Chapters "YOU FOALS! THINKING YOU COULD DEFEAT US AND OUR SISTER TOGETHER WITH THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY BY OUR SIDE! NOW YOU SHALL PAY DEARLY FOR THE CHAOS YOU HAVE CAUSED OUR DEAR HOME AND OUR LITTLE PONIES!"
Nightmare Moon bore down on her, fangs and blue armor flashing. Her world spun in a blur of black, cold laughter, and blue as she fought to regain her bearings, ultimately accomplishing the amazing feat of waking up thrashing around in her bedsheets.
"Stupid dreams," muttered Supreme Commander Lulamoon. She got up and ran a brush though her unruly, blue-and-white mane, the magenta glow of her magic overpowering the dawn light filtering through the natural vent in her wall. she set the brush down and grimaced at her reflection in her cracked mirror.
She trotted out of the room after slipping into her obsidian with gold and mother-of-pearl inlays armor, which she'd had forged by a captured blacksmith. She met her colleague and equal, Supreme Commander La....something or other, she just called her Zecora.
The zebra's family was directly linked to the queen of the Zebrican race, so it'd been pretty easy to convince them to fight alongside them. For finding a way to attack the ponies(a secret grudge the zebras had held tenderly for generations), the zebras had named her their new queen.
Good for her. Their forces had other things to worry about. Such as the massive roadblock they had in their way.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
Sixteen days earlier......
"I'm sorry, Supreme Commander. The orphanages have input top-quality defense systems. The only way in is this filly, ma'am. She claims to know the way in, but she clammed up after that. We know her name, though. Scootaloo."
"Well, get her to un-clam! We need more fillies to train by next week! How far are we behind our monthly quota?"
"Three hundred, ma'am."
"WHAT?"
"Three hundred, ma'am."
"Not like tha.....oh never mind. Just get us back up to speed. NOW!"
** ** ** ** ** ** **
She scowled. They were still thirty-six fillies behind quota, and their acolytes were casting the age spell almost every week on a new batch of fillies so they could undergo training for the army they were going to need to acomplish their goal.
Her personal students numbered actually six, whereas Zecora only had four. They were almost done training and then they could be drafted into their massive army. Some of her students would be drafted to the guards or the filly-snatching unit instead, but the bulk of their forces was in the army.
That was going to be needed to defeat the goddesses of lightning, magic, love, the sun, the moon, and rainbows and their forces. In total, they know they outnumbered Equestrian forces by many, numbering around three hundred thousand ponies and changelings, along with some one hundred thousand zebras and a couple renegade griffons and a unit of a few hundred water ponies as their navy.
But one could never be sure with the Elements being on the opposing side. They had to be careful or, as the changelings had been in their failed invasion(Chrysalis was put to death for that failure), they would be pushed out of Equestria.
But soon they'd be ready. All they needed was two more months and they would've snuck enough spells out of the Starswirl the Bearded and other wings of the Canterlot Archives to power an army three times the size of theirs, which they may very well be in that time, considering the age spells and Zebrican recruits streaming steadily into their army. The Griffons they had on their side were working with the seaponies to gather more of their own kinds to help as well, so they grew a few hundred in rank daily.
Yes, soon she could have her revenge.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
"You honestly thought that I would settle for simply dethroning you? You idiotic waste of fur! I will never forgive you for what you did to me!"
Laughing coldly, she swiped the knives she held across the lavender alicorn's wing bases, leaving stumps that spilled blood. The alicorn in question screamed in pain. Her horn was sawed off, leaving her screaming and writhing in agony.
Pinning her target with magic, Trixie lowered her crossed knives toward's Twilight's heaving throat. They cut the first layer of skin, then the second, and eventually she stopped and drew back to let Twilight bleed to death when she could no longer scream.
Wiping her knives of the blood and tissue that covered them, she allowed herself a small smile to commemorate her victory, which soon turned into full-blown cold laughter as she reveled in her nemesis' painful death.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
She woke up and went about her day, always armor-clad and demanding respect, radiating pure power due to her exposure to the amulet years before. She wasn't an ideal leader, but it was better to be feared then loved. If everypony feared you, they wouldn't dare speak out against you. However, even well loved ponies still had neigh-sayers that criticized them constantly.
Her forces didn't ostricize her. Neither did Zecora. None of the creatures she was commanding dared speak against her or they would find themself starving to death.......or worse.
On the third day of her dreams of victory, she sent trappers into the Everfree forest to gather beasts to help with their conquest. They returned with a sedated Ursa Major and her five Minors, two packs of Timberwolves, some carefully handled poisonous plants, five hydras, and some artifacts from the old and crumbling castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.
They even made a foray to the Crystal Empire and its surrounding regions to gather rare texts from the Crystal Library and some leftover minions of King Sombra's, along with a cult devoted to bringing him back. Simple brainwashing converted them to her.
She checked their read up on their forces and was pleased to see they'd gained a thousand and seven hundred(roughly) troops in a week.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
Closer and closer the deadline came, and larger and more powerful grew her forces. By the time they were ready to attack, they just enslaved some Diamond Dogs and forced them to dig tunnels to five cities that would help them lay seige to Canterlot: Manehatten, Ponyville, Appleoosa, the Crystal Empire, and a small unnamed settlement near the border to the land of the dragons.
All their targets besides the Crystal Empire had no forms of protection. No militia, no guards, and certainly no Elements. They swept the communities off their feet, capturing Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor and hundreds of unprotected fillies, plucking some from the arms of their helpless parents.
Nopony could stop them, and none of the other Equestrian cities knew due to careful planning, involving perimiters, magical domes, and cutting off communication methods and trains. They swept towards an unsuspecting Canterlot within month, connecting to the old tunnels beneath the capitol to give them some advantages. They stationed chutes to release the enraged Ursas into the streets, likewise with the hydras and other monsters.
They infiltrated the Royal Guard and began meticulously mapping the city, going from there with other plans, In a week they had everything stationed, and had some changelings capture and imitate Celestia's and Luna's personal guards. Twilight's guards were obviously a very hastily created unit, and they were also idiots. They were able to take out Twilight's whole guard in complete secret and imitate them.
Then things backfired. Due to an information leak, they started the seige of Canterlot three days early. Ursas ravaged the streets, hydras spit acid and melted ponies into colorful puddles, and the princesses could do nothing about it, being imprisoned in their own castle.
A week in, Trixie took to the battlefield in full armor, her targets spraying blood and organs as she sliced them open and left them to die. They lost many troops, but soon she realized that they were pushing the opposing forces back towards the castle, burning through barricades and killing any creature that stood in their way.
A loyal dog stood over her dead masters and a crying filly, lunging at an enemy soldier when he came too close. He swung a hoof and it connected, throwing the dog into a wall. It fell and didn't get up.The soldier gained a rank by bringing in some fillies, though.
It took three slow months, but in the end they obliterated the defending forces down to the last pony and melted down their weapons and armor. They'd won. A plus was that the only city destroyed in the global country of Equestria was Canterlot. The rest of Equestria had no idea, as any and all transmissions outside the new sub-country were higly illegal and carefully monitored, punishable by draft into the army or even death.
She'd even taken a prize from one of the defeated princesses: Aura's fold-out armor suit. She killed Zecora and took it upon herself to have a lower-ranked pony learn everything the zebra queen had about herbs and potions. The history books were altered, letting young fillies born after the war learn about the horrible previous rulers. Anypony who said otherwise was silenced.
Immediately.
She became Empress Bellatrix Lulamoon the First, the exalted ruler of a quarter of the world.
And she did not tolerate traitors. At all.
"AAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!" The guards flinched noticeably as Empress Bellatrix Lulamoon The First screeched in anger, melting the messenger into a not so pretty puddle of goo for bringing not so pretty news with a single magical beam.
According to him, the outlook to the west of Atheria(the newly renamed area that covered a vast amount of land) wasn't pretty. Nightmare Moon had risen from the ashes of Equestria and left, taking in anypony who fled Trixie's empire and leaving them a choice: join her or die painfully. Not very good options.
Anyway, Nightmare Empire was growing rather large off of refugees from the conquest of Equestria two months ago as well as some ponies that Nightmare found that had been turned to stone-two thousand of them in total-and used a powerful spell to turn the cockatrice's statuary garden pieces into living, flesh-and-blood ponies. She stumbled upon several other groves like that one-the Everfree was full of those little demon chickens-and used the spell time and time again to bring in more people for her own empire.
King Sombra had managed to make himself solid again, and so took over the Crystal Empire, enslaving all the crystal ponies again. Other than that, little was known abut the outside world to her little ponies.
She herself was already struggling with a decision: give Twilight to King Sombra to have him marry her and have a lifelong peace with the Empire(guess who suggested it. It certainly wasn't her.)or kill the pathetic little 'princess' herself and risk war with the Crystal King.
Deciding, finally, she sent a pegasus messenger to the Empire to give him her answer, and had the purple alicorn chained heavily with several magic-negating rings in numerous positions on her body, including on her horn and neck, as well as around all four hooves. Besides the anti-magic apparatus, she wore a thick collar, like a shackle necklace, with five chains attatched to it. Her hooves were in shackles as well, but each hoof only had three chains restraining it by a tight and rather uncomfortabe shackle.
The whining lavender bundle was then caged and put on a chariot, whose destination was the Crystal Empire. Peace it was, for the two countries. Peace it was.....
** ** ** ** ** ** **
She slipped the horseshoes off her aching blue hooves and sat down on the edge of her large bed. It was draped with silks and covered with pillows. All the sheets and pillows were blue, with her cutiemark hoof-embroidered on each of them. She honestly never thought she would say this, but being rich and powerful was getting annoying. Her cutiemark was everywhere: banners, balloons, carved into wood products, watermarked on each sheet of the average parchment pad, etc.
Neighola had even come up with a color called 'Bellatrix Blue' which was the exact shade of her coat. It was, unsurprisingly, the most popular color and sales for sets with it in them skyrocketed for the Neighola company ponies.
They loved it. She didn't. She had no idea why, but she just didn't like the constant attention, constant praise, or the fact that she had to battle Nightmare Moon personally. If both of them survived their duel after the timer went off, war would start, shattering families and dividing the two kingdoms into different factions. There would probably be riots if she had to start the drafting process, bringing thousands of ponies into her army.
And as much as she told herself it wasn't real, she felt a tremor of fear go through her whenever she thought about the duel. She might die. She might start a war. She might kill the Nightmare. All of them had an equal chance of happening.
That was the scary part. There was a fifty/fifty chance on her survival or her death. And on that happy note, she plunked herself onto the pillows and fell asleep almost instantly.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
She fell, gasping for air as her coat matted with the blood that poured from the gash on her throat. Nightmare Moon gave her a fanged smile, raising her sword, preparing to end their duel.
It slammed down with a sickening crack right where she'd been a millisecond earlier. She rolled and let fear take over, giving the monster in front of her a set of quick swipes that drew blood that looked like liquid moonlight. She rolled, sliced parried. Sliced, parried, rolled. She performed a backflip, shredding Nightmare's ears on her way over her target.
A few minutes later, Trixie stood at a standoff with Nightmare, their blades crossed. They spat insults at each other as they tried desperately to uncheck their blades. However, pushing forward wasn't the best idea when trying to accomplish an ending to their standoff. A pop of power from both ponies at the same time sent both of them flying backwards, then falling.....
** ** ** ** ** ** **
She fell out of bed with a jaw rattling thump, effectively ending the dream. Today was the day. And in two hours, she would most likely be dead.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
The crowd cheered as their empress paraded down the cobblestone streets toward the set place for the duel. Her armor, the very same set she had worn during the seige of Canterlot. She'd had in strengthened and repaired, polished so it shone.
Her opponent was easily taller than her, but in the blue body armor the only things you could see were her horn and wings protruding from her helmet and backplate. She gave a cold laugh and picked up a sword with her magic, watching like a predator watches prey as Bellatrix picked her way through the crowds and took up her daggers.
Metal hit metal, again and again. Whirling, striking, rolling, ducking, parrying, the two were a whirlwind of blue and black and metal clanging. They shouted mild curses at each other(hey, foals were present,)as they went back and forth for a half hour......and hour......two hours.....
Finally, they stopped. Empress Trixie sat down, her chest heaving, as she watched her opponent fall, blood staining the earth around her. She grasped at the dagger that impaled her side with her magic, but her magic was fading too fast to be used. She took several shuddering breaths, each growing shallower and shorter.
Then she was still, glazed dragon eyes staring at nothing.....for all eternity. Atheria exploded with cheers, and sveral windows shattered in the immediate area as guards escorted their empress back to her castle for a bath, some medical treatment, and a nice, long, refreshing victory nap. And lunch.
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Rebellion Crushing, A Favorite Habit / New Laws
Rebellion number one. Lead by a headstrong young pink mare who refused to keep her bloodline going and tried to overthrow the Empress. Refused to let husband leave for military draft. Executed for treason.
Rebellion number two. A group of stallions and mares, about ten strong, which wasn't a very sufficient amount of ponies to start a rebellion with, going on strike and murdering guards. Executed for murder and treason.
Rebellion number three. An underground group called themselves 'The Fangs of the Serpent'. Infiltrated by guards, executed for murder, treason, destruction of personal property, and robbery. They'd had a lot riding on them when they were still alive.
She'd crushed all these and more, but her incredibly foalish subjects wouldn't stop! Well, she couldn't call them foalish, let alone incredibly foalish, they had the courage to become a rebel and work against her in the first place. That probably took a lot of guts, seeing as she was the only pony in the world who could boast killing Nightmare Moon and be telling the truth.
Other than that, it was an annoyance. Little rebellions popped up all the time, so she began segregating her subjects in to heavily protected communities of loyalists and forcing those un-loyal to her into the sewers. Those forced into the sewers were separated if they were a couple, and young and still impressionable foals were taken from their parents and raised in the loyalist communities, to ensure that the rebellious generation was eradicated.
However, she also sent guards into the sewers to kidnap pregnant mares and newborn foals weaned off their mothers' milk. The foal was allowed to stay with its mother until it was weaned, then it was taken and the mother was back to the sewers. All anti-loyalist unicorns were marked by magic-negating rings on their horns, and anti-loyalist pegasi were similarly marked by clipped wings.
It was a drastic measure in some eyes, but she knew she was doing the right thing to protect herself and her loyal subjects. From time to time a hiccup appeared in the perfect planning: pregnant mothers hiding and raising their foals up to two months after the date when they would be snatched, guards being kidnapped and tortured or killed in the sewers, attacks on the loyalist communities, and so on.
But thirty years after the new laws were set in place, the Empress reached the end of her rope. It had to stop. There would be no more rebellions when she was done with her subjects. All those in the sewers that weren't pregnant were taken to the magical experts she had hired, and with a couple spells they were reduced to their base instincts: survive and mate.
A massive structure was formed where loyalists could get jobs to breed new loyalists according to the Empress's agenda, taking the former anit-loyalist ponies and breeding them in padded rooms with no windows or sharp objects. Then she began to slowly ease up on her hold over her empire, making the guards more relaxed with the ponies and sure enough, it only took fourteen years before the sewers were thriving again, full of ponies ripe for the taking-or breeding, as the case may be.
Yet again, this group was reduced to bare, primal instinct and integrated into the current breeding population. Then Bellatrix pulled back on the reins, so to speak. She repeated this process over and over again, making sure not to inbreed, and found a surprising trend: the ponies bred from the former anti-loyalists were more loyal than the so-called 'loyalists'.
So she set herself to work again, creating new 'loyalist' communities, except she filled these ones with ponies who came from the breeding stations that had been popping up all over her empire. She doubled her population in fifty years, leading to a show of military might when she conquered the buffalo lands and used magic to make them more hospitable, the same with the arid deserts and dry plains of Zebrica.
Luckily, Saddle Arabia and The Griffonian Republic didn't know they were next on the hit list. Thirty-four years, one month, and twenty-seven days. Piece of cake. She now controlled the whole planet, even its future generations. In her giddiness, she threw a massive, world-wide gala among her old loyalist and new loyalist cities. The whole planet was slowly engulfed by white and gold above while more tunnels were dug in the muck and filth below the surface.
It would only be a matter of time before she found the reason she needed to eradicate the entire population of the underground cities. And when that time came, she would be ready.
"Empress! Empress!" my personal guard came screaming down the hallway at one in the morning, giving me time to prepare before she arrived. "Yes?" I asked in my most regal tone.
"It's Midnight Dream! She's......." Gleaming Halberd stopped and looked at me. "I....I'm so sorry, Empress." I stiffened. "Gleaming Halberd."
"Yes, my Empress? What can I do for you?" she asked eagerly. "Bring me my daughter's body and my living daughter." I ordered, my tone sub-zero in iciness. "And then leave us." She bowed and ran to do as I asked.
* * * * *
In five minutes she'd done as I instructed. I placed a powerful magical ward over sleeping Luna's body and Midnight's still one. Then I channeled my rage into my horn. It glowed its normal black, and my eyes began their normal red glowing when using magic. I screwed my eyes shut, shunting power to the ward around my daughters.
Magical winds came to life, whipping my mane and tail around as they swirled, faster and faster. My horn became fueled by pure anger, and I felt my magic color shift to a deep yet slightly bright blood red.
I opened my eyes and felt them glowing with red arcane power. I poured all my mana, all my emotions into my spell. Then I let it continue and felt it reach its peak there was one last moment of silence, and then a massive explosion swept outwards, engulfing and completely destroying everything .
I blacked out as my completed spell and the ward around my daughters took my power and sapped my energy.
* * * * *
I woke to a barren wasteland. It was one giant desert, without any life in sight short of me and my daughters. I gently mentally poked my mana pool, relieved to see that it had refilled itself over the course of......however long I'd been out. Judging by the fair chill in the air, a day or two.
My stomach backed up that thought. My first act was to gently shape some of the sand into a tree shape, with apple-shaped lumps on it. I poured a tiny bit of power into it, and the sand sculpture crumbled...to reveal a full tree heavy with fruit standing in front of me.
Cautiously, I rapped on the trunk with a silver-shod hoof. An apple fell down and hit me on the head, punctuating the solid thunk of the solid trunk. Without a care in the world, I laughed.
Then I thought of a grass-filled meadow, with a crystal-clear lake and a decent-sized cottage next to it. The next thing I knew, I was standing inside my vision of the meadow. I galloped eagerly to the lake and looked down. Sure enough, I could see straight to the bottom, and see several fish gaping up at me
But then I remembered the rest of the destroyed world. I teleported to the top of one of the hills ringing my valley and looked out upon the wasteland I'd turned my world in to. But then I filled it. It became rocky, grassy, frozen, hot,and many other things.
I raised me and my daughters to a large cloud platform of my creation, and shaped it into a cloud palace in the light blue, cloud speckled sky. Then I cloaked it with a complex invisibility spell that took me weeks to cast. It would take any master mage years to break and uncloak my castle in the sky. I added rainbow fountains to it, a meadow on top of the clouds, and an orchard, a pond with cloud stepping-stones crossing it, and a quiet forest glade to my massive cloud
Then I turned my hoof to populating the planet. I made a bipedal creature with no fur except for on the top of their heads and in some other places, but not nearly as dense, silky, or smooth as my own. It had pinkish skin covering it from head to foot.
It had very small, brown eyes, with no wings,no horn, and absolutely no tail. I clothed my creation in a leaf wrap for a little bit of a finishing touch, then created a friend for it of the opposite gender, clothed in a slimmer leaf wrap. I created tools for them out of wood and stone, created fire for them, and controlled the weather and sun and moon for my creations.
But after long, they needed a name as their population size grew. A name.....
I thought for days. Then the days stretched in to weeks. Then months. Then years. On the seventh anniversary of my thought of naming my latest creations, I finally got a good idea. The idea. I wormed my consciousness into that of every one of them, hundreds by now.
'I shall call you, my creations, humans,' I whispered in their minds. 'You shall be humans from now till the end of time.'
THE END
Epilogue
I've watched them since I created them, and I watch them still. My creations have grown, evolved, prospered. They live in modern 'cities' now, with 'electricity' powering their 'computers', their 'television sets', their 'cell phones', and their other creations.
They have pets: dogs, cats, ferrets, fish, birds; exotic pets too: lizards, spiders, snakes. They live with these pets in harmony, but they're not in harmony with nature that much. That is indeed a problem.
* * * * *
It is the human-charted year 2078. My humans have destroyed everything I created for them, and they have brought what happens next upon themselves on their own with their evil deeds.
The animals are dying, the greenness is gone from Earth, the water is polluted and clogged, the stars no longer shine through the filth that is the atmosphere, and the humans have begun contracting mysterious lethal diseases.
I once again begin the spell, this time aided by my daughters. They help me, and together we wrangle the magic, saturating the air with it. We wrestle our magics together, and the explosion once again wipes Earth clean.
This time, I will create something different. I will create my humans again but this time, they will not be greedy, jealous, dumb, or any other negative emotions.
But no.
This time, they will be perfect.
Perfect..........