A Growing Chasm

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Chapter 5

Chapter 1

“What do you want that for” the shopkeeper asked the strange looking pony, regarding him with suspicious eyes.
“Just for,” the strange pony paused, “Business.” He picked up the large telescope, at least two meters in length, and put it in his cart. With difficulty I might add. “That’ll be five hundred bits” said the shopkeeper. The pony stayed still for a few seconds before reaching into his cart and pulling out a bag. “This conversation never happened.” he whispered as he handed it over. The shopkeeper looked inside to see what must have been one thousand five hundred bits. “Thank you very much” he said. The strange pony put the cart’s yoke on his shoulders and pulled it in the direction of the gates of Canterlot.

The guards at the gates were a little suspicious of an earth pony wearing a dark cape pulling a large covered cart out of Equestria’s capital city. They looked inside and finally let him pass. He took the road to Ponyville but he passed through the sleepy town,towards the mountains that loomed over that part of the land, and he trudged on into the darkness.

The pony went to the top of the tallest mountain and he set up his telescope and pointed it towards the stars. He looked through it to see black. He checked the end. No cap. He looked through again. Still black. He let out an exasperated sigh. He turned the telescope to the moon. As soon as he focused it a flash of light, like a sun ray off a polished horse shoe caught his eye. He adjusted the zoom to max and saw what the light was flashing off. On the surface of the moon there was a thing. A thing built by ponies.

Many days and nights of careful cataloguing and noting, the strange pony decided that he had learned all that he could without actually going to the moon. After a few weeks he decided to send a letter to the Princess to explain his concerns and ask many of the questions running through his head. He had hoped for an answer in good time but after four months without a reply, he finally got one. He opened the letter and shook it out of the envelope onto a table. He pinned the corners down with paperweights and started reading. The letter said:

Dear Mr Crimson,

Your concerns have been put to Her Majesty Princess Celestia and she has spent many nights and days pouring over your letter. After many private meetings with her sister, her majesty has decided to meet with you at Canterlot Castle in one week’s time. You will be escorted through the castle to your room by a procession of royal guards. You must arrive in three days’ time.

Signed, Princess Celestia.

Not what he had expected. No answers, only an invitation. He decided to go and he packed all his belongings into his cart and started towards Canterlot.

He arrived at the deadline and was escorted to his room. It was magnificent: there were four rooms; a bedroom, bathroom, main living area and a kitchen. He was met by a butler at the door and his items were unpacked for him. His time went too fast for his liking but as his meeting with the Princess drew ever nearer, he grew more anxious until the day. He woke up and had his breakfast, a large bowl of oatmeal with berries, before his butler told him the meeting would be in two hours. These passed in a blur as he tried to get himself ready for royalty.

When he walked to the rooms of the Princesses, the castle was deserted without a soul around. The doors opened as Mr Crimson walked into the huge space filled with… Nothing. The room was bare except for three chairs and a table. On two of these chairs sat the Princesses of Equestria. He knelt before taking a seat. Luna looked uneasy but Celestia was fine. Celestia nodded her head and Mr crimson heard a bolt slide across the door. “We received your letter,” she said, “It intrigued us.”
“We have read it many times,” said Luna.
“What did I see?” asked Mr Crimson hurriedly.
“Have you ever wondered why there is no crime in Equestria?” Celestia stated. Mr Crimson thought for a moment.
“No. Friendship?” he inquired.
“Every criminal we come across, we do something special,” said Luna “We remove them from society.” She paused. “We send them to the moon.”

Author's Note

This is my first work and so I expect this to be terrible and nobody will look at it but anyway, here we go. I don’t own My Little Pony (which is owned by Hasbro) or anything else I mention accidentally that’s a breach of copyright.

Chapter 2

“wh…wh…what?” stammered Mr crimson.
“You have discovered our secret facility. You are now an enemy of this beautiful country. You will be stripped of your titles, your possessions, your dignity and possibly your sanity.” Celestia and Luna sated in perfect unison. “Your life as Falfrea Crimson is now over. You are now inmate 73.” And with this last foreboding remark, he was held down by two burly Pegasi and a Unicorn binding spell. A pony in a white lab coat with a dust mask injected him with propofol and after about 30 seconds he stopped struggling and lay still.

When he woke up, Mr Crimson had a splitting headache and for a few minutes he couldn’t see where he was. When his vision cleared he saw he was in a small cell made from solid stone with a small opening for him to see out and for food and air to come in. He looked out and saw rows of cells like his. It all came rushing back to him. “INMATE 73, PREPARE FOR INITIATIONS!” boomed a voice over a loud speaker. Within a minute three ponies appeared and opened his cell. They all wore brilliant white; skin tight suits, with strange looking breathing apparatus on their faces. They pulled him out and walked him down the corridor. As he neared the end, the screams began.

The door read CDFRDT. Criminal Detention Facility for Research, Development and Testing. The door slid open to expose a long corridor with intense white colouring. He was led into a room. It must have once been white. The predominant colour was now red. Blood red. The walls were white and some of the ceiling but the floor was coated in it. There was a chair with ropes around the legs and armrests. This was especially dirty. They sat him in this chair and tied him up. By this time, Mr Crimson was fully awake and he thrashed to break his bonds but they were too tight. At this precise moment, the doctor walked in with his assistants. He was an old unicorn with a light grey coat, a white mane and a scalpel cutie mark. He went over to Falfrea and said: “My name is Doctor Anton. I specialise in a very specific field. Cybernetic and organic relationships. And you, Mr… Umm… Falfrea Crimson, will be my first patient.” He then told Falfrea what procedure he was going through today. “No. You can’t do this. It’s not right,” Said Mr Crimson.
“We can my friend,” Said Anton with a smile, “trust me, we can.” He laughed manically. After his bout of laughter died down, the doctor left the room for a minute and when he returned, he was pushing a trolley with a hammer, a scalpel and three strange looking devices. “Do you want the hammer to knock you out or do you want to remain conscious?” asked the doctor. “The hammer might cave in your skull and kill you but it could just render you unconscious. You will certainly pass out from the pain if you choose to remain conscious and you might die from the nature of the procedure either way. You might die also from blood loss, we might kill you by making a mistake and you will certainly not come out of the other side of this operation the same pony,” he stated. “So… Do you want hammer or no hammer?”
“No hammer,” said Falfrea through gritted teeth.
“OK, that’s fine by me,” said Anton with a smile, “Let us begin!”

The doctor picked up the scalpel, and standing at the wall he pressed a button and Mr Crimson felt the chair lower to a lying position. It had become an operating table. “You will be a breakthrough in medical science,” He whispered, “if you survive.” And then without warning, he plunged the scalpel into Falfrea’s eye and chopped until it was totally destroyed; a mangled gloop of fluid and chunks dripped down the pony’s face and splattered onto the floor. Falfrea screamed and soon, his voice was lost amongst the agonised screeches of the enemies of his country. When the eye was finished, it was scooped out of the now red and raw socket and incinerated in the room’s furnace. By this time, Mr Crimson had passed out and he lay limp on the operating table. “Wake him up. I want to hear him scream more” said the Anton. One of his assistants injected Falfrea with shot of adrenaline. He woke up shaking. “Hello again!” said the doctor. “And now, without further ado, part two!” He shouted.

He pressed Mr Crimson to the table and started to cut around the back of the eye socket. Falfrea started to scream again as blood spurted out of his now exposed veins and arteries. He lasted longer this time, he finally passed out when the back of his eye socket was removed and his brain exposed. “Dust masks everypony” said Anton, as they started the most dangerous part of the operation, the cybernetic brain implant. “This isn’t the most precise science,” said the Doctor as he pushed the three sharp prongs deep into Falfrea’s brain. As soon as the device stopped moving, the light on the front started flashing until it had a solid red light. “Good,” said Anton, “he survived.”
“Our analysis showed that he had a sixty per-cent chance of survival” said one of his assistants.
“Yes they did. But you can’t always trust statistics, can you?”

After admiring his handiwork for a while, the doctor manipulated the wire on the tray and attached the end into a port in the brain implant. He then put the third item on the tray in the other end of the wire and fitted it into the empty eye socket. After another shot of adrenaline, Falfrea woke up. His eye blinked open but the one that had been replaced stayed dark. After a few seconds of frantic worry, a light began to flicker in the bulb. The red light then flashed on brightly before dimming to an ordinary light of mediocre brightness. After 15 years of life, Falfrea Crimson died.

Chapter 3

The sky was dark. Twilight Sparkle stood on her balcony and watched as the night sky was brought to life by the vibrant meteor shower. It was in the small hours of the morning and by this time, all her friends had gone home to their beds. Spike was snoring loudly in the main room. “What the hell will I do with these?” Twilight asked herself for the millionth time, whilst flapping her wings. An especially bright meteor caught her eye and as she watched, it broke through the upper atmosphere and plummeted to the ground, falling towards Sweet Apple Acres. She watched in terror as the thing fell and as it disappeared behind the hills. She waited nervously. A small explosion rocked Ponyville as the meteor impacted. Twilight fluttered to the ground and she ran towards the impact site.

When she summited the hill she surveyed the damage. There was a large crater that destroyed at least 50 apple trees, and in the centre was a smoking meteor. As Twilight ran and flew towards the crater she saw the Apples running through the orchard and shouting indistinctly to each other. Twilight reached the hole first and within seconds Applejack joined her.
“What’s goin’ on here then?” She asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Twilight uncertainly.
“Well, what you don’t know just destroyed part my orchard,” Said Applejack angrily.
“What’s this?” asked Twilight as the meteor started to shake. There was an audible crack and fractures appeared around it. Then after a few minutes of silence, there was another crack followed by the sound of metal hitting rock. The outer casing sheared away. Underneath there was more metal, but this time of a more living quality, more animated. This metal wobbled for half a minute before moving separately, independent from the other one. They were wings. Hidden inside these wings was a cloaked figure with a hood shading its face. His cape should have been brown, but only spots showed through now. The robe was horribly blood stained a bright red that was almost luminous. It moved its head. One red light was visible through the darkness. It surveyed them individually, stopping on Twilight for longer. When it had gone around once, its eyes went to the ground. The wings flared. They were huge, about five or six times that of a normal Pegasus. He flapped them once before saying, in a monotonous “look upon the horrors your leaders have created, and bow before them.” And with this ominous statement it tore the ruined garment of its body, revealing… A large earth pony stallion with a coat of an unnatural crimson, like that of Big Mcintosh’s but of a darker shade. Its left eye had been replaced by a strange looking triangular device with a red light in the middle and its right ear was non-existent, substituted for a swivelling radar dish in a protective cover. The wings were melded onto the skin as if there was no seam; connected like the Sun and the Moon in a never ending cycle. Its right foreleg was a not organic either. When none of the ponies bowed anger flared in its one real eye. By this time, all the shards of outer casing had melted and were a swirling pool of molten metal and when the Thing stepped into it, Its body went rigid as the liquid flowed up its legs, encasing them with the last flows. The metal travelled all over the body encasing it in body armour that looked impenetrable. Even when it had gone all over the Thing’s body there was still left over metal. It opened a port in its bionic leg. The inside was fleshy and red and all the excess liquid flowed down this orifice. The thing then stood still for three minutes. Its red eye seemed to be flickering to Twilight but she dismissed it as a trick of the light. What was actually happening behind that unearthly gaze was numbers and lines and methods flashing green or red, calculating the most time and energy efficient way to kill all the inferior biological organisms in the vicinity. It came up with a plan. The monstrosity took a step forward with its front left leg. As the pressure increased, the bone broke (This was all part of the plan). It would assimilate the first to run to his aid. Big Mcintosh was first to get to it. The robotic leg shot out in a way that it could not have if it was biological, it connected with Big Mac’s head, snapping his neck but not breaking his skull. His limp body collided with the floor with a sickening crunch. The nanomites within the Thing’s body quickly repaired its leg with the same efficiency as they broke it. The Monster took off in the stallion’s direction, beating his wings down hard creating a blast that almost knocked all the frozen spectators off their feet and swatted Rainbow Dash’s wing power record. It landed next to Big Mcintosh’s body and put its metal leg on his snapped neck. Within seconds, his body convulsed as one million nanomite units entered his blood stream. They swam to his heart and with half their numbers, restarted it. They then went around and fixed all his broken bones, veins, nerves, organs and skin before replicating in his dying blood cells. This whole affair was over in twenty seconds from the broken leg to the assimilation of Big Macintosh. “This will be how your world ends,” the Thing said to the nearby ponies, “I am the Thing that escaped.” As it spoke, more meteors fell and impacted near Ponyville but with less force than the earlier one. “My name is Inmate 73,” It stated, “But I was once called Falfrea Crimson, and this shall be my name once again!”

Chapter 4

The ground shakes. Buildings crumble. The ticking begins…

They ran, Applejack, Twilight, Applebloom and Granny Smith, to Ponyville and found all the townsfolk standing in the streets and looking out windows. They were met by a worried looking Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “Where have you all been then, you look awfully muddy,” Said Rarity. “Don’t ask sugarcube,” replied Applejack solemnly. Rarity saw the look on Applebloom’s face and recognised it as the face of a pony that has just been scarred for life. Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock! The ground started to shake. The buildings started to break. In the rubble and dust the light of unicorn magic cast an eerie glow. Still, the ticking continued. Silhouettes appeared against the dust. The ticking intensified. Mouths lay agape as the first of the machines broke through the wall of dust. Their square chunky bodies moved with surprising speed and agility for a clockwork robot. “Rainbow Dash get spike!” yelled Twilight as the first wave of metal zombies advanced. The ponies at the front stood no chance. The robots bore down upon them killing all they could reach. They were picked up from the floor and killed in the most horrific ways. The ponies panicked. Doors and windows were bolted shut. They ran in all directions for their lives. Those that got caught were crushed and soon, blood flowed openly down the streets. The robots froze for a second as Falfrea plummeted to the ground. Fifty meters of falling to hit the ground and not breaking a bone in his (Falfrea Crimson was and still is a stallion) distorted body. He laughed. “I love hearing them scream,” he said with a smile on his face, “continue your assault.” His smile was purely for show. Falfrea Crimson felt no emotion at all towards these ponies. The robots restarted with renewed vigour, picking ponies up and pulling them limb from limb or just crushing them in their metallic fists. They were all soon blood soaked. Rainbow dash returned with spike. “We should get out of here,” she yelled.
“Not yet,” replied Twilight. “Spike, send this to the princess.” She held up a severed head.
“What,” Asked spike in amazement, “we can’t send that!”
“We have to tell the princess about the dilemma,” said Twilight. The blood dripped onto Spike’s claw as he held it, but he sent it as his friend Twilight told him to. By now the street was empty and the robots fixed their clockwork gazes on the six ponies standing there. “Watch out!” yelled Rainbow Dash as a fist hit the ground where Applejack was just standing. “RUN!” hollered Granny Smith. They all ran in the same direction. Towards the exit of the town and the Everfree forest. The alicorn and the Pegasus flew to Rainbow Dash’s cloud home to get some basic supplies whilst the others ran to Fluttershy’s.

When they regrouped at the yellow Pegasus’s house, Twilight and Rainbow Dash both had saddlebags filled with food, blankets and drinks. “We need to get to Canterlot” said Twilight to the group.
“But what about Pinkie?” asked Rarity
“I’m here,” said a voice. They all turned around to see the pink pony bounding down the path towards them. She was covered from head to toe in blood and she had bits of organs lying on her back. Fluttershy fainted from looking at all the blood and gore. “What,” Pinkie asked. She looked down on herself. “Oh, this,” she pointed at her blood soaked coat and mane, “well, I went outside to see what all the hubbub was about and as soon as a stepped out the door a thing stepped in front of me, picked up Mr Cake and crushed him in its fist. I was standing underneath.”
“We still need to get to Canterlot,” insisted Twilight.
“Well then, the fastest way will be with me” Shouted a voice from above them. They all looked up to see the royal carriage with Celestia leaning out the side. The carriage circled round and touched down about twenty meters from where they stood. “Hop on board,” said the Princess loudly. They moved Fluttershy’s limp body to the seat and then all got in themselves. Pinkie was forcefully given a superfast magic water clean from the Princess before climbing aboard.

Ponyville lay in ruins, all the houses had been destroyed and blood flowed in a torrent down the streets. Falfrea gazed over the ruins. Almost exactly five years ago, he had walked through this place with a covered cart and as he surveyed his work, he felt no remorse, no regrets and no happiness. He cleaned his wings by scraping them against the floor. The bodies fell off and he went over to examine them, to see if they had any use. An elderly pony and a young colt. The youngsters frame was destroyed, now he was a shapeless form of flesh. His radar ear picked up signals from a ruined house and whilst his brain calculated the source of the noise, he approached the house. When he looked inside he saw a light brown mare with glasses, grey hair and a broken leg. He stood over her and analysed her anatomical usefulness. He gave her the positive and began the assimilation process. Soon she was standing up with a blank expression on her face. The nanomites then leaked out of her nose and formed an eye attachment and a set of body armour. “Your name is now Bio-force general 02, your previous name will be erased from your memory,” Said Falfrea. He found several more survivors and when analysed they showed no qualities of use. All the survivors that were of no use to Falfrea were killed by his own hand, their lives ended by the mistakes of a greatly loved leader, a leader with many secrets.

Chapter 6

Falfrea facehoofed. Something cracked. “I should really stop doing that with my right hoof,” he muttered to himself whilst the nanomites fixed it up. The reason why Falfrea just fractured his skull was that when he said “Kill everything in your way,” the robots took it literally. There was a group of robots with flamethrower attachments, a thing he had just invented a few hours ago using rain water’s hydrogen to eject flames, stood at the front torching all the grass and mercilessly slaughtering all the animals that even flew over on their trajectory. As he watched, one of the machines overheated and produced a large amount of steam, rustling the leaves of the tree standing above it. This sparked an interest in the organic part of Falfrea’s brain that eventually led to the theoretical development of steam power, condensed and used for a military purpose. Another idea came to life in his brain. A new design that allows for better manoeuvrability of weapons, a design that has two feet but four limbs. He had no idea what to call this design but if felt more efficient. He ran the tests for exertion of force, agility, compression, structural integrity and most importantly, usage of weapons. All these tests ran positive to his standards. He recalled all robots and began his work.

At 8AM, all six ponies were up and getting ready to not see each other. They had all their most cherished items packed for transport. They had stayed the night in any one of many hotels in Canterlot; you have no idea of the tourism in that place! It’s like Washington D.C for you Americans or London for us Britons. Anyway, back to the story, they all went to the square for 10 and as soon as the bells finished tolling, the Princesses stepped onto the balcony. “All of your forms have been evaluated and you have all been assigned stations. And without any further ado, the Research and Development section,” Celestia casted before reading out a comparatively short list of names that seemed to go on forever. Twilight and Time Turner were the two most notable of these names to the now 5 ponies in the crowd. Amongst them were many a famous philosopher and magician. The next names were basically all the Pegasi for the air-force, led by the Wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash looked proud but the 4 friends could tell she was miserable. The next list was of officers for the foot army, none of the other 4 got into this section. The next was heavy weapons workers and amongst them was Pinkie, probably something to do with the Party Cannon. The next was material extraction or mining. Rarity was called up for this job and by the look on her face she was not only sad but also disgusted by the fact she was about to become a miner. This left 2 ponies in the crowd of interest to us. The next ones called up were the medics. This was obviously Fluttershy’s field of specialty but she was nervous about leaving her friends. She eventually went up to be put at her stations. Next were the Special Forces and covert mission teams. This was quite a small proportion of the population. The leftover ponies, over three-quarters of the turnout for the distribution, were addressed by Princess Celestia “All you left over ponies have been allocated as front line infantry,” she said, “you are now soldiers of Equestria.”

When the distribution had finished, all the six friends were separated and taken to their stations, Applejack on the outer walls , Pinkie was waiting for some heavy weapons to be invented, Rainbow Dash was collecting things to drop on the incoming army (this had been spotted the day before), Rarity was being escorted to one of the mountains in Equestria, Fluttershy was waiting for the casualties to come in and Twilight was furiously inventing things like Bows and arrows, leading on to Crossbows, war hammers, battle-axes, maces, flails, tomahawks and throwing knives. Crossbows were the peak of invention at the time and so they were mass produced and distributed to all foot soldiers along with a pair of throwing knives and extras to the unicorns.

As the metal army approached the mountain, the first waves of pegusi were sent in an attempt to slow down their fateful advance, but to no avail. When the robots crested the hill, the new design had paid off; they all carried an enlarged weapon of some sort. Sword and spears were the most common with a few just holding very large rocks. By now, some heavy weapons had been invented and so the city fired off some trees in catapults. They all either missed or were blocked. “All air units launch,” shouted Spitfire, before taking off herself. It was at this point that Falfrea decided to drop from the cloud bank in which he was hiding. He fell for a while before snapping out his wings to their full extent of twelve and a half meters and gliding to meet the incoming waves of pegusi. The air was probably the safest place to be at this time if only due to the numbers of flying opponents Falfrea had even though he went through them quickly. He went for broken wings because if he could ground them, the robots would do the rest. He occasionally chopped and hacked just for fun and he enjoyed it. Before long he came across a pony that stood out from the rest, seeing as she was bright blue and had a rainbow coloured mane. He laughed, “I’m gonna chop you up.” He sped towards her and within seconds she noticed and tried to pull up, but Falfrea was upon her. They collided but no bones were broken, only speed and momentum. As they plummeted, his wing flew back to make the final blow, but it was stopped. Another Pegasus had taken the blow for her, and now she fell. “You were lucky this time,” said Falfrea before he disconnected, leaving Rainbow Dash falling. When she managed to right herself she was nearly at the ground. She snapped out her wings and braced for the pain. It came quite soon after, a sharp pain in her legs and her wings and then a numbing pain all over her body. Her wings weren’t too badly damaged but her back left leg was broken and the bone was extruding from the skin. She looked around to see who had taken her blow. It was Spitfire. Dash dragged herself over to where she lay on the floor. She regained consciousness almost as soon as the other Pegasus stood over her. She looked up and smiled, “I’ll be fine,” Before passing out again. She obviously would not be fine. One of her wings had been sheared off presumably by Falfrea’s wing and the other lay at an awkward angle underneath her. Her body was badly cut up and a deep gash now obscured her Cutie Mark. As Dash looked around a field medic came up to her and with her help, put Spitfire onto a stretcher. “Get back in the air soldier,” he said, “But don’t land too hard on that leg.” When the other pony had left, Rainbow Dash took off again and surveyed the scene. She saw where she was needed and went there. She was too late. By the time she had arrived, the gates had been breached.

Author's Note

A/N. The conclusion to this battle will be in the next chapter, after which I will do a chapter each on the lives of the Mane 6 in the war. This will take me up to 13 chapters and I intend to do something lie 18 chapters but I don’ know whether this will become a reality. What I can tell you is that this is the first “Book” in a trilogy so if you like it there’s more to come from Falfrea Crimson.

Chapter 7

The gates splintered and the bolts started flying from horns and crossbows alike at the surge of robots flowing like a river through the hole in the wall. Only about one in every two hundred projectiles did much damage to the robots and soon, they were upon the foot soldiers. They had no chance, anypony with any sense wanted to retreat up the stairs and hold them off their but the commanding officers told them to hold their ground. The first lines were killed almost mercifully quickly as they were decapitated or pierced by large weapons. Blood was tricking through the cobbles like drizzle on a wet morning, but before long, the trickle had turned to a stream that wet the hooves of all that stood. Every once in a while a robot would fall with an arrow sticking out of its eye or sizzling metal on its chest plate from a burst of magic but not many, not often.

As soon as Falfrea got bored with playing in the air by chopping ponies to pieces, ripping them limb from limb and generally causing pain, he joined the melee that was the ground assault. This cleared the skies from danger and so the air-force got to work dropping rocks and stuff on the robots heads. Falfrea had only just landed before the first volley of arrows embedded themselves in the cobbles next to him. He put his wings up to shield his body whilst the nanomites hardened his skin. A lone arrow got through his defences and hit him just above the eye and broke and pierced his brain, taking a chunk out on the other side. “Damn, that hurts!” yelled the red pony, “I hate growing back brain.” The skin and bone healed first so that the new brain wouldn’t be damaged by contact with air and then the nanomites got to work. They copied the cell nuclei from the nearby brain cells and used them to form new cells, devoid of any data, ready to be filled with new memories, thoughts and feelings. It just so happened that the part of the brain that just got shot out was the part that was partially holding back the raw insanity that Inmate 73 had become in its 5 years of imprisonment. Let me now explain the last statement in detail. When Falfrea arrived, he was put through an operation that put a small brain implant into his skull. This contained an experimental AI that allows the subject to use advanced logic and mathematics within seconds rather than having to think about it. It can do a nine piece Tower of Hanoi in 8 seconds with seven of those seconds being the movement of the pieces. This is how Falfrea can do advanced maths within seconds. This AI was an experiment though and so, as all experimental AIs do, it went insane. Its programming didn’t fail, only what it used it for changed. It killed every sentient creature on that facility. It latched onto Falfrea’s hatred for the Princesses and transferred that into a conquest. It dredged deep into Falfrea’s inner thoughts and came up with the name Inmate 73 and so it took it. This thing was now set loose on the world. Within ten seconds, it had calculated the population of Canterlot and put a counter in its head and began the slaughter. The main thing going through its core processor was “how many ponies can I kill with one movement,” and this was horribly efficient. Blood spurted from severed necks and drenched its host (that is the best word I can find to describe it) in the liquid. It was a shower, revitalising the stains of crimson the bodies coat had obtained. Inmate 73 didn’t see, it just killed. Behind it lay hundreds of bodies in various states and phases of decapitation. It’s wings had extended to about ten meters each via the leaking of nanomites from pores in its skin leaving it with very little amounts of oxygen flowing through its body. This was ridiculously tiring for it but it was horribly efficient, with a kill rate of about ten per minute. Soon, its blood spattered face came upon a catapult, firing rocks at Inmate 73’s army. This took its mind off killing for a couple of minutes whilst it reduced the catapult to shattered timber. One of these sharp edges it turned into a weapon, using it like a kebab stick and impaling at least fifteen ponies on the end before it became too heavy to handle. When it put its front hooves back down, they were lying on a pair of swords and this gave it an idea. It reared up unto its hind legs and reducing its wing length, used them as its front legs, freeing up a pair of limbs. Out of its skin flowed the nanomites, creating a hand-like extension on the bottom of its hooves. It then picked up the swords and started hacking. They weren’t as effective as the wings but they were more energy efficient, killing one to every thousand particles of oxygen rather than one to every million.

Princess Celestia watched from the balcony. It was a good thing that Inmate 73 was too engrossed in its massacre of her subjects. “We need to move to another city,” she said to her sister, “before he finds us.” Luna agreed and said she would get the carriage ready with an escort. Celestia left to catch her carriage and once inside she decreed that they needed to go to Manehatten to increase the army size and to fortify. She leaned out the window and yelled to one of her escorting guard, “Can you get back to tell them to retreat to Manehatten!” before locking the door and the heavily tinted window.

Chapter 8

Hey there sugarcubes. If you don’t know me I’m Applejack, the apple bucker at Sweet Apple Acres. Now I’m goin’ to tell y’all about some o’ my time as a foot soldier in the war.

Now, I stood there with my revolver… what was it called? Ah yes, the Nagant M1895 revolver and I was tremblin’. The barrel was pointin’ at the barricade that had been hastily built by the retreating ponies. There was noise behind it but no bangin’. We all feared for our lives as we remembered the destruction and slaughter of our homes and friends. The way the blood ran down the streets like a river and the way I almost got chopped up by a massive sword. As a said before, my aim was pretty terrible seein’ as I was a tremorin’ wreck. The noise stopped and we held our breaths, waitin’ for the barricade to crumble, and boy did it crumble! It exploded inwards, shreddin’ the first few rows of soldiers and leading through the rubble was the monster itself, the Thing that stuck the most fear into our hearts, the Thing that called itself Falfrea Crimson. It walked on its hind legs, using its wings as its front ones and in its hooves were a pair of MAC-10 machine pistols. These it held with a pair of nanomite hands, unnatural things that conveyed it’s thoughts into movements. However, behind it was what shocked me the most. Rows and rows of foot soldiers, just like us except for one difference. They were all identical, down to the last hair on their coats. They were of a grey shade, with green eyes and a pure white mane and tail. The monster took to the air but only to project its voice. “I give you a choice,” it yelled, “surrender and I only kill most of you, or fight and I kill all of you.” This was more like a broadcast than a speech, with its monotonous voice and tone. There was no reply. It nodded its head. And then it began its killin’ spree. It swooped over our ranks emptyin’ a pair of clips onto the floor as soon as they were empty. This seemed to be the signal for the soldiers to engage. Both sides charged and soon, bodies were falling and blood was spurtin’ from gunshot wounds. I think I took down one with the seven bullets in my revolver as I missed with the other six. As I reloaded the sides clashed and the fight got real. There were ponies using the butts of guns as clubs and some bucking for their lives. I dropped the bullets on the floor and as I fumbled to get them I saw a pair of grey hooves by my head and then I heard a gunshot from very close. I wondered why there was no pain until I felt a body slump against the floor. I was still reloadin’ and this surprised me. I wondered when you die you do the action you die doin’ for the rest of eternity. I was snapped back to reality by another pony standing beside me. It was a total stranger I had never met and yet he still saved my life. We nodded before partin’, goin’ our separate ways. I counted him amongst the dead for a long time after that. Anyways, we lost that battle almost as bad as we lost Canterlot and so we lost Manehatten as The Thing destroyed it.

We were then sent down to Baltimare and told to prepare for an attack that didn’t come for two or three weeks. When it did come then, we were well prepared. The survivors came in from Fillydelphia, we armed them and told them they were soldiers unless we could tell they were in a different position. We had better weaponry now, with rifles and machine guns. We won that confrontation to the joy of me and my colleagues. We used the time that our enemy needed to regroup to evacuate the city; we wouldn’t survive the next attack. But we were totally unprepared for what came next. The Thing had worked out how to turn earth ponies into pegasi. The next attack was from the air with fire bombs and normal bombs. But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the monster. It had developed what we now know of as Gatling cannons, the GAU 13/A model to be precise. It stuck with its MACs but carried more clips, about 20. The Gatling canons, for he carried a pair, weighed in at around 151kg each but fired at a rate of 2400 rounds per minute. It carried the 30x173mm cartridges in six 800 round replaceable boxes on its wings. The only downside to this was that its combined weight of all the guns and ammo and metal and flesh was 710kg. This meant that the amount of muscle in its body had to increase dramatically. And it showed. Its veins pulsed with what I assumed was blood but I couldn’t tell, it seemed as if it carried less body weight and its muscles protruded from the now enlarged skin. It was a bloodbath in the city and the same in the air. We retreated after only 15 minutes of fightin’. It was then decided that we decided to up our game significantly.

We were ambushed in the forests that surround the Hayseed Swamps on the way to Dodge Junction by a legion of enemy troops and two robots. Half of my squad was killed includin’ our commanding officer. I was shot in the haunch and needed medical attention which I got at Dodge Junction but the wound was infected so all the flesh had to be cut out, destroying the top half of my cutie mark. I was outa action for the next battle, but I think Rainbow Dash was there. She might tell y’all about it.

Chapter 9

Being in the Air-Force was AWESOME even if you got shot at every day and you had to fly away from the crazed madman with the anti-tank Gatling cannons firing at us. It was still awesome though because I got to fly with the Wonderbolts even if it was in quite strange situations. Oh yes Applejack, I was there when you were skiving. I got worse injuries that any of you did. Alright I’ll stop arguing and just write.

I think we lost Dodge Junction too if only by a little bit, and the fact that we were just developing tanks when they had just developed them wasn’t helpful. We seemed to lose most of the battles we fought. Funny that. Anyways, by this time I was armed with machine gun I think. It hung from my middle and there was a button on the top that if I pressed, it would fire. It was pretty cool. There were no robots on the battlefield anymore, The Monster had deemed them too valuable and was working on them all the time was what our intelligence said. I have to say that the skies were pretty dangerous but I made it didn’t I? Well yeah I did get my wing broken and I did almost die from blood loss but meh, I’m still alive. The war wasn’t so bad on us pegusi, they didn’t really attack our cities as much as the others because they were horribly outnumbered by us but we did suffer as many casualties as the other races. We lost Los Pegasus and Appleloosa was totally destroyed. They levelled it, razed it to the ground. I think I’ll describe that battle.

We took off as soon as the signal was given that enemies had been spotted. The first wave was simple; seeing as we were over grassland the bombs did no damage to us when they fell but when we got into the city our tactics had to change. We tried to set the bombs off that they were carrying so that very little explosive hit the ground. But some still did. And when it did it was devastating, buildings were totally destroyed; soldiers from both sides were killed by the explosions and the shrapnel. The worst were the ones that took the little bits of shrapnel that couldn’t be removed but were fatal. You would watch them suffer and try to work through it without knowing what was hurting them and then falling and dying for a reason unbeknown to them. We knew of course but we didn’t tell them because it would destroy them. They would refuse to fight and that is what war is about. Fighting and dying or fighting and watching others die. I killed like everypony else but I killed without remorse, I never thought about whether they enjoyed life before I ended theirs. They were clones though, they don’t have feelings. Do they? But our main priority was the Princesses carriage. If it ever came into sight we must defend it with our lives for the Thing will be after it like a bullet. We have to give our lives to try to stop him. There is only one way. I pulled it off once, what you have to do is shoot right at the seam between metal and flesh at its wings. This will throw it off course and might ground it if you’re a good enough shot. My dodging was pretty good; even if I did get shot in the wing and have it broken, but not once did they hit my body. It got me once but I dodged, badly, and it gave me this scar on my face that I think will never heal. It’s the way it uses its wings as weapons that scares me the most. It sheared off Spitfire’s wing if my memory serves me correctly. That may have been the only time I would get that close to my favourite flying team’s leader. But back to the point, it cut off her wing with its wing, one blow that was aimed at me. She saved my life at the cost of her career. That deserves a medal by any standards. Over Appleloosa my job was to shoot ground forces and falling bombs and I did both jobs pretty well I have to say with my aim and speed. I never tried to do a Sonic Rainboom before the final battle but that’s another story. Being in the Air-Force was probably better than any other part of the forces as you didn’t get shot at as much and didn’t get bombs dropped on your head but you did have that Thing on your tail all the time! One of those bullets would go straight through a pony without any difficulty but the two guns wouldn’t just fire one. The bodies were usually shredded by the time they hit the floor and they splatted with most of the organs falling around it. They were never honoured, only trodden into the dust by hooves from both sides. Every year there is a mass remembrance where we honour all their sacrifices…

I’m sorry but I can’t continue, I’ll remember my squad falling to the ground in pieces before I took the shot that grounded that Monstrosity for the rest of the battle. This may have been a win for us but it wasn’t for the ground forces. I killed about 500 ponies with one bullet. It hated me with a passion, and every time it saw me it went for the kill. I always survived if only by luck, speed and agility. I caused the deaths of so many ponies I cannot even go into the streets on the days upon which we remember out of shame that nopony else knows about. I think you will probably want a break from war stories so I’ll hand the pen over to Twilight. Get ready for a long bore!

Chapter 10

Hello my name is Twilight Sparkle and- I’m getting to that. Actually, screw the formalities and I’ll get on to my story. Well, actually just a day in my war job. I would always be with the Princesses, we would be talking tactics or anything else that was on our minds but my main job was Research and Development. We developed guns; we developed all the things that they were using out on the battlefield. The one concept that I developed was the shotgun, and it was my achievement that won us a battle. Ah, yes. I remember a good story.

We were in Dodge City in one of the big buildings I can’t remember what it was called when I heard and felt an explosion that seemed to be quite close to me. I ignored it as a bomb or a shell that had landed near the building. Then I heard the gunshots. They were close, in the building above us because we were in the basement. I grabbed a shotgun and ran to the stairs but not before Time Turner (you might call him Doctor Whooves) got there. He was shot four times with a submachine gun. The blood splattered against the walls of the tunnel and stairs. At this point I was raging. “DIE BITCH,” I yelled and fired an entire drum of shotgun shells up the stairs. I let 200 pellets loose in that chamber and the blood was flowing down the stairs well before I had fired 5 shells. I got them all. Five clones all armed with submachine guns. Time Turner was still alive at this point, if only just. “I can save you,” I told him, “But you will be a test subject.” He agreed for he understood what I was doing. I took the syringe and injected the entire thing into his blood stream. The bullets were pushed out and the wounds healed. I had grabbed the can of anti-virus spray and when the nanomites seeped out of his nose I sprayed them all. He had been saved by the Monster’s technology. I then did a small EMP on him to make sure that all the nanomites had been shut down so his immune system could eradicate the viruses. It was only then that I realised I had ended 5 ponies lives. I felt like I had done no evil even though I know I had. The blood stained steps were soon defended by a small turret with a motion sensor and tracker for automatic defence. When it went off we both grabbed a weapon and got ready for an attack that never came, they were all stopped by the auto turret. It was on that day that I had a revelation. One that would affect a battle in the near future and we would win that battle because of my invention. This invention allowed for earth ponies and unicorns to fly without stress on magic . This revolutionised the battle in the air and we actually retook a city with it but I’ll leave that story for Pinkie as I know that will be what she tells you about.

The part that I really wanted to tell you about was the testing areas in all the places we went and some of the crazy ideas that got tested. The craziest must have been a jet engine and although it showed some use in peace time it was totally useless in war because we already had flying weaponry in the form of pegusi. My favourite must have been a design for a cannon that would fire cannons that would fire cannonballs but seeing as this was totally crazy and stupid, it was never passed for field testing. I had no time to study so I studied the machines and how they worked. Gunpowder was probably the most used with gas coming in a close second. The most useful thing to come out of the R&D facilities was the Surface to Air missile or SAM. These totally crippled both our and our opponent’s air forces at the altitudes that they used to work at. We could now shoot them down from the ground and we did just that. Them having the exact same flying style (all pegusi fly differently) meant we could use auto turrets. We built quadruple barrelled turrets that fired at a rate of 1000 rounds per minute. I know that is quite slow for now but back then it was the fastest except for It’s guns. As developers we wanted to study It in closer detail but that was impossible seeing as It would just cut everypony we sent to try to spy on It to pieces. And then send to us the poor ponies skin. But one thing was consistent. They were all missing their cutie marks. There were many speculations to why that was; It collected them as trophies, it was a statement saying that I still owned the ponies soul. Another, less widespread theory was that the Monster had no cutie mark and was collecting to see if it could find one but the only evidence to support this was that no cutie mark was visible on the clones or on the Beast itself…

I think that I am going to hand over to Fluttershy as I need to get a letter drafted as a dry run for the one to princess Celestia. See you all in a bit.

Chapter 11

Umm… Hello? Umm… my name is Fluttershy and uh… I was in the medical teams for the majority of the war time. This meant that I didn’t see the fighting, only the results and umm… they weren’t particularly nice. I don’t think I can tell you about it so I think I’ll just put in some of my medical reports that I have taken from my files.

Name: Wisp
Breed: Earth, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Commanding Officer
Injury: Bullet wounds, small shrapnel damage, mental scarring.
Treatment: removal of bullets and all shrapnel possible, transferal off front lines to recuperate and reduce scarring.

Name: Holly Dash
Breed: Unicorn, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Heavy machinery operation
Injury: Explosion of automated farmland machinery causing loss of forelegs.
Treatment: nothing can be done for her legs but we have stopped the bleeding and saved her life as there was dirt and infection in the wound.

Name: Graceful Falls
Breed: Pegasus, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Air-Force infantry
Injury: 30mm calibre bullet wounds, broken bones and both wings torn and broken
Treatment: Nothing can be done to save her for the bullets have punctured her liver and stomach and some have totally torn through her body leaving a hole through which her insides can be seen.

Name: Ponet
Breed: Unicorn, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Heavy weaponry operation.
Injury: Large damage to body in form of burns induced by multiple shell hits with incendiary warheads.
Treatment: Burn treatment and shrapnel check.

Name: Chilly Puddle
Breed: Earth, Mare
Occupation in wartime: intelligence gathering and infiltration.
Injury: knife and bullet wounds to non-vital parts of the body. Cutie mark cut out.
Treatment: skin graft to cover cutie mark wound; applied with anti-septic gel. Wound treated for poison and infection and stitched up.

Name: Brolly
Breed: Pegasus, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Low flying air support.
Injury: Sniper round to the neck
Treatment: no treatment, it would be a waste of materials. 0% chance of survival.

Name: Charcoal Bakes
Breed: Earth, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Front line infantry
Injury: multiple deep bullet wounds and large shrapnel damage.
Treatment: removal of a foot of shrapnel from shoulder and treatment for infection. Same procedure for bullet wounds.

Name: Starburst
Breed: Pegasus, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Air-Force infantry
Injury: Left hind leg torn off, deep, long cuts into torso and missing wings and cutie mark
Treatment: Too much blood lost to even attempt to save.

Name: Cold Front
Breed: Unicorn, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Urban sniper unit
Injury: Fire returned after a fatal shot to an enemy commanding officer, deep bullet wounds and ear shot off.
Treatment: bleeding stopped and bullets removed. Ear could not be repaired and is a scar that will be carried for life.

Name: Gold Slipper
Breed: Unicorn, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Shotgun ambush squad
Injury: friendly fire on multiple occasions.
Treatment: we could do very little as her entire chest was destroyed by the shotgun shells, some penetrating to her heart.

Name: Lucky Clover
Breed: Earth, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Movement of heavy weaponry
Injury: Collapsing auto turret emptied four 30mm calibre rounds into him. The cannon also crushed his back legs.
Treatment: Amputation of back legs and removal of bullets from wounds that were then sterilised.

Name: Jubileena
Breed: Earth, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Intelligence gathering and infiltration
Injury: Caught by the enemy and taken as a prisoner of war, tortured, beaten and mentally broken by the Monster itself.
Treatment: Total removal from the front line, to be transferred to the secure facility in a classified location to be rehabilitated and have 24 hour treatment.

Name: John Bull
Breed: Earth, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Engineering and maintenance of vehicles
Injury: Direct hit from a shell destroyed all his skin and broke most of his bones.
Treatment: No treatment; it would be a waste of materials.

Name: Faraday and Written Script
Breed: Unicorn, Mare. Unicorn, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Front line infantry, Front line infantry.
Injury: Faraday brought in Written Script with a bullet hole through his head and pleaded us to save him even though he was already clearly dead with blood encrusted over the wound. Faraday was clearly delusional and we had to detain her to pry the body of her comrade off her hooves.
Treatment: We cremated Written Script as we do with all the bodies and we sent Faraday off to the secure facility to recover.

Name: Blue Skies
Breed: Pegasus, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Air-force fighter.
Injury: 30mm calibre bullet wounds and broken bones. Wings intact
Treatment: Removal of bullets and setting of bones. Removal from front line for 3 weeks.

Name: Tree Sap
Breed: Earth, Mare
Occupation in wartime: Tank pilot
Injury: Multiple shell hits to tank creating large amounts of shrapnel, some of which are embedded in her flesh. Bullet wounds from enemy fire, burns from anti-tank HE rounds.
Treatment: Removal of bullets and shrapnel and bandaging the slow bleeding. Simple burn treatment to relieve pain and stop infection.

Name: Blaze
Breed: Pegasus, Mare, Wonderbolt
Occupation in wartime: Air-force Commanding officer
Injury: Broken legs and left wing broken. Took fire and began evasive manoeuvres, crashed into a wall at full speed.
Treatment: Setting of bones and removal from front line.

Name: Poppycock
Breed: Unicorn, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Urban Sniper unit
Injury: Took fire from an enemy sniper and received hits to legs, breaking them and cutting through all the skin.
Treatment: Setting of legs and bandaging of wounds removal from front lines.

Name: Vance van Vendington
Breed: Unicorn, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Front line infantry
Injury: Multiple bullet wounds to neck and shoulders, sniper rounds to torso and a throwing knife embedded into the bone of his left foreleg.
Treatment: No treatment, too much blood lost to save.

Name: Spectrum
Breed: Pegasus, Stallion
Occupation in wartime: Low-flying ground support
Injury: 30mm calibre bullet wounds to entire body cutting through lower quarter of spinal column, paralysing him from the wings back.
Treatment: Total removal from battlefield, removal of bullets and spine support set up.

Umm… I’m back just to say that umm… Pinkie wants to talk to you about some other things so I’ll err… See you later OK?

Chapter 12

Hello! I’m Pinkie Pie and I have a pretty awesome story to tell you! It’s a shame that it doesn’t have any pranks in it though… anyway, here is my story and it is about the best part of the war.

I was stationed in Los Pegasus, just outside the San Palomino desert, a group of other ponies and I had been messaged to come and meet up with some scientists in a location that we were to disclose no information about but before we could the city was attacked, just hours before the meeting so we all assumed that it was either cancelled or postponed. I took my position by the auto cannons, ready to maintain/defend them. We also were charged with loading and firing the cannons that emptied shells onto the enemy without relent. Seeing as Los Pegasus was a Pegasus city, none of us earth ponies or unicorns could stand up there; it was up to the pegusi to defend it. We were only ground support to an aerial battle. It was a long and hard clash, the casualties were countless on both sides and many of my comrades were killed that day but I forged on, hoping for a better tomorrow. Little did I know that mine would come for me in a few days. The battle was lost, due to a lack of support for the warring pegusi and an error on their part. Their over-confidence.

We left dejected our hearts and minds wanting for something better and when my group was stopped and I was given a message that the meeting was on tomorrow I was delighted. I went to the place in the desert to find that the scientist was Twilight Sparkle and the group of ponies weren’t too unfamiliar. We were in a courtyard with a hanger on one side and a building on the other that looked like a control room. Present were Lyra Heartstrings, Sweetie Drops, Jim Beam and some others she didn’t know. Twilight began to speak. “You are all here today to be part of an experiment, one that could revolutionise the battlefield. If this experiment goes as I predict it will then the field test will be an attempt to retake Los Pegasus.” That statement created a ripple of whispers around the 5 ponies assembled. “I cannot however, guarantee your safety during this experiment. If any of you wish to pull out do so know. Once we get going, you can’t go back.” She paused “OK, Follow me and I will show you what might be your final resting place.” With the unnerving speech over, we were taken on a tour of the site.

What we would be testing was classified and we had to sign a form saying that if “Anything went wrong and you survive, you are to keep this a secret” and we would be “assassinated if we told anypony.” With this done our tour continued. Twilight would be in the safe building, and we would be in the unsafe courtyard. Soon after we were shown what was inside the hangar. With the push of a button, Twilight opened the roof and doors of the hangar to show a strange contraption. “Hey, that looks a little bit like the thing I made with the bicycle.” I said to the confused faces of my group. “So it does Pinkie, and it was that machine that inspired this one. Let me show you.” Twilight led them over to the machine; the main body was like a blunt cone with a flat bottom on wheels and a tail sticking out of the top of the back end. The top of the cone was dominated by a set of rotors, four to be exact, and a smaller version on the end of the tail, angled sideways. The whole thing was about 10 meters long and had a hole in the middle, cutting through the machine laterally, only blocked by a pair of seats with a mounted swivel M1919 Browning machine guns in front of them. In the nose of the craft was a pair of controls with seats behind them and a glass windscreen. Twilight told us where we were positioned. Lyra and Sweetie were in the front two seats, the mare called Raven was positioned on the seat in the middle of the craft towards the back. The chair swivelled 360 degrees but was in a fixed position, allowing easy access to the ammo hold. Jim and I were on the guns. The sitting was the hardest part to get used to as it wasn’t natural, Lyra had no problem with it but others did. Our backs had to be arched and our front hooves were to remain free. Our back hooves had to stop us from falling. We were told to put on headsets that would allow us to communicate over the engine that was powering us. The machine didn’t feel at all safe. Twilight trotted out of the hanger and galloped to the command building. We soon heard her voice over the radio. “Switch to-static-2 to-static-better sou-static,” the headsets crackled. We all switched to channel 2 and the voice that was broadcasted was loud and clear. “Right, this is Test 1 for Helicopter.” Twilight said before giving instructions to Lyra and Sweetie. “We are going to attempt to hover at an altitude of 5 meters,” Instructed Twilight over the radio. “Lyra, put your back hooves on the two pedals at the bottom of the seat, right at the back of the hole. You need to put both free hooves on the stick in front of you and you need to use your magic to hold the lever on your left. Flick the red switch above your head to start the engine.” Lyra flicked the switch.

(Cue song: Lux Aeturna, Link to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLJllk-0o6c from 0:20)

The rotors started to spin, slowly at first but soon creating a downdraft. The heli jumped marginally. The rotors were spinning slightly faster all the time and soon it jumped again but for longer. The next jump would end in 30 minutes time. They were flying. The wind was minimal in the hangar so the adjustment of the flight plane was not as necessary as it would be in the next tests. This was the first time anything powered with an engine heavier than air had ever flown and with earth ponies and unicorns piloting it. Lyra increased the throttle and the helicopter rose. It was slow but safe. If Lyra made a mistake the heli would crash into the walls of the hangar and all its occupants would die in the flames and explosions. It rose slowly to the top of the hangar and Sweetie confirmed the altitude of 5 meters. “Bring her out of the hangar Lyra, but watch out for the south-easterly wind. Angle your nose into it with the pedals and keep correcting. 20 meters is our target. Test 2 commencing. Over and out,” Said Twilight over the radio. Lyra put up the throttle and we were hit full on by the wind. She fought hard against the roll and as we spun to put our nose into the gust the throttle was hit again and we lifted higher into the skies. The roll only worked to increase my anxiety for these tests. When we reached 20 meters we received test 3. Our job was to fly around the perimeter of the test site taking as long as we needed. The angles changed and Lyra fought hard to keep the helicopter under control as she flew us around the site. Test 4 was to test the mounted guns and we were told the controls. The pedal at the base of the gun was the trigger and the two handles were to aim it. Targets had been set up in the courtyard and Lyra, Jim and I had to work together the shoot them all. I pushed the pedal and pointed the barrel down. The resulting noise was incredible and each target was destroyed, ripped to pieces by the rounds loaded into the guns. Lyra did as we instructed spinning and moving at our command and soon the targets were nothing but splinters.

(End song: Lux Aeturna)

The radio crackled and Sweeties voice could be heard across it. “We’re low on fuel, where should we land, over?” The answer was simple. “Hover just off the ground to unload all personnel, and then land back in the hangar. Don’t scratch anything and don’t crash. Over and out,” Twilight’s voice came across the radio. Lyra skilfully piloted the heli until it was almost landed and everypony could jump out onto the courtyard. When they were all clear, Lyra flew the helicopter over to the hanger and set it down in there without a problem. When we were all reunited we got the test results back. All systems worked perfectly and Lyra was an exceptional pilot (As far as they could tell seeing as they had only one pilot to take data from). Twilight came over to us. “You have just tested the latest invention that will help us win this war and you will be instrumental in the teaching of many other pilots. In two weeks’ time we will be attacking Los Pegasus. We will soon rule the skies.”
To Be Continued…

Chapter 13

It has been one week and 5 days since the tests on the helicopter and we had been teaching so many ponies. The days had been long and the work had been stressful but we had succeeded and there were now about 100 teams of 5 ponies to fly the helicopters that the factories had been turning out with all haste. There was only one problem. SAMs would take out any heli in one hit so we disabled ours but the enemy didn’t disable theirs. We had a problem, we needed anti-missile technology. Flares were good but only worked on heat seekers, the real nasty ones were the guided missiles. They needed shooting down manually and so every helicopter had a team of pegusi armed with scoped rifles to take out guided missiles and it worked most of the time; only one in ten missiles got through, but the enemy would be trying harder than us to destroy our advantage. Every pilot we talked to was scared of the same thing. The Monster was what scared us the most, It could take us down in so many different ways or kill us all whilst we were still inside the helicopters. It was not a nice though to sleep on when we would be taking off at 6 A.M. to assault Los Pegasus.

The crack strategists at the base came up with a plan to zap all the foot soldiers with magic so that they could walk on clouds and so we could stage an attack with our entire force rather than with less than a third. Each heli could take a maximum of 20 ponies standing and the team of five flying. The idea was to defend the helicopters until they could drop the troops and then the helicopters to provide close air support for the soldiers on the ground. The combatants would then in turn, destroy the SAMs and allow the pegusi teams to disperse from the helicopters and join the fight in the air. The time was 7 P.M. on the day before the attack. We had no idea whether the enemy knew about our invention or our plan and we were so nervous none of the crews could sleep.

We were woken the next morning after only 4 hours sleep at 5 A.M to prepare the helicopters and I met with the rest of my team, the test crew of Lyra Heartstrings, Sweetie Drops, Jim Beam, Raven and I, running to where our heli was resting. It was the original and it had much sentimental value to us. We had also equipped it with some custom designs that had no place on the machine. We had got Jim to do some work to create a pair of “wings” on the sides under which lay 10 Air to Air missiles and a bomb hold containing 20 small bombs for ground targets. As he was an engineer, we persuaded him to learn more about the engine and when he had we upped the power on it so as to lift all the extra weight. This larger engine required a larger fuel tank and so we added one with a fuel port on the inside so that it could be refuelled from the cabin. We had to carry 4 full jerry cans to get off the ground. We checked the heli over for fuel leaks and engine damage and when we were satisfied we got some breakfast. A plate of hay and a cup of water was all we received. We killed the time by thinking up what we would do if the Thing attacked us. The alarm rang for the lift off and we jumped to our feet. We started galloping towards the helicopter and I looked around to see Lyra… Not Lyra? Her eyes were the wrong colour, a moderate cerise in oppose to her normally amber eyes. I was confused so I called to her. “LYRA!” I yelled, “ARE YOU REALLY LYRA?” she gave me a questioning look and stopped. “Why do you ask?” she inquired. And then, right in front of my eyes Lyra’s eyes changed colour from their previous cerise to their normal amber. “What?” I was shocked.
“It’s a genetic mutation, when I run sometimes my eyes change colour. It’s totally baffled doctors but my grandfather had it and he lived way into his older years so it’s not life threatening,” Lyra told me, “Now, get in the heli!”

“The personal channel for your helicopter is the same as your serial number. You are the ponies that will retake the city and you are the citizen’s last hope. Our intelligence tells us that the enemy intends to level the city tomorrow morning. We need to have secured it by then. You may begin your attack. Over and out.” The message came loud and clear over channel 0. Jim flicked his headset off and turned around in his seat. He addressed the trembling soldiers standing in the middle of the heli. “YOU ALL NEED TO HOLD ON BECAUSE LYRA LIKES TO ROLL AND WE AREN’T GONNA CATCH YOU IF YOU FALL, OK!” he yelled at them. They nodded in reply. Jim Flicked his headset back on. “Let’s roll.”

(Cue song: Android Porn by Kraddy. YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoN2wYKAdpM)

The helicopters rose into the cool morning air, stirring up great dust clouds from the desert base at which they were stationed. Soon, the group of helicopters were in sight of the city and the attacks began. The M1919’s were not effective at that range but the enemy SAMs were and we were bombarded by the constant explosions of the missiles being shot out by our pegasus defenders. When the enemies came into range, the firing began. The noise was tremendous and enemy pegusi were plummeting, torn to shreds by the 30mm calibre bullets. I was screaming and shouting at them, but the real fight came when we clashed. Our M1919s were swivelling in all directions and raven had to work hard to restock us with 250 round belts every time we ran low. The muzzles of our guns flashed and jumped. The bullets flew all over the place, some hitting, some missing and some impacting on other helicopters. We broke through the ranks of the enemy before we had taken too much fire. When we were clear, we saw what we had dreaded. The Monster was coming at us because we had been the first to break through the melee that was the battle behind us. The joint on the M1919’s were just manoeuvrable enough to get an almost clear shot on It. The 30mm calibre bullets missed most of the time but we got 1 or 2 hits in, just enough to weaken it so we could pass. It missed us by 3 meters. We then set our sights on the landing area.

(End song: Android Porn by Kraddy)

We put the soldiers down and took off, covering them and taking out any snipers we saw. We came over an SAM launcher and dropped three bombs on it, totally disabling it and killing all in the vicinity. By now some of the other helicopters had dropped their soldiers off but quite a few were taken out in the combat behind us. The enemy pegusi were returning to the city, probably to defend the skies and we met them with full force. Lyra was an expert pilot, even without hands and with her expertise we took very little damage from the enemy. But we were about to face something none of us could have prepared for. We felt a jolt on the back of the heli and I looked out to see the Monster standing on the tail. “You shot me,” It said with a twisted smile on Its face, “Now I’m going kill you.” Without further ado the Thing jumped the rotors and landed on the nose of the helicopter, unbalancing it and tilting it forwards. It smashed the glass and yanked Lyra out of her seat. “I like your cutie mark, do you mind if I TAKE IT!” The nanomites flowed out of the port on Its mechanical leg and formed 5 fingered hands. Lyra looked on with shock and what o thought as a little bit of envy. It pulled a knife out from underneath its wing and started to cut, all the while the heli fell. Sweetie was trying to regain control but to no avail. Lyra screamed in pain as the knife cut through the skin and muscle on her flank. When it came free, blood flowing down Lyra’s leg, It put the piece of skin in a pouch hanging from around Its neck. “Do you mind if I take this,” It said, motioning towards Lyra. “I think I will.” It took off, carrying Lyra under a leg, further unbalancing the helicopter.
“Sweetie,” I yelled over my headset, “You OK, You need any help?” I could see that she wasn’t OK and that she needed help but I asked anyway. “I think I’m fine but I need some help.” Came the reply. “Jim, you’re the best qualified for the job, get onto it!” I yelled at him. When he got there and looked over the controls we came up against a problem. “Guys,” he spoke quietly over the headset, “We’re almost out of fuel…” Raven checked the jerry cans.
“All empty,” was the observers view.
“Put us down over there and we can try to take some fuel from a crashed heli,” was my idea, “It is really dangerous and will probably come out fruitless but whatever happens, we will find Lyra.”

The helicopter was empty of fuel; it had all been burned off by the flames. We despaired for we knew we would probably never find Lyra without a heli. Without a heli… I had a revelation, “We need to find another teams helicopter,” I said to more confused faces, “in a landing helicopter there’s fuel. Ours still has a weapons cache does it not?”
“Umm, I think I does.” Informed Raven.
“Good, pick up a weapon that you know how to use and defend the group,” I said “we’re going to find a helicopter.” Luckily for us, a helicopter landed only 50 meters away from our one and we galloped over to it. They almost took off because they saw a group of armed ponies charging towards them at full speed but I managed to get the attention of a Ponyville resident, All Aboard the conductor. I cantered over. “We need your fuel to find our pilot, Lyra.” I told them. He looked confused. (Why is everypony confused when I’m around?) “We need all the fuel left in your tank, and the jerry cans in your hold.” said Raven.
“We don’t have any jerry cans in our hold.” said their inventory manager.
“Did you read the manual for the hold?” asked Raven.
“Umm, no I don’t think I did,” returned the other inventory manager.
“You have jerry cans in your hold, along with a small weapons cache and the ammo for your M1919s. We need those cans and we have our own to fill with the fuel in your tank. Our mission has priority over yours and so we are taking the fuel in this helicopter whether it be with your permission or over your cold, lifeless bodies,” Whispered Sweetie Drops, anger burning deep into her soul. This seemed to do the trick as the crew soon let us take the jerry cans and slice the fuel tank. With about 30 minutes of fuel we took off again to find Lyra. Sweetie wasn’t the best pilot but she could keep us from crashing. The source of the information of where Lyra was being kept was unexpected as the Beast itself told us where It was keeping her. It landed on the front of the helicopter again, “You see that building over there, right in the centre; that is where your friend is being kept. I haven’t killed her yet and my hoof is beginning to itch with anticipation. I might slip with my knife so be quick.” It left with haste after that and we couldn’t follow its path.

We went in all guns blazing; the M1919’s were mowing down enemy clones right in the middle of the city as we charged towards the city hall. We landed, the machine guns still doing their job of shredding enemies and tearing through armour. When there was nothing but blood and chunks of skin and flesh lying on the floor, out team disembarked from the heli carrying our weapons. There were two pistols, a submachine gun and a shotgun. We stormed the building, we were merciless and anything or anyone in our way was killed or destroyed by our rage. It was all consuming, and burned deep within our hearts and minds. We took on floor after floor of military command centre, taking out hundreds of clones and machines. We cleared the penultimate floor and found the stairs leading up to the top floor. We hadn’t found Lyra yet so this was where we expected her to be, along with the Monster. We burst through the last set of doors to find Lyra tied to a chair in the middle of the room and nopony else around. The Monster was hanging silently and out of view in one of the corners and it closed the door behind us. “Welcome friends,” it spoke softly, “To Inmate 73’s house of FUN.”
“Let my friend go!” yelled Sweetie Drops.
“All in good time,” Chuckled the Thing. It dropped to the floor and we all raised our weapons.
“Untie her or we open fire,” threatened Sweetie.
“Oh, I’m so scared,” it said. The Beast moved to behind Lyra’s chair and looked to be untying her but within seconds it was there with a knife pressed against her throat. “Fire and I can kill her before the bullets hit me,” It said menacingly, “Drop the guns or I will kill her.” It sighed, “My threats are all the same and it irritates me!” I put my gun on the floor and motioned for everypony else to do the same. Sweetie was the last to let go of her submachine gun and when she did the Beast smiled. “Good, now we can play.” It took a set of bloody hooves from a saddlebag and placed one on each of our groups head. I took this opportunity to evaluate Lyra’s condition. She looked in pain but all her body parts were there except from the cutie mark It had cut out. “If any of the hooves drop, you all die,” it said to us all, “fun all around.” It then went over to Lyra’s other flank. “You know that I need a full set dear.” It said to Lyra pulling out Its knife again. It then went forward and cut out the skin and muscle around and underneath Lyra’s one remaining cutie mark. “I always liked lyres, I think they sound… good. Good for BURNING!” Lyra writhed in her chair but the roped were too tight. It took the two pieces of partially blood stained scraps of skin and with a match, burned them until they were ashes and then threw the ashes out of the window. “ASHES to ASHES, dust to dust- Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.” It quoted. In this time, my team and I had come up with a plan. Jim threw the hoof into the air and Raven bucked it into the side of the Monster’s head. It rushed over to them but the hooves had only been a distraction as me and Sweetie had picked up our weapons and started firing, covering Jim and Raven. We moved over to Lyra and Sweetie untied her. “Can you run?” I asked looking worriedly at her blood soaked legs and the chunks missing from her legs. “I’ll be fine.” Lyra said. We started running but Inmate 73 had other ideas. It chased us, roaring in its rage. If it had been thinking straight, it could have shot us. “Go for the legs,” I told Sweetie. She hit them and it fell to the floor. It looked at them with hate burning fiercely in its eyes. “I will find you, and when I do, you will regret this.” It said. We got out and to the heli without difficulty and we anticipated an attack that never happened. We took off and flew to the base that we had set up underneath the city. There was a hospital there and Lyra was taken into care. She was told that she needed a skin graft and she accepted, knowing that she would never have a cutie mark ever again.

Chapter 14

Hello dears, I am going to tell you all about what I did in the war. I was a miner due to my ability to find gems using magic. It was horribly dirty and dangerous but I hardly complained at all because I knew that I was relatively safe compared to some of my friends on the front lines. Most of my day was spent down in the mines finding gems and other things but sometimes I would be allowed to stay on the surface and operate the machinery that we used.

The mine was a shaft mine with branches off at ten different levels that had been calculated to contain the most ore and gems. We were mining in the Crystal Mountains for they had shown the most potential for rare materials such as iron or lead. Our main mining operation was for the many gems that lie in the ground underneath the green grasses of Equestria. This was because we could turn gems into a third of their weight in metal so we needed lots of gems. The mines were dark and we only had our horns to light the way as unicorns so I had no idea how earth ponies could work in the total darkness. We changed jobs often, I worked for a few days pulling carts filled with gems to the lift that carried them to the surface and I spent days at the controls of the machines that extended the tunnels into a maze that we could lose many ponies in and we did. About 100 ponies went missing in the mines, went down in the morning and didn’t come up at night. This machine was a monster, 15 meters long and weighing 2 tons it was one of the biggest things down in the mines. The front of it was totally dominated by the digging machine as the whole thing was actually 3 machines connected, a digger, a sorter and a very big engine. The digger was made up of a circular, pulsating mass of metal teeth that crushed all the rocks offered up to it by the 20 claw-like appendages that surrounded the “mouth”. It ate up the rocks and broke them into gravel and sand and passed the rubble into the sorter that picked out all the ores and gems. Most of the debris was reused in the finer workings of the mines, shaping the gems for optimum processing output and it was our mine that first used laser technology, from our gems, to mine out large portions of tunnel in small amounts of time.

The uniform for the miners was so unfashionable that I was uncomfortable wearing it but I have to give it to the designers, it was practical. Those hardhats were solid and I got hit on the head once or twice and was I grateful for them, the clothes were tough and I never got a scratch through them and the boots, dear sweet Celestia the boots were so strong that my hooves were never chipped and they were never sore from walking so many places. The mines were not only dangerous from being underground and in darkness but from the working conditions. The floors were almost always wet and slippery and tunnel that looked perfectly safe could collapse at any moment. Not only were we physically damaged, we were psychologically damaged. Knowing that any minute of any hour on any day you could be crushed or you could break your leg and be forgotten or you could reach a dead end and forget the way back but the worst part was not knowing what time it was. Our body clocks didn’t work underground and without much sunlight the ponies soon became paler and paler until we were mostly white or cream. This created confusion and so you were more likely to be left behind. When we did see the sun, it burned our skin and our eyes and we were forced to spend the days outside in caves or under trees. We were becoming more and more like animals then civilised ponies. Only the constant thought that if I wanted to be with my friends again then I would have to beat the sun so I stood in the light on the sunny days, I stood and I burned until it was natural again. I lost so much in those deep, dark places but I gained one thing, one great thing that I would never, ever forget. Never trust authority. They say that they are looking out for your best interest but sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes, all they want is power and money. The authority in the mines, all they wanted was the money that they were paid and they were paid by the weight of the metal they produced. The weight all depended on us and our working hours.

The lift was another thing that was a work of genius. The pulleys used reduced the weight to almost nothing and a single pony could lift a weight of 1 ton. The engine used however, could lift weights of 4 tons without pulleys and so it powered the entire lift system. The mine was traversed most easily via the network of rails that spanned all of the main tunnels and some of the less important ones. These were used the get all that we mined to the lifts so that they could be taken to the surface and processed. The taking of the minerals to the carts was backbreaking, carrying heavy loads in almost total darkness was a paved road for injury and so many ponies’ lives were destroyed by their broken backs and necks from carrying the substantial masses of gems and metal ores. We got paid very little to nothing at all to do hard manual labour in dangerous conditions but we did it without question because we all knew that what we did and how we died would affect the war and the survival of our royalty.

Chapter 15

The sky was darkening and the day was almost over. The silence was thunderous and it dictated the mood. It was only broken by the sound of the wind moving over the grasses of the wide, open land that passed in a flash underneath the Royal Carriage. Inside this transport resided the two ruling princesses of Equestria. Dark thoughts wandered through the twisted alleys of Celestia’s mind, growing in power until being dismissed for various reasons. Luna was worried for her elder sister and she knew a pony when they were at breaking point. Celestia was there, her mind wound up so tight that most thoughts were overridden by the war. Through her consciousness meandered tactics of a sickly and dark nature. Kill all of her soldiers and let the Monster come to take her and then let it be killed by her guards. That idea was discharged on the basis that it would lose her support from her subjects and she would lose the war. Luna said nothing; she only prayed that this war end and the right side would win. Only, she had begun to question who was on the right side.

The location of the final battle was the only city still under its pony control. Cloudsdale. The actual battle would commence in the rolling hills underneath the Pegasus city and would be fought to the death; no retreats, no surrender. It would come to the royalty committing mass suicide to prevent capture. “Luna,” Celestia said, “I have had a good idea. Recall all ponies left alive to fight for Me.”
“As you wish, my sister,” replied Luna and she sent a message to all non-vital facilities (which was all of them) telling them to send all their workers to Cloudsdale to protect their princesses. Underneath the city was a complex that had been safe until now and most ponies too injured to fight were kept here. They would all be given weapons when the time came. All Research and Development teams were being moved to this complex and the factories were no longer producing weapons but only ammunition for the weapons. There were enough weapons for everypony. Both sides had taken heavy losses and they allowed each other however long it took for Inmate 73 to start its assault on the most secure facility in Equestria. It was a masterpiece of defensive technology, allowing for all occupants to be kept safe even in the most extreme conditions. The main part of the complex was underground and it had multiple bunkers with 20 meters of earth on top and 3 meter thick walls. The whole thing was protected by an experimental energy shield that took the kinetic energy from whatever projectiles collided with it and transferred it into energy that the shield could use. It was only experimental though and so it had many flaws, one of them being that if too much kinetic energy was transferred in a short amount of time the generator would overload and short-circuit and thus destroying the shield. The shield was only the first line of defence and the second, the hardest to get through, were the many turrets and blast doors. The surface complex was protected by six quadruple barrelled anti-air turrets in a hexagonal formation. These turrets could be configured from the control panels in the main bunker, the one housing the princesses and all the high ranking military officers. The entire facility was covered in cameras and every single piece if floor was covered. The blast doors were almost impossible to get through without high powered explosive devices or lots of big bullets. They were about 2 feet thick and made from solid steel, the doors were all booby trapped in different ways with one containing explosives and another having a large gun pop out and kill everything that moved in the hallway.

It was two days until the final attack came and all personnel had been recalled to the facility, Rainbow Dash and Applejack were having a conversation about the rest of their friends. “I’m sure that they’re all fine,” said the Pegasus, “Twilight was possibly never in danger in the first place along with Rarity and Fluttershy but I can’t say anything about Pinkie.”
“I’m pretty sure I saw pinkie in one o’ them flyin’ things,” said Applejack.
“Really, she was in the air?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I’m sure of the fact.”
“How sure?”
“About 95%.”
“How can you be 95% sure, this is Pinkie we’re talking about here.”
“Oh I give up, it was Pinkie Pie Ok,” Said the exasperated orange pony.
“Those things were pretty dangerous; when they went down they went down in flames,” said Dash worriedly, “she would have never survived.”
“And that is where you’re wrong!” An Excited Pinkie was leaning on the doorframe.
“PINKIE!” exclaimed the two overjoyed ponies standing in the room.
“I thought that you wouldn’t mind if I brought a friend along.” Pinkie stepped aside to reveal a rather nervous Fluttershy waiting behind her. The two other ponies were too overjoyed to speak; two thirds of their friends had survived the war so far. Pinkie was bouncing around the room and the rest of the group didn’t care. “We need to get some information on Twilight and Rarity,” said Applejack, “To try to find out where they are.”
“Agreed.” The rest of the crowd confirmed. They trotted out of the room and around the corner. A few of the ponies that they knew from their old lives in Ponyville had survived, Derpy, Doctor Whooves, one of the spa ponies, Lyra and Sweetie Drops (The former was still quite badly damaged from her ordeal a week ago but she had been called to duty regardless) and Vigilance the hospital guard. Familiar faces in unfamiliar places. “I’ll be back, just gimme a second I need to dump these papers!” yelled a really familiar voice. The four ponies turned around to see… the ceiling. They had all been barrelled over by a rushing Twilight Sparkle with Spike on her back holding a huge wad of paper. They were both travelling towards the double doors at the other end of the hallway. The doors were locked with an eye scanner that was supposedly used to unlock them. Twilight just charged through. “Well the lock obviously doesn’t work,” said Rainbow Dash jokingly.
“Well, at least we know she is alive and well,” said Fluttershy, dusting herself off “even if she doesn’t have time for her friends.”
“She still hasn’t got those wings sorted yet,” commented the other Pegasus. There was a purple flash in front of them and Twilight appeared in front of them. She noticed their presence but her momentum was too much. “Brace yourselves!” Shouted Applejack. Twilight collided with the grop that had only just got up.“Guys,” Twilight was joyful to see her friends again.
“Umm… can we get up now… again?” Fluttershy asked.
“I don’t see why not,” the alicorn replied.
“maybe because we are all in an umm… big pile up on the floor and…” the yellow Pegasus stammered “You can get up, OK,” The young princess confirmed, “and I have got some news on Rarity and how she is doing.”
“Tell us sugarcube,” insisted Applejack.
“Well, she’s Ok except for a few minor injuries and some other things,” stated Twilight.
“Hell yeah! This means that the entire group is still alive!” yelled an excited Rainbow Dash
“KEEP IT DOWN OVER THERE!” a pony was poking his head out of the door.
“Sorry…”

Inmate 73 paced in the temporary camp that it was staying in. Something was wrong and it could feel the… Anxiety? Excitement? The feeling of satisfaction that its crusade was almost over? It was wrong in all these cases. The place where it felt wrong was in the back streets of Falfrea Crimson’s brain. All the cogs and gears for a machine were there and assembled and all it needed was a twist to kick start it (Figuratively speaking). “Begin the attack.”

Chapter 16

The alarm rang, the klaxon booming around the solid walls of the complex that lay beneath the Pegasus city of Cloudsdale. The ponies that were lounging around in the many comfortable underground rooms jumped to their feet and their pounding hooves soon filled the corridors with noise. This was the first and earliest warning that they got and all were scared for they had been briefed on their tactics. They were to hold their ground and shoot at all running towards them. Kill and don’t stop killing until all the enemies are dead. The warning had come from a Pegasus scout who had said that he saw a massive army marching in this direction, ETA: 4 hours. All ponies were armed with varying weapons, some got the old pistols and some got the new pistols, some got assault rifles and shotguns whilst others got high powered sniper rifles. Many didn’t get a gun and were handed melee weapons; swords, maces, spears, war hammers, battle axes and various other things with spikes on them. All ponies were then marched out into the warm afternoon air and ordered to form defensive lines. All were surprised to see huge great vehicles roll out of the workshop contained in the facility; they seemed to be indestructible; their armour was very thick and a massive rotating turret on the top finished off the effect. These “tanks” were to play a crucial part in the forthcoming battle along with the helicopters.

All of the six friends had been split up again after they had taken a day to catch up on some of the things that they had done after Rarity got back. She had been supervising the movement of a huge machine that looked rather dangerous and when she was asked what it was she said that she couldn’t tell. When it was moved onto the battlefield they knew what it was instantly. It was artillery like all the other cannons lined up beside it. The differences were however that this cannon was huge and the wrong shape. When Applejack saw the inside of the massive artillery she was confused. It was blocked by the largest ruby she had ever seen. It must have been five meters across and at least that in depth. They waited for the inevitable, their deaths and the deaths of their friends and family. Unlike before though, families could die as families and friends could die in each other’s arms. The ground began to tremble. The enemy’s weapons of war became visible over the hill in front of them. The robots had gone, only to be replaced by huge hulking masses of armour and steel, bristling with guns. The top to the machines had one red photoreceptor and that lay underneath a massive turret that dominated the entire leviathan. They stopped, about 1 kilometre away and what happened next was the tensest part of the whole battle. Everything stopped. The pegusi remained motionless, no bullets flew, nopony charged. The two opposing forces lay motionless for many minutes, waiting for the other to make a move. It was Inmate 73 that made the first move; “Deploy the cannons,” It said. The order was echoed across the entire battlefield and the mechanical monsters began to move. Not forward but on the spot. The tracks that they had once been moving on were superseded by a set of metal legs that lifted them off the ground. The back legs stopped growing but the front legs kept going until they were at an angle that was appropriate. “Set the range to 1.1 kilometres.” The artillery ponies manipulated the many levers and buttons underneath the dials that informed them of the status of the machine. “Fire a warning shot,” Inmate 73 ordered, “if they don’t stand down, leave no survivors.” The shell was loaded into the middle cannon and fired. It impacted 300 meters from the front line, splashing dirt for at least 50 meters, with an accompanying fireball to finish off the display. The resulting noise could be heard in Cloudsdale, buildings were structurally damaged. “It’s a warning shot, hold your fire,” a general told the assembled ponies most of whom had jumped out of their skins. After five minutes had passed Inmate 73 became impatient, “They haven’t stood down, level the buildings and kill all that defend them.” The artillery were loaded on both sides and on the command of “FIRE.”, all hell broke loose. The battle for Equestria had begun.

Both sided charged towards the centre of the field that they were in, shells flew over their heads and bullets began flying. Inmate 73 had joined the fight in the air and was taking out pegusi with its Mac-10s. It seemed distracted by this and was looked upon to be unaware of the helicopter trying to get a shot on it but this was all part of a master plan. When the heli started firing it moved with a surprising amount of speed and landed on the nose, tipping it down. It then shot at the engine with the GAU 13s, totally destroying them. This caused the rotors to slow and eventually stop and the heli fell. It hit the ground and exploded with a lot of shrapnel. This killed a further five ponies. “Good shot.” It said to itself. It kept this up, taking out helicopters with very few bullets until it ran out of MAC-10 ammo. “Only one more thing to do,” it sad to itself and scanned the sky for helicopter 001. It was strangely hard to find seeing as the skill the pilot exerted was huge, it barrel rolled and loops and things that helicopters shouldn’t be able to do. It hovered over an artillery battery and dropped what appeared to be small bombs on it. These bombs totally destroyed the cannon, killing all in a large radius and the shell storage was engulfed in the flames. It was at this point that all of the uninformed ponies found out what the massive thing at the complex was. It was the laser mining machine. They charged it up and fired a large beam of super-heated light that melted artillery, shells, bullets and bones. This was a huge armament, possibly classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Inmate 73 turned its head away from the destruction and focused on revenge. It flew towards helicopter 001 and taunted them. Its presence agitated the pilot and she started to make mistakes. “I think it is time that I remove you all from this battle. Permanently!” it yelled to them before shooting out the swashplate and subsequently causing the main rotor to fly off the heli. As you may or may not remember, helicopter number 001 was the first helicopter ever flown and as you probably now remember this heli contained Pinkie Pie, Lyra Heartstrings, Sweetie Drops, Raven and Jim Beam. All of these ponies were now plummeting to their deaths. “Jump and some pegusi will catch us!” Pinkie shouted over the howling wind. All her crewmates looked at her questioningly. “Just do it!” Pinkie jumped. As she wasn’t caught in the downward force that the helicopter was creating she fell slower because her terminal velocity was less than that of the helicopter. After seeing their crewmate fly upwards they lost their fear and jumped. They all joined Pinkie in the sky. “We’re falling slower,” commented Sweetie “But we are still falling.” Pinkie was deep in thought about how to get out of this one. There seemed to be no way out. Then she came across an idea. “LYRA, can you do levitation spells?” she asked.
“Not very well,” Was the answer.
“Can you do one to slow us down?”
“I can try.” A yellow glow encased Lyra’s horn and the group of falling ponies. Their decent slowed but they still dropped. “I can’t do it,” Lyra protested against Pinkie.
“Time it well and we won’t die when we hit the ground,” Was Pinkie’s argument.
“When?” Lyra asked.
“NOW,” shouted Pinkie and the yellow aura encased them once more. The ground rushed up towards them and they all braced for impact. Lyra was straining to stop the fall and she did almost do it. The crew landed with a thud but no squelch or crack to be heard. “Is everypony OK?” Raven questioned. There were groans but no screams and that meant that everypony could stand. Pinkie was first up, “We need to find weapons,” she said because their fall had drawn a lot of attention. She walked over to a dead pony and took its pistol. “I need to find my friends,” said the pink pony, “Stay alive, all of you. For our own sakes.” And with this statement she galloped off.

The 5 friends that had stayed together had formed a sort of kill line, two at the front, one at the back and two defending each side and were taking down ponies everywhere. Rainbow Dash protected from the air, Rarity and Fluttershy from the sides and Applejack and Twilight from the front. It seemed rather strange for a princess to be on the front lines but Celestia in her current state ordered it and so it happened. Inmate 73 was observing this kill line with a strange fascination. It had never occurred to it that maybe this was the most efficient method for killing without being killed, but one aspect of the line caught its attention the most. The speed of the cyan Pegasus that it had tormented before, It had never seen anything move so fast except for itself. It was even considering that she may be faster that It previously thought, faster that It. There was only one way to find out. The many clones that stood around the kill line stopped and created a defensive circle that was almost impenetrable and stopped attacking. They just stood there. Inmate 73 called out to them. It said “I will hold off an attack on you, as I have control over my warriors, so that you will have time to restock on any ammo you can find. My only condition is that the cyan pony with the rainbow mane and tail races me. You will have the time that we create to do what you will. If any of you harm or kill any of the warriors surrounding you, your grace time will end and we will kill all of you.” This was heard over the area that it was directed to and nopony else heard. “What happens when the race is over?” Twilight shouted back.
“We will try to kill you all, as per usual.”
“May we converse?”
“You have 59 seconds.” The friends came together and discussed. The main point thrown around was if they could trust this monster. It seemed as if they had no choice.
“Your time is up,” Inmate 73 boomed, “What is your answer.”
“We accept your proposal.” The six said in unison.
“Then let us begin.”

Chapter 17

“Right then, before we start I would like to set out a few rules; Rule number one, if any of you try to escape I will kill your friend up here and then all of you down there,” Inmate 73 said in a soft voice, “Rule number two, If anypony touches any of my weapons I will kill all of you. Rule number three, No killing on both sides until the race is over. Got it?” They all nodded in agreement. Inmate 73 glided to the ground and dropped all its weapons, its GAU 13s, its MAC-10s and a pair of weapons they had never seen it use. It then dropped a load of clips and drums containing the ammo for the weapons. “Altitude 1000 meters, air temperature 20 degrees Celsius. We begin at 1000 meters from a standstill. Do you want to start from a cloud or from hovering?” Inmate 73 asked Rainbow Dash.
“I think I’ll start from hovering,” she replied.
“Ok then, should we start with something simple like 100 mph?”
“Seems fine to me.”
“Oh, and by the way this isn’t a standard race as such. More of a test of speed. There is no track and no amount of laps, just the sky and your wings. Are you ready?” asked Inmate 73.
“As ready as I ever will be,” Rainbow Dash replied.
“Three… Two… One… GO!” yelled a starter that Inmate 73 had summoned.

They both reached 100 easily and were soon cruising side by side. “How about 500?” asked Inmate 73 and in seconds, the cyan pony accelerated. Inmate 73 soon caught up though. “Speed of sound?” they both sped up until a cone of heat was forming around them. Rainbow Dash said “Sonic Rainboom time.” She looped and powered towards the ground, a thinner, tighter cone formed around her two outstretched hooves. She flew faster until… BOOM! The visible light spectrum shattered leaving a circular rainbow that expanded over the entire battlefield. This was so awesome that the fighting stopped for a few minutes to observe this phenomenon. Inmate 73 began to dive, its wing creating a backwards force that would have knocked over a building. It began to spin, and soon it did a sonic rainboom too. This one was not as beautiful as Rainbow Dashes because Inmate 73 did not have a rainbow colouring. The sky around it just shattered, all the white light became bathed in the light emitted from this fracture in the electromagnetic spectrum. It kept spinning however and it soon reached Mach 20 or 15,211 mph. this created another event. Inmate 73 broke through the ultraviolet waves. The entire battlefield was bathed in a bluey, purpley light that burned the eyes of all that looked too closely. The nature of UV light meant that the skin of all the ponies that were fighting had become darker and began to peel. Inmate 73 then brought its hooves closer to its body, creating a blunter shape and span faster. It kept spinning and pounding on the air with its wings that it reached Mach 30 or 22,816 mph. this brought around the most spectacular thing that Rainbow Dash had ever layed eyes upon. Inmate 73 broke through the X-rays, the expanding circle of light was now composed of x-rays and so she could see into the bodies of her fellow ponies and most importantly she could see into the body of Inmate 73. What she saw shocked her. It was a pony, not a machine. Only a few of its bones seemed to be missing and what else she could see confused her. She could see all of its veins and half of its brain; most of its internal organs were visible through the X-rays that it bathed in. This entire event was a crushing blow to Rainbow Dash; she was no longer the fastest flying pony in Equestria.

When both contestants had landed they returned to the starting line. The fighting was still paused until Inmate 73 gave the order. It went back, picked up its weapons and left for the other side of the battle. This was when the friends decided to begin their attack. They had found many clips and magazines on the floor and they found weapons that would be useful like maces and a spear or two. As soon as Inmate 73 had left, the firing began. The kill line had soon wiped out their captors forces, breaking free of the bonds it had put them in. This race had affected Rainbow Dash in a way she would not like to admit. She had lost and because of that a hatred burned forcefully in her heart, she killed without mercy; even when enemies were unarmed. She would shoot them, she would kick them and she even caved one’s skull in. Soon her hooves were covered in blood, all from the many she slew that day. She shot until she ran out of ammunition and she kicked until it became impractical and even after that she picked up hammer from the floor and swung with all her might. She became a killing machine, ending life after life and then standing on the remains of her fallen foes to kill more of them. She lost all sense of morality that day. It was an inevitability that she would come across her better, the pony that wasn’t a pony. Inmate 73 laughed at her, and with a quick shot ended the life of the pony he was just about the kill. It brought the two guns it was using, a pair of automatic shotguns, to the sided of her head and intended to end the persistent pony but it couldn’t. The cyan coloured pony was utterly crucial in the downfall of Inmate 73. It felt merciful towards her even though she threatened to kill it. Mercy however, was not the only emotion at work here. There was something deeper, more instinctual working in the mind of Falfrea Crimson. It left her there to ponder over why this one time it had let her survive, flying to another part of the battle. All this left Rainbow Dash to do was to find her friends, all her rage spent.

Chapter 18

The skies were darkening as the evening pulled closer. The battlefields were now almost deserted with only pockets of fighting and resistance left. The most part of the land was coated in at least one layer of the bodies of dead ponies, their blood soaking into the once fertile land. What was left of the fighting was a massacre, Inmate 73’s forces closing in on the few remaining ponies loyal to Princess Celestia. Over half of the entire population of Equestria had been mercilessly slaughtered and their bodies left to rot. The rest had ran, ran for their lives from what they thought was right. Inmate 73 was in the process of eliminating a small group of fighters. Its hooves were covered in blood for it had decided to have a bit more fun and bludgeon all the remaining ponies to death even though it still had lots of ammunition. It was rubbing its hooves together to create heat before pressing its superheated hoof to the side of a pinned pony. First, the flesh went red and then yellow and finally black, the skin bubbling and popping under the intense heat. Inmate 73 decided that this was taking too long and so it just crushed the poor stallion’s skull. A reckless mare then decided to tackle Inmate 73 to the ground and landed a few punches before being thrown off. She got up and turned around to see the muzzle of a shotgun inches from her face. This was the last this she remembered. As the lifeless body dropped to the floor, Inmate 73 turned and analysed the battlefield. Most pockets of war were in favour of it but one was way out of control, with the kill-death ratio of its warriors something around 0 to 300 (0 kills to 300 deaths). It decided to go in to the fray and win the fight.

When it flew over there to assist its forces it came across what would be its ultimate downfall, the group of six friends, holding a position and killing without mercy. The group had no air support but it seemed to be dominating the fray. They took very few hits and when Inmate 73 landed they looked over, breaking their concentration. It took this setback and used it to surround them and to pin them down, a little bit like a firing squad. It told its warriors to take aim. The look upon the faces of these six friends was not of horror or defeat, but of a knowing that they had done valiantly for themselves and others. This look into the eyes of their killer, not pleading for mercy but sneering at it, daring Inmate 73 to do the deed caused something to click in the brain of Falfrea Crimson; the metaphorical machine had got the jumpstart it needed. Inmate 73 was overpowered by the rush of life and emotion flooding from his brain. Inmate 73 was no longer in control but now Falfrea Crimson was. He looked around, his joy turning to horror and he took in what his alter-ego had done to the country he once loved. The once green grass was now mud, churned into hideous shaped by the hooves of many ponies. The mud was horribly discoloured, with red seeping into the brown and grey of the wet soil. The sky was filled with a strange red mist that seemed to be the blood of pegusi falling to the ground. Slowly, it dawned on Falfrea that he had done what he had never meant to do; he had meant to capture Canterlot and demand that Celestia would come to meet him. He had killed over ten times the estimate that he had made on his many days plotting and planning his return. The order to fire never came because it was Falfrea that fired. He pulled out the loaded MAC-10’s and opened fire on his own troops. The first line of warriors fell to the ground dead, their blood further discolouring the mud. This took them by surprise and he took this opportunity to fly over to the ponies he was saving. He emptied his machine pistols and tossed them to Rarity and Fluttershy along with a few magazines. “You’ll need these if you want to survive this,” he said to them. He pulled out both his shotguns and laid one on the ground. By this time, the now enemy forces had regained their independence and started firing again. Falfrea returned fire with his shotgun, the blasts taking out between one and four enemies. “What do you want with us?” asked Applejack anxiously.
“To keep you alive,” was Falfrea’s reply, “Inmate 73 has done too many horrific deeds and I need to correct some of them.” Falfrea took the time to quickly survey the group of ponies behind him. Applejack had a working rifle, Fluttershy and Rarity both had MAC-10s, Pinkie Pie had picked up a spear but the head seemed to be missing and so she was just beating ponies with a stick. Falfrea had no idea how she was not getting shot to pieces. Rainbow Dash still had her pistol but it was dangerously low on ammunition and Twilight had had the initiative to pick up the shotgun that lay by Falfrea’s hooves. Not the best army he could have wished for.

They fought for about 2 minutes before Falfrea realised that they were getting nowhere, just defending against and ever growing army of warriors. He yelled “I’m bringin’ out the big guns!” and opened his wings to expose the GAU 13s that hung from the underside. “Say hello to James and Davis!” He let the 30mm calibre bullets tear through the ranks of the enemies, holes the size of a Satsuma were what was left of the impacting bullets tearing through flesh and bone. Within half a minute all of their opponents were torn to pieces and thrown all over the battlefield. Falfrea turned to look at the ponies he just saved again but they were looking at him with disgust and horror. “What have I done now to upset the six ponies whose help I need the most?” he asked them.
“You just shot about 100 ponies into pieces,” said Applejack,
“You killed them all without mercy,” said Pinkie,
“But worst of all, you looked as if you were enjoying it,” Twilight finished. Falfrea looked at them all, analysing whether he could use them for what he intended to. “I think that you’ll find that I just saved your asses so…” He shrugged, “Anyway, I need your help; I need it more that I have ever needed help before. I can see that you are a very close group of friends and that you have connections with Princess Celestia. I need you to help me end this war today but for that I need you total trust and cooperation. If I don’t have trust, this will never work. I need your help and trust to take back what was taken from me and from 76 others that can’t be here because… because… I killed them all…” Falfrea trailed off, tears welling in his eye and falling to the ground. He knew he had done wrongs and he sought to correct them but he had only one way to do so. Bring Celestia to justice. “Right, I need to know now. Are you with me?” Falfrea asked, his pleading eye moving from one pony to another, the other remained emotionless. They all looked as though they would decline. “If you say no, you will die and I will die, there is no way out of this. If you come with me then we will either die together or we won’t die. So, are you with me?” All the six friends could see was a deceptive mass murderer pleading with them to go with him into their own base, but deep within his eyes, Twilight saw a spark of life or a sign that he was not only a mass murderer but one trying to resolve his sins. “I will go with you,” Twilight decided and she moved over to stand by him. “Thank you Twilight,” he whispered in her ear. “Are you lot going to stay there or do you want your group divided?”
“Anything to end this war,” Applejack said as she joined Twilight and Falfrea.
“I can agree with you there Applejack, this war is so muddy,” was Rarity’s statement.
Pinkie Pie bounced over to be with her friends and Fluttershy walked tentatively over. All that was left was Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t look at him, let alone speak. “Rainbow Dash, don’t be bitter that Inmate 73 beat you. I’m not Inmate 73. I have no idea if I can even fly that fast… and you probably want to join your friends.” Falfrea pleaded, hoping that she would see that even if she was near him her friends would distract her. She flew over, “Just to be with my friends.” She mumbled.
“All right, I got you all. This couldn’t have gone better. Umm, could you lot just wait here whilst I speak to Twilight.” Falfrea took Twilight away from the group, out of earshot. “I need you to do a very good job here, your part is critical. I have four plans for what I will do, plan A means that you don’t get hurt, Plan B will be painful, Plan C will be agonising and Plan D results in death. But, I have a way of cheating death. If you let me put a small amount of nanomites into your body then you won’t die and all that I do to you will be repaired but, the pain will still be there. Do you want to proceed?”
“I don’t really have a choice, if I leave then all the others will leave with me and you will be left with nothing. My answer is yes and I want the nanomites.” Twilight said to him, steeling herself for what would probably be the worst day of her life. “Nanomites then,” Falfrea said as a small syringe like device protruded from his metal leg. He pushed the sharp end into a blood vessel and empties about 100,000 nanomite units into her bloodstream. “This amount will repair you slowly so it looks as realistic as possible,” Falfrea informed her, “Let’s do this thing!”

The seven ponies burst through the front blast doors with a magic blast from Twilight’s horn and they ran through the rubble that seemed to consist mostly of oranges. The next door Twilight opened from the panel next to it. “Right then, whatever I do you need to react accordingly but don’t attack me. If you want to run, run until you can hide and then wait for me. Most importantly, don’t tell anypony any informati-CAMERA!” yelled Falfrea and as they skidded to a halt he shot it out, “They know we are here.” They continued along passageways, taking out cameras and blast doors until they came to the lift that took them down to the bunkers. Four auto turrets guarded these doors so Falfrea took them out with his GAU 13’s. They all got in the lift and it was a tight fit with seven ponies. Falfrea, a stallion sandwiched between six mares (good times, good times) but this was not on his mind. That was focused on how he would get Celestia to surrender. When they reached the basement level the doors opened and they all braced for… nothing. There were no guards, no turrets and no explosives. Celestia seemed to want Falfrea to come and get her. They all stepped out. “Don’t take another step,” warned Twilight as she tentatively walked over to the control panel on the wall. She inputted a series of numbers and letters and the screen changed to one more like a control panel with levers and dials. Twilight set all the dials to 0 and pulled the lever down. An audible hissing sound escaped the entire hallway as all the doors opened and all the defence systems were deactivated. “I hope you know what you are doing,” Twilight said to Falfrea.
“Why wouldn’t I?” They approached the final door, the opening system a lot simpler than that of the rest of the hallway. “Open it,” said Falfrea.

The door slid open and all the royal guards raised their weapons to defend the two Princesses sitting on the thrones in the centre. The hallway was empty for as far as they could see but then suddenly, from the left side, Twilight walked into view. All the guards tensed and many almost discharged their rifles. “Twilight, my faithful student, what are you doing here?” asked Celestia with worry in her voice. It was now made apparent to Twilight why the war needed to end, her teacher had dark circles under her eyes and her once white coat was stained to a dark cream. Celestia’s mane lay limp at the side of her head, a thing never seen before. Luna was looking in better shape but she looked distant as if she had removed herself from the room. Before Twilight could reply Falfrea spoke “To end this war.” The voice of Falfrea both startled and returned Celestia and Luna to their respective minds. “Falfrea! It has been a long time,” said Celestia, almost cheerily.
“That it has, that it has, but now you may see what you have done to me,” Falfrea stepped into the doorway. He had not made any attempt to hide his implants. In the harsh white light of the doorway the entire system could be seen. Apart from the obvious physical changes of his leg, ear and eye there were many not seen. Through the skin that had been made more transparent by the nanomites, all of his internal organs could be viewed. Less than half were totally natural. His heart was rigged with a metal structure that seemed to protect it and add to its power. His entire digestive system was surrounded by the dark mass of nanomites and all of the blood vessels were full of them. Falfrea had no blood left, only nanomites to serve its purpose. “This is what you have done to me and I am going to get justice for all the lives that you ruined by all of your secrets. All I want is for you to make a speech that reveals to all your subjects the secrets like the CDFRDT.” Said Falfrea.
“And what if I don’t?” Celestia asked suspiciously.
“Let me just give you some incentive,” said Falfrea and he pulled out one of his shotguns and pushed it against Twilights head. He advanced into the room and the other five followed behind in shock. “And let me just give you a different one,” said Celestia. A quiet click could be heard from far away and everypony jumped when Discord appeared in the middle of the room. “Oh hello,” Discord was addressing Falfrea “I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of meeting. My name is Discord, Master of Chaos. Now reformed of course.”
“The last time we met, you were stone and I was 7.” Falfrea said nonchalantly. “And how did the master of chaos end up working for the princesses as a guard may I ask?”
“Like I said, I reformed,” Said Discord “But anyway, I know how to make you end this war and I know all of your darkest secrets.”
“Spill the metaphysical beans my dear friend.”
“I know how you killed them all; up there and how you can see the faces of the dead haunting you at night. I know why you haven’t gone to see if your family is alive because you fear that they will be dead and most of all, I know that you know that all of the emotion you are enjoying now must come to an end as you settle back into normal life. Only one problem there though, you can’t have a normal life because you are a monster and you would worry for them every time you were near them and eventually you would lose control and kill them,” Discord smiled as he looked upon the pain in Falfrea’s eye, how he knew all that Falfrea didn’t want anypony else knowing. The grey would come any second now… Discord was confused, all of his tricks had failed and Falfrea was still Falfrea. “I think that I need to teach you a lesson Discord,” Falfrea said through gritted teeth, “I know what you are trying to do and I have no idea whether it will work or not. I know from the fact that you have a low level telepathic field that allows you to see the things I don’t want you to see but this is now a disadvantage. I just bounced back the signal, amplifying it with all the technology in my body and I know that you know that there is something missing.”
“There is, for I felt it as soon as you mind was open to me.”
“Do you want to know what it is and why you can’t discord me? It is because half of my brain is integrated computer. It doesn’t feel anything, emotion, pain or mercy. It just processes all the data that my senses collect. The other half you don’t want to mess with. I have no idea what will happen if you discord me, I can’t even begin to start to work it out. You might release Inmate 73 in which case you will all die, no exceptions. Now can you move please so that I may continue negotiations with the Princess,” Falfrea was getting impatient. Surprisingly, Discord moved out of the line of sight and negations began. All the time Falfrea had been chatting to Discord, the gun was still pressed against Twilight’s head. “Chance number one, give in to my demands,” he asked politely. “I will never give in,” Celestia answered.
“Chance number two.”
“Again, I will never submit.”
“So be it.” Falfrea turned slightly left leaned over Twilight and clamped his mouth over her ear, bit down and pulled back, tearing the ear off. Blood trickled down the side of Twilight’s face; she was motionless for she was still in shock. Falfrea didn’t spit out the ear but instead he chewed and swallowed.
“Always need my protein,” said Falfrea as he steeled himself for a bad digestive ride, his stomach was not designed to process meat. The gun was still pointing at Twilight’s mutilated head, Rarity had fainted as soon as Falfrea had bit down and the others were just staring at him. Chance number three my dear,” Falfrea said.
“I don’t care for Twilight, do what you will,” said Celestia with a sneer.
“Fun, fun, fun!” Falfrea pulled out one of Twilights wings, lined it up to her leg and shot. The pellets tore through her wing and impacted her leg, breaking it in two places. Blood spurted from the main artery in the wing, propelling blood away from Twilight’s body and bone could be seen through the hole in her leg. “Final chance,” Falfrea offered
“Do it, I dare yo…” a gunshot echoed through the hard corridors of the facility followed quickly by a thud. Falfrea had shot Twilight through the neck (a headshot would have destroyed her memory) and she fell lifeless to the floor. “Any of you brave enough, take her into the hallway,” Falfrea was addressing the group of four standing behind him. Rainbow Dash eventually stood up to the challenge and lifted the body of her friend out of the room and into the hallway.

Falfrea had activated the dormant nanomites in Twilight’s blood when he bit off her ear, and so as she was removed they were already fixing her and stopping the bleeding. “My next pony will probably be more persuasive. Luna, could you please come down here.” Falfrea asked.
“You will not touch my little sister!” Celestia shouted at Falfrea, rage filling her soul.
“I won’t touch her, but these might,” Falfrea flared his massive wings to show off the GAU 13s. Now that Falfrea was threatening a member of the royal family, the guards were all active and pointing their guns at Falfrea. He felt the movement of the air as somepony pulled the trigger and Falfrea moved his closest wing to block the bullet. He beat the wing down just as the bullet hit so that it wouldn’t ricochet everywhere and possibly kill somepony. “I will let you off on that one but if anypony else fires then I will have to do a little bit of killing,” Falfrea said, “Now Luna, I really enjoyed my time with Nightmare Moon. I met her about five years ago in the CDFRDT and luckily for you I spared her life. You did a very good job on that one Celestia, and I have to give it to you; that was a good test. Sending Nightmare Moon to the moon and keeping your sister in hiding for 1000 years. Damn that must have been hard, keeping your sister a secret for so many years and then teleporting her into the right place at the right time and taking Nightmare Moon back to a place where you could contain her or maybe you just killed her… I’m getting away from the matter at hoof. Celestia, give in to my demands or I kill Luna.” The princess of the night looked at her elder sister with shock on her face; Celestia was weighing up the two options. “Going once,” Falfrea said. Luna looked more desperate now than she had ever been. “Going twice,” Falfrea started up the motors on the Gatling cannons, their multiple barrels spinning faster and faster. “Gone.”
“WAIT,” Celestia shouted and Falfrea dug the guns into the stone floor, shattering the ends of the barrels and most of the floor. “I give in.” Celestia stood up and cast her gaze at the floor. “I was wrong and I need to…”
“Hold it right there and tell that to the six ponies waiting outside. The entire story and all the information or you know what will happen,” Falfrea threatened, “And yes, I did say six. I put a small amount of nanomites into Twilight’s blood before we came in here and their sensors tell me she is fine and talking very quietly to her friends.” Falfrea was looking very smug. “TWILIGHT, CAN YOU COME IN HERE PLEASE!” She walked in with a slight limp but she was totally fine other than that. As all six ponies entered the room the guards tensed up again. “Guards, stand down,” Celestia was now in a state of shock, “but you shot her through the neck.”
“Yeah, that’ll scar,” said Falfrea.
“But… through the neck must do some permanent damage.”
“Not with nanomites your majesty. I didn’t shoot her in the head because while they can regrow brain cells, the memory and data in that area is lost forever. Hell, she might have forgotten that you were all friends.” The last statement was aimed at the five ponies surrounding Twilight. “Now, onto business. Celestia, tell them everything.” The Princess then proceeded to tell the six friends about the CDFRDT and some things that Falfrea didn’t know about (don’t worry, I will tell you all about it in the epilogue). At the end all six ponies were horrified. “How… and why?” Twilight asked her mentor, beginning to question the royalty standing in front of her. “Don’t take it out on Celestia here Twilight. You know more than most that there is only one monster in here and that is me. I can live with what she has done to me because I forgave her as soon as I got to one year. My time in solitude gave me lots of time to think and do artwork and play sports and… I’m getting off subject here but anyway I forgave her because she did what she had to do to protect her subjects and her power and I would have done the exact same thing. I think it is time I told you all a little story about me… Actually, hell no! You can wait until the Princess does a public speech about all this and what she has done and then the whole of Equestria will hear what I have to say!”(once again, epilogue) Falfrea’s voice went into a crescendo and it ended up with him proclaiming the last few words. “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. You said nothing about a speech. They’ll kick me out or worse, try to kill me.” Celestia looked at Falfrea,
“It’ll be for the best and I will defend you if it comes to that. Now let’s get out from here, side by side, ally beside ally.”

Epilogue

It had taken three times as long as Falfrea had predicted but eventually, everypony in Equestria had arrived in the fields below Cloudsdale for it was the only space big enough for the entire population. The ground had been levelled so that it could be easily walked on by the earth ponies and the unicorns. The pegusi could watch from the clouds and their home city. What they were all watching was a small stage, really just a pair of soapboxes stood next to each other. They were just there to give a speaker some elevation (These were pony soapboxes so they were elongated). The ponies waited for another ten minutes before the speakers arrived. Princess Celestia and Falfrea Crimson walked side by side, emerging from a nearby trench. Instantly, there was a division. Some of the ponies bowed their supreme ruler but some questioned her for the simple fact that the one who had killed someone in everyponies family was walking beside her without being in custody. Celestia and Falfrea got onto the soapboxes but silence still ruled over the plains. Celestia spoke first; “Loyal subjects, please rise. As you can now probably work out, the war is over (this got a few cheers but they soon died down) and I still don’t know which side won.”
“If I may just interject here for a moment,” Falfrea could be easily heard from all ends of the plains, “I think that I won, well… not me but Inmate 73 who is almost me but without a soul, morals and without actually being alive… that is an entirely different question though isn’t it? Is the AI in the computer part of my brain actually alive or is it just ones and zeros. You probably don’t even know what an AI is but you will find out when I lead a team to the moon to retrieve all my work and the work of the other scientists at the CDFRDT… I sort of rambled a little bit there, sorry Celestia.” Falfrea looked sheepishly at a stern faced Princess Celestia. “As I was saying, I don’t know who won, it was probably Falfrea seeing as he pushed us out of our cities and probably ransacked them. Either way, the war is over and there will be no more fighting, you will return to your normal lives as your homes are rebuilt and our dignity resurrected.” The Princess looked as though she wanted to be somewhere else, probably asleep. “Celestia, you know that I don’t want to have to threaten you but you do have to tell them. I cannot guarantee that they will take it well and you might lose all of your power but they still need you to raise the sun, remember that and use it if you must.” Falfrea whispered into the Princesses ear before returning to his stance at the soapbox. “There is however, something that you must know. As you know from the legends I have ruled for over a thousand years and that time has given me many challenges that I overcame. A few of the ways that I overcame some of the challenges were immoral. They were wrong. I took the shortcuts. One of these shortcuts came back to haunt me. Literally!”
“Hey!” Falfrea shouted at Celestia.
“Sorry, I like to joke. Anyway however, one of these shortcuts spat Master Crimson back out at me and I was unprepared for that. Have any of you ever wondered how there is so little stealing and robbery in Equestria? I dealt with that problem about 70 years ago by creating the Criminal Detention Facility for Research, Development and Testing. This was a facility where criminals would live out their days. But they were isolated. On the moon.” A wave of shock and whispers passed around the crowds in their varying places. Silence moved over the lands like a tide, sweeping everything away with it. Celestia continued “But the fact that they were isolated was not the worst part. The worst part was that they were tested on, in most cases they died from the testing. I was not in control of the testing though. That was the job of the guards and keepers. Their names were…” Celestia then proceeded to read out a list consisting of about 30 to 40 names. This was to honour their sacrifice but no-pony knew them as they had been supposedly dead for 70 years. “But, from the information that I have been given from my friend Falfrea here, they are now all dead and the facility abandoned. Mainly because Falfrea killed every living thing on that station and… we’ll see what he did after that.” There was still silence. It was as if the wind was also holding its breath. Most ponies were shocked by the suddenness of all that they had been told. They had been told only about 120 seconds ago that the pony and the Princess standing above them were both mass murderers. “I am going to take this time now to come clean about all of my past wrongs.” Torture to ensure loyalty; enslavement of the Crystal Empire by manipulation of Sombra (Didn’t see that one coming did ya?); the Nightmare Moon story and many other horrifying things. The spectators were left speechless, their ruler had done so many terrible deeds and she was only now telling them this. They began to panic and many ran to try to escape from what they saw as a pair of horrible monsters standing before them. “Ponies of Equestria, be calm, be still,” Falfrea was talking now and he had their attention, they were quiet and unmoving “before you come up here and try to kill us both let me explain a couple of things. You need Celestia to raise the sun and I could probably kill you all if you attacked me. You may continue with your rioting.” Falfrea’s voice faded into the blue skies. “We do not want to riot and be sucked down into anarchy,” a single voice shouted out across the plains, “all we want is justice.”

The voice on the plains was Princess Cadence and she had taken it upon herself to build a case defending Celestia so that she would not suffer imprisonment or worse. The young princess understood why her ruler had done what she had done. The re-establishing Equestria took its time and when it came, Cadence gave her reasons why the Princess of the sun should not be put to death. “She did everything for us; the denizens of Equestria. She did what she did to protect us, to help us and to keep us clean from the filth that lives within all of us. She recognised that crime was bad for everypony and so she dealt with it. She may have gone about it the wrong way but her heart was in the right place. Cadence went on and on until the ponies who wanted to prosecute Celestia couldn’t because their evidence was outweighed by the simple fact that they needed her to survive. Without the sun they were nothing. Princess Cadence recognised that some of the things that Celestia had done were unredeemable and so, at the end of the day, Celestia was sentenced. She couldn’t have her power taken from her and as a result, she remained as the leader of Equestria. She would be monitored by a board to ensure that what she did was recorded and action could be taken if necessary. She had to put every decision that she made that affected Equestria to a committee so that the political system was no longer a dictatorship. Falfrea Crimson had been tried on that very same day and he sentenced himself to exile in the Everfree forest before walking out of the room only ten minutes into the hearing. He had said that he had some things to take care of beforehand that needed his undivided attention. He wandered out of the palace and into the streets of the crumbling Canterlot. Even though it had only been a week since the end of the war was confirmed, repairs had begun and the reconstruction of the capital was underway. Many residents of Ponyville had also returned to their ruined town to find that it wasn’t too ruined. Some houses were intact and the town hall was upright. If they worked hard and cooperated they could get all the houses and shops rebuilt in no time at all. Twilight and her five friends wandered the rubble. “Even though it is partially destroyed,” Twilight decided, “It’s good to be home.”

Chapter 5

The carriage wobbled as it came nearer to Canterlot. “It happens every time, bit of turbulence here, bit of turbulence there,” said Princess Celestia to the worried ponies, “when we touch down I will have to leave you to deal with this crisis.” Applebloom still hadn’t said anything since the incident with the meteor and Applejack was worried about her. “What’ll happen to my sister then” she asked, “she hasn’t spoken since you know what.” This last part was directed at Twilight.
“What?” she asked since she was immersed in her own thoughts, “Oh yes. Princess, we witness the arrival of Falfrea Crimson.” Celestia’s face darkened.
“Falfrea Crimson?” She questioned.
“That’s what he said his name was, emphasis on the was.” Twilight said.
“Bugger,” whispered the Princess, “Let’s just get to Canterlot.”

When they touched down, Celestia departed with haste and left them without a goodbye. Granny smith left them a few minutes after. The six friends and Applebloom then milled around Canterlot, (Twilight got quite a lot of bows and attention) for a while before the mass exodus from Ponyville reached them. Only about a quarter of the population reached Canterlot and amongst these were Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell, Derpy, Time Turner and various others. Soon after this event the Princesses addressed the city in a very concise manner. “We have been caught totally unprepared for this tragic and disastrous incident. We have however devised a plan for if anything like this should happen. Total militarisation of the population. You will all have to serve, without exceptions. Even the old and the young can be put to good use. In this square you will receive a form upon which you must write your specialities, your job and your age. Tomorrow you will return to this place to be divided into your specific groups. And then we can begin to combat this threat. Ten AM tomorrow morning you need to assemble here. I am sincerely sorry for those that have lost friends or family from Ponyville. And I leave you with one final thought. If this menace is to reach you family, what would you give to keep them safe.”

After the speech, the Princess messaged Twilight to bring her friends and herself to the castle where they could have a private meeting. And sure enough, Princess Celestia was there at the gates of the castle. “We can have our conversation in my room,” said the Princess. When they arrived, the Princess took a seat and seeing that there were six ponies and one other chair they all decided to stand. “Twilight Sparkle, due to your status as an alicorn, you will be protected within the walls of Canterlot. However, the rest of you cannot stay with her, most likely you will all be totally separated without any means of communication,” Said Princess Celestia, “and before you ask, the Elements of Harmony will be useless against this foe, for even my magic is not strong enough to remove the corruption embedded deep within his soul.” The looks of surprise on all the faces of the six were almost heart wrenching, but Celestia knew that she had committed to more vile and unholy thing than this. The friends then had left with the intention of spending what might be their last night together in peaceful, quiet way. The Princess mused “I knew this day would come, the time when my own creations rose up to destroy me and all those around me.”

Falfrea’s mind raced. He was calculating the usages of all the material brought before him. He then stumbled upon what was going to be instrumental in the defeat of his enemy. Sulphur and saltpetre. He knew that these would do something if added to charcoal and ignited. “Get me some charcoal,” he said to Bio-force General 01 or Big Mcintosh. When he returned with the charcoal, Falfrea mixed the three substances and ignited them with another invention from a few minutes ago, a stick with phosphorus on the end. He lit the stick by scraping it on a rock sitting next to him and then pressed it onto the new mixture of powdered charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre. The substance exploded violently, partially burning Falfrea’s skin. This explosion gave what we would call a fourth degree burn, charring his skin and reaching to his enlarged earth pony bones. This was totally painless and the nanomites soon fixed all his up. Let me now explain the nature of these nanomites because as you have probably already deduced, they are pretty powerful. They are a basic flu virus that has been genetically modified to not give the organism carrying it the flu. They are also cyborgs in such a way that they can communicate with Falfrea and his generals via electricity. This is also how they can restart a heart and a brain. They also have the ability to replicate cells and to invade other cells to reproduce. That is how they have their amazing healing abilities. They run on a hive mind, almost totally interdependent on Falfrea to control them and to dictate their movements. “Bio-force General 01, begin our assault on the capital city. Leave none alive,” Said Falfrea, moving his hoof over the burnt out powder, “and get me more of this.”

The six friends sat in the deserted room, with only each other for company. “Do you all remember my first day in Ponyville?” asked Twilight in a solemn voice.
“That was quite a day,” replied Applejack in a similar tone. Even Pinkie was sad, a rare occurrence by all means. “And when I tackled you into that puddle,” said Rainbow Dash dejectedly. In this way they went over almost all their adventures together, sometimes laughing but mostly with tearful eyes. As the time passed from night to morning, Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Rainbow Dash decided to part ways. “I’ll see y’all later…” trailed Applejack. Those words had so many meanings. Pinkie said nothing, she just left but she looked back in the doorway and her face said it all. “Umm…I think I should umm…get going,” said Fluttershy with tears falling slowly from her eyes. Rarity tried to go out on a lighter note, but that went to pot. She left sobbing. Dash was the last to leave. “If I don’t make it back,” she said to Twilight, trying to hold back the tears, “Make sure Scootaloo knows how it happened, OK. You promise,” she then left the room leaving Twilight alone and cold. She was worried for her friend’s lives more than for her own from the destructive form that is Falfrea Crimson.