In an Equestria devastated by an apocalyptic war, the few that remain try their best to survive or rebuild--however they can.
Three decades after the fall of the Equestrian society, the land is a frozen wasteland ruled by unfeeling, soulless creatures. Only a resistance led by the bravest of ponies has the power to make a stand and change the fate of Equestria's future. Locked in a bitter struggle for their very existence, the resistance will find that it is not only the future they fight for...
Written for the Equestria Daily "The More Most Dangerous Game" writing contest.
"We will fly again. One day, when this war is won, we will take back our rightful place amongst the clouds. I swear it in the name of my tribe and the memory of my princesses. We are pegasi, and we will claim our sky." -Oath of the Ranger
*****
A lone pony surveyed the village in the slight valley ahead, watchful eyes roaming from behind concealing goggles. The stallion, though it was difficult to be sure due to the many layers of heavy wools he wore, was the single mar in an unblemished world of white. Before him, a blanket of untouched snow stretched out as far as the eye could see, faintly glowing with light from the twinkle of stars above that peeked through patches in the thick, low-hanging layer of clouds promising of flurries to come. The wind and weather had crowned the silent little hamlet with weighty snowdrifts perched upon the sturdy yet straining wooden and thatched rooftops of the quaint cottages, scattered about in a disorganized jumble with weaving roads of hidden cobblestone carving out thin paths between the stout architecture. It was a picturesque view of peace and silence, one that felt as if it might be broken at any second by the townsponies waking with a song in their hearts and a spring to their steps.
It was almost enough to let the stallion forget that the world had ended.
A tremble ran through the frozen earth beneath his hooves, and a shrill keening sound from somewhere behind him snapped the stallion from his reverie. He flew down the hill as fast as his aching legs could take him, the burn from his muscles matching the chill of the bitter wind seeping into his hide. His unusual bounding gait took him through the piled snow with a practiced ease, clearing the shoulder-high drifts as if they were hurdles in a race. Within minutes, the stallion had cleared the village outskirts and passed on into the shadows of the inner city's narrow alleys, decrepit and weatherworn walls towering overhead. From this distance, the snow gave the village much less of an appearance of an unblemished sheet of paper. No longer a mask, the blinding white showed it's true form; the bleached bones of a long forgotten corpse.
This village wasn't sleeping. It was dead.
The telltale rumbling of the ground, strong enough to shake clumps off snow off the rooftops around him, was a grim reminder to the stallion that he would be next. He couldn't hear his pursuer anymore, the only thing he could hear over the howling of the wind as it cut through the streets was the hammering of his heart against his ribs, but he could feel it gaining ground. If he so much as slowed to catch his breath, the chase would be over and he would join the frozen bodies hidden within this village-shaped graveyard. His sides heaved, slick with sweat beneath his mottled grey-and-white camouflage parka, as he pushed his body beyond the breaking point. The burning in his legs had slowly been replaced by a worrying numbness, but he could not stop. Only unyielding determination, and a healthy dose of fear, kept him on his hooves and moving.
So focused was the stallion on staying upright that he nearly ran past his destination, his hurried halt gouging a furrow into the snow outside his target. Deep in the heart of the village lay one of the few buildings with more than two floors, a fanciful tower of only six stories that still stood out like a beacon in the diminutive rural village. Curved walls formed the base, rising into a mushroom-shaped dome that ended in a single-room pointed cap with a flagless pole jutting tenaciously into the overcast sky. The entrance of sub-skyscraper was a set of tall double-doors of a heavy wood ornately carved. The stallion threw himself against them but they refused to budge, save for a tired groan echoed by the weary pony. Abandoning the doors, he clambered instead up a snowbank that had, with weight and time, shattered its way through one of the many arching glass windows adorning the structure.
Within, the omnipresent howling of the skies was muted to a low moan, broken only by the ragged gasps of the winded stallion. The already-dim starlight strained to illuminate through the few windows remaining, smudged as they were from untold years of neglect. The stallion's every shaky step kicked up clouds of dust in his wake that would have threatened his already labored breaths were it not for a frayed scarf that covered his muzzle. Other than the pervasive snow pushing its way in, the two-story chamber that stretched from wall to wall was entirely empty. The scarf twitched ever so slightly, as if from a smile beneath, but it was a ghost of a thing that vanished as another tremor in the ground dropped sprinkles of dust from the rafters. Spurred into action, the stallion ran to a massive column aligned along the outer wall, uncovering his muzzle to dig within the folds of his winter coat with his teeth for a nondescript package. Its earth-colored wrapping crinkled slightly as he set it down as gently as possible next to the wooden strut, only to move to the next pillar.
Three more columns and three more packages he'd set down before a bone-wrenching crash brought his preparations to a sudden halt. Something of massive size slammed into the barred doors with such force that they flew off their hinges, splinters and dust billowing outward to hide the intruder's enormous form. Two pale blue orbs peered out of the obscuring maelstrom with an ethereal light, setting the stallion's teeth to involuntary chattering. Abandoning the last package, the stallion sprinted towards the wall, fractions of a second before shards of ice thicker than the pony's hoof speared the air in his wake. Clenching his teeth, the stallion leapt through the nearest grime-covered window, shards of glass slicing but not completely penetrating his woolen overcoat. He tumbled into the snow, righted himself with a frantic pace, and kept on bolting across the empty square dividing the town hall from the city proper.
The monster did not even slow, crashing through the wall like tissue paper in its pursuit, and the stallion at last risked a glance back at the beast relentlessly hunting him. It was far larger than he was, easily ten times so, with a thick-bodied thorax of hardened carapace as black as coal that stood suspended off the ground by six segmented legs. Its torso swept upwards, with clawed mandibles like the arms of a bear ending in jagged pincers that held more than enough power to crush a pony like a twig, and indeed the stallion had seen them used far too often to that effect. Its armored tail arched over its body, ending with a wickedly curved stinger that glowed a deep blue with the presence of magic. Much more terrifying than its weapons, at least in the stallion's opinion, was the head that rested upon its horrific, arachnid frame; a pony head, or at least a twisted caricature of one. It was as if some malevolent god had taken the skull of a pony and animated it without muscle or flesh or skin. Only burning blue eyes rested in that skull, eyes devoid of empathy or emotion. Eyes that stared out at the world and sought only its destruction. Eyes that stared into the stallion’s very soul, withering the pony’s will underneath its searing gaze, turning his blood to ice in his veins.
The stallions shuddered as he came to a stop, turning to the unfeeling predator that sought his life. Already, magical missiles of frost formed around its tail, their gleaming points ready to seek his beating heart. It would stop at nothing to kill him, to kill everypony he ever knew or loved. It demanded nothing less than his extinction.
With a hoof-click of a remote in his pocket, he refused. The miniature explosives around the base of the tower detonated, their localized blasts destroying only the supporting beams on this side of the building that held it aloft. Six stories of wood and stone came crashing down atop the monster in a controlled collapse, flattening even its iron hide through sheer unstoppable force. A cloud of dust rose from the wreckage, only to be swiftly carried away by the howling winds. A trail of blood filtered through the rubble, coloring the snow a sickly green at the pony’s hooves.
“Rest in pieces,” the stallion muttered as he trotted away from the impromptu grave. He made his way out of the village, sticking to the shadows despite the low ambient light. As he left, he gave a sign a passing glance and a mournful nod. Declaring the town’s name for all to see, it had once been brightly painted and cheerful. However, just like what few of its citizens had survived, the sign had faded with time and weather until the name was only barely legible. “Sorry, Ponyville. Looks like you’ll need a new town hall.”
“Children, gather round! No, no, don’t cry. The soldiers will keep us safe. Don’t listen to the noises out there, just listen to my voice, okay? Would you all like to hear a story about the princesses? Princess Celestia was a beautiful pony, with wings like a pegasus and a horn like a unicorn! Every day, she would raise the sun up in the sky. What’s that? What is the sun? Well...” -Matron Goodheart, acting Headmistress of the New Fillydelphia Orphanage
*****
“Halt!” A female voice called out from the darkness, unsteady and on edge. “Do not move, hooves on the ground! Anything glows and I shoot!”
“Calm down, Lemma.” The stallion shook his head-gently, so as to avoid having a bullet put through it- and let his hood fall back, the beaten old scarf slipping down from his muzzle to around his neck. A light flared into existence, its brilliant light such a shock from the clouded twilight that it almost burned. The light angled down upon him, illuminating a poor excuse for a pony. Features that would never have been considered handsome under the best of circumstances were gaunt and weary. Bloodshot orange eyes with dark bags underneath were narrowed to mere slits at the harsh glare. Half of his left ear was missing entirely. His russet-colored coat was matted against his hide from mud and sweat, scarred and patchy in places from injuries both old and new. His straw-blonde mane was kept short, hacked away inelegantly with a combat knife, and a week’s worth of stubble the same color decorated his muzzle. It was a face only a mother could love, though mothers were a rarity these days. The rest of him remained hidden beneath a hooded parka and durable pair of pants, once considered a fashion faux pas and now a necessity against the frigid winds.
“...Reese?” The guard asked from somewhere above him. “You’re still alive?”
“Unless you’re planning on letting me freeze to death out here.” The winds were already jabbing needles into his exposed ears. “You mind getting that light off me while I still have eyes?”
“You know the drill, Sergeant,” came a new voice on his level, this one much older and sure of herself. Hoofsteps crunched in the snow just outside the circle of light, but blinded as he was there was no way of knowing just what was out there. “Everypony gets checked.”
Reese flinched but held absolutely still underneath the glaring light. A snuffling sound reached his ears before the second voice called out at last, “Squads, back on patrol. He’s clear.”
The light overhead died and Reese shook his head, blinking away the stars that had burned their way beneath his eyelids. Before him stood a ruin, the remains of which still managed to stretch up into the sky. It was a multi-leveled fortress of stone and crystal, reminiscent of a treehouse of titanic proportions. A veritable castle nestled within its branches, though large sections of the castle had been torn away and scattered across the nearby hills. The tree itself was in decent condition and now proudly, if quietly, housed the baker’s dozen of soldiers that surrounded him, the vast majority of them trotting with purpose away from the base.
“Ryder's never wrong about these things.” A war-torn, elderly pegasus mare in heavy armor emblazoned with draconic designs marched over to him in a precise, clipped gait, with an equally old hound following faithfully at her heels. She reached out with a wing turned grey from too much stress and too many years and she patted him on the neck like a doting grandmother. “You're late. Welcome home, Reese.” Her momentary warmth faltered as she glanced over his shoulder with an unspoken question. The look in her eyes hardened even before Reese answered.
“Marigold and Tough Cookie didn’t make it, Colonel Jiffy.” Reese spoke hollowly, too drained to summon up anger or sorrow. The words came easily, a familiar rote that he recited mechanically. “We were returning from the mission when we were ambushed by an unmapped Scorp nest at the mountain’s base. The Specialists were KIA.”
The mare aged another year before Reese’s very eyes, her head sagging from the weight of her studded plate helm. “Another two of the old Guard gone.” Jiffy drew herself back up to standing attention, the position so far ingrained into her very nature that no amount of time could dull it. “Did they complete their mission?”
Reese rifled through his pockets and produced a dog-eared tome, pages covered in incomprehensible scribbles peeking out from behind the blood-splattered cover. “Everything we learned,” he mumbled through the mouthful.
“Then they didn’t die in vain,” she said as she took the journal almost reverently with her outstretched wing, turning back to the oversized fortress door to rap sharply on it with an armored hoof. The cumbersome door slid open with the sound of rock grating against rock, barely wide enough for a single pony to pass through, and the warm glow of small campfires spilled out over the snowy wastes. The colonel squeezed through with a surprising grace, with Reese and her hound following swiftly after.
The ground floor of the crystal tree was packed with ponies, though it could hardly have been said to be bustling with activity. Only the gravelly rumble of the door sealing shut at his back, and the muffled grunts of the guards straining against halters hitched to the gate’s rusted handles, broke the subdued silence. The ponies here were refugees, freed prisoners, or volunteers, bringing with them only their families and the clothes on their backs. All showed the scars of constant suffering, and their weariness made them look older than their years. Few were older than twenty, and the small hoof-full that could claim to have seen a time without war were the ones with the most haunted eyes. They huddled around carefully maintained fires, staring into the flames with a distant gaze.
“We’ll have the brains study your findings. I’m sure Cantare will want to debrief you soon.” Colonel Jiffy made her way through the herd to a guarded set of stairs leading higher into the castle proper before turning to address Reese again. “For now... get some rest, Sergeant. You’ve earned it.”
Reese saluted as his superior officer disappeared deeper into the fortress before moving away to claim his own secluded corner of the former castle that was well on its way to becoming a condensed slums. He picked out a spot with a modest pile of refuse that didn’t offend his nostrils too badly, or at least didn’t curl his nose hairs, and also managed to block some of the brightness from the sputtering trashfires. The one nearest to him let off more smoke than flames, which suited his twilight-adapted eyes just fine. The temperature was still frigid, as whatever stone or crystal the castle was built of had absorbed the eternal winter’s chill and sapped the heat straight out of a pony’s hooves, but the air was still warmer than the unforgiving winds outside. Reese wiggled his way out of his heavy thermal parka and the matching fur-lined snowpants, brushing away broken bits of glass and splinters of wood that had dug their way into the sturdy fabric. Beneath the defense against the ravages of weather, he wore defense of a more practical kind; a worn, full-body vest woven with metal plates that stretched down the length of his back, wrapping around to cover his barrel but hanging off the sides of his legs to keep his movement unrestricted. What color the vest might have been originally was a mystery, as it had been permanently stained the color of muddy water speckled with deeper reds of dried blood. As uncomfortable as the vest appeared, Reese made no move to shed it as he had the coat, wearing his armor as if it were a second skin. He did eventually resign himself to emptying its many pockets, carefully setting out the remaining home-made bombs with care. The last item he held with even more tenderness than the explosives.
It was a photograph, the colors faded and the edges yellow with age, of a young mare gazing into the frame with mournful, baby blue eyes. Her coat was the tawny gold of a proud lioness. A cloth headband struggled in vain to hold back the wild strands of her hazel mane. She didn’t smile- if anything, she looked a little sad. Even so, she held herself up with such strength, such solemn intensity, that Reese couldn’t look away.
“The legendary warrior returns,” came a taunting but friendly call from behind him, breaking the spell. “Hey, cute broad.”
Reese slipped the photo back into his vest, turning back to his explosive maintenance with rushed but precise movements, all but ignoring the stallion at his back. “You need something, Duskin?”
“Hey, no need to get defensive.” A midnight blue pegasus slid up beside him, forehooves held up in surrender. He was similarly armored and battleworn, with a gaunt frame and stumpy wings that barely looked capable of holding aloft a songbird, much less a pony. Duskin’s words were every bit as blunt. “I’m not dumb enough to go after any mare of yours. You hear the rumors going around the patrols yet?”
“They say he took out a dozen frost queens with a single grenade,” said a unicorn mare with a voice that had no right to be that airy and sweet as she drew up on his right, effectively boxing him in. Even in the comparably warmer clime, she was bundled in so many layers that she was nearly as wide as she was tall, with only the tip of her cream-colored muzzle and horn peeking out from her hood.
"It was one hunter drone, Lemma, and I had remotes."
"What, those piddly little pipe bombs for a Scorp?" Just enough of the mare's lavender eyes were visible to see her eyebrows rise. "You'd need a bunker buster to crack that shell. Might as well have swatted it with a rolled-up paper."
"I dropped a building on it." At Lemma's smirk, Reese reluctantly added, "I was out of paper."
“That's it?" Duskin sighed like a pre-war child who'd just unwrapped socks for his Hearth's Warming present. "And here I heard it was an entire swarm you slew, mister fearless leader, with nothing but a firecracker and a frown.”
"Wouldn't surprise me with a scowl like his." Lemma squeezed the increasingly exasperated sergeant's cheeks with her front hooves as if she were kneading dough to the encouraging snickers of her pegasi comrade-in-arms. "If our dear, sweet Reese's Pieces ever smiled, I'd know to shoot him for being a bug."
"And that," Reese grunted as he extricated himself from the grasp of a mare with no concept of personal space, primarily with a shove that left her sprawling to get back on her hooves like an upside-down turtle with a quilted camouflage shell, "would worry me if I didn't know you could shoot at the ground and still miss the snow."
"Ouch, cruel." Duskin winced at Lemma's predicament, though he chose to stand back and watch her flailing rather than lend a hoof. "You don't have to go for blood just because you aren't fond of the nickname, boss. I think it's kinda fitting, myself."
"Yeah!" Lemma chimed in after finally managing to roll over. "How's a colt get a cutie mark shaped like an explosion, anyhow?"
"Oh, you know how it is," Reese said as he nonchalantly waved the question away, "kids running down a shelter hall, not looking where they're going, and they run right into each other. Next thing you know, it's 'hey, you got your ammonia and moth balls in my peanut butter!' And the other says, 'hey, you got your peanut butter in my ammonia and moth balls!' And one little boom later, you're waiting for your eyebrows to grow back."
"Somehow, I'm guessing you were the one with the ammonia," Lemma deadpanned before brightening. "Ooh, but that reminds me..." With a shimmering aura the color of honey, the many coats entombing the mare shift and loosen, peeling away like the rings of an onion to orbit nearby in her magical grip. For a moment, her emaciated, malnourished frame of little more than skin and bones was left shivering with only a single inner thermal jacket, the formerly inaccessible pockets of which she pilfered to extract a collection of bags before armoring herself against the cold once more. "I stumbled into the motherlode on my last patrol; a pre-war shop that still had nuts in it!" Duskin watched the floating bags with a raised eyebrow and an unspoken question, one which Lemma answered with a pout. "Yeah, yeah, nuts gone bad taste like rocks soaked in ass sweat, but these are different! Look, see? I baked them into cookies."
"I don't know what I find scarier... Lemma being generous with food, or Lemma trying to bake." Duskin opened his mouth for another snarky comment, only to be silenced by a force-fed object somewhat resembling a biscuit.
"Shut up and chew, test subject! Got to figure out if any of these are fit for pony consumption." A maniacal grin came over her face as her first victim fell choking to the ground, and the flickering campfire light ominously shaded her face as she turned towards Reese. "Your turn, Sarge."
"Survived the Scorp only to fall here..." Reese sighed heavily, his head sagging and listless. "Is this the end for me?"
"Aww, don't be sad. Here, I'll let you pick your poison." Lemma squinted at the individual bags. Various baked goods of questionable quality came floating out for an impromptu sales pitch. "We got... Buckeyes, they don't look so bad. Um, let's see, got some pecan balls here. I'm real proud of how almost ball-shaped those are. These are... brownies? I think? Well, they're brownish, at least. Ooh! And macaroons! Your choice, Reese, which'll it be? Reese? ...Sarge?"
"C'mon, Lemma, let's go try your treats out on Ryder." A recovered Duskin had quietly risen from the floor to cut in and guide the unicorn away with a stunted wing, his voice cheerful despite a deeply furrowed brow. "That old hound's got an iron stomach."
Lemma tried to cast a glance back over her shoulder, but the dozens of coats barely allowed her to move her neck. Her voice trailed off as she was led away. "Is he allergic or something? I get the feeling he didn't much like the..."
"I don't give two frozen horseapples what Command says! The minute we leave a pony behind is the minute we're no better than those bug bastards! Now we're going back in there and we're gonna get our colts back! Who's with me?!" -Last known words of General Solar Charger, Fall of Vanhoover
*****
"Macaroon?" Reese set one foreleg comfortingly on the mare's shoulder. She was a waif of a pony, small and delicate, with almond-shaped, brown eyes opened wide and unfocused. He could feel the chill from her skin through his pale grey and lovingly maintained uniform. She wore nothing, her tan coat exposed to the elements. "Is that what you said? Is that your name?"
She turned her head towards him slowly, replying only after a lengthy pause, as if she'd forgotten how to speak. "Yes. Macaroon is my name," she said flatly. It was a far cry from most of the other ponies he and his squad had been herding for the past hour. Screaming and weeping were the two most popular answers, though this mare's lack of response was possibly more worrying.
"Well, don't you worry, Macaroon. We're going to get you to safety." A few quick waves caught another soldier's attention, and the young recruit trotted over and threw a quick salute. "Private, get this mare to the bunker and make sure she's seen to. She's in shock and I wouldn't be surprised if she was half frozen to death."
"Wait," she cut in before the younger stallion could lead her away. "Please. My daughter. She's still in there. You have to find her. Please."
"Don't worry, miss," Reese said and gave her his best reassuring smile, with as much confidence as he could summon. "We'll find her."
The smile lasted for as long as it took the mare to join the column of other bedraggled, pitiable-looking ponies hiding in the shadow of the collapsed husk of a former skyscraper. The skies above the downtown wasteland were almost clear for once, offering a clear view of the snow-filled streets, though billowing trails of smoke from deeper within the city were already threatening to mask the starlight once more. From this distance, Reese could just barely make out the orange flames lapping at the resin walls of green ichor and shit-colored biomass that formed the honeycomb structure of the hive. It had been a hard-earned victory; the snow lead up to the hive had been stained red as well as green, and more than a few of the new mounds in the street had recently been ponies under his command. A sharp whistle rallied the survivors around him.
"Listen up!" Reese took his place at the head of his gathered forces, a paltry fifteen ragtag ponies in scavenged gear and lacking anything other than fighting spirit. "You did good out there, but it's not over yet." He tossed his head back, indicating the column of freed captives, whimpering and shivering in the wind. "Third squad, you need to get these ponies back to base safe and sound. I don't think I need to tell anypony how stressful it is being kept as a live lunch." A few affirmative grunts passed through the soldiers, especially those with their own scars of former captivity. "You know the drill. Hide your tracks, don't get spotted. This is our fourth hive hit, so we're bound to have earned a little bug infamy." That drew a few cocky grins and one muffled cheer. "Now, it seems like we missed one of the bugs' snacks, so First and Second squads are with me."
"We're going back, sir?" A pegasus wearing a helmet two sizes too large asked.
"That's right, Duffo. There's a filly out there and we're gonna find her. You got something to say?" Reese waited as Duffo shifted from side to side, glancing at his fellow soldiers and then to his hooves. "Speak your mind, private. I don't bite for questions so long as nothing's shooting at us."
"Well, it's just that... you know she's gonna be dead already, right, sir?"
An uncomfortable silence fell. Reese spared a glance back at the former prisoner ponies. They could hardly be called civilians, since all ponies were prey for the bugs and therefore automatically part of the resistance by dint of their continued breathing, but they were far from warriors. At last he spoke again, addressing the newest charges under his protection as much as the soldiers under his command. "Could be. Or she could be fighting for her life right now. Against the cold, against the hunger, against the bugs--the only way any of us are gonna keep on living is if we fight for it. And if that's the case, if she's got the guts to hold on with everything she's got, I'm damn well gonna give her the opportunity. She deserves a chance, Private. Same as us." There were no cheers for this speech, somber as it was, but neither were there any additional ponies stepping up to question his orders. "We're wasting time. Third squad, get a move on. First and Second, fan out. Watch for stragglers or anything with more than four legs that's still twitching."
Reese's soldiers moved out like a well-oiled machine, slipping from cover to cover with fluid grace as they made their way through long since burnt-out shops and barricaded offices with paperwork scattered across the dusty carpets as if the building had been frozen in time. Closer and closer, they approached the flaming hive with an ever rising caution. Twice, Reese heard the sharp crack of a pegasi's lightning followed swiftly by a curt 'all clear' from the scouts. Unicorns worked in tandem to shift piles of concrete and rebar debris to open new paths. The acrid stench of burning resin wafted through the air as they neared the remains of the hive and Reese found himself on edge, tensions rising as his imagination wrought thousands of skittering legs in the murky darkness outside the reach of the starlight. His left forehoof came to rest on the cool steel barrel of his personal party cannon. Coincidentally strapped to his own cannon--the section of the leg from knee to fetlock--the thin tube spewed death without need for complicated magic. Simply pointing it towards the murky darkness of the abandoned commercial district was enough to calm his mind. Reese's eyes narrowed as he surveyed the silent streets, catching a hint of movement within the gloom that was most certainly not the work of an overactive mind.
"Luxi," he hissed over his shoulder, neither blinking nor turning away. There was a soft crunch of snow as a pony made her way to his side. "Give me a searchlight." There was a ruby glow in the corner of his eye as the mare cast her spell, conjuring up a focused beam of light that cut through the darkness like a knife. She let it pan slowly across the wastes, revealing a forest of grey pillars that was the foundation of a multi-floor parking garage. Sagging wrecks of decayed wagons still sat faithfully in their assigned lots, save for the far corner where a failed buttress had brought the second story crashing down upon the first. Twisted girders and pony-sized slabs of fallen concrete formed a bird's nest of rubble, and a flash of reflected light glared out at Reese from a crevasse within the mound as the unicorn's beam passed over it. "There. Gather up the others, Private."
"Aye, Sarge." Luxi let her spell fade and cantered away. Alone, Reese walked inside the parking garage with slow, deliberate strides. Snow gave way to cement floors the further he traveled away from the open sky, and his hoofsteps echoed impossibly loud. No more than five feet from the pile of rubble, a trembling voice paused him in mid-step.
"...are you a monster?"
"No, ma'am." Reese sat back on his haunches, pointing away from the filly's hiding spot while keeping it just within his peripheral vision. "My name is Reese. What's yours?"
After a prolonged silence, either the filly's loneliness or curiosity won out and she spoke once more. "Kora. Are you sure you're not a monster?"
"Pretty sure. I fight the monsters."
"You can't fight them," the filly shot back. "Nobody can fight them."
"That's what I used to think, too." Reese sighed heavily. "I used to run and hide and hope the monsters wouldn't find me. That they'd go away."
"They never go away." Reese could barely make out her voice over the gusts of wind outside, so silent and sorrowful the girl was.
"No," agreed Reese, his voice hardening. "Not unless we make them. We thought nobody could fight the monsters, but we were wrong. One pony stood up against them. When we were scared and hiding, he fought the monsters and saved us. He taught us they could be beaten. He taught us how to fight and how to win. He taught us that we didn't have to be scared anymore."
"He saved you?" Kora poked her olive green head out from under her concrete fortress, looking up at Reese with doey eyes. He held a hoof to his heart and nodded solemnly.
"Yes, ma'am, he did. May my tail freeze off if I'm lying."
"Then..." She crawled out into the open, covered in rags and dirt and filth. She shook like a leaf and a slight breeze might well have bowled her over, but there was a sharpness in her eyes that looked foreign when compared to her tear-stained cheeks. "Do you think he could save me?"
"Kora," Reese said as he removed his coat and draped it over her shoulders like a blanket, "I truly believe Don Cantare will save us all." He lifted the cocooned filly up to rest between his shoulderblades. "Now let's get out of here. Your mom is waiting."
"But mommy's gone." Kora sniffled into his neck, her reply muffled by the coat and her own held-back tears. "The monster took her away."
"...What did you say?" Reese wished that the ice that had just gripped his heart had anything to do with the chill of stepping back outside into the wind. Whatever the filly's response was, it was lost over the shout and galloping hoofsteps of his inbound soldiers.
"Sarge! We got trouble!" Luxi called and she slid to a stop, another armored earth pony at her heels. "You're gonna need to see this."
"Take her." Reese lifted the filly onto the back of his fellow soldier before dashing after Luxi. She led him less than a block away, through the smashed glass double-doors of a once-fine hotel and down a corridor decorated with a slick trail of frozen blood. There, inside one of the rooms, lay the body of a familiar tan mare. Her neck was bent at an unnatural angle, the bones snapped like twigs, and her almond eyes were bloodshot and bulging. Reese swallowed hard, turning to Luxi with a face as pale as the snow. "...We need to get back. Get everybody back to base. Now!"
Never before had he run so far or so fast. The landscape blurred in his eyes as Reese and his squads fled as if demons were nipping at their heels. Hiding their tracks no longer mattered, nor did slinking from cover to cover like a thief in the night. They galloped down endless streets like a stampede, barreling past empty checkpoints and deserted guardposts. Tucked away into a street corner, an unassuming arch marked the stairway leading down into the Sixth and Pinecone subway station. Reese leapt down the steps and into the all-consuming darkness of the underground, charging unerringly forward until he collided with a heavy steel door; a recent construction in the long-abandoned railways. He threw himself against the door, pushing against some unseen obstruction to knock it open, and stumbled dazedly into the harsh orange-tinted glow of refurbished electric lights.
His first step landed his hoof in a puddle. His second nearly tripped him on a pile of bodies, their limbs outstretched to the door and gaping wounds in their backs. Blood coated the gate where the ponies had uselessly beaten against the steel with their bare hooves for freedom. It soaked the tiles where they had fallen in huddled masses of friends and families. It caked the fur of the abomination before him, a vision of death rendered in the form of a pony. Some defiant soldier had struck a lucky blow, leaving the right half of the would-be mare's face a sodden mess of waxy flesh. Skin hung in tatters off an exoskeleton of midnight black, exposing an empty socket burning with blue flame.
Reese opened his mouth to shout out an order, but he couldn't draw the breath. A curious numbness overtook his mind and the sergeant fell to his knees. He dimly looked downward, wondering why his legs were no longer following orders, the traitorous limbs, but he couldn't see past the spear of ice embedded in his chest. Somepony was screaming in his ears, but their words were blurring together until he could only hear the howling of the wind. Fire, lightning, and ice flew past him as the elements waged war against each other, but Reese couldn't bring himself to care. He was tired. So tired. His eyelids were heavy, and his vision--that had somehow turned vertical--was darkening to a welcoming black. All he could see was a single blue light from a flame that danced in his mind. As he watched, the fire grew into a maleficent eye, great and terrible, and the darkness was no longer a welcoming embrace but a void that chilled his very soul. He cried out in terror, unable to escape the fire's gaze, with nowhere to run as the fire spread into a conflagration that overtook him, consuming the pony until he was nothing but ash and a fading scream.
“The Fall brought eternal winter, and when the seasons stopped changing and the sun stopped rising, years didn’t have much of a meaning as a word no more. A pony was a foal when she could only hide, a filly when she could run and hide, and a mare when she grew strong enough to to run, hide, and fight. Older than that... well, nobody lived long enough for that to be a problem.” -Granny Glasses, Memoirs of a War Horse
*****
"Sergeant."
Reese jerked awake, heart hammering as if he'd just run a marathon. He struggled to his hooves, wiping sweat from his brow and fatigue from his eyes. Jiffy was standing before him with an impassive expression, clearly the one who'd waken him from his troubled dreams. He couldn't be sure when he'd dozed off or for how long, but it must have been hours judging by how the other ponies in the tree castle's ground floor were packing up their belongings. The chamber was a hectic scene of organized chaos as soldiers and families made their final preparations for facing the grueling conditions outside. The only two who had yet to join the medley were Reese and the Colonel. He raised his hoof for a salute, but she waved it away.
"I hope you slept well, Sergeant. Cantare's ready for you."
"Yes, ma'am," Reese muttered as he fell in behind the colonel. She led him up a flight of stairs, past pegasi guards wielding thundersticks and earth ponies armed to the teeth with party cannons of calibers that could punch a hole through galvanized steel. Some, like Reese, were dressed in camouflage and thin vests for protection. Occasionally, one or two would be armored much like Jiffy, wearing heavy sets of pre-war platemail--relics of a past age. Riley and a fellow dog awaited them at the final checkpoint, the hounds dutifully sniffing at the hooves of the pony intruders before sitting back, apparently satisfied. As they left the dogs behind, Reese and Jiffy moved into a winding, ascending hallway of magnificent stained glass windows. Through manufacture or magic, time had yet to dull the vibrant colors or even dim its sparkle. Reese stared in awe, his jaw dropping at the kaleidoscope of colors bathing the hallway.
“What is this place?”
“A castle that once belonged to a princess before the Fall.” Reese had slowed to gawk at a scene depicting brilliantly colored ponies of every race caught in moments of heroic deeds. Others were of fantastical beasts or monstrous foes. He tore himself away to trot back to the colonel’s side as she continued her spartan explanation. “She was known to value knowledge, so we came here looking for information.”
“What happened to her?” Reese asked as they came to a stop in front of a simple wooden door. To either side, the windows held dark images of alicorns in flight casting beams of many hues at an insidious figure of shimmering black and neon green while snowflakes decorated the borders.
“Nopony knows.” Jiffy glanced up at the relief of the black and green alicorn and she knocked on the door with a heavy thud of her armored horseshoe. “The last record we have of the princesses is their magical banishing of the Changeling race after the second invasion.”
“Changelings. You mean the bugs, right?”
“Not as such, no.” It wasn’t the colonel who answered, but a new voice who spoke in a rich and soothing baritone as the door opened wide. There stood a stallion, haggard and weary but stocky and solid. His physical features were bland; warm, earth-colored coat and similarly dull mane cut short and brushed back. His face was heavily scarred, with deep gouges in his cheek and scalp, and though he would never be called handsome, he held a rugged confidence that drew others like a magnet. His cutie mark was a microphone, hardly what one might expect from a battle-hardened leader, but the iron look in his ashen eyes put a sudden stop to any doubts of his capability. Don Cantare spoke with an air of wisdom, as if he were sharing the secrets of the universe. “Changelings, dangerous pests though they were, still had emotions. They had empathy, though they chose to ignore it, and thus were sent from the realm.”
He ushered the two inside his sanctum, a small library that would have put entire universities to shame with its accumulated wealth of texts. An ornate desk decorated the center of the room, piled high with tomes, and a fireplace crackled merrily on the far end. Other than the three soldiers, the only soul within was a withered old bespectacled unicorn of deep blue, huddled next to the fire with a gaudy magician’s robe wrapped around his shoulders.
“The princesses kicked those tricksters out by their rumps, exiling them to the far north.” Jiffy continued the story as she took a place by the center table, with the unnamed unicorn moving to sit across from her and the leader of the resistance at the table’s head. “But they didn’t stay exiled. And when they came back, they were... different. Horrible.”
“Whatever they encountered in the Frozen North transformed them into unfeeling predators.” The unicorn stallion spoke up with the monotone drone one might expect from a school math teacher taking roll call. “Unfeeling, but not unthinking, for when they struck it was with sudden and overwhelming force against the only foes who could stand against them.”
“The princesses.” Jiffy touched a hoof to her skull and each shoulderblade. “Canterlot and our allies to the north were turned to blocks of ice overnight. The ponies there never stood a chance, may they rest in peace.”
“But Changelings or not, they’re not unbeatable.” Reese said with a scowl.
“No.” Don gave a fleeting smile. “No, they’re not. We’ve fought them tirelessly, relentlessly, for the sun knows how many years.” He ran a hoof across an unfurled map that lay prominently on the table. Former cities and current shelters dotted the page, with many locations crossed out in red. “We’ve gathered our own into an army and cleansed our cities of their hives with fire and blood.” Don turned away from the table, peering into the hungry light of the fireplace. “And now, at long last, we have a chance to strike at their beating heart.”
“Our scouts report an unusual bug structure in the center of Old Canterlot.” Colonel Jiffy’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “If Jargon here’s research is correct, this may be their communication center, what we’ve taken to calling the Skyweb.”
“Imagine, if you would, every drone mind suddenly cut off from the collective,” Jargon said, appraising the Sergeant as if he were grading responses. “No longer could their soldiers move as one. No longer could their workers maintain the hives. Queens would lose control of their hives.”
“It would be the end,” Reese spoke in awe. “One victory would win us the entire war. It... it would be over.”
“Indeed. In scant hours, we will be fighting the most important battle of our lives, perhaps even our species’ existence. Which brings us to you, Sergeant Reese.” Don returned to the table, steepling his hooves. “You are the finest soldier I have in my command. Your record is exemplary, and your dedication second to none. I trust no other pony as implicitly as I do you.”
Reese’s chest puffed out, and he held his head high. “I won’t let you down, sir.”
“I know you won’t. That’s why you won’t be there.”
Reese nearly fell over, hiding his confusion and hurt behind clenched teeth. “Sir? Is there a reason why I won‘t be joining the battle?”
Don’s answer was to slide a book across the table. Reese needed only a single glance. “That’s Cookie’s journal.” He could still taste the blood from the cover, when she’d chosen to save it rather than herself.
“Jargon’s deciphered her notes for us regarding your last scouting mission. It seems the bugs understand their plight and are developing a defense.”
“Ah, yes, you see,” the unicorn cleared his throat, taking a deep breath, “the location and apparatus she describes make it quite clear that the royal sect have taken a great interest in recently rebuilding the Starswirl the Bearded section of the library. These spell matrices here, for exampl-
“Jargon says they’re making a time travel spell.” Jiffy cut off the diatribe, receiving a scathing look from the scholar.
“...Indeed. Though the energy required for such a spell rises exponentially as the volume of the matter displ-”
“And they can only send one drone through it, most likely an infiltrator.”
Reese tapped at his chin, his eyes on the journal but his mind a thousand miles, and years, away. At last, he shook his head in disgust. “Too many variables. We’ve been catching infiltrators for ages now. Three of them just lately. Too early, and the resistance is too small and mobile for them to have any info on where to hit. Too late, and we’re too well experienced. I don’t see how one more would hurt us that badly.”
“Adept at strategy as ever, Sergeant.” Reese tried not to glow too much from Don’s approval. “But tell me, what were those three infiltrators after?”
“Well... you, sir.” Reese snorted. “It don’t take a strategic mind to know you’re the blood and balls, no offense ma’am, of the resistance.”
Jiffy hid her smirk behind a hoof. “None taken, Sergeant. Don’s influence cannot be understated. Even the Old Guard has rallied under his banner.”
“The common ponies, as well.” Jargon pushed his thin-framed lenses back into place. “Cantare is a legend amongst them. The hero of the masses.”
“You built this army with your own two hooves, sir. Of course the bugs are gonna be gunning for you.”
“And what if I were out of the picture?” Don queried, but Reese shook his head.
“Nah, it’s too late. The snowball’s already rolling. If they took you out tonight, we could still end this war. They’d have to...”
Reese trailed off as comprehension hit, leaving Don to finish the thought. “...kill me before I’d begun the resistance. Before the war.”
“If you never fought back... I’d be dead. Most everypony I know could say the same. Can they do that?” It took effort for Reese to keep his voice steady. “Is there any way for them to know when and where to hit?”
“No.” Reese let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, but the resistance leader wasn’t finished just yet. “But they won’t have to. Do you recall the hive we struck back in Las Pegasus?”
“Yeah, they’d holed up in the town hall, up to the thorax in books. We thought they were eating the paper.”
“Those were the records for the city’s pre-war population. The names and descriptions of every pony in the city... including my mother.”
“Her identity is no secret among the resistance,” the colonel admitted. “With Cantare’s popularity, it’s only natural that her legends almost outshine his own.” Jiffy’s armored hooves dropped down onto the table with finality. “We believe the bugs are going to send an infiltrator back to kill Don Cantare’s mother before he’s even been born.”
“And judging by the progress they’ve shown, we’ve scant time before their work on the spell is complete.” Jargon closed his textbook, a severely disapproving frown adding extra wrinkles to his face.
“Which is why our camp, and all others we are in contact with, have already begun to move out, and will be striking at the Skyweb as soon as possible,” Don added, looking at Reese expectantly.
“...drawing their defenses away from the spell chamber, leaving my team free to strike.” The three powers behind the resistance nodded their approval. “What if I can’t stop them from activating the spell in time?”
“The complexities of a fourth-dimensional leap of this magnitude will require considerable casting time.” The scholarly stallion consulted a scroll before launching off into another lecture. “Several minutes, at the very least. Should you feel a dramatic increase in ley energies, I urge you to reach the center of the spell circle and disrupt the focal point.”
“The fokking what?”
“The omphalic mass, of course.” More blank stares. The exasperated magician threw up his hooves. “The time travel bug.”
“Would a grenade disrupt it?” Reese asked, but Jargon shot him down with a barking laugh.
“Not at all. The spell would remain undeterred, though I suppose it might injure the drone.”
“Not enough, if it’s one of the armored versions.” Jiffy chimed in. “If there‘s still enough of it left to move after, it’s too dangerous.”
“Explosives aside, your best option would be to simply increase the mass over their energy capacity. I‘d have to draw up a few estimates, but-”
“Would a pony’s worth of mass do?” Reese asked quietly. Jargon shifted uncomfortably before answering.
“More than likely, yes. Though I feel it prudent to warn you, success would mean either death by magical overload or by being torn apart and scattered across the fabric of reality. Or dragged along the drone’s temporal wake, or-”
“I get it. However it goes down, it’s a one way trip. Back-up plans don’t have to be pretty.”
Colonel Jiffy saluted, peytral ringing as her steel shod hooves clashed against it. “Due to the highly dangerous nature of this mission, I cannot in good conscience order you to do this, Sergeant.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m volunteering, then,” Reese said as he returned the salute before turning to the leader of the resistance, speaking with the conviction of one prepared to die. “You can count on me, sir.”
Don Cantare gave him a cryptic smile, melancholy but accepting.
"This is Don Cantare. If you are listening to this, you are the resistance. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." -Series of pirate radio broadcasts after the Fall
*****
The club was rocking tonight. The DJ’s booth was on fire, literally for a few minutes when somepony got too tipsy and spilt a triple-digit proof glass onto the mood candles. Thankfully, the glass was nearly empty and the unicorn scratching the vinyl knew a thing or two about pyrotechnics gone wrong. The noise level was somewhere between blaringly loud and deafening. Ponies were packed on the dance floor like sardines, assuming the fish were placed in the tin still alive and thrashing. Strobe lights shot beams of rainbows out every direction, threatening seizures for any who stared too long. Laughter and cheer filled the air, and even the grumpiest of Gusses or most negative of Nancys were bobbing their heads to the beat.
The macho stallion who stopped in front of her booth could not have stuck out more if he’d tried. She’d seen griffons with less bulk than this behemoth, who was dressed in goth blacks studded with chrome spikes. And he was wearing shades. At night. Indoors. At least the DJ had an eye disorder for an excuse. He’d pushed his way through the throng like a snowplow, and now loomed over her like a skyscraper.
“Que Sera Cantare?” He spoke with a voice like an ancient, chain-smoking dragon that had gargled sand before gleefully lobotomizing itself.
“Just Sera, please.” As if anypony would go by her first name. She cursed her hippie parents while smiling brightly. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” the stallion said, his eyes glowing blue from behind the glasses. The temperature dropped like a stone and a spear of frost formed over his head. Sera’s eyes grew wide as platters as a terror gripped her. Never had she felt a fear like this before, as if her life was but a candle about to be snuffed out. “You are to be terminat-”
An airborne table crashed into the hulking brute, knocking him to the side just as he released his grip on the frozen projectile. The icicle buried itself into the stuffing of the booth just next to her head and she screamed. The stallion who’d just tried to kill her, she struggled with even the concept of that for a moment, stood back up and turned towards her once again. Instead, he came face-to-face with an apple-sized object that beeped merrily.
A thrown table or two in a nightclub is just a party gone bad, but an explosion stopped the music for good. Screams erupted as the localized blast blew the murderous savage straight out of the brick wall, leaving a pony-shaped hole into the midnight air. The crowd began to flee in terror, streaming out the exits in a wave. Sera crouched beneath her table, hyperventilating as she peeked her head out to view the carnage.
Outside, the inequine thing sat up slowly amidst the ruined wall. It turned to face her, locking on with a cold gaze, and she muffled a scream before a new stallion blocked her vision. His eyes were so intense, so expressive, and he reached out with a chipped hoof, giving Sera the most important offer she will ever hear.
