A Different World: The Future and Fate of Equestria

by Riclo

Chapter 23 | Fighting Fury

The smaller mountains that surrounded us soon began to thin out the further we trekked. It was still cold, but the weather was noticeably not as unbearably freezing as it used to be - pretty soon I probably wouldn't need to wear such a cluster of jackets at once. The dark green grass appeared to slowly be getting brighter as we went on, as did our surroundings; the sun seemed like it was just starting to rise, coating our surroundings with a warm, inviting light. We appeared to be walking through what seemed to be a huge grassy field - there wasn't too much around here, and I took note of just how much open space there was. If things weren't so grim, this would be the perfect place to mess around in. During my previous exploration I never bothered to look this far up for some reason - I must've just never got around to it with Discord always distracting me.

For the moment, things seemed so serene and peaceful - nobody ever could've guessed that Princess Celestia had died no less then twenty-four hours ago at most. The ponies were no-doubt thinking about her, which was only confirmed when I heard Fluttershy's voice eventually speak up during our walk.

"Do you think the others know that she's gone?" She asked softly, catching our attention from the otherwise silent trip. "I'm worried about how Luna will react... she must've been so worried this whole time. I can't imagine how devastated she's going to be."

"Dear, it won't be just Luna." Rarity replied. "All of Equestria is going to be mourning her loss. I myself still cannot fathom such a thing ever happening... let alone being part of it. History has been made."

"I just wish there was something we could've done." Fluttershy responded. "It makes me feel so horrible. We lost both her and Rainbow Dash... wh-what if she was really close to us? We could have saved her if we looked harder."

"There's no point in thinkin' over what could've happened." Applejack spoke up. "It's over now, there ain't anything we can do. The only certainty is that Discord is a heartless, cold monster that deserves not a shred of sympathy from us, the remaining princesses, or anypony else in Equestria. He's a walking dead person."

"His days are numbered." I exclaimed, one of the few times I had spoken so far since this whole ordeal. From now on I wasn't going to prepare against Discord as just a side-part of my day - I was going to fully devote myself to killing this fucker for every hour of the day. I wasn't going to screw around until he was gone.

"I can't remember ever feeling this empty before." Pinkie Pie confessed. It was a bit hard to see, but it did seem like her mane wasn't as poofy as it usually was underneath her jacket. "I don't even feel like partying. That's never happened before! What's the point of doing anything if Celestia is dead? It's making me think about things I've never even thought about before and it's scaring me like crazy."

"It'll get better. I know that's hard to believe, but it will." Applejack replied. Even though I was sure she was right, I couldn't shake the feeling that this was only the very beginning - as if things were going to get much worse from here, and for such a long time that it would feel like it would never end. It wasn't a good feeling, and as I walked I began imagining a machine gun in my mind as a test. Still though, it wasn't working, which only made me more concerned over me and the others' protection - not being able to use magic would make things much harder. Just being able to make a vehicle to rush us all towards Canterlot would be hugely convenient.

'Why is it still not working? Are the tower's emissions really going that far? I know it's much bigger compared to the other ones, but we're pretty damn far away.' I exhaled and looked around. 'Discord did say that the other towers are back up too apparently... that would be alot of ground he's covering for disabling magic use. Is that what he's going for? He did seem to imply that they had something to do with opening up Tartarus too - I wonder what that was all about. Either way, once I get to my base through Canterlot these towers are fucked. That shit's already previously made, I wouldn't need to use magic for anything. That makes me wonder though - why didn't my clone shoot at the tower? Guess I'll find out when I get there; I'll have to use the video feeds there because that tablet I was using was knocked out of my hands when that avalanche happened, so that's buried on Mount Everhoof somewhere never to be seen again.'

Our trek continued for a short while in silence. So far it was just a bunch of walking, but that was soon about to change when I noticed grey-colored clouds off in the distance. I didn't think too much of it at first - maybe it was just rain - but as they got closer, I realized just how unnatural they were. The others seemed to notice it too, to which Pinkie Pie spoke up about it.

"Anyone else see those clouds?" She exclaimed. "I'm not getting a good feeling about them."

"Me neither." I replied. I gazed across the landscape with a stern look as we walked, to which I didn't spot anything at first. After only several seconds later though, I noticed something off in the distance, causing me to stop walking. It looked like a single bipedal creature running towards us, but although it was so far away, I could still tell it definitely looked nothing like a human - although maybe around the same height at least. It almost looked ridiculous how that one single creature seemed to be charging towards us. 'Da fuq?'

"I think I see something way off in the distance." Rarity spoke up. "Is that a.. Diamond Dog? But they wouldn't run in that kind of way, would they?"

"Yeah, it does look kinda weird!" Pinkie Pie replied. As it got closer, I noticed it appeared to be holding some type of wooden bludgeon - and that it was running straight for us. It's skin was a dark grey color and was fitted with an ancient looking fast-maneuverability armor. Spiked shoulder blades and dangling leather straps outfitted the rest of it, and I wasn't getting friendly impressions.

"It's here to kill us for sure." I spoke up as I reached for one of my G18s. I pulled it out and switched it to semi-auto, aiming down the sights and taking my time to aim since it was still at least over seventy yards away. When I was ready, I shot once, hearing the echo of the gunfire resonate across the grassy fields. I watched as the creature's sprint stumbled for a short time after the shot, so I fired the gun a few more times, continuing until it collapsed forward onto the ground. It was still too far away to accurately tell if it was dead, but I knew it wouldn't be a problem after all of that.

"You can kill things from that far away with a small one of those? Wow, they really are dangerous!" Pinkie Pie remarked.

"Good for us, bad for them." I lowered the gun, but as I expected, I saw more creatures heading towards us - I knew it didn't make any sense for there to just be one. They mostly looked like the bipedal creature I just killed, but a few of them looked more like over-mutilated horses and what I could only describe as some kind of raptor dinosaur. "We've got more of them."

"Is there really nothing else we can do to save ourselves?" Fluttershy inquired - she must not've liked all the death I kept causing.

"These creatures aren't friendly at all - no one runs around with a big wooden bat with the intention of being a nice guy." I answered. "If I were to guess, these are probably affects from Tartarus; if anything these guys are straight out of Tartarus."

"Well we can't fend them all off here." Applejack asserted, but then continued a short while later. "...Can we?"

I looked back towards the group of sprinting monsters. At the moment I could only see around fifteen of them. There easily could've been more, but even then, I doubted they would put up a hard fight against four pistols - two of which could be fully-automatic - a shotgun, a fuckton of ammo and a backpack filled with C4 explosives. I also felt pretty eager to let loose some rage: these past few days had been a sick joke of tormenting and snapping of my emotions. It felt like I hadn't done enough actual fighting as opposed to all the mental fighting that I was absolutely sick of.

"We can." I replied. "Duston might not be here, as well as alot of the others, but that doesn't mean they're not about to get fucked. Besides, they're in our way." I raised the pistol once again, regularly firing through the semi-auto mode as I took the time to aim in-between each shot. They clearly weren't prepared for this type of weaponry, and by the time the gun clicked empty, I had already picked off several of them. There were more coming into view as well, but that shouldn't have been a problem. I ejected the magazine and reached into my cluster of jackets, pulling one of the eight tall G18 magazines that I had strapped to the inner-jacket pockets of my leather jacket; there were four on each side, and each one had a little over thirty shots because they extended so damn far out of the bottom of the pistol. By the time I loaded it into the gun and cocked it, the monsters had gotten quite a bit closer, so I changed the firing mode to fully-automatic.

"I'd start getting ready." I stated as I took aim in the enemy's general direction. I sprayed in a horizontal line across the incoming adversaries, echoing out the high-pitched clattering of the machine pistol as I dropped quite a few of them at once. Afterwards I proceeded to fire short bursts at the closer enemies that were lucky to not get shot, taking them down until the gun clicked empty once again. I dropped the magazine and reached for another - loading, cocking - when the rattling of grass caught my attention. I only had enough time to look downwards when a large snake lunged out from within the sea of grass, hissing and then biting onto my leg.

"Fuck!" I kicked my leg, causing the animal to flail around - but it wasn't letting go. Tossing my gun to the side, I reached down and grabbed the little shit, ripping him off and then flinging it out of the way. Pinkie Pie then jumped and grabbed it in mid-air before fighting it afterwards. Looking back ahead of me, I saw one of the orc-creatures was only a few feet in-front of me, prompting me to rush forward and then jump. His large wooden stick slammed into my side right before I made contact, sending us both to the ground as I cursed out. I quickly scrambled to my feet before kicking him, dazing him momentarily as I took some steps backwards. He was pretty hasty to get back up, but it was just in time for me to pull out my other G18, spraying his body with over thirty bullet-holes as he fell deceased. 'Piece of shit.'

I ejected the magazine and took a quick glance around, watching Applejack battle against another orc. Her and Pinkie were the only ones doing any serious fighting, which was understandable considering the types of ponies Fluttershy and Rarity were. I breathed in deeply through clenched teeth as I loaded the pistol, returning it onto my holster before pulling out my Model 1887 from my back - it was game time.

I aimed and the first shot went out with a loud, distinctive bang, blowing the head off a rabid horse to which it steered and slumped to the grass afterwards. I cocked the lever and quickly took aim at the next creature, shooting and disrupting an entire chunk of his side. The lever clinked and the metal smoothly slid against each other as I fiercely kicked an approaching orc back a couple feet, aiming at him and then blowing his body apart with a close-range blast of death. Seeing as my position was rapidly getting over-run though, I opted to jump back to give myself some room, shooting once more at the closest approaching hostile. The blow was enough to damage both him and another that was behind him, and tossing the gun to my back, I speedily pulled out my G18 and sprayed directly towards all the approaching enemies. By the time the pistol had clicked empty, I had taken out the entire horde of goons that had attempted to overwhelm me.

I let the magazine fall to the ground as I pulled out another, taking the time to observe that Applejack was being over-run. Both Rarity and Pinkie had come in to try and help, but they were out-numbered and most likely out-performed solely because of the fact these monsters from Tartarus were battle-hardened compared to Equestrian Ponies. I rushed over and rammed right into a large clumped group of them, knocking them off balance while I took some steps backwards. The G18's spammy fire-rate wrecked havoc against the entire group, and I ejected the magazine upon emptying it, reaching and discovering I had already used up all the mags on that side of the jacket. I went for other side, but while I was caught off guard, and unseen orc rammed into my side and knocked me straight onto the ground. I rolled over and gazed up at the nasty creature from above, trying to kick him away but not having much success. I watched and held my arms up as I prepared myself for the incoming slam of his bludgeon, but before it could ever make contact, the orange color of Applejack's coat filled my vision as she bucked the hostile right off of me with her hind-legs.

"Are you alright Klade?" She asked as she reached a hoof to help me up. After a quick glance around to make sure nothing was approaching her while she was focused on me, I accepted her help, standing back to my feet.

"Yeah." I replied simply. Seeing I was okay, she went off to help the others, and I took a couple seconds to catch my breath - that was pretty rough. I reached towards the other side of my leather jacket, pulling out a mag and loading it into the pistol. I noticed the orc she had kicked wasn't quite dead yet - it was squirming and struggling on the grass - so I aimed and fired a short burst to finish it off. With that out of the way, I looked around again, taking note of the diminishing enemy count as I watched the others battling the remaining vermin. Changing the firing mode to semi-auto, I took careful aim, picking off what I could without risking any friendly fire. One beast that notably stood out was the raptor-dinosaur abomination that was currently slicing apart Rarity's mane, and seeing as it was a big guy, I opted for my Model 1887 for this one.

"Rarity, get out of there!" I yelled out as I began running towards them. She listened, wasting no time sprinting elsewhere, and with her out of the way, I took aim and fired at the creature. The gun's thundering bang was followed by the sound of blood and guts splattering all across the grass, and without much resistance, the hostile screeched and then collapsed. I cocked the lever of the shotgun with force, but left it open for the moment as I took a quick glance around. Most of the monsters had been defeated, and what wasn't dead was being finished off by the other ponies. Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed some shotgun shells, loading them one at a time - I had actually almost gone through all the seven shots that the gun could hold inside. By the time I was done, the others seemed to have noticed that the battle was mostly over, and after closing the lever, I returned the gun to my back.

"Is that all of them?" Pinkie Pie asked, turning her head in all directions in an almost comical way.

"Pretty much." I answered as I reached for my G18. I hadn't gone through all the bullets that were in the mag, leaving it at about a quarter full, which wasn't exactly something I wanted to leave it at. I took the mag out, putting it on the empty side of my jacket as I reloaded it with a fresh one. This left me with only two more as spares, plus the one that was a quarter full. The dead bodies of the monsters were completely littered all around us, and there was blood everywhere - it looked like a catastrophe had taken place here.

"Are you okay Rarity?" Applejack spoke up, taking note of the shaking, seemingly traumatized mare - but whether she was petrified from the events or because her mane was ripped up, I didn't know. My other G18 was still somewhere in this field after I had tossed it to deal with the snake, so I scanned across the grass as I walked around looking for it. I eventually did find it laying on the ground, and I picked it up, examining it and checking the magazine to see that it was still full.

"Hey, wait a minute. Where'd Fluttershy go?" Pinkie's voice rang out. I perked my head up, realizing that I hadn't really seen her since the battle started.

"She's probably hidin' somewhere." Applejack replied. "Fluttershy, it's okay now. We're done! The fight's over!"

I looked around more after Applejack's words - the pegasus' lack of a response was immediately concerning. I couldn't spot her hiding in the grass anywhere, but my looking was eventually interrupted by Pinkie's high-pitched voice.

"Hey, look, there she is!" She gasped. "Someone's got her!! Look way over there!" I turned, where far off in the distance I saw an orc running off with her carried on its back. I probably could've shot him from where I was, but Fluttershy was in the way - I would only end up hitting her.

"Come on, let's go!" I ordered as I returned the pistol to my other holster. The four of us went running after the orc as fast as we could, sprinting across the grassy plains and making our way around isolated trees and bushes. I noticed the foliage getting more potent as we continued, to which we eventually lost track of him as we turned and maneuvered our way through the thickening woods. The sound of rushing water was the next thing to resonate within our ears, and before long, the sight of a totally massive waterfall came into view. It ascended seemingly all the way up to the clouds as we took the time to marvel at it and the huge lake it was pouring into; a waterfall of that size must've been none other than Neighagra Falls. Unfortunately, we weren't here on a vacation.

"He's gotta be around here somewhere!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she panted to catch her breath. We searched the surrounding area, looking inside bushes and trees - anywhere possible that he could've been hiding, if he even was hiding. Things were starting to seem grim by the time we noticed a cave etched into the mountain the waterfall was pouring down from, where Applejack was the first to point it out.

"Look there, we got somethin' we can go inside." She exclaimed as we all turned our attention to it.

"Another cave?" I commented upon walking towards it.

"He probably ran in there!" Pinkie remarked.

"Probably." I responded, not sounding too excited about the thought that there was only a chance she was inside.

"Whatever those creatures are... if they're like Diamond Dogs, then maybe they would like caves too?" Rarity alluded. "Such a dark, gloomy place. I would know."

"I guess that's our best option then." I stated. "Let's go inside people." With that, the four of us went stepping inside in search of our companion Fluttershy.

Author's Note:

Best chapter. Almost didn't get this done in time despite it being two weeks - I've been sick and overall feeling like shit. The ending is probably rushed but who cares about that when you have several paragraphs of Klade fucking shit up.