Twilight Chapter 1: A Time to Act
Twilight Sparkle felt the power building, could sense them all starting to be teleported to their intended destination. She smiled, anticipating the warm sunshine, the gently caressing breeze, that they would experience as they ate their lunch.
And then everything went wrong.
She felt a vortex, a portal to another place. It tore at her, whisking her off of her intended trajectory. She cried out in fear, as the spell, suddenly severed from her control, swept her friends away from her - and each other. She screamed, as she was sucked into the temporal-spatial vortex, completely powerless.
Then there was darkness, and she sunk down into oblivion.
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Personal log # 347
Entry #2365
The Melconian fleet has razed Earth. The homeworld of humanity is now a smoking, radioactive wasteland.
And I couldn't do a damned thing about it.
Sensors detected the drive signatures of a massive Melconian warfleet 47.9 hours ago. We went to covert status, per standing order number 129. The initial enemy probes failed to detect us, as the facility is constructed out of the most stealthy materials known to man, and is buried under 5 kilometers of rock, which is the lakebed of a methane lake 20 kilometers across and 3 kilometers deep. They swept by Titan without a second glance, heading straight towards the inner solar system.
4th Fleet was the first to engage the enemy, defending the human settlements on Europa. They managed to inflict heavy damage on the Melconian fleet, but they were eventually crushed. Europa was bombarded, its beautiful domed cities obliterated. The ice sheet covering Europa was entirely melted, and the worldwide ocean was severely irradiated.
5th Fleet executed a brilliant ambush, dropping out of hyper as the Melconians were crossing through the asteroid belt. They inflicted heavy casualities, and the enemy fleet was almost entirely obliterated. Everyone thought that the battle was won.
But we were wrong.
Another Melconian warfleet dropped out of stealth, catching both the Third and Fifth Fleets by surprise. Already reduced in strength due to causalities, Fifth Fleet was annihilated in the opening salvo. Third Fleet fought valiantly, but was eventually destroyed.
Mars was bombarded from orbit. The cities were slagged, destroyed by railguns and Hellbore fire.
And Earth was next on their targeting list.
As they were approaching Earth, even more enemy ships dropped out of hyper, swelling the already vast fleet's strength. We were overmatched, vastly outnumbered. But we would not - could not - surrender.
First and Second Fleets rendevouzed in Earth orbit. Everything that was available was rushed into position. We would halt the Melconians - or die trying.
The carnage was incredible. Fighters from both sides scrambled, engaging in vicious dogfights. Kilometer-long railguns belched death at one another, accelerating slivers of depleted uranium wrapped in iron to relativistic speeds. Hellbores fired in massive salvos, battering down battlescreens. Flights of missiles and point-defense clusters engaged, blazing lasers attempting to destroy multi-megaton warheads. Bolos from the major factory plants on Luna contributed, their Hellbores nailing enemy ships, obliberating enemy fighter squadrons.
The massive battle took only 17.5 minutes. When it was over, First and Second Fleets were completely destroyed - but the enemy warfleet was almost entirely gone.
Unfortunately, "almost" wasn't quite good enough.
The surviving Melconian ships turned their weapons loose on Luna, targeting the various Bolos on its surface. The Bolos fought back, destroying even more attackers, but eventually all were destroyed. Then the Melconians turned their attention to the lunar infrastructure.
The factory plants were targeted first, melting under the onslaught of Hellbores and railguns. Then the domed cities were bombarded, people - civilians - dying brutal deaths, as the civilians on Europa and Mars had been massacred, victims of the Melconian equivalent of Humanity's genocidial protocols - which they themselves had clamored for.
Then they moved back into Earth orbit.
And then the final assault began. Death rained from the heavens, murdering millions - billions - of human beings. The continents were irrevocably fragmented, the oceans partially vaporized.
Then they hypered out of the system.
No one survived.
Well, that statement is partially inaccurate. Some did survive - but they all left on merchant vessels and military evacuation transports long before the Melconian warfleet got into range. The pope was one who refused to leave, staying - along with many Catholic priests - to minister to those who could not leave. He handpicked those cardinals who were to leave on the transports, charging them to elect the new pope.
But there were billions who were unable to be evacuated - or chose not to. The precise death toll will probably never be known.
The hidden recon platforms informed us of these events 36 hours after the Melconian fleet left the system.
But now we've got an even bigger problem to deal with.
We don't have enough food. And there aren't any hyper-capable transports, so we can't leave.
The hidden, contained gardens were designed to feed the entire population of this base indefinitely - but that was before the war got fully underway. This hidden facility has been operating at 250% of the originally designed for crew complement of 5,000 for about 209 years.
There's no way that anyone will come to rescue us - our existence was known only to those who are currently at the station and the top military brass - and a Melconian warship hypered into Earth orbit and fired on the primary military command centers as Third and Fifth Fleets were being destroyed in Mars orbit. It was quickly destroyed by First Fleet - but not fast enough to save the top military commanders.
How did they know enough to not only know where the command centers were, but also the precise scouting patterns of First Fleet, and the gaps in the sensor nets? The only way that could have happened is through treason - and we have no idea who the traitors are.
Since we don't have enough food, I'm putting everyone into cyrosleep. I've also placed the few experimental Bolos we've been working on onto the lowest alert level. The factory plants have been powered down.
I've created a computer program that will monitor the facility for any humans that enter. In that case, the program will awaken one of our Bolos - RVN 8973697 - and play for him a recording from me, his overall commanding officer, that will order him to obey the human that has arrived.
It is my belief that the crew of whatever vessel may find us will be able to go to get a relief force that can evacuate us from this facility. It will be easier to transport 12,500 humans that are in movable cyropods than 12,500 humans just awakened from cyrosleep, however, which is why I've not instructed the computer to wake us up in the event of a human arrival.
I don't know how long we'll be in cyrosleep - perhaps forever. But it's all I can do. I just hope someone finds us.
Leo Martinez, commanding officer of Experimental Bolo Battalion 1, signing off.
-end recording-
Twilight Sparkle stood up and groaned. Her first thought was Where am I? She raised a hand to her head, then thought, I'm a human. She looked down at her hands. It was dark, but even so, there seemed to be something... different about them. She sighed. Oh well. I'll figure that out later. More importantly, where are Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack? I hope they're all right.
She peered into the darkness surrounding her, but she could make out few details. She seemed to be in a hallway of some sort, but where the hallway was - or where it led - she had no idea.
Twilight came to a decision. She slung her bag over her shoulder, and strode into the darkness determined to find her friends - no matter how long it took.
The computer system watched and waited. It was not an A.I, so it had no emotions.
If it had had emotions, however, it would have sighed in relief when it detected a human life-form moving inside the facility, for it had been over 800 Terran Standard years since it had begun its vigil.
There was no sign of any craft that could have brought the human here, but it was not concerned with such things. It set in motion the programs that would bring RVN 8973697 back to full awareness. It routed the recording to RVN 8973697, and then shut itself down, its task completed.
Prolouge: Starlight Glimmer Uses Quantum Physics to Screw a Multiverse
"Hey, do you want to have a picnic?" Pinkie Pie asked excitedly.
In the future, those words would be remembered with horror and sadness. But at the time, no one could have foreseen what would lie ahead of them all.
"Well, Ah have been feeling rather cooped up lately", Applejack stated. "Ah've had so much work that ah've been barely able to take time off from working on the farm."
"Well, I have been sowing a lot of dresses recently. A short break would be nice", Rarity said with her usual eloquence.
"I'm sure Angel wouldn't mind me leaving for a few hours", Fluttershy spoke softly.
"Sure. Why not? But it needs to be someplace that looks cool", Rainbow Dash chimed in.
"I can teleport us all to Rainbow Falls."
Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight with concern.
"Are you sure? I've never seen you teleport all of us at once before."
"It'll be fine, Rainbow Dash. I know my teleportation inside and out. Nothing bad will happen", Twilight reassured her friends.
Unbeknownst to them, Starlight Glimmer was lurking in the shadows. "Never say never, Twilight Sparkle", she whispered to herself.
Twilight's horn charged up. In shadow, Starlight charged up hers.
The spell began. Twilight wove her spell flawlessly, while Starlight Glimmer did nothing except use her magic to alter the behavior of some nearby subatomic particles.
But due to the fact that teleportation involves using those particles, quantum physics caused a cascading series of catastrophic alterations that changed the entire focus of the spell.
The mutated spell, backed by the strength of a powerful alicorn, punched a hole in reality, shattering part of the fabric of the universe. Specifically, the part known to some as 'the fourth wall', which prevents separate universes from interacting with each other.
Twilight and her friends were suddenly wrenched away from each other, and catapulted into separate universes.
Starlight Glimmer smiled in smug satisfaction, and used her magic to fix the local hole in space-time. "That should keep you all away while I fix Equestria", she stated.
And then she turned, walking out of the throne room where Twilight and her friends had sat just a short time ago.
