Chapter 22: Terror
It had all happened so fast, the heat, the pain, and the force of being lifted and thrown. Within just a mere matter of seconds Twilight Sparkle had been standing in the alleyway, trying to interrogate the two ponies who had been pursuing her and her friends. Then out of nowhere, she had gone deaf as an intense heat struck the right side of her body, hooves coming off the ground, she had felt herself being thrown through the brick wall to her left. Twilight tumbled onto the floor of the unknown building, debris and smouldering brick and mortar falling onto her back and side, her body flared with pain all over. Her ears rang and vision blurred due to the dust and smoke, her nostrils scrunched as she sucked in the dust and what was... cooking meat?
Twilight gasped and groaned as she shifted and pushed herself onto her hooves before falling back onto her haunches. She rested a hoof to the side of her head and sat for a few moments, catching her breath. After doing so she let her leg fall back to the floor, turning her head she squinted as she looked through the dust and smoke, on the floor beside her she saw something squirming slightly. Twilight bit her lip and lowered herself to move under the smoke and crawled to what was a pony trapped under some of the debris. Twilight cast her magic and lifted the debris off the pony, biting her lip she couldn’t really tell if she knew the pony or not. Nevertheless, Twilight pulled the mare out from under the rubble and dusted her off and laid her down onto a not so filthy part of the floor.
Gazing around Twilight tried to listen for something else but noticed her ears were still ringing making it impossible to hear anything but the shrillness ringing throughout her skull. She bit her lower lip and began to scour through the rubble before stumbling upon a stallion, possibly the one named Pen Writer. He didn’t seem to be as injured as the mare and not only that, he wasn’t unconscious. However, when Twilight moved around to him, she felt herself shout his name, but couldn’t hear her own voice. She then stepped in front and said his name again, but the stallion didn’t move, his eyes were wide and his mouth was open. He looked to be in some kind of shock.
Twilight took a breath and gagged as some of the dust rubbed the back of her throat, she shook her head and used her magic to pull the stallion to his hooves. He didn’t seem to fight her, pulling him up, Twilight guided the shocked lad over to the unconscious mare who was still shaking on the floor. As she carefully set the the stallion down, Twilight jolted as the entire earth shook once again, rubble from the ceiling sprinkled down and onto her back as she turned her head towards the direction the tremor came from.
The alicorn couldn’t hear herself but she knew she had shouted for the two ponies to remain put. Turning her back to them, she ran towards the front entrance of the building she had been thrown into. Pushing past the door, Twilight was blinded by the afternoon light. Groaning, Twilight stepped out onto the sidewalk and stumbled when she felt her forelegs kick something. Squeaking out loud Twilight caught herself before eating cobblestone, she turned to see what she kicked and gasped when she saw a mare on her side.
The pony’s eyes were wide open, the color seemingly fogged over as her mouth hung ajar, the body stiff and unbreathing. Twilight’s eyes turned to saucers as she knelt down beside the pony, her lower lip quivering slightly as she shook her head and put a hoof gently to the mare’s neck. There was no pulse, Twilight’s vision became foggy slightly as her mind began race a million miles per hour, she had to do something. She could save the pony right? The mare bit her lip and shifted slightly before noticing a pool of blood appearing beneath the deceased pony’s mane. An involuntary sob escaped Twilight’s throat as she hesitantly turned the pony’s head gently. Twilight let off a cry when she saw a sharp piece of cobblestone lodged in the back of the mare’s skull. She must’ve been hit by shrapnel when, whatever it was, exploded the building.
Twilight couldn’t help but feel tears streaming down her cheeks, she had never seen a dead pony before. At least... not one as young or in this sort of situation. She began to step back but stumbled over a piece of rubble on the sidewalk and turned to see the street was cluttered with hundreds of confused pedestrians and victims of the explosion. Many seemed panicked and ran for whatever direction, while injured stallions, mares, and even children sat on the sideline. Twilight’s hearing was slowly coming back, but the ringing was still heavily present and it was hard to decipher what was happening.
The ground lurched once more and Twilight jolted as she saw ponies screaming around her and stampeding towards her. Activating her magic, Twilight teleported back into the building where she left her two attackers. The unconscious mare she pulled out of the rubble was just coming back as Twilight reappeared and the stallion seemed to be muttering something under his breath, eyes wide and snapping back and forth. Twilight groaned and shook her head as she started to feel a headache coming on just as her hearing began to return. She could now faintly hear the sound of panic coming from the street outside, ponies were screaming left and right and above all that she heard, buzzing?
“Why today? Of all times, why does it have to happen now?” The stallion stammered repeatedly his voice completely broken.
“Wh-what are you talking about?” Twilight asked her mind unable to get the image of the dead pony out of her head, yet with all her might she tried to keep herself calm. Panic would only make things worse right now.
The stallion continued to say things Twilight had no idea what to think. She went over to the stallion as the mare who was once unconscious sat up and pressed a hoof against her head. “Pen, what are you saying?” Twilight asked as she took deep breaths of her own to try and calm her racing heart. Outside the volume of the screams had not changed, the buzzing she heard though was growing louder.
The stallion looked up into Twilight’s eyes with a frightened look. “From the sea they shall come, with machines of war they shall ride across our beloved lands.” Twilight blinked at his cryptic words but listened as he continued, “With weapons of thunder and fire the days of disharmony––” A sharp crack, followed by yet another explosion shook the earth and brought chunks of the ceiling above down to the floor.
:[-]:
Canterlot Harbor October 16th, 14:17
Five minutes earlier
“Where the hay is Discord?” Dash asked as she looked about, her eyes scanning the sidewalk and nearby restaurant, however the crowd of ponies that was forming at the edge of the harbor was making it difficult to see. Then again, she thought finding a nine foot draconequus wouldn’t be so difficult. Yet he was nowhere to be seen.
Applejack blinked and took her eyes off the massive vessels stretching across the horizon and gazed about as well. “Y-yeah... Ah I don’t see him.”
“Fluttershy is gone too,” Rarity added as she looked at Applejack. Pinkie Pie giggled and looked at the three of them.
“Well y’know what they say, when you gotta go, you gotta go.” She giggled as the three other ponies gave her a deadpan look. “What? I’m just saying they had to go to the bathroom.” Their looks wouldn’t change, until the deep bellowing horn from the things in the harbor tore their gazes back to them.
The pony’s mouths fell open when they saw what looked to be massive mouths on the front of the ships open up. On top of them, objects could be seen, massive hulks with cylinders jutting out of them, turned to face towards the city. “Is it burping? Maybe it just drank a lot of water!” Pinkie blurted out, but the others could still hear a tinge of worry in her usually upbeat voice.
Bright flashes and fire erupted from the tip of a single cylinder, the sound of ripping and whistling air zipped overhead. The sound fading before ending with an earth shaking explosion somewhere within the city, screams of terror began to fill the city not even seconds later. Without a moment to spare, another cylinder erupted with fire as another projectile was flung towards them, arching slightly towards the harbor.
Before Applejack or the others could respond, Rainbow Dash swiftly pushed them all to the ground just as the projectile slammed right into the harbor restaurant. The building exploded into billions of pieces which flew hundreds of feet into the air before raining back down. Opening her eyes, Applejack saw the entire area was shrouded in dust and smoke, the street littered with debris along with the unrecognizable red and wet pieces of who knows what.
Another explosion sounded somewhere within the city, along with another, and another. Screams and cries of terror echoing into the sky. A loud groan along with the screeching of metal and the shattering of glass reverberated throughout the streets as Applejack gazed up to see an entire skyscraper tipping over before crumbling into trillions of pieces as it came crashing into the city street just before taking out the building next to it.
Another whistle tore overhead as whatever the vessels were flinging at the city came plowing into a nearby fishing warehouse, explosions ripping through everything, and everypony, all of it swallowed by a wall of fire. Seeing this happening Applejack shook her head. “C’mon! We need to get out of here!” She yelled over the utter chaos and destruction, she pushed a crying and panicking Rarity up onto her hooves as Rainbow Dash got up beside her and helped push a shocked Pinkie Pie up onto hers as well.
“We need to find Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she helped guide the two shocked ponies away from the chaos as the projectiles continued to pound into the city.
Applejack shook her head as she quickly ran back towards the manhole they came in. “As much as Ah’m worried Rainbow, we need to save ourselves first!” She shouted while gesturing towards the still shocked Pinkie and sobbing Rarity. Overhead another object smashed into an office building, screams came from the ponies inside as the whole front wall began to crumble. A nearby stallion rammed into AJ by accident, knocking her to the side, stumbling, Applejack glared at the pony but cried out in horror as just seconds later the stallion was smashed into a fine red paste by a falling chunk of the collapsing office complex.
She probably would’ve just died if that pony hadn’t rammed into her. Having seen this, Rainbow leaned over and wrapped her wing around AJ before yanking towards the sewer entrance. “C’mon you idiot!” She yelled over the chaos, relenting to the fact that Applejack was right, they needed to get to a safe place first and then focus on saving Twilight.
:[-]:
A large gaping hole had opened up most of the sewer after the most recent impact, after having pulled the two incapacitated mares down into the semi-safe zone. Applejack helped to guide Rarity inside before slumping against a nearby entrance, other ponies who had noticed the cover had jumped in as well and took shelter by the stream of waste.
Pinkie’s mane had deflated slightly, her eyes still wide as she tried to comprehend what had just happened over the past couple of minutes. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was trying to calm Rarity while Applejack, like Pinkie Pie, sat there trying to gauge what she had just witnessed.
Especially with that bit of the stallion who had unintentionally saved her. Or was it? She couldn’t tell, all she could think about was those final moments of him going to keep moving, only to be smashed like a bug beneath tons of debris. One second a living pony was there, next there was nothing but smouldering rock and pieces of pony.
“Applejack!” AJ shook her head and turned to see Rainbow Dash looking at her. “I know you’re tired of me saying this but... I’m for real this time. I’m going to look for Twilight.” Applejack blinked and jolted along with Rainbow as another earth shaking explosion sounded nearby.
Applejack let off a shuddering breath before saying. “I-I’ll go–” Rainbow Dash shook her head and planted a hoof on AJ’s chest.
“Somepony needs to watch those two.” Rainbow tilted her head towards Rarity and Pinkie. “Plus I can fly, I’ll have a better view and chance of seeing Twilight.” She smiled, Applejack bit her lip and relented before leaning up and suddenly hugging Rainbow Dash.
“Y’all just stay safe now...” Applejack pulled back and looked at Rainbow. “Whatever this is...Ah ain’t seen anything like it, and it ain’t pullin’ no kicks Rainbow. If you ain’t careful, you’ll get seriously hurt.” AJ took a breath and Rainbow nodded her head.
“I understand, AJ.” Rainbow snorted softly before smiling confidently. “Besides, it’s gonna take more than some fancy explosions to take down the best Wonderbolt!” Another blast rocked the earth, a gust of extreme heat and dust blasted its way into the sewer, causing everypony inside to scream as the tunnel came crashing down.
:[-]:
Rainbow Dash didn’t know how long she was out for, all she knew was that it was dark, smelled, and the outside world sounded as if it was the end of time itself. Groaning softly, she sat up and held a hoof to her head, her face was wet and whatever it was, she had gotten it on her hoof. Subconsciously, she prayed she hadn’t fallen into the stream of waste, but after smelling her hoof, a new fear dawned on her. It was blood. Her blood.
Rainbow felt herself starting to panic as she brought her head down and tapped with her hoof around the cause of the bleeding. Gasping loudly, she felt a scratch on her head, it wasn’t too big, and it didn’t feel deep. That was a relief, she might’ve just had a rock hit her, probably what knocked her out. Still though, she might have a concussion for all she knew. Rainbow Dash stumbled to her hooves, slipping a bit as she found it troubling to keep her footing.
“G-guys?” She forced out, yeah she had a concussion that’s for sure. Wincing lightly she stumbled down the path of the sewer, distant sunlight coming from a manhole. Outside she heard loud chopping of air followed by several objects zooming overhead. She could also make out screams along with sporadic cracking noises she couldn’t figure out. Rainbow began to feel very scared, looking around the dark she couldn’t stifle the whimper that escaped her throat.
“It’s okay, Rainbow...” The pegasus squeaked and turned to find Applejack sitting against the wall after her eyes adjusted. “Ah got Rarity and Pinkie, the two of them... Ah think they fainted. The others that were down here hiding, Ah think...” Applejack took in a sharp breath. “I’m hoping they made it deeper in and Ah just hadn’t seen ’em.” Rainbow Dash cursed under her breath and fell next to Applejack, hooves covering her face as everything started to catch up with her.
“What in Tartarus is happening, AJ?” Rainbow looked at her. “What in the world is all this?! What started it?!” She asked, her eyes becoming misty.
AJ shuddered and shook her head as she shifted to pull both Rarity and Pinkie towards her. “Ah dun know, Rainbow. Ah’m just as confused as you are,” She said softly, a muffled scream came from above the surface but was quickly silenced by a sharp, repeating crack sound. “The explosions stopped about ten minutes ago,” Applejack said as she shifted to look at Rainbow. “Ah heard this weird choppin’ sound, next thing I knew, there were firecrackers or something going off up there. But the screams haven’t stopped, so whatever it is, it ain’t good.”
Rainbow took a breath and sighed. “I hope to Celestia Twilight isn’t in bad of shape like we are...” Rainbow curled up and took a breath, Applejack sighed as well.
AJ looked at Rainbow and nodded her head before lightly prodding her with a hoof. “Don’t worry, Rainbow. If Twilight can defeat a crazy mare in a village, all the way to Discord and Tirek. Ah think she’ll be fine.” Rainbow listened to this and nodded her head before looking at AJ.
“Yeah. You’re right...I’m just...” Rainbow took a breath, she hated to say this but it was true. “I’m scared, AJ. I just. I want to go back home now and just take a nap...” Applejack snorted softly.
“You and me both, Dash.”
:[-]:
“Red Alert. Red Alert. All tactical combat personnel, be advised this is not a drill.”
The automated loud voice said over the intercom as John watched the live video feed in shock. Aside from the alarm and the automated announcement, everyone in the room was silent as they watched the globe.
“Why now...” A voice came from behind John, he turned to see Admiral Watson approaching from behind. “Why would they do this?” His voice was stunned just as John was as he watched the feed of an entire Equine city being razed to the ground by the Sleeper forces controlled by Kane.
“It’s a message...” John muttered softly, finally finding his voice as Watson rested his hands against the console in front of him. “That no matter what, nothing will stop them.” He turned to gaze up at the screen. “Just like San Francisco, August 14th, 2018, Admiral.”
“Yes, Officer Conway.” Watson took a breath. “I remember the shelling clearly. I was there.”
John gulped and turned to Watson and shook his head with a heavy breath of his own. “I take it you also remember that there was no diplomacy, no declaration of war.”
Watson nodded his head. “It was just out right terrorizing, " He then said in a weighted tone, “Destroy the morale of the civilian populous and the entire engine of war will come sputtering to a stop.” He sighed and then looked up at the predator feed. “Don’t tell the boys on the diplomacy mission. Leave them in the dark, we don’t want anyone worrying. Our primary goal right now is to get Victor-19, open her up and bolster our manpower as quickly as possible.”
“Yes sir!” John saluted.
“One more thing, Conway.”
“Yes sir?” John looked at Watson.
“The prisoner would like to speak with you.”
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Well... shit.
The line has been drawn, the sides chosen, now it is time to fight.
please explain, i dont understand whats going on
just remember, no matter what it is, it's someone's fetish. you just made extreme fetish fuel my fellow writer.
Welp. Time to go hunting for Subs.
With Davy Crockets.
Well, actually Id prefer a squadron of B52s fitted out with Grand Slams, because with those guys, you dont even need to hit.
This is a strange set up though. Usually a despotic source with the resources capable of making such constructions is large enough to be visible to pretty much everyone with satelite tech. If only because their underground excavations change the gravity field so much that GPs satelite predicted orbits vary far beyond expected values.
Twilight and crew. so much power, so much capabilites. Because they are soft and happy ponies who live in a freindly helpful world, so increadibly easy to nerf to more useless than a hair filled jam sandwhich.
8071913 There are 3 factions. Humans A, who were up in space for a long time. Ponies. And Humans B, who were underwater for a long time.
In this episode of My Little Lazarus, The Humans B from under the water have started bombing a harmless pony city and are killing thousands of pony civilians with Submarines, and nearly killing and most likely crippling the Elements of Harmony.
8072462 Maybe cause at the time it was written by a teenager
Don't worry. I revised a good chunk of all the characters shortly after chapter diplomacy.
three years ago I knew nothing about the military and how that shit worked. Now, after studying, I know enough to make it work.
Left, Right, North, X, Jump, no wait Left, Right again, where the hell are we going? Who was that stallion? Is he yet another faceless fuck-all nobody that randomly appears and dies with no consequence? Was he the Doctor? Why were the Monarch pones there? Why did Monarch murder the Monarch pones? Does any of the shelling have anything to do with the characters receiving the shelling? Why am I writing so many questions? Why am I listening to Sabaton Nuclear Attack while reading about a terror shelling?
i think i need to re-read this story because i have no idea whats happening anymore
8072889
I have no idea what's going on as well but I don't wanna re-read it so I'm just gonna see where this goes.
Any idea when this will be finished ?
8072786 Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!
8072288 Oh wow
So Discords happy little army is coming out to play because he REALLY for some reason dislikes them, and has yet to really explain WHY
So it's going to be robots from the vaults, humans from space, and ponies from the surface vs the people from the sea.
Cool.
Situation is fubar repeat fubar.
8083862 6000 out, 6000 back
basic math, add it together
8084071 Well for one, if it is supposed to be a colony ship, it shouldn't take 6000 years to make it to a habitable planet. If it was hiding in the far reaches of Sol(Heliopause? can't remember the term), it wouldn't take another 6000 years to return.
Also, they have a small crew effectively hotbunking with cryotubes. Assuming everyone save the politicians(who weren't airlocked WHY?) was awake at some point...why is the possibility of survivors, the whole reason they started heading back, a surprise?
I mean sure, reading latter chapters make it somewhat clear(I know i saw somewhere sixteen thousand years had passed, wut?), but the early chapters are all "Bad shit happening! 6k years later we hear survivors, yay! 12k years, Earth looks beautiful, good to be home!"
8072546 Doesn't take a teenager to know the proper response to something like that...
Admiral Watson: "Do we have a railgun loaded?"
John: "Yes, sir."
Admiral Watson: "Good. Target that middle sub. The blast will take out the other two."
John: "Already on its way, sir."
Admiral Watson: "Really? Let me kno--"
John: "Just hit, sir."
Admiral Watson: "... Good job. In the future, however, wait for the order."
John: "Will do, sir. But those guys were assholes."
Admiral Watson: "I know. That's why you're getting away with it--this time."
8084748
Clearly you don't know how travel time works.
If there is a store five minutes from my home, it takes five minutes to get there and five minutes back. In total it would be ten minutes. The Horizon ship was far enough away from Earth that it would've taken six thousand years to get there, therefore it would also take six thousand years to get back. The distance just doesn't magically get shorter.
The reason why the survivors were surprised about heading back was because Earth was bombarded to smithereens. Possibly making it permanently inhabitable due to Green House effect, effectively turning in into a Venus. Or possibly the radiation permanently effecting its surface and making it Chernobyl on steroids.
Not only that its better to spoon feed the reader information rather than just plot dumping it.
8086572 I've realized that part of my problem is I just don't understand what humans wanted/expected to accomplish.
Some have stated that 300 people is too few to actually start a new colony. No idea if that's true, but if it is, might explain why they never actually tried heading to Wolf 359 or Vega or some other star system and colonizing that.
Then there is the point that cryostasis isn't perfect, so the vault wouldn't last forever(even if there were no power/decay issues. And now I'm wondering about time dilation...Na not going to break my brain thinking about that.) So my question is:If colony ship, why no new colony. If the Horizon was supposed to escape Archangel by heading into space, monitoring Earth so they could return and reawaken everyone, why would they head towards the second star on the right and never stop?
The whole surprise bit was because it's a tiny crew, so someone should have gossiped. Hell, the hacker seems like the perfect type to do that. Sure the council could have ordered no talking about it, but I would assume the pilots, if they were any good at their jobs they would notice, if even they weren't told, that they are heading in Earths general direction. Also, if morale is so important on a large metal coffin why hide it? Just to there is little disappointment later? Can kinda understand that, but given everything that happened to humanity I'd take the risk of letting everyone know what was found on earth.
If they were hopping around from heading to heading to confuse Archangel what would be a 6000 circuitous route would be shorter on a direct return trip.
Then there is the monitoring relays. It sounded like they eventually failed, and not when all the nukes went off? It seems odd that the Horizon would be required to return (though I suppose they could have a mission deadline where they return anyways after X years) without a somewhat reliable way to monitor the situtation on Earth.
In short, yes I understand travel time, just don't understand what Horizon was doing or supposed to do. Even if humanity was desperate and didn't believe whatever precautions would work, they'd at least plan to do something. And I'm not seeing that plan.
I really need to re-read this, was lost for a bit there.
8112986 Lol, I recommend you skip some of my earlier chapters then cause they're super bad compared to how I write nowadays.
8114536
I remember it being rough, but I loved the concept so I'm glad I stuck with it
I'm glad you cut some side characters, it was getting to be a bit much.
8115663 Yeah. The characters are still around and will appear, just not as much as they used to.
Also I'll probably go back in the future if I ever get the motivation and just redo some previous chapters to make them not so rough and edgy.
8115750 If you want my advice (perhaps not the best idea, considering how long I've been working on my lone story on this site), read the chapter you want to rewrite, determine what you want the chapter to convey, and scrap it.
Then rewrite it entirely to convey what needs to be conveyed and sprinkle other seasonings in where it doesn't disrupt the narrative flow. Compare the old chapter and the new chapter. If the new one is superior, keep it. If not, try again.
Unless you can mesh the disparate parts together seamlessly into a new whole, then all you have is a mishmash of new and old, written in styles that are, according to your own admission, separated by years of experience.