//------------------------------//
// A Desert Thrash, a City Uncovered, the Crisis Forms 
// Story: Uncovering A Time Before 
// by Fyrebird 
//------------------------------//

Las Haygas,
2 days later.
“Turn south onto dirt road, 1 mile ahead,” Colgate said perkily. “In one mile, the real adventure begins. Few laws, no roads, no major towns, Natives, Marexican Warriors, disputed land, tumbleweed, rocks, canyons, rivers, outlaws,” the speed of her voice increasing, “Illegal trade routes, chupacabras, drug cartels, no food, no water, great mountains,”
“Colgate.”
“What?”
“Shutup.”
The carriage turned onto the dirt path, leaving the dazzling lights of Haygas behind and entering unknown territory. Like the Everfree Forest, only drier, and bigger. Much bigger. What lay ahead was two hundred miles of dirt, desert, badlands, and towering mountains. What was behind them though, would soon become a major problem.

Back in Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle had noticed Lyra and Bon-Bon had been gone for almost a week now. Curiosity began to form as she wondered where the couple went.
“Hey Ditzy. Have you seen Lyra or Bon-Bon recently?” asked Twilight Sparkle.
“Nuh-uh, they went traveling,” the grey Pegasus replied.
“Do you know where?”
“West, I think,” she said stupidly.
“Huh. Thanks Ditzy.”

Back at the library, Twilight looked through the archives. She didn’t reorganize, so anything the couple had looked at should be out of place. Soon, being the apt librarian she is, she found what she was looking for. After skimming over the article, she looked confused. Then, she thought, If they headed west, and these ruins they were looking at are far west… I should let the Princess know, just in case. She'll know what to do.

The TOFC ripped across the Neighvada desert like a bat of hell. Its wheels thrashing up and down in the massive potholes. Dodging cacti left and right, it tore through the desert, leaving behind Las Haygas and a massive dust cloud behind.
“YEEE HAW!” Colgate screamed out the window.
Lyra too, stuck her head out of the window, the rushing hot air blasting her face like a hell bent fan. The wheels thundered, pumping her adrenaline. She could just sense the ruins of a city looming in front of them. What she didn’t see was the stampede of buffalo behind them.
“Indians!” Bon-Bon yelled. There were thousands, attempting to chase the TOFC. Arrows soon whizzed by, and whoops and war cries. “CT…”
They somehow were getting closer, and their beady black eyes glared down at the intruders of their sacred land. Beady black eyes eyed them crazily. They were frightening images, ones that Moondancer expertly caught on film. They were getting ever closer, blood in their eyes. These were not normal natives, rather the war-like tribes who would kill everypony in a settlement and burn it to the ground afterwards, no peace talks, no negotiation. But Carrot Top seemed to having a ball.
“How cute. They think they can catch us. I’ll show them!” she was crazed, and having way too much fun.
Carrot Top smashed the warning glass on the dashboard. Around it, there were multiple warning signs. It was titled OVERDRIVE. She slammed the red button that was where the glass used to be. The magic turbine that hadn’t been heard, or even known it was there, whined up to ear threatening decibels. The TOFC took off even faster, leaving the angry buffalo in a daze of dust, rage, and confusion.

In Canterlot, Princess Celestia received a letter. It was from her faithful student Twilight Sparkle. She opened it up and read. Dear Princess Celestia…


“No holding back CT! Go! Go! GO!!” Lyra screamed over the noise.
They began turning west again, towards the mountains. Just over those lay the ancient metropolis Lyra so desired to explore. She held Bon-Bon close as they were knocked about the cabin. Seatbelts were nonexistent in this particular vehicle.
“What’s that?” Colgate asked, pointing south. There was a cloud of dust moving parallel to them. Moondancer pulled out binoculars, and attempted to look through despite the insane beating they were taking on the dirt. She managed to catch a glimpse of three or so Marexican TOFCs. “Marexican Army! Faster!”

“¡Eh! ¿Qué es eso?” the soldier on turret asked, pointing to the dust cloud shooting across the desert parallel them. 
“No sé, que podría ser un monstruo,” the specialist in the backseat said, looking out the window.
“No, es problamente un excursión de miltar de Equestria,” the commanding officer said. “Pero, ellos son más cerca de la frontera. Lo que sea, solo diga la sede. No importa qué Equestria hace aquí.”

“Doesn’t look like they’re after us,” Colgate said after a while. “Yeah, they’re turning away,” she added, squinting.
“Good, because I’m gonna be sick.”
“Oh yeah you’re looking pretty green, Lyra.”
“Ha-ha.”
Carrot Top flung the TOFC sideways to a stop. Lyra jumped out and ran until she found a big saguaro cactus and keeled over behind it.
Bon-Bon sat by looking worried, and glancing quickly from Lyra to the Marexicans, who were turning away.
It was peaceful in the desert. Nothing moved. Save for Lyra’s retching, it was quiet. They were now in the badlands, approaching the mountains. This was the most dangerous leg of the journey. Behind every crevasse or butte could lay bandits, cartels, or monsters.
“Hurry up Lyra, I don’t like it here,” Bon-Bon said worriedly.
“Pardon me, but what is that?” Moondancer asked, pointing north. Running down the mountain was a particularly mangy coyote. But as it came closer, it had demon eyes and a twisted mouth, and missing hair in places.
“CHUPACABRA!!! HOLY SHIT!!” Colgate yelled.
“LYRA! BACK IN THE CARRIAGE QUICK!!!!” Bon-Bon screamed.
“Holy fuck!” Lyra took off, running as fast as her legs could take her. The chupacabra was faster. It was catching up. Lyra was a mere step from the carriage, she was almost there. But it leaped, victory in its eyes, when out of nowhere a thunderous boom blasted it backwards and into a shower of blood. All the ponies whipped around, to see Moondancer standing in the open turret hatch, magically holding a twelve gauge, still smoking. “That ought to teach that ruffian a lesson.”
Nopony could do anything but gape at the self proclaimed mistress carefully wiping off her shotgun. “What? Can a lady not be proficient with firearms? Get on with the ride, Carrot Top, it’s time to get to the ruins. I am now excited for this as well. We ought to make this miserably long journey worth every moment.”
Lyra climbed aboard, and Carrot Top thrashed the carriage, giving it everything. Moondancer stayed at turret position, and Colgate decided, If the whiner just saved Lyra with a shotgun, and we’re not even halfway across the desert, pulling out a Colt M1911 out of the compartment on the door, I might as well join in on the firearm fun. 
The massive tires thundered through everything the Western Territory could throw at it. The turbine wailed as they charged towards the mountains. Colgate and Moondancer hung out of openings, scanning the desert for any monster or bandit who dared cross their path. Carrot Top donned reflective aviators, and sawed away at the steering wheel at one hundred fifty miles an hour. Meanwhile, Lyra and Bon-Bon sat together, talking so that only they could hear.
“I almost lost you,” Bon-Bon sobbed.
“I know. We owe Moon one.”
“We?”
“Oh, nevermind.”
“No, we owe her,” Bon-Bon smiled. She then moved closer to Lyra’s face, and Lyra did the same. They wrapped themselves in a picture perfect kiss, had Carrot Top not glanced in the mirror and purposely clipped a boulder and sent the whole carriage skidding, and everypony violently thrown around.
“Watch your driving asshole!” Lyra yelled.
“My bad,” Carrot Top laughed, maneuvering the TOFC through the badlands.

“Sir! Orders straight from Canterlot! Track any movement in the Western Territory sector. Neutralize any suspicious or extremely west parties.”
“Gimme that!” the Commander said, snatching the papers from the private. “I’ll be damned. Get me all movement in western sector and tell me their heading, speed, size, and coordinates. Got that everypony?”
“Yes sir!” replied all the mares and colts working at Las Haygas Equestrian Guard Headquarters.

“Whoa!” Colgate gasped.
“What is it?” Lyra asked.
“Look!” she said, pointing out north. There was something huge, something ancient. It was long and flat. It was an ancient highway. From a distance, it blew every Equestrian highway out of the water. It was so wide, and instead of intersections, bridges crossed over where ancient roads used to lay.
“Whoa,” Lyra breathed.
“That, is now the fastest way. Let’s go!” Colgate yelled.
Moondancer put down the gun, and pulled out her camera. Carrot Top gunned it, and charged down to the ancient highway. The TOFC went over the hill the elevated highway was on, catching massive air and landing hard onto the cracked pavement. Ancient signs, bearing wear, but still looking fairly new, considering their approximated age, lined the highway. Some overhanging ones had fallen, but the TOFC’s mighty undercarriage plowed over the steel with ease. Moondancer expertly snapped photos of them, and the highway. Colgate read them.
“They’re in the same language! This is unbelievable! Lemme see,” she wondered. “Oh! I dash forty, west it says! Los Anguhless?”
“Whoa! STOP!” Moondancer yelled.
“I see it!” Carrot Top yelled back.
“What is it?” Lyra asked.
“An ancient carriage, it seems,” Moondancer said, coming down from the turret and opening the door. She walked out, and towards the object. Lyra followed her.
It was black, and pulled to the side. It had big, thick wheels, whose tires had succumbed to more than three thousand years of weathering, leaving behind only dry, wiry strips of rubber. The rear window was smashed, and it had a hood, even bigger than the TOFC. Stamped on the back in metal was a silver laurel with some kind of gold and red shield in the middle. And near the bottom bumper, on the left side it read:
Cadillac
On the opposite side:
ESCALADE
“Dude!”
Moondancer snapped many photos of the carriage, until Colgate tapped her on the shoulder. “There’s plenty more,” she said pointing down the road. Sure enough, ancient carriages of all shapes and sizes were scattered along the highway. Thousands upon thousands of them, in black, blue, red, white, gray, and some odd ones out in yellow or green. There were multiple styles, and tons of marques.
“That’s weird how they have different carriage makers like us. It’s really similar,” Lyra noted.
“Let’s get going, we must be close,” Carrot Top said.

“Commander! We have a TOFC heading west, far west, almost out of range. It doesn’t read as Marexican, it’s coming back Equestrian.”
“Send some scouts. Check it out. I wanna know if we got a rogue on our hands."

The tension was rising with each passing carriage. They were coming within range. Soon, there was evidence of past buildings. Every so often a giant pole with a smashed pile of metal on top would be sighted, or a pile of rubble in square or rectangular pattern, with metal supports still sticking out of the earth. Lyra couldn’t believe it. The place actually existed. Now, if she could find a picture of a human, they could return heroes, not criminals. They began to pass into trees and vegetation in the hilly country. The highway became crowded, and progress slowed. Standing buildings began to come into view.
“Oh my Celestia.”

“Bogey has entered restricted zone. Arrest on sight, I don't give a shit who's behind the wheel.” a voice clicked over the headset on the young pegasus’ head as he and three others rocketed above the Neighvadan desert.
“Roger, this is Marauder Seven, thank you, over.”

Back at the Marexican base, they had begun tracking the TOFC remotely. If the occupants of that TOFC so much as spat in their direction, they’d know, and scramble their air forces immediately. Little did they know, that TOFC wasn’t being used by the military, and the real military was about to apprehend them as it charged further into the restricted area. Even more suspicions aroused as three air units showed up, heading the same way as the rogue TOFC. Unbeknownst to Lyra, she and her friends had accidentally begun a military crisis.

“Welcome to Los Anguhless! Or is it Angeles?” Colgate yelled. Moondancer was frantically snapping photos as fast she could, and Lyra was staring out the window in astonishment. It was just as she imagined it would be. She pulled out her notebook, writing down everything she observed, all she saw. Carrot Top slowed even more, mouth agape as everpony else, as they all took in the ancient suburbs. 

“Thirty miles out, intercepting in approximately twenty minutes. Marauder Seven, over.”
“This is Admiral Thunder. I was informed of this development. Keep up the good progress Marauder Seven.”
“Yes sir, admiral sir. I will do my best.”
The admiral then said, “Send out another squadron, just to be sure there’s other rogues we can’t see.”
“Yes sir!” the commander replied, who then turned and then barked out orders.

Back at the Marexican base, tension was rising. The, more blips appeared on their small radar area.
“¡Ay! ¡Más unidades de aire detectado! Almirante ,¿qué hacemos hoy?”
"¿Cuál es la distancia?"
"Más o menos, cincuenta millas."
“Llamar a la fuerza aérea.”
At a military base in Northern Marexico, pegasi were scrambling onto the tarmac. They donned suits and jets and frantically spat back in forth in their language. Heavy armor crawled out of the hangars, all heading towards the border, where they lined up.

Shouldn’t we stop now? We’re surrounded by all these ruins, we can find definitive proof of humans, and go home?” Bon-Bon asked. 
“No, we should get to city center, that’s where most of the information should be,” Lyra said.
“My Lyra, it appears I’m not the only mare here with archaeological intelligence,” Moondancer commented, snapping off a shot of a small high rise.
“Yeah, which makes it weird to me why their military had checkpoints all over.” In the past few minutes, they had past by a dozen or so areas where their military set up a checkpoint, almost identical to Equestria’s checkpoints, only with their advanced carriages, that, oddly enough, looked exactly like the TOFC. They were called Humvee's and the only difference were the even wider, but smaller in diameter wheels, and the large headlamps. And then were the ones on tracks. They were massive metal carriages with unbelievable armor, and an enormous turret with a 10 foot barrel protruding from them, and a light machine gun to top it all off.
“I would suspect massive turmoil and chaos brought their end, so that would explain the haphazard state everything is in. And the burn marks that keep popping up on these buildings,” Moondancer said.
“Everything feels so similar around here,” Colgate added.
“Yeah, it does,” Carrot Top added. “It’s like almost everything we’ve seen so far, we’ve seen similar in Equestria.”
“Idiot, we’re still in Equestria.”
“You know what I meant,” Carrot Top snapped back.

“Marauder Seven, hold position, large Marexican forces detected in your vicinity. Hold position stay fifty miles out from the border, over. I repeat, HOLD POSITION, Marauder Seven, do you copy?”
“Roger, this is Maurader Seven, holding position,” the colt replied, signaling the others to stop and glide in holding pattern.

“We’re almost there, I can sense it,” Lyra said, as they neared the top of the hill.
“We are already here, just look around you. This place is huge! I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Colgate corrected. “We’ve passed by a million different things by now, we should seriously stop and just find the proof now. And just the proof of humans, because I have a feeling that there are some nasty creatures around here.”
“Anypony else smell salt?” Carrot Top asked.
“I smell it too,” Bon-Bon added.
“I as well. We must be near a sea.”
They were almost at the top of the hill. A breeze began to pick up, and carrying the smell of ocean with it. Then, they reached the top, and caught a glimpse of the ancient city. 
Worn and crumbling towers were everywhere, concentrated near the center, but spread out the further from the center. There were hundreds of square miles of rubble, homes, carriages, stores, malls, warehouses, ‘gas stations’ (they could only assume they were stops for carriages to refill vital liquids, they were everywhere and were built around the vehicles), businesses, hotels, and condos. Dozens of gigantic highways carved through the massive place, and where they met, giant bridges laced each lane to a new one at towering heights. Millions of carriages were parked everywhere, looking like a million tiny ants infesting a toy city from their point of view. A few huge slabs of pavement and a futuristic tower with curvy and sci-fi buildings around it were right by the sea. On or in it, there were giant metal objects, with massive fins protruding from their long and skinny sides. Plant life had retaken it in odd ways, but the great city remained. It seemingly stretched forever. There was almost no area where there was no evidence of construction. It was bigger than any city ever built by Equestrians, or anyone still on the earth. It was as though gods made it. Then there was the sea. It was a never-ending blue oblivion, still slightly tainted by garbage and pollutants from a dawn since past. 
“Oh in the name of all things Equestrian, holy shit,” Moondancer said.
Then Lyra absolutely exploded in excitement. “YES!! LET’S GO SEE IF HUMANS WERE REAL!”

In Canterlot, Celestia received news from her secretary, informing her of a development. A rogue TOFC with Equestrian registration was being followed had entered the restricted zone. To make matters worse, the Marexicans took the military scout pegasi chasing said TOFC the wrong way, and had stationed large forces holding above and on the border. The Equestrians were a bit too close, according to the report. Also, the secretary informed her that the scouts spotted ancient civilization in the restricted zone.
Celestia was so frustrated, she could scream. How the hell does this happen? What now? Soon everypony will find that I am not the creator, nor Luna, nor my parents, but a goddess who found a dead world and brought life to it again. They’ll see all Equestrian creations are copies of the humans’. And they’ll find out about the humans. What do I do? Then, she perked up. She spoke. “Alert the guard. I’m going out there to sort this out. Tell Luna she has full command for the time being.”
“Yes your majesty,” the secretary replied.