//------------------------------//
// Intruders 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

Shining Armour galloped through the corridors of the palace, a squad of guardsponies at his heels. His sword and rifle clanked against his armour as he moved. He could hear the sounds of battle echoing throughout the building. 
Got to get to the throne room. They were moving as fast as they could.
Got to get the Princess out of there.

He rounded a corner, his squad behind him, and ran straight into a firefight.

Ahead of them, half a dozen guardsponies were defending the corridor against some of the invaders, nearly four times their number. There were several dead on both sides, sprawled across the floor like ragdolls. The ponies worked their repeating rifles as rapidly as they could, putting out an impressive volume of fire. There was little cover in the corridor- it was lined with pillars, which most of the combatants were hiding behind. Shining Armour recognised Sergeant Quickdraw, directing the defence.

‘Sir!’ he called, seeing Shining Armour arriving. He slipped behind the same pillar as the Sergeant, his squad dispersing into cover along the corridor as gunfire whipped back and forth.

‘Sergeant, we need to push through to the throne room!’ Shining Armour shouted over the din. 

‘There’s too many of them,’ Quickdraw said. ‘We were barely holding out. Maybe with your squad we can force our way through.’ Shining Armour risked a peek around the pillar.

He could see that most of the enemy soldiers seemed to be firing magical blasts from their guns, which confused and unsettled him in equal measure.

How can they weaponise magic like that? It only comes from unicorn horns- doesn’t it? The thought gave him an idea. The unicorns in Quickdraw’s squad were dead, among the unlucky few to have been cut down as the combat began. But there were three unicorns in Shining Armour’s squad, and he was one of them.

‘Covering fire!’ he shouted. His squad and the remaining members of Quickdraw’s opened fire, pulling the triggers as fast as they could. Shining Armour waited a few seconds, then popped his head around the pillar, lowered his horn, and fired.

The powerful magical bolt tore towards the humans. Those caught in the middle of the corridor tried to scatter, but it was to no avail. It struck the floor of the corridor and detonated like a bomb. The humans caught in the open in the middle of the corridor went tumbling, their bodies shredded by the magical explosion. Others, hiding behind pillars, screamed as they were consumed by the rapidly expanding fireball. The blast scorched the stone floor and rattled the walls, blowing out one of the stained glass windows nearby. 

With almost half their number dead or wounded, the humans hesitated for a moment. Seeing his example, the other unicorns in Shining Armour’s squad repeated his action, firing two more bolts of magic at the enemy which detonated with slightly smaller explosions. More humans fell. Their resistance crumbling, the remaining humans began to retreat down the corridor. 

‘Push forward!’ Shining Armour shouted. He threw up a magical shield as his squad advanced, a barrier between them and their opponent. They charged forward, firing through the shield. Shining Armour thought the enemy would not be able to do the same.

But he was wrong. Their strange, red bolts punctured the shield as effectively as the ponies’ own magically-attuned weapons. Two of his squad went down, the smell of burnt hair and flesh filling his nostrils. He snapped off a few shots with his own rifle before ducking into cover behind a pillar. There were but a handful of the enemy left now, but they were returning fire a ferociously as they could, their shots blasting through the shield. Shining Armour charged another magical attack and let loose.

This time, his attack struck one of the pillars, vaporising a large chunk of it and the two humans crouching behind it. Stone chips whistled across the hallway, scything down two other. The few disorganised stragglers were picked off easily by the volleys of rifle fire from his squad, and Quickdraw’s, which was moving up behind. Shining deactivated the shield. Gunsmoke filled the hallway, the acrid tang of cordite catching at the back of his throat. Half a dozen ponies lay dead, but they had accounted for twenty humans, and they now had a clear path to the throne room. 

Shining Armour led the way through the winding corridors, their guns at the ready, but they encountered no more humans. At least, no live ones. Outside the throne room, they ran into what had been the scene of another firefight. A squad or more of guardsponies were dead, and a similar number of humans, and the great gilded doors had been thrown half open. 

‘Damn it! We’re too late!’ he hissed, gesturing to his squad to move in. They advanced slowly, cautiously, their rifles raised. No sounds came from within the room. 
His squad burst into the room, scanning from side to side, searching for targets. He followed them in. the room was empty.

Several more guardsponies lay dead around the throne, and the rest of the room was littered with the corpses of the attackers. Of the Princess, there was no sign. The doors to the throne room’s antechamber were also open. Shining waved his ponies forward. Quickdraw appeared at his side. 

‘Where’s the Princess?’ he asked, the worry evident in his voice. 

‘I don’t know,’ Shining replied. ‘Maybe she got out by herself. Not that the rest of the city is much safer…’ 

His squad returned, having swept the antechamber and the Princess’ quarters. There was no trace of her, or her sister. 
Shining Armour tried to think of where Princess Celestia might be. He doubted the humans could have defeated her in combat, not with her magical abilities. That meant she had probably escaped- but what if she was still in the palace?  





Twilight led her friends from the balcony and back into Princess Luna’s quarters. Fluttershy was panicking, and most of the others were not in much better shape. Only Rainbow Dash seemed relatively calm. 

‘Come on, we have to get out of here!’ she urged them, flapping her wings agitatedly. ‘Those guys could be here any minute!’ Twilight’s mind was racing. 

What to do, what to do? The enemy were swarming all over the palace. They could be coming for us, or for the Princess, or who knows what?

‘Alright, girls,’ she said firmly. Her friends looked at her. ‘This is what we’re going to do…’ Before she could elaborate, a loud banging at the door interrupted her. Fluttershy whimpered and ducked behind a table.

‘Ah, nuts!’ Rainbow Dash exclaimed. ‘They’re already here!’Twilight looked around in desperation. The banging continued, accompanied by a harried voice this time.

‘Twilight Sparkle?’ The voice sounded familiar. ‘Twilight? Please, open the door, we have to get you all out of here!’ She recognised it as the voice of one of the guardsponies, Stonewall, who often stood guard at the throne room. 

‘It’s ok, girls!’ she said. ‘It’s not the enemy.’ She crossed the room and, double-checking by looking through the peephole, opened the door to the grey guardspony. Stonewall entered the room while two other guardsponies stood outside, their rifles at the ready.

‘We have to get you all out of here,’ he said. ‘The palace is not safe. The Princess ordered me to see you all to safety.’

‘But where can we go?’ Twilight asked. ‘The whole city is under attack.’ 

‘There are secret evacuation tunnels under the palace kitchens,’ the guardspony said. ‘If we can get you there, you can leave the city and meet with the Princess and her sister.’ 

‘They already escaped?’ Twilight asked, feeling a surge of relief when Stonewall nodded in reply.

‘Yes. They are waiting outside the city. Now come, all of you. We have to leave now.’ Twilight followed him from the room, her friends in tow and Spike riding on her back. The three guardsponies led them down the stairs and along the corridor below. 

They had not gone far when the double doors at the end of the corridor burst open. The guards swung their rifles up as a group of humans appeared in the doorway, already firing. One of the guardsponies went down, a steaming hole in his face. 

‘Take cover!’ Stonewall shouted as he sidestepped into an alcove to the right of the corridor, dragging Twilight with him. Fluttershy and Rarity were screaming. The loud crack of the guardspony’s rifle contrasted with the soft whine of the human weaponry. The red beams flashed down the corridor, blowing small chunks out of the walls and floor where they hit. The rest of the Elements ducked into cover, a couple of the beams coming uncomfortably close to Pinkie as she bounced across the corridor. 

There were five humans now advancing steadily towards them. One of them carried a pistol and a sword, the others the same rifles that most of their kin seemed to use. Stonewall and the other guard fired back. Peeking out from behind him, Twilight saw one of the humans fall.  The others stormed forward, their guns firing far more rapidly than the guards’ rifles. Stonewall ducked back behind the pillar as a line of the red bolts stitched its way across its surface, blowing small chunks out of it and leaving patches of burnt stone. 

‘What do we do, what do we do?’ Twilight asked, panic in her voice. 

‘Just stay down,’ Stonewall replied, reloading his rifle. 

A gurgling scream reached her ears as the other guard went down, enemy fire having fused his throat into a smouldering mess. Before Stonewall could react, one of the red bolts struck his chest armour. He staggered  backward, unbalanced but unhurt, the heat of the bolt melting the gold-painted steel around where it had struck. Raising his rifle he fired, and one of the humans collapsed in a crumpled heap as the bullet found his heart. 

That was his final shot. Another bolt flashed brightly and struck his left hind leg. He fell, trying to roll back into cover, but more bolts found him and he lay still. Twilight gasped in horror, her body refusing to move.

We’re all alone! What do we do?


The three remaining human soldiers advanced recklessly. They knew the surviving ponies appeared to have no weapons, and were significantly smaller than the ones they had just killed. Children, perhaps? 

None of them noticed Rainbow Dash hovering up in the darkened recesses of the ceiling until she was almost on them, streaking down as if from nowhere. Her intended target saw the movement and glanced up just in time for her hind legs to connect with his face and send him sprawling, his weapon bouncing away, his skull cracked from the force of the impact. 

‘Twilight!’ she shouted, breaking the purple unicorn from her frozen state. Her friend’s sudden action had triggered something in her brain. She knew what she had to do.

As the humans turned to engage the rainbow Pegasus that had suddenly appeared beside them, Twilight stepped out from the alcove, her horn glowing with barely restrained power. Rainbow Dash took to the air again, clearing the corridor for Twilight to act.

She lowered her horn and fired.

A beam of purple energy shot out and engulfed the two hapless humans. They screamed as they burned, the potent magic as effective as any flamethrower. They fell to the floor, thrashing and yelling as they died. 

Twilight swallowed hard, realising what she had just done. This was not like defeating Discord or Nightmare Moon. They had not been killed by her magic. These humans had. She looked around at her friends, who were staring in wordless shock. 
Rainbow Dash landed next to her.

‘That…was…awesome!’ she shouted, punching the air with a hoof. ‘You nailed those guys! They never stood a chance!’ Rarity spoke up.

‘Rainbow Dash, how can you be so callous? They were living beings, and…and…you two…’ she couldn’t finish her sentence.

‘Yeah, and what do you think they were gonna do to us?’ Rainbow Dash replied, defending herself and Twilight. ‘It was them or us, you know that as well as I do. Look what they did to the guards!’ Rarity knew she was right, but still found herself struggling to deal with seeing two of her friends murdering three humans in front of her. She turned away to comfort Fluttershy, who was shivering and whimpering in fear. 

‘Come on,’ Twilight said. ‘We have to leave. There could be more of them coming.’ 

‘Can you teleport us to the palace kitchens?’ Rainbow Dash asked, eyeing the doorway at the end of the corridor cautiously. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep wandering around the palace.’

‘I can try,’ Twilight replied, ‘but I’ve never teleported six ponies and one dragon before…’

‘Well how is it different from teleporting one or two ponies?’ Pinkie asked, springing up beside her as if she had just teleported herself. ‘I mean, sure, you’d need a bigger teleporting…field, or whatever, but the idea is the same, right?’ she smiled cheerfully, though whether she was unaffected by the carnage that had just unfolded or simply trying to cheer up her friends, Twilight was, as ever, unsure. 

‘Y..yeah…I guess it shouldn’t be too hard…’ she said, running through the teleportation spell in her mind. ‘As long as we all stand as close together as we can without touching.’ 

‘Why without touching?’ Rainbow asked. Twilight grimaced.

‘Well…I’m not entirely sure, but…if you’re touching at the start of the teleport, then you might still be touching at the other end…permanently.’

‘Oh,’ Rainbow said, wincing. ‘Yeah, probably best we don’t touch then.’ 

‘Everypony gather round me in a circle!’ Twilight ordered. Her friends moved slowly, Fluttershy still shaking with fear. Once they formed a circle, Twilight made sure nopony was touching any other. 

‘Ok, everypony ready?’ she asked. 

Before any of them could reply, she heard a shout from an entirely different location- the door at the end of the corridor. Looking round, she saw three more humans, their weapons raised.

‘Do it!’ Rainbow Dash shouted. Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating hard, and with a blinding white flash, the circle of friends vanished from the corridor.