Equestria's Supreme Commander

The sun had set, and it was the same day as when Celestia had, whether knowingly or not, declared war on me. Myself, Cadence, Chrysalis, and, as going back would be a possible death sentence for them right now, Luna and Twilight were in the back up palace, as I'm calling the building we were in.

Currently, I was in my room, looking out the window to see the active streets of the Empire, and saw multiple crystal ponies in the streets. While the destruction of the heart had done little damage, the area damage on the bombers did do some damage. Fortunately, none were harmed, and everypony was working on getting everything repaired. I heard a knock on my door, but did not turn. "Come in."

The door opened, and a single pony came in, the hoofsteps stopping beside me. "An impressive sight, is it not," Luna asked.

"That it is," I replied, hands behind my back. "I can only imagine how impressive it was before."

"'Tis a shame you destroyed it."

"Only because I had to," I said. "I siad it once, I will say it as many times as needed: if there was another way, I would have taken it."

"That's why I think you're a good leader, even if you lead machines," Luna said. "You have no ambition but to protect, you have a loyal army, both in your machines, and I am certain in the crystal ponies as well, and, unlike my sister, when there are no other options, you do not try to make one. You choose with what you have, for good or ill."

I sighed. "Princess, I meant what I said in that message to your sister earlier. I wished to be left alone, and once I am certain Equestria will not come after me, that is what I hope will happen. I know I don't look it, but I was never a good leader where I come from. I am best when following someone else's lead."

The Lunar Alicorn chuckled. "Then you and I have something in common," she said. "When my sister and I took the throne, I always followed her lead, and it was that way until a century after we took the throne."

"What happened," I asked, turning to look at her, seeing she was wearing a navy blue gown that went to three quarters of the way down her legs, and a black shirt that went to her waist.

"Most of the specifics I have forgotten with time, but I still remember it enough to tell," Luna said. "Keep in mind, this happened a thousand years before my banishment, so that you can know the time line a little better. As for what happened, well-

"It was a week after the summer solstice, and no, the summer sun celebration was not known then. My sister and I were doing our duties. Fore her, it was paperwork. For me, as it was during the day, it was looking over the military. Celestia had just set the sun and we were preparing for our nightly duties when a unicorn guard came rushing into our throne room. When we asked him what had happened, he said a large being, nearly as tall as your ACU, actually, had appeared on the border between Equestria and the Zebra lands, and that what ever was sent was easily killed by it. So, as a result, Celestia and I donned our armor, and rushed to stop it. Even with our combined ability, we nearly lost."

Luna-1st-Equestria/Zebra border; two thousand years ago

"Sister, what dost thou think we will see," I asked my sister, who wore armor as golden as her sun, as we flew through the skies.

"We do not know," Celestia replied. "The guards hath reported a strange creature that can easily tear through their shields. We think it best if we do not stay still."

"Aye," I replied. I wore a darker version of what my sister was wearing, but it was still as effective as hers. As for weapons, she had a halberd in her hands, and twin swords as a back up in their scabbards. For me, a single long sword with an array of daggers as my secondary, the daggers being numerous enough to where I had to use my magic to use them all at once.

When we arrived at the border, what we saw was terrifying, to say the least. It was ninety hooves tall, its knees being like that of a bird's, which is to say backwards. Its shoulders had spires that pointed forward, and where its hands should have been were two different appendages. Its right arm ended in a sort of cylinder with three prongs at the end, while the other one had only a single curve at the end of it that returned back into the arm, and the tip of its hooves was slim, and ended in a vertical circle.

"Sister," I said. "Dost thou know what that is?"

"Nay," Celestia replied as we stared at the creature. "But whatever it is, we must defeat it to protect our subjects."

"Agreed," I said just as the creature turned towards us, and a light appeared on its right arm before it fired a beam of energy at us, which we dodged. As for the ground it hit after we dodged it, it was badly burned, as if a fire had swept through the area.

"Sister, or weapons are useless against this, we are certain of it," Celestia yelled to me, as we had went in different directions to avoid the blast. "We must retreat and find Starswirl to assist us!"

"Sister, if we do," I replied at equal volume, "than this thing may follow us, and slaughter our subjects. We must defeat it here!"

"We can not do anything to it by ourselves," Celestia said. "We must retreat."

"And if we are correct, and it follows us before we can prepare again?"

"Then what dost thou propose," Celestia asked as we came back together behind the creature.

"We can combine our two magics, and create a barrier around it," I replied.

"And if that does not work?"

"Then may mother and father judge our souls fairly."(1)

"Then what do you think we should do," Celestia asked as the top half of the creature turned around.

"Something that will most definitely destroy it," I replied. "We must imprison it in a mountain of flames."

"If you think it will work, sister," Celestia as just as the creature turned finished turning, and we teleported to the back of it, and charged our magic, creating a spell that hadn't been used since, as only alicorns were capable of it.

We began to change the very surface of the planet itself.

The magic built on our horns before we released the spell, my magic and my sister's combining just before they impacted the ground between the creature's feet, and the rock around it began to grow, combine, fall apart, and do untold millennium of work in a total of a few minutes for us. But not before the thing we were imprisoning gave one last shot of resistance against us.

Just as the rocks began to cover its top half, and molten rock envelop its legs, it spun around, faster than it had before, and fired off one, single projectile at me, but, just before it hit, Celestia teleported in front of me, and took the shot, her horn lighting as she put a magical shield up, which shattered a second after impact, stopping all but a tiny portion of the attack, which impacted on her chest piece, and it sent her falling to the ground.

"SISTER!!" I felt many emotions, seeing my sister injured and falling to the ground, the emotions at the front being concern for her, and rage for the being that had injured her. Rage that was soon fulfilled, as the new volcano finished enveloping the machine the rock sealing it away.

I then flew to the ground to where my sister had fallen, seeing as I landed that she was still alive, as her chest was still rising and falling with her breath. "Sister, are you alright," I asked her upon landing and kneeling next to her.

She coughed, then opened her eyes. "Mayhaps a little sore," she replied. "Is it sealed away?"

"Aye, it is," I replied. "Are you well enough to fly?"

"We believe so," Celestia said as I helped her stand up. "Now come. We must return to the castle so that our subjects do not worry."

"Agreed," I said. "But if thee feels weak, we will use our magic to carry you back."

She smiled a little as she said, "We thank thee, sister." With that, the two of us spread our wings, and flew back to our castle, which is in a long forgotten city only my sister and I know the name and location, the beast eliminated.

Josh-1st-present

All I could do was look at Luna, who, along with her sister, had taken on an ACU. But not just any ACU. "Luna, that thing was an ACU."

"It did not look like yours," she replied.

"My people aren't the only ones to have made one," I said. "And that one belonged to a race that wants to wipe all but their own kind out.

"The Seraphim."

Celestia-1st

It's funny. Then, I had thought everything I did was to protect my subjects. That spell that Twilight had figured? Meant to erase traumatic memories. It was not meant to do what it eventually did, which is have my subjects see me as a perfect goddess with no faults, even after some were clearly telegraphed. I suppose that's my fault, something I now regret not fixing.

But that's for later on. Right now, what I was doing while Luna was telling Josh of our first encounter with an ACU, even if we did not know it was called that.

I was in my personal room, torn. I didn't want to label my sister and Twilight as corrupted, but that was the only thing I could do her friends would be able to make sense of after so many years of unintentional brainwashing. Except maybe Pinkie Pie, even I was confounded by what she could do.

Anyway, I had gotten the reply from Josh, and was making my final preparations for the battle. I had perfected the spell Luna and I had cast two thousand years ago, and would use it against him. I also had my old battle armor, the same from the first ACU encounter, brought out and refurbished for the battle. That left only a single thing for me to do.

I used my magic to remove an illusionary spell on the middle wall, which revealed a small I suppose you could say shrine, given its layout. There were no pictures, not that there could be, none existed. Well, one did, one I had made in secret and made a part of this shrine. But other than that, there was not much, only what some, even Twilight, would think to be odd knick-knacks and such, bobbles, nothing more, when, in reality, they were devices I had found shortly after the first battle with an ACU in the area of its volcano prison. I knew not what they were for but, at the time, I regarded them as sacred, as the shot from the Seraphim ACU was not meant to harm me. It was meant to show me something.

I knelt down in front of the shrine, hands clasped in a praying fashion. "My high lords," I said in a whisper, "give me the strength to protect my subjects, your unknowing followers, from a heretic who dares imitate you, and defeat the heretic. May The Way give me strength."