//------------------------------// // Radiant 3 - Sisters Forever // Story: Those Forty Years // by Spell Writer //------------------------------// Twilight leaves the castle, preparing to head to the outskirts of the Empire. She’s excited and has a small spring in her step as she walks. Dealing with poachers and bandits has become a regular thing for her. Honestly, though, she’ll never get used to her new strength. ‘ZAP! POW! ZZZZRRRT!’ Goes her magic as she knocks out creatures and poach ponies alike. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, these ponies and creatures can’t be reasoned with. “Attacking innocent critters for sport. You know for a fact hunting hasn’t been legal in undesignated forests for over two years now!” She says with a booming voice as she lands. The ponies and a single griffon cowering in place, their bodies bound by a light pink and dark purple strand of magic rope. With a quiet sigh, Uni appears next to Twilight, the alicorn shuddering a little bit. “I’ll never get used to you doing that.” She says with a shake of her head. Uni coldly looking at the bound forms of the poachers lying in the cold snow. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t still be alive Eternal.” The spirit says with a shrug. “You had no combat skills, and frankly had you not found out about me inhabiting you to sleep, It would have been preferable to keep you in the dark about me giving you a fighting chance.” She says simply Uni then looks down at the tied-up Poachers with a glare, kicking one gently on the leg. “So what should we do about these… criminal-” There is a little silence, as Twilight wonders what should happen with the poachers, although when Uni cuts off so suddenly, she does look over to check on her friend. A deep shudder escapes from the spirit, her body glowing blue and dark blue rapidly before finally it settles again. “Ahem… apologies, keeping my brother away isn’t the easiest thing in the world.” She says with a smile. Twilight blinks “Fair enough I guess…? He is pretty strong, if not all-powerful after all.” She giggles a little bit to herself… after Discord’s redemption he was a great friend to the group… especially Fluttershy. Twilight shakes her head though, taking a deep breath. Twilight exhales her breath, calming down a small amount. “Anyways, we can’t keep them out here, and taking them to your reforming prison would be about a two-hour detour.” She rubs her chin. I wish I had a spell for this situation but there just isn’t anything for me to use right now. I’ll have to make one later.’ Twilight thinks to herself. “Hm… well there are more poachers to catch, so we can’t just stand here waiting for the guards to come either. I suppose we’ll have to take them with us.” Uni says with a sigh. “What a waste of time though.” With a grunt, she grabs onto the rope and begins to drag the restrained ponies behind her. “Let's get moving Your Majesty. The Radiant Empire is still in view and the Queen said their hideout was well into the forest. If we don’t move now we’ll never get done before night falls.” Twilight sighs. “Yea, you’re right.” She says as she levitates the tied-up poachers with ease. “Let us get moving then. At least this is a pretty easy job right?” She says with a giggle Uni smiles “We’ll be done by dinner at this pace. Then we can see the beautiful Radiant Empire in all its glory afterward.” ‘Make her proud’ Celestia smiles and laughs to herself as the dark magic finishes swirling around her, her body tall, strong, and beautiful. Looking herself over, it’s clear that the magic provided her with the perfect body that she would need to make her mom proud. “This… is PERFECT! With this power, I can do anything!” She says “I’ll show Mom and Luna, I’ll show every creature, pony, and critter in Equestria what I can do now!” With morbid curiosity, she trots over to the nearby mirror in the room, an ornate, magical mirror that would normally show your greatest desires. But, since she had just achieved said desires, it just showed her reflection. Her beautiful mane, her tall stature. It was all perfect! She looked just like how she imagined she’d look in forty or more years! “Yes~, I can work with this. Now let us see what we can do!” She laughs a little as she flares up her magic, shadowy bubbles of green and black flowing over her body. Flames replace her tail and mane as she gets more adornments over her body made of fire and intense flames. ‘Let’s make the empire perfect’ “The empire? No… let us not stop there… We can make all of Equestria perfect like this! I’ll show Mom that I can handle whatever she throws at me, that I am more of a princess than my sister could ever be!” She says with confidence and poise. “But the empire is a great place to start, good thinking Celestia.” She laughs yet again and pushes the door open with great force. Not realizing that she just hit her sister. Only a little ‘Oof’ was her only hint. “If you’re going to sit in front of a door, then expect to get hurt.” She says coldly to whoever was there, before flying out the nearby window. “Sister…?” said Luna, only able to watch as the tall pony left the room. But there was no response. Celestia had already left, flying outside and enjoying her newfound strength! Listening to her new friend speak right into her mind. ‘Let's heat up the place, that will provide the Radiant Empire with access to their land.’ “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Mom really is short-sighted if she can’t even figure out that we can fix their major problem for them!” After a moment, Celestia lands in front of the congregation of curious ponies. “Hello little ponies, I am Celestia, first princess of Equestria! Also known as your new protectorate! I am here for one reason and one reason only, to make your lives better! Now how about we get rid of all this snow!” The Crystal Ponies murmur among their ranks. Getting rid of the snow of the Frozen North was thought to be impossible, and now this pony, claiming to be Celestia no less is saying that she’ll do it herself? It was too good to be true! ‘They don’t believe you. THEY DON’T BELIEVE US. PROVE THEM WRONG. MAKE HER PROUD!’ Celestia grunts, her eye twitching a little bit. “You don’t believe in me? Of course you don’t… of course you wouldn’t. It’s all about Luna and Twilight. Luna and Twilight. Well, you know what?” Celestia’s soft, warm glow begins to flare up. “LET'S SEE YOUR PRECIOUS QUEEN AND PRINCESS FIX THIS!” She says as she flies up and with a powerful surge of dark, terrible magic, the Radiant Empire sees the sun for the first time in this generation… And it’s horrifying. First, the sun was quite nice. The shining light makes all the crystals in the Empire light up. It looks quite beautiful, and had Twilight not been so far away, she may have seen what was happening. Unfortunately, the effect would only last for so long. As the heat begins to set in, melting anything made of metal, the City starts to become hotter and hotter. Plants starting to wither and ponies beginning to sweat from the devouring heat. Fireballs rain from the sky and burn anything they touch as she yells out. “YOU LIKE THAT?! WELL HAVE SOME MORE!” The unhinged princess declares laughing and cackling as the dark magic further settles into her heart. The castle is in chaos as Princess Amore yawns a little bit. “First sun in over a hundred years and it’s gonna be the death of us. Not to mention it’s because of a teenager’s temper tantrum.” She says flatly. The guards and staff are actively in a panic as they run around to keep the castle from falling apart. “AMORE please save us!” one says Amore simply blinks twice. Grabs a marshmallow from her bag and starts roasting it on the nearby table. “I would, but firstly, that’s an alicorn infused with dark magic, I can’t beat that. I’m also not in the business of throwing my life away either. Secondly, Queen Twilight will get us out of this. She should be back soon.” She says as she eats the marshmallow. “Uh, actually your majesty. The guards that were going to tailgate Queen Twilight saw the town’s plight and turned around.” The head guard says. “They’re trying to put out fires in the fields right now.” Amore blinks again. “Oh. Well yea, time to panic.” She says, before taking a deep breath and joining the group for a nice run-around-in-circles panic session. Luna wanders through the castle… and wanders and wanders. A loud ringing ran through her ears. Was that her sister that she just saw? Why was she so mean? What happened to her? All these thoughts ran through Luna’s head. Worry filled her little body as she could do nothing but think that this is all her fault in some way. “I shouldn’t have hogged mom… I shoulda been a better little sister.” The filly says to herself, not even registering the intense panic starting to build up around her. With quiet movements, she would wander her way into her room. With a little nudge of her nose to flick the covers up, Luna crawls into bed and lays there. “I’m an awful sister,” she says quietly to herself. “Celestia even told me she feels isolated, I shoulda convinced Mom to go to her. But… we woulda been late for a really important meeting if we went looking for her. No… no, I shoulda have gone looking for her instead of joining Mom from the start. Then this wouldn’t have happened. Celestia would have been able to sit in with me and Mom at the end of the meeting and it woulda have been perfect! We could be… a family…” She whimpers a little bit. Luna doesn’t get much more time to worry though as a loud thud lands in her room, eliciting a scream from Luna. “AAH?!” She yells as she backs up against the bedframe. A smoldering ball of hot plasma scorches in the middle of her room before the shell melts away. Revealing none other than Celestia herself. “Hello, Sister. Enjoying the heat?” Celestia says as she levitates Luna with ease. Luna yelped a little from the heat of the magic around her body. “Oh wait, you probably didn’t even notice! You were probably too busy being perfect and studying or learning new ancient magic or something like that!” Luna yelps again. “C-Celestia? You’re hurting me! Let me go!” She whimpers out. “Why do you look like that?! Why are you… well scary?!” Celestia ignores her sister, though. "Scary?! You insult me, you little brat," she glares down at her sister, "Now apologize before I banish you to Tartarus!" she says with a booming voice. Luna yelps and whimpers heavily, offering a wordless apology. Celestia smirks and continues to speak, "I came here to make sure you know that you aren’t needed anymore, sister," she says with a bright flash of light as she teleports herself and Luna up to the top of a tall spire of the crystal castle, flames and fire raining down everywhere as the land is forcibly heated over and over. Luna looks on in terror. “T-the ponies!-” Celestia giggles “Are getting what they deserve! They dared to doubt my power against the Frozen North, so just to shut them up, I proved that my magic was superior to any simple force of nature. After all, Nature only lives because of the sun!” She laughs maniacly. “And after mom sees how good I’ve done, how much I’ve accomplished, she’ll accept me. She’ll be MY friend again. She’ll take care of me like the old days! But she can’t focus on ME with you around!” She says as she tosses Luna backward. The young alicorn tumbles back, barely catching herself on the slick ground as she slides right into Celesita’s magical circle. A powerful glow of dark magic appears underneath her as large spikes of black, flaming crystals appear around Luna. “Don’t worry though. You’re still my sister. So I’ll just keep you locked up here until Mom stops looking for you. Then we can send you off to some other family in Equestria where you’ll NEVER be a problem for me again!” Luna whimpers a little and tears up. “B-bu-” Celestia cuts her off with a hoof slam to the crystals, causing a large ‘BOOM’ noise to ring out. “I don’t want to hear it! Do me a favor and just disappear already! Now… I have to make sure the Radiant Empire is ABSOLUTELY perfect for Mother's return. As for you, don't go anywhere! Not like you can though.” She laughs heavily as she flies away, leaving Luna alone… and trapped. Luna simply sits there… unable to register what just happened. Tears on her face as she watches her sister fly away. Weakly whimpering. “Don’t… leave me here…” She whimpers. “M-mommy… help…” She says quietly. But nobody came. For the first time, in years, Luna was well and truly alone. And the book's page turns.