Her hooves clacked on the tile floor beneath her. The sound they made was nearly deafening in the silence, as Celestia looked towards the door at the opposite end of the hallway, standing between a set of guards, their golden armor gleaming in the buzzing lights overhead. The pair, a unicorn mare and an earth pony stallion, seemed ready to jump in between her and the other door, as the three of them paused in the middle of the corridor.
The silence was worse than the clack of metal shoes on the ground, but Celestia, with her violet eyes locked on the door, stood stock still, her little ponies standing with her. She wished, not for the first time, that she could bring the stallion closer to her, as she noticed his stance was not quite so strong as the mare. She wished she could reassure him that this would be over soon, and that it would be alright.
She wished she could lie to him. That was not the first time she had wished such. Nor, she might admit if only to herself, would it be the only lie she told her ponies. But he would believe her, just as they would, his old life already nearly forgotten, as he stood with her now. A year ago, he’d been a man, she thought of African descent, or so he’d said, who’d grown up in the heartland of America.
He’d volunteered to be here…both today, and to take the change. It had been a horrible time, honestly. The first few attempts, barely successful, even by the overly generous metrics of the scientists behind the project. But with people like ‘Coal Blade’, as he now called himself, it had eventually come to the point where the ‘ponification’ process was stable, and they could convert a million a day into ponies.
She lamented the need for it. This was not what many of the people of this world would wish for. But, it had become necessary. One year ago, in the north pacific ocean, her continent had appeared, drawn through a ‘crack’ between dimensions into this world. No one knew why, and the transport had ripped the magic from her little ponies, leaving them nearly decrepit and barely able to move.
It had taken months to restore themselves, so they could start walking around, and the pegasi could fly again. But it was inevitable that they would. Magic was transfinite, a word she’d learned from the humans studying the phenomenon. It could be exhausted in the moment, it had a limit on how much it could put out at one time, but it would recover eventually, and thus it had been.
What they hadn’t expected was that magic was wholly incompatible with their world. It changed the flora and fauna, giving it properties it never had before. Worse was what it did to the humans though. If it had killed them, that might have been a kindness, as then they would at least have rested, but no, it made things of them. Some were simple transformations into other species of her homeworld, but others…they were worse.
She remembered that first time one of them, on a plane passing just that little bit too close to the dome of light, had someone change into…she had heard the humans call it a ‘kaiju’. She wasn’t entirely convinced. Those at least mostly seemed to have forms, seemed to be solid things. This person, for they never did figure out who it was, had changed into a massive cloud like being.
That had taken a dozen or more master unicorns, including Twilight and her friends, to contain, and in the end she’d been forced to burn it away, when it proved nothing remained of the person it had been. Since, they’d been looking for a way to stop this. To slow the barrier, to control it somehow. Their best was the Conversion Process, and to be fair, it seemed to be working for the moment.
But the humans were resisting, claiming it was brainwashing them, changing them. To be fair, it sort of was. You didn’t change species without some mental effects. Going from omnivore to herbivore alone would cause all kinds of alterations, not to mention the brain chemistry, and the sudden addition of a magical sense, one of three depending on the process, and it was a given they would change.
But there was nothing malicious about it. These so-called ‘New Foals’ that everyone seemed to be frightened of were the exceptions, and most of those were abuse victims, or prisoners that had been forcefully subjected to a flawed version of the conversion process. She cared for them, as best she could, but the world seemed to see that as nothing more than her taking them in as slaves.
Thus it came to this. She was here at this island, a small atoll a hundred miles from the Equestrian coast. To meet with…she wasn’t sure. A representative of Humanity she’d been told. She would explain to them, with all the Love and Tolerance she could, and hope they would understand. If not, if they moved to harm her ponies, those who were always or even those who had chosen to become so, she would teach them why she had so many titles.
The door at the other end opened. Her horn shone at the tip for a moment, a time keeping spell telling her they were only a few minutes late. A slight, one designed to engender her hatred perhaps. To distract her? Worse, she saw the ones coming on. She had expected a civilian dressed in a fine suit, instead it was military, the United States she believed. A colonel by rank, if she was reading his uniform the right way.
Insults on insults then. They thought her petty enough to be distracted, perhaps? She was not, and even tried to put on her best smile as the man came down the hall, staring into her face. She dipped her head slightly, and for a moment, she wondered if Coal Blade would try to stand on his hind legs to look his former fellows in the eye. He did not, however, merely standing by, gripping his spear more tightly with his hoof.
“Princess. My name is Colonel Danford, I’ve been empowered by the United Nations to speak on behalf of humanity. May we adjourn to the conference room, and begin these proceedings,” he said, not a bow of the head to be found. He also didn’t wait for her to say anything, instead moving towards the side of the hall, where a double door was opened to a dimly lit conference room.
Outside, she felt, through her magic, the presence of other humans. Not many, a few, from the helicopter that had brought the Colonel and his two guards to this location, this small building, built solely for this meeting. Oddly, they left something outside, a small box. Perhaps a radio for them to summon the vehicle again? Though it was strange that it was leaving at all, was it not?
Putting these thoughts out of her head, the Princess moved into the room, a large, as these things went, table in the center. Round, with maps on both walls. One was of Equus, her homeworld, the one from which Equestria had been ripped. That was the wall facing towards her homeland. The other, facing away, held a map of Earth, an older one, as it did not show Equestria on it at all.
She took her seat on the Equestrian side of the table, and watched as the Colonel and his men took seats on the other side. They looked…resigned. Not nervous as one might expect in this last ditch effort to forge a peace between their peoples before pressures, social or otherwise, forced a conflict between them. Had they given up already on that? It was strange that they would send someone of such rank to this if it was to succeed.
“Very well then, I suppose I should start us off. We have only one piece of business. The Governments of the United Nations, as well as several outside its purview, have drafted this notice. Read it in full, please,” he said, and pulled out a small stack of papers from his pocket, unfolding them, and then slapping them, soundly, onto the table. They were crinkled and looked more like it had been scribbled quickly, rather than thought out over the course of hours.
Celestia, using her magic actively for the first time since she’d gotten there, had her horn glow, and with a sweep of her head, brought the document across the table to her. The glow was bright, for such a simple action, and the two beside her jittered a little, Coal holding his spear closer to him, and the unicorn looking like she was ready to fire off an attack spell at a moment’s notice. The two soldiers around the Colonel were holding their own weapons in what she knew to be a ready position as well, not pointed at her, but ready to be so in a heartbeat.
She let her gaze drift down to the document before her, and Celestia felt her heart sink as the world came from the page. She was no ‘expert’ in human language, but she was a fair hoof at them at this point. The words were coarse and rough, like they’d been ripped out of a mouth and slammed down onto the pages, pages that were a universal declaration of war against her people for their ‘crimes’.
She took her time, reading through the list of them, making note of each one. The deaths from the tidal shift when Equestria appeared. The deaths from cults formed in the wake of such. The ‘deaths’ of those who had already undergone conversion. They were even being blamed for, of all things, the deaths of a group of party goers that were killed by a madman who’d shot it for the decorations. She remembered that incident, and mourned the loss of so many innocents for such insanity.
When she was done, flipping to the final page of the stack, she found signatures, the reason for it being handwritten she assumed. She recognized the names on the list, including representatives from almost every country on Earth. Either they had met together, or given the documents’ condition, it had found itself shipped all over this world in a few hours, showing just how dedicated to this they all were.
Princess Celestia, Monarch of Equestria, was not one for panic or distress. She had faced the Horde of Dark Claw, Lord of the Wolf Tribes, the Great Disaster that had come from the Dragon’s Conclave, that had threatened to burn the world to ash, the Sky Palace of Emperor Gates, Greatest of the Gryphonian Empire’s rulers. She had even faced the S’M’Ooze, which had tried to swallow their world in its horrid body, deafening them with its myriad voices.
This declaration did have an effect on her, however, as she took in a deep breath, and sighed it out, before looking up to the Colonel. His face was hard, and she knew why, as she stared into his face. This was to be his final act, and the moment she was facing him, the moment the message was received, his companions moved, their weapons going up, and then bursting out with fire.
That instant, Coal Blade and the unicorn moved as their training dictated. The mare threw a shield up, and shoved it forward, the bullets from the rifle not even denting it, instead making it ripple, as the round plate of magic sailed forward, and then smashed into the man, his gun exploding when the barrel became blocked, even as he himself was shoved into the wall, a horrid crack echoing from the impact as the shield held him tightly against it.
Coal’s spear moved with a flourish, the bullets, all that power in a weapon, blocked with a swirl, all of them, as he used his reflexes to keep up with the attack, approaching the man who had to eventually change clips, the operation taking only a fraction of a second. But that was enough. The spear, not even dented by the impacts, was still spinning, and its haft slammed into the other man.
His helmet kept him from being killed or knocked out, but his weapon was knocked from his hands, and before he could pick it up, that same spear was driven through the middle of it, the soldier reacting by pulling a knife and a pistol. Neither of which he got to use. Coal was just faster, and stronger, as his weapon smashed, broadside against the hands of the human, the crack of finger bones audible.
It was seven heartbeats, and suddenly, the Colonel was the only one on his feet, staring at the two beside him, grinding his teeth hard enough for one to audibly crack. He had no weapon directly, but staring at her, he nodded, and pulled a small rod, a controller with a single button on the top, from a pocket on his uniform. He pressed it, bracing himself for what was to come, willing to give his life if it slowed this supposed goddess down by even an instant.
The look on his face as he slowly opened his eyes staring at the button was comical enough that Celestia had to fight down a laugh. Her two guards were not so inclined, and Coal actually barked something out, as the Colonel tapped the button again and again, before his spear knocked the controller from the Colonel’s still confused hand, and the unicorn literally picked him up, her shield holding his subordinate not even wavering as she placed him back into his seat, and allowed Celestia to rise from her chair, a subtle glow from her horn fading, from the spell she’d cast to disable the weapon.
“Colonel, by the rules of war, rules your people had my nation sign only six months ago, declarations of war need to be understood by both parties. Attacking within seconds of laying down such a declaration is considered a war crime, by your people, are they not?” she asked, and the Colonel said nothing in response. She nodded to the unicorn, who smirked a bit more viciously than she would have liked as she applied a bit of magic to the spell.
This mare, one of Celestia’s personal guards, was trained in ‘Dark’ magic, spells Celestia herself had considered making illegal, but simply allowed to fall from the memory of her ponies. Still, she kept a few, and even allowed her personal guard to know them from her. This one not only caused pain, but forced a person to speak what was on their mind, the perfect interrogation and instruction spell.
“We had to kill you! You’re so powerful! You boiled an ocean!” he declared, straining against the pain, trying to keep himself from speaking. Fear however, showed in his eyes, fear of the images of her flying above the sea during the incident with the ‘kaiju’. She had hoped being open and honest, as well as coordinating with them during the affair would have helped them see she had no ill intentions. Before that thought finished the man tried to bite off his tongue, but she literally yanked on his jaw with her own magic, pulling it apart.
“Try that again, and I will remove your teeth,” she said, coldly, and walked around, to stand over him. For an instant, his fear evaporated, as a stronger emotion overcame him, allowing him to act like he wasn’t terrified at all. In fact, he tried to spit at her, but the spell holding him only made it dribble down his front, making him look as childish as he was.
“Very becoming of a soldier,” she mocked, using her magic to pull a handkerchief from his pocket and clean him, like a mother to a child. She then stood over him, as she stared into his face.
“You brought an explosive, one you would never use on your own people, to the borders of my Kingdom, to use against me because you were afraid of me. Is this all you’ve done?” she asked, teleporting the device onto the table between them. He smirked in response to her question, obviously about to say something, only for the spell to shock him, this time visible arcs of lightning playing over his body in a variety of colors, each one causing its own kind of pain, but causing no lasting harm to him at all.
“Ships, I don’t know how many. All of them, from what I remember. Everything that could float and had a gun on it. Your field, it screws with missiles, so they’re using old fashioned shells instead,” he said through clenched teeth, obviously trying to fight his own traitorous mouth. He was still trying to smile though, as if he were mocking her.
“And when will they fire?” she asked, and this time no spell was necessary.
“They were supposed to the moment I hit the nuke button. If not, in about five minutes. Then this dome of light thing your people generate will go away, and we can clean up after your mess,” he declared, and the unicorn looked at him, at that smile, and then started laughing. The alicorn only grinned at him, but Coal Blade seemed confused, looking from his monarch, to his sister in hooves, and to the human.
“Princess, I don’t think he’s kidding. That could be thousands of warships if he’s right. More than we have airships by a good three orders of magnitude,” he said, concern in his voice, but Celestia, her smile growing warm as she walked away from the Colonel, and stood before him, gently placing her hoof beneath his chin, so he was looking up at her.
“My little pony, you have no reason to fear. Their arms, strong as they are, will find no easy targets within Equestria,” she told him, and the Colonel barked a laugh.
“What? You think your ‘magic’ can save you? We saw your warships, Princess. Even if all of them were defending your borders, you’ve got no chance against human tech. Lasers and flight doesn’t change the fact that your ships are made of wood, and ours are steel,” he declared, and Celestia, still smiling, turned to him, the corners of her mouth growing sharp as she did.
“You foolish man. Is that what your leaders think? That those ships we fly are warships? I had thought your people smarter than that,” she said, and then placed a hoof on her peytral, the gem on her chest glowing, as it connected to others like it.
“Princess, this is Captain Spitfire. We were right. We’ve got a lot of them in the water. Do you want us to sink them?” asked a voice, female, gruff, sounding like the stereotypical soldier.
“No, Captain. Allow them to make the first move. We don’t want to be accused of being the aggressors here. We will allow the humans to start this war. Then, we will finish it,” she said the last in a dark tone, as she motioned with her hoof, and the unicorn, nodding, suddenly picked all three humans up, and dragged them, roughly, into their chairs, even picking up and slamming the Colonel down for good measure, before Celestia and Coal resumed their own seats.
An instant later, Celestia turned the jewel on her peytral, just a small twist, but instantly an image blossomed on the table between the two groups, one that looked almost real, as it slowly began to grow, spiraling outwards until it showed all of Equestria, with all the cities and the like in glorious detail. Then it kept going, and oceans were added, until finally, one could see the ships in the water, as stated, a fleet thousands strong, encircling the continent as best they could.
To be fair, it was a serious fleet. The Colonel had not been lying, it seemed like every ship with guns that could float was ready to make war on her continent. It was a major operation, and the fact that she had assumed it to be a threat only, not something they intended to use, showed Celestia’s faith in humanity was misplaced. She and her people watched as those ships began to turn in a full circle, each one’s guns turning as it faced the land of Ponies with its broadside.
Then with silent thunder, they fired. The image showed the shells, steel and iron things the size of trees, flying fast and true. They would strike the land down. She could imagine her ponies, confused, looking to the sky, and wondering if there was a storm scheduled for today that they hadn’t heard of. She could even picture children at play in parks, their parents ushering them into home to wait out the coming rain.
The image was terrible in her mind, but it would not come to pass. Had she been there, she would have erected a dome over the whole of her Kingdom, a strain, to be sure, but one she would gladly take unto herself. Then Luna or Twilight would act. They would tear the humans apart for this affront, and these people would learn they faced not one goddess, but a triumvirate of them.
She, her sister, or her apprentice, were not needed, however. This moment had been anticipated by her Captains. They had told her humanity wasn’t like ponies. They were more in the vein of griffons or dogs. They would need to be brought to heel. She had hoped they were wrong, but she had allowed them to make their preparations regardless, and as the Colonel watched, his eyes alight with anticipation for the first strike, the view flashed in blinding light.
It was odd to watch in image, magically generated, as a ring of grey, bordering on black, slowly formed from the odd clouds in the sky around her nation. When it was contiguous, when the ring was complete, those clouds issued forth bolts of lightning, precise and powerful, onto the incoming fire. Each shell, each attack, found itself struck with enough force that, if it did not simply explode in the air, it was driven into the sea, landing with a series of splashes, a kilometer or more from the coast.
“I say again, Colonel. My people have airships merely for the novelty of such things, and the transport of goods or persons that overland routes would not allow. When we go to war, it is the pegasi who are the front lines, and they ride HURRICANES into battle. Begin operation Stormwall,” she ordered, and her peytral blinks twice, acknowledging the command, the shimmering light on it fading for a moment, the image going dark as those holding the gems helping to gather the information to project it focused on other tasks.
When the image returned, when it resolved, the storms that had formed a ring around her Kingdom were pitch black, and the seas were in chaos. Discord would have laughed about it, watching as the waters rose into the sky, a few spouts at first, but forming into a solid wall before long, one that slowly began to move outwards, as the ring of clouds expanded, moving towards the fleet of ships.
“And now, let it be known, that humanity has issued its declaration of war against my ponies. And We answer in kind,” she said, a harsh whisper, as the ships saw the approaching storm, and began to act. Some, brave or foolish, souls fired into it, hoping perhaps that it was some trick, or maybe that their power could pierce the wall and work its way back to the shores of Equestria.
Those hopes were dashed, as the ships that did fire were themselves struck, not by one bolt, but dozens. It was interesting to watch, as shells had barely left the barrel detonated, the hulls scorching as the explosions, far too close to them, left their mark. And then the lightning came, the first few bolts ‘eaten’ by a mast or rod, only for them to explode into yet more shrapnel, and the body of the ship to take the rest.
Human made vessels, as it happened, were made well. Some of these, older than a single person manning them, took half a dozen bolts to the hull, the sea around them boiling as the metal grew red hot. Then, like a shaken can, they burst, flames and bodies spilling out as the bulkheads buckled outward, as the weapons that had lain inside were used against the ship rather than for it.
The sight of this, the horror of it, as the wall continued to advance, was enough to break some of those in the fleet. Ships, small and large alike, were already turning, trying to pull away from the attack, to perhaps regroup and try again when it had passed. The wall wavered wherever they were doing so, and the waver translated into the sea, stirring it well ahead of the wall’s touch.
Those ships that were only partially turned were soon battered by waves that started them tossing and turning in the surf. Soon swells as large as the deck would smash into the metal hulls, and you could actually see them begin listing for a moment, before the first, a small cruiser, went all the way on the side, bodies being tossed into the churning sea, as the rotors were pulled into the open sky.
And still the wall came on. One ship, it seemed, would face it head on, however. A battleship, a thousand feet of steel and power, charged the stormwall. Perhaps it believed itself able to pierce it, and her ponies allowed it to come on, even allowed it to fire a time or two, detonating the explosives just as they reached the upwards waterfall, seeming to taunt the human vessel as it drew closer with glimpses behind the sea spray, before those holes closed again.
The bow of the great ship slammed into the wall of liquids, and they sprayed out for a moment, parting the curtain, and giving them, if only for a moment, a ray of hope. She could see it in the faces of the three humans opposite her, thinking in that instant that they would win, that if even one ship were to pierce that veil, then it would all have been worth it, as they would be defenseless against its cannons.
She almost smirked at such foolishness. To think that they might succeed where dragons that could crack mountains with the beat of their wings had failed? It was the height of stupidity, and she took a kind of dark pleasure, the sort that she would never allow to the surface of her mind, but was there in her deepest thoughts, as the break in the sea curtain began to close, and the front of the ship began to rise.
The image was silent, but one could almost imagine the noise, as the ship started to move with the water, the bow lifting from the sea, as the hull took on the pressure of that great mass. To its credit, that ship stood tall and proud for an instant, the weight of it so great that you could see it already bending inwards. But it did not break right away under that assault, and that spoke of the craftsponyship and care put into it.
And then it was rent in twain. The hull buckled at the center of it, bending no more, it tore, and the innards of the great ship spilled out into the sea for a moment, before those were tossed within the coming stormwall. Like the grindstone of a great mill, it wore at the debris and refuse in the water, soon reducing it to clumps that mixed and churned in the sea, a few red spots vanishing quickly showing the cost in lives at the vessel’s loss.
Still came the Stormwall, and now, unable to flee, and with no way to resist, the ships in the fleet began to fire rapidly. The pegasi no longer fired back. They did not need to, the battleship’s fate was not unique, as every blast and shell would find itself smashed upon that barrier, and she saw flickers, likely smaller arms from the deck, desperate men and women trying to hold off the end of the world.
She felt the struggles in the room, she could hear the cries, the two men held in their seats beside the colonel, begging through their jaws forced shut by magic, trying to throw themselves, their people, on her mercy. Had they attacked her alone, with all this firepower, she might have shown them such. She would have knocked all their weapons from the sky, and done nothing else. Taken no lives.
But they did not attack her alone. They had struck at her ponies, bringing them into the fight. And should she show mercy to those like them? Had not everyone in this room, every sailor on those warships, come here expecting that this might not return home to their kith and kin, instead being lost to the sea? She knew they had, these ones most of all had expected their lives to be forfeit.
What they had not expected was that they would lose. They had been prepared to fight, prepared to die, for that was the way of soldiers and warriors. But always, they thought, victory was assured, that those above them had planned well, and would spend their lives with the eye to gain for their cause. Now they knew it was a waste, that they would die for naught, and would be forgotten at best, held up as monsters at worst.
The colonel, through all this, Danford, was sitting in his seat, and doing nothing. He said nothing for some time, as she still held his mouth in the grip of her own magic, but his eyes were steely and cold. Was he unmoved by this? Thinking it some trick? Or was he simply that well trained? Then she saw it, the flicker in his stance, the slight tilt of his head. The coward had done something, taken some poison, from the tooth he’d cracked before pushing the button for the weapon, and barely understood what was happening before him as it was now eating away at his mind.
Truely, she would have stoned him then. To have brought men, braver than he, to their deaths when he could not face such? It was not just the act of a coward, but of a hypocrite. She would seal his soul in rock, petrified and standing in her garden with a dozen others of his ilk for all time, unable to move or act, only able to see the scorn heaped upon him by those passing, for the rest of eternity.
She did not do this, however. She flicked her horn, and with a single thought, she undid the poison. She pulled it, roughly, from his veins, the black ichor tearing itself out of him in a dozen places, his wounds seeping blood for an instant before she closed them, and then burned away the filthy toxin. When she looked at him again, dazed and confused, she used another spell to jolt him into consciousness, causing him to start crying as he struggled and squirmed in her grip.
The view, in those few heartbeats had changed. The ships, not willing to turn their backs, had still tried to angle away from the coming storm, and a few had run afoul of the courses of their brothers and sisters. Slamming into each other, slowing each other down, as the wall grew closer and closer still with each passing moment, none able to so much as slow it by an inch, as doom came for them all.
“You know, I once explained how the water cycle of Equestria worked to one of your scientists,” she suddenly said, drawing the eyes of the other five in the room to her, all but one grateful to not look upon the horror for at least a moment.
“I told her that, given my little ponies did the weather manually, since the Reign of Chaos, that in the beginning of spring or fall, a village was selected, and all throughout the season, the water from its region would be collected in a lake dug out by earthponies. Enough to hold the equivalent of a dozen and more olympic swimming pools worth of water,” she said this idly, as if educating a foal on something, and to be fair, it gave a measure her own ponies would have been confused by…though the practice was common enough that they would know without being told how much water that was.
“At the end of the season, the pegasi would gather and millions of liters of water would be lifted into the sky almost two and a half kilometers. And when she asked how many of my ponies would be needed for such a feat, if it was the undertaking of their entire population, trained from birth for such a thing, I had to chuckle at such a thing,” she continued, watching the boats begin to sway and rock, as the wall grew yet closer, and now was on the verge of consuming them.
“It would be only a few civilians, fifty to a hundred at most, all of them training for a week or so beforehoof, and it failed only rarely. Ten trained Wonderbolts could do the same. This wall is over a thousand such ponies, who have trained their whole lives to join the foremost fliers in Equestria, working in concert,” she explained, and as if on cue, the first ship was taken by the wall.
The battleship, heavy and driving into the storm, had caused the curtain to part for a moment, its weight and power enough to make the storm do that much. This ship, a small destroyer, did not do such. Instead it began to list to the side, and then fell into the sea with a silent crash. And still the wall came on, the vessel lifting from the sea, and beginning to spin roughly, sickeningly, scattering loose bits of itself and its crew into the waves.
It was soon joined by others. Entire groups of ships would be spinning, crashing again and again into that wall and the choppy waters. It was a horrific sight, and soon, not one vessel was recognizable as a ship of the sea, instead being rocks tumbling about, metal bits that were ground down shrinking with each pass, slowly wearing out until finally, with a suddenness that shocked anyone watching, the stormwall broke apart, and began to move in clumps.
She knew what they were doing. Vessels without guns, carriers and such just beyond the horizon, were out there, waiting to send flying things to finish the job the guns would begin. Her Captains were under orders, humanity was not to have a single vessel on the ocean within distance of her ponies. She could see it in her mind’s eye as the captains of those ships would hear conflicting messages from the fleet. Some might even launch their fighters to try and assist the fleet in some way.
Each in turn would be destroyed. None would be spared, as they had chosen to attack not only the military of her nation, but its people in their entirety. She could do no less, and she soon banished the image on the table leaving all save herself blind for that instant. But her eyes shone in the darkness, glowing with embers cruel and smoldering, as she stood tall before the humans in front of her.
“You have brought war to Equestria. We now gift you the same,” she said simply, and then began to leave, the three humans being forced to follow, as the unicorn held them in her magic, the former human, now earthpony following behind, his spear pointed at them, as if they might break her grip on them. To be fair, less defeated people might have, with concerts of effort, done so. But they were broken men, as they were escorted from the small building, and back into the day outside.
That night, she would speak, through every radio, television, and even most computers, thanks to something Twilight had designed. She would show the images of what had been done, the attack thwarted, and the counterstroke so completely obliterating the forces of the world of humanity, that they had nothing left. The views of the storm were the most powerful, but seeing their proud pilots knocked from the sky by small flying horses seemed to affect some most of all.
She had to admit, the images of her ponies dodging and weaving amidst their weapons of war, the nosecones lighting up, and lances, missiles, firing at them. But her ponies had trained all their lives for such combat, though not these specific foes. They danced around their enemies, and when they were in position, they let loose storms. Winds, fire, and lightning played off metal hulls, and they bloomed like terrible flowers of smoke and death in the sky.
And while none of them were fatally wounded, thanks to their planning, and the sheer contempt their foes had held them in until the moment they lost, it was still an effort and more to see this work done. Physical wounds would heal, in the coming days and weeks. A month and some change, and they might again have a Stormwall at their beck and call, perhaps to use in an offensive operation this time, or perhaps simply to defend her shores.
The psychological damage? Her ponies had been raised in an era of peace and prosperity. They had suffered in the accident that brought them to Earth, but had bounced back just as strong. Still, many amongst the Wonderbolts had never seen battle before, and never seen their enemy so…weak and pathetic. A spar with a griffon sure, perhaps even a battle with a dragon. But to watch one’s foes die by the thousands at your own hoofs was not the sort of thing that would go without a mark on their souls.
To the peoples of Earth she allowed none of this to be known. Instead she showed the declaration of war against her ponies via their means to send it to every nation on Earth, scoffing at the list of ‘crimes’, and declaring that, as of this moment, they were indeed at war. She would give them a single week, and then she would visit the United Nations, to accept their unconditional surrender. That done, she waited, and it took, surprisingly, almost a half an hour to get a response from one of the nations not yet part of that group.
She was curious, as she read over the reply, the language translated as best it could be to her own, though many of the more…colorful phrases had no direct equivalent in the tongue she knew. Still, it was what she needed, and she spoke with Luna about what should be done. Her sister, ever the one for conquest, a trait she herself had once shared, though had grown weary of in a thousand years, leapt at the chance to show her power.
That night, as the moon rose, the country’s neighbors spoke of a massive flash of light, one that continued on for so long as the great white pearl in the sky beamed down at them, and it scared those who might otherwise have gone to see what was going on, as none heard a single noise. Not the roar of fire or silver tone of magic. Instead, the light was cold and silent, as the moon plied its course through the heavens.
When the sun finally rose to banish the horrible night, it took hours for some soul to work up the bravery to make it to the border, and what they found was a horror that would not have ever imagined possible. Shorn smooth edges now hung before a pit, the road, ground, and even trees and rocks were cloven clean into bits, the pieces missing falling squarely in the borders of the country that had declared it would never surrender.
The edges were, by the time the observer arrived, already beginning to collapse, and the space, a hole just a bit ahead of ten meters deep, almost to the bedrock in this area, was slowly beginning to fill, as the nearby seas found themselves with space to move into, and the sight of it, of the waves washing into this place, this once home to millions, that had been simply erased in a single night, would linger in the nightmares of so many for generations to come.
No other voice was raised in dissent, no other nation was suicidal enough to believe that they might survive…whatever had come to this world, and so the leaders of the world either huddled in their homes, or fled as best they could, running before the ponies, or worse yet, their own people, could demand something of them. Luna, seeing them scramble, laughed, and offered to make an example or two of those who fled, but Celestia held her back. They would have their debts paid, when it was done.
So she waited, one week passed. Days slowly drifted, one to the next, without the need of her to make it so. It would have been relaxing, honestly. When she had first begun to recover from being ripped from her home to this place, it had been like a vacation of sorts. Now, she dreaded it, and as the final day came upon them, she approached her nephew, Blueblood, and he escorted her with guards into an airship, and set sail for the place where this would end.
The journey was boring, honestly. She, and Blueblood, had expected the humans to make a play, to bring forth their weapons again, to possibly try and attack her home while she was away. But Luna remained, and Twilight, at her side, kept tabs on their communications. They monitored their flight, marking their exact location, but they did little more than watch as they made their way to the U.N. Building, and settled outside.
Blueblood, in his role as ambassador, led the way, waving to the cameras, flashing a smile, trying to appear ever the approachable stallion. The click of cameras, the flash of lights seemed to excite him. But when they looked on Celestia, they would see Marble Made Flesh from her. Stern expression, and mane that moved only when she turned her head, and her gaze enough to make them cower in fear.
Luna was still recovering. Her act was not one of ease, after all, and despite the week’s passing, she was still in Canterlot Castle, ready to defend their border, should it be necessary, but if nothing threatened, she would merely rest. It fell to her older sister to take this message where it needed to go, and to stand tall and proud before the human race, and declare their victory.
Twilight, beside her, was less sure of herself, trying to maintain the same stoic gaze, and Celestia truly regretted the need of this. In another life, she would have eased her into the duties of a ruler, giving her more and more responsibility only as she proved steady enough to balance it. She had, at one point, even brought up the idea with Luna of giving her the throne entirely, should she prove able to shoulder it all.
But this was not a world that would allow that. This was not a place with enemies broken, and friendships forged. This human world required that Celestia be hard, and Twilight Sparkle, her apprentice, would need to be much the same. Still, she walked with power, and soon, the sound of their hooves on tile marked their entrance into the building, and they strode towards the dais, and history.
“My fellow diplomates and leaders, I am Blueblood, Ambassador of Equestria, Prince of the Realm, and Captain of her Sky Navy. You here today have been assembled for one reason, and I will not drag that out beyond what is needed. We, and I’m using this as both the Royal We and to indicate the two behind me, are here to accept your surrender,” he began, clipping his hoof against the podium he stood behind.
It was interesting to watch, honestly. He moved through their ranks so seamlessly, asking questions, seeming to know each person he met on an individual level, able to name them, and even able to ask about family members, giving condolences for those who had lost them in the attack, and even making small talk about most things, though avoiding the weather for obvious reasons.
That had shocked them, to find him to be so…amicable. He was, as he had declared, a diplomat, after all. In Equestria, he was known to be pompous, oafish, and without a care for those beneath his station. That was not an act either, but simply a lack of care on his part for the individual, and more a care for the group as a whole, and he had over the years of his life, proven his skill at the negotiation table more than once.
He was the carrot Celestia used on those beyond her borders, where her stern motherly gazes did no good, and she instead had to be hard as the mountain. She had been, for a thousand years, the stick, and for his lifetime, and those of his family stretching back to the time of Nightmare Moon, his blood had been the ones to come in afterwards, and show genuine concern for those harmed by what she had to do.
“This cannot be an easy thing, to admit defeat, but, you have seen the power of my nation, when it is angered. You have felt the touch of Moonlight on your soil, and watched the whole of a people vanish into the light forever, a consequence of their choices, of choices this body and those it represents made to declare war on us, on Equestria in her entirety,” his voice echoed slightly on the word ‘war’, but otherwise his tone was even, and without reproach.
“We desire no other life lost, no other people lost, but we cannot allow the blade at our throat to remain there. Not when we can turn it aside. And thus we have. The attack was thwarted, and today, I bring you the survivors, returned in good faith, and in good health, to the peoples from which they come, and hope it proves we are not monsters, that we do what we must, what we have been driven to, but no more,” as he spoke, the door in the back opened.
Coal Blade and the unicorn mare, along with another contingent of guards, including some unconverted humans, walked into the chamber. They held no weapons, but their uniforms told you they were not harmless without such. Between the group, outnumbered three to one, marched those survivors, their number slowly making their way to stand before the podium at the center of the chamber.
There were eight, including Colonel Danford and his two subordinates. They looked oddly mismatched, being from more than four nations between them, and with wildly different builds, though they all wore the clothing that marked them as prisoners of Equestria, grey things that seemed to blend into the background, as they stood there, trying their best to stand straight, but fidgeting as so many eyes turned to them.
They were in good health, better even than when they’d been taken, fished from the seas in the case of the five others. Two were engineers, their engine rooms near the center of their vessels padded in such a way to protect them when the rest of their ship had been destroyed. One was from a submarine, destroyed without being noticed by the pounding from above, who had been near the hatch when the pressure had crushed the rest like a can.
The other two were pilots, with one seeming the most dejected of the group. The others, for all that they were military, had been enclosed by their vessels. These two had made war on the Wonderbolts, the female pilot, her ebony skin shining a little, even looked proud, as she had claimed the one casualty of the entire action, having clipped the wing of one of the Wonderbolts who had come against her. That same one, with a healed wing, was standing with the other guards, eyeing her despite himself.
It was, all total, a pitiful showing. There should have been so many more, so many lives that should have been saved. But the Stormwall allowed for little mercy, and survival against it had odds that bordered on miraculous when it happened. The pilots, meanwhile, had been flying metal tubes that exploded, and few had the chance to bail out when they came under attack, and fewer had the will to do so.
Still, it made a point. For all that the human race had sent everything they might muster against her nation, these were the ones that survived, and almost half of those had been with her when the counterstroke happened. This was a goodwill gesture, but it had an impact as well. If you fight us, this is all that will be left, and yet, Blueblood seemed ignorant of the second meaning, as he smiled his best, and continued.
“One year ago, my Princess came to you as a beggar, as a lost soul seeking solace, as her nation, in part though not in whole, was displaced from our world, our home, and transplanted on yours by forces neither your science nor our magic have been able to understand, let alone reverse, leaving us as naught but beggars, until our power slowly returned to us,” he spoke, as Twilight used her magic to take control of the massive screen behind him, and flashed those terrible images of her ponies, bodies in the streets, not dead, but drained so wholly of magic they felt like they might as well have been.
“Then, the moment we began to find out hoofing, you, this body, those behind you, decided we were growing too strong, too fast, and struck at us. Fear, jealousy, and hate drove your actions. We, the ponies of Equestria, well know these things, and have seen what they do to a nation and people,” he said, his voice reproachful, but without a hint of malice.
“When she spoke to you, it was as if you were ponies, as if you had tried to turn aside from such base things. Today, I speak to you as if you were dragons. You think those beneath you can be bullied, can be turned aside, and as the Great Wyrms learned, we are not so easily made meek. We will stand on our four hooves, and we will fight back, but we do not desire to go farther than that,” as he said the last, one of the men in the room leapt to his feet, his finger pointing towards Blueblood.
“If you desire no further violence, no loss of life, then why demand surrender, why push us to defend ourselves now, even as the dome of light continues its expansion, threatening every nation in this world?” he said, his voice filled with venom and hate, for all that his accent made it harder to understand. Celestia, looking to Blueblood, waited, but she began to draw on her power, should it be needed.
“Because you tried to kill us, Ambassador. You didn’t try to enslave us, to negotiate with us, or to offer us an alternative. You struck first, both at our Princess, the very Soul of our Nation, and at her people as well. We do not suffer such attacks lightly, nor is our trust easily earned once lost in such a manner,” he told him simply, and then, with a small movement, he dug a hoof into his coat pocket, pulling forth a fairly easily recognized document.
“By the words on this declaration, you blame us for simply existing, and to be fair to you, we are foreign, we are alien in fact. Life like you had never seen before, and our presence was affecting you in ways that neither of us understand. We were starting to, though, and even this magical field that comes from our land is proving something we can adapt to,” an image of a Conversion Chamber, staffed by an earthpony and a human.
“Conversion for those who wished to live with us, and thanks to your own scientist working with our greatest mages, we were learning to understand the barrier around my homeland. In time, we would have…no we will stop its growth, so it does not threaten your world,” he said, gently placing the document on the podium before him.
“We will not be erased for your sense of inner peace, however. Not when there are other ways, and that leaves us at this current impasse. You have attacked us, unprovoked, and did so with the knowing intent of genocide. Your own history shows that, when so threatened, your people have little qualms about returning such favor,” he said, slowly turning his gaze over the whole of the chamber, making sure each and every individual knew he was talking to them and their people directly.
“My people…we have never had to do so before. When the griffons attacked, we smashed them. When the dragons breached our borders, we drove them away, and that was the end of it. They were burned by our fires, and they knew well enough that they did not want to taste them again. Would that we could trust humans to do the same, we would simply close our borders, and that would be that,” as he spoke, he nodded to Twilight, whose horn began to glow slightly brighter, the large screen behind them suddenly shifting to other images.
“We cannot trust this. We cannot trust that you will not strike us again, will not keep coming, even with so much death,” what was behind him was…well a wall of human hatred made manifest. Interviews in a dozen languages with people who lost loved ones, demanding blood, and not of their leaders. Newspaper articles decrying the loss of life, and promising that more will be spent to gain victory.
The worst, and most damning, were private reports, including images, of various shipyards around the world, all building a new fleet, one that would take years, maybe decade to reach the size of the one they had lost, but it was being worked on, for the sole purpose of destroying the enemy. The ones they’d provoked into this, the ones who had simply sat there, and let them throw themselves against them.
“We have read your history, how many times ‘peace’ was just used for breathing room for the next war,” he said, and then motioned with a hoof, articles replacing those above, showing the many times that had happened. Where an armistice was just an excuse to bring more troops to the front, or even some things that were from history books, showing a blunted attack returning in full force during ‘peace times’.
“We will not allow this. We will not play these games with you, nor gamble our peoples’ lives that you blunder into such a defeat again. So here, on this day, My people demand your surrender. You will disarm, your military forces will disband, and you will become vassal states to our own,” he said with conviction, but you could hear the rumble from the crowd around him, and imagine it repeated a billion times over. Humanity would not submit, or so they would say.
“Your nations will survive. Your people will survive, though those that signed the declaration of war will be tried for their crimes. Your cultures, such as they are, might survive. I cannot promise they will. This is a drastic change, but it is not one that can be avoided. You have started this war, and now, we finish it today,” he stamped his hoof onto the desk, sounding like a gavel, and then waited, as the assembly digested what he’d said.
It was a lot, and the fact that they couldn’t deny…well couldn’t honestly deny, they were politicians and diplomats, denial came easy, but the proof was on the wall behind him, and anyone trying to do so would sound hollow. She expected it, however, and was shocked when instead, everyone sat down, and she saw most of them pick up phones or other communication devices, and began sending notes home.
It was in the middle of this that she felt it. Aggression, hate, rage. A boiling bloody mess, and she saw a few of the diplomats suddenly shoot to their feet, as something happened. She took a heartbeat to extend her senses outward, and follow the thread of all that anger to its source, and found…a missile. One of the city buster kind, the kind they’d tried to use against her, fired towards this building.
That was…the DRAGONS had not been so stupid! To attack her, when she was in the middle of another’s den, another nation’s great city? What madness gripped these humans, and before her eyes she saw the news ripple through the group before her. Panic, fear, terror was in them. Only one seemed calm, only one seemed accepting, and she sighed, thinking of how stupid that woman had to be.
“Princess?” Blue Blood turned towards her. He sounded…less concerned than he should have, given the magnitude of the weapon. It was with a question in his voice, as if asking if this was something she could handle. She nodded, turning to Twilight, and then stepping up to the podium, where the various dignitaries and diplomats were already starting to try and call their nations, trying to find out if it could be stopped.
Truth to tell, she could sense many defenses activating. No nation was without some guards, even now, and she even estimated that some of them might be able to work against this weapon. She would not allow it, however, and stood up to the podium, and then swung her head. A wash of golden light swept over the room, doing nothing really, but it looked impressive, and it drew every eye to her without the need to shout or otherwise strain herself.
“It would seem, another lesson is in order. A week hence, my sister felt it necessary to erase a nation from your world, to prove we were not to be ignored. This time, I will prove we have mercy, and only destroy those who have acted against us directly,” she said, and then nodded to Twilight, who focused her spell, and soon, the images on the screen of various reports were replaced with an image of a base.
This was a missile silo, built into a military base, somewhere on the almost opposite side of the planet. Clouds, exhaust really, hung around, from a weapon fired, and you could see the people there looking up, some scrambling, as this was a launch that had been barely announced to them, and while expected in general, it was still a shock to see the leaders go through with it.
Celestia, seeing them, seeing soldiers simply doing their duty, wished she could spare them, wished they would have simply abandoned their posts, but they were well trained, and so were still there as she closed her eyes, and reached out her senses. In moments, her magic felt the thing she was reaching for, and with it in her grasp, she tugged on one part of it, like unraveling a string from a ball of yarn, and then unwinding it.
The sun, to those looking at it, was normal. Only a few images would show a solar flare of unusual density rise from its surface, and then seemingly vanish into nothingness. But it was not vanishing, and it certainly wasn’t going into nothingness, as those in the base soon learned, as a ring of golden light appeared in the sky above them, a ring that began to heat up enough to cause them to sweat despite being high above.
Where Luna’s moonlight was cold and precise, where it could literally carve out a chunk of the world without going beyond what she wanted, Celestia’s power was nowhere near so surgical, nowhere near so gentle, and so when she let loose her fury, it was not with silence, but with a roar. Fire, molten, hot, and terrible, poured from the ring floating in the air above the base, and those beneath it were consumed utterly.
Twilight, to her credit, knew precisely how to focus the image her magic was projecting, adjusting the brightness in a heartbeat to prevent it from harming the vision of those in the room, but zooming in to show the people, their bodies dying instantly, as hair and skin burst into flames, and the innards boiled away, their bones even melting like wax when it was all done, running into puddles that evaporated in moments.
More importantly, she showed their weapons of war, deep bunkers beneath the base, places where the leaders had thought themselves safe from any counterstroke. They burned just the same, perhaps even worse, honestly, as their defenses held for that split second, forcing them to endure the torment of the sun’s wrath, until mercy saw it break through and end their pathetic lives.
When it was done, the view pulled back, and showed the base had been…simply expunged. There was no sign of its existence, only of the still smoldering desert of glass, with fire along the edges to show that something had been here, but had offended the Goddess of the Sun. This was what it meant to stand against her, and she smiled as she opened her eyes back onto the assembly, their faces frozen in abject horror.
Behind her, the image shifted again, to the weapon, and this time, pale violet light took hold of it, glowing all around it, before suddenly it was pulled apart, hovering, even flying into the air in pieces, with the dangerous core vanishing in a flash, as the remainder of its mass kept on going, being deposited in neat stacks on the roof of this very building, as Twilight herself looked on, never having had to close her own eyes to focus.
Her step faltered a little, as she took her place back in line with Twilight, who offered her a bit of support, letting it go unnoticed or uncommented on, but still, such had not been easy, and Celestia herself felt her body would require a lot of rest to recover from her exertion, but she stood straight as she found her hoofing again, and tried to exude once more that aura of an ageless goddess, walking amongst the mortals, and judging them.
Blueblood, having watched all this, nodded at it, feeling it only just and right that he take the final step, and with a swish of his blonde mane, he pulled out his weapon, a simple dueling blade, and then once again took the podium. Looking out on the faces of those before him, he did not smile, he did not even say a word, instead, he used his magic, and surrounded the delegate who had been behind the attack, in part or in whole, in a sphere.
“And so, you see that we are not to be trifled with. You WILL disarm, you WILL be made vassals. This is not a demand or a request, this is the future. If we have to burn the weapons from every hand that holds them. If we have to choke the life from every warmonger amongst you, this will happen. You have been seen, you have been measured, and today, you know, that your people have been found wanting,” he declared, as the sphere rose up, and then was held beside the image of the base and the missile.
He let it stand there, for a time, and at first, it seemed he did so just to gloat, but no. This was the hardest part of all. To kill while looking your enemy in the eye, as the delegate began to realize one important fact of Blueblood’s shield. It lacked any spell or hole to allow new air in.
Slowly, the people assembled here, and those at home would watch as this woman in a business suit, this woman who had been so willing to die moments ago, began pounding on the sphere, and gasped for breath. They would watch as her struggles grew weaker, as her expression changed from shock, to anger, to terror, to weeping, and finally, to stillness, as she slouched down against the bottom, and expired.
This was the power of the nation of Equestria. This was its will, set against the nations of the world of Earth, and it was the victor in all things. The body was left floating there, as Blueblood began to lay out terms, not specific ones, this was merely the acknowledgement of it all, of their surrender, but soon, he, and nobles like him, would take positions in each of the former nations, to take command of them.
/-/
Her hooves clacked loudly on the tile floor, as Celestia walked down the hall of the palace. Around her, arrayed in their armor, her personal guards were standing at attention. The ponies with their spears, the humans with their blades, all looking quite deadly. She tried her best to maintain her stoic expression as she slowly made her way down the corridor, but wanted to smile in pride at the way they were all standing together.
Even a few scant decades ago, there would have been separation, there would have been animosity in their stances and side eyes viewing each other. Today? They had no such feelings. Each one, trained in the ways of the Royal Guard, were without equal in combat, and they trusted each other with their lives. It was with that feeling that she reached the end of the hall, and made her way out onto the dais that held the three thrones of Greater Equestria, and took her seat.
Before her, delegates from around the world stood, humans and ponies alike, looking, if not a bit mismatched, at least like they all belonged in this room. She smiled warmly as she took her seat in the center of the thrones, lamenting only that, due to some test on the moonbase, that Luna and Twilight were not here to celebrate this occasion. Still, they were watching her, and she could see them on monitors behind the groups.
“We welcome all those before us, both those of Equestrian descent, those of more Earthly stock, and those that straddle the lines in between, to this joyous occasion. One-hundred years of peace for this world, and for the growth of our peoples, as one harmonious union,” she said simply, and she could hear cheers from outside, the booming sound of a million voices raised in celebration. She smiled at it all, at what had been made, and thus began her speech.
Author's Note
Was going to make this two chapters, but really, the epilogue is short and to the point.
So, that was this story. Where did this come from? Mostly just reading other Conversion Bureau fics, which typically have an HFY(Humanity Frick Yeah) perspective, which is fun and interesting sometimes, but oftentimes has something I take issue with.
One in particular had Celestia, who survived an attack like here, recover, and find only 100 ponies left. In retaliation, she started to warm the Earth(all of it via a sun in the pacific that was boiling the oceans), especially after humanity KEPT trying to kill her and her people. And she was still Princess Celestia, not TCB's common Queen Celestia/Xenolestia. She wanted to be a good pony, but with so few left, she responded in kind.
That one only had humanity 'win' because Twilight talked her down, after having teleported herself and 2000 or so ponies to the moon to escape, and she was disappointed in her mentor taking the actions she did. Both Celestia being able to heat the Earth, and Twilight teleporting that much mass that far really clenched home how...well how screwed humanity would have been in that confrontation, had the ponies just decided to fight back.
Here, I decided to show that off. 100 civilians were able to lift a massive amount of water into the sky several kilometers. So what happens when trained military, two of which in training could create a powerful tornado themselves, all work together to defend their home? Well, their home stays safe. And the Princesses, when angered, do not simply stand idle. They prove that that can be Powers, with a capital P, when needed.
I hope, dear reader, you enjoyed it for what it was, and as I had fun with the idea, and liked writing it.