Cataclysm

by Mythic Void

Chapter 1 - Shattered Realities

The Cataclysm

Shattered Reality

Unknown Location
Unknown Time, Unknown Date

Sweet Celestia that hurt… I let out a loud groan into the rough stone tile beneath me and opened my violet eyes, the light immediately causing the painful throbbing in my head to come back full force and prompting me to slam my lavender-furred eyelids shut again.

Okay, not going anywhere for a little bit, time for some damage control. First off, what in Equestria happened? What do I remember…

---

Friendship Castle, Ponyville
Sunset, April 29, 1059 PE

“Spike! Spiiiike!” I yelled throughout the crystalline castle’s halls. The call echoing for several seconds. It wasn’t long before I heard the familiar clicking of claws making its way towards me and I simply waited in one of the many libraries found throughout my increasingly homely abode.

A purple-scaled face poked around the door, green reptilian eyes scanning the interior of the room briefly before falling upon me and bringing a smile to my number one assistant’s snout, “Hey Twilight, what’s up?”

I sighed in relief before getting straight to the point, no sense in beating around the bush really, “I can’t find ‘The Complete Expository of Known Elements’, I’ve looked through every place it could possibly be with no success. Do you know where it is?”

I’ll admit, I was quite frantic at the time, usually all my books are well-organized and it was a pretty big thing to find a book out of place. What’s more is that I desperately needed the book for something I think could’ve been a very big discovery.

“Oh! I think you took it up to the balcony while you were experimenting with the air or something weren’t you? Something about trying to figure ou-” I interrupted him shortly after ‘balcony’ focusing my attention on a quick teleport spell. I chided myself briefly for forgetting about my prior escapades, but right at that moment I was much more focused on the sweet sweet research.

With a familiar pop and flash, I soon felt the high-altitude winds brushing against my fur and the cool heat of Celestia’s setting sun. I didn’t pay the sensations much heed however as I quickly cantered over to a nearby stack of precious literature, levitating a decently sized book from it to me as I teleported it and myself back to the library.

Spike seemed slightly irritated by my brief trip, “You know, you could’ve told me you were going to do that. Being left alone like that isn’t exactly good manners.”

I winced slightly, swiftly moving up to him and bringing a hoof down on his shoulders, “I’m sorry Spike, it’s just that there’s this strange anomaly that’s suddenly popped up in space and I’m trying to find out how and why it’s there.”

I could tell his own curiosity was piqued, something I liked to think I gave him in my time spent raising him, “What’s an Ana Mally?”

I winced, mostly at his grammatical butchering of the Equish language, partly because I hadn’t managed to teach him that particular word yet, “Anomaly,” I corrected gently, “It’s basically an unusual event.”

His eyes lit up in comprehension, “Ooooh, so pretty much Discord?”

I couldn’t help but giggle at that, “Yes, Spike, like Discord.” The infamous draconequus was always up to something weird, it’s not hard to imagine him as a literal source of anomalies.

Spike smiled, and was likely about to make another wit-filled comment before his expression turned into one of discomfort. His cheeks puffing up slightly and a fist lifting up to cover his mouth before he let out an uproarious belch.

To anypony else, this might have seemed somewhat rude or ill-mannered. We had an entire discussion and experiment over how it would be perceived by other ponies in fact, but I knew better as I followed the magically-laced smoke that trailed out of his snout and swirled briefly in the air.

A mere second later a scroll was caught within my magical grasp and I unlatched the wax seal, bringing the unrolled letter in front of me as Spike recovered from his expulsion.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

It is with great urgency that I request your presence in Canterlot Palace. There is a matter which my sister tells me your varied expertise will help with, and I am inclined to agree. You must venture here post-haste, and bring anything you deem necessary concerning astrology or strange occurrences.

Most Sincerely,

Princess Luna, Co-Ruler of Equestria

Spike didn’t wait long before determining that I must have finished reading, “So what’s it say? Twilight?”

I’d like to briefly interject that most ponies would probably find this a little worrying, I sure did, but I believe Spike described my version as ‘freaking out’.

Okay, no problem, it’s just”Princess Luna asking for my presence in Canterlot for what I can only assume to be the anomaly I found! Totally not a cause for concern, oh noooo, everything will be just fine when she finds out that I failed to notify her the moment I caught wind of something that’s clearly a matter of great importance!” I barely registered my own pacing, my mind was so wrapped up in potential consequences for this. I mean, it was, “Princess Luna! Her methods are still excessively archaic, and add that to her learning more and more about modern culture… there’s just no way of predicting what would happen if I told her I knew about the anomaly, but then I can’t just lie to her because that would be wrong and far too difficult to hide without forcing myself to come unprepared! Gaahh!”

My ranting was interrupted when Spike breathed a light amount of dragonfire on my hoof, causing just enough pain to be noticed, but thankfully not enough to leave a mark. Still, “Spike! Don’t do that! You could seriously injure somepony with dragonfire!”

“Sorry, but somepony had to get you out of that. You’re working yourself up far too much over something that’s probably totally fine! Now c’mon, let’s go grab our things, she did say it was urgent after all.” He replied, putting down the scroll he was reading during my verbal prodding before walking through the various shelves and grabbing anything that fell under ‘astrology’ or ‘anomalies’. He mostly got the former, I had already taken most of the latter to the other balcony. The one I used for stargazing, not the one I used to examine sunlight, or even the one used to survey the Ponyville population for behavior that would differ from normal towns or cities.

I had a lot of balconies.

But I digress, I teleported up to the balcony I had my telescope set up on. A stack of books placed beside it much like the previous balcony, this stack however was much smaller due to just how few records there are of unusual space-based occurrences. A true tragedy if I ever saw one.

I lifted the entire stack in my magenta aura and was just about to bring them back with me before something in the now blackened night skies caught my eyes.

It wasn’t particularly large, it was just about as large as any old star really. But what really caught my eye was that it seemed to be growing larger, and was ultimately blue in comparison to the characteristic white of most stars.

Thus I determined that it was not a star. And that it was most definitely what Luna needed me for.

With this in mind, I teleported down to the library once more, adding a confused Spike to my back and several more books to my magical grasp before flying down the halls towards the entrance.

Luckily Spike was able to recognize when he needed to grab onto my neck and hold on. And it was less than a minute before he asked me the fated question, “Twilight, what’s wrong? Is something happening?”

I rounded a corner, the books trailing behind me in the very same pattern as I responded, “I’ll explain when we get to Canterlot, but we need to get there really quick because whatever Luna wanted us for is happening right now!”

I could feel his grip tighten in worry, luckily he was grasping my fur instead of my skin or else I would have a very different situation on hoof, “You aren’t going to be able to fly all the way to Canterlot, Twilight! It’s too far away!”

“I don’t need to fly all the way there, I just need to get close enough for a teleport!” I turned once more and saw the large double doors at the end of the hall marking the castle’s entrance. I concentrated briefly on pushing them open while still holding the books in my grasp as I flew up and out of the castle.

I turned briefly to my left and angled myself towards the distant spiraling towers that marked the nation’s capital before trying to get my thoughts in order. It was a long flight even with the added shortcut, so I thought I would have the time to think for a bit.

It was at this point however, that a prismatic and cyan blur swung in next to me, “Twilight! What the hay is going on? There’s this big blue crack in the sky and everypony is freaking out over it! I was just about to get you when I saw you flying to Canterlot like it was the end of the world!” She paused a moment in thought before adding nervously, “It isn’t the end of the world is it?”

Where in Equestria did she come up with that? Well… I guess it’s not too far fetched… still, can’t let her be thinking that, “What? No! Rainbow, I’m going to help the princesses deal with this, but I need you to get everypony indoors and to keep an eye on that thing for any signs of danger. The world isn’t going to end just because of some spatial anomaly, but be prepared for anything.”

I wasn’t a great liar, but the current situation didn’t really leave much room for Rainbow to catch onto my own doubts. With a quick nod, the pegasus turned around and flew back to Ponyville, leaving me to go over how I was going to get to Canterlot in the shortest time possible.

I think I’m close enough for a teleport… if I wanted to pass out from exhaustion. Though I haven’t really tested my limits with such distances ever since the Tirek incident… “Ooooh, this is going to hurt. Hang on, Spike!” I pushed a not inconsiderable amount of magic into my horn, placing all my concentration on getting the spell’s distance and safeguard glyphs in place and setting them accordingly. I could already tell by the way some of them were straining that I’d need a different design if I wanted to make a more efficient long range teleport, but naturally, I had no time. This all took place in the span about a half-minute, but just as I was about to release the spell, a large blue shield erected itself around Canterlot, effectively blocking any magic from penetrating it.

I would’ve stopped myself a mere second before hoof, but sadly I didn’t have the luxurious second to correct myself and before I knew it a sharp pain spiked its way into my forehead. I could just barely make out a large, plasma blue wall passing through me before everything went black.

---

Oh, you have got to be bucking kidding me! “A rogue teleport?! How the buck am I still alive? I mean, sure, I’m freaking ecstatic that I survived, but just… ugh. That was the second most foalish thing I’ve ever done! Right up there with a magic surge in the middle of an exam...” I trailed off, I kinda had to after noticing that I was now pacing away my frustrations in the Castle of the Two Sisters.

I took a moment to glance around, everything from the grey walls to the various multi-colored tapestries seemed… muted, as if a sage-colored shroud covered the entire place. It lended a rather disturbing sense of foreboding and I could feel my body trying to shrink itself as I snuck my way to the entrance, it was only luck that the teleport landed me right in the entrance hall and not somewhere deeper in the decrepit castle’s depths. If the latter had occurred, I no doubt would've spent hours trying to find my way out of the labyrinthine halls.

As I stepped out of the castle, I soon saw what was the likely culprit for such an odd tint covering the Everfree Forest. There was a large, dark green shield covering up the sky, giving off a sense of immediate wrongness which was only further pressed by the thorned vines climbing up it and dark magic radiating out of it. I fell on my haunches and simply stared out at the strange magical occurrence, subconsciously poking and prodding it with my own magic to try and make sense of the strangely natural but unnatural occurrence.

I was broken out of my daze soon enough by the feeling of something far different laced within the shield, a magic foreign and yet all too homely in this forest that was strengthening the barrier and keeping it held together. It almost looked as if, without it, the Everfree would’ve failed to form the shield spell at all.

And apparently, the harmonious magic felt me too.

”Bearer of Magic, hear our words for we have need of yo- AHHHHHHH.” What I could only guess was the Tree of Harmony was actually screaming in agony, in my mind.

I was terrified to say the least. I mean, how often does a sentient artifact, that has existed for over a millennium, and has the power to encase someone like Discord in stone, scream? Whatever that thing was out in space, it must have been a bigger worry than I first realized.

In the time it took me to register what had just happened, the Tree spoke to me once more, with a far more exhausted tone, “Our apologies Bearer, Equus has been dealt a most severe toll that not even our considerable power can fix and we only just managed to protect this forest before the destruction was wrought. We were even so desperate as to reach out to the dark magic within these lands to ensure at least it survived, however vile.”

“Are you… alright? Is there any way I can help? What happened to Equus?” I found myself asking, I wasn’t entirely sure if they were able to hear me too, but I needed answers after that spill of disturbing information.

“We do not believe you can help us on your own, you will have to bring the other Bearers for us to be fully repaired. However, that is not of concern at this moment, we can still keep the Everfree at bay, as we have always done. In answer to your other question…” The silence that followed was deafening, I was about to ask again when Harmony spoke once more, “The anomaly you discovered above this planet, it was a far greater threat than any of us realized. Once it had fully formed, it began to pull all of Equus towards it. We tried to extend our power through the planet, to pull Equus away from what revealed itself to be a portal to another universe, but the power behind the anomaly proved too great. We were pulled in alongside various other spatial bodies, and set to collide with an inhabited planet already residing in the dimension…”

At this they paused once more, and I briefly wondered just how bad it truly was. It couldn’t be too big if the Everfree survived right? It’s likely that Celestia and Luna just pushed us away from the planet, or maybe they were able to teleport us past it! At the very least they might have been able to get in touch with Shiny and Cadance in time to cast a shield spell around the planet, sure the resulting destruction of an inhabited planet is terrible beyond all belief, but…

The Tree soon proved my worst suspicions, “We impacted with it, and the other bodies with all the other nearby planets. It was only through the efforts of some of the most powerful mages across Equus that we were able to detect chunks of land that still survived despite the inevitable destruction that followed… We are all mourning the loss of our treasured lands, and wish to extend that sorrow to you, for we do not yet know how many of your friends or the Bearers survived.”

I slumped down to the ground, tears rushing forth as my mind struggled to comprehend what I’ve been told, “I-I- This- No… This can’t be happening… please tell me this isn’t happening!” Maybe they’re wrong? Maybe Discord pulled some elaborate prank or the Tree of Harmony lost contact with the rest of the world and simply tried to guess what happened, maybe this is all some bad dream and I’ll wake up in bed with Spike trying to come up with his next plan to be with Rarity…

“We are sorry, but it is unlikely that Equus came out unscathed from this event. At the very least the Everfree is most certainly separated from the planet’s surface, and we are in turn forced to maintain this shield, ‘lest we allow the dark void of space to destroy all that resides here.”

“No…” I whispered, so quietly but with so much vehemence that I probably would’ve scared myself.

“We beg your pardon?”

I threw my legs into a standing position and turned straight towards the bridge leading into the forest, “No! I do not believe that Equus was destroyed by that… thing Celestia and Luna wouldn’t allow it! I wouldn’t allow it! And you can bet that my brother and friends wouldn’t either!” I started a heavy canter towards the bridge, crossing the rickety structure before breaking into a full gallop.

“Wait Bearer! Twilight Sparkle! You do not know what you are doing!” The Tree shouted into my brain.

“Whatever it is it’s better than sitting around here while my friends are in danger, I need to find Luna and fix this before it gets any worse!” I shouted back, the shield was quickly coming into sight, the small traces of harmonic magic becoming steadily apparent as a thin vein-like structure laced within.

“You are not of stable mind! There is nothing but darkness outside this place!”

“I’m not going to believe whatever the buck you say, even if you are the Tree of Harmony! This is far too important to sit idly by on!”

“If you will not listen to reason... then I will show you it.”

The concession threw me off, making me slow down just in front of the shield as a small portion of it turned itself into a transparent window to the outside.

What I saw was irrefutable, because I was close enough now to tell that the spell was not an illusion.

It was mind-shattering, because I knew that all those plans and all that I once knew was now gone forever.

It was terrifying, because it was what I had known all along and feared all the same.

And because of these things, it was all the worse to finally see it for myself.

I don’t know how long I lay there, whispering to myself in an effort to comfort my broken spirit despite my silent weeping into the tainted grass, all I knew was that it was long enough for me to fall into a dreamless slumber...

---

ISS Resonance
0600, 30 APR 59

”Good morning everyone! Today is: April thirtieth, twenty fifty-nine. This marks the tenth year of service for the ISS Resonance, and to celebrate you can find pizza and spaghetti in the cafeteria for all meals! Have a nice day!”

No one payed the robotic announcer any heed save for a few prideful smiles at hearing their favored ship staking it out for ten years in the harsh void of space. All were running about, frantically trying to keep the ship’s advanced defenses up. The defenses, because no more than six hours ago a great cataclysmic event occurred right on their doorstep which had the added effect of shattering their homeworld alongside various other spatial bodies.

If it had not been for the steely resolve of their captain, which kicked their emotionally destroyed brains into gear, most would doubt that they would have survived the ensuing debris that came flying towards them. As it were, the ship only suffered some minor hull breaches, many in number, but easily sealed using the most advanced sciences that humanity had to offer.

It was with this in mind, and the recent statement of, ‘No incoming debris, ma’am. Clear across the board.’ That I let out a heavy sigh and sunk my white ass into my logistics chair. A pleased smile on my face as I listened to the ensuing conversation between the various crew that filled the bridge with ‘all clears’ and ‘systems cooling down’.

There were a couple of people calling out for system repairs, but mostly the ship was safe, and with only three reported casualties out of the several hundreds of people that manned the specialized military ship. None of the casualties were fatal, and after sending some medical supplies their way, they were back on their feet in less than an hour. Thus, I decided now was a good time to start reflecting on what had truly happened.

I later wished I really hadn’t. I wouldn’t be lying when I said that others would rather not have me thinking on it either, I had a… special way of dealing with things like this that I had developed over the years.

“Holy shit the fucking solar system just blew up! Are you serious?! What kind of shit just throws planets and asteroids at us from out of nowhere?!” I shouted with language that one might say was unbecoming of my IQ score, but to them I’d just say ‘Fuck you, the world just fucking ended you heartless shit’.

The captain however, was not amused by my antics, probably because shortly thereafter, everyone was losing their shit from my sugarless coating of literal Earth-shattering revelations. She groaned in frustration, pinching her nose and clenching her amber eyes shut before addressing me, “Specialist Lansky, please refrain from stirring up a commotion again before I have to enact consequences neither of us would like to see in the light of day. It’s bad enough that this has happened, I don’t need some half-wit making things worse for the crew.”

I took a moment to swallow my curses before responding, “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am.”

“That’s what I like to hear, now then…” She took a brief moment to flick on the intercom and move it close to her lips, I saw this as a good sign to cover my ears, “ALL PERSONNEL, REPORT TO THE MESS HALL FOR BREAKFAST AND BE PREPARED FOR FURTHER ORDERS AT O’ SEVEN-HUNDRED! MOVE IT!”

I glanced around at the various reactions of the crew, most were going through a ‘deer in the headlights’ phase, others seemed slightly indignant at basically being told ‘go to breakfast’ in the middle of their mourning, others still were simply solemnly walking out of the bridge on their way to the mess hall.

I stood up to follow them, a few tones brighter than the rest of them but still shaken from the thought of everything I knew being destroyed in an instant. I was certain that given a couple more hours I would’ve fallen into the same pit that they did, but just as I was about to leave, the captain extended an arm in front of me.

I held in an exasperated sigh that would normally be applied to anyone else, instead simply asking, “Ma’am?”

She simply sighed, “I have no idea why you just pulled that pile of horseshit back there, but I’m going to let it slide because I need your help with something.” Oh? This sounds like a nice distraction from pain-filled mourning...

“Some of the crew have found that key military installations, and even some advanced research stations, alongside the cities surrounding them, have all come out of the… event, unscathed. Or at the very least, their beacons are still active. I need you to gather a group together and try to make contact with them, find out how their still up. At the very least, determining that some of the people on Earth survived this mess would be a huge boost to morale. Can I count on you, Lansky?”

“Yes ma’am, though I would like to make a request.” I kinda wanted this ever since I joined the military and spoke to someone that outranked me. Protocol, manners, and tradition be damned, I wanted this. Badly.

“What’s the request, Lansky?”

“I would prefer to speak casually for the duration of this assignment, it would at the very least provide a slightly faster way of communication if I didn’t have to speak using ‘sir’ and ‘ma'am’ all the time.” It was a long shot, but fuck, I really hated speaking like this. Arguably the biggest issue I had with the military was formal speech, and I really didn’t want to do it now that I had the whole ‘solar system exploding’ thing on my m-.

“Granted, Kyle” The most beautiful woman I have ever met said simply as she literally let her long black hair fall down from the bun she had it in, “The chain of command has been severely severed anyways and I don’t see why I can’t allow such a privilege.”

I let out an exaggerated sigh and smiled, “Oh thank God, it’s so booooring talking like that!”

She raised a single dark-colored finger to the air, a mischievous smile on her face as she said, “Of course, this also means I’m going to be speaking casually back to you, so don’t get squeamish when I start throwing insults your way for a bad job.”

“Honestly, Reel I-”

“Call me Lonni.”

“Honestly, Lonni, I doubt that you can say anything worse than what I can come up with on my own.” I chuckled slightly, trying to shake off the encroaching feeling of shit in my gut.

Lonni offered a smile of her own, far more disconcerting than her previous one, it had teeth and everything I swear, “I think I’d like to test that sometime...”

---

ISD Satellite 13-b Lifeboat 1-a
12:39 PM IST, 4/30/59

Ugghhh, okay where am I? Limbs, check. Head, check. Coherence, awaiting wake-up call. Memories, still suffering from uh… Okay I’ll get back to that later. Eyes! Open up!

And so they did, and with it I released a rather unflattering groan of irritation as the harsh glare of artificial lighting assaulted my irises. I flailed my limbs for a couple of seconds before finally managing to sit up properly, rubbing my eyes and blinking away the last vestiges of a rather uncomfortable sleep.

Another groan made me aware of the presence of a male. Naturally a lack of recent memories made me kinda... freak out. Spectacularly.

I backpedaled from the man lying next to me, my feet slipping on the metal surface as I tried to avoid what could’ve been a terrible, terrible mistake, “Gaaah! Who are yo-” He sat bolt upright and gave an irritated glare at me, “Oh, uhhh… hi Michael.”

Well that’s a little… embarrassing, “Karen, what the fuck are you doing?”

“I-I uhh, well you see umm... I just thought that…”

“Nevermind, we’ve got bigger issues on hand.”

“What? What bigger iss- ohhh… fuck.” How the hell did I forget that? What the fuck brain?!

I shook my head to silence my brain’s attempts to defend itself as Michael spoke up again, “Glad to see you remember, because all I can think about now is that we’re stranded in an escape pod, with likely no way of contacting ISD and even worse, I’m pretty sure that humanity was annihilated less than a day ago.” He sighed, “We need a plan. Or at the very least we need to try and explore the remains to see if anyone somehow survived this mess.”

Okay… ignoring that particularly rude outburst, “Alright… I guess we might as well try and contact ISD first, before we start wasting fuel on a potentially useless gesture.” I said solemnly, standing up on stiff legs before making my way over to my seat and activating communications.

The fucking thing blew up in my face.

No. I am not lying, the entire thing just blew up, fuck you ISD.

It was by sheer chance that the small chunks of shrapnel mostly embedded themselves in the cushions on the roof rather than permanently blind me in my attempt to pick up what’s left of humanity.

That didn’t stop me from swearing like it was the Fourth of July though, “Holy fuck! You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me really? You motherfucking piece of shit! Damnit ISD, your shit is supposed to work, not blow up in my fucking face!”

“Okay… so now that you’re done with the expletives, why don’t we start working on other options besides communications?”

I snapped my head around and glared menacingly at my podmate, I assumed the glare was working because he flinched slightly and took a step back, “This was the fucking control panel you half-wit, now we can’t do anything! We’re fucking screwed! Humanity is screwed, you’re screwed, I’m screwed, we’re all fucked!” I turned back to the front, slammed my skull against the headrest, and promptly cried out in pain as I slumped into my chair. Holy fuck that hurt, it was like I just drove an ice pick into my brain. Twice!

I heard footsteps as Michael ran up next to me, “Hey, are you okay?” He asked, reaching a hand to rest on my shoulder.

“Oooohoho, I’m just peachy! I may have a fractured skull, but who cares about that when I slept for..." I took the time to look at the display at the pilot's chair, "Twelve hours with it?! I might as well be dead already!” I was probably going insane by that point, but fuck, world ends, stranded in a pod, and now I have an untreated head injury that’s likely caked with blood?! Does the universe truly hate me or am I just imagining it?!

“Oh fuck, I knew that something must have happened to you when you passed out, why the fuck didn’t I check you over?!”

“Probably because the fucking world ended? I’m pretty sure that most people would lose coherent thought when something like that happens.” I gave a strained smile, my vision shifting slightly as my brain suddenly decided to shout it’s issues to the rest of my body.

Michael smiled back at me, “Heh, I guess you’re right, we still need to get that thing treated though. Let me go grab the First-Aid kit and patch you up, then we can decide what to do about humanity.”

I didn’t pay much attention after that, my mind wandering off and slowly slipping me into unconsciousness. One last thought remained when I finally passed out though.

What the hell are we going to do?

Comments

[krazykidfannumber2]

Where's the next chapter? And are Twilight's friends still alive?

[gakposter]

So, everyone died. I don't like this.