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// 4 The Final Assault 
// Story: Luna's First True Love 
// by Bronyxy 
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Two alicorns stood at the Crystal Field surrounding the last refuge of the defeated King Sombra who was walled up in his fortress.

The battle had been longer and bloodier than either sister had expected, but through the commitment of their armed forces and good leadership, Celestia and Luna now stood surveying the portentous bastion where Sombra would be forced to make his last stand.

Both alicorns had true loves at home, Peach Blossom having been brought in to the Royal Court years ago.  Luna spent as much time with her as she could, but her marefriend had come to understand the pressures of responsibility that the Princesses bore, and had never doubted Luna ever again; in fact, they were held up as a symbol of devotion.

The end of the struggle was now at hoof, but complacency could not be accommodated.  Sombra was a wily operator and had gone out of his way to make the anticipated final assault as difficult as possible.  His two principal defences were the Crystal Field, which was impassable to anypony on hoof, and a magical barrier that invaded the minds of anypony who got too close, such as pegasi, who could fly over the Crystal Field, but had no magic of their own to defend themselves against this most cruel of spells.

With earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi equally unable to advance, the obligation to administer the coup de grâce fell to the two alicorns alone.

Dressed in full battle armour, the two sisters took final stock of their options and agreed that the time of final reckoning had come.

Luna sprang into the air followed closely by her sister, their magic blocking Sombra’s mind destroying spell and aimed resolutely towards the fortress; side by side, as they had always been.  They aimed for a high gothic window and smashed through together, Luna with her magical sword drawn and Celestia with her enchanted bardiche, a brutal looking pole arm.  Ahead of them stood Sombra, resplendent in a regal red cloak trimmed with ermine and covering his battle armour.  He stared at his dual nemesis with a confident smirk, his horn aglow and his red eyes gleaming a look of defiant disdain.

The sisters attacked and as the dust of the first assault was settling, Sombra mounted his counter-attack, enchanted weapons and magical forces clashing in his fight for survival, yet despite being outnumbered and his fate hanging by their actions, he remained unsettlingly sanguine.  His evil laugh echoed around the room as wounds he received healed without even leaving so much as a scratch, toying with his attackers, taking his time to wear them down in a battle he believed they could never win, relishing in their futility.

After a barrage of sustained intense physical assault, Luna was incapacitated and Sombra saw his chance to divide and conquer; to pick off the white mare without interference from her sister.  Celestia fought bravely but in the midst of battle, he withdrew and regrouped, turning himself into a projection from Luna’s near future; an all-black alicorn, eyes burning with the most pure form of evil.   The Sun Princess was shocked by the twisted travesty that he had projected, made all the more frightening by the intuitive realisation that this would come to pass.  While her senses were still reeling that the sister she loved so dearly could transform into an omnipotent being of such wickedness, Sombra struck and Celestia fell, smouldering purple smoke trailing from her eyes through which she had been served his evil vision.

Luna freed herself and came to rejoin the fight with unwavering resolve, eager to finish the job they had started as a pair.  Always the more agile of the two sisters, she found her swiftness amplified by her renewed fervour, rounding her attack on Sombra seemingly from all sides at once.

As each successive attack and counter-attack was launched and blocked, it was clear that neither was prepared to give ground, so as they stared each other down ready for the next engagement, he summoned shards of black crystals to rise from the floor and encircle her.  Now she was imprisoned, he was free to unleash his distorted narrative and twist her mind too; sowing the seeds of dissonance in her relationship with her sister, teasing her and tempting her to enjoy a future of shared tyranny with him.

Luna had heard enough and focused her magic onto shattering the black crystals of her prison and charged in to attack once more, only to be hit by one of Sombra’s dark spells.  But, instead of succumbing as he had hoped, Luna rang out an evil laugh that made the blood in his veins turn to ice:
“You have sought your power from darkness and consider its realm to be your friend.  Do not fool yourself into believing this gift has given you mastery over them; these powers you trifle with are those into which I was born and course through my very existence.  Who do you think stands up to the unleashed forces of darkness alone every night?”

For the first time since the two sisters had confronted him, Sombra was now genuinely scared.  If Luna was right, then the sum of all the dark power he had amassed paled into insignificance against that which Luna wielded.  It suddenly dawned on him that he may have underestimated the blue mare, and by challenging her, had embarked on a fight he could not hope to win.

“You are nothing.  You are insignificant next to them; next to me!  Your tyranny has unleashed fear across the land, but you lack the insight to understand what is the meaning of real terror.  And now I will show you!”
“Who are you ...?” he croaked in fright.
“I am your worst nightmare.”
With that, Luna struck the terrified tyrant down.


***


Although the army returned having deposed King Sombra, the victory was marred by the magical disappearance of the Crystal Empire.  The battle was over, but other than the peace dividend, there was no victory to celebrate.  Luna did not speak of what happened between her and Sombra, but over time, the seeds of discontent he had sown in her mind took root and blossomed.

Celestia too was wary of the image shown to her by Sombra and became mistrustful of her sister, checking up on her to see if the reality she had been confronted with was in danger of being played out.  The more she pried, the more Luna felt hounded and the more the discontent flourished, the closeness of the relationship between the two sisters crumbling amidst increasingly bitter arguments, which only served to show each that their fears of the other were well founded.

Peach Blossom still loved Luna deeply, but Luna knew that Celestia was spying on them even in her closest moments, so created a bedroom in her magic within the fabric of the castle, but only accessible to herself.  Another could enter with her and would be free to leave, but could never re-enter without her permission.  This became their refuge, the only place in Equestria where Luna felt safe.  This was also the best place to display a beautiful oil painting of her marefriend that she had been given as a gift near the beginning of their courtship and allowed her to relive the loving moments they had shared even when she was not around and Luna needed some space for reflection.

Even with the unquestioning love of her marefriend and the sanctity of her refuge, there came a point one fateful night when this was no longer enough and Peach Blossom was not there to restrain Luna’s resentment as it finally spilled over.  Sombra’s work had finally come to fruition and Luna challenged Celestia under the guise of her evil alter-ego, Nightmare Moon.  Anger clouded her judgement and Celestia’s cooler head prevailed, banishing her to the moon for her sins, a story that has been passed down ever since as established Equestria lore.

With time on her hooves to allow the desire for revenge to burn a hole in her soul, she still held on to one happy thought that kept her sane during her incarceration, Peach Blossom, the love of her life; her one true love.  It was her she missed the most and knew that when or indeed if she ever returned, she would probably be long dead, but she still clung to hope throughout the silent isolation of her cold imprisonment.

On the face of the moon, a new feature began to emerge year on year, that of a dark tear stain rolling down from the eye of an alicorn who would not return for a thousand years.

“Peach Blossom, I love you.”