A year ago…
“Princess Luna” Celestia spoke, not as if she were happy to see her sister returned to her normal self, but as if disappointed that her banishment was shorter then desired. “For acts against the kingdom, you are to be returned to the moon at once, to live out the rest of your life in banishment.”
The newly made friends looked around dumfounded, wondering why their princess, who was supposed to be kind and gentle, was being so harsh to her own sister. Seeing Celestia like this sent Twilight into a flash back, the regular world going through slow-mo.
A hoof comes down in the back of her head and a voice tells her she is useless unless she can control her magic.
Celestia raises her head and her sister cowers on the floor, begging for forgiveness.
Twilight is lying in bed with her once beautiful “Smarty pants”, using her weak magic to sew her back together after the princesses little tirade since twilight couldn’t light the candle in the middle of the training room. Tears flowed down the face of the young filly wondering why ponies always thought the princess was nice.
Twilight stepped in, unnoticed by all but Luna and started gathering magic at the tip of her horn.
A hoof came down on her again and again as she heard the princess shouting, “Weak little foal, why you don’t just die, since you will never be good enough to make a simple spell work, and will never have friends!”
A bright light emanates from the lavender pony and a book appears, opening and flipping pages randomly around as her magic hits Celestia, causing her to scream in pain as she is absorbed into the pages of the book, each one laced with a powerful containment spell, something twilight has been working on for years, in preparation for a much bigger target. The student stepped in as her control over the spell was lifted, and the book took over the rest, sucking the princess into its pages. “Princess, I hope this book burns by someone else’s hoof someday, so I can know that the world is truly safe from your influence.” As the last scream was uttered, the book slammed shut and a lock formed on the edge, holding it shut.
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9 months ago…
Luna stands atop the stairs leading into the royal throne room and smiled down at the 6 ponies before her, each wearing a necklace the represented the piece of friendship they each followed most closely. As they ascended the stairs, she thought about what she had called each there for, leading them into the throne room and sitting around a table she started to explain what they had been summoned for.
“My little ponies, the land of Equestria is in danger.” She watched as each of them reacted in their own way. The one called Applejack was confused, but at the same time seemed to understand that this was a time for silence. The shy one simply looked terrified. The one that reminded her of a model looked shocked, but probably was just overreacting. The brash one, Rainbow Dash, had fear in her eyes but was standing confidant, asking what she could do to deal with it, and the leader, the one named Twilight Sparkle, seemed the most at ease, knowing that all questions would be answered in time. The pink one was hanging from the chandelier, and the princess had no idea how she could have gotten up their without magic or wings, but upon investigation, she found out that it is a common occurrence, so she decided not to let it bother her as she elaborated. “Or neighboring countries have seen fit to try and take over. When my sister was in charge, she would send a large sum of money as well as live valuables to them to make sure they stayed away, and so they did. But I refuse to follow that example, and will make sure that we are ready in case they try anything. But I would need you 6 to assist me in the endeavors. Twilight sparkle, you are a wonderful negotiator, I would like it if you could work with your mayor and the other ponies I your town in getting as many ready for a fight. Ponyville rests at the southern border of our territory and it may just be the way they use to get in.” The lavender pony nodded, trusting the judgment of the princess.
“Young Applejack, you own the largest piece of property in your town, and I know you have the knowledge to make tools and weapons. I would like it if you would allow me to send some equipment and personnel to your home to manufacture the tools we need. Most of the tools you make will be used for your own town of course”
“Alright Princess, big mac and me’ll get the barn cleaned out as soon as we get back home.” The princess smiled and assigned Fluttershy with protecting the young ones in case something happened, and pinkie would be in charge of making larger munitions and explosives, both eagerly agreed, feeling that they were needed and knew what to do. The last two were the difficult ones. Rainbow Dash didn’t want to abandon her dreams of joining the Wonderbolts, and Rarity said she didn’t have the time to make armor when she had to make dresses. She allowed each to leave when they had worked out the details, and went about her duties as normal when they left.
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3 months ago
Rainbow Dash flew over the town, watching the other ponies building the wall that would surround the town, making the town look a little more like a fortress then a quiet village. She took a dive to get some speed before she dropped her gold piece and grabbed a cookie from a market stand, the coin landing right where she grabbed the cookie from as she flew and ate at the same time, in a bit of a rush to get to Rarity’s, hoping she didn’t miss her chance at getting a new bag that her friend said she was giving out that day. As she closed in on the Carousel Boutique she noticed a pony she didn’t recognize walk inside. Stopping, wanting to wait her turn to be alone with her friend, she sat on a cloud. After a few minutes of waiting, she started to do cloud crafting, something she always had a natural hoof at. She nearly had a heart attack as she heard a scream and bolted off for the dress shop, crashing in through the window. The first thing she saw was a normally white pony covered in red, holding a knife with her magic, the strange pony laying on the ground, his head almost fully removed. Dash moved quick as her friend started to collapse and picked her up, flying fast enough to make a quick succession of sonic rainbooms as she flew to Canterlot to the main hospital there, knowing Ponyville wouldn’t be able to help her friend. Making it to the medical center in only a couple minutes she crashed in and set her friend on the floor, unable to move anymore. The Unicorn doctors quickly picked her up and set the bloody unicorn on a bed and tended to her, making Rainbow sit in the lobby. She eventually passed out from exertion and lay out across a couple chairs. She was awoken by a hoof on her shoulder. Jumping awake she came face to face with the doctor, who looked grave but not sad. “Your friend, she is going to live, but she lost the vision in her left eye, and will have a very noticeable scar on her face for the rest of her life. She is asking for you too, I think she needs a friend right now.” Rainbow nodded and walked into the room, tears instantly coming to her eyes as her friend looked at herself in the mirror, looking soulless. The Pegasus couldn’t contain herself as she ran over and hugged her friend, tight, her heart softening a little as she feels her hugged being returned. “I owe you my life Rainbow Dash.” They stood there like that for a few minutes before finally settling onto the hospital bed and into the chair beside it. “Rarity I…”
“Don’t call me that!” she snapped, anger in her voice. “I was once the element of generosity, but being selfish caused this to happen. If I had made the armor, I would have been more cautious, now I'm blind in one eye and will never look like I once did.”
Dash sat there speechless, herself having been thinking about that very same thing since the incident. “If… if I had showed loyalty to Equestria, I would have followed you inside with that pony, and maybe I could have protected you.” She lowered her head and felt a hoof touch her own, her friend smiling again. “Let’s do what we can then. Let’s help out and prove that we are still worthy of being called elements of harmony.” The shite pony said, sitting up straight, floating a pad of paper and a pencil over and starting on designs for armor.
Rainbow smiled and stood up stretching her wings and standing tall once more, “So, if I can’t call you Rarity, what should I call you.” Her friend looked up from her design and gave a clever smile, “Since I made hollow promises to everyone. Call me… Empty.”
“How about if I just call you Emmy?” She asked her fashionista friend.
“That’ll work too.” With that rainbow dash left the hospital and flew straight to the castle, where she requested to join the Elite Royal Air Corps.
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Present Day
Twilight entered her library and set down her bag, relaxing her back as she stepped over and lay out on her couch, “Spike! Are you here?” she called, hearing nothing and seeing that his coat was missing from the rack, she figured he must be at Rarity’s again, playing with Sweetie Belle. “Oh well, guess I’m eating alone again.” She got up and groaned as she discovered she was out of food, since spike had tried the day before to cook her something, and found out her was a worse cook then Sweetie Belle was. Hearing her stomach grumble she grabbed her bag and set it on her back with the purple glow that came from her magic and headed off for Sugarcube Corner, taking a survey of the town as usual.
She saw Scootaloo, riding around on a new scooter that her adoptive mom, Vinyl Scratch a.k.a. DJ PON3, had bought her. She smiled when Scoots fell off but was helped up, not with magic, but with a good old fashion helping hoof from her mother. Twilight sighed remembering how her mother had always done the same for her, making sure to only use magic when it was truly needed, which is how twilight like to do things, offering her body’s strength before her magical kind. Next she saw her mail pony, Derpy Hooves, teaching her daughter to fly, and seeming to do a good job of it, despite her visual impairments. The next thing she saw was the door to sugar cube corner open and a pink blur shooting towards her. Before the lavender pony could move, her friend Pinkamina Diane Pie, also known as Pinkie Pie, tackled her and stuffed a cupcake in her mouth before quickly pulling her inside.
After finally getting the cupcake down, Twi looked around and noticed all her friends were there, seemingly for some important meeting. “What are you guys doing here?” She ask, confused about the dark demeanor of the room. The first to speak up was Rarity, although, she didn’t like being called that anymore. After an incident with some foreign ponies, she was left with a long scar on her cheek, and a blind eye. After she found out she would never look the same, she decided to call herself Empty, or Emmy for short.
“Darling, we are here to discuss how the supplies for Ponyville are coming along and I was just about to start when pinkie said you should be here, so she rushed off and was back in a flash. You must not have been far.”
“I wasn’t, I was just outside, coming in for a bite to eat when she attacked me.” Twilight said taking an empty spot at the table.
“Aw shucks sugah cube, she aint mean nothing by it, just in a rush is all.” Applejack said, still wearing her glasses on her head.
“Um… Twilight, you have a twig in your mane” Fluttershy said from beside her, plucking it with her mouth before blushing and hiding behind her mane realizing how close she had been to kissing her, still trying to hide the fact that she had a crush on her friend, and doing a poor job of it, seeing as how everypony in town knew about it.
“I’m really sorry Twilight; I didn’t mean to bump into you so hard.” Pinkie said, her man and tail dropping and going flat like they do a lot, her depression worsening, and sometimes making her somewhat insane, but a soft pat from the slightly bruised lavender friend perked her right back up.
“Yeah yeah, let’s all have a group clop and sing fucking lullabies instead of what we actually came here to do.” Said her, even brasher than normal, friend Rainbow Dash. Since the war started, she has become more and more aggressive, giving up her dreams of being a Wonderbolt and deciding instead to join Luna’s royal Air Brigade. Due to her loyalty and determination, she became a top commander in the force in only a few months’ time. She sat there now, a small leather rig attacked to her wing that held a folding blade that she used in combat, and wore her brown leather jacket.
“Sorry Rainbow. Now, what IS the status of the town, I need to get the letter to the Princess as soon as possible and I don’t want to be late.” Twilight brought her checklist from her bag and started writing as the others spoke.
“The weapons are all in good condition, and with a few more we should be able to arm every mare and stallion in town, even some o’the fillies an colts too. The older ones at least. “Applejack started, addressing the whole table.” Also, Big Macintosh tells me we gots an issue with the barrier around the town. Says it won’t hold up too long if they send in more than just two units, but if we arm the town, we should be fine. At least until Luna can send her guards to help.” She finished and took a drink from her glass of hard cider.
Rarity/ Emmy started without wasting too much time after AJ finished, “The vests and helmets are taking longer to make then I predicted. The metal is low quality, but with some work I have managed to get it to hold its shape even when kicked by my stallion helper. And thank you again Applejack for letting me hire your cousin Breaburn. He has quiet a kick he does.”
“No problem, Emmy”
“The animals have all been evacuated, and my home has been made safe for the young ones, thanks to Zecora’s knowledge of plants, the edges have been set to deter ponies with ill intentions from entering.” Fluttershy spoke fast and calm, startling even Dash. Since things went south she had become a little more outspoken and open, speaking with more confidence, except when talking to Twilight. “And also, Rainbow, if you could get ahold of your contacts in the weather pony command, the crops need a little more water in my fields, they will freeze too fast when things get cold.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do” The cyan Pegasus said, putting her glass down and looking around the room, “Now, Luna is dispatching a unit of guards, each is a unicorn, since the Air Corps in here already, and they will each need ammunition, they will be bringing along their weapon smiths, but they need a place to set up and I told them you wouldn’t mind letting them use the barn AJ.”
“”No argument here sugah, we could use the extra hooves around the barn.”
“Also, Fluttershy, have you figured out how to get the poison joke into a dart yet. The princess is interested in the use of that by the guards, says it could make for a distraction and deterrent.”
“Zecora is trying her best, but it seems like the only way we can use it without proper tools is to plant it on the trail and trick the enemies to walk through it, but it won’t work fast enough”
“The princess is trying to get the funding together, but the weapons budget isn’t very large.”
“Alright.” The yellow Pegasus lowered her head and closed her eyes, meditating, yet still listening.
The cyan pony continued “Pinkie, how are the…”
“The explosives are all ready, stayed up for three days and got them all done, got over 500 smalls and 300 bigs, and the super bigs are still too heavy to throw, but if we plant them in the ground and throw smalls at them they should go off fine” The pink pony chimed in talking fast but oddly understandable for such speaking speed.
Rainbow Chuckled and shook her head as she got up and looked to twilight, for her input.
“Oh um… I got ahold of our friends in Manehatten, Dodge, and Fillydephia and they all agreed to send what they could, but since the train is down, it’ll take some time to get it all here. Also, repairs on the track and train are ahead of schedule, and talks with the other countries still seem to be going nowhere. Without Celestia to give them gold and slaves” she shuddered at the idea of being a slave. “They don’t think we are good enough to be left alone.”
“Those foals don’t understand the ponies they are dealing with. If they think they can take Equestria, they are wrong. We’ll give them hell and then some.” Rainbow Dash said, standing up and splaying her wings in an aggressive manner, her twin hidden blades ejecting and standing ready to do some damage. He little display earned her an approving look from Emmy and applejack, and pinkie seemed ready to dance around her but a clamor outside cut their cheers short.
Before any pony could investigate, the door opened and in walked a tall pony. Standing there, black as night, with wide wings, a long horn and a commanding stance, her crescent moon cutie mark mirrored on her chest piece and crown, was the current princess of Equestria, Princess Luna.
Inspirations for this chapter include –
My Little Pony : Friendship is Magic
Wheller – Author of Many Great stories on Fanfiction.net
