A War on Two Fronts

The remaining ponies quickly fell in line. I conscripted the rest of the guards into my service, their value and experience obvious. The rest of the eggheads, however, were a bit trickier to deal with.

"In today's world, you need a good mechanic and somepony who knows machine maintenance. I'm the best, graduated at the top of my class. I swear it boss, you won't regret taking me on," a perky mare said.

"Sunny Side, I can't believe you," an appalled Twilight Sparkle said. "This mad human killed Astral Drift and threatened us with death!"

Sunny Side puffed up in indignation. "Screw you, Sparkle. I got dreams and a life, and I don't plan to die on this pit."

I conscripted Sunny Side and with her example, the rest of the eggheads spoke up, offering ways to apply their skills. In the end I wound up with a complete horde of over twenty ponies, some more willing than others, but all bound to me and my will.

"May I ask what your plan is, sir?" Quantum Point asked, seemingly unbothered by the fact he now served as my vassal. "Obviously you don't intend to remain in this facility."

The professor was, admittedly, a bit of a curiosity for me. When I delved into his mind, I saw what drove him forward. It wasn't money, nor fame, no. Quantum Point's ambitions were far more lofty. Immortality. To be remembered for generations to come alongside such names as Clover the Clever, Starswirl the Bearded and Ipso Facto. He saw my magic in action, and unlike the rest of the ponies, saw it as an opportunity to further his own dreams. He entered into my service in the hopes of studying me and my magic. He schemed to replicate and put it into the hooves of the common rabble, for my own brand was unlike anything the spellcasters of Equestria possessed.

This... this I could work with. So with that in mind, I appointed the professor to oversee the matters of the rest of the eggheads; their leader as it were. A role he was already accustomed to.

"We will commandeer your guards' ship and make a swift retreat from the battle site."

"That might be a problem," Permafrost said, stepping in. "A token force was left to guard the vessel. I wouldn't be surprised if they expect periodic reports from the guards stationed here."

"So they might know something's wrong?" I asked.

"Not yet," Twilight Sparkle said, to my surprise. "The guards are required to check in every hour or so." When I stared questioningly, Twilight ducked her head, cheeks blushing and mumbled. "I... kinda watch them from time to time."

One of the nearby soldiers tittered. "Oh, she doesn't just watch them. I've seen her go out every other day, bringing them drinks and vittles. Mare's a sucker for a colt in uniform," she snickered, causing Twilight to withdraw even more into herself.

"And how long ago was the last check in?" I asked.

"There is still time," Permafrost said. "We too were aware of this and mounted our assault once the guards sounded the all-clear. I estimate at least ten minutes before they start to realize something's wrong."

"Then we must move immediately," I concluded. The invasion of Vanhoover would begin shortly, if it hadn't already. From what I gathered, Sombra's armies put on a bit of a show when pillaging cities. Artillery rounds would fire and devastate the city's infrastructure, pegasi squadrons would swoop in from the air and drop payloads of explosives, and the ground troops would swarm in from all sides, decimating the civilian population. Complete and utter chaos, which would provide a very serviceable cover for our escape. Of course, that would be the easy part. A destination was still needed and as I knew very little about this nation of Equestria and its geography, I would need my new minions to weigh in.

But first things first. I motioned for Twilight, Permafrost and a pegasus named Thunderlane to step froward.

"You three will be responsible for securing the ship." I addressed Twilight specifically. "As far as they are concerned, the guards outside have not realized anything is amiss. They know who you are and will lower their guard around you. These two will escort you outside and when the time is right, you will dispatch them both."

Permafrost nodded resolutely, her visage stony and not at all fazed at being ordered to commit cold blooded murder. Thunderlane's jaw clenched shut, his eyes blazing. He'd been one of the ponies stationed to protect the facility and the prospect of killing his own comrades clearly did not sit well with him.

"Whatever bonds you may have forged with these ponies are now irrelevant. You will carry out my will as I demand it or face the consequences." I promptly glanced at the remains of Anchor Weigh and all the ponies followed suit, making the point very clear. Thunderlane's resolve faltered, but as he glanced at the still weeping form of Astral Drift, his resistance crumbled. His face fell, ears drooped and the fight seemingly left him. Good. Now he understood what he must do.

Of course, I couldn't actually kill him at any point in time like I claimed, no. While a portion of my magic was indeed fused to their own core, I couldn't kill them yet. The ponies' bodies and their own magical cores would fight my attempted action, a completely involuntary act, but one carried out by the body's most primal instincts. My meager understanding of the curse allowed me to cause a great deal of pain, but that's as far as it went.

For this, I would rely on the image of fear I cultivated in my short time here. The more the ponies feared me and my magic, the more willingly they would serve and curb any foolish attempts at betrayal. Perhaps with time I would be able to modify and understand Sombra's curse so that I could actually carry out my threat, but as of now, fear was my best weapon.

"I can't do this," a small voice whispered. I turned my head to see Twilight, her eyes shining as she matched my gaze, mustering what little courage she had. "I'm not a killer. I can't hurt somepony, much less kill them. You're strong and we're no threat to you. Let us go, please. Wipe our memories or cut out our tongues, but... I beg of you. Don't make me do this."

Confound it. The little mare clearly did not have the stomach to carry out her orders. The fear of death would compel her to try and do my bidding, but she would be useless if she turns into a quivering wreck. I had to remind myself that she was not a soldier, but a peaceful little pony. She didn't have the stomach for this kind of thing, but I needed her nonetheless. In the end, I settled on a compromise.

Twilight would head out as she normally did, by herself. The guards outside recognized her and a familiar face would put them at ease, and distract them long enough for Thunderlane and Permafrost to dispatch them from behind. Twilight would play a role in their deaths, but she wouldn't be the one to do the deed.

I relegated the new terms to my minions. Permafrost would have no trouble dispatching the ponies, and she would keep Twilight and Thunderlane focused. I appointed the mare as the leader of this little excursion, but that alone did not satisfy me. She needed something that would establish her authority, not just over her two escorts, but over the rest of my minions.

Perhaps a new set of armor? Possibly, but there was no time. Instead I settled on a weapon. Permafrost favored the use of deadly magic in battle and enhancing her strengths would be a good way to establish her new position.

I walked over to the cold corpse of a pony, a lab mare probably killed before I escaped my prison and retrieved a silver pendant, emblazoned with a hewn, octagonal sapphire. I motioned Permafrost over to a cabinet propped against the ruined wall, where I set the pendant. Grabbing her mane, I sliced off a tuft of her snow white hair and set it beside the pendant. Twilight looked on, intrigued and wary.

Then I made a shallow cut on the flat of my palm, dripping the blood into a concentrated spot. Permafrost followed as I took her foreleg and repeated the action. When the components were set, I called once again on my oddly intuitive form of dark magic, levitating the four components into the air, enchanting them with a single, overpowering directive.

A powerful weapon worthy of my follower.

The components spun round each other and small, crackling tendrils of dark magic sporadically jumped from my fingers. Permafrost's lock of hair would key her amulet to her and her only, so that no one else may be able to make use of it. Her blood sacrifice, though meager, would amplify her magical power and with my own added to the mix, Permafrost would be privy to the use of some of the darker magics within my grasp. The framework behind the enchantment was versatile, able to enhance most form of weaponry, whether mundane metal or arcane. So long as the raw components were present, the enchantment would hold.

With the enchantment done, the organic components vaporized into a puff of smoke, leaving behind a seemingly innocuous pendant. It looked almost exactly the same, though the silver gleam had darkened somewhat, and an undercurrent speck of purple lay at the center of the sapphire.

"Use it well," I said simply as a wide eyed Permafrost donned the pendant. "It is a powerful artifact that will enhance your magic to unprecedented levels. I infused a portion of my own power for you to use." I looked to Twilight and Thunderlane. "Remember everything that has happened here and sear it in your mind. I gave you an order and I fully expect you to comply. Should you plan to escape, betray me or try to warn others, you will suffer a fate worse than death. I can snap you from this mortal coil whether you are next to me or a continent away. Understood?"

Thunderlane's lips pursed in anger, but he knew better than to retort. Twilight looked miserable as can be. It truly was despicable in its own way, forcing them to betray and kill their comrades but it would be an excellent test of their obedience. Nevertheless, both ponies nodded morosely.

"Then your mission is set. Go now and carry out my will to the best of your ability." With that dismissal, Permafrost saluted while Twilight and Thunderlane gave stiff nods. The trio of ponies exited the small room, leaving me with a larger still gaggle of ponies. That was fine. There's still some things we'd need to sort out.

***

The three ponies walked on in complete silence and their hoofsteps echoed somberly in the deserted corridors. Ganondorf's command rang strong and oppressing in their minds, but for very different reasons. Thunderlane forged on ahead, his armored hooves clanging on the stone floor with more force than necessary. The stallion felt a cold pit of dread in his stomach. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that what he was about to do was wrong.

For the past year he had been part of the Iron Hoof squadron. They weren't part of the Equestrian army, but rather an independent private security force to be hired to the highest bidder. Such organizations had sprouted everywhere after the war with Sombra. The conflict had caught the Equestrians by complete surprise and so the nation reeled as it found itself in the first war in six hundred years

Its effects resonated and were felt everywhere across the once peaceful nation. Reports of Equestrian casualties, towns and cities razed to the ground, Sombra's cruel mind magics, and frightening war machines that decimated Royal Guard troops by the dozens.

Back in those peaceful days, when Thunderlane thought about war, images flashed to his mind. Images of battle, glory and conquest, but these were but a fraction of what war was truly like. He did not think about the shroud of terror that gripped the nation. As if Sombra's reemergence hadn't been enough, the foul king had devised a way to conscript prisoners of war to his service.

Whether they acted out of their own free will or some stranger machinations, Sombra retained complete control over his prisoners. In an act of insidious cunning that sickened Thunderlane to his stomach, Sombra had sent such ponies into the civilian populations of Equestria. Those under his thrall did not usually show outward signs of being under his control. At least not until they performed acts of terrorism, slaughtering innocents, murdering key individuals or setting ablaze critical government buildings.

One such fate befell Thunderlane's sister in Fillydelphia as three undercover agents broke into mayor Safflower's mansion, killing everyone inside, including Thunderlane's sister.

After they mourned and buried her, and the threat of Sombra and the war looming over the horizon, Thunderlane's remaining family in Ponyville decided to pack up their belongings and move south where it was safer. The war had consumed the northern Equestrian territories but the south had been untouched thus far but even still, times were hard. The economic climate of Equestria underwent a shift as the demand for weapons of war increased exponentially.

Food shortages followed in sequestered areas before moving into the larger populations. Many ponies, desperate and afraid, looted and broke into stores, hoarding what they could before the near nonexistent guard force was able to pacify them.

That's the main reason why Thunderlane now found himself here, in service of this so called dark lord. The stallion took up arms with the Iron Hoof squadron; one of the many contractors for private security that had risen after the war. The majority of the Royal guard had been quickly rerouted to fight in the northern territories, leaving the civilian populations rather bereft of their presence.

Groups such as the one Thunderlane was now a part of would be hired by the cities and towns to keep order, guard specific places or individuals and of course, these such positions usually lay far from the fighting. That the pay was considerably better than the Royal Guard was icing on the cake.

His work details so far had been unremarkable. The Iron Hoof squadron steadily drifted north across the western border of Equestria. His first assignment had been guarding the casino of some hotshot high roller in Las Pegasus; good pay and save for the occasional forceful ejection of a rowdy patron, unremarkable. In Stalliongrad he'd spent a dull three months guarding the opulent mansion of a particularly paranoid media mogul and in Broncovitch he had his first taste of real combat as the Empire's forces decimated the city.

The populace had been caught completely by surprise and with the Royal Guard nowhere in sight, there was no one to oppose the invading forces. In the still, nippy air of dawn, those who were not already up were rudely awoken by a volley of artillery fire. The once peaceful streets, so neat and ordered now lay in rubble, multiple impact craters spread across the whole of Broncovitch and not too far lay the charred remains of the ponies unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast. Those were the lucky ones. Screams and cries of agony soon followed. Ponies lay crushed, slowly dying below the rubble. Others' skin had completely sloughed off from the intense heat, peeling away in strips and melting into an amorphous slag. And worse still were the ones who'd been completely blasted away, only to land on a hard surface, their legs completely blown off.

The Imperial army soon followed, killing without mercy. Stallions, mares, foals. All who resisted would be cut down where they stood.

Neither Thunderlane nor his company had been stationed there to fend off an invading force. Their directive had been to protect a pony with way too much time and money on his hooves and that's precisely what they did. They turned away and retreated as fast as they could leaving the civilians at the mercy of the Imperials. The news that followed shortly after still conjured a well of shame to rise within Thunderlane.

No survivors had been found. When the Royal Guard finally arrived after three days, the damage had been done. Some reports say the streets literally ran red with blood. Others said the victims had been defiled even in death, hung atop bridges and streetways; their heads severed and impaled at the edges of the city, or their bodies nailed across walls, trees and everywhere they could, like a painting or sculpture borne of the mind of a madpony.

Whatever the case, one aspect stood out, as it did had during the entirety of the war. No foals had been spared. The Imperial army's forces had increased at an alarming rate because Sombra forcefully conscripted those he captured, Royal Guard or not. But the mad king clearly had no use for foals. And he wasn't known for acts of mercy either.

And now, under the command of this so called human, Thunderlane couldn't help but wonder if he'd be forced to perform such vile acts in the future. Hay, he was doing so right now.

He glowered at Permafrost, who briskly trotted ahead of him. She'd been an Imperial, like those who killed his sister and committed so many atrocities. He hated their ilk with a passion, he found, and now he was expected to work alongside them? To take orders from these monsters?

I could run, he thought. Knock her upside the head, snap her neck and make a break for it. But that did not save him from the foul sorceries of Ganondorf. The massive creature had not been shy about flaunting his power, which Thunderlane couldn't deny, was terrifying. He felt Ganondorf's magic seep into him like a toxin and even now, as he plotted this possible escape, a sharp shooting pain made itself known inside his head.

Ganondorf claimed he could kill them all anytime and based on the dark magics Thunderlane had just been witness to, he was inclined to believe him. As much as he would have liked to escape, as much as he would love to slit the throat of the nag in front of him and save as many of his comrades as he could, the fear of death put a stop to such actions. He had to remind himself he still had his family to support and truth be told, he really didn't want to die either.

He glanced over at Twilight. She hung her head, crestfallen and followed like a prisoner facing the gallows. Thunderlane wanted to comfort her, say a few words to help her spirit, but he couldn't even know where to begin. One way or another, somepony would die soon.