Deception upon deception

by Dawnbringer

Hidden Agendas

Canterlot Castle, balcony
Sunset, 19:12, 20 September

As the sun gently dipped below the horizon, it signaled the end of another day while throngs of ponies started making their way home, exhausted by their daily activities. Meanwhile, the moon inched slowly towards the night sky and began illuminating the dark night sky. While many ponies, peasants and nobles alike, prepared to retire for the night, Princess Luna and the castle’s night staff had just begun their nightly activities.

“How’s your day, Celly?” Luna asked curiously after she raised the moon.

“Tiring as usual,” Celestia replied with a sigh as she used her last bit of strength to lower down the sun. Celestia, regent of the sun, had been ruling Equestria all by herself since her sister’s “vacation” to the moon a thousand years ago. Even so, the sheer amount of diplomatic and political work done by her everyday was enough to turn her multi-colored mane white. Not to mention the fact that she still had to entertain snobbish nobles such as Prince Blueblood. Although both Luna and Celestia were sisters, they hardly got to see each other since Celestia was only awake during the day while Luna was only awake during the night. In fact, on most days, the only time they spent together was during the raising and lowering of the sun and the moon.

“Try not to stress yourself up, alright? I’ll help do my best to help you as soon as I can,” assured Luna while began heading to the banquet hall for her supposed breakfast. Although it had been more than a year since Luna was freed from Nightmare Moon, Luna had yet to open her night court, claiming that she still had much to learn before she could reopen the night court. Over the past few months, she had been pouring over books regarding advancement in magic, history of the world as well as Equestrian politics.

Catching up on a thousand years of history was something that could not be done overnight especially since she also had to overcome the language barrier and to stop using the Royal Canterlot voice. To Luna, the temptation to use the Royal Canterlot voice was too great that it took her months before she stopped bursting the eardrums of other ponies. The delay in opening the night court was also caused by the return of Discord and Sombra as well as the changeling invasion since, unbeknownst to the general public, the royal sisters had been secretly cleaning up those villain’s mess and was looking into other counter measures against such threats in the future.

“Try not to tire yourself too up, lulu. I know you’re eager to help but do try to take a break at times,” Celestia responded with a frown on her face. She knew that her younger sister had been desperately trying to catch up with modern times but she could not help but feel sad by the fact that their relationship was still not as strong as it once was. Though Celestia was proud that her sister had started protecting their subjects from nightmares as well as to build trust with other ponies, she could not help but wonder whether they would be able to spend quality time with each other just as they did many eons ago…

Maybe I should take some time off, thought Celestia, as it has been such a long time since I actually played with Luna. As far as Celestia knew, Luna had been busy studying Equestria’s history and was dispelling nightmares from other pony’s mind. Or so she thought...

Canterlot castle, west tower: private laboratory
Past midnight, 00:43, 21 September

“ I've finally solved it!” exclaimed Luna with glee as she proceeded to jolt down her findings on a parchment of scroll. The entire castle was deathly quiet as only Princess Luna and the night staff were awake. Not known to many, the entire west tower of the castle was her private chambers while her sister inhabited the entire east tower. Both west and east towers were the two tallest buildings of the castle and in Luna’s case, her west tower contained her bedroom, her personal laboratory, a viewing gallery with a large telescope as well as many other significant rooms that were not known to the public.

Her private laboratory was filled with parchments of scrolls taped to the walls and the lab contained many large and dangerous looking contraptions. There was a gigantic bookshelf at the corner, filled with numerous heavy looking books while countless scrolls sprawled across the table which Luna was using. Even so, the dimly lit laboratory was relatively clean and spacious. However, the most unusual thing was the dozen robotic bodies lying immobile on a rough stone table in the middle of the lab. These robotic bodies had the characteristics of an alicorn as it had both horn and wings. They were almost as tall as Celestia herself but was a lot bulkier than her.

For many months since Luna had returned to Equestria, she had been secretly researching about dark magic in her private lab. Dark magic was a branch of dangerous and highly unpredictable magic which had been banned by Celestia ever since she concluded that it was dark magic that had supposedly possessed her sister and transformed Luna into the entity known as Nightmare Moon. At least, that was what Celestia thought…

Although dark magic was extremely unstable, its raw power was immense because in terms of power, it was ranked third, only behind chaos magic and the elements of harmony. Nonetheless, it was still far too dangerous for anypony to wield. However, it was because of dark magic’s raw power and lack of stability that would allow Luna to excess the “Matrix” and reanimate her dead army, the shadow sentinels. As Princess Luna finished her final calculations for her reanimation spell, she began reminiscing the glory days of her shadow sentinels…

Contrary to popular belief and many history books, Equestria was not the safe and wonderful kingdom that had everypony had imagined it would be. For thousands of years, the shadow sentinels have secretly guarded the kingdom of Equestria from invaders and other threats. The truth was that during the first year after Luna and Celestia had turned Discord into stone and saved the world from chaos, Equestria was in a worse state than any other kingdom. Diseases were rampant, chaos still ruled the streets, and famine struck the ponies as crops were stolen by desperate ponies.

There was no law or order of whatsoever and to make matters worse, many enemies such as the draconic hordes (dragons), diamond dogs, griffins, changelings as well as many other species were seeking to conquer Equestria. While Celestia was busy dealing with political, social and diplomatic duties, Luna was dealing with Equestria’s defenses, economics, architectures and sciences. It was not long before the shadow sentinels were set up by Princess Luna to combat the many threats that Equestria was facing.

The shadow sentinels was a secretive group of elites that were not known to the public. Members of the shadow sentinels range from politicians to scientists, from architects to mages, from engineers to merchants. These small groups of elites, often at the top of their respective positions, had continuously influenced the public for many centuries as they wielded tremendous sway over public opinion. Although Celestia was seen by the public as a symbol of hope, it was the shadow sentinels that worked in secret under the command of Luna to protect Equestria.

For instance, politicians used their influence to suppress news of an invasion by enemies from the general public to prevent an outburst of panic while scientists worked tirelessly to allow the continuous advancements in sciences. Architects built mega-structures and giant fortifications to provide civilians with shelter as well as protection in case of war while mages improved ponies’ understanding and advancements in magic. In fact, for dozens of centuries, almost all amazing feats of accomplishments were done by members of the shadow sentinels and almost all top ranking positions were held by members of the shadow sentinels. The shadow sentinels were only loyal to Princess Celestia and Luna (more loyal towards the latter) and were all sworn to secrecy the moment Luna ‘invited’ them to join their group.

However, the greatest asset of the shadow sentinels were the guardians. These guardians were the soldiers of the shadow sentinels and they formed the main bulk of the group. What these guardians lacked in quantity, they more than made up for in terms of quality. The guardians were widely regarded as the greatest warriors on the planet and was second to none in terms of skill and tactics. Although these guardians were still no match for the all-powerful alicorns or any spirits of disharmony, their battle prowess was legendary throughout kingdoms as every other race, including the dragons, feared these phantom knights.

For centuries, these guardians had prevented the draconic hordes from pillaging earth ponies’ crops and protected Equestria from multiple invasions from changelings, diamond dogs, griffins and buffaloes. They were known only as the phantom knights to their foes because of their apparent ability to seemingly appear at out of nowhere to crush any race that was threatening Equestria dead in its tracks.

Despite their legendary status among other races, the guardians had a long and tragic history because during the first year after Discord was defeated, Luna made the unthinkable decision that breached the lines of morality. In order to create the finest troops Equestria had to offer in the shortest amount of time, Luna took in many war orphans, earth ponies, pegasus and unicorns alike, and started training them to be soldiers. From a very young age, many of these war orphans were inducted into intense military training that was even considered to be too harsh for fully grown stallions.

The worst part was that through the use of dark magic, Luna even allowed biological augmentations of these young guardians. She modified the wings of the pegasus’ to bat wings and gave all the young soldiers dragon-like eyes to see in the dark. For the unicorns, Luna increased their magical capabilities and their magical powers while increasing the intelligence of all those soldiers. Furthermore, Luna increased all the soldier’s size and muscle mass, giving them immense strength and speed as well as increasing their reaction speed by nearly ten-fold. Finally, Luna increased their bone density to make their bones more durable to intense training and she boosted their immunity system so as to make them less susceptible to diseases.

Due to the harsh training and the unpredictability of dark magic, many foals did not survive to adulthood. By the time the first batch of guardians became mature stallions, their numbers had decreased to less than half its original size. Even after the Equestria had become stable, such practices were still performed on the guardians in order to continue allowing them to protect Equestria. After Equestria started prospering, as the number of orphans started decreasing, Luna started turning her own royal guards into the new guardians causing the royal night guards to be no different from the guardians.

Till this day, Luna had always regretted robbing those foals of their foal hood and the murder of many foals who had gone through the guardian’s training programme. It was a heavy burden to bear since she felt responsible for the deaths of so many innocent foals but the lives of the many far outweigh the lives of the few. Throughout history, these guardians had no life of their own. They could not get married, could not let anypony know of their existence and could not retire as it was a lifetime of service.

Once a pony joins the guardians, whether they were orphans or royal night guards before, any and all traces of their existence would be wiped clean. The worst part was that the general public did not even know of these hero’s existence and their contribution to society. There was no welcome home parade to celebrate the victories of the guardians as many ponies were unaware of the many secret wars Equestria had been engaged in. Even if news of war did reach public ears, many simply assumed that it was Celestia’s royal guards who had stopped the invaders.

The shadow sentinels received no token of appreciation, no thanks from anypony and no recognition as they continued operating in the dark. The highest recognition and honor the guardians received was known as the ‘Matrix’. When a noble guardian had fallen in battle or was on the doorsteps of death, they would have their consciousness extracted out and preserved in the ‘Matrix’. The ‘Matrix’ was a large magical void that was created by Luna through a spell and it could contain and preserve the consciousness of beings. This was to ensure that when technology and magic had improved, their consciousness would be extracted out of the ‘Matrix’ and transferred over to a new host body so that they may once again serve their Princesses.

After many months of research, through the use of dark magic, Luna had finally found a way to transfer the consciousness from the ‘Matrix’ to a new host body. Luna had already prepared a dozen robotic bodies and was now ready to transfer a dozen consciousness from the ‘Matrix’ to its new host bodies. As Luna started to conjure the spell, eerie lights flashed around her and a thick veil of smoke started to envelope the laboratory. Soon, there was a huge explosion that would have been heard throughout the castle had Luna not put a soundproof spell around her laboratory. The explosion threw Luna off her hooves and she was pushed several meters away while hitting the wall with a loud ‘THUD’.

Coughing heavily, Luna struggled to get up onto her hooves as she was still recovering from the previous explosion. After rubbing her eyes with her hooves, she spun her head around so as to survey the surroundings to get a better idea of the damage that had been caused by the explosion. As Luna inched towards the middle of the lab to check if her spell was successful, the twelve robotic bodies started getting up onto their hooves and jumped down from the stone table. As the robots scanned the area, they saw Luna in front of them and all of them instantly knelt in front of her. Knowing that months of hard work had finally paid off, Luna smiled sinisterly as she could finally begin the next step of her master plan.

“Rise, my loyal guardians. It’s time to continue phase 2 of my grand scheme. Tomorrow, we shall begin our attack on Equestria. Here’s what we’ll do…”

Author's Note:

This is my first time writing a fanfic so I'm not sure how I fared. Please give me some constructive criticisms as well as some revies. I'll try to update as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Comments

[Xaldon Ajide]

Interesting but I think I won't be following the story, the evil luna just came straight out of left field. maybe if there was an explanation i'd go with it but there isn't so i'm not following. but I will give you a thumbs up for not being half bad.

cheers

[guyveralexis13]

By any chance did you watch bronycurious' "My little critiques 4: A Canterlot Wedding" video?

[guyveralexis13]

2390551
here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9teQKuEo8