//------------------------------// // Totality // Story: The Sun Rises, The Sun Never Sets // by BRBrony9 //------------------------------// What a lovely day it was! The Sun was shining down brightly, the city looked like a paradise with its glowing spires illuminated by the light from the heavens. What a wonderful place Canterlot was, truly. Everything was perfect. Was. A lively parade, floats and banners and music, and there was Rarity, alive and well, smiling, laughing gaily at some joke or other. How beautiful she looked. Everything was perfect. Was. There was her brother, waving happily in greeting, beckoning her over, drawing her into a tight hug. How nice to see him! he had been away for so, so long on deployment with the army. Years, it seemed! So long away in the desolate parts of the planet. How nice to see him again. Everything was perfect. Was. But what was this? A shadow, long and monstrous, cast its pall over the parade. Ponies looked up curiously. Clouds? No, not clouds. High above, the Sun was disappearing. An unexpected eclipse! This was unusual. There had been no announcements from the space agency about this. No astronomers had predicted it. She hadn't predicted it, seen nothing of it in her work and study. No, this was most bizarre. Most bizarre indeed. Something was very, very wrong. Now there were screams. Confusion had turned to terror, and the sky had turned blood-red. Ponies were howling. The chatter of gunfire, a most unusual sound. Almost like the patter of raindrops upon a window, or a gently crackling fire. But how peculiar! Everywhere she looked, ponies were lunging at each other, tearing at each other, like feral dogs, wild beasts uncaged beneath the crimson sky. Ah, there was the source of the gunfire, a squad of police farther down the boulevard, their pistols and rail-rifles crackling. What were they shooting at? Why, other ponies of course! Oh, how awful. How awful. A sudden blow to the side of her head. What? She turned. Her own brother, hitting her! Frothing at the mouth, he struck her again, sending her tumbling to the ground, the hard stone slabs, warmed by the rays of the sun. He jumped on top of her, howling, howling, baying like a wolf, screaming unintelligibly at nothing. Oh, stop, stop! Somepony help! He clawed at her with his hands, until an explosion of blood erupted from his skull and he slumped over, lifeless, broken. The police squad had reached her, saved her! Oh, but now they were aiming their weapons at her, and... And she awoke, with a terrible start, drenched in sweat, shivering, shaking like a leaf blown on a tremendous breeze. In truth she wasn't even sure how she had gotten to sleep in the first place. Perhaps by focusing on all those happy thoughts, from so long ago now, it seemed. So long ago. No warmth from the Sun reached her here, nor any light, save for the pale and painful incandescence of the bulb in the ceiling. That never ceased, a kind of torture in itself, burning into her even when she slept. She could almost feel it seeping into her skin. Still, all that would be over soon. Today was the day. This would be it, the culmination of all the stupid, dangerous questions she had asked herself, asked the world, and sought the answers to. This was where everything had led. As it must, she knew that now. The Sun Rises, The Sun Never Sets. A dead Princess, a corpse-goddess on a hidden throne, ruling over a land of the un-willfully blind. They served breakfast, but Twilight could not eat. She left the tray untouched upon the serving hatch as her broken mind, half-crazed with fear, clung to the things she knew were real. The bed she sat upon, the endless light that refused to stop shining, the rough, coarse prison garb she wore. That was it. They were the only things she could trust anymore. The rest of her world had collapsed like a house of cards around her, like a simulation where somepony had pulled the plug. Her own brother had signed her death warrant, because the Princess she worshiped was long since dead. She had seen her in the interrogation room, but that was a hallucination, the drugs they kept sticking in her, probably. The perfection of pony society was a lie, carefully manicured and tended to by the ASU and others who were in the know, the ones who could see both sides of the veil. Equestria was not a paradise won by the might of the Sun and her devout followers, it was a fiction intended to ensure the continued rule of a small minority, those Unicorns who knew the truth. She presumed it was only Unicorns, anyway. But how much did others know? How much did Applejack know, the leader of the team which had arrested her? Did she know everything, the same as Shining Armor, or was she in the dark too? Was she told simply that Twilight was a subversive, a heretic, and that was reason enough to arrest her, or did Applejack and her team know why she had technically committed heresy? Did they know about Princess Luna, or was that an empty name to them, as it had been to her when she first heard it? Her brother, too. He acted like he knew the truth, but if those who ran the world -the Council and its Chairpony, presumably, in the absence of a Princess- were keeping so much from the population, might they not also be keeping some things from their agents, too? Shining had admitted as much a few days earlier. Those roles entitle them to more information than the rest of the public will ever know. Some of it I have explained to you already. Some, I do not know myself. But how did he know that he didn't know? And what didn't he know? Twilight had thought she had known the truth all her life, and now that truth lay shattered and broken around her. She had never doubted. She had never known that she didn't know. And now she knew nothing, and everything, all at once. It was raining, of course. A light drizzle, but enough to convince her that fate was laughing at her, because of course it would be raining for an execution. Her feet and hands manacled, clad in her dull grey prison uniform, Twilight shuffled slowly out into the courtyard, escorted by two burly guards, and Applejack, as the arresting officer. All wore suitably sombre expressions, for this was no celebration, even for the loyal members of the ASU. A pony was about to die, though a heretic she be. Still a pony. Still a Unicorn. Twilight instinctively halted as she saw the bare concrete wall across the courtyard, pitted and pock-marked with bullet holes. It looked like the surface of the Moon, dull and barren and lifeless. She recoiled in revulsion, in terror. The strong arms of the guards dragged her onward. How many have they killed here like this? Oh sweet Sun, I'm next... Shining Armor was there, in his uniform, smart and trim and proper, hands clasped behind his back as though he were there to watch a military parade. Is he really going to just stand there and watch them kill me...? She trembled, more from fear than from the cold, though the drizzle quickly soaked her through as the guards marched her over the inner courtyard of the ASU building. Rain pooled underfoot, while overhead she could hear the thrumming roar of a spaceplane taking off from the Orbiport. To New Zebrica, maybe...or Hoofston...oh please, take me with you! Not that it mattered where it was going, for nowhere was beyond the reach of the ASU, nowhere was out of the watchful gaze of the Sun. That much was abundantly clear to Twilight now. She had not left much of a record of her actions, had used the public terminal instead of her own, concealed herself as best she could, not told anypony about her investigations... Well, nopony except Rarity. Oh, but surely...no, no...there's no way. Absolutely no way that Rarity would have... She shook the thought from her mind. She was not about to die because of Rarity, but Rarity had certainly died because of her. Her inquisitiveness, such an important trait in a scientist, had been put to foul use, poking her snout into things that truly did not concern her. They never had concerned her before, and now, they never would again. A good scientist is infinitely curious, but only about science. If only she had heeded the wise words of her university professor when he had spoken them to the lecture hall full of bright young minds at the start of her academic career. Rarity would still be alive. So would the Princess. So would she. Her curiosity had been sated, but Twilight wished to go back, back to the blissful ignorance she did not even know she had been wallowing in all her life. When the Princess was alive, when Equestria was a paradise and not a paper world of lies and deceit. Back to where everypony else lived, inside their bubble, inside their forced fantasy where their minds were closed and atrophied, but safe. That was where she wanted to be. Not here in this rain-soaked quadrangle that reeked of death, the graveyard of independent thought, where they buried the truth and its unfortunate victims along with it. No joy-pills here to mask pain and sadness and fear. Nothing but reality. Cold, awful, horrifying reality. Five ponies in ASU uniforms and with rail-rifles slung over their shoulders emerged from another doorway, and Twilight's breath caught in her throat again. There must still be hope, this could still be fake, another layer of falsehood to pile on top of all the others. Maybe the drugs...yes, the drugs they'd given her, although they had not given her an injection that morning. This was all an hallucination, it had to be! Yes, that was it. If you cannot live inside their fantasy, construct your own and make it better. Shining would not preside over his sister's execution. No chance! It had to all be fake, yes. That was it. Perhaps to scare, to break her mind, maybe even to get her to confess to some other things she hadn't done. Why, at this point, she would gladly confess to killing the Princess with her own hand if it would spare her from death! Shining approached her, the guards standing her against the wall and stepping away. He looked down at his sister, offering no words of comfort, but simply a choice. "Blindfold or no blindfold?" Twilight looked at him aghast. Yes, it had to be fake. Her brother could not possibly act so coldly. He loved her dearly, always had. "Shiny..." "Do you want a blindfold or not?" he repeated bluntly, his expression unchanged. "I...I don't know...please, Shiny...you're my brother..." He grabbed her by the neck, shoved her against the wall, the rough, pock-marked surface rubbing against her. "Listen to me, Twilight. You're a heretic, you're a traitor, you're nothing. You are not my sister any longer. Not since you found that letter and started searching for answers. What did that get you, hm? All this, that's what it got you." He gestured with his other hand at the grim courtyard, the stone-faced firing squad, the leaden skies. "It got you all this, and it got you nothing. Nothing at all. It destroyed you, because that's what happens when you try to learn things you're not supposed to know. You should have stuck to your job and your studies, Twilight." She gasped and whimpered, half-choked by her brother's strong hand. Pressed up against the wall where so many others had died after following the same path, she went weak at the knees, fear flooding over her like a torrent like it had at no other point, even when she had heard the Princess sentence her to death, or when Shining signed the warrant. "P-please..." Shining released his grip, a look of contempt in his eyes. "You're worthless now, Twilight. Worthless to society, to Equestria, to the Sun. You know things you were not meant to know, and were not conditioned for. You're infected with the poison of the past. You will not be allowed to spread it here in the present." "Shiny...!" she cried, shaking with fear. "Then...then condition me! Make me one of you! I'm your sister, we must be compatible with...with...whatever they did to you..." "They did the exact same things with me that they did with you, Twilight," he replied. "Except they fed me the truth and trained me to cope with it, instead of feeding me the lie." "So train me...!" "You can't be trained," he replied simply. "Not now. it has to be instilled in you from birth, before, even. In the womb. Magic, gene editing, in-utero injections. Just like you did at the Hatchery, Twilight. Just like you did with those eggs. You made them dumb, most of them. But that one egg, you made smart, intelligent, thoughtful. Just that one egg, out of all the thousands you have ever processed. If Spike had been born dumb and ignorant, you would not have been able to make him smart once he was an adult. That would have been far too late, and it's far too late for you. You've been exposed to information you were not meant to possess and your brain was not prepared for. Not only are you not capable of being trained, you're already broken, Twilight. Spike is still alive, by the way. Would you like to see him?" "He's...alive?" Twilight quickly nodded. "Y-yes, please...please..." She had imagined her dragon to be long dead, like Rarity. To know he was still alive gave her a tiny warm speck of comfort in her heart. Shining turned to Applejack and nodded, and she moved to the same doorway the firing squad had emerged from. A moment later she stepped outside with Spike in tow. The young dragon's bright eyes lit up as he saw her. "Mommy Twilight...!" He rushed toward her, his tail wagging from side to side like a dog, a broad, happy grin on his face. "Spike...!" Twilight's lips twitched and broke into a smile, the first she had felt cross her face in what felt like a lifetime. Spike wrapped himself around her leg tightly. "Mommy Twilight, where have you been...?" "I'm sorry Spike, I've...been, uh...busy..." Twilight mumbled, unsure how to respond or what the ASU had told the dragon about her. "But it's ok, I'm here now. You're here..." "They said auntie Rarity died..." Spike looked up at her, his smile now replaced with a sorrowful frown. "Ah...yes, Spike. Yes, she...she did..." Twilight sighed. Bastards. Why couldn't they have just kept him ignorant...? Why couldn't I? "Yes, a real shame," Shining interrupted their reunion. "Spike told us all about auntie Rarity and mommy Twilight and how much he loved you both." Twilight swallowed hard. "That's nice, Spike. I'm glad you liked her. She was a good mare...she didn't deserve to die." She shot a hard look at Applejack who stood nearby. Her team had been the ones who killed Rarity. Not me. "The good ones never do," Shining added. "Now, we must be getting along with proceedings. Say goodbye to Spike." "Goodbye, Spike...I...I love you...mommy Twilight loves you," she told him, unable to pat his little head as her hands were cuffed. "Be good, ok?" "Ok mommy, I love you...when will I see you again?" Spike asked sadly. "I don't know, Spike," she told him truthfully. "I really don't know." "I'll miss you..." he gave her leg another tight squeeze. "Take good care of him...please..." Twilight implored her brother, who nodded. "We will. he'll be in good hands for the rest of his life," he assured her, ushering the dragon away, back to Applejack's side. "He's special, you know. Quite remarkably intelligent for his age. You taught him well. There aren't many subverted pets that have the vocabularic depth he possesses. In some ways, it's a shame, I suppose. But it can't be helped." He nodded to Applejack. She drew her pistol from her holster. "No...!" Twilight breathed. "Spike! Spike, run! Run away!" she shouted. Spike turned to look at her curiously. Applejack racked the slide of her pistol, pressed it to the back of Spike's head, and pulled the trigger. "No...!" Twilight screamed. "No, no, no!" He was her baby! Not just her pet, but her surrogate child, her smart, wonderful little... "I'll kill you!" she shouted in a blind fury, lunging toward Applejack. "You bitch, you fucking..." Shining grabbed her, the two guards who had escorted her tackled her too. "And I'll kill you! You're supposed to be my brother!" she wailed, trying to headbutt Shining with her covered horn, biting at his arm. Maybe this was it. Maybe her mind had finally been broken. No, it's not me who is broken, it's them. They're so scared of a name that they would kill a child. They'd kill me. They've killed dozens, hundreds, thousands, who knows how many? Because of a name. The guards held her down, administering a brief electrical shock-spell to incapacitate her while Shining pressed his wounded arm to his lips, bright red blood leaking from where Twilight's teeth had sunk into his flesh. They are the broken ones. My brother, Applejack, all the rest of them. A name. Just a name, that was all. A name more powerful than magic, more terrifying than death, more dangerous than the orbiting nuclear battlestations, a weapon so strong that it must never be uttered, never be spoken of, more potent than nerve gas or radiation or fire. A name they hated. A name they feared above all else. Luna, Luna! Come and destroy them! The guards dragged her back against the wall, stood her up. Shining produced the death warrant from his jacket, began reading it aloud. "On this, the one-hundred and seventeenth day of the one-thousand and tenth year of the reign of the Glorious Sun, I, Senior Agent Shining Armor, do solemnly declare the following sentence, to be read aloud before the suspect, Twilight Sparkle. You have been convicted of the crimes of high treason, heresy, subversive activity, the possession of a deviant creature and the possession of illegal documents. The sentence for these crimes is death by firing squad. That sentence will now be carried out, in the presence of these witnesses, in accordance with protocol and with the laws of Equestria. So sayeth the Princess whom we serve. In Celestia's name. Praise the Sun." "Praise the Sun," everypony else intoned in unison, all except Twilight, dazed from the shock-magic, anger and fear coursing through her in equal measure. Shining tucked the warrant away in his pocket again as Applejack turned to address the line of armed ponies. "Firing party! One pace forward!" Smartly, the ASU officers obeyed her command, in lock-step with one another. Three mares, two stallions, Twilight noted with an almost casual detachedness. Maybe she really had been broken, broken free of her own mind. It was like watching from afar. "Firing party! Load!" The officers inserted magazines into their rail-rifles. They would lack the old-fashioned raw sound of a normal gun, as they made use of magnetic acceleration, not unlike the spaceplane launch channels at the Orbiport. Twilight swallowed, her throat dry. This was it, then. This really was it. "Make ready!" A brief glimpse of movement at the other end of the courtyard, a balcony she had barely noticed before. Somewhere for officials to watch proceedings, make note of each execution, perhaps. There was somepony up there now, where there had been nopony before, she was certain, and... Celestia...! There was no mistaking it. No mistaking that divine form, ethereal mane, imposing height and stern, beautiful face, especially not after seeing her up close in the interrogation room...or not seeing her at all. But... It's definitely her... On the balcony overlooking the death-yard, there she stood, the Sun herself. But she's dead... A hallucination, then. All part of the drug-induced confusion and paranoia. But they didn't give me any injections today... She remembered the words of her brother from three days earlier. It does not matter which truth or which lie you believe, so long as you believe in the Sun. "Take aim!" Applejack barked. The five ponies leveled their weapons, aiming at Twilight's chest. Princess...Princess, I'm sorry...! "The Sun Rises...!" she wailed, a last, desperate cry, hoping it reached the ears of the Princess, if she were there at all. "Fire!" Applejack roared. The guns whirred and hissed, hurling their projectiles across the courtyard. White-hot, stabbing pain drove itself through Twilight's body. She contorted, her breath all carried away from her throat by sudden agony. She tumbled in a crumpled heap to the damp stone, her blood leaking out, running in rivulets into the puddles of water beneath her. She twitched, lying on her side, eyes glazed as she stared unseeingly into the abyss, teetering on the brink of eternal Night. Applejack drew her pistol from its holster once more, but Shining Armor put a hand on her arm, then stepped forward himself. Twilight still had enough life left in her to know her brother, her eyes flickering with a faint glimmer of recognition as she looked up into the barrel of his pistol. Before he squeezed the trigger, he uttered the last words she would ever hear, the only words that mattered, the most important words that could ever be spoken. "The Sun Never Sets."