Thanks to Velkaden, Voba, TheCrazyMan and Heretical Zed for prereading this. - Starman Ghost

"Tia, the humans will fire their weapons in six hours. Do you have a plan?"

Celestia jumped slightly and swiftly turned on the spot, having been absorbed in the scene before her. After all, the castle's white, sterile infirmary had never been nearly this full before.

Not a single one of the dozens of beds was unoccupied, even a day after the last ponies in South Africa and Namibia had been safely returned to Equestria and the last pegasi had been forced to retreat. All around them, expressionless royal nurses and doctors scurried between the beds, checking heavily bloodstained wound dressings, administering numbing potions, and taking vitals.

Many of them had been wounded beyond the ability of magic or medicine to heal; their legs had been mangled or even destroyed by bullets and shrapnel from the humans' weapons. Some had had to be amputated. They would never walk again, and it tore at Celestia's heart, for she knew she bore responsibility for it.

After all, she had underestimated the sheer depravity of the human race. She had dared herself to hold hope for them, hope that they would recognize their flaws and gladly accept the chance to become new beings, free of their basest and most brutal desires. She had been naive, and she had acted naively, and her actions had forced her to send her royal guards to a horrific battle to protect the rest of her ponies from the humans' brutality.

"The spell is ready, Luna. All I have to do is give the Elements the word."

Luna balked. "But, our ponies...they're still out there, in the human world. If we cast the spell now, we'll be abandoning them! Most of them are being held in prison camps in South America, we know where they are, we can send a force-"

Celestia shook her head and leered. "Look, Luna. Look at what's in front of you. There isn't a unicorn in Equestria with the magical power to teleport an army that far. Even if we weren't still recovering from our attempt to keep the barrier standing, we would have no way to get our guards back to safety once they were there."

"But-"

"We have no choice," Celestia said, trembling slightly. "Even if we could send a force there and back, look at what they've done to our Guard. Two hundred of them, one out of every ten, were wounded or died in battle. Never in the history of Equestria has it suffered such devastation. Certainly not in just a week."

"The Guard is more than capable of defeating them, we stalled their force in-"

"I heard the same reports from South Africa you did. I know that ten humans fell for every guard that gave his life. That was nothing but luck on our part, though. The humans they were fighting seemed ill-trained and ill-equipped. If we had still been in the middle of getting our ponies to safety when they began using their aircraft, it would have been a very different story.

"And even if every battle after that had followed this pattern, sister, we would still lose. It's five million ponies versus seven billion humans. Beyond that, it takes weeks for them to train a frontline soldier. It takes us years to mold a royal guard of the caliber that fought in South Africa. Every last pony in our Guard could fell ten thousand human soldiers and the humans would still win.

"And even if we could carry out this impossible task, they would just bring to bear their most terrible weapons of all, the ones that even they cannot bring themselves to use yet. If they are about to lose, they will just launch nuclear weapons. Neither of us can protect Equestria from their fusion bombs, Sister. We couldn't even protect it from their regular bombs."

"The humans really are like frenzied apes," Luna said venomously, "so embroiled in their own rage that they will throw themselves into the face of death just to kill a few of us, just for trying to help them."

"And that is why, no matter what we do, we can never redeem them," said Celestia, her voice suddenly sorrowful.

The truth was, she pitied the creatures. She pitied them for being born corrupt, never even having a chance to live a life of good. She pitied them for being unable to recognize their own irredeemable flaws. She pitied them for not having the clarity of mind to accept their salvation - a salvation she had put so much effort and hope into. She'd wanted - really wanted - to believe that they were capable of redemption. They were beyond it, though, and that fact alone was profoundly sad in a way she couldn't find the words for.

She was taken out of her thoughts when Luna asked, "Have you told Twilight about her brother yet?"

Celestia shook her head, and looked sadly at Shining Armor's bed; he had had the misfortune to lose both of his hindlegs. He was laying there in his bed, helplessly, and when he noticed her looking his way, his eyes flicked pitifully in her direction. He would never be able to fulfill his duty, his talent, the purpose in life that he was literally marked for, again. And nothing would ever be able to change that.

"It...it's better she doesn't know yet. She needs to be able to concentrate on the spell, we need everything working in our favor on that."

"I think that is best. Of course, Shining Armor will receive the highest honors for his actions? Nopony fought harder than he did to drive back their hordes. He destroyed fifteen of their armored vehicles by himself."

"Yes. If anypony deserves it, he does." She looked back at him as she spoke, and her voice cracked on the last word. Realizing that she was about to break down, she slipped through a nearby door. Luna was taken aback, and for a moment she could only stare in surprise, but she followed just as her sister disappeared from view. The hospital room was left eerily silent in their wake.

Luna did not have to go far to find her sister; Celestia was alone in a narrow side corridor adjacent to the infirmary. The sun had just risen about half an hour ago - Luna knew that neither she nor her sister would miss being unable to control day and night - and Celestia had planted herself on her haunches, head and wings dropped, hauntingly beautiful in the orange morning light.

"Oh, Luna, it's all my fault...." With an impressive effort, she suppressed her sob. "If I hadn't been so careless..." She began shaking.

Luna looked at her sister in concern for a moment, then walked over to her and wrapped a wing around her.

"It's okay, 'Tia, let it out."

For awhile, neither said anything. Luna kept Celestia wrapped tightly as her sister's tears fell to the cold marble floor, wishing there was something more she could do. Seeing her sister, a goddess of Equestria who had worked so tirelessly for the good of everyone for century after century, like this was nothing short of heartbreaking. She felt like she could never hug her tight enough or long enough to make her stop hurting, but she was going to try. She couldn't bear not to.

Finally Celestia spoke, barely above a whisper.

"No."

She suddenly straightened and her face hardened, and she stepped to the side a bit to release herself from Luna's wing.

"No, it's not okay. I have to be strong now, I'm their leader, and they need me more than ever. They still need me to act, to protect, and I will not fail them again."

She stomped her hoof, a cold thunk echoing through the hallway.

"I'll tell the Elements of Harmony to cast the spell now."

She began walking towards the doorway, then stopped and managed to smile at her sister.

"Oh, and Luna? Thank you."

Rainbow Dash huffed. "How much longer is it going to be?"

The same question was on the minds of all six ponies gathered in the small, candlelit stone chamber. Covering the floor was a chalk pattern cast by Twilight; it was a symmetrical, snowflake-like figure composed of countless elaborately intersecting basic geometric shapes that covered the entire floor, each and every one carefully and painstakingly drawn with a steady horn. There were six circles around the perimeter, each occupied by one of the Elements of Harmony.

Twilight had her notes for the spell hovering in the air, frantically shuffling the pages as her eyes flickered between them. Rainbow Dash was pacing within the confines of her circle. Rarity was sitting very rigidly in the center of hers, eyes on the floor beneath her to make sure she didn't smear the chalk. Applejack was staring at the door. Fluttershy was staring at her hooves. Pinkie Pie seemed to be the most composed, but her furious chewing on the candy cane she was eating betrayed her own nervousness.

Twilight shook her head. "I don't know, but since she called us here, I'm sure it's soon." She looked down and sighed. "I just wish it hadn't come to this."

"I'll be honest with you, Twi, I thought it might," said Applejack. "You just can't help somepony who don't want it, and those humans are the stubbornest creatures I've ever seen."

"I just can't believe they're getting away with what they did! We're tougher and stronger than any of them, and we lost! We'll have to leave ponies behind, just because they had all those...those horrible...weapons..." Rainbow Dash trailed off at the memory.

When humanity had begun attacking in earnest, she had literally begged Celestia for a chance to fight them on the frontline. She'd envisioned the fight for Equestria as something exciting, imagined herself surging from human soldier to human soldier, untouchable as she bucked them left and right. That lasted until the first royal guard platoon had teleported back into the castle with a full third of its members dead or wounded. She'd never seen so much blood, or such terrible burns. Seeing Equestria's finest, most dignified, seemingly invincible warriors so mutilated and in such agony, by weapons wielded by mere conscripts no less, had chilled her to the bone.

"C'est la vie," said Rarity with a sigh. "We should have never come to this planet in the first place. It's terrible to think that ponies will have to be left behind to deal with brutes like those."

Pinkie Pie abruptly swallowed her candy cane, with very little apparent difficulty. "Yeah, there's gotta be more planets out there, right?" she said. "Like, maybe we can find one full of candy! I mean, this one had a lot of candy but it had a lot of mean humans and I think we can get candy without the-"

"Pinkie, Celestia said we wouldn't be doing any more dimension jumps after this," said Twilight. "Not unless we're sure there's no sapients. We've learned the hard way that we can't be sure how they'll think."

"Fluttershy? You okay over there?" asked Applejack, turning to look at her. She hadn't said a word since they'd arrived.

"Um..." Fluttershy cleared her throat, not looking at Applejack. "...I'm fine. Just nervous. And, well..." She paused.

"What is it, dear?" asked Rarity.

"It's just...well...these humans...do you think maybe we just...handled them wrong? Any kind of animal can become friendly if you approach them right, and I think that's true for the ones that are as smart as us."

"If there's a right way to approach them, I can't even guess what it is," said Twilight. "We..." Suddenly remembering the interview, she fell silent and lowered her head slightly.

"...I guess I definitely went about it the wrong way though, huh?"

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Twi," said Applejack. "You told it like it was and ain't nopony can fault you for that."

When she was able to force herself to look up, Twilight found the others were looking at her in sympathy and nodding in agreement, and she found it in her to smile and relax a little. If the Princesses didn't blame her, and her friends didn't blame her, maybe it really wasn't her fault. Even so, her conscience nagged at her, and she again found herself wondering how things would turn out if she'd done the interview properly.

"Really, Twilight, you never had a chance," said Rarity. "They gave up the chance to be one of us, after all. They could have lived easily four times as long as they do. They could've flown to their hearts' content, or cast such a wonderful variety of spells. And of course, they would live in Equestria, where the Princesses would have treated them as well as any of us. No more hunger, no more war, no more complicated politics...but they so ungraciously refused. It's simply beyond comprehension."

"I don't think we'll ever understand," said Twilight, her gaze dropping to her hooves. "I guess ponies and humans could never be friends. That's the saddest thing of all."

The doorway darkened; the six snapped to face it and saw Celestia, a look of determination etched on her face.

"Girls, it's time."

In an instant, the South Atlantic Ocean was bathed in a brilliant, cold white light, illuminating the sea and the countless iron ships that dotted the waves, all facing its source and prepared to unleash the fury of Hell on the small island they surrounded.

It seemed to shine for an eternity, but in reality lasted only a few minutes. In that time, humanity watched with collective horror, sure that the end had come, that Equestria had deployed some horrific secret weapon that would overshadow even the power of any nuclear bomb.

When the light blinked out, the feared destruction did not come. No ripple of energy ponified everyone on Earth, no blast wave leveled the world's cities, and no surge of magic evaporated the multitude of ships surrounding the island. Instead, Equestria had vanished, not leaving behind so much as a ripple in the water. It was as if the ocean had never been disturbed.

Humanity had won the war.

Next Chapter: Aftermath, Part I (Prose) Estimated time remaining: 44 Minutes