To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

"Are you kidding me...!"

"Unacceptable!"

Multiple voices rung out at the same time, Straight Side's somewhere mixed in the outrage.

There was a brief pause, and then Straight decided he would take over to prevent the situation from losing all control, and in part to repent for allowing himself to join in on the foolishness.

"Please, everyone. We all know that this is most dreadful, and a shame. But, what is done is done. We cannot get back the lives of those already lost."

"But... but so many! This is outrageous! How dare those griffin basta—"

"Silence! We shall not revert back to such base instincts of which you'd see in the common attitude of a protester holding a picket-sign crying outrage with no tangible plan to fix anything! Calm yourselves."

That had settled things down quite well, even if the uncomfortable murmurs persisted for a moment.

"What does matter, is what we can do now. General Reacher and his men have seen much success, and Princess Celestia herself marches on the griffin capital with haste. We shall be seeing the end of this conflict soon enough, even if the losses have been unacceptable as is so far. We should all be far more worried with the escalating costs, unless something changes we will be going for broke. The timing of this war coming directly after we started the construction of Oblatio was an unfortunate thing that none of us could've ever predicted, but it has left us stretched far too thin."

"Raising... raising taxes again will be a very risky thing, Straight side. Ponies can barely get by right now, and while they believe in the cause of the war we cannot ignore the dissatisfaction taking place irregardless." said Chances.

Sometimes Straight Side hated how accurate Chances Bightley could be.

"There is nothing we can do about it. We'll have to slowly guide our landing as softly as possible and hope the war end soon enough."

Voices finally rang out in some level of agreement this time.

"Oblatio has filled with ponies now. Several tens of thousands in fact, Princess Celestia herself once said we needed to be patient to reap the rewards of it. That time should be coming soon, right, Maverick?" said Minty, who hadn't spoke thus far until just now.

"You're exactly right. The construction is done and the polish on the city, while not complete, is enough. They will be providing a massive boom in tax providence for our ponies, they already are starting to in fact." said Maverick, who somehow had seemed ready for his name to be called on at exactly this moment.

"Well it'll be needed... several towns are going to have to be rebuilt after all of this mess near the border with the griffins is secured. I also believe that we should be voting on the construction of new boundary defences, but that is rushing it a bit, I think," said Precise Planning, whose input had been sorely lacking so far.

The rest of the meeting had be saved, and went far more smoothly than the first half where the ponies had been shocked at the losses of war. Losing that many towns and roughly half of the army had been a truly bitter pill to swallow for all of them. News of victory lost all of it's brilliant sheen when accompanied with the noted loss of life.

It was as they were filing out finally, that Straight Side saw somepony hovering in the hall who he was not used to seeing. It was a mare, and she looked uncomfortable for whatever reason.

"Is there a reason you're here, miss? The palace is kind of a off-limits zone until things start to calm down, if you know what I mean."

"I have something important I need to tell one of you," she lowered her voice, "can you be trusted? This is top secret."

"Please ma'am. I've heard it all. Now can you—"

"Who is this?"

Maverick had come along and stood beside him.

"It's just some lame mare looking for attention at the worst of—"

"Ruby. Ruby Aura."

Celestia and her forces stood in shock at the baffling scene before them.

The griffins town stood burning, not a griffin in sight. Actually, to say it was burning would be an overstatement at this point, as it had mostly burnt. Few flames were left, but the heat from the charred remains still tossed up the wind of their approach to be felt in their faces.

A million questions went through Celestia's head.

One common theme remained - a trap. But that wasn't nearly enough. What kind of trap could this have been? It was a bizarre sacrifice to just up and ruin a perfectly good monument of living for so many.

She tried and tried to summon ideas, but it was all too vague. Whatever they had wanted to achieve here, it was bad news.

It was because of the silence that her words need not be screamed as she had become conditioned to do over the past few weeks.

"We shall be taking a detour. The path to our left may be slightly slower, but I doubt they will raze another town again in the hopes we fall for whatever this is."

Ponies fell in line to continue the voyage like always, but the nagging thoughts stayed with the town.

Celestia looked to her surroundings in wonder. This would take them closer to the Feeryan Mountain Range, something she had enjoyed visiting in her younger years. The range itself would practically curve and guide them to the capital as it faded back into the ground. Fitting.

To be honest, the tension she had felt earlier had started to subside. The area here was far more clear, so the griffins chances of catching them off guard was close to zero. They had banked a lot on the ponies being overwhelmed by the choice back there, she had bet. Did they think they were that impatient? Frustration did simmer a moment as a blue figure crossed her mind, but she quickly cleared it. Decisions had to be hard, cold, and logical at times like these.

That didn't stop her from daydreaming a little. What was it she had done here in the past? Skiing in particular stood out in her mind. She even remembered there was some amazing pools of waters along the caves here. Something even more interesting popped into her head, exploring the underground caverns from said caves. If she remembered correctly in fact, this was home to one of the largest hollowed areas in Equus that she knew of. Luna had enjoyed the time greatly.

She bit the inside of her mouth and tried to forget it.

It was around twenty minutes later they heard something strange.

"Can you hear that?" she asked it to her aide besides her directly, who looked just as confused as her.

"It sounds like... a low rumble? Don't tell me a dragon moved in recently around here."

And it wasn't just Celestia, multiple ponies were now looking around wondering what the ruckus was about.

"Wait, it sounds like it's coming from..."

The ground shook violently, and several ponies off balance fell over because of it, Celestia and the majority of pegasi took flight and stared down in bewilderment.

But this was no earthquake. The ground split apart, cracked, and collapsed downward in a sinkhole far too large to be natural. The roar of the shifting earth was deafening, and Celestia watched in horror as the majority of her ponies got dragged into the depths.

Many things had happened after that, mostly with pegasi eventually finding the courage to fly into the rubble after things had calmed down. Celestia's gaze hadn't shifted, and she was practically locked in place. Her mind was too. All except her wings, which ran in the background on their own accord to keep her airborne.

Several pegasi came up to her to report things, and she gave replies that she couldn't say what were. The only thing she did know for sure, was that she made sure the rescue effort had started.

Bombs. They had travelled underground and setup, how many? An insane, unbelievable amount to be able to collapse this much on the surface. A massive gamble, considering how long it must've taken to setup and coordinate.

She seethed, but under it all there was a surprising level of respect. The griffins had someone gifted at the helm, she'd give them that. She had to give whoever it was that. The griffins hadn't even needed to engage them to cause more damage than throwing thousands of their lives against them.

On the other side of that coin, she cursed herself once again. How many times in her life had she thought of the answer, only to ignore it because she had allowed herself to relax? To come up with realization just after the fact, time and time again, it was another sick joke by fate she assumed.

Eventually, a throng of ponies had setup some... relief camp with tents for the wounded or dead that were found. Nopony had really had the courage to approach her after the initial orders, but that was changing now it seemed.

"Princess. What shall we do? This shall take days for us to fully clear and make sure we've searched as much as possible. We—"

She noted that it was somepony she didn't personally know. Perhaps this was the best they could do for now, either that or he was the only one with the courage at the moment to approach her.

She put on a stern face.

"Worry not. It is simple really."

Everypony gave her an odd look.

"You shall all stay here and protect yourselves while carrying out the rescue. Get in contact with General Reacher and follow his orders from here on out."

"What are you—"

"I shall be heading for the capital. I will be finishing this myself. I should've done it long ago."

As if they hadn't been surprised enough today, they all gave her the most incredulous look.

Ponies yelled out at she flew up and high, and then away as she made for the capital with burning blood and the determination to fight the entire griffin race herself if she had to.