Past soaked in blood
High above the clouds in the quiet night, the airship of Equestria basked in the light of Princes Luna. The panic from earlier have subdued, but that was only the surface. Ponies went to sleep, and sure their mind did not agree with such choose, their body gladly followed, considering the past days vain search efforts topped by today when their beloved Princes Twilight Sparkle collapsed for no apparent reason.
Inside of her personal quarters was Twilight, and she was phasing up and down, and she had reasons to do so. Being literally knocked out by an energy surge created by none other then Chrysalis herself, and said surge knocked out two other princesses and paralyzed her mentor in the middle of a conference about the sunk ship. But now there was more, Twilight 6th sense picked up an insanely powerful energy source, crystal clear of it's whereabouts, and said energy just kept building up, steadily, with no indication when would stop. And this power source was totally different from Chrysalis and her changelings, and from any arcane magic she knew for the matter. She just had a guess that these two are not related, but worried her immensely.
“Twilight, Dear. Please stop, you have been doing this for hours now, you haven't eaten nor drink anything today, you should rest a little, and no, not sleep but sit down.”
Plead Twilight friend, Rarity, the fashionista. Twilight stopped for a moment and look at her friend, she did realize her friend is right and she is back to her old, panicking self she worked on hard to leave in the past.
“You're right Rarity... It's just all these things been a lot, and all almost at once. I just feel like I have niddles poking me everywhere.”
“Dear what about we investigate that magical power source you noticed?”
“We really should do but would take days to get there.”
“And teleporting my Dear? You are an Alicorn now, and the Alicorn of Magic, I’m sure you can easily pull it off.”
Twilight blushed a little to the suggestion, mainly due that her friend believed it would be an easy task, but it would be quite a teleportation to pull off, especially if she planned to take guards with her.
“Well, far from easy, Rarity, but yes I can do it, but would drain me of power especially if I to take some guards with me.”
“Well then, all the more reason to get a good rest and eat, so you have good strength to do this. Now sit and eat.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, Rarity behaved like a loving mother. Rarity giggled at this, as rose her front hoof to try and hide it like a lady. Twilight gave a smile and long last walked up to her bed and sat on it, didn't take long to all the tiredness catch up with her. And so did her empty stomach make it's complain, quite loudly. The young alicorn blushed. A few minutes later she was eating a large salad to silence the complains of her stomach, all the while Rarity giggled at her which was infectious, and truly, she needed it badly, a little unwind under all the stress of the week.
Back at the human base all the was working hard, they been refueled and rearming the Iron Claw jets. It was a hectic, organized chaos. The speed and accuracy the man and woman work was a sight to see, and the Ponies watched it in wonder through the windows of their new residence.
They have been glad they the way the treated them, even though they been captives then guests, the room they all shared now, with Bon Bon and Lyra was huge, the beds were huge and quite comfortable, they got large portions of food, more than one could easily finish, water and other drinks. They had an 'entertainment' center set up with a large screen and it had voice command. The room also had a bathroom attached to it with shower. As they learned it was one of the offices which they converted quickly to accommodate them and they couldn't complain.
However there were a few unsettling things, one such was they all had to wear now a strange metal collar, it had some lights on it, glow green, and they figured out quick green means good, red bad as they had a brief walk through the massive base, and they all agreed better not experiment with them. They the fact they been 'monitored' non stop with their cameras, as they explained to them, they see and hear everything in the room, as well had some detectors to monitor magical activities, such as a levitation spell or Midnight hover in the air.
For the time being they watched the outside, they longed for it already, but had to give up on it for now. A smoothing music played in the background which they choose after some arguing.
Octavia looked around for a short time to see what the other ponies been up to. Vinyl and Lyra were particularly glued to the window as their eyes almost popped out. The elitist smile as she remembered Vinyl exact words 'I died and this is heaven!' and she could see why. Humans relayed on technology alone, and said technologies been electronic, even some of the simpler tools had some sort of electronics in it. Like seriously, a thermometer to check body temperature, electronic, it was truly strange for first. Then she did think some more about it, and they had the same things, just with spells and magic, though by far not as common as the humans did.
Trixie and Midnight on the other side watched intently as well, but they have been less 'spell bound' by what they see like the other two. What she could see in their eyes was clear, awe and fear. They very quickly realized these humans, few might be, could easily outmatch them, and not just in terms of physical strength, in almost every field, medicine, engineering, transportation, construction, communication, entertainment, and war. That part chilled her too down to the core. They just had guessed, but the long, very advanced looking missiles they been hauling and about to be stored inside the jets, as they learned they call them, were sure not for fireworks. The large yellow circle mark with a smaller black at the center, surrounded by three trapezoid like black shapes gave off very bad vibes as Midnight put it.
There was four of these missiles, two for each jets, and they could clearly see the amount of care 'handling' these was far above any other. Octavia inhaled deeply, she knew as much as the others this was meant for the changelings, whatever they do at the end. They clearly knew they didn't want to be on the bad side of the humans, who, as they understood, would go to any lengths and through any means to secure the safety and future of their civilians.
Octavia then turned around, Bon Bon was sitting next to Daring Do. Unlike popular belief, she was a real life pony, and the stories they made were kind of over execrating of her work as a treasure hunter. She was a thirty years old, energetic archaeology professor who enjoyed roaming the world instead sitting at home, Canterlot roaming through dusty old scrolls. She had many big discoveries before which earned her the admiration of the scientific circle, while also earned a 'fantasy' world which she was the heroine of. Now she laid there, hooked up to the advance machines of the biped hosts, still cold out, in a coma. As the humans told them, her body was recovering nicely ever since she received the needed medical attention, but they couldn't tell would she wake up from the coma, and if so, when.
Bon Bon was a fan of the stories written about the enigmatic mare. Octavia herself were a fan of the stories, not as much as some fans, that go out to conventions or camp before the book store days before the release of a new Daring Do book, but she always got her hoof on the newest book and read it when she had free time to do so.
There was a knock on the door and it slide open shortly after. Dave entered with Ururu, the nurse. The human leadership agreed to let them look after the ponies and stay with them so the two races could learn from each other until better ways could be arranged.
“Good evening all.”
“Good evening grandpa.”
Octavia greet Dave with a smile. He gave a putty face in turn for a second until it morphed into a smile.
“Hey D, what's all this fuss out there?”
All present in the room turned towards the cyborg, waiting for an explanation. He rubbed the back of his head.
“Well, by order I shouldn't say a word, but considering those bugs as much hostile towards you as to us if not more, I think I can safely say they getting ready to strike them, but still can't go into details.”
“Trust me, there is not better changeling then a dead changeling.”
Midnight words were plain and clear, and the other ponies agreed, not all fuelled by such spite but fear of these insectiods was evident in them.
“Well I take your word for it, their behavior so far didn't said to be otherwise. But we are watching them closely now with the satellite.”
“Then you better hope you have flawless defense, these bastards are masters of disguise and deception, they not once managed to make our troops chase mere shadows.”
The bat pony had an expression tell thousands of words, she despised them, and she was infuriated, humiliated, all these emotions radiated out from her. There was then Lyra, she haven't spoken a word but her golden orbs told enough as well, as Dave learned she had quite an unpleasant run into the changelings before. Bon Bon with out a word jumped off the bed and trot over to her loved one, and hug her thigh, she gave her an apologetic smile. The room was silent, Ururu in the mean time made her way to the comatised pegasie, her primary charge was to look after her, though the other ponies, especially Bon Bon was more than eager to help any way they could to look after her.
“Well let's say, we have our own 'bug sprays' to deal with them.”
Then Trixie spoke up, and unusual to her she spoke in first person, give an extra weight to what she was saying which even the humans picked up.
“I, for one, happy I never had to deal with them, and do hope it would stay that way, nuff said, the current way they act is totally wrong, but that I chalk up to their evil queen who have a command over them. During my travels I did come across stories of stray changeling who some how broke off from the hive mind, and they acted on their own, and truly integrated into the society, with out causing harm, sadly very few cases that I know of, and hope there is more. My tip, kill of the Queen, Chrysalis, and sure majority of the changelings will break free and become individuals.”
“Well that's good to know, but at the moment this does little help, we need a fix on the Queen, and take her out, but with out that we have to mow the rest down, and not likely they would let us just waltz up to the Queen while under her influence.”
Replied the cyborg, the ponies nod silently to Trixies words.
“I do hear you, and I can agree, extermination is quite a drastic measure, but right now that’s the option seam to be, and even when they come free, there will be tension for a very long time, for many generations, the acts they commit, even if not on their own free will, or out of desperation. The memories of the victims will remain vivid and ablaze. It will be a true challenge for all parties to step over this, but yes, that is the civilized way, way, a very difficult way, but if achieved, it will worth it.”
“You talk about this quite casually, like you've done it before... right...”
Retort Lyra, with some spite in her voice. Earn the eyes of all in the room.”
“To a degree yes I do, as I lived up for more than 200 years, and in the bulk of it, after our world got demolished by the asteroid we, who survived, gone through hell back and forth each minute. Could you imagine, cannibalism?”
He gave a minute, there was pure ice in the voice of him. Lyra gulped, and held her breath, so did the rest.
“I gonna blunt here... And I gave the story to Octavia before in big lines, but with out the true details. Before the asteroid hit, we lived at the peak of our civilization, issues there of course due to our own greed and carelessness. Over 8 billion people, yes, that is a lot of zeros. When it hit, it only killed 3 billion right away in the blast, earthquakes and fire it caused. And they were the lucky ones in a sense. The rest died slowly, from the never ending winter that followed, starvation, illness, war. War for survival, for the smallest scrap of food, water, warm. Your ally could turn on you a split second and kill you in cold blood those times. It was the Armageddon as they called it, the end of the world, yet we survived, now only 12 million people. We are all struggle to survive, and we are all committed at some point unspeakable acts to do so, me included. And yes, I been forced before to said cannibalism, eat a flash of a fellow human being corpse to survive. Later on we shred our own flesh to be replaced with metal and wires, become more machines than humans just to survive. Many you see around, 2/3 of them been through those times like myself, and we hate it, curse it, and we wish nothing more then bleach it from our existence, and we can't. I wanted to have children, family, simple life with a house or an apartment, work and travel occasionally around the world. Now that I am a machine almost completely... I can not have any family. Now what drives me is the hope of a better future, not for myself, but for that little children, that few who spared of go through the hell, go through to sacrifice all their humanity to live, so they have a chance to have a family, and could enjoy normality, a livable life. This alone is why I still strive, live, fight, and crawl, and still have my sanity, which many others had long lost, and quit, commit suicide or go berserk and at the end get killed. To put it bluntly, every one of us drenched, no... Drown in our own blood, and yes, we steeled ourselves who is here now and alive, to forgive, and move forward for a better future, for the greater good. And that is the hardest thing to do, but we managed it. It hurts us inside every day, every moment as we draw breath, but we accepted the pain, and moved on. We killed many times over if you will, but now, now we have the chance to rise again, reborn, and we take this chance. And yes, I know exactly how hard it is, it's like a second nature by now.”
The room was silent, such silent one could hear the rustle of the fur strings of any pony as they moved as much to take a breath. The heart beats, labored as struggled to continue on under the torrent of emotions or how the wheels of the minds of the small quadrupeds came to a complete halt. One could hear it all. Daves outburst was unexpected to all, and Lyra regretted to be unexpected to all, and Lyra regretted to her speak up the way she did, even though the innocent ponies could not even phantom even a bit what they just heard. Dave drew in a calming breath several times, he did not shout, she didn't raise his voice, yet it was deafening, the words could kill, dripped thick from acid. The little mint unicorn drop her head, with tear drop to the ground, she couldn't bare to look him in the eye. She filched when she felt a hand rest on top of her head, and she did not move, just tremble.
“...Now my rational self knows, you could not possibly know all this, and you had your own hell, in a way. And would be a lie if I say I feel peachy as of now, and I know you all but peachy your self... though lets pass this... stray emotions, can cause more grief, pain and horror, be it big, or even small, than any conscious, planned malicious thoughts and actions. Our own history, even before the asteroid is an everlasting proof of it... That much we have finally have learned as a species, and we learned it in the hard way, the worst way. You yet to go through such, and I don't wish you ever have to, but assured, you better learn from us this very lesson, so you're able to stop the cursed cycle of hatred if ever to born, small or big.”
He kneeled down to look into the golden orbs. After a little time, Lyra nod. Dave then get a hoof rest on his side, then another on the other side. He looked around and found Octavia on his left, and Trixie on his other side. He gave a weak smile to them. He stood up then and inhaled slowly.
“I gonna go for a walk for a few hours. In need for some fresh air as now, I be back later.”
Ururu nod as his eyes meet hers, then he left.
The ponies came to realize, which Octavia already had a fleeting idea, a concept. Humans were both angelic and noble, and demonic and unspeakable at once, and that they go to any lengths. No, even go beyond what even be possible, to meet. No, surpass it far beyond, to achieve whatever they desire or will to protect.
The nurse gave an apologetic look to the ponies, then she returned beside the pegasie laying in the bed, ever so calm and free of the world in her coma.
“Sir, our UAV blimp peeking up a large cloud of heat signatures approaching the pony airship.”
All the personal in the control room looked up from their own terminals and divert their eyes towards the operator who broke the serenity of the room.
The swam was closing in on it's target rapidly. The very green eyes of the black insectoids glow with acidic hatred, thirst to the shred the ponies, limb to limb with pure joy. Joy and blood thirst one and same with the Queen's will.
One lone unicorn guard noticed the swarm, but before it could alert his fellow ponies, His throat has been sliced, and the next thing the yellow red colored pony knew was weightlessness as he began falling towards the deep ocean, he jerked his head and do the only thing he could. To live up to his name, Solar Flare. In his very last moments as the world blurred out rapidly, he focused all his energy into his horn and released it just as the world died for him as he died for the world.