Celestia: The Fall of the Alicorns

by Deuterium

Chapter 5: Breakdown

Grogar’s warning was very, very quickly fulfilled - That very night, hordes of undead ponies descended upon Equestria, alicorns and unicorns alike, transformed from whoever they once were into soulless monsters by Grogar’s necromancy. And when they did, Equestria’s armies were ready to take them on, to drive them back to their graves … Or so they thought.

The Armies found themselves heavily outmatched by their undead opponents. Day after day after day, Unicorns, Pegasi, Earth ponies and alicorns alike marched onto the battlefield, into certain death, under orders from a disjointed government with a surrogate queen who had just as much knowledge about directing troops on the battlefield as a builder would have about quantum physics. And to make matters much, much worse, for every soldier the military lost, Grogar’s horde gained one. And killing what was already dead was difficult - within a matter of months, the Horde had overcome most of Equestria, and now the Military was trying to protect the remaining bases still held by the ponies. The Alicorns were all but extinct, and those that remained had gone into hiding. All except two: Queen Celestia and Princess Luna.

The queen paced up and down in her room, constantly fearing for her life - As far as she was concerned, the Horde was closing in on them slowly, and every minute could have been her last. Luna also stood nearby, as worried as her sister was, but unlike her sister she didn’t show it. She too had changed since her mother’s death - contrary to her sister’s new, cold and uncaring attitude, she had become more mature, more determined to protect her country, and the only one who still shared an implicit relationship with Celestia.

“Celestia, wearing the floor out isn’t going to help…”
“What else can we do? The Army’s retreating, Grogar’s beasts are steadily approaching… Now all we can do is wait until we become one of them…”
“Tia… You know that isn’t true. We’ll find a way to beat him, I promise you...”
Over the past few months Celestia had also become defeatist and pessimistic on top of her icy attitude, leaving Luna the only one stopping her from throwing herself out the window.
“Then what is it?” Celestia spoke loudly, suddenly rounding on Luna. “What is this ‘way to beat him’ that we so desperately need? How do we do it?”
“Um…” Luna was taken aback slightly by Celestia’s response. Before she could even answer, Celestia raised her voice again.
“Exactly! There isn't one! We have no hope! No hope in this entire Faust-damned world!”
Luna said nothing as Celestia ranted in her face. The war was taking a bigger toll on Celestia than the death of her mother had…
“Nothing! Nil! Zip! Nada! So now we wait, whilst ponies die in MY name, for Grogar to come and KILL US ALL!!”
“TIA! THAT IS NOT TRUE!”
Luna had had enough. The war was driving Celestia insane, and she was the only one who could help.
“The only reason we have no hope is because you say there is! If we just tried, if we played strategically, attacking where he’s weakest, we could still win this!”
This time, it was Celestia who was shocked by Luna’s outburst. She’d been focusing so much on getting her feelings out that she’d almost not noticed that she was still there.
Luna’s voice was beginning to crack as she looked into Celestia's eyes... “To be so defeatist isn’t like you… What happened to you, Tia? Before you were always so kind and generous… You used to make me laugh all the time, you were so honest and loyal…”
Celestia’s heart grew heavier with every word Luna said.
“But where has that Celestia gone? To be frank... I don’t like this new Celestia… I want the old one back!”
“ENOUGH!”
Luna’s speech had brought Tia to breaking point. She collapsed to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes yet again.
“I'm so sorry, Luna… I can’t do this… I'm just not cut out to rule the whole of Equestria… I've failed where Mother did so well…”
With that, flung her arms around Luna and burst into tears again. “I'm sorry, Luna, I'm so, so sorry!” she cried, occasionally pausing to take a long sniff. “I've been a total jerk ever since Mother died… And I've let the whole of Equestria go to ruin!”
This was the first time Luna had had to comfort her sister like this… A few years ago it would have been the other way round…
“That wasn't your fault, Tia… You are not to blame for any of this. Anyone would have been like that in your position…”
The crying and comforting went on for a few minutes, during which time Luna’s shoulder must have soaked up the equivalent of an ocean’s worth of tears… but eventually Celestia’s cries stopped and her breathing stabilised. Confident that she was calm, Luna released Celestia. She looked an absolute mess.
“Celestia!”
After a few minutes, the moment was broken by a knock on the door, and Celestia looked up. The voice of Spark Sentry was drifting from behind the door, causing her to finally smile again.
“Well… At least Spark remembered my name for once…”
She moved to the door and opened it gently, to behold Spark’s face, and spoke, unusually cheerily for the ‘new’ Celestia: “Yes, Spark?”
Spark was slightly taken aback at the Queen suddenly calling him by his first name.
“I, uh…”
But he quickly got over this, and clearing his throat, he assumed a more formal stance. “I bring dire news. Reports have confirmed that Grogar has managed to harvest enough energy from the alicorns he’s-- killed-- to summon… Kur.”
Celestia froze. She’d heard that name before… in storybooks, myths and legends. She’d never assumed it would be real.
“We believe that he will soon be able to summon him to this world - and when he does we will have no hope at all.”
Celestia almost couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her knees growing weak, she was just about ready to give up again. But…
“If we just tried, if we played strategically, attacking where he’s weakest, we could still win this!”
At once, the fear and worry was gone, returned to whatever dark recess of her mind it came from. Celestia had had an idea. It was a crazy idea, but it was the only chance that they - no, all of Equestria had at surviving this war.

“According to intel, where is Grogar right now?”
“Well, we don’t know for sure, but our sources have him hiding somewhere in the Crystal Mountains…”
Celestia interrupted him before he could say anything else.
“Send an order to the troops. Tell them that they are to retreat at once.”
Spark was once again taken aback at Celestia’s decision.
“But, Celestia…”
“I won’t allow anypony else to die in my name! I am leaving for the Crystal Mountains immediately… and I’m going to deal with Grogar - Personally!”
“Are you absolutely sure, Celestia…? This sounds like a bad idea…”
“It’s also our only hope of survival. So have the troops retreat - that’s an order!”
With that, she walked briskly out of the door, ready to face whatever danger had to be dealt with.
“Wait!”
Celestia turned round to see Luna at the door to her bedroom.
“If you’re leaving… then I'm coming too. Try as you might you can’t do this alone - so please, let me help you.”
Celestia looked back at her sister. For a moment, she seemed to be deep in thought… But then her face changed a warm smile.
“If you want to help save the whole country… Then who am I to say no? In any case… I can’t do this alone…”
Luna slowly moved to join her sister, and together they walked down the corridor, picking up speed, wending their way through the castle’s corridors until eventually they burst out of the front doors, wings held high as they took to the crimson skies...