Torchwood: Project Equestria

Sometimes it feels odd to gaze upon the stars of another planet, even if the planet is just a parallel equivalent of the one you’re from, but the star map above Equestria wasn't an exception. The sky displayed the heavenly concert of distant stars and suns with the occasional wisp of a nebula. A full moon guarded the night and lightly illuminated the sky in a deep violet haze. Atop the hill overlooking Ponyville Tahlia sat, blankly scrutinizing the midnight sky. A deep feeling of loneliness filled her as she watched the light layer of clouds dissipate, giving a clear view of space. The feeling was broken abruptly as another pony lightly approached from the illuminated darkness, it was Isaiah.

“Hey Babe.” He said as he trotted past and sat down beside her.

“I thought I told you… don’t call me Babe.” She said as he sat down.

“Yeah but I don’t know what to call you nowadays.”

“Just call me Tahlia.” She said with a smile.

“Well it's nice to see you come out of that depression quickly”

“Yeah," she sighed, "are you feeling ok?"

Isaiah smiled, "well you didn't kill me though which is good."

"what did you do exactly?"

"truthfully I don't know exactly but everyone's glad it worked. Anyway, wan't some good news?"

"Do I?" Tahlia smiled.

“I got a SOFLAM beacon from Edd a few hours ago and set it up in Everfree for him to land near.”

“Land near in what?”

“He didn't explain, but it needs a laser des. to land with so its something.”

“So he’s gonna drop it out the sky is he?”

At that moment a bright silver flash splashed out of the night over North-west Ponyville. The flash tore into a brilliant rippling ‘tunnel’ upon which a flashing green projectile shot out and flew across the sky. Isaiah stood up in triumph. “Ha-ha, Nero you beauty!”

<--NEW TAB

The emerald missile darted across the purple sky. Emitting a persistent hissing sound as it passed over Ponyville. The missile was flying towards the Everfree Forest with a full certainty that here would be the crash site. After a full minute of airtime the missile finally touched earth, slamming into the Everfree with a loud green explosion. The shockwave from the impact was sure to have rocked Equestria for kilometres around the impact site, and it certainly did; lights and lamps flickered as half of Ponyville illuminated in a warm amber glow of candles and electric lamps. The local time by now was about 2:30am local and half of Ponyville would have been awake. By around 2:40, news was already beginning to spread about the object landing in the middle of Everfree and that some ‘adventurous’ ponies have begun searching for the object hoping for something of mass value.

It was about 2:56 before Twilight Sparkle finally heard the news of the impact. Arriving with Spike at the crowd gathered at the Town Hall, there were murmurs and small talk of the event but much was incomprehensible. Brushing her way through the crowd, Twilight eventually found Applejack, Apple Bloom and Big Mac in a conversation with Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo. “Applejack, what’s going on?”

“No idea. Nopony’s exactly sure what the hay is going on.”

“The only thing we know is that something big fell into Everfree forest a while ago.” Rainbow added.

“Yeah. There’s been talk among some folks saying that they’re gonna’ try and find it.” Applejack continued.

Twilight peeked over the heads of the crowd. Near the entrance to Everfree was a small group of about 4 or 5 relatively young colts with bags, shovels and pickaxes. Each pony was announcing plans of what they’ll do once they find the impact site and even speculations of what the object was. It wasn’t until Princess Luna arrived that the murmurs of the crowd ceased. Every pony bowed as she gave an announcement, “I take this crowd has gathered over tonight’s spectacle?”

Twilight approached, “I've only just heard about it.”

“And from what we have heard, it must be the talk of the entire town right now.”

One of the colts from the hunters group spoke up, “We’re going to look for it now!”

Luna peered over the crowd at the group, “Is that your decision?”

Another spoke this time. “We’re the only ones who are gonna’ do it so yeah.”

Luna looked on at the smoke rising from Everfree, “Would you mind if we join you.”

The tallest pony in the group spoke this time, “Only as long as we get the riches!”

Luna spoke louder this time, “Very well then. Let us find ourselves a meteor.”

[3:13amL]

More than 20 minutes after entering Everfree the smell of smoke was becoming more present as well as the sound of crackling flames. Soon enough though the dense forest cleared out into a large clearing marked out by a ring of scorched trees. The ground around was scorched black the same as the trees but the main sight to behold was the object in the centre of the scorched earth. At first it looked like a large mound of dirt but upon closer revealed the object to be a huge cylinder, about 30 yards across from end to end and still radiating warmth.

As the crowd of ponies exited the foliage, a huge wave of gasps flew over the area. The sight of an object as Euclid as this was definitely a major event in Equestria. The object in question was mainly unusual because of composition; though at the time it was still too hot to touch, but the material composition of the object was pure metal.

The crowd gathered around the cylinder almost hypnotized by its presence until the unimaginable occurred; the end of the cylinder began unscrewing. Slowly it began rotating before picking up the pace. In just over a minute the end of the cylinder fell upon the earth with a heavy crunch. Two large sets of claws emerged and rested upon the rim of the cylinder. A large round head accompanied by two large sapphire eyes rose up and peered at the crowd, now hypnotized in terror at what creature has plummeted into Equestria. This creature ‘stood’ upon the top of the cylinder for many minutes observing the pony crowd before finally disappearing inside the cylinder. A long murmur filed silence fell over the clearing. “I feel a terrible fear for all of us Twilight.” Luna said.

The 5 colts equipped with their gear approached the cylinder. The ringleader, presumably, spoke up, “Whoever this guy is, he might be up to here with treasure. We could make a great mint with it.”

Applejack approached behind them, “Hey y’all don’t go near that!”

“What’s the problem lil’ miss?” the ringleader requested.

“Y’all don’t know what that thing is!”

“Don’t know?” the ringleader ditched his shovel, “lil missy this guy’s probably got enough riches to make everypony in Ponyville as rich as our fair Princess over here.” Behind him two ponies equipped themselves with shovels whilst another equipped a pickaxe, “This is definitely Equestria’s find of the century and the most amazing thing that ever did land on our great lands!” the pony with the pickaxe took one mighty swing at the cylinder which struck with one mighty echoing bang.

There was silence

“So what did ya hope to accomplish?”

The ringleader scrunched his face into an angered frown. From the centre of the crowd came a voice… “Look!”

Everyponies attention was thrown to the top of the cylinder. A large thin metallic rod rose up before vertically sliding another into position. On the end, a large green-lit jar attached to a machine with a long funnel on the other end was bared. As the rods positioned the funnel extended three times. A small aperture on the side of the machine fired a red laser; this did not do any harm but rather served to show where the machine was aiming. The machine itself swivelled on the axis of the first rod, first to the right, then to the left slightly, then to the right again slightly. The laser pointer vanished and a loud almost ‘charging’ noise sounded and a swirl of light converged on the exit of the funnel before firing a thick beam of heated energy in a loud torrent.

An intriguing fact about this was though that; of the 2 minutes that this irregular pattern of illuminated torment happened for, not a single pony was killed, some wounded but none were killed.

Ponies clawed their way off the clearing, and Twilight, Luna and Applejack ran also. The feeling of being toyed with fell upon Twilight as though an inevitable death would leap upon her and strike her dead.

[3:30amL]

The terrified crowds ran madly back into Ponyville, ploughing through the waiting onlookers in sheer fear of the recent events. Twilight and Luna were the last to emerge from Everfree with the same level of fear. As they made way to Golden Oaks, Luna stopped at the door, “Twilight, I’ll return to my sister and tell her of the recent events.”

Twilight stood in the doorway, “Do you think we’re safe?”

Luna looked in the direction of Everfree one last time, “I hope for us all Twilight, I just hope for us all.”

-* * * * *-

[7:21amL]

"That was a bit too close Edd."

"I know Isaiah but look on the bright side; the Heat Ray's auto-detect didn't kick-in and massacre everyone."

"Yeah, right on that one. Righty-O lets get to work."

It must have been about 8:30am before Twilight awoke from her mass disturbed sleep. Her mind was still haunted by the visions brought to her from lasts nights ordeal with Everfree Forest and the Heat Ray, and she was thinking of what the other ponies must have slept through also, or if they had even slept a wink at all through the rest of the night. Her pondering was by a hard, fast-paced knocking at the library door. “I’ll be down in a sec!” she shouted. She peered over the edge of the bed at Spike who surprisingly was asleep, or so it appeared, “Spike?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Are you alright?”

“Are, are we alive right now?”

“Yeah we are. Just try and get some sleep. You really need some.”

“O-ok”

Twilight frowned in worry; was everypony behaving like this right now, scare so bad that they shivered awake all throughout the night? Only they themselves knew. As she stepped down the staircase the knocking resumed, “ALRIGHT! Geez they don’t give one a chance to get out of bed.” She opened the door slowly to find Princess Luna waiting with a worried look.

“Luna?”

“I talked with my sister throughout the night Twilight.”

“And?”

Luna tilted her head town to the left, “she didn’t believe me.”

Twilight jumped back with shock, “ARE YOU SERIOUS!?”

“She thought that was making up stories.”

Twilight frowned, “We’ll tell her again. She’ll have to believe it if it comes from both of us.”

Oblivious to the previous night’s events, Fluttershy’s morning began in a fairly ordinary fashion; laying out food for the local animals, giving seeds for the birds but mainly tending to Angel. As per usual Angel was playing hard-to-get this morning but Fluttershy didn’t know why. “What’s the problem Angel?” Angel turned his back and pointed out the window, “Angel I can’t help if I don’t know the problem.”

Little be known to Fluttershy, Angel saw the cylinder land in Everfree the night before and was eager for Fluttershy to follow. He ran to the front door, opened it and ran towards Everfree, “Angel wait!” she shouted as loud as her voice could permit. Seconds later Angel came bounding straight through the door and dashed under Fluttershy’s bed. “Angel?” she poked her head under the bed, “What’s the matter?” Angel was shivering almost uncontrollably, pointing out behind Fluttershy, “What is it?” Angel began jetting her arm out desperately trying to draw Fluttershy’s attention. “Huh?” finally, she turned, gasped loudly  and darted half over her bed backwards by the horror within her home; a metallic claw with an emerald glowing centre ‘looking’ directly at her! Slowly the claw rotated counter clockwise. Each finger extended outward revealing a green ‘eye’ which slowly drew nearer to her. Fluttershy was now in the wall adjacent to her bed with fright and panting loudly and fastly. Her mind was racing with horrid visions as well as contradictable questions; what was this thing, what will it do with her, why her! The ‘eye’ in the centre shifted colour from green to pale grey and Fluttershy knew this was the end of her. As she closed her eyes and took her last long inhale the claw lifted and emitted a wave of light paralleled with a high-pitched pulsating noise. Then there was a long silence, and Fluttershy opened her eyes slowly. The claw now was hovering over her; the eye in the centre, now green again, was still facing here directly. Slowly it turned clockwise, then back again before finally retracting to its idle state and retreating from the room. Fluttershy let out a frightened sign of relief before standing up. Making her way into the living room she peered through the doorframe looking for the claw but found only her unchanged living room. Calmly she entered the living room and crept towards the front door. As she laid a shaking hoof on the doorknob she suddenly found herself under her couch again when a thunderous howl sounded above her house:

Youtube Video

Soon after her fear suddenly vanished and she found herself running through her living room and out the front door screaming, but froze instantly at the sight outside her home; a massive tripedal machine that glittered in the morning sun. Fluttershy couldn’t keep her breath at the sight of this monster; she was even on the verge of passing out before she was stopped by the loudest sound she had ever heard:

[REPEAT]

Petrified, she watched as the machine turned slowly east and proceeded forward one leg at a time but at a quick pace; left, right, hind, left, right, hind. It puzzled her only for the moment before she finally snapped back into reality and caught her breath back. Angel slowly walked to her side and layed a paw on her left hoof. “Come on Angel we've got to warn Twilight!” she said as she gathered up Angel and ran in the direction of Ponyville.

“Are you absolutely sure about this Twilight?” Celestia asked.

“Completely Princess, Luna’s story is 100% true, I and half of Ponyville saw it; a mysterious creature that attacked us without

warning!” Twilight explained in worry.

“So your story was true my sister, I apologise.”

“Accepted dear sister. But what must we do?”

“I’ll have my guards organise trains for Ponyville’s evacuation and send word out to the town to pack their essentials.”

“Thankyou Princess Celestia” Twilight said with a bow.

“You’d better return as well Twilight.”

“I will.” She turned to run.

“Twilight, when you reach the Crystal Empire return here with your friends!”

“I will Celestia!” she shouted as she ran out the doors of the main hall.

The news of evacuation was spreading fast, and ponies all over Ponyville were gathering their essentials and packing them for travel. Multiple trains of at least 10 cars were gathering at the station ready to take passengers. Twilight was gathering here essentials which included some of her books of Astrology, bundles of writing paper, her ink and quills and Starswirl’s spell book, which to her might be the most important possession for the moment. “Spike, are your things ready!?” she shouted upstairs, to which no reply came, “Spike!” she rushed upstairs but found no trace of Spike, his bed was empty but appeared to have been for quite some time. “Maybe he’s already at the train station.” She pondered before returning downstairs and placing her belongings into a rucksack and departing the Library.

The platform at the station was a hive of commotion. Ponies discussing various issues or just shouting at one another just to hear each other over the noise of not only other ponies around but the sound of the train’s engines hissing steam from the boilers.

Twilight arrived to find Rarity and young Sweetie Belle waiting for their train to the Crystal Empire. “Rarity!”

She turned to face, “Twilight good to see you right now. Everyone else is on the train to the Crystal Empire.”

“Good. Did Spike come by at all?”

She shook her head, “I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

At this point Twilight became increasingly worried, “If he’s not here then he’s either on his way north or. . .” She turned towards Everfree, “Oh no.”

“All aboard for the Crystal Empire!” the trains driver shouted.

At this point Twilight felt ill to her stomach, she needed to stay with her friends and keep them safe but at the same time her lifelong assistant was missing within the forest with possibly the worst thing to come to Equestria. Ultimately though, she boarded the train with her head tilted in dread. She peered out the window one last time at Everfree where the deep smoke columns from the night last where now thin strings of white steam, Spike was now on his own.

Spike pushed his way through the undergrowth of Everfree only stepping on a twig once every few minutes and hearing a noise that made his mind beg to turn back to Ponyville, but he was more determined to find the cylinder again and hopefully confront its occupant and demand answers from him, or it. Eventually he found a clearing of scorched trees surrounding the cylinder where he finally stopped and looked on at the now silent ring of scorched earth. “Ok Spike you can do this,” he said to himself as he approached the open end of the cylinder. Trebling he clambered onto the top of the silver screw of the lid and jumped across into the bulkhead. There he found the most astonishing, but the most frightening thing; the cylinder was empty, save for a few tools lying around indicating that there was possibly more than one occupant inside. The sight of emptiness about the cylinder made Spike tremble to the point where his knees where on the verge of giving out, but he regained control when a surprisingly odd sound filled his ears; the collapse of a tree, followed by the escaping flaps of bird wings. Slowly he turned around and peered in the direction of the sound. A flock of birds flew away and out of sight and Spike suddenly felt his curiosity kick in; he began walking in the immediate direction and fell out of the cylinder landing with a faint, ‘ow.’

After nearly 20 minutes of walking Spike began feeling he was tricked by his own mind as he had found nothing that had caused the trees collapse earlier, not a single creature about Everfree had been seen, but something did catch Spike’s attention, and at a lucky time before he walked straight into it, “WOAH! Uh Poison Joke, that was lucky.” He said peering up towards a small field of the flower covered by the shadow of the canopy above. A faint wiring sound became audible quickly before it subsided as quickly as it had come. “Huh?” Spike wondered as the sound became audible again much louder than before. Cautiously he stepped forward towards the Poison Joke field and peered slightly to the right. The most strangest, but incredible sight across from him; a large rounded bulk bearing 2 pairs of 3 large legs. 2 large metallic claws accompanied by 2 pairs of 2 smaller claws which appeared to be harvesting the flower field.

The weirdest thing about this object was its movement; every meter of flower that was pick caused the machine to move forward slightly one leg at a time. Spike could only look on in awe at the machine until the realization of the funnel beneath the ‘hood.’ A realizing fear fell over Spike instantly as he remembered last night. Fear once again took hold and Spike froze instantly, his mind could not gather the right actions to take at this time, and the world that Spike knew disappeared instantly.

Spike felt himself become a prisoner to his own mind, his body became petrified and he couldn't move any muscle in his body but he still felt himself standing and still staring forward. Inside his mind he could feel himself fighting the fear with the thoughts of Twilight and his friends, trying with every happy thought he could bring to bear but the fear was too strong. He could feel himself screaming out, “NO!” Spike snapped back into reality and fell to his knees panting. Slowly he looked up at the machine, got up with his arms in a ready position and shouted across the field, “IM NOT AFRAID OF YOU, MACHINE!”

Instantly the machine turned every claw it had and its main body also in Spike’s direction with a freakish whir. Spike felt his arms and his jaw drop, “Oops.” Quickly the machine paced over the Joke field and brought its claws to bear on Spike. He screamed as he turned and ran at full pelt, each claw drew itself into the ground each step Spike took and instantly retracted and made more attempts. After each claw took about 4 tries to attack the larger claws came bearing down in front of Spike, slamming into the ground enough to throw him into the air a few feet. Spike was thrown back and collapsed to the ground. Panting, Spike got up slowly and in slight pain. Each claw slowly approached him and surrounded. One approached his face and extended each finger revealing the green eye within, which opened and revealed a thin apparatus. Spike looked on before suddenly. . .

It was nearing sunset, and the train station at the Crystal Empire was just as much a commotion as back at Ponyville. Ponies from the Empire were gathering to assist the refugees from Ponyville in any way they could whether it be taking bags or offering essentials. Twilight and the girls exited in a rush and began running towards the palace. Rarity came dashing out at the same pace panting, “Twilight wait, I can’t keep up!” It took a few minutes but soon they both reached the palace, being greeted by Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

“Twilight! Rarity!” each shouted as they entered the main hall and exchanged hugs, “we’ve been waiting forever!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“Where’s Cadance and Shining?” Twilight asked in a hurry.

“They should be here soon,” Applejack said, “Cadance is in a meeting with Mayor Mare but your brother was at the train station waiting for you.”

Twilight opened her eyes slightly. Before she could say anything she was interrupted, “Twiley you’re here!”

Shining Armour entered the hall panting slightly. “Celestia told us what happened and we got worried.”

“We got here as fast as we could, but we can’t stay for long.”

“WHAT?” every voice in the room sounded.

Twilight approached Shining, “Spikes still in Ponyville, he’s out there alone and I have to save him!”

“Twilight you can’t be serious.”

“I am. Please have a train ready for a return trip.”

Applejack stepped forward, “and we’re going with you.”

“Applejack no.”

“We stick together Twilight,” Rarity said, “Spike was always there to help us all.”

“He was your assistant but he was ours as well,” Fluttershy followed.

“And he was our friend as well,” Pinkie followed.

Twilight smiled, “all right. We stick together. Best Friends!”

“Best Friends!” all repeated followed by a group hug.

Ending