Zuloser
Manehattan, 2 days ago
The city of Manehattan remained more or less the same despite Equestria's political turmoil. Because of the lack of weather control, unicorns had grouped into teams to capture the free-roaming clouds that came near the city and used their magic to gather them until their collective density caused it to rain. It wasn't a permanent solution but it was working in the interim. Most ponies still believed it would only be a matter of time before the princesses returned and order was restored. Until then, everypony was making due with the cards they'd been dealt.
A few of them, however, were less optimistic. Some of them even supported joining Vice Grip's radical faction, FIST and more than a few actually had. The Manehattan city council had decided not to make an official stance supporting either Equestria or FIST, instead focusing more on sustaining their own city. A few supply caravans had provided relief to Ponyville when Twilight's call for aid came but since the Enclave's air attacks, even that form of help had ceased. Rather than risk further reprisal, the city's leaders decided to remain neutral in the conflict. They were not the only city to do so as Chicoltgo, Detrot and Cloveland had all chosen to do the same.
Many ponies disagreed with this action but chose to remain and support their respective home cities. Others, however, had left to join Dan's Jerks or FIST's Enclave. The only ones who were left were those who had chosen not to take sides or those that didn't want to be involved at all. It was their hope that the two feuding powers would avoid them entirely. Like waiting out a storm, they remained in their cities, silently watching to see who would emerge from the great war that was to come.
Unfortunately, war is not like a storm. You can predict where a storm will go but you never really know where war will crop up. Until it's too late.
Plum Plenty was a purple earth mare street vendor who sold cheap produce to passersby. Her supplier grew most of it from small farms, gardens and greenhouses around the city itself and she just minded the stall and kept things clean. There had been fewer customers recently because of the recent turmoil but she didn't see any way she could do anything about it. She was actually related to Flight Lieutenant Spinner, the wingpony of Captain Spinner in the Enclave but she had no idea her cousin was involved with the war. Plum just sold haydogs, fruits and veggies to ponies on the street. There was nothing in her mind she could do to help the situation except try to serve her customers.
"Uhhhh… lemme get a couple haydogs."
"Sure," Plum said, already fixing them up. "Mustard and 'kruat?"
"Ehhhh… yeah," the customer, a suited stallion said. He hesitated. "Um, light on the mustard. Meeting with city hall, can't get anything on the suit."
"Ha, I gotcha," Plum said. She hoofed him the dogs and he went on his way. He was one of many that day and the day wasn't over yet so she went back to work. Diligently and dutifully, she served downtown Manehattan.
It was another gray day. The unicorns, dressed in insulated gear normally for pegasi, gathered on the rooftops of the taller buildings and worked in shifts to hold storm clouds overhead so they'd rain on the city where it needed it most. They weren't as adept at pegasi at controlling the weather and often it rained too much in some places. Today would be no different; it rained continuously in Plum's district of Manehattan and would continue like it had for the past few days. They might get a break this weekend but big cities needed lots of rain. The constant sound of the rain echoed up and down the streets.
Because of the rain or maybe because she was so focused on her work, Plum was one of the last to hear another noise. Ponies in line stopped to listen and only when a well-dressed mare hesitated to take her candied pear on a stick did Plum stop to listen, too.
*Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-*
They all heard it: the steady, almost mechanical clacking of something coming from a distance.
"Is that…?" the mare stopped. "Is that the train?"
"Train hasn't run in months," a stallion behind her said.
"The train station!" another pony behind them shouted. "Maybe they got the trains to run again!"
"Maybe it's from Canterlot!" another suggested. And that was enough for everypony, skeptical or not. They all dropped what they were doing, even Plum, and hurried to the train station at the edge of town. The steady clacking continued.
*Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-* the noise continued. And like moths to the flame, the ponies of Manehattan stopped what they were doing and hurried to the west side of town where the train station was. They assembled in a huge crowd in front of the train station, staring at the hill to the north where the sound was coming from.
"It must be from Saddle Arabia!" an excited younger stallion exclaimed.
"Doesn't sound like any train I've ever heard," a stallion next to him commented.
A mare between them shrugged. "Maybe it's a new type of train? One that goes on the monorail track."
Since Vice Grip's takeover of Equestria, all the rail lines in the country had been lifted out of the ground by some unknown energy or magic. It was now a monorail line but nopony had seen any trains traveling on it. Suffice to say, many ponies missed the popular form of transportation and seeing it come back would be a boost to morale. But it was not to be.
*Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-* the sound continued, got louder.
"Oh, it'll be so good to see Kimono in Baltimare again," an upper-class mare mused.
A gruff pony in an orange vest and hardhat next to her shrugged. "I'll be happy if we can get some help from Baltimare."
An unsettling feeling formed in Plum's stomach. "I don't think that's the train."
The clacking noise stopped. For a few moments, it was completely silent in front of the train station as ponies looked to the distance to see what was approaching.
"Did it… did it stop?"
"Maybe they're in trouble."
"Get help! Somepony get-"
"Wait!" Plum shouted. She pointed to the edge of the tracks. "Look!"
A single figure silhouetted in the sun's glow crested the top of the hill. It cast a massive shadow, one that stretched down to the station itself. Whoever it was seemed to dominate the horizon with presence alone, threatening to block out the sun itself. Nopony could tell who or what it was. And then another figure rose up next to it. And another. And another.
"That's… that's not the train."
A pony next to Plum held up a pair of binoculars. "I… I think it's a bunch of ponies."
"The Saddle Arabians?"
"No, no, I don't think so." He adjusted his focus, peering into the distance. "They're zebras. Yeah, they're all zebras."
"What are zebras doing this far south?"
"No idea. Is there a convention or something?"
The uncomfortable feeling in Plum's stomach became an urge. That urge quickly became panic. Her eyes widened. "RUN! RUN, EVERYPONY RUN!" she pushed her way through the crowd, nudging confused ponies away and nearly knocking some down. She wouldn't get far.
"Is the train with them? I don't see why they-" *SSShhhh-TCH!* A spear landed in front of the crowd. Simple, made of wood, it stood taller than a pony and was feathered at the end.
"Woah, nice spear."
*SSShhh-TCH!- TCH!* Two more joined it.
"Oh mai gawd."
Spears began raining down around the crowd, some nearly hitting ponies in it. The sun's raise were blotted out by the amount of spears thrown. Like a meteor shower, the barrage of spears continued, an endless amount of them. Ponies panicked, screamed and ran any way they could but there was no where to escape them.
Plum was almost to the edge of the city when a spear came down right in front of her. Several other spears landed right next to it, then more, then more. A wall of spears blocking her path rose up and spread out before her very eyes. Spears landed on top of spears with impossible precision, raising the wall higher. In almost an instant, the crowd was walled in by the wooden spears, trapped. Unicorns found they couldn't teleport through them; the wood had some sort of magic property.
Once they were completely trapped, the spears ceased.
"It's the zebras!! The zebras are invading!!"
"It's gonna be okay, sweetheart."
"Can anypony get a cell phone signal? Anypony?!"
A voice began shouting in the distance. "Chswi!!! FIRE!!"
The ponies looked to the distance again. Even though they were trapped, they could still see the silhouettes on the hill top. And on the hilltop, lights began to appear.
"What are they doing?"
"GET DOWN! GET DOWN!!"
More spears, this time lit on fire, soared into the sky. They soared over the heads of the trapped Manehattan ponies and into the streets. Hundreds of spears, thousands of them, hundreds of thousands. They struck buildings, broke through glass and landed on rooftops. They struck streets and signs, houses, apartment complexes, duplexes, bus benches. And whatever they struck, they burned.
Maybe a few, the buildings could've withstood but not the onslaught the zebras launched. There seemed to be an endless amount of spears lit by the fire of the sun itself; they seemed to come from the sky. Like a celestial wrath, they rained down on Manehattan, burning all they impaled. The tallest buildings became pillars of flame. Smoke rose to fill the skies, preventing even the small amount of rain that fell from extinguishing it.
"Oh no… oh no…"
"The whole city's going up!"
"Somepony do something!!"
One by one, the skyscrapers crumbled. Under the weight of the assault, not even the tallest building in the city remained standing. The ponies watched as Manehattan was torn apart and burned, the smoke and ash blotting out the skies above.
The attack barely lasted a few minutes. Only when Manehattan was entirely ruined did he spears cease. When it was over, the rain completely let out and put out the fires as if to contain the damage that had already been done. But there was no Manehattan now. Only ashes remained.
The prisoners cried. Ponies held each other, cried tears together, screamed in agony and anguish and despair together, families and strangers alike. They cried together.
*Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-" the sound started up again. The zebras descended the hill, dozens at first but they kept coming. A horde of them came from behind the hill, covering it, covering the land around it, pouring out from the light of the morning sun. They surrounded the trapped ponies and kept coming, marching through the ashes of Manehattan, heading south.
The ponies then saw what was making the noise: the zebras each had a wooden shield clasped to their sides along with multiple spears. Every few steps they marched, the spears rattled along the shield making it sound like a train. In reality, it was hundreds of thousands of zebras marching together, steps in unison. The grinding of the war machine marching on.
"YOU BASTARDS!!" Plum screamed through the bars of her wooden cage. "WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!?!"
As if to answer her question, the clacking stopped again. A few of the spears from the side of the cage were with drawn by the zebras, again with expert precision. Zebras with spears drawn flooded inward, pushing ponies back and forcing them to make a space in the crowded cage. When there was a space large enough, a single zebra walked through the center line.
The lone zebra stood as tall as Big Macintosh. His mane was jagged but his stripes were criss-crossed, making him look battle-scarred from head to hoof. He carried the same equipment as every other zebra but while they were identical, he was slightly taller and even sported a cutie mark in the shape of a sideways Z that looked like a lightning bolt. Finally, there was a scar just off-center of his face, a single streak marring an otherwise clean expression of contempt. The scar was in between his nose and left eye and ran down from his forehead to his chin, cutting even his lips.
He carried a spear with him as he walked that pronounced each of his hoof steps.
He cast his gaze across the assembled crowd, an expression of utter contempt bordering disgust. Hatred burned in his eyes and fire flashed in the mark on his face. None of the ponies there knew it but such a cut was only the result of enduring powerful magic that only alicorns could perform. And it looked fresh.
"You do not deserve an answer," the zebra said to all of them. He held a hoof up to his scar as if feeling it for the first time. "But I will give you one: you are deluded. All of you are deluded, corrupted, poisoned. And now you know the truth."
"The truth?"
"What truth?"
"Why isn't he rhyming? I thought they all spoke in rhyme."
"Dude, that's racist."
"You know what, Frank? How about I go buy a buck to give you from the corner store on third street? Oh wait, I can't BECAUSE THIRD STREET JUST BURNED TO THE GROUND!"
The zebras lowered their spears. Any quarreling silenced.
The zebra looked at all of them. "Your kingdom was corrupted. Your society was corrupted. You placed trust in leaders who did not care for you, you were taught to believe ideals that were not real, you sought to control a power that cannot be controlled. You are all a disgrace… it is… disgusting," he said, venom dripping in his voice. "Your faith is a pollution I have come to cleanse."
A candied pear on a stick hit him in the face, splattering across his muzzle. The zebra's expression didn't change but he blinked and turned in the direction of the assailant.
"You're wrong! You… you MONSTER!!" Plum roared, standing in front of him. "You burn down our city and then you judge US?! You're disgusting!!"
"Yeah!"
"Screw you, zebra!"
For the first time, the zebra actually smiled. "Ha. I am not judgment; I am truth. You pollute your land with these buildings, you pollute the environment with your meddling and you pollute your minds with your beliefs. I and my army are here to cleanse it. Cleanse it all."
"CLEANSE THIS!" she jumped up to deliver a right-hoof hook on his face. But she never got a chance. "OOF!" A pair of spears caught her in midair and slammed her down to the ground. The zebras at either side held her in place. Plum looked up at Zen Zeal standing over her. He was still holding a spear but he also looked to be leaning on it.
"Your ways are flawed. They were simply beaten by something better. Your only fault was holding onto them," he said coldly.
Plum groaned as the spears pressed onto her neck. "H-holding onto our beliefs makes… makes us strong! You haven't beaten us! We still believe in the princess!!"
The general smiled. He knelt down and looked her straight in the eye. "And where is she now?"
The mare closed her eyes, a tear sliding down them. "She's always… they're always in our hearts."
"And hearts can be broken. Precisely why I don't have one," the zebra stood again. "This is the reality, ponies: your harmony did not protect you, your princesses didn't come to rescue you and your friendship will not rebuild your city."
"YOU ARE WRONG!!" Plum screamed, even though the side of her face was smashed into the dirt. "With the magic of friendship, we can- AAAUGH!" The end of a third spear smacked her across the face.
Zen turned around, cast one more glance over his shoulder. They all stared back at him, eyes wide in horror, shock and despair. It was always the same. Almost always. His hoof reached up to the side of his face and he winced.
"Major?"
"Sir?"
"Proceed."
"Sir, yes sir!"
The major took a single stone from his pocket and placed it on the ground. He then followed Zen and the other zebras quickly out, the spears being replaced behind them. Before the spears closed again, Plum saw that Zen was using the spear he held to balance him; he was limping.
A few ponies walked up to the stone, prodded it with their hooves. Plum got up, brushed herself off and a few ponies helped her to her hooves. Some of them were about to ask what happens now, what they could do next and what was the stone in front of them when it exploded in a flash of light and everypony disappeared.
Zen fell in march with the rest of his army but only did so shortly. As his steps fell out of line with the precision of the rest of his troops, he finally allowed his subordinates to carry him in a makeshift covered medical wagon they'd stolen from Saddle Arabia.
His soldiers pulled him silently. He knew they would; they were disciplined, elite, the most powerful force in Equestria. His shame, though, was powerful as well as he was forced to have his soldiers carry him instead of marching with them. Zen looked up at the sky from the hole in the back of the wagon. The sky was cloudy and it was raining. A mercy, of sorts.
Fighting an alicorn was unlike fighting any other creature in Equestria. It was unlike fighting anything or anyone else, period. Fighting with a divine force taxed the entirety of your being, wounding every fiber of your essence from body, mind, heart and spirit. It was like standing before a nexus of so many different gravimetric forces, a presence across the entirety of existence and even incorporeality that withered you in ways both possible and impossible.
Against such a force, it was difficult to survive and even find yourself afterwards. For Zen Zeal to survive an encounter with Celestia, let alone defeat her in combat, was tantamount to surviving the Big Bang. His being had been wounded throughout the span of space, time and beyond. It was both painful and numbing at the same time, a multi-phasic burn that scorched his body and soul. In time, it would heal but there would always be a scar there to remind him of his failure. And in a way, it reminded him of his only defeat.
He rolled over and decided to get some sleep. He would take his anger out on the rest of Equestria when he recovered more. The zebra army marched south deeper into Equestria, the rain clouds following them.
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Another deluded megalomaniac. Can't wait to see him beaten into the dirt.
Wait, just how shittily are Manehattan skyscrapers built of they go down from flaming spears? Did they subcontract all of them to Chineigh of something?
7445826 They're as durable as their Manhattan counterparts, some are more sturdy and some are less. They were simply destroyed by the overwhelming amount of them.
7446165 But, uh... The amount of spears needed to down all the skyscrapers would be enormous and they'd need to all land inside to transfer the weight. I'm not even sure how damn packed they'd need to be too exceed the structural strength. And to weaken the structure via the heat of the fire, they'd need to somehow pass through several walls to get to the cores and then cover the core tightly and stay aflame for hours to heat the steel up, of course after ripping off the thermal insulation. Not to mention they'd need to withstand the sprinkler systems. In the best case scenario of lighting up a single floor to gradually weaken the structure, the entire city would require so many expertly aimed spears that the massive heap being carried by the army would be visible from space. And it'd take hours.
Unless the spears are special in Dundee way, the above assumed them burning with normal temperature fire and being nonmagical.
7446237 Well of course the spears are magical. They prevent unicorns from teleporting through them so they'd have to be. But the buildings are just regular buildings. Exactly what kind of magic is to be revealed later.
7446419 Ah, that makes sense.
7446598 Zen Zeal is a very complex character. He's an atheist that hates faith in ideology, concepts and deities. He strongly believes the only devotion you should have is to the people you serve, the chain of command. He advocates a totalitarian state of autonomous dictatorial manipulation where the government has total control of almost every aspect of life and subjects are even taught what to think so that the discipline is absolute.
This is a stark contrast to Dan and the ponies who represent strength through resolute beliefs, compromise and cooperation and Vice Grip who believes only the highly intelligent should lead. Dan and Vice Grip both represent different kinds of faith and ideology, Zeal represents anti-ideology. So if Dan and Vice are battling over the past and the future, Zeal represents the cold, hard present that takes precedence over both.
7446812 Or, putting it short, he's a douche.
7446826 One of many that Dan will pummel, yes.
This guy is asking to be turned into a rug, then forgotton about, his name erased from history.
Obliterate Them.
OOooooooo Zenny boy... you gon get got!
Glorious chapter well done!
7446850 Good to hear.
Though it shows clearly why it's vastly preferable to have to deal with thieves than fanatics. The griffons were straight up nice compared to the zebra army.
I think you mean Unicorns.
I hope Equestia will recover from all this; return to how it was before. To be honest, all this damage to Equestria is making me uncomfortable.
Wow ... I never thought I would loathe the Zebras because of Zecora (where is Zecora in all this?) but Zen Zeal did the impossible >:( No way in Tartarus did this chump beat Celestia! But I'm sure Dan will make a very ugly throw rug out of him, knock his smirking block off Dan!
My only regret right now is that I didn't read this the minute it was posted, on the date this chapter was posted it was a sad anniversary for me so for once Dan and FimFiction took a backseat. Thank you for giving me the adrenaline boost I was lacking, now I'm grinning imagining what Dan will do to Zen in his Boss Battle!
Awesome as always and see you next episode ^_^
7446812
I dunno, Dan doesn't seem like the type of guy to really put much stock into anything other than being a crazed-now less crazed, but still crazed-lunatic. He seems less idealistic and more like a maelstrom of chaos and violence.