//------------------------------// // The Final Report // Story: The Legend of Brave Rick // by Exelion //------------------------------// Just after a few seconds, and after feeling anything, he opened his eyes and for his surprise, the violet fire stayed spinning in the air in a spiral form, being amazed by what happened. “I didn’t had to get high to see something like this” he thought. He thought it was an hallucination because of the pain. Something that was stopping him to think about it. His curious eyes gazed the spinning phenomenon while it was sparkling, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, a cylindrical shape appeared through the fire. At first he didn’t recognize what it was, until the flames emitted a last blinding flash, leaving a rolled paper on the ground. Richard picked it up, and examined it without opening it “This seems like…” His thoughts were interrupted when he saw the paper roll started shining that violet sparkle that left him unconscious the last time. Frightened, he threw the scroll against the door, and he covered himself in his arms, expecting the worst. To his astonishment, the scroll just stayed sparkling in the ground. He wanted to get out without touching it and notify the general so he can take care about it, but he couldn't, something inside told him he should read it. He got carried away by the curiosity and something else, trembling with fear he picked it up, the paper never stopped shining, when he was about to take off the red ribbon that was wrapping it, he could distinguish some symbols over it. “What the,” he thought to himself. “This is written on that weird pony language. How am I supposed to translate this thing?” His eyes could not believe what he saw, those strange symbols began to change shape, one by one, translating itself to something he could perfectly understand. "Pure Heart" “How the hell does this…?” Slowly, he removed the ribbon's knot, dropped it and opened the scroll far as he could. It was written in pony language, until the letters begun changing in front of his eyes, which left him amazed. When it finished, the letter remained readable, Richard got ready to read it. He stood up, put up his pants and sat down again. “Let's see…” Final Report The objective of this report is provide to readers, researchers, historians and anyone interested in pony history, the more specific and detailed information possible about the events in what surely was the biggest threat to Equestria since Discord. Everything related, it's based in previous reports, that describe in great detail the adversities that lead to the human invasion. In memory of the fallen and the destroyed families. 1th Month The princess Celestia authorizes the "Everfree Energy" project, which was intended to an exhaustive research of the Everfree Forest to show that it possesses some kind of magical potential, which could explain why his ecosystem was autonomous, without needing any intervention at all. Twilight Sparkle and Zecora are responsible for carrying the project forward. Everything It's going just well, the estimated time of accomplishment was stipulated in twelve months, the only thing out of place is the arrival of a mysterious pony who called himself "Doom Prophet" warning about a big evil that will be set free if we keep going forward, he was ignored and the project continued. 3rd Month. The Project continued as planned. A pegasus named Fluttershy helped us with the monsters that lived in the forest, offering safety to the managers as this beasts interfered in main aspects. For safety, we keep an eye on Doom Prophet, and according to a reliable source, he is staying in the ponyville library without causing any trouble at all since he appeared. 6th Month. Since a little time ago, most of the villagers in ponyville, knew about the project, which wasn't in our plans, but it wasn't a real problem, or so we thought. Doom Prophet managed to send his message to everypony in town, and then summon his "followers" in the central square, perhaps aiming to sabotage everything that had been done so far, but thanks to the quick intervention of princess Celestia, we could stop his plans. Doom Prophet and the others were arrested. 12th Month. The Everfree Energy project failed. However, something new emerged, a portal leading to a different land, perhaps in another dimension. The first trip showed results beyond our imagination, beings that were totally different from us, at a simple view. Advanced technology in some ways, big and simple buildings, and other things. But according to Celestia's orders we can't have any contact with those beings until we know if they are hostile. Doom Prophet escaped from prison, but he was quickly caught, Celestia wanted to avoid any more problems so she sent him to Appleloosa where he will serve the remainder of his sentence doing hard labor. 16th Month. The Portal couldn't be a secret anymore from the other beings, with no other choice, Celestia allow the entrance and, one by one, the firsts visitors started showing up, families that visited Ponyville and get amazed with the ponies, the culture, the food and other things. They couldn't believe that some "animals" could live that way. Their language was unknown for us, but thanks to Twilight Sparkle we found a spell that allowed us to communicate with them. 20th Month. The Humans are part of the community these days, both in Ponyville as in Canterlot and for a while there was no problem at all. An episode of violence erupts at a bar in Canterlot, featuring ponies and humans, both of them were apparently drunk, the polemic of determining the guilty was on the streets, the actions didn't matter, as in any way it was going to have an impact on our diplomatic relationships. By agreement, it was provided that "foreigners" could provide extra security bringing their urban guards or "police" as they call them. Meanwhile, near the portal, humans built a settlement, in order to host visitors who will spend a long time in equestria. So far, there are no news of the adventurers that went through the portal, the princesses are concerned. 24th Month. The human guards were every time more threatening and their number was everytime bigger, this bothered the ponies. The settlement was expanding near the border of the forest, which was cut mercilessly for that purpose, affecting the living ecosystem. Given the current situation and no response about the missing adventurers, Celestia went to the human settlement accompanied by her personal bodyguard to talk with the manager of human-pony interaction, Mr. Philip Armander. After a little argument. Humans declared war to Celestia. Special Topic: The Human-Pony War. 1th Month The war has been declared, the human settlement began to take the shape of a military base and increased the movement on it. By the time, Celestia warned her military forces to prepare for battle, while she sent letters to all the cities on Equestria to inform about the situation and ask their help. The Elements of Harmony were trying to organize Ponyville so it didn’t panic, later they were sent to Canterlot to think of a strategy. 3rd Month. According to some informants, the enemy base has tripled its size and will not take much time before they finish it. to gain more time, Zecora asked the forest to defend itself from the invaders and so, the animals raised themselves against the humans and began attacking them. To our surprise, for every soldier killed, another one came out the portal to replace him, therefore, we don't know the exact amount of enemies we are facing. For some strange reason, the other cities never answered the letters. 5th Month. The invaders managed to prevail against the forest and its beasts. As punishment, a few soldiers came out the forest and burned down the Apple family farm, leaving only ashes. They also incinerated Fluttershy's house, killing all the animals inside. After all impediments, the humans finished their military base, Celestia couldn't believe it when she knew, she didn't even thought on what they were capable of. One night, a group of assault broke into the hall, taking the mayor as a hostage, but instead of kidnaping her, they waited patiently for everypony to meet in front of the building, after talking about our surrender, General Philip Armander took a golden revolver and shot straight to the mayor's head, causing the output of her brains and blood, injecting fear and helplessness in the ponies, some royal guards tried in vain to rescue the now deceased mayor, but the assault group prevailed and killed them all mercilessly. A week later, the human armed forces began the invasion of ponyville, at first we thought we had advantage with the magic of the unicorns and the flying ability of the pegasus, but those benefits quickly disappeared with the promise of peace and a harmonious future together, against the firepower of the invaders who managed to overcome the princesses, even the power of the elements was useless against them, allowing them to destroy not only our military forces, but also all expectation of saving our home. The fallen are hundreds, hundreds of professionals both stallions and mares as volunteers who fought valiantly to protect this land. Luna is also in these statistical numbers, but not because she was captured, because Celestia tried to protect her, sending her back to the moon, at the moment, everybody was shocked by the actions of the princess, but there wasn't another option, when they announced the withdrawal, she wanted to stay at all costs to give their subjects time to flee, but Celestia intervened, sending her back to her prison, but knowing that she will be safe. Doom Prophet, to our surprise, escaped Appleloosa with the intention of helping, even after he warned us that all this was going to happen and we didn't believe him. His participation was momentary, but essential, thanks to him and his sacrifice, Twilight Sparkle avoided the cold embrace of death, since Doom got in the way of a knife that would produce a deep stab wound in Twilight's neck, however, he received a long cut on the side of his abdomen, causing him a hemorrhage, he died after a few seconds. The evacuated civilians were refuged in Canterlot, but some decided to take the train to Manehattan, the last stop before closing the station for the invasion. 6th Month Canterlot troops were preparing for battle, Shining Armor, the captain of the royal guard, became the captain of the resistance, formed by the royal guard and the soldiers who survived the battle in ponyville.   The objective of this force was to give time to the princess and all refugees to entering the underground hideout, the giant magic shield was already set, now they just had to wait. Humans seemed to be a step forward, their powerful bombs were able to destroy the shield and they quickly entered the city, taking the streets slowly, ensuring their dominance over the capital of Equestria. Our objective was fulfilled, thanks to the resistance, all civilians were evacuated successfully, but the remaining soldiers stayed fighting until the end, knowing their destiny and surrendering to it, all in order to give more time to the refugees arriving at the underground hideout. Richard turned the scroll, thinking he would find more information, but he got surprised when he saw that the other side was blank. “Are you telling me that I went through all that... just for a report!?” He thought “And it adds nothing new to what we already knew, except …” He carefully readed again the last words of the report “Underground... hideout, But where?” He whispered. His mind drifted among the last events that happened until he remembered the fugitives, and their successful escape. “Of course! They should be somewhere in the Everfree” His face brightened with a sudden idea “The X!” He was about to get up when he saw a strange gray stain in a corner of the document, it was too light to be ink... A drop of water perhaps? His curiosity pushed him forward, he touched it, trying to figure out what that substance was. “It seems like…” He looked confused “A tear?” Without warning, the letter glowed a golden color, making his eyes shine, hiding them and giving him a new vision. He was where the last one ended, floating in the middle of the the ocean, covered in a golden glow and with the rising sun in the background, he turned to see the sun and get wrapped in that warm morning feeling, but he felt empty, it wasn't the same that happened the last time. The sun changed its color to blood red, likewise, the clouds took a dark red color, while the rest of the things took the same color as the sun, and the shadows became darkness. A sudden teleportation led to Ponyville, where he could see how lots ponies looked terrified at the doors of the City Hall. Richard slowly came to the scene and saw Philip pointing his revolver to the mayor. “No, there must be another way!” He shouted in vain. But he closed his eyes to avoid watching the remains of the skull and brain of the mayor falling to the ground. Suffering. When he opened his eyes, the scene had changed, or rather, the time passed quickly to stand in the battle of Ponyville, at the time where the magical shields fell and the humans took advantage, killing several ponies in a few minutes. The cries of pain of the wounded echoed in Richard's head, like he was alongside each of them, listening the last screams that will put an end in their lives, and they repeated again and again in an endless cycle. Looking sick,  he put his hands on his head and shouted “It's enough, get out of my head!” Distress, fear. This time he teleported to a cave, where the torches lit the sad faces of the ponies hiding in there. “Mommy?” A little filly asked his mother “When will daddy come back?” “Very soon ... very soon dear” The mother answered tearfully. Richard saw the scene sadly, while he turned his head to see another event. “Why did Mommy have to go deliver mail?, Why couldn't she stay with me?” A small unicorn white lavender skin with a yellow mane and tail with two yellows eyes said, before beginning to cry in his father's arms. “Oh my little Dinky,” The unicorn with light brown fur and a dark brown hair said “Don't cry, Mommy is in an important task, if all goes well, she will be one of the heroines that saved Equestria from the humans” He said wiping a few tears from her daughter's face with his hooves. “Are you serious?” Dinky asked with a tearful and hopeful voice. “Very serious, and be sure to prepare her favorite muffins when she returns,” affirmed with a smile and a hug. A red tear came out of Richard's eye and he fell to the ground, staining the ground with a crimson color. Sadness and pain. He woke up at the base, were a battle between ponies and humans took place. "This never happened, why am I dreaming with this battle?". But something took him out of his thoughts, the glow that was covering him changed its golden color to a bright scarlet red, much like the environment in general. “What is going on?” The unique sound of a bullet traveling through the air hit Richard's left shoulder, causing it to collapse and go into a state of shock, the last thing he could see is the general pointing his gun right in front of him. Regret. Then he pulled the trigger, and Richard felt the cold hand of death touching his forehead. Hope. Richard dropped the report while it gradually lost its glow, he kept his head down with his eyes wide open, reflexing about every word he heard in his mind. Suffering, distress, fear, sadness, pain, regret and hope. The words were tormenting and confusing him, the guilt took over his body, sadness did as well, tears fell to the ground. His head looking at the ground prevented his tears to wet his face, while the first rays of sunlight of a new day filtered through openings in the roof lit that little puddle of tears.