//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Solar Vs Lunar - Sibling Rivalry // by SwordFlare //------------------------------// Chapter 2 Princess Luna walked through the crevasse with a noisy band of Lunar Guards following her, in full suits of armour, having sorted out the order of things. She wondered how they were going to find her sister. She had heard everything that had been said to her about the size of the world, and how they should build fortresses. She sighed. That was yet another task at hand before she could brutally kill her sister. She didn't have the malice she once did, when she had first been sent to the moon by Princess Celestia. Oh, the hatred she had felt that night. It had been almost unbearable, that she was unable to do anything, while her sister gained more of the love and respect of her subjects. She didn't feel that now, but she felt it as a necessity to show her sister that she was not the weak mare she might think she was. It was also an opportunity to get Celestia back for all the mean pranks she had played on her. Luna hardly ever did anything like that. She needed revenge. But for now, she was going to focus on the task at hand, at present. To set up ca- "H-hey! Would thou stop that, for the FINAL time?!" Luna exclaimed as her thoughts were interrupted when a camera was shoved in front of her, a grinning stallion walking backwards in front of her. This was the fifth time this had happened in the last five minutes! "What? I'm just showing everypony at home what they want to see!" The stallion chuckled. Luna seethed with anger, and her face twisted into a furious scowl directed at the silly grinning stallion, her horn lighting. She would show everypony at home 'what they wanted to see'. But then, she reluctantly remembered what brainy horn had previously said to her, and the rest of the ponies taking part. No killing the camera-ponies. Sighing again, she made a swatting motion at the stallion. "Will thou just try not to be so intrusive next time?" She told him. A few minutes later, a dark purple pegasus mare with a navy blue mane named Starry Wings, who had earlier been established as one of the squad leaders, partly because of her deftness when it came to flying, walked up to stroll by Luna's side. "Hello, princess. Would you like some company? You look pretty lonely up here." The mare said genuinely. Luna turned around and smiled at the mare. "We would love that, Starry. Actually, we have been... troubled, about certain dilemmas ahead of us." "You have? What do you mean by that in particular?" Starry Wings asked in concern. "Well, we will need to establish a base, a fortress, if thou would say it that way. Now, this fortress cannot be in a bad position. We need to be in a position of power when Celestia tries to attack. We will have supplies to build with somewhere around here, that will have been placed for us to use. However, we need to take them to where we need them. This fortress cannot be surrounded by trees, neither at the bottom of a hill, more preferably at the top of one, and it must be on ground we can solidly build on. But, we have not even surpassed this crevasse yet! How are we to find such suitable terrain?" Luna explained, with a troubled look in her eye. Starry Wings thought for a few moments, and then said. "Well, maybe I could round up some other good flyers, and scout out for some suitable ground for us to build on? There's gotta be some terrain suitable enough for us to use around here. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair! Maybe Celestia has already found some great place to build on!" The pegasus explained passionately. Luna nodded regally. "Yes, that seems to be a suitable solution. Very well then, Starry Wings. The task is yours." With that, both mares smiled at each other with friendship in their eyes. *************** As a matter of fact, Celestia was far from finding a 'great place' to build on, and was becoming frustrated to the threshold of losing her temper, however she was managing to barely hold it together, for the benefit of her troops. They still, were in the thick of a forest with no perceivable way out. However, the troops didn't appear to be benefitting. Sword Flare and Camo Flash walked together behind Celestia, near the front. They too were losing their temper a little. "GREAT. So now we're in the middle of a forest, that we have no idea where it is, or how to get out. I mean, for CELESTIA'S SAKE! Why the hay won't it e- AGH!" Sword was cut short on his rant, for he had received a hoof to the head from Celestia. "Uh, yeah. To be honest, I seriously think they should be thinking about how they develop the worlds in future games of this. It's supposed to be challenging, and all, and I get that. But why the hay is there an endless forest, that we seem to have been placed in the middle of? It's a little stupid, don't you think? Why in Celestia's name would they think that's accept- OUCH!" Unfortunately, he had been so frustrated with their current situation that he hadn't noticed Sword's punishment, and ended up getting exactly the same treatment. Both stallions rubbed their heads pitifully. Celestia's hooves HURT. "Well, I guess there's only one thing for it." Camo Flash spoke up. "What do you mean?" Sword replied, narrowing his eyes. He was hoping Camo wasn't going to do anything overly stupid that might lose them the game, or something. "You'll see." A big grin spread across the yellow stallion's face and slowly, he lost a bit of pace and melded into the large, groaning group at the back, who were mumbling about their hooves hurting from all the walking and such. Suddenly, he galloped out in front of them with an excited, beaming grin on his face. "Look everypony! There's open ground over there!" Camo shouted, pointing. A gasp followed quickly and everypony looked to the direction he was pointing. Of course, there was nothing there but more forest. It took a while, but after a lot of craning necks and squinting, everypony realised that this was in fact, a big, fat, lie. "Hey, you liar!" One angry mare piped up. Luckily, some ponies found it funny, but the majority of them just bristled a little at his annoying prank. "SORRY EVERYPONY! I guess my eyes are going funny after all this walking..." He shouted to the rest of them, chuckling softly under his breath as he returned to Sword's side. "You know, that probably isn't the best way to gain everypony's respect." Sword said, who had seen the funny side but was concerned for his fellow squad leader. "Ah well, there isn't much else to do, is there? Drastic times call for drastic measures..." He said mystically. Sword Flare nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I bet somepony is gonna pull the same thing again anywa-" He was cut off as there was another loud groan of disappointment from the group. "Yep, I told you." Celestia meanwhile, was walking a little ahead of the group, going through battle strategies and formations while she walked, how to build their base, what would be the most effecient defensive structure, and how to fit everypony in, and so many more things. The list extended. She glanced up quickly, scanning the horizon, when suddenly she noticed a bit of a lighter area to the left. Was that what she thought it was? She almost she thought she could see... grassland over there, not too far away. Was it really? Staring and squinting harder, she could make it out more as the group got closer. It WAS open ground! "Hey everypony! There's open ground over there!" She cried out happily, pointing to her left. The group groaned at what they thought would be another prank. Surely their princess hadn't decided to stoop this low too? But then happy cries of 'It's true!' and 'Open ground! Yay!' broke out over the group. Celestia started to trot towards it, and following suit, so did everypony else. Slowly but surely, the large, green field of long grass, swaying in a soft breeze they had been unable to feel in the thick forest, came into view. The look of such luscious green grass had the mouth of everypony watering. The field expanded for miles into the distance, in what seemed to be a slowly sloping downwards hill, starting off flat from where they were. And, as the field came into view, so did their building resources and tools. It was time to build a fortress.