Late afternoon of the next day soon came around and the Mareitania liberation front began their march to Prance. Twilight led the way, her friends marching stoically beside her, while the entire military force of the rebellion marched in rows behind them, stretching out for quite some distance. Even though it was quite the sight, nopony said anything, not until Fleur cleared her throat.

"So... I've heard a rumour going around that my marehood's kissable. I'm not saying it isn't, but such rumours tend to ruin a mare's reputation. Anypony care to explain?"

"Ask Trixie," Twilight said slowly.

"Trixie?" Fleur pulled a face. "Trixie, did you say my marehood was kissable?"

"Yep," Trixie said happily. "I'm also willing to bet it tastes of rainbows and daydreams."

"Well... while I'm glad you hold my cooch in such high regard, if you spread something like that around again, I will surgically graft a penis onto you for the sole reason of being able to geld you afterwards. Got it?"

Trixie nodded, "Sure thing, kissy lips."

Twilight groaned and lowered her head in annoyance, "I don't need this today. I really don't."

They heard the thunder before they saw what was causing it, but even knowing it was there wasn't enough to prepare them for the sight of the towering column of black clouds over the city, like the sky itself was reaching down to pluck Prance from the ground.

The flashes of light and rumbles of thunder coming from it were almost constant. The perfect example of pegasus made weather gone bad. If anypony needed proof of why it was necessary to clear out clouds before they got like this, here was all the proof they would ever need, and then some.

Trixie patted Twilight on the back, "Good luck with that."

"I bet nopony's slept properly for weeks in there," Octavia said through her amazement.

"It's almost like they want us to win, making plans like this," Shadow agreed. "I wonder what this'd be like if we hadn't stolen their pegasi?"

"Much the same probably," Spitfire answered, "only dotted with the lightning charred remains of said pegasi."

"Better a slave than dead, huh?" Twilight muttered under her breath. Apparently it would've been pretty much the same thing at this point.

"What are we going to do now Twilight?" Fleur asked her.

"We'll wait here until it gets a bit darker before travelling the rest of the way and setting up the fires. While that's going on the majority of our ground forces can start making the trek to our point of ingress, led by Snowbright, Trixie, and Selene. I don't think I'll need to point out when to begin the attack as the signal should be pretty spectacular."

"What about us when the fires aren't necessary?"

Twilight inspected the group of ponies that were going to be maintaining the fires. Most of them were either so new as to not even know how to hold a weapon properly, old enough to not be able to, too injured to fight, or too important to get killed. What they did afterwards was actually rather irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

"I'll send a flier out to you once we've secured the lower city and opened the gates. It should be safe enough for you to join us then." Fleur pulled her lips back in a grimace, clearly not happy, but smart enough to know her limits.

"I suppose that's reasonable," she said politely. "At least maintaining the fires should give me a chance to practice my magic."

"You're magic's back already?" By Twilight's projections, even with her horn grown back it should still take a couple of months to regain her magic. The tip of her horn was barely a few days old, so hearing it was back already was unexpected.

"I'm not saying it's definitely back, per se," Fleur said uncertainly, derailing Twilight's excitement slightly, "but I can feel it there, lurking beneath the surface as it were. I've also stopped getting headaches when I try to perform magic, so that must mean something, right?"

"Definitely something." To think that her healing device could restore magical function so quickly was an exciting thought, but one that didn't really have any bearing on what they were about to do. At the very least there was a mare in Hoovendale that might be interested.

"Just try not to push yourself too hard at first."

"Yes mom. Excuse me for getting at least a little excited."

"Sorry."

"Besides, what's the worst that could-Eep!" Fleur jumped as a particularly loud rumble of thunder rolled over them. She wasn't alone though as plenty of other ponies jumped as well, "Fucking hell! How did that storm get so bad?"

"I don't know," Twilight admitted quietly. "According to Spitfire its what happens to rain clouds if you don't clear them out after they're spent. Makes you wonder why there aren't more thunderstorms if that's the case though."

"But surely they would've realised this would happen?"

Twilight shook her head and shrugged, "Maybe the pegasi did, but they simply followed the orders of ponies that had no idea. I'm sure there's plenty of pegasi that have no idea this could happen."

"At least this works to our advantage."

"It works against us if we can't clear it out. Nopony's going to be able to fly through that. Not without magic at least."

Night crept in, and as it did, ponies crept around to the far side of the city. Fires burned in the distance, nursed by several ponies including a unicorn with very clumsy magic, and the storm clouds above the city were picking up a slight orange tint from the glow of the fires.

"This is insane," Snowbright whispered. "If we get spotted before we reach the wall it'll be a massacre!"

"That's what the distraction is for," Luna said calmly. "And if that isn't enough, I'm pretty sure the explosions as their siege weapons are destroyed will be more than enough of a distraction."

"Don't tell me you're chicken, Snow," Trixie teased. "It doesn't even matter anyway, since you're staying back until we blow the wall."

"I know that. I'm only saying that we could've come up with a better plan. One that depends less on a dozen little things going right."

Luna raised an eyebrow at him, "And what, pray tell, would your plan be?"

"And don't say you'd go for the main gates," said Trixie, "as that would be a massacre."

"I'm thinking that starving us out would be the Grand Army's solution if our roles were reversed," Luna said before Snowbright could open his mouth. "But then the Grand Army has shown little concern towards how they affect the citizens of this country, and would likely not have much compunction about letting the citizens of Prance starve in that situation."

"Actually they'd demand the release of the ponies of Prance in exchange for leniency."

"Then they'd kill them all anyway, am I right?" Trixie sneered. Snowbright's hesitation was all the confirmation she needed.

"Consider the reverse again then," Luna continued. "If we were to offer leniency to the Grand Army now, in exchange for the release of ponies from Prance, or even total surrender, would they accept it?"

Snowbright sighed and shook his head glumly, "Nope. If anything there'd be counter threats made towards the ponies of Prance in the hopes their suffering would break us first, adding yet another atrocity to the pile."

"And that's why we're doing things the way we are," said Luna.

"I'm a leaf on the wind. I'm a leaf on the wind. I am a leaf on the wind!" Twilight wanted to believe it, but even on her good days she could only admit to being a leaf on the wind in the way that a pony in the ocean could be called an aquatic mammal. In other words, not actually true.

"I'm a big stupid leaf about to fly into the centre of a storm wearing metal armour," she grumbled. "Watch how I soar, burn, fall, and die. Again. Who came up with this plan?"

Shadow looked to Spitfire and Soarin, both of whom shrugged. "Uh... you did?"

"I know that! You could've at least lied to me so I feel better about it!"

Shadow pressed a hoof to Twilight's shoulder, "Calm down Twilight, you're shaking."

Twilight pulled away from Shadow's hoof, "Of course I'm shaking! I'm a leaf in the wind! Leaves tremble in the wind! It's what they do! And it certainly has no connection to the fact that I'm about to do something so completely stupid it's enough to scare me out of my wits!" Twilight saw Shadow's expression and forced herself to slow down. "Alright! I'm calm. Very calm." She held a hoof to her chest and breathed in deeply, pushing it away as she exhaled slowly, "The very picture of serenity. Is everything ready?"

"Almost," said Spitfire. She quickly checked that the ponies pulling the explosive laden carts closer to Prance were hitched up, and that the pegasi and thestrals were ready. "All we need now is somepony to tell us that Trixie and Snowbright are in position."

"That's Misty's job," said Shadow. "She'll be here soon."

"Good. Okay. We are ready." Twilight could've happily put this off for an eternity, but she was at least as ready as she was ever going to be.

"Here she comes now," said Shadow as she stared at a spot that appeared no different from the rest of the surroundings. All the thestrals were looking at it, and it was a little creepy. They were soon proved right as a little blob of darkness turned into Misty once she was close enough for the fires to highlight her.

She landed in front of Twilight and snapped off a perfect salute, "Selene says they'll be in position in a few minutes."

"Excellent. Did she say anything else?"

Misty pulled a face, "Captain Trixie did ask me to say something, but it wasn't really relevant to the mission."

"No, it probably wouldn't be," Twilight sighed. "What was it?"

"Firstly, she said to keep your mouth shut in the storm, so you don't bite your tongue off if you get hit."

"Not actually bad advice," said Shadow.

"Sure... I'll keep that in mind as my charred corpse plummets to the ground." Twilight took in another deep breath. "Sorry. Did she say anything else."

"Uh... then she said to give her love to kissy lips, whoever that is."

The was a thud and some cursing as Fleur fumbled a log in her already troublesome magic and dropped it on her hoof. "Ah! I'm going to murder her. Hard!"

"I think it's cute," said the filly.

"That's because you're young dear, and don't quite realise what she's saying."

"She's talking about your junk, isn't she?"

Fleur growled quietly as she lowered her head, "So hard."

"Okay!" Twilight said brightly, "I've heard enough about Fleur's reproductive organs lately, so I think that means I should get this started. Shadow, make sure you keep the top of the wall around our ingress as clear as you can."

Fleur walked up with the crystal heart bobbing about in her magic, "Twilight, stop stalling and get on with it."

"Easy for you to say." Fleur raised an eyebrow at her, and held it as Twilight took the crystal heart in her magic, transferring it to hold in her legs after taking off, "Okay-okay! I'm going! Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Fleur said earnestly.

"Not that you need it you strangely unkillable pony," the filly added.

"Doesn't mean it won't hurt..." Twilight muttered to herself. She flew towards the city, hugging the crystal heart to her chest, for all the comfort the chilly block of crystal gave her, and gulped with apprehension as the flashing tower of cloud grew closer. To say the swirling and writhing mass of lightning death was intimidating was an understatement, at least to Twilight.

"You can do this. You can do this!" Twilight started moving towards the formation, but stopped as a particularly loud crash of thunder boomed around her loud enough to make her teeth rattle. "I can't do this! Plan b it is. Hopefully the effects of those anti-teleportation stones don't reach up here."

Twilight closed her eyes and visualized, a spell building on her horn. She braced herself and clamped her mouth shut, even if biting her tongue off was rather a minor issue if she got hit by lightning. She teleported, a small scream slipping through her teeth as she expected agony the moment she reached the other end of her port, and spent a few seconds hovering with her eyes closed before she dared open them.

As she had fervently hoped would happen, she had teleported to a spot far above the centre of the city where the storm had thankfully decided to not travel. What was below her was also a surprise in that the city was oddly serene seeing as how an attack was imminent. Apart from a gathering of soldiers on the wall watching the fires in the distance, things were relatively normal with lamps giving the streets a pleasant glow as soldiers patrolled around. As Twilight had predicted, there was serious build-up of defences around the main gates into the city, and around the first gate into the upper city opposite that. Then there were barricades set up at intervals around the ring of the lower city. At least until they reached the gates on opposing sides that also led to the upper city. Entering where they were, the rebels would circumvent almost all of those defences.

Feeling slightly confident that her plans weren't about to blow up on first contact with the enemy, even with Pearl somewhere down there to add her own twist to things, Twilight picked her spot and held the crystal heart up in her magic. The artifact started gently spinning upon its axis with no input from Twilight to make it do so, like it sensed its moment.

Think of your friends. Think of your family. Think of all those ponies down there depending on you. Think of Fleu- Gah! Don't think of that! Damn it Trixie!

Twilight bowed her head, an errant tear or two sliding down to reach the faint smile she wore as she channelled all the love and positivity she could muster into the crystal heart. Responding to the influx of energy, the crystal heart began spinning faster and faster, suffused with a faint glow that grew as Twilight fed more and more energy into it.

Once the crystal heart was spinning so fast it was little more than a glowing blur before her, Twilight triggered the spell. The crystal heart flashed once, twice, then a third time as it unleashed a wave of soft pink magic that rapidly spread in all directions except down. Clouds stretched and melted around the massive dome of the spell as lightning rippled down the wall of magic to impact onto the ground. Twilight stopped the spell as it reached the outer edge of the storm, a wave of water left over from the clouds still moving from the momentum of the spell.

Trixie looked up at the wall of white flying towards her. She backed up, hoping to hide beneath Luna or Snowbright, only for her rear to bump up against the smooth surface of a shield. She turned and pounded the shield with her hooves desperately.

"Letmein!Letmein!Let-" Her words were drowned out as the wall of water hit her and the shield, soaking Trixie completely while those under the shield remained blissfully dry.

Luna dropped the shield, finding Trixie stood with her head down, her bedraggled mane obscuring her eyes. She was also shaking, but whether it was from cold or rage was hard to tell.

"You did that on purpose," she said in a dangerously low tone of voice.

Luna smiled brightly, "I don't know what you're implying Trixie, but I would never do something like that, and certainly not for something you might have said a week ago." Luna picked the bundle of explosive rods up in her magic, "Now come along, we've got work to do."

"Eat a dick Luna," Trixie growled as Luna practically pranced by her.

"Hah! It worked! It actually worked!" Twilight stopped herself and cleared her throat, "Like I knew it would all along, of course."

Twilight teleported the crystal heart back to Fleur for safekeeping, then pumped her wings to fly to where they were planning to make their entrance. Trixie and Luna were already running towards the spot, while behind them Snowbright was waiting in the distance along with their forces.

The surroundings lit up, then again and again as deafening cracks echoed around the city and off the hills as the pegasi began dropping their bombs onto the siege weapons placed about the outer wall. Dark figures swooped about, clearing the wall, briefly highlighted by the flashes of explosives and the flames they left behind.

"If they didn't know we were coming, they do now," said Luna. "Let's hope this is still a surprise too."

"I don't see ho-" Twilight cocked her head slightly, seeing how wet Trixie was, "What happened to you?"

"Lets see... crazy alicorn number one made a giant cloud destroying thing that sent a giant wall of water flying in all directions, then crazy alicorn number two is a horrible pony who wouldn't let me under her shield!"

Luna smiled, her eyes half lidded, "Didn't want you living in my shadow Trixie."

"I- You- Aaargh!"

"Are you angry?" Luna asked sweetly.

"Yes! Yes I'm angry!"

"Good. Start digging then." Luna led by example, her magic focusing on a spot to start boring a hole the size of her hoof into the stone of the wall. Twilight joined in a moment later. There was a screech of dark magic and Trixie lent her own efforts to their endeavour, drilling two holes at once just to prove a point. She wasn't sure what point, but it was definitely a point.

The explosions continued as they drilled, a cloud of dust and smoke choking the air around them. Twilight hadn't anticipated just how long it would take to make these holes, and was becoming increasingly afraid that the enemy would work out what they were doing. The last thing they needed was to charge through a bottleneck into a prepared defence.

Finally the last hole was finished, and Luna slotted the explosives into place as Twilight signalled to Snowbright to start advancing with three short flashes of her horn.

"Here's hoping this works," Luna said as she lit the cluster of fuses that trailed from each rod. They ran to the side and dived for cover, clamping their hooves over their ears. The explosives fired, one at a time as Luna had planned it, each one powerful enough to make it feel like the ground had jumped.

Chunks of rock flew across the field in front of the hole, and Twilight swore that the entire wall bounced at one point, but once the explosions passed there was little else to hear apart from the occasional sound of a rock falling.

They waited for the dust to clear before standing to cautiously approach the hole. It was bigger than they had expected it to be, and the hole was half full of rubble, but the wall did at least seem intact as was their main concern.

"My goodness, it worked," Luna whispered breathlessly.

"You mean you didn't know?" a brown coloured Trixie shouted in disbelief, the dust having stuck to her wet coat and armour.

"I've never done this before!" Luna shouted back in her defence. "Look, it doesn't matter, help me clear the rubble out and smooth the bottom off."

A stream of stones started gliding out of the hole on twin streams of magic, Trixie grumbling about stupid rocks, stupid rock farms, and how everything was stupid, even things totally unrelated to rocks.

Twilight was looking at the cracks around the hole. Some of them were rather large, and the two pony tall blocks of stone had been shifted by the explosion. She was seriously doubting how structurally stable the wall really was. She stood aside as a particularly large chunk of rock was pulled out of the tunnel by Trixie and tossed away.

Having moved where she was she was able to see that their forces were almost to the wall, and she waved Snowbright closer. "That was some explosion," he said once he'd closed the gap.

"Yeah, and I'm not sure how stable the wall is. If it collapses when ponies are trying to get through..."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that maybe half our forces should go in here and push to the main gates to let the rest in there."

"Can you do it with only half?"

Twilight didn't know, "Can I do it with all of them?" she asked. "Maybe if I take most of the adepts with me I'll have a chance. We'll get as many through as we can anyway, and if we can get all of them in, all the better."

"If you say so." Snowbright frowned and swivelled an ear, "The explosions have stopped."

"Then I guess the siege weapons have been taken out. Now or never I guess." Twilight turned to the tunnel, finding that Trixie and Luna had cleared it out, and had smoothed the bottom of any jagged rocks that might find their way into a unsuspecting hoof. The wall groaned, and a rain of dust fell from the crack between the stones.

Luna and Twilight shared a look, "Perhaps we ought to start moving ponies through," said Luna.

"Agreed. Once we have some adepts through we'll have to let them take point in case we need to keep an eye on the wall."

Twilight stepped into the entrance of the tunnel, Luna beside her. They raised shields in front of them and slowly advanced, more afraid of the wall above them than what they might find on the other side. What they did find was the blasted out remains of half a building, the purpose of which was no longer discernible after the explosion that had ripped it apart.

The picked their way through the rubble, clearing a path through it as best they could for those that would follow them. The street beyond seemed to be empty of anypony, let alone soldiers, so Twilight waved back through the tunnel so the rest would follow them.

Trixie was through first, followed by a mass of adepts that lined up in two rows facing opposite directions. One row stayed stationary as the other started advancing towards the main gates, ponies falling in behind them as they entered the city.

"Twilight," Luna said after a couple of minutes, "I think we have a problem."

Twilight looked around as Luna spoke, "What?"

Luna pointed up at a gap that was growing between the blocks of the wall to the left of the tunnel, then to the right. "The wall's sagging. I fear our window of opportunity closes."

"But we've got nowhere near enough ponies through yet! Barely even a thousand!"

"Then we shall have to shore it up." Luna's horn lit up and started to take the weight off the tunnel. Twilight did the same, and between them the gaps stopped growing.

"Faster!" Twilight shouted, hoping that the ponies making their way through the tunnel would pick up the pace. Shouts from down the street, followed by the sounds of arrows striking shields made it clear that the soldiers had finally caught on to their invasion. Time was growing short.

"Trixie! We've got this! Go help them advance!" The still rather dirty unicorn nodded once and galloped to the advancing line of adepts, a faint grin on her face. It'd been too long since she'd had a proper fight.

It took time to get ponies through, and the wall was starting to groan dangerously in Twilight and Luna's strained magic. Maybe half had gotten through when the wall cracked, throwing a pony sized chunk of rock off the top that narrowly avoided hitting somepony. Twilight put a shield up over the other end of the tunnel, stopping more ponies from entering.

"I don't think we can hold this any more!" she shouted to Snowbright. "Take your ponies to the main gates. We'll meet you there!" Snowbright shouted something to the rest of the ponies on his side and ran off out of Twilight's view.

"We'll have to fill the tunnel with something to support it," Luna grunted, "or this thing's going to come down right on top of us. Use your crystals!"

Twilight filled the tunnel with crystals, packing them in as tightly as she could, while Luna created two supports on either side of hole to stop the wall falling inwards. Once they were satisfied they released their hold on the wall. It settled into place, but didn't seem to be in imminent danger of collapsing.

"That won't hold it forever," said Luna, "but it will at least hold until we're far enough away for it to not matter." She summoned Artemis and Apollo to her sides with a flourish, "Come Twilight, I think it is time we joined the fray."

They pushed their way to the front, quickly reinforcing the adepts there while Trixie laid into the soldiers doing their best to hide in cover while shooting back. Behind them was the burning wreckage of one of their defensive barricades. It would seem that the pegasi had gotten creative and decided to bomb more than just the siege weapons.

Fearful eyes watched out of the windows of some of the buildings, the glass panes scattered broken on the ground from the force of the explosions that had rocked the city. Seeing them was a stark reminder that there was more than just winning the battle at stake here. Thousands of ponies lived here, each of them with far more to lose than the rebels did if this went wrong.

"Arrowhead formation," Twilight ordered. She put herself in the lead with Luna beside her. She'd have happily taken Trixie as well, but without shields she was at risk. "Push forward!"

They advanced, the soldiers falling back in near perfect unison with them. A flight of pegasi swept up the street towards the rebels, catching the soldiers unawares as their backs were to them. They felled several soldiers and curved up over the shields, only for two of them, Spitfire and Soarin, to loop back and land behind the shields next to Twilight.

"All the siege weapons have been taken out ma'am," Spitfire reported.

"And the barricades?"

Spitfire grinned, "We had quite a few excess bombs, so we thought we'd soften them up a bit for you."

"I hope you were careful about where you dropped those bombs Spitfire," Twilight said icily.

"Don't worry ma'am, we were. Uh... I was also going to tell you that a lot of the soldiers are building up by the main gates. I'm not sure what they were doing, but there was a lot of shouting going on. I think they might be planning to charge you..." Spitfire trailed off as something in the distance caught her eye.

"Spitfire?" Twilight turned to where the mare was looking, seeing a lone pony charging towards them, a trail of smoke coming from the small barrel strapped to his back. A feral cry came from the pony as he charged the rebels line.

Blasts of magic pounded him as he charged, but the pony seemed unfazed even as his skin melted off in patches where he'd been hit. Closing the distance faster than she could have predicted, the stallion leapt just as Twilight braced herself, only for him to smash into the shield hard enough to crack it, along with his neck and head. He slumped to the ground smudging a small trail of blood down the shield. Luna swiftly pinched the fuse out of the barrel of gunpowder on his back, a stunned silence coming from all present. Even the enemy stopped firing as they stared at the failed suicide bomber.

"What just happened?" Trixie said after a few seconds.

Twilight stared at the unmoving body of the stallion. There was foam around his mouth, and the pupils of his eyes were like pinpricks. The way he charged them barely suggested that there was even a rational thought in his head as he did it.

Twilight looked back up as Luna gasped, "They wouldn't..."

"Wouldn't what?"

Luna looked to Twilight with fear, not an emotion she was used to seeing on the normally stoic princess. "Berserkers Twilight! They've drugged their own ponies! We need to-" Whatever Luna was about to say needed to happen was lost as an explosion came from behind them, at the rear of their position, followed by screams.

More screams came, but from in front of them this time as a mass of ponies raced around the curve of the city towards them. "Reinforce the shields!" Twilight shouted. "Luna! Trixie! Go help at the other end!" Neither pony hesitated, rushing off as the first of the berserkers smashed into the shield. "Spitfire, can you get the main gate open?"

"Did you just say Luna?" Spitfire said dazedly.

Twilight smacked the pegasus on the chest, "Can you get the main gates open!?" she almost screamed.

"I'll try," Spitfire said before pushing off into the air with Soarin hot on her heels as the shield started to splinter.

"Concentrate fire," Twilight commanded. Streams of colourful magic and arrows pounded into the berserkers, but unless they were taken down by a direct hit it didn't seem like much more than an inconvenience to them. The adepts started to back off as the cracks in their shields grew larger, the weapons the berserkers bore finding those cracks and forcing them wider.

"Draw weapons," Twilight croaked. She summoned Swordy to her side as the adepts drew the short swords they carried, but many seemed fearful as the weapons they carried were half the size of the ones the earth pony berserkers carried, and they hadn't had much cause to use them before. If she had the time she would've ordered earth ponies to the front where their heavier armour would serve them better, but time was not her ally right now.

The right side of the shield collapsed, and the berserkers hollered with joy as they poured through the gap. They were met by a volley of magic, but had barely half a dozen were taken out before more were piling in over the bodies of their fallen comrades.

Twilight snapped a couple of shots off before the shield collapsed completely. A mare charged at her, screaming, so Twilight teleported as she got close, reappearing behind her and burying Swordy in the mare's back. Or at least that was the plan. The sudden reminder that she couldn't teleport when she tried sent her into a brief moment of panic, and she only just managed to keep herself upright as the mare hit her head on. She wrestled with the mare for a moment, then brought Swordy around and plunged him into her back. She had barely pulled Swordy free again when a pony barrelled into her, sending her flying one way, while Swordy bounced off in another.

The stallion that had knocked her over was on her instantly, his sword plunging for her face. She caught the blade in her magic and forced it to the side. Rather than fight for it, the stallion released the sword and snapped at her throat with his teeth. Twilight brought a leg up, the stallion clamping his jaw down on her leg armour and shaking it like a dog with a toy until Twilight was able to turn the sword around and force it into his neck. The stallion grabbed the blade, even as he choked on his own blood, and tried to pull it out, only to entirely cut his throat in the process.

Twilight pushed the body off her and snorted the blood out of her nose as her magic sought out Swordy, bringing him back to her side. Another mare charged at her, but Twilight side stepped the attack, ending the mare's life with a well placed uppercut.

Not being under direct attack at that exact moment gave Twilight a moment to try and assess the situation. The adepts hadn't fared well to say the least, but the earth ponies were starting to move up to take the brunt of the attack, faring much better than the lightly armoured adepts were. Pegasi started diving out of the sky, picking off targets, but there were still targets aplenty.

Twilight was torn between helping here, or helping the pegasi open the main gates. Both had serious implications as to how the fight would go. She slashed at a pony that had noticed her, bile rising in her throat at the strips of flesh that hung from her mouth, and it clearly wasn't hers. What could be done to make a pony act like this, let alone a few thousand?

"Twilight!" Twilight looked up to see Spitfire hovering above her. She pushed off into flight as another stallion jumped to attack her, smashing a hoof into his face to give herself extra momentum.

"Did you get the gates open?"

"There's too many soldiers there, and the gates are locked so we can't open it anyway!"

Twilight cursed. Getting reinforcements from Snowbright was her plan, but he'd only get bogged down at the main gates. "Help us clear these soldiers out then. I'll open the gates."

Spitfire saluted and zipped off. She reappeared a moment later, diving down to plunge her blades into the back of a pony before pushing off again.

Twilight started towards the main gates, only to stop as a thought struck her, and she flew back to find the first stallion that had charged them. She tore through the strap holding the barrel of gunpowder and made off with it towards the main gates.

Her first pass confirmed that Spitfire hadn't been lying about the number of soldiers here, or about the gates being locked. Thick rods of metal went across the back of the massive gates and into the stone of the Arch of Triumph they had seen the first time they had entered the city months ago. A massive lock over the mechanism that pulled all the rods back was just the icing on the cake. Twilight could also see the lock was new.

Thankfully the soldiers had orientated themselves towards where the fight was currently going on, and only a few were prepared to attack as Twilight wheeled back around for a third pass, dipping into the arch to the gates. She shielded herself from the few arrows that flew her way, and jammed the barrel of gunpowder behind the lock as best she could. She pushed away from the gate and shot a single blast of magic back at the barrel.

The explosion filled the archway with flames, and the force sent Twilight flying out a lot faster than she intended, but not uncontrollably so. When she looked back she could see the gates were still intact, but the lock and mechanism were history. When she flew back for a fourth time the soldiers were too stunned to do much in retaliation, giving Twilight a few precious seconds to wrestle the heavily bent metal rods out of their locks, allowing her to push the gate open.

Thankfully Snowbright was ready and waiting, and didn't even hesitate before leading his ponies in through the arch. The sounds of battle soon arose as they met the soldiers.

Twilight didn't waste time though. The fight against the berserkers was once again her highest priority, and she was back in the air, winging it towards the fight.

Much to her relief the fight was going in the rebels' favour. From her vantage point she could see that their numbers were far greater than that of the berserking soldiers, and probably always had been. In fact, the far end of the fight where Twilight had sent Trixie and Luna was starting to advance again, the flashes of black magic telling Twilight that Trixie had made it through the skirmish.

Twilight dived down, strafing the remaining berserkers with her magic. She landed heavily, swinging her weapon in a arc that sliced through the chest of one pony, and ended in the side of another. A flash of silver caught her attention, and she brought her sword up to catch the blade of one of Luna's glaives.

"Apologies Twilight, I wasn't expecting you to be here," Luna said as ice started creeping along Swordy's blade. "I thought you had fallen since you were absent."

"Not yet Luna." They uncrossed blades, as Luna brought her other glaive up to block an attack, striking at the stallion with the first, now unoccupied weapon. "What happened at your end?"

"It would seem we had less ponies attack there than here, and we had most of our earth ponies with us, so we were able to repel the attack quicker than you. I hate to think what state the adepts were left in," she added glumly.

"And Trixie?"

"'Captain' Trixie is pushing around the other side of the city, at least until she reaches the gate to the upper city. Since she outranks me I couldn't persuade her to stop."

"Actually, that's fine. I've got the gates open and Snowbright is now attacking from the front. I think a three way pincer move is a good move."

Luna grinned, "Four way if you count from above by pegasi."

"Exactly." Twilight sighed, "Here's hoping they surrender."

Between them, Twilight and Luna managed to get their soldiers reorganised enough to push towards the main gates. It seemed that the soldiers had abandoned their ruined defences to retreat back to the main gates. A poor decision really since Snowbright's forces were already there and had cut a significant wedge into the enemy's formation. That wasn't including the pegasi and thestrals attacking from above.

That wasn't to say it'd be easy though. The soldiers had built up rows of defences from which to fire from. The buildings at both sides of the gate to the upper city were also fortified, giving the soldiers a clear view to shoot from. But there was one thing confusing Twilight; there weren't that many soldiers, and the gates to the upper city were closed, preventing them from retreating further.

"Does this seem weird to you Luna? There's barely a thousand soldiers here, and these gates to the upper city are closed when they weren't before. Once we set up shields we could almost whittle them down at our own leisure."

"Did anypony think to keep an eye on the side gates?" Luna asked back. "I suddenly have a bad feeling about this."

"Are you saying this could be a trap?"

"I'm saying that with a large number of our forces still outside the city, we'd be hard pressed to hold them off if it is. Especially after the attack earlier. If we have to fight on-" Luna counted it off in her head -"five fronts, our losses could be dire, even if we win."

"I- Wait here." Twilight took to the air, deciding that new information was necessary. She spotted Shadow leading a pair of thestrals above the battle, and shouted for her to stop.

"Yeah?"

"What's in the upper city?"

"The upper city? Not much. Why?"

"And the castle?" Twilight asked desperately.

"There's net launchers set up on the battlements, so we've been avoiding that place. Although... I don't remember seeing them when we first got here."

Twilight squeaked in panic as the idea of this really being a trap started seeming a lot more prevalent. She raced over the wall to the upper city, finding it as empty as Shadow said. She formed a shield around herself as she flew over the wall to the castle, and gasped as she saw the castle square packed with soldiers. Goodness knows how many more were in the castle proper.

Twilight quickly flew away as the net launchers started to open fire towards her, and dived back to where Luna was fighting. "The castle's full of soldiers," she panted. "Start pushing towards Snowbright's position so we can group up. I'm going to warn the others."

Luna started shouting orders as Twilight flew over to Trixie's position. She was about to tell Trixie to do the same as Luna, but the sight of Trixie's bloodied face stopped her. A chunk of skin and flesh was hanging off the side of her muzzle, covering everything below it in blood. Add to that the greenish eyes complete with wafts of purple smoke, and the sight was quite frightening.

"Trixie! What happened to your face?" Twilight raised a shield as a hail of arrows fell towards them.

Trixie raised a disc of crystal to block the incoming arrows. "A mare tried to bite my face off! What the fuck do you think happened?"

Twilight fought down her need to help Trixie. If Trixie felt she could keep going, then Twilight wasn't going to stop her. "Trixie, you have to push towards Snowbright's position."

"Why the hell would I do that?"

"Because the castle is full of soldiers. If they cut us off from one another we're done for!"

Trixie looked back over shoulder in the direction they had come from. Twilight could almost see her imagining a few thousand soldiers coming up behind them. "Damn it! Fine!"

Twilight's last stop was to warn Snowbright of the same thing she had told Luna and Trixie, except adding that if the resistance became too much they might have to admit defeat and retreat.

"But we must have taken out at least a quarter of their forces! There's no way they can fight back from that!"

"We've taken losses too Snowbright! I'm not saying we go now, but if it gets too much we're going to have to!"

"But now we've just trapped ourselves in this position! If we want to hold it we need to take this square to stop them coming through the gate from the upper city." Twilight thought about it, realising he was right. If they stopped the enemy from the gate here to the upper city, then they could fight the soldiers back towards the other gates. But for it to work, they needed to take the square before reinforcements arrived.

"We need to take out those buildings then," Twilight said, more to herself than anypony else. "If we can remove them the pegasi can clear the defences much quicker than we could without them."

"I'm going to have to leave that to you then." Twilight agreed, as it was clearly a solution for magic, but unless she was about to get every remaining adept to fire on the buildings at once, it was only going to be solved with serious magic.

Twilight flew to where Luna was holding back the enemy fire, hoping that she would have a solution. She explained what needed to happen, only for Luna to smirk at her, "What?"

"Honestly Twilight, sometimes a simple solution is all you need." A swirling orb of energy formed in front of Luna, which she then tossed towards the fortified building nearest to her with a flick of her head. The orb sailed in through a window and detonated a second later, making the entire building bulge for a second before collapsing entirely.

Twilight stared at it for second, then shrugged, "Yeah, that works. What was that?"

"You mean you can't tell the rapid expansion of a shield when you see it?"

"A shield?"

Luna nodded, "Not a useful spell usually, used like that, but it does have a rather detrimental effect on buildings."

"Can you do it to the other building?"

"Certainly." A mere few seconds later the other building was collapsing. "Is there anything else Twilight?"

"Uh... I don't suppose you have a spell that could win the battle for us without trying?"

"I can think of one, but it wouldn't leave much of the city left to conquer, hence why it was destroyed as it's too dangerous to even lock up safely in the Canterlot archives. Besides, I doubt we have the twenty-five unicorns capable of harmonising to cast it."

Twilight's eyes went wide, "What spell is that? I've never heard of anything like it before!"

"I'm sure you have," Luna tittered, "but not in the way you think since Celestia herself isn't capable of casting it." Luna smiled cryptically and turned back to the battle, leaving Twilight to wonder, at least up until she heard Luna muttering to herself, "Don't know why there couldn't have been a Lunar Invictus as well..."

"Sol Invictus is real!?"

"It was, but Celestia destroyed it herself after she discovered its existence. I have no idea how it still exists in the public conscience like it does."

"W-Was it ever used?" Twilight was thinking she might have to go and visit the location if it was.

"I don't believe so, and not least because it was incredibly complex to cast. Such power shouldn't be held by anypony Twilight, ever. Now focus Twilight, we have a battle to win."

"Sorry." Twilight took to the air again and started raining magic down on the defenders. The part of her focused on strategy was wondering how it came to this. Their plan to not attack from the main gate had somehow turned into attacking from the main gate. Admittedly it was far less devastating than attacking from the main gate in the first place, but still, she still felt like an idiot. A feeling that was compounded when she saw the soldiers begin to leave the castle and head for the side gates to flank them.

Thankfully they'd been expecting it, and the defenders they were currently fighting were quickly routed. Twilight felt bad as they pounded against the gates to the upper city, only to find them unmoving. As soon as they realised their predicament they dropped their weapons and surrendered, but there was barely a hundred of them left at that point.

Twilight landed to give her wings and horn a minute of rest while positions were set up to meet the soldiers attacking from the sides. Trixie was already with Snowbright, her face screwed up with pain as she held a cloth to her muzzle.

Luna trotted up as Twilight landed, "It would seem we have a short respite."

"Very short," said Twilight. "They're coming to attack us from the sides already." Luna sagged. Clearly she was hoping for a bit longer.

"Now we have the room to get everypony in through the gates we should have a better chance at holding them off," said Snowbright. "Especially once we seal that gate off," he added, pointing to where a collection of unicorns were piling rubble up in front of the gate to the upper city, preventing it from opening.

"Good thinking," said Twilight.

Trixie pulled the cloth from her muzzle to speak, "Does anypony else think this battle is weird? They're attacking us with melee weapons and stuff. Normally they're all about the crossbows. And what was with those crazy ponies!?"

"Berserkers," said Luna. "They used to be a form of earth pony combat in the war of the three tribes, before the treaties. Warriors crazed with bloodlust, fighting with the strength of ten ponies, able to take many blows before being felled."

Twilight shook her head, "Surely there must be more to it than that? A pony can't go from normal to ripping a pony apart with their teeth just because they want to!"

"And they do not," Luna agreed. "Psychoactive substances were likely used to send them into this murderous state."

"So basically they were off their teats and half insane?" said Trixie.

"Basically, yes. Devastating against an unprepared foe, but less so when attacking an organised one like us. Which is why I suspect they sent those ponies with gunpowder strapped to them to soften us up first."

Twilight was both amazed and disgusted, "How the hay would you convince a pony to do that?"

Luna shrugged, clearly not knowing. "As Trixie said, off their teats and half insane, and feeling oddly invincible I suspect. Hopefully that's all we'll seem of them."

"As interesting as this is," Snowbright growled, "maybe we should discuss how to win this?"

"Oh that's easy," said Trixie. "While they're attacking us here, the pegasi, or Twilight closes the other gates to the upper city, leaving them with nowhere to retreat to." Trixie flinched as they all stared at her, "What?"

"That's not actually a bad idea," said Luna.

"It's going to be a nightmare beating them if they spread out around the rest of the city," Snowbright argued.

"But it would make the upper city a lot easy to take later," said Twilight, "which I think would be harder if they retreat there. Once we have the upper city and castle, their only choice is to fight on and get killed, or surrender."

"Unless they dump their uniforms and go guerilla," Snowbright argued back. "But I agree that taking the city should be our biggest priority. It's up to you Twilight."

"Then we'll go with Trixie's idea. I'll find a way to keep those gates shut while you hold them here, then we'll push them back and spread out into the streets as well before they have a chance to hide."

"What if they hide amongst civilians?" asked Luna.

Twilight sighed. It had always been a valid concern, and the best she could hope for in that case is that the soldiers at least have the decency to not purposely endanger anypony just to save their own skins. Frankly though, with what she'd seen of the Grand Army so far, it was a slim hope.

"We'll deal with that as it happens."

Author's Notes:

Hopefully this all made sense to read, and wasn't boring. Battles are confusing to write.