Ch.p12 Taking A Backseat

Celestia frantically paces her throne room. Her eyes are wide as she darts back and forth, pondering what to do. The bad news from Cadence lay crumpled on the floor. Multiple cities near the Crystal Empire had been sacked by more Og Nag. Cadence is attempting to defend whatever cities she can, as her entire kingdom is in panic. I understood Celestia’s predicament: she had exhausted forces, no real standing army, and their magic just wasn’t enough against so many Og Nag. Luna sits beside the throne, unsure as well. Emeris and I stand at the far end of the room. Emeris glances over at me before he casually walks up to Celestia. He holds his hands behind his back and takes a very casual stance.
"Princess, I understand you're unsure of what to do, but if you'll allow us to go fight for your cities-" Celestia stops mid pace and snaps her head angrily at Emeris.
"That will be highly unnecessary! Our civilians will take refuge in our palace, then we will find a way to achieve peace with these Og Nag!" Emeris clenches his fists behind his back and rocks on his feet.
"Princess, as we've said a few times now, Og Nag do not communicate. They do not have a hierarchy and we still don't know what drives them." Celestia exhales loudly while still glaring at Emeris.
"Then we will be the first to discover this link! No species deserves to be arbitrarily exterminated without being given a proper chance!" I stop leaning on the wall and take a few steps forward.
"You do remember they've already slaughtered hundreds of your civilians and sacked at least three towns of yours correct?" Celestia stomps a hoof and everything in the room jumps a foot as her horn glows a blinding yellow.
"Enough!" She shrieks, her powerful voice shoves us back a few inches. She clenches her teeth and resumes pacing with a few tears in her eyes. Emeris walks back to where he was before, shaking his head.

Celestia stops pacing and lets out a loud, desperate groan.
“Where is Discord?! He should have returned from his investigation ages ago!” Celestia had held out for two things: Cadence and Discord. From what I understood, this Discord was phenomenal at detecting magical disturbances and went probing for something and hasn’t returned since. Luna brought up that Discord has had loyalty issues in the past, but was silenced by her sister’s frantic screaming. Everyone she was relying on for aid was busy with their own affairs.

The castle was full of refugees, and the deafening noise echoing from every wall wasn’t helping. The throne room was the quietest place, with no one but her immediate counsel, but the murmurs could still be heard. My troops were down in the hall, telling tales filled with bravado to help ease the woes of so many terrified civilians. There had to be hundreds of refugees in the palace alone, with nothing to do but sit and worry. Back in our nation, refugees were scarce, but we put them to work. Not to be cruel, but it gave them something to focus on besides imminent doom. It was also more efficient for us, and gave the refugees an outlet for their stress as well as a sense of purpose. I had suggested it but it was shot down with the feeling that they had been through enough and didn’t need to be bothered with chores.

“Perhaps we should fortify the palace if it’s going to be for refugees. That way we don’t have to worry about-” Celestia cuts off Emeris, and snaps her head towards him with an enraged glare.
“I will not turn my home into a fortress! There is no need to begin strapping bits of metal and wood across every window when this threat will be dealt with swiftly!” She had repeated how we were going to be fine after almost every idea that was brought up. No one believed her anymore, especially since all she did was talk and do nothing to fix the problem.

She had sent scouts to almost every city informing every pony of the current crisis and to prepare for it. What she hadn’t considered, was that none of these towns knew how to fortify. A small village to the northeast that I didn’t catch the name of had apparently received advanced notice of the impending attacks. Scouts went to investigate and returned with the worst news. The residence had tried to hold up inside their houses, armed with nothing more than cookware and gardening tools. After that massacre, Celestia sent out a nationwide alert for everyone to come to Canterlot.

Her pacing annoys me, but I keep a lid on it. I talked with Luna a bit earlier about ways to get through to her. It boiled down to while Celestia is absolutely brilliant, she's used to tedious tasks that aren't life threatening. When a problem occurs, it's usually one villain, with one solution. The solution usually involved her knowledge of magic or sending her normal group, the Mane 6, which I've only heard about briefly. I get it, she's not used to her nation suffering as a whole while she thinks. The closest she's ever been was back when some Minotaur named Tirek attacked. With these Elements of Harmony not in the picture, she was faced with a much more gruesome scenario. Her last war was many millenniums ago against King Sombra as well. I gave her all the slack I could, but my own nation was depending on her pulling it together in time.

We had been held up here for almost a week now since the attack on Ponyville. Settlements had been raided from all over, and we were slowly being cornered. If she wanted any hope of survival, she’d need to fight back instead of waiting for the enemy to show up here. I had suggested several times to fortify the front gate, seeing as how there was a nice waterfall to dispose of bodies. This got turned down, since Celestia didn’t like the idea of making her home into a warzone.
“The people are scared enough as it is, they don’t need to show up here and be greeted with an armed militia!” were her exact words.

At this point, she was going to wait around frantically for every town to be taken, and when we had no one left for help, she’d be greeted by the enemy, at her palace doorstep with no precautions at all. Emeris and I stood around, angrily whispering about what to do. It wasn’t our kingdom, but we wanted to help. We had debated on just taking our soldiers and showing her how it’s done, but we needed to remain united. We honestly had nowhere to go that was remotely fortifiable. We wouldn’t last more than a day if the Og Nag came knocking anywhere else.

Emeris and I were decently calm, knowing that we had a good chance of holding the front gate for a while if need be. Of course all it would take is several Garge’s storming the wall and pushing us back from our only real choke point. After that, it would be an endless wave of Og Nag, with no hope of reinforcements. I had talked with Luna for a while about magical solutions, but her sister was the more knowledgeable one. Celestia was more concerned with saving every last pony she could, instead of destroying the threat.

A scout comes running past us up to Celestia, who frantically turns to him.
“Good news?!” she almost screams. The scout timidly shakes his head and hands her a scroll. She opens it, and shrieks at the top of her lungs. The talking from the surrounding rooms goes silent as every last ear wants to know the news. Celestia staggers back a bit, eventually colliding with her throne. She falls to the ground sobbing. Luna quickly trots over and reads the scroll. Her eyes grow wide, and she can’t help but look at her sister, then to Emeris and me with desperation. I uncross my arms and Emeris stops leaning against the wall. We meet Luna in the middle of the room.

Luna begins with a horrified stutter.
“There’s two massive waves of Og Nag. One to the north east and the other to the west coming this way to Canterlot…” Hectic cries of terror erupt from every room as everypony hear. She swallows and her mouth begins to tremble.
“There...there are also refugees from cities near the Crystal Empire on their way here. The scout said they will most likely collide with the Og Nag headed here in just a few days at their current pace.” Luna lets the letter fall to the ground, staring into the void of death.

I open my mouth to call to Celestia, but it’s pointless; she's inconsolable.
“Luna, we can slow the Og Nag down, allowing the refugees to get to us, but we need to move now. “ She glances at her sobbing sister with sympathy.
“Luna, please.” coaxes Emeris. She faces us and nods. I wait to go over our strategy until we exit the throne room. Luna gradually closes the doors behind us with a soft click. I breathe a sigh of relief along with Emeris.
“There’s a lot to go over, but first things first: we need to hold off those attacks headed here.” Luna lets out a frustrated sigh.
“Raiden, I know you mean well, but I can’t just step over my sister whenever it suits me. This is an exception but I’m afraid that while she’s awake, there’s not much I can do.”

Emeris shakes his head.
“So we’ll need to show her what we can do. Maybe she’ll come around if she sees our strategy work!” Luna looks almost excited.
“Perhaps! I know at the moment she is simply frustrated by the lack of options." I gaze at her for a moment.
“Then...why do you not show as much worry?” Luna smiles a bit.
“I trust you.” she says, giving me a quick look. With my helmet on she can’t see my face turn red, but she knows it. In fact, I’d say she knows quite a bit about me.
Emeris sighs in annoyance.
“Not to break up your little romantic pow-wow, but we got two major battles ahead of us, with a few hundred civilians relying on it. We need to get to work.” We walk quickly out to the main hall where the dining table is. Luna levitates everything on it and tosses it to the floor, replacing it all with paper from a nearby cupboard. Emeris squiggles markers for the palace, the mountain range they have to go around to get here, the directions of the attacks, and the incoming civilians.

Luna stands there confident that we can make it work but a bit hesitant to speak. I examine the map and ideas start forming in my head.
“Okay first things first, we need to slow down the Og Nag, not fight them. Luna, do you have any type of raising ground spells or moving rocks?” She nods.
“I could easily bury them in a rock slide to the northeast by Foal Mountain. They’ll need a lot of time to dig everyone out.” She smiles at her plan, but it leaves as soon as she notices neither of us is talking. Emeris glances at me, not wanting to make her feel incompetent.
“They’re Og Nag; they don’t care about their soldiers. Although it will still thin out their numbers. If you can hit the front of their group, you’ll take out a good chunk of them, and the rest will have to go around or over, which will take time. If there's snow up there, can you melt it? Having to track through mud and rocks would definitely buy us a few days.

Luna’s eyes widened.
“Yes, there’s plenty of snow!”

I nod and smirk to myself.
“Okay so we agree, Luna will use the mountains to slow down the eastern troops. What about the west? That will most likely have to be a Taraska task, unless there’s something you can give to us.” Luna shakes her head sadly.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know of anything we can use at the moment. If my sister was a bit more...stable, she’d probably know of something.” Luna pulls out a map from another drawer and brings it over.

I groan. There’s nothing but hills to the west according to the map. Emeris slaps the table angrily, but still restrains himself enough not to startle all the refugees in the room.
“We won’t last in the open. Is there anywhere we can draw them?” I say, hoping someone has another idea. Luna lights up again.
“Did you not build a base in Ponyville? You could lure them there right?” Emeris furiously nods his head.
“Yes, that’s a perfect idea! We’ll send Lucretia ahead of time to load up on defenses: arrows, extra protection, traps in the woods, you name it! We only need enough of us to get the Og Nag’s attention, everyone else can go with her and fortify!”
We look around at each other with pride. We weren't completely doomed...yet.
Luna examines the map again.
"I'll be back in a moment, let me fetch a few items first!" She trots through the throne room doors and is gone.

I turn to Emeris as my right eye twitches.
"So...there's the...um...castle." Emeris crosses his arms and looks off to the side.
"Well...maybe part of me wants to see what happened, maybe part of me thinks it's best that place is destroyed. I don't know how to feel. That being said, as much as I hate the 4th battalion, we could use the infantry even if they're just Hurrand's personal guard." I drum my fingers on the table in conflict.
"We simply don't have the time to investigate at the moment. All the Equestrian flyers are busy relaying messages from all over the kingdom. We have to prepare for these two incoming waves and the civilians. Perhaps we can look into Taraskan Castle afterwards." In all honesty, a flyer could easily give me the news of Taraska on their way back from the Crystal Empire. I wanted that place to burn though. All the memories, all the lies, all the torture. I would never say it out loud, but I was perfectly fine with forgetting that place forever. For once I was getting the respect and attention I deserved and I refuse to have it spoiled by the garbage who sits in that tomb of stone.

Emeris turns around and sits on top of the dinner table in the middle of the room.
"Is there a reason you didn't tell her that baiting Og Nag is a terrible idea? I don't mean to be a downer, but the main forces of Taraska are here and we could go extinct if this goes south." I stare at him quietly until he shifts uncomfortably.
"Do we even have a choice? I guess I also forgot we're all we have. If you have another option, I'd love to hear it. I'd love to roll several balistas out there and impale them at range, but we lost them all when we got sieged." Emeris nods with a hint of defeat.
"Also lieutenant Caval never finished her designed for balista-mounted Growlers. Too bad, we could really use her engineering right about now." My mouth hangs open a bit.
"Emeris, I'm sorry. I know you two were really close. At least she's somewhere better now." Emeris widens his eyes briefly in response.
"It's war. Anyways I'll prepare the report for our new scout to take to Base Ponyville." He slides off the table and rapidly walks out of the room. Emeris does everything he can to keep spirits up, but it seems like life is always trying to hammer him into misery.