//------------------------------//
// Luna and Celestia 
// Story: Rescuing Twilight 
// by Simon Joe 
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2
2 Months Earlier
It was around one o’clock in the morning. Luna was peering through her telescope, as she did on every night. It was part of her normal routine, just like raising and lowering the moon every day. From her tower, she could see nearly all of Equestria. It was her job to guard it during the night, as it was Celestia’s during the day. Each night she was up there for no less than an hour. It would be one thing if she was guarding Equestria, but her telescope was pointed upward toward the sky. It had been in that same position for years. Nopony knew what she was looking at.
Luna heard a quiet creak, and turned around to see her sister, Celestia, in the doorway. She was slightly surprised, as Celestia almost never came to her this late. She was usually asleep.
“Is something wrong, Celestia?” Luna asked as she resumed looking through her telescope.
“What do you do out here? Every night come out here and look through that telescope at the same spot in the sky,” Celestia walked in and closed Luna’s door.
“Celestia,” Luna started. “Do you remember all those years ago at the Celestial Space Station?”
“Luna, that was years ago. It was a tragic day, yes. But you must learn that it is not healthy to live in the past.”
“No, that is not it. Come here.”
Celestia went over and stepped onto the balcony as Luna backed away from the telescope. She looked over at her sister, as if she was not sure what to do. She simply waved her hoof towards it, telling her to take a look.
Not knowing what to expect, the princess peered through the telescope. The first thing she saw was the space station, in the same place it had always been. Then she looked over and saw something else. It looked like another space station, but then she started to see more of them. There were at least five of them that she could see.
“What are those?” she asked.
“I believe those are the things that attacked us. I have been watching them since the day of the attack. The fact that they are still there cannot be good.”
“You’ve been watching them? Well, what have you seen? What do you know about them?”
“Not much. I mostly watch just to see if they are still there. Every once in a while I will see a flash coming from one the ships, but nothing more,” Luna replied.
“Well… what do you suppose we do about this?”
“I have one answer, but I don’t think that you will like it.” Luna took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. “The only thing that I can think of is going back up there.”
“What? Luna, are you crazy? We got attacked the first time we were up there, there is no doubt we will get attacked again!” Celestia lectured.
Luna stood there for a moment, and then simply smiled. “Follow me.” Luna stepped inside, and started toward her door. Shortly after, Celestia followed.
Luna led Celestia through many hallways, and through doors. Finally, they got outside Canterlot Castle, and continued walking, leaving Celestia even more clueless as to where her sister was leading her. Luna started towards the mountain, avoiding any building that was in their way. Soon, there was nothing between them and the mountain that Canterlot rested on.
Once they got to the mountain, Luna stopped to look around. Once she saw that nopony was there, she used her magic on a small piece of the mountainside. She pulled out towards them, and then moved it to the side. On the other side as a dark cave.
Luna stepped in and signaled for Celestia to come in too. The fact that there was a cave that she did not know about until now gave her an uneasy feeling, that and the fact that it was so dark. However, Celestia went in, going against all doubts. After all, this was her sister Luna.
Luna closed the entrance to the cave, leaving it pitch black. They could waive their hoof in front of their face and not even see it. They heard a big thud as the rock returned to its place. Suddenly, two torches that were on either side of them lit up, probably by Luna’s magic, and then two more a ways down the cave, and then two more.
“Come, this way,” Luna said.
“Where are we going?” Celestia finally asked.
“You’ll see. I have some things that I want to show you.”
Once they got to the end of the long cave, there was door that Luna opened. On the other side was nothing more than a staircase descending into darkness. Luna used her magic once more to light up more torches, and the two of them started downward.
At the bottom of the staircase was another door. They opened it, and inside was what looked like a normal room. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling that Luna lit up. The walls, the floor, even the furniture was the same as you would find at a normal house in Ponyville.
Luna opened up a closet, and inside were several suits of many colors hanging on a metal bar. On a shelf above them were helmets that matched the colors of the suits.
“Are these…” Celestia began, only to be cut off by her sister.
“Yes. These are the suits that we used the first time we went to the Celestial Space Station. Only, I gave them a few upgrades. Take a look.”
Luna pulled out a dark blue suit, and unzipped it from the back of the neck down. She put it on, starting with slipping her hooves through. She then pulled it up, and used her magic to zip it back up. There were two holes for her wings to go through, and then one on the back for her tail. There was a box of matching color that she took out of the closet that had a small glass bar on it. She put her front arms through two black straps. The box curved at the bottom, so it seemed to rest perfectly on her back. On the right side of the box, there was a black tube that went to a strange, hoof shaped device. Luna put it on her right hoof. It too seemed to fit perfectly. On the end of it was a circular piece of glass that went slightly down, leaving a small hole in the center.
“Back then, we did not have anything to defend ourselves with,” Luna reminded. “Well, now we do.”
Luna’s horn began to glow, as the bar on her back filled to the top, and was now glowing blue. Celestia gave a strange look as her sister pointed her right hoof towards a piece of metal that seemed to be burned. The glass that was on her hoof also began to glow blue, and after a few seconds, a beam shot out and left a mark on her target.Celestia watched in awe as Luna faced her with a smile. 
“So? What do you think?” Luna asked.
“W-What is that? Where did you get it?”
“I made it. It took quite a while too. After a few months of watching those ships, I figured, I better do something. If they weren’t going anywhere, then we would have to make them. I do not want to risk Equestria.”
“That spell… how did you…”
“I can teach it to you. Do you see this bar? It shows you how many more times you can fire. Once it is empty, you can refill it. Unicorns can refill their own, as well as other ponies. This is much more powerful then shooting a beam from your horn, and plus, now everypony can do it.”
Celestia stood there, speechless. She did not know how to respond to this strange technology. “So… Well, what else do you have?” Celestia asked, almost unable to believe what she was seeing.
“I’m glad you asked.”
Inside the box to the left was what looked like a sword. Luna put her right hoof on the left, and slid out three metal fingers. She reached to her back, put the hilt in the middle of them, and then locked them. She then pulled out the sword. It was a curved, black blade with rectangular holes going throughout it, almost separating the sharpened edges from the rest of it.
“I made a sword exactly like this for everypony, just like I did with the gun. You can do minimal damage with it like this,” Luna said. Her voice sounded exited that she was finally showing her sister this stuff.
“What do you mean?”
Luna’s horn was glowing once more, and then the edges of the sword lit up into a blue color, just like the bar on her back did earlier.
“When the sword is like this, you can cut through even the strongest of metals with the right strength.”
Luna walked over to the same metal wall that she tested the gun on. On one side, there were several cuts in it. She held her arm across her neck, and then swung her sword, as it cut through the metal almost like butter.
“So? What do you think?”
“Luna…” Celestia paused. “Why haven’t I known about any of this? Those ships, this cave, that gear? Why haven’t you told me about any of this?”
Luna looked at Celestia, and then down at the ground. “Trust me, Celestia. I would have told you earlier, but I needed to wait until the right time.”
“What? The right time? What do you mean?”
“I needed to get all of this gear developed before I told you. Trust me, things will work out better now,” Luna tried to convince her older sister.
Clelestia sighed. She wanted to walk away from all of this and let it be Luna’s problem, but she knew it was just as much her own. Would it really matter now? She thought to herself. I should be thanking Luna for developing all of this, not getting angry at her. “Okay. Well… what else do you need to do?”
“Well, I think now we just need to get a shuttle ready.”
“Do we even have a shuttle?”
“Yeah. We still have a few shuttles. They are in the old training facility. We also have some rocket boosters that we can use.”
“Okay. One more thing… Who do you plan on taking with us? If we have to fight these guys, we cannot do it alone.”
“Who can we trust the most? The bearers of the Elements of Harmony,” Luna smiled.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure.”
“How much gear have you made? Do we have enough for all of them?” Celestia asked.
“Yes,” Luna responded. “I made enough gear for at least fifteen ponies.”
“What about the shuttle and rockets? You we can’t clean those by ourselves. And if we are going back up there, we are going to have to train again.”
“We can get our old crew together. They can clean the shuttle and rockets while we train ourselves and the others.”
“Very well. We shall start in the morning, then.”