A couple days passed and Gerhardt had finally started training with the Royal Guard to learn how to fight in his new body. They were teaching him with primitive weapons, but that was fine as far as he was concerned as he had to learn how to use the knife Scientia had made for Alexander. Meanwhile Alexander was learning about Equestrian economics and the exceedingly boring world of Equestrian politics. Being the pacifist she was, Pixel was learning economics and politics alongside Alexander. Specifically she was trying to learn as much as she could about diplomacy as possible in order to be able to resolve conflicts without violence.
Pixel was currently in the throne room, watching as Celestia dealt with nobles and ambassadors. She was recording absolutely everything in order to learn as much about politics and diplomacy as possible.
Alexander was there too and was doing mathematical calculations for Celestia whenever necessary and was offering more technological solutions to certain issues wherever it was prudent.
One ambassador Celestia had been speaking to had complained about the Changelings attacking and abducting their messengers. They had discussed the matter at length before the ambassador marched out in frustration.
“If you’re having an issue with these so-called ‘Changelings’ intercepting messengers carrying important letters, may I suggest a wireless alternative to traditional letters? One in which you can speak instantly and directly to other leaders and such even over great distances.” Alexander offered.
“As always, I am willing to hear your proposal even if I don’t end up accepting it.” Celestia stated.
Alexander nodded. “Very well. Then I, or more specifically my younger siblings, can build a long distance communications system for you. Depending on necessity it could send the voice and illusory images of the individual or individuals on the other end or it could just send the voice. Just the voice would be cheaper but the illusory image would allow for meetings on par with in person meetings without actually having to leave the comfort of your castle. Now, I’m not suggesting this system for civilians. Not yet at least. To put it frankly, with Equestria’s budget and the price of the raw materials that would be necessary we simply couldn’t afford such a thing. However, a more limited system specifically for you and the leaders of countries you must stay in contact with, we could do. The more limited system would only cost about… 350,000 bits? Pixel, can you run a quick calculation and confirm that estimate for me?”
“What type of system would we be building? Fiber optic, radio, satellite, or quantum entanglement?” Pixel inquired.
“Let’s go with radio for now. Voice only. It’s far cheaper than the alternatives. And we can set it so the radio can bounce signals off the upper atmosphere to reach further so we don’t need anything like satellites.” Alexander told her.
“In that case your math is only slightly off, though I assume you were rounding down. It would actually cost 354,617 bits specifically. That is assuming we used commercially available materials rather than making our own since some of the materials we need have only barely been invented here in this world and are a very niche market. We could probably make the parts and materials ourselves and reduce the overall cost to 93,291 bits.” Pixel stated.
“Ah, but we don’t have the tools to make some of those parts and materials in our workshop anymore since some of them were destroyed when Viridios attacked. You should know this since you and Gerhardt took inventory a couple days ago. And repairing or replacing them would also cost money.” Alexander told her.
“Hm. I was assuming we would have already sold some medical supplies to the hospitals and would have thus replaced our broken tools by the time we started this project.” Pixel said.
“Then it was a simple miscommunication, not an error in your calculations. So, does that price tag sound reasonable, Celestia?” Alexander asked, looking at Celestia.
Celestia nodded. “It does. We can definitely make space for that in the budget. Even better, I may be able to convince the other kingdoms affected by the Changelings attacking our messengers to chip in. So the cost would be effectively negligible. Well, the ambassador will be pleased to hear about this, I’m sure. I’ll have someone go get him so I can speak to him about it after he’s had a bit of time to calm down.”
“Should I send in the next one?” Asked Celestia’s personal assistant.
“Yes, please.” Celestia said, giving her assistant a friendly smile.
Suddenly half the room started to grow darker as if the light was being sucked out of it while the other half started getting brighter and the shadows on that half started to fade from existence as if every single surface had suddenly become luminous, causing everything on that half of the room to take on a flat appearance. As soon as this started, everyone, save for Alexander who had no idea that any of this was happening, immediately paused and observed what was happening. Suddenly two figures appeared in the middle of the room. Both of them were eight feet tall and were vaguely humanoid.
The one on the dark half of the room looked like a flat hole in reality from which no light emanated or could escape. It had no features whatsoever save for two arms, a bulbous thing that looked like a humanoid head from certain angles, and a tree trunk-like body without any legs. Its mere presence seemed to suck even more light straight out of the air around it. It was like a void of primordial darkness made manifest.
The other being was similar in form yet its body appeared to alternate between all the colors of the rainbow, and it had eyes that were solid white. Otherwise its appearance was just as flat as its counterpart as it had absolutely no shadows to define its features whatsoever. It was a single solid brightness as if light was shining on it or radiating from it in completely equal measures from every possible angle. It was as if darkness itself could not exist anywhere upon or near the entity.
“Forgive our intrusion but we require an audience with you and your sister, Princess. We saw that you were about to allow other petitioners in so we thought this was as good a time as any to let ourselves in.” The being of radiant light said in a warm and boisterous masculine voice that seemed to emanate from every possible direction at once.
“It’s fine… Who… or what are you?” Celestia inquired, very clearly unnerved.
“We are gods… I am Nox, the Goddess of Darkness.” The shadowy figure whispered in a colder feminine voice that seemed to echo in their very minds. It was creepy yet something about it was oddly comforting.
“And I am Lux, the God of Light.” The radiant figure stated.
“Oh… Well. I am honestly a bit surprised you two didn’t show up sooner. To be honest, if any gods were going to come visit, other than my and my siblings mother, I expected you two to be the first gods to approach Celestia and Luna, which you are. But what took so long, if you don’t mind me asking?” Alexander inquired.
“We agreed to intentionally limit ourselves to be in one place at a time in this universe, just for a change of pace. We thought it may be entertaining. We have spent this time speaking to other leaders and demigods on different planets throughout this new universe and the Princesses were the next on our list to speak with.” Nox explained.
“Ah, I see. Very well.” Alexander said, bowing his head a bit.
“Raven, please go dismiss anyone else waiting to meet with me. Then go wake up Luna and tell her to come here. Tell her it’s important.” Celestia told her personal assistant.
“At once, Princess.” Her assistant said. Her horn was suddenly enveloped by a pink aura and she vanished in a flash of pink light.
“I’ve never seen gods other than mommy before… You both look very pretty!” Pixel said happily.
“Why thank you, little one! Your mother, cold as she is, has nothing but praise for you and your twin brother. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” Lux stated in a warm and friendly tone, looking at Pixel.
“Why are you both here? Gods have never visited this world before. Why now?” Celestia inquired.
“We should wait until your sister is here before answering such questions. Patience, little demigod.” Nox whispered.
The three of them stood there in an awkward silence for a few minutes until Luna teleported in, looking exhausted. “Celestia, what's this all about? Why did you… Oh… Oh! What in the name of Harmony are those?!” Luna asked, perking up almost immediately upon seeing the gods standing in the center of the room.
“Gods, Luna. They’re gods. Lux, the God of Light and Nox the Goddess of Darkness.” Celestia told her sister.
“Gods? But Equus has never been visited by gods before! Why now?” Luna asked, extremely confused.
“I asked the exact same thing. So?” Celestia said before looking back at the gods.
“We intentionally limit our omniscience for entertainment purposes so we did not know this universe existed previously. However, when these three and Viridios were sent here our pantheon discovered its existence. Since it had no gods at the time, we have claimed it as our own! So we would have visited this world long ago, but we previously had no idea it even existed.” Lux explained.
“As for why we’re here now, there are two reasons. First, we are going to claim followers here in your kingdom. We thought it only polite to let you know. Second, we come with an offer and depending on how you respond to said offer, some important advice as well.” Nox told them.
“Alright… What is this offer?” Celestia asked.
“You are both currently without godly parents despite being demigods. Since you are demigods of the day and night respectively you are close enough to what concepts we manage that we are willing to extend to you the opportunity to become our children. Well, not both of our children. Celestia, you would be my daughter but not Nox’s.”
“And Luna, you would be mine but not Lux’s. That isn’t to say you would stop being siblings. Your mortal halves would still be related. So nothing would change in that regard.”
“The way you said that suggests that certain things would change if we accepted this offer.” Luna said warily.
“Some things would. Your abilities would be slightly altered and enhanced due to having our blessings. For example, Luna, you would gain an inherent control over the darkness on top of your current abilities over the night sky and dreams. Notice how the half of the room I am in has become dark, you could do something similar or you could step into a shadow and use it as a portal to another shadow elsewhere in the world. Your ‘cutiemarks’ as you call them would take on slightly altered variations of their current forms, nothing too significant mind you. Perhaps a slight color alteration or something to that effect. And most importantly, you would have access to our guidance and your kingdom would be under our protection.”
“Protection? Protection from what?” Celestia asked.
“The other gods, of course!” Lux chuckled. “For example, if you were to offend, say, Silvanus by siding with Scientia or her children, in his anger he may just unleash a plague or a series of natural disasters upon your kingdom that would completely decimate your entire species. We could prevent that.”
Celestia and Luna gave eachother worried looks for a moment. Celestia then looked at Alexander and said, “Alexander, you never mentioned anything about Silvanus unleashing plagues on Equestria if we helped you.”
“Hey, I had no idea that was even a possibility! In our universe the gods had rules about such direct interference!” Alexander said defensively.
“He’s not lying. However, we have different rules for different universes. And since we have only just discovered this universe our rules have yet to be decided. So there are no rules for this universe at the moment and we have no idea what the rules will be once they are decided or how long that decision will take. So it’s entirely possible that such things will be allowed. Are you willing to take that risk?”
“If that’s the case, would Scientia not offer us her protection from Silvanus since we have sided with her children?” Luna inquired.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. With her it really depends… If she thinks her children can survive without you? Most likely not. If she thinks her children need you to survive, yes. Definitely. Or if she thought it would get your species to advance their science and technology faster with her protection she might. She doesn’t really have the same morals as many deities and is far from the most caring or empathetic being ever. Trying to play off her sympathy doesn’t work. If she saw a species being decimated by plague she would tell them to develop their technology to the point they could turn their bodies into machines and thus become immune to disease. She might point them in the right direction and give them hints but their success or failure would depend on them. Think of her like a machine in her own right. She has a purpose and she carries out that purpose with cold, calculated, ruthless precision and efficiency, completely uncaring about anything else.”
“And what of Silvanus?” Celestia asked.
This drew a wary look from Pixel and a frown from Alexander.
“Think of Silvanus like nature itself. He has points where he might act more like a mortal. He can be peaceful like a forest meadow or he can be like a hurricane, uncaring what destruction he brings to those who refuse to get out of his way or unfortunate enough to be caught up in the crossfire. He and Scientia are more similar than either one would like to admit. That being said, he is much more temperamental than Scientia being both easier to please and easier to anger. That being said, if you are considering siding with him, I would advise against it. Were you any other species it wouldn’t matter but since you’re you, you would suffer under him. At least for a time.”
“Why is that?” Luna inquired.
“Your species is completely reliant upon its control over nature. You control the growth of plants on a massive scale for your farms, you interfere with the cycle of natural selection by treating wild animals as if they were pets, you manipulate the weather however you see fit, and you even control the very seasons. But that is counter to the very nature of nature. The Everfree Forest is how nature should truly be yet your species finds it operating as it should to be ‘unnatural’, ironically. You would have to give up all of that control all at once and let things work naturally as they do in the Everfree Forest. And since your society is so reliant on that control, it would inevitably fracture and collapse. Yours is the only species in the world with this problem, as no other species controls nature in this way. So your species is the only one that is inherently incompatible with Silvanus.”
“Thus you are damned if you join him and you are damned if you do not. But we can offer you assistance in that regard. You need only accept our offer. So, what do you say? Will you accept and be guaranteed our support or are you willing to gamble on having Scientia’s support? And keep in mind, what we have said up until this point is not the advice we have offered you earlier. That advice is strictly reserved for if you accept.” Nox inquired.
“At this point is it even a question? Of course we accept. How could we not?” Celestia stated.
Luna sighed and said, “I agree with my sister, of course. It’s not as though we have much choice in the matter.”
“Of course you have a choice. We aren’t forcing you to accept. But I suppose I may be looking at it from too divine of a perspective. From your perspective I suppose it may seem like you don’t have a choice. Well, regardless, you have accepted. Therefore, Celestia, I accept you as my newest daughter.” Lux stated.
Suddenly Celestia was enveloped by a bright white light. After a moment the light vanished revealing Celestia’s new form. Not much had changed in all honesty. Her fur had become the brightest and most pure white it possibly could, reflecting one hundred percent of all light thus giving her a more radiant appearance. Her mane and tail now displayed all the colors of the rainbow and the colors were as rich and vibrant as they could possibly be and they both now gave off a soft glow. Her eyes had turned a golden color. Finally, her cutie mark had changed slightly. It was now a metallic gold color and was slightly reflective.
“Luna, I accept you as my newest daughter.” Nox’s voice whispered in all of their minds.
Suddenly Luna was enveloped by an orb of pure darkness. After a moment the darkness vanished. Luna’s fur was now as dark black as Nox herself, absorbing one hundred percent of all light. Her mane and tail were now darker. Her cutiemark now resembled what it looked like as Nightmare Moon albeit in darker shades of the same colors. Her eyes had become a darker shade of what they once were. Finally, she was now just as tall as Celestia.
“You both look absolutely lovely! Now, that advice we promised you. Don’t set a precedent and make the children of Scientia royalty. Make them nobles if you have to, but absolutely not royalty.” Lux stated.
“What? That seems a lot less serious than your advice about Silvanus… Why not?” Celestia inquired.
“Less serious? Quite the opposite, it is every bit as serious. There are going to be over a dozen more naturally born alicorn born in the coming decade or so as our kind reproduce with your kind and produce demigods. If you try to make all of them royalty, you will have dozens of princes and princesses all with conflicting ideals and ideologies all vying for control over your kingdom. It would lead to civil war with factions of your species rallying behind each one and fighting each other to the death over it. You thought your petty racial conflicts between the three tribes were bad? They would be but a pathetic joke compared to the war that would fracture your country. Which would weaken your species for future wars with other countries in the coming centuries, which would in turn lead to the vast majority of your species either being exterminated or enslaved.”
Both Celestia and Luna were clearly horrified by this. “What? What do you mean? Why would we go to war with other countries?!” Celestia demanded.
“Think about it, my daughter. Other demigods will be born in other countries to other species. Many will rise to power. And do you think they will be content with peace, harmony, and friendship? No. They will not. They will want to expand their power and influence and they will be willing to go to war to do so. True war that will last years. Thousands if not millions will die in those wars. And some, such as the children of the God of War will start wars just for the sake of war itself with no other justification, as is their nature. And the blessing of the Spirit of Harmony can only do so much to protect you when your enemy has blessings of their own on their side.”
“Indeed… And when that happens, you will have my and my siblings full support. We will ensure you have all the technology you need to fight and win these wars. Be that infantry weapons, WMDs, Ships, Tanks, Artillery, or whatever else.” Alexander stated.
“Thank you, Alexander… In light of this, I may actually have to discuss that with you at great length… Have you two any other warnings for us?” Celestia inquired.
“You will be visited by the other gods in the coming months. Be very careful. Even with our protection the last thing you want is to alienate a god. Any god. And that includes ones who manage concepts you may find distasteful. Including the God of Evil, the Goddess of Destruction, the God of Death, and the Goddess of Chaos. Their titles sound awful to you mortals but none of them, not even the God of Evil or Goddess of Good, are inherently good or evil. They merely manage the concepts across the universe and keep them in balance by tipping the scales every so often as needed. So do not let your mortal biases blind you and cause you to make enemies, otherwise even with our protection you will suffer disastrous and potentially nigh apocalyptic consequences.”
“And do give up on this notion of being treated as equal with the mortals and not being worshiped. They will learn you are truly demigods within the next year after the first natural born demigods of Equestria are born. It’s inevitable. You can’t hide it.”
Luna frowned at that, but it was impossible to tell as one could not see her features due to how dark her fur was. “Even if we can’t hide it, we can deflect any worship to you two rather than us.”
“You can try but such a thing won’t be as easy as you seem to believe. Mortals tend to worship anything that is even slightly divine in nature and you are both half divine. So, I wish you luck but I warn you not to get your hopes up.”
“Anyway, since you are now our children there is much more you need to know and learn. But I’m afraid we can’t teach you all of it in just a few short hours… Well… We could just force the information into your minds in an instant but you would find the experience confusing and unpleasant. So, we plan on staying here for two or three days to teach you what you need to know. After that we shall leave you to your own devices.”
“I see… Well, I think the other ponies in the castle may find your current appearances a bit intimidating. So if you are going to stay for any length of time, is it possible for you to take on less intimidating forms?” Celestia inquired.
Suddenly both Lux and Nox were no longer eight foot tall vaguely humanoid masses of light and darkness. Instead, they now both resembled alicorns except they both had four wings instead of two and they were twice the size of Celestia and Luna.
Nox had fur just as dark as her form had previously been, but now she had eyes. Said eyes had Irises that were just as black as her fur and the whites were gray rather than white. Her mane and tail were like liquid darkness flowing in an invisible current. She didn’t have a cutie mark, or if she did it was as dark as the rest of her and thus blended in with her fur perfectly.
Lux now had fur that was just as pure white as Celestia’s. His eyes were still radiating pure white light. Unlike Celestia’s, his mane and tail were both solid colors but were slowly changing and cycling through all the colors of the rainbow. His cutiemark was just a white circle that seemed to radiate light.
In their new mortal forms the effects they were having on the room began to fade and the lighting returned to normal.
“Better?” Nox asked, her voice now operating like a normal voice.
“Much.” Luna stated.
“Well! If that’s all, I should probably go find Gerhardt and start working out a plan for the production of weapons and military equipment. I am assuming the coronation is canceled, correct?” Alexander inquired.
“Indeed, it is. Our apologies but if what they told us is true, we just can’t set that precedent. We can still make you nobles but royalty? No. I’m afraid not.” Celestia told him.
“That’s fine by me, I never really asked to be royalty anyway you sort of just thrust it upon us because of tradition or some such reason. Nobility is perfectly okay. Or even just allowing us to be commoners. We can start our mothers church and fund everything by selling useful technology. At that point our relationship could be strictly business, thus putting you at less of a risk of completely alienating Silvanus and keeping your kingdom out of our war with his family. Regardless, we can discuss that later. Come on, Pixel. Let’s go find Gerhardt.”
[Gerhardt]
“Come on, cadet! Get back up! Do you think somepony like Viridios is just gonna stand there and give you time to recover when you fight him again?! Or do you want to get killed and let your sister and older brother die?!” The drill sergeant shouted at Gerhardt who was currently laying on the ground having been knocked down. They were in the middle of sparring with training weapons and the drill sergeant had just landed a fairly solid hit on Gerhardt, knocking him to the ground. Being a demigod, he wasn’t hurt exactly but he was exhausted.
The drill sergeant honestly felt terrible at the moment, though he tried not to show it. He didn’t even push his normal recruits this hard and they were fully grown adults. However, Gerhardt had absolutely insisted that the drill sergeant pushed him as hard as possible and refused to take no for an answer. He had even gone so far as to get permission from his older brother and the princesses. Of course he was being very careful not to push the little colt too hard but ultimately he was indeed forced to push him harder than a normal soldier and he was well aware of the fact he was incapable of genuinely injuring the colt in sparring so he was fighting as if he were genuinely on the battlefield rather than treating it like a simple spar.
Gerhardt growled furiously as he forced himself back up. He then bit his training dagger by the hilt and picked it back up off the ground before taking one of the stances the drill sergeant had taught him in preparation. The next round of sparring between Gerhardt and the Drill Sergeant went just as badly for Gerhardt as the last one and he ended up being knocked to the ground again.
It was then the drill sergeant decided to put his hoof down and said, “Alright, that’s enough.”
“N-no! I… I can keep… going!” Gerhardt growled through his exhaustion.
“No, cadet. You’re exhausted and need rest. Besides, your coronation is in a few days and you’ve been forcing me to run you ragged. Or as ragged as you can get with those metal parts. So if you really need to, then practice the stances and movements I’ve taught you. But we’re done sparring for today.” The drill sergeant told him.
Gerhardt grumbled in frustration but did as he was told and immediately started practicing stances and movements. He continued this for several hours after the drill sergeant left.
Eventually he heard footsteps approaching. Looking to see who it was he saw both Pixel and Alexander coming towards him. Sheathing his practice knife he said, “It’s still early. What are you two doing here?”
“We’re here to pick you up and fill you in on a recent development. Apparently Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have been officially adopted by Lux and Nox respectively. The coronation is off so we are no longer going to be royalty. A wise decision, honestly. And, we seriously need to discuss starting the production of military technology as we have been informed that war is inevitable. So, let’s head to the workshop to talk about this shall we? That is assuming you can stand being in the workshop for a while, Pixel.” Alexander said.
“I won’t like it, but I can do it…” Pixel muttered.
“Okay? Uh… I missed out on a lot, didn’t I?” Gerhardt inquired, confused.
“Yup, you did. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure to fill you in on everything!” Pixel said cheerfully.
“Thanks…” Gerhardt muttered.
The three of them left and headed for their workshop where Pixel and Alexander proceeded to explain everything that Gerhrdt had missed.
“Okay. So, does this mean my combat training with the Royal Guard is over?” Gerhardt inquired.
“I am not sure. I’ll have to talk to the princesses about it. Regardless, we need to start producing military equipment for Equestria in preparation for the wars the gods mentioned. Gerhardt, I’ll need you to start working on the weapons. Pixel, you can work on making armor and medical equipment.” Alexander told them.
“We don’t have the materials to build nuclear fusion or fission bombs… I guess I can start with infantry weapons? Or maybe semi-automated defense turrets? Hm…” Gerhardt muttered.
“I leave that decision up to your expertise. With my eyes being non-functional I will be working on our family’s church, since I can’t exactly work on complex machines without my sight. Maybe I’ll train some other technomancers as well, to take some of the burden of production off of you two. After all, only two technomancers can not make enough weapons to supply an entire military by themselves.” Alexander stated.
“Okay. I’ve already made a bunch of augmentations to sell to hospitals, so I guess I can start working on body armor and such… Though, should it be capable of withstanding bullets or should it be for more medieval weaponry? Making it viable for both would be impractical.” Pixel asked.
“We’re preparing for the future, so bullets. They already have armor capable of defending them from swords, spears, arrows, and the like. We just need to tell them to start making it out of steel rather than gold. Unless it’s already made of steel and the gold is just electroplated on or something, which honestly seems more feasible as they seem too intelligent to assume gold is a good enough material for armor.” Gerhardt told her.
“Makes sense. Alright… Hm… Scaled ceramic or kevlar? Hard armor is less flexible but can withstand higher calibers but soft armor is a bit more flexible and can take more shots… The scaled aspect can help with the flexibility issue and would limit the damage to one ceramic scale at a time… I’ll build a few separate machines to make armor of all different caliber ratings upto fifty cal. Then the military can decide what to deploy and to who based on the circumstances for each individual battle. Better to leave that sort of decision to the experts, right? And I know pretty much nothing about military tactics. But I assume less effective armor exists for a reason, so the military can decide what to do with it.” Pixel said, half to them and half to herself.
“Well, I suppose I’ll leave you two to it. I’ll be in my room if you need me for anything.” Alexander said before teleporting away,