Not for the first time, Rarity wished she still had eyelids.
Such thoughts were a sin, but even the most pious mare could not help the vestige of the beast inside her. She imagined the little filly that once was, the shaking thing, the animal, body full of drool and blood and piss. It was so easy to picture her, sitting beside the throne.
“Don’t look!” she imagined it saying, when the pain struck her particularly fiercely. The little filly squeezed her eyes shut when she was afraid. “Please, don’t look!”
But it was only a dream, and that filly was no more. Rarity ignored the feeling, and lifted her perfect, lidless eyes to heavens.
From her throne on the bridge of the Above All, she watched ponies die.
“Empress Rarity,” spoke her Grand Admiral from his place in the command pit. “All Federation forces are now engaged with Chancellor Sparkle’s armada. Tactical analysis suggests the two sides are closely matched.” He paused a moment, then continued, “Admiral-General Dash requests our assistance.”
The bridge lapsed into silence as Rarity considered her answer. Through the bridge’s great dome window, she could see Equestria floating in the void. To eyes of flesh and fluid, it would have been only a small blue-green dot, but Rarity could see it all: the continents and the islands, the great oceans and the clouds whose movements could be tracked from space. Its day side was turned towards them, and it shone in the sky.
Above Equestria’s northern pole, a blue star flared into being, shining bright and dying in a fraction of a second. A softly glowing computer readout informed Rarity it had been a heavy destroyer.
“No response,” she said. “Continue to hold position.”
A second blue flash came fifteen seconds later. A corvette. A third came ten seconds after that. Another heavy destroyer. Then the flashes started to come in sets, two at a time, ten at a time. Rarity’s perfect eyes could see the missiles flying through the void. She could smell the radioactive cloud left behind by the bombs.
There were red flashes for ship destroyed by plasma weapons, yellow flashes for ships destroyed by lasers. Long red streaks marked ships that entered the atmosphere out of control, their crews denied a quick and painless death.
Hours passed. Sometimes, Rarity imagined the filly that once was, her face leaking snot and other fluids. But she never looked away.
She was the great empress of her people. Once she had been a beast, a thing of blood and filth, squeezed into the world from between a mare’s legs and doomed to die in a pool of its own waste. No more. She was a machine—a perfect machine of steel and glass, made in the shape of a pony by the infinite wisdom of the Divine Precursors. She sat on a throne of jagged metal, wrapped in robes as white as a fungus, that neither blood nor sweat nor dirt would ever befoul. Her horn came to a point that could penetrate a steel wall.
The Divine Precursors had chosen her to free her people from the beast, to cut them from nature’s womb and bring them into true existence. It felt so long ago.
A white star flared to life above Equestria’s western continent, so bright it cast the dim bridge into sharp contrast. It did not fade at once, but lingered, dimming over several seconds from brilliance into a dull white spot.
“Empress Rarity,” spoke her Grand Admiral. “Chancellor Sparkle’s command ship Golden Oak has experienced critical reactor failure.”
“Is she dead?”
“I do not believe so.” He watched the bridge’s sensor readouts. His eyes were also perfect, and just the same as hers. “Federation forces have collectively taken 87% losses, and the Sweet Apple Confederation’s fleet has been eliminated entirely. However, Chancellor Sparkle’s forces have taken 91% losses, including the loss of both the spaceport and the command ship.”
He paused for a few seconds, considering the matter before him: “I project a narrow Federation victory within the hour. However, they no longer possess sufficient forces to effectively bombard the planet. Absent the arrival of other ships, Equestria will remain in Chancellor Sparkle’s control.”
“The perfect outcome.” She lowered her head, turning away from the sky and towards the bridge before her. “Move us into the system, Grand Admiral. Communications officer, broadcast an unencrypted diplomatic communique to all points and stations -- by my command, the Carousel Nexus hereby declares war upon the Principality of Equestria.”
The stars swirled outside the bridge dome as the Above All repositioned itself. Equestria was no longer high in the sky but directly before them, growing larger in the viewer by the second.
“Empress,” the Grand Admiral spoke, “we have incoming communication requests from all six factions involved in the conflict.” Scrolling holographic text appeared before Rarity’s eyes, but the admiral summarized anyway. “They are displeased.”
Rarity’s hoof lifted to cover her lower face. Laughter was hedonistic and debased, being nothing more than a pleasurable seizure of a beast’s innards, but there was no commandment against expressing amusement. She no longer had a jaw, but she hid her smile yet. “Yes,” she said, “I imagine they are displeased. Put them all through with Chancellor Sparkle on the center screen.”
Five floating holographic images appeared in front of her, depicting the leaders of five great nations: Admiral-General Rainbow Dash on her battle-bridge, Speaker Fluttershy in her office, and so forth. Chancellor Sparkle’s image floated in the center, the sensor output screens behind her suggesting she was on some sort of research vessel.
“You kill-stealing varmint!” Applejack shouted, cutting off the others. She made quite the space-pony, all dressed up in apple-red spacesuit. “We lost near-on two thousand ships taking this system, and you think you can just steal it out from under us!?”
“Yeah!” Rainbow added, still very much a pegasus save for the little insectile antennae on her forehead. “I wanted your help when it would have made a difference! Not for you to swoop in after and claim all the glory. If you capture Equestria, you can bet I’m going to take it right back!”
“No no, everypony wait!” Pinkie Pie hopped up and down, having taken the form of a very excitable little pink ball of fuzz which presumably had hooves somewhere under all that fur. “We can make this work. Hey, Twilight, you want to end the war right now? Because if you’re going to lose Equestria anyway, you should totally surrender it to us before Rarity takes it. Wink!”
Rarity listened to it all without moving in the slightest, so still she might have been a steel statue. The jagged metal on which she sat rose behind her like a grasping claw, framing her in the image the other five could see. She weathered their threats and their bellowing, their attempts at negotiation and their idle speculation.
When she had heard enough, she said: “It is Equestria that stands before me. Will its master not speak?”
Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie each fell quiet, the direction of their eyes shifting slightly as they turned to look at Twilight. Twilight, still a proper alicorn, looked more put-out than anything, a peevish frown on her face. “Fine,” she said, hooves crossed, “what are your war goals?”
“You will bend the knee, and swear your empire in vassalage to mine,” Rarity spoke. “Your people will revere the Divine Precursors as their rightful gods, and will lead their lives in accordance with the commandments they left behind.”
The others looked incredulous. Twilight laughed. “Rarity, you-”
“Empress.”
Twilight’s jaw snapped shut on reflex, so sharp was Rarity’s tone. She sat back in her command chair, and rubbed at her jaw with a hoof. Then she laughed again, though the second time it came out stiff. “Empress Rarity. Fine. I don’t think you get how this works. How many ships do you even have?”
“In the Equus system, I have three.”
“You have three.” Twilight repeated. She laughed again. “You understand that Rainbow Dash just threw five hundred at me?”
“One of the Precursors chosen is a match for any number of beasts.”
Twilight lifted a hoof to her face as a few of the others chuckled. Only Pinkie Pie looked nervous. “Okay, look,” Twilight said, “you can’t have what you want, and even if you could have it, you don’t actually want it. See?”
Twilight gestured, and a floating holographic map of the galaxy appeared in her screen. It was split into sections, marked with colors for the great empires: hers in blue, Rainbow in red, and so forth. “Empress Rarity, I command a nation of sixty planets. The Harmony Federation has a hundred and nine planets between its members. How many do you have?”
“Only One.”
“Just one planet isn’t-”
“No,” Rarity lifted a hoof. “The name of the planet is Only One. It is the jewel of the heavens, and the rock upon which the Divine Pre-”
“Okay, whatever.” Twilight waved her hoof across the screen. “Look, bottom line, I’m already rebuilding my fleet. Soon I’ll be back up to full strength, and I’ll outnumber you fifty to one. Even if you could capture Equestria, you can’t hold it. I’ll take it back. And you can’t capture it. It’s a world of ten billion ponies. You’d need at least five-hundred million soldiers to capture it, and you don’t have that many ponies in your entire empire!”
Gesticulating wildly, Twilight went on like a professor in their lecture hall: “And even if somehow you did force me to bend the knee? Applejack is right. What you’re doing is kill-stealing. Do you want to tick off the Harmony Federation too, and make two enemies? So you can be outnumbered a hundred to one? The… game of empires doesn’t work that way, Rarity. You can’t just declare war on someone because you want their territory. You need claims, casus belli. You know, a pretext?”
Rarity nodded. She considered Twilight’s works at length. The silence grew heavy. Finally, Twilight asked: “Well?”
Then Rarity spoke: “Commence primary ignition.”
“Commence primary ignition!” the Grand Admiral called to the bridge crew. Levers were pulled, controls flicked by robotic hooves. On the monitors, Twilight and Applejack and Rainbow Dash and all the others were shouting -- shouting at each other, shouting at Rarity. Rarity ignored them all.
She resolved that, next she visited confession, she would speak to her private priest about this urge to shut her eyes. If the Divine Precursors did not bless her body with eyelids, it was because she was better off without them. And so for the second time that day, she watched ponies die.
A bright white beam shot out of the base of the Above All. White cracks spread through Equestria where it struck. Ten billion ponies cried out in terror. Soldiers clung to weapons that would not protect them. Parents held their children.
And then they were gone.
On the monitors, all five of Rarity’s rivals starred in slack-jawed silence. They watched the cloud of debris that was once the planet of Equestria slowly expand in all directions.
“As you can see,” Rarity said, her voice ever so quiet. “My people have evolved beyond the need for pretext.”
“Sweet Celestia…” Applejack whispered. Twilight’s jaw opened and closed without a word.
“Silence,” Rarity barked. “Hear my words and know them to be true, Chancellor Sparkle: this was your doing. Like all beasts you are selfish. It’s all about your life, your needs, your urges, the urge to consume, to reproduce, to earn the respect of your herd! You built your nation like a foal playing with blocks, planning your logistics and thinking you were oh so clever.”
Rarity reached up, stroking Twilight’s holographic image with her hoof, though it had no substance. “And you are clever. Your nation became powerful. So powerful that the entire galaxy united against you. The Harmony Federation exists for that purpose alone. They knew it was their only hope. And now, by your greed and their paranoia, both of your fleets lie shattered and you do not have the time to rebuild them.”
She pointed sharply out the window, at the debris field beyond: “Look at what I have done today and understand there is nothing you can keep from me. Your beast-flesh offends the Divine Precursors, and they have given me the means to cleanse the galaxy of your filth!”
Rarity’s hoof slammed into the deck, hard enough to crack the decorative ceramics that surrounded her throne. Her robe, being little more than loose white cloth, was knocked from her shoulders by the force of the impact. It slipped away, and left her naked in her glory: a perfect, sexless, soulless machine.
Rarity looked at herself, then at Twilight. She shook her head. “But you are fortunate. Genocide is not my aim. Bend the knee, and for now at least, I will spare your lives.”
The clock in Twilight’s castle went tick-tock, tick-tock.
Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all sat around the table. Between them in the center was the board game Stellaris, and a cardboard map of the galaxy with game cards and little glass ship tokens scattered over it.
Rarity was seated at the table too. All five of them were staring at her.
Eventually, Rarity managed to ask: “What?”
“Uh…” Twilight cleared her throat. She looked at Applejack for support, but Applejack quickly shrugged. “Are you um… are you enjoying Stellaris, Rarity?”
“Oh, yes!” Rarity said, perking up her ears. “It’s quite exhilarating.”
“Okay.” Twilight licked her lips. “Good.”
After a moment, Twilight added: “Okay good.”
Author's Note
Now with chapter art by Cold in Gardez!
Fallout 4 came in an enormous box. It had cards, plastic tokens, glass tokens, wooden card holders, a map of the Commonwealth, figurines, dice, a spinner to determine hit location, and more. None of it was ever used per-se, since the enchantment on the game magically sucked the players into its fantastic fictional world, but the spell required the game to be set up first.
Twilight had purchased the game under the assumption that it was meant for four players, but upon opening it with three of her friends, discovered that it accommodated only one pony at a time. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided they’d play it one at a time. Rarity went first, then Twilight, then Rainbow Dash, then Pinkie Pie
After, they all had tea and cakes.
“Excellent game,” Twilight said, and they all agreed. “Normally I’m not into fantasy stories, but the world was so striking.”
“Indeed,” Rarity said. “The characters were so rich and developed. And their clothing! One can feel the attention paid to every detail.”
“Really? You played all that and you want to talk about the clothes?” Rainbow mouthed the words around three tea-cakes. “Did you not notice there’s a giant slingshot that shoots nuclear weapons? I was like, ‘this is awesome’ and the mutants were all ‘oh no!’”
“I liked the tunes!” Pinkie Pie bobbed her head from side to side. “Crawl out, through the fallout, pony!”
“Indeed. Tremendous all around.” Rarity smiled, dunking her cake ever so daintily into her teacup. “Though if I had to criticize it, I would have appreciated more variety in the factions. Oh, certainly, there were nominally four choices, but there was one that the player was clearly supposed to pick. I’d been hoping for something less one-sided. A true struggle of compelling ideologies in a desolate wasteland.”
“Agreed,” said Twilight. “Though, credit where it’s due, introducing the Institute as the antagonist faction only to let the player join them midway through the game was very creative. I really didn’t see that twist coming.”
Rarity paused, her teacup halfway to her lips. Rainbow and Pinkie Pie hesitated as well.
“You supported the Institute?” Rarity asked, ever so sweetly.
“Of course.” Twilight frowned, tilting her head to the side. “Who did you support?”
“The Sisterhood of Steel.”
“Hey!” Rainbow shot to her hooves. “Did you miss the part where those high-stepping fascists are going to round up all your synth friends and kill them? Huh?” With a buzz of her wings, she lifted off the floor. “Or do those ponies not deserve freedom? Railroad all the way.”
“I didn’t miss that,” Pinkie Pie snapped. “Did you miss the part where none of these factions have any right to rule the Commonwealth, and the Minutemares are the only group the common ponies asked to protect them? Three different flavors of invader is what you are!”
All four of them were on their hooves. All four were glaring. And at that exact moment, Spike entered the room, apron wrapped around his torso and a fresh tray of tea-cakes in hand.
“Uh…” He paused in the doorway. “What’s going—”
Then, Twilight summoned a shield between her and Rarity. Rarity kicked the table with the tea-cakes under Twilight’s shield, taking out her knees. As Rarity lunged for Twilight’s collapsing form, Rainbow delivered a swift kick to her exposed side. Moment later, Pinkie Pie grabbed her from behind, pulling them both down to the ground.
“Monster!”
“Facist!”
“Hippie!”
“Gutter trash!”
At some point, somepony broke a tray over somepony else’s head. There were lasers, kicking, biting, and somehow, a gun that shot trash.
“Ah,” Spike said. “Friendship problem. Right. Good luck with that.”
Slowly, he backed out of the room.
