Infinity Era

by JDPrime22

Chapter 87 – If There’s Something Strange

Over an hour of nothing.

Rainbow Dash sighed and lowered the binoculars from her eyes, blowing a raspberry and leaning back on the shattered roof she and the Wonderbolts occupied. What was once the Town Square, where Town Hall proudly stood, now was just a graveyard of past memories, all of which too good to be true. With the reality setting in, with the real world occupying what once was, not even warm memories could settle their worries.

Town Hall had remained standing despite nearly toppling when the waves hit. It creaked and cried but made no other movement as the Wonderbolts took a rest from patrol to scout the nearby areas instead. Led by Spitfire, Soarin, and Rainbow Dash, the Wonderbolts had remained in a cluster of no more than a dozen ponies. They were constantly scanning the skies, keeping a look-out to see if anything was coming their way or there was anything left of interest. To their cause and to the cause of Equus.

The sky was gray and the storm clouds were heavy, the recent rainfall painting the graveyard of homes into a sickly wetness, boards of wood soaked and snapping under the pressure of trying to keep the myriad of damage afloat off the ground. What remained of nearby buildings crumbled under the pressure, but not Town Hall. Its foundations were strong enough to hold itself and less than a dozen Pegasi on its roof. Even as Rainbow leaned back and handed off the binoculars to Fleetfoot.

“C’mon, Dash, we’re not here to laze around,” Spitfire strictly stated. She and Soarin were focused on the binoculars in their hooves, eyes gazing out onto the desolation. Only after Spitfire lowered her pair did she notice Rainbow Dash taking it easy.

Unsurprisingly, Rainbow waved it off, narrowing her eyes into the dark storm clouds high above. The smell of rain filled her nostrils, the distant rumble of thunder soon to make its triumphant return. “How many times have we been back here, again? And how many times have we actually found something that could help us? Oh, yeah, zero.”

Spitfire snorted, lifting her binoculars and staring through them once again. “Smart-ass.”

“Point still stands,” Rainbow groaned, leaning forward and stretching out her wings. Spitfire’s jaw fell, her free hoof grabbing Soarin’s binoculars and adjusting his eyesight in her direction. His jaw promptly fell, as well.

Rising to all four hooves, Dash stretched the rest of her limbs and sighed, “There’s nothing here. Might as well head back before the storm settles in.”

She was met with a resounding nothing. That was new. Furrowing her brow, Rainbow turned to every member of the Wonderbolt, watching them all gazing in the same direction, binoculars or not, completely ignoring her. Frowning at that, Rainbow shot that frown over to Spitfire. Even she was ignoring her, gazing off into the clouds.

“Hey, did you hear me?” she called out, flying over until she was hovering close by Spitfire’s left, right next to her ear. “That storm’s gonna come in real…”

She was silenced by Spitfire’s hoof closing her jaw, directing her head to gaze in the only direction that mattered at the moment. Then she understood. Rainbow Dash finally caught what everypony else was so enamored with. It broke out of the clouds where Southern Equestria originated, storming across the skies in not one, not two, not even three, but multiple ships. Massive in scope and scale. It wasn’t Chitauri, not by any means. For the first time since the Wonderbolts took flight to the outside world, they found something worthwhile.

Something that could actually benefit their cause.

Breaking out of the dark clouds, an armada of Hippogriff naval ships flew across the skies, entering Ponyville’s airspace and occupying it. They weren’t alone. Dotting the skies in the hundreds, to the numbers Rainbow couldn’t dare to count, numerous Hippogriffs, dragons, griffons, and changelings flew about until they too filled all of Ponyville’s airs. Rainbow’s jaw continued to fall, her massive eyes nearly popping out of her skull with how wide they were growing. She saw Gilda, Greta, Ember and Thorax within the mix, leading their appropriate forces. She saw Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs, the brother of Thorax, Pharynx, flying close by her and Sky Beak’s side. But that wasn’t what caused Rainbow Dash to take off with renewed speed and vigor. That wasn’t what caused every Wonderbolt to drop what they held and follow closely behind her. That wasn't what got them landing in the desolate streets of Ponyville, gazing up to the clouds in one, conjoined chorus of eyes and gasps.

Just in front of the remains of Twilight’s castle, Tempest Shadow’s airship landed gracefully upon the dirt road.

The side of the airship faced them, the ramp slowly opening and unveiling its inhabitants to the slack-jawed Wonderbolts standing numbly in the empty street. A helping of smoke and mist trailed out from the belly of the beast, the airship groaning as its engines slowed to a near-halt. A rest at long last. From the beast of metal and steam, several shadows and bodies appeared out of the smoke. They stamped downwards on the ramp until every hoof, every claw, every paw touched the dirt. Until every eye met Rainbow Dash’s. Met the Wonderbolts.

And a smile joined them. Especially Rainbow when she saw Captain Celaeno and her unruly band of parrot pirates once again. While Celaeno offered a slick grin and wink towards the pony that helped them get back their “argh”, it was completely overshadowed by the pony that encompassed that name, that title she gave herself. The burden of her past she carried still to that day.

Tempest Shadow landed upon the dirt, raising her head and meeting her eyes. “Rainbow Dash!”

“Tempest?” Rainbow stated, questioned really. The last she ever saw of the unicorn was last year when she and Celaeno left with the rest of Storm King’s army to “free the world” as she put it. There were hardly any Storm Creatures with her, and not another airship in sight other than her own. No, the skies were filled with something greater than that, something Rainbow never would have expected.

So, she held her hoof to the broken unicorn, then to the skies. Then asked, “What’s going on? What’s… all of this?”

Tempest took a step forward. Then another. To the point that it was almost too close for comfort. To the point where the Wonderbolts nearly felt threatened by the unknown adversary that had entered Ponyville. But Rainbow knew better. She stood her ground even as Tempest nearly got in the Pegasus’ face. A tightening of her hardened stare, the wrinkles on her face, just on her snout showing the urgency in her expression.

Especially in her voice when she demanded, “Where’s Twilight?”

Rainbow Dash and Tempest Shadow arrived late to the reunion neither expected.

They practically slammed themselves into the front doors of the ancient castle, both with widened eyes and rapidly-expanding and deflating chests. They practically ran and flew towards the castle, the remainder of the One United Species Army either hovering in the air by the naval ships, airship, or even near the adult dragons. Those who followed the two mares were the leaders of the army, all of them gaping in awe when they entered the front doors of the castle.

The Wonderbolts flew inside, hovering in mid-air and gazing onto the scene within the Great Hall. Dragon Lord Ember and Thorax stood together, numerous other changelings and dragons standing by their sides, Smolder and Pharynx being two of them. Gilda, Greta, Gallus, and several other griffon generals entered behind them. Captain Celaeno, her parrot crew, and Queen Novo entered shortly after, the Hippogriffs and Storm Guards that followed behind them gasping into near-silence when they saw it.

They saw all of it.

The Great Hall to the Caste of the Two Sisters was practically filled to the brim with ponies. Crystal and non-crystal alike. The populace of the Crystal Empire was merged with the inhabitants of what once was Ponyville, the conglomeration of depressive states, saddened expressions, and pure defeat shared amongst them. The Crystal Ponies no longer glowed thanks to the loss of the Crystal Heart, losing that connection and magic that made them who they were. They appeared just as dull and crestfallen as everypony else in the Great Hall.

Leading what remained of the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadance and Sunburst were currently discussing important matters with Princess Twilight and her friends. Starlight and Sunburst were locked in a hug, the two childhood friends assuring one another they were fine and they just made it out of the worst with barely a scrape. Sunburst could hardly believe her when he gazed to her bandaged horn. Twilight was currently trying to calm little Flurry Heart down, the baby Alicorn reaching for her aunt with renewed vigor. Twilight shushed the filly and gently rubbed her forehead, assuring to Cadance that they were all right. Everypony was safe in the castle.

Then they noticed the doors had burst open.

Then every head swiveled around and gazed onto the most unlikely group Equestria had ever seen. A short respite of silence filled the Great Hall…

Then they all came together.

No discrimination. No biases. No time for that. Species intermingled, met ponies with hugs, firm claw/hoof handshakes all around. Ember reunited with Spike, the young dragon diving into her abdomen and trying to crush her with a hug. Sighing with a tad blush in her cheeks, Ember patted his scales and pried him off. Thorax was next, bending down to meet Spike for a softer hug. A warmer one. Gallus and Smolder quickly spotted him out of the rest, reuniting with Sandbar with devastating tackles and hugs. The pony laughed as two of his best friends tackled him to the ground, Sandbar pushing himself up and pushing them off. A bright smile filled his features. The first in days. The two of them were nearly the same.

“How’d you guys get here?!” Sandbar questioned, meeting Gallus’ fist with his hoof in a solid hoof bump. He did the same with Smolder’s fist. “And who’d you bring? Buncha changelings… Wait, is Ocellus here, too?”

Smolder shook her head, removing her dented, silver helmet and letting it rest under her armpit. “Nah, Ocellus decided she wanted to stay in the Changeling Empire to help rebuild with her family. As for the rest of us… guess you could say we’re the army that’s gonna save Equus.”

“We practically saved it already,” Gallus triumphantly stated, rubbing his claws against his chest with a proud grin to join his ego.

Sandbar’s eyes grew even wider as he further observed the large assortment of species interacting with the ponies. Turning to his best friends, he asked, “So everything’s better out there? We can finally go home?!”

Keenly remembering the state of which Ponyville remained in, Smolder and Gallus dropped their smiles, nervously rubbing the back of their necks. It was Smolder who said, “Not quite.”

Curious at that, Sandbar was never able to further delve into that when a powerful voice boomed out of the madness. Louder than the constant rabble of words and greetings, louder than the stamping of consistently moving hooves. So loud that everypony, especially Twilight, turned towards it to see Tempest Shadow break through the crowd and make her way directly towards her.

“Princess Twilight!” Tempest called out once again, Rainbow hot on her steel-plated hooves. When she was but a foot’s distance away, Tempest halted in her actions, breathing heavily and gazing into the expression of pure shock and awe on Twilight’s face.

“Fizzlepop…” Twilight observed, scanning the unicorn up and down, finally settling on her eyes. But really on her shattered horn. Tempest didn’t mind Twilight using her real name, allowing only the ponies she was most comfortable with—the ponies she actually may have considered… friends—to call her that. She still cringed all the same to see Ember and Grubber in the edges of her vision turn to her on that name, curiosity in their smirks.

“This is… quite a surprise. You’ve made a few friends, it seems,” Twilight noted.

“Allies, yes,” Tempest affirmed with a solid nod. Behind her, Queen Novo and Sky Beak made their approach, stopping just short with Ember and Thorax shortly joining them. With them were the griffon generals. Captain Celaeno and her crew. Grubber and the Storm Creatures right behind Tempest, the pudgy hedgehog smirking Twilight’s way. And Tempest ignored all of them, whispering sharply, “But Twilight, there’s something we need to—”

Twilight raised her hoof, causing Tempest’s voice to surprisingly… leave her. “I would love to fully catch up… but…”

Tempest caught Twilight’s movements, the unicorn’s eyes shrinking over to Princess Cadance and her battalion of Crystal Guards. To the assortment of Crystal Ponies gazing fearfully to the fearsome dragons in battle armor, to the monstrous Storm Creatures wielding spears and shields, and to the unruly parrot pirates. So caged in their own land, their own world, unfamiliar with current customs, the Crystal Ponies whimpered and backed away.

Tempest’s demeanor flattened, her ears nearly falling flat against her skull. “Oh… of course.”

Smiling and nodding appreciatively to Tempest, Twilight returned to her sister-in-law’s awaiting stare. She cleared her throat, the rest of the room slowly quieting down as the two princesses spoke to one another. “Cadance… as you were saying about the Crystal Empire?”

“It’s gone.”

If the room wasn’t already quiet then… it was absolutely dead silent following that statement. Ponies were clearly taken aback, especially Twilight and her friends. The empire they had known for years, the place they saved from King Sombra, from the devastating snowstorm, where Cadance and Shining Armor ruled peacefully… just to be gone. Jaws fell, gasps were taken, and everypony’s eyes were latched onto them. The spotlight was on them now.

But perhaps nopony took it harder than Twilight. She physically took a step back, almost shaking her head in disbelief. The look of dread and wearied despair in Cadance’s eyes already told Twilight what she didn’t want to know. “W-what?” she whispered. “But… h-how?”

Cradling Flurry Heart in her left foreleg and soothing her tiny whimpers, Cadance sighed and stared to the floor. “He came for us, the Titan Celestia warned us about, invaded with his army and destroyed the Crystal Heart. The empire… was lost to the storm.”

Thanos. Twilight should have known. Shaking her head at that, wanting to do something much worse but couldn’t with the crowd eyeing her. She didn’t stare at the but felt their stares, looking to her for an appropriate response. Looking for their leader. Tightening her expression, Twilight asked, “What about Shining Armor?”

She didn’t say a word, just stared at the floor and beyond. Flurry Heart continued to whimper louder in her embrace.

“Cadance,” Twilight stated, her voice harder, colder, much firmer and demanding in its power. She took a step forward that time, her eyes hard, hurt, forcefully meeting Cadance’s and bring the Alicorn’s gaze back up. “Where is my brother?”

It didn’t come any easier that second time she tried to admit it to herself. Cadance just pursed her lips, closed her eyes, and shook her head. Doing everything in her power not to shed a tear, to show that weakness that her ponies didn’t need from her. It was more than enough of an answer for Twilight, telling her all she needed to know, and dreading it all the same.

Telling her that he was gone.

She didn’t accept it, not at first. The denial was strong in her expression, the shake of her head, the burning in her eyes. Twilight did everything in her power not to believe it, but it was there. Biting into her and only threatening to eat away until she accepted it. As if losing almost everything that held meaning to her wasn’t enough, now her brother—another piece of her family—was gone, too? Twilight closed her eyes and pursed her lips, just as Cadance had, not having the strength to keep in the tear.

“What about Canterlot?” Cadance asked, already regretting it when she saw the tear slip down Twilight’s cheek. Her voice slowly trailed off when Twilight’s eyes opened again and all she could see was the blood, the veins, the fire and the pain. “We haven’t received letters for days and…”

There was never an easy to put it. Never an easy way to tell the ones you loved of what they had lost. It was the hardest thing for Cadance to tell Twilight of her brother, so hard that she couldn’t even bring herself to formulate the words. And just as with Twilight, what she was forcing herself to say came where it hurt the most, where her tattered heart wept and her soul cried out. But she did it anyway. She did it because she needed to know.

They all needed to know.

“It’s… It’s gone… as well as everypony with it. The Royal and Lunar Guard… Canterlot’s citizens… Princess Luna… the Pillars… my parents… They never made it out of Canterlot before it…” Twilight’s voice trailed off, growing more and more ragged, painful breaths of air entering her and exiting as whimpers, as silent cries. Tears slipped down her cheeks, eyes closed tight and teeth grit as hard as she could manage. As hard as she could keep in the pain from fully destroying her.

Cadance gasped, eyes boiling and wetness slipping, finally escaping. The Crystal Guard with her all promptly dropped their jaws, not a word leaving their battalion. Even Sunburst was frozen at that statement, his glasses slowly sliding down to the edge of his snout. He didn’t even push them back up.

Queen Novo overheard their conversation, standing behind Tempest with a look of shock and horror plastered on her face. Canterlot… gone? Princess Luna… the Pillars of Old Equestria… It couldn’t be true. Novo didn’t believe it. How the princesses or Equestria’s greatest heroes could fall to a bunch of parasites from space was beyond ludicrous. She took a brave step forward, ready to break the silence Twilight had birthed from her painful statement, and held out her claw.

Until even she dropped it. The silence pestered and infected even Queen Novo, the Hippogriff ruler letting her eyes fall. Just as everyone else had.

Rainbow Dash quickly began to catch on to the growing unease, never keen on silence lasting too long to begin with. It was growing unbearable, the Pegasus sighing heavily. Loud enough for ponies, griffons, Hippogriffs, dragons, and all else to hear. “Well… now what? We got this big army here… What are we gonna do with it?” she said, more of a statement than a question. More of a rally cry than a concern. Wishing for everyone to rise out of the darkness and face the light, together if need be. But never alone…

And everyone did. They all lifted their eyes in unison, raised their heads passed Rainbow Dash and onto the light, out of the darkness. Thinking it as more of a metaphor more than anything, Rainbow furrowed her brow when she realized they were all staring onto a literal light source glowing behind her. So, she turned around, and met a sight she couldn’t have been more relieved to see.

The orange portals spinning with a ferocity enough to burn sparks across the Great Hall’s floor. The color of them, orange in hue, grew large enough for two beings to step out of them. A relieved and almost jovial sigh escaped the likes of Princess Twilight, Starlight Glimmer, and the rest of their closest friends. Others like Tempest Shadow, Princess Cadance, Queen Novo, and those who followed them all took a precautionary step backwards when the two humans stepped forth onto Equestria from the alien portals.

Doctor Strange and Wong met quite possibly the largest welcome party they could find.

Wong still didn’t know how Stephen Strange knew exactly where to lead the portals to, but he wasn’t complaining. He didn’t delve into and instead stared onto familiar faces with a firm nod and an assuring smile. He watched, took a step aside as the Sorcerer Supreme confronted them. All of them. From Twilight and her closest friends, their families, to Spike, to Starlight, to Capper, to Stygian, Friday, Trixie, Derpy, Maud, Tempest, Grubber, Celaeno and her crew, Novo and her Hippogriffs, Ember and her dragons, Thorax and his changelings, Pharynx, Gilda and the griffons with her, Cadance, the Crystal Ponies, the Storm Creatures, and every last pony in the Great Hall that turned towards the doctor.

So goddamn many of them.

And Stephen smirked at that, smiled to Princess Twilight and her friends as he paused just in front of them. “Twilight Sparkle… I’m gonna need you all to come with me,” Strange announced loud and proud, assuring and worrisome. A strange mixture, but one that nonetheless earned all of their attention. As if he hadn’t already received it by then.

No hello, no greetings, no nothing. Just business. Somewhat disturbed by Strange’s tone, Twilight shook it off for the time being, trying to gaze into the portal behind Stephen and Wong. “What happened?” she asked.

“Something big… something we can’t face alone. We need you,” he admitted, Wong nodding behind him, to Twilight specifically.

While the rest of the room—especially the One United Species Army—were trying to understand what in Equestria’s name was happening with the obscure wizard alien stepping out of the portal and asking for their help all of a sudden, it quickly donned on those who knew the strange wizard aliens that they came to Equus because it was important, because they were facing something on Earth that they couldn’t do alone. And they needed their help.

“How many of us do you need?” Starlight asked.

Then another portal appeared next to Strange’s right, appearing right on cue when Starlight finished that question. And out of it walked Steve Rogers himself, stepping forth by Strange’s side and meeting Twilight with that desperate gloom burning in his eyes. But mostly… she saw the fire. She saw the call to action. Then another portal, Tony Stark emerging from it and stopping on Wong’s left. He stared onto the mares he had come to know and love, nodding to Twilight, to Starlight, to all of them. To Rainbow Dash. Portal after portal, more and more Avengers, Guardians, Defenders, agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and so many more emerged, all of which were accompanied by a sorcerer.

Until the room was ablaze with orange light and a renewed fighting spirit.

“Everyone,” Doctor Strange said.