Spells flashed and pieces of concrete were flung about by the resulting detonations, striking the sides of the truck with terrifying clanging sounds, and the sizzle of bubbling paint. The humans clinging to the back were trying to fire back, but the shaking, bouncing and juddering from the old vehicle threw off their aim, making it impossible to get off a decent shot. The ponies clinging to the back with them were facing similar issues, while those flying were too focused on where they were going to actually try fighting back. Only two of the humans even bothered trying to fire off their rifles, and none of their shots did anything more than slow their opponents.
The changeling swarm on their trail was gaining, rapidly closing the distance between themselves and the truck, which, while fast and well performing for it’s age, was still ground bound, and restricted in its movements.
Twilight twisted in mid-air a a Changeling, one of the group’s frontrunners, caught up with her. Twilight’s horn flashed, and the Changeling found itself being pelted by debris from all sides, which overwhelmed it’s shield and sent it tumbling down.
Rarity jabbed her rapier at a Changeling who appeared next to the truck bed from seemingly nowhere. It veered out of reach, only to realize this was a mistake when it flew headfirst into a lamp post.
Applejack couldn’t do much from her position in the truck, but she made herself useful by pointing out whee the next Changeling was coming from so that someone who could do something about it knew where to go. “Rainbow! On yer tail!”
“Got it!” The pegasus called, zipping straight up into the air, before slamming back down onto the Changeling that had been behind her, and driving it into the dirt. Dash recovered quickly, and caught back up to the truck before she could be left behind.
Pinkie’s hammer made short work of anything that tried to approach her side of the truck, smashing straight through the shields of changelings with sheer force, which was accompanied by joyful laughter from the Pink Pony as she laughed over the fact that, even now, she was giving these meanies a “Party” of their own.
Amid the chaos, a Changeling managed to drop down onto the roof of the truck’s cab, startled Kathy and Alice inside. Both women drew their sidearms and fired up through the roof, bullets stopping short of their target thanks to the shield the Changeling conjured.
Allan vaulted up out of the truck bed and rammed into the Changeling’s shield with his armored head, sending the changeling stumbling back slightly, so that it fell on to the Little Blue’s hood, eliciting alarmed cries from inside the cab. Allan chased after, sword springing free from it’s gauntlet. As Kate screamed to Allan that she couldn’t see where she was going, Applejack came soaring over the cab, and put her spiked gauntlet through it’s shield, and sending careening off the side of the truck. AJ and Allan exchanged grins before jumping back into the truck bed.
Kate plowed through a pair of smaller cars without a second thought, sending the immobile vehicles pinwheeling across the road until they smashed into the sidewalk and the buildings beyond. The Changelings were almost on top of them now, three or four attacking at once. Little Blue was now so covered in dents that she more closely resembled a moving pile of scrap than a car. If this continued for much longer, the truck would actually be scrap. And they’d be in trouble.
Allan was busy trying to figure out how to beat the Changelings. He wracked his memory for a place that they could evade their pursuers, but the only one he could think of was a risk of its own.
“The Tunnel up ahead! Go in! Don’t turn away!” He yelled to Kate.
“WHAT?!”She practically screeched. “That’ll get us caught!”
“Just trust me!” Allan yelled back, before turning to his friends. “Rarity, you and I are going to hit the support on the left side of the tunnel entrance, Twilight, you take the right one.”
With a rudimentary plan underway, Allan and Rarity got into position, while Twilight flew up and over the truck so she was on the opposite side. The Changelings were still gaining, but if his plan worked, they might just be okay.
The entrance loomed closer. Everyone held their breath.
“NOW!!” Allan cried, before letting off the most powerful spell blast he could muster, Rarity doing the same. The support beams disintegrated under the assault, and the tunnel entrance collapsed behind them, a shower of concrete shards and a thick cloud of concrete dust filling the air.
Kate pulled the truck to a stop, breathing heavily. Se flung the door open, eyes wide with anger. “You idiot! Now they’ll just come in from the other side! You’ve trapped us in here!”
“That was only step one!” Allan protested. “It bought us time! Now we go for step two.”
“Step two?”
“Yes.” Allan confirmed, jumping off of the truck, and onto a man-hole cover, tapping it with a hoof. “Step two.”
*****************************
They slipped back into the sewers, one by one, and then, with great reluctance on Allan's part, they collapsed the tunnel above them, just to be sure they wouldn’t be followed for some time, sealing themselves into the sewers and crushing the car. Allan winced at the sound of the destroyed metal, but it was better than getting caught.
With a fairly good idea which direction they needed to go in order to reach their hideout, the humans led their new friends through a maze of tunnels, each of them pressing makeshift gas masks to their faces. Allan and his friends had to make do, though, covering their noses with spare cloth strips Rarity and Fluttershy had intended to use as bandages.
They passed by a blocked off passage, the ground around it littered with fragments of grenades, indicating a struggle of some kind. What was more concerning were the Changeling sized tunnels around them, several of them with trails of dried blood leading into them.
“What happened here?” Twilight asked, her voice quiet.
Alice paused, eyes half closed, beads of water gathering in the corners. “Some people go out scavenging. Not all of them make it back.”
Kate pulled Twilight aside, and whispered something to her. The purple princess’s eyes went wide, and stared at Alice, a look of horror and sadness flickering across her features.
“We’ve all lost someone.” Allan noticed Katherine’s eyes flicking across to him as Jacob spoke. “Some of us more than others.” The troup fell silent for a moment, but they knew they couldn’t stay still for long.
Pressing on, the group finally surfaced, sneaking out onto the surface as the sunlit hours started to wane. The ponies took several minutes to process the view. It was a bizarre notion to them, that the sun required no one to move it. Kate quickly located their headquarters, and lead the troupe towards the hideout, until they arrived at an office building beside a harbour, situated in the river that ran through the city. The office building was not the end of their journey however. That honour fell to a large building that sat several dozen meters away, out in the open, on the riverside.
“Okay, so we’ve been hiding out in The Science Museum in town. It’s just over there, but we’ll have to be careful. It’s pretty out in the open, and if those things spot us, we’ll all be screwed.” Kate explained.
“A museum!?” Twilight squeed, excitedly.
She was shushed by everyone at once, prompting her cheeks to turn red in an apologetic smile.
“We’ll go in twos.” Kate continued. “Allan and I will go first. The Princess and Jacob can come next. You lot sort yourselves out and follow us once we’ve made it to the museum. Stick to the path we take, and keep an eye on the sky. Leg it if you see any bugs. We’ll draw them away from the museum if that happens.” A crowd of bobbing heads was the reply she got. “Okay, Allan. Stick close to me.”
Allan gave a nod too, before following Kate out onto the open pavement beyond the building they had emerged from. There was very little in the way of cover, a planter with a little tree here, an upturned bench there, a car and the largest of all, an overturned bus. They kept their heads on a constant swivel as they moved from cover to cover, slowly inching their way towards the science museum, wary of Changeling patrols. They reached the side of the museum without incident, and turned around to act as lookouts for the others as they all slowly crossed over to the museum.
They quickly motioned to the pair currently crossing, Applejack and Rainbow, to stop, when they spotted a Changeling approaching. It wasn’t looking their way, but was instead staring intently at the taller buildings, searching for signs of life. A sigh of relief rushed out from Kate’s nose as it flew away, unaware of the large group it had passed over.
The procession continued, until every last human and pony was safely across. Once they had regrouped properly, Katherine led them to a side door in the building, tucked just out of sight from most angles, thanks to a protruding wall.
Kate knocked smartly on the door in an alternating beat of two-three, two-three, three-four, and a voice inside called out something that was too muffled by the door for anyone but Kate to hear.
“Don’t shoot, okay? We’re coming in, with some new friends.” She called, before giving the group a smile that was supposed to be encouraging, but was too wan to do so successfully.
There was another muffled reply, that sounded vaguely like a warning, before a sliding bolt was released from inside, and the door swung open. A man stood there, gun already pointing at the ponies clustered together by the wall. He stood about six foot tall, maybe more, and he held the only machine gun that any of the ponies...or Allan for that matter, had ever seen. It looked reminiscent of the M16 that the American military used, but as far as Allan could recall from the various video games or movies he had seen them in, the M16’s didn’t have a handguard that was almost perfectly circular. Not that it mattered what kind of gun was being pointed at them. Kate was already talking to him, trying to explain what had happened, but it wasn’t going too well, since the man was not listening.
“They’re friendly.” Kate emphasized. ”They helped us escape from a real bad mess, and they risked their lives to make sure we all got back.”
“Where’s Jackson then? And Hank?” The guard snarled, accusingly.
“That happened before they found us. We crashed on our way back here with some supplies, and the bugs got Jackson as we ran for cover. They carried him off, and Hank got taken down giving us time to escape through the sewers. Then we met these guys afterwards, and they helped us get away from the danger zone. We can trust them.”
“And how can I be sure you ain’t all just tryin’ ta play me?”
“Connor. Back off.” A new voice came through the door. “I saw them sneaking past a bug on their way over. The wouldn’t bother if they were those things buddies.”
“Fine. But they all get quarantine until Richard can come down and test ‘em.”
“Fine. But tell him Allan's back.” Kate returned.
The group of twelve did as they were told, and followed the young man inside and through a network of corridors, none of them with exhibits, much to Twilight’s disappointment, before coming to a very thick looking door, which the young man opened with a twist of the handle. Under threat and command of gun barrels, the group trudged inside after handing over their weapons and gear, only to find a dismal, plain room that had been stripped of anything that could be of use, or turned into a weapon. There were no windows, and from the cool feel of the concrete, Allan could tell they were underground. That made sense, since they had gone down at least two flights of stairs to get there. The not so polished and refined feel of the room only added to that feeling of being below ground, in a way that ven the sewers hadn’t quite managed…...which didn’t feel right, now that Allan could fly. The open sky above him felt more comfortable than this room, and Fluttershy, Rainbow and Twilight all seemed to agree.
Since there wasn’t much to do, Allan settled down by a wall, and rested his head against the cool concrete floor. Without the adrenaline of the past few hours to keep him going, Allan realized how tired he felt, and promptly fell asleep, welcoming the chance to play in the world of dreams again.
**************************
He was unsure of where he was at first, but he realized pretty quickly where he was as the moonlight streamed down from above. The city of Alicorns was resplendent, as it had been before, but unlike the previous times, a tension filled the air. The adults muttered quietly amongst each other, and the foals huddled behind their parents legs, looking around in fear.
Though he had never lived it, his memory recalled the announcement made, of the threat from the chaos serpents, and the discussion between his mother and the queen. His dark grey hooves and lime green mane flicked in and out of his….her vision, as she trotted about, searching for her friend.
Bronze Shield stood near the stalls in the market, looking rather fine in his guard armour.
“Bronze.” She called. “I need to talk to you.”
“Not now.” Bronze hissed. “If the Captain sees us talking he’ll have me kicked out for sure!”
“Bronzie, please!” She begged. “This is important! I think that-”
She never finished her sentence. The sun had vanished behind a veil of roiling colours and.
“Chrysanthemum…..” Bronze choked. “Get to the schoolhouse. Get the foals out. GO!!”
He never used her full name. Not ever. She’d never seen him so serious.
Turning tail, she bolted, just as the first screams started.
*******************************
Allan blinked his eyes open as the door swung open, admitting a large, hawk-nosed man with a police issue shotgun leveled casually at pony head height. Of course, Allan and Kate recognized him instantly, and spoke in tandem “Dad.”
Richard Ryder was a man in his late fifties, with iron grey hair, and pale blue eyes that glinted in what little light there was in the room. His body was thick with both muscle and a layer of fat that gave him a bit of a paunch, but that, if anything contributed to his apparent relation to a grizzly bear.
Allan was shocked when he saw his father’s eyes, to see the hardened, defeated look that flickered in them.
“You the one who says he’s Allan Ryder?” It took Allan a moment to realize that Richard was staring right at him.
Allan steeled himself, before mustering his courage. “Yes. It’s me, dad. It’s really me.”
Peculiarly, Allan noticed Applejack perk up out of the corner of his eye, her own green irises locking on to his father with some kind of recognition.
Richard stared at Allan for some time, before he asked a question. “What were the last words we said to each other, before the accident?”
Allan blinked, before smiling, fondly recalling the last conversation the two of them had had. Applejack stared at them from across the room, eyes intently focused on Richard. Allan beamed up at his father, ignoring the shotgun barrel pointed almost directly at his face.
“You said to me that you wanted me to have all the happiness in the world. And I told you I’d leave enough for everyone else.”
Richard went perfectly rigid, his features locked solid, as if etched in stone. His eyes bored holes in Allan's skull, but the Changeling was nonplussed still smiling up at him, love and respect in his eyes. Richard glanced to his daughter, who nodded encouragingly, a hopeful smile on her face.
Richard turned his gaze back to the creature that claimed to be his son, looked into it’s loving eyes, and tried to look past what he could see.
The room was quiet, all eyes fixed on the Ryders.
Richard’s shotgun started to shake in his hands, as the image of the boy he had raised seemed to swim into focus, superimposed over the Changeling, before fading away again. And when the image faded, a single part remained. The love in the gaze of the creature looking back at him, the same soft expression. The eyes of his son.
Richard dropped the gun with a clatter, before falling to his knees and sweeping Allan up into a hug, sobbing. Months of hoping. Months of praying. Months of denying his doubts and fears. Now he was back, even if he had changed so much.
Richard pulled back, and held his son’s head between his hands, staring at the alien face Allan now wore, as if he could memorize every detail on the spot. “It’s really you, isn’t it? You came home.”
Allan smiled, returning his father’s embrace, fondly. “Yeah. And boy do I have a story to tell.”
“I can see that.” Richard wiped his face with back of his sleeve, so that the fresh tears would no longer bother. “And I’m guessing that these ones all have something to do with that story?”
Allan nodded, grinning widely. “They have everything to do with this story.”
************************
From there, Richard had the word spread that his son had returned, and that his story should be heard by all the current leaders of the Resistance, which in turn lead to Allan recounting the tales of the past eight months to his family, including his overjoyed mother, and several haggard strangers who scarcely believed a word of what he said, since it was so different from the brutal reality they had come to know.
Allan himself was in his element, using his shape-shifting abilities to help aid with his telling. Unfortunately, the more joyful parts of their reunion had to wait. Now it was time for more serious matters. Storytime over, Allan sat back and let Twilight take over, officially extending Equestria’s hoof in friendship. In order to better understand just how bad things were, it was time for the humans to tell their own side of the story.
“This, Chrysalis, as you call her, pretended to be you for a month and a half before things really started to change. After that bitch revealed herself to the world, she’s delighted in letting us get our hopes up, only to crush them.” Richard explained. “The first two months after her reveal were a steady descent to madness, while the next month was nothing but looting and shooting. Anyone that could get snatched off the streets went missing overnight, and anyone that fought back was taken too. Then it seemed to stop, and we thought that the Army might have found a way to stop her. We were wrong. She took their soldiers too. Then those ships showed up up and started firing on her then-unfinished tower. We thought they’d win for sure. Instead, she just put the shield up and laughed at us.”
“The outside world has known for all that time, and never once thought to nuke the city?” Twilight asked, remembering what Allan had told her about human warfare. “If Vancouver was a lost cause, they would, no matter if there were still people inside.”
“That’s just it. They did think about it. More than think about it. They did it. Chrysalis let it through the shield, caught like a baseball, and just disarmed it on the pot!” A man called Doctor Hooper said, gesticulating wildly. “It was useless. Absolutely useless. Mankind’s most destructive device, nothing but a curiosity for her to dismantle at her leisure.”
“She must have gotten hold of military information somehow, if she knew how to take it apart.” Allan considered the numerous ways the Queen could have done so, and they were a great many indeed.
“Our thoughts exactly.” The only survivor of the Military’s attempt to combat Chrysalis’s threat, an American agent from the FBI, one Special Agent Grey Pierce, said, quietly. He was a soft spoken man, with eyes the same colour as his namesake, thick brown hair that was kept at a short length, and combed back to give it a slick look. His face was rather square, and his expression always grave. “Most likely she’s managed to slip spies out of the shield. A source of info on her enemies right from the battlefield.”
“If I understand how these bombs work, simply catching them in a highly charged telekinesis spell could stop the bomb from going off like you describe, by simply freezing the bomb’s trigger, or even interfering with the trigger signal.” Twilight said, examining documents on how various weapons functioned. “With the amount of power she’s likely leaching from all the humans she finds, she could easily be capable of doing something like that. Oddly enough, that worries me more than her knowing highly classified information does.”
“Why does it worry you?” Several voices spoke at once.
“Because if she had the power to stop and dismantle a nuclear weapon….why isn’t she using that power on us?” Twilight theorized. “The most likely explanation, is that she’s already using it for something else.”
A chill crept around the room, crawling heavily down their backs like armies of centipedes. The idea that Chrysalis had something even bigger planned was simply terrifying.
Eventually, Richard cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the gathered individuals back to him. “Regardless of what Chrysalis’s plans may be, we still have a major issue. The people we have here are getting hungry, and our food supplies are running low. With the loss of the supplies Kathy was trying to bring to us, we’re going to have to try something more drastic.”
Richard produced a roadmap of the city, covered in pen markings, squiggles and lines that at first seemed to make no sense, but it slowly dawned on Allan that they were plans, routes and notes of both humans and changelings.
“There’s a supermarket here, about ten blocks away. We tried raiding it early on, but the Changelings were swarming all around that area. We never went back, but that was early enough into this mess that we could find viable supplies out there. Seeing as you’ve been successful fighting these things, perhaps you can keep a team of gatherers safe while they work.”
“What’s the catch?” Applejack asked, eyes narrowed.
“Just like Allan's apartment, there’s a nest nearby. You’re going to have to be quiet.”
The ponies exchanged confirming nods before Twilight agreed. “Alright, Mr Ryder. We’re in.”
*************************
It took them several hours to get into the Supermarket, thanks to just how quiet they had to be. It took them even longer to find enough food, medicine and other supplies to make it worthwhile, but eventually, they crawled back outside of the storage area in the back of the Supermarket, several bags loaded with loot.
Due to her previous experience with the ponies, Kate had been chosen to go along, something Allan was grateful for. Having her around made him less uncomfortable, since, other than the group they’d rescued, his parents, and Kate herself, no one seemed to trust the alien ponies who had come to help. Still, the looks she kept directing his way, of disbelief or concern, mitigated some of that relief.
“What’s it like?”
Allan frowned, before turning to face his sister. “Can’t these questions wait until we’re not in life-threatening danger?”
Kate’s eyes closed for a moment and she breathed in and out. She opened her eyes back up again before shaking her head and crouching down to look him in the eye. “I need to know. Is it better there? Than over here?”
Allan blinked. “That’s….not the question I thought you were going to ask.” He paused, his eyes settling on the humans and ponies quietly sorting through the supplies and putting them into storage containers in the back of their new car. “It’s not entirely peaceful. It’s not perfect. But it is magical. It is beautiful, and most importantly, that’s where they all are.” He nodded to his friends, a movement that Fluttershy caught and waved back, a determined but happy smile on her face. “They helped me get back on my hooves, and welcomed me without a second thought...well, except Rainbow, but we’re good now.” Allan extended his hoof and took Kate’s hand. “I know things are hard now, but this won’t last forever. I….no, we, won’t let it.” He smiled up at her, feeling the faint flickers of hope flare up again, just a little.
Katie broke the connection first, wiping away a happy tear from her cheek, before returning a wan smile. “Do you think…...do you think that I could go there?”
Allan stared at her for a minute. “You know you’d not be human anymore, right? You’d change, like I did. What about Jeremy? What about him?”
Katie fell silent, the hope and joy at Alan's earlier explanations about Equestria fading away, replaced instead with guilt and remorse.
“He…..he didn’t make it.”
Allan felt his blood run cold. “....What?”
“Jeremy is…..he’s dead, Allan….We were out searching for a place to use as our hideout when everything went to hell.” Katie’s face was turned away from Allan now, though he could see glistening tears on her cheeks. “Jeremy went into a hotel, thinking we could set up in there. But the looters set the building on fire, and….and……” She choked back a sob, hand flying to her mouth. “The fire reached the gas mains. He never stood a chance.”
Allan just stared. Jeremy was dead. A man who he had known and trusted….was gone. He had not liked him because he had been involved with Katie, but that was more of a joke than actual dislike. And now the man his sister loved was dead.
“I……..I’m sorry.” Allan stated. His voice was hoarse, rough. “I should have come back sooner. We should have tried harder, spent more time fixing the stupid portal and less time-”
“Stop.” Katie’s finger pressed against his lips, bidding him to be silent. “It….it’s been hard…..but you can’t blame yourself. You did everything you could to get back. All of you have given us more hope than we’ve seen in a long time, and that’s not something to forget.” She coughed, straightening her rumpled mask, where it sat around her neck, before standing back up. “I’ll be fine. Eventually. Let’s just focus on getting through this, and we’ll mourn later.”
Watching Katie walk across to the car left Allan feeling more alienated than ever. Despite her words, guilt heartily gnawed at his soul.
******************