The Eclipse Civil War

Tears Of The Sun

Nightmare Moon walked in her private room. She walked through the dark blue hallways, decorated with flags of a winged crescent moon and a star on top of a needle which was located on the middle of the crescent moon, guards, and eventually pillars. She walked until she arrived at two huge blue doors, with their symbol on the middle of each. She opened the door and she immediately located humanoid entity sitting on a chair, waiting.

The entity was a green scaled creature, with large lizard eyes, sharp teeth, claws on top of the five extensions what was known commonly as ‘hands’, and a long, thin tail. He was wearing a uniform, maybe? It was a style foreign to her, whatever it was wearing, he surely looked like a prophet. This was Salzar. An representing prophet sent from an alien species as a sign of their support for their cause. He represented the Reptilian Empire; The strongest species in the Universe, if his words spoke truth. And Nightmare Moon had no reason to doubt. While she did not see the technology herself, she saw some guards and came to a simple conclusion: Do not fight them.

“Good night, Nightmare Moon.” Salzar spoke in an amused tone.

“Good night, Salzar.” Nightmare moon responded.

“You received a letter, from ‘The President of the Galactic Democratic Sauria’. This person is the leader of military activity in the Universal Council, it letter states that he desires to make a visit.” Salzar said, again half amused of the content of the letter.

Nightmare Moon did not see the letter herself, but she knew that that name was not Equestrian. An alien species wishes to join their cause? She could not let this opportunity disappear. She did not waste time.

“And how shall we prepare for this visit?”

“Just do as I told you, and everything will be alright. If everything will go as planned, you-“

“We will have the firepower to get our freedom!” Nightmare cut off the reptilian.

He made a heavy sigh in frustration; “Yes, now I will make a list of things that must be done regarding his visit. It must be understood that a failure in such visit, will result a dramatic downfall in firepower for you and your republic.” Salzar continued.

“I know, how and when should we begin?” The night queen asked, eager to start.

“We will start in a few minutes, just let me do the list and I will return. When I return we will begin. In the meantime, if you want, inform your population, for this will be grand.” Salzar responded as he left the private chambers.

“So be it.” Nightmare responded, leaving the room and announcing her population, they simply had to know about this.

***

“When shall we depart? From what I see though the screen, they are preparing. They should be ready by the time we get there.” Arceus said, making a co-analysis between his visor and the Selsius. The visors’ lens was different from Fenrirs, as his is be blue, Arceus’ is red. Of course, the color is a matter of choice, and it could be easily modified from the settings.

After a few seconds of thinking; Fenrir responded.

“Meet me in the hangar in 2 minutes. We are about to make a diplomatic visit.” The president said as he departed.

“Ok. Nervous?” Arceus asked, but Fenrir did not respond. Maybe he did not hear?

He was looking at a city that was on the largest mountain apparently. He saw ponies everywhere, all types of colors, all types of species: unicorns, Pegasus, earth pony, and an alicorn.

‘For the first time, all of us have the chance to see what the universe was supposed to be like with our own eyes. Fenrir knows this. And he also knows that this will have a feeling a particular frightening when he will meet her. Let’s hope that the forgotten past; Destiny did let it pass.’ Arceus thought, as he made final notes with his mind on the visor.

It appeared that this civilization was not so advanced. No machinery was seen, no weapons, no planes, nothing that Arceus could classify as ‘technology’. Just swords and golden armor. Then something caught Arceus’ eyes; were they levitating something? This couldn’t be. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fenrir will have a surprise.

‘Maybe we have underestimated them. Damn past will never go away. It seems the past evolves into the future.’ He then ultimately turned around and began walking for the hangar.

“Second in command, in control!” Arceus spoke when he finally passed the door.

Passing through the door, Arceus walked at an alert pace, although the world gave him all the time, his mind did not, and neither did his recent discoveries. He just had to arrive at the hangar. He gestured to two imperial guards to escort him to the hangar. His walking, his face, and his tone were breaking the militaristic march of his steps by occasionally commanding “Clear The Hallway!”. The closer he was the faster he walked. The guards were keeping up with him. He walked, dodged and commanded until he arrived. Two door opened by themselves and released vision on the hangar bay four.

The hangar bay had the form of a half cylinder, with the cross sectional area having the radius of 500 meters, and a length of an approximation of 5 kilometers, blinding lights were set in a straight line, and their symbol hung on flags on the side of the launch pad. Millions of containers, saurians and planes of all types were scattered around the hallway. Loud voices, the sound of engines and containers sometimes clashing invaded the ears of the well suited Starlord.

He took little time in examining the hangar as he went to the right, along with the guards, this time even at a faster pace than earlier but, nonetheless kept its pace. Entering a teleporter, he reached the destination, the prepared transport.

“Starlord! Sir!” A random engineer appeared.

“Yes? Make it short please. I have to see the president urgently.” Arceus responded in his serious tone.

“Sir, the transport preparation suffers a setback, it is a setback of 5 minutes.” The engineer reported.

“Alright, but hurry. We have important meetings to attend.” Arceus responded in the most serious tone he could find.

“At once, Sir!” The engineer then dashed to the ship to finish it.

The Starlord spied with his eye for someone in particular. His closest and oldest comrade, President Fenrir. Seeing him advance was a sign of relief, as there was less time wasted searching for him.

“Everything alright? You look a bit moved.” Fenrir asked worried.

Arceus shook hands with him and spoke; “Yes, I have some… interesting, news for you.” After this, he gestured the guards to leave.

Noticing this, Fenrir turned his gaze into a serious one: “What happened?”

“The local species have the ability to levitate objects.” Arceus answered.

“What? Are you serious? Like, really serious?” Fenrir was shocked indeed of the news. Arceus sent him a few pictures through his visor. After Fenrir examined them, it was clear he was worried.

“Not in my wildest dreams, I could imagine they have these powers, I heard legends, but I never thought it was real. Let’s keep an eye on them. Who knows what surprises they may still have.” Fenrir said, his azure eyes speaking only words of worry.

Arceus, then decided to change the subject to something more imminent: “Are you ready? We are about to enter a world of which we can either learn much, or lose much. Whenever you are ready, we are ready.” Arceus said, as he showed the armed forces that will escort him on the planet.

After thinking for a while, he sighed, responded and stared into his comrades eyes:

“The past will never go away, for those that mean good, they carry its sins. Let’s go. Let’s see what fate has prepared for us, and let’s see if we agree with it, or we overthrow it.” Fenrir responded. And he entered the ship, all of them entered the ship, waiting for the lift off to harmony happen.

***

Everything was in place. The sun’s rays were piercing through the grey clouds. There was total silence. Everypony was in their positions. Anything but a whisper of a wind was made.

Celestia was never so serious, in fact, she could melt diamonds with her glare. That’s why no pony dared look her in the eyes, question her orders or even ask what is going on. Naturally, the whole city found out, and it wasn’t much time until the rest of the cities in equestria knew also. Cloudsdale was keeping an eye out for unusual flying objects, while Ponyville was crawling with guards and guardians. There was total secrecy when it came to the other nations, they will know in due time. Right now, she has to focus on the imminent alien activity. She hoped for the best of the best, especially that they had peaceful intentions. If they had peaceful intentions, it will be Celestias job to make them understand what is going on, without destroying the planet.

In the Royal quarters; there was total silence. Nothing dared move. There was literally nothing living there, except plants. No guards, no gardeners, no politicians. The wind was ever so whispering through the trees, forcing the chattering of their leaves to break the silence. Every single very important pony was in the front, while the rest were given a day off, since the princess knew that this will be a detailed visit, castle included. Celestia made sure that the palace was at least twenty times more presentable than the Great galloping gala. Only occasional guards were seen, defending the important wings and rooms of the palace, but they were scarce and the majority were in the front, containing the crowd. However, despite their stone faces on the outside, on the inside there were ponies like anyone else.

In front of the palace, the crowds of ponies were controlled by the guards, so that no panic would be installed. As controlled as they were, the mixture of feelings that surrounded them was untouched. Some were awestruck as if a Superpony was coming, other scared for their lives, and others curious of their appearance and technology. The city was in total control, no general panic installed because the guards were more present in the city rather than the palace. All this silence made Twilight and her friends more anxious than ever, even though Twilight was dying to know of their technology and basically every-single-thing-related-to-alien-activity. But, in truth, no pony could knew what will happen. When they will arrive here, in the heart of their homeland. It can be salvation or extinction for them.

Every pony in front of the palace formed a semi-circle that surrounded the entry gates that led to the palace doors. Celestia was standing in front of the door that led into the palace, while at her left the closest were Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie together with a few guards and on her right, Twilight, Social Policy and another set of guards were emplaced. Silver Point was sent to ensure every guards was doing his or her job and check if everything is in place and no special activity was happening. Even though this was aliens visiting them, she knew this was still war time

And then a peculiar spark of light in the sky shone on the Celestias eyes. She knew that light was not natural, therefore it was them. They arrived. The peculiar shape of the supposed transporter was approaching the Canterlot, cutting the air through its metal shape. Celestias face suddenly changed. It no longer was one of seriousness, but one of great contempt. Twilight saw this, and she suddenly felt nothing more of her anxiousness and curiosity. She felt worried. Why was Celestias face suddenly one of contempt? The transporter landed at around five hundred meters from the palace entry.

This was it.

*5 Minutes earlier*

In the transporter, the President, the admiral and the guards were all ready to enter Equestria.

“Arrival in 5 minutes. Hope you guys are ready, intel tells me they seem to be really prepared, guards containing unarmed looking ponies. And the leader, a big winged and horned horse with the rainbow hair is waiting at what seems to be the palace entry. Radar-checked around the palace as well. Nothing out of order. Good luck, wolves.” The pilot spoke through the radio at the waiting saurians.

[You ready?] Arceus asked telepathically.

“What we will find there, will be something that will look primitive compared to us. No real technology can be seen on this planet. But even though they are not advanced technologically, they have managed to achieve something that nobody managed to do. And that is social harmony. We seek that harmony. But this harmony is rare and this one, right here, is plagued by a civil war. We are here to ensure that this harmony will remain unharmed. So let us see what lies before this very door. Be ready, my fellow saurians. For we are about to enter the social utopia you were long promised.” Fenrir said to Arceus and to the rest of the elite guards.

“Yes, sir!” The guards responded.

“You know? For the very first time we find a species that is non-affiliated to anything outside our galaxy and the Universal Council Galaxies. This surely is special. I hope we can establish stable relations with them.” Arceus said to Fenrir.

[Me too.] He replied blankly.

The ship then landed. “This is it, wolves. Good luck out there and be careful.” The pilot said and the front door slowly opened.

***

Celestia was anything but calm. Her face was showing a great level of self-control, but beyond the stone mask, there was an entire storm of emotions. She had to play this carefully, she couldn’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.

As the door from the transporter opened, it revealed nothing but 2 individuals that stood in from a group of guards. The group evenly split by the flanks, their supposed weapons being ready to be pointed. In the meantime, Twilight was asking herself why do they look like they are in battle positions. They were medieval compared to the aliens, so why be like this? To protect the group leader, even though it looked like he was wearing the most plated armor she may have seen in her entire life?

The group leader was wearing a black armor with white lines that were symmetrically spread in contrast with runes that appeared to be in a language that was not equestrian. It also had big shoulder plates slightly reaching over half his head, and occasional and discrete electricity was travelling around the body armor. He also had a cloak but if was equally divided in three black, dark blue edged, rectangles. One on his left back, one on his right back, and one in the middle of the back. All extending down to his feet, but the middle one reached first.

While Twilight was studying the armor and the equipment of the aliens with hardly controlled eagerness, Celestia was studying the appearance of the leader and his supposed assistant. He was wearing an black, elegant, military uniform with a sword on his right and platinum shoulder plates and vertical stripes of onyx on each of his sides. A long, black cloak could be seen from his back. His fur pattern was similar to the leaders, except that his face was covered in white fur instead of only a half. His eyes were similar to the presidents, but they were sky blue to white instead of royal azure.

Judging by how the alien guards were behaving, Celestia knew what will follow after the eternal silence that entered in the city. This wasn’t a matter of winning someone on their side. The president was staring and looking together with his assistant at the city. They looked more serious than before. This was bad Their expressions alone yelled that if they fail, it’s all over not only for them, but for others as well.

And then, the alien leader looked at Celestia. Much to Celestias surprise, he gave an honest smile and began walking towards the palace entry, guards surrounding them enough not to invade their private space. The group was walking in the same manner as the president: calm, yet enthusiastic pace. Incredibly enough, she could identify his interest by his walking and the way he looked at the houses around him, even smiling to some civilians. Not even his accidently bare fangs, which it were supposed to be hidden, did not affect the mixture of curiosity, happiness and pure cheer in Celestia’s heart.

The Front guards again dispersed evenly on the left and right, positioning at the level of the ponies by crawling. But the president and the other one did not stop until they were in front of Celestia. She realizing that all the wolf-man had approximately the same height as her. And after extending his arm he spoke.

“Good day. I am President Fenrir Goldengod of the Saurian Intergalactic Democratic Union. It is an honor to meet you in person, Your majesty. I have been long waiting for this moment to happen, and it appears that we finally have chance to meet. I sincerely hope that we can establish a peaceful and prosperous relation between our kinds, despite our racial differences.”

Celestia smiled at his statement. She extended her hoof and then they shook them. Palm to hoof.

“No, Mr. President. It is our greatest honor and privilege to have the chance to be visited by us. Let us have the relations we both desire, for our nation and for our subjects or population. I am more than eager to cooperate with you for the future of our civilization, and sincerely hope for the best in our road to peace.” Celestia replied.

And then she was spelled by this pair of azure eyes. They reassured Celestia. It was nothing to worry about when she was looking at them. They hosted sincerity, serenity and kindness rarely politicians she met had. They ensured her that this will be a good meeting. One that will help her subjects. Those eyes made Celestia calm. Those eyes made Celestia feel like any problem could be resolved. This eyes made Celestia feel safe in their embrace.

After making a tour of the palace, the group entered a big room with a big, circular, bed with red covers and golden support. He also saw a balcony entrance, that should be how she checks her city. Fenrir paid little attention to the room but he spotted a small table with cushions on one side and a very comfortable looking chair on the other. On the table there was a bottle of water, and two refined glasses, assisted by a plate of royally assorted fruits. By the looks of it, Fenrir deduced that this is a private chamber, namely, her private chamber. Celestia used her horn to pull the chair away from the table so that the president could stand. This reminded him of his friends warning back at the ship.

“Shall we?” Celestia asked Fenrir gently.

“Of course.” Fenrir said, turning to Arceus, he continued.

[I will meet you at the ship.] He transmitted. Arceus nodded and left the room, the door was closed, leaving the two alone.

Fenrir approached the chair, and took his sit; while Celestia took hers.

And then they began. After a uniquely pleasant conversation, regarding the species, traditions, and such, Fenrir brought an inevitable question. It was time to find out about what is happening in this supposed utopia.

“May I ask how much it took you, Equestrians, to bring your species to full colony on the moon?” Fenrir began, with a slight tone of easiness.

Celestia frowned; she knew this was inevitable. The point of lying was worthless, and she needed support; in the great war that she was fighting. She had no choice but to tell him. To tell him the truth about the New lunar republic; and their reasons for war. It is the moment of truth.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t intended in sending ponies to the moon…” Celestia began, her tone being serious, showing no hints of other emotions. She glared at Fenrir, and he realized. It seemed that Fenrir was curious and slightly worried by the answer, so he has slowly leaned towards Celestia, trying to give a comfortable air to the princess. He could not back down now.

“What has happened?”

Celestia realizing his intentions, she closed her eyes and shifted her head to the right. “I have sins… sins that returned to haunt me and my subjects.”

Fenrirs ears were pointing to the sky, catching every single sound. It is of utmost importance to know what happened, as his sense of fairness demands. He did not let silence hung in the air. After a short pause, he continued asking.

“Those sins you speak of… Can I know of them, Princess?” Fenrir asked in a curiously, picking his words carefully.

Princess Celestia took a deep breath and explained barfly, clearly and fully the rise of the Nightmare moon, one thousand years ago. She did not omit any detail. Why would she? In contrast, Fenrir’s reactions were mixed: from curiosity he ended up in confusion, alongside with the remains of assurance and anger within him; as he recalled what he just heard. His facial expression showed little change, however, his eyes were more revealing. It showed… contempt? Could she actually win his trust? After little time, he spoke:

“Let me summarize this: This pony, the ex-co-ruler of Equestria and your younger sister: Princess Luna, because of her jealousy or envy, she turned into a creature of the night: known as Nightmare Moon. With black coat, dragon and turquoise eyes, and a blue mane and tail that represent the stars and that it flows seemingly at random, has returned to bring eternal night over your nation and ultimately take over the throne and seize the royal crown for herself. Moreover, an interesting turn of events happened; this pony has supporters that want the same thing: Eternal Night and this mare in the moon as their sole ruler.” Celestia nodded silently and Fenrir continued.

“And the only chance to take down threat, in a clean manner, is to use the artifacts known as the Elements Of Harmony. However, the wielders were separated by presumably the words of Nightmare Moon. Even with the power of friendship tying them up, three ultimately left you and the other three wielders remained with you.” Fenrir stopped for confirmation.

“Indeed. It seems you understand situation pretty well, Mr. President.” Celestia said smiling. Fenrir smiled back and continued.

“Thank you.” He replied and continued speaking.

“From what else I understood is that these supposed ‘lunar ponies’ who are supporters of Nightmare Moon, declared both war and independence under the name of the New Lunar Republic. Technically forcing you to change your nations name to The Solar Empire in the attempt signaling the world that Equestria has a civil war, and also cutting the possibility of both of you being seen politically as one nation. Did I miss something out?”

“No, you did not. I am impressed, Mr. President. Generally, the situation is complex enough to confuse most ponies.” Celestia said smiling slightly.

“Let’s just say that I have a fast understanding of events. It’s all in the experience” He chuckled.

Fenrir, who heard the story fully, was not very sure what to think of what he said, after this conversation, and after what Celestia said she has done, she to be seen as a tyrant? His glare could not be moved away from the white alicorn who was still watching her hooves, was she fake crying? Was she saying the truth? In Fenrir’s eyes, a civil war could be the most desperate act of rebellion a civilian could make against their ruler. Maybe, Celestia lying to him? He has heard only one side of the story. No time to waste.

“I should leave, it is getting late. My apologies.” Fenrir said responded.

“I understand. Although, I am curious on how will you leave the planet.” Celestia responded puzzled.

“I have my own methods, Your Majesty. Farewell, Princess. We shall meet again, when the time comes. And I offer you my promise of bringing peace through a collective effort.” Fenrir spoke as soon. He raised from the chair and dissipated into a beam of light, ultimately disappearing from the room.

‘I hope your are right, Fenrir. Although, I hope your title precedes you. I hope you are different.’  Celestia thought coldly.

The thoughts of chaos and civil that can threaten the ponies on this land have returned to disturb her. All the pressure in her heart now migrated to her mind. Her hard, frozen and cruel sense of tactic was fighting her caring, warm and yielding self. An eternal battle waged over by the recent events. It was a battle that tore Celestia apart. She could not just do nothing against the rebellion. It would mean dead ponies. She could not just give up her crown for peace. It would mean oppressed ponies. And she could not kill the rebel leader. It would mean not only scared ponies, but a broken leader. No. A broken bigger sister.

‘Why is the world so cruel and full of consequences?’ Celestia thought to herself as poured a glass of water.

‘I should have been a maid!’ She chuckled as she drank some water. She then slowly moved towards the balcony with the glass of water levitating. She stared in contempt at the moon, with a sudden realization.

‘May peace find you, my little sister. Help is on the way. I promise I will banish you from the curse you were inflicted with, even with the ultimate sacrifice.’