Chapter 2

Luna didn’t know when she had fallen asleep but after a series of Discord filled dreams a loud banging sound pulled her out of it. Her eyes snapped open and looked at her door.

“Luna!” Celestia’s enraged voice washed away any lingering weariness. “You have some explaining to do!”

The younger princess searched her mind for an excuse. The idea of running away even crossed her mind a few times. Discord was surprisingly silent during her panic. Luna guessed he was still asleep. She hoped Celestia didn't blow down her door before a logical excuse could be found. Telling her sister ‘Discord made me’ would probably get her sent to an alternate place since her moon was now a mountain where the Griffin Empire had been.

‘The griffin’s would be proud,’ Discord yawned. ‘Their mausoleum is the largest mountain in the world.’

‘Shut up you. You’re the one who got me into this mess in the first place!’

‘Oh no, you are not pinning this all on ME missy. After all, it was your desire for my powers that led to all of this in the first place!’

Luna was about to reply when her door suddenly disappeared in a massive explosion of wood splinters, smoke and fire. An extremely angry looking Celestia walking through the shattered remains of the door. Her usually peaceful and beautiful mane was now a raging inferno of solar activity, and her eyes were literally aflame with rage. Luna felt the surrounding air temperature ratchet up a few hundred degrees or so. In fact some of her more flammable possessions were beginning to smolder as Celestia advance on the now cowering princess of the night.

She lowered her head till it was face to face with Luna’s and spoke quietly, “You my dear sister, have misused your powers for the last time. I now see that it was a mistake to trust you after what happened a thousand years ago. As punishment you shall be stripped of all of your powers and banished to the sun for eternity.”

“I-I’m s-sorry sister, but Discord-”

“ENOUGH! I have made my decision and I shall carry it out for the good of the world. Goodbye...sister.” With those final words, Celestia’s horn began to glow with her magic, slowly a magical aura surrounded it and grew brighter and brighter, till it looked like a miniature sun had formed in the room.

Squinting her eyes in pain at the spells brilliance, Luna could feel her powers being slowly drained. If anyone wants to know how painful that is, just imagine that all of your bones were broken at once, now raise that by a factor of ten and you’d come close to the amount of pain that Luna was experiencing at that moment.

After what felt like hours, but was in fact less than half of an hour, the spell was complete. Laying on the floor panting from the pain, Luna looked up at her sister’s face, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t send her to the sun. No such luck, with one last flick of her horn, Celestia completed the banishment spell, and Luna disappeared from the land of Equestria. It was at that moment that Luna awoke from sleep.

“NOOOOOOoooooooooooo!” screamed Luna as she sat upright suddenly in her bed. Her coat was drenched in sweat, and she was breathing hard. What happened? Was that all just a dream?

‘Hehehehe, oh that was fun.’

‘Discord.’ she mentally growled. ‘Don’t you ever mess with my dreams again, or so help me I’ll...’

‘You’ll what? Throw me into prison? Banish me? Throw me into prison in the place you banished me too?’

There comes a point where even the patience of a goddess reaches its limit, and Luna, unlike Celestia, didn’t have all that much patience to spare. What she did have was a mean temper, and since she was princess of the night, that translated into her being in control of the dream world. Aka, the mind, unfortunately for Discord, while he could mess with her mind, and others, he had no where near the level of mastery over the dreamscape that Luna did.

So when he finally pushed her too far, she retaliated.

‘Hey! What are doing? Put me down! Foul I say foul!’

Said retaliation was to lock Discord away in his own nightmare for awhile and see how he liked it. His horrified screams were sweet music to her mental ears as she placed him in the one place that he feared above all others. The logical and reasoning part of her mind, where everything made sense and was orderly. In addition, she placed special wards upon him to keep him contained and harmless, at least for a little while, in there, while she set about figuring out how to fight the war.

Shaking her head to reorient herself with the real world, she finally heard the panicked pounding of hooves on her doors. Giving a heavy sigh she thought to herself, ‘Well at least I know what’s the first thing on my list of things to do today is.’

“Princess Luna! Princess Luna! You are requested by the War Ministry!”

Luna opened up the door to reveal a guard bearing the message. “So I have heard. What time of day is it?

“It is not even midday. But the Ministry calls for your presence.”

“Very well then. Please return to your duties. I will proceed with the meeting with the Ministry shortly.”

The guard left to go to his post, leaving Luna alone with her thoughts, and fortunately right now, only her thoughts. She searched her inner energy, and found chaos present among them. It would help with orchestrating the war.

Still, she worried about that chaos. Would she be able to keep it under control? Perhaps the Elements of Harmony should be brought to the castle just in case. It was a good plan, but since it wasn’t yet necessary, Luna would wait calling on them until later. For now, she had to meet the War Ministry.

As she walked out of the door, another memory had come up- what had happened to the moon? Luckily, Celestia was just walking by, presumably to check on Luna.

“Sister!” Luna called out.

Celestia turned at her name. “What is it Luna?”

“I would like to know... what had happened with the moon last night?”

Celestia appeared slightly downcast. “Well it went down past the horizon as normal. But.... before that, it started coming closer to the earth. It affected tides heavily, and it apparently affected the griffons the worse. The waters terrorized their ports, with damages at varying amounts. I’m sure the dropping of the moon was completely accidental, with all the stress put on you by recent events, but unfortunately, the griffons saw it as an act of aggression, and have now officially declared war.”

Luna was taken aback. Then she was surprised that her mind was quiet, as she just remembered that she had locked Discord away for an undetermined amount of time. She actually expected a retort from the draconequus, but he was currently... indisposed. Luna was finally able to react a little more naturally.

“Declare war? We are now officially at war?

“Yes. And that is why the officials have decided that now would be a good time to wake you up.”

“I see. I guess I should be making my way to the War Room now?”

Celestia nodded. “Well then, good night, Tia.”

“Good night to you, Lulu. I hope you do not have much trouble this night.”

“I’m sure it will go much more smoothly.” With that, Luna left to meet the Ministry.

She walked slowly, first thinking of Discord’s horrible dream. She apparently crushed the griffon’s country with the moon. It was absurd, though probably effective. Perhaps she should consider it an actual option for much later, obviously giving it much more thought rather than doing it on a whim like in her dream. For now, she had to get to the War Room. She quickened her pace.

As Luna briskly walked through the castle halls, she was already developing a strategy in her head, planning every intricate detail of the coming operations. Troop formations, logistics, recruitment, manufacturing, Spec Ops; everything was being carefully considered within the confines of the lunar princess’ mind. As well as military strategy, she was pondering the events of the night before.

‘Damn, this whole Discord thing was a bad idea. How could I be so foolish? How could I let him influence me like that? Because of that freak, I just escalated the situation to a full-blown war! I have to find some way to get this meddlesome thing out of my head! No, Luna, nevermind about that now. You have a war to fight. War first, Discord later.’

She was so busy with her mental gymnastics that she almost passed by the doors to the war room. As she entered the doors she was greeted with a salute from each of the four generals, which she promptly returned.

“At ease, generals.” Said Luna.

The generals immediately put their hooves back on the ground.

“I trust that you all have come up with strategies?”

“Of course, Luna.” said the first general, General Storm Thumper. “All of us have come up with different offensive plans to-”

“Why only offensive?”

“Well, ma’am,” continued Storm, “After you followed the ‘advice’ given to you by General Anchor Weight, “ At this point, Anchor could be seen lowering his head in embarrassment, “We lost the ability to simply build up defenses. The other generals and I may differ with our strategies, but one point we do agree on is that the griffins will try to attack before we are ready, and that we need to make the first move.”

“Is this true, everyone?” As Luna looked across the table, All four generals nodded in agreement.

“Well, I agree. Storm, Let’s hear yours first. I trust that, since you lead the Air Force, your plan will utilize them to their fullest?”

“That’s absolutely correct, princess. Here, just let me...” As he spoke, he cleared the table, and proceeded to place his own pieces on the map.

“Ah, much better. Now, let’s get down to business. I believe that the first order of business should be to establish air superiority. If we are able to take control of the skies, We would be in control of the griffin’s main theatre of war. They would be at a significant disadvantage with their favourite arena denied to them. From there, ground forces could easily assault defensive positions, while the Navy could shell strategic points. The griffins would be overwhelmed, and would easily surrender. The war would be over in a matter of months.”

“Interesting, General.” Said Luna. “How about you, Anchor? Let’s see what you’ve come up with.”

“Very well, ma’am.” Anchor Weight cleared the board of Storm’s pieces, and began laying down his own. “As the leader of Her Majesty’s Navy, I know a good opportunity for sea warfare when I see one. Personally, I say we should exploit their weakened naval capabilities. Their ships were damaged due to your lowering of the moon, and my ships can easily kick somepony when they're down. Their ships would never last against ours in the condition they’re in. Once the ships are down, the port towns would be next. Short range shelling could decimate the port towns in a heartbeat. As for ground troops, I have more than a few transport vessels that could land ground troops and cannons on their beaches. From there, the invasion would proceed however Stonewall and Spear Edge want it to.”

“And I assume you would be providing support with your ship cannons, Anchor?”

“All the way to the Griffin Emperor’s front gates, ma’am!” Luna could tell he was enthusiastic about the prospect of battle.

“Excellent, General Anchor. Next, please.” Luna’s stress was eased just a little bit by the ideas coming from the generals.

“I believe that would be me, madam.” Stonewall quickly removed Anchor’s arrangement and put down his own.

“Personally, madam, I feel that a full assault is in order. My earth ponies are more then capable of simply pushing the enemy back to their capital. With support from the other divisions, we would be able to form a wall of troops that would keep pushing. No retreats, no excuses, no mercy. In a matter of months, we could go from the border to the castle.”

“Not bad, Stonewall, but I’m still not sure about a full on offensive.” Luna did not want to lose any more lives than was absolutely necessary. “And finally, we come to Spear Edge.”

“Yes, we do, princess. Now to show off my contribution. “ Interestingly enough, Spear, instead of moving to clear the pieces, grabbed some papers from out of the saddlebag that was at his hooves.

“Now, I didn’t come up with a strategy, per se,” Said Spear, “But I came up with something that will help with all the previously mentioned plans. As you all know, the Unicorn Division handles both artillery as well as R&D. Well, we’ve come up with something that will increase our effectiveness 10 fold.”

Spear pushed the papers over to Luna and the other generals and remained silent, allowing the others to drink in the majesty of his plan.

“Um, Spear?” said Anchor, “What exactly am I looking at here? All I’m seeing is a bunch of technical drawings.”

“My boys down in R&D have developed a new type of cannon that can increase the power of a spell by 10 times. It harnesses the power of the sun in order to amplify the power of a unicorn’s magic. With this, we can go from providing close range support to raining fire down on towns miles away. I call it ‘The Magic Amplification Cannon,’ but you can just call it a MAC.”

“Very promising, Spear Edge,” said Luna, “but how long until it can be used in combat?”

“Actually,” responded Spear, “we’ve already built some test models. With some field testing, these babies could be in production within a few days, if everything goes well.”

“And what better field test than an actual war, right Spear?”

“Pretty much, princess. And, Anchor, If we’re lucky, we could have some of these mounted onto some of your ships in due time.”

“Oh, I like the sound of that,” exclaimed Anchor, visibly excited by the prospect of having a cannon as powerful as the MAC mounted on the deck of one his vessels.

“Well, Gentlemen, “ declared Luna, “I certainly have a lot to think about, don’t I?”

“With all due respect, princess,” replied Stonewall, “We will need a decision as soon as possible in order to mobilize our forces in a rapid fashion. Now would be preferable.”

Luna pondered over the different strategies in her mind. ‘What do I do? Each one has its merits. Storm Thumper’s strategy limits the fighting ability of the griffons, Anchor Weight’s strategy takes advantage of the weakened navy, and Stonewall’s strategy is so simple yet deadly in its implementation. Well, at least I know which one Discord would pick. Oh, what to do, what to do... Hmmm... Aha! I’ve got it!’

“Gentlemen, I have made my decision.” Luna announced smugly.

They all blinked simultaneously in confused unison, before Spear spoke up, “Er, and what would that be, then, your majesty?”

‘Genocide’ a familiar voice whispered in the back of her head.

“Genocide!” she announced triumphantly.

The generals all recoiled in horror, “W-what did you say, your majesty!?”

Luna blinked; what did she say? Genocide? Genocide! Oh buck, genocide!

She cleared her throat, “Er, psyche! Aerial superiority!”

The generals all chuckled nervously as they wiped the sweat from their brows, before Anchor spoke up, “You weren’t really thinking about that, your majesty, were you?”

‘Yes, I was and still am!’ Discord whispered mischievously.

“Yes, I was and still am!” she exclaimed before she put a hoof over her mouth. “Just kidding! I wasn’t really!”

After a few awkward moments of silence, she started to slowly back away from the table to the door. “Right then, Gents, I’ll be off! Continue on with your...duties and, er, I’ll see you this time tomorrow! Bye!”

She burst through the doors and ran down the hallway screaming, “Tia! Tia! Where are you!?”

Anchor shouted after her, “Wait! Your majesty! We still haven’t formulated the military’s budget yet!”

Spear facehoofed. “I’m loyal to my princesses, but I’m more than a little scared about Luna...”

They all silently nodded in agreement.

Luna nearly tore the doors off of their hinges as she galloped into her sister’s room, “Tia! Are you there!?”

Sitting at her desk, Celestia looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Er, yes? What’s wrong, Lulu?”

Princess Luna was shaking. “Tia! Look, you have to take me out of office for a while,I’m not fit for duty!”

Celestia blinked, before hugging her sister tightly and looking deeply into her eyes. “Lulu, calm down, deep breaths. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

Luna wept into her sister's iridescent mane. The situation was far beyond what hugs could remedy. "Celestia... the moon... surely you must know..." With Discord's influence hindering every word, getting out even a nondescript sentence fragment was an accomplishment.

'You will tell her NOTHING!' His voice drowned out Luna's own thoughts with a mental shout. 'Not now! Celestia mustn't know of our arrangements yet!'

‘Yet? You mean that you have a plan?' Luna asked. ‘You're not even living up to your name anymore, Discord.’

'Oh, no, I'm just making this all up as I go along. It's more fun that way!'

'Yes, it must be fun to have a moon dropped at you. I wonder how they feel about that.'

'That's... er, that's not the point. Though it is pretty amusing. And tell her what you want, as long as you don't mention ME. I'd like to see her reaction when she figures it out on her own. It'll be priceless!'

Luna was snapped out of her internal debate by her sister's voice. "Um... Luna, you've just been standing there. Do you have anything else to say?"

"If I've made some questionable decisions lately, it's because I'm, well, not exactly in complete control of our- I mean, MY mind right now." Luna thought that was enough of a description to put Celestia on the right track. "You know me well enough to know I wouldn't do what I just did. Removing me from power, at least temporarily, is what a good sister, and a good ruler, would do."

Celestia paused briefly in thought. "There's no precedent for removing one of us. A thousand years ago, the two of us were the entire government. But now, just to give one example, somepony would have to take your place in the War Room. I wouldn't trust any of the four generals to be in charge of the other three, and there are so many other committees that you have to be on... the budget, the school for gifted unicorns, that secret project that I forgot to tell you about yet, and-"

Luna raised a hoof. "The war is the only pressing issue at the moment. Surely you must have somepony in mind." With a supreme effort, breaking Discord's defenses against her saying more, she hastily added, "And have somepony examine the statues in the garden."

The sun princess looked back at her in confusion, then smiled. "Yes, I have the best pony for the job."

Luna stared into the icy wasteland that was beyond Stalliongrad that Celestia had taken them. A small building could be seen out in the middle of the wasteland with a flag that was waving in the air. Supposedly there was somepony here that was just suited for the job.

Celestia looked at her sister and saw the doubt in her face. “He was once one of the greatest military leaders we had in a very long time but over time he was moved out here since the other generals thought he had gone mad.”

‘This pony sounds fun!’ Discord exclaimed

‘We need somepony that can think properly, not just anypony who has gone insane.’ Luna retorted as the princesses neared the building.

A unicorn stood outside the building with a heavy cloak. His cloak was as white as the snow around him and he wore a strange mask on his face. Two blue mirrors rose to greet the two princesses.

"I’m guessing your not here to transfer me out of this post?" He said in a tired voice.

The sun princess paused at this statement. ”No... We are here to talk with your superior.”

“He’s inside, I swear that this will be the death of me.” He replied barely muttering the last part.

Celestia turned to Luna and looked at her with a serious look. “Before we head in there are a few things you need to know. First off he has basically been at war with something his entire life. That is why he rose up the ranks so quickly during the Germaney uprising, that happened before you returned. Next is that he is not really here with us, his mind sees and thinks through things differently. Lastly is Do. Not. Touch. His. Mug. He is very protective of it.”

They opened the door to find a sparsely furnished room that looked to have been abandoned long ago. A unicorn and a pegasus could be seen inside wearing similar cloaks as the one outside. In the middle of the room was another Unicorn wearing a black jacket, a strange red scarf, an old military hat with a star on it, and a mask that looked similar to the ones the other ponies wore. He sat behind a desk that looked to have been torn to shreds with a steaming mug with a red heart on it and a piece of folded up paper with a crudely written name on it, Direktor Captein.

“Welcome, what can zee captain do for you today?” The unicorn said before taking a sip from his mug. Next Chapter: Great, More Crazy Ponies... Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes