Epilogue
Luna’s private cadre of bat-pony guards marched past patrols sent from Canterlot, each with their spears at the ready as they rounded up any Dogs left in the mines. “Uh, Princess?” One of them asked, his yellow eyes glowing in the dark. “We’re…uh…having trouble gathering all the Dogs. They’re not being as cooperative as we’d like.”
“Hmm?” She looked up, her train of thought interrupted. “Oh, of course. Simply explain to them that we are only here to search for an artifact their Wardog has stolen and that the males we have captured will be returned to them in a timely fashion, and that we pledge our support for their holding a democratic election for an Alpha Dog to replace Shizukh.”
“Yes, Princess,” the guard nodded. “Also, there is somedog to see you.”
“What?” She asked as the guard stepped aside, revealing a smaller, female dog with white fur and a long, ugly scar tracing down the side of her cheek and through one milky-white eye. The Princess stared for the quickest moment before recomposing herself. “Ah, yes, and to what do we owe this meeting?”
The Dog stood there, her one bad eye gazing blankly into nothingness while the other glared. “You ponies took Shizukh now, didntcha?”
Luna sighed. She had hoped to get out of the den before any awkward questions like that could be asked, but apparently that was just too much to ask for. “Yes, we are afraid so. Shizukh’s attempts to annihilate Canterlot cannot go unanswered, and he must remain in one of our prisons as punishment. We simply cannot risk him returning here to try destroying us again.”
The dog nodded, her good eye glistening. Suddenly, she stepped forward and wrapped her paws around the Princess’s neck. “Hey, hey!” One of her guards gasped.
“’Tis quite alright,” Luna said, waving the guard off before embracing the hug.
“It’s really over,” the dog sniffled in Luna’s hooves. “It’s finally over.”
Luna sighed. She had seen this before: this pain, this hopelessness, the crystal ponies were exactly the same way after their Empire’s return. It only made sense, though. Only a power-hungry maniac would try something on the scale of what Shizukh had attempted. After some time, the dog thanked the Princess once more and left quietly, tears still streaming down her cheeks in joy. The Alicorn continued her journey along the twisting caverns and sparkling lights of the gems half-buried in the walls.
After some time, they came across one darkened cavern with a massive door bolted in place across its entrance. Four guards stood at attention: two of Luna’s Night guard on one side, two of Celestia’s Day Stallions on the other. One of the day stallions saluted and approached her. “My princess,” he said, bowing at her hooves.
“Rise, Commander,” the Princess replied. “You are sure this is where the artifact has been stored?”
“Quite sure, ma’am. Once we found the door, we knew we’d arrived, just as that little dog told us.”
Luna nodded. “That little dog has been a great help, we might not have ever found this room without his directions. Not in this maze.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“Tell him we shall honor his request to become a full citizen of Equestria, strange as it is.”
“Princess! A Dog becoming a…” a glare from Luna silenced the Commander’s protests. “Yes, Princess, we shall inform the Dog as soon as our mission is complete here.”
“Excellent,” Luna continued, studying the door. “Now, have our orders been followed perfectly? Has anypony set foot in this room since you secured this entrance?”
“No Princess, just as you ordered. Once the forward guard found this door, they just sent a runner back to lead us to it. No one, pony or dog, has been inside since we found it.”
“Good, now open it.”
“Yes, Princess,” the guard raised a hoof, and immediately the three guards behind him nodded and took their places in front of the door, focusing their magic on it. After a short time, a few metallic clanks sounded and the door creaked open, its well-oiled hinges gliding silently along to reveal utter darkness inside.
“Very good,” Luna said as she stepped into the darkness.
“Urk-Princess, wait! There could be traps!”
“I am well aware of the dangers, Commander, but what is about to take place in this room must remain the closest of well-guarded secrets. Please seal the door now.”
“I-yes, Princess,” he sighed, seeing that he had no choice.
Luna took a step inside and shivered as the door closed behind her. Shizukh’s mine was about as cold and dreary a place as had ever existed in Equestria. The Wardog had never paid attention to things like aesthetics or proper lighting, keeping his mines cold and dark for his workers to dig in, only allowing them light at the end of the day in his specialized grog-hall, set in one of the outer caverns under his personal supervision. There, he could control who stayed and who spent the night in the dark and cold with a mere wave of a paw. Luna mused on the manipulations of the old Wardog with disdain. ’Twas the thinking of a tyrant, not a true ruler, that built this wretched place, she grumbled, wings folding around her body for a degree of extra warmth. Of course, it’s not like she had expected this particular chamber to be well-lit or anything, but a couple lanterns would have been nice. How did that old tyrant even find his way around in here?
As her eyes adjusted to the dark and her night-vision kicked in (she was the Princess of Night after all), Luna made out the shape of a large, dark box in the corner. She laid a hoof on it tentatively and listened to a loud, metallic clang reverberate throughout the little structure. She sighed. It was just as they feared. “No hooves or Dog hands built this thing,” she mused aloud.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice rasped behind her. Disguising her surprise, she turned to see a human man in a leather jacket with jet-black hair and a cigarette clenched between his lips.
“Hello again, Mr. Sawyer,” the Princess said coolly, trying to disguise her surprise. “It is good to see you again.”
“And you, Princess, though I wish like hell it could be under better circumstances,” the man replied, tapping out the ashes on his cigarette. Luna tried to hide her concern: the man looked like he’d seen better days, with his hair messed and sticking up in places and dark bags beneath his eyes. His ongoing war was obviously taking its toll.
“So…h-how goes the war?” She asked, cursing herself for stammering.
“It goes,” he shrugged. “Mars and his army are lashing out everywhere. As we speak, hundreds of worlds burn and tremble with battle, millions of souls thrown into the clamor and horror every hour. And those are just the battles we know about. Things like this, things like the little secrets Mars has been sharing to spread chaos throughout the multiverse, could take years to uncover and disarm.”
“I…Swarm, I’m so sorry. I’m so very…”
“Save it,” he grumbled, walking up to the box and pressing his hand against it. “At least this little secret can be disarmed right here and now.”
“Indeed! Thanks to your intelligence, the Dogs will never be able to unleash some of those terrible human weapons we saw back in Coltton. And we did it without any bloodshed, so the Dogs are left without a reason to rebel!” She crossed her forehooves confidently. “As you can see, Equestria is more than capable of defending herself.”
“We’ll see,” he sighed, waving his hand. As she watched, the air swirled about, slowly coalescing into something with form and shape. His hand danced about in exaggerated circles, slowly giving rise to a large, metallic shield. Well, perhaps shield was too generous a term for it. It was more a simple metal circle than any sort of armor a member of the Canterlot guard would want around.
“Lead,” he explained, wedging the circle in the ground so that it stood between the Princess and the box. “It’ll protect you just in case.”
“In case of what? Are these not small arms such as we have seen before?”
“With Mars, it’s always best to prepare for the worst,” he replied, resting a hand on the box. Nodding to her, he ensured she was completely covered by the shield before easily lifting the lid. It landed on the ground with a massive thud, cracking some of the rock beneath it as it settled. The bipedal demi-god leaned over the edge of the box and peered inside. He grimaced. “You maniac. You impossibly evil lunatic.”
“Swarm? What is it?”
“The worst,” he replied, tilting the box up to where she could see inside. “The very thing that shield is meant to protect you from. I was afraid of this once I realized Mars was porting a lead-lined box into Equestria, but I was hoping…”
He took another drag off the cigarette. “…I dunno. I just don’t know what I was hoping for.”
“Can I…”
“Any radiation traces have been identified and countered, Princess. It is perfectly safe for you to look.”
Luna leaned around the shield and caught sight of the thing in the metal box. It didn’t look like much: just a big metal orb with rivets running down its side and a strange symbol on its front. She squinted through the darkness to make the symbol out: three black fan-like shapes branching off a central black circle. “What does that mean?” She asked, pointing to the symbol.
“That is the symbol for nuclear radiation, Princess. Surprisingly enough, it is exactly identical to the symbol used by dozens of worlds to warn of the same danger. This, Princess, is mankind’s greatest contribution to the absurd and the unthinkable,” the man replied, taking another drag off his cigarette while supporting the device with one arm. “This is a nuclear warhead.”
Luna nodded, trying to hide her complete ignorance for half the terms the man had just used. “Verily well, Swarm. Now, what does it do? Is it some sort of bomb?”
“Yes and no, Princess. It’s not just any bomb. It’s THE bomb. This bomb has an explosive yield of approximately one-point-five megatons of TNT, giving it almost one-hundred times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima near the tail-end of World War Two.”
Luna nodded again. Finally, she sighed and admitted defeat. “I am sorry, Swarm, but we know not of what thou speaks. How bad is that?”
“Well, considering the bomb dropped on Hiroshima vaporized everything within a mile of the initial blast sight and instantly killed sixty-thousand people, with an additional hundred-thousand dying over the next month or so as a direct result of injuries and burns sustained from the blast and poisoning from radioactive fallout,” he paused to take another drag off the cigarette. “Pretty freakin’ bad.”
The Princess stood in shock, her eyes widening, pupils narrowing to little pinholes. “Tha-that’s horrible,” she stammered, dumbfounded.
“Most humans thought so too,” he replied, dropping the case back on the ground and lifting the lid back into place. “That’s why so many human worlds have managed to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, instead solving their disputes with more diplomatic or conventional means, though there are quite a few exceptions, I’m sorry to say.”
The Princess cringed as she watched the man drag the massive weapon off, a green glow emanating from the rock wall behind him. “What do you plan to do with it?”
“Scrap it. I know of a few human worlds that could find some more peaceful uses from this thing’s uranium heart. And as for the casing…” he actually paused to think about that one, scratching at the back of his head. Eventually, a small smile appeared on his face. By the looks of it, the man hadn’t smiled in a long time. “…I think it’ll make a great ambulance once it’s melted down. Or a fire truck. I’m still not sure.”
“Swarm, wait,” she sighed nervously. Summoning her courage, the Princess placed a hoof on her chest and activated the bit of magic she had prepared beforehand.
The man paused. “Yeah?”
“Before you go, I was thinking I should thank you somehow for all you’ve done for us,” she said, slowly walking around the box.
“There’s no need: this is something I need to…” he trailed off as he turned, his eyes widening as he looked at her. The cigarette dropped from his lips. Luna stood before him on two well-shaped legs, her body a perfect, hourglass-like figure. Her exposed, light-blue breasts practically screamed out at him as she balanced as gracefully as she could on two hooves, wobbling this way and that.
The princess blushed with a snout that still extended out from the rest of her head ever so slightly, still not quite human. One of the pony-like ears poking out the top of her mane twitched as she tried to cover her now fully-exposed marehood. “This form is…interesting to say the least. It took some practice to get used to walking on two legs, but I think I’ve gotten quite good.”
“Huh…how!?”
“Discord’s magic,” she replied, smiling sweetly. “It can be used for more than simple mischief. His shape-shifting spells are almost as powerful as Changeling magic, and can be applied to anypony he wishes. Though he never was able to alter my face to something more…human.”
“Why!?”
“Because you’re incredible, Swarm. You’re one of the few beings of the metaverse who has seen the very nature of reality itself, gazing upon the full glory of creation and processing its majesty, yet still caring for each and every one of its myriad little denizens. Most beings with our level of power have become complacent with time, but you,” she strolled in close, smiling seductively as one of her newly-grown hands traced a teasing circle around his crotch. “You still have that fire, that passion, that care, to the point where you are willing to throw yourself into the fire for the sake of a few of these creatures. That is a quality that is so disappointingly rare, so…”
“Wait,” he held up a hand to stop her.
“’Tis the horse-face, isn’t it?” She sighed, turning away as she hugged herself. “I knew it. Maker above, I’m so sorry, Swarm. I’ve over-stepped my boundaries, and…”
A strange, squishing noise interrupted her, followed by a sound like knives being sharpened. She whirled in place, nearly losing her balance. A rather large, muscular Earth pony smiled up at her, his mane a light blue and his coat a pale yellow. The pony gazed at her with red eyes that shimmered with the light at the hearts of galaxies. She caught sight of his flank (and what a flank it was, maker above!) bearing a cutie mark shaped like a Colt Revolver spewing out a model of the Milky Way Galaxy.
“Your room. Let’s say, 10:00 tonight?” He asked.
“It’s a date,” she replied, smiling as both pony and bomb disappeared in a flash of green. Nearly squealing with delight, the Princess transformed back into her normal form and practically skipped out of the chamber, a quartet of her Lunar guard surrounding her the instant she was out. One of her sister’s guards appeared out of a side cavern and saluted.
“Princess,” the Solar Guard said, standing with his chest thrust out. “How did the artifact collection go?”
“Perfectly!” She replied, not even trying to contain the joy leaking into her voice. “We have a date!”
Each and every one of the guards’ eyes widened, though they were professional enough to keep from voicing their true surprise. Nodding and saluting, the guards clad in golden armor watched as their ebony-clad counterparts escorted the Princess back to the surface. The moment she was out of earshot, the first guard turned to his partner. “She goes in to disarm a device of unimaginable power, and comes back out with a date!?”
“Alicorns, dude.” The other guard shrugged.
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Wow.
3023531 Aw, no. Remember: the "Trome" has safeties in place specifically for catching and containing ponies. They, along with the rest of Ponyville's populace, are perfectly fine. I'm planning on going into more detail about that in a sequel set from the Six's POV.
3023697
3023738 I know!
This is like my story Princess Trixie's Revenge! Except a human isn't getting hypnotized!
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3231646 Thank you for the faves! And the staches (go ahead and have one back
)
3231809
I'm just gonna go ahead and take that as a compliment 