutes of rest. Over ten years, she’d learned to catch what rest she could, because at any given moment she could be called upon to save a pony’s life. Sleep was precious, and she’d trained herself to fall asleep the moment her head hit a pillow.

She’d also trained herself to respond to her assistant’s summons. She was up in a flash, head raised and ears perked, listening for anypony that might need her help. Instead of cries of pain, however, she heard the gruff voices of soldiers outside the medical tent’s partition between the patients’ beds and the doctors’ cots. If there were soldiers bothering the other nurses, then that could only mean one thing.

Her day was about to get much, much busier.

Sliding out of her cot, the Chiurgeon spared a moment to brush the ears of her little furry assistant: a small, white rabbit. The rabbit chittered briefly and then hopped out of the way as the Chiurgeon bumbled toward the partition on deathly tired limbs. A wing pushed it aside and she stepped into the main body of the tent, where the smell of blood, bile, and feces struck her like a brick to the face.

Yet she did not flinch at the sudden assault on her senses; it was only part of the job, a part she’d gotten used to. The moans and cries of pain, on the other hoof, were each unique and different. No matter how many times she’d thought she’d heard every possible permutation, a fifteen year old colt with a mangled wing or a middle-aged mare with her leg chewed off would find some new way to twist their cries of pain and agony into something she’d never heard before. After ten years, she’d heard more cries of pain and suffering than she’d ever imagined hearing. Now, she could only wonder how many more she would have to endure.

The commotion at the front of the tent promised that she’d get to sample new ones soon enough. Two of her nurses pleaded with a group of soldiers standing at the entrance to the tent; the Chiurgeon already knew what it was about. Swallowing hard, she tried to squeeze her anxiety to the tips of her wings where it couldn’t shake the rest of her frame. She much preferred dealing with the dead and dying; corpses and the wounded didn’t insult or frighten her as much as the living did.

Still, she was the head Chiurgeon of Army Group Center, so it was her duty to intervene in cases like this, as much as she disliked it. After navigating around a few bloody cots stuffed with mangled soldiers, she gently put the tips of her wings on her nurses’ shoulders and calmly parted them to confront the soldiers herself. “I’m… I-I’m sorry, is there something I can help you with?” she said, her voice momentarily hitching. Not good enough. She needed to be stronger.

“We need bandages and wraps,” the soldier closest to her, the biggest one, said. “There’s going to be a fight today.”

The Chiurgeon swallowed, already knowing where the conversation was headed. “A fight? Oh my… how many do you need?”

“As many as you can spare,” the soldier said. “Our field medics need to be stocked up.”

“The field medics should have their own supplies!” one of the nurses spat. “We need everything here to deal with the wounded! If there’s going to be a fight, we’re going to need everything we have here to treat the new casualties!”

“If a medic runs out of supplies on the field, what good is he to us?” the soldier retorted. “Good ponies will bleed out and die if they can’t be patched up enough to even get here in the first place!”

“Changelings target medics first! If we give them all more supplies than they need, we’ll lose most of them during the fighting!”

The Chiurgeon tried to take a deep breath to steady herself. When she released it, her eyes fell on the soldiers’ silver armor, on the dents across its surface, on the rust collecting around the joints. They were veterans, and they were weary. They wanted to go home—just like she did. Nopony wanted to be out here fighting anymore. But they were, and they were frustrated, and they took out that frustration where they could. Unfortunately, that sometimes meant berating the medical staff, even though they were simply doing whatever they could to keep everypony alive.

One of the nurses looked about ready to burst a vessel, but the Chiurgeon extended her wing and brushed back the nurse’s sweaty mane. No words were said; the mere action and a simply look from the Chiurgeon was enough to calm her down. Instead, the Chiurgeon strode forward until she was less than a foreleg’s reach away from the soldier, swallowed down her anxiety, and looked him in the eyes. “Are you feeling better, corporal?” she asked, her voice sweet and caring.

The corporal blinked back at her. “What do you mean? I’ll feel a lot better when we get what we came for!”

“Your side,” the Chiurgeon continued, and she brushed the soldier’s right side with a gentle wing. “Does it bother you still?”

The simple question made the soldier shrink back. He swallowed hard and averted his gaze. “No… no, it doesn’t.”

The Chiurgeon nodded. “I spent five hours operating on it, you know,” she said, nervously smiling at the soldier. “I didn’t take a break because it was too delicate to be left to somepony else. I stitched it back together and changed your bandages every four hours for three days. Do you remember that?”

The soldier didn’t answer her. He didn’t even look at her; shame filled his eyes.

She gently pressed her wing against the soldier’s side for a few seconds more before pulling it away and stepping back. “Let us worry about keeping everypony alive. Let the medics worry about bringing you back to us in one piece. You just worry about staying safe, okay?”

The soldier fumbled for words for several seconds, yet ultimately yielded to a few small nods. “Okay,” he said, turning around and hiding his face from the Chiurgeon and her nurses. “If you say so…”

They left without further argument, leaving the medical staff alone at the entrance to their tent. Instead of relief, however, the Chiurgeon sniffled and walked away, leaving her confused nurses to hurry after her.

“What’s wrong?” one asked, concern painted across her face. “Why are you upset?”

“Because he’s scared,” the Chiurgeon whimpered, her blearing eyes already searching for the comforting sight of her rabbit. “He’s scared and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The commotion outside her tent managed to disturb the Magus from her meditation. The threads of thought she’d been chasing, hypotheses and theorems that could sharpen her magic, fled and skittered to the dark corners of her mind as soon as the noise grew loud enough for her to register it. Growling, she stood up and flung away her incense burners and scrolls in a wave of magic. Didn’t the stick-wielding simpletons know better than to disturb her?!

Apparently not, and now her meditation was ruined. She already knew that she’d only be able to operate at ninety-eight percent of her normal strength, and that two percent could make all the difference in the world. Five ponies would likely die today as a direct result of her interrupted meditation. At least she’d been able to focus for three hours before the noise from the camp grew too much…

But now that her mind had been pulled from the planes of pure arcana, her body began to bother her for its worldly needs. Namely, food and water, of which she had none in her tent. She glared at the flap sealed shut at the far end of the tent. That meant she’d have to go out there into the midst of all the soldiers and other commoners. She’d have to interact with the lowly ponies again. Undoubtedly, some would try to talk to her. Why couldn’t they just understand the basic concepts of mages and how the Poor Fucking Infantry weren’t worth her time?

Tightening her magus shawl around her shoulders and mane, the Magus marched toward the door. “Come, Owlowiscious,” she said, beckoning to the owl resting on its perch in the corner of the room. “We must see the Princess after breakfast.”

Her familiar hooted and jumped from its perch to her shoulder, where its sharp talons clenched into the fabric covering it. Now firmly rooted in place, the owl fluffed his feathers as its master pushed through the tent fabric and emerged into the mid-morning daylight. The Magus momentarily squinted, but the hood of her runic shawl shielded her eyes from the worst of the light. She wondered, and not for the first time, if she should have changed the orientation of her tent to face south instead of east. But that would be a disservice to the Princess, and if there was any pony who deserved to be praised in this whole miserable affair, it was her. A momentary, unpleasant blindness was hardly a price to pay when it came to that great service.

The Magus frowned and trotted across the courtyard, ignoring the soldiers moving left and right as they began to assemble into their companies. Most gave her a wide berth, knowing exactly who she was and exactly how many ways she could end their miserable existence, but there were always new recruits that didn’t yet grasp the way things worked around the camp. To those young ponies, the Magus would forcefully move them out of the way with her magic, picking them up and depositing them someplace else, yet ever careful to prevent her horn and her temper from flaring. Both were valuable assets she needed in peak condition to fight the hive. Wasting them on the fodder of her own side wasn’t worth the effort.

The cooks saw her coming from a ways off—it was impossible not to—and already had her preferred grains prominently displayed for her by the time she arrived. That was always good; it cut out the bothersome pleasantries that had to be exchanged otherwise. Instead, she simply grabbed her plate and pivoted about, making a swift return to her tent.

Unfortunately, when she arrived, she saw another magus patiently waiting outside. The phoenix on her shoulder sang its greetings to Owlowiscious, who hooted in response. The Magus, however, only frowned down her muzzle at her compatriot. “You could at least give me time to eat before we go.”

“You’ll have to eat on the way,” the other mage returned. “The Princess needs us at the war tent. The Major and the others are drawing up battle plans.”

The Magus sighed and glowered at the words. “Ten years and they still don’t know well enough how to make the most of us,” she said, reluctantly turning away from her purple tent and instead moving toward the large tent rising above the army camp. “Just because we have power beyond what they can fathom doesn’t mean our place is in the front ranks with the rest of the fodder.”

“If this war drags on there won’t be much of our order left,” the other mage said, matching the Magus stride for stride. Then, nodding to the tent, she began to pick up the pace. “Come on, the sooner we get there, the sooner we can sort their plans out.”

The Magus hastily stuffed some of her grains into her mouth, knowing full well that she’d be too busy talking and shouting once there to find the time to eat. “If you say so, Sunset.”

The Major had to suppress a scowl as the pair of mages walked into the command tent at their usual nonchalant pace. If she didn’t know better, she would have assumed that they’d simply been held up on the other side of camp, and that was why they were late. But she did know better, and she knew that the hornheads, the magi who claimed to be direct descendants of Celestia’s bloodline, considered themselves above the rank-and-file soldiers. They made everypony else wait on purpose, even when an attack from the Hives was imminent.

“Magi,” she began, letting her annoyance slip into her voice as the two robed unicorns shouldered their way to the front of the circle of officers. “I hope this isn’t too inconvenient for you, but we’ve got a battle to plan, here.”

“It would have been much less inconvenient if you could have waited fifteen minutes,” the purple magus, Princess Celestia’s favorite, had the gall to grumble. She stuffed the last of her breakfast into her mouth and made everypony wait while she chewed and swallowed it before speaking again. “My meditation was cut short, and then I had to eat breakfast on the way here.”

“Then I apologize for the Hives’ behavior, but the war doesn’t stop and start at your command,” the Major growled. “Half an hour ago, I received a report from my pickets that Hive activity was increasing around the Twins. An attack is imminent, and we need to be prepared to repulse it.”

“We likely could have told you that much,” the other magus replied. “An attack was all but certain the moment we took control of those bridges. I’m surprised it took them this long to muster for it. We should have squashed them immediately after seizing the Twins.”

“We would have but your firestorm left dozens of my best lancers wounded.” The Major angrily shuffled her feathers and glared daggers at the pair of hornheads standing across the table from her. When the magi decided to take matters into their own hooves, the collateral damage could be catastrophic. And given Magus Shimmer’s fondness for fire, the Major knew that she’d lost at least five hundred ponies over the course of the war due to the unicorn’s carelessness.

It was no small joy to her that the Order of the Magi had dwindled to just a hoofful of ponies over the course of the conflict. Maybe it would be extinguished once and for all with the end of the war.

Before the two ponies could begin shouting at each other in earnest, a soothing, matronly voice silenced them from the back of the tent. “Mares,” it said, and the Major turned away from the magi and toward the towering white figure seated near the table. Princess Celestia’s horn was aglow, perpetually tasked with maintaining the detection spell around the camp that would prevent changeling infiltrators from sneaking into their ranks. The alicorn’s face was weary and gaunt, and her mane hung in sweaty tatters against her neck and face, but never once did she complain. She was the center of the army, its heart and soul, and increasingly the one thing the splintering factions of Equestria’s Royal Army could rally around. A single word from her was more than enough to calm the rising tensions between the Major and the magi and reorient them back to the task at hoof.

The Major sighed and respectfully lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Princess. We’re growing distracted. We have more important things to do.” Even the pair of magi nodded in agreement and seemed to lower their haughty airs for a moment, shifting their critical glances to the map in front of them.

“Indeed,” the Magus said, studying the position of troops in the utmost detail. “Has my brother already left to rally the troops?”

“You know how General Armor prefers to lead from the front,” the Major said. “He left me here to pass on his orders to the rest of the army.”

“So let’s hear it, then,” Magus Shimmer said, adjusting the hood of her robe to free her ears and letting her sweaty, fiery mane fall free. The phoenix perched on her shoulder leaned forward expectantly, mimicking its master’s demeanor. “How are we going to end the war today?”

The Major pointed to a mock up of two bridges stretched across as chasm. “We hold the line at the Twins,” she said. “They’re our foothold into the Hives, and once our reinforcements begin to arrive en masse, we can brush aside any resistance the Changelings could throw at us. But we have to hold the Twins.”

She moved a few pieces around, concentrating several pony figurines around the bridges. “General Armor wants to place the vanguard across the Twins and hold the ground there. Behind them, we’re arranging a second line on each of the bridges to hold them in case the vanguard breaks. If the vanguard does break, it will be up to them to push back across the bridges and reestablish our foothold once the changeling charge has been blunted. Since we control the bluffs and cliffs around the canyon, we’ll be placing our archers and magic artillery on the heights to disperse the advance and hopefully deal with any beasts and behemoths sent our way.”

“Do we know how many beasts they’re bringing forth?” Magus Shimmer asked. “If they charge our vanguard, they could shatter it when they try to retreat across the bridges only to find that there are too many bodies on them to pass.”

“It’s going to be messy,” the Major stated. “They’ll likely send everything they’ve got at us just to break through. Which is why I need you two to help hold each bridge. If they manage to seize one…”

The implication hung in the air, plain enough for everypony to understand. The two mages looked at each other and nodded, pulling their robes back over their heads. “So long as nopony gets in our way, we can hold the bridges,” the Magus said. “But if you’re going to want us to take down the beasts, we need to stay safe from the above.”

“I’ll personally be leading my dragoons in this fight,” the Major said. She eagerly flexed her wings, the air blown off of them ruffling the corners of the map. “You might want to keep those hoods up so no bug guts get in your face.”

“How many?”

The gathered ponies turned to Princess Celestia, and the Major cleared her throat to answer the Princess’ single question she asked before every battle. “We don’t know how many changelings the Hives have, but they likely outnumber us by double,” she said. “We have sixteen thousand soldiers in Army Group Center. If we win today, we may lose four thousand or more.”

“And there is no other way?”

“Not unless you want the war to continue for another five years, your Highness.”

The Princess seemed to deflate and her wings drooped by her sides. The Major had to try hard to smother her contempt. Even after ten years, with victory on their doorstep, the Princess still couldn’t bring herself to order ponies to die for Equestria. She wanted to save every last one of them, but she couldn’t, which was why she’d delegated the war to her generals. But even then, that didn’t stop her from bemoaning every death, as if it was possible to win the war with friendship alone.

What a pathetic thought.

Finally, however, the Princess bowed her head. “So be it. So long as this brings an end to the war and no more of my precious little ponies have to die for it.”

“It will be the end one way or another,” Sunset Shimmer said. “Whoever wins this fight will win the war, I think.”

“Then we won’t lose,” the Magus said. “We’ll win here and all go home.”

The Major nodded. “My thoughts exactly. But now, I need to see to my troops.” She stepped away from the table and bowed to the Princess. “I’ll deliver you the victory myself, Princess.”

“Not if we do it first,” Sunset said, proudly puffing out her chest.

Princess Celestia spared them all a small smile. “I’m eternally grateful to have ponies like you helping Equestria in times like these. Just… do come back to me alive when this is all over.” The Major noticed a twinkle in her eye, but she blinked it away and set her shoulders into a more confident pose. “I feel like we’ve all become close friends this past decade. I don’t want to lose any of you.”

The Major bowed her head again. “Of course, your Highness.” Then, spreading her wings and delivering a crisp salute, she pivoted about and left the tent at a brisk pace. There was too much to organize and too little time to do it.

A lot of ponies would die today… and likely many more than she had told the Princess.

Comrades

The Private tried to keep her head high and her shoulders square as her company marched out from camp. Merely a new conscript drafted at the start of the year’s campaigning season, she hardly considered herself a soldier. Most of her company were farmers called up from the heartlands just like her, ponies who had never fought in a war before, where the threat of a changeling infiltration seemed so far away and distant. After all, what reason would a changeling have to infiltrate a small farming community? But Equestria was indifferent to the burdens of her daughters in a war like this, and the Private had been forced to leave her orchard in the care of her little sister and elderly granny. She didn’t know if she’d ever see it again; casualties in Army Group Center had been horrific during the campaign through the Badlands, and she fully expected her name to appear on a list somewhere before it was time to go back home.

The sun beating down on her armor, which barely consisted of more than a steel half helm, a breastplate, and layers of thick fabric padding across her coat, made her feel like she was trapped inside a boiling kettle. Her sweat couldn’t escape to cool her down, and within a few minutes of donning her gear, she felt like she was trapped in a stifling swamp inside her armor. The further south the army went, the hotter it became, and more ponies had become casualties of heat stroke and dehydration, thinning out the regiment even more.

But not her. She was a proud earth pony, and she would shoulder any burden to go home to her family again.

Ahead of her company stood the Twins, the two wooden bridges spanning the gorge that divided the Hives’ heartlands from their feeding grounds. The battle waged there eight days ago had been a brutal bloodbath, but it had been a victory nonetheless. The Private remembered standing in the reserves watching the other companies attempt to force the bridge while the pegasus dragoons and lancers struck down the outnumbered garrison the Hives had left to protect it. Shattered chitinous bodies and blood bags made from writhing ponies had fallen from the sky like strange rain, bathing the dry and dusty ground below. She hadn’t had to fight then, but now it was her turn to hold the ground taken, to make all that death mean something.

Her horseshoes joined the thunder of her company marching across the bridge. The noise surely had to be audible for miles with the canyons as deathly still and quiet as they usually were. She didn’t know if the changelings knew fear or not, but they surely had to respect this kind of might. Then again, the changelings were said to have monsters the sizes of barns…

“Company, halt!”

The soldiers all came to a stop with one final stomp in the dirt and dust. The Private adjusted her halberd and anxiously glanced around. Only about two thousand ponies made up the vanguard of the army’s center, with the rest waiting in reserve across the Twins, positioned on the cliffs behind them, or rising up into the air from the camp. The Private swallowed hard as she realized she was the vanguard for the attack. The changelings always attacked in massive hordes that could easily overwhelm smaller forces. Was she expected to stand up to thousands today?

“Ready arms!”

The Private detached her halberd from her armor and planted the butt into the dirt in front of her, slotting the shaft into a groove running near her right shoulder. Around her, the rest of her company did the same. Two thousand shiny steel points reflected the light of the morning as the company readied themselves to fend off an attack even as the land remained silent around them.

Nopony said a word. Nopony hardly moved. They could have all been statues and the Private wouldn’t have noticed the difference. The only sounds were the guttering breeze and the panting of thousands of hot and tired ponies all around her.

A shiver passed through the company, and the Private’s ears twitched. At first she didn’t know what it was, but then she noticed the conscripts in front of her looking down at the ground. Nostrils flaring, she did the same and flinched back at what she saw.

The pebbles were shaking.

The Magus perched upon a rocky outcrop overlooking the battlefield. Magus Shimmer stood to her left, and between the two of them was weary Princess Celestia. From their vantage, they could observe the entirety of the battlefield below them, and the dazzling silver armor of the infantry arrayed across the Twins glittered in their eyes as the vanguard arrayed themselves into formation.

“This will be it,” Sunset Shimmer said, grinning beneath the runes woven into her hood. “One big fight to decide the outcome of the war. Once we win this, we’ll be all set to go home.”

“It will take much more than that,” Celestia quietly murmured to herself. “This battle will not be the finale of the war, only a staggering climax. So many ponies will die… ponies and changelings.”

The Magus scoffed in disgust. “I can understand grieving for your subjects, Princess, but the changelings? They’re mindless insects. They can’t even feel pain.”

Princess Celestia turned to her, and the Magus was surprised to see pain in her eyes. “My student… All life has value. Even changelings. I hope you understand that.”

The Magus turned her head away and huffed at the Princess’ admonishment. Nothing more was said on the subject, however, and the towering white alicorn once more turned her sad eyes to the dusty ground before them. Nostrils flaring, she closed her eyes and concentrated, ears twitching as she listened. When she opened her eyes again, it was with an almost apparent sigh of defeat. “They’re coming.”

Magus Shimmer grinned and let her horn spark to life. “Great. Guess I better get down there and fry some bugs.” Winking at the Magus, she added, “Try not to die down there. It’d be a real shame to go out on the big battle of the war.”

“I’ll survive,” the Magus said, adjusting her hood with her magic. “See you down there.”

Winking, Sunset let the red glow on her horn grow until she disappeared with a pop. In the same instant, she reappeared down in front of one of the bridges, startling the soldiers stationed on it. Without a word, she readied herself into her casting stance and faced toward the south, waiting for the changelings to make their approach.

“I should be going too, Princess,” the Magus said, bowing low. But before she could teleport, Celestia stopped her with a hoof on her shoulder. Confused, she angled her head to the side. “Princess?”

“My student…” she said, turning toward the mage. “If I may speak plainly for a moment.”

The Magus blinked, taken aback by her ruler’s request. “Why… why of course, Princess. Why would you need to ask me that?”

Celestia chuckled, though it was empty and sad. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve watched you grow from a young mare into a unicorn comfortable in her role as a magus commanding the battlefield so quickly that I’m intimidated.” She looked away for a moment, her eyes wandering over the dust beginning to rise from the canyon. “If I could have done anything to stop this war just for your sake, I would have. You deserved better than this.”

“What?” the Magus knitted her eyebrows, trying to study her immortal ruler’s porcelain expression. “What do you mean by that?”

“I had hoped to make you so much more than this,” Celestia ultimately said. “Something greater than a mere Magus wielding the arcane for death and destruction in a mountain of bodies. I wanted to teach you a better magic.” She turned back to her student and looked her over, noting everything from the scars on her coat to the glowing runes in her purple robes. “I had wanted you to be there when my sister came back. I had wanted you to solve Nightmare Moon’s return. But the war made that impossible.”

The Magus’s eyes wandered to the sky, where hidden somewhere under the light of day, the Mare in the Moon had been returned to her imprisonment during a brief struggle with her sister that had nearly destroyed the Equestrian war effort from within. “What kind of power could I have learned then that I don’t have now? If I were to fight Nightmare Moon today, I would be much more capable of defending myself than I was four years ago.”

The look on Celestia’s face told her that she had missed the point, that there had been plans and machinations for her torn asunder by the outbreak of the war, hopes and schemes that meant nothing now. Celestia herself could only look away and stride closer to the edge of the cliff. “There’s no time to discuss it now, unfortunately,” she said. “Maybe when this is all over we can think about it some more. But for now…”

A weak but genuine and hopeful smile changed Celestia’s expression entirely. When she looked into the Magus’ eyes, the unicorn suddenly felt like there was a deeper meaning to her words. “Don’t merely use your magic to kill, Twilight. Use it to save a life. Use it to protect your fellow ponies. They may not be as strong as you, but they are all your equals. Even the Major.”

The mention of the Major set an unpleasant taste in the Magus’ mouth, but she nevertheless nodded, not one to refuse the advice given to her by Equestria’s living goddess, cryptic as it may have been. “I will try my best, Princess,” she said, bowing low. But as the ground began to shake and vibrate beneath them, she quickly summoned a glow of energy to her horn. “For now, though, I have to fight. You are strong enough to maintain the ward, right?”

Celestia nodded, and the pale wash of magic on her horn glowed brighter. “I have not failed my little ponies yet,” she said, “and I will not fail them today.”

“Good. See you when this is all over.” Then, spinning about, the Magus spotted an open space on the bridge and let the magic flow from her horn, slicing across the fabric of reality to join the army in preparation of the storm coming their way.

The Major hovered in place above the army as her dragoons fell into formation behind her. She could see the ponies arranged on both sides of the Twins, with the earth pony vanguard forming a stout obstacle between the Hives and the army’s camp. She did not envy those poor souls down there ordered to hold the line by themselves. The vanguard would likely be slaughtered to the last, but if they held the changelings back from crossing the bridges long enough for her dragoons and the unicorns to make mincemeat out of them, then they would have done their jobs in service to the principality.

A sacrifice to be honored, for sure.

She quickly spun in place to inspect her troops as they arranged themselves in neat, orderly arrowheads. Most were already picking up a sheen of sweat on their coats, and even though their armor was light, the heat and the dry air sapped their strength and didn’t leave them any clouds to stand and rest on. All the clouds the army had brought with them were being used to support the troops with rainwater; they were too valuable to bring anywhere near the field of battle. So, with no other options, the pegasi had to beat their wings and hover under the weight of their armor and lances until the order to charge was given.

Her pickets began to return to the army, carrying with them news of any changeling movements within fifteen miles of the front. So far, everything seemed to be quiet along the flanks of the army, and her scouts confirmed what she had suspected: the changelings were rallying everything they had to counterattack the Equestrian position at the Twins, including numerous goliath beasts. If she could win the fight today, she could win the war for Equestria.

Green wings heralded the arrival of her trusted sergeant. “Major,” Lightning Dust began, throwing a quick salute into her approach. “The company is formed and ready to move.”

The Major nodded, though she didn’t take her eyes off the opposite side of the ravine. “Good. Then all we have to do is wait.”

“Hammer and anvil?” Lightning asked. “Or tip of the spear?”

“A little bit of both,” the Major said, a small smile forming on her face. “I got creative. You’ll see.”

Lightning chuckled. “You always did like to be flashy.”

“If you’re not flashy, nobody will see you when you claim all the glory.”

The Major narrowed her eyes at movement on the far side of the ravine. Lightning saw the change in her expression, so she likewise shifted her attention in that direction. Her brow lowered and her lips parted to reveal bared teeth. “There they are. About time they showed their shiny black faces.”

Emerging out of a bend in the canyon was the changeling army. The sight of the bugs always sickened the Major. They marched in rough company formation in a crude mockery of the pristine Equestrian battle lines, with very little coherence to their troop regiments other than blocks of drones. They carried flags and standards of black and blue, each depicting the crowns of their respective queens. Their weapons were forged from black iron, a crude but terrifyingly effective substance found in the badlands. Pound for pound, the common Equestrian soldier was worth two or three poorly equipped and expendable drones. Unfortunately, the Hives had a lot of weight on their side… and not just through their drones, which outnumbered Army Group Center by nearly three to one.

Mountains moved around the army—only they weren’t mountains. Monstrous arthropods taller than houses clambered over rocks and scuttled by the sides of the army. They were the real danger of the Hives, the wrecking ball that could slaughter hundreds in minutes if left unchecked. Nopony knew where exactly the changelings found them, or if they were just drones twisted into monsters by the queens of the Hives, but the Magi tended to call them goliaths. Most ponies, on the other hoof, simply called them ‘beasts’ or incoherent screaming and crying.

The Major counted the Hives’ army as it began to descend on the Twins. The drones she had little concern for, but the goliaths could rout the army with ease. When she finally counted all five of them, she swallowed hard and felt a cold sweat break out under her armor. If the Hives were fielding five goliaths now, how many more did they have in reserve?

If they weren’t careful, they could lose the entire army in one charge.

A palpable tingle of magic filled the air, and the Major looked down to the bluffs beneath them. There, Princess Celestia stood in her gold and silver plate mail, magical energy building on her horn. The Major tensed herself before the Princess released the spell, and when she did, a golden wave of light burst forth and enveloped the battlefield. She quickly turned around to inspect her own troops in case the purging spell had revealed any embedded infiltrators in her ranks, but there wasn’t a black shell to be seen. Thanks to the Princess’ magic, the Hives had largely given up on infiltrating her army, but that didn’t mean they could assume they never would try it again.

“And now it starts,” Lightning Dust said. She turned to the Major and cocked an eyebrow. “Orders, ma’am?”

“Take four regiments with you and climb as high as you can,” the Major said in reply. “When you see my signal, drop them on the fliers and crush them from above.”

“The usual signal?”

The Major smirked back at her. “You know the one. Now go,” she said, already spotting several hundred changelings rising into the air to fight for dominance of the sky. “I’ve got a charge to lead.”

Lightning Dust did as she was told, departing with a salute and quickly pulling a few hundred ponies to follow her to higher altitude. As she did so, the Major turned and faced her dragoons, her trusted elite, their mettle tempered in dozens of battles. “We take the fight to the bugs!” she shouted, loud enough so all could hear her voice. “We can’t let them get above the vanguard or we lose the battle. Understood?!”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

“Good!” Turning back toward the changelings, the Major pulled loose a pin on her armor and swiveled her lance from back to front, so the steel weapon stuck a good two and a half tail lengths out from her shoulder. Locking it into place, she gave the order for her soldiers to do the same. “Fix weapons!”

The air momentarily glittered with hundreds of swinging lances, and she gave her troops ten seconds to get them fixed before she began to fly forward, her speed increasing as her company built up momentum. “Everypony, on me! We take the charge right to the Hives! We’ll break through and burn their nests down, and the war will be over!

“For honor! For glory! For the Princess! For Equestria!

“Charge!”

Horns blared.

Officers shouted.

Hooves shook the earth.

The Private felt her throat seize up as the hordes of changelings began to gallop down the hill towards her company. Though they had showed up in formations and ranks to match the Equestrians, those began to rapidly disintegrate as the drones lost cohesion and simply threw their weight into the charge. Alabaster wings buzzed and filled the air with a horrible vibration, and her green eyes pitched upwards at the drones beginning to dive towards her position.

Nervous chatter rose up from the green soldiers of the vanguard as the ferocity of the incoming charge began to bear down on them. The Private wanted to run—every one of her instincts screamed at her to do so. But she was dead center in the formation, and there was nowhere to go. She could only stand her ground until the army broke ranks around her.

“Hold!” her officer shouted, and what limited drilling she’d had before being sent off to the front kicked in. Suddenly finding her foundation, the Private readied her halberd, feeling the weight of the weapon in her grasp. She was an Equestrian, was she not? She had the weight of her family at her back. She would be the rock that would break the charge.

“Brace!” came the next command, and the vanguard shakily lowered their halberds, planting the butts into the ground and bracing the hafts against their bodies. At a command, the mass of ponies became a solid wall of pikes and points, unassailable from any angle from the front. The Private could only imagine the carnage that would come next, but the changeling drones, too simple to think outside the command of their queens, did not change their course.

Flashes of light nearly broke the Private’s concentration. Somewhere behind them, regiments of unicorns let fly with all sorts of projectiles, both magical and mundane. Arrows fanned into the charge, thinning out the numbers, while heavy javelins ripped through the reinforced chitin of the stronger changeling soldiers. Magical bolts and blasts of arcane tore huge and ragged holes in the charging army, splattering gore and pieces of chitin across the dusty badlands. But it didn’t stop the charge.

The Private felt it firsthoof when a black body tried to squeeze through the rows of pikes. Growling, she thrust back with a yell, and her eyes widened in surprise when the point of her halberd pierced the changeling’s armor near its neck. It shrieked and thrashed in pain, but while her halberd held it pinned in place, another jabbed from over her shoulder and ripped its abdomen open. Entrails and green blood bathed the soldier in front of her, who squawked in alarm and dropped his weapon as he vomited onto the earth.

But the Private had no time to reflect on the life she helped take. More changelings filled in the gap before she could free her weapon, and fangs and holey hooves tried to knife their way into the formation. To the right, a soldier fell as a drone pounced on him, fangs soaked red; on her left, a mare screamed as a changeling grabbed her mane and dragged her out of formation, where more drones promptly ripped her into wailing, bloody pieces. The brutal onslaught of the charge began to bite into the vanguard, but the valiant Equestrians fought back, forcing the Hives to pay for their meager advances in blood.

A shadow fell on the vanguard as the airborne changelings began to descend in an attempt to outflank and destroy the forward Equestrian unit. Suddenly attacked from the rear, the unit began to break cohesion and formation, and the Private looked over her shoulder to see some of her fellow green recruits struggling to fight off changelings in close quarters. She turned to help, but her cumbersome halberd became entangled with the weapons of the ponies around her, and when she tried to dislodge it, a heavy weight fell on her back with a fearsome hiss.

The Private slammed her muzzle into the ground as she fell, dirt and dust sticking to the sweat slickening her face and neck, tiny shards of stone shattered millions of years ago digging into her nose. She could feel the changeling weighing down on her, smell its vile odor, and as the adrenaline surged through her veins, she thrashed and fought back. Bucking, kicking, and writhing, the Private managed to shake her assailant loose before its teeth could find a soft spot in her armor, and she rolled onto her back to force the drone away with her hooves.

The drone pressed back against her, hissing and spitting in her face. The Private screamed back in return, half in anger, half in terror. She had never been this close to a changeling before, and suddenly it was looking like she’d never get the opportunity again. The changeling stomped hard on her now unprotected belly, and the mare coughed as pain distracted her from the struggle for her life. When the changeling tried to lunge at her throat, she threw her head forward in desperation, her half helm splitting the bug’s snout with a crack and forcing it away in agony.

Before it could lunge at her again, the ground began to dazzle with sunlight reflected off of silver armor. The drone paused, an in a split second, a tidal wave of colorful feathers swept over the vanguard and washed away the changeling assaulting it. The drone hissed at the onslaught of pegasi, only for a lance to impale it through the neck and tear its head off its body, leaving its spurting corpse to soak through the Private’s armor. And just as quickly as it began, it ended, and the now-tested soldiers of the vanguard rose back to their hooves and picked up their weapons.

“Company, form!” an officer shouted, and the survivors of the vanguard threw themselves back into a shoddy formation as the dragoons routed the first changeling charge. The Private grabbed a halberd from the ground—she had no idea if it was hers or not—and instinctively braced it against the ground in case another charge threatened her position. But instead of changelings flying towards her, she only saw armored pegasi flying away from her, their mounted lances stained green and carrying bits of chitin on their points as they swept back the remains of the wave. Soon, they were climbing higher into the sky, led by a colorful mare whose tail reminded the Private of a rainbow.

The vanguard had stood its first test, and it left the Private feeling more confident. They could do this. They could win the war. All she had to do was stand firm and refuse to yield and it would all be over. For the first time, the adrenaline of the fight put a half-smile on her face as dread turned into cautious excitement.

A ferocious roar and the thunderous shaking of the earth put an end to such notions. With the drone charge routed, the beasts in the back fiercely shrieked and began to lumber toward the vanguard, driven onwards at the behest of the soldiers mounted upon their backs. Horrible jaws filled with thousands of teeth stretched open into cavernous depths, and the very rock of the badlands split asunder as they began to charge down upon the helpless vanguard in front of them.

There wasn’t a command in the entire army that could keep the panicked soldiers in place. In the face of such terrible might, the vanguard broke ranks and ran—the Private among them.

The Magus growled in frustration as the witless idiots of the vanguard broke ranks in front of her and scattered in all directions. She knew that putting the green infantry in the front would only backfire in the end. What did it matter if they kept their veterans fresh and held in reserve across the Twins if the vanguard didn’t even slow the charge of the goliaths?

At the very least, maybe their panicked fleeing would distract the monsters long enough for her and Sunset to send them reeling.

The soldiers behind her tensed, and the Magus pulled her hood down and stepped forward off the bridge. Fifty feet away, Sunset Shimmer did the same, and the two exchanged looks. They’d each killed a dozen goliaths throughout the war; what were another few? Nothing but huge targets to work their magic on, that was what.

Sunset’s horn roared to life, and flames crackled across the dusty badlands. The Magus watched them burn, watched as the tongues of fire momentarily faltered the charge of the beasts. They were immune to all but the most concentrated of magic, so Sunset’s spell wouldn’t inflict any damage. But she had always been the faster caster, and her fire slowed the beasts down just long enough for the Magus to let fly with her own powerful punch of mana.

The ground shook and the bridge creaked as the Magus fired the first powerful blast of mana from her horn. With the goliaths slowed by the fire, it was hardly a difficult shot to punch right through the cranial armor of the goliath and boil its insides. It shrieked and howled as its limbs flailed in their death throes, and the colossal arthropod fell to the ground with a booming thud, squashing numerous unlucky drones as it fell.

But the Magus did not have any time to appreciate her kill. As she tried to draw mana back into her horn as fast as she could, the rest of the goliaths fell upon the scattered remains of the vanguard. Ponies were reduced to colorful smears on the rocks, and the goliaths’ jaws carved stones out of the ground as they swallowed soldiers whole. Some tried to fight back in vain, but their weapons could not pierce the goliaths’ shells, and those that lingered too long either fell flat beneath their monstrous feet or found themselves swarmed and slaughtered by the changelings following the charge of their wrecking balls.

Sunset began to weave more fire to force the changelings back, and the Magus fired another bolt of magic at a goliath. Like the first, it fell in one shot, its body adding another unnatural mountain to the craggy rocks of the badlands. Only three goliaths remained, but now, the Magus found herself the center of unwanted attention.

Drones began to rush her side of the Twins, and the Magus had to switch her focus from taking down the goliaths to warding off the changelings closing in around her. A shield repelled the first few, and the walls turned into lethal spikes that impaled them and flung them away. A step to the left, and she shifted her casting stance to slice another four in half with a toss of her horn. Wings buzzed behind her and fangs lunged at her robes, but a flash and a shriek of pain ended the changeling’s life as one of her magical wards detonated.

Gritting her teeth, the Magus whirled around and glared at the company of infantry standing fifteen feet behind her. “Well?!” she shouted, snarling at them. “You have pikes! Keep them off of me so I can cast!”

The fire in her voice rallied the nervous soldiers, and they pushed forward again to keep the changelings away from the Magus. She turned around and prepared to cast once more, only to immediately smack skulls with another pony. The goliaths had successfully driven the Equestrian vanguard from the field, and now the Twins were overflowing with soldiers trying to force their way back to the safety of the reserves. A crush formed across both bridges, and the two magi, the only thing keeping the goliaths in check, found themselves caught right in the middle of it.

“Get off of me!” the Magus shouted, trying to push back. The bridge shook and creaked as more and more weight piled onto it, and ponies began to scream as some fell off the sides. The Magus tried to push her allies back, but the helmet she’d taken to her skull left her magic sputtering. Was this going to be how Equestria lost the war? With its own army crushing itself on a bridge over a ravine?!

Changelings began to assault the formation from above, and the halberds had become too entangled with each other to effectively ward them off. The archers and artillery on the ridge behind tried to clear out the onslaught, but to little effect for fear of hitting their own forces. And somewhere behind it all, the Magus could still see the goliaths moving. One was busy chasing the fleeing ponies about the stone and dust on the other side of the Twins, one seemed to be held in reserve, and the other…

The Magus looked to her left. With a furious roar, the goliath lunged at the mass of ponies stretched across the bridge. Her eyes widened as desperate flames shot up from somewhere in the middle of the crush, but they weren’t enough to hold back several tons of pure monster. The frenzied beast fell on the bridge and all the ponies trapped on it, and the wood connecting one side of the gorge to the other exploded into splinters, sending hundreds of ponies to their deaths. Numerous bodies flailed as they fell, the weight of their armor dragging them to terrible deaths far, far below.

The Magus’ breath hitched in her throat when she didn’t see a flash of teleportation among the falling bodies.

Swallowing hard, a grim reality set in for her. She was the last standing magus of Army Group Center, and there were still two goliaths to kill. If she didn’t destroy those goliaths soon, the rest of the army would follow. But she couldn’t do it from here.

She slapped her hooves on the cheeks of the nearest soldier and dragged the orange mare’s face close to her. “Do you want to die today, private?” she screamed into her face.

“N-No!” the Private stuttered back. “But that monster—!”

“I can kill it!” the Magus shoved the orange private back, and with the smarting in her horn finally gone, she could use her magic again. Telekinesis lifted all the soldiers around her into the air, and she galloped off the bridge with them in tow. She set them down on the other side in a rough formation and charged to the front of it, her momentum bringing the soldiers behind her off the bridge as well. The field had momentarily cleared due to the lumbering and distracted charge of the goliath, and the Magus used the separation to her advantage. Her horn split the air like a thunderbolt, and the fourth goliath fell, leaving only one standing. The crack was like a drumbeat, and it instilled a fresh tempo in the army.

The Magus spared a moment to turn around and look the soldiers in their eyes. She was the last standing magus in the army, and it was up to her to lead this fight back from the brink of death. “We are Equestrians!” she shouted to them. “We do not yield! We will take this fight and we will win!”

With the chaos of the first goliath charge gone, both sides seemed to reset. The last goliath growled and clawed at the ground, and numerous drones formed up in front of it, ready to protect it from the Magus’ next attack. Both sides stared each other down, while high above, the pegasi and airborne drones fought a whirling and chaotic dance of death. Blood, sweat, and dirt covered the coats of the proud defenders of Equestria, giving them a ghastly look, as if they already had a hoof in the grave… and their fury was that of the damned come back for vengeance.

The Magus yelled, and Equestria yelled with her.

The Major watched the carnage below her as a goliath fell through one of the Twins, sending scores of ponies to their deaths along with it. Instinct wanted to send her flying down to grab just one before they vanished into the black abyss beneath them, but duty stayed her wings. Her dragoons were in the thick of it now, and they needed her leadership or they too would die like the soldiers below.

Dust and blood clawed at her eyes as she powered through the maelstrom around her. Green guts streaked her lance and coated the right side of her armor, all that remained of a drone smeared along her body. Her pegasi followed her in close formation, never stopping or wavering, only seeking to push through the body of drones and emerge on the other side as fast as possible. Their lances shattered chitinous bodies and sent innumerous drones falling to the dirt below, and the impressive charge of her dragoons pierced the shapeless cloud in two. They emerged on the other side no more than thirty seconds later, and the Major flapped her wings and began to lead her formation upwards.

A quick glance over her shoulder left a proud smirk on her face. The second wave of dragoons nailed the reeling changeling formation as the first exited it, further splitting the formation apart. Thirty seconds behind them, the third formation began its descent, ready to chop the drones apart again. And high above them all, Lightning Dust’s formation of lancers circled against the sky, forgotten about by the singular focus of the changeling hive minds in resisting the dragoon charge. All they needed was the signal, and the Major knew her capable second would secure them aerial supremacy for the rest of the fight.

She spared a look at the company commander to pass off control of the formation, and then began to accelerate, splitting off from the formation. As the second formation tore through the scattered changelings, the Major began to arc above the mass of changelings, stalling out just at its height. She lingered for a second for her dragoons to clear and, undetected, began to speed back down to the dirt of the badlands below her, her rainbow trail practically impossible to miss against the brown of the ground and the blue of the sky.

Her timing was perfect, and the ranks of the second formation cleared beneath her just before she crossed their airspace. The third formation began to cut through the changelings off to her side, but she was already well beneath them before they even began to get close. But her attention wasn’t on her troops anymore. It was only on her signal, on flying fast enough to shake the battlefield. It was something she’d done before, but there was always the risk that a changeling would get a lucky shot on her as she passed.

But there was no lucky shot. Those who realized what she was doing were far too slow to react and stop her. She could feel the air stiffening, the drag pushing back against her limbs like a spring compressed almost to its breaking point. It wanted to expand, wanted to fling her back to where she came from, but she didn’t let it. It screamed and cried as the wind whistled through her ears, but she paid it no mind. And then…

And then…

A flash of color and a boom of thunder bloomed over the battlefield. The Major abruptly changed her course before she hit the ground and chased the ring of light expanding out above her. Even in her armor, even when laden down with the tools of war, she was faster than any natural barrier. The sky could not contain her, and it would not entertain her enemies for long.

The shockwave of the colorful explosion separated the airborne drones from those on the ground, the boom preventing any more from taking off and joining their brethren in the skies. The third formation pressed the top of the changelings down into the ones rising away from her explosion of light and noise, and the changelings found themselves crushed in the air with little room to move—right as Lightning Dust fell upon them.

The carnage was nothing short of Tartaran. Chitin, guts, and filmy wings rained from the sky as Lightning Dust’s company of dragoons turned the changelings into pulp. In one fell stroke, the hammer crashed down upon the anvil, and the gooey remains of the drones caught in between spewed out like the sparks of a struck length of iron. Those that survived the charge scattered in all directions as the pegasi spread out at the bottom of their dive. Those that didn’t fell to the earth in messy piles. The Major was pleased to see more of the latter than the former.

Her momentum carried her up into the sky where her formations began to rally to her. A little bit at a time, the panting pegasi returned to their fearless leader as the aerial wing of their enemy lay crippled and shattered before them. But even though she’d struck a decisive blow against the changelings, the battle was hardly over yet. A goliath still raged below them, protected by changeling shield bearers and lesser queens, and it wouldn’t be long before more drones were directed into the skies. Now that they had aerial superiority, they had to hold it and smash the changelings into the dirt like crushing a bug on the pavement. The dragoons of Army Group Center would win the battle and win the war—and the Major wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Keep flying!” she shouted to her companies. “Keep fighting! Don’t stop until they’re fleeing the field—and then cut them down some more!” Grinning, she double-checked the lock on her lance and once more dived down into the fray. “Long live Equestria! Glory to the dragoons!”

There were no more battle lines on the ground anymore. The Private didn’t know what unit she was galloping with or who was in command. After the Magus had broken the crush on the sole surviving Twin and rallied the troops around her on the other side, the orderly formations and military discipline of Equestria’s armed forces had devolved into a ferocious charge. Ponies streamed across the bridge from the reserves, pikes and halberds lowered into makeshift lances as they sprinted through the rain of changeling gore from the skies toward the changelings massed at the far end of the pass.

Somewhere above the roar of the army, the Private heard the flash and boom of magical artillery from behind, and a rainbow of mana bolts lanced through the air and into the formation of drones ahead of her. The powerful magic severed limbs or boiled the bugs inside of their shells, momentarily scattering their formations as basic survival instincts fought with the hive mind commands of their queens. Scattered and confused, the drone caricatures of proper armies were easy prey for the horde of Equestrians surging across the dust and dirt—but the drones were never the problem.

Behind the drones, the last changeling beast loomed tall, protected by an array of lesser queens weaving a powerful magical shield in front of it. The Private wondered for a split second why they held it in reserve instead of letting it shatter the Equestrian charge, but her thoughts immediately went back to the battle at hoof as she had to skirt around the fallen bodies of drones and ponies alike. A thunderous boom shook the skies above, and when she turned her eyes heavenward, a brilliant ring of color burst over the battlefield, pummeling the changelings in the skies and leaving them helpless against the diving pegasi above them.

This battle was far from over yet.

Equestrian steel crashed against changeling black iron as the Private finally crossed the field and immediately thrusted her weapon at the changeling across from her. Her halberd was longer than the drone’s due to her earth pony strength allowing her to wield a heavier weapon, but the black iron the changelings used was far deadlier. The momentum of her charge carried her lance through the changeling’s chitinous armor and into the enemy ranks as she pushed her screaming opponent back, and she tried to disengage and pull back before any black iron pikes could pierce her armor clean through. But like on the bridge, the ponies behind her continued to push, only driving her deeper into the melee as Equestrians and changelings mingled and mashed together.

The Private almost choked on her own panting breath. Ponies of flesh and drones of chitin fought and raged all around her as both sides tried desperately to gain the upper hoof. In the close quarters brawl, the Private immediately found that her halberd was all but useless. The brace on her armor was poorly designed to allow her to fight with it at half length, and she didn’t have the room to try and pin it under her foreleg and fight that way. Drones hissed all around her, and one clawed at the armor on her shoulders, knocking her forward. She tumbled to the ground and her halberd disappeared somewhere into the melee. Bodies fell and blood clumped the dust and dirt, and it wasn’t long before a drone noticed her writhing on the ground.

She saw it out of the corner of her eye, saw the light glimmer off its filmy wings. Before it could pounce, however, she spun around on the ground and oriented her tail toward it. When it lunged, she closed her eyes and let years of running the orchard come back to her, muscle memories and instincts from a simpler time before the draft took her from her home. After all, if she could buck a tree, she could surely buck a weak changeling.

Her hooves connected with something solid… and then kept going. The force of her buck kicked her back off the ground, putting her body weight on her shoulders. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see her hooves going through the drone’s face. Whatever scream or hiss of pain it may have tried to squeeze out ended up mangled and garbled through her hooves. Augmented with steel horseshoes, there was no chance in Tartarus that the changeling could have held any hope of surviving the powerful apple buck delivered to its face.

The Private quickly rolled back to her hooves, her pike already a long lost cause. Instead, she simply began bucking and kicking at the changelings around her. Even still, she quickly realized she was the peak of the company’s penetration into the changeling lines. The sheer weight of drones began to throw the Equestrians back, even as more soldiers reinforced the line on each side. “Fight!” she screamed, her voice splitting ragged over the roar of war. “Drive the varmints back! For our home!”

Drone after drone fell to her powerful hind legs, but it wasn’t easy. Crushing the drones with her hooves meant safely navigating her lightly armored rear end within the reach of their weapons. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to keep it up; working through an orchard was one thing, but fighting for her life while weighed down in heavy armor was another. Sooner or later, she’d run out of luck.

But she wasn’t the only tip of the spear chewing through the melee. Not too far away, separated by only a few drones, the Magus weaved her spells into a maelstrom of death. Fire and ice, lightning and thunder, magic of all kinds ripped drones to shreds. Her robe fluttered with her movements, the runes glowing as they projected wards and barriers to fend off spears and fangs. Nothing could get close to her, nothing could touch her, and in the space she cleared, the Equestrians followed and supported.

The Private growled and began to fight her way over to the Magus. Her legs ached, but she continued to kick and wrestle with the drones around her. Bit by bit, she got closer to the Magus who had rallied her, and soon she was standing by her side, her hooves splitting apart the skull of a drone lunging for a gap in the Magus’ armor.

The unicorn only spared the drone a glance and the Private a nod of appreciation before she focused her efforts back on the changelings around her. Now comfortably at the Magus’ side, the Private quickly snatched a new halberd off the ground and began to fend off the drones from a distance, giving her legs a chance to rest. The two worked in tandem, driving the wedge deeper into the changeling lines. Those lines bent, then they splintered, then they cracked, and suddenly they were through.

Before them stood the towering body of the last monstrous behemoth. It watched them with a malignant intent, acid dripping from its mandibles, razor-sharp chitinous teeth ready to crush them to shreds. And around it, an assortment of lesser queens stood ready to protect it from the Magus’ magic. The behemoth’s clawed legs dug into the ground, and the Private knew if it charged, it would shatter their advance.

“Ya got a plan for that?” she asked the Magus as the two looked up at it. A barrage of magical artillery struck at the behemoth, but the queens cast a web of green spells together and fizzled it out of existence. Magic was the only thing that could bring these monsters down, and the Private didn’t see any way past the defenses the queens had erected around their trump card. So long as one behemoth stood on the field, the day was not won.

And then its legs tore through the earth is its colossal weight lunged forward… and it began to charge.

The Private cried out, but the Magus put her foreleg around her and held on tight. There was a flash of light, a flutter of vertigo, and then the Private found herself standing off to the side of the monster’s charge. “I… what…” she stuttered, but the Magus had already shifted her attention back to the monster. Her horn flared to life, and a cascading barrage of spells and elements all flew at the behemoth, her spells probing the queens’ defenses. Though most were harmlessly absorbed before they could strike the monster’s chitin, some managed to slip through, drawing the behemoth’s ire and attention before it could plow over the mass of Equestrian soldiers driving the changeling army from the field.

“Well, you got the darn thing’s attention,” the Private said, readying her halberd for all the good it would do against a behemoth charge. “Got any other brilliant plans?”

“Just one,” the Magus said, and instead of loosing another spell, she tilted her horn straight up and fired a series of flares into the air. The Private watched them twist and sizzle, but they did little to stop the behemoth beginning to bear down on them, the ground shaking and thundering as it picked up speed.

And then, shadows. For a moment, the Private wondered if a cloud had drifted across the sun, but clouds were rare in the dry air of the badlands. Only when she heard the beating of wings and the war cry ringing out over the land did she realize what it was. She tilted her head back as a column of pegasus dragoons descended from overhead, their lances extended as they dived right into the fray. The queens shifted their focus from the Magus to the pegasus charge, lancing out green magic into the air to try and shatter it before the wave crashed down on them.

“Keep them off of me!” the Magus shouted as mana began to build on her horn. Sweat dripped down her cheeks, the glistening droplets reflecting the buzzing wings of a pack of charging changelings. The Private swallowed hard and readied her halberd, knowing full well that this would likely be their best shot at ending the battle in one more decisive blow. If the behemoth fell, the changelings would be routed, and there would be nothing between the army and the Hives.

She tightened her grip on her weapon and roared right into the face of the first assailant as it lunged for the Magus in a desperate bid to snuff out the spell that would win the war.

Equestria would prevail.

Acquaintances

The Quartermaster watched the Chiurgeon stitch a gruesome bite wound up on a mare’s neck. The pegasus moved the needle between her feathers with such precision that she had to admire her work. It reminded her of her own passions that she’d had to drop when the war broke out. How she eagerly anticipated the moment where she could finally pursue them once again.

“Is there something I can help you with?” the Chiurgeon asked, her eyes never lifting from her patient. Though obviously working under duress, the pegasus’ words carried no irritation or ill-will in them. The question was genuine and warm, underwritten with a desire to be helpful if needed.

The Quartermaster shook her head. “Nothing at all, dear,” she said, backing up to make space for the doctor as she moved from one side of her patient to the next. “I’d originally stopped by to see if there was anything you needed to requisition for your treatments, since our supplies are all in a bungled mess at the far end of the camp. But it seems like you’re far too busy for that at the moment.”

“We should have everything we need for the moment,” the Chiurgeon responded. “But soon there will be more wounded. Right now, I just need to patch up as many as I can and move them off the tables so we can treat the rest coming in.”

The Quartermaster nodded, though she still hovered near the tables. “Do you need any assistance?” she asked after a moment. “I can always have my secretary handle requisition orders in the interim.”

The Chiurgeon hesitated for a moment. “Are you good with a needle?” she finally asked.

“Good with a needle? Hah! You have no idea who you’re talking to, darling.” The Quartermaster readily took the offered needle and thread and began to sew where the Chiurgeon directed her to. “Why, I wanted to open my own fashion boutique before this whole nonsense with the war ruined those dreams. Creating dresses is my passion.”

“Is it?” The Chiurgeon turned away and grabbed more bandages from a nearby table. She began to layer them over the nasty gashes to her patient’s shoulders, stemming the flow of blood still trickling out of the wounds. “How did you end up as quartermaster, then?”

“Well, that’s quite the simple matter.” The Quartermaster tied off the thread and moved onto the next open wound to stitch back together. “It’s one thing to design dresses, and another to make them. Yet neither of those will get you anywhere if you don’t know how to manage a supply line and market. It’s one of my many talents. When the draft call went out, I answered and almost immediately found myself in the position that you see me in today: Quartermaster of Army Group Center.” She cocked her head at the Chiurgeon as she watched her work. “What about you, darling? Work in a hospital before?”

“Oh, goodness no,” the pegasus said. “I used to take care of animals.”

“My, how altruistic!” The Quartermaster smiled at the mare standing across from her. “I imagine they’ll be very happy to see you again once all this nasty business is wrapped up once and for all.”

“I certainly hope so. I can’t imagine what they’ve had to go through without anypony to take care of them.” She sighed and added, “But they’re used to living in the Everfree Forest. They know how to look after themselves, too.”

The Quartermaster blinked. “I was under the impression the animals you cared for were household pets, not wild beasts.”

“Sometimes the wild ones are the ones who need the most help.” The Chiurgeon’s eyes lifted as the flap to the medical tent opened and another wave of wounded began to enter. “Oh! Major! I didn’t expect to see you here!” She quickly saluted at the approaching ponies, and then her eyes fell on the mare standing next to her. “And Magus Sparkle! Is something wrong?”

The two approaching ponies carried another orange pony between the two of them. “This private is badly wounded,” the Magus said, looking around for a table. “She needs treatment immediately.”

“O-Of course!” the Chiurgeon replied, her anxiety at interacting with the Magus somewhat getting the better of her. She turned her attention to the Quartermaster and pointed with a wing. “Can you set her somewhere else?” she asked, gesturing to the wounded mare they had been operating on. “We’ve done all we can for her, now she just needs to rest and hopefully she’ll wake up again.”

The Quartermaster nodded and picked the wounded soldier up in her magic, moving her off to the side and opening up the operating table. The Magus then placed the soldier she helped carry on the table with her magic and gave her a worried look. “How are you feeling?” the unicorn asked the bloodstained earth pony.

“Like a million bits,” the mare drawled through a shaky voice. “That big bugger weren’t too bad… easier than I thought, really.”

“What happened to her?” the Chiurgeon asked as she examined the Private’s wounds.

“She aided us in taking down the final behemoth,” the Major said. “She fought bravely, like a mare possessed. She protected our Magus here long enough for her to bring down the last behemoth, even while under attack from a dozen bugs. Most of the PFI would have fled if they had to stare down one of those monsters.”

“She saved my life,” the Magus added. “There were so many changelings in the middle of the crush I couldn’t keep track of them all. I’m merely repaying the favor.”

“So the battle is over, then?” the Quartermaster asked. “I take it we won, since we aren’t fleeing for our lives.”

“It wasn’t quite decisive, but it was a victory,” the Major said. “The lesser queens scattered when we dropped the final goliath. We sapped the Hives of many of their last reserves. Another push on the breeding grounds themselves will end the war, but it’s all but over now. Not unless they pull more behemoths out of their ovipositors.”

“They shouldn’t be able to,” the Magus stated. “They could rarely field more than one or two in previous battles. That there were so many today means that they had given us everything they had left.”

“I certainly hope so. I just want to go back home.” The Major sighed and removed her helmet. “The worst is over, now. That I can say for certain.”

“I’ll have to start looking into getting you a fine ceremonial dress for the inevitable medal ceremony,” the Quartermaster quipped. She looked at the Magus and wilted a bit. “I would offer the same to you, Magus, but I know you don’t like anypony else touching your belongings.”

“My robes are the defining dress of my Order,” the Magus responded. “…But I thank you for the offer.”

“Well, shoot,” the mare on the table said, coughing lightly. “Maybe you should whip something up for me. I should be getting a medal or three after this, don’t ya’ll think?”

“Just be happy you got to keep your legs. We’ll let the Princess sort out who gets medals and who doesn’t.”

The Private chuckled and closed her eyes, tilting her head back a bit. “Heh, that’s fair. I’m just looking forward to gettin’ back to my orchard. Been gone a long time… family’s probably worried ‘bout me.”

The Quartermaster narrowed her eyes. “Orchard? May I ask where you’re from?”

The Private waved her non-injured hoof. “Ya probably never heard of it. Little backwaters town kinda near Canterlot by the name of Ponyville.”

“Ponyville?” the Quartermaster echoed, incredulity permeating her voice. “Why, that’s where I grew up! You’re one of the Apple family, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” The Private winced as the Quartermaster began to stitch the gaping wounds on her neck and shoulders closed. “We grew the best damn apples in all of Equestria. And after all of this, I’m really looking forward to getting back there and doing what I do best.”

“I used to live near Ponyville, too,” the Chiurgeon said, pulling a sopping rag from a bucket of scarlet-tinged water. She used a wing to wield the rag and wipe the blood off of the Private’s orange coat while her other wing picked up some bandages to tend to her wounds. “I’ve always liked the ground better than the sky.”

“I was going to take up a weather management job in Ponyville before I decided to join the army,” the Major said. “I think by now, though, I’ve become a career soldier.”

“Impressive that you all lived so close together but never met until this moment,” the Magus observed. She brushed some dirt off of the sleeve of her robe and looked them over. “But I suppose the world has a strange way of bringing ponies together.”

“That it does.” The Major shot the Magus a look, which the unicorn steadily returned. But instead of more grating barbs and tension, the pegasus gave her comrade a salute. “I’m sorry for the loss of Magus Shimmer. Both of you did excellent work dispatching the goliaths.”

“We wouldn’t have been able to do so if we didn’t have excellent top cover,” the Magus said with a curt nod. “So you have my thanks.”

Awkward silence fell over the five ponies, dragging on and on. They weren’t friends—each of them knew that quite well—and the little moment of spontaneous camaraderie had died all too fast. “I wonder where we all would have wound up if it weren’t for this war,” the Magus said, finally breaking the silence hanging over them all. “How our lives could have ended up differently.”

The Quartermaster dipped her head. “We’d probably be a lot happier and a lot less jaded than we are today,” she said. “Maybe some of us would have gotten to know each other on better terms.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” The Major shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it now. We all have our jobs to do, and there’s no getting around that.”

“I suppose.” The Private grunted and rolled her shoulders, wincing as the thread running through her wounds tugged at her flesh. “But the war won’t last forever.”

“No, it won’t,” the Chiurgeon agreed. She looked on at the other mares with sad eyes. “But will we see each other again when it’s over?”

Eyes met eyes and then darted away. “If fate is willing, then maybe.” The Magus drew her hood up once more and took a few steps backwards. “I must speak to the Princess now. The day is won, but there is much more still to do.”

“I have to debrief my subordinates,” the Major said with a shrug of her wings. “Duty never waits.”

“I suppose I should check on our supplies then and make sure we’re set to move,” the Quartermaster said. “If we’ve won the day, we’re likely to break camp and move the army again in the next day or two.”

“I have more patients I need to attend to,” the Chiurgeon said. “Ponies lives are in my hooves.”

The Private closed her eyes again, too tired to do much more than rest. “I need to catch my sleep,” she said. “Took quite a thrashin’ out there… gotta shake it off.”

The five mares all looked away from each other, their eyes and ears instead settling on the sound stone set up in the corner of the camp. The Hostess’ voice was already proclaiming news of the victory at Alkatin, so impossibly soon after the day had been won. The Major chuckled and shook her head. “I’m glad she’s on our side,” she said, walking past the other mares and toward the flap of the tent. “How she gets the day’s news so soon after it happens, hundreds of miles away, is beyond me…”

The Hostess’ cheery voice starkly contrasted the somber scene in front of the Private as her new acquaintances all began to leave, one after the other. Soon, it was just her, shuffling off from the operating table to a little cot by the edge of the tent. She grunted and groaned as she sat down on it, all her bruises and aches flaring up as she tried to lie down and get comfortable.

Remorse and regret flooded through her, but she didn’t quite know why. Maybe it was the Quartermaster’s words. Maybe it was the Magus’. All she knew was that, for a brief moment, she had felt something between her and the other mares. Even the Hostess on the sound stone seemed to connect with her soul. Her voice was always comforting, like a friend ready to cheer you up whenever you needed it the most. It was also familiar. Was she from Ponyville, too? She didn’t know.

And then the feeling was gone, and she was left alone once more. But with the war coming to an end, she could at least look forward to going home again. She could see her family after so long, and everything would return to the way things were before. Exhaling, she tried to make herself as comfortable as possible, and soon exhaustion began to tear at her eyelids like a heavy weight dragging her down to the depths of sleep and rest.

But those eyes, the colorful eyes of the four other ponies gathered around her… they followed her into oblivion, and her heart wept at something lost between all of them.