Mature Gore. Luna, Celestia, Chrysalis

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. After a thousand years as Nightmare Moon, there are some habits even the Elements couldn’t fix. Now, Celestia must use Luna’s need to play god to her advantage, or risk losing her sister again.

Story prompt/Requested by:Selbi
Inspired by Deathstar’s song Play God
Written as part of One-Shot Week

It is well known that all ponies are inherently evil. Were it not for Celestia’s ceaseless efforts to better her citizens dark impulses, the world would plunge into total darkness.

While Celestia and Luna agreed that all ponies had some evil repressed inside them, they disagreed on how to combat that dark nature. Luna believed it best to understand the darkness, and fight it from within. She would excise those wicked tendancies by force from ponies who could not control it. Celestia naively believed only a pure heart and morality could combat that evil. It was her wish to reform such callous, cold-hearted ponies.

Luna had once taken it too far, becoming known as Nightmare Moon. It began with jealousy and envy of the praise given to Celestia daily. What history books don’t record is how it led Luna to commit genocide against species such as the Wendigo or Lamia to protect Equestria. They also don’t mention how she completely eliminated crime by making the punishment for all crimes a night in Luna’s torture chamber.

Celestia hadn’t approved of Luna’s heavy hoof back then, and a thousand years later Luna hadn’t changed. However, Celestia now had the wisdom to provide her sister an outlet. Without darkness, there could be no light, and for Celestia to be the beacon of hope for her ponies, she must let Luna be the abyss of darkness.

Luna walked down into the dungeon where the suspected mastermind of the drug cartel from Manehatten was being kept. Local police had never accumulated enough evidence to arrest him and charge him for his crimes.

One night, while Celestia slumbered, Luna upheld her half of the unspoken agreement. She had whisked the stallion away from the bed he shared with his trophy wife, and deposited him in the dungeon. He had been poorly fed, dehydrated, and not allowed sleep per Luna’s orders.

She approached the thick wooden door to his cell. The two guards saluted, and then left. They were replaced by two bat-winged ponies, known as Sarosians. Luna only trusted her own guard for matters such as this.

Inside the cell, a mustard brown pegasus was curled up in the corner. His brown hair was matted and had rat feces in it. The cold, damp cell had given him a wheezing cough. The only source of light or warmth was a torch on the wall, just beyond the reach of his shackles.

The torch went out as Luna opened the cell door. She extended her magic until there was not a single trace of light within a hundred feet of her body. Luna walked through the door and opened her eyes. They glowed midnight blue like her mane.

The stallion looked up and saw two eyes, a set of feral teeth, and a sparkling mane and tail. He could not make out any other features. He held his hoof up in front of his face, but could not see it.

“Alexander, what a lovely name,” Luna said in a deep voice. She growled lightly and the room reverberated with its echo.

“P-please, I d-don’t know w-what you w-want but I’ll p-pay it!” he muttered.

“I don’t want your money.” A glowing white smile formed, framing two sharp canines in Luna’s mouth. “I want to save your soul, to draw the darkness out of you. If you ever want to see your family again, you will obey. Otherwise, you shall wake up in Tartarus.”

The stallion mumbled a few words and wet himself. He shivered and whimpered until Luna spoke again.

“The penalty for running a drug cartel is no less than life in prison. I could easily execute you for all the lives your heroin has cut short, and nopony would ever know. Your wife, Lily, and your two children would grow up without a father.”

“I didn’t do anything! Please, I’m innocent!” he said.

“Do not dare lie to me! Either admit your guilt and beg forgiveness, or die.”

The stallion was too scared to do anything, so Luna brought in her first witness.

The torch lit itself casting a dim light onto a light pink pegasus mare. She had been locked into a guillotine, and Luna’s guard removed her gag.

“H-honey? What’s going on Alex!” Lily pleaded.

“No! Please, we d-didn’t do anything wrong!” Alex said.

“Lie to me again and it will cost Lily her head. A second lie will cost your daughter Gale hers,” Luna said.

“Please! Celestia w-would never approve of this! I’m innocent!”

A metallic shriek filled the air as the blade slid down the wooden groves of the guillotine. There was a loud thud as the weighted blade reached the bottom and halted. A second softer thud sounded as Lily’s head hit the floor, and her eyes continued to blink and look at her husband for several moments.

“No!” Alexander screamed. He threw himself against his shackles in his rage, trying to lash out at Luna.

She began laughing as the torchlight faded again. “Who in your cartel do you fear so much that you would sacrifice your wife? I want the names of every member in the cartel while you still have a tongue to speak with.”

Luna advanced upon him, and he scurried back into his corner and screamed. “No, please, t-they’ll kill the kids if I talk, and you’ll kill t-them if I don’t! Oh Celestia! Help!”

“Where is your god now? That’s right, I am your god. I decide who lives and dies, and I know your every fear. You have been a wicked pony, and if you will not reform by choice I shall do it by force.”

Alexander’s eyes went wide in terror as Luna’s horn glowed, and several spiders two feet across crawled out of the shadows. In the darkness he could see their beady glowing eyes, and could faintly trace their forms.

He heard them scurry towards him in the dark, barely illuminated by Luna’s mane. He could feel them crawling over his skin, their bristly hairs poking him. Alex screamed as one bit his flank, and a fiery pain began to spread down his legs. Another had begun to cover his wings in a silky web, pinning him to the floor.

“If you wish to speak I suggest you hurry, my friends here are quite hungry,” Luna said.

“A-alright! I’ll tell you! The ring is run by Black Rose! His lieutenants are. . .”

Luna listened intently as he confessed everything to her. He gave the names of as many cartel members as he could remember, and the locations of where they cut the drugs. Alex gave her more than she had hoped for.

The spiders finally vanished, leaving him pinned in the corner as an agonizing fire spread through his blood.

“A wise choice, My Little Pony, for you have earned my mercy and that is a gift most rare,” Luna said.

She reached down and touched Alex’s chest. He screamed in terror as her horn and hoof began to glow. Luna then pushed her hoof down, puncturing his ribs, and freezing his heart. She withdrew her hoof and attached to it was a long strand of darkness. It vanished into Luna’s hoof as Alex passed out from the pain.

Luna lit the torch and headed for the exit, closing the door behind her, and Celestia’s guards resumed their post once she had left the dungeon. It had taken her longer than she thought to get the confession, so Luna ran into Celestia. It was in the hallway outside their bed chambers as Luna preapred to sleep and her sister prepared to raise the sun.

“How did it go, sister?” Celestia asked.

Luna stopped in the hallway and gave a cheerful smile. “Wonderful, sister. I got the information I needed, and our guest should awake from his nightmare soon.”

“That’s. . . useful news, I am pleased something good came of your visit.”

“Don’t be so gloomy, Tia, I was able to redeem this pony. It is not often I show mercy, so this is clearly going to be a most wonderful day,” Luna said sarcastically.

Celestia nodded and continued on to the throne room. Meanwhile, Luna went to bed.

A few days later and preparations for the wedding of Cadance and Shining had been completed. Luna was called to Celestia’s chambers to discuss the recent changeling threat. She walked into her sister’s bedroom and saw her looking out the window at the shield around Canterlot.

“Good morning, Tia, I trust you have need of my services in regards to the changelings?” Luna asked.

“Yes. While the wedding proceeds as planned, I want you to head to the frozen wastes and find the changeling hive. Wipe it out. Leave them nothing to flee to. Twilight and I will surely be able to handle anything they throw at Canterlot while you do,” Celestia said.

“My, my,” Luna stated. “It is not often you so directly ask me to get my hooves dirty. It’s almost. . . anticlimactic. You need not worry for I know the darkness, and if anypony can find their hive, it is me.”

“Then go, but make it quick. Your absence at the wedding will surely be noticed.”

Luna grinned and fired up her horn. With a loud popping sound, she teleported herself to the frozen wastes in the north.

She stood in the middle of nowhere. There had once been an entire empire of Crystal ponies here in the north. Now all that remained were a dozen scattered settlements of ponies. Luna began to fly to the east to survey the land.

The first couple of villages were normal, if not gloomy. It made Luna happy to see ponies who understood hardship. It was the resilient ones who knew the value of a warm meal or a pair of new boots that were the backbone of her country.

Luna immediately knew something was off in the next village. The flow of magic felt tainted, and there was a foul odor in the air. She flew down to the village and saw ponies trudging through the snow.

They looked like zombies, mindlessly walking from one building to another. There were neither fillies nor laughter of any kind. Nopony made eye contact, and that was when Luna saw him. One pony looked different from the rest. He looked well fed, unlike the skin and bone villagers. His coat of fur had a vibrant shine, and his cutie mark was a sunflower.

Nopony in the frozen north would have a flower cutie mark. Luna focused her magic on him, tearing through his magic with ease. A second later, a black changeling was examining himself to find the source of his difficulties. By the time the changeling looked up, he saw a fearsome alicorn turn jet black and step in front of him.

“Boo,” Luna whispered.

He squealed and turned to flee. Before his hooves had left the ground Luna had snapped his neck, instantly killing him.

Several other ponies broke from their positions around town. There were about a dozen changelings standing guard as every hopeful emotion of the townsponies was feasted upon. Luna reached out with her magic and began to identify the intruders.

Two of the beasts tried to attack Luna. Their pitiful spells barely tickled her hide. Another changeling, likely one who had fought an alicorn before, tried to bite Luna. A changeling’s venomous fangs were one of few things that could harm an alicorn.

Luna formed a starry blade from her mane, turning her hair into an obsidian glass harder than diamond. She sliced through the changeling trying to bite her. She then wielded the sword with her levitation, and killed the two changelings that had shot at her.

As the rest fled for their lives, she reached out with her magic one by one and snapped their necks.

The village was completely silent. Luna scanned the nearest ponies to see how long they had been fed on. These ponies had been fed on for at least a year. They had lost their minds to insanity, and become shambling husks. Their life now consisted of being trapped in their own minds, as they trotted through snow with frost bitten hooves.

Luna knew what she had to do.

She called upon the power of the night sky, striking down at the town with it. When she was finished black smoke blotted out the sky. The snowy ground was now scorched black sand, and nothing else remained.

The changeling hive was hidden a few miles north of the town in the mountains. It had not been nearly as hard to find as Luna thought, leaving her disappointed. At this rate, she would make it back in time for the wedding and be subjected to a cheerful and boring celebration of love.

Luna walked into the cave, collapsing the entrance behind her with her magic. She began to suck the light out of the air that was being cast by green crystals embedded in the rock. As a midnight blue silhouette, she marched directly to the heart of the hive.

Along the way, she left only scorched earth. Every sentry and maturation chamber, was incinerated. After reaching the throne room she was surprised to see it filled with limping changelings and Chrysalis herself.

“You are the last pony I ever expected to see,” Luna said. “I take it your little invasion didn’t go well?”

“Nightmare Moon,” Chrysalis spat.

“Close, but I control that side of me now. The bad news for you is that you should have stayed in Canterlot.”

“Your beloved niece Cadance expelled us from Canterlot not two hours ago. She scattered my brood across Equestria. I was lucky to land back near our hive. Were I not weakened I would feast on your soul and head back for revenge.”

Luna chuckled. “Lucky for me then. Once I kill you and finish wiping out your hive, the rest of your swarm will die off one by one.”

Chrysalis shook her head. “Why? You used to understand our species, you even took pity on us and let us serve you in the Nightmare War. Now you would commit genocide yet again?”

“I don’t know if I’ll commit genocide.” She walked through the dark room towards the queen of the changelings. Luna whispered in her ear, “but I’ll try my best.”

“Killing me won’t redeem you. You will forever be Nightmare Mo—”

Chrysalis gasped as a blade was run across her throat, and she fell to the floor limp.

Luna’s horn and eyes glowed as she began to incinerate the rest of the changelings in the main chamber. Once she had finished, she teleported herself outside to the front of the hive.

As she stood in front of the decimated hive, Luna pondered what her sister would have done. Celestia did not like to play god, despite having powers that clearly made them deities by any definition. Ruling Equestria had always been a game for two, so Luna played god and hoped her sister would too.

Author's Notes:

Edited by: Abcron