//------------------------------//
// Five Minute Warning 
// Story: M.A.N.E. 
// by BRBrony9 
//------------------------------//

Twilight sat on the balcony of the library, reading. The late morning sun looked down upon Ponyville through scattered, wispy clouds, casting dappled patterns on the balcony and on Twilight's lavender coat as it shone through the leaves of the hollowed-out tree. Though it was a weekend, she was busy, as usual, with her studies, the ancient, yellowed tome she was reading from the latest in a long line of such books. Spike was downstairs, tidying up the mess Twilight had made looking for it. She turned the page with her magic, listening to the sounds of the bustling Saturday market, situated in the town square in front of the library. She could hear children laughing happily, stallholders calling out to customers, music playing from somewhere. She started to tap her hoof to the beat. 

As she read, she started to hear a low, distant moan, something that had not been there a moment before. Her ears pricked up, twitching.

What's that?

The moan became a braying warble and increased in volume. She raised her eyes from the book and looked out across the rooftops. She could see nothing but a couple of plumes of smoke from the factory chimneys north of Ponyville, drifting gently away from town. The ululating warble rose steadily in volume.

Is that...

She jumped slightly as the same moaning sound seemed to spring up again, much closer this time. Twilight gasped as recognition hit her like a hammer.

It is!

The air-raid sirens were sounding, all across town. 







Applejack grunted and bucked the gnarled apple tree as hard as she could. It was a stubborn one; some of its fruit refused to drop, no matter how hard she tried.

'Ah, nuts...' she said, wiping sweat from her brow and glancing at her watch.

'Eh...maybe ah'll have an early lunch...' She stretched her tired back and picked up the baskets of apples she had stacked nearby and began trotting back to the barn. As she did so, her keen hearing picked up a distant wailing. Puzzled, she stopped walking and listened. Her eyes widened. She considered dropping the baskets, but changed her mind, and galloped back to the farmhouse as fast as her powerful legs would carry her. 

'Applebloom!' she shouted. 'Granny!' She raced around the back of the house. Big Mac was there already, and he looked up as she galloped around the corner.

'Ah heard it too. Get yerself inside,' he said, his face not betraying any emotions. He heaved open the hatch to the bomb shelter. 'Ah'll get them.' 

'Gotta get some stuff! We gotta get the radio, and batteries, a-and...ah, shit, why didn't we do all this earlier?' she shouted.

'You get the family,' Big Mac said, 'and ah'll get all that stuff. Move fast.'

Applejack dashed into the house, Big Mac following close behind. She ran into Granny Smith on the landing.

'It's the Doomsday whistle!' she shrieked. 'Ah knew it would come sooner or later. Makes one heck of a racket, don't it?' 

'C'mon, Granny!' Applejack said, her voice strained. 'Get down ta the shelter! Where's Applebloom?' 

'In her room, doin' her homework,' Granny Smith replied. 'Such a good little filly! She's wastin' her time, though, 'cause homework won't matter after this!'

'Go, get down ta the shelter,' Applejack repeated, then quickly moved to Applebloom's door and opened it. 

'Hey, sis!' the youngest Apple said, looking up from her desk. 'What's all the noise?' She could tell immediately from her sister's face that something was wrong.

'C'mon, Applebloom. We've gotta go down ta the shelter.' 

'W-what? Why?'

'There's no time ta talk about it, now c'mon!' Applejack grabbed her by the hoof and started leading her downstairs.  The wailing sirens cut clearly through the air, chilling her to her core, a countdown to the end of civilization. They had five minutes- more like two and a half now. Maybe less, if the media had got their timings wrong, which was always possible. She glanced at her watch as she dragged Applebloom outside.

'Why do we have ta go into the shelter?' she asked, obviously scared. 'A-are they droppin' bombs on us?'

'Maybe...' was all Applejack could say in reply. Granny Smith was easing herself down the ladder into the shelter.

'Ah ain't as young as ah once was!' she said, seeing Applejack glancing at her watch again. Besides, it's dark down here. Ah thought ya put lights in this thing?'

'We did, but they're not turned on yet,' Applejack said. 'Now come on! Hurry!' She pushed Applebloom towards the ladder.

'Ow! Why ya bein' so rough, sis?' she asked, pouting. 

'Because we don't have much time!' Applejack replied, glancing up at the sky, unsure of what she expected to see. 

'Ya don't have ta push me...' Applebloom muttered.

'Just get in the damn shelter!' Applejack shouted, startling her sister, who hurriedly climbed onto the ladder and descended into the hole in the ground. Big Mac emerged from the house, a box full of household items on his back. Applejack beckoned to him.

'Alright, they're in, now come on!' she said, picking up the baskets of apples she had retrieved from the orchard and dropping them down the hole. Big Mac hurried over and pushed the box through the hole, then stood aside to let Applejack down. She quickly swung onto the ladder and lowered herself into the shelter. Her brother followed, slamming the hatch shut and locking it. 

Somepony had found the light switch, and the shelter was bathed in a harsh white glow. Applejack looked round, carefully avoiding the apple baskets as she stepped off the ladder. They were probably safe, at least for now, but...what would they find when they opened the hatch again?








'That was really wonderful, Rarity. I think that mud bath was amazing!' 

Fluttershy trotted along beside her unicorn friend, on their way back from the spa, their coats shiny and their hooves newly groomed. 

'You're absolutely right, darling. It's the only time I will ever voluntarily let mud touch me!' Rarity giggled. 'I feel like a brand new pony. Rainbow Dash would have loved it, I'm sure, despite her protests the other day.' Fluttershy smiled.

'I know she enjoyed that face mask. She told me...oops, she made me promise not to tell you that she liked it...' Rarity chuckled.

'Don't worry, darling. I won't let on.'

'H-hey, what's that?' Fluttershy pointed with a hoof.  

In the skies ahead of them, south of town, a trail of fire and smoke was climbing into the clouds. 

'I-is that...' Rarity squinted. 'Is that a rocket?' 

'I...I think so,' Fluttershy replied, craning her neck as the object climbed higher. Seconds later, it was joined in the sky by two more, emerging over the rooftops of the town, obviously a considerable distance away but still clearly visible. As the two mares watched, more appeared, one by one, until there were a whole constellation of them climbing into the sky, arcing northwards. Ponies in the street were staring and pointing.

'Oh my Celestia...' Rarity breathed. She knew what they were. 'Fluttershy, w-we...we need to go. Now.' 

'Hmm? Go where?' the Pegasus looked questioningly at her friend. 

'To the shelters,' Rarity answered, starting to breathe faster.

'Why?' Fluttershy asked nervously. 'W-What's wrong? I-is it the rockets?'

'Not rockets...missiles,' Rarity said.

'Oh my...' Fluttershy said, her voice trembling. 

'Come on, darling, quickly!' Rarity said, taking Fluttershy's hoof. As she did so, the air raid sirens began to wail. 

'R-rarity!' Fluttershy moaned. 'What's happening?' 

'It's an attack! Come on, we have to go!' She started to drag Fluttershy along, her mind racing, trying to remember where to go. Ponyville's municipal buildings housed communal fallout shelters in their basements, some purpose-built, some merely converted from storage rooms or cellars. They varied in size and capacity, the largest being the one under the new hospital, which could hold several hundred ponies. Various privately owned buildings maintained their own shelters, including most of the factories in the industrial district and Ponyville college. There were also a number of large public shelters built under vacant lots that could each hold nearly 300 ponies, in considerable discomfort, for a theoretical maximum of two weeks.  

The nearest public shelter to them was on the edge of the municipal park that had been built to try and retain some of the quaint charm of the old quarter of town. During its construction, the contractors had sunk a concrete bunker underground, big enough for 300 ponies. The shelter entrance was three blocks away, and Rarity dragged Fluttershy faster than the yellow mare could run, using her wings to flap just above the ground instead. The cacophonous moan of the sirens filled their ears. Ponies in the streets were panicking, running and screaming. Some stood and stared in shock at the fiery trails rising swiftly into the sky to the south. Some picked up their foals and ran. Some stood still, rooted to the spot with fear.

The shelter entrance was not as crowded as Rarity had been expecting. A steady stream of ponies of all shapes, sizes and ages were hurrying down the concrete steps, but there was no pushing or panic. Two uniformed police officers stood at the entrance, their guns strapped to their hips, peaked caps on their heads, urging ponies forward and into the subterranean shelter. One of them kept glancing at his watch, the other to the sky. 

'Quickly, darling! Quickly!' Rarity urged as they joined the queue of terrified ponies. Fluttershy looked on the verge of tears- the wailing sirens, bawling foals and screaming mares were upsetting her far more than any thoughts of an impending attack. 

'Keep moving! Come on, keep moving, no pushing! Just keep moving forward. There's room for everypony,' one of the police officers was exhorting the crowd, trying to keep them calm. It seemed to be working, and within a minute Rarity and Fluttershy were making their way down the cool concrete staircase to the slightly damp shelter. Already it was crowded, a small sea of ponies spreading out from the entrance and moving fearfully into the dimly lit interior. The walls, floor and ceiling were basic- bare concrete, with bare lightbulbs glowing behind wire mesh. Doors on either side of the main room branched off to bathrooms, storerooms and bunkrooms where the shelter's inhabitants could sleep. 

Even from below ground, the siren's song rang out as clear as day. Rarity and Fluttershy followed the line of ponies shuffling forward into the shelter. Rarity could see the fear in their eyes, and in the eyes of her friend; she was sure her eyes betrayed a similar emotion. 

'This isn't happening...' somepony moaned. 

'Maybe it's just a test?' somepony else replied. 'Maybe they're testing the sirens, a-and they forgot to tell us about it...'

'Are you nuts? Didn't you see the missiles going up?' 

'Oh Celestia, we're all going to die...'

Fluttershy whimpered beside her. Rarity grasped her hoof tightly. 

'Don't worry, darling,' she said. 'We'll be fine...we'll be safe here...'





The queue at Sugarcube Corner was out the door now. Pinkie and Rainbow were busier than ever, with cupcakes and pastries flying off the shelves. Anxious ponies eyed the diminishing stock and jostled with each other. 

'Good morning, Pinkie!' Cheerilee said as she reached the head of the queue. 'I'll take half a dozen cherry cupcakes, please!' Pinkie smiled as she collected the cakes and put them into a box for her. As she looked up again from the counter, she could see that several of the queuing ponies who were still outside were looking up and pointing at something. 

'Here you go, Miss Cheerilee!' she grinned. 'That'll be 6 bits, please!' Cheerilee passed over six golden coins, as a strange new sound began to drift in through the open door.

'Here you are, Pinkie...what's that noise?' Cheerilee turned to look outside as the sound grew louder. Behind the counter, Rainbow Dash pricked up her ears.

'Uh oh...' she said, flapping into the air and flying over the heads of the customers to the door and hurrying outside. She followed the gaze of the customers on the street, looking up at the forenoon sky. She knew immediately what she was looking at.

'Oh, shit...' she breathed. For a moment, she hesitated, frozen to the spot. Then, she shouted,

'Everypony, get out of here! Go to the shelters, now!'   

'A-are they coming here?' one of the ponies standing near her asked. 

'No, those are our missiles,' Rainbow replied. 'We won't see theirs coming. Now move!' She dashed back inside and repeated her shouted instructions. The dozen or so customers broke into panicked gallops, shoving and pushing as they tried to fit through the door of the shop all at once. The wailing sirens lent a sinister air to the panicking crowd.

'Come on, Pinkie!' Rainbow shouted. 'Quickly!' 

'What, Dashie? What?' Pinkie asked, bouncing excitedly. 

'We have to act! There's a basement here, right?' she asked the pastel pink pony. Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, evidently not entirely clear on what was happening.

'Is it strong? Is it well built?' Rainbow asked urgently. 'Could it withstand a nuclear explosion?' 

'Umm...' Pinkie scratched her head. 'I have no idea!' she said brightly. 

'Ugh! Is it strong?' she asked again. Pinkie nodded. 

'It looks strong! It's built with big bricks and stuff!' 

'Alright, you go turn the electricity and the gas off at the mains, then get down into the cellar!' Rainbow said, hurrying over to the front door and slamming it shut.

'Why, Dashie?' Pinkie asked, confused. 

'Because it will help stop fire breaking out!' the Pegasus replied, drawing the heavy blinds across the shop windows.

'Oh, right! Uh, why would there be fire?' 

'Because there's going to be an attack!' Rainbow yelled. 'Now come on, move!'

'An attack?' Pinkie gasped. 'Who would do such a thing! Attacking a poor, defenceless bakery...'

'For buck's sake, Pinkie, just shut the hell up and do it! Now!' Rainbow screamed. 'Move your plot!'

Pinkie sprang into action as if she had been scalded by hot water, sprinting down into the basement.

'Wait!' Rainbow shouted. 'You gotta shut down the power first!' Pinkie's head appeared in the basement doorway.

'The breakers are downstairs,' she said, 'and so is the main gas valve, silly!'

'Alright, turn them off and stay down there!' Rainbow replied. Pinkie disappeared downstairs again, and Rainbow quickly moved into the kitchen and turned off the ovens. She cursed as she realised she hadn't been counting; she had no idea how long it had been since the sirens started. She was working on the assumption that they would have five minutes warning, though she knew that could well be an exaggeration. The USR was not that far from Equestria- missile flight time would probably be less than fifteen minutes. By the time the orders had been given and passed down to the Strategic Command launch sites, that was probably down to well under ten. Add another three or four for the launch procedures, that left about five minutes, and the missiles had already been in the air for maybe another minute before the sirens went off...

I don't have long.

She hurriedly closed the kitchen window and drew the thick curtain across it. She knew the windows and curtains upstairs were already closed- that would reduce the risk of fire. She grabbed whatever tinned food she could carry, along with the small kitchen radio, and dashed down to the basement. Pinkie was sitting in the middle of the floor.

'Hi!' she said. 'I turned off the gas and electricity!' Rainbow put down the food and the radio before replying.

'Good,' she said. Taking a quick look around, she could see that the basement was sturdily built, with thick stone walls and an equally thick ceiling. A pile of various stores sat stacked up in the far corner; that would serve as a makeshift fallout shelter. 

'Pinkie,' she said. 'Get over there. Clear it out so we can crawl in under those sacks and barrels.' 

'Aye aye, Captain!' Pinkie replied, as if she were building a toy fort. She trotted over and began to rearrange the stores so that the two of them would be able to just squeeze in and be shielded by the thick stone walls on two sides, and by a wide layer of sacks and crates on another, as well as above them. Rainbow dashed back upstairs. She grabbed an empty, industrial sized plastic tub that had been used to store butter and forced it into the deep sink, turning on the water and letting it fill up the tub as fast as it could.

'Come on, damn it! Come on!' she breathed, glancing nervously at the curtained window. The tub was filling agonisingly slowly. Finally it was full. She left the water running and lifted the tub out of the sink, with some considerable effort- it was heavy. She put the lid on it as quickly as she could She put the plug in the sink, allowed that to fill as well, then turned off the water and ran back down into the cellar. She slammed and bolted the door, then hurried over to Pinkie, who had been busily stacking the stores and creating a crawlspace.

'There's room for one more!' she said cheerfully, as though she were in a dream world. Rainbow hurried over and worked her way in, lying almost snout to snout with Pinkie, the space beneath the stacks of barrels and boxes claustrophobically small.    

'Just stay down, Pinkie,' Rainbow said, 'and open your mouth.'

'Why? Are you gonna examine my tonsils?' Pinkie replied, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue.

'No! Celestia, don't you even know what's happening?' Pinkie shrugged.

'We're hiding in the basement because somepony is going to attack the bakery! Right?' Rainbow sighed in frustration.

'We're at war, Pinkie! There's going to be a nuclear attack! You know what that means, right?' Pinkie nodded.

'And...they're going to attack Ponyville?' she asked curiously.

'Yes! Of course they will! It's a big town, plenty of ponies here, and plenty of industry...plus there's the dam not far away, and Cloudsdale, and the missile silos to the south...we're going to get clobbered, Pinkie. We're going to get it. We're going to get it hard.'




'Spike! Spike! Quickly! For Celestia's sake!'

Twilight was near panic. Her mind was racing, her breaths coming fast and shallow. The library had a small basement, in which she usually practiced her experiments. In the last few days since the outbreak of war in Saddle Arabia, Twilight had surreptitiously bought and stored tinned food, bottled water and other emergency supplies down there, trying to avoid alarming Spike. She didn't really expect they would actually have to use them, but, she had thought, better to be safe than sorry and then use it all for camping some time after the tension had blown over. 

Now she was scared, more scared than she had been when she faced down Nightmare Moon alone. 

And what about Shining and my parents? And Princess Celestia? And all my friends...

Her first thought after hearing the sirens had been to run out into town and find her friends, but she had been thinking with her heart, not her brain. She knew she had to take cover, and she knew that her friends knew that too. She and Spike might be relatively safe in the basement; on the other hand, they might not, but it was easier to run down to the basement than to run through town to a public shelter. 

Spike appeared at the basement door, tottering under a stack of books that Twilight had decided might be useful, including Elemental First Aid, Edible Plants & How To Identify Them, and a tome the library had been given by the hospital, The Effects Of Ionising Radiation On Pony Physiology.  

'Ohh, hurry, Spike!' she said, pacing nervously. 

'I'm tryin!' These things weigh a tonne, you know...' the diminutive dragon replied, tottering down the stairs. Twilight moved to shut the basement door. The wailing of the sirens faded a little as she did so. Spike dumped the books on the floor.

'Quickly, get under the table!' Twilight said. Spike crossed the room and ducked under the sturdy oak table that Twilight used for writing and experiments. She followed and huddled under the table, her body rather more cramped than Spike's. There was room for them both, just.

'Twilight, are...are we gonna die?' Spike asked, in a voice that brought a lump to Twilight's throat. 

'Not if I can help it,' she replied, with more confidence in her voice than she felt inside. She quickly cast a protection spell, enveloping the two of them, and the table, in a magical forcefield of purple energy. She had no idea what kind of protection such a spell would have against a nuclear explosion. Unsurprisingly, there had been few willing volunteers for any experiments into the effects of nuclear blasts on unicorn magic. The military and the government obviously had similar doubts- though Canterlot's magic shield would be raised as soon as the strike warning was received, they still planned to evacuate the Princesses and their staff in such an event, suggesting the military planners doubted the abilities of even the city-sized shield to withstand atomic weaponry. The forces unleashed by even a single nuclear detonation were so far beyond any magic she had ever seen or even read about, that the idea of a nuclear war terrified her more than anything else. A single warhead could destroy a town, a pair could destroy a city. A dozen could destroy a smaller nation. The USR possessed hundreds of missiles, enough to utterly annihilate Equestria, kill millions and cause untold damage to the environment and to the very structure of Equestrian civilization.

I hope the Princess got away safely, she thought. And my family...





The Dawnguard climbed rapidly, much faster than any commercial jet would ever be authorised to. In the cockpit, anti-flash shades were drawn across the windscreen. The pilot and copilot each wore eyepatches over one eye, so that, if they were blinded by the flash of a nuclear detonation, they could remove the patch and still be able to see. Once they were above the peaks of the Northern Foals, the aircraft turned east, still climbing. Ahead of them lay the eastern plains and some of Equestria's largest cities; Fillydelphia, Detrot and Manehattan. 

In the cabin, Princess Celestia sat in her chair at the head of a conference table in one of the many rooms aboard the aircraft. She had been relieved beyond words to discover that Princess Luna had made it safely aboard as well. Though some in the government and the military, with the line of succession in mind, questioned the wisdom of both Princesses travelling on the same aircraft in times of crisis, Celestia herself had overruled them. Luna was her sister and co-regent, and as such she was not technically 'next' in the line of succession, since she already shared the throne equally with Celestia. Princess Cadence, upon whose shoulders the throne would fall, had been whisked away from her post in the Crystal Empire to an underground facility not far from the city, from where she would take on the responsibilities of both Celestia and Luna should the worst come to pass.

The chiefs of staff sat around the table, as well as Princess Luna and several governmental advisers, while crewponies and military liason officers stood around the edge of the room. 

'First impacts expected in less than a minute, Your Highness,' Shining Armour said, looking up at the clock on the wall. 

'Do we have the target predictions yet?' General Charger asked. A crewpony passed him a sheet of paper. He looked at Celestia, who nodded.

'Alright...trajectory analysis indicates the following targets,' Charger said, reading from the sheet. 'The first strikes are going to fall on our missile fields. Looks like at least 30 missiles targeted on each field. Our bomber bases are all on the target list...Hoofstead, Bucksdale, Manestrom and Marechild airbases. Five missiles apiece. ESC Command at Omareha, at least 10 missiles.'  Celestia's face remained emotionless. All the missile silos and most of the airbases were located a fair distance from any sizeable towns or cities, in sparsely populated areas.      

'Canterlot,' Charger said next, drawing glances from everypony at the table. 'At least 10 missiles.' Celestia closed her eyes for several seconds. 10 missiles for a city as relatively small as Canterlot was considerable overkill. 

'Manehattan, 25 missiles,' the General continued. 'Fillydelphia and Baltimare, 20 missiles each. Detrot, 15 missiles. Las Pegasus...looks like 12 missiles.' He worked his way through the targets, listing every city and large town in Equestria, as well as military and civilian installations. 

'Cloudsdale, one missile. Hoofer Dam, one missile. Trottingham, one missile. Ponyville, one missile...' Again, Celestia closed her eyes. 

'Your Highness, we have confirmed detonations,' one of the staff officers said, holding a hoof to his earpiece. 'Three detonations so far, all on the Vanhoofer missile fields.' 

'Damn it, it's really happening...' Air Marshal Typhoon said under his breath. 

'Did all our missiles from there get away?' Charger asked. The staff officer nodded.

'Yes sir. They're just hitting empty silos now.' 

And ponies, Celestia thought. 

'The board is lighting up,' the officer said. 'Detonations all across the grid.'

'Our silos and bomber bases will be the first to get hit, Your Highness,' Charger explained. 'The initial USR attack was counterforce. After that it will be Canterlot and our command and control centres, then large cities, then...'

'I think I can follow the pattern, General,' Celestia said, closing her eyes again. 

'Northern targets will be the first,' Charger said. 'They're closer to the USR so their missiles will arrive faster.'

'Are we clear of Canterlot?' Princess Luna spoke up for the first time. 'How far have we travelled?' The staff officer spoke into his mouthpiece and received a reply. The Dawnguard was banking again, turning to starboard, to the southeast.

'We are now 26 miles southeast of Canterlot, Your Highness,' he said. 'Well clear of any blast.' Luna nodded.

'Will the city shield hold, General?' Celestia asked. Charger glanced at Shining Armour, who, as head of the Royal Guard, oversaw the defence of the city.

'We...we don't know, Your Highness,' Shining said cautiously. 'There has never been a suitable test to determine the...resistance of magic to nuclear weapons.'

'Your personal opinion?' Celestia looked at him with her commanding magenta eyes.

'I...I think it can probably withstand one hit, Your Highness...but not ten.'

'I see...' Celestia sighed. So 400,000 ponies will die.

A sudden flash filled the starboard windows of the jet. 

'What the buck!' Charger growled, leaping to his hooves along with the other officers and crowding round the oval windows to get a better look.

'Must be the southern missile fields,' Typhoon said. Even as they watched, another flash lit the southern horizon, half blinding those foolish enough to be staring at the location of the first blast.

'Son of a bitch!' Charger muttered, rubbing his eyes. 'We're really gettin' hit now...'