The Seventh Element

The Beginning of the End

"The skies are clear, Princess. I sent scouts to Cloudsdale, but they say there are only foals and elderly. It would seem that Celestia has recruited every able-bodied pegasus, mare or stallion, in to her army. We can only assume that they are at Canterlot, waiting for us."

Luna listened to the warriors preparing outside the command tent as she took in this information.

"That is a bit drastic, we must have her scared... That isn't good. She is going to fight tooth and hoof to protect the Solar Empire's last bastion of power. It may be the most heavily defended place in Equestria, but we will have them cornered, and cornered creatures are vicious. Captain, set up air patrols between us and Canterlot."

"Yes, Princess." He bowed and left the tent.

"Colonel Mustang."

"Princess?"

"Are your soldiers ready?"

"Just give the word."

"Good, Trixie?"

"The Gaians and Star Swirls are ready, Luna."

"Excellent. Speaking of the Gaians, where is she?"

"Gaia said she would be here as soon as possible, Princess."

Luna still wasn't sure what that pony was up to, but whether she came through or not didn't matter at this point.

"Okay, ready yourselves ponies! We march within the hour!"

Trixie and Mustang saluted and left the tent. Luna listened as they began shouting, ordering their soldiers for battle.

This was it. Their march to Canterlot would be impossible to miss and there was no doubt that Celestia was already preparing for them. Luna got a sinking feeling as she thought again about all of the ponies that were about to die. She couldn't help but feel like it was all her fault. Before her banishment she hadn't exactly been a popular princess, and nopony seemed to notice or even care about her until she had become Nightmare Moon and put Equestria in a state of eternal darkness. Then there were the memories... Yes, she had defeated Nightmare Moon and that mare of darkness no longer existed inside of her, but she still had her memories. She couldn't get that burning city out of her mind; the fire, the screams, the blood, the pain... and the joy. They weren't her memories and she knew it, but it was enough to put doubt and fear in to her mind.

'How can I expect to lead a country that I had once planned to destroy? How can I expect them to let me lead them?'

Luna sighed aloud.

'If my plan works, maybe I won't have to.'

Of the two, Luna considered herself the lesser evil and that was the only thing that kept her moving forward. If Celestia was allowed to rule this country, she would undoubtedly want more than just Equestria under her control and that would mean the destruction of any other country or kingdom that stood in her way. At least under Luna, Equestria would be at peace.

Luna walked to the back of the tent and used her magic to put on her breastplate. She sat back on her haunches and picked up her helmet off the rack and placed it over her head. Her armor was only slightly different than the others by way of the helmet. It didn't cover her entire head, leaving room for her mane and face to show through and apparently it had a defect. There was an odd bit poking in to the base of her right ear. She ignored it and looked at herself in the mirror hanging off of the tent's main support beam.

'The face of a killer, ready for battle.'

She may not like what she was about to do, but she knew she must leave her feelings behind her. Ponies were going to die, but she would not let it be because she had hesitated in battle.

She stepped outside the tent and walked toward the end of their makeshift base on the outskirts of Ponyville. Above her gryphons flew in formation patrolling the borders of the Lunar Army, ahead of her the last of the soldiers were falling in line. Waiting for her in front of her soldiers were Applejack, Pinky Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy and her commanders.

A golden set of armor had been crafted for the wielders of the elements. It was slightly more exposed than the Lunar Army's armor, but the Elements of Harmony that they wore around their necks gave them a much more powerful shield then that of the other ponies.

Luna looked at her generals. "Ten minutes."

Trixie, Mustang and the Captain walked off to their soldiers.

The sun had already risen, the dew was only beginning drying up and you could just start to hear the first morning birds chirping.

Luna looked at the four friends in front of her. They were ready to do their part, even Fluttershy, who Luna knew was about to die of fright, didn't show how scared she was.

"It's time girls. There may not be an opportunity for me to reach you later, do you remember what I told you? Do you remember what to do?"

"Yes, darling. We know."

"Are you ready?" Luna gave Fluttershy a worried look, "Fluttershy, are you going to be okay?"

Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak, but closed it quickly afterwords. She tried again, but settled for a nod instead.

"Thank you for what you're doing girls. I'm sorry that I must ask you to fight your friends."

"Oh don't worry, Princess! They're still our friends, they just need some help deciding who to fight with!"

"She's righ', Princess. We'll get 'em back!" There was determination in her voice and Luna knew exactly why.

"I'm confident that you will, Applejack."

Luna looked out over the wide open plains between them and Canterlot... A perfect killing field.

There was a sharp whistle from their left. Luna looked and saw Colonel Mustang waving a hoof. She nodded to him and he fired red sparks in to the sky from his horn.

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The cuts, bruises and burns along their bodies were small, but numerous. When Celestia had lost her temper over the fall of Ponyville, Twilight and Rainbow had been close enough to be on the receiving end of her wrath. Celestia had never done such a thing before, it wasn't like her and it all but destroyed any faith the pair had in their Princess, but now Rainbow Dash had a new reason not to abandon Celestia-

Fear.

The injuries they had were minor, but Celestia had lost all control of herself and they saw a glimpse of the power she held. The room they were in had been gutted by the flames and it was only Twillight's magic that had kept that whole side of the castle from burning down. They truly believed that she could destroy anything that stood in her way, whether it be the the two of them, Princess Luna, or the entire Lunar Republic.

Celestia offered no apologies, but instead sent them to the military barracks. Rainbow Dash had been put in charge of the Cloudsdillians and Twilight was put in charge of the experimental soldiers from the dungeons.

The two had been standing on the edge of the castle grounds, looking towards Ponyville. They could clearly see the horde of Lunatics gathering. As they watched, there was a small flash of red and three blasts on an old fashioned war-horn.

"Here they come Dash."

Rainbow Dash stood there, silently looking out over the plains, imagining every outcome of the battle ahead. She turned toward Twilight opening one of her recent wounds, causing blood to trickle out from behind her ear, down the side of her head and on to the element she wore around her neck.

"I can't kill my friends, Twilight."

"Then don't. Celestia never said we had to, if they are going to die, she can do it herself."

Rainbow gave her a disgusted look, "You still trust her don't you, Twilight?"

"I... I'm not as keen on her as I was, but... She is my Princess Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash snorted and looked back towards the Lunar Republic.

"Let's get started then."

Rainbow Dash took flight back towards the other pegasi, leaving Twilight more conflicted then ever. Her faith in Celestia was shattered, but she was doing her best to believe in her mentor, teacher and Princess.

"I guess it's time to rally our defenses." Twilight walked away from the advancing army.

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No more than twenty minutes had passed since their march began and they could already see the Solar Empire forming. The sight gave Luna cause to worry.

The enemy had massive amounts of troops, far more than they had. It appeared that Celestia had taken ponies from every city and town in Equestria, just like she had done in Cloudsdale. There was no way that so many ponies were willing to fight, she must have forced them somehow. Whether it was a draft or threats, Luna didn't know, but there were enough to make her nervous. They were about to fight nearly the entire population of Equestria.

"Princess? Are you okay?"

"Yes Fluttershy, there are just more than I expected."

Fluttershy went silent, clearly scared by this bit of news.

The plains were mostly flat, but had small hills.They were on their way to the top of a wide hill the top of which was looking over a large basin, with a hill of equal size directly across from them that was a half-mile away. Luna stopped her troops at the top of the hill, The Lunar Republic lined themselves next to Luna with the gryphons flying above, creating a wall of soldiers, ready to fight.

Across from her, Luna watched as a lone pony in golden Solar Empire armor crested the hill. He stopped and looked at her for a moment before turning around and waving a hoof at the ponies that were just out of sight. The Solar Empire soldiers lined themselves directly opposite of the Lunar Republic with their pegasi high above, ready to engage the gryphons.

Mustang and Trixie found Luna.

"Orders Princess?"

"When they make their move I want you and Major Hoofstrong to take your stallions in to the basin to meet them head on. Trixie, I want you to keep your ponies back as long as possible and fire at them from the top of the hill. I'm sure you've both noticed that there are more of them than we expected, so we need to rely on our technology to even the odds."

"Understood Princess!"

"I'll be sure take out as many as possible for Mustang and his stallions, Luna."

Luna nodded, "Let's do this."

The gryphon captain noticed that Luna was talking to the other commanders and had flown down in time to hear Luna say "Let's do this.".

He flew back up to his waiting gryphons.

"Alright, times up! Let's do this!" He let out an eagle-like screech and flew off towards the pegasi, followed by his gryphons!

Princess Luna looked up at the sound and watched her captain as he started the battle early. The din of battle cries from the Solar Empire caught her attention as she turned and watched them charge down the hill towards her. Luna's other commanders leapt in to action; Mustang led his soldiers down the hill to meet the Solar Empire screaming the whole way.

"FOR THE NEW LUNAR REPUBLIC!

"FOR EQUESTRIA!"

"FOR MUFFINS!"

"FOR INF- INFENIT-... FOR MORE MUFFINS!"

Trixie lined up her soldiers behind them to fire upon the enemy.

The gryphons' head start took the air battle to the Empire's half of the field and the Solar Empire's head start, took the ground fight to the Republic's half.

The flyers had already started fighting and with their powered armor, the gryphons had the upper hand. The ground forces were closing in, but before they had even met each other, Trixie gave the order to open fire. Tens of thousands of blaster bolts filled the air as they mowed down the front lines of the Solar Empire. The weapons were not lethal, but in the numbers that they were being fired, it didn't matter. Ponies dropped to the ground unconscious or injured by the hundreds in the first volley alone! Mustang's stallions had closed enough distance to force Trixie's soldiers to aim at toward the back of the Solar Empire's formation, until the Empire and Republic were too mixed up to be able to make safe shots.

"Trixie! In to the battle!" Luna turned to the wielders of the elements, "Follow me girls!"

Luna led the four friends down the hill where they merged with Trixie's soldiers as they charged down the hill on their way to reinforce the ponies fighting in hoof-to-hoof combat below. Above them, the gryphons still had the upper hand, but Luna could still see the occasional ally fall from the sky. She could only imagine what happened to them after they fell behind enemy lines.

Luna led the girls straight through the heart of the battle, most of the ponies were too busy fighting to try and stop her. Luna was confident that they were going to win this battle. It had only started and already the enemy casualties far outnumber the allied ones. At this rate, she would be in Canterlot by-

The sun reflected off of something on the hill.

Twilight Sparkle was running toward the battle followed by what Luna could only describe as monsters. These poor ponies had clearly been the result of medical experiments. Most of their body had metal plating over it, not like the armor the regular soldiers wore, but this metal was a part of their body. Chunks of flesh had been removed and replaced with mechanical prosthetics. Entire limbs had been replaced, sometimes parts of their head and face and everypony had at least one metal tube running down the length of their body. They were monsters of brass, gears and copper tubing made all the more intimidating by the steam shooting out of valves on their bodies.

As they charged down the hill, Twilight's eyes glowed white and blasted away at least ten Lunar soldiers who flew through the air and disintegrated when they hit the ground. A whirring and clanking noise came from the metal ponies. It grew louder and faster until, out of the tubes along their sides, shot chunks of metal flying at incredible speeds! It shattered the shields of the NLR in very few hits and tore holes straight through body armor! Dozens of soldiers died in the next few moments as the metal ponies cut a swath of destruction through their ranks.

The prosthetics had clearly increased every single one of their physical attributes, the 'superponies' bucked around Luna's soldiers like they were rag dolls, in fact the only ponies that was able to stand up to them were Major Hoofstrong and Colonel Mustang. The Major was stuck caught in a stalemate with one of these metal beasts. He had managed to bend the tube along it's side, so it could no longer shoot at anypony, but other than that, the superpony only had dents in him. Colonel Mustang was having better luck, he had heated the metal of the ponies so much, that it cooked them from the inside out.

The battle in the sky wasn't going any better. The gryphons quickly lost their advantage when a rainbow pony joined the fight. Her speed was too much to keep up with and the gryphons could do little about it. Looking at the sky, you could see a rainbow streak bouncing around from gryphon to gryphon, at each point where it changed direction, an ally fell from the sky.

One of the gryphons landed on top of one of the metal ponies, but the pony didn't flinch. Instead the impact only broke the back of the gryphon after his fragile bones lost the fight with the hard metal shell of the pony. The pony turned towards Luna's group. She heard the sound of his gun speeding up, but she didn't get the forcefield up in time.

"Look out!"

The ponies did their best to get out of the way, but the metal grazed Rarity's flank, making her collapse. The wound wasn't deep, but it was definitely enough to slow her down.

Luna's eyes glowed white as she watched another one of the metal beasts stomp on the legs of an injured Lunar soldier, shattering both back legs. It was unnecessary. That pony was already out of the fight, crushing his legs was just for this monsters sick pleasure. Luna lifted the pony with her magic and tossed him as far as she could in the direction of Canterlot, surely that would be enough to kill him. The enemy had noticed how easily she got rid of him and ten more of the ponies turned their attention to Luna.

"Princess, watch out!" Mustang made a sweeping motion with his horn and threw so much fire on to the closest two ponies, that their flesh burned away and their prosthetics melted.

Luna saw one aim at Mustang, but could only manage to throw up a weak shield before the metal hit him. The shield has slowed it enough to reduce the damage, but the metal still penetrated his chest. He fell to his front knees as blood dripped from his wound and pooled in front of him, his breathing becoming strained and ragged.

Fluttershy ran over to Mustang to try and help him, "M-Medic! We need a MEDIC!" She looked around frantically for one of the Gaian healers.

There was nothing Luna could do for him, but take revenge on the pony who did it. There were too many of these things to fight off, but Luna was going to make these eight pay for what they did to the colonel. Luna had noticed that steam was constantly pouring out of these things, so it was easy to assume they must be steam powered. Luna knew a thing or two about steam and decided on a satisfying way to eliminate them.

She threw up a forcefield to protect herself, Mustang and the other four. She lifted the eight steam driven ponies, and used her magic to seal the vents that released the steam. She could tell that they knew what she was planning. She used her magic to heat the water inside them, it didn't take long for their metal fittings to begin to bulge and groan under the strain of holding back the pressure. It took no more then ten seconds, but almost in sync, the ponies exploded, launching shrapnel in all directions, none of which was able to penetrate the NLR shields, but did manage to injure a few of the regular Solar Empire soldiers.

Luna lowered the shield to let in a one of the Gaian healers. He worked quickly and was able to remove the metal and stop the bleeding, but Mustang still did not look well and they were not in a safe place. Almost in the center of the battle, they were more or less surrounded by these steamponies who were slaughtering NLR troops all around them. Rarity and Mustang were injured, Mustang would have to be carried out of battle, while Rarity would definitely slow them down, on top of that, Rainbow Dash was still knocking gryphons out of the sky left and right and Twilight was doing her fair share of damage to Luna's allies.

'There is no other choice.'

Luna looked to the sky and used her magic to fire midnight blue sparks in to the sky, she emphasized them by making them explode loudly at two hundred hooves. As the NLR saw the sparks, they began to disengage and retreat, it was slow but effective, the Solar Empire that was losing only a short time ago, now wouldn't let them leave so easily. Luna lifted the Colonel with her magic and began to follow her soldiers out of the battle. Fluttershy helped Rarity and the Gaian stayed with them to make sure the injured made it back.

Rainbow Dash was still fighting the gryphons on the opposite end of the battlefield. The captain was a stubborn one and would not leave until all of his gryphons had evacuated. He was actually holding his own against Rainbow Dash, buying time for his soldiers to flee.

The thundering of the steamponies hooves was coming from behind them, without looking back Luna picked up her pace.

"Princess, they're gainin' on us!"

They could hear the steamponies firing on them, the metal chunks flew past, far too close for comfort. Suddenly, the Gaian stopped and turned to face them.

Luna came to a stop, "What in Equestria are you doing?!"

"Saving you, Princess!"

The Gaian touched his horn to the ground. Green magic snaked from him and highlighted patches of earth in front of the steamponies. The ground heaved itself and created barriers directly in the path of the steamponies. Their head on crash wasn't enough to seriously hurt any of them, but it definitely bought some time. He used his magic again to open a hole in the ground that all but two of the steamponies fell in to, but the two that made it shot him at least four times. He collapsed to the ground, dead, blood oozing from his wounds.

Luna hadn't looked back to see whether or not he was successful, she didn't want to waste the time he had bought them by looking back, she just kept running. It didn't matter anyway. More of the steamponies were in front of them, waiting. There were only two, but Luna couldn't focus enough to carry Colonel Mustang and kill the ponies in front of her.

"I got it, Princess!" Applejack sped up to distract the steampony so the others could get past.

"Me too! Grrrrr!" Pinkie Pie's mane was flat and her whole body twitched in an insane way. She picked up her pace by bouncing faster.

Suddenly a blast of purple magic flew past Luna, close enough to singe her mane. Luna's first thought was that she was an incredibly lucky pony, but the magic hit one of the steamponies, blasting a hole straight through his chest. He bled only oil as he lay on the ground, dead.

There was a flash of white light as Twilight materialized between them. Being alive for so many years and a Princess of thousands of ponies gave Luna the insight to know why Twilight was here. She didn't question it and acted as if nothing had happened.

Twilight stopped suddenly as more bullets from the steamponies following them sped by. Her eyes began to glow and she enveloped the two steamponies in to a shield and compressed it so quickly that the two were crushed to death almost instantaneously.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie were fighting the steampony ahead, but as Luna passed, it landed a powerful blow to to the side of Applejack's head. She could have sworn she heard a crack as the iron hoof made contact, the pain must have been excruciating.

Applejack let out a blood-curdling scream.

Her vision blurring, she looked to the sky for the first time as she fell to the ground and saw the rainbow streak fighting the Captain.

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Rainbow Dash stopped when she heard Applejack's scream. Dash knew she was here, but it was easy to push the thought to the back of her head as she fought the gryphons. After that shriek of pain, she couldn't ignore the fact that AJ was here any longer. She found her easily. One of Celestia's experiments was on his hind legs, about to stomp on her head!

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"AAAAAYY-JAAAAAYY!"

*CRACK*

The sky exploded in a rainbow shockwave, knocking everything out of the sky! Rainbow Dash streaked in out of nowhere and hit the steampony so hard that she broke the welds on most of his body and sent him flying across the field and out of sight. Rainbow Dash landed next to Applejack and began trying to wake her.

"AJ! AJ, wake up! I'm here, AJ, wake up, you've got to wake up. You can't be. Applejack... Please."