Equestrian Dawn: Tiberium is Magic

Sole Survivor

“Hey, do you guys mind if you could-you know-not hog the road please?” the blue stallion asked the beret-wearing leader of the formation with obvious annoyance in his tone.

He smiled nervously at the Nod commando’s piercing eyes as beads of sweat started to drop from his mane. The commando eyed him with equal irritation showing on his facial expression. The couple was not but a few feet from the advancing Nod platoon.

“Are you serious?” the commando replied in his gruff voice, bringing his metal weapon to his face, looking into the green-lit scope that was placed on top of it.

The stock was seated snug in his shoulder. The commando then cocked his head downward in order to look through the scope that was fitted on top of his weapon.

The blue stallion was being nuzzled on the cheek by his companion, a green mare, who was rubbing her cheek against his. Her body language suggested that she was in a moment of bliss. With her eyes closed in elation, she spoke:

“Oh honey, don’t be so hard on them. I mean, they look soo cute in their little costumes!” she chuckled, wearing a wide smile on her face.

The commando was flabbergasted at her comment. His mouth went agape as his lit cigar dropped out of his mouth and hit the ground below him. What fazed him was the fact that he and his comrades were a heavily armed and dangerous pony platoon bent on destruction…and they get called cute by a dim-witted civilian.

The troops behind the commando in the halted formation peered at each other with bewildered glances.

“Cute?” a pegasus soldier asked in confusion, raising an eyebrow.

“Do I look cute to you?” he asked one of his comrades.

“Dude, that’s something you just DON’T ask another stallion,” his creeped-out teammate answered, while slowly shifting away from him with a suspicious glare.

“The HAY? Do you even know who you’re dealing with here?!” the commando started, growing exceedingly irritated at the green mare’s comment.

He readjusted himself back to his weapon.

“Now I’m glad I got this mission!” the elite growled as he took aim.

“Mission? What are you do-”

PHEW!

The muffled report of the weapon sounded, cutting off the blue stallion’s reply as an invisible projectile punctured his forehead and penetrated his brain. Red liquid from his head splashed on his lover’s mane as his lifeless body dropped to the ground.

The mare shrieked and backed away from her partner’s body in shock as she watched the blood poured out from the hole in his forehead. Her eyes grew wide and tears started cascading from her eyes. Her body shook with convulsions as the stupefied mare gazed at her now-deceased lover.

Her breaths shortened and increased in frequency, making her sound like she was hyperventilating. She then turned to face the commando once again and noticed the unsympathetic face that the elite soldier wore.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?! YOU MONSTER!” she cried in both terror and sorrow. She then sat down on her hindquarters and began to sob, mourning her departed companion, wet hooves covering her eyes.

“The same thing I’m about to do to you,” he replied coldly, adjusting his target from the fallen stallion to her. She peered up in fear, tears still free-flowing from her eyes. Her eyes grew wider when she realized that she was looking down the barrel of the assailant’s weapon.

“Wait! Don’t! Pl-”

PHEW!

The suppressed sniper weapon recoiled in the commando’s arm as he cut off her plea with a well-placed bullet. The round pierced her throat and blood gushed out of her jugular as she dropped to the ground, gurgling and choking on her own life-force.

“NOOOOOOOO!”

The Nod troops heard a high-pitched, tomboyish voice scream in a mix of despair and rage. The commando turned to face this newcomer, but was then tackled from his right side by a blur of cyan. He grunted as they both simultaneously slammed into the ground. The surprised elite saw a rainbow streak past him almost immediately after.

“URRGG! A pegasus?! This one’s mine!” the commando thought, furious at the unexpected attacker. He tried to steady himself up on one hoof as the other scanned for his assault weapon.

It was only after he had recovered and gotten back up when he realized that his Raptor was knocked clean out of his grasp, and had skidded into grass in the direction the rainbow streak went. He cursed quietly as he watched a cyan pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane swiftly snatched up his Raptor in her mouth as she flew by it.

Rainbow Dash then picked up speed and started to ascend into the clouds above her. She had done it. She got the weapon away from that pony. But now what? The others had weapons too. What could she do about them?

“How about a taste of their own medicine?” she thought harshly, biting down on the gun in her teeth. All reason within her was diminishing fast. Emotions had taken over. Her heart was hardened into temporary cruelty because of what she just saw.

Rainbow had been following the NOD platoon for a few miles now. She saw from behind a tree, the columns of ponies approach the couple in the dirt road. Dash thought it was a good idea just to sit back and study what these mysterious ponies would do.

…Then she saw the blue stallion drop.

She watched that distressed mare wail in sorrow for her departed lover...

And also the commando’s heartlessness as he repeated his act of evil on her shortly thereafter...

Rainbow Dash’s heart was now a torrent of conflicting emotions. The sadness from the tragedy of those poor innocent ponies getting gunned down filled her heart with a wrenching, tear-jerking ink that filled her heart, causing her to choke on her tears as she viewed the atrocity.

The shock and confusion that came with all this was befuddling her ability to understand, and her judgment. It left her profound to no end why a pony would purposefully carry out an act that involved the harm of another with no remorse whatsoever. This caused that ink to bubble as if it was being boiled.

What was going on?

Why is all of this happening?

How is all of this going so fast?

Will it stop?

“Please make it stop!” Rainbow thought with desperation as she gagging out more tears, her chest tightening up. Her chest felt like it had been turned into a towel, and somepony was wringing it out by twisting it over and over again, then lighting it on fire. The burning sensation in her chest merely added to the emotional tornado there.

She still felt all this and more as she continued to fly high into the clouds, preparing to dive right back into the earth to wreak her vengeance…

This was her last emotion. The one that let the ink in her heart spill over and escape. This was her release. How she would burst the dam in her heart that was holding all of these horrible feelings there.

Dash would vent by making these ponies pay. Hate, anger and rage blinded her still tearful eyes. One would not be able to tell the difference of whether her eyes were red because of her crying or loathing. Maybe both. She used these emotions to bury the depressive state that the older ones put her into. She also used those old ones to fuel her retaliation.

Her decision made with cloudy judgment, Dash gained altitude until the Nod platoon was a mere dot on the ground. Rainbow then took off at an unimaginable speed, soaring right back towards the column at an angle. She dived and straightened herself out when she had reached ground level, zooming towards the Nod force on their left flank.

She adjusted the Raptor to one of her front hooves. The black metal felt cold to her. She had no idea on how to operate the device so she started to mimic the actions that she had seen the commando perform earlier. She rested the stock of the weapon in her shoulder and peered into the green-colored scope, having no idea what its purpose was.

She took a deep breath as the column was now getting a little closer, but still far-off as she flew closer to their left flank. She felt the red button lightly touching her hoof inside the grip. Rainbow figured that it was the button that activated the weapon. She continued to peer down the scope as she allowed her hoof to apply slight pressure to the button, but not enough to set it off.

Closer…closer…closer…

The commando finally spotted her coming up on their left after he and his underlings searched in the sky for the pegasus that robbed him of his assault weapon.

He stared at the incoming flying pony and then back at his troops. They were just standing there, stupidly watching the rainbow pegasus approach them.

“WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS WAITING FOR?! AN INVITATION!? OPEN FIRE NOW!” he barked at his platoon as they seemed to get shocked awake by the order.

They then began to take aim and fire their assault rifles at the rainbow streak that was seemingly getting closer. The chain guns on top of the buggies erupted in long bursts of machine-gun fire and the rocket squad behind them aimed their metal tubes as they began to release a volley of unguided rockets towards the flying cyan pony.

The rockets whizzed by the rainbow pony as she drew closer to them. Dash decided that her proximity was good enough and squeezed the red button inside the grip as hard as she could. The rockets could be heard detonating behind her as she dodged them, making balls of orange fire and smoke in the sky.

PHEW!

A cloud of dirt shot up a few feet short of the column’s left flank. The commando scoffed at this.

“She’s almost as terrible a shot as my boys!” he thought, mentally chuckling.

CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHING!

CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHING!

CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHING!

The buggies’ chain guns were audibly heard as the gunners rammed both of their front hooves down on the two big cyan buttons on the chain gun, their teeth biting down on the stabilization bar. They were firing in long bursts, tracing rounds past the incoming attacker.

The infantry ponies were also opening fire, the popping of their Alicorn Killers adding to the audio around them. The rocket troopers appeared to be reloading rockets by shoving a fresh charge down their tubes at this moment.

Still, Rainbow Dash kept coming. She was a lot closer now. Maybe a couple hundred feet out. She readjusted the weapon in her grasp. After the first shot, the recoil surprised her, causing her body to jolt a little bit and she swore that the weapon in her hoof was shaking now. Her shoulder stung a little bit but it was nothing that ‘The Dash’ couldn’t handle.

Continuing to be blinded by hate, she looked through the scope once again. She decided just to point into the platoon’s center of mass, of which she was bound to hit something. She took a deep breath and on her exhale, she squeezed the button once again, and immediately felt another vibration in her hoof, running all way up her shoulder.

PHEW!

“AHHHHH!” a young soldier in the middle of the formation yelped in surprise as his chest exploded in a cloud of red mist. He dropped immediately, letting his AK clatter to the ground. He stirred for a split second then went silent and still. His comrades stared at his carcass with wide, frightened eyes.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes copied theirs as she saw what she had just done. She had just taken the life of another pony for the first time. All of a sudden, she couldn’t help but fear herself for a split second.

This was how easy it was to kill a pony.

To press a button.

Dash’s stomach started to churn as the concept penetrated her brain. But as quickly as the concept entered her mind, she pushed it back out immediately, before it could consume her.

“Not now!” The cyan daredevil thought as she forced herself to focus on the task at hoof.

Rainbow didn’t know who these guys were exactly but she knew that they were bad and that it was up to her to keep them from doing whatever it was they came to Ponyville for. And that’s all she needed to know.

She banked right to avoid a head-on collision with the column, buggy and Alicorn Killer rounds tracing her path behind her. As she veered away and took to the skies once more, the commando’s watch started to beep. He looked at the green light emanating from it and pulled a headset out of his utility belt. He placed it on his head and moved the attached microphone over his mouth and the speakers over his ears.

He appeared to be listening intently to the headset, watching his troops prove that they were terrible shots as they continued to fire upon and miss that annoying rainbow pegasus that flew full-circle and was coming at their left flank again. He heard what was over the headset and nodded promptly.

“No problem!” he replied, yelling into the mic with enthusiasm. He removed his headset with both hooves and turned to his underlings.

“Hey! Word just came in from command! They want all minigunner squads and buggies 1 and 2 to advance toward the village! Me, buggy 3, and 4th. Squad will stay behind and handle the pegasus! Ya got that?! Move!” he barked his orders with purpose as the rest of the platoon obeyed.

The minigunner squads moved around the commando and continued on down the dirt road to Ponyville with 2 of the 3 buggies in tow. The commando sighed and facehoofed when he heard what two of his minigunners said as they bypassed him.

“Hey, why do they call us minigunners?” a mare Noddie asked her squad member. The other looked back at her with wonder.

“Oh, uh…I don’t know,” he answered stupidly.

“Well it’s just weird that they call us that, because we don’t even use miniguns!” she said, putting emphasis on ‘minigun’. She showed her partner the Alicorn Killer-47 she was wielding.

“I mean, ya see? Clearly an AK! Not a minigun!” she stammered on, getting worked up. The latter just gave her a bewildered look.

“Just…don’t question it. Let’s go,” the male teammate urged, finishing the untimely debate.

The commando shook his head at them as they passed by.

“How in the name Kane did I get stuck with a bunch of dipshits?”

His thought process was interrupted as another Phew from his Raptor was audible, followed by the death scream of one of his rocket troopers. He turned back into the direction of the combat, he was expecting to see the attacking pegasus to turn tail and fly away again. However this time, he couldn’t believe his eyes!

That insane nuisance charged the formation head-on after she shot the rocket trooper! He stare in disbelief as Rainbow, swooped in right between buggy 3 and the rocket troopers behind it. Next came a disaster on the Nod commando’s part.

When Rainbow Dash zoomed in between the buggy and the rocket troopers, she was drawing fire from both of them. The buggy’s chain gunner missed his intended target and accidentally committed friendly fire and completely wiped out the three remaining members of the rocket squad. Of course, right before the rocket troopers went down, one of the rockets went off.

Apparently, this poor rocket trooper was already in the process of firing off his tube right before he got shot by his comrade. Naturally, Rainbow Dash was too fast for this rocket and she was already past their position by the time the rocket was live. So the rocket had nothing better to do than to slam into the weak-armored scout vehicle it was on a collision course with.

The scout buggy exploded into a deadly fireball when the rocket made contact with the metal bars that made up the vehicle’s frame, killing all of the occupants.

The commando looked at the devastation that was produced in under about three seconds. The buggy, or what was left of it, was charred and burning in the middle of the road, its parts skewered all over the place. All four members of his rocket squad were down, including the minigunner that Rainbow shot in her first attack run.

Rainbow Dash looked behind her and saw what occurred. Her mouth went agape in mid-flight as she soared into a nearby group of clouds.

“Did I do that?” she pondered, scaring herself a bit.

What was she capable of?

Dash once again tossed those distracting thoughts out of her head as pulled a U-y, and angled herself for her final strafing run.

Dash was hugging the Raptor to her chest with both hooves as she dived back towards the commando. Thankfully, the weapon was incredibly light, though powerful. It would be obvious that it was a sniper weapon, however, it had an eerie resemblance to an Mamby Pamby-5 submachinegun. That’s what it was. The Raptor was basically an MP5 on crack.

“C’mon! It’s just you and me baby! Get some!” the Nod commando challenged as he yanked off one of the spheres that were attached to his utility belt/ overalls. He pulled out the pin ontop of the sphere with his teeth, and let the hoof-thrown explosive cook in his hoof.

Rainbow Dash was bolting at the Noddie at full speed. She just needed to get close enough for a clear shot. The weapon she was carrying could be efficient from a half-mile away with the proper user. However, in this case, Rainbow was an untrained, never-held-a-gun-before civilian pony who didn’t know exactly what she was doing, so she had no choice but to get close.

The commando eyed his target like a griffin. He watched the light blue pony, waiting for her to get in throwing range. After letting the fragmentation explosive cook for a couple seconds in his hoof, he recognized how close his assailant was getting, so he decided it was now or never.

The beret-wearing pony heaved the portable bomb into the sky, directly in Dash’s flight path. The cyan pegasus saw this, and barrel-rolled to her right, hugging the Raptor close to her chest as she did so.

“NNNAAAHHH!” was the war cry she let out as she rolled.

The commando quietly gasped at the sight of Rainbow evading the incoming grenade with such precision, and the grace of an ace fighter pilot. Her speed helped too. After all, speed was her domain and what had been keeping her alive thus far.

When she leveled herself out after the barrel-roll, she was in perfect position. Only twenty feet stood between the commando and instant death. Dash coolly took aim, which was basically just pointing in the general direction for her. She rested her cheekbone on top of the Raptor and looked through the scope.

She assumed that where the four lines touched in the middle was where the bullets were supposed to go, so she lined that mark up with the commando’s center of mass, which was about the chest area. Even though Rainbow Dash was taking her sweet time to execute this procedure, the commando was too busy readying another grenade to notice.

Seeing her opportunity, she tapped the red grip button three times in quick succession.

PHEW!

PHEW!

PHEW!

Two direct hits.

The first round slammed into the commando gut, making him grunt momentarily. The follow-up round went cleanly through his temple and into his brain shutting him down instantaneously.

Due to the kick of the weapon in an inexperienced pegasus’s grasp, the rounds after the first flew high above their aimed targets. Thus was the reason why the third bullet missed high, spewing up a fountain of grass a  few yards behind the late commando, after zinging over his head.

The commando was dead before he hit the ground. After his lifeless corpse slumped to the dirt road below him, Rainbow immediately heard small arms fire and the screaming of Ponyvillians in the distance. Rainbow turned to the direction of Ponyville and bared her teeth, complimenting a face of pure rage painted on her face.

“There is NO WAY that I’m gonna let these jerks get away with this! It’s Rainbow Dash to the rescue!” she shouted in confidence, blinded and consumed with adrenaline. She took off towards Ponyville, leaving a bright, colorful, rainbow-streak in her wake.

The pony goddess sighed as she refreshed herself with a deep breath. She had a meeting with Lord Cozmar today. She was standing at the end of the Royal Hall with a Royal Guard flanking her on either side. Today’s meeting was going to be important.

Her sun was shining; the setting was peaceful yet elegant, and today just seemed to be a perfect day. The mood around the castle was jubilant and positive. This was how things were supposed to be. How every day should be. She smiled brightly as she took in the sentimental feelings of the moment.

Celestia had watched the white meteors fall from the sky last night, and had received reports of them crashing throughout the countryside. This was strange. Usually when an anomaly like this happened, she was able to identify it thanks to years of experience on this world.

However this time was different. She had no explanation whatsoever. No magical entity that she knew of could’ve done this. Even with her knowledge of science, she couldn’t explain why multiple meteors where hitting the planet simultaneously.

In her entire immortal life, she had never seen anything like this. It baffled her. Maybe it was something before her time? After all, Celestia and Luna didn’t create this world. Maybe an older magic or an older god might be able to explain this.

But then again, other than Discord, who was still trapped in his stone prison, she didn’t know of any other gods. She continued to ponder the possibilities of last night’s event with no avail. She then mentally chuckled at herself.

“He he, this was why I called this meeting,” the princess thought with a playful smile, snapping herself back into focus.

The giant double doors that were the entrance to the Royal Hall opened with a resounding rumble. The two Royal Guards, one flanking each door, snapped to attention and remained immobile.

Then a dark-colored unicorn pony lord entered the Hall through the door. Multiple other guards that were also standing to the side of the Hall, one across from the other, also snapped to attention.

He was donning a fancy white suit, complimenting his charcoal-grey coat. Celestia had always known he was handsome. His sable mane and his striking green eyes always found a way under the alicorn’s coat, making Celestia refuse the urge to shudder when exposed to his charm.

He was probably the most charming unicorn royal in Equestria, or rather in Luna’s opinion, as Celestia remembered her sister whispering that to her at the last royal gathering a few months ago.

Honestly, she didn’t blame her sister; it was very easy to like a handsome charmer like Cozmar. He was also very resourceful. The mare-stunner known as Lord Cozmar, was the head of the Equestrian Department of Science. If anypony knew what was going on regarding the meteors, it would be Cozmar.

He approached her and bowed deeply and elegantly, as custom dictated when seeing a Royal pony sister. She smiled at her subject and lifted her head to indicate that he may rise.

“Your Highness, you requested to speak with me I presume?” The handsome stallion inquired, a cocky smile on his face as he rose. Celestia was taken aback by this. Typical Cozmar.

“Yes, Lord Cozmar, I have. The reason of which is that I need to know everything you do about the meteor shower last night. Can you please do that for me?” Celestia asked with a smile. Cozmar beamed back at her as he cleared his throat to answer.

“Meteor shower, your Highness? Whatever do you mean?” He replied, putting a hoof to his chin. The princess looked at him with impatience.

“Lord Cozmar, excuse me for my rudeness but I’m going to need you to stop playing around and tell me what is going on,” the Princess managed to say without revealing her irritation and maintain her politeness.

“But of course. You might need to know of the coming of our salvation,” Cozmar answered deviously, his green eyes starting the pierce into the Princess’.

“Wait? What? Salvation…?”

Celestia reared back in utter confusion.

“Salvation? What are you going on about?” the pony goddess gasped slightly as she pressed him on the subject, bewildered and curious of Cozmar’s statement.

“Oh…you were not aware of the arrival of Tiberium? But of course you don’t hold the power and divinity that our Messiah holds, so how could you possibly have known?” Cozmar insulted, his demeanor shifting from the usual cocky and playful Cozmar, into a sinister and evil one.

“Tiberium? Messiah? What in Equestria are you ranting about, Cozmar? Why are you mocking me? I want to know RIGHT NOW, what is going on! Elaborate, Cozmar!” A befuddled and angered princess responded, stomping a front hoof.

She was in total confusion. Celestia hated not being in the know. None of what Cozmar was saying made sense. The subject of which he spoke of was a foreign language to her. Hopefully, she would get this cleared up soon and finally get some answers.

“I’m sorry princess but I’m afraid it won’t matter whether I tell you or not,” he replied, with a devilish grin.

“And why not?!”

“Cause you won’t live long enough,” Cozmar stated simply as he grabbed his suit with both forehooves and ripped it out from the center.

Celestia looked at what was under his suit and it revealed a multitude of wires and straps. Also present were six blocks with brown bag covers marked with a single letter and number, three blocks on top of each ribcage. The contraption that sprung the guard ponies into action was strapped to his chest.

The marker that was a single letter and number that was stamped on each brown-bag covered block in a large, black font was…

C4

“I’ve waited sixteen years to do my part! The time for transformation and revolution is now!” Cozmar snarled with passion.

He sneered at Celestia with the evil grin of a passionate and manipulated scientist, convinced that turning into a suicide bomber was his destiny. He laughed manically and a look of insanity was plastered on his face.

The next five seconds were the longest in Princess Celestia’s entire life. She watched in shock as her Royal Guards yelped in surprise at the mechanism strapped to the guest, who was a mere fifteen feet from her.

The guards attempted to rush the terrorist with spears poised, in hopes of preventing the deranged lord from detonating the device. The Princess was frozen in place and unable to move, her eyes filled with fear and uncertainty.

She watched as Lord Cozmar pulled out a detonator with one hoof and used his other to flip off the button’s cap. Next, he said something that she would not understand until much later.

“Kane is the Messiah!!” he screamed in euphoria with a sadistic smile as his eyes widened at Celestia and he slammed his free hoof into the button, triggering the explosion.

All of the guards in the room failed in their charge. As a result, their close proximity to Cozmar caused them to be obliterated immediately. The Princess was knocked backwards into the wall behind her due to the force of the blast. The beautiful windows that gave a luminous light to the Royal Hall were shattered and blasted out of their seams.

Shrapnel was sprayed everywhere, some bits penetrating Celestia’s coat. The blood and body parts of her decimated guards, and fragments from the suicide bomber’s device littered and sprayed all over the black and charred carpet.

Cozmar’s form was nowhere to be found, incinerated by the blast. A pillar near the detonation detached from the ceiling and smashed into the floor of the palace a mere few yards away from the epicenter, its marble essence crumbling.

Pain coursed through the sun princess’ body, portions of her coat were burned black and other portions were stained with her own blood. The shards of shrapnel that penetrated her coat stung her as she tried to move.

How she was alive, she did not know. Nor was she in a position to wonder that as she was delusional at this point. Her ears were ringing and throbbing profusely and she was dizzy and disoriented.

She opened her eyes with difficulty. Destruction was what she saw. Banners that hung in the ceiling of the palace near the explosion were ripped and blackened. Her stomach churned in disgust as she viewed the charred severed limbs of her guards littering the floor, along with other debris.

Then Celestia realized that the power of the explosion had slammed her into the wall behind her, twenty feet from where she was standing before. Her back ached in pain from its contact with the wall to confirm that. She was lying down, barely conscious. Her horn was stained black and her eyes were starting to droop shut.

She struggled to keep them open, blinking and fluttering her eyelids in a struggle to maintain consciousness.

She was bleeding from the lip, as well as other spots on her body were she took shrapnel. She groaned in pain…she hadn’t felt pain in a very long time. Such was the way of a god or goddess. They don’t hurt very often.

Wait?

Was that how she survived?

The concussion from the blast alone should have killed her. She was bleeding profusely from her shrapnel wounds so she should also have bleed out by now. Is that why she had survived when the others didn’t?

Because she was a god?

Her eyes searched the hall for any pony that may have been lingering but there was none. Just her. Alone…

The sole survivor.

Cozmar and twelve of Celestia’s personal guards were reduced to ashes and charred bits in the matter of a couple seconds. Some of her guards were not burned to a crisp and were just disemboweled by the explosion, a mess of blood and severed limbs.

That’s when she became cognizant of the fact that the blood that was splattered all over her was not only hers, but also the blood of her decimated guards. The feeling of the sticky hot red stuff all over her caused her to gag convulsively. Her abdomen threatened to make her hurl her lunch.

When she attempted to move, she heard a resonating CRACK emanate from her side, making her yelp and cry out in agony. She realized then that she might have a couple of cracked or fractured ribs.

When tried to stand up starting with her right foreleg, a sickened and gut-wrenching SNAP was audible when she put weight on it. She wailed as the pain was unfathomable and she dropped almost immediately back to the floor. Her right foreleg was broken.

Then, from a small door on the left of her, about halfway down the lengthy, two hundred-yard hall, she heard something. She watched in curiosity and even though she was losing consciousness and her eyes were threatening to close again, she could still see what looked like a pair of black combat boots buck open the small wooden door.

Then a six-pony squad of troopers wearing tan camouflage, Kevlar helmets, and brandishing M-16’s, rushed through the door, and filed into the hall. They moved towards the princess in a tactical prose, and when only a few yards away, they stopped.

They formed a protective circle around her, scanning for threats. They were spaced a few feet apart from each other and now facing away from Celestia.

“CLEAR!”

“CLEAR!”

“CLEAR!”

“Alright! Area secured!” The white unicorn with a blue mane, who appeared to be the squad leader shouted, his horn sticking out through a hole in his helmet in the forehead area.

It was none other than Shining Armor.

Celestia was delusional, but still able to somewhat keep some of her bearings on what was going on. She noticed the high-tech equipment that the members of her Royal Guard had in their possession. She smiled weakly at her Captain of the Guard.

“Hmmm…so Shining Armor found our secret cache of the high-tech equipment. The very equipment we used sixteen years ago in that covert war against the Soviets.  I commend him, only Luna and I knew about the cache after I told her about it, and all those who served then are long since retired. Wait…Luna must have shown him where we kept all of it. I hope they find the advanced military training manuals in there as well. Without it, they won’t know how to use any of the technology. Also the blueprints. Blueprints of tanks, Humvees, fighter jets, steel naval vessels, missiles, grenades, rockets, bombs…and…and…a-” the princess was forced to stop and grimace in withering pain as a shockwave of pain from her broken foreleg distracted her. It shot all the way up to her shoulder and caused her foreleg to twitch and spasm momentarily.

The squad leader lowered his assault rifle as he faced the princess. His green-lit, circular eyepiece that was attached to his helmet and covering his right eye was what her used to scan Celestia. It looked like the lens of a sniper’s scope, two intersecting lines meeting where the trooper’s eye was. It formed a simple cross.

The Captain tapped the top border of it with a hoof and a green light scanned over her body. It disappeared as quickly as it came as it completed its cycle.

Along with the eyepiece, he also had a mic over his mouth, connected to the headphones he was wearing. The headset was invisible as it was under his helmet. He stuck a hoof to his right earhole on the helmet and relayed his message.

“The scan shows her Majesty is still alive, and I can also see that myself! She’s stirring and won’t stop staring at me! GET THAT MEDICAL TEAM IN HERE NOW!” He screamed into his mic.

He was answered by the wooded door bursting open once more, revealed multiple nurses and combat medics rushing towards the princess. The nurses were dressed in their usual attire. A white dress and a white hat with a red cross symbol on it.

The combat medics were the same except they were wearing tan camo, and a white Kevlar helmet with a red cross. Both types of medical ponies were each carrying large white, briefcases marked with the red cross and first aid kits in their mouths as they galloped towards Celestia’s position.

The medics caught up her and her slid to a stop and began to work on her immediately. They opened the briefcases and fist-aid kits and pulled out a multitude of bandages, tourniquets, gauzes, defibrillators, and various other medical supplies and began their work. As they started to treat her for shock, a dark-blue alicorn shoved her way through the medical personnel, making her way to Celestia.

“SISTER! SISTER! SISTER!” Princess Luna cried with heavy concern and tears in her eyes, making her way to Celestia.

When she did, she exerted a sound from her mouth that sounded like a cross between a gasp and a yelp when she viewed her sister’s condition. She saw her sister bloodied and battered. The horror unforeseen in her eyes. She then began to cry and wail in fear and anguish.

When Shining saw this, he frowned deeply and solemnly. A wave of emotion struck the room. He motioned with a hoof to the rest of the guard squad to move out.

They moved towards the double front-doors at the end of the Royal Hall and Shining used his magic to open it. His troops didn’t need to see that. It was best to get them away from there and also he needed to make sure the rest of the castle was secure.

He exited the building with one goal…to make up for failing the Princess. Guarding her was his duty, and he failed miserably. First, the changeling queen…now this. Security measures were going to change around here forever. He promised himself that as he slipped past the door, the rest of his Royal Guard squad in tow.

He will do his job…and not even a terrorist can stop that.

He needed a plan. A contingency.

“Okay, you’re shaking buddy…calm down. You’re THE Captain of the Royal Guard remember? Royal Guards don’t get flustered. Show some discipline! The Equestrian Royal Guards are the best in the world and I’m their leader, so get it together!” he was urging to calm himself, quelling the fear and confusion within him.

He replaced it with determination. He wouldn’t quit. He couldn’t. Everypony depended on him for protection. He would get his act together and get his command to be proactive rather than reactive.

He would do it for Celestia. He would do it for everypony. For Cadance. For Equestria!

“Okay, all I have to do is round up the other guards and reequip them with some more advanced firepower that is in that really huge cave below the castle. I’ll train them later. Also, I gonna need my guards to sweep the entire castle for possible threats. No! All of Canterlot. I’ll reinstate that force field I made for my wedding and put it over Canterlot. But this time, I’ll be sure to check for infiltration. Lastly, I gotta find out whether this was a random act of violence or an act of war. Okay, I gotta do this!” he was cheerleading himself as he formed his contingency plan.

It sounded promising.

Hopefully he wasn’t too late.

All the while Luna was in shambles. Something like this had never happened.

Sure, Celestia was defeated by the changeling queen during Shining Armor’s nearly-botched wedding a while ago, but this was much different. This was a premeditated assassination attempt.

“SISTER! PLE-ASE B-BE OKAY! PL-EASE B-BE OK-AY!” Luna lamented as she sobbed for her stricken sister.

The tears freely flowing from her face, her miserable sobbing, and her disrupted vocals as she choked on her tears…all of it was too much for the medical teams. They couldn’t help but to look up and at Luna with sympathetic and forlorn expressions on their faces.

They returned to their task at hoof as Luna moved closer to her sister. She sat down on her rump and stared at her sister trying her best to hold back even more tears. She then leaned over and hugged her beloved sister tightly, blood now sticking to Luna’s body as well.

But she didn’t care. Luna’s mental restraint was broken when she started to sob heavily, her face dug into the sun princess’s shoulder. Celestia was weak and losing consciousness fast, but still had enough strength to return her sister’s hug with her good foreleg.

“Don’t cry…it’ll be okay…I’ll be okay…don’t cry little sister…” Celestia comforted her sister, her voice and her following smile very weak. She began to stroke Luna mane to console her.

“I’m sorry to break this up your Highness, but we need to work on her immediately. I apologize greatly, but she needs medical attention,” a civilian nurse urged politely as she took her first-aid kit and plopped it next to Celestia.

Princess Luna released her hug and turned to nod at the nurse in affirmation and backed up from the still-prone Celestia. She stared into the sun princess’ eyes with tears rolling down her face and smiled weakly.

“I love you big sister…” Luna said softly and quietly, giving Celestia a sad but loving smile.

Celestia looked back contempt, feeling the warmth of her sister’s love enveloping her. However, sometime else was also enveloping her…unconsciousness.

Celestia’s eyes drooped shut as the sun princess slipped out of coherency. Before she did she said:

“I love you too Lu-” and then the blackness took her and she knew no more.

Afterthought

Sorry guys….again I wanted to put more into this but I didn’t want it to drag. I PINKIE PROMISE that in Chap 4 there will be a conclusion to the assault on Ponyville and maybe we’ll see some Tiberium finally eh? :D

Anyways, the Season 2 finale ruined the OC I was gonna make. Yep, I was gonna make Twilight’s twin brother…Collin Sparkle. Never mind though. I’d have to say that I’m creeped out by Shining Armor since he was so much like my Collin.

I mean, white unicorn with a blue mane and an officer in the Equestrian military? (Well actually Collin was still going to be graduating from a military academy at this time…

Equest Point= West Point hehe) :)

But still…the similarities between the two creeped me out to no end. (shudders) 0_0`

So this chapter pretty much plugged the gaping hole in chapter 2 somewhat with the whole Ponyville thing and also an explanation of why Twi never got her letter. That was the goal here…damn I wanted to put

SSSOOO much more into this chapter but it’ll have to wait.

Sorry, and also I still need some DevArt from my wonderfully art-skilled readers….No? ….Damn…

XD

Well thank you all and I hope you enjoyed this!

Comments are welcome!

See ya!