Prologue Part 1.
7 years ago.
Coastal Gale roughly coughed himself back into the world of consciousness. His hacking caused his brother on the other side of the room to stir in his sleep. Struggling to clear his throat, gaging on whatever foreign object slipped between his lips, he leaned over the side of his bed, and gave a strong thrust with his diaphragm. Out from his mouth dripped a dead fly soaked in saliva. The bug decided it wanted a drink and, sensing moisture in the colt’s mouth, decided to take a pit stop. “Damn bugs.” He half coughed half mumbled.
Coastal rubbed the crust from his eyes, glancing through the window at Celestia’s morning sun as it grew over the naked horizon. Yawning, he crawled out of bed, hooves getting caught momentarily in the tangled sheets. “Get up Tide,” he called to his brother. “Mom will be in here soon anyways to wake us. Since we’re awake already anyways, we might as well go to school early for a change.” The thud from Coastal’s hooves slipping off the bed and hitting the wooden floor caused Tide to flinch slightly under his sheet, but the tired foal continued to pretend he wasn’t awake.
Just a moment later a tall tan mare entered through the colt’s doorway. “Wake- Oh.” She cut off her wake up call, noticing her son already combing his teal mane in the cracked mirror above his empty dresser. “Coast? What are you doing up so early?” She paused, locks of hair from her unkempt mane falling in front of her eyes. A frown formed on her face, “You stayed up all night again didn’t you? You know I don’t like when you do that; it’s not good for you.” Her voice had a small unhealthy wheeze, a sign of age and stress.
“Gosh! Mom. I know!” Coast groaned, he pulled an all-nighter the other day and his mom hadn’t been very happy about it. “I didn't stay up all night, I just woke up early today. I guess my body wants to get the last day of school over with.” He half lied, trying to make himself sound like he actually wanted to go to school. Then Coast thought to himself grumpily, mind still hampered by fatigue, What’s the big deal anyways? I’m fourteen, I’m old enough to go to sleep when I want to.
“Okay, if you say so.” His mother sighed warily, as she magically tugged the sheets off of her lazier child. She was still somewhat skeptical of Coast, she knew her son could be an exceptional liar, but she had no solid proof against him here. “I cooked omelets today. I know how much you like them Coasty. Now, Your food is on the table. Hurry up and go eat before it gets cold.”
This news Caused Tide to break his sleeping charade, “Mom,” he wined drawing out the vowel. “I hate omelets. Everypony hates omelets, they are disgusting!” He jumped out of his bed in a small fit.
“Calm down, I made you grilled cheese. just like i always do” The mother scolded her son. “Now hurry up and get ready for school. Anyways it isn’t often we cooks such fine foods, you should appreciate an omelet when you get one.”
It was blistering outside on the way to Dodge City Middle School, especially hot for it being so early in the morning. Small gnat swarms tangled themselves in the little pony’s manes. Their mother flicked her tail as she trotted to keep the bugs off of her flank.
As they approached the school they were greeted by the principal. He had decided it would only be right of himself to wait by the door, and greet all of the young ponies on the last day before summer break. “Good morning Sea Breeze.” He welcomed their mother. ”So, very, nice too see you again!” Then, addressing the colts, he continued, “And you too Tide Trotter, Costal Gale.” He nodded to them respectfully as he said their names. “I bet you two are exited for your final day of middle school!” he then chuckled to himself. The colts only nodded in response. To Coast, the principal was a little… ok, way too eccentric for his liking.
“AUGH!” the stallion suddenly yelled, and started to shake his head vigorously. Causing the colts to flinch a bit. A second later a June bug flew from his twitching back turned ears. “Gosh, I say! The amount of insects around here is absolutely ridiculous!” the
Tide was failing to suppress a chortle towards the embarrassed principal, but Coast nodded in agreement. Unlike his dear brother who is a bug fanatic, Coast felt same way as the principal, bugs are annoying, and Coast himself experienced something similar just this morning with his rude awakening. However it want until now that he began to realize how many bugs there were around the dry city. It was unusual, especially considering the drought; I mean bugs need water to live right? This was an interesting discovery, before he would follow his brother to class Coast decided to take a look around the outside of the school. Everywhere he searched he found a bug or two. No exceptions. Ants farmed in the sandbox, wasps and hornets nested in almost every corner of the building, a few praying mantises could be found crawling above the windows. Finally he stopped by the manhole out front, a whole assortment of bug swarmed by the rim.
“Huh.” Coast thought out load, “This is strange.” Reaching into his saddlebags to extract a notebook, a sharp sting caught him just above the hoof. “OW OW OW OW…” He whimpered loudly, turning his ears back. Out of his now dust covered fallen bags, crawled a small brown scorpion. Relaxing, having been stung by this common bug many times before, he knew that the sting would only cause temporary pain in his heel. He flicked the scorpion into a fat spiders nest with his small glowing horn, and limped to history class, grunting every time he put weight on his stung leg.
Everypony looked at him as he opened the class door, but nopony said anything. The teacher’s flank was facing the students as he worked on the black board, and the door was in the back of the room. While quietly limping over to his seat next to his twin brother he made eye contact. “Hey, where ya been? And why are you limping?” Tide questioned the tardy pony in a low voice.
Coast gave his brother the sit-rep on the strange bug invasion the town seemed to be experiencing, and warned him to check his bag for bugs. He glanced at the teacher every so often to make sure his quiet conversation wasn’t being picked up by the old mares ears; she was known to pick on foals that didn’t seem to be paying attention to answer the daily board questions. Tide seemed surprised by the news. “I haven’t noticed anything… other than the June bug… and the gnats… and the nasty, dead, fly on the floor this morning.” Tide glanced suspiciously at Coast as he said that,” And I guess the scorpion now." *gasp* "Wow, you’re right! That is a lot of bugs.” Tide was spontaneously flabbergasted, “Why didn’t I realize this? This is awesome! I need to pay more attention! I mean the information is directly in front of my eyes! This will help me become a bugologist! Wait… That’s a thing right? I hope that’s a thing. It’s defiantly a thing!” His eyes weren’t focusing anymore; he was so caught up in his daydream of the future to pay any attention to the real world. “My cutie mark isn’t the diagram of a rhinoceros beetle for nothing! Or at least I hope it isn’t. That would suck. But this, this is amazing!”
By the time the disruptive, bug loving, foal finally came back down to earth, the entire class seemed to be staring at him. More than a few chuckles could be heard from all around the room, even his brother was giggling at him a little; a giggle that turned into a one-pony uproar when his Tides normally violet mussel turned a shade of dark pink. Tide slouched into his chair awkwardly to hide his embarrassed face.
Swiftly, and out of the blue, the class’s small amount of laughter cut itself short, taking Coast by the surprise. It was hilarious, why did Everypony just stop chuckling? This was extremely unusual for the friendly, normally rowdy group of foals. As he himself calmed down, he realized the class that seemed to be looking at Tide wasn’t, and they weren’t looking at him either, also the classroom seemed to be quickly dimming. The light reflecting off of the metal legs of the old desks began to fade.
rather horrified. When Tide turned to look back at his brother he acquired the same scared and shocked expression as the others. What is wrong with Everypony? Coast wondered. Then a more important question dawned on him. “Wait! What is wrong with the sun?” The answer instantly revealed its self as Coast flipped his body around so see could see what the others could.
The sky was filling with glowing bugs! Insects of all kinds were lifting themselves to the skies forming a massive swarm, partially blocking out the light form the sun. If anypony doubted the loyalty of Princess Luna, without looking to the sky, they might assume she had transformed back into Nightmare Moon, and was once again plunging the world into darkness before the sun was scheduled to descend. Soon the sky, as far as the eye could see, looked like a lime green version of white noise on a TV screen.
“EEEEK!” Fillies could be heard shrieking in the classroom adjacent to Coast’s; which brought up similar screams both male and female in his own. The seemingly organized bugs had begun to dive towards the city streets. “THUD, THUNK THUNK THUNK!” The glowing green bugs of various sizes smacked against the windows and brick walls of the school. Through the dirt and grime covered glass of the window, one could see the larger of the insects eating holes in the wooden doors and walls of the once lovely homes across the dirt road.
Well-painted shutters munched off their hinges fell to the dry dirt in front of every building. “What’s going on?” one pony yelled angrily from outside, above the buzzing wings. “Why are these filthy bugs attacking us? What pony is behind this?” The now visible, furious, grey stallion was stomping on as many grounded bugs as he could, with the massive hooves of a farm pony. But his yelling was soon silenced by a wave of glowing moths intruding his gaping mouth and clogging his trachea. Chocking he stumbled over into the guts of the smashed bugs, cracking his skull on the rocky ground, he was soon engulfed by the stampede of creepy crawlies on the ground. The fidgeting pony soon stilled. His chest cavity collapsed, some bugs moved away leaving behind a half eaten corpse with an open ribcage and egg-covered organs.
The other young ponies cowered away form the window, some retching and vomiting at the grotesque sight, but Tide and Coast just stood there appalled at the scene. The swarm of moths forced their way down the dead stallions throat and out of the stomach that had been chewed open. More moths fluttered in to join the swarm, and they started forming into a somewhat pony-ish shape. With a loud crack accompanying a flash of emerald light that momentarily blinded the foals still looking on from the school window, the moths vanished, in their place was a tall, black and green, vicious looking figure, with a single bent horn, and opaque wing,s glaring at them from road. Flashes of light could be seen in the monsters backdrop, and it was soon joined by many more of its kind, all with the same threatening glare.
"What are they?" Coast softly asked out loud to nopony in particular.
Suddenly the tall creature in the middle charged horn first at the glass that kept him out.