Fatigue held itself in Celestia's sore red eyes where tears once resided, she had finally stopped crying. It'd been years since her little ponies had taken it upon themselves to call her Queen, to actually address her as the monarch she truly was, and they only did so in times of war, and war.. War always brought tears to the Queens eyes.
Apparently Nightmare Moon wasn't entirely gone... The Elements never fully destroyed the true evil that had taken hold of the Lunar goddess's soul centuries ago. It simply locked it away. But the lock wasn't strong enough to withstand the frontal assault of chaos, the temptation of Discord. So the evil took hold of Luna once more, but this time it was patient.
It had been five years after the defeat of Discord, after the 'end' of Nightmare Moon, when the evil struck out once more. It was a foggy night and Nightmare Moons forces quickly overtook the Celestial goddess's guards. But, Nightmare Moon hadn't suspected that the people would rise to the aid of their princess.
Their Queen...
Many lives were lost in the first battle, and not all were soldiers. In fact, most were civilians, ponies who did not wish to live in a world of eternal night. They fought against the enemies of their beloved Queen and held onto Canterlot. That's when the first tears fell from Celestia's eyes.
And so the war continued, endless waves of ponies dedicated to their goddess of the moon flowed through Equestrian lands like water through a broken dam. Trottingham fell beneath Nightmare Moons hoof, next Manehatten.. Fillydelphia, Hoofington, none were safe from Nightmare Moon's wrath.
After the fall of Ponyville, it is said that the Celestial goddess lost all hope and left her ponies to their fate in the hooves of Nightmare Moon.
"And that's how Ponies lost Equestria, any questions?" Light Ring smiled sadly at her class of foals after reading only a few paragraphs from the Big Book Of Equine History. She'd learned long ago that no little colt or filly would pay attention unless she tried to make the story 'exciting' with some form of violence, but honestly.. She wasn't very good at that. Light Ring, like most ponies aboard the Rising Sun blamed the hoofbox 360 or the stories that parents told their foals these days.
A single dark blue hoof shot up into the air. It waved about frantically for the teachers attention and after a quick glance around the room, Light Ring begrudgingly gave into the little unicorn filly it belonged to. "Yes, Juniper Punch." The dark blue filly with a matching blue mane and aquatic blue eyes cleared her throat as she asked her question. "That doesn't explain why it's covered in snow! Daddy says that it's snowy down there! And and, why are we alllll the way up here! Daddy says that the Princess gave us these spaceships so that um um, we can a-..Adapt to our.."
The little filly struggled with the next word, her eyes furrowed as she concentrated. "Sir-Ound-Dings. Uh huh, and that we owe everything to her! So.. Yeah.." Juniper trailed off into silence after she realized that her question had turned into an explanation. Embarrassment flowed to the filly's cheeks as she tried to hide herself beneath her desk. Light Ring just shook her head and prepared herself to explain to the foal why her Daddy was wrong. Thankfully the bell chimed through the room, indicating the end of class. "Alright children, dismissed."
Juniper rushed out of her seat and into the hall, she barreled through the crowd of foals and charged towards the last room, Room 702. She stood outside the door, bouncing on the shoes of her hooves until it hissed open. A group of pegasi foals glided out, all for one. Who instead zoomed out as fast as she possibly could, tackling the unicorn filly to the ground. "Heya Junebug! What's up?"
Beryl Blaze stood triumphantly upon her friend, the young pegasus had her black wings spread out in a rather aggressive manner. She looked down at Juniper Punch, one of her green eyes covered by her long orange mane. Beryl lifted a single hoof off of Juniper and pushed her glasses back into the correct position. Juniper wiggled and fought against the smaller filly but to no avail! Eventually the unicorn just gave up.
"What's up? Umm.. The ceiling!"
"That's not what I meant..."
"Stars..?"
"Try again."
Beryl's wings nestled back to her side, the triumphant moment passing and a rather agitating moment replacing it. She trotted off of her friend and stared at her intensely. "Sooo..?" Juniper rolled onto her hooves and stared at Beryl for a few quiet seconds. "... Oh yeah! I remember now! I've got this reaaaallly cool thing I wanna show you, my Daddy got it for me from E-Quest-Ria! Meet me in the secret spot okay?" Beryl's sour mood vanished completely at the thought of something cool, Juniper's dad always found the coolest stuff on the surface! Both foals rushed off in completely different directions to prepare for their secret meeting.
Juniper crawled through the ventilation system, sure it was dangerous but she was just a little filly and the excuse 'she didn't know any better' always worked whenever she was caught. Eventually she'd made it to the 'Secret Spot' which was in fact a hideaway that the founders of the Rising Sun had made to escape the troubling talk of politics or just to avoid work. It was a small space between floors Three and Four.
The space was big enough for two or three full grown stallions or mares so it didn't have any trouble containing the unicorn filly. A small window gave Juniper a grand view of the darkness of space with it's twinkling stars, but what always caught the young filly's attention was the planet which the stars seemed to surround protectively. To most ponies it was a planet of the past, but to Juniper it was the 'bestest' planet ever, full of secrets and cool stuff she'd totally find one day, just like her daddy.
A loud thump brought Juniper's attention away from the window. Her friend, Beryl, crawled into the space with a grin. "Heya Junebug! Watcha gonna show me?" Juniper levitated a small violet sphere from her saddlebags, she let the object rest in the space between the two, strangely enough it didn't roll about like any normal sphere would in such a position. Juniper looked up at Beryl and grinned. "This! A holo.. Thingy Daddy says this ones extra special."
"Doesn't he say that about all of them?" Beryl nudged the violet object with a hoof, it did an awkward spin before once again remaining completely still. "Yeah but.." "Does he even watch them before he gives them to you?" "Of course he does!" the two were about to break out into a heated argument when the sphere suddenly glowed with life.
An image suddenly appeared in front of the two foals, it was of a rather Celestial looking pony with wings and a horn. Both foals gawked at the recorded image. The Alicorn was looking at something, a voice from an unseen pony interrupted the goddess's concentration. "Princess Celestia, well um.. Queen Celestia, they're breaking through the main gate... I don't think anypony is ready for this.. Especially after what happened yesterday."
There was an awkward silence between Celestia and the unseen pony, eventually the Princess was the one to break it. "Twilight, my faithful student... Initiate Plan A without me, save as many of my little ponies as you can." "But Prin-" "No Twilight... Listen to me.. I... I can't go with you, or anypony. If I do.. She'll just hunt me down, and she'll slaughter anypony in the way. Just to have her revenge."
Silence once again overtook the room, there was a soft click and the princess turned away from whatever she'd been looking at, a loud agitated voice boomed throughout the room. "OH WHERE ARE YOU, SISTER OF MINE. WE ONLY WISH TO REPAY THEE FOR BANISHING US TO THINE MOON." Another Alicorn joined the image, she was smaller then Celestia but she wore heavy armor and her horn was sharpened to a fine point.
"Luna... You've won. Now you will have your eternal night.." "AFTER WE HAVE SLAUGHTERED THOUS FOLLOWERS, STARTING FIRST WITH THE WRETCHED SPARKLE ONE." "She's already gone Luna. It's only me.. So then, you're going to banish me to the sun? And finally get your petty 'revenge'." Luna seemed taken aback by her sister's calm demeanor, she even took a step back for a moment.
"NO, WE WOULD NEVER FORCE THOU TO EXPERIENCE WHAT WE HATH BEEN THROUGH. WE ARE MERCIFUL." Luna lowered her head and charged Celestia, but rather then attempt to dodge or fight back the unarmored Alicorn accepted her fate. The horn pierced Celestia's throat with and with a single quick jab Luna pulled away from her fallen sister. Crimson droplets dripped slowly down her horn and onto the floor.
But Celestia still breathed. Luna took a step forward, the pool of red blood smeared against Celestia's white coat. "Sleep well.. Sister of mine." the Alicorn whispered, before slamming her plated hoof against her sisters skull. Almost immediately afterwards the entire image went dark. At first the two foals thought it was finally over.
"WHAT IS THIS! A FINAL TRICK FROM OUR SISTER?" the voice roared in anger, a pair of eyes flashing in the darkened image, both Juniper and Beryl nearly jumped backwards at the sudden roar, each foal shivering in fear. Clumsy thuds and clanks echoed from the image as a new pair of eyes joined Luna's. "Your royal majesty! The sun, it has went out! But the moon.. It hath not risen."
"THEN I SHALL MAKE IT RISE!" the Alicorn's horn glowed brightly... But no moonlight greeted the room. Only darkness. "WHY DO YOU NOT RISE! RISE I SAY! RISE YOU CRETIN!" There was another pulse of magic from the glowing horn before the image suddenly vanished. Beryl and Juniper looked at one another for a few minutes.
"That was.. Kinda cool I guess." The pegasus admitted. "I'm.. Going to find out what happened someday..." Juniper said, her eyes focused once again on the little snow white planet. Beryl suddenly beamed at the unicorn. "I've got a great idea! We should like, totally go down there as a team! We'd be soo unstoppable!" Juniper nodded in agreement and beamed right back at the pegasus. "Well duuuhh! I wouldn't go down there without my best buddy!"
The two shared a moment of friendship and discussed their future plans, but not before Juniper levitated the holo sphere back into her saddlebags, keeping it hidden. But not forgotten.
