Equestrian Dawn: Tiberium is Magic

Wake Up Call

General Shepherd: “Gentlecolts this- Gentlecolts this- Gentlecolts this- is about combat!”

Sweetie Belle: “Just do it up! Just- jus-jus-ju-just-just- Just do it up!”

Twilight’s eyes fluttered open slowly as the sun’s morning rays passed through the translucent window in her bedroom, and stung into her eyes. The purple unicorn sighed and let out a yawn. She sat up in her bed, stretching her forelegs to the ceiling, yawning again.

It seemed like a normal, sunny morning in Equestria. The trademark beauty of the tranquil and serene nation was only highlighted by the warming rays of Celestia’s sun. Had her window been open, Twilight would have heard a multitude of bird species chirping to the morning sun.

This world didn’t deserve to be shattered.

It deserved to stay like this.

Never to change.

However, cruel and unforgiving fate partnered with malicious destiny had its own agenda…

Starting today.

She plopped down from her bed and proceeded to her bathroom to freshen up and get ready for the day. Her usual intelligent and analytical mind was blank at this point, still exhausted from staying up late studying and stargazing.

Some of the joints in her legs started to pop from the movement as she advanced to her restroom. Her pink-highlighted purple mane was a scraggly mess, and eyes had dark bags under them. She groaned in annoyance as her body was making her physically pay for depriving it of sleep.

She tried her best to shrug off the feelings of grogginess and a cloudy brain by stretching and pacing around, but bodily threats of cramps were the only responses she got.

She then gave up the futile attempt and continued on, trotting into the bathroom with a hoof on top of her head as she used her magic to turn on the shower.  Her hoof was placed right where a migraine was making itself known.

The violet unicorn stepped into the shower and levitated a loofah and a bar of soap with her magic..She then rubbed the bar on the sponge and began to scrub herself with the loofah.

As she cleaned herself, she tried to jog her memory of what had happened last night. She remembered being tired yet ecstatic, when she finished her letter to Princess Celestia last night. However, she then realized that Spike was asleep. She wouldn’t want to wake the poor little guy, so after must protest, she decided that sending the letter could wait until the next morning.

After all, it was just a star right? Though her excitement made her impatient, she reasoned with herself to not let things get out of hand. And as for the meteors, of course she mentioned them, as they were worth it. Twilight didn’t really see them as a threat, but the peculiar nature of the falling space rocks was enough to entice a question or just plain curiosity.

“Obviously, they couldn’t have been THAT bad if today was a normal, beautiful day in Ponyville! …Right?” Twilight thought, reasoning with herself. She hoped she was right. She decided that now was not the time to think of such things so she distracted herself from the subject.

Spike was probably still asleep she thought.

“I’ll wake him up when I’m finished. He SHOULD be well-rested by then,” The magically talented unicorn thought as she continued to scrub her hide.

The applause from thousands of ponies that were packed into the bleachers, cheered with an ear-splitting, simultaneous cry as Rainbow Dash completed one of her signature moves.

The Buccaneer Blaze was executed flawlessly, causing an impressive explosion of light to shine throughout the stands. Some ponies had to shield their eyes at the sheer amplitude of awesomeness that emanated from the cyan pony.

The rainbow-maned speedster contained her jubilance in front of her fans. She was so pumped! The Wonderbolts HAD to accept her now, but just to be safe, she had a finishing move prepared. One that NOPONY could resist!

A reverse Sonic Rainboom. Since she was already known for her original Sonic Rainboom, she decided that just doing it again would be bland and totally uncool. So she put a little twist on it.

She would start from the ground up, this time working against gravity and producing her sound barrier-breaking masterpiece thousands of feet in the air. This made the move twice as difficult but also gave it a 20% raise on the ‘Awesome’ scale.

She gave a short, smiling blush at her crazed and adoring fans as she descended towards the earth as a moderate speed to give her room for her closing act. She was going to end this with a bang…or boom as it were.

Once she hit sea-level, which was only a few feet from the grass-covered ground, she shot upwards back into the sky like she had been fired out of a cannon, and was swiftly gaining altitude as a rainbow streak left a trail behind her.

It wasn’t long before she soared past the bleachers that seated her fans. Rainbow Dash could hear their cheering as she zoomed by them, gathering speed as friction started to affect her.  The heat of the friction began to lightly lick her hide as she felt the burning sensation that came with using this move. They were cheering for her.

They were HER fans.

Adrenaline kicked into her senses as she accelerated to sub-supersonic speeds as the sound barrier started to show signs of strain. She almost had it. Just a little more…

“Faster, Rainbow, faster!” She mentally urged herself as she continued to approach supersonic.

“C’mmmooon.! C’mmmmoooon! Almost got it… just a little more throttle and-”

“Hi, Dashie!” A loud and high-pitched voice squealed with joy as Rainbow Dash’s body jolted in shock. She halted her steep climb in the atmosphere to see a jubilant pink pony with multi-colored balloons strapped to her midsection rising to meet Rainbow with a wide, toothy grin.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow yelled in surprise and annoyance with wide eyes as she looked down to judge her altitude.

“How did you- But I was going so fa-…forget it!” The rainbow pegasus cut herself off, giving up on trying to understand Pinkie’s defiance of physics.

“WEEEELLLL DDDAAASSHHHIIIIEEE,” the pink pony started, her voice picking up, unnecessarily holding her pitch in her usual sing-song tone.

“Well what? I haven’t got all day. I’m kind of in the middle of something here!” Rainbow Dash replied with impatience, gesturing with her hoof, pointing to the crowd below.

“Guess what?! Guess what?! Guess what I can do?!!” Pinkie exclaimed happily and jittery. Dash facehoofed.

She had to leave NOW.

“Pinkie, I don’t have time for this! I’ve gotta go!” Rainbow yelled as she started to take off.

“Well that was a setback! Oh well, I still think that I can make up for it if I kick it into high gear!” Rainbow smiled as she soared off, trying to rebuild the momentum she lost from stopping. She was nearing the canopy of the atmosphere now. It wouldn’t be long.

“High speed, low drag,” She thought with a confident smile as she neared the edge of the atmosphere. Before she could go any farther up, she noticed a pink blob floating up to her.

“You’ve GOT to be kidding me,” she sighed in disapproval as Pinkie Pie rose up to meet her again. The pink party pony managed to keep that wide grin on her face as she meet Dash before she could reach the brink of space.

“Please Pinkie, save it for later! This is important!” Rainbow Dash whined as she continued her climb. Rainbow picked up speed, friction making her hide grow hot as she began to depart the atmosphere.

She then caught something out of the corner of her eye. The pink blob…again. She turned and saw that the pink earthpony had kept pace with her the entire way up.

“What the?! How fast am I going?!” The cyan pony thought in shock. Pinkie Pie then caught up with her somehow and continued her smile at Rainbow Dash.

“Silly filly! You didn’t even see my new talent!” Pinkie stated, her bubbly attitude maintained.

“Besides defying the laws of physi-”

“VVVRRRROOOOOMMMMMM!”

The loud, buzzing sound emanated out of Pinkie’s puckered lips. It didn’t sound natural. Pinkie Pie wasn’t natural as it was, but even for her this sound was weird.

Rainbow cringed at the unexpected roaring noise that exited Pinkie’s mouth. This was NOT cool. First her finishing move gets ruined, and now this? She threw her hooves over her ears and grunted in pain, trying her best to zone out Pinkie’s strange wail. The decibels of the sound were raking and grinding against Dash’s eardrums.

“GAHH! PINKIE STOP! IT HURTS!” She screamed at her balloon-equipped friend in desperation. The pain was almost unbearable now.

“VVVVRRRRROOOOOMMMMM!” It was louder this time. Rainbow Dash had never heard a sound like it.

It stung her ears even more now. The odd sound was almost…mechanical.

VVVVRRRROOOOOMMMM!

This time it woke her up. The cyan speed demon opened her eyes as her sight refocused into the sunlight above her. She got up and shook herself off, stretching as her got up from her “extended” nap.

VVVVRRRROOOOMMMM!

There it was again. Definitely strange. She also heard voices at well. She leaned over the cloud she was sleeping on as she looked below. She was going to give the unfortunate pony who woke her up a piece her of hoof.

“Keep formation! 4th Squad, hold the rear behind the buggies!” She heard a gruffy, male voice yell as she zeroed her sight in on a dirt road below the cloud she was leaning over.

The dirt road cut through a clearing, only a couple miles outside Ponyville. The clearing provided Rainbow Dash a perfect view of the scene unfolding before her. What she saw was one of the most bizarre sights she had ever seen.

What she thought she could see was a perfect two column formation of eighteen ponies split into three groups of six leading a formation down the dirt road towards Ponyville. These ponies were wearing similar uniforms to the ones that Rainbow and her friends wore when they watched the Dragon Migration sometime in the past.

The only difference was that these ponies were wearing gray camo with black and white splotches, not the classic green woodlands her and her friends wore.  Their Kevlar helmets with strange eyepieces matched the rest of their uniforms in terms of cloth design. They were carrying strange wood/metal objects in their forehooves, the backs of the devices snug in their shoulders.

The way they carried these sticks was peculiar. One hoof was gripped around the barrel at the midpoint of the stick. The other was placed over the grip and hovered lightly over a red button inside the grip.

They seemed to keep the barrel portion of these devices pointed in front of them at all times, some resting the top of the device in their cheeks, as if they were inspecting them closely. They appeared to be scanning the surrounding area with them. But it looked like…they were aiming.

“What-those can’t be-guns?” She quivered in fear.

Impossible.

“Guns aren’t even supposed to exist-they’re a myth! This is insane! Sci-fi weapons-are real?!” Dash yelped out in shock as she placed a hoof over her gaping mouth. Her rose-colored eyes dilated, yet she kept her focus on the troop column below her. She chuckled in disbelief and denial.

Guns?

Impossible!

“Wait?! So I suppose they have tanks now too!?”She chuckled to herself, referring to a sci-fi armored vehicle that she had named her pet turtle after. She had mocked the possibility, and then ignorantly dismissed it.

It was a shame that she didn’t know how right she was. After a short fit of forced laughter, she refocused her attention on the column below her, passing the cloud as they covered more ground.

The gray-clad pony platoon appeared to be in a marching formation, though not marching, with a pony wearing black combat boots on his backhooves like the rest of his comrades, leading them in the front.

He continued to talk to the ponies behind him in a voice that Rainbow could identify as really deep, if not scratchy. The stallion in front the parade with the lit cigar in his mouth appeared to be their leader.

This pony was wearing a red beret over his mane and was wearing a black utility belt that turned into overalls, two black straps over his shoulders connecting back to the belt. Under it he wore a plain dark-tan t-shirt with two circular ball-shaped items clipped to each overall strap on the pony’s chest.

Unlike the other ponies, the stick…or gun… he was carrying was smaller, more compact and pure black one that had a strange nozzle attached to the end of the barrel.

It had a green-mirrored circular device on top of the barrel that looked like half a binocular and a smaller, banana-shaped stick protruding from the bottom the barrel.

The Wonderbolt fangirl then noticed that all of the gray covered ponies had weird banana-shaped sticks protruding out of the bottom of their wooden/metal possessions as well.

The cyan pegasus however, didn’t focus too much on the leader as the three moving carriage-like things were consuming her attention. After all, they did wake her up. She realized that they were the cause of her interrupted nap and studied them with a mix of curiosity and annoyance.

These machines were a conglomerate of gray metal bars, and moved on four black wheels. They would have been going fast if not following the slow-moving marching column in front of them. The mobile machines were following each other back to back.

Rainbow also noticed that the machines had three ponies riding inside each of them. She literally had NO idea how those things were moving without other ponies pulling them.

Magical?

That was the only way Rainbow Dash could describe it or understand it.

How else would they move?

They were two ponies in the passenger and driver’s seats and one pony sticking out of the roof of each buggy, moving a big and strange black, metal stick around. The buggy gunner ponies were swinging their black metal sticks-or guns back and forth, as if scanning for something.

There was a horizontal black bar that the ponies bit down on with their teeth, moving the black sticks around in that manner as the horizontal sticks were attached to the weapons, probably to maintain stability and control.

From Rainbow Dash’s view behind the column as they had now passed her cloud at this point, she noticed that the machine riders on the roof were keeping their forehooves close to 2 big, cyan, hoof-sized buttons on the backs of the black sticks that were ontop the weird magical machines.

“Now I wonder what those do?” RD thought as she rubbed her chin with a hoof in curiosity.

Behind the buggies was a smaller, four pony column, marching behind the buggies in rows of two. These ponies were wearing the same exact clothing as the others in front of them.

But Rainbow Dash saw yet another strange item that they were carrying. Each of the four rear ponies were carrying a large silver tube with holes at both ends of it.

They were slung over their shoulders, a single hoof snaked around the pole’s perimeter while the other hoof supported the pole from below. All of the tubes were uniform as one side of their tubes pointing in front of them and the other side behind them.

Rainbow Dash then made a decision that she did not think through. Such was normal for the adventure-seeking pegasus but unfortunately, she didn’t know what she was dealing with here. But she didn’t have the state of mind to think of such things at this point in time.

She was curious. She was annoyed. And she wanted answers.

“Who were those guys? What were they doing, bringing all that futuristic stuff they had to Ponyville? What the HAY is going on here?” The flying, rainbow-maned pegasus thought as she sped after the mysterious pony column.

“Spike, has Princess Celestia replied to my letter yet?” Twilight asked anxiously as she aided Rarity in finding a book on how fashion trends evolve year by year.

When Twilight asked the white unicorn why she needed such a book, the overly-dramatic fashionista promptly explained that she wanted to try her hoof at predicting next year’s trends before they happen. She wanted to be 'ahead of the game' as she put it.

Rarity found what she was looking for and used her magic to snatch the sought after book. She squealed with joy as her vigorous 2-hour search had finally come to an end. She used her magic to place it into one of her saddlebags attached to the white unicorn’s midsection.

Twilight looked around her library in disdain. It was a complete mess. Books of all types were tossed all over the floor in giant piles. Even though it was already kind of like this from last night, she still was a little irked by ever-increasing size of her mountains of literature.

“Oh THANK YOU darling, I have been looking for this book for hours!” Rarity wailed dramatically, placing her hoof on her forehead, simulating exhaustion.

“But you found it,” Twilight replied, sighing with a hint of annoyance as her eyes narrowed at Rarity.

“Oh but Twilight you uh…assisted? I guess?” Rarity responded, not sure how else to respond to the awkward conversation. Twilight shook her head in disapproval as the turned her attention back to Spike.

“Anyways…Spike! How about that letter?” Twilight asked with a grin, hoping to get a response. The studious purple unicorn wanted to know whether discovering that star was a completely excellent and important discovery or just a forgettable dud…she REALLY prayed that it was the first one.

The green-scaled baby dragon scratched the scales on his head, and shrugged.

“Got nothing Twi, sorry,” Spike said dejectedly as he gripped his stomach trying to feel the usual tremor in his stomach that triggered a signal of an incoming letter from the pony goddess. He detected nothing and frowned.

“I also don’t appreciate you dumping a bucket of water on my head while I was sleeping…” Spike grumbled in grogginess, rubbing the scales ontop of his head.

“Are you sure there’s nothing?” Twilight groaned in disappointment as she frowned as well, ignoring her assistant’s complaint. She really had been hoping that the Princess would’ve replied by now. She’ll reply eventually…she always replies…right?

“Maybe my letter just wasn’t important enough…but even at that Princess Celestia ALWAYS replies to my letters, no matter what! …Weird…just….weird,” Twilight’s mental ranting continued on as she growled in frustration on the outside.

After trotting and pacing around for a couple seconds, she caught hold of herself and calmed herself down.

“Twilight, get a hold of yourself. You’re overreacting and its unnessesary. Just crank it down a notch, she’ll send a letter back…it never fails after all,” she reasoned with herself, thinking about how ridiculous her mindset was.

Why was her brain freaking out about this? Why did she have a gut feeling that her letter needed to reach the Princess. Like it was urgent. Why did Twilight Sparkle, the leader of the 6 heroes that saved Equestria twice from a evilly-possessed royal pony sister and a draconequus obsessed with chaos, feel something bad was about to happen?

“Uhh, Twilight? Are you alright?” Rarity asked worriedly, poking the side of Twilight’s mane.

“Judging by your disheveled mane and you’re abnormal antics, you could REALLY use a spa day dear,” Rarity frowned as she examined Twilight’s mane, which was a despicable crime of fashion at this point.

Rarity was about to invite the purple unicorn pony to a full-fledged spa day with the works when she was interrupted by a heavy clopping on the door. All the occupants of the library tree turned towards the door as Twilight opened it with her magic.

Almost instantaneously, a pink party pony with a curly mane rushed into the tree structure with wide concerned blue eyes. A gray pegasus with a blond mane and a muffin in hoof entered behind her.

“Twilight! There is a pop pop popin’ going on!” Pinkie Pie squealed in fear as she shuttered.

“Muf muf Muffin! …And another muffin!” Derpy replied, as her disproportionate eyes focused on the blueberry muffin she was nibbling on.

Twilight shook her head and sighed.

“What now?” The unicorn thought to herself.

“Twilight! I was on my way to Fluttershy’s cottage and Derpy was there too delivering mail and eating a muffin and Fluttershy might have been there but then she might also be out in town and of course her animals would be there but not all at the same time of cours-!”

“PINKIE!” Twilight cried out in frustration.

“Just- tell us what happened,” Twilight proceeded, ending the comment with a sigh. She facehoofed, secretly hoping Pinkie Pie wouldn’t start rambling again.

“Oh yeah! Well, I had just arrived there to drop off her order of vanilla cupcakes, which are DELICIOUS by the way and they have these awesome star sprinkles on them and the frosting is so totally lickable and-”

“PPIIINNNKKIIIEE,” Twilight growled, attempting to keep her voice volume down.

“Oh sorry Twilight! I can be such a blabbery blabber blabbermouth sometimes! Hehe,” Pinkie giggled and put a hoof to her mouth.

“….Right,” Was all that Twilight had to say, her eyes glazing over in impatience at the jubilant pony in front of her.

“Sorry again! Anyways, when I got there I heard a lot of very loud and scary popping noises and explosions coming from that dirt road that leads out into the countryside! Me and Derpy got sooooo scared and we decided to run here and tell you about it,” Pinkie finished, taking in a large breath to replace the oxygen she forced out with her energetic speaking and started panting with her tongue hanging out in a silly fashion.

“Oh my stars! Fluttershy’s might still be over there! What if this is bad? Fluttershy is too soft and innocent for explosions and loud popping noises!”Rarity exclaimed in a distressful tone as huffed out a breath in a theatrical manner.

“Come on girls! You’re probably overreacting to this whole thing. Who said that this was dangerous or bad? You two don’t even know what you heard, didn’t you?” Twilight inquired, trying to keep everypony from freaking out.

“No…but it was REALLY loud and REALLY scary!” Pinkie pleaded, throwing her hooves in the air in protest.

“Very well, we’ll go check it out! But seriously girls, you really need to ponder things with logic rather than just jumping to conclusions. Kind of reminds me of the whole ‘Zecora’ mishap and we don’t want to repeat that again, do we?” Twilight explained with a toothy smile at her friends, trying to keep the mood positive.

“Yes, of course! Ladies, we are worrying about something petty, but it’s alright. We’ll take a little peek at the ‘frightful phenomenons’ you two have experienced. Shall we go Twilight?” Rarity added, mentally pushing her suspicions aside out of nervousness as a bead of sweat ran down her forehead.

“Disgusting. I’m going to need a warm bath after this,” Rarity pondered, looking at the bead of sweat in disapproval.

“Absolutely right Rarity! Come on girls! To Fluttershy’s cottage!” Twilight rallied her pony friends as she threw a hoof in the air.

“Muffin trails are the best ones! You can lick the ground!” Derpy cried happily, muffin crumbs all over her mouth and snout.

“But wait Twilight! What if Princess Celestia’s letter arrives?” Spike asked in a whiney tone.

“Then just hold onto it for me Spike! And stay here in case it does come ok? I don’t want poppings and explosions destroying it,” Twilight replied as she trotted towards the door with the rest of her friends.

“But Twilight-!”

“But nothing, Spike. I’m sorry but you’re staying here, got it? Besides, this might be a little much for a baby dragon,” Twilight explained, cutting off her assistant’s protest after giving him a little glare and a quick shake of her head.

All of ponies in the room headed towards the door as Spike stayed behind and grunted in frustration.

“I never get to do or see anything cool…” he mumbled in compliant to himself.

VRRRRROOOMMMM!

VRRRROOOMMMM!

CHA CHA CHING!

CHA CHA CHING!

POP POP POP POP POP!

POP POP POP POP POP!

Loud screams of fear and agony could be heard from outside the library as a mix of loud, revving engines and the popping of small arms fire erupted in the town square. The rumbling of both the engines and numerous panicking ponies’ hooves could be heard as the citizens of Ponyville outside Twilight’s library tree were running for cover and screaming.

Death screams could be heard as some Ponyvillians were shot and killed. For Twilight, this did not sound good at all. And the noises were SO LOUD too. Now she understood why Pinkie and Derpy were scared.

Because now she was scared.

Pinkie, Rarity, and Derpy were all huddled in the middle of the library, hugging each other tightly. Pinkie’s teeth were chattering and her eyes were as wide as the moon. Derpy looked around worriedly and fearfully. Rarity cringed at each death scream she heard.

Twilight frowned and eyes went as wide as Pinkie’s in pure fear. She laid herself on the floor in front of the entrance, fearfully looking up at it, hoping nothing would bust it open. Spike dropped the book he was rearranging and his mouth went agape.

“What the-” He thought aloud in confusion, completely frozen to the spot he was standing on.

“Is this what you meant Pinkie?” Twilight squealed in terror.

“Uh huh…” Was all that Pinkie Pie could get out as the noises made her wince in pain as they assaulted her eardrums.

Normally, they would have checked to see what was going on. But this was something new to them. This was a new type of problem. Usually they would be brave enough to waltz right out there and stare at the scene in front of them, trying to come up with an answer.

POP POP POP POP POP!

CHA CHA CHING!

POP POP POP POP POP!

CHA CHA CHING! CHA CHA CHING!

Stallion: “AHHH!”

Stallion: “AHHHAHHH!”

Stallion: “GAH!”

Mare: “UUUAAHH!”

Young Filly: “MOMMY!!”

However, this time was different. They were much too afraid to even set hoof out the door. They’ve never heard anything like it before. The revving of the engines was frightening for these ponies and the shooting outside sounded dreadful. The screaming, even though the friends in the library didn’t know they were death screams, was still horrifying to them.

Twilight collected the courage to get up and trot to the nearest window. What she saw was a torrent of violence, carnage, and confusion. What Twilight viewed from that window struck her with disbelief and shock.

It couldn’t be real…IT JUST COULDN’T!

She watched in horror and terror as dozens of Ponyvillians were dashing away from the town square to escape a small group of ponies that were wearing gray camouflage with gray helmets and shooting science fiction weapons at the town’s citizens, structures, businesses and homes.

Strange, four-wheeled vehicles seemed to be driving around and shooting up multiple buildings and ponies with the weapon turrets on the roof of the vehicles. Dead and wounded civilian ponies littered the town square, with small splotches of red leaking from under them. Some were silent and immobile. Others were screaming and crying out in agony and pain.

The sight in front of Twilight was surreal. It was unbearable for her. Her body started to shake uncontrollably as a lone tear fell from one of eyes, and onto her cheek. What was going on? What was happening? Why? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it, mostly because she was still in shock.

“Ttttwwwiiilight…what’s going on out there?” Pinkie Pie asked, her voice trembling and quivering.

She turned back to Pinkie, looking like she had just witnessed a tragedy. Her facial expression and body language did not help to sooth her friends.

Her eyes turned a pinkish hue as tears where starting to form at the bottom of them, her mouth agape and unresponsive. She was still shaking and the bottom of her lip began to quiver. A second tear had developed over her right eye this time and fell down her cheek quicker than the last one.

Before Twilight could respond to Pinkie’s question, she heard another death scream. Shortly thereafter, she heard a metal weapon clank to the ground as it’s user got blasted in the chest.

“AHHH!” The gray-clad soldier cried as he dropped dead.

Next Twilight heard:

“Dammit! That blue pegasus is back! Blast her out of the sky!”

“She has our commando’s Raptor! Look out!” A gray-clad unicorn warned.

“She’s too fast! I can’t hit jack with this thing!” A buggy gunner growled.

Twilight was intrigued by this and through much protest, she refocused her vision on the window. This time she saw the mysterious and dangerous gray ponies were concentrating their fire on the sky above them. The purple unicorn then searched the sky trying to locate the uniformed ponies’ target.

It was then when she spotted a rainbow streak across the sky above Ponyville at mach 2.

“Rainbow Dash?! What is that insane pony doing? Is she crazy!?” Twilight whispered to herself in disbelief.

All of a sudden she heard a PHEW! coming from the sky.

“HHHAAA!” She heard the soldier cry and watched him as a cloud of red erupted from his throat and he face planted into the concrete ground below. She saw a tiny puddle of red spilling out from under him.

“Shoot her! Shoot her!” Another soldier cried out in desperation.

PHEW!

“UAAHH!” A mare soldier grunted as she was hit too, a red cloud spraying out of her gut.

“I can’t see her! I can’t see her!” A young stallion soldier panicked.

“Spray and pray! Spray and pray!” An older stallion soldier yelled.

As he said this, all of the remaining gray-uniformed soldiers started shooting sporadically and randomly, not really aiming at all, hoping that a stray bullet will hit their adversary. Unfortunately they still hit buildings and unlucky Ponyvillians.

This action caused Twilight to jump back from the window as stray rounds slammed into her tree. She regrouped with her friends as they all dropped to the floor, covering their heads with their hooves.

One of the windows other than the one Twilight was using was smashed open by a random bullet, and now her and her friends could hear the whizzing of projectiles streaking past the tree through the air. None of these rounds were actually hitting the tree, just whizzing by.

Twilight’s mind was completely in a daze and completely frazzled.

This CANNOT be happening.

This CANNOT be possible.

But her heart’s heavy pounding against her chest, the little scene she watched from the window, and her friends’ terrified reactions said otherwise.

It was real.

Chaos.

Death.

Violence.

...WAR.

Afterthought

So! Everypony confused about what the hell’s going on? Yes? Good! You’re supposed to be! XD

Well sorry for the filler but I had to set this part up guys. Also, the next chapter will contain elements that make this one make more sense.

Also, there will be more action in Chap 3 and a little explanation as well.

I wanted to add the action scene at the end but I felt that it would make the chapter drag on, so I just cut it off right here. Sorry about that, please don’t murder me in the face with a banana…Trust me, I’ve been down that road! XD