Silence seemed alien to the constant buzz and bustle that usually animated the throne room. My ears burn with the intensity of its crushing presence. The infectious mum spread throughout all of Canterlot, signaling both victory and the arrival of justice long deserved.
“Spectrum, give the order.”
If it was only that simple. The look of complete confidence and satisfaction on Raptor’s face was unparalleled. How did he do it? How? He never changed. Ever since they abandoned us he remained an anchor. He didn’t alter his ways or distort his own image, he warped the world around himself.
But we remained strong, us few, destined to stand and defend that which they tried so hard to protect.
“What are you waiting for?” His voice is like nails on chalkboard-- no, it’s much worse. That voice, his lone tool of devastation and power. It tortured all the members of our order, like oil to water.
He sits on their throne, the throne he prides himself on stealing. And that is where he must die. Ten spearmen, each motivated in their own experiences and losses, each fueled with the lust for the dictator’s blood now had him at blade.
Outcast by society and driven to the edge with grief and despair I lead them. Me, that one soldier, that background pony, forever awaiting the day she would take up her father’s helm. To make him proud, to show everyone I could meet the match, that I could be as good as any warrior regardless of my own past. Regardless of my problems.
“Spectrum! The time is now, he must die.” I turn to face him. Midnight Fire, age thirty-eight, exiled twelve years ago, joined the cause two years ago. First Lieutenant, soldier 1218, outcast number 4960-H.
“We’ve come all this way, just do it. End it right here, it may be our only chance,” he pleads with me to do the one thing he knows I can’t: evolve.
I keep asking myself why, why did he choose me? That scared filly afraid of her own shadow, found crying in the night beside her mother. Whispering to the voices no one else could hear. Even if I could push through, even if it was possible, could I really do that to everypony? To Equestria? To myself?
All I’ve ever known is darkness. I was born into these twisted times, where martial law was absolute and freedom was a cheap word used to silence the public. Well, that and the military.
Probably the most heinous of Red Raptor’s crimes was his choice to kill us all. To murder us inside.
We are hollow, shells of what was once a great people. In the bloody revolution death no longer was a balance of the natural world, but rather a toy, a terrible catalyst for control. Raptor brandished the illimitable dominion over all our heads, dropping it at the slightest hint of disloyalty.
It must’ve been unbearable. The times after the princesses left. We were been told chaos was the greatest enemy to society, slaughtering hundreds of thousands in its wake. We were told Equestria needed a leader, a shining beacon to bring us out of the swallowing pit of ruin that was chaos. We were told the freedom was a sin, and in its maximization it was a plague, eating away at all who welcomed it.The strength of the people fell to its knees and crumbled at the consuming waves of chaos that came under the hood of freedom.
Each and every one of us begged, pleaded for a way out and Raptor stole his golden opportunity, abolishing freedom in every meaning of the word. How we survived is a mystery, a myth that will be studied and puzzled over for millennia to come.
Wrath was Raptor’s ally, bringing him both security and the totality of rule. After living under his oppression and capitalism, how on the princess’s green earth could I betray the people? How was I to know if they would survive another Dark Age? Is there any way they could heal from another time of lawlessness and anarchy?
I must choose between the highest of two evils. I could restore order, put the dictator back on his throne, allowing him to once more pillage, rape, and plunder the good ponies of Equestria; or, I could poison them with the very thing that brought them to the brink, ultimate freedom.
“Such a broken mind,” remarkable was his ability to insert his own assaults at precisely the right moments, “torn between her love of country and liberty, and her hatred and security of its current leader.” His words were as scarlet and blood-resembling as his coat.
“After the decades of vendetta and violence is there any way you can surely say you are saving them?”
Sweet Celestia, it’s like he’s in my head.
“Do you think these poniesremember? Remember a time without sorrow, a time without immorality and taint, a time without me?”
His chuckle was black as death and as smooth as marble. I hated him for it, hated him with every ounce of my being. Such a demon can only disgrace the name of pegasi and pony altogether. Horrifying is the idea that the very same blood of that race runs through my veins.
“Spectrum! He’s messing with you! You have to end it right now! Before anypony else dies! Give the order, kill the bastard, if not for me and you, for all those who died fighting for righteousness and the cause,” his mouth was mere inches from my ear, yet his words were so distant.
The echo of Midnight’s voice resounded across Equestria as the scene was plastered on the television of every home in the country. Immortalized by the black and white of film and pixel. What I do now will set the future and determine the fate of all the ponies of Equestria, and their generation of children. And after that generation the next, and the next, and the next.
Now was not the moment of truth, now was the moment of choice. The moment in which control, chaos, good, and evil met; now was the moment of something Equestria had not felt in what seemed like an eternity. Unity.
And suddenly everything clicked. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place and the stars aligned. Reality faded and disappeared altogether, time and space stopped as the voices returned, together chanting the good will that would save all of Equestria.
DeLiVeR uS, fRoM eViL.
Deliver Us, From Evil.
Deliver us, from evil.
deliver us, from evil
And I did.
