To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Princess Celestia stood calmly, the sight of the capital - and her final objective, finally being in her sight. It was like a weight off her shoulders to know that what she had been so desperately seeking was finally within her hooves grasp. Now, all that awaited was the griffins response. She really hoped they surrendered, but really doubted it would happen. Long enough had she known their kind to know that they hated that kind of defeat more than anything. Such silly pride.

Pride.

Pride was what had destroyed everything in her life up until now. Her relationship with her sister had become irreparable because of it. She found herself being a hypocrite yet again. Disgusting. Who was she to look down on the griffins when she held the same flaws in the end.

Unlike the griffins however, they did not have some purpose beyond simple survival. For Celestia, she would go to Tartarus and back a hundred times to save her dear sister. It burned deeply inside in the background of her mind, the desperation. She would show them the true meaning of conviction if they doubted her. She already had. Perhaps they needed a reminder.

She would show them the difference between mortal and immortal. That was certain. If they answered like she expected.

That time was now, finally. She saw the singular griffin flying towards her, most likely terrified of being burned on the spot having delivered the news.

He landed several minutes later before her. She waited expectantly.

"Princess Celestia, on behalf of my commander, I am to announce: we declare that we decline your offer of surrender. We shall meet you."

She could see that he swallowed harshly and looked terrified despite trying to pretend that he wasn't.

She started laughing. It made him take a step further back. She quickly stopped.

"Alright then. Come at me if you dare. Unless you're content to watch me smash up the place."

She gave him an unnerving grin, half-hoping that by scaring this one it'd spread to all of them. She was sure it looked beyond evil to his warped perspective.

He slowly backed away, nodded, and then flew off faster than he had came.

Now was the time, she told herself. She had the power, the will, and the opportunity. She knew how powerful she was, but she could not slip up now. She was not invincible after all. She'd bet everything on her success here. Her sister didn't have time for her to play the slow game any longer. Risks had to be taken.

Roeshak stood on the wall, with binoculars as he stared down the princess in the distance, while also being aware of his messenger arriving soon. He could make out most of the details of Celestia, and it was actually the first time in his life seeing her rather than seeing her imagery in a book. He was sure the same could be said for almost every griffin here.

The messenger landed on the wall near him looking nervous. Welp. This was really happening. He had delivered their decline.

"Listen... we are going to stress hit and run. I want our units pulling in enough to warrant her being focused on them, but not enough to be at significant risk. We need this to be a war of attrition. Nobody knows how long she can go on for, but I doubt it is forever. We have to bet on that. Minimize risk, and then take advantage of her tiredness later. It is the only way. Follow the patterns I showed you all. Is that understood?"

The circle around him gave acknowledgement.

"Very well. Move out. Listen for my directions to come later and stay ready for them."

Around fifteen thousand griffins flew above the capital, spilling out to the sides in an attempt to surround the sun princess from as wide an angle as possible. They would've blot out the sun if they had flown close enough together, bodies forming a massive wall. Instead, they spread out at different heights and layers.

Almost every single one had a weapon, be it a crossbow or some melee weapon. The most common being a scimitar.

Roeshak gave the signal, and small portions from each area slowly made their way towards her. He wanted to see how she would respond.

As his men neared, he saw princess Celestia light her horn for the first time that evening. Through his binoculars it was almost blinding. Hey, if she wanted to expend a lot early on, he was all for that. Even if it was ridiculous how much she had within her. Moving the sun was a task no mortal could comprehend, and perhaps they'd see a glimpse into that today. Hopefully not.

"Curse the ponies magical apparatus, it's so unfair," he whispered under his breath.

His griffins picked up the pace as they approached her, but used curved flight paths so they weren't easy targets.

He saw around twenty to thirty red orbs appear above her, and held his breath. A few seconds later fireballs were being fired off in every direction towards the omnidirectional attack. The flames were lengthy, leaving a long trail behind them to take up more space in the sky. As if to copy them, they also moved in a circular pattern around her, to protect her from most angles. This prevented the fire from giving chase forwards after the griffins if they backed off.

Most of his men retreated as the projectiles came forth, but it was a grim reminder when he saw many burnt figures falling from the sky and towards the ground who had been too slow. The fireballs quickly dissipated into nothingness after most of them had regained distance from her.

She looked no different afterwards, an almost bored expression on her face. It frustrated him to no end to see it through his close view of which he stared through on the glass. He could make out most of the details, even from this far away.

Still... there was no way she could just keep doing that forever. It also wouldn't get her anywhere to just stay still. Something had to break. It was time for them to start firing projectiles themselves.

Well, it was beginning now. You could say many things about the griffins, but coward was generally not one of them. Despite seeing their comrades drop like flies around them when they tempted fate by getting a little too close or unlucky, they never hesitated to go back in and fire their crossbows at her. It honestly made him proud.

Several hours had gone by. Roeshak felt like he'd been reading rather than watching, a book about every single kind of offensive spell known to ponydom. He hated it. Several thousand of his men had perished, but still they pressed on.

They neared the time of tempo change he had planned for.

He had taken many breaks to communicate with his army, but most of his time had been peering through his binoculars watching Princess Celestia, studying for any weakness, and any indication that she was slowing down. He swore he'd feel the indent of the blasted things against his face for weeks after this.

Right now, she was panting, but it did not look like she was unable to catch her breath. He tapped his claws against the stone of the walls parapet.

Something inside of him flipped on.

"Begin operation thunderstorm."

Two massive walls of griffins flew to each side of Celestia.

Roeshak waited for his men in the field to give the signal to begin the operation.

They'd spent hours here at the base of operations getting ready for this.

Then, it began. Every single griffin from both walls advanced on her as fast they could. How would she respond?

She turned to her right, and that nasty glow returned that threatened to blind Roeshak if he kept staring into it all day. He removed the binoculars so that he could see the bigger picture.

A flash.

Oh dear, he thought to himself. Lightning crackled through the sky and upwards to rejoin with the clouds, bifurcating and forking endlessly through the wave coming towards her. It hit quite a few as far as he could tell.

Again and again, flashes lit the ever darkening sky as she cast it both ways. There was still a lot of light out, but it was getting closer to sundown.

She was unable to take out all of them with this, and he watched carefully to see how she'd respond to the first close engagements of the day, literal hundreds hoping to swipe her with blades as they passed by, or even slam into her. He didn't know what his men would actually do once they got close. He hoped they slammed into her. No one was invincible once you staggered them and prevented them from fully recovering.

A giant magical bubble formed around her, and many griffins slammed into being unable to slow down before it had appeared in front of them.

"FIRE!" he screamed.

Dozens of ballistas across the wall, which had been calibrated and re-calibrated a million times to ensure perfection, fired all at once towards the princess and the shield. He quickly threw up his binoculars to see if she saw it or not.

As he stared her down, he was pleased to see that she seemingly didn't notice them. Perhaps the pounding of weapons against her shield really was distracting?

At the last moment though, he saw her eyes flash towards the bolts. It was too late. Her horn flashed a bit brighter, but a massive slamming noise hit that could be heard even by Roeshak, and the shield shattered. What came after was a blur, and a ton of dust and dirt was thrown up from the impact, making it hard to see.

All of his men in the field should have rushed forward, but they remained still, and even he was shocked to the degree that he didn't blame them. By the gods! It had actually broken her shield. Had she been hit by one of them? Seeing this monster handle everything so powerfully so far, you had almost come to believe that it was impossible in the end.

A rush of elation hit him. They could do this! She was vulnerable to some degree! This was proof of that.

"MOVE FORWARD!"

His throat already hurt from the screaming so far, but he still put everything he had into it. His words made no difference, but he meant them all the same.

The smoke was clearing, and he stayed focused as hard as he could on seeing her outline for when it appeared.

When he saw it, he couldn't believe his eyes. There before him, a massive bolt was stuck into the ground directly besides her. She was leaning against it, half of her body a bloody mess. Her left wing was... gone as far as he could tell, and the bolt had torn through the side of her body as well. He could actually see bone sticking out, most likely from her ribs. She was bleeding severely, and wheezed for breath.

He threw his view all around, and finally spotted some of his men moving in to finish her off.

Time slowed as they approached her. His heart pounded in his chest as he saw victory before him. He brought his view back onto her as he waited for someone to arrive. He wanted to see it happen, confirmation before his very eyes.

None of these things happened.

He saw it with absolute clarity. The princess, who by all rights should've been exhausted and reeling, grit her teeth. Body massively destroyed. The look on her face burned into his mind the moment he saw it. It was of pure hatred and anger. Her teeth stood bared against the world and her eyes were pinpricks, her body shook. He would have nightmares of this image for the rest of his life. Where in the world was this vortex of demonic emotion coming from?! This looked like blood lust if he had ever seen it!

Another flash, not nearly as bright as earlier times today came. Except this time it wasn't from her horn. Fire came forth from her flesh in all of the areas that had been damaged. The fire exploded outwards from her, rising and rising. Before his unbelieving eyes, he saw it. Her flesh was being rebuilt at a rapid speed under the flames.

The flames themselves gave him the chills. These were no normal flames. They felt and looked ominous to him. There was small shades of dark lines mixed into them. They cast eerie shadows upon the bolts around her, which had landed all over the place in a fifty meter radius there, all stuck in the ground deeply.

Before his eyes, he watched bone reform, and eventually the flesh cover it and then a layer of skin, and fur to follow that. The fire didn't disappear. It spread to her entire body and flowed through the air no differently than the hair of her mane or tail would've done. Only far more sinister.

So much had happened in so few seconds, that when he finally saw a griffin reach to close the final gap to attack her, what he saw was the opposite. She surged forward in a flash with speed he had never imagined possible and slammed a hoof into the griffin, who wouldn't have been able to react even if he had been entirely ready for it.

That was only the beginning. She took flight, and gave a similar fate to many. The bodies, which were basically demolished beyond recognition, burned with the cursed black and orange flame even after reaching a stop on the ground. As if to killing them wasn't enough, their destiny was to burn into nothingness and leave this world forever, forgotten.

Roeshak stood back in horror. He couldn't watch anymore. But he had to.

Looking back, the fighting had broken down. The rest of his men who hadn't joined so far rushed in foolishly. Or was it foolish? With the princess, no that demon flying around, what tactics could they do when her position shifted every few seconds?

Lightning, cursed flame, and beams of piercing light shot through the sky. As if to add insult to injury, she was multi-casting while beating down whatever was in her sight. It was a flurry and dance of death. He wondered what the most merciful death was weighing all of those endings. Perhaps lightning?

Where had this newfound strength come from?! What in Tartarus was that?! This was looking more and more like a nightmare rather than reality.

After a while, he realized with a start everyone around him had been looking at him expectantly, terrified out of their minds.

"Su... surrender! Announce surrender right now!"

Even now she flew through the sky meeting obstacles, a force of nature destroying whatever lay in its path. Several massive fireballs - which he only just saw now, smashed into the walls of the capital and all of the griffins took to the skies. Had she gone berserk and now was going to destroy everything in sight?! The walls crumbled where they had been hit.

Below them, the majority of the stone walls collapsed from the explosion. Their city had been exposed.

He looked around again. There wasn't even a smidgen of a chance one of these griffins would go out and confront that demon right now.

"Get me a megaphone! Right now! I'll do it myself!"

He was eventually given a wooden megaphone for projecting his voice. Despite facing death, he headed for the storm before him. Praying his voice could be perceived before being knocked off like the rest, or that she could hear it at all. He didn't know where the courage came from.

"WE SURRENDER!! PLEASE, STOP! WE SURRENDER!"

She heard it while flying to her next target.

She stopped just before the poor griffin, who looked on the verge of passing out being so close to her.

She turned and looked to where the voice had come from. The difference in uniform and megaphone stood out in her vision. Flying over to him was easy. She did not fully relax, but seeing everyone around her shell-shocked was enough to not be wary.

"So... you surrender?" she said as he got in speaking distance.

"Yes! Yes! Please, no more of this, I beg of you."

She looked around carefully, scanning for any hidden threats. She saw none.

"Good. You should've listened to my initial request."

"Yes... we should've. Please forgive our foolishness, supreme one. Your majesty I mean." The griffin looked down, pain in his eyes amidst the fear.

The cloud over her mind slowly started to fade. She had felt strange for the past hour, after her emotions had hit a peak, but she had accepted the burst of strength without question wherever it came from. Her emotions had gotten the better of her to say the least. The flames on her body calmed and receded back into her. For now.

"Good. Now that your surrender is established, I ask you take me through your city and to the treasury. There is something I wish to see. My ponies shall be arriving shortly, and you are to do every single thing they tell you to. I needn't remind you what trying anything at this point will incur."

"Yes... of course. Please, follow me... your majesty."

She gave a slight grin at that.

Celestia walked through the streets of the capital of Haldesberg.

On every cobbled street, no matter where she went while following this griffin who had told her his name was "Roeshak", their apparent commander, she found lines and lines of griffins prostrated and down on the ground in reverence and fear. It never ended. She doubted they stopped, even minutes after she passed.

They climbed up a hill as the approached the palace, and finally the path cleared up with no more griffins being up here from the residential areas.

"Let me ask you something. Is the treasury untouched like always?"

He hesitated a moment.

"I believe so, your majesty. But I cannot guarantee anything. Forgive me."

"Good enough."

After several minutes, and entering into the palace they came to the back of the place, where it connected into the mountain for the vault.

"I will be going in for a while. If you do not see me, do not panic. It simply means I've left for other duties. Simply wait for my forces to arrive and follow their instructions like I said. Also, I am not to be disturbed while in there. I will be locking it."

"Yes, you majesty."

He prostrated himself before her. Good. She'd keep him in leadership, he was pliable enough to ensure that the ponies could enact whatever changes they saw fit. He'd carry out for them what they needed. Reasonable enough.

With several more steps, she entered the vault, which also happened to be the royal families treasury, containing everything they had accumulated until now. It was time. Her mind had cleared fully now, and elation surged as she realized she had made it.

Sealing the vault door behind her with magic, she set out to find the Inner World Sanctuary.