Equestria 4KO

“Princess Rainbow, Princess Rainbow wake up!” the lilac unicorn’s voice was high and almost frantic. The large alicorn in the bed groaned, turned her back to the high pitched voice, trying to ignore it.

“Just five more minutes” Rainbow mumbled, tugging her duvet close to her head.

But Pastal wanted none of it. She touched her hoof to the princess back, literally shaking her.

“Your highness you have to get up” Pastal’s voice was near panic. “The solar empire has declared war”.

This made Rainbow awake. Since long before the ponies’ ascension to the stars the Luna Republic and the Solar Empire had been enemies, but the ceasefire agreement they reached after the Cadence heresy had put an end to the outward hostility.

Sure they had never reached a formal peace treaty, the relation had always been strained, and diplomatic conflict was frequent, but there had never been active fighting as long as any mortal pony could remember.

“WHAT?” The mighty alicorn said in the royal Cantalot voice, knocking every pony in the room down. As she got up, she towered over Pastal being almost twice the as height, with her lustrous rainbow mane flowing breezily in an ethereal wind.

Pastal was almost blown to the grown by the princess outburst, and the normally so fiscal maid-steward, the part that Rainbow really liked about her lay now quivering on the grown.

Without looking up she continued.

“It’s true your highness. Imperial tropes have attacked planet 241.3 in republican space, millions are reported dead.”

The sky blue alicorn turned almost white. As the only mare in the republic she remembered the imperial purgings:

1) Attack a planet,

2) Kill everypony to avoid resistance,

3) Resettle with brainwashed followers,

4) Then repeat.

“How much time?” she asked in the calmest voice she could muster.

“A couple of hours, the planet’s defenders are doing what they can, but they will be overrun if we don’t send immediately reinforcement.”

“Summon the war council I will be there in five minutes.”

***

3 minutes later the princess of the sky stormed into the war room in the Palace of Cabinet.

In the back of the room were several large monitors with maps of the galaxy showing republican and imperial troops. The centre of the room was dominated by a large crescent moon shaped table where dozens of ponies now sat, discussing loudly.

All heads looked up as the doors slammed upon and the radiant princess stormed in. She had uncharacteristically not assumed her Luna disguise as she flew here. This was too important, too urgent and everypony here knew her identity anyway.

“Gentlecolts, I assume you have a force dispatched to leave immediately” She said, wasting no time for explanations or introductions.

“Princess Rainbow” Paltinhoof the large stallion at the centre of the table said. We were just discussing the best course of action to…”

“There is no time to worry about strategy now; we need to send reinforcement to settlement 245.1 immediately or ponies there are going to die.” The princess interrupted.

The officers looked at each other questionably, then a large steel blue pegasus wearing a cap and a uniform with six gold stars on each of his shoulder cushions.

“Your highness, don’t you mean planet 241.3?”

“Yes that’s I just said general, are your men ready to leave?” The princess looked inpatient, like wanting to fly off at any moment.

“I’m afraid not your highness. While I do feel for the ponies in system 241 we cannot pull over forces away from the main republican-imperial border and expose other worlds for the same fate. We are mobilizing our reserves as we speak but the standing army is not what it used to, not after the latest budget cuts” He eyed the grand chancellor angrily.

Felling that he had won the argument he continued.

“Besides planet 241.3 is just a rimworld.” That comment sent lightning though Rainbow’s eyes.

“So we are just going to abandon them because they are an outside settlement? Ponyville was just an outside settlement.” She said the last in the royal Cantalot voice, blowing everponies hats off in the presses.

Junior officers quickly sprang from the sides to retrieve the commanders’ hats, while the civil and military leaders of the republic that sat at the table just looked questionably at each other. None of them having ever heard of a “Ponyville” Nor knew that the room they now sat in, was on the same location where the old Ponyville town hall once stood.

Ignoring their reactions the princess continued:

“We are going to defend planet 241.3 even if I have to do it myself.”

“That may be a bit unwise your highness” another stallion also a pegasi, but this one a light leaf green instead of blue, and with a neatly trimmed brown mane.

“How about the royal guard?” Paltinhoof offered mediatingly “aren’t they always mobilized and ready to defend?”

“Your highness this would be a most imprudent idea, the royal guard are needed to defend the Palace of Harmony and your person we…”

“Silence captain Steadwise, my person does not need protection, and the Palace of Harmony stands in the heart of the republic, the empire cannot target it directly. Ready your men we leave within the hour.”

With that the princess stormed out not seeing the wicked grin that had spread over the normally so collected grand chancellors face.

***

When Rainbow arrived at planet 241.3 she was shocked at what she saw, she had excepted carnage, she had excepted a fleet of imperial battlecruisers, she had excepted to use her wings and horns as she hadn’t done in centuries, what she hadn’t excepted was the absolute serenity of it all.

There were no ships, no carnage, only soft white clouds and quiet creeks. The planets single sun welcomed her as it effortlessly rose over the horizon, bathing her body in its warm light. Even a few birds were heard, singing to the new dawn.

She had left the royal guards in hyperspace a few lightyears back, as their ships weren’t as fast as her wings, and her urgency to save her subjects was too great for her to wait for them.

Something was wrong here, but for the light of Luna she couldn’t figure out what, as she walked alone in a peaceful meadow on the planet, she felt a tilting of electricity in the air.

Looking up, up she saw grand chancellor Paltinhoofs smiling face on a TV scream as it appeared on the inner rim of the planets tropopause.

“Good afternoon Rainbow Crash” he said as his giant face looked down tiny alicorn below.

Rainbow winced as he called her that, she had always hated that name, but no pony had called her that since the days of the Cadence heresy and no mortal since the time of Twilight herself.

“I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that the solar empire didn’t declare war, the citizens of the New Luna republic are safe; the ponies on this planet are safe, that is if there had been any ponies on this planet.” He gave a short chuckle and continued smiling.

“The bad news is that the republican guards, MY republican guards, have found our beloved leader Princess Luna, unconscious inside the Palace of Harmony. I have with a heavy heart taken over all of her responsibilities and all of her duties, until such a time as she awakens of course. Effecting immediately, your services are no longer required.”

With that his face disappeared, and for a moment the screen was black.

She felt it in her heart; four lives, lives that had meant everything to her, dying, their machines being turned off, by uncaring hoofs.

She didn’t look up, as the sky gradually grew darker as the scream spread over the horizon.

When she realised what was happening it was already too late. She watched in horror as the scream came closer and closer.

As she watched everything on the planet was crushed as it was forced into a smaller and smaller space.

She saw a small chick, desperately calling for its parents, as it was about to be crushed, its mother already dead. Taking it with her horn she stuffed it inside a magical bubble under her wings.

Just before the imploding planet reached singularity it exploded sending its debris flying in all directions. In time this would become an asteroid field around star 241.

In the centre of the explosion stood a winged goddess, as radiant as ever without even a bruise on her face, holding a single orb of light containing a seed and a sole blue chick.

***

Rainbow hang in space, in the middle of where the planet had used to be. She wanted to sigh, but she had no air to breathe.

Her first thought was to fly back to Equestria, or Holy Equees as everypony seemed to call the ponies’ original homeworld these days, and give chancellor Paltinhoof a bucking he would never forget. But what would be the point?

If  he didn’t already have the support of the people, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. And if Ponies didn’t want her as leader, who was she to deny them their wishes?

Rainbow was never as wise or good a leader as Luna, and would never be like her mother.

Besides, now everypony thought she was dead, perhaps this was a good time to start anew, to pretend that she was just a normal pony.

With these thoughts in heart Rainbow flew outwards, towards the other rim of the galaxy and to worlds that was only just now being settled.

Her plan was set, to start a new life, a life in obscurity, free of responsibilities and duties.