Another Day In New Cherdyn
In the plaza of New Cherdyn the pigeons outnumber the red paving slabs. Just to walk from the tall terraced houses around the edges with their stores at ground level you’d have to take small steps merely to avoid kicking them. Which would be unfortunate, as they tend to react unkindly,and attempt to bite you. Permian pigeons aren’t the same as your average flying rat.
Most of the city is as it was before, just devoid of the warmth that made it worthy of that term. It is a collection of buildings, roads laid like a carpet for a queen that will never come. Banners hang with slogans to be read only by the dust-laden wind. The market is all set up like it awaits the stall holders any moment. The only sound is the black bird that cries as if it can bring back the people who left tasty scraps if only it calls loud enough. Against the wall of the old courthouse is a bicycle, the chain dangling on the sidewalk. Ahead is the clock tower, forever stuck at half past noon. If you were to stand still enough perhaps time is indeed frozen, perhaps your bones just wouldn’t realize it.
Aleksei Pratechov, domestic leader of Novus Permia, sat in his office filling out bureaucratic paperwork. His office had a cherry desk that seemed almost superfluous. A deep burgundy leather desk chair that reclines to an almost obscene angle was also in view. There were only two table lamps-one near the door atop a wicker table that clashes with the rest of the room’s executive motif, and another on the cherry wood desk with a long brass pull cord. The absence of an overhead light casts shadows into the corners, spilling under the desk and over top the framed black and white pictures on the wall. The deep purple curtains are drawn to one side, allowing light from outside the second story window to paint the eastern wall. It highlights a lone filing cabinet, suspiciously locked and coated in dust.
The buzzer of the extension phone went off like an annoyed rattlesnake. Aleksei scooped it up and began to speak into the phone. It sounded like some scared private from the police force. Probably another Bear riot. Great.
“YOUR HOLINESS, WE NEED HELP IMMEDIATELY! CALL IN THE UK’S TRIPODS, THERE’S A BUNCH OF ALIEN…HORSE...THINGS ESCAPING OUT OF SOME KIND OF ...PORTAL OR WORMHOLE!”
Aleksi widened his eyes. The sparks in his brain were desperately attempting to connect the dots but instead just caused a short circuit. He looked like a pop-eyed toy from one of those claw machines you’d often find at a fun fair or carnival of sorts.
Then he remembered the last time a call like this was made. he replied in his sternest voice, “Now son, listen, if you just hang up now and stop joking about the security of this nation, I won’t have to call the police.” It was then that gunfire and screaming was heard in the background. Aleksei widened his eyes for the second time, this time in terror rather than concentration. “
SIR, PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO WARN THEM, WE’RE BEING OVERRU-” He was then cut off by a terrifying and incredibly loud neighing noise and screams could be heard, followed by wet sounds, the cause of which the Pontiff didn’t wish to know.
The Pontiff got the idea to walk over to his window and open the curtains blocking it. What he saw was shocking, to say the least. He watched as an office building was lit on...fire? Its brick walls swelled from the heat and burst apart.
But that wasn’t the only thing. What he saw were...ponies dressed in knightly armor? What?
He watched as one of the ponies uplifted one of their iron longswords, ready to deliver furious slashing blows that if had fallen fair and full they would at least split and cleft one of the Permian policemen asunder from toe to toe and leave them open like a pomegranate.
“By the gods...” Pontiff muttered under his breath. He immediately ordered his personal AI to call the God-Kings of Beatletopia in order to request assistance with this attack. The God-King Lennon answered this time.
Meanwhile in Emerald City, capital of the United Kingdom of Beatletopia
Lennon went downstairs at 5’o clock for tea time. He found himself alone next to a group of women drinking a peculiar brown herb-brew which had tasted like nothing else on Beatletopia, and eating two thick bits of darkish bread smeared with a brown substance that some of the people in the room hoped was jam , but hoped in great vain. Suddenly, the hologram phone rang. Lennon walked over to the table and answered the call..
“Hello, who might be speaking?” Lennon asked warmly.
“Is that you, Lennon?” The Pontiff said, leaning in. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
“Yes, this is Lennon speaking. What is it that you need?”
“I have… a strange thing to ask of you, but I need a lot of soldiers to stop an invasion of… you know what? I’ll just show you.” He then moved the camera to the window and allowed Lennon to see the normally frozen wasteland in its even more hellish state.
“Oh dear…” Lennon replied, who was in a state of shock. “What exactly happened?”
“I’m not sure, I got a call from the police force, but I thought it was a prank… it’s terrible...how will our economy recover?”
“Calm yourself man. Is an invasion underway? Is it AM?”
“No, they seem to be using fairly archaic weaponry and armor, it’s just the sheer shock of their absolute numbers that are allowing them to overrun us.”
“Just what are they? Have you gotten a good look?”
“They seem to be those things the Earth Confederation calls ‘horses’, but smaller, and more colorful. What are those markings?”
“You mean….ponies? I hope AM’s not behind this. His idea of a joke is very odd.” Replied Lennon.
“The officer who called… he said they came from some sort of portal… it could be his work, but these ...ponteys aren’t his. They could never survive...there.”
“Very well. Thank you so much for this call. I’ll send my Tripods to Novus Permia right away. Hopefully we can get some information out of these ‘ponies.’” Lennon said.
“Thank you, thank you very much. I’m not sure how much longer my men can hold. How long until the military installments on this planet get here?”
“Considering the fact that I have military installations on your planet, only a total of 22 minutes.”
“Alright, It’s a good thing, too. I’ll start evacuating the OH!” Suddenly, a group of ponies smashed their way through the door, after raiding the building in a little under a minute. The sounds were barely noticed by the Pontiff, as there was already so much noise of death and destruction going on outside. He was quickly subdued, but not killed, and carried away from the capital.
Lennon was shocked. He could not have anticipated that this would happen. He quickly ran upstairs to tell the others, and they quickly decided to subdue the ponies in the immediate area and try to interrogate some in order to find their plan.
