Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Found and Lost

It was like a drop of clean water falling over the murky contents of a basin, immediately spreading out over them and pushing the dirty aside. The sky cleared and so did the earth, the winds ceased. It started in the middle of the Empire, where the tower had been, and it spread out from there in a circular pattern. The Sun shone again down on the clear crystal ground, and metre by metre the clearing widened as the remaining storm swirled around it, weaker and weaker.

The ones closest to the centre saw it happen first, of course, but only as the clearing reached them. One moment they were walking through the storm, the next the air was clean, clear, their visibility suddenly only limited by the black and purple edges of the storm behind them and far ahead in front of them, retreating on both fronts. They were free to breathe again, free to see the destruction caused in its entirety.

Celestia's group, with Rainbow, Shining, and Cadence, was of the larger ones the one closest to the centre. Immediately, while everyone there looked around in surprise and relief, Celestia looked up to the sky and kept looking there, never taking her eyes away, waiting for something. She was rather glad that even without her magic she could stare almost directly at the Sun without much issue.

The storm kept clearing, and in doing so it revealed more than merely ponies and ruins. The soldiers who had been there in the city before the portals were cut off, what was left of them at least, were revealed as well. They did not last long under the sunlight, outside of the storm, separated from the source of their mutation. Disconnected from their communal layer of darkness, and with the magic that had created and directed them no longer there to keep them stable, they withered and melted in a short span of time.

One such creature happened to be near the group Pinkie and Firecracker were a part of. Far nearer than they would have been comfortable with had they known about it, gone unnoticed moving closer to them after the last time the pegasus in their company had checked around for any nearby presences.

They saw it as the clearing reached them. Standing not too long a distance away, they turned to it and watched it. It did not move any closer, it merely stood there, almost as if it was itself confused by its current situation. Almost like someone suddenly losing their footing, finding themself falling, that was what the mutated pony's expression and demeanour looked like. One pony in particular watched it, the unicorn who could have been like that had he not been saved, and it felt like the creature was looking back at him.

And the unicorn recognised the mutated pony, or he thought he did, and it felt like the mutated pony too recognised him back. It was clear it had been an earth pony before, likely broad and well built, the armour matched too. It could be. The unicorn did not have long to dwell on it. The creature crumbled, ichor and dust, as all others did sooner or later. The unicorn was left alone as the only surviving member of the enemy forces after the battle.

Comments

[Speckle]

Is....is it over?

[Saix]

So to recap:
This world's Applejack: afflicted with some kind of Behemoth induced freezing nightmare disease, currently a delirious comatose popsicle trapped inside her own freezing dream.
Human Applejack: bad break up, left her entire friend group behind, may or may not have fallen for someone she shouldn't have.
Pony Life Applejack: severe existential crisis.
Nightmare Moon world Applejack: turned into a monster, suffered terrible physical and mental pain the whole time afterwards, died via disintegration.

Applejacks in this story have it super rough. I'm half expecting human Rarity to have a relapse and snap and mow human Applejack down with her car in a drunken rage and Pony Life Applejack to trip through a portal and land directly beneath the Behemoth's foot when it takes it's next step and be squished without anyone ever knowing she was there.