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Chapter 11,397 words
Chapter 22,661 words

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I awoke slowly to a distressed, inquisitive voice that I was unable to hear clearly enough to understand. As consciousness returned to my mind, my eyes opened and my hearing started to return. I stared at the bright yellow face of the mare that was trying to awaken me. I coughed, tasting the metallic flavor of blood.

"Oh great, you're alive!" the mare said, clearly relieved. "You're really lucky. One of the bombs exploded right here!" I shook my head a bit, trying to make sense of what had happened. I figured I needed to get up and take a look at my surroundings...

With a gasp of pain, I collapsed. I had tried to rise, but the chunk of rubble covering half of my body had made it an extremely painful and unfruitful attempt. The mare looked worried.

"Here, let me help you with that," the she said. She hovered over me (I noticed for the first time that she had wings) and grabbed the slab that had imprisoned me. She tugged on it, relieving some of the pressure on my hind legs, but was making little progress towards freeing me. My horn glowed dark blue as I lent some assistance. After a few seconds, the chunk slid down the pile of rubble, releasing me and bringing my bloodstained flank and cutie mark of a star and cloak into view. I picked myself up off of the ground, and immediately I was sliding down the rubble as well. I realized how much my legs and sides ached from bruises. I figured I most likely had at least one fracture in my ribs, and I could see the gashes and scrapes on my flanks and legs. My subconscious decided that it was too much for my conscious mind to deal with right now, and it proceeded to send me back into darkness.

This time, when I awoke I felt rested, instead of feeling as if I had been run over by a massive train. I was resting on a thin but soft mat on the floor of a half-collapsed building. My legs and flank had been bandaged, albeit clumsily, and most of my bruises were on the way to healing. My barding was scratched and torn. Thankfully, it had protected my chest and sides from lacerations, although it was not made to protect from collapsing buildings, so I still felt a bit of bruising. I hesitated before attempting to stand again; this time, I succeeded, although my left hind-leg protested. I would have to check to make sure it was not seriously injured.

The yellow pegasus mare that had rescued me from the remnants of the S.P.S. building was sitting a couple of feet away, with a mobile phone in her hoof. She looked frustrated, but glanced over to me and smiled when she saw I was awake.

"Hey, you're up again," she said. "Hope you're feeling better. I tried to fix up some of your scrapes." She thought for a second, then pulled a granola bar out of a saddlebag lying on the ground beside her. "You must be hungry. You you like some food?" I noticed how empty my stomach felt, so I nodded. She handed me the granola bar and introduced herself.

"My name is Sungaze," she told me. "I'm a surveyor from Ponyville. I was on vacation here in Canterlot a few days ago." Her cutie mark matched her occupation; it was a pair of binoculars. "Who are you? You have one of those special forces uniforms, so I guess you're a commando. It explains why you were in the military building when it was bombed."

"My name is Nightwatcher, I am a Sergeant in the SPS," I told her. I looked out the shattered windows of the ruined building we were in at the rubble outside. "What happened?"

"Bombs fell," she said with a frown. "Two days ago, tons of bombs exploded all across the city. That building over there was one of the first ones hit. The bombs blew up an entire block each, and the bombing lasted for hours! So many ponies died. You're the first survivor I've come across." She looked absolutely depressed about the fact. "I'm not sure who bombed the city or why, but I can't believe they would do something like this." I had an idea of who might be behind the bombing, which I suspected was not actually a bombing, but an artillery barrage.

I looked at the building we were in a second time. Most of the ceiling had caved in, covering a large part of the floor with rubble. It looked like the upper floors of the building were completely destroyed, only the ground floor remaining, and only partially.

"We should probably find a different shelter," I said. "This building is a hair away from collapsing, and we need to look for supplies and other ponies." She nodded, gathered the few things she had out into her saddlebags, and stood up.

"Let's go!" Sungaze said cheerfully, as if oblivious to the seriousness of the situation. She trotted out the doorway, and I quickly rolled up the mat I had been sleeping on, floated my saddlebags onto my back, and followed.

As we started making our way down the street, I observed the buildings on either side. Most of the buildings had collapsed or been leveled completely. Pieces of rubble littered the sidewalks and road, and the few cars parked on the edges of the road were either crushed by pieces of the buildings or blackened. The engines had probably caught fire when the Chaos magic shells hit. I saw a charred corpse on the side of the road, and suddenly realized I must have been lucky to be in the upper floors of the S.P.S. headquarters.

The street ended in a T-shaped intersection. Across the street, my eyes found a small building that looked mostly intact. In fact, the building must have still had power, or at least its own intact generator, because I could see through the windows that the inside was lit. Over the door, a sign read "Mason's Deli." I could see a few tables and a counter inside.

"Let's check out that deli over there," I told Sungaze. "It has power, and it's intact enough that the ponies inside could have survived the bombing."

"Great!" she said. "And maybe they have a phone, so we can call someone and try to figure out what to do."

We approached the deli and opened the door. A little bell rang, announcing our entrance. I looked around at the green-painted walls and white and brown tiles on the floor. The counter sat on the far side of the room with a cash register and a sign displaying the menu resting on it, and a door behind it. The restaurant seemed to be abandoned.

"Maybe the people here left to look for help," Sungaze offered. However, soon it was evident that was not the case, because a pony jumped out from behind the counter. He was a blue coated, brown-maned pony wearing a green apron with "Mason's Deli" in elegant red cursive stitched onto the front. He stared right at us, and it was clear that he was in a bad condition. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, and his mane was frazzled. He yelled and charged right at us, but when we ducked to the side, Sungaze jumping up with a short 'eep!', he kept going, right out the door and into the street. He kept running, screaming the entire time.

Sungaze and I took a second to take in the unnerving experience. We glanced at each other, Sungaze clearly startled. I looked at the counter from which the crazed pony had sprung, and trotted forward. As I turned the corner to the place behind the counter, what I saw surprised me. Two ponies lay on the floor, motionless, and coated in blood. One was a mare who looked similar to the insane pony, with the same apron, and the other's features were indiscernible through the blood. The blue pony on top had a steak knife through her back, and the other had multiple gashes in his or her stomach. Sungaze stepped up behind me, and gasped as she saw the bloody scene in front of us.

Stepping closer to get a better look, I became certain that the two ponies were dead. The crazed pony that had charged us had likely murdered these two.

"W-what happened?" Sungaze asked, horrified. I turned to her with a grim expression.

"The insane pony from earlier must have killed them. Either he killed them because he was insane, or went insane because he killed them," I told her. "I'm not sure why he killed them. Unless they were worried about food, but it's only been a day since the bombing, so I can't imagine ponies killing over food." Sungaze nodded, accepting the fact that there were two dead ponies in front of her.

I looked at the bodies, and levitated the top one. "Let's take them outside," I decided. "We should probably burn them instead of leaving them here to rot."

After making a small fire using cloth and some matches Sungaze had stuffed into her bags, and laying the bodies on it with a tablecloth used as a makeshift burial shroud, we decided to investigate the door in the back. A small sign taped to the door read "Employees Only", but I assured Sungaze that it was perfectly fine to enter. It opened up to the kitchen, which had a refrigerator full of cold lunch meat, fresh vegetables, cheese, and bread. I made myself a sandwich from the food supplies, and started eating lunch. Sungaze was reluctant to get any food; I tried to assure her that the owner of the store wouldn't mind us taking the food, but finally we compromised and I left some bits on the counter outside to compensate for the food we took. I thought it would be unlikely that the owner of the store would come back any time soon, but Sungaze disapproved of what she thought of as stealing.

After eating the sandwich, I looked at the door in the back of the kitchen. The room behind the door was apparently an office; when I stepped it, I saw a desk, an desktop computer, and a file cabinet. Papers and miscellaneous items like pens, pencils, some keys, and a ticket to a hoofball game. After moving closer to the desk, I noticed that the computer was powered on, but in sleep mode. I hit the space bar on the keyboard, and the machine's fans powered up as the computer woke up. When the monitor awakened, it revealed a two-day old email message on the screen.

From: storm1337@hoofmail.net

Subject: Hurry Up

Where are you, Mason? Did you get command's message yesterday? You should be out of Canterlot by now! You've got to get out, it's almost time! You could die. Get out of there now!

I was read the message twice. The message had been sent at about eleven o'clock two days ago, the day of the bombing. I was pretty sure it had been about noon when the bombing had started. This was enough evidence to incriminate this pony Mason and his contact for treason. I looked at a few papers on the desk, then noticed a scrap that had obviously been intentionally torn from the rest of its sheet of paper. After investigating a bit more, I found two more scraps that looked like they fit. I only had about half of the paper, but I tried to fit it together.

Supporter Mason Stone,
Thank you for cooperating with us with your help we wi
a new country ruled by ponies like you and me, inst

ered princesses in their prestigiou
epublic, down with the Equestrian mona

Sincerely,

The Demo racy Association of Equestria

Even with only half of the paper, it was not difficult to fill in the blanks. I was certain it was a letter from the Democracy Association of Equestria, a traitorous organization that conspired against the Princesses. A few years ago it was exposed and all of its members were fugitives, but it was one of the largest supporters for the recent rebellion. Mason was obviously associated with the group. I would make sure to tell Major Warwing about the traitor...

Except Major Warwing was dead. And if most of Canterlot was like this area, then most likely I would not be reporting the criminal to anypony anytime soon. However, it was my duty to deal with things like this, so I made sure that once I was out of these ruins I would take care of the matter. Truly, I had no idea whether Mason Stone was still alive or not. I decided I would just forget the matter for now.

However, this brought up an important question; what will I do now? Obviously, try to find other ponies. I suppose I should report to Mareford, the S.P.S. base at the foot of Mount Canterlot. But how much damage did the artillery barrage cause? I realized that military buildings would not have been the only targets. The rebels would have targeted infrastructural buildings, like transportation, power plants, law enforcement, and emergency response teams. Plus the most appealing target of all for the rebels: Canterlot Palace. Of course, the Palace would be well protected, but an artillery barrage, especially with such powerful weapons, may be too much for the castle's defenses. If the Palace was attacked, there is a good chance the Princesses would be killed. The Princesses' death would bring the collapse of Equestria, and victory for the rebels.

It was decided. I was going to travel to Old Canterlot and investigate the Palace. I was sworn into the Princesses' service, so I could at least make sure that they had not been killed in the bombardment.

I walked back through the kitchen, into the main area of the restaurant, and picked up the bits I had left on the counter.

"This business has been suspended due to treasonous activities," I told Sungaze.

"What?" she exclaimed.

"I found a document that placed evidence that the owner was working with the rebels," I said. She still looked confused. "He helped the people that caused the bombing." She gasped.

"How could somepony do that?" she questioned. "Support all this death and destruction?"

I just shook my head sadly.

I spent most of the afternoon trying to contact someone with the phone. I called every Canterlot emergency number and a few numbers of military bases outside of Canterlot, but it seemed that the phone had no connection to a line. I had no luck with the computer either. After I gave up, we set up a couple of mats in the kitchen, and used the keys to lock the door to the deli and the door to the kitchen, just to be safe.

I had found a firearm in one of the desk drawers of the office, a Heckler and Claw Universal Self-loading Pistol. I wondered where he had obtained it, since Heckler and Claw was a Griffon company, and Griffon firearms were restricted from civilian use. I confiscated the illegally owned weapon, putting it in a free holster I had on the left side of my barding. There were a large number of 9mm magazines for the gun, which I carefully crammed into my saddlebags. We had some salads for dinner, with turkey and ham on the side, before turning off the kitchen lights and crawling onto our mats. I was somewhat restless, affected by the unnerving events of the day, as well as the events of two days previous. Finally, I managed to close my eyes and relax, allowing sleep to claim me for the night.

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