The Greatest Failures

The lavender colored, armoured mare landed dizzily in the center of the ruins of Ponyville. Her head was swamped in the recent events, she was a soldier, not a spy! Head aching from the extensive use of magic it took to teleport a long distance, she sat down on an old porch that had once belonged to a resident of Ponyville.

When the Human had arrived in Equestria many years ago, everypony was shocked and scared with this alien, but most accepted him and took pity on the poor soul who was alone on their world. The human was liked by mostly all the populace, he was treated like royalty and his stories were written down and published all through out Equestria. Great tales of his adventures and his life back home quickly made him popular, and through popularity people learn about you. When the pony scientist's learned of his expertise as an engineer and known scientist status, they quickly flocked to him.

Equestria was not ready for the radical increase in technology. Riots sprung up all across the country, houses burned, crops burned, entire towns destroyed. The most common reason of rioting was with introduction of robotics into the workforce. Thousands were laid off and/or fired directly, the robotics industry boomed and with it, the man who made it all possible. The riots were becoming a horrible norm for pony life.

When the robotics industry began to slow down, Xavier introduced new weapons to the guards earning him millions in bits. They were called 'Pistols.' The 'Pistol' was primarily used by unicorn guards at the time due to the design of the weapon. Pistols skyrocketed in popularity due to the size of weapon and damage caused by it. It made all current armour worthless and guess what happens when current armour is worthless, yep you got it, you make new armour! Well Xavier did just that, he and his team of now trained pony scientists began working on armour for the guard. Well magically he made the bullet proof vest and sold them to the military of Equestria.

Now the new Doctor Xavier was now one of the richest people in Equestria.

Due to his lack of competitors in the arms market, he could make billions and design whatever he had wanted. The first major blow to Equestria as a nation came when a squad of guards fired upon rioters in Manehatten, up till this point weapons were idolized and had never been used other than in training sessions for the guards.

For the first time in pony history a mass tragedy took place and it changed the nation forever.

Nineteen ponies were killed, thirty-six were wounded, most of which were not rioters but simple pedestrians. The repercussions from this event even hit Canterlot where talk of a ban of firearms would soon arise. No deliberate action was taken due to the perfect split of nobles for and against the ban. A state of panic quickly spread through out the country.

Everything went to shit just before the one thousandth Summer Sun Celebration. Armed guards carrying the newest firearms available were escorting Celestia and the Doctor to the celebration. A guard newly retired from the recently disbanded Royal Guard, was drunk off his ass and decided to kill the man who disbanded the religion and age old tradition of the Royal Guard. Royal as in the dress wearing fancy guards who were for show.

Nopony still quite understand how he did it, but the drunken ex-guard had had a pistol, an earlier model, got passed the multiple highly trained guards and was able to miss his target and hit Celestia.

For the first time ever, the Summer Sun Celebration was canceled.

Lily, up and walking again, looked about the abandoned and burned town of Ponyville. She saw the barren, charred remains of Sweet Apple Acres, the heap of wood that was the new Carousel Boutique. She saw what had been the happiest sight to see in Ponyville, the skeleton of Sugarcube Corner.

Lily was urgently trying to get to the safety of the Everfree Forest, she knew if she didn’t get there soon, she would be pretty screwed. She began to run towards the Everfree Forest.

When Nightmare Moon appeared out of no where in Ponyville, the whole town ran to their homes and prayed for Celestia. The Mare in the Moon had not been expecting the response she was given, many of the guards who were scared half to death opened fire on the old goddess. Nightmare Moon in her own right disappeared into the night, when one of the bullets encased itself in her moon rock armour.

Failing to protect the Princess and his weapon to blame for her injury, Equestria as a whole divided in two. Those for and against the Doctor.

At the heart of the new uprising was a message from Nightmare Moon, “Come to the Everfree our children! With your help, we shall stop the corrupt one and return Equestria to its peaceful state! We shall not stand by as our home is molested and stolen from us by some Alien!” The message was heard throughout Equestria and thousands flocked to its call. Many would simply rather live in darkness then allow this man to continue his work.

The Doctor was absolutely infuriated and made a statement saying, 'If any pony is seen exiting the Everfree Forest they will be shot, no questions asked. Once you enter, you will never be allowed to return. I say again, once you leave, you are now wanted by the government of Equestria.'

As more and more time passed between sightings of Celestia, many believed she was dead. The common, albeit fleeting, hopeful thought of the time was that Celestia had been critically hurt and was still alive guiding the Doctor. As more and more ponies thought she had died, they left their homes in despair and joined others in the Everfree Forest.

Unknown to the half of the populace who stayed in Equestria, Celestia had disappeared shortly after being rushed to Canterlot. So now the Dictator of Equestria was free to do whatever he thought acceptable, all he had to do was have a head piece. So he used Celestia, after many months of work and preparation, he built a new Robotic Celestia. With the aid of magic and AI working together, he had basically copied Celestia's Physical form.

He now had his centerpiece to hide behind. First thing he created were the AE's. AE's were ponies augmented to use larger, heavier armor and increasingly deadly weapons. AE candidates were chosen from the guard and were then altered to do his personal bidding. These ponies were noticeably taller and stronger than the average pony.

The second thing he did was continue research on the blasted machine that had brought him here in the first place. He began to send AE's through the portal to steal research notes and get back against the people who he hated and/or were threatened by.

Lily's mother and father had died in the rioting in Manehatten, with no parents the then teenage mare joined the guard. In the guard she prospered and rose quickly through the ranks catching the Doctor's eye. Xavier quickly placed her in the Armored Equine program. Heightened in mind and body, Lily began to unravel the lies the great Doctor had told. She had heard of murmurs of Celestia's death, it was not an uncommon topic throughout the guard.

Even Alpha, the first AE, would often share his knowledge on the subject. Alpha was probably the most loyal towards Xavier, so to hear him talk about the missing Celestia was very nerve racking due to his straight forward attitude. Lily jumped at any new insight that was heard throughout the guard, she assembled all known facts about Celestia including some gossip and determined that she was in fact gone maybe not dead but definitely missing. Not long after, Lily learned about Xavier's reasoning behind the M.A.R.D. The machine was not for 'improvement of all pony kind', Equestria was just a vessel to carry Xavier's ideals and plot revenge against his personal enemies on Earth.

This thoroughly pissed off Lily so she had decide to basically take the heart of Xavier's research and take it to the Outcasts, the half of the population that now lived in the Everfree Forest. She hoped they could help her, because once she left, she was an exile.

This was Lily's current problem, here she is standing just outside the Everfree Forest contemplating her decision to leave. She adjusted her weight from side to side trying to come up with a solution.

Lily deciding that she had already gone too far, took an aggressive chance and took off into the Everfree. Around a hundred feet in, a metal rod stuck up out of the ground and sent a lightning bolt looking shock towards Lily. Avoiding it, Lily jumped over a log and slid down an embankment. She was now in a small valley barren of trees but covered in shrubbery. Checking her HUD for life she saw nothing and decided to follow a path she had just discovered deeper into the Everfree.

Slowly she walked up through the path cautiously looking around her, she had no clue what the rods were but she sure didn’t want to find another one. Soon she came to another valley that looked eerily similar to the first, at first she assumed she had gone in a circle but her HUD told her otherwise. Quietly she slid down a hill side toward the bottom of the valley because she could see an object that stuck out.

She could tell it was rusted and stuck out from the ground. She looked around to see if anypony was nearby then pulled on the object. The metallic ball or whatever it was wouldn’t budge so she planted her hooves firmly on the ground and used her magic to tug it.

Head in slight pain, the object broke away from the ground. Turning it over, she gasped and dropped it. The helmet had a large gash in the visor and dried blood coated the inside of it along with tufts of brown fur.

She stared down at the helmet until she heard her HUD give a warning signal that the suit was losing power rapidly.

Behind her, three of the unusual rods were slowly descending back into the ground.

Lily noticing she was losing power tried to move but it was a difficult fight, the armour was too heavy. Trying desperately to move she willed her front leg forwards only to be unable to move the rear. Power now fully drained of the system, she collapsed onto her side, unable to move.

Fear took hold of her, she had extremely important information that would get her killed out right by Xavier and right now she couldn’t move, she was at the mercy of whatever found her, whether it was a Manticore or Hydra.

She had auxiliary power which kept her breathing and allowed partial HUD capabilities, mostly the scanner. So at least she would know when she was about to be discovered. All Lily could see was the path in front of her and the dirt on the right side of her visor. So she waited hopefully for who ever had created the rods in first place to come and check on the one she had crushed when she fell over.

Well that was the plan, hopefully it wasn't a stick or something. She would rather be shot than starved any day.