What Must be Done

END OF A GRYPHON CITY

Gryphon trotted down the street early in the morning. Everything was calm and peaceful as not a single bird had taken to the air. He inhaled a crisp breath of air and continued on his way

Princess Celestia hung her head low as she gently strolled towards the gryphon village, not even breaking a blade of grass beneath her stride. She knew what she had to do and why she had to do it, the safety of Equestria had made her needs clear, but that didn't mean she had to like it. These innocents, these gryphons... they didn't deserve this. They didn't. Her head was hung low, while her body sagged slightly.

But regardless, she had to do it. their war against Equestria had to be punished and the gryphon empire city of Volstagg would be but a taste of the future for gryphonkind.

The sun shined brightly down on the village, rays of yellow light illuminating and warming it to the core. Flowers beamed, soaking up the delightful, innocent rays. The call of birds gently rippled out across the village, forming a beautiful melody.

Only for the bird calls to suddenly stop. No warning, they just ended.
And then the light faded. A massive shadow formed over the village. A few were bewildered, thinking there was an eclipse ... only for them to look upwards.

It wasn't an eclipse. It wasn't a cloud.

It was a massive, gigantic hoof, belonging to an equally massive Celestia who had taken it upon herself to use her vast amount of alicorn magic to grow herself until her horn pierced the clouds.

The pony was simply massive. Her body stretched up several hundred meters, the tallest of trees coming only up the bottom of her mere hooves. Her white fur gently rustled in the wind, a sea of colour rippling before their eyes. It was beautiful ... if not for the sick, terrifying sight of her hoof above the village. It was so wide, so all-consuming, it was bigger than the mere village itself. All of it would fit beneath her hoof, all of it would be crushed beneath the shimmering, golden surface.

A blastwave of air ripped through the village as Celestia sighed, her chest contracting as she made her dissatisfaction known. She could see them. All of them, living content in their lives.

And she was going to kill all of them.

But she had no choice.
It had to be done.

the screams were subtle as the gryphons realized doom was upon them. Gryphons ran to take cover, some hugged in a final embrace to their brothers and sisters.

Princess Celestia heard them. She heard their screams, their begging, their pleas for mercy. It was only a small comfort that she knew that the younglings or eggs were there. But it still hurt. A massive teardrop fell from her cheek, splashing in the woods.

But none of the villagers heard it, too preoccupied with their impending doom.

She faltered, hesitating, her hoof wavering as she tried to well up the courage to bring it down. So much pushed her forwards, but so much held her back.
But she had to do it.

Hanging her head low, her body relaxed as finality and resolution coursed through her. It had to be done.

"Forgive me..." she said, her gentle voice washing across the village. It wasn't harsh, it was tear-soaked, it was the quiet resolve of a person that knew what had to be done.

And then her hoof lowered. The sky fell towards the gryphons as it came down. She brought it down slowly, but the destruction of the city was still assured. Darkness enveloped them, a gush of air washed over them, this was it.
They had but mere moments before oblivion...

Her hoof hit the watchtower first. The roof groaned before simply shattering as the hoof came down, wood and metal rended asunder as it ploughed through it like nothing. Her hoof might've been slow, but its mass and momentum were absolute. It was impossible to stop. An unstoppable force against the gryphon village.

Darkness had completely enveloped the village, faint light only coming from torches and the gap between her hoof and the ground. They would barely see their oblivion. A horrific sound of ripping and tearing filled the air as the hoof ploughed through the buildings, crushing them like paper. Those still in the buildings were crushed.

But the hoof kept lowering.

It was just above the ground now. Those running, those on the street, they would feel the golden surface of the royal hoof shoe push against them. Knocked against the ground, they'd feel one moment of pressure... and then oblivion.

The hoof effortlessly squelched them into nothing more than a thin, red sludge as it pressed against the ground.

The village was gone. Crushed beneath her mere hoof.

Princess Celestia sighed as she pushed the hoof all the way down. She barely felt them. The buildings felt like eggshells crushing beneath her hoof, while the gryphons felt like tiny ants. Faint pinpricks of pressure, of struggles, before becoming nothing more than faint wetness beneath her hoof.

The village was gone.
The deed had been done.

Silence reigned over the forest, the sound of destruction gone, and she started to feel guilt tickling in. She had just destroyed them all...

But she kept the guilt at bay. For now. She kept telling herself that it was necessary, that they didn't suffer, that there was no better way. There was no better way, there was no better way...

"I'm sorry..." she muttered, quiet enough for only her to hear.

Slowly, she lifted her hoof away. Her skin crawled when she felt it stick slightly to the ground, a faint pressure that she had to overcome. There was no doubt as to what it was.

She lifted her hoof. Chunks of the buildings fell from it like rain, sprinkling down around the devastation she caused. Gulping hard and trying to prepare herself, she moved it to the side and looked at the remains.

And despite all her efforts, despite all of her conviction, what she saw shocked her.

It wasn't even a village anymore.

Her hoof had pressed down into the ground, forming a faint depression in the shape of Princess Celestia's star, a pattern put onto her hoof. There was nothing left. The entire place was nothing more than rubble, wood and stone crushed and flattened out into woodchips and gravel. It was nothing more than amorphous mass spread out beneath her hoof, yet with her mark still clearly visible.

Dotted in the mess were bright splashes of red. Each splash, a splotch of the last remains of a living, breathing gryphon. Their whole lives, with all of its hopes, dreams and fears, reduced to nothing more than a red stain. Faint grey feathers could be glimpsed floating in the gooey mires.

Her hoof came off no better. The golden surface was stained a bright red, gryphon splattered across the entire surface. Only specks of gold shined through the bloody covering. Raised above the ground, drips of blood fell and stained the grass red, while chunks of viscera and building sprinkled like sugar.

"It had to be done..." she said with a resolved, convicted tone. Sadness bled into her words, sadness and guilt, but there was a sense of finality to it all. It had been done, there was nothing more to say, there was nothing left to do. Yet still, the guilt coursed through her and left her guts grumbling in discontent. Her body trembled slightly, her lip quivered, she felt like she was going to throw up...

But it wasn't done, not yet. She could feel it: faint squirming beneath her hoof.

Some of them were still alive. By sheer luck, they had survived the falling of her hoof. She couldn't hear them, she couldn't see them, but she could feel them. Gryphons, stuck to the underside of her foot, cemented in place with the churned remains of their friends.

As soon as Princess Celestia realised that there were some alive, she shuddered and choked out a sob, feeling like she was going to puke there and then. This was supposed to be quick, clean, painless, not leave them squirming on the underside of her hoof. For a brief moment, she thought about letting them go, nursing them to health ... but that wasn't an option.
She knew it.

"Forgive me for this..." she said, before lowering her hoof again. A faint flurry of screams rippled from her hoof ... then a pound, and silence. She stamped back down onto the village, crushing it flat once more. She leant onto her hoof, pushing it deep into the mire, feeling the bodies squelch beneath her hoof.

After a few seconds, she was content that the deed had been done. All the movement had gone still. Raising her hoof again, she bent her knee to let the bloody mire slide off, before scraping it off on the ground, leaving a trail of red across the grass.

She couldn't look at the village anymore, but a sense of finality had fallen over her. It had been done, she could go.

So with a heavy heart, Princess Celestia turned and walked away from the crater of a gryphon village.

Leaving a trail of massive red hoofprints in her wake.
The End.