Darkness, just darkness. That was all she could see, complete darkness surrounding her vision.
"Where am I?"
Her head felt groggy, confused, nothing was coming to her except the darkness.
"Who am I?"
Memories, faint and distant, starting trickling into the haze surrounding her mind, memories of a life. Memories of a name.
"Twilight. Twilight Sparkle."
Yes, that's it, that's the name, her name. The trickle was getting wider, more and more memories flowing in, memories of friends.
"Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbowdash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie."
Yes. Yes! Those names, they're important. They're her friends, but there's more...
"Shining Armour. Mom, Dad. Spike?"
Family. It was a stream now, swelling into a torrent, memories of a life, a long life, a happy life, but also, distant.
"I died, I'm dead."
But that can't be right, she doesn't feel dead right now. She feels alive, but she clearly died, she remembered it. Remembered lying in bed, life leaving her as friends and family wept. But she wasn't sad, her life had been long, she'd seen so much, met so many pony's.
"Where am I? What's going on?"
Voices, she could hear voices now, faint, but also near.
"...need more time, its almost finished."
That one sounded calm, emotionless almost.
"If we aren't gone in the next five minutes we're all dead!"
That one sounded scared and tense, panicky.
"I assure you this won't take that long, now calm down."
What are they talking about, her? More was coming to her now, the memories where almost complete, and now she could feel something, a body, flesh and blood, that was something she hadn't had for a long time. She reached out to this feeling.
"There see! She moved! Now we can go."
"The procedure isn't complete, we stop now and she'll just be lame and crippled."
"But we don't have time!"
More feeling was coming back, and the sounds, the sounds were less distant. She reached out even more, and felt long forgotten limbs moving.
"Are we done now? It looks finished to me."
"One. More. Minute. This is the most delicate part of the process, now stop interrupting me."
Eyes, yes eyes, if she could see, she'd know what was happening. But her eyelids felt heavy, locked almost, but more feeling was coming to her, something was missing, physically missing, but her hearing was getting better.
"Well sorry for trying to keep us alive, just, you know. DOING MY JOB!"
"Then shut up and do it, and let me do mine, I'm almost finished."
Magic, there was a lot of magic in the air, she could feel it all around her, coursing and pulsing, all centered on her, and someone in front of her.
"ETA, three minutes! We're just about out of time."
"Nearly, there."
There was a great burst, a surge of magic from the figure in front of her, into Twilight. And then, the grogginess was gone, and she opened her eyes.
She was inside some kind of structure though aside from the fact that it was clearly ruined, she couldn't tell much as the walls all looked rather the same, and her attention was more focused on the other occupants of the room. There where three ponies in front of her, at least, she though they where ponies. The closest one, a unicorn, was wearing some kind of strange armour, straight and streamlined plates of, something, where all over his body, a dull grey in colour. He didn't have anything over his face except for a pair of goggles sitting just above his eyes. He was definitely a pony, dark blue fur, and a deep, dark purple mane. His eyes where a much paler blue than his fur, almost white.
Behind him however, that was different, there where two pony like figures, but they where covered head to hoof in all encompassing armour. The armour itself was very similar in appearance to the unicorns, straight angular pieces covering the ponies, but it looked much, much thicker than the pieces on the unicorn. She couldn't see their faces as they where covered by helmets with long, thick strips of some kind of reflective material where the eyes would be. Their armour was much darker than the unicorn's, a strange pattern of dark grey and black going all over the plates.
There was a fourth figure that was definitely not a pony, standing beside the unicorn, it looked far more like a griffon. It was also wearing armour of a similar style to the rest, though it looked thicker than the unicorn's, but not as thick as the other ponies. The griffon also wore a helmet, though it wasn't face covering like the other ponies, just covering the top and sides of its head and with a visor going down over its head. it has very clearly bladed gauntlets over its talons, bright and reflective compared to the rest of the armour, along with long strips of similar materiel along the front edges of its wings, which where otherwise unarmoured. Its armour was also a mix of colours in a strange pattern, though instead of black and dark grey, its armour was dark grey and dark blue.
They where also all looking right at her, before the unicorn spoke up.
"Hello, Twilight Sparkle."
The pony in question just stood there, mouth slightly agape as she struggled to come up with something, anything to say. Questions first, questions burned through her mind right now, unfortunately, the griffon spoke first.
"Great, it worked, hooray. Now lets get out of here, right now!" The unicorn turned to glance quickly at the griffon before turning back to Twilight.
"Now I am certain you have many questions, especially you of all ponies, and rest assured that we will have time to answer them. But at this moment I am afraid my comrade is correct and we really must be going, else we're all likely to perish, now come along." And with that he turned around and took off at not quite a gallop, but a very brisk trot, out of a doorway behind him. The Griffon taking a rather obvious sigh of relief before she took off as well.
Twilight very quickly ran through the options in her head, either stay against the advice of both the unicorn who was in some way clearly responsible for her arrival, wherever she was, and the advice of the very panicked and heavily armoured Griffon. Or follow them and learn more about the situation from a presumably safer location. Choice rather easily made, Twilight immediately took to following the Unicorn, and was quite relieved at how easy that turned out to be, she had been worried she'd have some kind of tiredness to her limb, fortunately, that did not seem to be the case. Quickly rushing after the unicorn, she really needed to learn his name, the two armoured Earth ponies seemed to take this as their que and immediately turned to run with Twilight, flanking her closely on both sides as she ran off.
"Wait! Where are we? Whats going on!" She idly noted that while her voice appeared to be functioning perfectly fine, it did sound different, not bad different but still different. Further questions died on her lips however as soon as she stepped out of the doorway.
Clearly the building they had been in was not the only ruin, there where ruins all around, old buildings, many of them having suffered extensive damage, in some cases there was just piles of rubble where buildings clearly used to be. But the sky was what caught her attention. It was clearly night, but it looked very different, the sky seemed to have far more stars than usual, and many of them had a rather menacing red glow instead of the usual white. And the moon, the moon was covered in more strange lights, all of them the same red as the red stars. What was most noticeable about it all though,was that it gave off a very dull red glow across the entire night sky.
Further observations where cut short when she felt something metal nudge her firmly in the back, turning her head she was one of the two armoured ponies behind her gently pushing her forwards, speaking in a heavily distorted voice. "I'm sorry ma'am but we really need to get moving, our lives are all in danger if we don't."
At this point Twilight was almost burning inside with questions, and a big part of her wanted to say no, to stop and demand answers from these strange ponies immediately, but the sense of urgency in their actions, the quiet panic in their voices, and most of all, a small part of her mind mind that was screaming at her, begging her to listen to them, made her think other wise. And so she just nodded quietly and followed the Unicorn who was currently entering some kind of strange, fully enclosed metal carriage. It was very long and very low to the ground with six wheels, one pair at the front and two at the rear, it too had angular, sloping armour. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold in her curiosity right now.
She followed him and was herself rather quickly followed by the armoured ponies, whilst discovering six more armoured ponies and what looked to be an armoured Yak, with some strange, thick cylinders attached to its sides. Come to think of it, the armoured ponies all had similar extensions along their armoured forelegs.
Twilight was quickly nudged to a seat next to the Unicorn, while the other two ponies sat down in spare seats, the Griffon was no-where to be seen but that wasn't too confusing given it's wings. But as some strange bars lowered to lock her in place and whatever they where in began to move, something else took Twilight's notice.
"Where are my wings?" The Unicorn sighed quietly.
"Miss Sparkle, I'm afraid we really don't have time..."
"No. We're not doing anything now, and I want answers. Who are you? Where are we? Whats going on and where are my wings?!" The Unicorn sighed much more audibly this time, to the snickering amusement of the other passengers, before turning his head to face her.
"I suppose you should receive some answers, my name is *sigh* Oblition Tome, this band of soldiers are Delta squadron, and we are all part of an orga-" Twilight quickly interrupted.
"Your name is Oblition tome? That's not a real word." Another sigh, Twilight noticed this unicorn, Oblition, seemed to show more emotion when conversing about his name than he had at any point previously in their brief interaction.
"No, its not a real word, my parents where eccentric, just call me Tome. Anyhow, these fellows are soldiers, and I a scientist, from an organization known as the Harmonian Reclamation League, which I imagine means little to you at this moment, but questions about that really must wait until we are on the ship. We are in-" Another interruption, not from Twilight this time, but by a loud alarm sound echoing throughout the inside of the carriage, as well as a flashing red light. "-oh dear."
Another voice shouted over Tome's quiet statement, "BRACE FOR IMPACT!" The world got a bit paler, then it blew up.
"Get up miss Sparkle."
Darkness and a feeling of dizziness greeted Twilight for the second time that day, as well as a distant, yet near voice.
"You must get up Miss Sparkle, and quickly."
Fortunately, it didn't stick around as long this time, and soon she could hear other things, like explosions, loud bangs, and screams. Then she felt a hoof shake her shoulder, banishing the most of the haziness.
"Miss Sparkle, really, we need to get moving." And with that Twilight stumbled onto her hooves again, shaking her head some more.
"Ugh, Tome, what happe-" And then she saw it. There was fire and metal all around, jagged bits of what she recognized to have once been the carriage where scattered about, along with some other bit. An armoured Pony leg here, an armoured Pony head over there, a bit of an armoured Yaks head just there. Twilight suddenly felt bile rise up in her throat, as her stomach emptied it's contents all over the ground.
"Not used to blood, hmm, well that will need to be fixed. But anyway Miss Sparkle, we need to get out of the open before we share their fates." And with that he galloped off, magic dragging a very weary Twilight along with him.
Even as Twilight struggled to regain control of her stomach, she took in more of her surroundings, trying to take her mind off what she just seen. They where in the streets of some ruined city, though she couldn't recognize the architecture, it looked vaguely similar to the Manehatten structures, concrete and blocky, but it also looked different. Granted the structures where blown out ruins so that may have contributed somewhat.
It was only after they got inside one of these ruins that Tome finally allowed Twilight to stop and catch her breath. She stood there gasping for a few seconds while Tome gazed worriedly out the empty window, where Twilight could identify numerous flashes coming from outside, as well as all the sounds. Eventually she managed to speak up. "What just happened?" She was starting to feel like a parrot now.
"The Vraakti arrived early, and now we need to get to the extraction vessels before they leave us behind, I'm afraid any further questions pertaining to our immediate situation will have to wait, give me a moment." And with that his horn glowed and he started what Twilight could identify as a one sided conversation.
"VIP is with me but our Ursa truck has been destroyed, I need your location." A pause. "All dead, I imagine we took a direct devastator shot." Another pause. "My shield spell. These matters aren't important I need your location of your nearest dropship."
As Tome continued his conversation with whoever he was talking too, Twilight decided to look outside, carefully keeping her eyes above the ground, to see them. Strange flying things, looking a bit like giant flying centipedes with massive thick legs where flying about just over the tops of the buildings. They where black in colouration with lines of some strange red glow all over them, particularly around the legs, where strange beams and burst of red light would occasionally burst out from them heading towards something of the ground. There where also numerous bursts and beams of blue and green lights coming from the ground shooting up at the flying monsters, which seemed to be trying to avoid them. Twilight saw why when, moments later, a blue burst struck one of the monsters and next thing there was an explosion at the point of impact, though the monster noticeably remained flying. Sometimes the monsters would go low to the ground, at which point Twilight could just notice small figures falling from the monsters towards the ground, though she couldn't see what happened next.
"Alright miss Twilight, hold on, we'll be out of here soon." Twilight was about to say something when a bright red glow suddenly illuminated the street before them, and she glanced up to see some to the legs of one of the flying monsters. From the look of it hovering just over the street in front of them.
"Tome, whats that?"
"That's our que to leave." Immediately after the words had left his mouth, shadows appeared in the glow on the street. And then three figures landed right in front of them, before there was a bright flash as what Twilight instantly recognized as a teleportation spell went off, and then they where gone.
The dizzying feeling of an unprepared teleportation left Twilight standing around for a moment as she tried to get her bearings, when she heard a series of shouts and was very suddenly pushed into yet another armoured carriage, an Ursa truck if she could remember correctly, though she wasn't thinking very straight, given the dizziness.
"Priority target one is secure, hook us up, we are leaving now!"
Twilight heard a low distant buzz responding to the voice, she managed to observe another group of armoured soldiers in the vehicle, one of which seemed to be talking to its own shoulder, when a loud clank was echoing inside the vehicle.
"Tome?" Twilight desperately asked the one being she had any knowledge of in this entire experience.
"It's alright miss Twilight, this is normal, we're much safer than we were before."
"But still not safe?" Twilight noted her voice rising a few octaves. Tome sighed, just as the feeling of vertigo Twilight usually associated with sky chariots and hot air balloons tickled her stomach, and she felt the Ursan they were in rapidly rising from the ground.
"No, we are not yet safe, and likely won't be for some time, but we are safer than we were before, and regardless our safety is now out of our hooves." And with those somewhat ominous words still ringing in her head, she felt whatever was carrying them suddenly accelerate up into the air.
