Equestria: The Fallen Utopia

When I woke up the next morning, Pip was snuggled up next to me. I lightly pushed her aside and sat up. I got out of the bed and took a shower. I hadn't bathed in a week. Pip was waiting for me when I finished. She gave me a stolen handgun.

“Keep that,” she said. “You might need it. I’m going out for supplies.”

“Have fun,” I said. “And be careful.” As Pip left the hotel room, I looked down at the revolver. I unloaded it and took a couple empty shots at the wall. Using my magic, I modified the bullets to contain pressurized bursts of magic. I duplicated the bullets and made myself a little bullet pouch out of things I could find around the room. I suddenly got a message from Rainbow Dash.

“Dear Braveheart, What’s going on? When I heard that Canterlot Castle went up in flames, and that the Princesses vanished, I panicked. Please tell me what’s going on, I’m worried. From, Rainbow Dash.”

I hesitated to send a response, but did it anyway. After I sent the letter, Pip walked in the door, paper bags in tow. She set them on the table and I tore them open. There were a bunch of chemicals, some pipes, and a little food.

“What’s all this for?” I asked.

“We’re making pipe bombs.” Pip said.

“Interesting,” I said. We immediately got to work. Pip started to create the mixture for the explosives and fuses. I made the shell. When we had finished, we had created 10 bombs. I stuffed them into my saddlebag. Suddenly, we heard a motorcycle pull up to the hotel.

“We need to go,” Pip said. I nodded in agreement. We jumped out the back window without making it look like we did. We snuck around the hotel quickly. As we did, I heard gunfire inside the room. Pip got into our car and started to drive. The Terminator heard the engine and chased after us on her motorcycle. I looked back. The Terminator was closing in. I lit a pipe bomb and threw it out the window. It missed, exploding behind the Terminator. I lit and threw another one. That one missed too. The Terminator started shooting at us. I lit a third bomb, waited, then threw it. It barely missed.

“Trade places!” Pip yelled. I quickly switched seats with her and took the wheel. Pip began throwing bombs at the Terminator. Pip then leaned a little too far out the window, giving the Terminator a clear shot. Pip was shot near the stomach. She cried out in pain and dropped her bomb. It exploded right behind our car, lurching us forward. I pulled Pip inside the car and floored the gas pedal. The Terminator increased her speed and started to close in next to us. As she pulled up to the left side of the car, I veered towards the bike. I rammed the Terminator into the side of the road, sending her down. She and her bike skidded for a few hundred feet before stopping. The front tire of the bike struck the side of our car and sent us veering to the right. The car hit the other side of the road, flipping it over. I recovered and sat up on the ceiling of the flipped vehicle. As the Terminator got up, I watched as she was run over by a tanker truck. I snickered. The truck stopped and the driver went to see what he had hit. The Terminator got up and killed him. The machine got into the truck and started up the engine. The tanker truck made a U-turn and headed straight at our totaled car.

“Shit. Come on, Pip,” I said. I pulled Pip out of the wreckage just in time. The Terminator bashed into the car, destroying it further. I helped Pip run. The tanker truck was close behind. We somehow were just able to keep out of the way. As we ran, Pip fell over in pain.

“Don’t stop!” she cried. “Run!” I kept running, unaware that Pip had a plan. I looked back and saw that Pip was lighting another pipe bomb. As the tanker truck passed, She stuck it into the back of the fuel tank. I ran faster than I have ever run before. As the Terminator began to close in, the tanker exploded. The resulting blast startled me. My wings opened out of reflex and I propelled myself forward and around a distant corner. I heard the rest of the tanker blowing up. I waited until the explosions stopped before I looked around the corner. I saw the burning Terminator get out of the destroyed truck and fall to the ground. I watched as the Terminator suffered a fiery death in the flames. When the body was motionless, I sighed and walked back. I felt like throwing up. The road was covered in gas flames and the destroyed truck was on fire. Pip walked through the smoke.

“Braveheart!” Pip called. I ran over to her and we embraced.

“We did it, Pip,” I sighed. “We got it.” But we hadn’t stopped the Terminator. Not yet. It rose up out of the wreckage, fleshless. All that remained was the terrifying endoskeleton. Pip saw the endoskeleton before I did. She got up and started to pull me away. I looked.

“No,” I cried. “NO!” I ran with Pip as the Terminator limped after us. We ran to a nearby factory. I broke the window on the door and unlocked it. We ran inside, pursued by the Terminator. We ran through the halls, trying to find an unlocked door. I saw a wide open door leading to the factory assembly line. We entered the facility, and Pip helped me close and lock the heavy door on the Terminator. It began to bash its way in. I started to run in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” Pip said. She started to flip switches to turn the factory on.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Cover,” Pip explained. “So it can’t track us.” The factory was in full swing now, its automated machines whistling and drilling as if assembling something. The Terminator had bashed a hole in the door, and was reaching for the handle.

“Come on,” I cried. Pip tried to run, but fell over in pain.

“Go without me,” Pip gasped.

“No,” I said. “Get up,” The Terminator had almost reached the handle. I was determined to get Pip out of here.

“Move it Pip,” I yelled like a drill sergeant. “On your hooves, soldier! ON YOUR HOOVES!!!” Pip got up and we ran away just as the Terminator entered the room. We ran through the factory, trying to lose the bloodthirsty machine. We hid among the machinery. The Terminator was lost. It couldn’t track our hoofsteps because of all the noise. It had to rely on strict vision. Pip and I kept on sneaking around, until I accidentally activated a hydraulic press. The sudden noise alerted the Terminator. It followed the sound. As we passed a rack of parts, Pip grabbed a long narrow pipe from the rack. We ran underneath a catwalk, but ran into a dead end.

“Go back,” Pip said. We turned around, came out from underneath the walkway, and found ourselves face to face with the Terminator. We slowly backed up as the Terminator walked toward us. We walked up an inclined ladder to the catwalk. The Terminator followed us. We walked onto the catwalk and kept backing up.

“Run, Braveheart,” Pip said.

“No,” I said.

“RUN!” Pip yelled. I climbed down another inclined ladder back to the floor. The Terminator watched me, then turned to Pip. Pip was ready to fight, right to the bitter end.

“Come on, fucker,” she growled. She hit the Terminator with her metal pole across the head a few times. But the Terminator was unfazed. It slapped Pip across the face, knocking her down. I ran up to Pip to help. Pip pulled out one last pipe bomb. My eyes went wide and I ran over some machinery and fences. Pip lit the bomb and wedged it in the Terminator’s side. Pip rolled down the ladder, attempting to get out of the blast zone as the Terminator looked down. It grabbed its side, but the bomb exploded. Metal pieces flew across the factory, one of them hitting me in the back. I fell on the hard floor. I lay there for some time, trying to get the ringing out of my ears. I tried standing up, but a metal shard was stuck in my side. I removed it with some difficulty and much pain. I slammed it on the floor in anger, then crawled over to Pip to see if she was OK. She was laying on her side, not moving. I rolled her onto her back and was met with a lifeless face. She didn’t make it out of the blast zone in time, and was killed in the resulting shock-wave.

“Oh no,” I gasped. I mourned over Pip’s death, but only for a moment. The upper half of the Terminator was still intact and functional. It made a move to grab me, but I got out of the way. I crawled for my life. The machine crawled after me, missing its legs and left hoof. I crawled through the machinery, eventually into the hydraulic press I had activated earlier. I crawled through the lifted press, nearly getting grabbed once or twice. I escaped the press and slammed the safety bars shut. The Terminator reached for my neck through the bars. I spotted the controls for the press just within reach. I reached for them as the Terminator reached for me. I placed my hoof on the START button and made one last taunt.

“You’re terminated, fucker!” I slammed my hoof on the button. The hydraulic press came down on the Terminator. Electricity flew as the press flattened the machine. I heavily panted as the Terminator was crushed. The process seemed to take forever, though it only took mere moments. As the press stopped, the Terminator’s visible red eye went out, signaling that the machine was finally terminated. I dropped my hoof from the button, gasping. I cut off the dead machine’s intact arm and kept it as a souvenir. I heard ambulances outside the factory. Nurse Redheart came in with other doctors and put me on a sling. The last thing I saw was Pip’s body bag being zipped up. I passed out as I was loaded onto the ambulance.
~~~

At the Canterlot Hospital, I heard small beeps in the darkness. They were the sounds of the heart rate meter. I slowly woke up. Twilight and her friends were next to the bed. Everypony was occupied with something except for Rainbow Dash. She kept her eyes on me.

“He’s waking up!” she announced to everypony. They all dropped what they were doing and ran over to the bed. I opened my eyes and sat up.

“Oh thank goodness you’re all right,” Rarity said. “We were all so worried.” Rainbow Dash gave me the endoskeleton arm I had taken. I put it into my saddlebag, which was next to me on the floor. I lay back down and looked at my side. It had been wrapped with bandages, and they were red with blood. Nurse Redheart came into the room.

“Braveheart?” she asked.

“I’m right here,” I said. “What is it?”

“You’re free to go,” Nurse Redheart said. She helped me up out of the bed and helped me into a wheelchair.

“Let that back heal for about a week,” Nurse Redheart ordered. “Stay off your wings for another week after.” We left the hospital and went to the train station. My friends helped me onto the train back to Ponyville, and we were on our way home. Rainbow Dash sat next to me as we traveled. I pulled out the Terminator arm and looked at it.

“Can I see it?” Twilight asked. I gave it to her. She was fascinated by the complexity of the machine. She gave it back to me. As I put it back in my bag, Fluttershy inspected my bandage.

“Does it hurt?” She asked as she touched my wound. I winced. Fluttershy immediately took her hoof away.

“Oh. Sorry,” she said. We arrived home a little while later. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy helped me up to Rainbow’s place. I rolled to my room. I lay down in my bed and took a well deserved nap.