An Introduction to the Equestrian Revolution
Twilight enjoyed interviews with the press. Whatever she said would go through the state media channels, true, but she - as a princess - was relatively immune to ‘disappearing’. It hardly mattered if she did in any case.
It was like therapy, wherein the therapist was not trained and threatened to uphold the ideals of the monarch. To be a journalist in Canterlot was to commit to being followed home, to having your phones tapped, and so Twilight put… what was her name? Village Voice? Something like that. She would be in no extra danger if she knew about the Manehatten Project.
“We knew Equestria would not be the same…” Of course, how could it be? The development of nuclear magic and technology could have been something fantastic. By all accounts, it was fantastic. She could hardly take credit for what happened after she split the first atom, but it was undeniable what it afforded them: power. Power to run more than a few lightbulbs.
Broadcast television was a big one. Equestria’s living-rooms could be pumped full of propaganda 24-7. The public didn’t care so long as it was entertaining. Most people still didn’t see the dark side of the monarchy.
It really must’ve been such a beautiful world for them.
“A few ponies laughed, a few ponies cried, most ponies were silent…” That terrifying day. Equestria’s greatest minds stood far, far away, each of them having disappeared or defected…
Or died. Poor Moondancer. She was the first to go. It was clear she wasn’t going to last long. Something about the hollow look behind her eyes signalled to anyone willing to look that she saw the dark side of the monarch before the project had even started.
Starlight and Sunburst went next. Hushed conversations in the corners of the castle’s laboratory made it unclear whether they left of their own accord, or were forced to stand trial in front of Celestia. Twilight would likely never know, and she had made peace with that.
She stood alone on the day her invention lit the sky.
“I remembered the line from the scripture, the Princess: Celestia, is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and...” She felt so stupid, then.
Celestia, hovering over her every act, reminding her that what she was doing was for the greater good. The greater good, every single day. Nothing with that kind of power was for the greater good. There was no greater good in being able to instantly incinerate several kilometres of anything.
There was no greater good, and it was hard to tell herself that. Twilight’s naive and selfish desire to believe in the power of good to always win out over evil strung her along the entire process, would likely have kept her employed without bits for years.
Twilight, at the very least, learned to stop taking Celestia’s word at face value. When Rainbow Dash disappeared, the rumours that the Element of Loyalty had defected to an anti-monarchist terror cell were laughable. But more and more ponies had those same rumours spread, and Twilight - under the monarch - continued to do the kind of evil that would likely have made them.
“...to impress him, takes on her multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."”
The bomb. She avoided thinking about it most days, but any excuse for confession was excuse enough to force the image back into her head.
Alone.
Alone behind a stack of sand-bags as the pressure wave rattled the little shed behind her.
Alone as the image of a mushroom cloud seared itself into the back of her eyes.
Alone as she wrote her report to Princess Celestia.
Alone as she realized the rumours were true, as she realized she was the last pony to see the truth, as she realized - as soon as Dash and her cohorts were found - the weapon would be used, and the anti-monarchists, the rebels, the resistance, whatever you want to call them, would all be incinerated.
Celestia, it seems, had that same realization.
“I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” She finished, looking up from her revery at the grey, tired-looking pegasus. She had listened the whole time, and though she had no way to hear between the words, Twilight liked to imagine her whole confession had come across.
Village Voice quickly finished off her notes as Twilight finished her speech. She tore off a sheet with her teeth and passed it to the princess. “It sounds like you have a lot of regrets.” She spoke.
Don’t speak.
Memorize address.
Restaurant Row. 246-B
Above The Tasty Treat
Burn note.
Meet me.
8pm.
Viva.
And for a moment, Twilight wondered how much she had said aloud. She wondered who she had begged for this opportunity, who had heard her, how they had managed to send a spy. She looked back up at Village Voice, her face betraying nothing but that of an impatient reporter, waiting for their next answer.
“Yes.” Twilight stammered. “Yes- a lot of regrets. Definitely.” And the slip flashed into ash in her grip. “But I suppose you need a quote for the paper, isn’t that right.”
Voice nodded, a wry smirk appearing on her previously emotionless face. “That would be helpful, yes.”
“Well then. We’ll say something like: ‘The nuclear revolution has yielded great change for Equestria.’ Then I’m sure the censors will give you a book full of some other things I’ve said.” The princess’s eyes fell, back to the black smear of ash on her hoof.
“Anything else?” Voice asked, now beginning to pack up.
“Yes… yes actually. I should also want to say that- um- that even greater change is coming. I think that’ll make a decent quote.”
“I’m sure it will. Thank you, your Highness”
This was suicide, but it didn’t matter now. Dash understood the real reason she had been fast-tracked into the Wonderbolts, or at the very least, could never be sure it wasn’t because of her body.
She stood at attention that morning, shaking in her boots as Spitfire sized up her squadmates, nitpicking things like lopsided knots on a pair of boots, a rumpled collar, this and that. All things that didn’t matter, and yet mattered so much.
She had been so naive: a pony who’s star-filled eyes had too long blotted out the blood-streaked path that lay behind the other ponies of the Equestria Space Program. You had to kill for your country in order to leave your planet, and for some reason, she was okay with ignoring that until today.
She hoped, as Spitfire stopped in front of her, that the amount of money Equestria’s military had wasted on Dash had at least paid down the evil she had intended on carrying out in Celestia’s name.
“What’s the matter, Crash?” Spitfire asked, making her presence known only through the gravity her body exuded. Rainbow kept her eyes clamped shut. “You look like you’re about to cry.” She teased. Spitfire would know, she probably saw a lot of pegasus cry. It was less than 12 hours ago that she invited Dash to her private bunk, locked the door behind her, and discovered what it looked like when Rainbow Dash cried.
Spitfire leaned in closer, her breath now only tainted with the rotting undercurrent that’d become her entire world the night before, suffocated her for a gruesome several hours. “Listen…” the orange pony spoke softly, so quietly that even Lightning Dust - less than a foot away - couldn’t hear.
“What happened between you and me… it’s a tradition… I just wanted to make you feel like one of the girls.” she drawled, each word more cocky, more venomous than the last. She ruffled her feathers, puffing herself up as her lip touched Rainbow’s ear. “You want to be a girl so badly, I thought I would show you what happens to a real mare. Get over it, or you’re out.”
Dash snapped in an instant, the sour taste of Spitfire’s wing overpowered by her rage. She bit down hard and slammed her hoof into the joint that held the appendage in place. Spitfire screamed in pain, trying to wrestle away from Rainbow, but another stomp and it was too late. The wing was fully out of its socket now.
Rainbow flinched away as her wingpony made a grab at her, dragging Spitfire by the throat now out in front of the procession. Senior officers had begun to gather around the commotion, each waiting for their opportunity to strike. No way out, Rainbow Dash.
Unless…
She tried the cloud-floor below with her back hoof, careful not to take her eyes off the rapidly closing three-dimensional corral. With enough force, she could punch through the cloud and fall to her death. It was a much better alternative to whatever P.O.W. camp she would end up in for disfiguring one of Celestia’s prized generals.
And so she did. She dragged Spitfire up into the sky, stopping just before her head touched the hoof of one of the guards, and dropped like a stone. With a lung-emptying ‘pof’ she was through, and she just fell. Fell until the thin air, or the spin, or whatever made her black out.
When she woke up, Spitfire was gone. The Wonderbolts training camp was gone. The sky itself was gone. In its place, a crumbling dirt ceiling.
Dash sat up with a start as she realized she was no longer falling, found herself unrestrained, her lungs taking a moment to catch up. Around her lie rows and rows of other ponies, each in their own state of disrepair. Some sleeping, others not quite so lucky.
“Ah, you’re awake.” A distantly familiar voice. An orange pony with their back turned. Rainbow began to panic before noticing the unicorn’s horn. “I must say, they said it was a gamble to bring you here, but so far you are not even working with us and you have brought in one of Celestia’s top generals.”
Right, this guy. Twilight’s friend’s friend. Star… Sunlight? Sunbeam?
“Sunburst. I wouldn’t expect you to remember that, I can’t imagine we’ve met more than once.” The pony gave a weak smile, turning as he tried to force the lens back into the bent frame of his glasses. Rainbow Dash stared for a moment, trying to decide how best to use her limited lung capacity.
“Where am I?” She croaked.
“A rebel medical camp. One of the best. You took quite a fall.” It came back in waves: a sudden change in the light behind her eyelids, a magical flash, and a significantly softer ‘thud’ than she had expected.
“Why?”
“Why what?” Sunburst stared at her annoyed glare for a moment before his eyes drifted down to the bandages wrapping her chest. “Right, of course.” He blushed. “Well, for a few reasons: we have had our eye on you for a decent while now, just as an associate of Princess Twilight Sparkle’s and we noticed some… tension… between yourself and Wonderbolt High-Command.”
Rainbow’s head began to slip back into darkness as the other pony spoke, as her every ache returned in sequence.
“Too right, I ought to make this quick. In short, Rainbow Dash, we believe you have the makings of a great rebel.”
And then she passed out.
