• Published 18th Dec 2016
  • 788 Views, 26 Comments

War Pony - CreeperZone



The Great War between the three pony races, a war over food. A tale about starvation, racism and violence in a frozen over landscape that was formally the original pony civilization.

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Frozen Hearts

The blizzard winds were picking up speed. In the center of town, hundreds of Earth ponies, both stallions and mares, stood waiting for a train to arrive. Every single one of them had volunteered or been drafted to fight in the war ahead. They quivered in their hooves, wearing layers upon layers of winter coats, scarves and jackets. It was the middle of summer and the pegasi still refused the blame for causing this weather. Eventually, somepony from the crowd shouted out,
“Train incoming!”

Everypony lifted their heads, attempting to search through the icy fog for the arriving train. Two lights pushed their way through the snow and became visible from the distant tracks. Ponies formed a line on the platform, shoulder to shoulder. They looked forward, waiting for the train to make its way past the snow covering the tracks. It crept toward the platform, slowly gaining shape and detail through the blinding weather. The brakes screeched into the air and the train slowed to a stop. Nearly every pony in the line turned toward their families standing behind them. Each of them hugged and gave their farewells and good wishes. Every family in the town was about to be split after the conscription was passed. Every eligible pony of a mature age was required to fight, the only exceptions being mothers and fathers with small children, in which case only one of the parents would have to go. Only a few kept looking at the train; they did not turn back because there was nopony back there for them.

Among those keeping their heads forward was a black-maned, navy-coated stallion who stared blankly into the metal sheet serving as a slide door for the train car. The door squeaked and moved along the side to show a mare standing in a snow-camouflaged uniform holding a clipboard in his hoof and a pen in her mouth. The stallion turned his head back to look at all the other ponies still saying their last goodbyes. He realized that he had to go first. The mare looked him in the eyes. She had a stare colder than the blizzard and, with no emotion, she asked, “Name?” The stallion let out a sigh and answered her. “Hopeful. Hopeful Twist.”

The mare shook her head at the irony, writing something on the clipboard. She tipped her head, signaling for him to get onto the train, so he put his head down and boarded. He heard her interrogate the next pony that he soon would be fighting beside. He walked up to the first cabin. It was nearly hollow, with only two long benches spanning the sides of the room. He went to the far left bench and sat down and looked out of the frost edged window at the crying recruits trying to spend every second they could spare with their loved ones. He sat there for a while, no expression on his face, no tears in his eyes, no emotion in his heart, only a broken spirit.

His mesmerized state was broken by the next pony entering the cabin. “Hey, there!” This sky-blue stallion with a bright yellow mane was standing beside him with, of all things, a smile on his face. Hopeful went back to staring out of the window.

“Isn't this exciting? Are you excited, because I'm excited. We’re going to kick some Pegasus and Unicorn butt!” He put lifted his hoof toward Hopeful, waiting for a hoofbump. Hopeful turned his head from the window and glanced at the stallion, unimpressed. The stallion retracted his hoof and sat down beside Hopeful, hooves between his legs and head held low. “My name is Spring Step,” he said quietly, gently pivoting his head to watch for Hopeful’s reaction. Hopeful was leaning up against the corner, unmoved by the comment. Spring lowered his head again. Two ponies passed through the cabin to get further back on the train, They chatted in an intimate way, giving the impression that they were a couple going to war together.

Hopeful became weary of watching the ponies outside. “Hopeful,” he muttered under his breath.

Spring perked up. “Well, Hopeful, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, putting his hoof up to shake.

Hopeful eyed his hoof and sat up, reluctantly putting his hoof up to Spring’s, shaking it slowly. He put his back to the wall and leaned his head against it, closing his eyes and letting out a sigh. “Sometimes I worry what kind of ponies we’re sending to the front lines.” Hopeful picked his head up and turned to look at Spring. “So, tell me, why do you think you won’t just get hit by a stray magic bolt, or have a bomb dropped on you by day one? In fact, what makes you think you’re capable of even killing a pony? Huh?” Spring Step hung his head again and opened his mouth but no words came out; he couldn’t think of an answer.

Hopeful laid his head back. “I thought so.” He snuggled into as comfortable of a sleeping position he could get.

Another pony entered the cabin and sat down opposite of Hopeful, breathing heavily and attempting to calm himself down. Hopeful raised an eyelid to see the pony before closing it again. “Go on, cheer him up. Might as well do something with your optimism before it’s yanked away from you and pulverized until you’re just a bitter old pony like me.” Spring Step hesitated before hopping off his seat and moving to the other side of the cart to comfort the stressing pony. Two more ponies came in and sat beside Hopeful without saying a word.

A few minutes passed before the car began to fill up. Spring Step was talking with the stressed pony and his smile had returned. Most of the ponies in the cabin were chatting, some were looking out the windows and one even had a book they were reading. As time slowly passed, Hopeful began to drift off to sleep. More ponies boarded until the cabin was full. The train blew its whistle and began to trudge through the snow.

Soon enough, the station and town were out of sight. The train was overcrowded to Tartarus and back. After seats ran out, the ponies had to stand, leaving very little room for the general to move from car to car, inspecting his new soldiers.

“LISTEN UP, NEWBIES!” the general shouted from the doorway between cabins. A yellow Earth pony with a fiery mane, he was wearing a snow-white military coat with many medals attached and dog tags hanging around his neck. He had a holstered pistol on his right shoulder and a pair of radiator glasses which he looked menacingly through. “Get comfortable. With this weather, it'll be a good half a day trip until we reach the base, which is when you are going to begin combat training. So enjoy this free time; there won’t be much more of that from now on.” The general blew his whistle, piercing the ears of everypony in that room and waking Hopeful from his slumber. “And there will be much more of that, so get used to it!” The general stepped back through the door to the next cabin to give his speech once again.


Time crawled by and the general made a few more visits to intimidate everypony. Hopeful stared outside into the frozen winds bashing against the train. The darkness of the night was setting in. At least those blasted unicorns were useful for something. Many hours passed, but without a way to keep track of the time with the cloud cover, nopony knew how long was left. Most of the ponies in the cabin were asleep. Some of the ponies without seats just slept on the floor.

The train stopped, very suddenly launching everypony across the cabin, slamming them against the wall and each other. Everypony tried to regain their surroundings. A muffled ''MOTHERBUCKER'' could be heard from outside. Hopeful tried lifting himself off the bench, but fell onto the floor on his back. He unsteadily stood up and stumbled over his own hooves. His head was swinging back and forth and he dizzily laid himself against the wall. He breathed in and out until his head stopped throbbing and his vision sharpened once again. The door flung open and through it walked the mildly disoriented general.

“PACK YOUR BAGS, NEWBIES. Tracks are out. Looks like they were hit by a stray Lightning shell. Hope you enjoy midnight hikes, cause we got a hour long trip on hoof till we reach home base!” Everypony stood up and balanced themselves, tiredly hanging their heads and wiping their eyes. “AND NO LAZING AROUND!” He blew his whistle again. The ponies covered their ears and winced from the high pitched screech. The general shut the door and the ponies in the cabin scrambled around to gather their possessions and put on their layers of cold protection.

Soon, a hoof soldier came into the cabin. He was wearing the standard snow-camouflaged uniform and helmet. He had a rifle tied to his right side and a pistol on the top of his left shoulder. With a raised voice, he addressed the ponies in the cabin, “Alright, you’re all with me. Once we get out there, it’s a double line formation behind me. Got it?” He turned his head back to the ponies to shout “Formation!” and walked to the end of the train. He slid the train car door open and jumped down into the tall layer of snow. Ponies from the cabin followed suit, and, soon, most of them were outside. Hopeful was one of the last to leave, with Spring Step right behind him.

The blizzard raged on, the cold bashing against them. The soldier signaled to them to follow him and then he turned to the direction the train was heading and pushed forward. Hopeful squinted his eyes as he felt his body freeze up and spine shiver. The ponies trudged through the thick snow, attempting to follow the soldier in pairs. A line was forming and they were getting further. Spring Step tried to walk forward but wasn't strong enough to go against the wind, causing him to fall down into the snow looking to weak to be able to do this. Hopeful turned to see him and sighed and marched back to him. He lifted Spring Step up and placed Spring's hoof around himself and pulled him along.

The regiment joined up with the others leaving the train. The general stood in front of the troops and blew his whistle, but the sound was overwhelmed by the winds. He gestured forward and began to march with the regiments following after him. As they made their way forward, Hopeful could barely make out a crater the size of a small house cutting off the tracks, and, while it didn't faze Hopeful, Spring Step stared in horror as they passed.

The storm was easing off. The winds grew lighter and the soldiers kept pushing forward with aching bones and shivering bodies. On their journey, they encountered many more craters. They were crossing no-pony’s land. Hopeful was enduring the soreness of pulling Spring Step along with him. One hour felt like years, hiking through a barren, snowy wasteland. A faint outline of a forest broke through the blinding atmosphere.

“Pick up the pace, colts! We’re nearly there!” the general shouted back at the regiments. Everypony looked at each other and accelerated their marching. Hopeful was being dragged back by Spring Step and couldn't keep up. “Come on, just a few more steps, buddy,” Hopeful said to encourage Spring Step (and himself) to move forward. The rest of the ponies were getting further and further of the pair. Hopeful was finding it hard to walk and stumbled, falling into the snow with Spring Step falling beside him.

Hopeful’s face was covered in snow. He could no longer see the soldiers or the general. He tried to lift himself up, but the strain on his muscles was too much so he laid there in the snow. Hopeful turned his head to look at Spring Step who was forcing himself to stand. Spring Step managed to gain his hoofing. He took a wobbly step forward and then another and he kept going.

Hopeful held out his hoof, reaching out to Spring Step, but he kept moving forward, eventually turning a hobble into a sprint toward the base. “You... You can’t...” he let his hoof and head fall back down into the snow. Hopeful took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He threw his left hoof forward and then his right. He began to crawl through the thick snow. He made it a few meters forward before he was out of breath and too cold to continue. He curled up and shivered in the small hole his body made in the snow.

Hopeful pried his eyes open and surveyed his surroundings, looking for something to save him. His attention was averted to something in the cloud cover above, a body grazed the bottom of the cloud sheets. It flew at incredible speeds, jumping from cloud to cloud, maneuvering away from something. Hopeful, knowing the horrors of a lightning shell or a rain dropper, knew, if he was spotted, he would stand no chance. He gathered the snow around him and piled it on top of himself to camouflage him from the Pegasus. He was encompassed in the snow and his insides were freezing up as the sharp cold pierced through his skin.

He waited under his icy cover, anticipating a bomb to blow him into pieces at any second and he thought his fate was finally sealed once he heard an object screeching as it fell from the sky. The explosion never came. Instead, a faint crash off in the distance was audible through the snow. Hopeful burrowed his head out of the snow and scanned the area. Two Earth pony hoof soldiers came towards him one with a smoking rifle pressed against her shoulder, observing the sky. Behind them walked SpringStep. “Right there!” Spring Step shouted while pointing at Hopeful. The two soldiers went over and lifted him from ether side to carry him toward the base. Hopeful was holding dearly to consciousnesses, but his vision became blurry and disoriented.

They entered the tall, thick, leafless forest. The trees protected the ground from the weather, meaning it had considerably less snow. The soldiers trekked through the trees, snapping twigs lying on the floor as they went. Hopeful looked to the skies to see the moon's rays grazing the clouds with a silver lining. Before he could react, he was dropped down onto a log, getting scratched and splintered by its rough edges. The soldiers turned to each other, their voices lost to Hopeful as he felt on the verge of falling unconscious. Spring Step climbed over the log and turned to look into Hopeful's eyes. “You still with us, buddy?” Spring Step said while inspecting Hopeful's condition.

“You, you bastard! You left me with a bloody Pegasus out there!” Hopeful grabbed Spring by the collar “I nearly died!”

Spring lifted Hopeful's hooves of of him, “Hey, look its not like I could carry you, I can barely keep myself on my own hooves. I got help and now your ok, that's what matters.” SpringStep fell back onto the ground heftily breathing.

“Still doesn't change the fact I nearly died to save your sorry flank!” Hopeful leaned in and shouted at Spring Step, who pushed himself away from Hopeful.

One of the soldiers, an orange mare with red mane wearing heavy armor, turned back to Hopeful and propped up her hoof on the log. She lowered himself to look right at him and, absolutely peeved off, say “Look mate, you’re not the only one that was wrecked by that journey! We got three ponies with hypothermia down there, so can you stop whining about your near death experience, cause if you don't stop, you’re not going to last very long out here!” She raised herself up. “Now, go down there, because you’re not my problem anymore. Right now, I have to go double back and make sure we don't have any more lost sheep like you.” The mare hopped off the log and turned to go back through the forest the way they came. She whirled her head and shouted back, “Oh, and one last thing. A ‘thank you’ would be appreciated for shooting down that screecher Pegasus for you.”

The other soldier, a yellow stallion wearing equivalent gear to the mare, went past Hopeful and bit down on a handle lying in the ground. He pulled it up, and, with his hooves, threw it to the other side. “Don't worry about her. She gets really peeved when she’s stressed.” He bit Hopeful by the winter coat he was wearing and dragged him off the log. Spring Step staggered up onto his hooves and went down the stairs that were hidden by the hatch.

Hopeful looked up at the soldier and said, “I can do this myself,” and slid his hooves in front of himself and pushed his hind-legs to prop himself up. He scrambled until he went into a walking stumble down the hatch, tripping on the first step and falling down on his stomach.

“Come on, mate, no need to be a war hero,” the soldier said and wrapped Hopeful's hoof around his neck to walk down with him.


The bunker was an absolute hell hole. The dull gray walls were crumbling around them and dirt had collected up from the outside all over the corridor. It reeked, a stench of death mixed in with rat feces (rats which could be heard scuttering inside the walls). The main corridor was tight and could barely hold more than two ponies walking side by side. Spring Step walked down the hallway, looking around in shock at the state of the base. He was whistled over by a pony from the room at the back. Spring went to him and entered the room. Hopeful was carried by the soldier down the long hallway, passing doors leading to sleeping quarters, firing ranges and training areas. They reached the rusted steel door and Spring Step went through. It bore the words ''briefing room'' on a plaque that was scratched up so badly it was barely legible.

The soldier pushed on the door. It was stuck until he smacked against it a bit harder, forcing it to creak open on its corroded hinges. Upon entering, Hopeful felt his own body weight again as he was dropped onto the floor.

“Here's another straggler, sir!” The soldier stood there, saluting. “Can he stand?” a grizzly voice came from the end of the room. Hopeful forced himself to his hooves, grabbing on and leaning against a table to his right, he made it up to see this husky lavender stallion wearing a puffy military vest, medals going so far down across his chest that some were hanging off. A military hat laid upon his head, with an insignia of a bowl of pudding. Beside him was the general. He stood with his legs and spine straight in the presence of this high commander clearly marked with Chancellor Puddinghead's cutie mark.

“Yes, sir. I can stand, sir.” Hopeful said through his tiresome breathing.

The commander turned to the soldier that carried Hopeful in. “You are dismissed private.” His voice was deep and gravely. He returned his attention towards the crowd of snow-covered recruits, standing in a semicircle around him. each one listened to his every word with the highest percussion. “So if our guests would like to join us, I can get back to what I was saying.” He glared over at Hopeful, who noticed Spring Step who was having his eyes inspected by a medic-pony.

She let go of Spring and walked over to Hopeful. She examined his head, pulling his eyelids wide open and flashing a torch into his iris. “Eh, you’re probably fine,” she said to him in a Liverfoal accent. He blinked heavily and stumbled into the crowd of ponies.

The commander spoke aloud. “Alright, then, as I was about to say, this underground bunker, made ten meters of concrete underneath the surface, hidden from Pegasus scouts in this forest, will be your home for the next two weeks while you go through extensive military training. You will be shown how to shoot a gun and how to kill a pony in hoof to hoof combat. You will be taught everything we know about Pegasus artillery such as Rain-droppers, the anti-soldier sonic speed explosive launcher, or humongous Thunder Cannons and the lightning shells they shoot, and more importantly how to not be spotted.” Some ponies looked around at each other nervously after seeing the carnage at the train tracks.

The Commander cleared his throat. “And you will be learning about unicorn magics, how to avoid and counter their combat tricks and how to defeat their magic weaponry. And I can say from personal experience on how useful that last bit is!” He pushed up his sleeve on his left hoof to reveal a wound made of shredded and scorched flesh coming from his heel all the way up to his shoulder. “This here beauty was given to me about a two months ago, on the first battle in this bloody war when we invaded the royal unicorn castle. This was ONE slash from a Fire-Ruby blade. The unicorn that gave me it had his neck snapped by yours truly.” He put his sleeve down and placed his hoof on his chest as he was boasting.

He made his collar and went back to his speech, “After your training, you will be sent out to fight and conquer the enemy. You have all heard of the horrors of this war and I'm sure some of you have experienced what those bastards do to us!” He looked into Hopeful's eyes, before flicking them around the crowd more. “The weather they cause, the destruction of our homes and towns, the little food we can produce that they steal from us!” The commander started shouting. The general moved one step away trying to avoid his heartfelt and enraged swinging of his hooves.

“We will win this war, and, afterwards, we will regain control over the land that's rightfully ours!” He put his hoof up into the air. “What do you say!” Everypony in the room gave a salute to the commander and replied in unison “Sir, yes, sir!”

“Under Chancellor Puddinghead's command and me, Commander Righteous Glory, we will prevail and be victorious!” He slammed down his hoof, creating a booming noise that amplified what he said next. “DISMISSED!”

Glory took a breather and began discussing with the general privately. The ponies in the room scrambled around, trying to leave the briefing room. Hopeful got lost in the commotion and waited for everypony else to leave. Everyone else was gone and the door shut. Hopeful bit the handle and swung it open feeling somewhat stronger after that short rest. The door creaked and he saw a pony pushing against the wave of new recruits making their way to the sleeping quarters. An orange mare wearing traditional brown and white clothing worn by Earth ponies of high importance, She was covered in a layer of snow and had a feather in her pointy brown hat. The bottom half of her cutie mark of a cookie was visible from underneath her attire.

“Eh, excuse me, but is Commander Righteous Glory in there by any chance? I got a message from The Chancellor herself.” The mare spoke with a farmers accent about her. Hopeful stared at her a bit while she said, “I'm her secretary. The names Smart Cookie.” Hopeful brought his wits back to him “Oh, yeah, the commander is in here.” The mare slid past him saying, “Thank ya kindly.”

Hopeful went through the door, it slamming shut behind him making him jump, and walked down the hallway to where every other pony was going, trying to find the sleeping quarters. On his way down, he could hear his hoofsteps faintly echo through the hall, gunshots from a door in the distance. and coughing fits from another. There was chatter coming from the door the new recruits went down.

He stopped at that door and looked back to the briefing room. He whispered to himself, “I hope to the fucking heavens that this war ends soon.” and walked inside.