Empire on the Moon

by Kingless knight

Magic is knowledge, painful, and hard.

Harvest Moon was in no better words terrified. “Ok, take a breath, he’s the high magus. Master of science and lord of knowledge he will be nice.” She slowly opened the door to find the high Magus. To say he was intimidating would not be enough, the pony had multiple if not tens of tubes connected or simply fused to the back of his skull, There was only one tub that seemed to feed him and his eyes were eight different cameras. Worst of all his hoofs were replaced with claws and his bottom legs were tracks.

He drove close to Harvest Moon, close to her face, his breathing loud and heavy. “Hello, um I’m Harvest Moon the current high admin and I seek your advice.” He simply breathed After a closer look Harvest Moon had a revelation that this pony had sold his body for his current state. He didn’t have bones left, his organs floated in jars connected to his body only in a superficial way. “I need to know if you know a method to enrich the soil in the gardens?”

He stopped breathing, Harvest Moon panicked till the robotic voice spoke. “processing…
Your request is being processed…
Answer: all methods would lead to the death of hundreds.”

She gulped his voice unnaturally, but nothing on the moon was natural. “Is there a method where no one has to die?” His eyes turned red, she almost panicked again.

“processing…
Data searching…
Simulations run…
Analyzing…
Answer: Yes, would need the creation of a hibernation spell, placing multiple ponies in said hibernation would allow us to save the quantity of food if more fruitful time arrives.

Harvest let out a sigh of relief. “How long would it take us to create such a spell?”

“ processing…
Data searching…
Simulations run…
Analyzing…
Answer: A year”

Harvest gulped. “How long till we expect a famine?”

He answered quickly, predicting her question “Answer: six months.”

Harvest sighed. “Brother please get that stupid rune gate working. What if- ”

“All resource-saving methods would only extend your food supply by a few months.” Harvest sighed.

“What if we get all the Mages, and even the Inquisition into this hibernation project, even you.”

He laughed, in fact for a few minutes, Harvest felt creeped out by the laughter. “Finally some bucking stones! Estimates with my involvement, Seven months.”

Harvest Moon smiled. “Make it five, high Magus Mathias sparkle.” He chuckled as desks and multiple bookcases rose from the floor, his horn lit and they floated toward him.

---

Shining armor simply stared as the earth pony Solar guard was beaten again and again by the Lunar pony. “Your technique is too flashy, gives too many openings, and who doesn’t bite in a fight? gold is not good for armor.” One of them stood and rushed toward Shadow swipe stepped and kicked him into the wall.

“Fine, the Bat pony next.” Shadow swipe asked for stretching.

Shining looked a bit confused. “There’s one but he’s on leave—.”

He chuckled at the mistake “Oh right Pegasus, they are rarer on the moon, never fought one but similar principles. Throw him at me.” The pegasus stood up. “First Time fighting Pegasi.” He smirked and flew above the shadow swipe, attempting to rush him. “Doesn’t mean I can’t smell rookies.” They crashed to the floor. “Moonwalking spell, it adds weight to the target, the addition is about a hundred pounds. On the moon, without this spell, everyone lives on a massive trampoline. Now the unicorn, I will make this easy with no magic from me.”

The unicorn guard started simply laser spells which shadow swipe dodged, closing the line between him and the guard. He created a shield and Shadow swipe stabbed it with his horn and shattered it before punching the unicorn to the floor.

“What did you learn?” He asked the rookie. “Never underestimate a new enemy!” He yelled, causing them all to straighten. “wide steppe, you scoffed when I said it would be a hoof-to-hoof fight, what did you do?”

He gulped. “I left myself open and got tripped.”

He continued to the Pegasus. “Valiant strike, I told you that I have never fought a pegasus before. What did you do?”

“I attempted to get to the high ground and rushed in too quickly.”

“Now, to the only one who treated it like I was trying to kill him, private, tranquil aegis. What you did wrong was that you flinched and created a shield spell.” The unicorn gulped as a shadow swipe glared down on him. “The closer the opponent the more your spells have, you should continue to cast until you hit me. Dismissed”

Shining armor stepped next to Shadow Swipe. “You’re Dismissed for the day, and take what our guest has told you.”

They left the training room. “Are you this hard on the moon?” He asked as they walked out of the training room.

“Yes, our rookies fight revived skeletons of criminals.” Shining eyes widened. “Oddly, all necromancers are usually earth ponies, which makes their job easy I guess.”

“How?”

“I think it’s because after burying they’re infused with magic, my sister says earth pony necromancy is—“

“No, I mean how are you comfortable with undead working your fields?” Shadow swipe shrugged.

“We have to do what we have to do. I wanted to ask when was the last famine Equestria experienced?”

Shining scratched his head. “I Don’t Know, maybe five hundred years ago?”

Shadow swipe raised a brow. “Our last was six decades ago, it was called the Black Famine because of a dark mold destroying the grain supply. Now we are facing population growth combined with low crop yields so don’t question what we're forced to do shining armor.” He stood up and left the table. “I need to work on the Rune gate.”

---

Luna and Alicia were in the palace laboratory wearing lab robes and Protective goggles. “Pull the lever, Mom!” Luna did so the floor opened up to the trash shoot Alicia fell. “Whyyyyyyyy” Splash. She teleported back to the laboratory. “Does this place have a trap door?” She demanded.

“It used to be a dungeon by our sister’s account and they threw bodies down there,” Luna explained. “Wait, why didn’t you just fly?”

“I panicked and I’m not used to Eques gravity. I didn’t get the weight runes Shadow swipe got.” Luna nodded and pulled the other lever that activated the Rune gate.

“Huh, it’s working, with Harvest Moon’s horrible horn writing we were expecting—“ Tentacles and skeleton dogs came out. “That.” He turned the gate off and cut the tentacles off.

The skeleton wolves growled at Alicia and pounced at her, only for Luna to vaporize them. “Thanks, Mommy.” She said shaking and terrified, hugging her.

Celestia came down to see the destruction. “I assume everything is not going so well?”

“Sadly it seems our daughter’s student’s horn writing is horrible.”

Celestia giggled. “Remember Starswirl's horn writing?”

Luna had a flashback of burning his notes. “They were a completely different language, we hated that he wrote the books we had to study.” Celestia snorted, holding back the laughter.

“Now dear sister and niece let me try.” She looked at the Rune gate made up of hundreds of hexagonal stone rods with runes carved into them. “Ok, if we arrange it like this and remove this, rotate this by a few degrees.” She smiled and both looked at the now reformulated gate and pulled the lever only for it to start sucking everything in the air. “Aaaahhhh!” Luckily the lever got pulled by the portal sucking.

They all painted. “Why is this so hard?!” Luna demanded. “We had multiple Runegates and doors all functioned perfectly!”

Alicia sighed. “Because we had over two hundred ponies specially trained to calibrate and work those gates, Mother, not to mention Harvest only went to a workshop on Runes gates and doors.” Celestia just looked confused.

“What’s the difference?” Celestia questioned.

Alicia looked. “Rune Gates Are Made From Stone and is what we have here.” She pointed to the now offline Runegate. “A Rune door is one solid frame with runes carved into them, they also have a door that closes and opens which turns the gateway off.”

Celestia was shocked. “Wait, you had hundreds of ponies to maintain these?”

Luna rebuffed. “How many ponies does it take to maintain an airship or a train station?”

Celestia thought about it. “Makes sense, wait why isn’t Shadow Swipe doing this?”

flashback

Alicia came to the laboratory to find the gate open. “Dear? Honey bunny bear?” Shadow swipe came back breathing heavily covered in green blood. “I assume you have had a hard day?” He nodded slowly, lying down. “Want me to try fixing it?” He nodded. “How about you have a nice bath and let’s turn this off.” She pulled the lever and it went offline.

Shadow swipe stood up and left. “Mom wanna work on a project?” Luna teleported.

“Sure, dear, anything to spend time with our only daughter.”

End of a flashback

“He got set on fire and covered in slime. He needed a break before we jump into bed.” Celestia blushed and Luna was confused. “Well, I’m going to bed.” She left.

“Makes sense Alicia kicked a lot when we carried her. We assume she also kicks in her sleep.”

Celestia burst out laughing. “Shouldn’t you be raising the moon right about?”

“Buck! Buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck buck!!!” She teleported out.

Celestia had a realization. “Wait I would be a great aunt… I can’t let them have a foal!” She tried to interrupt only to find over a hundred ward placed by an Alicorn. “Please I don’t want to be called great auntie!”

Next morning Alicia looked fully energized while Shadow swipe appeared to be at the gates Elysium. “You two should have foals, it’s been five years already.” Celestia just glared at her sisters smirk. “We heard what you said.” She whispered. “And We are going to spoil our grand foals worse than that blue blood colt.” She left and Celestia laid her head on the table defeated.