Five years after first contact.
The midday sun beat down on Celestia's back as the two sisters flew silently through the sky. The fields and forests of eastern Equestria scrolled past below them, dotted with the occasional pony working the land. Celestia wondered if any of them had noticed the two princesses flying past overhead, but part of her hoped they hadn’t.
Slowly, subtly, The world below was changing. Every day as she walked the streets of Canterlot, she felt more and more like a stranger in the city. She no longer received courteous bows from passers-by, all of them too absorbed by other things to notice their princesses, and gradually the acts of respect were being replaced by suspicion, even disgust. She and her sister had been left behind, abandoned, for the simple crime of not adoring Ra.
They still had their land and titles – Ra hadn't bothered to deprive them of those yet – but this was becoming increasingly worthless. Their personal staff were all but gone now, and with the nation slowly turning to a new leader, their duties had become almost non-existent. With nothing else to do, they had been left with only one option: find a way to fight back. But even this was proving a challenge.
"We are nearly there, sister," Luna said. Celestia looked up from the ground and saw, looming ahead of them, a two-hundred foot high wall of rock – the great cliffs forming the boundary between the plains of Equestria and the rough, foreboding terrain of the dragons' domain. The dragons had been quiet since the arrival of Ra, but this was nothing new – the politics of the rest of the world had always been of little concern to them. But something had changed at last, and so the princesses found their search for allies leading them there.
Celestia felt like this reeked of desperation, but to her dismay she had found allies scarce over the last few years. Even after the terrible things Ra had done, there were enough willing to stand by him, to spread word of the value of his plans to others, that he was always able to frame his actions as being for the good of Equestria. He always knew exactly what to say and to whom, and nopony wanted to argue against the one that had already done so much for the planet. The ripples of support spread across the population fast than Celestia could keep up with, and so nopony was ever willing to listen to their warnings. They were so absorbed, so fanatical, that Celestia had sometimes even suspected some kind of brainwashing; after everything else he had done, she wouldn't put it past him.
The princesses hadn't gone to the dragons earlier, as the wyrms' motives and allegiances were always so hard to discern. Celestia didn't want to draw them into the fight only to have them turn on her and strengthen Ra's side further. But now, out of the blue, they had found themselves summoned here, directed to this location by a small roll of parchment, waiting in Celestia's chambers one evening, with a map drawn on it above the words "Come immediately".
"There," Celestia said, pointing down to the base of the cliff where a river flowed out from the mouth of a wide cave. Together they swooped down, flying into the cave and following the path of the river as it bored its way through the rock. White light spread from the tips of their horns, creating strange patterns as it reflected off the slick stone.
The cave seemed to go on forever, through tunnels and caverns dug out of the rock by the stream over the millennia. Eventually they came to a fork, where a small stone ledge jutted out from the cave wall between two converging streams. The princesses set down on the narrow platform.
"This is the place," Celestia said, looking back and forth along the various paths away from the junction.
"You are certain it was he who sent the message?" Luna asked, and Celestia nodded.
"It must have been him," She said. "I only hope we do not have to wait—"
"Princesses," came a distant, rumbling voice, filling the cave. Celestia's eyes darted round everywhere, but as far as she could see they were still alone.
"Hello?" she called. "Where are you?"
"There's a gap in the rock, on the wall," the voice said. "Follow it."
Luna turned to the wall and searched its surface, and sure enough, there was an opening hidden in a shadow on the rock face, just big enough for a pony to fit through.
"This way," she said, squeezing into the gap. Celestia followed and the two of them pushed themselves along the tunnel, gradually climbing up away from the river. After a minute or so of slow progress it finally started to open out again, and Celestia saw orange-yellow light shining down past her sister. When she reached the end she pulled herself out into the open, stood up, and looked out over the most incredible scene she had ever laid eyes on.
They were on a ledge overlooking an enormous cavern, large enough to contain the entirety of Canterlot castle with room to spare. The air was alive with movement, dragons of all sizes and colours flocking together in wide spirals. Fires roared in alcoves on the walls, filling the cavern with light and warmth, while a stream of water cascaded down from a small opening in the middle of the ceiling to a lake at the bottom, the spray producing a comfortable damp atmosphere.
"Celestia, Luna," said the same deep voice from next to them, "I hoped you'd come."
Celestia turned, and there, perched on the ledge beside them, was a dragon, small by the standards of the others, but still at least ten metres long. His juvenile wings were folded back over his purple scales, while his back was adorned with a long row of sharp, green ridges.
"Spike!" Celestia said, grinning up at her old friend. "I haven't seen you in so long!"
Spike lowered his snout to them in greeting, pressing it up against the princesses' noses one after the other.
"One hundred and eleven years," he said. "After the funeral, it just didn't seem right to stay." He turned and looked out at the swarming dragons. "The nest has welcomed me, though. I am happy here."
"I am glad to hear it," Luna said. "You have been missed."
"And I miss you as well," Spike replied. "I'm sorry I didn't make contact sooner."
"Don't worry," Celestia said, looking up at him. "You have your own life to lead. I never expected you'd want to spend your entire life in Equestria."
She paused and looked out over the cavern again, almost jealous that he was living in such a spectacular place.
"So why now?" she asked. "Are the dragons doing something we need to know about?"
Spike smiled. "Not dragons." He pointed a claw down to the floor of the cave, to the banks of the lake, and as Celestia looked down she saw them: hundreds, maybe thousands of creatures from all kinds of races, gathered in large groups around the water. She could see zebras, gryphons, donkeys, minotaurs, buffalo, even diamond dogs, cows and sheep, on the land, and there were serpents swimming in the lake. They were dwarfed by the creatures flying above them, but easily rivalled them in numbers.
"What are they doing here?" Celestia said.
"Come on," Spike said, spreading his wings. "I'll show you." He slipped off the ledge, gliding down to the ground below, and Celestia and Luna followed behind him. The creatures below gathered round the young dragon as he landed, and the princesses came down next to him, looking around at the wide array of faces surrounding them.
"They started coming earlier this year," Spike said. "It wasn't easy at first, but I was able to talk the others into giving them refuge."
As the princesses looked round at the crowd, they were greeted by smiles, bows and words of welcome from all sides. It was the best feeling Celestia had felt in a long time, once more being welcomed into something, and she smiled happily back at them.
But something still felt off. As she looked round, she became aware that she could only see a small number of ponies among the crowd.
"How did all this happen?" She asked.
"That would be my fault," came a familiar voice from behind them. Celestia turned and saw a gryphon pushing his way out of the crowd.
"Commander!" she said, but as he walked up to them he shook his head.
"Not anymore," he said. "It's just Razorbeak now."
"What are you doing here?" Luna asked.
"That is a long story." Razorbeak turned and walked off toward the lake, gesturing for the princesses to follow him. The crowd parted to let them through, before spreading even wider as Spike came up behind them.
"It started about three years ago," he went on, "not long after my last scheduled tour on the station came to an end. Work had been slowing up there already, what with everything that had been going on down on the ground, but even so it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I got back and was immediately told I was being retired."
"What?" Luna said, surprised. "Why?"
Razorbeak shrugged. "They never really gave a reason, and I didn't push too hard to get one, not wanting to cause a fuss. But after a while I started noticing a trend. A lot of my friends from the military and the space program were also dropping suddenly out of the service. The zebras I'd worked with on the station went first, and one by one the gryphons I knew from flight school followed. Some of them were generals, even."
Celestia looked round at the crowd again. "But no ponies," she said. Razorbeak nodded.
"I applied to join Ra's army after that," he went on, "to see what would happen as much as anything. But as I thought might happen, they turned me away. They barely looked at my military service. They just told me there were no positions open."
The princesses glanced at each other. "How had we not sensed this, sister?" Luna said.
"Don't beat yourself up," Razorbeak said. "It took me a while to catch on as well. Ra's good at keeping things quiet, I'll give him that, and it looks like it's mainly just been happening in the military."
They reached the lake edge and came to a halt. Celestia looked round at the far edge, admiring how many there were. The numbers looked even larger now she was down among them. Spike drew up next to them and bent down to take a drink from the lake.
"This is incredible," Celestia said. "How did you get so many here?"
Razorbeak shrugged. "Carefully," he said. "It took a long time, but I'm pretty good at keeping things quiet myself. I started just with my old friends, meeting them and discussing if we should do anything. Then they went to their old friends, and the word spread. Pretty soon there were so many of us that we knew we weren't going to be able to stop Ra noticing us, so I came here. I knew where the dragons lived from my military days, and I also knew you had a friend here."
Spike raised his head and looked down at them. "After Razorbeak told me what was happening," he said, "I went straight to the other dragons. They weren't eager to do anything, but I pointed out that if Ra was planning something bad for non-pony races, he wasn't likely to ignore us forever."
"They're letting us live here," Razorbeak said. "We're still trying to talk them into fighting with us as well, but even without them we're building up a sizeable force. At this point we could probably significantly weaken Ra's advantage and stop him before he does whatever he's planning."
Celestia raised her eyebrows, her heart buzzing. She'd come here with a faint hope that she may find one or two allies, but she'd never expected to find this many. This changed everything.
"I don't know what to say," she said. "This is such a surprise!"
Razorbeak chuckled. "Yeah, I must confess that we've been rather deliberately hiding this from you," he said. "Ra's been keeping a particularly close eye on the two of you."
They two sisters exchanged glances, surprised that he had any interest in them any more.
Razorbeak gestured out across the crowd. "But we're finished hiding now," he said. "We're ready and eager to get out of here and get our home back from Ra. Your army awaits your orders, your Highnesses."
He turned and bowed to them. One by one, the others around them dropped to their knees as well. Suddenly feeling flustered, Celestia reached forward and pulled Razorbeak up again.
"Just like that?" she said. "You're all willing to go to war against your former friends and colleagues?"
Razorbeak raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to try and stop me, are you?"
"No," Celestia replied, "I just wonder what you think you're fighting against. Most of Equestria is willing to die for him, so why aren't you?"
The gryphon shrugged. "I guess he just hasn't managed to convince me of his virtue like the others. It helps that he doesn't seem to want to convince any of us; he thinks his army of ponies is enough for him.
"Once it became clear that I wasn't personally welcome, I started questioning things a bit more, and they just didn't seem to fit. It was clear he was hiding something, and my intuition told me it wasn't good. "Protecting Equestria"? After the Changeling extermination he's probably killed more than he's saved. Plus, it's no secret how much you two don't like him. You two were always very trusting – no offence – so I knew you had to have good reason."
Celestia took a deep breath, the gravity of everything starting to sink in. Suddenly the idea of ridding Equestria of Ra seemed to be a real possibility. There was no way they could protect everypony, and the thought of declaring all-out war did not come lightly to her, but she knew deep down that they couldn't pass on this opportunity. They had to do something.
Still, she was wary. Living in Ra's shadow for the past few years had left her paranoid, and she could see that there was no way he was going to make this easy for them.
"Okay," she said. "We will need to plan quickly though. As you say, he will notice that my sister and I are absent."
"And we must act decisively," Luna said. "Once you are a known threat, he will hunt you down. We need to focus on killing Ra as soon as possible."
Celestia looked round in surprise at her sister, the words stuck in her mind. Killing Ra. She had never really stopped to think what the outcome of their fight would be, and hearing it said out loud made it feel so much more real. The idea of killing anypony sent chills down her spine, but she forced herself to accept that is was by far the quickest way to end this. Ra was a very real threat, and even more lives could be put at risk if they didn't treat him as such.
"We shouldn't overcommit," Razorbeak was saying. "We're safe here, after all. The nest provides numerous bottlenecks, and if Ra attacks here, the dragons will defend their home."
"He's right," Spike added. "Razorbeak's told me about the weapons Ra uses. It'll take a lot more than that to beat a fully grown dragon, let alone an entire nest."
"We haven't got many weapons ourselves," Razorbeak continued, "but a lot of us have military training, and we've been teaching the rest. We were thinking of doing smaller hit-and-run ops first, to get some more weapons and equipment, before going after Ra himself.
"You're taking a huge risk," Celestia said. "A lot are going to die if we don't get this right."
Razorbeak sighed. "I know," he said. "But if we don't do anything, and my fears are grounded, then we might…"
Something caught the gryphon's attention, and he raised his eyes to the roof of the cave. Celestia followed his gaze, and saw a young gryphon flying down toward them from the hole where the waterfall cascaded through, trying to shout something down at them but fighting against the noise of the water.
"That's our lookout," Razorbeak said, his wings sagging. "This doesn't look good."
As the gryphon got closer, his voice started to become audible. He was still a long way off, but Celestia already knew what he was saying.
"Ra…" he panted, fear and exhaustion filling the word. "Ra's here!"
"He followed us!" Luna said.
Razorbeak leapt to action immediately, jumping up into the air and hovering above the crowd. Spike rose up on his hind legs and gave a loud roar, calling them all to attention.
"Alright!" Razorbeak shouted, his voice carrying even across the sound of the waterfall. "The enemy is here!"
The crowd stirred, filling with nervous murmurs, but Razorbeak silenced them again when he continued.
"We had hoped to fight him on our terms, but we at least get to fight him on our terrain! We can win this fight, and Ra's given us a chance to send him the message that we won't bow to his will! Today we begin to take back Equestria!"
The crowd cheered, and Razorbeak continued to speak, but the two sisters weren't listening any more.
"What is he doing?" Luna said. "Ra must know there will be dragons here; why would he take this risk?"
"Something feels wrong," Celestia replied. "How did he know we were gone so quickly?"
The lookout gryphon came down to land at the shore not far from them, his entire body weary from the hurry to get to them. After standing numbly, drawing in shaky breaths, his eyes fell on the two sisters and he started to limp over to them. The look of sheer panic on his was enough to tell Celestia that something was horribly wrong.
"Ra…" he panted again as came to a halt in front of them. "Ra's ship…"
"Oh no," Luna said.
A loud splash echoed through the cave as a great boulder fell into the centre of the lake. Razorbeak stopped talking and all eyes turned to the cave's roof, the crowd falling silent. Celestia became aware of a low rumble, as if the entire cave was shaking.
"Razorbeak!" Celestia yelled. "We need to get out of here!"
The gryphon turned to say something, but was cut off as two more chunks of rock, as large as houses, fell into the lake near them and threw waves of spray across them. The crowd snapped, groups breaking up and pushing past each other as the fought to reach the exits on the outer walls. The gryphons – and the few pegasi that had come – took to the air and headed for openings higher up, while the swarm of dragons above them streamed toward tunnels leading out to other parts of the nest. But before any of them could escape, great explosions rocked the edges of the cave, the exits collapsing in under the force of blasts from above.
The blasts tore yet more pieces out of the roof, the air filling with falling debris. Celestia looked round for Razorbeak again but he had already disappeared, caught up in the commotion. She looked up and saw a huge rock falling toward them; she ducked down in fear, but before it hit she was pushed to the side, Spike dragging her and her sister under his massive form. She felt the impact as the rock smashed against the scales on his back, and heard him groan under the force. He stood again and stepped back, looking down at them.
"Go," he said, his eyes red with pain. "Get out of here."
"No!" Celestia shouted, "I'm not leaving you—"
"Go!" Spike roared. "There's nothing you can do! Save yourself so you can continue to fight! I'll stay and do what I can here!"
Without waiting for a response he turned and limped away into the crowd, guiding and sheltering others as the rocks continued to fall. Celestia watched him go, feeling numb all over.
"He's right," Luna said, "We need to go."
The two of them jumped into the air, climbing up along the path of the waterfall to the opening above. Around them dragons were swarming in panic, falling out of the sky as the rocks caught them one by one. Some dragons had already reached the hole and they dug away at it, pushing the opening wider and wider as the scrambled desperately to reach the surface. Celestia and Luna, along with a number of gryphons, managed to push past the cascade of debris and come up behind them, following through the widening hole and into the open air.
They were not greeted by sunlight, though; above them sat a massive, hollow metal structure, its four triangular sides stretching up to a point high above them. The roar of the ship's engines shook the air itself, and Celestia found it almost impossible to fly as they and the other escapees fled for the edge of the ship, flying out through the quickly shrinking gap between it and the ground and out into the open.
Her eyes clenched tight shut and her mind racing, Celestia pushed upwards into the sky, blindly fleeing the terrible drone of the ship.
"He knew," she said. "He planned this. He was just waiting for them to gather together."
She stopped flying, hovering in the air. Opening her eyes, she turned to her sister.
"And we led him right to them."
They turned slowly, looking back at the ship. It was a great pyramid, covered in ornate golden patterns, and it was slowly pressing down on the ground below. Cracks and crevasses began to open up in the soil around the ship, until all of a sudden the entire ceiling of the cavern collapsed inward. A cloud of dust enveloped the ship, and when it settled, the ship sat motionless above a giant crater, the remains of the once-thriving nest nothing but an empty field of rubble.
Celestia scanned the sky, looking for any others that had escaped. All she could see were three dragons flying away into the mountains, but bursts of plasma from the ship chased after them, knocking them out of the sky with pained roars.
Then, silence fell.
"Why is he doing this?" Luna said, her voice weak.
Without thinking, Celestia dove back down to the ship. She circled its peak, trying to find something to vent her pain on. Then she saw an opening, a window that had pulled open on the side of the hull, and she swooped in, finding herself in a large, lavishly decorated throne room. At the far end, climbing a set of steps to a doorway, was Ra.
"You!" she shouted. "Why are you doing this?"
He ignored her.
"Ra!" she shouted. "Turn around and face me this instant!"
He stopped, and, with the minimum of movement, turned his head to look at her. His expression was drawn, and he looked at her like she was nothing more than an annoyance.
"What do you want from us?" she said.
He studied her for a moment, then without saying a word he turned again and walked through the door. It closed, leaving Celestia alone again.
She stood in the silence, looking round at the room she now stood in. The ship hadn't shown any signs of motion since his first arrival, just sitting idly in orbit. Now he'd brought it all the way down to the planet, just so he could do this. They were miles from the nearest settlement, where nopony would have seen anything, but still the message he sent was clear. He was done hiding the full extent of his power. The planet was his now and he was staking his claim. He had won.
She turned and fled the ship, leaping back out of the window and into the open air, and flew aimlessly back toward Equestria with no idea where to go next. Ra's final words from the last time they spoke echoed in her mind.
You are no longer welcome here.