The Endless Citadel

by Archvile

Chapter 1: The Ponysty Metropolis (v1.2)

Author’s note:
A fair warning: I’m dyslexic and English is my second language, so don’t expect greatness.

This story is a little off from My Little Pony. Luna and Nightmare Moon isn’t the same pony, and Twilight Sparkle is Nightmare Moon’s student/prodigy and not Celestias’.

Also this is now the prologue of the story, so you don't have to read this chapter to follow whats going on in the story, but it'll help you along the way for the ride. The main reason for this is that I think the first chapter is pretty poor compared to the next chapter which is far better in my humble opinion.

But nonetheless I hope you'll enjoy my story! <3

The story:
The Lunar and Solar princesses’ escort where making its way through the lands now ruled by the dark empress Nightmare Moon, the apparently one and only ruler of the ponysty. They had been requested by her empress to come to her land to discuss something of most dire importance, but Celestia already had a few theories as to why their presence had been requested by the mistress of nightmares.

Celestia had heard several rumors about how the empress was running her ponysty into the ground by her heavy focus on military and running the once fertile land. As both she and Luna had observed on their journey though her lands, it was nearly forestless, probably all used to fuel her war machine and industry. The rumors also said that Nightmare Moon’s land was running low on pretty much all of its natural resources, which would most likely mean that she was interested in expanding her borders to occupy new land to keep expanding her influence and power. And sadly the two princesses’ ponydom was the closest to the ponysty, well beside the Griffin Empire who was already in a dispute with the ponysty about rights for some mines between their borders that had become a prolonged armed conflict rather than a war.

Nightmare Moon had probably realized that she did not have the needed resources to sustain her army in a full out war with the Griffin’s mountain empire. So she had most likely come to the conclusion that she needed their ponydom’s land to fuel her conquest of the Griffin Empire. Beside the ponydom was nothing compared to the Griffins, they didn’t have any vast mountain chains, where they would have a tactical advantage like griffins would. No, their land was mostly flat and could easily be overtaken by a greater force such as her empress forces. Not to mention that they had no military what so ever.

The Solar princess almost cursed herself; perhaps she should have focused a bit more on military than she had ever wanted to. But it really wasn’t her style; she wanted all to be at peace with each other though understanding, respect, friendship and of cause love.

The sisters had decided a long time ago, that they would never resolve to violence to obtain anything in life. They firmly believed to live in harmony with nature and to achieve peace though understanding, respect, friendship and of cause love. Just they had taught all of their subjects that they should. Beside, even if every single mare, colt and foal had been armed; their ponydom would still be massively outnumbered against the many mighty houses of the ponysty.

The ponysty had always been the problem child of Equestria, for as long as Celestia could remember there had always been dispute between its many houses that constantly fought between one and another to rule the entire ponysty. But for many years none of them had been very successful at obtaining complete power, which ensured the peace of the rest of Equestria. Because if all of the houses somehow united or got overthrown, the rest of Equestria would be faced with a nearly unstoppable force as no other nation could rival the combined size of the ponysty.

With all of their houses always in internal conflict with one and another, the peace of Equestria was ensured, as all of the houses individually posed no threat to anypony, but combined the power balance would be out of order. But then suddenly a few years ago; a regent had been empowered somehow, a alicorn by the name of Nightmare Moon who had taken complete control over all of the houses of the ponysty and then proclaimed herself as the sovereign empress of the ponysty and probably also to become it of all of Equestria.

How she had come to power was unknown to Celestia, maybe she had overthrown all of the other houses’ head figures or maybe they all had just seen something within her and decided upon her as their ruling body of their state.

Lunar had never heard too much about the ponysty and its ruler, not beside that she was suppose to be a very exotic and majestic being, with a weakness for feminine beauty. The latter being something which Luna had in common with her, which was something Celestia didn’t know of and was never suppose to.

Her sister had told her that the ponysty had become the single most powerful nation/state within all of Equestria and should therefore be addressed with care once they arrived, particularly with a ruler such as Nightmare Moon. It was said that she was the source of all nightmares in all of Equestria, if you can believe those ponytales that is. Story tells that she is a very powerful alicorn, even more powerful than Celestia and Luna together, she was only second to creatures such as Discord.

The further they made it into her land as they traveled towards the capital, the darker the skies became. Celestia looked at them and thought to herself that this was the reason she was unable to see what was truly happening within the ponysty. After all one of her powers being that she is able to see all that her sunlight touches, but with these thick smoke clouds she wasn’t able to see anything beyond them, almost as if they were trying to hide something from her sight.

When they finally came to the capital of the ponysty they were both shocked and left without words. It was more of a fortress than a city, as huge and tall walls covered the entire immense metropolis; it even had walls within its city walls. Vast and extremely tall chimneys rose all around the city, indicating its many factories, which laid a large part of the land covered in darkness with its thick deadly clouds; this must was the empress’s famous ‘eternal darkness’ as it had been dubbed, so even though that it was in the middle of the day, here, it was always night.

And in the middle of it all was a dark endless citadel itself. It was the only construction that Celestia could see, as it rose far above its smoke clouds, far beyond Nightmare Moon’s eternal night. She knew of its title from rumors as well, it was called the endless citadel because it went so far into the skies that the top could not be seen.

The massive iron walls themselves were of a design unlike any other, almost as if it only considered of metal spikes that somehow grew from the earth itself, crossing each other in almost every direction, forming an impenetrable fortification. Celestia was very puzzled by the origin of this city wall, there was something more to it than just mere spikes. She focused her magic for a moment and was stunned, this wall had somehow been giving life, it grew on its own and it had a will or at least sort of a mind of its own.

Luna looked from side to side, wondering why there wasn’t any guards or nothing else. Even if they ponies inside truly believe their wall to be unbendable, shouldn’t they at least have had someone to greet them? But her thoughts were interrupted as the metal wall’s spikes began to move away, making way for the Celestial sisters to enter. Inside was a platoon of 29 waiting for them, all covered in pitch black armors covering almost all of their body, including their faces and with different colored markings, all of them beside one had white markings, the one and only yellow marked one came out to greet them and told them that only the Celestial sisters were allowed to enter. Celetia’s guards didn’t like the idea but she ordered them to stand down, then the yellow marked one told them to follow and he also told them that within the city walls all flight was forbidden unless you were of the Special Forces or the Overwatch, apparently he was the captain of their dark escort.

As they entered the city and the iron wall closed behind them Luna began to wonder, but afraid to ask. Who or what was the Overwatch? Surely Special Forces sounded logically enough as to what they could be, but the Overwatch she wasn’t quite sure of, it didn’t sound like a nice pack of ponies.

It was an interesting walk indeed, all of the streets were quite bright even though not a shred of light came from the sun, being lit up by strange globs of light hanging all around the city. Both Celestia and Luna looked in awe, everywhere they looked they saw as many ponies as there were in all of their ponydom, it was truly a massive city. But they also notice the soldiers in black around at pretty much every corner.

The air was thick with dread and the civilians seemed to fear or at least they had a extreme high respect or loyalty for the military personal; as they jumped and ran to get out of their escort’s way, which seemed to care little for if they had to walk over a foal to keep their pace. Neither Luna nor Celestia knew how Nightmare Moon had chosen to rule her land, by the sights of things it could be seen that the empress favored industry and science over nature. Just like all of those big glass buildings, with black painted windows and an odd purple luming glow, which they had passed. She was informed that those were greenhouses where they somehow grew all of their crops by mimicking the sun inside. It was suppose to be much more efficient than Celestia’s ancient sun, she was told, almost as if they had grown beyond the need for her sun and maybe perhaps they had, but Celestia was not happy. How dared anyone to insult her beautiful sun like that?!

There were a lot of wires everywhere, some bigger than others, and some even had lifts running along them. They had been told when asked that they were cable lifts; used to transport something they called electricity and others were used to transport ponies from one location another much faster than they could run. Luna and Celestia had been a little surprised when one of them came flying pass them, never before had they seen such a contraption.

Celestia had asked the captain along the way why they didn’t use magic or something to clean their sky, and she wasn’t to pleased with his reply. “So those who aren’t suppose to see, shall not see.” The escorting captain had told her sharply, well knowing that he had indirect told her that; she was one of those who were not suppose to see what they were doing. Celestia was rather bitter at this point, she had not heard anypony talk to her so disrespecting in ages, first he had insulted her sun and now he was insulting her aswell? The audacity!

She had wondered how they had discovered all of these wonders of sience when she was suddenly told by their escort that all of this was the gifts of science from the Techminister.

After a walk of some 20 minutes they walked up a platform and entered one of those ‘cable lifts’ which quickly made its way towards the wall surrounding the citadel, as they finally arrived the celestial sisters were made with yet another sight to behold, beyond the inner walls of the megatropolis where the citadel lied was no ground. Then looked over the side of the wall they now stood upon, looking down into a deep hole which the bottom could not be seen and in that massive hole stood the dark citadel, in all its intimidating might. It was no wonder this construction were called endless, unless one could see it from beyond the ozone layer no pony could would ever be able to see its top and as for the bottom? Not even the Celestial goddesses could see that.

Celestia looked around while Luna still gazed upon the wonderers sight, she couldn’t see any entrance to this place at all That there was no entrance into the citadel. Before she could ask the captain told her that there was no way into the citadel beside though the use of magic and only the empress and her prodigy could allow entrance.

Then what had the purpose of all this been? Celestia wondered, she should have been perfectly able to just transport them from outside the city, if rumors did her justice that is. So did Nightmare Moon just want them to see at the wonders of her dark techno city, as if she wanted to rub it in their faces somehow? But her thoughts were cut short as the captain held a hoof to his ear and then turned around telling them that Nightmare Moon was ready and hardly before he had finished; a summoning teleportation circle was formed underneath them by magic.

Now they found themselves within the massive citadel, facing the mighty iron throne of the sovereign regent empress of the entire ponysty, the mare of the moon, the ruler of nightmares; Nightmare Moon herself.

Author’s note:
Sorry about the lack of dialog and what not (like the bit of jumping around in the description of the city and its wonders), this chapter was pretty much just an introduction of the story and nothing else really (sorry if it seemed a bit crappy, I pretty much just wanted to finish this chapter so I could get to write what I really wanted to write). The next chapter will be a lot more interesting and have quite a decent amount of dialog. But for now I’ll go make some coco and write some great dialogs, so until next time!

FYI: I was very inspired by the Zaibach Empire's capital from Escaflowne as well as City 17th from Half-Life 2 when I created this mega-techno-city of the ponysty.

I hope you have enjoyed the story so far and please comment! <3

Comments

[Trill]

Wait what

I know, right

[Brony Tom]

It's really not that bad, in my opinion. The idea is quite intriguing, and even though the spelling and grammar aren't perfect it's still a solid start. Congratulations.

[Wordwood Bookworm]

Oh I like this, dark techno Nighmare Moon.... and once passed the typos, the reading is pretty comfortable as well. You dont get hung up on things, just keep the writing rolling.
And hey, after all the other stories I've read on FiMfiction, this is the one that finaly made me sign up for an acount, so you've defonitly got something started!

[Fallen Knight]

Ok lets start, English isn't my first language so i will probably have some things wrong too but here it is:

The Lunar and Solar princesses’ escort where making its way through the lands now ruled by the dark empress Nightmare Moon, the apparently one and only ruler of the ponysty.

>were

They had been requested by her empress

Her Imperial Majesty is the style of addressing a Empress (or HIM for short)

Celestia had heard several rumors about how the empress was running her ponysty into the ground by her heavy focus on military and running the once fertile land

I guess you wanted to say ruining the once fertile land?

she wanted all to be at peace with each other though understanding, respect, friendship and of cause love

>of course

They firmly believed to live in harmony with nature and to achieve peace though understanding, respect, friendship and of cause love.

>of course

Just they had taught all of their subjects that they should.

>Just as they

The use of the word Regent to describe NMM, a regent is someone ruling in the absence or in the name of the monarch (because he is unable to or is a minor). The monarch is still the ruler but the Regent is the one making the decisions. So she is either the Empress or the Regent ruling in the name of the Emperor/Empress because of some reason.

But maybe you mean " Empress Regnant", that yeah would be the proper term to use for an Empress that rules herself, not through her husband as ann Emperor.

Lunar had never heard too much about the ponysty and its ruler

>Luna , i guess since it would be more appropriate to assume that the narrator is thinking about the leader of the "ponydom" knowing about it rather then referring to the nation (what i doubt is the name of the nation since L and C rule together?)

this must was the empress’s famous ‘eternal darkness’ as it had been dubbed, so even though that it was in the middle of the day, here, it was always night.

> either "must be" or "was"
>it was , without the "that"

As they entered the city and the iron wall closed behind them Luna began to wonder, but afraid to ask.

>but was afraid

being lit up by strange globs of light

I think globes would be more fitting then globs

one of them came flying pass them

>past them

he had not heard anypony talk to her so disrespecting in ages

>disrespectful

wonders of sience

>science

as they finally arrived the celestial sisters were made with yet another sight to behold

maybe "were given yet another sight to behold"

looking down into a deep hole which the bottom could not be seen

>deep hole of which the bottom

unless one could see it from beyond the ozone layer no pony could would ever be able to see its top, and as for the bottom?

added a comma and used bold on it here, easy to see. And striked through what i think is unnecessary

Celestia looked around while Luna still gazed upon the wonderers sight

>wondrous

she couldn’t see any entrance to this place at all That there was no entrance into the citadel

Add a dot after "place at all" and delete the rest since its unnecessary.

...the captain told her that there was no way into the citadel beside though the use of magic...

>through , you forgot the r

facing the mighty iron throne of the sovereign regent empress of the entire ponysty

>empress regnant