//------------------------------//
// The show must go on! 
// Story: Could this be paradise? 
// by Timemaster 
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	A few hours of maneuvering this behemoth into the forest for cover against the Delta Team was useless. In only a few minutes after parking, an ominous sound echoed above me. I quickly evacuate the vehicle, but something gets into my vision.

Mr. Bubblepants was right behind the seat, along with some other things, so I snatch a few things, put them into my vest and a bag I got, and ran into the forest.


...


"Come out with your hooves up!" echoed across the forest, seeming to come from my left. I ran right.

I ran right into a tree. My already weakened body begins to feel faint, so I look into the bag of things I took. Moving Mr. Bubblepants from the top of the bag, I saw a few food-items that pleased me. I took a bar with a smeared label that read 'Energe', so it should be an energy source. Perfect.

I tear off the wrapper, slowly walking right, and take a bite...

My head fills with immense pain, as I writhe on the floor for a moment, but my head quickly clears. It REALLY clears.

"Get over here!"  yells a pony to my left... And I see him. Well, not him, really, but a vauge outline of him and the surroundings.

I was seeing the area around me so clearly that I observed the pony, most likely a guard and male in the outfit,  look feebish and scared from his movements. I smiled when I saw that nopony was right by him, so I looked around me.

They had split up. The fools. I feel excited as I ran towards the guard-pony at a speed I never knew I could even go and saw his shocked face.

He couldn't even speak a word before I smashed his face into the ground. He was alive and breathing, but probably was now concussed with brain damage. He, too, had a silver rectangle on his side, but that wasn't what I was interested in.

I removed his guard clothing and put it on. I casually ran through the forest, going straight south (according to the sun) and smiled.

I looked around me once more and saw a large group of ponies back North, most likely finding their comrade, for they made a lot of noise. Running much faster, I finally see the edge of the forest. but I do not leave the forest.

I see many vehicles outside the edge of the forest. I wait, and listen...



An hour passes, and I see something funny. I saw through the ground with my sound-sight thing, and saw an outline of a sewer of sorts. I follow the pipe deeper into the forest and find a broken lid. I remove the lid and go into the sewer, the guard's armor e not feel disgusting... or it could be the fact that the pipe was empty.

I slowly moved through the pipe for even more hours and finally emerge on the surface from a lidless opening.

I was blinded, for I have been in the sewers for so long, but saw no evidence of ponies around me.

I rub my eyes, blinking, and the fuzzy lights dissipate. I was on top of a cliff, looking down onto a city. 


An empty, destroyed city.