//------------------------------// // Chapter 34-Greed // Story: A Beautiful New Age // by JDPrime22 //------------------------------// A second ago, Rarity was breathing in through a wounded throat, having landed awkwardly on her foreleg after being hit once more by the silver gust of wind. In the blink of an eye, she was in Ponyville, rounding the corner of a nearby house and facing the street ahead. It was so silent. So deathly silent. Not even wind could be heard. As for the town of Ponyville, it stood in disarray. Buildings and houses that once held color and the friendliest ponies in all of Equestria now stood gray, unmoving, worn against the dread that swept across the land like a sandstorm. As per Rarity’s tastes, gray wasn’t an interesting color to her. It was even worse to see the buildings match with the world around her. The skies were heavy, dark and light rain clouds mixed together in a horrible fashion above. Towers of smoke and darkness polluted the landscape alongside several craters large enough to fit Ursa Minors if need be. Houses either lied in ruin or were deserted, not a life to be found. The streets were barren so far as she made her way to her boutique. Reasoning behind such an act was unknown to the unicorn. Rarity was still wondering how she arrived to Ponyville in such a short amount of time, or why exactly the world had become so dull and gray. She didn’t have time to ponder on why these events had transpired, and she had even less time to know why her body commanded itself, her hooves paving the dusty trail to her boutique. And then sound… Sound came to her in a gust of wind and dirt. The first thing she heard was her breathing, gasping and coughing out the dirt that snuck its way into her gaping jaw. Next, of course, was the wind and how it howled a great fury, much like a snowstorm would. Rarity squinted, pushing desperately against the wind and facing the road again. And then bodies… Bodies pockmarked the streets of Ponyville. Bodies that weren’t there before. Bodies that she knew. “Oh, my…” Rarity gagged, trying so very hard to keep her breakfast down. She gulped, eyeing the streets carefully and cautiously, turning on every sound, every movement. Nothing could escape her eye. Not now. Not while she had so many questions and was so close to fainting. Where was her couch when she needed it? Fainting on the sickening, gray dirt was out of the question. So she pushed on, paying her respects to the ponies she once knew with a light bow of her head. Rarity shut her eyes tight upon passing a pile of motionless fillies and colts, presumably school foals. A tiny whimper escaped her lips, causing Rarity to reach up and cover her muzzle with a foreleg. She couldn’t even imagine Sweetie Belle… It seemed the world began to change once more, another gust of wind hitting Rarity right in the face. She yelped, holding out a foreleg to block the onslaught of dirt in her eyes. It quickly died, and Rarity slowly lowered her foreleg. The bodies that once belonged to the ponies now belonged to a different species. Each one of them appeared bipedal, but it was hard to make that assumption considering they all lied dead in the dirt. The colors each one of them wore varied from each body. Some were colorful, some were dull. Some were unfamiliar, some she knew right away. The world was changing before her very eyes. Ponyville, a town once inhabited with life now remained barren, colorless, and not a happy face to be seen for miles. The sunshine no longer existed, replaced with ugly clouds constantly hanging over her head, following her every step of the way. And now bodies of ponies and Avengers lined the barren streets of Ponyville, streets that were empty save for the lone unicorn. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know how. She just pushed forward. And each step was more horrifying than the last. There were the faces she recognized all lying motionless, most likely…dead. She could see Tony Stark with half of his mask ripped away, revealing empty eyes underneath, staring up at nothing. Lying beside him was Captain Rogers, eyes closed and mouth in a tiny, straight line. Clint Barton and Thor were there as well, holding similar positions as the others. As for Banner…well… Hulk lied on his side, half of his face planted in the dirt with his only remaining eye staring forward at the body so very close to his. Natasha Romanoff. Their fingertips were held out for each other to take. It was so close, but so very far away. Her breathing amplified, eyes threatening to burn and release the tears she so desperately wanted to release, but no. She will stay strong, as she mentally told herself over and over again. There was still so much more to discover, to find out exactly what happened to the world in her absence. But then new bodies appeared as she pushed on, ones she did not recognize. One wore what appeared to be a similar Iron Man suit, but holding silver and gray armor instead of what she had become accustomed to with spending so much time with Stark. Another lied on his face, large, metallic wings broken beyond repair extending from his backpack. Joining them was a similar human male holding some attributes to Captain America, yet the only thing off about him was his arm. His metal arm. Rarity moved onwards, eyeing the others that paved the roads. There was a smaller one wearing a red and black outfit, batons in each hand and twin horns atop his head. Blood coated his mouth, dripping slowly into the dirt. Rarity moved on, gagging to herself. Another man with dark skin lied by a smaller female, her flowing, dark hair tangled and lying in disarray, blocking her face. They weren’t even the worst ones. The worst were a group of seven strewn out. The five Rarity were greeted to were three that appeared human—holding obvious traits that she hadn’t seen so far—and one that was…a raccoon? The other was even stranger, just a bipedal pile of logs and wood, but having somewhat of a face she could barely identify as having facial features. The two behind them were definitely odd, but gruesome in every way. One was severed in half, wearing an insect-like mask and a red suit to match the pool of blood surrounding its body. It was barely alive, weakly reaching out to its lower torso strewn out from its reach. The other wore a pure black suit, its eyes blank and white with claws on each hand. The second one definitely wasn’t alive anymore. As for the first one… Rarity suddenly stopped, looked down, and yelped. She lifted up her hooves, shrieking in fright as droves of ants of all shapes and sizes scurried past her. Frightened for her well-being, Rarity was relieved to see that not a single one of the insects were interested in her. No, they all scurried right on by the unicorn, instead choosing to surround the one who was nearing its guaranteed fate. And then they stopped, circling around the one wearing the insect mask. It drew its last breath for what Rarity could hear…and its hand fell, impacting the dirt and kicking up dust. Her eyes lingered for the briefest of moments, but she quickly turned away and continued down the road. That is, of course, until her foreleg was caught in a vice-like grip. Rarity yelped, instantly turning to the one who grabbed her. Its red eyes burned amongst the gray atmosphere, a shallow breathing heard from its mouth. It didn’t let go. Despite being so close to death, it didn’t let go. To her surprise, the mask around its face materialized away, revealing a human beneath. “Please,” he gasped, gripping her foreleg even tighter, causing Rarity to bite her lip. “Please…you have to…you have…to…save…” He never got to finish. As his hand slowly relaxed, Rarity gave herself a few feet of distance between her and the human just in case. Her assumptions quickly died as fast as the movements in the man’s chest. With her guard finally cooling down, Rarity composed herself and faced the road once more. Part of her wanted to stop, turn around, and find somepony, anypony out there in the world who knows what could have happened. That part of her no longer had control, the only part remaining pushing the unicorn forward down the road, searching for the truth to so much loss of life. And to think she imagined the worst to be over with, some hopeful thought in a world without hope. No… They weren’t the worst. The mental marathon was reaching its final leg. The tears burned in her eyes, and Rarity let a few slip on by despite her control. How could she hold it in? How when the life she had built, when all the friendships she had made over the years came crumbling down, leaving nothing but a gray world, and she the only sole survivor? How could she when all that remained of her closest friends lied around her boutique? “Wha…but…b-b-but…I…I don’t…” Sentences became gibberish. Fresh tears poured from her eyes, creating small streams down her cheeks. Rarity gently grazed Pinkie Pie’s cheek, finding it as cold as the ground she walked on. There was nothing she could do now. Each one of her friends shared a similar fate. Their bodies so cold. Eyes barren. No signs of life. And it was so terrible to know there was nothing she could’ve done to prevent it. She lowered her gaze, shutting her eyes tight and letting the tears rain. “No…” she whimpered. “Please Celestia… Please no…” Slowly, so very weary, Rarity lifted up her tear-soaked face to her boutique, more accurately the front door. She cried out, shrieking in terror, galloping forward and falling in the dirt. She didn’t even care anymore if she got filthy. Such little loss mattered not to the loss before her, cradled in her forelegs. The loss of her little sister. Sweetie Belle. Rarity gently clutched her tiny body. Sweetie Belle’s eyes remained glossy and without any forms of life flushing in and out that they once had, like the Crusader adorning a smile every day she saw her. Rarity grimaced at the thought, reaching forward and closing her sister’s eyes. She rubbed her little sister’s mane as she cried. As she cried for such loss. For the sister that would never return. A light fell upon her in the dark and dreary world, urging Rarity to look up. She gasped, still cradling Sweetie Belle as the dark shadow flew over her head, enveloping nearly all of Ponyville and its not-so-lively inhabitants. Rarity followed it, still flabbergasted at the sight of the giant, flying, alien-like worm commandeering the skies. It roared, shaking the earth. She clutched onto her little sister, refusing to let go, much like the human from earlier had done to her. Once it had ceased its terrible cry, Rarity found herself in a state far beyond that of confusion. At that point, Rarity lost all hope in trying to make sense of the world around her, instead choosing to believe that what she was living in wasn’t real. Her hometown of Ponyville wasn’t barren. There were no piles of dead bodies consisting of ponies and Avengers. No dead humans, raccoons, insect people, and certainly not her friends. The pony lying in her forelegs wasn’t her little sister. It wasn’t Sweetie Belle. It wasn’t real. The giant serpents in the sky weren’t real. The portal they were bursting out of wasn’t real. The single, floating throne accompanying the alien army wasn’t true. The large, blue planet with its lands covered in flames hanging within the portal didn’t exist. The titan sitting on the throne, covered head to toe in gold, adorning a smile on his lavender face wasn’t there. The serpent flying high above charging right for her didn’t exist. Its imagined maw enveloping Rarity in the darkness that lasted an eternity couldn’t have happened. It wasn’t real. She told herself that over and over and over again. It wasn’t real. It was not. It was...