Prologue: Hunters and Windigos
Prologue: Hunters and Windigos
“Is it… ZOMBIES!”
Long ago ancient Zebras looked to the stars and believed that powerful enemies existed amongst them. Enemies a million years ahead of anything they could hope to achieve. Enemies, who had the power to corrupt us and turn us into their agents. They where right, and now the stars bear down on us in a way beyond even the ancient zebra’s worst nightmares.
Rain fell from the blanket of clouds above us. I could see the clouds for once, usually they are obscured by the thick fog that often blankets this region of Eques- er I mean the Tsar’s Empire.
The large grey earth pony stallion before me, my father, Deep Scars, rolled through the mud then motioned for me to do the same. I groaned and rolled though the cold and slippery mud. This served two purposes, it visually camouflaged us and it masked our scent. I got to my hooves and twitched my wings; feathers and mud don’t mix. “Ok Daedalus, lesson one of hunting; don’t let your knife out of you mouth, ever.” He said and pulled his own hunting knife from the sheath on his left foreleg, and with mild difficulty I did the same. Bleh! Muddy mouthpiece. “Second lesson, stay low.” He said through his mouthpiece. I did as told and shivered as my belly touched the cool mud. Looking back I probably looked adorable: a little off yellow pegasus filly with a butter yellow mane covered in patchy mud, with a hunting knife that due to her being small for her young age is comically oversized, shivering in the rain, and jumping at each flash of lightning and crack of thunder. That was me back then innocent, timid, and naïve.
“Dad why do we need camouflage?” I asked, apparently I hadn’t learned in my prior 3 years in the tribe that camouflage is very important.
“You know how I told you that Rock’s dad wandered off in his sleep?” He asked me. My dad had told me that when I asked why my friend’s dad had gone missing. “Yeah… he was actually eviscerated by the saber cat he was hunting. What we hunt, hunts us.” Just like that a little bit of my innocence was stripped away, and I quickly rolled in the mud some more out of fear of what may come for me.
That night I learnt all the basics of hunting, stay low, stay quiet, if possible let the beast approach you, don’t over estimate your skill, and always strike for a critical artery or organ. In terms of hunting I killed all of nothing that night. The fog-less nights where supposed to be better for hunting, so much so that our chief had taken his own hunting party out that night as well. However I was having no luck with this hunting concept. Deciding it was time for a break I tried to stir up some conversation with my dad, he had just told me that Rock’s dad had died; maybe I could learn something else too. “Dad? What happened to mommy?”
He seemed taken aback by the question then he answered. “She broke a rule and was set away.”
“What rule?” I had heard of ponies getting punished for crimes, but never before had I heard of ponies being exiled.
His voice sounded pained, whether from missing her, or anger at what she had done, I couldn’t tell. “She used a reaper tool.”
I thought about this for a bit; a reaper tool is obviously something that causes death, so isn’t a knife like what I’m using now a reaper tool or at least just as bad as one?
My train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a sizzling noise, followed by an awesomely loud bang and a light from the heavens. I looked up to the sky to see that the clouds had been torn away and for the first time I could see the stars, like yellow eyes they hung above us, waiting like a predator looking at it’s prey. However that wasn’t my focus. My eyes where locked on the massive ball of fire streaking overhead. In that instant I was filled with a mixture of awe and dread, that was very short lived as it was replaced with panic as it streaked over a near by ridge and crashed with a massive bang and flash.
The strangeness didn’t end there however, from over the ridge came a thin wave of yellow glowing… Dust? Spores? Embers? Snow? I didn’t know what it was really. My dad seemed unaffected, but it made me fall to the ground in a coughing fit and spasms of pain as my vision flashed yellow repeatedly. For one of the few times in my life, that night I saw my dad genuinely concerned for my well being as he rushed to my side to see if he could help. However to both of our reliefs it passed soon afterwards. I stumbled to my feet and picked my knife back up with my mouth. “Come on, a hunter’s duty is to protect the tribe when the Tsar’s men aren’t available.” He said and led me off towards the ridge. “The chief’s group was over the ridge so we need to be quick to assure his safety.” He said and motioned with his head for me to hurry up. We raced through the forest for a few minutes until we reached the ridge, however before we could ascend it we heard something that made our hearts stop.
A sickening howl came from atop the ridge. Now the noise wouldn’t be scary if it wasn’t for the fact that it came from a pony. There’s only one reason why a pony would howl, the Windigo possesses them and their hunger for pony flesh makes them more beast than pony. To our horror the silhouette of a pony with glowing yellow eyes bored down on us from the ridge. As it rushed down to us my dad moved to intercept it, the two collided in a tangle of hooves and in the struggle my dad had dropped his knife. Seeing an opening I rushed forward with my knife and drove it into the Windigo’s jugular, then pulled it out and thrust again for it’s heart. After a few seconds the beast died, and my dad pulled himself out from under the corpse. It was then that I saw what I had killed for the first time.
“Great first kill Daedalus! You really came through when it mattered!” He said, completely oblivious to my realization.
“Dad?! I just killed the chief!” I said. Sure enough, the blood covering the corpse couldn’t hide the mossy green coat and aged facial features of Chief Woodhoof.
“Oh… Oh my… well he attacked us and had glowing eyes so… Hey! You got your cutie mark!” Nice try dad, you can’t get me to think of something else that easy. However when I looked at my rear a pony skull with four eye sockets, sharp teeth and no lower jaw decorated my flank.
Latter on the tribe’s shaman suspected that my cutie mark meant that I would kill another Windigo sometime in my life, while the rest of my tribe figured that I would just be a good hunter as the teeth somewhat resemble those of a saber cat. The rest of the chief’s hunting party would remain missing never to be found. My dad latter told me that Daedalus was actually a colt name and then he and my mom named me it because they had mistaken the stub of my umbilical cord for a… well this monologue just got awkward fast…
Fallout Equertia X Resistance:
Fall of Mare
(title theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtqUzexkYdk )
Chapter 1: Tall Ponies and Reaper Tools
“You are too late, you are leading your men to their deaths!”
13 years after the Umbra Ridge Event
I awoke to the sound of a horn. No it wasn’t as low as the hunting horn… Nor was it as high as the emergency horn. No this horn was the… Imperial horn?
I quickly got to my hooves, yes it was the middle of winter in the northern reaches of the Tsar’s empire but for whatever reason, I’ve never needed a blanket for sleeping. I pulled my coat on, as I knew it would be colder out side of my Chum (basically a Unikranian Tipi). Yes my Chum, my dad had disappeared earlier this month, which didn’t come as much of a shock to since ponies had been disappearing rapidly over the last few months, and my dad had gone out to try to find them.
As a result of the disappearances three things had been done, the fence around the village had been raised and reinforced, hunting had been restricted to only with in shouting distance of the village, and the local Imperial outpost had been notified of these events. The Imperial trumpet being blown signifies that more than just the usual Imperial patrol is approaching, which means that in order to stay on the Tsar’s good side everypony must line up to greet our guests and be courteous to them. Or we’ll risk lose his favor, in which case he’ll take the children and force then to fight in his army as child soldiers.
With that last part in mind I quickly exited the Chum and made my way to the gate. At the gate the new chief Woodhoof’s wife, Barkhoof, was organizing ponies in to two rows flanking the village’s main path. I waited and was eventually directed where to stand.
Shortly after finding my spot, the gate opened and our visitors filed through. With their jet black combat armour, gas masks, and reaper tools, or as they call them ‘guns’, that seemed to be in much better shape, they certainly weren’t from the local outpost. There was about a half dozen of them, and a single unicorn mare wearing a white officer’s trench coat. Standard infantry and their officers wore grey uniforms, and I had heard of the Tsar’s black garbed “shock troopers”, but I had no idea what a white uniform signified. The mare stepped forward to elder Barkhoof. “Greetings, I am Corporal Whmis. My escort and I are here to inspect the meteor impact site over the ridge, and we would like some locals to guide us.” The mare said in a polite, rehearsed tone. We all stared blankly at her. “You know, the big flaming thing that fell from the sky and carved a mile long trench in the ground?” She elaborated.
“OOOOOOOOOOHH!” We all replied in unison.
“Oh well in that case, Daedalus, Rock, and Blade will escort you.” Barkhoof said. She hated me, well it’s to be expected since I did kill her husband. Seriously though, she has been sending me out for everything, probably hoping I’ll be next to disappear.
The three of us moved from our spots and joined the seven ponies. My two companions, Rock a slate gray earth pony male, and Blade a red earth pony female, along with myself looked rather out of place beside the black armoured unicorns of unknown gender, and their grey coated Corporal in her white coat.
I’ve always been curious about life outside the tribe, probably because my mom is out there somewhere, so I approached one of the guards and tried to strike up a conversation. “So, what are you doing with the fire rock?” I asked, referring to the asteroid or whatever the officer had called it.
“I don’t know, nor do I care. It’s the egg head’s business.” The pony replied. Their mask made it impossible to tell if they where a mare or a stallion.
“Ok then…” I had no clue what ‘egg head’ meant, but I assumed it was some sort of insult. Then I remembered a question I had always had for any outsider. “Hey, since a bow can hit things from afar, what’s the point of a noisy gun?”
“This.” The pony said, pointing the barrel at a tree, and fired. The force of the projectile turned the targeted part of the tree into splinters, and before my eyes the tree, that had stood there paralyzed in time for who knows how long, fell over. The soldier then telekinetically pulled back the grip like section that wrapped around part of the barrel, shoved a new projectile into weapon, then slide the grip-section forward. “I love this thing, I’m not sure how you tribal-types get along with out any kind of proper weapons.” I stared at the knocked over tree, and thought of my pitiful hunting knife. Then I quickly hurried up so I wouldn’t be left behind.
When I caught up with the rest of the group, I found that I was at the foot of the ridge. I had never been over the ridge, even with elder Barkhoof throwing me into every dangerous situation she can to get me killed, going beyond the ridge is always for older ponies. I looked up at the imposing wall of rock before me and felt my legs quiver a bit, Yes, I’m a pegasus that’s afraid of heights! Dad never let me fly, he said going too high would invoke the wrath of the sky lords, who actually aren’t a part of my tribe’s beliefs, but I always listened to dad. Then he went missing somewhere over that ridge while searching for the ponies that disappeared.
“Ok, over we go.” Whmis said as she began to ascend. Blade followed, she was the only one who had been over the ridge before, and thus was the only ‘guide’ who could actually guide us. The black armored ponies followed next, and then when I moved to follow Rock pulled me aside.
“I don’t like this.” He said .
I snickered a little, “You’re afraid of disappearing?”
“I’ve talked to some travelers, the only time I’ve heard about black armored soldiers, was when the Tsar decided to have an entire village exterminated. They’re bad news.” He said, the worry practically dripping off his face. I wasn’t able to talk to many outsiders, dad always tried to prevent me from doing so. As a result they had become somewhat of a morbid curiosity to me.
“So the tribe?” I let the question trail off.
“That or the sky fire rock thing is really important, or maybe they know something about the disappearances that we don’t.” I shivered as he explained the alternatives, while not as bad as the idea of my tribe being exterminated, the other options didn’t comfort me one bit. I remembered that rock, that rock can’t be good.
As we ascended the ridge via a narrow path, I looked over the forrest, the trees where bare as always, however the yellowish mold that grew on some trees seemed to cover more of the forest then I remembered. As we continued to follow the path I kept of glancing at that one soldiers reaper tool, I know that such thoughts are poisonous, but I wished my knife could knock over trees…
We crested the ridge, and looked down into the valley bellow. I noticed that everyone was looking back and forth between the valley, and the forest behind us. I quickly compared the two and noticed that while just as foggy as the forest, the fog in the valley had a distinct yellowish tint.
“It’s just all the fungus formed on trees that where knocked over by the crash.” Blade said, and lead us down a fairly steep path down.
Once in the valley things seemed off… The ponies with gasmasks where fine, and I was… well I felt great, but Whmis, and my fellow villages where coughing every dozen or so steps. As we progressed I began to get an unsettling feeling, I didn’t feel like I was being watched, I knew we where being watched. I just couldn’t tell from where.
Eventually we reached a wall of up turned dirt. “Here we are.” Blade said and broke into a coughing fit.
After cresting the dirt wall, I was staring directly down at… something… somewhat rocklike. MY attention however was directed elsewhere when I began to hear… things, like whispers carried by the wind.
“Ok, form a perimeter!” Whmis instructed her guards, and trotted down to the rock.
I felt that I was being watched again, and I looked over the flattened trees. Then I saw something, way off in the fog, whatever it was it was as tall as a tree. The more I stared at it the more I was overcome with dread, the fog seemed to grow more yellow, and I could hear a low crackling noise. Suddenly the whispers merged into one.
rise
A loud metallic noise snapped me back to the present, and every bird in the valley seemed to take off at once. I turned to the pit, to see the Whmis had chipped off a bit of the rock. I looked back through the fog to see if I could find that thing, but it had disappeared or moved.
A whoosh! followed by a crash and a squishy crunch broke the silence. A log had flown through the air, and impaled one of the guards. I looked around and to my horror watched as blade was raised in to the air and torn in two by an unseen being. The roar which followed was repeated through out the valley, and all hell broke loose. There was a hum followed by a snap, and a guard was turned into a reverse porcupine by a device set in the ground.
Fast moving balls of golden light burned Rock, some sort of creature slammed down on top of a guard, and smaller bug like creatures swarmed over another.
Eventually it stopped, I was left alone outside of the pit. I heard a thumping, and looking around I saw that thing approaching. I looked around and noticed that that reaper tool was near by. I scampered over and picked it up, with just my hooves it was clumsy to say the least. By this point the creature was right on top of me, and I could make out bulging veins. It passed right over me, apparently dead set on going to the pit.
If it was going to ignore me, then that was the last thing it would do. I put the trigger mechanism in my mouth, aimed for the chest and bit down. My world was rocked by the twin discharges from the gun, and the creature falling over with enough force to shake the ground.
I Stood up, put the weapon’s sling over my neck and screamed into the surrounding valley, “WELL IS THAT IT?!” My only answer, was silence.
