Rarity and Applejack were sitting in the officer's lounge they had colonized with the lights dimmed to a tolerable minimum. Both had been self medicating since the battle, and commiserating about their lack of luck in their love lives. They were drinking electrolyte replenishing fluids when they heard a crash that felt like someone pulling a saw across their frontal lobes. They looked and saw Pinkie Pie on the floor. She had tried to rest her weight against a chair, but had toppled over instead.
"Pinkie!" they shouted as they both leapt to their feet and rushed to help her into a chair at their table. Pinkie cracked an eye open and saw their electrolyte drinks. She lunged for them and chugged one and then the other. She breathed heavily as she lay sprawled out in the chair.
"Pinkie darling what happened to you?" Rarity said as she grabbed them all another round of drinks.
Applejack, despite her luck with love lately, couldn't begrudge Pinkie her good fortune. Both her and Pinkie answered simultaneously, "Twahlaght." Applejack because of her ag world drawl, and Pinkie because she was exhausted to the point of slurring her speech.
Pinkie's voice was hoarse from non stop moaning. "And I thought she was a freak before." Her head hit the table with a thud.
Rarity levitated her head off the table. "Pinkie, you know you're allowed to say no right? Just because she's a Viceroy now doesn't mean she owns you."
Pinkie hissed with a venom neither of them had ever heard her speak with before. "Of course I know that!" Her head resumed its place on the table. She spoke from her recumbent position. "It's like an all you can eat buffet and all the dishes are desserts." She started to tear up as she said, "Every time I want to stop Twilight just Twilight's at me and I want her again."
The two loveless members of the conversation smiled ironically at the situation. Neither of them was getting any, and she was getting too much. "How's that for irony." Applejack said to no one in particular."
A blinding flash made the three severely dehydrated women wince and a loud pop made their ears ring. Twilight stood there, her long ethereal hair flowing eternally behind her, a terribly satisfied smile on her face. "Oh Pinkie, there you are. Celestia had a meeting so I've got the afternoon off, and we saved you a piece of tiramisu from lunch."
Pinkie's head popped off the table. She screamed in a mix of exasperation and desperation. "SEE?! HOW DO YOU SAY NO TO THAT?" She sprang over to the glowing demigod and shoved her tongue into her mouth. With another loud pop the lounge resumed its ear ringing silence. The two couldn't help but laugh.
When Twilight had ascended to her new form she noticed a number of interesting changes. She'd had Rarity assist with her change of wardrobe, as she now had to make room for her large wings. There was a bit of trouble when she tried to sleep, but she slept on her side most of the time anyway so it wasn't too difficult. Not to mention she had Pinkie Pie there to make the bed more snug. She found that when she was unharmed she didn't actually need to tend to her normal bodily functions. She could still eat, she could still sleep, but she could simply do without breathing in the void if she felt like it. Fortunately for Pinkie Pie, the change had not changed the contents of her heart. She still loved Pinkie Pie dearly, and spent as much time with her as she could. Fortunately or unfortunately however her new form meant that she could also do more of what she liked to do without the limitations of normal humans. So poor Pinkie Pie was left to contend with the sex drive of someone who never tired.
After the chaos after the battle Celestia had finally had time to tend to the little matter of her protege becoming one of only two other such beings in the known galaxy. She summoned Twilight to her private study and saw just how much she'd changed. She felt that she was the same Twilight, but just more of her. Every aspect of her was simply increased.
The two were a picture of divinity sitting across from each other. Two beings of immeasurable power, their long ethereal hair flowing behind them as they sat upright on cushions on the floor.
They sat just as they used to when Twilight was a child. Celestia felt a mix of pride, and of terrible sadness at the change. Twilight sat in comfortable silence sipping excellent tea waiting for her mentor to impart some wisdom as she always did. She could feel the mental struggle within her liege lord and waited patiently for her to make her will known.
"You killed my sister." Celestia finally said. Twilight coughed up the mouthful of tea she'd been sipping and spluttered ungracefully. Twilight's eyes went wide. She had no idea what this was going to lead to. Was she going to attack her to avenge her sister? Was she going to banish her? She sat in terrible expectation, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Technically that was Pinkie Pie." Her heart felt like it had stopped beating in her chest. When she'd ascended and every part of her was increased, apparently the Pinkie Pie part of her had also been boosted. It was the single most mortified she'd ever been in her life.
Celestia however simply nodded and continued. "Quite. But I feel you misunderstand me. You were able to kill something that had survived for over ten centuries." Twilight's terror waned and her curiosity waxed. Celestia appeared to settle on a new tact. "Tell me everything you know about me."
Twilight pondered for a moment. "I know your measurements are fifty four, thirty six, fifty four. I know your favorite tea is only grown on the planet Appleloosa. I know that.~"
Celestia put a hand on Twilight's in token she should stop. She once again tried a different tactic. "My history Twilight. I want you to tell me everything you know about my history." She put extra emphasis on the word.
Twilight sheepishly restarted. " Oh that well yes umm." She breathed deeply and recalled all she knew of her mentor. "Your earliest record was of a massive spike in thermal radiation coming from the Saddle Arabian desert. It's said you were first seen striding on a path of molten glass. Apparently they weren't certain whether you made the path on purpose, or if it was a side effect of the flame you were emitting. You were said to have gone willingly with the team that discovered you to Canterlot."
"Then apparently you stayed in the libraries reading everything you could get your hands on. You suffered no one to lay hands on you, and no one could perform any scientific tests. After you'd read everything you could you walked to the seat of government and told them they needed to secure their borders. That started the unification wars. Every nation that didn't willingly join the empire you. . . " Twilight grew uneasy at this stage of the history, and she knew from the trouble with Luna that apparently it was a sore spot for her too.
Celestia gave a small smile at the courtesy Twilight showed by considering her feelings. She nodded that Twilight should continue. "You waged war against them. Eventually bringing all peoples of Terra under your sway in just seven years. Then umm. . . "
Celestia's face fell but she quietly said. "Go on."
Twilight sighed hard. "Then you set your sights on the greater galaxy. Starting with. . ." Twilight breathed deeply. "With Luna." Celestia made no move but Twilight could tell she wanted her to continue. "You sent envoys to Luna and they were rejected. Then you came in person to punish them for their impudence. That's when the earliest records of Luna begin. The two of you fought in the void for seven days. You landed in the Saddle Arabian desert. Then both of you seemed to vanish for ten years."
"You and Luna reappeared and established the empire as a constitutional diarchy with you as it's executive and her as the head of its judiciary. The peoples of Terra drew up a constitution and you two. . . " Twilight had to take a moment to still her anger. She was still bitter about Luna's betrayal and all the trouble it had caused. "You two swore an oath in blood to uphold the constitution. Then you went to Venus."
"Luna stayed as temporary regent of Terra, while you went and Terraformed Venus. Then Mars." Twilight tried to keep the smile off her face, but she couldn't help but feel excited at this part of the history. "Then you went back to Terra and you didn't rest until you'd perfected faster than light travel!" She began to glow as her passion rose. "Then you helped spread the empire to the stars and foster a new golden age!"
Celestia sadly smiled, but she put a hand on Twilight's to once again signal her to stop. Twilight jerked slightly at the unexpected contact, like someone wakened from a doze. Celestia's face fell. "Yes. That's a way of putting it, yes." She rose and looked out the window sadly for a long moment. Twilight stared wondering what her mentor would do?
"Rise Twilight." Twilight was mildly surprised, but levitated to her feet quickly. Celestia's eyes were glowing and she raised a hand into the air.
Suddenly the familiar study with its cozy fireplace, elegant bookshelves, and tea fixtures all were ripped away and vanished into the distance as if all had been but a tarp torn suddenly from over them. Twilight heard the howling winds, smelled the desert sand, felt the baking heat of the desert sun as if she stood herself in the Saddle Arabian desert. She looked beside her and still Celestia was there, hand upraised.
"This is my earliest memory Twilight." Celestia's voice echoed in her mind. "All that existed was rage." Twilight looked and saw her mentor, not as she knew her, the embodiment of benevolence and regality, like the first warming light of the sun after heavy snowfall. No, the Celestia she saw was akin to the desert sun to one dying of thirst. She crouched on all fours, naked, and screaming. "My whole world, was hate. As if I had been dealt some grievous wrong." Twilight felt in her own heart the horrible animal panic of Celestia as she screamed on the ground. The unyielding rage. She felt her own jaw set firm in her mouth. Twilight looked and saw that the Celestia standing next to her had an expression of barely contained anger. "Then they came."
Twilight saw a space shuttle land within light of sight of Celestia. "I felt them before I saw them. I heard their thoughts, their fear, their whole histories. I saw that there were more people like them, who built craft like the one they came in. I took in their languages. They landed far away so I walked to them. As I approached them they began to back away from the heat. I looked upon the ground and saw the sand melting as I approached. I learned how to scale back my fury and the heat abated."
The heat, sand, sun, and desert all vanished and were replaced by green grass, straight roads, paved walks, and towering buildings. She recognized it as a Canterlot from another age. She saw Celestia now striding head erect, shoulders back, walking boldly into the central library of the city. People came to gawk at the giant naked woman who came from the desert. "I reasoned from those who found me, that there was much I didn't know. So I sought out to learn as much as I could."
Twilight saw Celestia levitate a book over to herself, look at a page once, absorb all its contents, do so for each page, then levitate the book back onto the shelf. Twilight smiled out of the side of her mouth and felt a giddy kinship as that was her method of reading as well. Then it occurred to her that she and Celestia were in fact two of a kind now.
"What I learned horrified me Twilight. I saw a world in a state of perpetual self mutilation. I saw the potential of man constantly curtailed by the threat of war, always having to fear their neighbor. I hated it. I saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd and only with a rule of iron could they be made to prosper." Twilight felt the rage build in her again. The scenery turned into a great hall, full of potentates and rulers of the land. Twilight couldn't hear what the Celestia speaking to the powerful was saying, but she could feel their resentment. They all thought, "Who is this who speaks to us this way?"
Twilight felt the Celestia standing beside her grow sad. "They rejected me Twilight. I tried to tell them what to do and like any free person would they didn't listen. So I did it for them." The scenery changed again, Twilight felt but rage, but cold calm brutal determination. She felt the heat like a blazing furnace suddenly opened. She saw her mentor, her friend, her beloved Celestia float slowly through city after city, and burn anyone and anything in her way. She saw a weak resistance thrown together at the last second decimated by Celestia like a cardboard castle defended by children. Anyone who could make it to a space colony did so in mass exoduses. Alliances to stop her were made and broken in a matter of hours. "For seven years Twilight. I burned Terra for seven years until it lay helpless and broken at my feet."
Twilight felt the cold stillness of the void. It almost seemed pleasant after the rage and the flames. Celestia no longer spoke. She couldn't bring herself to say the words. Twilight felt the anguish of loss radiating from her friend, but she did not look. She saw a ball of flame burning like a solar flare moving slowly through the void. She saw Celestia approach the metropolis of Luna. A series of interconnected bubble cities that sprawled across the surface of the moon like a fungus in a petri dish.
Then both the Celestia in the memory and Twilight were blinded by an unbearably bright light. She blinked the pain out of her eyes and saw Celestia, teeth gnashed, attempt to burn this obnoxious light. The energy she sent at the light merely came back and hit Celestia. Twilight's face darted forward in surprise and she felt herself tensed to be attacked. She felt a presence that seemed so real she was worried Luna had somehow come back to life. She felt Celestia's hand on her arm and Twilight saw her sadly shake her head. She slowly relaxed and Celestia spoke again.
"I went to Luna to make my will known, but when I arrived I was rebuffed by a presence that felt like I was attacking myself. Every attack I made in it merely came back and hit me. The presence itself felt akin to my own self, but clearly wasn't me. For seven full days I tried to destroy this maddening entity and for seven days was merely beating at the wind with a sword."
The scenery changed back into the path of glass in the desert. Twilight saw Celestia laying on the glass, exhausted, panting like someone chased down. She screamed at the entity that remained a glowing ball of light. "I couldn't defeat it no matter what I tried, so in defeat I asked it its name. It understood no concept of self. I told it it came from Luna, and it had no understanding of place. I spent the next ten years teaching it to think and it became. . ."
Celestia had to stop for a moment. "The Luna I once knew. We spent all that time debating and philosophizing on the nature of life, of right and wrong, and of policy. She insisted that my view of history was limited to the tragedy of war. She showed me the technological advances made during war that extended to peace time. She showed me the changes in governmental structure that occurred when a state failed to protect itself. She showed me the way a civilization progressed when it's people could defend itself and it's way of life led to success at home and abroad. Every crumbling empire was merely new life growing and making way for itself."
"We discussed how humanity should live and she convinced me that freedom was the most efficient way for a culture to handle the changing demands from day to day. We returned to Canterlot and asked our people to establish a government with us as its head. They gratefully accepted, and we became the heads of state. Luna took charge of seeing how the laws were carried out, and vowed to keep me from returning to how I was. She was to be as a check to my power, and I was to be the executive of the state. The two of us would rule together as Viceroys. Then I turned my eyes to the stars."
The scenery changed to a high orbit looking down on a space station above the planet Venus. Celestia chuckled softly. "You say I discovered Terraforming as if it just popped into my head one day and I just wrote it down on a napkin. No dear Twilight. No Terraforming was a long grueling process perfected by thousands of scientists and engineers. I simply gave them suggestions of what might work. You say I spread humanity to the stars." Celestia chuckled again. "Well Twilight I do not have children, nor did I just throw them into the void. No twilight, they colonized the sky, they took the initiative to strike out to foreign worlds, and settle, and make them into something great. I didn't make the empire Twilight. The empire made itself." She lowered her hand and the room resumed its coziness.
She sat down on her cushion and sipped her tea. Celestia was right back to her old placid self. Twilight remained standing for several moments not sure of what the point of that little history lesson was. She felt the Rainbow Dash part of her want to mouth off about it, but the Rarity part of her knew better. She joined her mentor and refilled her tea cup. "So why did you want to show me that?" Twilight finally asked.
Celestia blinked in surprise. "What was that not clear?" Twilight could only shrug her shoulders. Celestia seemed mildly embarrassed. "Oh right well I'm Twilight." Her face grew grave. "You are now like myself, and. . . " She paused for a moment and inhaled deeply. "Luna. And yet you have perfect memory of how you came to be this way. Neither Luna nor I ever knew our origin." Celestia looked hard at Twilight. "I want you to discover how I came to be."
A heavy silence hung in the air for a long while. Twilight was being asked to do something not even her mentor could do in a thousand years. "Celestia. . . How would I even go about doing that?"
Celestia opened her hands. "You'll have the entire empire's resources at your back. You're the greatest scholar on Terra Twilight. I know you can do it."
Twilight looked hard at the ground in uncertainty. "But why me? Why now? You could've asked me to do this at any time before you knighted me. And now I've got my team to think of. And what if the matter if piracy in the empire? Am I released from that commission?"
Celestia held up a hand for silence. "One at a time Twilight. I've already said there's no one more qualified to square this circle that you." Celestia once again rose and walked to the window. She stood staring out into the distance for a long while. "Because you killed my sister Twilight. Or rather, because Pinkie Pie killed my sister." Twilight cringed visibly. She turned to Twilight and she could see that she had concern written on her face. "I didn't know we could die. Luna's. . . " Twilight saw tears in her mentor's eyes. "When Luna tried to kill me it really surprised me."
The Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash parts of Twilight's brain all simultaneously said, "Well no shit." But the Twilight and Rarity parts of her brain told them to shush.
"We lived for at least a thousand years Twilight. I didn't know we could die." She turned back to the window. "And if I died today the empire would be thrown into chaos. And now there's you to think about." She resumed her seat and spoke with a disconcerting earnestness. "You've become like I am. I never let them test me because I knew they'd try everything in their power to try and kill me. But you can see what makes us like we are. And what that means for the empire."
Twilight pondered for a long time. "And what does that mean for the empire? Me being this way I mean. What will happen without Luna? And with me this way?"
Celestia nodded sagely. "I've asked parliament to discuss the issue and they've requested as follows. You will be a junior partner to me. Second only to me in the empire. You will be the balance of terror that Luna was to me, but I will remain the head of state. You will be the commander in chief of the Imperial military, and I will be the head of the administratum."
Twilight was thunderstruck. She knew that her change of body would entail certain responsibilities, but to literally go instantly from knight to Viceroy was head spinning. Thankfully the shock was so great that most of it washed over her. She heard her mouth say, "What would be my responsibilities?"
Celestia rose. "If you accept this charge you will do as you swore in your vow upon your commission. To handle all threats to the empire foreign and domestic, but not as my vassal, as my colleague."
Twilight's mind locked onto that one word. "If?"
Celestia smiled sagely. "Yes Twilight. Luna and I seized authority without thinking about it in retrospect, but you Twilight, I leave it in your hands." Her voice echoed with solemnity. "The empire calls you. Its citizens groan under the constant threat of piracy." She held a hand out to Twilight. "Will you secure my realm?"
Twilight's aura grew and gained luminescence. Her voice shook as she answered. "YES MY VICEROY!"
Celestia smiled gently and thought to herself, "She's always so easily excitable." She rose and smoothed out the folds of her dress. "Well then let's go." She turned towards the center of Canterlot.
Twilight's glow went out like a candle extinguished. "Go? Go where?"
Celestia's aura surrounded them both and suddenly she was in the Imperial parliament. Nine thousand representatives from a thousand worlds scrambled awkwardly into their benches. Twilight's eyes opened wide with shock and embarrassment. She felt slightly better when she felt that half of them had also been caught off guard by her entrance. She felt the presence of her knights and she saw Rarity waving weakly at her; Twilight could feel the hangover from where she stood. Pinkie Pie blew her a kiss and she blushed. She turned her mind to the Damocles floating in orbit and she felt that Rainbow was watching from her room in the med bay. Her heart sank slightly when she felt Applejack's crushing depression.
Celestia addressed the representatives of the thousand worlds. For the record the solar empire only had nine hundred sixty two worlds, but "the thousand worlds" sounded better, and several space stations had their own representatives. "Most trusted advisors to the Solar Empire, as you have requested, the newest Viceroy has been offered your appointment. She has accepted!" The roar was deafening and Rarity put a hand to her aching forehead. She turned to Twilight. "Do you Twilight Sparkle, on this day swear on your honor and in blood to uphold the constitution, and to defend the empire against all threats foreign and domestic?"
Twilight saw the constitution etched expertly onto an obelisk of the very glass Celestia had melted upon her manifestation a thousand years ago. Its point was keen as a razor. Twilight approached and laid her hand on it. "I swear, I Twilight Sparkle will uphold and defend the constitution of the Solar Empire, and shall defend it against all foes foreign and domestic." She pressed down on the point and her blood ran down its edges filling the gaps of the lettering and making them shine crimson. The representatives cheered loudly.
Twilight felt her blood burn within her. Her aura glowed brightly and she began to rise slowly into the air as she spoke. "I will rid this galaxy of piracy. The space lanes will be clear, and a citizen shall feel safe to travel from one end of this galaxy to the other. On my honor I swear that slave raids will be a thing of the past, and a new and glorious age of peace and prosperity shall reign!"
The representatives roared with cheers and applause. Celestia grew slightly nervous. She'd heard a speech very similar to this recently. Twilight raised a hand for silence and then she did something neither they nor Celestia expected. She lowered herself to the floor and she bowed. She bowed low to the ground and softly said. "I thank you ladies and gentlemen, for honoring me with this task."
The representatives stood in stunned silence. "WOO! WAY TO BE HUMBLE LOVE MUFFIN!" Pinkie's voice echoed through the silent hall. That broke the dam and a thunderclap of applause shook the building. A tear came to Celestia's eye. Who was this gallant demigod who swore to rule with justice and humility? Surely not the little girl she'd once known.