POV Rio
"We haven't gotten her to say anything at all. Other than the occasional groan of pain in her sleep. Otherwise, she hasn't spoken a word. We didn't want to try and use torture yet, as she is too weak for that," Cait says with a frustrated tone.
"Hmm, let me try a few things. I have a few interesting methods that might work. First, let's try some Hallucigen," I say.
I had modified the original recipes from Hallucigen Inc to create what many would consider a truth gas. Now the real issue is that I wasn't certain how effective it really was. Sure, there had been a few tests, but the exact effectiveness had always contained a certain level of uncertainty. Not to mention the tests were done on humans, not Unicorns. But even if it failed, I had backup plans.
I turned out I didn't have to worry, as due to the injured state of the intruder, the gas had little issues making them talk. From them, we learned a lot of info, such as the fact that a similar attack was planned for the Thestrals and the location of numerous bases that the rebels were using. She didn't know everything, but the amount of knowledge she had was great enough that planning a counterattack was started immediately.
The first target was the wizard fueling the storm. They were also a member of the second largest Unicorn Noble house outside of the Royal House. The base was not too heavily defended, so once I was back to full condition, I snuck into the base and slowly assassinated anyone I came across until I found the wizard. He was in pretty rough condition, as like the Princess, he had been awake for days on end with no rest, but unlike Cadenza, he didn't have the same stamina. As such, I was able to kill him by simply slitting his throat.
Once he was dead, I moved on to sabotaging almost any and all rebel operations I could. With my skills of disguise and stealth capabilities, I was easily able to eliminate leaders and sabotage stockpiles. Without leaders, the rebels became disorganized, and that was when we preformed our counter attack. It was brutal to say the least. The rebels were completely outmatched and often outnumbered. Days of lengthy and ultimately pointless sieging had cost them severely.
The only annoying part was that very few rebels surrendered. Now, to be fair, that was mostly true for the Earth Ponies. The very few Pegasi and Unicorns left often surrendered when given the chance. Admitedly the refusal to surrender cost us massively in exchange, as an unrelenting and fanatical defender is a nightmare to deal with. We kept attacking until they retreated to the Earth Pony tribal territory.
"So do we attack them?" Cait asks.
"It would be unwise to confront them head-on, but like us, they can hold out for possibly decades or even possibly forever," Guto replied.
"If I deal with this, it might take a while, but it would definitely be solved," I reply.
It was basically impossible for them to kill me, so all I had to do was slowly wipe them out bit by bit until they either finally surrendered or all died out.
"We should at least try one attempt at breaking through. We can't handle having to deal with the rebels for too long. Even if we ignore the food issue, the populace doesn't want to have to live in constant fear of the rebels. Her highness needs a resolution," General Iron Hide replies.
"Sigh. Fine, but if you want to fight, you will do it with your troops. We will handle the flanks and rearguard," Guto says with some exhaustion clear in his voice.
"Very well," General Iron Hide replies before she leaves to organise her troops for a fight.
"I'll help with the frontal assault. I should be able to create a breach quite easily," I say, and Guto seems a bit annoyed but agrees nonetheless.
The battleplan was fairly simple. They would charge straight at the enemy's defenses while I open a breach for them to pour in. Depending on your point of view, we were lucky that much of the tribal grounds were rural. Fewer urban centers to fight through, but consequently, that meant more trees to deal with and less infrastructure.
As for the battle itself. I used my infinite rage form and quite literally shrugged off anything that the enemy could throw at me. I might have gotten some side eyes from the friendly troops as my Hulk Form was quite strange-looking for a pony, but nobody seemed too bothered by it. Opening a breach in that form was child's play. And even when the massive buff ended, the lesser buff was still good enough to cause immense damage and casualties.
Despite my best efforts, we still lost quite a few soldiers, and more importantly, the cleanup afterwards was a mess. The Earth Ponies basically all fled into the hills and fought a long and drawn out guerilla campaign. Of course, I helped as much as I could to clean up the remaining rebels, but it still took over a month to clean up the last of the rebels. Or at least those we could find. I was under no delusion that there were likely some remaining rebels hiding amongst the other tribes.
The city was devastated by the short rebellion. Fixing the buildings and structures was easy thanks to the Workshops, but the populace was what truly got hit the hardest. Before the war, accounting for the unreported Earth Ponies, the populace was around 245k, but after the dust had settled, the population sat at just around 101k, give or take a thousand. A large portion of the food had been poisoned or otherwise sabotaged by the rebels, making it so I had to support the struggling kingdom with food imports. Now I had no issue doing so, as we honestly didn't have anything better to use the food for, but it was still a bit of a mess, and society was now forced to change.
I stuck around for a few more weeks, but eventually I had to return to my own world. The Princess wanted to throw us a going-away party, but given the circumstances, it wasn't feasible. But we still got a warm send-off from the many residents of Solaris.
We were leaving with far more than we came with, which meant we had to leave in batches. I had no intention of backing out on my promise to the Explorers League. They had been a massive boon to the defense of the city. We also had to take basically all the Griffons, as they didn't want to stay in Solaris anymore. Which, on a brightside alieviated the food strain massively. But to ensure that the kingdom would stay stable, I made sure that the Thestrals were trained enough and that a detachment of the Griffons Mercenaries would be stationed at the palace for safety in case any resurging rebels tried causing any issues.
After all was said and done, the city was left with a population of around 75k. Of which around half were loyalists. With most of the others being neutral. With the rebellion over, many were more loyal to her highness, and I figured stability shouldn't be too bad while we were gone.
"I hope our next meeting is under better circumstances," I say to Cadenza.
"Indeed, I will never forget your help in our most desperate time. You will always be welcome in Solaris. And I hope we meet again soon," Cadenza says kindly.
"Of course. And I hope your reign remains stable and prosperous," I say with a slight bow.
"And to you the same, save travels Rio," Cadenza says with a small bow of her own.
The Gunship lands, and I enter it. The wave to everyone that came to see me off, and the doors closed before speeding off into the distance.
The trip home was uneventful. And the hardest part was trying to get the many new citizens settled in their new homes. The Explorers League was balls of energy and curiosity. I had to tell them several times not to stare at the sun. As for what forms they took. The Griffons kept their previous forms as they were more than usable, and it seemed that this world didn't try to change them. The Ponies, on the other hand, were a bit different. They were changed slightly, but surprisingly, they were given the choice to do so if they wanted. I thought it was odd, as from what I could tell, humans weren't given a choice unless they were a companion or a summon.
'Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Unicorns and Pegasi used to exist on Earth? Same with Griffons, I suppose.'
The changes just made them closer to Horses in size, but they could still use magic as long as they were Unicorns. Pegasi could fly but they couldn't change the weather, though that could also be because they haven't had to use that ability for generations and aren't used to using said magic. Or Earth rejects that kind of magic. Or the clouds aren't magical enough. There are various reasons that could be the case.
The Griffons adapted fairly quickly, likely thanks to Guto and his men helping out as much as they could. Or the fact that they barely changed. Either way, everyone was decently busy for the time being as we handled the massive increase to out population. The increase wasn't too much to handle by any means, but we still saw an increase of about 20% to our population all at once. We were now sitting at around 150k. Which isn't much, but it's a start. It would at least be a viable jumping-off point for rebuilding humanity, or at least the population can be increased without too many worries about genetic diversity.