Chapter 1: Into the Light
1,027 years ago, the sky fell.
Our war with the Separatists ended in a matter of hours, but so did our existence.
The defense batteries tried to shoot them all down, but there were just too many. Where they were hiding all those missiles, God only knows.
When our leaders realized all was lost, they fled.
As per protocol, the twenty five leaders were loaded onto five Chimera-class prowlers and shipped to the bunkers on the moon. The Chimeras were fast, agile, and had visual, electromagnetic, and thermal cloaking. They could outrun and outmaneuver almost anything and were virtually invisible when cloaked. The perfect get-away craft.
However, that's under ideal circumstances.
Our military command structure had been infiltrated by enemy spies and the locations of our hangars had been leaked.
They were ready and waiting for us.
The pilots fought with everything they had, but we lost four ships before we even left the atmosphere.
Three were shot down by enemy fighters, and the fourth was taken out from the inside. A bomb took out the reactor's coolant system, causing the ship's core to overload mid-flight. Everything within a half-mile was instantly turned to slag.
My ship was the only one to make it out into space, but we weren't without our share of problems. First, our visual cloaking system had been sabotaged. So, while we were invisible to enemy computer systems and sensors, they could still look out their viewports and see us clear as day. Second, one of our pilots turned out to be a defector. He shot and killed two of our leaders before my brothers eviscerated him. To be safe, we spaced the second pilot.
We went through flight school during training, so the pilots weren't really needed to begin with.
With our cloaking disabled, two of our five leaders dead, and enemy strike fighters harassing us, the remaining three leaders made the decision to forgo the safety of the moon bunker and instead jump to hyperspace.
It would be the last decision they ever made.
After my brothers locked the commands into the flight computer, we all made our way to the cryo chambers. When the last chamber closed, the ship jumped.
By some fluke, the trans-light drive's radiation shielding failed.
Upon jumping, the crew compartment was flooded with hyper-lethal amounts of radiation, instantly killing the three remaining leaders we had left.
If they died, then why am I still alive?
Because my brothers and I, are Guardians.
All the ponies in the reception hall looked on in astonished silence as the crown flew through the air, only to clatter to the ground feet from the princess' prone form.
"Princess Celestia!" Twilight and the other Elements ran over to the princess to see if she was alright, but their attention was drawn back to the changeling queen.
"Ah! Shining Armor's love for you is even stronger than I thought!" Chrysalis giggled, a large, fang-filled grin spreading across her face. "Consuming it has made me even more powerful than Celestia!"
Twilight snorted and turned back to the princess.
"The Elements of Harmony." Celestia groaned, pain coursing through her head from her blackened and smoking horn. "You must get to them and use their power to defeat the queen."
Nodding, Twilight and her friends quickly ran out of the room.
Chrysalis smirked as she saw the six ponies fleeing.
"MUAHAHA! You can run, but you can't hide!" Her wicked smile grew even larger as she turned toward the prone princess. "No, not for long."
The distant sound of shattering glass caused her to glance out a nearby window and see a large number of changeling drones swarming towards the city.
"Not long indeed."
Princess Cadance spoke up from across the room.
"You won't get away with this! Twilight and her friends will–"
She was interrupted as the doors to the hall slammed open, Twilight and her friends being herded back in by a small group of drones.
Chrysalis laughed.
"You were saying? You do realize the reception's been cancelled, don't you?" She turned to the drones "Go! Feed!"
The drones were all too happy to oblige, and sped out of the room as Chrysalis' magic slammed the doors behind them.
"It's funny, really." She made her way over to the small group of friends. "Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior all along. Too bad the rest of you were too caught up in your wedding planning to realize those suspicions were correct!" She laughed and began humming a tune.
Applejack placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder.
"Sorry, Twi. We should'a listened to ya."
Twilight smiled at her friend.
"It's not your fault. She fooled everypony." She sent a venomous glare towards Chrysalis.
"Hehe," Chrysalis giggled. "I did, didn't I?" Her humming gradually developed into a fully fledged song, and she began singing as she hovered around the room, gloating at all the trapped ponies beneath her, completely oblivious to Twilight as she made her way to Cadance.
"Quick! Go to him while you still have the chance!" Twilight gestured towards the hypnotized Shining Armor and gently pushed Cadance towards him.
She quickly ran up to Shining and hugged him, but he still wouldn't move. Tears in her eyes, her horn sparked.
Twilight looked on in fascination as a magical heart floated away from Cadance's horn and popped on her brother's forehead.
"Wha– where... huh?" Shining groaned and groggily looked around the room. "Is...is the wedding over?"
WHAM
Cadance jumped as Chrysalis' hooves slammed to the ground in front of her.
"It's all over!"
"Your spell! Perform your spell!" Twilight yelled.
"What good would that do?" Chrysalis chuckled, "My changelings already roam free." She gestured out the window where a large number of drones could be seen flying through the streets firing beams of magic at the defenseless ponies.
Shining gasped and fired up his horn, only for it to slowly fizzle out.
"No! My power is useless now. I don't have the strength to repel them."
Dejected, his ears flattened and he fell to his haunches.
"My love will give you strength." Cadance walked over and hugged him, bringing him back to his feet.
"What a lovely but absolutely ridiculous sentiment." Chrysalis laughed and turned her back on the pair, favoring to instead look out the window and gaze upon her handiwork.
Twilight looked on as Cadance and her brother touched horns, drawing their combined knowledge and power to fuel the spell, lifting them into the air and causing a great, pink shield to expand out from their position and fill the room with a bright, white light.
As the pair slowly drifted back to the ground, the sound of chuckling, then maniacal laughter, pervaded the room, drawing everyone's attention to the window.
They were astonished to see Chrysalis still standing there, magical sparks now cascading across her body as she turned toward Cadance and Shining Armor.
"You used love to fuel the spell." She grinned as she took a menacing step forward. "Which you used against a creature that feeds off love to grow stronger." Another step forward. "Not a very smart move."
Twilight could feel the amount of power flowing through the air around the queen, causing her to take a hesitant step backward. She had been around the princess almost her entire life, so she was used to vast amounts of magical power. However, the amount of power being exuded by the changeling queen terrified her.
"Now," Chrysalis made her way towards the fallen form of the princess and stood over her. "I believe we have some unfinished business to attend to."
Chrysalis' horn began to spark with power as she pointed it at the princess.
Twilight could only look on in horror as her mentor laid her head on the marble floor and closed her teary eyes, resigning to her fate.
I watched as my charge fell to the ground.
With a thought, I activated the team-wide comm channel.
"Citadel has fallen. I repeat, Citadel has fallen."
This was the first time I had spoken those words in over 1000 years.
"Acknowledged."
The response was short, but the voice behind it was tense.
"Romeo and Echo, converge on my location."
"Roger, converging" Two acknowledgement lights flashed in the corner of my HUD.
I pulled up a map of the castle onto heads up display in my monocle. On it, I could see two dots, a green one and a yellow one, moving towards my position. Closing the map, I scanned the room. The ponies were terrified, holding on to each other and trying to get as far away from the queen as they could.
With my HUD, I was able to see the blue outline of Epsilon, my otherwise invisible pack mate, who was sticking to his charge like glue.
Thanks to him, we were aware of the situation as soon as it occurred. Way before Twilight and her friends even stepped foot into the city.
We couldn't do anything about it, but we still knew.
Twilight and her friends ran past me and out the door. With any luck, they would return with the Elements of Harmony and blast this bug to kingdom come.
"Status of Lancer?"
"Still asleep. Sedatives should remain active for another two hours." A gruff voice replied.
"Good." That was somewhat relieving. The last thing we needed right now was for another to get involved. "Anything to report?"
"Captain Fury placed guards on the balcony, but other than that, it's quiet."
"Roger, keep me informed."
The doors to the hall opened, and Twilight and her friends were brought back in by a group of smaller changelings. I noticed that they had failed to retrieve the Elements of Harmony. I also noticed that two green and yellow outlines were now in the room.
Heartened that my pack mates had arrived, I turned my attention back to the changeling, who was currently singing a rather annoying song.
"Update: Halos un-obtained. Citadel unresponsive. Crystal active. Swordfish unresponsive."
Even though three of my four brothers were in the room with me, I still received all four acknowledgement lights.
As I was observing the changeling queen, a bright white light caught my attention. Glancing towards Epsilon's position, I saw Cadance and Shining floating in mid air and a blinking indicator informed me of the increase in power surrounding the two ponies.
"Prepare for EMP."
Four acknowledgement lights lit up just as a large pink wave burst forth and passed over me, causing my HUD to burst into static for a moment.
Surveying the room, nothing had changed, except that Shining and Cadance were back on the floor and the changeling queen was now cascading with magical energy, enough to send magical sparks everywhere.
As the queen walked closer, my sensors started tripping. The power from the pink wave was miniscule compared to what the queen now possessed.
I quickly readied my weapon and placed myself beside my charge.
"Situation deteriorating. Tango appears to be supercharged. Citadel unresponsive." The queen began walking towards me and my charge. "Standby to engage failsafe: Protocol 23."
There was a pause before the acknowledgement lights began blinking on.
My pack mates were hesitant.
And for good reason.
We were about to change history.
The queen was now standing over my charge, horn charged and sparking with energy.
I took aim.
"Engage."
Author's Note
Alright. First chapter of whatever the heck this is going to be. I have no idea where it came from, where it's going, or how it's gonna get there. So, expect a bumpy ride.
Took some time to make those cool little page break thingies. Why? Because I got bored. Let me know if you like them, or if I should switch back to the regular horizontal rule. Oh, and yes, I know they look like shit (I spent, like, 5 minutes on them). If you like them, I'll spend some more time and clean them up a bit.
As always, feedback is appreciated. If you don't like something, TELL ME! Don't just hit the dislike button and run away like a little girl.
"Upon activation by any Tier 2 personnel: (1)Code OVERWATCH is in effect. (2)Any and all GUARDIAN operatives within the designated AO are authorized to use any means necessary to ensure successful defense and/or extraction of HVA and threat neutralization. (3)Upon successful defense and/or extraction of HVA, assume ORANGE status until OVERWATCH is lifted." - Addendum 1, Protocol #23, Special Operations Procedures Codex
"Engage."
Simultaneously, the four of us opened fire.
Green blood hit the floor as the Queen took a smattering of rounds and collapsed. Unfortunately, she must have diverted the energy she had built up in her horn, because as soon as she hit the ground a magical shield sprung up around her, causing our bullets to ricochet across the room.
With our primary target out of action for the moment, we shifted our fire to the other changelings scattered throughout the room. The fact that nobody had a clue as to what was going on made things easier. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
*click*
My rifle went dry, so I ejected the empty magazine, put it in my dump pouch, and pulled out a fresh one.
"Boss!"
I turned my head towards Echo as he pointed towards one of the large windows.
Shit
Drones were swarming through the shattered windows faster than we could put them down.
"Fall back!" I yelled as I quickly slapped the fresh magazine into my rifle and deactivated my cloaking. Reaching down, I grabbed Celestia around her midsection and hefted her onto my shoulder. I saw Epsilon doing the same with Cadance, although she was putting up more of a fight. "Fighting retreat to Beta's position!"
As one, we began running towards the exit, Echo and Romeo staying behind to cover our retreat.
"Romeo, get the door!"
As we neared the large wooden doors, I saw the yellow outline of Romeo sprint ahead of us and lower his shoulder. In the blink of an eye, his cloaking deactivated and he smashed into the door, reducing it to toothpicks.
Taking care to avoid any leftover pieces of the door, I ran through the doorway and turned down the hallway, Epsilon close on my heels with a kicking and screaming princess over his shoulder.
I pulled up a map of the castle onto my HUD to double check the route I was going to take. I really didn't need to, as we had memorized each nook and cranny of the castle the day it was built, but a mistake right now would be disastrous. Not to mention completely and utterly unacceptable.
Echo took point as we ran through the hallways. Luckily, they were all clear, everyone having either taken cover or been captured. As a result, it didn't take long to reach the stairs to Luna's tower.
Normally, for the average pony, the trek up the 853 stairs to get to Luna's quarters took somewhere around two hours, on a good day.
We made it in twenty minutes.
As we neared the top, I quickly checked on Celestia, only to discover that she was still catatonic. Cadance had stopped thrashing about on Epsilon's shoulder and was looking rather green. Being forced to run in circles up a spiral staircase at breakneck speeds for twenty minutes straight will do that to you.
My radio crackled to life. "Welcome mat's been rolled out. You have one-zero seconds."
"Roger, ten seconds" I replied.
Putting on a burst of speed, we sprinted up the remaining stairs and down the short hallway to the open door at the end. The two night guards guarding said door were slumped against the wall, knocked out cold.
We slowed to a jog as we passed through the door, and as soon as the last man was inside the room, the door swung shut, thanks to my pack mate.
Luna's quarters were rather spacious, and, as one would expect, was painted in hues of purple and dark blue. She had various knick-knacks and baubles scattered throughout the room, as well as a fully stocked bookshelf full of everything from Daring Do to Tax Codes. Her most prized possession, however, was her telescope, which sat just inside the open door to the balcony.
Taking care to not pull out any hair or feathers, I spun Celestia around until she was laying on her back in my arms. I then walked over to the large bed in the middle of the room and carefully placed her next to the midnight blue form of her sleeping sister.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Epsilon placing Cadence in one of the beanbag chairs by the bookshelf, where she was more than happy to quickly doze off after her trip on the "merry-go-round from hell".
Being freed of our charges, we quickly reengaged our cloaking, just as the sound of metal scraping across stone was heard from the balcony and the opposite side of the door we had just come through.
"Looks like they're awake."
I turned to the large orange outline that was my second in command. "Anything to report, Beta?"
The eight foot tall behemoth nodded towards the balcony. "Whatever you did down there, it made the bugs clear out. They've been trickling out of the city for the past ten minutes." I walked over to the balcony and poked my head out. Sure enough, the small black forms of the changelings were slowly leaving the city. "At the rate they're going, they'll be long gone by the time Luna wakes up."
I nodded in approval. "Good. Anything else?"
When I turned back to my number two, I saw a slight shake in his left hand. It was barely noticeable, but it was there.
He was nervous.
This was a man that had single-handedly taken down an entire Archimedes class heavy-frigate with nothing but a trench knife, two grenades, and a roll of duct tape.
However, there was one thing, and only one thing, in the known universe that was able to make him nervous.
And that was me.
"Echo, Romeo, watch the doors." As they were moving to cover their assigned areas, I walked over to Beta and opened a private COM channel. "Is there something you want to discuss?"
...
...
"Was this really necessary?"
That made me pause.
Beta never questioned orders.
"I understand the need for action, but we've been hidden for the past 1200 years. Why reveal ourselves now? Wasn't there any other way?"
I replayed the entire encounter over in my mind, analyzing every detail, trying to think of anything that I could've missed or done differently.
There was nothing.
"She overloaded Citadel's magic, the Eagles were out of action, and none of the civilians were going to intervene. Feel free to check the logs, but she forced our hand."
Beta nodded. "Understood."
Ending the conversation with Beta, I switched over to the squad-wide frequency and took up a position by the balcony door. Glancing outside, I could see the small, black forms of the changelings slowly trickling out of the city.
"Gentlemen, RED status has been lifted. Switch to ORANGE at this time."
As one, Epsilon, Beta, and myself took up positions beside our respective charges while Romeo moved to cover the position by the balcony door. Echo remained by the main door.
I glanced down at the prone form of Celestia and saw that she was no longer catatonic and was slowly looking around the room as if trying to figure out how she got there.
"Beta, how much time is left on the sedative?"
"One hour, twenty seven minutes."
A small timer appeared in the corner of my HUD and began counting down.
Author's Note
It's about time, right?
I apologize for the wait, things have been hectic lately.
Not quite as long as last chapter, but I decided to split the different POVs (Guardian vs. Pony) into two separate chapters.
This was written over the course of however long it was since the first chapter (duh), so if it seems a bit wonky, that's why. If you want, leave a suggestion about how to fix whatever wonkiness you find in the comments, and I may or may not do something. Maybe.
