To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

In the personal chambers of Princess Celestia there existed—

Dire Comet sat down and rested his aching joints and bones. The ponies who were left, around two thirds of the original amount, all of them rested far away from the bodies of the days nightmare. Few said anything, many had gotten emotional and broken down, several times, and those that remained held a respectful vigil for the dead while questioning everything.

"Please, I know you all must be heartbroken, but you must understand that this is a great victory for Equestria! We annihilated their invading forces! This could've been ten times worse, we could've all perished! Then who would be left to protect Equestria?!"

Ponies looked lifelessly to the burnt remains of the village, or to the other side which held the battlefield full of corpses soon to be graves of soil.

Everything the Colonel said was true, but it meant nothing at the moment.

Most ponies had gathered to mourn the dead, or to be close during this time of extreme hardship, where they had to lean on each other or they would break.

Dire sat alone.

He had indeed improved over the course of the battle. At first he had barely managed to fight a single griffin, and then he had been blasting them off his comrades backs because he had gotten them off his own. His life had come close to being taken from him several times regardless. By the tip of his tail it felt like, he had avoided it. The wound across his face had dried, and he was sure that it would become a scar. Maybe it'd reflect the powerful visage he had always wanted more effectively.

Yet... it all felt so hollow surrounded by those who fought to keep you alive, and yet you couldn't do your part to keep theirs.

It was during this reflection that he saw another pony was alone. A pegasus.

Seeing how young she was, and the spark of remembering her heroics, it surprised him that she was alone at all.

He had to approach her.

As he softly made his way over, in that it was more painful then he'd care to admit to get there, he sat down before her with enough space to be respectful but enough to show he was there for her.

He noticed his voice sounded older to himself for the first time as he spoke: "Are you alright? What is your name, if you don't mind me asking? I cannot help but feel I saw you pulling off the most remarkable saves during an attempted fire bombing of our ponies, catching the bombs before they could break and splash everypony. Getting rid of them. You have my thanks on behalf of everypony."

"Yeah well... it was nothing, alright? Nothing," she bit her lip. "I... couldn't save so... so many ponies. What kind of pathetic pony am I?"

"Please do not disparage yourself! We all failed to save somepony at some point. Be glad there isn't more of us gone, the Colonel has that right at the very least."

She had started crying now that he paid attention, and she looked down to avoid his gaze.

"It's... Rainbow Dash. From Ponyville."

"A fine town." It was all he could come up with at the moment. "I was born in some small backwater of a town that doesn't even exist anymore. You wouldn't have heard of it."

"I came here to kick flank," she made a laugh that sounded a little crazy and it cracked, "but I don't think I was prepared to have to take the life of another. I... I actually did it you know? Like... killed one of them. Multiple of them." He could see her swallow as she struggled with it.

"As did I. It never gets easier. The only thing you can do is reaffirm the reason why you're fighting in the first place as hard as you can in your heart and hold onto it." It was a partial lie, and he felt halfway guilty over it. Even in his youth, he had already sinned deeply.

"You... how can you stay so calm against all of this? You're... too strong. I wish I could be as strong as you. Maybe then I'd save more ponies," she had such a bitterness by the end.

"I'm not strong at all, Rainbow Dash. In fact, to be completely honest with you..." she looked at him as he carefully considered his next words, "I believe I am in fact weak, for distancing and disconnecting myself from other ponies, just to protect myself. I had rage at the sight of their plight, but I think it is not nearly as genuine a thing as you hold. You're far stronger than I am, believe that. Truly. You will grow stronger because of it."

Reluctantly, she answered. "Thanks, Mr...?"

"Dire Comet. How rude of me to ask for your name and not introduce myself. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it."

There was a pause, and suddenly she rushed forward to meet him in a hug. He was completely nonplussed, and he had to push her off of him for a moment to balance himself and properly return it when they reconnected. Her look of heartbreak before he had showed her the real reason why had been surprisingly painful for him to see. Even while they sat there together, just being there for one another, it didn't go away. Minutes went by but neither noticed. Time had dissolved.

Who knew how much of a break they would get before the violence started up again. They would need to wait for next orders from high command while reporting this travesty. Dire knew now that his reason for joining all of this had been pathetic to the maximum, but his reason for staying now would be the true pride of his life. Little did he know, the pony crossed with him had thoughts that were uncannily similar at almost the same time. The purpose of growing stronger never changed, but it took on a new value now. To protect, and not just as a lie this time.

He wanted to protect the pony in his hooves, heart beating against him.

He knew her potential was greater than his ever was. He hadn't needed to see much to know that. That wouldn't stop him from doing everything in his power to help her get there, even if it meant the worst for him. He had always been ready, adding a little more to that wasn't much.

Before all of this the ponies rancour for the griffins had been all they could think of, and now that the battle was over it was forgotten like the wind, left with only grieving souls struggling to find one another in its place.

Celestia stared across the miniature plains before them.

Her ponies had taken surprisingly few losses from the surprise attack earlier that day, and now they had finished their ascent to flat ground. Most of them were quite tired. They were fortunate to have saved every extra pony they could, for they would need them.

It was to her continued dismay that such a massive force had assembled before her. They must've outnumbered her own ten to one. Just how much conscription had they employed? This was beyond insane! Did they really think they could overwhelm her by sheer numbers alone? Suddenly moving that giant boulder didn't seem so crazy anymore. She knew that they knew she was here and leading this force. So this was no mistake. She supposed that being in enemy territory always meant they would have more available, but still, to this extent?

She had almost entirely recovered from earlier, but it had taken hours. Her headache alleviating over time. A perk from being an alicorn, like many other small things she took for granted, she supposed. Using that shield had been incredibly inefficient. She could use magic ten-fold the destructive capabilities in terms of output compared to it, but it would still strain her more to hold onto a shield in a situation like that and be forced to take such a massive blow.

She hated to admit it, but while earlier she had no time to think at all, now that she could she couldn't help but have the tiniest bit of satisfaction that she could let off some steam for once. She'd make sure of that. Besides, there was no time to be wasting, for Luna did exactly that every moment she didn't move forward to the solution.

The ponies behind her had limits, however. They could not keep perfect pace after fighting. She had to temper expectations.

Seeing what she believed to be tens of thousands of griffins hovering in the air en mass around six to eight kilometres away from them probably terrified her ponies, who had already dealt with enough today. She had to do something to reinvigorate them. She had just the idea. It would knock two stones down at once. She'd get to release a little while motivating them.

It was time to stop playing around. She would use close to the maximum of her potential here to strike fear into the enemy permanently.

Through her horn she brought to life a small fireball above her. It quickly grew it size as she pumped it continuously with magic. After about a minute of this, she had what could only be described as a small sun. It was nothing close to that in reality, but the visual effect would've stunned the griffins even from over there.

This wasn't her land anyway, now that she thought about it. Who cares if she messed it up a little?

She had already given the enemy enough time to react. Even though they hadn't. Shocked senseless she assumed. Best be running away tail tucked behind you by now.

She sent it forward, and it came down towards the land to scrape it as it went. It disintegrated whatever it came into contact with. It burst forward with as much speed something so massive could move with, and seeing it quickly approaching sobered up the griffin forces real fast.

They started all flying away from its future destination as fast as they could, those closer to the middle by far the most at risk. She calculated how close it was was to the majority of them, and once it was close enough sent out a magical ping that would reach the ball of flame almost without delay.

To say that the explosion and subsequent shockwave was ginormous would be an understatement. Almost none of them would be hit directly, but the expanding waves of flames moving outward would. The world itself collapsed inward from the impact, the entire landscape having received a more permanent change. The end of the plains had been more forestry, for sure where they would retreat to later, and even many trees in the back were caught in the blast.

She had no clue how many she had taken out before they could evade, and it didn't really matter. The affect had been successful on multiple counts. Looking back, some of her ponies even looked a little scared, while others looked on in awe.

What made it even better was the fact that, as time went by, rather than returning to once again face them, they had simply opted for retreat as far as she could tell. It seems her ponies would be getting the break they so desperately had been pining for after all. This location was perfect as well, being able to see all around them meant they could protect themselves that much better in the plains. You didn't find land like this very commonly out here.

She gave them the early news of rest, and the relief on all of their faces had been infectious.

They started building camps, and she couldn't help but wonder how the enemies had been so foolish to engage them in such a way that was more suitable to the ponies and Celestia herself. Just how badly had they miscalculated? If they knew anything at all, they would do everything in their power to reproduce what had happened earlier today as much as possible. As much as she hated to admit it, that was most definitely the best way of going against her force.

They still had quite some distance to make it to the capital, where she knew for a fact the treasury was that held what she needed. Patience, she told herself. This was all going swimmingly. Just keep it up. Luna will be fine.

The night came quickly, and despite the night watches they setup for any signs of return from the enemy, it was a calm and peaceful night.