Invasion
“We are the United Empire of New Rome. We have saved your planet from destruction this day, but do not try and thank us. You can search, but you will never find us. We are the protectors, the guardians, and the hidden. Should you really need us, we will return. Should we fall, you will perish. Hope you never see us again for if you do, it will be on the tide of battle against a power that would destroy you all. We are New Rome, and we will keep our children safe.”
This was the message that had been broadcast across Equestria on the day, tens of thousands of years ago. Back on the day that Celestia’s parents were killed by the beast that had come from the stars. Celestia remembered the fear she had when the beast appeared and devoured her father. Her mother had tried to fight it, but her attacks were no use against the black shadowy creature that had fell from the sky in the middle of the night. Soon, the sun queen had been ripped to shreds by the claws of the monstrosity as it raged across the countryside. It wiped out almost everything on the planet and all Celestia could do was watch while she hid with her still very young sister.
The beast had ripped through walls like paper and had skin stronger than diamonds. Nothing could stop it until, in a blinding flash of light and fire, a massive fireball fell from above and onto the beast. There were three giant metal things floating high up above the planet. They were dropping giant blobs of burning hot energy onto the monster. The monster was quickly reduced it to ash before the heroes in the sky sent their message to the world. They then left before anything could be done.
Celestia remembered that event now, as she stared up at the similar object blotting out her sun. She remembered the protectors who had saved them all from sure destruction back when Luna was still just an infant. These were no saviors, these were the opposite. This thing had also rained something down onto the planet. Metal pods that contained foul creatures that were even now tearing through the Everfree forest. These creatures carried weapons that spit fire and wore armor shining in dark silver that covered their entire bipedal body.
Celestia had seen them burn a path through the forest. They always stayed on a constant path towards one place that worried her so. They were all heading straight for the ruins of the old castle that stood within the heart of the forest. There was only one thing there that Celestia believed could be of interest to them, the mystical book of the gods. There were six in total; all were spread around the land, hidden by Celestia herself. One was inside the castle, deep within the Everfree forest. Now there were creatures from another world heading straight for the book.
The princess of the sun was about to take off and stop the beings from finding the book when her sister came into the room and placed a hoof on the sun goddess’s shoulder. Luna then spoke to her sister.
“We knoweth what thou must be thinking. We remember the guardians as well sister, despite our youthful age at the time. Thou must obtain that book before it is found by those creatures that came from the sky. We shall join thee and distract the invaders so that thou can take the book from its prison. We hopeth these are not the same ones who saved us millennia ago.”
“Thank you sister, I need the help. If these beings are anything like the ones who swore to protect, may the stars know I need it. Let us hurry; we must get there as soon as possible.”
Luna and Celestia then spread their powerful wings and lifted themselves into the sky as the day wore on. They moved with tremendous speed towards the wild forest that contained their goal. If they could not succeed in this retrieval mission, the entire planet was already lost.
===============
Twilight had seen the explosions as the metal pods crashed violently into Equestria’s surface. She saw the flames engulfing huge portions of the Everfree forest as it was burned by whatever had landed. She also noticed the large vessel in the sky that covered part of her mentor’s sun. Once she made note of all this destruction, she had immediately sent word to the princess and gathered the five of her friends in the library. The princess never responded to the message with details, but instead sent back the letter, now slightly burnt around the corners, with two new, hastily scribbled words; I know.
The six friends gathered together and listened as Twilight told them the little information she had. She explained that the object in the sky had dropped something down and that the forest was now burning. She then drew up the plan of action.
“Alright every pony,” Twilight started “we need to help princess Celestia stop this fire before it reaches any of the towns at the forest’s edge. From the looks of it, Celestia is currently in the forest combating the fire. I’m not sure what fell from the sky, but we need to be prepared to find it. Chances are it started this fire. I need Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to bring the rain clouds over the forest to keep the fire from spreading. Rarity and I will use our magic to snuff out the fires on a large scale. Finally, Pinkie Pie and Applejack will take water from the river to assist in putting out any fires missed by the others. Are there any questions?”
“Nope”
“Okie dokie lokie”
“I gotcha Twi”
“I just hope the smoke doesn’t mess up my mane”
“Um, I think I can do that”
“Good, now we better move, we don’t want that fire getting any closer to Ponyville.”
With the plan being put in action, the six friends all headed towards the forest to do their job. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew off to gather the clouds floating above Ponyville. Luckily there had been a thunderstorm planned for the next few days, so the weather company had plenty of rain clouds to use. Applejack and Pinkie took some buckets from Pinkie’s secret stash and took water from the stream over by Fluttershy’s cottage. Rarity and Twilight went straight for the forest and set up a magical barrier to stomp out the fire without doing any further damage to the trees.
The group all met under a barrier Twilight set up to protect them from heat and moved forward along the river going into the forest. With clouds raining, buckets splashing, and magic stomping, the group slowly pushed the fire away from Ponyville.
All went smoothly until they reached a path burned into the forest by the flames. None of them had ever seen anything like this before, it was as if fire had completely destroyed the trees and shrubbery in a straight path heading further into the forest. The worst part was the creature that could be seen at the end of the path, burning its way further into the forest.
The creature was looking away from them and slowly walked forward on two legs, continuously lengthening the path it created through the trees by incinerating them instantly. It had a cylindrical arm that spewed out blue flames toward the trees whose ashes it stepped through soon after. The six elements watched with awe as it moved through red ashes without showing any pain. Its dark grey plating shone with a grim brilliance in the light from the fires of the forest.
Pinkie Pie was the first pony to escape the trance the creature unknowingly had on the ponies. She ran as close to the being as she could before the heat caused her to stop. Then she shouted at the creature.
“Hey there, what are you doing, that fire’s dangerous. You might hurt some pony.”
When those words left the pink mare’s mouth, the creature stopped moving and ended the constant flow of flames from its arm. It then slowly turned to face the pink pony that was moving forward as the ashes cooled. Once its face was shown to the six elements, they all gasped. Its eyes seemed to be dark holes with a faint red glow coming from their depths. There were markings burned into the metal that covered the face. The mouth was sealed, but a deep growl could be heard from within.
“Hostium lingua loqueris, you speak in the enemy’s tongue yet you are not of the empire. Come no closer creature, and if they value their lives, your companions will stay where they are as well. Who are you fools and why have you interrupted my mission” The creature said in a raspy, guttural voice.
“Um, I’m Pinkie Pie and those are my friends. We were putting out the fires you started. What exactly are you anyway?”
“I am a warrior of the Sideran army. You will leave now the way you came or I will be forced to destroy you once and for all.”
“But we need to put out the fires before the whole forest burns down. No way are we going to turn around and leave until after the fires have been put out.”
“So be it. You choose this path for yourself as well as your friends. If you do not wish to leave these ashes, then you will become one with them.”
Once that was said, the Sideran soldier raised his arm towards the ponies and charged up a burst of flames to disintegrate the small pink ball of energy that stood before him. A bright red glow emanated from within the device while a meter began to grow longer on the side of the soldier’s arm. As the glow grew brighter, the meter grew until after just a few seconds, the glow was blue and the meter was full. This was when a massive stream of liquid flame burned its way through the air straight towards the wide-eyed Pinkie Pie who could only watch as her life flashed before her eyes in the seconds before she became engulfed in a blast of light.
As the flames settled, the remaining ponies all gasped at the empty pocket of air and heat where their friend once stood. Twilight immediately grabbed her friends in a telekinetic wave and pulled the five of them straight through the burning trees and ashes while a quick protection spell kept them from catching fire. The group ran until they could not breathe through the smoke and ash, and then they ran even more. By the time they stopped running, they had reached a section of forest that appeared to not have been touched by the fire. The five spent a few moments catching their breath before taking in what was before them. They had reached the once great castle that now stood in ruins, the place where they had found the Elements of Harmony. They were at the castle of Nightmare Moon.
After moving to the entrance of the castle, the five huddled together as they wept for the loss of their hyperactive pink friend.
They had never expected to lose any pony on this trip, much less Pinkie Pie. They were prepared to meet with the creatures of the forest; they were prepared to fight fires; they were even prepared to find some bomb sites. They had never expected to run into a foreign being from who knows where that wanted to burn down their forest. Now their friend was gone, all because of some Sideran fire freak who had attacked the poor mare for asking him to stop burning the forest down.
It took the ponies a few minutes to move past their friend and onto the matter at hand. They were currently in the middle of a forest where who knows what lurked. The only way out was past lots of fire as well as a crazy monster that was likely after them now. To top it off, the amount of fire was too much for that single being to create. Which meant there were most likely others in the forest as well. The fires were coming closer, which meant that the others were probably heading towards the castle as well. If that was the case, then they had better escape before more Sideran freaks appeared.
The ponies huddled together to decide what to do.
“W-we should k-keep moving. W-w-who knows h-how many more of t-those things are out there.” Twilight explained as tears ran from her eyes.
“B-but what if we run into more of them Sideran fellows?” Applejack asked, her eyes filled with fear at the idea.
“Then we gotta take them out. No creature kills one of my friends and gets away with it. I’ll make sure they all pay for attacking P-pinkie.” Rainbow exclaimed loudly as she flew up and kicked at invisible enemies.
Fluttershy was curled up in a ball crying at the loss of her dear friend while Rarity looked as if her mind had turned off. All five ponies remained in their depressed state for some time before a rustling in the bushes caught their attention. Immediately as they heard it, all five sprung up and moved closer to the stone walls behind them. They all watched with horror in their eyes as the bushes rustled before them, the overgrown plant shaking almost as much as Fluttershy. They feared the worse as a large figure moved out from beneath the shadows. Once the shadowy form stepped into the light, however, all the ponies gasped.
Standing before them was none other than Princess Luna, goddess of the night. She seemed just as shocked to find them as they were to find her. She then stepped to the side as the body of her larger sister removed itself from the shrubbery.
“Twilight, elements, what are you all doing here?” The sun goddess asked as she caught sight of the group. “And where is Pinkie Pie?”
All of the elements looked down as their friend was mentioned. Twilight shuffled her hooves for a moment before answering her bewildered mentor and princess.
“W-we were t-t-trying to help put out the f-fires. Then we ran into this, monster that walked on its hind legs and shot fire from its fore hoof. I-it, it burned Pinkie and turned her to ash. There was n-nothing we could do to s-stop it. We ran for our lives and ended up here.”
“Oh my, this is quite troublesome. It would appear that my suspicions were correct. Did you, by any chance, learn what this monster was called?”
This time Rainbow Dash spoke up, “It called itself a Sideran soldier and told us to get out of its way. When we refused, it blasted Pinkie and k-killed her.”
“Then it may not be quite as I feared, but this is still very bad. Without all six elements of harmony, we cannot defend against this threat as we would normally. I didn’t want to have to do this, but it appears we may need to gather the dark books.”
“Dark books,” Twilight asked, “what are those?”
“I never wanted to have anything to do with them. They were the books Luna used to become Nightmare Moon. They have great power, but they corrupt the mind of their user. When all six are gathered, they can do terrible things. For this reason, I hid them across Equestria after I sent Nightmare Moon to the moon. They were supposed to never be found so they would never cause the pure destruction that they did by corrupting my sister.”
“Sister, couldst thou stop speaking as if we were not here. We are ashamed of our actions and would like to forget what we did with those cursed books. However, we agree that they are likely our only chance to defeat these new monsters who threaten our kingdom.”
“Celestia,” Twilight asked, “If we need to find these books, then why are we still here? Shouldn’t we leave before those things return?”
“Yes Twilight, we should leave. There is, however, a reason we came to this castle. One of the six books is held within these ancient walls. We must take it before these Siderans can get ahold of its power.”
At that time, the trees around the castle suddenly burst into flames. They lasted a few seconds before they were turned to ash. From beyond the trees, at least twenty Sideran soldiers surrounded the clearing that held the ruined castle. All seven ponies watched in horror as the soldiers walked ever closer with their arm cannons glowing with a bright inner light.
Celestia quickly turned and faced off against the horde of enemies that threatened to end the lives of every pony in the area. She lowered her head and charged her horn with a bright burst of magic before she shouted at Luna and the elements.
“I need you to go into the castle and get the book back to Canterlot. Luna, you know where I hid it, in the hidden testing chambers. Once you have it, teleport straight to the Canterlot throne room. I will hold them off as long as I can and meet you there, now go!”
Once her orders had been heard, the sun goddess fired a blast of pure magic into the nearest Sideran soldier. As the beam collided with the soldier’s armor, it caused a great explosion of light that knocked the Sideran onto the ground, unconscious.
Luna and the elements galloped as fast as they could towards the room where the elements of harmony had been held. Flashes of light could be seen from the windows as well as columns of flame bursting up into the air. Once the group arrived at the element stand, Luna removed the artifact from the floor and pulled a lever fixated in a hole beneath the stone sculpture. Once the lever was pulled, a hole opened up in the floor with a rumble and revealed a flight of stairs.
The six ponies rushed down the stairs as the noises of the battle outside ceased. At the bottom was a door with the same type of lock as was on the elements storage safe in Canterlot Castle. Inside was a large room that held multiple large cages along the sides to hold who knows what kinds of creatures. At the end of the room was a pedestal with an old red book on top. Luna quickly grabbed this book and rejoined the other five in the middle of the room. It was at this time that heavy footsteps could be heard from the stairway the six had come down from. The light of the flamethrower showing the dark form of a Sideran soldier as more joined him. Luna charged her horn and managed to teleport the ponies away just as the bright blue waves of death flooded in.
They appeared in the Canterlot throne room where Luna immediately fell to her knees in exhaustion. They all looked around for signs of Celestia, but found nothing but the empty room with light coming through the windows from the burning forest below the mountain.
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United Empire of New Rome, huh? Must be dimension-hopping Byzantines.
JK, of course.
2834645 unfortunately, they actually have no relation to Rome whatsoever. I just used that for the name. The next chapter gives a little more background info. Should be out in the next few days or so.
Why is it always Rome! Why not Carthage or Greece!