"My my, you certainly have been busy haven't you Lulu?"
Luna shot her sister a none too subtle glare at the use of her nickname. "Celestia!" she hissed, "not in front of our subjects!"
Celestia was too preoccupied with absorbing the sight of the castle's ball-turned-war room to pay her any heed. Long tables had been pushed together end to end and already scrolls were strewn across them. Reports were being received, documented, and sent by the dozens, and ponies galloped every which way in their hurry to complete their assigned tasks. At the far end of the tables several unicorns bustled around a large glass object supported by a sturdy frame of steel. It was flat, no more than a half a hoof thick, and curved like a parachute suspending somepony in the air. In all it must have measured at least 16 meters long and 9 meters tall. Upon closer inspection, millions of tiny facets glimmered in the glass, never reflecting light the same way twice.
Catching her sister's look, Luna smiled and explained the purpose of the new technology. "What you see before you is something one of the local scientists has been working on. He calls it the Reality Emulating Crystal Terahertz Universal Monitor. As of now only unicorns can power the device with their magic, but he one day hopes to modify it so that all of ponykind can use it with ease." Luna didn't even have to turn around to know that by now Tia had put together the unfortunate abbreviation and elevated an eyebrow towards the stratosphere. "He is most displeased by everypony's insistence in using the abbreviation, as it was not intended in the slightest. Though we are royalty I would still caution they tongue sister; you e'er did let thy humor slip past the confines of thy lips, and if his ears caught wind of it he would verily vent his frustrations upon thee.
"Butt of course dear sister! How could you ever assume such a thing of me?"
Before Luna's icy glare could freeze the blood in her veins, Celestia leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Trust me dear sister, militant strategy is not all we need to win this war, we must take care not to let ponies forget the good in life either." With a wave of her hoof, she indicated Pinkie Pie, who was having trouble containing her giggles. Seeing her able to laugh, even by this small amount, was enough to bring the ghost of a smile to the rest of her friends' faces. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
"Now, about the R.E.C.T.U.M" Luna sighed with exasperation and turned pleading eyes skyward as if there were help of any sort to be found there. Celestia did what every older sister does, and plowed ahead with her sentence whilst paying her sibling's antics no mind. "You've told me its name and that's it, what does it actually do, and more importantly why is it needed here?"
Luna opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off as the ball/war room double doors slammed open to make way for a pegasus scout carrying a bloody unicorn. "Perhaps you are about to find out sister. Cavalry scout Dust Wing of the 2nd Division, report!"
Dust Wing was certainly an apt name for this pegasus, unlike most ponies his coat and feathers were mottled numerous shades of grey instead of monochromatic and powdery black hair grown long. Setting his bloody charge upon the ground, he promptly saluted Commander Luna and belted out the results of his scouting. "Yes Commander! Border towns and villages have been fully warned of the war and the danger of their position. Host city Stalliongrad is beginning preparations for the war effort support with great enthusiasm. The border itself however is completely impassible. Lieutenant Mind Shard attempted to cross and was nearly cut to ribbons. His condition is stable, but he will need rest and further medical attention before the day is out."
Princess Celestia regarded the bloody stallion with concern. "Lieutenant, you need not be here right now. There is no reason to suffer through a briefing when you are in need of our doctors."
His voice rasped like he'd been gargling glass, a thought that certainly was not helped as he coughed up blood. "No disrespect your Majesty, but this is of the utmost importance. You must see through our eyes as quickly as possible."
Luna nodded her consent, and guided him over to the R.E.C.T.U.M. "Project your thoughts upon this device Lieutenant, it will do the rest." To her sister she added "Lieutenant Mind Shard is part of a special intelligence unit. He and his two brothers are identical triplets, and they were born with a unique ability. No matter where they are in the world, they can connect their minds and share thoughts, full memories, and even magical power instantaneously."
Mind Shard's horn glowed with a pale green aura, and moments later the glass contraption hummed to life. In the ample space in front of the machine now stood the harsh landscape of Equestria's northern border, as real as life before them. A disembodied voice made everpony except Luna and the Lieutenant jump in surprise. "Colonel Iron Wing, my brother Mind Shard has arrived safely in Canterlot and secured contact with the Princesses."
From behind and to their left came a gravelly voice, obviously belonging to a figure of authority. "Well what are you waiting for then? Turn around and show the Princesses what they came to see." The projected snowy landscape spun slowly around like a camera rotating upon its stand to look in the direction of Crystal Empire. Instead, what they saw made Celestia gasp and Luna curse like a sailor. Stretching thousands of meters in the air, and reaching out join with the horizon on either side was an enormous veil of gas, the same color as a reddened wound turning purple from bruising and infection. The wall of gas all but blotted out the sun as its surface roiled like a miasma of hatred.
"This is Lieutenant Soul Shard, brother to the fool Mind Shard who dashed headlong into that gas earlier today. If we had not been connected at the time, we would not have been able to pull him from the barrier before it killed him. The gas becomes active if touched, violently slashing everything with fine particulates, which means if you breathe at all inside the gas you're nearly guaranteed to die. The gas wall does appear to have a top, but it reaches too high into the atmosphere where the air is thin and freezing. There is also no apparent way to measure the thickness of the barrier, rendering attempts to simply dash through suicidal at best. Worst of all, and the reason for Mind's folly, is that the gas seems to be impenetrable by magical means. Our brother Heart Shard was stationed in an outpost within the Crystal Kingdom, and now there is no way of knowing his fate."
Soul spoke flat and emotionlessly, but he could not hide from them the tears that clogged his eyes as the landscape grew blurry and indistinct. The entire war room had stopped to gather around the projected images now, and all anypony could do is stand in mournful silence. For all the military's posturing, this was still the first real threat Equestria had faced as a nation in centuries. Not only had an Empire already fallen in but a single night, but now there was a deadly and impassible wall spanning thousands of kilometers erected in time for morning as well? The sheer power behind such a spell was incomprehensible, and to make it even worse they were facing their first casualty as well. The war wasn't even 12 hours old, and already they'd lost a friend, a brother, behind a wall of hatred. They were terrified, and they had every single reason to be.
No, thought Luna, now is not the time to give in. If we let fear and despair set root now we might as well surrender to the will of the dark conquerors. If nothing else, we must try, we must fight, until we can do so no longer. "Lieutenant Mind, Lieutenant Soul, do not capitulate now in thy attempts. You have with thee now the Princess of the Night, the Dreamwalker. Allow me to lend my power and my experience to thy mental link and let us try once more. We will find your brother, and we will do everything in our power to bring him to safety."
Mind Shard stiffened like a board whilst the image before them was blotted out by a green hoof that wiped the water from its owner's eyes. They spoke as one now, "You honor us Princess, thank you for your kindness."
"Thank me when your brother is safe Lieutenants. Tarry no more, we must begin at once." Princess closed her eyes and took a deep, long breath. Her horn glimmered to life as her celestial mane wove constellations of brilliant light in an arcane wind. The polished gleam of her silver armor glowed bright with the blessing of the moon, and when she opened her eyes once more they were beaming pure white light. The gas wall in the image before them became to billow and boil violently, fighting against an invisible force, only to have the entire image suddenly split down the middle, a second one appearing beside it on the right hand side. Soot was floating through the air like snow outside the windows of a small stone room. To the left was a pantry of preserved rations, and on the right a desk that had recently met a splintering demise. Superimposed over the new scene was the sound of nearly hysterical rasps of breath, and quiet intermittent sobs.
"M-mind? S-soul?" whimpered a new voice, presumably Heart Shard. "A-and, Princess Luna! By the sun and the moon you've managed to break through! You've come to save me!" Celestia knew she should be happy that they'd successfully made contact so soon, but something about his tone was deeply disturbing. What had her little pony witnessed to drive him to such a desperate state of hysteria? She got her answer sooner than she was ready.
"All of Tartarus could not compare to what has been unleashed upon this land. I'm in outpost JC-093 halfway between the Crystal Empire city and the border. No sooner had this damned shroud popped did I see some kind of walking nightmare. It stood tall as Canerlot castle itself, the whole thing made out of some kind of solid shadow. It left burning hoof-prints as it walked, and its eyes..." Lieutenant Heart whimpered again and took a moment to re-collect his courage. "Those eyes burned with the hate of a thousand wildfires. The thing even had an enormous red horn. Before I realized it, the beast's horn glowed and it just ripped the top off a mountain, like it were made of paper! The mountain didn't take too kindly to it either, started spewing up streams of lava and filled the air with ash. Then, some...thing climbed out of the crater."
Princess Luna, still within the trance of her spell caused the memories Heart Shard described to come to life before them on the R.E.C.T.U.M. All who bore witness blanched at the demonic figure towering besides the newly formed volcano. Then, everypony flinched (and in many cases cowered) in fear when it sharply turned to look directly at them. "No. No oh no oh please sweet Celestia NO! This didn't happen before, this isn't part of the memory! It AGGGGHHHHHHHHHH
The scream belonged to four ponies in simultaneous agony. Those blazing, all consuming eyes zoomed to fill the entire image, until there was nothing else but the burning depths of their wrath. Suddenly it was replaced by the shadowy vision of massive hordes, too numerous to count, swarming across Equestria like a plague. Behind them all stood a monument of evil, the twisted black crystal of the once magnificent castle. Green and purple curse-fire burned everywhere, and standing looming behind their Black Castle stood its masters. On the right the demonic figure of hatred, and on the left stood a figure even more terrifying. It's body was a lavender flame given solid pony form. It had two sets of burning wings, darkening to the blackness of the void at the tips. So too were its legs and even horn shaded from that dark purple to pure black. While its counterpart's eyes burned with the passion of a volcano, this one's eyes seemed to absorb all light, all hope.
Neither moved, neither spoke, they had no need to. The sheer force of their presence in the vision cowed everypony in the war room, forcing even Celestia's breath to fall short and he heart to seize up in her chest.
"Don't...get...cocky. Equestria shall not simply roll over and let you two do as you please. We shall fight to our last breathe, our last hope, our last pony to stop you. DO NOT THINK YOU ARE GREATER THAN THE BONDS OF OUR PONIES' LOVE!"
It was Luna, standing, heaving, before the visage with sweat pouring in rivulets down her coat. With a final heave of her magic, she managed to reclaim the mental link, ripping away the vision to reveal once more the split image between Soul and Heart Shard. There would be no time to rest however, of in the distance of Heart's view, the volcano shook and began to erupt once more.
"Heart Shard," spoke Luna, "they come for you."
"I know." Heart, Mind, and Soul all answered, all defeated and weary. What could they possibly hope to do in time?
"I'm going to have to ask a great boon of you my subject...I must ask you to trust me."
"With my life, Princess."
"The enchantments blocking us from teleporting you out are too strong to shatter without risking your life in the process; however there is considerably less defense to stop us from using our magic to affect your current location through this link, so I offer you an alternative. I can place you into a deep sleep, a hibernation of sorts. Then with the aid of my sister our combined power would be enough to fold space around your slumbering form, to form a pocket and pinch it off from the rest of reality for a certain period of time. Nopony, no thing, would be able to harm you, let alone find you, until the time elapsed and space unfolded for you to awake."
"How..., how long?"
Luna hesitated, if they set too short of time he would awaken to the same predicament he currently found himself in, and if the time was set too long, the war could long be over before he had a chance to come home to his family.
"10 years" It was Celestia who spoke, the figure of determination itself. "Twilight was nearly as pregnant as Cadence was when..., if what Cadence said is true about her love for Sombra, then she should love her foal no less. This barrier is a delaying tactic, so that her child can grow to maturity, and in that time too amass an actual army. In 10 years you will be able to give us an inside look at what is happening in the Empire at the time, and by then we should have developed a safe method of extracting you."
Luna smiled, it was good to hear Celestia taking charge once more, it meant she was coming to grips with the war more and more. "It is up to you now Heart Shard, are you willing to wait in hibernation for 10 years?"
Heart actually chuckled as his vision shook once more from the latest eruption of molten rock. "Not like I have much of a choice hehe. I'm ready princesses, thank you, for everything. Soul, Mind, I love you guys, so you'd better not forget to come get me in 10 years! And I'd better see the both of you there when I wake up!"
Celestia's eyes were glowing white with power now as well, and with a soft clink she touched her horn to Luna's, feeding her as much magic as she had to give.
"Tell mum and dad not to worry, and that I love them too."
The air crackled as arcane symbols flashed in and out of existence around the princesses, their spell building to a climax while Lieutenant Mind unabashedly bawled on the cold marble tiles.
"Goodbye, everyone. I hope to see you again soon."
Brilliant, blinding light lit the war room brighter than the sun. When it faded the R.E.C.T.U.M was back to showing only one viewpoint again, one that was blurred beyond recognition past the tears. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were visibly drained and approaching their limits; Celestia's hair had returned to its base pink color, and Luna's to pastel blue. They would need time and rest to recover from such a massive spell, but they had succeeded.
"It is done. Colonel Iron Wing, prepare your ponies accordingly. We have 10 long years of war ahead of us."
"Let's make sure to keep our promise."
