The craft glided through the endless, empty vacuum of darkness–otherwise known as space. It had traveled through this infinite expanse of nothingness for decades, and then centuries, until the years surpassed even several millennia. From sprawling galaxies to star fields and even asteroid belts, the tiny craft continued its journey into seeming endlessness.
Over the countless years since the start of its journey, the craft acquired its share of wear and tear and had degraded its abilities considerably. Tiny pebbles of space rock and asteroids had beaten through whatever protective measures and insulation the craft had on its outside. Though this was not noticeable, due to a highly advanced cloaking field surrounding the spacecraft, but the insides were in a state of disarray.
Structure panels from the ceiling lined the floor where they had fallen, exposing power conduits and sparking cables. Computer monitors lining the walls stood shattered, glass shards covering the floor.
Perhaps the greatest damage evident was the gently burning blaze of the central computer. The once top of the line AI unit surrounding its central control had degenerated after innumerable cycles of processing and computing useless data. It had reached well past the point of coherent thought, which was now a constant struggle for its robotic minds mind to handle. The lost spacecraft ignored these internal imperfections, and continued on its unending passage through the stars.
A blip in the computer grabbed hold of its attention. If it could detect surprise, it would have.
Its journey through space seemed to finally be coming to an end. On the radar, sat a magnificent little planet, situated on the farthest, furthest, deepest corner in the blackness of space. Detailed geographical data came back to the processors, which was having difficulty keeping up with the onslaught of geographic data.
Sprawling oceans, coupled with large land masses and populated by greenery aplenty were welcomed sights. Rain forests, sprawling grasslands, savannas and even the occasional desert populated the surface. They foretold that this was a life supporting planetary body. There was even the upside of a moon and a healthy, yellow sun as well.
A shout of joy in the form of mechanical beeping echoed through the craft’s software, it immediately set its navigation coordinates to the new destination and accelerated. The deteriorated artificial mind populating the ship’s computers calculated the best possible landing site in three point four nanoseconds.
The side of a mountain, it decided, should be an ideal location.
The heat shields activated to prevent further damage to the craft upon entry as it blasted through the upper atmosphere. Unfortunately, the shields had been nearly depleted due to years of solar radiation from the countless stars the craft had traveled near.
They failed immediately.
Without its shielding, the ship roared up in a coat of orange flame and barreled unprotected towards the planet.
Alarms inside the craft immediately sounded, but noone was alive to answer them. Emergency lights flashed in an empty cockpit. Screens displaying system errors and warnings of an imminent impact with high chances of complete destruction went unseen. The craft continued to descend, a long held cloaking field finally disintegrating to fully reveal the spacecraft to the new world.
Systems hurriedly calculated variables; a crash was determined to be unavoidable. The navigation computer went haywire with sparks flying everywhere as it tried to do whatever it could to slow the impending impact. The engines complained the strain was too much, the hull whined about the searing pain, while the damage control circuits told the hull to suck it up.
The central computer’s surviving subroutines and processors tried to do something amidst the calamity of its tertiary systems.
Long disused air brakes and emergency landing devices activated as a last ditch effort. They proved useless; parachutes burned to a crisp, and a change in trajectory would only result a new location to crash into. Inside the pilot’s cockpit, a little red bar lit up and read ‘Please Fasten Seat Belts’.
The temperature inside the craft rose steadily as the cone of fire outside heated right through the no-longer existent insulating materials on the craft’s outside, while the inside became akin to an oven. Much of the more vulnerable equipment melted, paint flaking off and plastic puddling downward.
Amongst all the chaos inside the craft, the smallest of sounds could still be heard. In the main room, right underneath the pilot’s cockpit where the doorway to the outside of the craft was located, stood five tubes lined against the walls. Each was coated in layers of dust and grime, obscuring the bodies within. One tube was even cracked open in the center. A tall, alien figure leaned outward through the gap, the broken glass supporting its bulbous body.
One body amongst them all was different from the others.
A heart monitor beeped every few seconds, the pattern was a constant rhythm–one held for thousands of years, long after the others’ had stopped.
The heart kept on beating, even after the world outside the craft turned into hellfire.
The sun shone brightly with nary a cloud in the sky above the bustling streets of Canterlot. The same streets were filled with ponies going about their daily business of running errands, touring the city for a stroll, or meeting their appointments for such and such an occasion. The stores stood with their doors wide open for happy little ponies to walk through. There were also the stalls, advertising their wares out on display to catch a potential customer’s eye.
The capital of Equestria was definitely a busy city.
Many would never believe it was once under siege from an entire invading army of changelings only two weeks prior.
The signs of the battle that had raged in the streets for a short while could still be seen, such as buildings that had yet to be repaired. Even the cobblestones of multiple streets were missing several large chunks of their structure, and some city blocks were still under construction. Windows still bore broken openings, walls needed repainting, and the ever-present force of the castle guard patrolled the streets, prepared for another attack at any moment.
Two guards in particular were standing at a busy street corner, doing their fateful duty. Albeit with less wary and paranoid anxiety than most others who work the guard job, but time had dulled their vigilance.
Both stood with spines straight and heads held high, their eyes scanning for threats unbounded, unknown and unwanted. Their armor was shined to a polished sheen, with manes cut short in a proper military style. One could hardly tell the two apart.
The one on the right had a slightly more rigid look about him. A harder look held in his eyes, lines etched on his face from premature age, and the wear of battles past formed in the presence of faint scars on his visage. Definitely older with more ruggedness than his partner.
The other had brighter eyes with a youthful glint, without a single battle scar to call his own.
The veteran stood stock still, as was expected of royal guards, while the younger had a certain buzz of excitement that seeped from his very being. It caused him to make slight movements and adjustments in his no-longer stockstill position.
Both just stood at the corner, keeping a careful eye out for any strange passings or disturbances. Other than the really loud one rattling off in the distance.
“The end is nigh! The end is nigh!” the disturbance yelled on the street corner opposite the guards, a very grubby pony holding a cardboard sign over his head with those very words printed in dirty grime. Much like himself, wearing only a tattered overcoat that was only slightly cleaner than his filthy coat.
“The end of days is upon us! Running won’t save you! Hiding won’t either! Only death, death, and even more death!” he shouted, pony passersby in the streets avoiding him at all costs, due to a mix of his craziness and stench. “We’re all just gonna die!”
“That guy serious?” the younger guard asked his older companion, grinning and holding back a chuckle while pointing at the mad stallion.
“Nah, just a frickin’ loon with his head not screwed in right,” the older guard replied, trying his best to ignore the ramblings of the hobo. “City usually picks up these dregs every now and then and they stick around to annoy the rest of us. Kicking his dirty, good for nothing ass off the mountain would be my solution to the problem, but instead, we deal with it.”
The younger guard continued to stare at the hobo out of the corner of his eye, until the crazy pony was finally beaten off by swatted brooms from shopkeepers that didn’t want his yelling ruining their businesses. He went off crying about aliens invading the planet and harvesting everypony’s organs through bendy straws.
“Hey, rookie, if you keep on twitching like that someone is gonna think you’re nuts,” the older guard said with a hint of snark in his tone, glancing quickly at his partner who was still holding back a giggle from the previous events. “Or just a spaz.”
The rookie rolled his eyes, smirking sideways at his superior. “So what? As long as my hooves stick to the ground and I watch the streets while ignoring lunatics, I’m doing my job. We’re paid to be statues, right?”
The older guard narrowed his eyes, but said nothing by it. Stallions will be stallions, the younger generation especially when it came to tedious tasks such as guard duty. He himself wasn’t much different. Didn’t mean he had to abide by the behavior when one of his subordinates acted like it.
“We’re not paid to ask stupid questions, so shut it, glue your eyes to the streets, and at least pretend to be a trained professional,” the older guard whispered, his eyes like a hawk's as he picked out any apparent threat on the streets.
The rookie too knew about the guard’s concerns, but rolled his eyes nonetheless. “Yeah, yeah, I got my eye on it. Not like it’s going anywhere.”
“Smartass,” the guard muttered under his breath. “Guess the saying ‘be prepared for anything’ means jack shit to you, huh?”
The rookie arched an eyebrow at his companion. “Nah, I’m just not expecting another crack-plot changeling invasion. Would those guys really be such huge idiots as to attack a second time?”
“We were idiots for getting invaded in the first place,” the guard said, a frown centered on his face that made his appearance all the more aged with worry lines now visible. “We only won because of the frickin’ power of love of all things. We got our asses handed to us. Even Princess Celestia herself was defeated by the bitch the changelings call a queen.”
“Eh, I count the enemy being blasted to the Badlands a win any day,” the rookie said with a chuckle, still keeping his eyes on the streets for any suspicious activity. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t multitask as well. “Wonder why we never went after them to finish the job.”
“You seen the guard force here, kid? We barely have enough stallions to guard the castle. Much less all of Canterlot. We get a group to take care of those changeling bastards once and for all, and we’ll leave home defenseless.” The older stallion shrugged slightly, the movement almost unnoticeable. “Or that’s just my opinion of it. You wanna know more, ask the captain himself.”
The rookie still wasn’t done with their discussion, which sure made guard hours pass by. “Still can’t believe the changelings had the balls to invade on his wedding day. Not to mention impersonate the bride. No one even knows how long she impersonated the princess. Could’ve been days, weeks, months. Just gets you wondering if they ever...”
“You’re not paid to wonder, rookie,” the older guard grunted, looking to his companion with scowling eyes. “At least not as much as they shell out to us. Much like the princess, anyone here can be a changeling in disguise. Our job is to find, arrest, and lock up any of those bastards–small talk isn’t.”
“Like they’re actually going to try and invade us twice in a month,” the rookie muttered under his breath. “Stupid assholes aren’t that dumb. They try to invade us again, and they’ll see what we can really do.”
The older guard ignored that statement and returned his attention back to the streets. His younger partner did likewise, but with much more disgruntlement, as to be expected from a rookie.
Time passed, ponies passed, and boredom slowly stacked. The senior guard was used to such an event, and while his companion was trained to do the same, he did it with much less ease than his more experienced partner. One had an almost expressionless front while the other had the flaw of drooped eyelids and slightly seen frown.
Finally, after feeling like his eyeballs were going to pop out of his head from staring wide-eyed at a crowd of ponies all day, the younger guard asked, “So... were you in the invasion battle or what? I was outta the city at the time, so I didn’t get any piece of the action.”
“Does it look like I got these dents in my armor from just strolling through the castle?” the older guard pointed out, grumbling under his breath at his partner’s constant annoyance.
Giving a quick look, the younger guard noticed with surprise the wear his companion’s armor had. The gold sheen given by its forging was scraped grey in several locations. Little bangs, dents, and even a gash could be seen along its surface, showing battles from years past. Still, it was in decent repair and shined to perfection.
“Do you think we’re prepared if another invasion happened?” the rookie asked, a bead of sweat flowing down the side of his neck. “Like... what would happen if the changelings do decide to attack again?”
The older guard did another slight shrug. “We’ve got Canterlot more closely guarded than a gryphon king’s virgin daughter. But that’s what we thought last time, what with the barrier of magic protecting us. Made us too lax. Then next thing you know, BAM, we’re getting swarmed by changelings left and right.” The guard shuddered slightly, blinking hard. “Surrounded, outnumbered, unprepared. Damn, we were nearly goners.”
“How’d you survive?”
A faint chuckle could be heard passing from the guard’s lips. “By hitting hard, retreating fast, and always looking over your back. Fuckers put up a good fight, but I managed to skin some of their hides... or whatever they have for skin. But to answer your first question, I have no idea. We don’t know how many of them are left, how many have already sneaked in the city in disguise, and whether we could pull off a force good enough to counter them. Which is why we’re here, shooting the fucking breeze while watching the streets for our doom.” The corners of the older guard’s lips descended downward into a frown, annoyed that the rookie managed to get him in a conversation again.
“Aren’t we the best of the best?” the rookie asked, shuffling slightly in his cumbersome armor.
“Yeah, and look what ‘the best of the best’ have accomplished. We couldn’t defeat Nightmare Moon, had no chance against Discord, and got blindsided by an entire army that managed to sneak into the capital. I can list on further, but our achievements as of late don’t really stack up.”
“But those threats all got solved in the end, right?”
The guard grimaced, gritting his teeth. “By six mares with absolutely no military training whatsoever. Heck, our captain was only able to defeat Chrysalis through the power of love. Equestria is the laughing stock of every army in the world. Doesn’t help that the only fighting force we can muster is small groups of police force and guards from each city. We don’t even have a standing army for pete’s sake! We couldn’t defend a highly-fortified castle on the top of a hill... no, a frickin’ mountain! We get anything worse than a changeling invasion, and we’re screwed.”
“Wow... you’re really voiceful about that,” his partner said, smiling a bit. “Have a strong opinion of military digressions?”
“Strong enough to know that Equestria isn’t as invincible and protected as everypony thinks,” the older guard replied, having thought through his statement countless times throughout his years of service. “Don’t buy that bullshit, kid. Elements of Harmony, the princesses, they don’t mean shit in the long run if we ever have an actual army to deal with.”
“Yeah, well, you just gotta–”
The older guard waited a few moments, but never got what the rookie was about to say next. Turning his head to see what shut his partner up, he noticed the rookie’s face was blank–just wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.
Following the rookie’s increasingly stunned gaze, the older guard looked up at the sky.
“What in Tartarus in that?” he whispered, many ponies stopping in the crowd and looking up.
“I think... think maybe it’s a shooting star,” the rookie said, squinting his eyes a bit to avoid the sun’s glare.
The older guard shook his head, either from disbelief or to refuse his partner’s statement. “It ain’t even night out. Whoever heard of a shooting star coming out in the daytime?”
“It could be Luna,” the rookie suggested, tilting his head to the side. “She controls stars, after all.”
“Well, if she’s doing this, she sure is making a big mess of it.” Now all the ponies in the street stopped and stared up ahead, in a clear blue sky with only one blemish. A falling ball of fire, seeming ever so close yet far off at the same time. Its tail streaked behind it as it left a trail of smoke to mark its path, an unusual phenomenon like no other, visible to most likely all of Equestria at this point. Or at least those who bothered to look up at the sky. “Like we didn’t have enough public disturbances as it is, but now we have a frickin’ comet to deal with as well,” the older guard growled, stamping his hooves angrily.
“Could it be a trick? Maybe another changeling attack?” The younger guard backed away slightly, stopping in his tracks and glancing about to make sure no one saw what he did. “L-like a magic fireball?”
“Maybe. Though whoever came up with the plan of being the most noticeable attack in the Celestia damned sky should be demoted or killed immediately.”
The comet’s path continued with its current trajectory, growing ever closer by the minute. What seemed like a unknown flying object miles away could now be seen to be fast approaching Canterlot. Minute by minute it sped through the air, its dark smoke trail cutting the sky in two.
“Can we stop it?” the rookie asked, gulping slightly, neck lowering as the comet neared. “Like, with magic or something? Make a shield or just shoot it out of the sky?”
“You know anyone that can do that?” the older guard asked, sweat forming on his brow. “Shining Armor is still on his honeymoon, and Celestia and Luna are in the castle. Chances are they aren’t even looking outside.”
“So... we’re screwed then?”
The older guard wanted to say ‘Yes,’ but freaking out the rookie wouldn’t help. Not him, and not all these innocent bystanders as well. Once the ponies paid to protect the citizenry started going out of control from fear, there was little chance that the populace wouldn’t as well.
“Just keep your head cool, rookie. It’s probably not gonna hit us anyway.”
His words were short-lived, since the comet was definitely going to hit. Where, he didn’t exactly know. What he did know was that the mountain was too big a target for the comet to miss.
“Dear Celestia... we’re gonna be hit by a meteor,” the rookie whispered to himself.
“Meteorite,” the older guard corrected him, sweat running down his brow like a river the closer the meteorite approached. “And I told you to keep a cool head. You start anything like running away and we’ll have an uproar on our hooves.”
“Like we don’t already,” the rookie pointed out.
A murmur started in the crowd, growing from petrified silence to a panicked roar. It began with one pony looking up and letting out a terrified whinny, driving his fellows to do the same before their fear overcame their curiosity. Within moments, the trickle of fleeing ponies turned into a blind, maddened stampede. Many pushed and shoved to make their way through the streets but in vain, for the mass of bodies had nowhere to go in the narrow streets and so they crushed each other between each other, against walls, and under their hooves. The air was thick with mobs of black shapes; pegasi trying to escape Canterlot. Like their brethren, they choked the air with their numbers in the mad dash to escape, turning the clogged streets below into a darkened, frenzied nightmare.
A red haze filled the air, brightening the streets in a crimson light as the meteorite neared. Too many packed bodies, too much running. It was like holding a magnifying glass over an ant in the summer. It was going to get burned.
“Shit... shit, shit, shit! We gotta get off the streets!” the rookie shouted, tugging at his partner’s shoulder.
Glancing back up, a twinge of fear and feeling of defeat sunk into his stomach as the older guard shook his head slowly. “No use. We can’t get through that clog. We’ll be trampled or get stuck.”
“Then what do we do?” the rookie shouted, the cries and screams from the crowd growing louder as the meteorite approached.
Truthfully, it was a tough spot the older guard was stuck in. Things just happened so fast, events taking place that he never would have guessed at such a quick pace. Sure, he was trained to deal with those types of situations, but nothing like this. Nothing like a barreling ball of imminent destruction that came out of nowhere and was about to crash into them all. Why wasn’t it stopped yet by the princesses or some other magic user? How could it move so quickly? Why wasn’t it seen earlier?
These questions and more flashing through his mind would probably never be answered. Not with how close the meteorite was approaching. So with a heavy sigh, the older guard said, “There’s nothing we can do.”
“N-Nothing?” the rookie stuttered, his helmet disheveled as he held his head in his hooves. “You want to do nothing? We’re gonna die! How is that not getting through to you? How?”
“You think we have a better shot of getting outta here than those ponies?” the older guard asked, sweeping his hoof at the large assembly of panicked ponies. “You think we have a better chance than the others just because we’re in uniform? Uniform means shit in situations like these! We can’t control a crowd of ponies like this, unless you wanna become roadkill.”
“Then you want us to die?” the rookie yelled, his coat so drenched in sweat his helmet nearly slipped off his head–his body masked by the redness of the meteorite, which hung in the sky from what seemed yards away. “You want us to frickin’ die now? Is that it, you bastard?”
Actually, that’s all the guard could think of. Outrunning a meteorite was futile. Both of them were just earth ponies, after all. No magic to teleport away. No wings to fly away. Just four hooves that couldn’t make enough traction through a mob of fear driven ponies with their lives to lose.
Inspecting his surroundings, there wasn’t much promise of any type of escape. Except, of course, the other side of the corner of the street they were guarding.
The older guard shoved the rookie backwards, getting around the corner they were on so they were in the shadows of the light the meteorite was casting on the city. “Get back here!” he yelled, feeling somewhat comforted with a thick brick wall between him and impending doom from the sky.
The rookie shook his head, pushing his partner off himself. “You think this is gonna save us? We’re frickin’ screwed, man! Screwed!”
“Just shut up and keep your head down!” the older guard replied, peeking over the corner to see what the situation had developed to. Citizens still trapped in the streets, and the meteorite was shooting towards them like a canon. Impact was imminent, that was for sure.
But without warning, the meteorite seemed to have vanished. The only view now was the side of the mountain Canterlot overlooked and an unblemished sky. Ponies stopped in their tracks, the sudden lack of catastrophe causing them to momentarily halt their advances to safety.
“I think... I think we’re safe,” the older guard whispered, a long held breath finally escaping his body. “Oh dear Celestia, that was close,” he chuckled, the rookie scooting closer to look as well.
With a mighty crack, everypony who was on their hooves was thrown to the ground. A shockwave rumbled throughout the city, demolishing concrete roads and buildings as the city seemed to be lifted off its foundations and slammed back down in a violent wave.
The older guard fell to his chest, his bottom jaw impacting to the ground. Hissing in a breath, the guard struggled to get back to his hooves.
“H-Hey, what’s h-happening?” the rookie shouted, his voice almost lost to the sound of the crowd’s screaming and building rocking. Like his partner, he was flung to the ground by impact, but was back to his hooves in an instant.
Glancing back to where he last glimpsed the meteorite, it was back and closer then ever as it neared the city somewhere off in the distance. Now it had a backdrop of kicked up dirt and dust from the side of the mountain it just blasted through. Or lack of mountain, since part of it had disintegrated to dust and small chunks by the meteorite impact.
With no time to spare, the older guard tackled the rookie to the ground, pushing him against the wall and covered his body with his own.
“The fuck?” the rookie shouted, the back of his head in pain from being hit against the wall so hard. “What are you doing?”
The other guard grunted, shoving the rookie closer in the crevice the street made with the wall around the corner as ground shook from the meteorite’s approaching impact. He tried to cover him with as much as his own body as possible. Hopefully the armor would do its work and keep him alive.
“Get your head down!” the older guard shouted in the rookie’s ear, squinting his eyes closed as he felt another wave of unbridled power hit the city far away. “Brace for im–”
A burst of white light blinded them both. All either could heard was a ringing in their ears as pressure pulled out behind them to the point a perfect silence followed after, as fire washed over everything. The rookie couldn't even hear his scream.
“Hello, are we live?” the mare asked, adjusting her mane and sliding her headset into place. Making sure the mouthpiece was close enough for her to be heard, she asked, “I repeat, are we live?”
The camerapony nodded his head, and did a wave with his hoof to show the camera was rolling.
Coughing into her hoof slightly, the mare stared into the lens of the camera and said, “This is Shimmer Crest reporting at the scene of one of the greatest disasters Equestria has seen in decades. Reports of what seem to be an unknown flying object has crash landed in the capital city Canterlot. The object in question is still unknown, but its devastation on the city is clear.”
Holding a hoof to her ear where her headset was, she nodded her head. “Folks, I’m just getting word of more details of the crash. At 7:06 a.m. the object was seen in the sky, approaching the city at an alarming rate. Where it came from and how it got so close to the city without being spotted is still unknown. At exactly 7:08 a.m. it hit Canterlot Mountain. This seems to have slowed it down, but it still had enough force to demolish most of the north side of the mountain and manage to hit Canterlot. Nearly half the city is in ruins as the ground zero site for the object lies directly in the middle of the business district of the city. Already the death toll is in the thousands as the survivors and injured are being evacuated from the blast zone.”
The camera panned out and fixed itself on two unicorn ponies magically holding a stretcher in between themselves where a lone pony lay prone. From what could be seen, most of the body from the hips and below the waist were little more than shredded stumps. Blood leaked at an alarming rate, but the pony made no visible reaction. They were either so shocked from the blood loss they were unconscious, or dead.
The camera returned back to the reporter, whose face was calm in the chaos she stood in. “Thankfully, the princesses are alright, the castle being mostly unscathed by the crash. Already a barricade of the remaining royal guard force is being formed around the perimeter of the crash site, and anyone who managed to survive nearby has been ordered to evacuate immediately. This message is being sent to anyone else who remains in Canterlot: unless you have specific orders to stay, you must leave the city. I repeat, you must leave the city. Everypony else across Equestria is directed to remain indoors until this disaster has been dealt with. Whether this was a terrorist or another changeling attack is still unknown.”
The reporter took a deep breath, a show of fear finally overtaking her face. “Final words from the princess are that the situation shall be dealt with immediately. Everypony out there, please, remain safe. Just remain... safe.”
All was quiet in the spacecraft. The heat had finally diminished and the emergency lights had either broken or lost power along with the rest of the craft. Computer monitors displayed a random jumble of zeroes and ones onscreen, before flickering out. The only sounds were the spark of an electrical outlet heaving out its last breaths, or the slight groan of the craft as the damage from the landing took its toll.
Of course, there was still the faint thump... thump of the heartbeat monitor. The occupant of the tube remained motionless, as it had been for the past several thousand years. A bulky looking individual could be seen, once you made it out past the grime and dust covering the glass. It had a large, dome-like head with a torso so rigid and trunk-like, one had to wonder if it could move at all.
A desolate silence filled the craft, along with the break of noise from the occasional beep from the heart monitor, only now to be broken from a gentle hum of moving machinery. It soon developed into a full crescendo of spattering computer static and whir of complicated machine parts moving into coordination. Blinding white lights filled the hull. This light coaxed the other electronic components of the craft to life, as the din of mechanical ingenuity reached an all new high.
The hull began to shake as the craft was rocked on its foundations. Now pops and bangs from outside could be heard, as the long sealed door of the craft did its final duty of opening up.
The door pushed forward with the screech of metal on metal as it struggled to move. Extreme heat from the upper atmosphere–along with the heat shields failing miserably–had warped the outside of the craft to a barely recognizable form of what it once was. The door nonetheless succeeded in bending the metal aside and finally swung open.
Rays of sunshine, the first the inside of the hull had ever seen, peeked into the crack between the door and roof of the craft. As the rays brightened up the room further, lights from the ceiling burst and went out in the few short seconds they were on. Smoke poured from keyboards and monitors as sparks flew from screens. The craft was tearing itself apart as the door struggled to finish its descent to the ground of the new world.
All through the chaos, the heart monitor uttered its steady beat. With one final beep, the monitor hardlined. The one long tone rang out as the door finally reached the ground outside.
There were no inhabitants–living, that was. But for how long, no one could tell... until now.
A spark lit the inside of the tube, illuminating shadows of an individual dressed in a bulky suit. This spark was followed by another, with more joining in until the entire suit was ablaze with electrical light.
The body arched in the tube, arms flailing inside as its back bent forward and back from the powerful electrical current racking its body. After a few seconds, the electricity cut off, leaving the tube masked by darkness. All was quiet once more as the inhabitant laid still.
Faint at first, a couple of thumps from either side of the tube could be heard. Now it began to rock side to side as the occupant swung their body against either end of the interior. Though it was no use, for the tube could not move from its position situated to the floor.
A fist impacted with the glass, followed by another and another. As the first cracks appeared on the glass of the tube, a faint echo could be heard. Almost like screaming.
Explosion... screaming… so much pain… death.
Dead. No... no, not dead. Thinking you’re dead means you’re alive. So not dead. Not dead. That’s good.
Pain was the second signal that popped into the guard’s head. Also a good sign he wasn’t dead. Though now a certain pang of regret filled him as he almost wished for the sweet embrace of death to take his troubles away. Instead, he had to deal with this harsh reality of agony he now lived in.
His bones felt like jello that had been beaten with metal cleavers and then thrown into a woodchipper–which was on fire. Though now he was overdramatizing his condition. He was sure he didn’t have that many broken bones, after all.
A numb sensation came with the pain that spread from his legs to the bottom of his back. For a moment he feared he was paralyzed, doomed to never walk again because of some freak spine injury, but the prickly feeling that returned to his legs indicated that they had fallen asleep underneath some heavy object, and now that he was he could actually move, the pins and needles were just signs of his blood flowing again.
He almost chuckled in relief, or at least would have if it wasn’t for the fact blood clogged his throat and his mouth was sealed shut. Wiggling his tongue around, he attempted to clear his mouth to finally part open his lips. Getting enough moisture in his mouth to create some spit and swallow, he coughed and hacked out the dust that had collected in his throat. Groaning loudly, yet hearing no sound of his pained breaths, he coaxed his eyes open to inspect his surroundings.
The glazed-over look of his dead partner was the first sight he saw. The eyes were blank, not a living soul behind them, and his mouth hung open in a slackjaw look, blood dripping from the side along with a thin stream from his nose.
The younger guard stifled a scream. Not like it mattered much if he cried out or not. No one was around to listen anyway.
Shoving upward with what little remaining strength he had, the younger guard got out from under the corpse of his old partner. While he felt slight guilt for his sacrifice, he knew there wasn’t anything he could do for the dead. Crawling as far away from the body as he could, the guard reached a stomach churning discovery when he stared at his hooves.
His disguise was gone. The black exoskeleton of his regular self was clearly visible, the hole-ridden surface having replaced the smooth, white exterior he had before.
"Damnit," he muttered. So far, no disguise was actually the bright side of the past several hours.
He stared at what was left of Canterlot.
The street corner that had bustled with life only a few minutes ago lay in ruins. Any remaining buildings had been reduced to skeletons with bones cracked to pieces like the glass shards covering the streets. Though that was better in regards to the few ponies that still had flesh on them, exposed tissue glistening like a sickening horror show as far as the eye could see.
Dust and rubble stood where the road used to be. Buildings had been ripped asunder from their foundations, with nothing higher than a pony's height still standing. It was like a giant hoof had crushed the entire city under its heel.
Which wasn't too far from the truth.
Glancing up to the sky, all that could be seen was a dark swirling gray. Whether that was dust kicked up from the crash or just a storm was still unknown.
The changeling spy hacked to clear his lungs and hefted himself to his hooves with a grunt. Still surprised I managed to survive such calamity with only minimal injury, he thought. Though I guess I can attestthat to my superior protection of royal guard armor, distance from the crash, harder changeling skin, an entire brick store between me and the blast, and the dead remains of my partner.
Finally getting on all fours and panting from the exertion, he swayed to the side. Looking down, he realized he was still wearing his guard armor. Well, part of it. The entire left side where his partner protected him with was little more than scraps now. The cold metal of the armor dug into his chitin like broken spikes, small welts of green blood already leaking further. His wing was ripped in half, though he didn't feel any pain from it. In fact, he wasn't feeling much of anything.
"Must be in shock," he whispered, oddly not hearing himself say it. While the lack of hearing was strange, he concluded it was probably from the effects of the crash, and started on his trek through the carnage. It turned into a slow movement of one hoof in front of the other, wary not to stumble over any rubble.
I should have escaped somehow. But I couldn’t fly,because it takes over five minutes to take offthis damn armor, and I was panicking and my cover would have been blown. That would’ve gotten me taken down by my now expired partner for sure.
Each hoofstep became a painful experience. The sharp debris that covered the ground cut into his hoof. Everywhere that could be seen there lay a sea of shimmering, broken glass from the countless windows that shattered from the blast. There probably wasn’t a single window left in all of Canterlot.
The changeling had no direction to move to. His brain too jaded to make a single coherent thought that didn’t die out in his muddled mind. The process of moving forward became all he could manage at the moment. What direction he was going or what awaited him didn’t matter.
The environment changed as he continued on his directionless journey. The ground had turned into a charred, black expanse of soot as ash drifted in like dark clouds. The buildings peppered out the further he traveled, no longer piles of wreckage, but too few foundations barely stood recognizable now. The landscape shifted from ruins to complete desolation in only a couple of blocks.
His wandering didn’t turn out to be as directionless as he thought, for his movements were being guided by a much more subtle source. The dip in the earth from the intensity of the meteorite’s crash allowed for him to go down it unknowingly, like water running down a drain. The closer he approached the site of the crash, the more intense the destruction around him became.
Soon, it was difficult to see three feet ahead because of the smog hanging over the street. Dust mixed with smoke quickly covered his body and blinded his eyes. Blinking did nothing to clear them–no moisture remained in his eyes. All he could do was keep his eyes shut and keep on moving forward.
With a surprised yelp, he fell, the ground crumbling underhoof. Tumbling downward, he slid across the bowl of what appeared to be an immense hole in the center of the city. It looked like the changeling had finally arrived at the drain.
The ground was impossibly hot. Any regular pony would have had their skin seared off in seconds. Luckily for him, a changeling’s exoskeleton is impervious to most extreme forms of heat and was mostly unaffected by the heat of the earth. It was the frigid colds that most changelings were susceptible to.
His already agony-wracked body took a new dealing of punishment downhill. His limbs were soon being shoved underneath him in a painful mix of twisted body parts as he plunged further down the hole in a painful tumble. The parts of his body not protected by his armor scraped against the sides of the superheated ground, while his armored sides impacted with every tumble.
With a final crash, he reached the bottom of the hole. It wasn’t really deep, more of a hundreds yards wide dip in the earth.
Groaning, the changeling was sure that either his leg was broken, or his ribs. Or maybe even both. At this point he had descended into such a powerful misery from the constant pain, that he couldn’t even tell which part of his body was working or not.
The dirt blinded his eyes for a moment, but he still lifted his head off the ground, blinking lazily as his gaze refocused. A fuzzy, mirage-like object stood not too far away, the dust cloud from outside oddly not near it. Though smoke did pour from the top part of it.
Getting to all fours was not an option. His back leg couldn’t support the weight. The best he could manage was to hop and shuffle forward in an awkward stumble that was more of a crawl.
The closer he came to the object, the more he realized how strange it appeared. Not at all like a meteorite as he was expecting. It had oddly shaped structure, that was for sure. It was almost spherical, with a large bump on top that protruded from the rest of the craft. The ship’s wings were misshapen and barely hanging on, with one bent to such a degree it caused the entire craft to lean oddly on it. Much of the exterior of the craft had pockmarks created by large craters, while the vast majority of the spacecraft looked like it was melting, still red hot, with paneled sections of the craft already falling off.
It was definitely the shittiest spacecraft the changeling could have ever imagined, from any realm of science fiction. Like a chariot on its last leg, it seemed ready to fall apart at any moment.
The eerie silence in the center of the crash site was what the changeling found the most strange. After digging a hoof into his ear to make sure he had no wax build up, and instead feeling a copious amount of blood leaking from his eardrum, it clearly indicated that his deafness was the reason for the quiet.
A distant wind cleared the fallout from the skies for a moment, revealing a clear blue expanse of sky overhead. It was perplexing how pure hell had descended onto Canterlot, yet the skies above were in the same pristine condition as ever, not even scarred from the travesty that had befallen the capital city. The heavens stared down at their misery with the same bright and cheerful face as ever.
The changeling’s momentary glance up became interrupted by the earth shaking. The vibrations underhoof alerted him back to the ship, which had started to move, or at least trying to. The front door was desperately pushing forward, bending the superheated metals that had warped the front of the ship.
With a final push and screech of metal that was lost on his deafened ears, the front door of the craft fell with a crash to the ground, sparks flying from the scraping metal. The changeling was instantly blinded by the lights inside the ship, the intensity of the white light illuminating the entirety of the hole for a few moments. But just as suddenly as they came on, they disappeared like balloons being popped, leaving the craft’s insides brightened by only the outside light.
Staring down at the door, the changeling saw that it acted as a pair of steps as well, leading up to the craft’s entrance. Hesitantly, he placed a hoof on the first step, and then another, slowly working his way up the craft, his injured leg banging against each step and causing him to wince in pain.
Really, he wasn’t sure why he was going into the spaceship. Maybe to see what exactly was the cause of Canterlot’s destruction. Why it came here. Whatever the reason, he had the compulsion to know.
Making his way up the steps, he stood in the entrance of the ship that led to a main room of some sort. The only light came from the outside and the occasional fizz and spark from a computer monitor or broken wiring.
The most prominent visuals in the room were a large bank of computer monitors against one wall, most reduced to broken glass. On the ceiling was a latch to what was apparently a second compartment room. And along the circular sides of the room was a row of tubes that reached from the floor to the ceiling.
Curious, he walked to one of the tubes, and past the darkness he made out a figure in its hold. Peering in, he wiped a hoof across the glass, clearing away some of the dust obscuring the interior.
The best he could make out of the figure was a tall bipedal, nearly a full eight feet tall with a head that resembled a fish bowl. It’s skin was hard to make out, but resembled a rocky surface with abnormally large arms, a bulbous torso and tree trunk like legs. There was even a chest template of some sort, with pipes running from the bottom and along the figure’s sides. Any other details were lost to the buildup of grime that shrouded the interior in darkness.
Suddenly, a pair of eyes opened for the first time in thousands of years in a pair of sunken eye sockets. A rasping breath that drew no air sounded throughout the main room.
Unluckily, the changeling wasn’t able to hear this.
A fist struck through the tube behind the changeling, glass shards raining down on the floor.
The changeling never noticed the disturbance.
A mechanicalized scream echoed through the hull of the ship, tortured beyond the point of reason. Thumps from boots striking against the floor and glass being crunched beneath a heel reverberated eerily through the room, the noise growing closer and closer to the unsuspecting changeling until it was right over his shoulder.
The changeling never did hear his own screams echo through the hull.
