The Equestrian X-Com Project

by Sir_Puma

Prologue part 3: The Birth of the Equestrian X-Com Project

The Equestrian X-com Project
Prologue part 3: The Birth of the Equestrian X-Com Project

--------------------------3 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

"Sending her in now Spitfire" the intercom said on Spitfire's desk.

Spitfire stood on her hind legs gazing out the window at her wonderbolt academy. Spitfire's office seemed to remind her of that peaceful time before the aliens came. She had spent those days evaluating and training pegasuses to fly with the Wonderbolts. Now all she did in here was decide which of her trainees would go to fight on the front lines in the FLD. Spitfire moved over to her desk and sat down. "This is going to be hard" she sighed to herself setting down a medical report on the desk.

The door opened and a black pegasus mare trotted inside the head Wonderbolt's office. The mare had a long pitch black mane with a yellow streak running down the middle, she pushed it out of her black furred face before she spoke. "Midnight Strike, reporting for duty" the black pegasus announced sternly saluting.

"At ease Midnight, please come in and take a seat" Spitfire answered pointing a hoof at the other seat in her office. Midnight Strike moved the chair closer to the wooden desk and sat down. "How are you today? How is the wing treating you?" Spitfire asked politely.

"I've mostly been taking it easy today, my wing is still acting up" Midnight answered looking at her heavily bandaged left wing.

"Now Midnight; I know how motivated and keen you have been towards the Wonderbolt training, your skills are not to be doubted... But... W-well... Theres no way to say this nicely, you see I have this new order from Shining Armor" the Wonderbolt captain explained as she pulled out a small piece of paper and set it down in front of Midnight Strike. "The order basically tells me that the FLD casualties list is much higher than the recruit list, in a manner of time the FLD will die out without proper reinforcements. This is why Shining Armor wants me to send more of my recruits to the front lines. But I am not going to send untrained Wonderbolts... Or Wonderbolts unable to fight" she looked up into Midnight's brown eyes. "You see; the academy needs to send a lot more trained recruits to the FLD, and to house more recruits we need to get rid of the recruits that we cannot send to the FLD."

Midnight Strike became agitated as she began to figure out what Spitfire was saying. "Well yeah but... As soon as my wing heals up I'll be ready to fight, you know me I coul-"

"Please; I've made my decision" Spitfire interrupted. "I know your skills; you're one of the finest flyers we have... But... Again... You're unfit for battle."

The black mare stood up from her chair and voiced her argument, "I could still fight! I could fight without wings!"

"Midnight! I'm not sending you off to die! And you will die without your wings!" Spitfire stood up silencing the black pegasus. The two pegasi stood facing each other for a few seconds, Midnight's passion was unwavering but so was Spitfire's concerns, she had seen the aliens in battle, she knew what would happen to this flightless pegasus. Spitfire eventually sat down and continued speaking. "I will give you a recommendation for other armed forces, but until you recover; I can't offer you a position in the FLD."

Midnight strike hid her expression under her pitch black mane. "I... I'm not going to fully recover, according to the doctors" she croaked as a single tear ran down her cheek.

"I am truly sorry Midnight... Maybe in another situation we could house and rehabilitate your wing... But; we have to do these things. We have to make these tough decisions or the aliens will destroy all of Equestria... I will give you a week to move your things out... You will always have my respect as one of the finest ponies I have met" Spitfire said holding out her hoof.

Midnight sadly pulled off her golden 'lead pony' badge and hoofed it to Spitfire. She tried to say some form of thank you, because she was grateful for all the academy had done for her, but her mouth dried up with emotion making her let out a high pitched 'meep,' Midnight Strike hastily left the office with her mane covering her face.

--------------------------5 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

The alien forces and the FLD were still locked in combat, for 5 long months they had been fighting all over Equestria, and both sides had taken quite a few casualties. The commander of the FLD known as Shining Armor started to feel he had won, he had noticed a steady decline in alien numbers as time had been passing. The FLD had stopped defending cities from complete sieges and had only been fighting small detachments of lightly armed aliens trying to sneak past their defensive lines.

With great difficulty Shining Armor concludes that the FLD cannot be everywhere at once and so with Celestia's help he signed a national-wide bill allowing towns to form militia squads and purchase equipment from FLD centers. The thought of sending civilians into combat was scary for Shining Armor, but he had to be honest with himself. 'There would be more deaths if the small townships couldn't defend themselves' is what he wrote in a letter to his sister Princess Twilight Sparkle justifying his actions.

With new militia groups taking up arms to defend their settlements, local hospitals and clinic filled up rapidly. A majority of the injuries the hospitals had to treat were burns from the alien ammunition. The burns were later defined as plasma burns by reputable scientists. Another health issue arising among ponies was 'post traumatic insanity' also known as PTI, the introduction of the violence the aliens brought was to much for the brains of some ponies accustomed to the peaceful life Equestria had offered. The condition was hard to treat, it would take weeks of psychiatric treatment and even then the insanity could lay dormant inside a pony mind, just waiting for another traumatic experience to wake it back up.

--------------------------7 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

The newest princess of Equestria Twilight Sparkle walked the streets of Canterlot. She combed her purple and pink streaked mane out of her face with her hoof so she could look up at the sun high up in the sky, she was still puzzled about how the sun was moving by itself. The suns's light reflected off the 'Crown of Magic' Twilight had placed on her head. She had been wearing it a lot lately, even though it didn't work as a weapon anymore Twilight still used it to remind everypony of the magic that is friendship. She inspected the sun long and hard until her eyes hurt, but she just couldn't think of why the sun was moving by itself now. Twilight's saddlebags were filled with all of her research, along with her baby dragon assistant 'Spike' who balanced a large stack on folders and papers towering above his own head. The two of them had been preparing months of research on how to gain control of the weather and magic, she had uncovered a few nuggets of important information but had failed to find any decisive reason why the unicorns couldn't use any magic. Celestia had summoned her to Canterlot along with the other leaders of Equestria for an emergency meeting.

"So why are we taking all of the research Twilight? Most of it was futile and a giant waste of time anyway" Spike whined balancing the large stack of papers.

"Spike this is our task, and no pony else's. If we can gain control of the weather or get our magic back, Shining Armor and the FLD can use it and push the invaders off our planet. Spike; Equestria hangs in our hooves!" Twilight answered highly dedicated.

Spike paused for a second taking in Twilight's response. "But why are we taking ALL of the research?" Spike whined again.

Twilight was silent as she looked at the palace. "Well; I also wanted to show Celestia that we are taking our task seriously. We haven't had much success but if we show Celestia we are trying she will defiantly give us some more funding."

"Funding?" Spike asked confused.

Twilight faced Spike with a stern look on her face, "those experiments weren't free... And they weren't cheap either... We must show Celestia we can earn her funding and put it to good use."

-----

Twilight and Spike had entered the Canterlot palace and moved upstairs to the meeting room. "Well Twilight; deep breath; back straight; lets go earn this funding" Spike said trying to pump Twilight up as she opened the door.

Twilight's eyes were drawn to Celestia and Luna supporting Cadence in the corner of the grand meeting room, whom was in a very emotionally broken state. Twilight's eyes widened as she began to put the pieces together. "W-What happened?" Twilight asked nervously.

-----

Twilight heard the story from Celestia, the darkest story she had ever heard.

Shining Armor was dead, along the FLD. The aliens had destroyed the Crystal Empire's finest and all of the Wonderbolts enlisted in the FLD ranks. And finally; they had killed the one unicorn who stood defiant against the alien invasion.

According to the reports Celestia had received the aliens attacked the FLD main operations center in the Fillydelphia plains. They attacked with a new type of weapon, a weapon so powerful it had punched through all the FLD defenses and destroyed the main operations center in a few minutes. The report was from a lone pegasus who witnessed the attack. She was in a bad way when they found her, she was shell shocked and repeating the word 'Etherials' over and over. When she eventually calmed down she was interrogated for her eye witness account, her responses were sketchy and vague, apparently her mind had blocked out the horrors she had seen like some sort of defense mechanism.

But the message was clear, the aliens had defeated the best hope Equestria had.

-----

After a long silence that seemed like days to Twilight Sparkle, Celestia tried to comfort Twilight and Cadence. "He sacrificed himself defending the entire planet, he gave his life to buy everypony more time. No pony in history has done something like this, not even Luna and myself. He will always be a hero to all ponykind" Celestia's voice sounded hollow but comforting.

Luna seemed unaffected, "the time for mourning shall come. Now the time is for action, we shall not fail Equestria!" Luna boomed.

Celestia shot a glare at her sister Princess Luna. "Sister; please give us a little more time."

"We have no time to give. If we fail to act now and uncover a new way to preserve Equestria, Shining Armor will have perished for naught!"

"Have you no heart you monster!?" Cadence looked up at Luna, her face soaked in tears and her voice broken with sadness. Celestia tried to calm the heartbroken alicorn while Twilight Sparkle remained distant, staring at the floor lost in thought. Her violet eyes stung slightly and her throat felt choked as she thought about her brother's fate. She wanted to cry, but she needed to be strong, besides Cadence was doing the crying for all of them.

"We are accustomed to being referred to by that title. Nevertheless we stand by our cause, Equestria has little time remaining and it shall not spend it mourning!" Luna bellowed unwavering of her decision, she also dropped a large dark blue briefcase on the meeting room table.

"Its easy for you to say 'just forget it!' You had never let anypony that close to you! You don't know the feeling of them dying!" Cadence got to her hooves still quite shaky. Twilight also looked up at Luna with disgust.

Luna's eyes filled with rage over Cadence's comment. She had lived for thousands of years and she had felt more ponies die than any mortal could ever dream of, but for the sake of her friendship she couldn't argue with Cadence. Instead she looked over to the youngest princess. "Twilight Sparkle; thou must understand all of Equestria looks to us to lead them. We cannot allow our personal emotions to guide our actions. I had made that mistake in the past, and thou was the one who freed me from Nightmare Moon." Luna turned to the table indicating Twilight to come over. "Please Princess Twilight; we have need of your assistance."

Twilight Sparkle remained silent, slowly got to her hooves and wiped away her tears. Cadence began to understand Luna's point of view but couldn't bring her broken self together. Celestia remained with Cadence and listened in on Luna's discussion. "Do you have an idea in mind Princess Luna?" Twilight asked approaching the large oak meeting table. Twilight felt like an anchor had been attached to her heart, but deep down she knew there was a much more pressing issue. The thought of being a princess was still very daunting to Twilight, if she ever was going to rule this land she would need to listen to the advice of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

Luna opened the case with her mouth, the case had the Luna Republic symbol printed on the outside of it. "Our proposal may seem simple but we believe that we have improved on the FLD outlines. We assemble a elite combat team, equipped with the best weapons and armor Equestria has to offer. But instead of just defending the planet we also employ a full research team to study and learn from the aliens" Luna explained reading from blueprints.

"Learn from those monsters?!" Cadence looked up at Luna.

"The outsiders have brought many foreign objects to Equestria, if we could understand how they work, we can use it against them. We support the research team with an engineer team to develop new weapons and armor to battle the aliens. We could work on new ways to deploy teams to the far outskirts of Equestria in rapid time to meet the aliens where ever they attack. We take to the skies and meet the alien ships before they-" Luna stopped seeing Celestia holding up her hoof.

"Luna how do you propose Equestria will pay for this? The Canterlot treasury is almost empty from the FLD funding" Celestia inquired.

"We ask every city to put their hooves in for this program, they must give us their trust. If we announce this project integrates defense, research and production, cities will be more likely to take this project seriously" Luna pulled out a map of Equestria. "If every city puts their hooves in for this project we should have enough funding to power this project."

Twilight tried to move the conversation away from the financial issue, as she had blown quite a bit of funding into unsuccessful research projects. "What do you plan to call this project? What is the name that will draw everypony to unite under it?" Twilight asked.

"The project will not just fight the extraterrestrials in mindless skirmishes, we will combat the entire threat to destroy every advantage the aliens have; and destroy every last one of those cretins who dare stand up against us! Henceforth it shall be called the X-Com project" Luna said pulling out a page of her blueprints with the Equestrian X-Com logo, it bared a similar design to her Luna Republic symbol, but with the glowing blue writing 'The Equestrian X-Com Project' written proudly upon the insignia.

"Umm, Princess Luna?" Spike raised his hand. The Princesses turned in surprise as they had forgotten Spike was there.

"Yes Spike?" Luna asked

"Where will you base this operation? Where is the most suitable spot to defend all the way from the Crystal Empire to the Badlands and beyond?" Spike asked. Twilight, Cadence and Celestia were surprised that Spike raised a very important issue.

Luna took a deep breath looking at the map. "It needs to be located near the center of Equestria to shorten travel times. That said it can't be located in Canterlot because it is to larger target for the aliens. We have also decided it should be located underground to avoid the same destruction that the FLD Main Operations Center suffered. The base must also be in the an open area for a speedy construction. Finally the construction site needs to be hidden from alien ships incase of an attack, so trees and cliffs will prove useful."

"Where in all of Equestria can we find a place that matches all that criteria?" Twilight looked at the map, along with Spike, Celestia and Cadence who had a little glint of hope returned to her eyes.

"Simple; right there" Luna said putting her hoof on the area marked as 'Sweet Apple Acres.'

--------------------------7 and a half months after the First Encounter--------------------------

Princess Luna officially disbanded the Luna Republic and handed all control over Equestria to Princess Celestia. Princess Luna would take over management of the X-Com project while Celestia would deal with other global situations.

Other Equestrian cities agreed to fund the X-Com project. The project was met with initial doubt relating to the destruction of the FLD, but was finally agreed upon. After all the X-Com project was the last hope for the Equestrian population.

--------------------------8 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

"Twi listen; ah know its for the good of Equestria an' all that, but all that construction is mighty loud, an' Granny Smith can't get ta sleep at night" the orange coated pony wearing a cowboy hat said standing next to Twilight looking over the construction site.

"I'm so sorry Applejack, but we need to finish the X-Com base before the aliens find it. If they attack now they could walk right in and destroy this project before it even starts" Twilight answered as she blocked out the dark thoughts of the aliens swirling in her mind.

"Ah wouldn't worry 'bout the aliens attacking here sugar cube. You haven't seen the Ponyville militia in action yet, they've been defending Ponyville for awhile now an' their doing a bang up job to of it too" Applejack smiled at the thought of the militia.

"How many members does the militia have?" Twilight asked looking over at Applejack.

"Three."

"THREE MEMBERS!? how in Celestia's mane could they defend all of Ponyville!?" Twilight rubbed her head in disbelief.

"Well four sometimes. They have fought off 6 alien attacks so far. Sure they were small attacks but the militia fought em off with no problems."

"Who? Who are these four ponies?"

"All of them were Ex-Wonderbolts, they took up defending the town after the academy was attacked. That stallion Thunderlane leads them, Milky Way an' Midnight Strike back him up, an' Rainbow helps up when she isn't in Cloudsdale."

--------------------------9 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

Over the last month the X-Com project sent out volunteer applications to all the major cities of Equestria. The applicants had to attend an X-Com training and evaluating session set up by Princess Luna. Should X-Com be the savior Luna had made it out to be, the soldiers had to have remarkable combat skills, but with most of Equestria's skilled military ponies being involved in the FLD when it as destroyed, there was not many left who would take up a rifle, and even fewer who could pass the harsh tests set up by the princess of the night. A week later Luna and Twilight met at the Ponyville library to discuss the results.

"These are all the ponies that succeeded in the training?!" Luna put her head into her hooves, "We can't show this to Celestia, she would abandon the project indefinably."

"Maybe you set the bar to high Princess" Twilight paced about the Ponyville library.

"No; we only want the best of the best involved in this project, we will not be sending our citizens to their doom" Luna looked at the list again. Raising her eyebrows, "only one Unicorn? Is there any reason for that?"

Twilight looked at the file, "yes; most of the unicorns are having difficulty functioning without their magic, but she handled herself well in training."

"What about all these ex-Wonderbolt applicants? Why are there so many?" Luna asked counting them.

"That no real mystery princess. The pegasi involved in the Wonderbolt academy would naturally have the best chance in the X-Com training."

"What about this pegasus? Did she really score that high? She wasn't involved with the Wonderbolts how could she perform so well?... Wait, isn't she the one with the... err" Luna waved her hoof in front of her eyes.

"Believe me, i was just as surprised as you are about her. We may not have the numbers, but I can say everyone on that list is the best of the best."

Luna dropped the list on the table and cradled her head in her hooves, "9 ponies... 9 ponies to defend all of Equestria... Celestia help us..."

--------------------------10 months after the First Encounter--------------------------

"LUNA! are you here?!" Twilight galloped about the half finished underground X-Com base. She dodged exposed cables and construction equipment as she ran down the underground corridors. She found herself at the room planned to be Luna's office and saw Luna looking through paperwork.

"Princess Twilight? What has thou so wound up?" Luna asked noticing Twilight puffing.

"Princess the new radar we installed picked up a small UFO planning to rush the unfinished X-Com base! We need to rally a defense now!" Twilight paced in panic.

Luna arose quickly grabbing her desk phone, "whom is nearby?!"

"Ummmm... The militia! those three are in the X-Com solider lists... and that high scoring pegasus! Shes in Ponyville, she'll step up to our defense with no problem!"

Luna slid her mobile phone over to Twilight, "summon her here and get her armed, I'll shall call the militia!"

-----

And so the gears of fate were put in motion, the battle for Equestria had started. Could friendship and harmony triumph over death and destruction?

This is the story of those ponies who stood up against the aliens, this is the story of the ponies who gave up everything they had to defend Equestria.

This is the story of the Equestrian X-Com Project.