A Shard of Hope

After a few hours of fighting, the Crystal Empire is covered with lights craters, smoke, and shards of crystals. Mad Stallions flood the streets with scary-looking troops and vehicles. Most of the population, including the local military, is either dead, taken prisoner, or hiding in the surrounding snowy wasteland.

The ponies left in the city are stuck in the Crystal Tower. The Crystal Guard waits by the doors, waiting for the magic shield surrounding the tower to break. Civilians are hiding and hoping for someone to save them. Even the royals have their problems; Princess Cadance is on a sofa with bullet holes all over her body and Prince (or Captain or whatever term you want to use) Shining Armor was left with the responsibility of protecting the remaining crystal ponies including Cadance, defending the Crystal Heart, commanding the last stand, and keeping the the magic shield up.

Prince Shining Armor says, “This looks like the end.” Princess Candence says, “I think this makes three times we were in life threatening danger.” Shining Armor says in a disappointed tone, “And I bet Twilight will save our flanks again.” Cadence asks him, “What’s the worry, dear… other than the fact that the Crystal Empire is falling.” Shining Armor says, “That’s just it, I have always failed to protect my city and all the ponies that live in it. We get saved by some form of miracle.” Cadance says, “But we had a major part in getting it back the kingdom.”  Shining Armor says, “But it was always my fault that the shield breaks and I fail to hold them back from the city.”

Before Cadence could say anything to boost her husband’s spirit, a loud screech fills the air and then a loud voice says, “This is General Line Breaker; I’m here to talk about your surrender. But if you want to fight us, we’ll make sure that you’ll ‘fall’ hard. I’ll give you 5 minutes to come downstairs and tell me your decision.”

Shining Armor says, “I better get going, I don’t want to risk any more lives, even yours, my love.” Princess Candence lays down in silence as Shining Armor leaves the room; she wanted to convince him to keep the defense up but she also wanted to keep her ponies safe and surrendering seemed like the better choice for her empire.

3 minutes had passed; most of the Mad Stallions are celebrating their victory while others are placing explosives on the main support beams of the tower. Shining Armor makes his way to the front door.

The Halo theme echoes through in the air and 7 UNSC Pelicans are flying over the nearby snowy land.

Inside one of the Pelicans, Applejack is trying to turn off the music but she can’t. She says, “How do you turn this darn thing off?” The pilot says, “I don’t know, I barely know how to fly this thing.” Applejack turns around and says, “I got’s an idea that might work.” Before Applejack gets a chance to kick the controls, Lunar Eye gets on the radio and she says, “Don’t do that, these are the controls to the Pelican, if you destroy them, it will either send this transporter into another friendly ship or will directly crash into the surface of the Crystal Empire’s streets.” Applejack puts her rear hooves down and quickly goes to a seat and awkwardly sits down while the rest of the passengers give her strange looks.

Inside the lead Pelican, Fluttershy is sitting nervously and she says, “I’m getting thoughts about this.” Twilight turns to Fluttershy and says to her, “Remember Fluttershy, we’re here to get Candence, Shining Armor, and the other crystal ponies while avoiding gunfire from Mad Horse’s troops… for some reason that last part sounded better in my head.”

Discord says, “I’m happy to get payback on those guys and show them why I’m the god of chaos. Nobody takes away my powers and lives to make fun of me in pleasure. Besides, if anypony can beat me, I would be a joke rather than a god of chaos.”

Lunar Eye gets on all the Pelican’s radios, “Hello I’m the Lunar Eye, I’m going to be your over watch AI for this battle. I would like to congratulate newly promoted Lead Commander Black Storm for his new rank. The primary objective of this mission is…”  Discord interrupts, “To save the crystal ponies we all know that.” Lunar Eye continues, “Correction, it is to extract the survivors from the Crystal Tower.” Twilight asks, “What about the rest of the Crystal Empire?”  Lunar Eye says, “They are either scattered or are part of the casualties.”

There is a moment of silence in the Pelican with whispers from a few of the Royal Guardponies.

Meanwhile at the base of the Crystal Tower, Shining Armor is going outside the tower in the Crystal Plaza to meet General Line Breaker, face to face.

The general was as big as a buffalo and looked threatening without scary add-ons that most of the other troops had. General Line Breaker says in his deep voice, “I hope you’re here to talk about your surrender and not trying to do something risky that might result in the pain and death of your remaining forces.” Shining Armor says, “I’m here to talk about our surrender.” Line Breaker says, “Good, we’ll talk about this inside a nice restaurant we kept…”

A Mad Statllion trooper goes up to them and says, “Crazy D’s forces were sighted by our ‘Shepherds’ coming this way.” Line Breaker says, “Oh no, not him.” Shining Armor asks, “Who’s Crazy D?” Line Breaker says, “The most confusing and annoying man… no wait living thing, which I have to deal with as an ally. Trust me if I could get rid of him I would get rid of him.” He takes a deep breath and continues, “You know what, let’s talk about your surrender at the foundation.”

The prince and the general walk to the fountain. On the way to the fountain, Shining Armor asks, “What wrong with Crazy D?” Line Breaker answers at the fountain, “There are a lot of things wrong with him; my main problems with him are that he comes into battles when he feels like it, he talks about complete nonsense in our conversations, and he attacks us when he is thinking about his problems with his dad. If you don’t mind, can we…”

Another MS trooper says, “Crazy D’s forces have been sighted outside of the city.” General Line Breaker says to Shining Armor, “How about we talk about your surrender later in your tower. I’ll send one of my commanding officers and a hoof full of troops to prevent any unwanted surprises.”

Line Breaker orders 7 of his troopers to escort Shining Armor back into the Crystal Tower. Line Breaker goes off to meet (in his opinion) the brat of the entire Mad Stallion army.

A MS trooper lights a flare for a landing zone for Crazy’s D Pelicans. Before they could contact the Pelicans, the pelicans start firing at the Mad Stallions. General Line Breaker gets on the radio and says in anger, “Crazy D, I know you have issues with Mr. D but that doesn’t mean you start shooting at us. Or did you forget we’re on the same side, you team-killing brat?”

Some of the ponies in the Pelicans were either confused or shocked. Discord laughs at this discovery. Twilight looks at Discord and asks him, “What are you laughing about?”  Discord says, “I have a theory of what is going…”

General Line Breaker and some of MS troops start to hear conversations from the Pelicans and they quickly realize those weren’t Crazy D’s ‘tin foil’ robots. The Mad Stallions started fighting back hard (well… harder) when they learned this wasn’t a stupid and pointless attack by Crazy D.

The battle got fierce when the Shield Buster tanks started firing at the Pelicans and quickly took 2 of them out.  The Lunar Eye says on the radio, “Try to secure landing zones to deploy troops on the field and try to get some in the tower so you can secure the last of the crystal ponies.”

Another Pelican gets destroyed and it crashes into the Crystal Tower. Discord says to the Royal Guard, “Well… good luck everypony and cause as much chaos as possible.”

With a snap of his fingers, the remaining force in buildings and in the tower. The Mad Stallions quickly get overwhelmed in garrisoned positions with their enemies appearing out of nowhere.

While in the tower, the MS squad that was sent in surrounds the crashed Pelican. They were surprised to see that some of it was barely touched while the rest of it was wrecked. They hear movement within the Pelican. The high ranking officer says to the muscular trooper, “Sergeant Bruce, can you exterminate the vermin in that hull,” Bruce says while getting out his war hammer, “With pleasure, boss.”

Bruce charges into the opening doors of the Pelican. The ponies inside were surprised to see Bruce in his size and his choice of weapon. Bruce smashes and crushes a few of the ponies inside. He closes the doors and continues his attack. Within the next minute, the sounds of screams, bullets, magic beams, and smashing metal fill the room and then, it got silent.

Bruce opens the doors; there are blood and pony bodies all over the hull. Bruce says, “Add 14 to my kill count, Ken.” One of the MS troopers grabs a note pad and writes on it. When he stops writing and says, “Looks like you’re 10 kills behind Buzz Saw.” Bruce looks and asks, “Where is that guy?” The troops look around the room. One of the troopers says, “It so easy losing track of that guy.”

Meanwhile in the throne room, the royals are trying calm down their subject. The doors suddenly open and a few of the Crystal Guard react by attacking the things entering.

Twilight uses her quick magic to stop the attacks and the attackers. Rainbow Dash says, “Hey, we’re here to save you.” Shining Armor and Cadence look at Twilight and say, “Twili?” Twilights says, “Shining Armor, Cadence.” They get in a group hug and Shining Armor says, “It’s good to see you, again. After we heard an awful rumor about something terrible happening to you, we thought that you and your friends were…”

3 pieces of sharp metal quickly fly through the air and claim 3 victims for death.