Where the moon becomes brighter

Chapter 7: Knowledge.

Charon and Celestia walked through the dark, untamed parts of the Everfree Forest, eyes monitoring them in the shadows as they followed the dirt road but not reacting to their presence, it could be said that the presence of two Terrans caused enough fear for the forest to remain still in the night.

"Back then we both ruled peacefully." Spoke Celestia. "I was in charge of the sun, and she of the moon. One day, though, she became Nightmare Moon and tried to take over."

"Any idea why?"

"As far as I know, she wanted to engulf the world in perpetual darkness, I don't know anything else."

"Perpetual darkness..." He repeated as he scratched his chin. "Would it be like the time of the First Great Pony War?"

"Maybe, but without the violent storms. I fought back, I tried to defeat her with all my strength but I failed, the only thing left to do was to send her to the moon." The two Terrans reached the bridge at the edge of the forest, above an almost bottomless chasm, they both took a deep breath and began to walk over it. "After a thousand years Nightmare Moon was weakened and six ponies that could use the Elements of Harmony appeared."

"Were the appearance of the mane 6 just luck?"

"No, I planned it. Considering I had a thousand years to plannify..."

"Touché."

They had finished crossing the bridge and arrived to the other side of the chasm, where mist gathered on the road in front of them. They marched forwards, Charon looking at every direction as he walked through this land unknown to him.

"What happened then?" Asked Charon.

"Nightmare Moon broke free. I was barely able to reunite the six ponies against her, but they managed to stop her before everything got worse."

"They walked the path we're walking now, right?"

"Yes."

The mist made it almost impossible to see in front of them, but after a few minutes of walking the silhouette of a destroyed castle appeared in front of them, the gates wide open.

"We're here, this is where the battle against Nightmare Moon took place, the Ancient castle of the royal pony sisters." Remarked Celestia as both of them stood in front of the crumbling structure; Charon began walking inside and Celestia soon followed.

As they entered the castle, and avoiding a piece of stone that fell from the almost non-existent ceiling, Charon laid his eyes upon a battered obelisk, placed in the center of the hall, filled with mist coming from the outside. Near the top of the structure were placed 6 stone arms pointing at opposing directions, long sheathed in moss and ivy; the Terran noticed that the end of the stone arms were empty, as if they were supposed to carry something.

"Those held the Elements of Harmony before the Mane 6 acquired them." Answered Celestia before he could even ask.

"Aren't the elements fives necklaces and a crown? I don't think they fit the shape..."

"Before Twilight and her friends managed to get a hold of the Elements, they were spherical stones."

As Charon walked around the fountain-like structure while staring at it, he spotted a statue of Nightmare Moon at the end of the hall, almost as big as the roof allowed, the dark colour decaying due to time, cracks being shown everywhere, and cobwebs covering the wings; Charon walked over towards it and stared in awe, Celestia soon walked next to Charon.

"Eternal darkness...Is that what she desired?" Asked Charon, his eyes fixated on the statue.

"That's what Nightmare Moon always spoke of, I'm not surprised since her cutie mark is the moon itself."

Charon stood in silence for a few minutes, meditating on everything he had heard about these events, then remembering about every opposition he encountered: The corrupted ponies, the armies of the corrupted Nightmare Moon, corrupted Celestia, Corrupted Nightmare Moon herself, Discord, Executor and finally Chaser. After a while he lowered his head and began speaking to himself.

"It's true...It's all true..."

"What is true, Charon?"

"Moralities do not exist, only objectives, ideologies and beliefs..."

Celestia began thinking about Charon's statement but couldn't make anything out of it. "...I don't understand."

Charon raised his head and walked towards one of the destroyed windows of the castle as he explained. "Nopony is evil, yet nopony is good either. Morality is just a concept tied to ideology...Something that seems 'evil' to you might not seem so to the one who is carrying out the action. Nightmare Moon wanted perpetual darkness but she never said 'I'm doing this because it's evil', she just followed her desire." Celestia lowered her head upon hearing Charon's explanation, thinking she did something wrong by banishing Nightmare Moon to the moon. "Don't be sad, you did the right thing, believe me; Luna herself said so after being turned to normal. There are ponies and people that follow their desires but ignore everything else, they don't care about those around them, I don't think Nightmare Moon cared either, but you followed the will of the ponies with your actions. Discord's Empire of Chaos is the same, Discord enjoyed chaos but did not care if anypony else did, thus the First Great Pony War broke out with our side victorious...Discord was not evil, but a sadist; sadism is considered evil by almost everypony due to obvious implications, but the sadist doesn't consider himself evil, he just follows his desires...Another example would be those that just want to help everypony, but with rather brutal and merciless means; their means are not evil, they just clash with everyone's visions of 'Right and Wrong', if anypony thinks there's a better way to do things then it will be classified as 'Evil'. Even Executor is included, he was greedy, but committed the atrocities that I told you and everypony else because he saw it as the fastest and most effective way, not because they were evil; both Equestrians' and some Terrans' ideologies would clash with his methods, the outcome being obvious. Executor hid his Terran ways in this world, it seems, because I cannot understand how ponies could follow him, let alone fight for him..." He sat down resting on the wall next to the window once he finished, placing his metallic hand over his hat and lowering it until it covered his face.

"What about Chaser?" Asked Celestia, seeing as he didn't speak about him in his speech.

"Chaser...I've never met anyone who shared ideologies with me, let alone understand my ways...We both behaved the same way in Terra for different reasons, we both understood what was going on in that place. We're almost the same, and we are both at war knowing this. Depressing, but necessary, if you ask me..."

"Why is it necessary? Both of you can coexist peacefully, seeing as you understand eachother."

Charon stared at the statue of Nightmare Moon from the place he was sitting and took a deep breath before continuing. "The same could have been said about you and Luna, but then Nightmare Moon appeared, am I not right?" Celestia was struck silent by such an answer; Charon stood up and arranged his hat with his hand and began walking to the castle's entrance. "We're not done yet, I still have more questions to ask, guess who are we visiting next..."

Discord's statue began turning from stone to flesh in Canterlot's garden, he shook his head as it was freed and began boasting about his escape. "Hah! I'm free at last! Now...How about we--Wait...Something's not right..." He stopped talking and looked at his body, only to find out that his head was the only thing not petrified. "How embarrassing..."

Charon thanked the Mane 6 for their cooperation in allowing Discord's head to move freely, then he turned to the God of Chaos. "Long time no see, Draconequus..."

"Long time no see, Terran. Looks like you didn't have enough with knocking me unconscious back in that place..."

"I seek answers now, and you'll help me."

"What makes you think that I'd help you?"

"Well that's a real tragedy..." Charon began speaking as he held his hands behind him and stared at the sky. "Guess we'll have to leave now..." He started to walk away, Celestia and the Mane 6 followed as they understood what he planned.

"Sure, leave. Wait...You're not going to leave me like this, right? Hello?! Hey, come back! Alright I'll answer your questions! For crying out loud..." His desperate screams were heard by Charon, turning back and walking again towards him with the  rest behind him.

"Chaser said you met him, I want to know how you knew about him and if you met Executor."

"I can't believe I'm in this situation..." He sighed before beginning to explain. "Long ago I sensed three...rather disturbing things. Since I was free at the moment I decided to check them out, as you can imagine those three sensations were Executor, Chaser and you; I thought this was the only continent in this world, guess I was wrong once I decided to check for the other two Terrans. Once I saw you I knew you'd go against me, I knew about your ideologies and so I gave you immortality and left you alone; let's not forget I gave you immortality to cause everypony else to fight you out of fear, not to help you. After I left you, I headed for Executor, I don't know anything you don't know already, as soon as I read his mind...Let's just say that there were scary things going on inside his mind so I left him. Then I headed for Chaser, interesting guy to be honest, since there was no way he could discover my intentions and the other two continents in time I struck a deal with him: Immortality for his help, but you defeated me before I could call him, a rather unexpected turn of events."

"You could sense the three appearances then, did you have something to do with that blinding light that brought the three of us into this world?"

"Unfortunately not, or else things would have turned far different than now. I don't know how it happened nor the reasons behind it; it might be some sort of natural 'accident' or there's another force controlling it, the only thing that might help that dumb mind of yours would be that the three of you had a rather similar psychological state, that with losing most of the things the three of you held dear. Funny, now that I think of it: 3 random suicidal Terrans with no power whatsoever arrive into this world and change it more than I could ever hope to in less than a century."

"Yes...Really funny..." Charon spoke in a sarcastic tone, not finding Discord's sense of humor amusing in the slightest. "Enough for now." He began walking away but was interrupted by Discord once again.

"Hey, don't leave me like this!"

"Why? I don't see the difference between being a statue and not."

"At least I'm unconscious while I'm a statue, you think I want to be conscious for the rest of my immortal life?!"

"Ugh...Fine...Just shut up...Twilight, go ahead...Celestia, where's the radio?"

"Of course." Spoke Twilight.

"Over the table in the main hall." Answered Celestia.

Charon walked away, a blinding light showering the scenery behind as Discord was petrified once again. He walked through the door that led from inside to the garden and saw the radio that was placed on top of the table, with the rest of the equipment in a corner of the room. He reached for the radio and headed to the equipment, then he tinkered with the controls until he reached the frequency he wanted.

"Concord, Charon's speaking, what's the situation?"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WA-- Oh it's you!!" Concord controlled himself as he realized it was none other that the Emperor of the Imperium speaking. "Sorry about that, it's all going to Hell here! They're about to break through our def--Buck! They broke through!" He desperately spoke, gunshots and artillery could almost drown the draconequus' voice through the radio. "Everypony, retreat! Charon, the 3rd Continental Line's broken, Cabalderio's borders were pierced!" Charon realized that soon enough they'd reach the Imperium's capital once he heard Concord's report.

"Hasn't Stallinox suffered too much already...? Concord, I'll lead Stallinox's defence, you and Luna will command two of the divisions in reserve in case things turn into a nightmare."

"You got it."

Charon cut off the radio and placed it on top of the equipment.

"Couldn't help but overhear your conversation. There's a carriage outside, if you want to get to Stallinox as fast as possible I'd suggest you to use it." Said Celestia, startling him for a second.

"Thanks, Celestia." Charon answered with a smile behind his scarf, but as he looked towards the giant doors that were held open by the guards he noticed that it was snowing, even though he hadn't seen snow in his decades of being here in the pony world. "What's going on?" he asked, still dumbfonded by the scenery.

"You don't know? Every thousand years or so there is an ice age, the climate gets far colder than any other time period and it snows almost permanently for the duration; on the last ice age Equestria was founded."

"I have...Never seen snow in my life..."

Celestia raised an eyebrow to Charon's commentary, and then giggled a little before speaking once again. "Go now, your city waits."

"Right. Thanks again." Charon spoke, running towards the door seeing as he lost enough time. Once he got outside and stepped in the layer of snow that already covered the floor, he saw a carriage with two royal pegasi in front; without hesitation he moved towards it and jumped on the seat behind.

"Stallinox?" Asked one of the pegasi in front.

"Stallinox."

The carriage lowered speed and descended once Stallinox, maybe the biggest city in this world, could be seen through the clouds. It flew over the several houses and fields of the modern city, the ponies who stood outside in the streets stared at the flying object carrying the Emperor himself, until it reached the castle at the centre of the city; a pony dressed in a high ranking military outfit and several soldiers armed with mosin nagants waited outside, staring at the carriage as it descended to the ground until Charon jumped out.

"We were expecting you, we still have to begin the preparations." Said the officer in charge of Stallinox's defence that stood ahead from the other soldiers.

"What do you mean?" Asked Charon.

"There are no defences set up, we just didn't expect the Reich to advance so fast."

Charon raised his hand and rubbed his eyes at the situation, then he started walking towards the castle while giving orders. "Set up sandbags at the city's borders and streets, reinforce the buildings and set up machine-guns, get snipers and MGs to position in the tall buildings all over the city and inside the castle, clear the streets of anything unnecessary to leave space for the tanks to manoeuvre. I'll also need someone to give me the information about the units that will take part in the defence."

"At once sir." The pony spoke as he followed the Emperor, the other soldiers scrambled with the orders in their minds.

"You got a radio?"

"Yes, of course." The pony that followed him took out his radio from his backpack, held with his metallic gauntlet, he handed it to Charon who turned it on and began to speak.

"Concord, do you copy?"

"I do, need something?"

"How long until Chaser's attack arrives?"

"A week at least if he keeps up the pace, I'd suggest getting prepared ASAP, there's no telling if he'll get there faster than expected."

"Got it. How goes the war so far?"

"As bad as it can get, for every victory we accomplish we also suffer four defeats at least. The T34 tank model gets utterly beaten up by the Panzer VI, but at least we've got the numbers on our side."

"And since this is one of the biggest cities that has ever existed we can use that advantage. Anything I should know before this?"

"Stallinox is one of the most influential cities in the world, if it's lost not only will it be a great impact to our side's morale, it's also of great strategical importance. Expect Chaser to throw everything at you in this attack, maybe he himself will take part, but those are just assumptions."

"Understood." He turned off the radio and handed it back to the officer, by this point they were already inside the castle.

"The citizens are getting restless, it seems..." The officer spoke.

"I wouldn't blame them, even the bravest soldier would get scared of what's about to come."

"It's not fear, sir...It's as if they are preparing for something..."