"Breaking news coming out of the Hooviet Empire. This is still unconfirmed at this hour, but the Hooviet ambassador has said that all attempts at a resolution of the current crisis have broken down.
President Pony has been on the phone with Hooviet Premier Puttin, but according to an inside source, this has proven no more fruitful than anything else.
We will keep you up to date as more news comes in. But as of now, our worst fears seem to be coming true. War seems inevitable now."
That had been six months ago. Six hours after that announcement on the radio, the Hooviet Empire had declared war on Ponyland. And it had been downhill ever since.
In the city that had grown up around Dream Castle, four ponies sat together in a cafe as the latest reports from the front came in. But their minds were not really on the news.
"This isn't right. We should have stopped this a long time ago," Amber grumbled.
"How?" Moon Petal asked. "We are just five ponies. We are not..."
"We're not her," they all said together, letting their tears fall as their minds returned to a happier time and the pony who had done so much to bring the world together.
It had been six thousand years since Empress Cosmos had vanished from the world. Now only the five of them remembered her at all. Everything had changed since that night and not all for the better.
"Where's Ivy?" Diamond asked after a moment.
"Still at the embassy," Ocean replied. "I still can't believe she went back inside."
All the girls nodded somberly. They had not been back inside Dream Castle since that morning so long ago. It held too many painful memories for them. All the time they had spent long for her before moving on as much as they could.
But Ivy had returned to it sometime before, and from what she had been telling them, it was no longer what they remembered it as.
Their old bedroom was now only used for storage, the Tea Parlor was gone, replaced by offices, but the thing that in infuriated them most of all? The Empress's throne was gone, replaced by something that lacked all that something so proud deserved. When Ivy had asked what had happened to it, the answer only made it worse.
It had been melted down and made into table ornaments. Amber had to be restrained from marching back inside and knocking heads for that, though they all felt the same for the insult done to her memory.
And now the world had descended into madness and chaos, and there was nothing they could do about it. Even together they couldn't take on all the armies at once. Only one could, and she was gone.
At one time they could have beaten them all easily and with two hooves tied behind their back, but no more. Their powers had been waning for years now. They could still defeat anyone who was dumb enough to try anything of course. But the days of beating up armies for fun were long gone.
Any other thoughts were for the moment put on hold as Ivy came running up to them, her face a mask of horror. The girls were shocked. "Ivy, What is wrong?" Diamond asked.
She shook her head. "No time. Get us out of here. Now. We do not have a lot of time."
Diamond was shocked by the tone she used, but ignited her horn and teleported the group outside the city and into the surrounding forest.
Ocean glared at her. "Okay, we are out. Mind telling us what the hay is going on? You are never like this."
Ivy shook her head. "I just got out of the Cabinet Meeting. They are ending the war. Today."
The others shared a look. "Is that not a good thing though?" Moon Petal asked. "I mean this whole thing was stupid to begin with."
Ivy shook her head as her tears fell. "No. They have authorized the use of Balefire Bombs, the entire arsenal. They are going to turn the entire Empire into a permanent Dead Zone."
The girls were shocked. They knew what Balefire did. A relic of the Night Wars, ones that Tirek himself had used on his own people. Nothing could and never would grow again on the ground it was used on.
"They would not," Amber said, hoping this was all some kind of sick joke. "President Pony-"
"Is dead. Killed last night. General Ironhoof is in charge now," Ivy interrupted as her tears came fast now. "The missiles are already on their way."
The girls were horrified. "The Empire will not take this lying down. They'll retaliate." Diamond said.
Ivy's eyes fell even more if that was possible. "They already have. Just before I left, we detected the launch of their entire nuclear arsenal. Aimed straight at Ponyland."
The girls did not say anything for a moment, their minds filled with too much horror at what they were hearing. "We have to start the evacuation, get everypony to the shelters." Moon Petal said.
Ocean shook her head. "We do not have near enough time. There is no way we can warn everypony." She smiled ruefully. "We are good, but we are not that good."
Ivy nodded. "And the World Wide Broadcast System has not been used for centuries. I do not even know where they stored it or if it even still exists now."
Amber sniffed as her wings drooped. "Then. This is it then isn't it? Everything we've ever done together, all our hopes and dreams for what we helped build."
Moon Petal could not stop herself, and she pulled the girls into one massive hug, one they all returned in full. For a time they stood together like that before Diamond spoke up.
"Go home girls. Be with your families. Keep them close." She sniffed. "Keep them safe and never forget. An Exarch."
"Never quits." They all said together. It helped a little as they smiled and broke apart. One by one they gave each other a smile before vanishing in their own unique way. Soon only Diamond and Amber remained. For despite being as old as she was, Amber was still a filly in the eyes of everyone else but the girls. She didn't have a family of her own, and so Diamond had taken her in as part of her own.
For a few more minutes they stood there looking back at Dream Castle in the distance. They knew, without knowing how, that it would be the last time they would ever see their old home.
And then they too vanished, without a backward glance.
The bombs began to fall at exactly six pm. None who lived through that day would ever forget what they saw.
All across Ponyland, everything was consumed in the holocaust. No meter of the ground was spared, even though the homes of the girls escaped unharmed thanks to their magic.
The survivors of the nuclear fire called it many things. The Reign of Fire, Judgement Day, and the Breaking of the World among others.
But soon those whose xenophobia had lead to what many were already calling the Apocalypse War turned their hatred, not on other races, but other types of ponies. each kind blaming the other for the hell they had all gone through.
The dream was dead. All the promise and bright future born in the Age of Myth, all of what made the Age of Wonders so beautiful, was gone forever. The dreams of a forgotten goddess. Destroyed as the world she left behind turned on itself.
The Three Tribes Era has come.