• Published 22nd Sep 2013
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Brother Against Sister - CartsBeforeHorses



Teenage Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake are fighting on opposite sides of a civil war in Equestria. Now completed.

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Chapter 14: Constrictor

Canterlot, April 2023

On the side of a grand mountain, right in the middle of the Equestrian continent, visible from many miles away, the city of Canterlot stood.

It once was Equestria’s capital, standing proud over a united country. Now, from the secessionist Second Kingdom, its domes and newly-constructed steely grey skyscrapers cast a looming shadow across the land. A perpetual fog hung ominously in the air around the mountainside city.

Fancy Pants was walking down the cobblestone street towards the new capitol building for the weekly meeting with King Blueblood.

He frowned as he gazed up at the sky. The weather control planes were supposed to clear the fog banks a week ago. He supposed that they were all off at war. Perhaps the unicorn magicians could cast a weather spell, but perhaps they were all off at war, too. He could hardly see his hoof in front of his face. The fog and the humidity choked his lungs, making him feel compressed and claustrophobic even though he was outside.

He passed by a bakery. Lines snaked around the block as ponies waited for their meager rations. The food crisis, they were told, would ease up somewhat once the first harvests were done. Trixie’s stallions had taken the unicorn fillies and colts from Ponyville up to the Northern Flatlands, where they were just starting to till the fields and plant the first seeds. Fancy Pants hoped it would be enough—not for his sake, since he was a member of the council and had all the food he could eat—but for the sake of Canterlot and the Second Kingdom. He also hoped that there would be enough weather magicians and airplanes to bring the needed mix of rain and sunshine to the crops. Having unicorn farmers and machinery meant nothing if there was no harvest.

The bakery displayed its prices on the window: three bits for a loaf of bread. Fancy Pants had to stop himself from chuckling. In the early days of the famine, the bakeries had been charging ten bits for bread. Ponies were outraged at the high cost of living and demanded that something be done. At first, Blueblood responded by simply printing more money and distributing it to the poor. Bakeries responded by raising their prices even higher. So, rather than doing the rational thing and allowing free trade with Equestria, Blueblood simply decreed that bakeries, as “stewards of the life blood of the race” may not engage in “highway robbery” and “exploitation of crises.” So, he mandated a maximum price that could be charged for food.

This was a suggestion that economic advisors Flim and Flam had made to Blueblood. Fancy Pants had to suppress the urge to groan every time he heard them called “economic advisors,” because the title of economic “advisors” suit the Flim Flam brothers as ironically as the name Fancy “Pants” suited himself, or rather, didn’t suit himself, since not so much as a pair of slacks adorned his flank.

Flim and Flam were gifted engineers, and their machines worked agricultural wonders, but the brothers had little business sense. Rarely, they’d make a reasonable suggestion, like when they suggested allowing in earth pony guest workers to stop the famine, an idea which Blueblood vehemently rejected as “poisonous.” But then again, Fancy Pants thought, even a broken clock was right twice a day. Far more often, Flim and Flam would suggest such economically bankrupt ideas as mandating unreasonable price ceilings or floors, or imposing onerous demands on business, or constraining trade with heavy tariffs.

Fancy Pants often wished that he had been Blueblood’s economic advisor. He had a successful career as a businessstallion for years, after all. When Blueblood was still a Prince and Canterlot was still part of Equestria, he had come to Fancy Pants to publish a series of instructional magic books as well as an eventual unicorn supremacist tract, the popularity of which played a part in his rise to power. So when Prince Blueblood became king, he only saw fit that his marketer become his propagandist rather than economic advisor. Not that Blueblood would listen to Fancy Pants’ contrarian economic advice, anyway. The king was stubborn and arrogant, and the only advisors he listened to were the yes-ponies like Trixie who pandered to his pre-conceived biases.

As Fancy Pants walked, he noticed a giant poster of King Blueblood on the side of one of the buildings. He grimaced. Even though Fancy Pants had approved the propaganda poster himself, he still reeled every time he saw it. It looked so fake, despite Fancy Pants having made every effort to make the specious photograph look legitimate.

In the poster, the King looked as regal as could be: he wore a red robe with a golden crown and levitated a scepter in his magic. He gazed proudly off into the distance at what the poster wanted the viewer to think was the future or a distant star or some nonsense. In reality, it was a hat rack that the photographer had told Blueblood to look at. Due to the gold shortage, Blueblood’s crown was a mere prop: a stone that a magician had temporarily transfigured to resemble a golden crown.

Like everything else in the Second Kingdom, the photograph of the king was little more than a deception.

What a perfect analogy, Fancy Pants thought as he trotted around the corner towards the capitol street. He finally reached the capitol building, ascending the staircase to the meeting room.

Fancy Pants was the last to arrive, and they started the meeting as soon as he got in the room.

“Glad you could join us, Fancy Pants,” said Blueblood, smiling as he walked in the room. “Now, let’s begin the meeting. We will start with the economy, and then we’ll move on to the war effort. Do make it quick, though, would you, Flim and Flam?”

“The food shortages continue,” Flam started.

“But, with the new unicorn recruits starting their first full season of farming production in the Flatlands, we will hopefully have plenty to eat once more,” Flam finished.

“Excellent,” said Blueblood. “And with the more territory we capture in the war, we will have more earth-born unicorns and more land on which to farm. Soon we shall be truly be self-sufficient as a nation. That brings us to the war effort.”

Blueblood turned to Top Brass. The general spoke, “We’ve taken Mareicopa, and now we’re ready to continue our march west.”

“How many casualties?” asked Blueblood.

“A few hundred, though we didn’t lose anywhere near as many troops as Equestria lost. Ever since most of the pegasi left to live in the Cloud Confederacy, we’ve had great battlefield victories. Only a few hiccups here and there, too,” said the General, smiling.

Blueblood raised an eyebrow. “Hiccups? What do you mean?”

The general chuckled, “Well, it looks like Equestria is using child soldiers now. Some pegasus colt destroyed two of our bombers over Mareicopa. They must be getting desperate to resort to kids.”

Fancy Pants blinked several times as he tried to grasp the nuances of how using children as soldiers was desperate while using them for forced farm labor was not. But then he realized that, of course, anything that the Second Kingdom did was noble and pure and anything that Equestria did was greedy and exploitative. No exceptions, logic included.

Top Brass continued, “Most of our stallions are well-trained enough to have no compulsion taking civilian lives, even children, but a few of them had second thoughts about continuing the bombing campaign against Mareicopa because of their ‘moral objections.’ We had some deserters during our raid of the city.”

“And?” asked Blueblood.

“We shot them in the back of the head, in front of all the rest of our troops.”

“Good,” said Blueblood, smiling. “Strength as a race is our only morality. Weakness in dealing with the inferior races is exactly what let them leech off of us in the first place, before our independence. We must treat them as nothing more than the cows and sheep, because they have no qualms taking our lives and our property when it suits them. Our total war must be entirely total. Any earth ponies or pegasi who resist us in the slightest are to be shot. The rest are to serve us and our interests.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said General Top Brass.

Fancy Pants had heard the unicorn master race speech dozens of times, and usually it just made him bored. This time, though, it made him nauseous. His stomach churned at the thought that Blueblood was using racial ideology to justify cold-blooded murder of unicorns and non-unicorns alike, and that the generals were going along with it.

“Any further issues?” asked Blueblood.

“Just one more,” said General Top Brass. “Though we’ve taken all of the Everfree River—from the foothills of Canterlot to the west coast—we’ve had issues taking the Everfree Forest itself. Two months ago, we sent out a small scouting expedition to look for possible Equestrian encampments. The forest would be a good place for Luna or Twilight’s forces to camp out and ambush us in an attempt to retake Ponyville.

“Given the forest’s danger and the beasts there, we didn’t expect to find any ponies hiding there, but we wanted to exercise caution regardless. All was going well until two of my privates and a sergeant showed up screaming about a ghost or something, and—”

“What?” Blueblood demanded, gritting his teeth. “Ghosts? We didn’t raise an army of cowards! Our nation is based on scientific principles, and the specters of the Everfree are only legends.”

“—May I finish my story?” asked the General, drawing back in his chair.

“I apologize,” Blueblood said. “Please, do go on.”

“The sergeant who was leading the squad came back, and he had a leg injury. The medics who treated him had never seen anything like it. He had a long, thin twig stuck in his leg. At first, they thought he was stabbed, but there was no entry wound. And the stick was too flimsy to even stab somepony with at all. The medics said that it was like the stick had just appeared there inside his leg. He may never walk again.”

“Sounds like a freak accident. What was the whole fuss about the ghost, then?” asked Blueblood.

“The sergeant and the two privates with him said that a young unicorn mare showed up and claimed to be a ghost. They shot at her, but their bullets just phased right through her body without hitting her.”

Nopony said anything for a few seconds.

“I’m at a loss to say what it was that you encountered,” said Blueblood. “Phasing magic would explain both the stick and the bullets, but that spell is supposed to be impossible. Even in all those years that I served as dean of Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns, I never witnessed it.”

“Maybe she really was a ghost, then,” said Flim.

“Or just an illusion or projection,” Flam suggested.

“Hmm,” said Trixie, narrowing her eyes as she rested her chin on her hoof, staring off into space.

The general shrugged, and continued, “I’m just telling you what my troops saw, and why I’ve been hesitant to order an incursion into the forest. There might not be ghosts in there, but there’s certainly somepony or something in there that injured my sergeant, and whatever it is could cause mass casualties. Right now we’ve just been holding our perimeter around the Everfree River and in Ponyville, since the Forest itself holds little strategic value and we never did find any Equestrian encampments, anyway. None of our riverboats passing through the forest on the Everfree River have reported any—”

“What did she look like?” Trixie asked, cutting him off.

“Hmm?” asked the sergeant. Blueblood raised an eyebrow.

“The young mare who scared off your troops. What did she look like?” Trixie repeated.

“Oh, her? The troops said that she had a bright orange mane.”

Trixie’s eyes widened, and then she slowly grinned.

General Top Brass leaned in, intrigued. Trixie continued, "Her name is Pumpkin Cake, and she was one of the young unicorns we captured in Ponyville. She escaped our force field somehow, and I never figured out how she did it, but now I know that she probably used that very same intangibility spell. She's but a single teenage mare, as mortal as you or I, albeit with access to a unique type of magic. Your concerns of mass casualties are unwarranted."

General Top Brass chuckled. "Nothing to be worried about, then. I'll order units into the Everfree to secure the forest within the next month."

"Very good," said Blueblood.

"Oh, and general..." Trixie started, smiling, "I know it may be challenging to detain her, but if at all possible, I would like you to retrieve that mare and deliver her directly to me... alive."


Out at sea, West of Equestria, May 2023

General Soarin sat in his office aboard the HMS Celestia, a pegasus carrier stationed off the coast of Vanhoover. The Celestia was a ship designed to house pegasi at sea, where they would then take to the air and strike at other seagoing vessels.

The Second Kingdom was land-locked with the exception of the Everfree River which they had recently captured. But their Zebra Empire allies did in fact have combat vessels. Ever since the war resumed, they had been threatening settlements all along the west coast of Equestria.

General Soarin was busily examining reports on his desk when his door slammed open.

“General Soarin, Sir!”

He glanced up from his desk. “What is it, officer?”

“A zebra destroyer has just been spotted two miles west of our position, sir! They have their missile systems deployed on deck and aimed towards Vanhoover!”

General Soarin got up from his desk, retrieved his hat, and walked out the door.

“All hooves on deck! Battle stations! All pegasi units, prepare to board the enemy ship and take out those missiles!” he commanded.

Soarin scrambled up the steps until he was above deck, and then took to the sky to observe the imminent battle.

The Zebra Empire had precious few planes on loan from the Second Kingdom, and they were mostly used in battles with the zebras’ ongoing war with the winged Griffons, so the Equestrians, short on pegasi as they were, still had air superiority.

General Soarin, though confident in his forces’ abilities, couldn’t help but feeling the slightest bit apprehensive. This would be the first direct engagement between zebras and ponies. Their ships had fired at each other before, but the two armies had never met eye to eye, pony against zebra.

He had a question nagging the back of his mind. Why had Blueblood decided to ally with the tribal, hornless zebras? Weren’t they basically earth ponies, but with stripes? Sure they had access to alchemy and potion-making, but it hardly fit the definition of “magical.”

The pegasi forces got above deck and took off from the carrier and into the air. General Soarin hovered at the rear behind his troops, careful to keep a safe distance from the battle while staying close enough to shout orders.

In a few minutes, the pegasi had reached the zebra destroyer. A few zebras stood on deck, holding rifles in their hooves.

The ship had five missile launchers on it: one larger, main one on the bow, and two each on the port and starboard sides.

One of the missiles fired from the ship, flying through the air towards the Celestia. It missed, landing harmlessly in the water below. The Celestia would have returned fire, but it wasn’t close enough. It didn’t have enough missiles to last in a protracted battle with a destroyer anyway; its primary function was to transport pegasi.

The pegasi on the front lines charged forward, down at the ship. Some of them, who were carrying bombs, dropped them as close to the missile launchers as they could. They took out one of the missile launchers on the port side.

Soarin grinned. This battle would be over before it even began. Blueblood had picked himself some weak allies.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed some of the zebras on deck drinking blue liquid from vials.

What do those potions do? he wondered.

A small group of five pegasi landed on the deck of the destroyer, aiming their weapons towards the zebras. However, before they could do so, they fell to the ground, the zebras shooting them in the head.

Six of the pegasi who were flying towards the ship fell as they were shot.

Some marksmen, Soarin thought. But then he realized that the zebras must’ve taken some form of potion to enhance their combat abilities. That was how they had been able to shoot the pegasi from so far away.

The pegasi returned fire from the air, hitting several of the zebras. However, in a few moments, Soarin noticed that zebras dressed in white, presumably medics, arrived and poured red liquid over the wounds of their injured comrades who hadn’t yet died. The injured zebras’ wounds closed within minutes, and they then instantly returned to their hooves and resumed fighting.

“Go for headshots!” Soarin commanded.

Another missile from the zebra destroyer flew past the pegasi and hit the Celestia. It was a direct hit, and a fireball exploded in the hull.

Back on the ship, ponies below deck frantically bailed water and evacuated to the upper decks as the helmsstallion frantically tried to steer the massive carrier out of harm’s way.

The fighting on the zebra destroyer continued for a few more minutes, but then another missile hit the carrier. The lower decks filled with water as the ship slowly started sinking.

“Retreat!” called Soarin. He and his forces zipped back to the ship, grabbed their supplies, and headed for land. Thankfully, the coastline was only a few kilometers away.

Soarin and the stallions from the carrier arrived back at the naval base in the Vanhoover harbor. Off on the horizon, they could see that the zebra destroyer was merely one ship in a fleet, and had been joined by a half dozen other ships.

Several of the ships in the Vanhoover harbor floated over to combat the Zebra destroyers. The destroyers, however, fired their missiles directly towards the city of Vanhoover, hitting skyscrapers and other buildings, both military and civilian. Like their Second Kingdom allies, the Zebra Empire forces had no conception of civilian versus military targets: they were engaged in total war.

Over the next hour, the Equestrian destroyers managed to defeat the zebra ships, but not without sustaining heavy losses.


General Spitfire and Princess Twilight Sparkle sat inside of a conference room in Manehatten.

“So what’s the status report on the war, General Spitfire?”

Spitfire sighed as she grabbed an updated map of Equestria.

“Not good. General Soarin and Princess Luna have both reported that they’re losing ground in their respective theaters. Ever since Las Pegasus seceded, Mareicopa was our last line of defense on the Everfree River between Ponyville and the west coast, but they overran our forces there earlier this week. Blueblood’s forces in the south of Equestria have entirely taken the Everfree River, giving the Second Kingdom access to the west coast of Equestria for the first time. They’re now no longer landlocked.”

“How did this happen?” asked Twilight Sparkle, her jaw agape.

“We underestimated their air capabilities. In the two years since the ceasefire, they’ve developed new models of warplanes and bombers. They’ve started upgrading their air force from the old, wooden biplanes to newer aluminum monoplanes with reinforced cockpits. Our pegasi, though more maneuverable, are a lot easier to take down than their new planes. We fought long and hard, but ultimately their bombers overran the city, indiscriminately dropping bombs and destroying everything. Civilian casualties are estimated in the thousands.”

“What about their ground forces?” asked Twilight Sparkle, still in disbelief.

Spitfire sighed. “Though we took out their standard magic force-fields rather easily, the desert sand gave them an advantage that we hadn’t seen before: they can telekinetically manipulate the sand to form makeshift barriers to stop our tank missiles. From behind their sand shield, they can still fire at us easily by poking holes in it, but it’s almost impossible for us to take them out without moving earth ponies in to buck the sand, putting them at risk.”

“And what about the west coast?” asked Twilight.

Spitfire pointed back at the map. “We’re losing control of our coastline to the Zebra Empire. They’ve bombed Vanhoover, and have landed ground forces there. Their ground forces are almost impossible to take out. The have some sort of potion they take to enhance their speed and reflexes. It gives them the speed of cheetahs, the eyes of hawks. They can snipe our soldiers from long distances, and can run twice as fast as a normal pony. Even when we do hit one of them, they can just take a healing potion and be back to fighting strength within minutes. Vanhoover is under siege, and we fear that they may go after Tall Tale as well.”

“You do know what this means, right?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” said Spitfire. “The Second Kingdom and the Zebra Empire are going to divide Equestria in half. From the northern Flatlands down to Ponyville, then along the course of the Everfree river, then up and down the west coast. They’re tightening the noose, wrapping around us like an anaconda.”

Twilight sighed, burying her face in her hooves. If Spitfire didn’t know better, she would have thought that the princess was crying.

“I just can’t believe it. Cloudsdale secedes, Las Pegasus secedes, and they take away over half of our air force. All for a war crime that we didn’t even actually commit. And now the unicorns overrun the Everfree River, the zebra empire overruns our west coast, and we’re going to lose the entire western half of Equestria.”

Spitfire just stood there silently. Twilight lifted her head, her eyes shaking in her sockets.

“I should never have let them vote for independence!” Twilight yelled, slamming her hoof onto the table. “I tried to be diplomatic; I tried to not just make decrees and rule by fiat. But it looks like that’s the only way to rule a kingdom and keep harmony and friendship intact. I should have bombed those unicorn children at the barn when I had the chance! I would have saved thousands of lives. I took the weak way out, but only strength can win this war.”

Spitfire blinked, as Twilight grinned. “Thankfully, it’s not too late to do what we should have done many months ago. General Spitfire, how do you kill an anaconda?”

“Um…” Spitfire started.

“You cut off its head,” said Twilight Sparkle, brow furrowed as she pointed towards the northern Flatlands.

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