The Equestria Offensive

Canterlot Square Garden, 11:37 A.M., April 12th, 2013

The day after Twilight’s fight with Midnight, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were holding a gathering for residents of Canterlot in Canterlot Square Garden. Midnight and Twilight’s parent’s, having heard about their fight, decided to bring the two to the gathering, hoping they could find a way for the two to make up somehow. Though their plan was thoughtful and ambitious, their efforts came out to be futile. All the two would do was glare at each other in their anger and frustration with the other, not breathing a word good or bad.

“Come on, you two. You’re brother and sister.” Their mother tried reassuring them. “I’m sure you can work something out between you two, can’t you?”

“No! Not for what Midnight did....”

“I keep telling you, I wasn’t trying to do any harm. I was trying to keep you safe.”

“Well you know what? You didn’t help at all. You shot down my chance at love.”

“Starbuck was weak. If he were a real colt, he would’ve stood up to me rather than run away.”

“Starbuck was kind, sweet, generous, cute, and one of the best colts I could ever be with and you ruined it!”

“Now now, you two.” Mr. Sparkle interrupted. “I’m sure we can find some way to come to an agreement. We are a family, we shouldn’t be at each other’s throats.”

“Your father is right. Why don’t you both go and talk to the princesses? I’m sure they’ll be able to help you two come to some common grounds.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Midnight argued.

“Both of you. Go. Now....” Mrs. Sparkle snarled.

“Y-yes m-ma-am...” Now, Midnight was a full grown colt. He’s been through countless unspeakable things. But, despite all that and having been gone for so long, he feared nothing more than his mother’s scorn.

“Grrrrr. Fine. Come on, Twilight.” The two trotted over to the stands set up in the center of the park. Princess Celestia was sitting with Princess Luna, greeting anypony who would come to greet them. “*sigh* Let’s just get this over with.” Midnight walked his way up to the stand. “Hey Princess!” He shouted “Can Twilight and I talk to you?!” Midnight had caught Luna’s attention.

“Oh hey, Midnight, Twilight. What’re you two up to?” She waved her hoof, signaling for them to come up to see them. “Hey Celestia, Twilight and Midnight are here and they wish to speak to us.”

“Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student, and Midnight Flare. How can we help you two?”

Midnight looked at Twilight, then back at the princesses. “Well...you see your majesties, me and Twilight have gotten into a fight...and our parents think it’d be a good idea to ask for your help on the issue.”

“Oh? Well what seems to be the issue? Let’s hear both sides to this. Midnight, you start.”

“Alright. Well, it all started about 3 weeks ago. I had spent the day with Applejack, and I come home to see Twilight alone with some colt I’ve never met before. Now, we had just gotten our family back together and I had been really happy to have an actual family again. Then when I saw this colt, I didn’t want just anypony taking Twilight out of the family that I had just gotten back together. So for the next few weeks, I showed him my dominance and I think he got a little too afraid of me. So last night when I was making sure he doesn’t do anything wrong, I might’ve came on too angrily to him when I saw them kissing. After that, he ran away leaving Twilight alone.”

“Alright, now I’m fairly interested to hear Twilight’s side of this.”

“You see Princess, ever since I’ve been here in Canterlot, I’ve been looking for somepony to be with after seeing Midnight with Rainbow Dash so much. Two weeks later, I met Starbuck working at his family’s library with his Grandma.” She gave Midnight an angry scowl, like he knew he had done something wrong. “We struck up a conversation about our lives and interests and we found to have a lot of things in common. A few hours later, we spent the day in the park, his idea was for us to sit under a tree, his hoof around me as he read a book to me. That was our first day together. When he walked me home, he got to meet our parents who were thrilled to see I found love. Then when Midnight came home, he was furious that I found love on my own. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t convince him to believe that Starbuck was one of the best ponies I could ever fall in love with. And just yesterday, when Midnight was watching us, all we did was kiss. Midnight came out and scared the living daylights out of Starbuck. Midnight had decided to give the impression upon Starbuck that made Starbuck afraid of Midnight more than anything. And because of Midnight, I won’t be able to get back together with Starbuck.”

“Well, from what I’ve gathered, I can see you both had good intentions. Especially you Midnight. I know you were trying to something good for your family because you just got back together as a family. But I don’t think you saw what harm you were doing. It seems to me that you might’ve been fighting an issue that wasn’t even there.”

“Well...I...I just...”

“Midnight, could you just please take a second to just think about it. I want to see if you can calm down and realize what you were really doing. Please, just do it for your sister.”

Midnight had never thought about this situation from anypony else’s point of view. And when it came down to it, he had come to notice all the little things that had played such a big part. All the things that he thought he had been doing right were now suddenly clearly the worst choices that he could’ve made.

“Oh damn. Twilight, I...” He stumbled to find the his words. “I’m so sorry...”

“It’s too late for apologies, Midnight.” Twilight turned her back to Midnight and the princesses. “This is the worst thing I’ve seen you do out of your own will.”

“Twilight, just give me a chance. I can make things right again.” Midnight pleaded.

“No! Just stay out of this, Midnight. I don’t want you ruining anything more.”

“Twilight...I’m sorry...” Suddenly, over the horizon to the west, came a small fleet of large, muscular, armored griffins, armed with peculiar weapons that Midnight had never seen before. Each holding the weapon by a handle coming out the bottom with one claw in some sort of ring on the bottom of the weapon. In front of the ring was a long curved piece of metal protruding from the bottom. The whole thing was made from wood and a sleek black metal. It looked nothing like any weapon Midnight had seen, which made him wonder how he even knew it was a weapon.

The griffins landed down by the princesses. One larger griffin from the crowd stepped forward, confronting Princess Celestia. The griffin was undoubtedly tall, with his stature almost twice as great as Princess Celestia’s. Though he was somewhat slender, his muscles were clearly defined throughout his body. He had a large scar tearing across his face, from in between is glowing yellow lifeless eyes, and down to his left cheek, cutting across the edge of his large chipped beak. His large sharp yellow talons had been tightly gripping onto the weapon that Midnight could only imagine what it can do. “Bhormill Celestia.” His voice was deep and raspy. “O newi e bhubuli zuh pni duroil uz Equestria.”

“If you have something to tell the Equestrians, Fortis, you could at least tell them in a language they can understand.”

“Hmm...fine then.” Fortis cleared his throat. “Ponies of Equestria, the leaders of our two countries have been in dispute for more than a year now on who should own the land we’re standing on. Though we already know that the land is owned in the name of Equestria, the motherland of Caeli can hardly contain her population. We need more land before we have no room left. Fortunately, for Caeli, there is all this land to our east that is free for the taking. I mean, we know you’re not simply going to just give us the land; your princesses have already made that clear to us. But I can already tell just by looking at all of you that taking this country over won’t be a challenge. We will be giving Equestrians three options to decide from over the next month. You can either flea the country for new homes, stay here and serve Caeli as slaves, or we can simply kill you if you refuse to cooperate. One way or another, Equestria as you know it will be destroyed.”

“What are you talking about?!” Celestia interrupted “Equestria’s not gonna be destroyed!”

“Never? Opesa was destroyed. Dihloe was destroyed. Drakuv was destroyed. Kehma was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you think your ‘country’ will last? Forever? Do you really think Equestria stands a chance against Caeli? Please, you’re nothing but worthless wastes of space or simple servants to us. And you, Celestia, will be our King Gryphem’s personal slave. And maybe I could drag your sister Luna’s dead body through the streets of Castum as a victory prize.”

“Hey!” A voice came out of the crowd of trembling ponies. It was Mr. Sparkle’s voice. “You have no right talking to the princesses like that!”

“Dad, stop!” Midnight cried out. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Who do you think you are?! Coming to Canterlot and insulting the princesses and the ponies of Equestria like we’re nothing but filth!”

“I don’t think you know who you’re talking to, peasant! My name is Fortis! I am the general of Caelian military! You should probably think before you speak up to someone like me!”

“I don’t care who you are! Ever since I was young, I was taught to never give up and fight to protect what you believe is right! And you coming in and taking Equestria for yourselves is far from right!”

“You scum!” Fortis lifted his claw up off of his weapon and plunged his hand down piercing his talons through Mr. Sparkle’s back. The life faded from his eyes as his lifeless body was lifted off of the ground and tossed to the side. “Anypony else here wish to act up against me?!” The crowd stayed silent. Everypony in the crowd all filled with fear. Midnight had been crying silent tears of fear, despair, and anger. “No one? Alright then. You all have exactly one month to decide what to do. We’ll be heading back to Castum.” Fortis spread his massive wings and took off into the air, with the rest of the griffins following close behind him.

The corpse of Mr. Sparkle lied in the open field of Canterlot park, with blood dripping from the holes pierced through his back. The crowd stayed silent as the Sparkle family stood over the lifeless body. No words had been spoken among the family; not a single word came from Midnight until the day of the burial service just a few days later.

The sky above Canterlot Lunar Cemetery was a bleak grey as the thick clouds spiraled through the air. Midnight had been standing silently by the grave many hours after the burial service was over. The rain had just began to pour from the sky as it ran down Midnight’s motionless face. The smooth grey headstone before Midnight read:

Dusk S. Sparkle

1970-2013

Gone but never forgotten

In Midnight’s absence of movement, 1,000 thoughts were storming through his head. “Why my dad? Why now? Why didn’t I do anything to save him? Could I have done anything? What did Equestria ever do to deserve this?”

“Midnight?” Twilight stepped up next to him. “You’ve been standing here all day. Don’t you want to come home at all?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thank you...Twilight...”

“You sure? You haven’t been home to eat anything all day.”

“It’s fine...I’m not hungry...”

“Oh...okay. I guess I’ll see you at home then.”

“Alright...See you at...home...” Twilight trotted out of the grave yard, reluctant to say more, but still showing her concern for Midnight.

“Hey, Midnight.” A new voice came from behind him. “We’re all worried about you. You’ve been here all day.” Rainbow Dash was just behind him, and following her was Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie.

“We’re all sorry to hear about yer father.” Applejack stated. “T’aint fair to lose somepony so close to y’all like that.”

“Please, dear, let us know if there is anything we can do to make you feel better.” Rarity added.

“Yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed “You know you’ll always have friends there for you.”

“I’m sooo sorry, Midnight.” Fluttershy added, “I couldn’t imagine how tough it would be to lose somepony close to you. I wish there was something we could do to help you.”

“Thank you...all of you...”

“Hey, Midnight.” He heard the same thing from behind for the third time. This time, it was Starbuck. “Twilight told me what happened to your dad. I’m really sorry to hear about it.” Starbuck stepped up next to Midnight right in front of the grave. “I know how it feels. My parents were killed right in front of me in an alleyway by a griffin when I was only 7 years old. I’ve been living with my grandma ever since then. Believe me when I say I know how you feel.”

“That...fucking...griffin...*grrrr* Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!!” Midnight cried out and flames burst from his mouth into the sky tearing through the clouds above. “I’m gonna kill him!! No one fucks with me or my family like that and gets away with it! When I find him, I will not hold back in burning him into a pile of pathetic ashes!!”

“I’m sorry, Midnight.” Starbuck was a little frightened by Midnight’s outburst. “W-we’ll leave you alone.” But before they could leave, Midnight trotted away from his father’s grave, past his friends, and just stopping at the cemetery gate. “Are you alright, Midnight?”

“Starbuck, listen to me and listen closely.” Midnight’s voice was shaky as he spoke his in his sorrow. “I’m gonna be going away from home for awhile. And when I’m gone, I want you to stay by Twilight the entire time. I want you to hold onto her as tight as you can and never let her go. I’m going to take Princess Celestia up on her offer. I’m joining the Royal Military to protect the rest of Equestria from those evil griffins of Caeli.”