My Little Avengers: United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Dear Sister,
It is said that the tragedy and toil of war can bear unexpected fruit. Fruit that can be used for the greater good of society, fulfilling its every wish and ensuring peace forever more, making love and friendship fly like patriotic banners caught in the breeze. Alternatively, it could wipe out entire civilisations in the blink of an eye, turning millions upon millions of hopeful and loyal innocents, going about their daily grind and wanting to live, into mere shadows left scorched onto any walls that are left standing after the destruction. They stand there forever, simply as husks of their former selves, while their souls are up in whichever afterlife they deserved far too soon. The banner they're waving is now burning. And red.
Nopony ever said that hostile invasions such as these had a happy ending. The potential greatness of every individual, whose life was nurtured over the years through both painful and euphoric memories that made them whole, wiped out in an instant. What could’ve been a future generation of the plenty and the powerful turned into the few and the powerless, weakened by the thought of their loved ones, who shall forever remain in peace amongst the destruction.
Even those who had everything, those who could fulfil any of their wishes with the clap of their hooves, could no longer fulfil them, no matter how hard they tried. Even those at the top felt as if they’d hit rock bottom, unable to wake up from this nightmare-turned-reality. Even I, the ‘mighty Princess Celestia’, who carried Equestria on my shoulders through the most troubled and struggling of times, cannot live with myself for what I have done.
Rather than tell you from the beginning, I thought it would be best to begin from the end. The details of my toil matter not, for the moral is what counts. And at the time when I realised, I felt like the world’s biggest fool for not realising sooner.
The air, once sweet and light, carrying with it the salty aroma of the seaside and the fragrance of wildflowers, was now black and choking. It tasted of charcoal, and was so thick that you could nearly bite down on it. It poured towards the heavens, blocking out the moon from view completely, as the inferno raged on.
On the ground below the haze, a fifteen acre weapons base that once stood proudly as the hub of development for the prosperous nation that created it was now in ruins. The submarine pen - formerly hosting the production of some of the stealthiest, most efficient and deadliest advances of technology in the world, which would have left the opposition whimpering in fear - now reduced to a crater, a vast gash on the side of the mountain it was carved into. The aeronautics base - once holy ground for engineers, who toiled away endlessly in those hangars, creating everything from their pride and joy 800 km/h propeller aircraft, to the pointy rocket-propelled boom sticks that they would carry to enemy land, all sourced from this one place - just a pile of shattered concrete, broken steel rods and millions of shards of glass - supposedly bulletproof, yes, explosion proof, no. However, as losses, these were all merely setbacks compared to the following.
It lay at the epicentre of this devastation. A facility had opened to reveal the perhaps most ostentatious and daring development the world had ever seen. A colossal vertical tunnel, nicknamed ‘the Abyss’ by those who built it, that required 20 megatons of concrete, and enough lead to provide munitions for the military that ran it for another thirty years of war. This was all necessary, however, to contain the beast that had hidden within. Codenamed ‘Fat Boy’, the once concealed missile contained a payload of Uranium-238 so great that upon detonation, it could break windows from 700 km away, incinerate everything within 50 km, demolish buildings from 35 km away like a house made from playing cards in a hurricane, and shake the ground so violently that the shockwave would still be felt as it went around the world a third time. It alone had the potential to reduce entire countries into charred nothingness, and set threatening examples of the country that launched it. Suffice to say it, if 'Fat Boy' ever reached its intended destination, Equestria would quickly become the planet’s largest crater.
But no. Instead of being launched into the heartland of the enemy, it lay beside its silo. What was perhaps the single most promising asset to them was now left to rot away for all eternity. Millions of lives had been saved by the actions of the two iconic heroes: Captain Equestria and Bucky. They not only inspired their fellow comrades with patriotic heroism and supremely athletic and strategic ability, but also prevented the single most apocalyptic event from ever taking place.
Unfortunately, not everything ended well in our conquest of the enemy base. As the factory fire raged on, continuing to relentlessly spew its black smog into the atmosphere, the Captain watched from afar, still traumatised as he reflected on the previous events. The moment Fat Boy had been launched, Bucky leapt onto it and began trying to smash his way through the panels, to expose the mechanics and the circuitry. By the time Captain Equestria noticed that his partner was not beside him and fighting, it was already too late. The missile landed with a shallow crunch. He watched his brother die right in front of him, sacrificing himself for the millions. How could such a great pony be assigned to such a destiny? The Captain was now wailing in frustration, his tears making his face and hooves wet, refusing to believe what had happened.
“You know, he did the greatest thing anypony has ever done. He did the impossible. Wherever he is now, I’m sure they’re paying their respects.” A powerful but soothing female voice told him. As the Captain turned around, he was dumbfounded. There stood the last pony he was expecting to find - me, in all my ‘glory’. My coat was partially burnt, my wings felt like they had been ripped apart, I had limbs that nearly failed in keeping me up and my magic had waned almost to the point of uselessness. For I ached from the struggles of this battle as much as he.
“Princess Celestia?” He struggled up, before greeting me with a salute. I gently rested my hoof on his shoulder to try and relax his taut muscles.
“At ease, Captain. It’s the least you could do, considering what you genuinely deserve.”
“No, Princess." He muttered. "I don’t deserve anything. I’ve been doing my duty - what is truly right in this world, and deserve nothing more than personal satisfaction. Bucky had done the same, but our differences are in our fate. He didn’t deserve what he suffered. He should be with us, successful and alive. But he has become a casualty - another statistic in this bloody war - and I’d do anything to get him back.” His face was in his hooves once again.
I didn’t know what to say. Words attempted to leave my mouth, and regardless of what they were, from insights to mere sympathy, they didn’t leave. After seven years of war, only at the end had I realised what this all meant.
Families that once looked to the future could now only mourn for their loved ones. Friends that remained could no longer laugh with each other, for their thoughts lay only on the ones they lost. War was a numbers game, and in the end, that’s what many ponies became. Statistics. At that very moment, the truth had finally dawned on me. All of those casualties. All the fatalities. All of the innocents, dying in each other's arms for their acts of selflessness. All possible because I let my stubborn pride begin the most fatal series of events in Equestrian history. All my fault.
The haunting silence was broken as a portion of burning rubble from the building next to them began to move. Our attention was immediately drawn to the wrinkled red hoof that stuck itself out into the air, battered from being crushed by the concrete. As the entire pony began to get up, slowly revealing their identity, I heard the Captain let out a gasp, and I could tell that he was wide-eyed when he realised.
“Red Skull.”
“Ah, yes.” The other pony coughed, as his diaphragm attempted to clear the dust from his throat and lungs. “It is I.” He very closely resembled a thing from the underworld in this state - an undead being, having escaped the grasps of death itself - with the muscles on the front of his head a bright burning red, exposed to the world rather than concealed beneath the mask of a face. His olive green military outfit stained red, as were his hooves, that he clenched as tightly as he could.
As if the details mattered. This pony should’ve been dead. Frankly speaking, he is dead. “After all we did and you’re still alive? We buried you beneath the ruins of your little house of scientific horrors, you should be dead like the rest of them.” I spoke up, still staggered.
He chuckled as much as his dying lungs would let him. “Vhy don’t I ask ze same of your stallion friend, hmm? Captain Equestria. Such patriotism. Ambition. Valour. But vhere did zis come from, I vonder? Vas it destiny zat you vere ze one to lead Equestria into glorious battle against us, or vere you different from how you are now? Did zey make you how you are, therefore saying zat you are not actually you?”
“Enough with the games, Skull.” The Captain ordered. “You’re outnumbered and wounded. Just tell us what you’ve done.”
“Do you not see ze truth for yourself? The ignorance of you both. To believe zat you were the only ones experimenting on a ‘super pony serum’.” Finding himself above us like that seemed to lighten him up, and made him laugh heartedly. “In fact, I seem to recall one of our scientists completed ze serum for your forces, Celestia. How lovely for him. I hoped his death vas worthwhile. But Arcsine vas expendable - ze formula vas not. Hydra had been developing one from ze very start. While not a completely perfected formula, I vas still far more zan able to live vith ze improvements. In fact, ze only bad thing is zat you can no longer see my beautifully sculpted face.”
I scoffed at such arrogance, but my expression was still deadly serious. It needed to be. “So you had a serum. That just evened the playing field a little, but it hasn’t altered the result. Our war is at an end, Skull. Your tyranny has met its doom, and just as it reached its peak. Equestria has prevailed in the end and your country, along with its forces, are no longer a threat. All that remains of this war is your defeat. There is nothing left for you but to die burning in your own failure.” I scowled with confidence and bluntness.
"You think zis is ze end, no?” He laughed mockingly. “Zis not ze end. There vill never be an end. Ve are Hydra. Cut one head off, two more vill take its place. No matter what you do, no matter who you take down in ze end, it doesn't matter. It all begins and ends vith Hydra." He didn’t need to back up his words, but he did so nevertheless. In less than the blink of an eye, he pulled a slim, silver semi-automatic pistol from his belt. He spun it around into position on his hoof, clicked, and let loose.
Time seemed to shift and slow down for everypony at that moment. I could’ve sworn to see the bullet leaving the barrel, spinning around in front of a cloud of detonated gunpowder smoke. I watched helplessly as it shunt its way towards the fellow beside me, for I was far too weak in that state to use magic. Captain Equestria looked down at his chest in both agony and shock - despite how weak Red Skull appeared, his shot was accurate. Deadly accurate. The Captain raised his hooves to his torso, trying to feel where the bullet had landed. He probably did, considering the fact that once he took his hooves from the uniform, they were covered in dark red blood. Nopony moved. I waited for his response, but nothing came except for his creaky, shallow gasps, that were barely even anything. By all means, his facial expression was more than enough: a look of stunned horror and terror, one that wants to shout to the world about how scared he is, but denied the chance by the tragic turn of events that have happened to him.
A silent scream. It was truly the most haunting thing I'd ever witnessed, and every millisecond that it continued felt like I shared his pain mentally. As he fell over onto the ground, unconscious forever, I stood with my mouth agape and eyes widened nearly beyond their sockets. When he landed on the ground, the thud made me feel like I was smashed in the face by a giant monastery bell. That wasn't just any pony that was brutally murdered on the spot just then. He was a hero. A leader. A friend. And now he's gone.
"So it is only you and I zat are left, Princess, hmm?" I slowly shifted my gaze to the only other one left, struggling to move on from the sight that would forever scar my memory.
He then left another; to see such a smirk, such a devilish smug grin after what happened, it completely shattered me. Only the Skull could affect ponies in this way. It was like he reached into your soul and darkened even the darkest of memories. I slowly began to recover from the shock that Death himself left behind, but something in me had changed because of it. Something snapped.
My eyes narrowed themselves, with my eyebrows angling fiercely towards my nose, which was pointed right at the only other living thing in this living hell. It was still there: that evil smile was still plastered to his face.
"Enough." I breathed heavily, shuddering as I let the heated emotion surge through my system. Every heartbeat let my muscles tighten, my hooves clench and my mind focus on the only thing I wanted to do, something I wanted more right now than anything I had ever desired before.
As he began to raise a dusted eyebrow, I charged. He was taken aback completely by surprise, struggling to run as I barrelled towards him like a railway locomotive. I could've sworn my mane was on fire. My entire body felt like it was ablaze, simply from the unstoppable rage I didn't want to contain. Try as I did, I couldn't harm him from a distance. However, even if I could, I didn't want to use magic. I wanted this to be physical; personal. I wanted it to hurt.
I was right behind him, just close enough for me to execute my ideal. I lowered my head, preparing for the climactic finale that I ever so craved. Thrusting my neck up with sheer brute force, nearly jumping into his back with the energy, I let loose. While I had my eyes shut hard, my other senses portrayed the scene: the unmistakable crack of flesh and bone tearing at the seams; the odour of almighty fear that made him freeze on the spot like an ice sculpture; the texture of thick, vital fluids staining my horn, with some dripping down to my scalp; the dull, stuttered silent scream I craved to hear from the tyrant. Fin.
I ripped my horn from the foe, who was now quickly turning into a corpse on the ground before me. I leaned back down to him, savouring the sights that were my reward. Watching his life force fade away with each of his dying breaths was the satisfaction that I craved.
However, as much as I didn't want (let alone expect) a response, he gave me one. He coughed, almost trying to smile as he told me the words that continue to ring in my head for years to come: "I h-hope you l-like m-my genocide."
I constantly beat myself up for such foolishness, engaging in war like I did. I had become like the Red Skull: a murderer. In truth, I was no better than he was, and despite our differences (both negligible and very notable), I had killed ponies for... what, exactly? I suppose there might have been a purpose, one which you, dear Luna, can see for yourself today.
What pulled us apart in the past has pulled us together in the future. I can say that for everypony around me now, as we now live in the most admirable nation on Earth, one that achieves greatly in every aspect. Technology spread like a joyous disease, enabling the most remarkable of wonders to emerge. Peace is an everlasting quality that no Equestrian pony will refuse to show and friendship shines like the great stars in the night sky. I couldn’t be happier to be the leader of such an amazing land such as this, the one we call home. I shouldn’t be happier.
Oh how I wish I was. For I have envisioned a future where chaos reigns supreme. Where destruction is the answer. Where violence overrules reason. I have envisioned the return of the colossally devastating former enemy, something that seems to edge closer the more I think about it. But I cannot keep thinking. If our destruction is our destiny, so be it. I’ll do my best to minimise the damage. If my past mistakes come back to haunt me, to take its revenge by destroying what I vow to protect, let my soul burn in Tartarus forevermore.
I come to you Luna, not for guidance, but assistance, for I fear what may happen if I do this alone.
-Celestia
Author's Note
I am terribly sorry for such a hiatus between my stories. I will try to be as frequent as I can between updates and whatnot, but I cannot promise anything with these sorts of things.
Anyway, this marks the beginning of one of my favourite long-term projects that I have planned. I would absolutely love to hear any thoughts you have and any constructive criticism that you have with my work.
It's a real pleasure writing this, and I hope you find it enjoyable. Mr Grapefruit out, for now... 