Chapter 1
Twilight was pulled abruptly out of her dream world by an earsplitting roar coming from outside her house. She quickly opened her eyes and tried to focus on what it was when she heard spike tumble out of his basket.
"What in the name of Celestia…" she began as she finally figured out what the ruckus was. The civil air horn is going off.
"Is that the tornado siren?" asked Spike in a worried voice.
"Yes, Spike," she replied, a bit annoyed at the question. "Well I guess the pegusi will be up there soon, why don't we go take a look?" she asked Spike, feeling exhausted from the never-ending study session late last night. The two approached the front door after tripping over a few misplaced books.
"Spike, I thought I told you to clean this place up, or at least where I wasn't studying," said twilight in a disapproving tone.
"Well," Spike grinned sheepishly as the door opened, amplifying the noise.
The two poked their heads out of the door to look around, but the skies were completely clear.
"That's weird," Twilight said, the sirens still blaring outside.
"Is there a drill or something going on?" asked Spike.
"At two in the morning?" Twilight answered, "I don't know, maybe some malfunction in the system."
She spotted a unicorn across the street in a similar state and yelled, "Hey, do you know what's going on?" barely audible over the cacophony in the streets.
The unicorn simply shrugged as a sudden white light flashed behind the buildings directly in front of Twilight. As if there wasn't enough noise, a deafening roar redoubled it, and the light immediately intensified to ten times its former strength.
Twilight instinctively threw her hooves in front of her eyes as gamma radiation penetrated her body, letting her see the bones in her front legs. The shockwave of the violent explosion sent ripples throughout the house and tore it apart, sending wooden shrapnel and debris flying away from the rapidly expanding air.
* * *
"Twilight?"
Twilight thought she heard a familiar voice.
"Hello?"
She did. It was faint, but it was definitely there.
"TWILIGHT!"
The lavender mare moaned and rolled over on her side. Rubbing her head, she opened her eyes, feeling her heart drop. She saw only blackness. Panicking, she jumped up, screaming.
"What?" gasped Rainbow Dash's voice, startling Twilight.
"I'm blind!" yelped Twilight, terrified.
"Oh, I thought you were hurt or something," said Rainbow Dash.
"Are you kidding me?!" Twilight yelled once more.
"Calm down! You can just use your magic to heal yourself, right?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"Yeah…sure, I think I can remember a healing spell," said Twilight, immediately using her magic to start healing her eyes. "But I was still hurt…anyways…where's Spike?"
"Over here!" Spike's muffled voice sounded near.
Twilight jerked her head around to face him.
"Eeeew, your eyes look all weird," Spike said, giggling.
"Shut up Spike, we're lucky to be alive," said Twilight, annoyed.
Twilight finally saw dots of color returning to her eyes, along with a tingly sensation from the magical force enveloping her eyes. The dots seemed to spill out color around them, like paint cans being knocked over, quickly filling the empty spaces.
Having restored life to her eyes, Twilight looked around, gawking at the land that was once called Ponyville. The sunlight reflected off the dust particles in the air, causing a red hue to hover in the atmosphere. Debris left behind from the explosion had settled anywhere it felt welcome, leaving the town a barren wasteland.
Rainbow Dash simply put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder to comfort her. I really hate to see her like this…
"So apparently there was a nuclear explosion early this morning," said Twilight, her eyes still fixed on her surroundings. "How did we survive?"
"Right when I saw the light I jumped on top of you," Spike began, blushing. "So my heat immunity protected you."
"Well, thank you," said Twilight, feeling truly grateful. "But what about you, Rainbow Dash?"
"Well, luckily, my castle in Cloudsdale was outside of the blast range, but I saw the explosion, so I came to see if you guys were alright," replied Rainbow Dash. "So the only threat to us now is the radiation!" She said sarcastically.
"Oh thank Celestia!" said Twilight, returning the sarcasm. She looked in the direction of the poor unicorn that she had seen before the blast, but there was only rubble.
"I think we should take a look around to see if anypony else survived," Twilight said.
"Yeah," replied Rainbow Dash, getting up and stretching her wings.
"Let's go, Spike!" called Twilight, also rising to dust herself off.
The two mares left the remains of the library to search for survivors as Spike followed close behind.
The group walked by the house closest to the library and glanced over to observe the wreckage.
"Oh no…" said Rainbow Dash, sadly.
"What…?" said Twilight, just as she tripped over a skull. Twilight examined the skull and found more bones nearby. Although she had seen all kinds of things in books while studying for Anatomy, the way the burnt flesh stuck to the bones, the cartilage still attached at the joints, and the entire place stinking abominably was all too much for the young mare. Twilight barely had time to stagger off to the side of the street before she began to retch. It didn't help that it was the unicorn she had seen before the blast.
Rainbow Dash took a look at the remains of the unicorn before she trotted over to Twilight who was still emptying her stomach. Is it wrong to think that she’s cute when she pukes? She had never really thought of Twilight being attractive before, nonchalantly glancing at the occasional chunks that spew out of her.
"Rainbow Dash...I think we should get out of here," said Twilight, choking down the last of her vomit.
"But what if there are others?" asked Rainbow Dash, not entirely shaken from her trance.
"I don't think we need to worry about that," Twilight said, pointing. "Look!"
An army of royal guards in HAZMAT suits were quickly advancing down the streets directly towards them. One had a radio and was calling for a rescue patrol.
"Hey!" A guard galloped over to the mares and Spike, "You need to get out of here! This place is being evacuated!"
"Well can you at least tell us what's going on?" Twilight was frustrated at the sight of so much death. "Or where we should even be going?"
"Ma'am, this place is contaminated with a dangerously high concentration of gamma radiation; we are evacuating the survivors and closing off the area," said the guard. "That's all I can tell you for now, so please follow me to the 'LZ'."
Twilight was not up for an argument, and decided to listen to the guard. He led them about four blocks down the street to an open intersection that had four flares lit up in the corners. They had just arrived when a combat helicopter materialized above their heads and blew their manes back as it came in for a landing. Twilight held a hoof over her eyes for protection against the dust flying all around them.
"Wow, I've never seen a helicopter before," Twilight proclaimed excitedly, glancing at Rainbow Dash. "I've only read about them in books!"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, but was also curious, and excited to ride in such a mysterious contraption.
"Alright let's move!” yelled the royal guard just as the helicopter landed and six stallions jumped out, unicorns and earth ponies, each carrying high-tech assault rifles and other special weaponry. They were clearly members of Equestria’sElite, the special military task force sent by Celestia herself to protect her land from evil invaders.
This must be big…then again there was a nuclear explosion…
The stallions started off at a gallop towards the epicenter of the attack. One eyed Rainbow Dash, and when she noticed, he grinned and winked while turning back to his group. Dash shrugged it off as she leapt up into the aircraft with the others, soon ascending into the air and disappearing into the fog.
~~END OF CHAPTER 1~~
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An interesting concept We must admit. We do not like the idea of helicopters as they do not fit but we enjoy everything else. Have other pegasi survived out of blast range? We will follow thy scroll with interest.
i am interested to see what happens next
Really good so far
2591225 thanks! I felt like nuclear warfare was out of the ordinary, so helicopters seemed to fit in for me.. I'm more of a violent person, which you may find true in the next few chapters.
What does "HASMAT" stand for?
2593029 HAZardous MATerial doe.
sounds good, but you would really need to know what a nuclear radiation zone is like.
2594008 yeah, that's what was worrying me when I posted this, but I didn't really feel the need to do research for my first story. Thanks for all your help guys, i'll be making a second chapter soon.
Yo I need more I like it so much ;3
Quite a captivating begining, I love post-apocaliptic themed stories! There was only one thing that bothered me though. I just felt that Twi and Dash didn't react entirely nataturally. I feel like in this situation one would be stricken and horrified. While Twi did physically portray her disgust, the effect was ruined by her fascination with helicopters and Rainbow's passively checking her out (speaking of;
When writing a story one has to have specific feeling that they want to portray through the story. It might just be me but I simply didn't feel enough 'Oh mah gawd, PonyVill's been nuked and most of the ponies are probably dead!!! Waaaaiii?!'
Anywho, I happily await the second chapter!
Ok, with gamma radiation, the whole "Seeing your bones" thing is just nonsense. Gamma radiation damages your DNA, that's how it kills you. And even if there was enough to x-ray Twilight, she would pretty much have been vaporized- the library would have offered about as much protection as a house of cards in a hurricane. Also, as to the guards wearing HAS-MAT suits, unless these guards are actually wearing like a foot of lead with something underneath that to protect against Beta particles as well... then your guards will have to swallow enough iodine to kill somepony, and will like be able to stay for periods of about five minutes, not five minutes then back into the radiation.
Sorry for my nerdiness...
If you need help with the science I offer my services!
2607701
2607077
Wow, thanks for pointing out my mistakes:(
Oh well, I'll remember that for the rest, we'll just have to pretend like it isn't nonsense, and twilight and dash love each other so much that they don't care about anyone else. XD
Gamma radiation would pretty much only come from the initial burst, and the radius whereby gamma radiation would be lethal is well inside the area where heat and overpressure would kill you.
After the blast though, the original core of fissile material is now spread out over a very large area. These fissile fragments are the 'fallout' from a nuclear blast. They are strong alpha and beta emitters.
Alpha radiation is essentially a bare helium nucleus (2p2n) that is ejected at high velocity from the nucleus of a much larger isotope. This is an effect of electromagnetic repulsion overcoming the strong nuclear force. Alpha radiation can be blocked by a sheet of paper, and has an effective range of several centimeters through the air.
Beta radiation is an electron or positron that is emitted when a neutron decays into a proton, or a proton decays into a neutron, respectively. It is a very energetic lepton, mind you, and it will travel several meters through the air before being absorbed. Thick clothing can block most beta radiation.
Now, despite the relatively short range of alpha/beta radiation - they are extremely dangerous if inhaled. There's no sheets of paper to block alpha radiation from blowing holes in your lungs ephilial cells. Also, as the fissile fragments (fallout) collect on the ground, they can reach very unsafe concentrations. Also, animals that eat plants will effectively concentrate this fallout inside their bodies, making them partially unsafe to eat as well.
also, HASMAT is spelled HAZMAT.
... really? I don't see a
Comedytag... (gamma radiation isn't within the visible spectrum - so there wouldn't be a "shadow" no matter how much went through her - this shit belongs in cartoons or stories tagged 'Comedy')Also, if her eyes got burned out - through hooves - shouldn't her brain be medium-rare too? If you're close enough to GZ of a blast to see remains with burnt flesh on them, and you saw the blast (meaning there was nothing between you and it)... you're a dead pony, no matter how much magic you have.
And if not, your 'goose' is quite literally cooked - it even has a timer and everything. Unless Twilight takes the time to flush the excess energy from her body and then heal it afterwards, she's dead within days.
Also, there's this:
Is it just because of the unicorn? Is it? Because if I didn't know better, I'd say you're looking at acute radiation exposure sickness.
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Which is, basically, ponies.
Well, nobody said to eat ponies, mind. Still. ;]