The leaders of Equs… the real world leaders, all sat around a large round table. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, they had all been teleported by Discord, where they would discuss their course of action.
"Celestia, why have you called us here?" Asked Ember.
"You only ever summon us when there's something extremely urgent," King Talon of the Griffons added.
"Let alone make Discord teleport us here," High Priestess Ada of the zebras said.
"I'm sure I speak for everycreature here when I say the only reason we aren't in an outrage right now is because you had a good reas-… well, I think you probably had a good reason to teleport us all away from the kingdoms we have to rule," the minotaur king, steel horn, assumed.
"Speaking of which, why is Discord present for the summit?" Cadence asked.
"Well, to answer all your questions," - Celestia grew a worried look and hesitated, before continuing - "They have returned."
"What? Who has returned? Is it Tirek? Sombra once again? Chrysalis? Or… God forbid..." - thorax whispered softly - "...Grogar?"
"No, this is something far, far worse. I don't know if the changelings passed down the knowledge, but the rest of you should know about them," Luna said worriedly.
"Well, who has returned?" Price Rutherford of the yaks asked impatiently.
"The first humans," Celestia finally said after an intense build up. The whole room then immediately fell silent, with almost all of the Equs's leaders going wide eyed.
"But how is that even possible?" King Steel Horn asked.
"We… killed… every last one of them when we blew them up. There's no way they could have survived that," King Talon stated.
"I'm sorry, but you're all worried about a bunch of humans?" Queen Novo asked, confused.
"I don't get it either," Thorax added.
"They aren't just any humans," Luna said, "These are dangerous. Their power is nothing like you've ever seen!"
"But who are they? Can somecreature start making sense around here?" Queen Novo asked.
"They go by many names," High Priestess Ada said, "The first humans, the originals, the primordial men, the boom-boom boys, the masked men, among many others. But we know very little about them." She was cut off by King Talon as he took centre stage.
"What we do know is that a very, very, very, very long time ago, the world was populated only by humans. They had advanced to great heights, using technology to propel their species so far that it was rumored they had even gone to mars and back. They were the most powerful civilisation to have ever lived, and they had weapons so terrible that they put even the Elements of Harmony to shame," King Talon continued.
"The humans were the most powerful civilization to have ever existed?" Thorax asked.
"Indeed," Luna confirmed.
Thorax took notice that most of the other leaders had a serious look on their face. No doubt that whatever they were saying was the truth, since it would have simply been embarrassing for one of the leaders to speak of the humans with such amazement, and no doubt hurt their image. Thorax had to know more.
"So, if they were some big bad super civilisation… what happened to them?" Thorax asked.
"It was a meteor that wiped them out… or, more accurately, what the meteor was emitting. It emitted chaos magic, and while it is the most powerful form of magic, it proved to be harmful to humans. That magic is what wiped them out," Ember said.
"So, if a large meteor crashed into Equs and apparently wiped them out, how did they return?" Queen Novo asked.
"As we've already discussed, the first humans had a society very much like ours, only with the addition of extremely advanced technology," Celestia said, "Therefore, they also had large megacorporations, just like us. One of those corporations was known as the Vega Corporation. They were a huge conglomerate company that spanned the globe and provided their customers with things ranging from food and drinks, all the way up to providing First Human militaries with weapons. Therefore, they were the only other first humans with the capability and resources to construct this 'doomsday bunker'." Celestia was cut off as another continued narrating.
"Now, you may be asking what exactly this doomsday bunker is," King Talon said, "They essentially constructed a massive underground basement with reinforced walls. That itself is already amazing, considering they constructed it several kilometers underground. But not only that, but through their technology, they found a way to keep themselves frozen for one million years, before they reemerged. Yes, that’s how much power they possess."
"Wait… if they're just returning now, how do you already know so much about them?" Thorax asked.
"I'm glad you asked," King Steel Horn answered, "Remember the Great Equs War, when we defeated the humans and subjugated them for the atrocities they committed?"
"Of course, we all learn it in school," Thorax replied.
"What you know isn't the whole truth," King Steel Horn said, "It's true that they started conquering lands and killing everyone, but it wasn't just out of the need and want to take over other kingdoms, it was because of the Vega Corporation. You see, before they began their conquest, the First Humans granted us many gifts. They granted us the knowledge to create radios and speakers, trains, fridges to keep our food fresh which nearly eradicated starvation, a lot of pieces of medical technology and granting us medical knowledge which saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and many more wondrous inventions that you couldn't imagine living without. They even granted us a way to generate electricity without using magic, though that particular piece of technology had been long lost to time. However, their generosity quickly came to an end once they realised what they themselves could do with magic.” Celestia then picked up where the minotaur king left off.
“You see, magic is part of everything and every creature… except for the First Humans. They themselves found a way to take away the magic of others and give it to themselves and found out how to replicate exactly what Tirek does, only on a larger scale. You see, what magic that Tirek steals is only a mere fraction of what magic we actually have in us. The magic he steals is what gives us our power, but the magic the humans wanted to steal is what gave us our life. The magic we actually use is half of the magic we actually have, with the other half functioning as a sort of ‘life force’. Without the other half, if even a fraction of it was stolen, we would die. As creatures of magic, we cannot survive without it,” Celestia then took her breath and thought about what to say next, “The magic that we actually need to have coursing through us in order to live is what we call ‘passive magic’, and the magic that we use is what we call ‘active magic’. And what the humans did is oh so much worse than what Tirek did. Tirek intended to steal our active magic for power, but the First Humans intended to steal our very life force.”
“But… why would they do that? You mean all the people they killed… they stole their passive magic? Their life force?” Thorax asked.
“Indeed. The First Humans found a way to utilise our passive magic… for immortality. They created a machine that would remove our passive magic, killing us, while transferring it to them and elongating their lives,” Luna said, “They made a machine that would take away our life and give it to them. That’s how evil they are. The First Humans are a threat the likes of which we’ve never seen. We’ve faced nothing like them.”
“But you said you already defeated them, no?” Queen Novo asked, “So these should just be survivors, just remnants. Even with their weaponry, I’m sure we have larger numbers than them, correct? In fact, if they were really only the remaining survivors of a long dead civilisation, how many were there that they were able to cause you so much trouble? A hundred thousand? Five hundred thousand? A million?”
“Three thousand,” Celestia replied.
“T- three thousand? And they were able to cause so much trouble that every nation on Equs had to band together to defeat them?” Novo asked in disbelief.
“The problem wasn’t their numbers. The problem was that these First Humans… the members of the Vega Corporation, were able to unite the entirety of the human race, and assumed command of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. As we all know, a human with a weapon could easily beat any pony, griffon, or yack in melee combat without breaking a sweat. The only way we were able to defeat them was with the help of the minotaurs, dragons, and unicorns, and that had already effectively cut our military in half. The First Humans were able to defeat us only with the help of the native humans, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t dangerous as well,” Celestia replied., “As I’m sure you’ve heard, when the first humans attacked, they used these weapons called ‘guns’. These guns are essentially invisible spells that almost always instantly kill you by shooting tiny miniature cannonballs at their targets. On top of that, these weapons are able to fire several hundred of these mini cannonballs a minute.” Luna began to take over next.
“As a result of this, nocreature was able to even get close to them. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue for we could just use our magic, however, as my sister said earlier, the First Humans don’t have any magic,” Luna said, “You see, when magic affects somecreature, it reacts with the magic inside that person. Since the First Humans had no magic for ours to react with, they were completely impervious to it. Therefore, nocreature was able to get close enough to attack them physically and we could not attack them from range. The only option we were left with was to use ranged physical weapons, so we developed the bow. Of course, bows were nothing compared to the First Humans' guns, having a much slower rate of fire and a much shorter range, but we were able to take down a couple of them."
"So how were you able to defeat them the first time?" Thorax asked.
"We received help from Discord. At the time, we were unaware of the existence of the changelings. So Discord himself infiltrated the 'doomsday bunker' of the First Humans by shapeshifting into a high ranking First Human. He then discovered the First Humans' most devastating weapon, the thermonuclear warhead, or as we call it, the World Ender. Thank goodness they only had one of these, or they could very well have the power to end the world," King Talon explained.
"What the World Ender is," Luna picked up where he left off, "Is some sort of superweapon capable of generating an explosion big enough to destroy entire cities, maybe even entire kingdoms. Discord however, used it to his advantage. Once he infiltrated the First Humans' bunker, he figured out how to donate the weapon. So, he detonated it inside the human military's main, and only, base of operations, which they called Area 69. It was just our luck that a lot of the human soldiers were actually present within Area 69 at the time, so we were able to eliminate over a third of the human army, along with the First Humans themselves. The other two thirds of the army immediately fell into disarray, with a lot of their top generals being killed in the blast. And without the First Humans to guide them, their armies made stupid decisions and we were able to pick them off by using concentrated assaults. In fact, the badlands were as a result of the explosion of the World Ender."
Thorax and Queen Novo's eyes grew wide upon discovering this. "But like Queen Novo said, these are just their remnants, right?" Thorax asked worriedly, “They shouldn’t be as hard to deal with right?”
"Yes, it is a good thing that that is probably the case. This time it’ll be much easier to put them down. They don’t have the World Ender, they don’t have an army, and they don’t have an impenetrable fortress in the ground,” King Steel Horn said.
“That may be the case, but in order for them to remain less of a threat, we need to strike now. If we don’t eliminate the First Humans soon, they’ll spread. They’ll spread the idea of human superiority to the slaves, their power will give the humans a newfound confidence to rise up against us, and they will rebel. Usually, rebellions aren’t that hard to put down, seeing as a band of slaves just get together and charge at every single pony in sight without any strategy or clear goal in mind,” King Talon said, “However, the First Humans are much, much smarter than them, and if the First Humans utilise their war strategies, combined with the numbers and complete savagery of the human slaves, they will be unstoppable.”
“They won’t even need to get an army to follow them this time. All they have to do is free a few slaves and word will spread, causing rebellions to spring up all over Equestria. We will not be able to deal with them if they are able to convert the slaves to their cause,” Ember said.
“We must act now, before they are able to spread their influence throughout the slave population. What’s worse is that if they attack all at once, we won’t be able to defend against them. They will tear us apart from the inside,” King Talon said.
“But how do we even ‘strike now’? We don’t even know where they are,” High Priestess Ada asked.
“Well, we’ll just have to find them, won’t we? I’m sure if we launch a nationwide manhunt, we will be able to track them down,” Celestia said.
“Yes, but how long will that take? By the time we find them, they could very well already have an army by their side. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what it was like to fight against an organised human army, seeing as you yourself fought in the war,” Prince Rutherford said.
“We already know that wherever they are, they were able to launch an attack on Ponyville, so they should be nearby. We could send scouting parties in all directions and just hope that one of these parties finds them,” Luna said.
“So, you’re playing this by chance?” Prince Rutherford asked.
“We have no choice. It is our only option now,” Luna replied.
“Fine, I can see how that may be the case. But, I’m sure you’re not going to strike while they have the element bearers, are you?” Steel Horn asked, “Unless, of course, you are willing to strike while the bearers are in their custody?”
Celestia sighed. She knew that this was going to come up, and that it would be too much of a risk to attack the First Humans with Twilight and her friends in their custody, they had probably captured them to use them as leverage. No doubt that they would threaten to kill them if anycreature tried taking any action against them. But, fortunately for her, the First Humans no longer had their bunker, which was devoid of magic, to protect them. If they were hiding somewhere, no doubt wherever they were hiding would have ambient magic already present in the area. This gave Celestia an idea.
“We will be carrying out a rescue operation before the First Humans would be able to harm them, or worse. We weren’t able to teleport into their ‘doomsday bunker’ beforehand, because everything, including the air within the bunker, lacked any magic. We weren’t able to teleport because there would be nothing for our teleportation spells to react with. However, they no longer have a ‘doomsday bunker’, and theuer bunker was the only place in the world without a shred of ambient magic, which means that wherever they are, we would be able to teleport there. My plan is simple; we teleport in, get the bearers, then teleport out. After that, we attack them with an army large enough to completely overwhelm them,” Celestia suggested.
Discord then began speaking for the first time, and everyone turned their attention to him. “And with my help, we’ll be able to deal with them with no issues whatsoever. It’ll be a walk in the park. The most challenging part of this operation is finding them, not fighting them,” he said. He then got a more serious, menacing look. “The First Humans are going to pay for taking Fluttershy.”
“I guess that could work,” Rutherford agreed.
“I support your decision,” High Priestess Ada confirmed.
“Yeah, that’s definitely our best course of action if we wanna get the bearers out without them being harmed. They’ll never see it coming,” Ember said.
In the end, the decision was made to send a scouting party that would fan out from Ponyville and cover an area that would hopefully be large enough to locate the First Humans’ hideout. Of course, they weren’t expecting four hundred thousand humans, a heavily armed modern military, and tens of thousands of ‘World Enders’ to be at the humans’ disposal.
"Lieutenant Sharp!" A voice called out.
The Lieutenant turned around to find one of his indirect superiors approaching him. "Special Agent Sweetie Drops!" He said, saluting her.
"Good day, Lieutenant," she replied, "I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here. Well, I've been sent to check on you and make sure you know exactly what your mission entails. So, describe your mission and objective."
"It's a scouting mission. We are to fly straight ahead" - he pointed in the general direction ahead of him - "And see if we find a human rebellion base. If we do find a rebel base, we are not to engage them or let them know of our presence. Once we hit our mark, a hundred miles ahead of Tartarus, we'll begin turning back."
"And if you do encounter the human rebellion, remember to be stealthy. Don't stick around longer than you need to. Remember, these humans are extremely dangerous, and as with other humans, they have no qualms against killing innocent ponies," Agent Sweetie Drops replied, "And most of all, be careful out there, lieutenant. You may depart in ten minutes." The lieutenant gave one last salute, and Agent Sweetie Drops left to go and brief another scouting party.