MANEHATTAN, DOWNTOWN DISTRICT (REFUGEE CAMP)
1450 HOURS
"What's wrong with him?"
"He, uh, he had pieces of glass stuck in his hooves, sir."
"Can he walk?"
"I suppose, but I wouldn't recommend it."
"Duly noted."
Red felt somepony prodding his side with their hoof. He ignored it, keeping his eyes shut. After the fifth prod, he realized that whoever it was wasn't going to go away anytime soon. He cracked his eyes open to see an armored pegasus standing next to his cot. It took him a moment to realize it was captain Ironclad, who looked rather irritated for some reason.
"Get up," Ironclad ordered. Somepony behind him, a mare if the voice was anything to go by, started to protest before Ironclad snapped his head around. Whoever it was stopped talking immediately, and Ironclad's head snapped back to look at Red.
Red's bloodshot eyes blankly stared at Ironclad, before Red moved to place his bandage-covered hooves on the pavement serving as the tent's floor. All four of his hooves burned when he shifted his weight, but he ignored it and stood next to the cot, facing Ironside.
"New orders came in. Any military units on the ground are getting transferred to deal with that monster. Command wants to talk to you for some reason, and we need to be there yesterday. Get anything you want to take and meet me outside." Ironclad trotted out of the tent.
Red saw that the brown unicorn who had patched up his hooves had moved on to helping another patient. She didn't turn to look at him. Red slowly cantered down the space between the two rows of cots filled with crippled or burned ponies. With each step, a sharp pang ran up his hooves. It wasn't really that bad, though. It was more of a dull, constant sensation that never really went away. He exited the tent and found Ironclad waiting for him. The captain started walking, and Red followed him, paying more attention to his hooves than the pegasus in front of him. Ironclad spoke first,
"Any particular reason you ran off into a crumbling city like a bat out of tartarus? Or do you just have a death wish?"
Red looked up, and muttered,
"My brother lived here."
"Oh. Did you find him?"
Red didn't answer.
Ironclad paused, looking back at Red. The earth pony's face told him all he needed to know.
"I'm sorry." Neither pony said anything else. Ironclad started walking again.
The two of them walked through the camp, Ironclad clearing a path through the refugees with Red following behind him. When they were out of the camp, the fallen bricks and grit cracking under their hooves, Red finally spoke again.
"Where are we going?"
"Train station. A unicorn's going to teleport us to a position southwest of Neighagra Falls. That monster's heading straight for Canterlot, and the military's hoping to intercept it before it gets there."
"Canterlot?" Red was now focused on the captain. If that thing got to Canterlot...Red didn't want to think about that.
"Yeah. Canterlot. Estimates say it'll get there in about five days."
"Okay...And why do I need to go, again?"
"Dunno. The message only said the ponies in charge wanted to talk to you," -Ironclad turned around a street corner and quickened his pace- "and there's the train station. Let's go."
Red followed Ironclad up the steps leading into a squashed, crumbling building that had once been the train station. Inside, he saw that the ceiling had been smashed in, leaving the floor covered with steel cross beams and glass, while light shone through the eviscerated skylights above. Memories stirred in his head. This was where he had welcomed Chalky to the city. Chalky had looked like a foal in a candy shop, staring at the way the metal beams curved up into crosses and semi-circles filled with panes of glass. And now, like him, it was gone. Red was brought out of his memories by Ironclad waving him over to some unicorns by the platforms. He trotted over to them, starting to realize that he was about to go through teleportation. For a moment, he wondered what that would be like.
***
EQUESTRIAN MILITARY ENCAMPMENT
10 MILES SOUTHWEST OF NEIGHAGRA FALLS
1510 HOURS
Red Sky decided that he did not like having every molecule in his body disintegrated and then re-integrated at the speed of light. The process could best be summed up by him standing in the station in front of a unicorn, then seeing a bright flash, followed by excruciating pain in every part of his body and the disturbing sensation of everything inside him being ripped apart and reassembled at the same time before a loud pop!, and he found himself in the middle of a camp filled with soldiers. He decided that, in the future, he'd stick to trains.
He stopped wobbling on his hooves and looked around. He was currently in the center of a large field, surrounded by boxy tents and what must have been hundreds of armored ponies playing cards, reading, moving crates around, chatting with each other, and one group being trained how to defend themselves from fresh fruit. He had to look back at that last one just to confirm it, wondering just what that had to do with anything at all, and if the soldier's expressions were any indication, he wasn't the only one. He almost forgot that Ironclad had been with him when the captain said,
"The generals' tent is this way." Ironclad started trotting off to the left, and Red had to run for a moment in order to catch up with him. The constant sting in Red's bandaged hooves grew to a burning sensation before he matched Ironclad's pace and walked next to him.
As they walked along, passing by soldiers preparing for the inevitable fight against that creature, Red couldn't help but feel out of place. Here he was, a designer of marine craft in the midst of the entire Equestrian armed forces. His mind tried to come up with some possible reason for the military to be interested in him. He had designed some of the ships the Royal Navy used, and had written a few papers for them, that much was true, but never anything he had thought would be important enough to warrant him being involved in an actual operation. Except for that one certain...project he had been in. But that was shelved many, many years ago, with everypony on that project sworn to never continue it, or even talk about it. Surely they wouldn't be willing to use it. Then again, that was the only real reason why they might want to talk to him.
Ironclad stopped in front of a large, drab green tent. He told Red,
"Wait here."
And then he went into the tent. A few seconds later, and he opened the tent flap up, telling Red to get in. Red walked in, and saw a group of three ponies in non-armored uniforms discussing something over a table inside. Red figured they had to be the generals.
A white unicorn on the right side of the table said, "I say we move now. Swarm the head with the thirteenth to sixteenth to confuse it, then topple it with a ground assault led by the first and fifth, with the ninth and tenth providing support."
A brown earth pony on the left side of the table said, "If we do that we'll lose all the pegasi. No, I think we should wait for the eighth artillery to get here. Use the seventh, ninth, and tenth to lay down a constant barrage of spells and support the cannons. That way we'll be able to take it out from a safe distance."
"The eighth isn't going to get here for two days! Do you want us to just sit around with our hooves up our plots while that thing -" The unicorn was interrupted by the third pony, a tan pegasus, clearing her throat. She had seen Red and Ironclad entering the tent.
"Captain Ironclad, that's this Red Sky we've been asking for, right?"
Ironclad nodded, "Yes ma'am."
"Good. That will be all, captain. You," -she pointed at Red with her hoof for emphasis- "come here." She gestured to the empty spot at the table.
The other two had finally noticed the two ponies that had entered their tent, looking over at them. Ironclad saluted, then turned around and trotted out of the tent. Red hesitantly walked up to the table, and sat at the empty spot. The table had a map on it, along with some folders on each pony's side, except Red's. The pegasus spoke first.
"Now then, Red, may I call you Red?" -Red nodded, while the generals each opened one of their files and started reading. The pegasus looked at Red after glancing at the file- "You designed four ships for the Royal Navy, and three submarines on your own, the latest of which you tested one week ago, correct?"
Red nodded. She glanced at the file again before asking him,
"You were part of the team assigned to the Manehattan Project before it was discontinued roughly fifteen years ago, were you not?" Again, Red nodded, afraid of where the conversation was going.
The unicorn to his right asked him, "Do you remember the details of it?"
"I remember some government representatives coming to my apartment and asking me if I'd be interested in working on something that could change the world. They took me to the royal castle in Canterlot, where I met five other ponies who designed or built things for the Royal Military. We were told very little about what we were making, but the bits of information we did get made it sound like something that nopony in their right mind would ever make. But if we asked Princess Celestia about it whenever she came down to the labs to check on us, she'd always change the subject to, cake, or something, and never responded to any letter we wrote about it. And when we had finally figured out how to build it after oh, five years, right after Princess Luna returned, both of them came down to the lab one day and told us that the project was scrapped. They said there was no further use for it, and practically threatened all of us with imprisonment if we ever told anypony about it."
The pegasus said,
"Are you aware of what this 'device', as you call it, would do if it were complete?"
"No. That was one of the many questions we asked the princess." The three generals glanced at each other, before they closed their files.
The earth pony said,
"That 'device' was a weapon conceived for the chance of the elements of harmony failing to pacify Princess Luna. The proper term for the concept is 'megaspell'. If the elements had failed, and you had figured out how to build it, it would have been set off in the Everfree. The resulting blast would have wiped the entire forest and the nearby town of Ponyville from history and left a wasteland behind."
Red felt panic start to take over. That was what that thing was for? Goddesses, no wonder the princesses wanted to keep it a secret. But that left a few unsettling questions...
"Why are you asking me about this? I mean, for the love of Celestia, Luna, and Faust, you're not seriously considering using it against that thing, are you?"
The pegasus simply looked at Red, and said,
"We're asking you, Red, because out of the six ponies on that team, you're the only one that wasn't at a formal party in the Glass Tower's observation deck today. Consequently, you're the only one not dead or in the hospital, and still capable of working. As for the use of the megaspell against the target, if we can't stop it with any other method by the fourth day, yes. We fully intend to use it."