Infinity Era

by JDPrime22

Chapter 12 – Cosmic Carnage

Reporter Aden Mulford and his camera crew were the first ones to film the alien world live on television. They stumbled through the streets, Aden practically dragging his cameraman forward so they could get the best shot possible. They eventually ended up in the middle of the road, but Aden didn’t worry about traffic. There was none.

Literally everyone was in the street, out of their cars, on the sidewalk, leaning out of building windows, or waking up that morning and walking outside just to catch a glimpse of the alien planet slowly appearing over the horizon. Aden Mulford kept his focus, weaving through people in the road that were far too focused on the sky to pay the reporter or his camera crew any attention.

“Ah, bugger off, the lot of ya!” Mulford shouted, shoving an elderly man to the side, knocking him into his wife. Without even apologizing, Aden dragged his cameraman forward, shaking his head and mumbling, “Everyone’s all knees up and losing their goddamn minds, but not me. Oh, this is big. Bloody brilliant! Move!”

He wasn’t wrong, after all. It wasn’t every day there was an alien world right on the horizon just waiting to be filmed. There was no way in hell the studio would reject his footage. He’ll be big because of this. Even amidst the chaos, the calamity and fear that spread through the British people of the United Kingdom, Aden Mulford just cared about one thing, and that was who would report it all.

And so, he held out his gloved palm to his cameraman, causing him to stop dead in the street. He gave the man a thumbs-up, his man setting up the camera and bringing it to life. Another thumbs-up from the man behind the camera, and they were live. Aden straightened his bright blonde hair, tightened his neck tie, and cleared his throat.

“This is Reporter Aden Mulford of Sky News,” Aden declared, stepping aside to prepare his grand reveal. It wasn’t much, as the camera caught pretty much half of the planet hanging over Aden’s head before he even began. Still, he shot out his free hand that wasn’t holding a microphone, pointing directly to the horizon where hundreds of other civilians were facing.

“That is right, ladies and gentlemen! You are witnessing an alien planet directly over the horizon!” Aden said. The camera got it all, the rising morning sun making it quite difficult, but definitely not hindering his shot by any means. The sun had barely dipped over the horizon, almost blocked by the planet resting above it, but sneaking through to cascade a bright morning sunlight upon the United Kingdom. The edges of the world shone a bright yellow from the sun’s light, the face and opposite edge blending in with the morning sky.

Aden licked his lips, fresh sweat building and streaming down his face. “There is not a word from the Prime Minister as of yet, but we can most certainly deduce that—!”

A parade of screams interrupted Aden, causing him to bring his gaze to the retreating civilians. They either rushed past him or hid inside the nearest building they could find. Aden, confused at first, turned to his cameraman for answer. All he saw was his cameraman point to the skies, his camera aimed high above. Following his directions, Aden’s jaw fell, his eyes popping out of his skull.

Through the morning clouds, something emerged.

Something fell.

Three things did.

Aden slowly brought up his microphone. He gulped, then steadied himself for what he was prepared to announce. “Ladies and gentlemen…” He ignored the screams from the civilians around him as he shouted, “We are live to what appears to be alien warships descending to Earth!”

Two of the three things he saw were just that. Massive warships, slowly descending through the clouds and causing two shadows to fall across London. They were so large that they blanketed miles of the city. Aden noticed the four tips each ship held, all leading to what appeared to be the control centers of the ships, shimmering blue lights pulsating off of their pitch-black frames. Only two ships emerged, the third was a Chitauri Leviathan that screeched so loud Aden almost collapsed.

But he did run.

“Go! Go!” Aden screamed, picking himself up and taking off down the street. His cameraman barely managed to keep up, he and Aden bumping into several civilians as they, too, ran for their lives.

Aden spun around for a quick second, immediately stopping dead in his tracks. “Wait, look!” he shouted, hands held out, finger pointing to the sky. His cameraman stopped, twisting his body and the camera around to what Aden was pointing at.

He just managed to catch the beast ramming into an invisible wall of some sort. That’s the best Aden could have explained it to be. The Leviathan dove jaws-first towards the city, only to be stopped by a shimmering yellow shield that blanketed all of London. It crashed, collapsing in on itself and lying dead, hovering several miles above the city. The two warships stopped their descent.

Everything stopped.

Aden slowly brought up his microphone and breathed heavily into it. “Ladies and gentlemen… bloody hell,” he said, he and every other citizen of London gazing at the dead alien above their city.

The sun rose later than everypony expected. That was the least of everypony’s worries. Those worries, those fears, and those terrors emerged from above. Directly above. The ponies of Fillydelphia stepped outside of their homes and business that misty, summer morning only to be witnesses to a cosmic terror they could have never imagined.

They could only watch as the alien ships descended upon their city.

At first, there was only one of them. Then, a second appeared. Then a third. Then hundreds upon hundreds of smaller ships divebombing the city of Fillydelphia in a swarm of darkness. Like locust. Completely and utterly consuming the sky until it was dotted with black and blue. The ponies of Fillydelphia could do nothing more than run away, hide in their homes, and pray that no evil would come upon them. That they would be safe.

They waited for the attack to come, for their city to fall. The streets were abandoned in seconds.

But nothing came. Several minutes passed, and still nothing.

Soon enough, ponies began to reemerge. They shuffled nervously, keeping their children and loved ones close as the morning sunlight spilled into the city, and nothing else. Everypony turned their heads to sky, several gasping in awe at what remained.

Those hundreds of invading ships were instantly destroyed the moment they dove down to Fillydelphia. Resting miles above the city, a golden wall of energy shimmered every second, a new ship hitting it and instantly crashing into oblivion. The massive warships halted in their descent, hovering menacingly above the city, but doing nothing more than that.

For the ponies of Fillydelphia, they shared a collective breath of relief. The Chitauri Leviathans circled above them, like serpents circling their prey.

The alien invasion started slowly, but soon began to pick up as more and more warships and alien beasts emerged out of the bright blue vortex that appeared through a tear in space. They arrived in droves, in thousands, beyond compare of any other army the two worlds could have offered. And they invaded.

Or, tried to. The golden shields that surrounded each planet prevented the ships from descending any further within the atmosphere, stopping them just a few hundred miles above ground. Several thousand explosions could be seen erupting from each planet’s surface, the invasion halting after that and remaining on hold.

Discord found it all to be quite comical.

He remained in the cluster of the moon chunks, resting on possibly the northern pole of Luna’s moon, drifting around the remnants of the two moons like a small orbit. Discord couldn’t really tell what part of the moon he circled. He took a wild guess and set up his cozy throne, equipped with a built-in snack bin and cup holder. He watched the chaos unfold worldwide with quite possibly the best seat in the house.

Holding the largest set of binoculars he could conjure up, Discord laughed and laughed as more alien ships crashed above the planets, his lion paw shimmering as brightly gold as his shields around the two worlds were.