Fluttershy looked down at her green bowl made of dented metal with rusted spots here and there. She grumbled, splashed some errant stream of water onto its interior, and shoved it back into her voluminous pack. The heavy rains of the past few days had caused water to cascade off the ruins the Forty-Second Equestrian Pegasus Attack Company had taken shelter in. The angry splashing of water on the stone, twisted metal, and rotted wood irritated Fluttershy greatly as she gazed at the plants being showered by the flood of water going through the many holes of the makeshift 'shelter'. Of course, it helped the survivors of the recent battle with resupplying themselves in water, and the mare could smell the stench of burning wood as water was boiled in large cauldrons then poured into containers for later consumption.

The ground was damp and slippery from all the moss that had taken over whatever this large building used to be for, but Fluttersy didn't care about that. She listened to her comrades laughing with each other as they shared stories from back home. Mare and stallion talking about their significant others, escapades with their children, how they used to hate life on the farm but now missed it, or even some that displayed excitement for the war."

The pale-yellow pegasus grunted and clutched her right foreleg and instinctively pulled her right hindleg toward herself. She still bore the scars of war from one of Sombra's artificial creatures stabbing her with creatures. She had almost lost her life if her friend Rainbow Dash hadn't intervened. Every step was taxing thanks to the constant pain she suffered through, but Fluttershy pushed through regardless. She didn't really have a choice, did she?

"Fluttershy!" captain Saltlick called out. "Want to sit by us this time?" The white pegasus presented an array of fried wheat porridge and fruits sitting over a makeshift grill heating up from the fire beneath it. "I can assure you that you'll love it."

The mare looked down at the food, feeling the smell affecting her tired nostrils and shook her head. "No. That's okay. Thank you."

The stallion raised a hoof briefly in disappointed acceptance before poking at the food with a stick again. "Suit yourself."

"Told you she'd never eat with us," one of the privates said. "She never does."

"Think we'll get a rotation now? We've been at this for five days now," another soldier commented.

Saltlick furrowed his brow as he flipped an apple slice. "Got no word from headquarters about that yet, but I could do with a break. Maybe find a marefriend to cuddle with," he mused.

The first soldier cackled. "You're still young, captain. No need to set down roots yet."

The white pegasus chuckled. "I think twenty-two is pretty old in field soldier years."

Fluttershy heaved a tired sigh and moved to one of the collapsed walls, letting her body be taken over by the cold winds coming from the storm outside. As she rested, several mice popped out of their burrow at the base of the wall's remnants to investigate the world around them. The pegasus felt her heart warm up almost instantly at the sight of them and smiled.

"Oh, hello there, Mr. Mouse!" Fluttershy said calmly. "What are you doing out so late at night? You might catch a cold, you know." The mouse's nose twitched as it looked up and squeaked in fear, pushing its family back into their burrow. "W-wait, please! I won't do anything to you or your family! I'm just concerned!"

It was too late, however. They were already gone, leaving the pale-yellow pegasus alone again. She gritted her teeth, holding back tears as her comrades remained silent on the whole event, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Looking down at a puddle, Fluttershy could see several patches of her pink mane shortened and missing, sections scarred over from past battles, leaving naught but a patchwork of rose hair. Her face was likewise disfigured, with a portion of her right muzzle chipped off around the nostril, a few striped scars leading down her throat, and a fake eye made of red gems, giving her a six-pointed star pupil that helped her see thanks to the magic it had been enchanted with. She was more than grateful to receive such a gift, but her disfigurement meant that most animals instinctively saw her as ' unnatural' and fled.

She missed Angel.

The hours went by and the storm finally settled while the others fell asleep, taking turns to guard their supplies and fellows. Fluttershy looked up at the cloudy sky unmarred by the industrialization of Equestria, showing off the vast recesses of space and the sea of light it held. The mare imagined herself soaring through this sea, unbothered by all the problems and bloodshed of life, surrounded by cosmic animals of fantastical origins. So many colors.

As she opened her eyes, she bore witness to a shooting star flying near the moon, per her perspective, and an idea came to mind. Just a bit of fun to relieve tension.

"I wish that this war would end. That everypony could go home!" she whispered loudly to herself. "I...I just need somepony to make it stop. Help make it stop..."

She looked over her shoulder to see several ponies sleeping soundly amidst the rubble and debris in their sleeping bags. Several were kicking and mumbling to themselves as their fears of the next day grasped their souls. Fluttershy grabbed her bag and pulled out her own sleeping bag. It was about time she went to sleep too. There was a long day ahead of them.

"Lieutenant Fluttershy, we're closing in on the field of battle."

"Deliver the replacement radio equipment to the field commanders," the pale-yellow pegasus ordered.

The pegasi looked over the destroyed farmlands below, replaced by mud and craters as ponies used rifles attached to their shoulders and pulled the triggers using an array of wires attached to one hoof. Cannons yelled loudly as their charges were sent through their mouths to cursed the blocky beasts of crystal and flash that wandered through the fields, supported by their own fake ponies of black magic and crystal using their own gunpowder weaponry that seemed to blow up in their faces more often than not.

"There's some giants over there," one of the pegasi pointed out.

Fluttershy shook her head. "No time for them. The hunters can take them out. Where is the artillery?"

"But m'am, we--"

Fluttershy gave a sharp stare at her soldier who immediately shut up. "We were given partial freedom to make decisions here so long as they were tactical, then to join up with the group here and receive proper orders." The mare grumbled. "We're already delivering new communications equipment to them. Might as well deliver a clear sky, too."

One of the pegasi was looking around with binoculars, catching glimpses of air battles nearby and flanking enemies. He growled when he reached for his radio, realizing the soldiers on the ground had yet to get everything set up.

The giants below were towering masses of disgusting material of varying shapes and sizes. Made from blackened meat and corrupted crystals, these lumbering masses acted as the shock troops and siege equipment of Sombra's military, and he had tons to spare. Fluttershy wished he had just lost whatever means he had to produce them.

"Down there, behind the white cliffs!" the scout shouted.

The soldiers looked to white clay, unmarred by battle, and bore witness to multiple flashes behind them. A few dozen ponies were torn apart when the shells impacted the ground, frustrating Fluttershy's platoon.

"Let's deliver a strongly worded complaint to the mailmares," Fluttershy said maliciously.

"I agree," one of her soldiers stated. "They've been quite rude with sending in damaged packages to us. I think it's time to look elsewhere, so let's send them back their parcels!"

The platoon of twenty-three pulled out multiple ovals from closed, brown pouches of false leather around their chest and flanks and clanked them together. They cheered quietly as they dropped the steaming and whistling items on top of the immense cannons pointed upward and watched as their delivery ripped apart flesh and melted metal. Several of them hit large piles of cylindrical items and set off the gunpowder barrels near them, causing gargantuan explosions that made a fire so powerful that the black smoke reached high into the sunny sky.

"Prepare for interception by enemy air f--" Fluttershy started.

"Two enemy platoons incoming. I count a little over sixty troops!" the scout interjected.

"We can't fight that many!" Fluttershy realized. "Fly as fast as you can back to our lines! We'll get support from the soldiers in the back lines. That should make things easier." She cursed under her breath. "Those radios would be helpful right about now!"

With minutes to spare, the ponies pushed their bodies as hard as possible, dodging errant shrapnel and dirt from explosions, doing their best to survive to the line. The enemy pegasi approached closer and closer, spear and sword in hoof, when everypony was deafened and pulled away in the air. So fierce was the sudden shift in wind that the air was pulled out of Fluttershy's lungs and all sound stopped. Hovering in the air with her soldiers, Fluttershy eventually recovered her wits and realized she only had about thirteen soldiers left, and the enemy pegasi had been shrunk to around twenty, but something else was odd. Why had the gunfire and artillery ceased suddenly? Everyone was staring to Fluttershy's left, following a trail of black smoke.

There was a massive, glowing crater a few kilometers from the central battlefield. Whoever was at the impact site was likely gone. The lieutenant felt her heart tightening and her blood starting to freeze over. The firefight restarted almost instantly where the glowing, smoking crater was, and Fluttershy felt like everything was going to go back to the horrible 'normal' she was used to, but several glints blinded her from above and the mare bore witness to falling stars numbering in the dozens.

"What have I done?!" the mare gasped in horror.

She was able to catch some sort of metallic abomination as it flew in front of her. Hanging off its hull were four, huge, blue, humanoid creatures that passed by in a blur, and if she didn't know any better, the mare would have assumed they were having the time of their lives. Their hooting and hollering only reached Fluttershy's ears when the craft was far away, crashing near the other crater.

The ponies watched silently as one managed to land mostly 'intact' behind Sombra's lines, tearing away defenses and the few still intact trees, revealing a misshapen mass of scrap metal with no rhyme or reason to its shape and design, its rear belching out thick, black smog. Fluttershy narrowed her eyes, realizing that the hull of this ramshackle mess was covered in more of the blue things she caught a brief glimpse of that were now ripping off parts of their craft and throwing them at the soldiers beneath them.

The pegasus overheard the soldiers below cheering as their enemy was assailed by this new one from the sky. Several thought the princesses managed to negotiate aid from neighboring countries and fellow ponies, but who ever heard of or even seen these things?

"We've got reinforcements! They're taking out Sombra's troops!" one of Fluttershy's surviving soldiers declared. She grabbed Fluttershy's shoulders and shook her in joy. "The stalemate is ending!"

Why, then, did Fluttershy only feel worse? She looked into the distance and saw that weapons from both sides were firing at the glowing crater. What did that mean? She got her answer in the form of two more of those immense vessels floating above the battlefield near Fluttershy's locations, their sizes dwarfing that of battleships, and their bellies roaring as loudly as possible as flames stabilized it and burnt the ground beneath, cooking the mud. Unfortunately, the second one crashed into the first, impaling itself and causing the two to smash into the ground, the impact mostly absorbed by the mud.

"By the sun..." Fluttershy gasped.

Massive bodies of blue poured out of the flaming wrecks and flooded over the defenders of both sides, overwhelming the still cheering ponies before their officers broke them out of their stupor to start attacking these new invaders.

"What have I done?!" Fluttershy thought to herself.

Author's Note

~~You'll find the link to~~ ~~Lux Locus: The First Awakening here~~~~.~~ New cover art is being made and the book is getting looked over a third time.

It's a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid spanning 82k words, set in a universe where eldritch aliens can come in from other dimensions with weapons that have odd effects within our reality and gods that can enter our plane with the right rituals, but that's for later books.

Here's the description:

Killigan Ghor, a blacksmith of the Calaghi System, explores the swamps beyond his village and discovers immense gauntlets that put him on the path to becoming a super soldier of the Terran Expanse: A Pillar Scieldan. As he grows in experience over the years, he returns to his home system with the promise of defending it from threats. However, due to his reckless actions, he awakens a rotting threat that casts its eyes over his home system. Its ever-changing tendrils grow closer to his home, and Killigan must find a way to stay its decaying flesh lest it destroys all of his work.