Shingeki no Uma - Attack on Horse

by Ketchi

1 - Apocalypse

I was never a somepony at school, just an ordinary colt named Shining Armor. My grades were average, most of my friends were normal, and my family always managed to outlast the rainy days - always sheltered by our home composed of timber and stone. My mother’s name is Twilight Velvet, my father is Night Light, and my sister five years junior is Twilght Sparkle. My sister and I were born and raised near the outskirts of the outermost wall in the Shiganshina District, but we never had reason to fear the Horses. Twily was always smarter than me and could always be found burying her muzzle in books, somehow engrossed with learning all she can, regardless of physics or history. She always seemed to ease her way to the top of her classes.

My favourite teacher, Cheerilee, taught us that ponies earned their cutie marks when they found that one thing that makes them special - their unique talent or their calling. I always thought I knew what she meant, yet only recently did I realise what she really meant. It took me a long time, but right after I graduated at age 15 in year 842, I finally gathered the courage to tell Cadance, the beautiful alicorn mare I had my eyes on for years, that I had feelings for her. Just like all our times together, it was an awkward occasion, but we became a couple on that day. It was on our first date a few weeks later that both of our cutie marks appeared. She was given a blue heart and I was given a shield. I used to think it was just a coincidence, but now I know for sure, it was our fated duties to be together and love one another. I’d guard her with my life and she’d eternally love me in return. Time has passed by and we’ve matured together in this world, side by side for a few years. We’ve both come of age and I just can’t hold it in any longer... I’m going to propose. My parents are out, Twily’s downstairs reading, it’s the middle of the afternoon, and I’m ready.

“Cadance, my love.” Nervously gulping down the recited words and gathering the courage, I turn to face her. She chuckles and smiles at me, pulling my chest towards her own for an embrace.

“Oh my sweet Shining Armor, what is it?” She continues to chuckle, but silently.

“Cadance, there... there’s something I need. I need to ask you something.” It’s getting harder to breathe, so hard - but I know I can do this. Teens of angst as we are, I try my best to psyche myself up. Cadance retracts from the embrace and looks at me with a confused, loving smile.

“Cadance...” I somehow pull myself together, kneel to the ground, and carry her right hoof to my face to nuzzle with help from my left.

“I love you so much, more than anything this world could ever offer. You are my life, peerless in every way, unrivalled in beauty and love. Cadance, my love...” This is it, the moment that everything happens. I just need to say these last few words. “Cadance, will you marry me?” Although barely managing to breathe, I somehow manage to speak the words.

... She isn’t saying anything. Mother Celestia, I pray I didn’t do the wrong thing.

“Shining...” She looks nervous, seemingly cautious about what to say next. Time slows down and I can feel my heart beat, ready to explode from suspense.

“Yes, Shining Armor, my love. I will.” She immediately leaps at me with the largest smile I’ve ever seen, her cheeks rosed up brighter than the sun. I didn’t expect her to do that. We topple over and collide with my bedside table. The collision continues into the wall as the weighted portrait of us together falls and the glass smashes, loud enough to hear from a distance. Startled by the sound and impact, I freeze. I then notice Twilight standing alerted in the door frame.
“Big brother, did something-” She then notices Cadance sprawling awkwardly over me on the floor, next to my bed. All our cheeks turn rosy from the awkward moment. “I’ll... I’ll just be leaving you two now.” She awkwardly backs away and closes the door.

Scurrying to get out from under Cadance, I try my best to pursue Twilight. “Twily, it’s not what you think!” Realising the futility of the chase, I desist pursuing once I stand up. Cadance remains flabbergasted on the floor from our moment. “I’ll speak to her. You can come down when you’re ready.” I really don’t want to leave my love alone after such a moment, but I need to stop a potential hazard of our relationship.

I cautiously trot downstairs to where Twilight was reading, leaving Cadance in my room. If I can explain to Twilght what happened, I’m sure she’ll understand. I’m sure she’ll be happy for me. She loves Cadance. As ordered by my parents, she’s been the protégé for most of our dates, but we’ve always enjoyed her company. Easily finding Twilight in her reading chair, I notice she’s trying to overcome what she saw by burying her muzzle in a book.

I decide to approach her calmly. “Twily, nothing happened.”

“Shining Armor, I don’t want to know about it.” Twilight only ever calls by my full name when she’s being serious. “What you do with Cadance is your own business. Don’t worry, I won’t tell mum and dad.”

I know what she assumed. “Twily, it’s not what you think. I’m being honest. Cadance and I-”

“Shining, please.” She interrupts me and looks up to my face. I can see a strong sense of discomfort and brutal assertiveness in her eyes. It’s true, she really doesn’t want to hear about it. But I need to clear this up and tell her what happened, and right now’s the best time for that.

It’s best to just be out with it. Things usually only get worse if you try reasoning with ponies when they’re like that. “I proposed to Cadance.”

Twilight leaps out of her chair with what I assume to be amazement mixed with shock. “You did what?!”

I was worried she might react like this, but it’s best she knows the truth. Taking a deep breath, I repeat myself. “I proposed to Cadance.”

We remain silent for what feels like a minute. In that time, I could tell by watching Twilight’s face that she slowly regained her cool temper and accepted what I said as the truth. Back to her usual self, Twilight deadpans the question. “What did she say?”

I can’t help grinning at the amazing reality. “She said yes.” Immediately losing her cool again, Twilight starts prancing for joy. To my relief, I was right. She is happy for me. I pull her reading chair closer and rest in it as an attempt to relax my mind and muscles.

“Please, Twily. Let me tell our parents when I’m ready.” I know it won’t be this easy to tell them. They don’t know Cadance like Twilight does.

Twilight slows her prancing to a halt and takes a deep breath. “It’s okay, big brother. I understand.”

I release a big sigh of relief and express a sincere smile. “Thank you, little sis.”

“Any time.” Twilight kindly smiles back at me and proceeds to sit on another nearby chair.

After a short minute of us silently coming to terms with the situation, I hear footsteps from upstairs. It sounds like Cadance is on her way down. Steadily, I get up and meet her halfway on the stairs to explain the situation. Although she starts off with contempt that I don’t want to tell my parents yet, she seems to accept and understand it. I guide her downstairs to the pony who will be her future sister in-law.

As soon as Twilight sees Cadance, she leaps with excitement towards her. “What should I call you now, Cadance? Big sister? Mi. Amore Cadenza?”

Cadance chuckles and smiles at us, so I smile back at her. “Please, just call me Cadance.” The three of us stand there, laughing and exchanging delightful expressions.

Suddenly, there’s a deafening crashing noise, followed by ear-piercing screams. I’ve never heard anything like that before, but it sounds like something extremely heavy just fell. Trotting to the window, I notice some ponies galloping up the street, others just awestruck and staring at the sky. What could it possibly be? Turning to share their vision, I see-

“WHAT IS THAT THING?!” It looks like a Horse! Almost completely barren of any visible skin, it appears to be held together by bone, organs, and muscle alone. I’ve heard of these beasts. I studied them as a foal, but I’ve never even heard of one like that before! It’s impossibly big, over fifty times the size of a full-grown stallion and more than three times the size of the largest Horse on record! There’s no way this could be happening. This just can’t be real. I stare as the beast backs up and starts relentlessly bucking the base of wall Maria. Each buck creates shockwaves, toppling a few close trees and tearing flowers from the earth, but the wall hasn’t even cracked. Taking a deep sigh, I reassure myself of our safety. I’m sure of it, the wall can’t fail. The wall has never failed. Today won’t be any different.

The beast bucks the wall and a crack appears. The beast bucks the wall again and a small portion of it falls off. I collapse to my knees in shock. The impenetrable wall that’s held our city together for so long has broken. The beast bucks the wall again and punctures a hole the size of a large Horse. I watch as the following shockwave rips countless trees and buildings from the earth. Realising what’s going to happen next, I close my eyes from seeing the horrors of innocent pony souls being crushed by their own homes. My ears cringe from their blood splattered screams and cries. I’m thankful to live near the northern gate, away from the beast, but I can’t help shedding tears for those ponies that never stood a chance. Hearing the majority of screams stop, the worst has probably past, so I open my eyes again. Raising my gaze, all I can see are torn buildings, galloping ponies, and severed pony corpses with frozen expressions across the blood-splotched town. It’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen, but I need to know what’s happening. The beast doesn’t seem to be there anymore, but Horses have begun trotting through the wall’s gaping hole and are spreading further into town, towards my location. The town is being invaded. How long have I been staring at this? Suddenly realising the danger, my breathing turns heavy and my eyes feel sore as I turn around to check on Twilight.

Twilight’s curled up in the middle of the floor, crying and muttering the same words over and over again. “No... Please Mother Celestia no... This can’t be... Please...” I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s frightened for her life, but she seems to know what might be happening. “This is impossible... They’ve never been that big before...”

That confirms it for me. It was a gargantuan Horse. I turn to see Cadance, but she’s not there. “Cadance? CADANCE! Where are you?!” I desperately race upstairs before checking outside.

Glancing first in my room, I find her kneeling and sobbing above our broken portrait. “It’s all over... I’m sorry, my love.” It hurts to see her like this. I wish there was just something I could do - something I could say. There’s not much time.
Then it clicks. That’s it. I know what I must do. I need to save her. I need to save Twilight. That’s all I can do. “CADANCE!” She doesn’t react, so I shove her with my hoof and shout again. She still doesn’t react, so I shove and shout at her, harder, and harder, and harder, and it hurts so much to do this to her, but I must do this! She finally turns her drenched face towards mine, and I cry with the pain. “Cadance, we need to leave! NOW!”

She heard what I said and slowly nods. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“We’ll survive. We’ll have time for that later. For now, we need to leave! If we hoof it, we may just be able to reach the ferries in time!” The ferry dock isn’t too far away - only a half hour of trotting towards the north, if memory serves me right. If we reach them, we should have a safe and fast journey all the way to wall Rose.

Cadance picks up the portrait with her mouth and we rush downstairs. Twilight is still crying on the floor and muttering the same words. She’s limp, so there’s no way I could convince her to move. “I’m sorry, sis.” As careful as I can, I pick her up with my teeth, the way a cat does to her young - but Twilight is not young. Drops of blood trail down my lips and into my mouth, mixing with my fallen tears. She continues muttering the same words over and over again, un-phased by what’s going on. In a way, I’m happy. She won’t remember the pain I caused her.

I turn to Cadance and we nod, sharing an instant conversation. We both know that we must survive, no matter what the cost. The three of us exit my house together, with only an invisible emotional bond to keep us from splitting up. I know that I shouldn’t look back, there’s too much pain and suffering. Screams of horror and desperation fill the air, but I can only focus on the road ahead and the family I must save - my own family. Death surrounds us as Horses fell buildings and devour ponies, but there are countless ponies from the Corps trying to combat them. I have yet to see even one Horse fall. There is no sign that we’ll be able to hold off their invasion and take back our homes, let alone save every pony in town. I try to look away and ignore the incident, but watch as one of my old acquaintances are devoured. He begs for the Horse to spare his life and for a Corps member to save him, but there is no aid. The Horse bites him in half. There was no Corps member to save him, no sense of mercy from the Horse, and no hope for his life. Without enough time to mourn the stallion, I continue galloping with Cadance. I must try as hard as I can to prevent the same from happening to Twilight, but it’s difficult to keep spirited with all that’s happening. I’m trying so hard to keep my legs moving, through the muscular pains that are present all over my body, through the blood and tears that are trailing off my throat. I can only glance at Cadance, who’s still carrying the portrait and is struggling even more than I am. She has a sweet and fragile soul, she was never meant to experience anything like this. I would do anything to make sure she never experiences it again. I would give my life so that neither would experience it again.

We’ve finally arrived at the ferries, after what has felt like days of running a marathon without a chance to breathe. I’ve never seen so many ponies in one place before. It looks like every pony between wall Maria and wall Rose, every pony between our wall and the next, had the same desperate idea. There’s no way these ferries could save so many ponies. I overhear the conductors shouting that they’ll only allow foals to board the ferries because of loading limitations. I almost forgot that I’m carrying Twilight in my mouth.

“Cadance, I know they won’t allow us on the ferries. Please, leave me to put Twilight on board and I’ll catch up to you later.” Although they were muffled words mixed with blood, sweat, and tears, I’m sure she understood. Even if they won’t take Twilight, I know that I can’t run much further with her in my mouth. I’d sooner die than abandon her, so either she boards a ferry or we’re both dead. This is the only way to keep us both alive.

“Shining, I will not do that. I cannot do that. I mustn’t leave you in our most dire of times.” Although I certainly didn’t believe her at first, I have come to realise how correct she is. She can barely even stand. It’s my role in life to protect her, my destiny. If something happened to her while I was gone, I could never forgive myself.

I take a deep breath. “I’ll respect your choice, Cadance. But please take this moment to rest.” This is why I love her though, isn’t it? She’s stubborn when she’s right. I split up from Cadance into the crowd of ponies desperately trying to get their foals on board.

With what feels like the last of my energy, I’ve managed to struggle and make it to the front of the crowd, ready to give a farewell to my dear sister Twilight. I know that she probably won’t remember the words because of the trauma, but I’ll say them anyway. “Please, take good care of yourself and live a happy life. I’ll never stop searching for you. I promise, we will meet again.” I drop her on the ferry and as I’m pushed aside by the next parent. Trotting away, I take my last look at Twilight’s drenched, horrified face. If I can convince her that we will reunite, maybe I can convince myself of that, and maybe it will happen.

Comments

[Planetarian]

More please! This one chapter's gone too quickly.

[moviemaster8510]

So now we have our second Attack on Titan crossover on the site. What do I think?

Honestly, it needs much work. The beginning is just a very rushed history of the appearance of the titans and has barely any description to it whatsoever. While I get that writing in 1st person can be difficult because the main character usually won't describe things in as great of detail as a narrator would in 3rd person. But that's just the problem. You put characters in places that are hardly given any sort of explanation. Is this Ponyville? What? You don't describe the looks of the building or anything outside.

Shining Armor speaks so poetically, but in canon, he's talks very casually. Twilight never refers to Shining as "BBBFF," only as his title. Descriptions of actions and events are also rushed. You don't describe what the Colossal Horse looks like, and the whole "allowing Horses to endlessly seep through it like water down a drain" thing sounds impossible. If horses could move and take a town over that fast, I don't even think the Military, even if it were comprised of hundreds of Mikasas, would stand a ghost of a chance.

In just one 3,000 word chapter, there is the titans' backstory, we're introduced to Shining Armor, Twilight, and Cadance, the latter proposes to the former, the titans attack, and Twilight is evacuated. You simply cannot cover this much ground in 3,000 words. Some of the things that made Attack on Titan (both the manga and the anime) were the emotions felt by the characters in given situations, and there's none of that here. No anguish by the townsponies as their homes are being destroyed and all of their friends and family die, and even our focal characters have about as much emotion as Ben Stein on Prozac.

With the way you rush through the story and the descriptions, there's no way anyone can connect with anything that happens. When I write my Attack on Titan story, my chapters are 4,000 - 8,000 words in length, and even then, I may need two chapters from time to time to cover everything that happens in an episode's events. As much of a fan I am of both Attack on Titan and MLP, I have to throw this a dislike. Good luck though.

[Ketchi]

2796874 Thank you very much for your extremely thought out review. All of your points are currently valid and I understand them. However, because the second chapter has not yet been uploaded, some of your points seem to assume certain things. I will try my best to improve the story, probably re-writing a significant portion of the events and detail. Thanks again.

[Ketchi]

2799253 I understand what you mean by Shakespearean, but I'd like to justify their choice of words with their age. In this fic, they're aged 18, so they're new in the world and inexperienced with romance. They can only enact what they know. That is, what they have read, which is often over dramatised. I'd also like to think that justifies some of the other minor character differences, in addition to the facts that we only see the characters in the show from Twilight's perspective and this fic takes place in an alternate universe. With all that considered, I think I've stayed true with the character's personalities.

But nonetheless, your feedback is massively appreciated and has been taken note of for the writing.