//------------------------------// // Anytime // Story: Bionic Titan: Operation Damocles // by KorenCZ11 //------------------------------// It had only taken half an hour to get the Harbinger unequipped and the harmony matrix removed. Once that was done, Celestia’s titans were moved to the hangar on her remote Miyako lab, and she began work on the neural link system. “What have you done!?” She’d only been at it for ten minutes before she was discovered. Cutting it close, Oxford.  Celestia turned in her chair and crossed her legs. “You’ll have to be more specific, my darling Twilight.” Furious, the violet alicorn marched right up to her mother, coming inches from her face. “Don’t you dare give me that! What did you do!?” Stonewalling was only going to get her so far. There were only so many ponies who Celestia would bend for, and Twilight was one of them. The problem came in that Twilight herself wouldn’t see the problem. “In your own words, I have taken action.” Like her bubble had been popped, Twilight’s hind legs sank out from under her. “Oh my Goddess… you really did it, didn’t you?” If there were ever a time to teach her a lesson, now was one. “Twilight, do you know what day it is?” It took her a moment to formulate a response. “Wha… what day? What day!? The day you killed ten million people! White Hive was a neutral territory! Why? Oh, for the love of the Goddess, why did you do this!?” She was pleading more than she was seeking answers. Celetia exited her chair and approached her sad little girl. After two hundred years, she was bigger than most ponies, but though her form had changed, the filly inside hadn’t. “Don’t think too hard on this, my darling. Your birthday was just nine days ago.” Seeing that she really was asking for a date, Twilight’s rattled mind found the answer. “J-January 10th? Wh-what does that have to do with anything?” Celestia stomped a decisive hoof into the floor. “It is, everything, Twilight!” Startled, the younger alicorn backed away. The elder continued, “Is your memory failing you? Don’t you remember what happened a year ago today?” Finally, it dawned on her. She didn’t want to say the words. To whisper the truth, to see the logic behind her mother’s actions. They came all the same. “The attack on Canterlot…” “That’s right, my dear. Now stay with me here, but I’ve got another question to ask you. Do you have nightmares, Twilight?” She sniffed, sitting up straight. “You of all ponies should know the answer to that.” The spiteful edge was coming back to her voice.  Good, she’s regaining her energy. “Indeed, because it is Mommy’s love that makes those bad dreams go away, isn’t it?” Twilight stared at the floor angrily. Celestia smiled. “You see the ones you’ve lost, you see the wars you’ve helped end, you see the dead in your dreams. Every sin you’ve committed, every action you regret, every little misstep and mistake, they haunt you in your sleep. You will not die, you do not age, and your memory is perfect so you never forget. It is only because your family loves you that you can sleep easily at night, isn’t that right?” Regaining a bit of her composure, Twilight turned her burning eyes on her mother. “Even if that is true, how can you justify this… this nightmare you’ve brought upon the world!? How did you even do this? White Hive was the size of a small country and you just… in an instant… Where did all that magic come from?” Celestia sat down next to her daughter and wrapped a wing around her. She lit her horn and brought up a terminal screen. “Let’s set the stage, shall we? The year is 2222. Two hundred and nine years ago, your father died. Two hundred and eight years ago, your brother and your cousin were born. By miracles upon miracles, Luna and I had finally achieved the dream of having a family of our own, ones that would stick with us instead of fading away after a short sixty years. I have a reason to live again. You, your brother and I play house until your sixties when your stepfather dies. We’d become lost and aimless, but we still had each other. “In spite of my better judgment, I get involved with the government again to help Luna, and you decide to go off to space to do research in Luna City. Then the conflicts start. We go from one skirmish to another until we get into a full-blown war with Chrysalis, and finally, I have the good sense to kill her this time. You reject me. You tell me this isn’t the way. You convince Luna that there could’ve been a peaceful solution, and you try to make good on your element of friendship, but just as you said there would be peace, you find out the hard way that not everyone is willing to give peace a chance. “You cannot force your ideals on a people unwilling to compromise, and you find yourself in a dangerous situation. You’re forced to learn a difficult lesson. And then you go hide back in Luna City, only to ever return to the surface on reunions and holidays. Are we in accord thus far?” As she spoke, Celestia presented a slideshow of memories from the past. The lover she’d crossed the universe for, the stallion she’d left Twilight to for thirteen years, the lives they’d lived, the friends they’d outlived, the mistakes, the chaos, the death. It could have only been more accurate if she’d plucked the nightmare right out of Twilight’s head. The poor girl had covered her face by this point. “And? What of it?” “Well, that’s just what I’m trying to explain to you, my darling.” She leaned down and put her lips next to Twilight’s ear. “Some people need to be taught difficult lessons again, and again, and again.” Slowly, the hooves fell from her eyes. Wide and horrified, she stared at the cold, smiling face of her mother. “Wh-what do you mean?” The slide shifted to show the current Changeling Queen, Chrysalis the third. “This mare is responsible for creating the machine that tore through Canterlot last year. That same machine that could very well have killed Luna.” “But you don’t know that! We can’t just go around judging people without the evidence to back it up!” “What evidence do I need when I can use my own eyes, Twilight!?” Celestia rubbed at her temple. “Can you not see what this machine looked like? The parts it used? The materials it was made of? Luna didn’t destroy the thing, she killed the pilot! We kept it, we rebuilt it, we reverse-engineered it! We know everything down to its atomic components, Twilight! There is a point where you must put aside what you believe and look at what is in front of you! “We were attacked in our homes, they were after your aunt’s life, your family’s life! And the damage it caused on the way…” Not entirely intentional, the image of the burning wreckage of Canterlot leading up to the castle that day filled the screen. The screaming cries of ponies dying, the lost children, the burning buildings, the monster that left it all in its wake. “Don’t you understand what people see when you don’t retaliate for something like this?” Celestia pleaded. “I…” Twilight did everything in her power to come up with the diplomatic answer she wanted, but she couldn’t find it. Celestia took hold of her face and made her look into her eyes. “Weakness.” The screen shifted to a picture of the inside of White Hive. There, an assembly line was working on pieces for some kind of large machine. Big skeletal structures that looked like the bones of some massive pony. “That ‘Mercury’ titan was only the beginning. They were building an army, and what would have come next was hundreds of these things at our doorsteps with enough power to kill you, me, and everyone you know and love.” This seemed to be new information to Twilight. “What the… where did this come from?” “You said it yourself, White Hive had at least ten million people in it. Don’t you think that, somewhere in that sprawling mass, they could house at least a few secret factories?” “But that… we had treaties…” “Words on paper mean nothing!” Celestia dismissed the screen with a wave of her hoof. “For nearly seventy years I’ve been trying to make you understand that, and not even an attack on your own family has gotten it through yet. Are they going to have to kill one of us before you understand? How many people are you going to sacrifice for your ideals before you face reality, Twilight?” She broke from her mother’s wing and backed away. “Even if…” She had to sort her thoughts out. “Even if that’s the case, was it really necessary to wipe the whole of White Hive off the map? There were innocent people there! It wasn’t just a changeling stronghold, it was a free city!” Celestia stood. Towering over the young mare, she stepped forward. “A free city controlled, owned, and operated by the Changeling Queen with a sixty-percent changeling population. A free city in name only. Perhaps that forty percent of its population were hostages. But in the case of hostages on another continent versus my people, my home and my family, my choice is clear.” “No, no, no!” Twilight shook, fighting the words themselves. “I cannot believe this was the right way to do this! If it were the other way around– “It could never be the other way around! There is no moral equivalence, Twilight, they came after us first, and they made good and well to tell us they were coming again! When people tell you who they are, believe them! This is the price of pretending to be strong in the face of weakness!” She stepped forward again, and Twilight shrank before her. “They will not respect our strength if we do not show them how strong we are. You wanted my reason? There it is. If we are to remain free, if we are to remain alive, if we are to remain in power, then we must make the world know our power. And now? It does.” Seeing the fear in her daughter’s eyes, Celestia leaned down, kissed her forehead, and returned to her chair. “On an unrelated note, I’ve been looking into acquiring a video game developer for a new technology I have in mind. You wouldn’t happen to know any companies that specialize in neural link virtual reality, do you?” It was more habit than presence of mind that made Twilight respond to her mother’s question. “I… I know a few, but I don’t…” She swallowed and took a deep breath. “What is it you’re trying to do, exactly?” Turning her head, Celestia smiled warmly. “I have a new game I want to play, but it hasn’t been invented yet. And I want everyone to be able to play with me.” Later that day, after helping her mother find a VR company to purchase, Twilight warped to Canterlot. Her head had been a mess while she was trying to make sense of all the death and power Celestia had spoken of, but it was too much to try and merge this face of her with the mother who raised her. Violence was never out of her reach, but it was an option she hadn’t taken in front of her or Dusk in all their years. Was the attack on Canterlot really that much of a shock to her? Was she traumatized by it and this was her way of venting that anger? Or, was she simply being honest? The brutal truth as she understands it. Dusk wasn’t returning her calls, Oxford never gave her a straight answer when she did manage to corner him leaving his mother’s office, and nothing about this day had made sense. For most of the world, she, her brother, Oxford, and even Celestia were state secrets. Luna was the only public face with the kind of power that destroyed White Hive, and she had been on air giving a speech during the event. A speech… about the anniversary of the attack on Canterlot. As curiosity got the best of her, Twilight approached her aunt as evening descended over Equestria.  She knocked on the door. “It’s me.” The massive navy blue doors to the Queen’s chambers opened, and there Luna sat in her easy chair in front of the fireplace, watching some kind of drama on the screen above it. “Good evening Twilight. I just started the latest episode. Would you like to watch it with me?” Twilight had seen a lot of dramas in this room with her Aunt. Much of her college life had been spent in this castle, and holidays and reunions were usually held here too. Two hundred years later, she was just the same as she remembered her. Only, now, Twilight was the one who had changed. “Sure. But can I ask you a question first?” Luna’s face became grim. “About… today?” “Yes.” She hit pause on her screen, then turned in her chair to face Twilight fully. “Very well.” Twilight came and sat on the couch beside her. This had been her seat since her first visit here, though the couch had changed at least a dozen times. “Did you know what was going to happen?” “I did not.” Twilight waited for more. When more never came, she asked. “Really? Nothing at all?” Luna licked her lips and tented her hooves. “Twilight, you spent all your life with your mother. But I have spent most of my life with your mother. I would be lying if I said I didn’t expect something like this to happen sooner than it did.” “So… you did know?” “No.” Luna shook her head. “I did not. But I expected it. On my part, at least, it was a coincidence that I had a speech scheduled today. It would not be hard to imagine Celestia knew that, however.” Twilight sighed. “So, it’s not that you knew the when, where, or what, but you knew something would happen, and you didn’t make any attempt to stop her, either, right?” Luna sighed. “Twilight, I do not know what happened today, exactly. All I do know is that White Hive disappeared in a blast of magic so powerful that the entire world felt it, and yet the damage remained solely and exclusively in the vicinity of White Hive’s borders. Even at my worst, I do not believe I am capable of that kind of power. I don’t believe Celestia is either, but I know for certain that it was her magic. The scale of this destruction is far greater than anything I expected, but the mitigation of collateral damage is exactly what I expected. It is Celestia’s way. And so, I retain my official position. I do not know what happened or how it happened, and I was busy at the time of the event.” She thought for a moment, playing with a curl in her mane. “But, if I had known, I don’t believe I would have tried to stop it.” “Wha– why?” She crossed her hooves and let her eyes sink to the floor. “Because… as old as I am, a year ago today, I was reminded that I do fear death, Twilight.” And then, as if she hadn’t said anything at all, Luna perked right back up and used her horn to bring a bowl of popcorn between them. “Now then, let us enjoy this story, shall we? It is not healthy to let your mind run wild all the time. You must allow it to rest every now and again.” In the quiet of the Queen’s private chambers with the crackling fire and the convoluted drama on the screen, Twilight ate popcorn. At least in fiction, comedy remained in the face of tragedy.