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// The Darkest Day Pt. 1 - By the Dawns Early Night 
// Story: An Equestrian War Story 
// by No one is home 
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I remember the moment the panic set in.  It was the Summer Sun Celebration, in Fillydelphia, and, lucky me, I had drawn “parade duty”.  Like it was any random chance.  It was a shitty assignment.  There was nothing there for me to wreck.  Of course that’s where the brass were gonna stick me.  It wasn’t a really “bad” job, per se.  No worse than being in the Pegasus Air Guard and being stationed in Fillydelphia to begin with.  Just stand still and don’t smile.  Just that one rule.  Well, two rules if you count, “Don’t curse under your breath because we can all hear you.”  But honestly, that was mostly just a rule for me.  I wasn’t really a very good soldier pony.

Still, all I had to do was stand there and look generically grumpy, and NOT curse out loud, until Mayor Bridle got finished giving her little speech.  I was doing pretty good too.  I was just the right amount of hung over to stand there and look surly in the morning sun on a summer afternoon.  Yeah I was doing a pretty damned good job too.

“What the hell, dude?”  I did so well I didn’t even break the rule first.  That honor went to Cloudbank Jake Blitzbolt.  I wasn’t a very good soldier, but I was a reasonably competent soldier.  Jake was… well he had real esprit de corp.  He really gave 110% and he was damn proud to be in the guard, and he was honored to stand parade guard at the Summer Sun Festival in Fillydelphia.  And in a country that hadn’t seen a war in centuries, that’s all it really takes to be a good soldier pony.  And Jake was a good soldier pony.  And he was a bit of a screw-up.  That’s why he was stuck in the same company as the likes of me.

“Dammit Jake!  Yer gonna get us in… Celestia’s Great White Flank,,,” My angry retort died in my mouth and left a rotting aftertaste of fear and bile.  The sky had gone as black as midnight.  Ponies, ourselves most definitely, just sort of milled around in shock.  Honestly, it was just too much to take in.  It was like the sun was gone.

I don’t think the mayor grasped what was happening, or the weight of it was just too much to comprehend, because her first reaction was to scowl and exclaim, “Air Guard, remove that cloud at once!”  And then she turned to glare at the offending cloud and she was caught for what seemed like an eternity, staring in a trance into the eclipse.  And then the trance was broken.  And then she screamed, “MY EYES!  I’M BLIND!”

And that was the moment the panic set in.

Most of the guard were off duty that day enjoying the festival.  They were caught as flat hoofed as everypony else when the stampedes started.  I don’t think anyone would have blamed us if we had just run amuck ourselves.  Who can judge how you deal with the world when the moon steals the sun on a bright summer morning.  So we had a total pass, but Jake weren’t gonna have none of that.  Nope, he jumped right into the middle of those unthinking hooves and commanded everypony to remain calm.  And he commanded ‘em good to.  And then I had to jump in and pull him out before he got trampled himself.  I’m not much of a soldier, but i spent my misspent academy nights in The Belfry in Canterlot, and I could totally handle a mosh pit.  You know, because I figured a stampede was more or less the same thing as a big, scarier moshpit.

I was SO wrong.  A stampede is nothing like a mosh pit.  It is not at all like a mosh pit.  It is a river of panicked stomping, and you either stomp along or you get stomped on.  I was sucked under in a tangle of limbs and hooves, each pony pulling down like a breaking wave of ponies.  It seemed like forever, but within moments yelps of pain and surprise faded to sore groans from the mass of fallen ponies.  And there in the middle of it was Jake, wrapped like an eggshell of fur and feathers around a quivering earth-filly.

“You okay, Jake?”  I grunted as I struggled to free myself from the mass of bodies.

“It’s okay miss.”  Jake’s voice was shaky as he helped the little filly to her hooves.  “Whatever’s going on, we’re gonna find your parents and it’s going to be okay.”

“Corporal Pastel!”  Storm Front’s voice grated against my still-ringing skull.  I had never hated another pony as much as I hated him at that moment. “Celestia’s mercy!  There’s hurt ponies everywhere!  Is THIS how a pony like you restores order?  What have you done?”

Heh, a pony like me.  That’s why I joined the Air Guard.  Because there arn’t many jobs for a pony with a cutie mark like mine besides “guard” and “very bad pony”.  I opened my mouth and the next words out of it were going to get me court martialed.  That’s when Jake showed once again why he was always a better soldier than I’d ever be.

“It was my fault sir!” Jake snapped to attention.  “I saw a filly caught in the crowd, and I tried to restore order… I guess they must have… tripped… over me?”

“Our precious foal!”  It was then that the filly's parents chose to find their misplaced daughter. “Golden Lily!  What were you thinking!  Think you sir!”

And just like that Jake became a hero.  There was no more talk of who was “responsible”.  The commander just grunted and barked, “Escort Council Mare Hammer and Mayor Bridle to Air Guard command!  And try not to trip over any more stampedes!”

The groans of the injured from the heap of tangled ponies I had inadvertently created faded into the back of my head as I focused on my new task.  The two mares were not at all hard to find.  Hammer was hanging on to Bridle like a leach, as if the blind, pompous fool’s political connections would somehow shield them both from the chaos around them.  I never thought much of Velvet Hammer.  If the Air Guard were allowed to vote in local elections, I would have voted for the other mare.  But it wasn’t my job to discuss politics with the coltish nag.  My job was to escort two civilians, one of them disabled, across a panicked, rioting city in the dark.

That's when we heard it.  The sky was filled with a massive flapping like a thousand sheets caught in a cyclone.  This eclipse wasn’t some magical abnormality.  We were being invaded.