Twilight Daylight: Psera, The Legend of Legends

by thedarktome

Chapter 25 - Arcadian Reason

When Arcadia landed back in Cop during lunch, it was on the flat roof of her castle directly above where the library would be. She turned her back to it and watched the city of Cop bustle down below. At the tall buildings, the Pserateps, the foals playing. The sun casted all of it in a high glow.

During her rule, she's learned that it's always best to do things one at a time. When she's reading, she focuses on the book. When it's work time, she focuses on her work. When it's court time, she focuses on her subjects. When it's Dawn time, she focuses entirely on her baby. When it's Serl time, you know. Etcetera, etcetera.

But at this moment, walking past her saluting Guards her mind was on none of those.

She treaded down the stairwell, opened the fire escape door for the third floor and stepped out onto the hallway in the middle of their lively castle. Her eyes were trained forward, but her great mind was on a progressive spiral. She didn't even see Applejack waving and calling after her. She had a plan. She had to complete it. Her method was almost there, just a few more tests and—

"Hey, Queen Twilight!"

"Gah!" Twilight jumped out of her thoughts when Rainbow Dash zipped out in front of her with her hooves on her hips. It surprised her so much, she nearly zapped her. Instead she scolded with a stomp of a hoof, "Rainbow Dash!"

"We've been calling your name for almost thirty seconds!" We? Twilight looked behind her at all her friends trying to catch up. Including Spike.

Rarity was the first of their group to reach them. Her perfect mane seemed to be out of place. "Phew! Darling, you seriously have a pep in your step. Where's the fire?"

Applejack was the next one up who asked, "Yeah. You pretty much ran out the stairwell with papers in your wings here. Guess you're stressed out again."

Twilight shook her head and quickly stuffed the SERL documents out of sight deeper in her wings. "I'm not stressed out," she replied. "I'm handling business. What do you girls need, I'm really busy and getting under my schedule."

Rainbow Dash answered, "We were going to ask if you wanted to go out for some Ice Cream, but since you're busy..."

Seriously? They wanted ice cream at a time like this? Arcadia felt a small headache coming on. She reached up to rub her forehead and stated, "I need you girls to understand something. As the Queen to the Nation leading the international war against a homicidal Draconequus who is not afraid to kill, Ice Cream is nowhere near my mind. Unless it's with my daughter."

Pinkie Pie bounced up to her and decreed, "Yeah, but there's no fighting right now! And if there's no fighting right now, then you're not busy!"

Twilight just stared at her with crickets chirping around her skull. Pinkie being Pinkie. Deciding not to respond to that nonsense, she just calmly pushed Pinkie's grinning face and body back from her proximity. "The answer is no. There's a parlor downtown near the library Now please, leave me at peace so I can work. We just lost a few hundred lives last night and I need to do damage control."

"Speaking of..." Applejack walked around Pinkie and asked, "Twilight? Do you think it was the right choice to make last night's decision? I mean, a lot of ponies lost a lot of family last night and it may have been a tad bit excessive to...burn everypony."

Where is a Guard when you actually need them? Twilight thought. This entire hallway was clear of them. She sighed and answered, "I mean what I told the press, Applejack. If I had to make the choice again, I definitely would. Now if you'll excuse me..."

Twilight tried to walk around Applejack, but she just mirrored her movements to block her escape. "Applejack, I am asking really nicely right now. I am ordering you to step aside."

Applejack shook her head and replied, "I know and I'm sorry, Queen Arcadia but we really need to talk about this."

She could seriously have her arrested. At the press of a button, she would be dragged to the detention center in the basement. But Arcadia rolled her eyes and stated, "Applejack, I am only going to say this once. This isn't Equestria. There is no other way, no other choice. We were under attack by deadly ponies who were either going to come here now or later. And if they landed on Psera, my civilians would have gotten hurt. My daughter would have gotten hurt. And I'm not taking that risk. So either my ponies go, or they go. I made the right choice and I'm sticking with it."

"But—"

Arcadia loudly stomped her golden shoe with a resonating clang and ordered assertively, "End of discussion, Applejack! Unless you've been in my hooves and my position you cannot tell me how to run my country, am I clear? I am only going to tell you once."

Applejack sighed and coalesced with, "Yeah, Twilight."

"'Yes, Queen Arcadia Nova,'" she corrected.

"Yes, Queen Arcadia Nova."

"Thank you. Please step aside. I'm already behind schedule because of this discussion." Applejack begrudgingly stepped away and allowed Queen Arcadia to step past. Then watched her as she walked away.

"It's just... My family could have been in there," Applejack whispered.

Of course. Of course they would have been. Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. "I know," she whispered. "But if your family reached my land, many of my innocent families would have died with them. So it's either them, or you Applejack. Remember. This is a war. Not a play fight. When we hit you, we aim to take you down. This isn't like King Sombra or Discord. If they bite you, you may in fact die and never wake. So in this fight, it's kill or be killed. I'm sorry you all have to experience it like this, but it's just the way things are here. So you can either deal with it... Or you can leave and fight your own battles." And with that, the Queen of the mighty nation of Psera continued moving for her office.

She hated to tell it to her friends like that. She hated to see their faces fall. But Arcadia had to have a strong backbone. She would do anything to save her own country, let alone her family. She wasn't a simple mage anymore. She made thousands upon thousands of premade spells. And they were keeping her from finishing a very important one.

Her eyes on Twilight, Rarity slowly stepped up to Applejack and wrapped a hoof around her shoulders. "I'm sorry Applejack," she whispered. "But Twilight has a valid point. She has to do what she has to do. She has millions of ponies to look out for here."

Instead of replying, Applejack shrugged off Rarity's hoof, turned around and walked away with her head held low. They just watched her slink down the hallway moping. There was clearly an unsatisfied answer Applejack wanted. And Twilight's was not it.

Rainbow growled and turned to face Rarity with a scowl. "What was that about? She didn't have to talk to Applejack like that!"

"Actually, she can." They looked down the hall where Twilight went and where Sunset Shimmer was coming from. "Even more, she could have had her put in jail because she was disturbing her even when she told her to stop. Contempt of Royalty they call it. Psera is very different from Equestria." She stopped in front of them and explained, "Twilight told me what happened since I could hear her yelling all the way in Gardeen's office. She heard it too. So I came over to investigate and I caught her on the way back. I know you girls haven't been here for awhile, so I'll just get straight to the point with the most basic way I can say it."

Sunset took a deep breath and said, "Twilight is not a librarian or Princess anymore. She's a full fledged Queen with massive amounts of power and the power of a country stronger than any other under those massive wings. As well as a mother and wife.

"All of that rolled up into one equals super assertive protector. And it seems like Applejack just thought that Queen Arcadia's decision was a paranoid one that made Applejack possibly lose family in that attack. But Arcadia's right and she needs to see that. If she didn't send that command out, then it would have been way worse."

---

When Arcadia made it back to her office space after a bit of a walk, she ordered the four Elite Royal Guards standing outside her door, "Make sure I'm not disturbed until four please."

The one in control saluted and replied, "Yes, ma'am."

Assured, Arcadia used her magic to push her office doors open and walked inside one of her many safe havens on Psera. Then the doors were shut and locked.

Her hooves were light with weightlessness across sun-heated grass and soil on the way to her desk. Her wings softly dragged the grass behind her like a long cape. Disturbing dandelions and pushing aside the butterflies. Along the way, she leaned down and plucked a fresh one down from the ground with her teeth to munch on. She hasn't had any lunch today.

When she reached her desk, Arcadia lifted her large right wing and grabbed the documents from Serl to look at one more time. She really hoped they manage to get the cure in. Because if they didn't... Then there was no telling. Maybe when Maheera was taken out, the infected would become regular ponies again. But if they didn't, they'd at least have a cure to get them back.

She sighed and placed the documents on her desk. Then turned and walked over to the bookshelf. She knew what had to be done in case it didn't work. She wasn't looking forward to it, nor would the rest of Psera. But neither would Maheera if it came to this. And that was the mission. To get rid of Maheera. Forever. No matter what.

She pressed her right hoof against one of the many books on the right. A specific one written in Old Pseratopian labeled "The Sanctuary". She held it there momentarily before the entire bookshelf shifted. A crack was pulled open to further its motion, revealing the device on the other side. Just a regular gray steel box that she walked into with a single white light at the top. It was big enough to hold her wings and herself. And at least two others.

Once she was inside, she turned around and used her magic to shut the door-case back. Then the elevator dropped quickly. Like someone just let a cube of steel fall freely from the sky.

During the ride down many levels underground, Arcadia closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Applejack upset her state of zen. But it wasn't nothing she couldn't get over quickly. She was actually expecting the same conversation later with Celestia.

Arcadia opened her eyes when the rumbling stopped and the elevator slowed. Then lowered her head back down and focused on the golden bright hallway in front of her. It was just bare. Nothing else but a tunnel made of gold with magical diodes at the top providing light all the way up to two golden doors at the very end.

She stepped out of the elevator and calmly walked across the ragged golden tunnel, deep below the castle. Exceptionally far down inside of Psera's most top-secret secret. But she didn't care at this moment. Those above were safe and sound. They didn't need her, not until her Comm Block sounded off for an emergency. Until then, she was offline. Entirely offline.

She stopped at the doors and pulled open one of them. Thanks to her magical signature, it allowed her into the giant, long dark space inside. So big, it could hold three Aquatas. Lit up only by the bright blue lights shining from the rock above down onto the glossy floor below at the very bottom. And onto the many high and low steel walkways that allowed Arcadia to navigate through what were on those walls.

Books. Thousands upon thousands of texts. One would assume they found Twilight's insane library. Oh they found a library. They found the Queen's spell library. From intermediate teleportation spells to extremely advanced transfiguration spells. Life magic, light magic, dark magic, chaos magic, chained magic. The magic that when this happened, that would happen afterwards. There were thousands of binders crowding this tunnel with all the spells she's ever learned and the ones she herself created. That was half of them.

When Arcadia found this large space, she assumed Psera used it in the past for some reason because their crest was above the entry doors. The one with Narmeelah as the central image. She checked the records, the archives, the history books for a single clue about this place's origin. But she found nothing. So it now served as her magical testing and development center, and retired it from whatever original purpose it may have held.

Directly in front of her down below was her latest and most important creation still in its testing phase. A huge thick vertical disc. A disc carved out of gold—because this whole floor was made out of it—with twelve small circular cut outs near the edges facing her all connected with strange circuitry running throughout the face.

Queen Arcadia jumped over the safety rail of this never-ending maze and glided over to the giant disc. On the floor in front of it was her laboratory. Beakers, chemical compounds, LiVAMs, recording devices, cameras, all the goods. In front of the disc though was a long slightly tilted control panel. Knobs, sliders, buttons, and switches. On the floor leading away were giant cables connected to containers at the bottom left and right corners of the disc. And way more traveling to a darkened area behind her. Shrouded out of view by a shadow.

On her right after she landed was another table with a few LiVAMs stationed in front of a large control panel. It held a multiple number of knobs. What for, only she knew. But they held no service to the control of the large Disc.

Arcadia sighed and sat down in a cushioned seat at the control desk. Then she reached a hoof out and pressed a single button labeled "Simulation". Next on her schedule was to review what she already had prepared for defense.

The lights above switched on and a loud alarm blared right before the disc started rotating counterclockwise. Slowly at first then began picking up speed.

While it went faster and faster, Arcadia flipped a few more switches. And grabbed a notepad sitting nearby. White routing lines that came from the dig outs appeared on the disc as it moved. Then it flashed and turned into a white ball of light. Shining off the gold.

It made the Queen smile. Test complete. Status? Successful. She reached up to the top of the board and flipped down a single switch labeled "Master" to shut down all events. The whirring motors immediately started their descent into a slower speed while she took a few notes. Everything was ready now. There was no need to come back down here until this was needed.

Arcadia shut the notebook and stood back up with her eyes trained on the slowing disc coming to a stop. Eyeing her thousands of informative tomes that traveled further than the eye could see. Speaking of which, she needed to put the spell for this back in its place. Hopefully she wouldn't forget.

---

Approximately at four, Celestia eagerly walked the red velvet hallway of Psera's Royal Throne Room from her own. It was eerily silent up here. There wasn't any form of noise. She could honestly sleep up here if she had that option.

Celestia shook her head and made her way to the four Guards protecting the violet doors at the end. The ones in the middle had their bladed wings blocking the doors with eyes on her. Celestia stopped in front of them and said, "I have a meeting with Queen Arcadia at four."

Before they could respond, the doors to the office opened inwards on their own along with the second pair behind them.

"Let her in, please," Arcadia ordered. They lowered their wings and allowed Celestia to step into their Queen's sacred space. Then the doors slowly shut back into place with a soft click.

The Queen was sitting behind her desk outlined by the magical windows with her face hidden behind a single document. She pointed a hoof to one of the two mushrooms. "Have a seat Celestia. How are you today?"

Celestia gracefully sat down on one and answered, "Well, I would be much better if things weren't at this tense stalemate. Thank you so much for the symbolic gestures; IHT is very grateful." While Twilight sighed and replied, Celestia's roaming eyes scanned the documents on Queen Arcadia's desk. A bunch of symbols, words, and... SERL.

"We are reaching the point where my soldiers will be sent out to at least do recon—Did they seriously request this?" Arcadia grabbed a pen in her magic while Princess Celestia eyed the document. There was a boxed-in label at the top with a single term that made Celestia's blood run cold for a second:

Classified. There was an image of an infected mare being poked and prodded by a few ponies in white. But she looked normal from the neck line up.

Celestia ripped her eyes away at the same time Queen Arcadia lowered her documents. She placed the one planted with a big red "Denied" on top of the classified document. Then leaned forward on her desk. "I take it you are one of the many ponies going to ask me about my sudden decision to launch Railer One last night."

"Well... Yes, but—"

Queen Arcadia held up her hoof and replied, "Applejack had the same intention earlier that involved her denying me access to my destination. I could have had her arrested and thrown into detention for a week, but she was obviously just worried her family may have been affected. And honestly, based off that huge tree of hers, I wouldn't be surprised if at least four were. I told her that unless she's been in my shoes and have a country to look out for, she can't tell me how to run mine.

"Now as for your concerns. I greatly appreciate them, but I am fine and I know what I did. And yes, it was the right choice to make."

Despite her claim, Celestia was still worried. "Of course, I understand. But... Don't you believe that the others should be involved in decisions like this?"

"At twelve o'clock at night? Oh Celestia..." She leaned back and sighed with her eyes to the ceiling, and a thoughtful expression on her face. How does she put this tactfully? "As a reader of Equestrian history I must say this, and I do apologize beforehoof." She tapped her hooves together in front of her with slightly narrowed eyes trained on Celestia and stated boldly, "None of you could handle this."

Surprised, Celestia leaned back and replied, "Excuse me?"

"When I lived in Equestria, I read about the many battles and fights. There were many big ones that involved destruction and pain. But... There were no deaths. Not even when the Wendigos brought an eternal winter for a time. Winter. As in freezing cold air and snow. Ice. Possible starvation. Scientifically, ponies should have frozen to death by the scores. Or at least starved. But no. Zero, none, nothing.

"When the Storm King invaded, Queen Novo moved all her Ponies down underwater, and ponies in Equestria were just put in chains. When King Sombra took over the Crystal Empire, it was spelled with black magic and all those ponies disappeared. But they didn't die. As a matter of fact, when it was restored, they were still there. Like time never passed.

"When Discord invaded, everyone hid, your soldiers had chocolate rained down on their heads, and the grass came to life to hold them up in the air like poles. Then you came in and turned Discord to stone. But he broke free and continued his humorous chaos. He was still alive. Everyone was.

"Even King Sombra survived his own destructive spell. Tirek was the most strongest creature ever. He honestly would have wiped me and my friends out. He and Discord, the God of Chaos teamed up. How does that not spell death? Well it didn't. The closest we've ever gotten to death was when the Storm King invaded. That was close. But it still didn't happen."

Twilight sighed and stood up to slowly walk around the left side of her desk. Celestia turned her body to face her when her body was in sight. "Let me ask you a really big question, Princess. If Psera and Equestria did in fact go to war..." She stopped in front of Celestia and sat down to stare directly into her eyes. "Would you kill me?"

Celestia just stared deep into Twilight's kind violet eyes. There was an unreadable emotion in them. "I... Don't know," she whispered. She couldn't. This was her student. She watched her grow up into the strong mare she was today ever since she was a filly. Her surrogate daughter. She taught her the basic things in life when books and scrolls weren't options. That question shouldn't even have left anypony's mouth.

Twilight sighed and replied, "Then you lose the war. Psera has a massive army, and they aren't afraid to slaughter. Hopefully, you'll never have to experience that. But if you ever did..."

The sword of Arcadia was suddenly teleported out of its glass casing on the wall into her hooves. She whirled around and sliced it effortlessly through the air. Then brought the blade right at the nape of Celestia's neck and froze. Celestia barely had time to get up. "You have to learn that major sacrifices must be made... In order to keep your own safe. No matter how big. Because last night, I only had a few seconds to make that decision. Before that point there was no third layer of defense. The second they got through that fleet would be the same second they got into my nation. And I seriously doubt you or any of the others could have made the decision to kill within a matter of five to ten seconds. Because you've never had to in all of your years."

Celestia relaxed when the sword was teleported back in its casing and Arcadia walked back around her desk to continue her explanation. "I understand how you feel though. It hurt me too when I launched Railer One. Old friends of mine could have been victims too. All of you seem to forget I used to live in Equestria. I lived there longer than I lived in Psera. My birth family and extended family are there. My friends live there. My old ones, my current ones. I went to school there. But if you were infected Celestia, and you were going after one of my own... Then I would unfortunately have to hurt you."

Arcadia sat down in her chair and added, "And I would not enjoy it. I shed tears last night when I launched that weapon. But it's my duty. As Queen of Psera I have to protect my citizens by any means necessary. If Equestria went to war and I had to fight you, Cadance, Luna, and even my own brother Shining, then... I would follow right after you when I did the deed. I want you to come to court with me tomorrow."

Celestia asked, "Your weekly court? Why?"

"I want to show you, Luna, and Princess Cadance how different Psera is from the rest of the world. So different in fact, even the Nobles are more loud."

Of course they were. Celestia nodded and stood up. "I'll let them know. Thank you, Twilight."

"You're welcome, Celestia. Dawn's birthday is after tomorrow, I'm sure she'd like to see you there."

"Of course I'll be there. 'Til tomorrow." Twilight watched Princess Celestia canter towards the doors and even opened one for her. Once she was out, she closed it back and closed her eyes. Nothing else happened after that. But a small tear did roll down Queen Arcadia's right cheek.

A voice from her left grumbled, "Jeez, that was cold."

Arcadia sighed and said, "It has to be said by someone who actually knows." She moved her gaze from the doors over to the left and eyed Odega checking out the small stream. "What was the decision?"

Odega poked her hoof into the water. It turned into a fiery blue before she pulled it back out. "They want you to partake in the final fight," she answered. Then straightened up and trained her blue eyes on Queen Arcadia. "You still haven't told me about this great plan of yours."

Arcadia shook her head and said, "The great plan may not even occur if Serl's plan works. If it doesn't... Then I will use the first part of my great plan."

Odega jumped over onto one of the mushrooms in front of her desk and answered, "So can I know or..."

"Sorry, no. But I can tell you this. It's an extreme last resort."

Author's Note:

What is Twilight planning? And is it a good one?

Comments

[Silentwoodfire]

Self-scrifice?

[Gboyd]

9784486
I have one thing to say to you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyU1a4cTdK

[bkam]

Silentwoodfire
That's what I'm thinking.