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Luna's escape was inevitable. I knew that from the very beginning.

She had always excelled at subverting her sister’s magic, for where Celestia was powerful, Luna was cunning. Over the years I could sense the wards around her prison gradually weakening, the rate increasing when Harmony was split into six individual components through the machinations of Starswirl. This was why I truly lasted through all these years, not for the mundane reason of hunting down my deranged brethren. The Solar, now the Royal Guard would exterminate what remained of them given enough time.

No, I watched and waited through the centuries because so I would ensure that when she rematerialized back on the terrestrial plane, history would not repeat itself. Night would not fall, when Luna emerged, I would be waiting. That was why I had gathered my small army, why I scoured reality for anything that could augment my power.  Only I could destroy her now, to grant forgiveness for all the lives she had destroyed.

At last, the day came. It was on this day, one thousand years after the Battle of Solace and Solitude, that my Shard was orbiting Luna's prison when she broke free. I watched as the celestial body exploded outward, kilometer-long plumes of dust and moonrock rocketing miles outward. Fragments the size of continents hurtled away, smashing against one another in silent annihilation. I would imagine the sound of such destruction would have been deafening, had there been an atmosphere to carry it.

One hundred hollow suits of armor waited to be called again to war. This would be my last battle, for good or ill. Soon the traitor and I would answer for our crimes. I drew my black sword, the hilt on which was engraved the forgotten emblem of the forgotten city Eclipse. It had been given to me by Luna Herself, for valor in defending the village of Trottingham from a rampaging Ursa Major. She boasted that the edge could cut through anything. And it had. My sword had sliced apart Dog Khans, eviscerated gryphon rune priests, cleaved through Lunar armor, broken the iron war golems of Starswirl himself.

Today, I only needed it to cut through the neck of an alicorn.

My horn glowed green as I readied the mass teleportation spell. I had stretched my limited power of prescience to its limit to determine the approximate location where Luna would emerge. Ironically enough, it was a small town not a few leagues from Noctis, founded on the fields between the mountains of Solace and Solitude. Only fitting that the Second Celestial Civil War should begin and end here. The town might fear me as one hundred monsters appeared amongst them, but they could not resist me.

The hour drew near. Soon, my vengeance would be at hand.

I was then interrupted by a flash of brilliant white light flooding through the Shard’s main atrium, accompanied by the stifling silence of anti-magic. My horn’s light faded almost instantly, and I turned to face my invader.

“Hello Solemn,” spoke a divine voice, with a matronly tone that touched upon the few soft places left in my soul. “Always a pleasure.”

I sighed. For before me stood Celestia Equestris, Princess of the Sun and ruler over Equestria and all equinity. What baffled me however, was that she had brought a companion, a hooded zebra carrying a bemused smirk. Extending what little mystical power I had been afforded, I could see the null field emanating solely from this mysterious mare. So Celestia had not only brought a zebra, but one somehow gifted in the forgotten arts of suppression.

Following my gaze, Celestia smiled sadly. “A necessary precaution.”

“Of course,” I bitterly replied. She knew, how couldn’t she? How could I, a pony of such limited perception, have ever hoped to deceive and elude the greatest of all alicorns? She had probably only allowed my millennial crusade because it no doubt pleased her to see at least one of Luna’s children still left uncorrupted. That had always been Celestia’s favored tactic, allowing ponies to be guided without her direct intervention.

It also infuriated me to no end that she had found her way here so easily, but I kept a cool composure.

“You will not take this from me,” I stated evenly.

The smile fell from Celestia’s face, and her tone grew pitying. “I implore you to reconsider.”

“You know I cannot. She deserves to be punished,” I shot back.

“ She will be.”

“How?”

“In ways so horrible neither you nor I could ever comprehend them.”

“That isn’t even close to enough!” I hissed through gritted teeth, “How?”

Her silence was her answer, and I now understood. “So,” I said, “You would again bring your greatest weapon to bear.”

Celestia nodded. “Yes.”

“The Manifestation is destroyed. Starswirl ensured it.”

“Not destroyed,” she replied, “merely broken. And what was broken can be repaired. What was one has now become six aspects, Elements splintering off and forming their own entities. In that, Harmony has grown even stronger.”

Outside, the moon slowly began to repair itself. The millions of fragments that once formed the moon’s darker half were pulled inward, falling back into place as a wound would slowly knit back together. It was comforting to see that even through Luna’s fall and imprisonment, the inviolate energies supported the celestial body still held strong.

I turned back to my motionless ranks of automata, their sparks of animation now rendered inert due to the null field. “A theory, nothing more. No mortal could ever channel such extreme power and hope to survive.”

“Not one, no,” Celestia wistfully smiled again, “But perhaps six could, if united in mind and purpose. Nothing, after all, is more harmonious than the bonds connecting all ponies.”

“My kin were united in purpose, and you destroyed them all the same.”

Her gaze grew hard. “You and I both know I had no choice. The Nightmare would have taken us all had I not acted.”

“Then act again. Don’t repeat your mistakes by relying on a vapid hope. She will be weak in the first few hours after her return. You have the power to meet Luna on the field and finally destroy her.”

“No,” replied Celestia with a voice of iron. “She is my sister, master of the Moon, and one of the two alicorns still left on the terrestrial plane. The world, and I, would be far lesser for her loss.”

I did not expect such weakness from the Goddess who had reduced an entire city to a smoldering crater. I wondered if a thousand years of peace had done the impossible, and softened the Sun to do what was necessary.

“Then what?” I asked, “Will you allow Luna to again kneel before you and again spout hollow apologies and twisted lies? Will you again delude yourself into thinking your sister is still somewhere inside that monster, even as she again sets all of Equestria ablaze in her madness? How many innocents has your mercy killed? How many more have to die before you accept your duty and put your sister down like the rabid animal she is?”

"NONE" At that, Celestia's voice thundered with the true power of Her station, Her wings flared outward with the force of a rising solar wind, and she stomped a hoof that reverberated throughout the entire manaship. She immediately composed herself and spoke again in those honeyed tones, "As we speak, six mares gather to bear the Elements of Harmony. They bear no special powers of their own, save for their own virtues. With those virtues, with Honesty to guide them, Loyalty to carry them, Kindness to heal them, Generosity to shield them, Laughter to inspire them, and Magic to bind them, these six little ponies will stand against the Dark. Together, they will banish the Nightmare, as was prophesied.”

“Forgive me if I remain skeptical in prophecy,” I spat out the word as if it were a curse, gesturing at my lifeless army. “Starswirl foretold we would become gods. They only became corpses, and I their gravedigger.”

“Time passes as rivers flow, but what is sure we will never know,” rhymed the zebra. “But while the future remains undetermined, certain paths cannot be averted.”

I stared the zebra down, but she did not flinch. How I have always despised the natural zebra gift for precognition, always able to overshadow my own. “I suppose you think you’re terribly impressive, standing here at the right hand of Celestia herself. You, who have yet to see stars live and die, their ghosts haunting the lonely corners of creation. You, who have not witnessed the failed iterations of life which preceded equinity, still clinging to existence on the outer borders of perception? What do you, who cannot conceive of just how small you existence truly is in sight of the Weave, whose only purpose is to sap the will and animation of others, know of time?”

The zebra did not smile, she merely stood there and matched my gaze as I continued. “I have stared into the Schism! I have laughed in the face of the Faceless Void of Clazureme! I have stolen a scale from the Causal Serpent who serves as warden between present and future. In gazing into its depths, I saw a thousand potential futures, and in every one,” I turned now to Celestia, “Luna! Must! Die!”

Neither reacted to my short outburst. “Have faith in me, Solemn,” said the Princess of the Sun, as if speaking with a stubborn foal. “Have faith in me as you once did in her. And if you can’t, if you still do not believe either her or yourself worthy of redemption, then believe in the power of Harmony.”

“Harmony has failed me before.” My eyes flicked downwards. “I’m still alive, aren't I?”

Celestia then did the completely unexpected. She strode over and spread her wing over me. My body instinctively recoiled from the completely alien sensation of touch, but soon settled. “If your plan fails,” I whispered, “I will intervene. I will do what you could not and destroy her.”

She nuzzled me closely, as Florere should have. “I would expect no less of a Lunar Guard.”

We stepped back from our brief contact. “But I will not believe in you, or Luna, or the Manifestation. I will believe in the six mortals brave enough to stand against a mad Goddess, with only friendship to guide them. I will believe in the puppets, not the master who pulls their strings.”

She slowly nodded. I turned my back to them and walked back into the bowels of my Shard. “Go.” I commanded.

With another flash of light, Celestia and her pet were gone. I wondered, just as I did when gazing over the smoldering ruins of Eclipse, if I had made the right choice.