War of the Worlds

Prologue

The city in front of her looked calm and peaceful. Yet despite this, an eerie feeling radiated from it, bringing a cold chill through her bones. From a distance, the dark and shadowed towers stood high above the landscape, rising just as high as the mountains the surrounded the city. With tall structures and stone like material, the city looked like any city in Equestria. Except this wasn’t Equestria.

Trotting through the rough lunar landscape, she headed towards the city, wanting to explore and learn more about it. Bored from being stuck in the moon for half a millennia, and with another half millennia to go, she had decided to explore more of the land of her exile, to find out what else was to be found on her prison.

After days of trotting, seeing nothing but rock and dust, she soon found herself on an area nopony had seen before or been to before, the dark side of the moon. From Equestria, this place was shrouded from any telescope, hidden away in its own darkness.

With no illumination and a seemingly void and empty place, her first thoughts were to turn back for she was to find nothing there. But with hundreds of years left to go and no better way to spend it, she decided to continue on her pilgrimage to nowhere.

Entering the dark place, she couldn’t help but notice the rougher state in the area. Despite it being darker here, she was still able to see the faint sight of jagged rocks and sharp mountains, a great contrast to the crater and dusty plains of the other side. Noticing this all. She began to conclude that she made the right decision to explore this place.

But as she trotted through the dark, she couldn’t help but feel she was being watched. Somewhere, hiding in the shadows, were pairs of eyes that had all their attention on her. Looking left and right, she tried to seek for them. But every time she trained her eyes somewhere and look through the darkness, the eyes seem to disappear, avoiding her.

Instinct told her to turn back, get away while things seemed to be clear. But there was something pulling her, drawing her to a location. A feeling that was somehow leading her and now, that feeling has lead her here, a city where there isn’t supposed to be one.

Her first reaction to seeing the city was shock and surprise, for she never knew anypony who had been on the moon before her. The last time she checked, she was the only pony in the history of Equestria to be banished to the moon.

Scanning the city as she approached, she saw a strange looking structure protruding from all the other tall structures. Despite the dark surroundings, she was able to make up its long barrel, which extended diagonally from the ground towards the tops of the buildings. Giving further inspection, she perceived it to be some kind of cannon, a very big one.

Getting closer towards the outskirts of the city, she began to see more dark and shadowy figures. But this time, unlike the stationary structures of the city, these shadowy figures moved, heading on their own course and path.

From a distance, she could distinguish the shadowy forms of strange looking creatures; dots that wander the city which she presumed were theirs. Cursing the darkness for hindering her vision, she decided to slow down her trot till she was able to fully identify these shadowy figures.

As she grew closer with weary steps, she began to notice that the attention of the shadowy figures were all towards her, as they stopped and seemingly gazed towards her direction with pairs of glowing eyes that almost made her heart skip a beat.

The glowing eyes seemed to pierce her soul and she was not afraid to admit that it scared her. Despite having encountered creatures that can only be seen in nightmares, she had never seen creatures as frightening as this.

Slowly moving again, making slimy sounds as they moved, they began to chained their direction and make their way towards her. First at a slow pace, they began to change to a more brisk one, sprinting and making the slimy noise grow louder.

Backing away, she gazed towards the silhouettes as their eyes seemed to blaze with hunger.

She didn’t know how many there were, but from the noise emitted and the number of glowing eyes she can see, she could tell that there were at least more than a dozen of them heading her way.

Immediately, she did the only thing she could do and gallop away. She didn’t know what they want, but she also didn’t want to stick around and find out. Their strange eyes had already frightened her enough and she didn’t want to scare her brains out by meeting one up close.

Going as fast as she can, she tried to retrace her steps in the darkness, hoping to find sanctuary on the lighter side of the moon. She didn’t know why, but at that moment, her mind told her that it was a safer place compared to here. If those creatures never wandered off to that place before, maybe they won’t try and pursue her there. The logic seemed reasonable at the time and it seemed to be her only source of hope.

Turning her head, she saw that she was outpacing the creatures, as they seemed to struggle on matching her pace. The seemed to wobble when they move and all she saw were a bunch of wobbling figures that had their eyes trained on her.

Sighing in relief, to see that she was getting farther from them, she looked ahead to only have her heart sink.

In front of her were more of the strange creatures, forming up a line to cut out her route and forcing her to stop in her tracks.

Finding herself trapped, she paused for a moment to see the creatures move up towards her and, once they were close enough, leap while screeching a high pitched cry that made her droop her ears.

“Eeeeeeee!”

Luna woke up, panting and sweating. Looking left and right, she searched her surrounding for any sign of the creatures that were about to attack her. But to her great relief, there were none, as she found herself safe inside her room, away from any threat.

Sighing in relief, she shook her head as she tried to compose herself.

The images were still fresh in her memory, so vivid and real. It made her shiver to remember them, as she tried to shake them away from her head.

Using her hoof to rub her temples in an effort to subdue the headache caused by the images, she gave another sigh, this one from the stress.

Looking away from the empty room, she turned her gaze towards the wide window, which gave a beautiful view of the Royal Gardens and her night sky. Looking up, he saw the bright glow of her moon, as she eliminated the night sky, bringing beauty below.

But as images of the terrible scene flashed back, she knew that it wasn’t just beauty the moon contained. For there was something out there, something that hides its hideous nature.

“Are you sure that you didn’t just wander into somepony’s nightmare?” Celestia asked, as she and her sister sat in the dining room, facing each other as they ate their dinner together.

“Wandering into the same nightmare over and over again? I don’t think, sister.” Luna said, before levitating her fork to her mouth to eat her salad.

For the past few days, she had been plagued by the same nightmare of the dark side of the moon. Images of the city, the creatures, and the haunting chase always flashed in her sleep. Sometimes they lasted longer than she wanted, where she had to fight the strange creatures as they made their attacks and ear piercing screeches.

In the longest and most recent one, she managed to fight some of them off and escape them by reaching the illuminated side of the moon, where they seem to give up their chase. She didn’t know why they never followed her there, but she was just glad to know that there was a place of refuge.

Now, after experiencing the dreams for at least a week now, she needed consultation from her sister to learn if these were just ordinary nightmares of some sort of sign.

Swallowing her food, she put the fork and gave Celestia a serious look. “ Besides, I didn’t feel the presence of anypony in any of them, so I doubt that they were a dream of another pony.”

“Hmmm…” Celestia said, thinking, as she took a sip on her cup of tea.

“Has it ever occurred to you that it might be your nightmare you’re seeing?” Celestia soon suggested, as she gave her sister a worried glance.

“I’ve heard that traumatic events can be hidden in your subconscious, escaping only in dreams. Maybe these are just nightmares that are
connected to your banishment?”

“Nay, sister, they are not nightmares.” Luna said firmly. “I have walked the realm of dreams for too long and I can tell that they were not nightmares.” Pausing to put her hoof on her chin, she then looked back towards her sister. “But your suggestion about traumatic events made
me realize something. I think they were memories.”

“Memories?”

“Yes…” Luna said, nodding. “…memories. Memories suppressed by my subconscious because of the horror I experienced. Those nightmares are most likely memories of a terrible incident I have while at the moon. I think we’ll need to get a Psychologist to help us interpret them.”
Celestia looked at her sister, unsure on what to say. Sure, what she said made some sense, but the idea of creatures on the moon just seemed unthinkable. Sure, there were some theories about life on the moon, but so far, nopony has proven them.

“Luna…” She said, in a soothing tone. “…I would like to believe you but-“

Her sentence was cutoff when a flash of light appeared in front of her, revealing a letter which Celestia quickly caught and levitated in front of her.

“A letter from Twilight….” She said, as her eyes scanned the piece of paper in front of her.

Luna nodded. “Ah, what does the Princess of Friendship have to report at this time of hour?”

“Normally, emergency letters like this are about friendship problems…” She said before looking away from the letter. “…but this one seems to be serious. Something foreign has fell from the sky and has apparently crashed near the outskirts of Ponyville.”