Seven Months of Open Rebellion
“This is it, everypony!” General Warhorse called out over the heads of the assembled army before him. Every NLR pony who could be spared from maintaining the lines and keeping chaos from overwhelming the nation was assembled before him and the sea of eyes stretched so far that even with two unicorns magically amplifying his voice, the ponies in back still had to strain to hear his words.
“In just a few days time, our assembled might will march on Canterlot and Celestia will be ousted from the throne!” a cheer went up from the crowd, the stamping of so many hooves literally shaking the glass in the windows of the palace behind Warhorse, “Our Princess Luna has made her intentions known to the ponies of Equestria, and they have heeded her call! They have joined our ranks to fight for our cause!
I am proud to lead so many brave ponies into battle, and know that when the time comes, and we strike at the heart of the Empire, there will be no needless separation of rank, no haughtiness of seniority, no segregation of species or creed! We will all fight together, side by side! Unicorn, Pegasus, and Earth Pony alike, we will fight alongside one another, I will be beside you in the trenches my brothers and sisters!
We will stand triumphant over the shattered remains of the Empire, or we will all lay bloodied and beaten upon the stones of Canterlot and with our final breaths we will strike out! We will see a new order take hold in our nation! We will see Equestria become great once more! Become a land of equality once more! We will see these things and more, or we will die together, as brothers-in-arms, in our attempts to see them through! The Empire shall fall, the Republic shall rise, and when the moon rises over Canterlot, Celestia will know fear! Luna Nobis Providet!”
A roar of approval went up from those assembled as Moxi watched them from high above, ensconced as she was in one of the palace’s looming towers, and despite the shudder of the castle stones beneath her hooves from the sheer mass of ponies stamping in the surrounding area, she was filled with a sense of unease.
“You look nervous,” Moxi was unsurprised by Melody’s appearance, and turned to face the unicorn, attempting to hide her emotions better.
“It’s not as if you can blame me,” she said, eying the crowd below, “The numbers are impressive, but even so, Canterlot is built like a fortress and protected by the most proficient of Celestia’s military. Seven months of open rebellion probably just means the military presence there has gotten stronger. Celestia is insane, but she’s not stupid, she knows we’re coming for her. A frontal assault is suicide, even with these numbers, and the General knows it.”
Melody cocked her head inquisitively to one side, “How do you know?”
“Because I read as much in his reports,” Moxi growled back, “I don’t know what he’s playing at. Pandering to an audience isn’t usually his style, particularly when he knows he’s lying to them. He’s planning something, and I don’t like being kept in the dark.”
“I’m sure they don’t mean to keep you in the dark,” Melody said, laying a hoof on Moxi’s shoulder and giving her a small smile, “he probably intends to tell you and the other agents at the war meeting tomorrow night.”
“Yeah,” Moxi muttered sarcastically, “but even if they’ve managed to find a way to take Canterlot, there’s a pretty big issue that nopony seems to want to talk about. Celestia didn’t survive for over a millennium, as a ruler no less, by being weak. What happens when she takes to the field and starts slaughtering our troops?”
Melody beamed at Moxi and said, “I’m glad you asked. Follow me.” With a flick of her tail, she trotted down through a nearby doorway to the stairwell. Moxi blinked, but obliged the mare, following her down into the castle proper.
“This,” Melody said, holding up a strange-looking contraption of wood and metal, “is the New Lunar Republican Experimental Rifle!” Moxi eyed the device in confusion, it had been sealed in a glass case in the castle’s laboratory wing, the signs on display on its case declaring it highly dangerous and stating that it should be handled with extreme caution, but Melody seemed to be bandying the thing about recklessly.
“Umm… First off,” Moxi said, wincing as Melody bounced the thing up and down, “should you really be handling that thing like that? What are all those warning signs for?”
“Hmm? Oh those? Not to worry, it’s not loaded.”
“Uh, right,” Moxi said, not entirely placated, “second, what is a rifle? And why are you showing it to me?”
“Because this, my dear,” she said, reaching into an adjacent display case to remove a crystal which was emanating a brilliant glow of white light, “is how you are going to stop Celestia.”
Melody led Moxi into another room constructed beneath the foundation of the castle, it was long, about a hundred feet from end to end, with a deep indentation about a yard in marked heavily with yellow caution tape and various warnings.
Melody held up the crystal in front of Moxi and said, “This, Moxi, is pure unicorn magic, compressed into a physical form.” With that, she jammed the crystal into a slot in the side of the rifle, sealed the opening and pointed it down range, shouting, “Firing!”
A voice called out from an unseen point in the room, “Clear!” and windows on the walls lining the room sealed off. Once the windows were sealed, a flash of light appeared at the front of the rifle and something moving almost too fast to be seen rocketed down the range. When it hit the opposite wall the impact caused an explosion fierce enough that Moxi felt a wave of heat wash over her even from the distance at which she stood.
“Empty night!” She screamed, covering her ears from the massive sound of impact hit her, first from the rifle firing and then from the explosive impact of its shot, “What in Luna’s name is that thing!”
Melody lay on the floor laughing, the rifle’s recoil having evidently knocked her onto her flank. “This,” she said, as Moxi helped her up, “is the NLR Experimental Rifle, it uses raw unicorn magic as a projectile, and it should have enough power to wipe anything, even Princess Celestia, off the map!”
“I should say so,” Moxi remarked, eyeing the pile of rubble that remained of the far wall, several unicorns in lab coats had emerged to examine the wreckage, “why is this thing not standard issue.”
“Well first off,” she gestured at the damage she’d wrought, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to put this kind of power in the hooves of just anypony. Besides that, this rifle is still a prototype, and the crystals it uses aren’t easy to make.” She ejected the crystal from the rifle’s housing and showed it to Moxi, who could see that it glowed a little less brightly and had developed a few cracks in its façade, “This one took five of our most skilled unicorns three hours of constant work to make, and even on its lowest setting, the rifle only gets about ten shots out of them before the crystal is completely destroyed.”
“What happens if the gun if fired on full power?”
“We don’t know,” Melody shook her head, “I just fired it at 25% potential, in our experiments we’ve brought it up to 75%, and at that point the crystal disintegrates after one shot… and our researcher who discovered that is still in the infirmary. Nopony dares even power the thing up to 100%, some of the other ponies theorize that if it’s ever set that high, it will overload the crystal and blow them both!”
Moxi eyed the weapon skeptically, “How big an explosion could it actually produce?”
“Theoretically? The gun itself is partially a magical construct, the combined effect of both destabilizing would be… well suffice to say, it would take out the entire castle and more than half of the assembled army outside.”
Moxi turned her gaze on the weapon, her eyes narrowing in contemplation, “That powerful? If it has that much potential, why don’t we use it? Just drop one of these from above onto Canterlot and watch the city burn.”
Melody recoiled at the chill in Moxi’s voice, pulling both the rifle and the crystal protectively against her body. “There are civilians in Canterlot, Moxi,” she said, fear evident in her voice, “stallions and mares and foals who have no connection to the war, we can’t just sacrifice the innocent so we can take the quick and easy way out.”
“You’re right,” Moxi sighed, “so this thing is going to be used to assassinate Celestia? Who’s carrying it into the fray?”
“Do you really need to ask?” Melody said, immediately warming back up and smiling at Moxi, “Why do you think I called you down here? You’re going to be training in its use until the moment we launch the invasion, and then you’re going to kill Celestia.”
Moxi eyed the rifle, her mind conflicted, but a face drifted through her memory, a pegasus pony who had never hurt anypony, left on a slab for amoral scientists to do whatever they liked with. A sense of cold determination overtook her and she nodded, “With pleasure.”