'
"Your highness, we have captured and returned with one of the ponies that has been roaming around biting at others." An elite guard which just returned said to Celestia, prompting her to look at him in deep concern.
"Why have you disobeyed my orders? You were to observe only." Her intonation was such that his explanation better be good.
"You see uh.. would you please come with me, your majesty? I need to speak to you privately." He sounded worried. Worry was the order of the day, but this was highly unusual. She excused herself and Luna, leaving Twilight and the others still scouring for anything in the available books that might prove of value in facing this ridiculously powerful foe.
"How did we get here? Not a week ago I was just enjoying tea and reading school reports. Now there is some probably insane pony trying to kill us all. This is just.." Twilight trailed off. It was truly an extraordinary situation.
"I don't think there's anything in these books to help us Twi. We need to take action very soon." Rainbow Dash said somewhat forlornly. Everyone looked disheartened. The loss of Canterlot was a tremendous and unexpected blow. That it was simply taken with such ease was hard to swallow. The power within those terrible constructs was on par or even above anything any of them ever faced before. Twilight had not been beaten via sheer power in many years.
"I know but we barely have any idea what they are. How do you fight.." Twilight was interrupted by Celestia unexpectedly returning already. The expression she wore was intense.
"Twilight, come with me. Now." Was all she said and turned. This was strange.
"But we don't have a proper pl.." Twilight went to say.
"Now, Twilight." This was very odd of Celestia. Something must be quite wrong.
"Yes." Was all Twilight could manage to say to that and followed her to a holding cell below.
Such cells generally went unused, reserved only for the worst of transgressions.
"What's going on?" Twilight asked. Two guards standing in front of the gate appeared very disheveled.
Celestia turned to her former student and looker directly in her eyes.
"There is no easy way to break this to you. The pony behind those bars is..Moondancer. You aren't going to like what you see." Celestia was very quiet as she spoke. Twilight overheard some other guards saying there was yet another of the awful puppets just standing outside Canterlot. How many of these horrifying things could there possibly be?
"What, is she hurt? Why is she in there?" Twilight went to step towards the cell but Celestia barred her with a hoof.
"Wait. Listen, this is going to be hard for you to witness. Don't get too close." She let her pass and the guards moved aside. Much to Twilights horror as she peered into the cell a familiar face smacked into the bars.
"Moondancer what..." Twilight stopped short. Her friend was teetering and walking about randomly. Hearing her, the pony within went biting at the sound of her voice. She walked about the cell trotting into the walls and occasionally falling to slowly rise again shakily.
"No.." Twilight whispered under her breath, and cried at seeing her friend in such a disturbing state.
"One of the guards recognized she was familiar to you and decided to catch her at great risk. We don't know how to help her. I am so very sorry." Celestia hugged her student gently and stepped back.
"This is horrible. What have they done to her? This is complete madness. Can't we do anything?" Twilight found it difficult to speak at the current moment. A doctor that was summoned to inspect her spoke up.
"We don't even know what the problem is, let alone how to treat it. All we can do is try to stop her from hurting herself for the moment. Me and my team will do whatever we can." He did not sound very hopeful about the outcome.
"Thank you. Please take good care of her." Twilight couldn't look anymore and left the room. She stood there taking deep breaths.
"This must be stopped." She gritted her teeth and returned to the throne room. Her friends looked on quizzically as she entered.
"This has hurt our friends, our families. Ponies and everyone else we know. We are facing quite possibly the destruction of our entire way of life and more. This cannot be allowed to happen." Twilight spoke gravely.
"We must take desperate measures. They're going to attack us, and it will be terrible. I need all of you to do your absolute best. I am issuing a total evacuation order. Get every last citizen out of here. Instead of allowing this to drag on, we are going to throw everything we have into battle right here. Better to lose some homes than more innocent lives, and hopefully put an end to this quickly." Twilight was clearly upset.
"Twilight, is this really a good idea? I really hate to say this, but what if we lose? If we don't have any forces in reserve then Equestria will be defenseless." Dash did make a good point, but Twilight shook her head slowly.
"I get what you're saying, but it's no good. If this is allowed to spill out into the rest of the country then who knows what will happen? We know of contained conflict, but few of us know war. I can see it in their faces, Luna, Celestia.. This could be our only chance to prevent something much worse." The decision was made. Going all in was a gamble with far reaching repercussions should it fail.
"Dash, are the aerial teams prepared?" Twilight asked.
"As ready as they can be. I hope these bomb things you came up with are effective." Rainbow had expressed worries about them.
"We pulled out some weapon and equipment schematics from the old armory museum over on the other side of town. A lot of them were never used. Maybe they will give us an advantage. At the very least they should prove distracting." Twilight waved everyone out.
"I can't let you do this to anyone else, whoever you are." Walking outside she surveyed troops preparing all sorts of unusual devices and defenses. Things meant for warfare. Nothing she ever thought to see in actual use, including something she'd come up with herself, even a term. A magichanical weapon.
"I really hope we don't have to use that." She shuddered.
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A stage once set..