I: To you, in the Age of the Sun Goddess.
Ponyville district. Vast, thick white walls, fifty meters high, with sides made smooth from successive years of rain, wind, and snow, encircle the small town, before joining the miles-long wall spanning the countryside.
Within the wall are the buildings of wood, some with straw roofing, and others with red clay tiles. The streets run in straight lines between them, crossing each other at sharp right angles, before coming to a halt before the walls, with a pair of rough oaken gates, just wide enough to allow a large wagon through, at the north and south ends of the district, allowing a way deeper within the walls, or outside of them and into the countryside yonder.
Within the district’s center, the buildings look shiny and fresh, with newly thatched roofs, or shiny, bright new clay tiles; further out, they take on a progressively shabbier appearance, till, finally, some of the houses are actually leaning precariously upon each other. The citizens empty their chamber-pots and trash into the channels at the center of the street; in the center of each street is a flowing river of muck and sewage leading away from the river cutting the district cleanly in half.
People crowd the streets. Merchants plying their wares, esoteric magic-users demonstrating their abilities, wagons laden heavily with goods, ragged little children running in between the seas of legs, noble ladies surrounded by their handmaidens and guards, nervously holding up their magnificent dresses, or being carried about, military patrols, philosophers seeking honest individuals, schoolteachers, librarians, cooks, tradesmen digging out foundations for new houses, repairing the ones already standing, noblemen fingering their swords, or their guns, and sneering, while leading their bodies of footmen and soldiers for hire with an arrogant flair, displaying their coats of many colors, emblazoned with their family sigils, ordinary families, beggars with their cups, the blind, the leprous, the thieves with their tiny little daggers, cutting a purse here, freeing a wallet there. Lovers, hand in hand. And there are ordinary families, enjoying a nice day out.
The day is bitterly hot, a haze dancing in the air before the blazing sunshine, phantom patches of water blinking in the distance, before disappearing. The sky is a multitude of orange hues, mixed with reds and darker blues.
Twilight Velvet, Night Light, and a very young Twilight Sparkle go wandering through the street – Velvet carrying a voluminous woven basket, clad in apron and a rough homespun dress and soft leather shoes, her lustrous hair tied in an ordinary ponytail, her face red-cheeked, fair, unmade-up, yet beautiful.
Night Light strides through the crowd, also clad in homespun jacket, shirt, and trousers, with worn boots, broad-shouldered, bright of eye, a day’s worth of stubble upon cheeks and chin, his hair roughly shorn around his temples, holding Twilight Sparkle’s hand in his own firmly.
Twilight Sparkle, resplendent in a white cotton dress and sandals, trots after her father, looking at everyone and everything. A beggar thrusts a bandaged hand at the little family; Velvet presses a coin into his palm.
Twilight Sparkle sniffled and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. There was a smell of baking bread, fish, savory meat, and of flowers, as they neared the market street. A heavily laden wagon, its oxen lowing and bellowing as their driver laid the whip on their backs, wheels grinding fitfully, squeaking, rumbling, prompting Night Light to draw Twilight Sparkle a little closer to him. “Be careful, dear.”
Stalls, heaping with good things to eat, lined each side of the street, each vendor calling out to passersby, each jockeying for attention.
“Fresh loaves! Five bits! Who’s for some loaves, then?”
“Shrimp h’all alive, oh! Ten bits a pound! Getcha shrimp here!”
“Tomatoes, four bits a pound, here you go, here!”
A harsher shout cut through the murmur and clamor of general talk, chatter, and conversation.
“Sinners! You’re all sinners! You shall all depart from here, and be consumed by the great, firey wrath of Celestia!”
Twilight Sparkle stared.
There was a woman standing on a wooden crate. She was tall, with long blue hair, and flashing red eyes, a pale, pointed face, and a lush body, with wide hips and a full chest. She might have been quite pretty, if it weren’t for the scowl upon her plump pink lips, her narrowed eyes, her fiercely knitted blue eyebrows.
The woman was wearing a orange bodysuit, with a blue, tall, peaked cap stitched with golden thread, a blue silk tabard with similar golden stitching, calf-length brown leather boots, brown leather gloves, and a rope belt, from which a few small leather purses hung. There was a simple emblem picked out in golden thread upon her hat and the front of her tabard: a circle with a cross inside.
Supplicant townspeople were cowering at her boots, some kneeling, others lying flat on their faces, still others standing, with their heads bowed, their shoulders shaking, as if consumed with racking sobs. All wore assorted expressions of woe; Twilight Sparkle did not think she could see one dry eye in the entire congregation.
The woman was carrying a tall staff nearly half again her height, topped with a golden emblem, the same cross-within-a-wheel. She slammed the butt of the staff upon the crate that served as her platform, producing a hollow thud, baring sharp, white teeth at her audience.
“Repent! The hour will soon be upon you all, and nothing will stop Princess Celestia from visiting Her wrath upon thee, unbelievers, heretics, and unrepentant alike, all shall be consumed by Her Everlasting Fire.”
She thrust a gloved finger skyward at the angry red sun setting in the distance. “See her mark above us! Watching, waiting…everything you do, every word you speak, even unto the thoughts in thy most secret of hearts…Celestia’s Light shall shine upon you, and to those whose hearts are choked with sin, you shall certainly be burnt to ash. Ash!” she spat, dropping her hand, and glaring at her audience, fixing them with her awful gaze.
The people around her shuddered, cried, grasped at the hem of her tabard, at her boots.
“Worshipful Anchoress, please…”
“I don’t want to burn!”
“Save us from Her Gaze!”
“I can’t bear to think of it…my sons, my daughters…”
“Oh, yes,” the Anchoress said. “I, Anchoress Lucette, have seen it! And so, too, have all who have joined their hearts and souls with the Most Holy Daylight Chapel of the Victorious Sun, after days of prayer and fasting, after imploring Her to open our eyes and illuminate the path before us with Her Light, we have seen it! A heat like a million fires, a light that blinds…even if you have touched fire itself, you cannot imagine it, and not only is your physical body burnt away, but She can burn your own immortal soul…the burning hurts permanently, for eternity, until the end of Time itself.”
One woman lost consciousness at the feet of Anchoress Lucette, her companions rushing to her side, rubbing her wrists and ankles, and fanning her nervously.
Twilight Sparkle shivered, looked up at her father, who barely seemed to have heard the whole exchange, and was, instead, mildly discussing dinner with her mother.
“That beef looks pretty good…”
“Ten bits a pound, he’s having a laugh…”
“Meat’s more expensive these days. Nothing to be done about it. There just isn’t enough room to raise a decent herd of cattle…”
Twilight Sparkle tugged on her father’s sleeve. “Daddy, what’s that woman talking about?”
“Eh? What woman, dearest?”
“Her.” Twilight pointed at the Anchoress.
Night Light shook his head, turning to look at Anchoress Lucette. “Oh. She’s just trying to get people to come to her chapel.”
”What’s a chapel?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“Oh, it’s a place where people come to listen to her talk about things,” Night Light said, carelessly. “Don’t worry about her. I could take you to her chapel, but I think you’d find it awfully boring.”
”She doesn’t sound very nice,” Twilight Sparkle said, dubiously.
Night Light laughed, but a few sharp, serious glances from Twilight Velvet made him quiet down and say, “I’m sure she’s quite kind once you get to know her. She’s just reciting things from a book, anyway. Since when did a book harm anyone, anyway? You’re not scared, are you, dearest?”
“No,” Twilight Sparkle said, sounding unsure.
“That’s my good, brave little girl,” Night Light said.
“Yeah, don’t fret, little sis. We’ve got everything under control.”
Shining Armor, resplendent in the uniform of the Territorial Corps of the Equestrian Army, strode up, flanked by a body of soldiers, all wearing the same white shirts, brown leather jackets, dark grey trousers, green capes, and black leather boots. Some were toting 3D Maneuvering Gear, consisting of a pair of steel cylinders roughly the size of a wine-bottle, pulleys, steel cables, and grappling hooks. Some had wings, and forewent using the gear. All wore long swords and guns; huge pistols like small sawn-off rifles, with thick metal barrels, the muzzles gaping black holes, laden with bullets as big as plumb-bobs.
“Nothing’s going to get past us. Hi, Mom. Dad,” he said, acknowledging Velvet and Light with a nod, tipping his little sister a grin and a wink. “Just stepped out for something to wet the ol’ throat at the Square And Compass,” he said, nodding at the tavern nearby. He covered his mouth and burped. “’Scuse me. We were just getting back to the walls.”
Twilight Sparkle let go of her father’s hand and wriggled up to the front, her face red and angry. “Stupid brother! How are you going to defend our walls if you’re drunk?”
Twilight Velvet gasped. Night Light stepped up behind Twilight, placing a warning hand on her shoulder.
However, Shining Armor just laughed. So did his comrades; one wiped a tear of merriment from her eye, clapping Shining Armor on his back. “Better watch out, Captain. She’d make a fearsome officer when she grows up. I can just see her now, flipping out on someone and busting them down to buck private for drinking on the job.”
Shining Armor shook his head. “She likes books too much for that. We’d better get going. See ya, Twilight.”
He flung his cloak over his back and led the soldiers off, still laughing.
Twilight Sparkle looked as if she were going to cry. Her little fists were clenched tight, lips puckered, quivering.
Twilight Velvet quickly solved the problem by reaching in her dress pocket and giving her daughter a sugar cube to suck on. Placated, Twilight Sparkle sucked on the cube and forgot all about her brother’s stinging words.
Night Light and Twilight Sparkle watched Twilight Velvet ruthlessly haggling with the vegetable sellers and the butchers. At length, she finally came away from the stands with a basket full of goodies.
“Would you like a snack before we go home, Twilight?” Velvet asked, as she knelt before her daughter with a small smile.
“Yes, please!” Twilight Sparkle said, happily.
They stopped at one of the hotdog carts, bought three hotdogs, a glass of soda for Twilight Sparkle, and two bottles of beer for Velvet and Light. Twilight Sparkle’s parents stayed to listen to the little dark-skinned girl who was working the cart, or, at least, they pretended to listen to her while scarfing down the savory morsels.
“…and, so, if you ask me, I think the government we’ve had in now really isn’t holding true to their promises, not that anyone’s really paying attention, and those that are paying attention are in no position to do anything about it,” the girl said, as she placed another set of hotdogs on the grill. They began sizzling and spitting deliciously, giving off a rich smell. “But that’s just me. I’m sure it’s none of my business anyhow.” She eyed one of the passing military patrols suspiciously; they gave her a similarly unfriendly stare.
“Hmmm? Oh, yes, of course,” Twilight Velvet said, not paying attention, licking ketchup and mustard off her fingertips. “Come here, Twilight, your face is all sticky.” She took her daughter in hand, produced a napkin, and began wiping ketchup off her daughter’s mouth. Twilight Sparkle squealed and wriggled in protest. Night Light laughed.
They left the hotdog vendor and made their way back down the streets, threading their way between buildings and through dripping, dark alleyways, till they reached their small, gaily painted cottage with its straw roof, wooden timber frame, and white walls.
Fluttershy was waiting for them in the kitchen. She had just finished washing the dishes and cleaning the countertops until they fairly shone.
“Beef ‘n’ barley ‘n’ vegetable stew tonight,” Twilight Velvet said cheerfully, emptying her basket on the counter. “Thank you so much for cleaning the kitchen, Fluttershy. My, ever since we took you in, you’ve been such a good little helper. Twilight Sparkle could learn a thing or two from you…”
“Oh. Um. It’s nothing, really,” Fluttershy said, her cheeks aflame with a blush. She drew her scarf a little tighter around her nose and mouth.
Twilight Sparkle ran outside to the living room, Fluttershy close behind. Night Light picked up his doctor’s bag off the couch. “I’ll just check up on the family down the street before dinner, dear,” he called through the kitchen door, before opening the door and trotting outside.
Twilight and Fluttershy ran after him a way, before stopping at the cross-street. “Let’s go see what Applejack is up to,” Twilight Sparkle said.
Fluttershy nodded.
They had hardly gotten down the next street when they ran into Applejack, who stood in front of them with her arms crossed. “Saw you were fighting with your brother again, Twi,” she said, by way of a greeting.
Twilight blushed deeply. “No, we weren’t.”
“You were! I saw you!”
“How?”
”You passed right by my apple stand, that’s how! And you didn’t even say hi! He must’ve really ticked you off.”
Twilight pouted and scuffed the ground with her shoe.
Sensing that Twilight did not care much for this line of questioning, Applejack said: “We can go by the river ‘n’ skip some rocks.”
“Sounds like fun!” Twilight said, eager to get off the subject of her brother. They linked hands together, and all three went running down to the river banks.
Ponyville was given life and movement in the form of a vast, gently rolling river that cut straight through the heart of the town, from north to south. Locks ensured nothing could get in or out of the river, without the allowance of the Territorial Corps soldiers guarding each lock. The river was wide and full of sweet water, plied by small rowboats, crudely constructed log rafts, gondoliers offering tours of the city, shallow-drafted sailing vessels heavily laden with grain, wood, iron, cloth, spices, and other trade goods, Territorial Corps brigantines and corvettes patrolling the river, their white sails billowing in the wind, their gaily painted blue-and-gold hulls cutting through the river waters, and, of course, teeming crowds of river fish. Reeds, dock-leaves, and other plants peeked out of the water.
Twilight, Applejack, and Fluttershy walked over the scree of little stones lining the riverside, as Applejack stooped to pick up a few good-sized, flat stones suitable for her task. “Let’s see…”
Applejack kicked off her boots and waded into the shallows, wriggling her toes in the clear, cool water. “Ooh, that feels nice. I’ll make it right across the riverbank this time!”
“D…do you think that’s a good idea, Applejack? It could hit someone…they might get hurt…” Fluttershy murmured, as she held her hands over the scarf covering her mouth.
“Nah. I’ll look out,” Applejack said, confidently. “Here we go!” She coiled her arm and tossed the stone, all in one quick movement.
It bounced off the river water eight times, before falling into the depths.
Applejack snapped her fingers. “Darn. You go next, Fluttershy.”
”I don’t know…”
“You always say that, Fluttershy!” complained Applejack.
‘But…”
”No ‘buts’! Here!” Applejack pressed a stone into Fluttershy’s fingers.
Fluttershy looked at it nervously, and then up at Applejack. “O…okay. I’ll give it a try…”
She tossed the stone. It made nine skips before falling.
Applejack whistled. “Not bad, sugarcube.”
“You thought it was good?” Fluttershy said, clasping her hands together.
“Yeah! Aw, hay, you might even make it to the other end of the river before I do,” Applejack said, comfortably picking up another stone.
Twilight knelt to pick up a stone. One was too jagged and rough; another too round and spherical. She dropped them, sticking her fingers in the scree to find a stone to her liking.
There was a flash of white light, and a far-off rumble, like a clap of thunder.
Fluttershy gasped, and Applejack shoved her hat a little higher on her head, the better to look over the horizon. Other people were stopping, holding their hands up to their eyes and peering curiously around, too.
”Holy sugarcubes, Twi! What on Equestria was that!?” Applejack sounded shaken.
Fluttershy said nothing, but her eyes were wide with shock, and she was twisting the braids on her scarf nervously with her fingers.
“It looks like it came from the Market street,” Twilight said.
“C’mon, let’s go look.” Applejack started in the direction of the Market. She looked back; neither Twilight nor Fluttershy had moved. Applejack sighed, and continued on her way. “Fine, don’t come with me. Y’all can just go home like a pair of big babies.”
Her friends rushed to keep up with her, stung by the comparison.
They found themselves in a fairly large crowd, having had the same idea as a number of other Ponyville citizens, having to push their way through legs to get to the front of the crowd. Everyone was staring skyward, mouths slackly open, their eyes wide. Some were gibbering; all seemed unable to believe the sight unfolding before their eyes. There was an acrid, burnt smell, a thin puff of smoke rising up from the walls.
Then Twilight saw it. She saw a massive white hand, slim, feminine, gripping the top of the wall, fingers crumbling the stone as easily as you or I might crumble a small biscuit. It clenched the wall even harder, more falls of stone cascading down. Then an arm, itself like a white wall of muscle, bone, and sinew, appeared, soon followed by another hand – the impact it made when it hit the wall shook the ground under Twilight’s feet – and soon, a gigantic head and shoulders.
Equine, unyielding, with cruel eyes, a long, pointed horn, a multicolored mane, crowned, the head glared down at them all. It snorted, jets of steam pouring from its flared nostrils, huge, bulging eyes narrowing slightly, its mane streaming from its head.
Wings, seemingly as vast and powerful as stormclouds, shot up from the being’s shoulders, spreading. Just the force they exerted upon the air from being spread caused howling gale-force winds to batter Ponyville, pushing some houses to the ground, pulling trees from their roots, and scattering debris. People screamed, shouted, and cried out as the wind buffeted them, tossing them about like so many fallen leaves. Twilight was knocked flat on her back. She heard Applejack yelling, heard Fluttershy screaming.
She propped herself up on her elbows, shook her head dizzily, looked up at the vast creature’s wrathful face. Its eyes blazed like the Sun itself. For one long, terrible moment, Twilight and the creature locked eyes.
Then, Anchoress Lucette strode out before the shocked crowd, raising her arms skyward, holding her staff high. “The Hour has come!” she shouted, her voice ringing off the buildings and walls like a trumpet’s brassy call. “You see before your eyes, sinners, the Face of Princess Celestia! Gaze upon her and feel despair!”
A few people broke ranks, charged towards the Anchoress, knelt before her, grasped at her tabard, cried as if their hearts would break.
“Anchoress, please help us!”
”You gave us your word!”
The Anchoress said nothing for a while, merely watching Celestia’s visage over the walls. Then Celestia opened her jaws and let out a roar.
It sounded as if the heavens had shattered.
Twilight swore the walls would fall.
She covered her head with her hands and screamed.
Nothing had ever been as loud as this, in all her life.
She could feel it in the center of her very being.
Her head was swimming when it was over; the lingering echoes made her wonder if Celestia had really stopped roaring her fury.
Anchoress Lucette crossed herself with one hand. “Let the Last Rites begin, then. Come forward, my children, I shall anoint thee with mine own holy oils. Stretch out your hands and necks, good people, let me attend. Stand back and remain still. If it is the Will of Celestia that we die today, then so be it.”
She took a tiny crystal bottle out of one of the myriad leather pouches at her rope belt, pulled the cork free with her teeth, and began solemnly dabbing her supplicants with the fragrant oil. It smelled sweet, like roses and putrefaction.
Celestia hammered her fists on the wall, sending large cracks through it, knocking gun emplacements off, throwing screaming soldiers down to their doom. Shock waves shot through the town. The ground buckled and rolled like the sea, throwing people to the ground flat on their backs or bellies, dust rising in huge, choking, foul-smelling clouds.
Celestia’s eyes narrowed even further. Her eyes lit up, then beams of light shot forth from her irises, cutting burning swathes through the buildings, incinerating people where they stood, reducing them to ashy shadows. Fire leapt up, consuming the houses, giving off thick, suffocating black smoke, and stinging little embers rising into the air on the thermal draft.
People began to scream and run. Military patrols shouted for order and quiet, against the surging tide of bodies running away from the walls.
Then Celestia kicked the wall.
There was another explosion and a billow of dust, shrapnel consisting of stone fragments, and, as if by magic, a huge, gaping hole appeared in the wall. Twilight could see horrible, misshapen figures lumbering through. Fear made her scramble to her feet, Fluttershy and Applejack doing likewise.
Before they could do anything, one of the shapes rushed into the Market Street.
It was a giant, although nothing like Princess Celestia’s size, probably being within range of her knee, if not merely her ankle. It had the body of a man, but the feet and head of a horse, snorting and whinnying like a terror, head and shoulders above the houses, covered in a thick brown coat. Its eyes rolled and bulged crazily as it cast about, hands outstretched, shaking the ground and leaving wagon-sized hoof-prints with each step. Then it picked up a house, having uprooted it as if it were no more than a weed, and hurled it into the crowd.
There was an awful, wet smack as it connected. Blood started to flow into the gutter in the center of the streets.
In the midst of this, a whirring sound made Twilight look up. Two Territorial Corps soldiers were hurtling towards the giant, swinging on their 3D Maneuvering Gear. She could hear them shouting at each other.
“Contact confirmed! One Earth-type Titan!”
”Affirmative, sah! Setting up my attack run! Pattern Delta! Going in high and fast!”
“Aim for right between the eyes! Bring it down! Bring it down now! Cleared to engage! Weapons free!”
“Yes, sah! Engaging the contact now!”
One soldier hurtled right at the Titan’s muzzle, moving at such a speed that she was a multicolored blur. She brought out two handguns, aiming the massive black barrels at the spot right between the Titan’s eyeballs, and fired. There was a pair of loud reports, muzzle flashes, the acrid scent of gunpowder, and a gaping red wound opened up on the Titan’s forehead, displaying white shards of bone and spongy pink brain tissue. Blood shot forth, spraying the soldiers in stinking red fluid.
The Titan’s eyes rolled skyward, its body going limp, then it collapsed to the ground like a falling tower, shaking the earth. As suddenly as it fell, its skin and flesh melted away like snow in sunlight, leaving only an awful white skeleton, the house-sized skull showing its teeth in a death rictus.
The two soldiers dropped to the ground, wiping blood from their faces, shaking their weapons dry. The woman soldier slammed a fresh pair of large bullets into her guns.
“Contact eliminated,” the male said, grimly, his face pale and drawn with tension. “Don’t get ahead of yourself! Second Squad reported more contacts coming in through the breach! We’ve got to rally at their position, and we’ve gotta do it yesterday!”
The female snapped to attention, back straight, chest out, chin up, legs apart. She slammed her right fist against the left upper quadrant of her chest. The beauty of her military salute struck Twilight, who saw that the female soldier was symbolically closing her fingers around her heart to offer her own life’s blood to her officer.
“Sah! It shall be as you command!”
“Quickly! Let’s fly!” The male soldier, who seemed to be the commanding officer – nobody Twilight recognized, as he was grizzled, old, the shape of his skull visible beneath his spare flesh, his hair a messy mane of grey.
Then he seemed to notice the three children watching them. “Hey! Get outta here! This is no place for toddlers like you lot!” he bellowed at Twilight and her friends. “Civilians are to evacuate the district for the inner walls! Go on! Get moving! We’ve got enough to do without babies underfoot!”
Grimly, Applejack pulled a crying Fluttershy to her feet. “You heard him, Twi. We oughta get while the getting’s good.”
Then a horrible thought struck Twilight. “You go. Fluttershy, we’re going back home! We gotta let my mommy ‘n’ daddy know what happened!”
They darted off towards the residential streets. Applejack called and called after them, but they ignored her solidly. She was left to trudge back to the stream of people running for the inner walls. Granny Smith, Applebloom, and Big Macintosh were already steering a wagon loaded with apples for the wall gates, and Applejack found herself being thoroughly scolded by all for leaving them in the middle of the Titan assault on the district.
Meanwhile, Twilight and Fluttershy sprinted for their house, turned down one street, then another, and another. They passed by various horrors: a screaming mother stuck so full of stone fragments she half seemed a porcupine, kneeling in a pool of blood, attempting to shelter her wailing infant ‘til death.
They passed by a man dragging himself by his arms, red, gushing stumps disgorging arterial blood in twin lines. They narrowly dodged a Titan snatching up handfuls of flailing, screaming, terrified people, stuffing them into its gaping maw greedily, its throat bobbing up and down as it swallowed. More Titans were pouring in through the breech, some flying on large wings spanning several houses from tip to tip, others blasting holes through people and objects alike with beams of energy from the singular horns thrusting up from the center of their heads.
Twilight’s terror grew until she was nearly in frenzy. She could hear Fluttershy’s ragged panting and sobbing next to her.
Another corner, and they were home, but the house was destroyed beyond all recognition, a heap of splintered wood, straw, stone, and the debris of all the things needed to make a house a home; plates, cups, a dented kettle, spoons, forks, a smashed spinning-wheel, ripped books, torn tablecloths, shattered milk jugs, spilled medicine, and many other things besides. A wine bottle lay amid the wreckage, disgorging its precious contents in slow glugs.
Twilight and Fluttershy picked their way through the smoldering remains of their house, jagged bits of wood cutting their flesh, blood welling through their skin. Twilight’s eyes burned with hot tears, her chest constricting, a sob choking her throat, fighting her way through the debris.
“You shouldn’t be here…”
A weak, low moan made Twilight’s ears prick up.
“Mommy?!”
“Twilight…”
Twilight Velvet lay under what looked like most of the west wall of their house, blood pouring from her mouth, her head caught at an awful, painful-looking angle, her limbs askew, her dress torn, her hair hopelessly strewn about her head, her eyes wet with tears.
Yet, suddenly, Velvet’s eyed snapped open wide. She fairly shrieked at her little daughter.
“Go! Leave me! Save yourselves!”
Twilight was crying, wiping her eyes with her little fists. “But…but what about you? What about Daddy?! I can’t leave you here! You gotta get up! We gotta go! C’mon!”
She seized hold of Velvet’s waist and tugged, but Velvet only screamed with pain.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah! No! You…you can’t move me! I…”
Velvet’s shoulders shook. She went limp against Twilight’s little body, as Twilight looked down at her mother’s anguished face, not understanding, not believing what she was seeing.
“…a timber caught me through my stomach. I think it went straight through my back. I doesn’t hurt much anymore, Twilight. Please…go back to the inner walls with the others…”
Fluttershy looked helplessly from mother, to daughter, clenching her tiny hands, starting to cry again.
Twilight Velvet swallowed, shuddered hard, and summoned every last scrap of energy remaining in her broken, bleeding, battered body.
“Go! You’re our only hope, Twilight Sparkle. It’ll be worth it – your father and I did all we could for your lives – you must live for us! Take Fluttershy with you! Leave me here, Twilight! Please! Don’t…throw everything away, not now!”
Stomp.
Stomp stomp stomp.
A Titan rounded the corner of the street. It was a towering white Unicorn with bright blonde hair falling to its back, pitiless blue eyes, and a muscular female body, with powerful-looking, broad thighs, arms bulging with muscle. An odd mark was upon its flank – a bloodred heart with a black cross, the ends of the cross bent sharply upon itself.
She grinned hideously at Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Twilight Velvet, then, abruptly, she looked skyward, as Twilight, her mother, and Fluttershy did likewise.
A figure was hurtling towards them at top speed on 3D gear, a blur of brown and white.
It was Captain Shining Armor. He soared towards the ground, landing lightly, his eyes wide, glazed with horror, his white shirt soaked with coppery-smelling blood.
”My whole squad! They’re dead! Eaten by Titans!” he bellowed. “And my mother…I’ll avenge you! Your death won’t have been in vain!”
Shining Armor turned to face the menacing Titan…and stopped, clean in his tracks.
He couldn’t breathe. His heart pounded crazily in his chest, like a small animal being strangled to death. Cold sweat poured down his forehead, as goosebumps shot up his skin. His hands shook. His eyes met the pitiless blue eyes of the white-coated Titan. It smiled brightly at him – then charged.
Shining Armor’s nerve broke entirely as he realized he was totally incapable of attacking the Titan; his brain simply would not allow the possibility, and he found his body automatically running away, his feet pounding the ground, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He shot his 3D gear at a point far back from the Titan, snatching up Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy.
Twilight Sparkle kicked and squealed. “Noooo! We can’t leave Mommy!”
“Shut up!” Shining Armor barked at her. “We’re leaving! Don’t look!”
Yet, Twilight could not tear her eyes away from the sight of the Titan picking her mother up, ripping Velvet free from the spar thrust through her belly. It thrust Velvet’s head and shoulders between its large, square, equine teeth, and snapped its jaws shut, causing blood to spew forth into the air.
Twilight screamed wordlessly.
Author's Note
The saga begins.
Lucette is inspired by Female Priest from Dragon Quest III.
