Weapons of War

In the war room of the Castle of the Two Sisters sat five alicorns on equally as many thrones; four mares and one stallion. The round table around which the thrones were set had maps of the continent laid out on it with red and blue pony-shaped pawns placed on top of said maps, as if to represent soldiers holding positions. A sixth throne sat empty, with some veil covering it as if to protect it from the dust.

“Grogar’s armies are still marching from the badlands, his troops don’t know death; every kill on either side just comes back to serve him, and we are quickly getting overwhelmed,” reported Alchemia. The green and black prince of transmutation moved the red troops in the badlands towards the north. “I spent days with Gusty taking them out in an effort to slow them and nothing has worked, unfortunately,” he explained.

“Yes, we fought as hard as we could, but it ultimately was for nothing. We heard things do not go well on your end as well?” asked the white alicorn of enchantments, turning to the other alabaster alicorn in the room.

Celestia watched the room with a serious frown, before speaking up. “Luna and I might have found a way to fight off Grogar’s army, but first we believe that Princess Amore has something to say about Prince Sombra’s absence,” she remarqued coldly.

The cream colored alicorn sat up from her throne at the mention of her name. “I am afraid that Prince Sombra has betrayed us,” she declared with disdain as the room was filled with gasps of shock at the news. When silence eventually returned, she continued. “It is the tragic truth, unfortunately. He got absorbed by Grogar’s lies and turned on us. He captured the crystal empire in a day and I had to flee to preserve my life and warn you,” reported Princess Amore as she materialised toy-sized crystal troops on the battle map in the crystal empire. “He enslaved the empire’s population and is currently walking the frozen north to Equestria.”

“This doesn’t surprise me, it’s not like we couldn’t have seen it coming. ‘Prince of the dark arts’? Really? Couldn’t he make it any more obvious?” sardonically commented Gusty.

“Art thee insinuating that We are a traitor to thy person too, then? As Princess of the Night, We, too, have learn’d the dark arts, shall thee treatest us like a traitor too bi cause of this fact?” Asked Luna from her throne with no small amount of anger in her voice.

“Luna, calm down! Gusty, we will have a word in private later about your comment,” reprimanded Celestia. “As for you, Luna, I understand you were close to Prince Sombra—”

“Actually he calls himself King Sombra now,” butted in Princess Amore.

“King Sombra,” continued Celestia, mildly annoyed. “But you mustn't put your feelings over the facts. He chose his side and will assume the consequence fully, despite his status.”

No one dared to continue after Celestia’s last statement, and so she carried on with the next subject. “Now, as I was saying, Luna and I might have found a way to defeat the army of the dead and possibly Grogar himself.”

“What do you mean, ‘possibly’?” inquired Alchemia. “He’s absorbed the power of so many alicorns, our brothers and sisters, what could possibly stop him now?” he asked.

“Weapons. We have found a way to make weapons imbu’d with our pow’r. Weapons of such strength that we could defeat any evil,” Luna explained. “We have already created ours. We shall show thee how to make those for they will be needed in the coming fights”

From behind her throne, Luna levitated a tall spear, dark as night, with two heads held by a lunar crescent at its top. “This is our spear. We can conjure the pow’r of our stars with it. We can also bring it into the dream realm and deal real damage to the souls of those We strike.”

The assembly of alicorns all looked at the spear with respect and disbelief at the power inside it. “How did you make this Luna?” inquired Gusty. “There is so much power in it, there’s no way you could have fabricated it. It’s probably stronger than any of us!”

“You are only half-right, Gusty,” said Celestia. “We looked through the research of our mentor, Star Swirl, and of other alicorn’s works and came up with a way to infuse our power inside a weapon. For unknown reasons however, those weapons increase whatever power we gave them substantially.”

“This doesn’t seem right, there has to be a price to pay to get these things,” argued Alchemia. “Tell us, Princess Luna, what does it cost to create such weapons?”

All eyes turned to the lunar princess, who returned the looks with silence. “Thou art right to be wary of how We made Our spear. T’is dark magic, after all. We have chosen to give away Our immortality to acquire it,” confessed Luna.

Once again, the room was filled with gasps of shock at the revelation. Only Celestia kept herself calm and waited for the noise to die down before speaking up once again. “My sister has made the right choice. I too will make this sacrifice if it means defeating Grogar. I only fear that the two of us won’t be enough against the tyran and his new ally.” Celestia paused an instant, pondering how to formulate her thought “That is why it pains me to have to ask you, the last of the alicorns, to make yourselves mortals and fight with us in hope of defeating this evil.”

Silence filled the room, the tension almost palpable.

Finally, Gusty shot up from her seat, wing deployed, as if to draw attention to herself. “Luna, Celestia, I know that the three of us had our differences of opinion over the years, and in normal time I would never even have accepted a seat at the same table as you two. Fortunately for you, we are facing the most evil fiend that has walked this land and I can put aside our past squabbles for this. However, you’re asking a whole lot from us, don’t you think? Immortality was granted to us by Mother Tempora when we ascended, giving away her gift seems a bit much in my opinion.”

“As selfish as ever I see,” commented Princess Amore. “I’ll gladly give away eternity to save the present. What chances do we have to win against Grogar without these weapons anyway?” she asked rhetorically.

“About zero point six percent, actually,” responded the oblivious Alchemia. “What? I crunched the numbers while you were talking,” he explained in response to the many looks the others gave him.

“What about you, Prince Alchemia, will you go with this fool’s plan?” asked Princess Gusty.

“Obviously yes. My mentor, Princess Crystal Oracle, had predicted creations of such weapons, I just didn’t know I would be part of it. I know that if the weapons aren’t made, Grogar most likely wins. I remember her telling me that ‘The Great White Mare’ was the one to finish the horned beast.”

Gusty groaned at the mention of the alicorn of Divination, if she predicted something so accurately then they had to create those weapons to have a chance to win. Everypony was now looking expectantly at Gusty for her final answer. “Fine. I guess there’s no point in being immortal if he ends up killing all of us anyway. Show us how to make these weapons, Princess Luna,” ceded Gusty finally.

The mentioned lunar Princess nodded in affirmation. “Good, We shall now show you how to make your new Regalia.”

It was Celestia’s turn to be surprised at Luna’s words. “Regalia?”

“Aye sister, We think the name fits the tool. Those are symbols of our pow’r as alicorns aft’r all,” she explained.

Everypony at the table agreed on the name for the new weapons and arrangements were made to start the process of creation of the alicorn’s Weapons of War.