All According to Keikaku

by Between Lines

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Adventure
Length: 1801

Tonight shall tell: Is Celestia the puppeteer, or simply another marionette?

For two thousand years, Celestia has reigned over the ponies of Equestria. Stately and serene, she has been an island of peace in a land of madness, always seeming to get what she wants despite never lifting a hoof.

Perhaps she is the greatest ruler that has ever been known.

Or perhaps, it has simply taken her this long to be outmaneuvered.

Either way, tonight will tell.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-05-11 18:50:02 UTC

Translator note: keikaku means plan.

One did not grow as old as Celestia without being able to smell change on the wind. Though the papers and audiences came as they always did, she could sense a dark rippling beneath it all. The gears were beginning to turn. Today, it would all end.

“Enough.” The entire room went quiet, and she lifted a hoof in dismissal. “Other matters have come to my attention. Court is cancelled for the day. Any who have found their appointments cut short may speak to the captain of the guard. Your needs will be seen to first thing tomorrow, or at night court if it is truly so urgent.”

A few strangled protests reached her ears, but none would truly rise to question her, not before their peers or the spears of the royal guard. No, instead they watched in silence as she departed, her hoofsteps echoing through the halls as though they were empty. Soon enough, another guard fell in step with her, ready for her orders.

“See to it that the rest of my appointments are cancelled, and alert my sister. I fear trouble may be ahoof.” He nodded beside her, and fell back half a step.

“Certainly, your majesty!” It was the inflection that warned her. Moving on instinct, she slipped aside as the blade sliced through the air. A single golden hair from her flank danced through the air, it’s reflection caught in the spearhead as her guard pivoted to strike again.

“So it begins.” What little advantage he’d sported from surprise was gone, and his next blow was laughably easy to parry. With a swish of her hoof, she knocked aside the stout ash pole as though it were cork, the haft splintering apart beneath her hoof. Before the guard could draw his dagger, her hooves wrapped around his throat, threatening to make as short a work of it as they had his weapon. “Who put you up to this?”

“I’ll nev—” Her ears caught the woosh of a bolt. Whipping her hostage around, she felt the jerk of the missile plunging through his armor, the startled victim giving a single twitch of surprise before dropping limp.

“I’m sure he would have remained loyal,” began Flash Sentry, discarding the empty crossbow upon the floor, “but why take chances so late in the game?”

“You. I should have known.” She narrowed her eyes, magic pooling within her horn.

“Celly. Tsk, tsk, Celly, Celly, Celly. Do you really think I’d be standing here if that would work?” He leaned against the wall, smiling smugly. “No, I think you’ll find your magic quite ineffective at this point.”

“What’s your game, Sentry?” She had no doubt he was telling the truth, but she kept her magic aglow just in case. “You always seemed the loyal type.”

“Ahhh, but then, the good traitors always do, don’t they?” He started to saunter up to her. “As for my game, well, what do you think it would be? Me, male colt, top of my class, trapped in a society where only the mares hold positions of true authority? What in Equestria could I possibly want?”

“Power.” She spoke the word as though it were a curse. In her experience, it often was.

“Ah! Wrong. Not power, not directly. No, Celestia, I want respect. I want to show this world that a colt can rule as well as any princess. Too bad the laws of magic would rather acknowledge love and friendship than dedication and talent.” By now he was close enough to ruffle her fur with every breath. “Well, that is to say, this world would give to those practicing love and friendship. If you’re willing to take, on the other hoof... well, let’s say there are a few more options.”

“Tirek.” She felt the urge to bat him across the room building in her limbs, but she dared not touch him. No, this close, he was banking on just that. “You let him free.”

“Let is such a strong word. I may have simply decided that Cerberus could use a day on the town, but listen to us, prattling like an old couple.” He snatched Celestia’s horn in his hooves, eyes shining in triumph. “Let’s get to the good bit.”

He then promptly exploded into ash.

“I…” Celestia blinked a few times, then coughed.

“Ahahahaha!” Celestia whirled around, to find a blue and platinum blonde mare standing boldly in the middle of the hallway. “To think! That fool thought he could steal from the Great and Powerful Trixie! Now, he is dead, and I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, stand ready to claim my prize!”

“Aren’t you reformed?” As much as a part of her wanted to be mad at yet another usurper to her throne, she just couldn’t quite invest a feeling of threat in this bombastic mare.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is a showmare extraordinaire! To convince the plebeian masses of her change in demeanor was as easy as the most petty misdirection!” Again she indulged in her absurd laugh, before striking a confident pose. “Just as it was easy to convince Flash Sentry that he could survive harboring the power of an alicorn! No, one must have a proper focus.” As she spoke, she swished her cloak, revealing a black and red amulet hidden beneath the collar.

“The alicorn amulet.” At last, Celestia felt properly angry.

“But of course! After Trixie was so wickedly parted from her prize, she found that she could still feel the amulet’s presence. After that, it was a small matter to hunt it down, but clearly the amulet was not enough if it could be so easily foiled!” A manic grin spread across her face. “No, this amulet was meant to be worn by an alicorn, and what pony would make a grander alicorn than Trixie?”

“Me.” There was a flash of turquoise, and the squelch of pierced flesh. All Trixie could do was stare, dumbstruck, at the blade that had suddenly decided to occupy her chest.

“B-but the amulet…” She managed to mouth.

“Easily handled.” Sunset Shimmer pulled the blade free, and with a casual flick lopped Trixie’s head from her shoulders, the amulet tumbling off the stump and into her outstretched hoof. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Of course.” Celestia growled. “It would be you behind all this, Sunset.”

“Guilty as charged, Princess. It was almost laughably easy, studying these ponies on the other side of the mirror, learning their weaknesses, their dreams. And now, I stand before you with the tools to take what is rightfully mine!” With a sharp click, the amulet settled around her neck, and her horn blazed with newfound power. “Now, the empire of the sun shall truly—ggghhhk!”

Celestia sighed, shaking her head as a heavily fletched arrow appeared between Sunset’s ribs, followed by two more in quick succession. Finally, a hooded figure leapt from the rafters, plunging down on Sunset with hoof blades extended. With nary a sound, it was over.

“Thank you, commander, that took far too long.” She was about to step forward to congratulate her lead ranger, when the hooded pony threw back their hood.

“I’m sorry, Celestia. I wish I didn’t have to do this,” declared a one eyed, spiky maned Twilight Sparkle.

“Twilight?! But, why?” She could have understood the previous betrayals, but this one?

“I can’t explain it to you, lest I place this world in deeper peril. Just know that this must be done for the good of—” Whatever else she would have said was drowned out in a staccato of thunderclaps, her body exploding quite viciously amidst the din.

“For the Emperor!” screamed a mint green pony in the most absurdly huge armor Celestia had ever seen. In one gauntleted hand, she clutched a massive mass of black metal that dwarfed Celestia’s head, and likely the whole of her barrel besides. It certainly looked quite intimidating leveled at Celestia’s face.

“Wait, what is—” She wasn’t even able to finish as the contraption thundered, and a steel figure leaped before her. There was the flash of a blade, and the hallways to either side of Celestia exploded into fragments.

“Hoof to hoof is the basis of all combat.” The newcomer rasped with a distorted voice, before leaping toward Celestia’s massive assailant. Again the weapon roared, but the blade sliced through its blows like a river of quicksilver, flowing on through the armor and body of the mint pony as well. As her parts fell to the ground, the metal pony sheathed its blade. “Only a foal trusts her life to a weapon.”

“But didn’t you just use a weapon?” Celestia asked. This gave the metal pony pause. Enough pause for a hooded pony with a skull-like mask to simply poof into existence behind it. There was the screech of metal upon metal as the newcomer drove its blade through Celestia’s savior.

“War…” rasped the metal pony, falling to its knees. “War never changes.”

“This is getting slightly ridiculous.” Celestia commented, even as the skull pony advanced upon her. Sure enough, there was the whine of machinery behind her, and she was able to duck just in time as a hail of projectiles ripped that particular pony into giblets.

“I’d say it’s pretty serious.” Declared a pony in sunglasses, a white t shirt, and blue jeans, a massive chrome spinning thing in his grasp and an exploding bomb upon said shirt.

“Then you’d better hail to the king, baby.” Celestia sighed and remained low as she heard the new voice. Sure enough, a rain of flaming, exploding projectiles obliterated her last ‘guest’ immediately afterward.

“ATATATATATATATATATATATA!” The sound of punching greeted Celestia’s ears. Lots of punching. “Omae wa mō shindeiru.” This was followed by the sounds of screaming and what sounded like an entire pony spontaneously bursting.

Suddenly, it all started to make sense.

There was the slam of a door, and Luna stifled a curse as her mountain dew spilled all over her lovely coat and mane, dying Cygnus a rather unpleasant green. “What is the meaning of—oh, hello sister.”

“Luna,” Celestia began, her eyes bloodshot, “either patrol dreams, or amuse yourself, but not both at once.”

“But Cellllyyyyyy, it’s the finale tonight!”

Celestia sighed and scrubbed at her eyes.

“Oh, very well. But next time, choose something a little less stimulating, please?”

“Of course, sister.”

Celestia stood silent, watching as the massive form descended. Slowly, like some great monolith of doom, it fell to join its brothers, turning what had once been a bustling city into a wall of solid blocks. As its base impacted the earth, they all flashed as one and vanished, leaving a wasteland to await the next of their kind to fall. Celestia let her head sink into her hooves.

“Dammit, Luna.”