Shadow and Flame

Rainbow Dash alighted atop a stray cloud, her wings fluttering slightly as they tucked against her sides, pressing slightly uncomfortably against her barding and the crossbows strapped to her sides and surveyed the scene below her.

Hundreds of ponies clashed violently in a flurry of noise and colour as bolts, magic, boulders and bodies went flying every which way in the force of the two opposing forces.

Behind the defenders, the so called “Nightmares”, a large stronghold squatted at the foot of a mountain, connected to an immense wall that stretched out to connect to another stronghold which in turn connected to another, creating a massive stone plug designed to block and guard the quickest and safest route between Equestria and the Griffin Kingdoms, a tiny bottle-necked valley between the Alicorn Alps and the farthest edge of the Shattered Talon Peaks.

At the other two strongholds similar battles were being held to capture the strongholds which acted as the gate-houses from one side of the wall to the other as well as a home for the defending forces.

The stronghold was flinging boulders over the Nightmares and amongst the Equestrians attempting to crush any land bound forces unlucky enough to be in the path of the projectiles.

Groups of four to six guarded unicorns worked together amongst the mayhem on the Equestrian side to smash the boulders being lobbed at them into mostly harmless debris or to catch them and send them flying back at the Nightmares where their unicorns were starting to try and deflect them as well creating a form of deadly ping pong.

In the sky pegasi were swarming back and forth along the vertical axis of the battle, exchanging blows and bolts with each other and any viable targets below.

Rainbow’s magenta eyes flicked back and forth across the chaos above and below, looking for an ideal opening to charge in and wreak havoc.

A distinct movement caught her attention and she locked her eyes onto a pegasus mare charging towards her, black barding covering their body and face, a glaring red serpent devouring itself was emblazoned on either side of their flank where the armour covered their cutie marks.

A bit was held in their mouth, metal reigns leading from it to a pair of crossbows strapped, one on either side connected to a loading mechanism full of bolts waiting to be loaded into the weapons.

Rainbow Dash met her enemy’s gaze, purple meeting sky blue as she spread her wings wide in challenge.

The blue eyed Nightmare pegasus twisted momentarily holding the crossbows diagonally to each other then pulled the bit in her mouth down, shifting the metal reigns and releasing the firing mechanism, the trigger holding the string taught snapping down and sending the pair of bolts the rainbow maned pegasus’ way.

Dash leaped up off the spongy, white cloud and flapped her wings twice banking to her left just long enough for one bolt to sail past her left ear and the other to glance off and scratch the emblem of two alicorns, one white, one black, chasing each other around a green orb adorning the grey plating protecting her right cutie mark.

Rainbow gripped the bit controlling the firing mechanism for her own crossbows and fired a return pair of bolts at her assailant then pulled into a steep dive while yanking the bit up shifting the reigns to pull the crossbow strings back and slide a fresh set of bolts into the mechanism from a pair of boxes attached to the crossbows.

The pegasus Nightmare swerved easily out of the way of Dash’s first attack and reloaded her crossbows and dived to follow Dash.

The blue pegasus hissed around the bit in her mouth as she felt a bolt speed past her scratching the armour protecting her neck and another shoot through her tail hairs tugging a painful prismatic tuft out with its passing.

Dash twisted around with several beats of her wings then launched herself upwards at her descending opponent, glaring

death at them as she fired her weapons, one bolt aimed wide and the other flying for the kill.

The Nightmare’s eyes widened and they faltered for an instant in surprise at Dash’s brash surprise attack then her sky blue eyes scrunched up in pain and she shrieked as the bolt hit home.

Tendons and muscle tore as the bolt wedged itself in the pit of her wing, spraying blood and causing the feathered appendage to seize up.

Rainbow Dash flew past the black clad pegasus, blood splattering on her helmet.

She didn’t even blink as the red droplets collided with her helmet and let a wry smile creep along her mouth at her flawless victory over yet another Nightmare, slashing one of the curved blades attached to her forelegs against the wounded wing with brutal force, breaking the brittle bones at the joint and tearing ligaments apart destroying any chance for the Nightmare to save herself as she plummeted, screaming, to her death far below.

Dash ignored the death cry, speeding off into the thick of the melee and silently added a tally to her score.

A good year ago Dash wouldn’t have killed a manticore if it had bitten her flank and a rude comment about her mother. Sure she would have given it the beating of the century in ten seconds flat but never killed.

And yet here she was now, killing without hesitation even keeping count of her kills to boot, holding the highest kill count in her battalion.

At first she had despised the act of taking another pony’s life, her mind spinning in circles around the morals and effects of the actions, keeping her up at night.

Then as time had passed and the Nightmares had become bolder and cruel, pushed onwards by their dark masters and as Dash had witnessed the aftermath of Nightmare occupation of several towns her resolve had been set in stone.

The Nightmares were filthy traitors, not just to Equestria or even all of ponykind but to all things good and right and if Rainbow Dash didn’t fight and kill for Equestria she would be betraying the trust that those who could not fight for themselves had placed in her and her fellow soldiers to defend them.

With this in mind the Element of Loyalty had thrown herself, body and soul, almost recklessly, into the fray, slaying every enemy in her path even making a game out of it with her sisters in arms, seeing who could skewer the most Nightmares.

Rainbow laughed as she felled her eightieth Nightmare of the battle, the large ornately armoured stallion swing his mace one last time before collapsing in a bloodied heap, she had a feeling that if she kept this up she’d beat her personal best of one hundred and twenty kills.

The cyan pegasus hovered in place for a moment looking about the field of battle.

Most of the catapults in the stronghold had either been shattered or crippled, the rest abandoned, no doubt to a lack of ammunition.

With the catapults rendered harmless all of the Equestrian unicorns were now focusing on attacking, launching missiles of magic and elemental attacks at the Nightmares or just working in groups to pluck the few remaining Nightmare pegasi out of the sky or dumping mounds of rock and earth on the land bound Nightmares.

The gap between the rear of the Nightmare force and the stronghold had completely closed as they had been steadily forced back into a corner and the gates of the Stronghold had been slammed shut by the cowards within denying the wounded and terrified fighters outside any chance of retreat forcing to face the relentless onslaught of the Equestrians.

In the air the Equestrian pegasi launched volleys of bolts with only the occasional attack from a unicorn to worry about as what had remained of the Nightmare pegasi had been slain or fled.

Earth ponies and unicorns lined the walls of the stronghold firing with crossbows or magic at the Equestrians below targeting anypony who came too close though they seemed uncaring whether it was friend or foe they slew with their sloppy aim.

Rainbow Dash spun into action as she fired at any and every target she could lay her eyes on transforming into a rainbow streak of death.

She quietly cursed the slow firing nature of the crossbows. Being the speed demon she was she wished for a weapon that could keep up with her. To make up for the sluggish nature of the crossbows she flew low raking and clawing at any exposed faces with her hoof-blades in between shots.

Rainbow Dash was having a ball laughing as blood streaked across her coat and armour, the latter more than a little dinged up from lucky swipes from below.

A large metal club suddenly ended her spree, flipping her onto her back for a moment a hard throb arcing through her back.

A large green stallion stamped his hoof down next to Dash’s head as she rolled onto her hooves back peddling away.

The stallion glared daggers at her and she raised an eyebrow, recognising the ornate armor and large obviously-compensating-for-something mace.

Hadn’t she already killed this guy?

The buck charged swinging the mace at the blue pegasus.

Rainbow Dash attempted to distance herself only to get a blade in the hind leg.

She hissed and looked behind her, a bloody purple earth mare grinning wildly as she plunged her sword into Dash’s leg.

The quarters were tight and she was surrounded by enemies at all angles and the large new dent in her back wasn’t helping her manoeuvre.

She bucked hard, dislodging the sword from her hind leg and hitting the mare in the face then lunged out of the way of the stallion as best her wounded leg would let her as he charged forwards, barely missing her with his mace and she collided heavily with another Nightmare who shouted drawing more Nightmares’ attention to her.

They beat and grabbed at her pulling and pushing her back and forth, bending and shattering her armour and Rainbow thought she heard a few ribs snap along with the countless cuts and bruises they had dealt to her.

The rainbow maned pegasus had always been able to get out of sticky situations with her agility and strength but now there were too many and there wasn’t enough room.

She did all she could thrashing and slashing in all directions but she knew she was doomed, she couldn’t lie to herself on that matter.

A deafening roar caused time to stand still for an instant, looks of shock and fear suddenly crossing over the faces of all the ponies around her.

Then it got really cold.

Rainbow Dash got to her hooves gasping in pain as Nightmares fled from her vicinity and the source of their fear came into view.

A gleaming silver scaled dragon covered in equally gleaming silver and blue armour brought it’s fore-claws down upon the screaming Nightmares it’s jaws open wide as it spewed frozen wind and shards of ice at them roaring so loud that the ground shook.

Though not as large as the native Equestrian Wyrms the colossal reptile easily crushed multiple ponies at a time beneath it’s claws and it’s tail swept aside enemies with bone crushing swipes.

The large Nightmare with the mace charged the silver dragon only to be crushed, his body popping like balloon by a smaller but equally intimidating brass dragon wearing silver and brown armour that joined the silver in the slaughter spewing a tight stream of liquid fire creating a deadly contrast to the silvers cone of frozen death.

Rainbow Dash ignored the pain in her sides, forcing herself into the air with several laboured flaps of her wings as a loud cheer echoed up from the Equestrian forces announcing that the battle had become a slaughter.

The pegasi charged forward towards the stronghold as a second brass swooped over the Nightmares lining the wall burning them and melting the stones they stood upon and the ponies below followed the silver at a safe distance as it made it’s move to break down the massive wooden gates.

Dash joined in the cheering, throwing off the broken pieces of her armor and charged forward despite her beaten state diving over the flames to strike at the fleeing unicorns and earth ponies in the courtyard.

A gust of wind and a ear-splitting crack announced the shattering of the gates as the silver dragon snap froze the wood and bowled through them.

In moments the stronghold had been taken as the Nightmares had surrendered and begged for mercy then rounded up into the courtyard, stripped of their weapons and armour.

The sky blue pegasus laughed and cheered at another almost flawless victory before groaning and collapsing in a heap as the adrenaline and endorphins wore off and the pain returned with avengeance.

Rainbow Dash figured she should probably go find a doctor and sort out those snapped ribs and the gash on her leg among other things.