War Zone-Equestria

Twilight found herself laying on a soft, lush landscape. With hundreds of little feather-like objects tickling her coat. She couldn't hear all that well and was struggling to open her eyes. She tried to remember what had happened, she walked into the portal, and everything seemed to just disappear. The world around her, her home, swept up as if someone had pulled it under her like a cloth. She moved around a little and even though she couldn’t tell what was happening she seemed to calm herself when she realized she still had full control of her body, and didn’t feel hurt.

“Twilight?”

What was that she wondered, still feeling like she was drifting in an endless black world. Suddenly the noise started to grow.

“Twilight?” she heard again. She knew someone was trying to reach her. The voice was getting louder, and starting to become clearer.

“TWILIGHT?!”

Suddenly she could tell that it was Applejacks voice, yelling right into her ears. She started to move her eyes open, but it was a surprising struggle. Suddenly she felt her whole body being shaken around, which seemed to be the jump she needed to open her eyes and gain back her full hearing.

Twilight looked up at her friends; they were in an open grassy area behind a large hill with a forest just off the side of them. The sky above them was glowing with a vibrant, magnificent, fiery orange color. She didn’t know if they had actually been transported to another Equestria or not, but she was happy her friends were ok. She lay down breathing steadily, and her friends all backed down breathing a sigh of relief. They had all been trying to wake her up and had gotten seriously worried that she wasn’t responding.

“Oh thank goodness you’re ok Twilight. You weren’t moving at all. We thought you were dead.” Fluttershy said with a grave tone to her voice. Twilight looked over to her and saw her teary, red eyes.

“But I was moving.” Twilight said, surprised that her voice didn’t seem the least bit hoarse or choked. She slowly stood up and walked over to her friend and gave her a small cuddle patting her on the back. “No reason to worry, I feel fine.” She reassured her.

“You mighta thought ya were movin Twi, but ya definitely weren’t, we were worried sick.” Applejack told her also visibly worried. But then she looked at all of them, noticing they all had the same expression, except Fluttershy seemed to be the only one who had resorted to tears. Even Pinkie had momentarily lost her smile. But she lit back up and leapt over to Twilight, hugging her a bit too tightly for Twilight’s comfort.

“Thank goodness you’re ok Twilight. You scared me so much. Don’t ever scare me like that again, please.” Pinkie said to Twilight, before letting go.

“I don’t know why you’re all so worried,” Twilight said confused, “Just because I hadn’t moved for a few seconds doesn’t mean I would have died.”

“Twilight it wasn’t a few seconds. You were out cold for almost 10 minutes!” Rainbow Dash retorted in a strong tone.

Twilight now understood why all her friends were so stressed, her look of confusion descended into an equally worried one, but then she slowly worked up a smile.

“I’m sorry I worried you all so much.” She apologized hoping her friends would understand she didn’t intend to frighten them. Their faces all started to lighten up with hers.

“S’ ok Twilight. Jus you don’t go doin it again, ya hear?” Applejack said lightly patting her shoulder.

“So you girls didn’t even look around yet?” Twilight said.

“Well of course not. We didn’t leave you for even a second.” Rarity told her.

“So you don’t know if we’re definitely in a different Equestria then?”

“Well, not fer sure. The only difference as far as we can tell s’ the sky. It sure as hay wasn’t this red when we left.” Applejack said looking up at the color swirling around as if it was a picture on tapestry still being filled out.

Twilight seemed a lot more relaxed than in the library. ‘At least my friends are safe.’ She thought to herself. “Come on then. Let’s check this place out a little. We aren’t gunna find out much if we stay here.” She said to the others.

The girls seemed surprised by Twilights new change of attitude, but quickly took on it for themselves and started walking up the hill before them.

Nearing the top Twilight started to wonder what could be so bad about this place. ‘There couldn’t be too big a war if there’s this much untouched nature’. She was right though, the trees did seem to stand out as untouched beauty. “Maybe this place won’t be so…” Twilight stopped as she reached the top of the hill. The words couldn’t find a way to escape her mouth at all. Twilight didn’t even take in another breathe. The look that had sat on her face before had changed almost instantly into a horrified look. The other girls still walking up were slightly confused about the change in tone.

Pinkie sped up a little. “What was that Twi…” Pinkie also lost her sentence as she approached the peak of the hill, and she gasped in fear as the smile that was on her face became one almost identical to Twilights. Concern quickly erupted inside the other 4 as they took their last couple of steps to the top of the hill, before finally seeing what had made everypony so quiet. Like the other faces theirs grew rapidly fearful.

”Is… Is that… C-Canterlot” Applejack sputtered.

Far in the distance was indeed Canterlot Castle… or what was remaining of it. The castle was surrounded by thick smoke and fires could be seen dancing all around the city, many areas of the castle including parts of the spires and many columns had broken away and where lying in piles of rubble that weren’t visible to the girls due to their distance from the horrific scene, but they could see where they had collapsed and broken away. The smoke was billowing into the clouds and the castle seemed to be covered in a coat of dark soot, or ash. The girls looked at the city horrified, as explosions seemed to continue endlessly from different parts of the town.

They stood there silent for almost 5 minutes.

“What could have possibly happened? Who would do this to Canterlot” Rarity asked.

“We have to leave.” Twilight said realizing that there really was a war in the alternate Equestria. “Why didn’t I just listen to myself? Why did I have to open that portal?” Twilight questioned herself. The feeling that had troubled her before coming to the alternate Equestria returned.

Suddenly almost out of nowhere, Applejack let out a sharp cry of pain. She collapsed to the ground a few inches away from where she just was. The girls reacted almost instantly and ran over to her to see what was wrong. They jumped back though horrified to see blood hissing from a spot just under her cutie mark. It wasn’t stopping and Applejack started to howl in pain. To her it felt like someone had just slung a rock at her leg 50 times in a row to get it stuck there, and it was just getting worse. The pain became a burning sensation almost as quickly as it started, and blood just kept pouring from the wound. Twilight panicked rushing to her friend’s aid. But she didn’t know what had happened, she’d never had to deal with bloody injuries before, not to mention she had no idea what had even happened anyway.

Applejack kept crying in pain, but a crack was heard in the distance from Canterlot castle, it was ever so faint, but almost as soon as it had happened Rainbow Dash let out a sharp cry and fell to the ground, also further away from where she was standing.  She clutched at the left side of her body under her arm and let out a sharp cry of pain, but bit her lip trying to hold it back. That didn’t stop tears from rolling down her face though. She slammed her right hoof in the ground in pain and anger trying to suppress the burning feeling in her body. The grass below her had started to take on the blood flowing out of the wound, and started to sag under the liquid. Twilight looked at her friends crying on the ground. She had no idea what had just happened. Pinkie had run straight to Rainbow, but was just as lost as Twilight. She seemed hopeless to help her best friend, while Rarity and Fluttershy seemed the same way about Applejack. Suddenly Twilight turned around. She looked at the Castle realizing that there had been a faint noise before Rainbow’s scream drowned it out. She shifted her attention quickly from her distressed friends to the castle and focused over their painful screaming. She formed an invisible protective barrier between her friends and the castle. Then out of the blue, she heard a crack, and almost as quickly as the noise had happened, she found herself staring at a small round metal object spinning like a drill, only a couple of centimeters from her face. She had no idea what it was, but new instantly that it is what hit her friends. But what shocked her most was that the object had partially penetrated her force field. It obviously had a lot of drive behind it. She picked it up in her magic reinforcing her force field and turned to her friends.

Their blood was pooling beneath them now and their conditions had worsened. They had now grown pale and were starting to slip from consciousness. She didn’t know if it was the pain or the blood loss that was causing the change, but she new she had to help them. “Pinkie, help me get Rainbow down the hill, Rarity and Fluttershy, get Applejack down there. We need to leave NOW!” Twilight said carefully slinging Rainbow’s hind-side over her shoulder. She didn’t need to say it twice. Before Twilight knew it Pinkie was putting Rainbow Dash’s front side of her body over her back, taking care not to disturb the bleeding wound, for fear that it might hurt her more. Rarity and Fluttershy were almost just as fast doing the same with Applejack, which really showed Twilight that Rarity was determined to save her friend, considering that Applejack’s blood was now staining her coat. The girls didn’t need to get told to run… another round object had pierced through the force field right past Fluttershy’s leg, which was the biggest jump start they could have possibly gotten.

They raced down the hill leaving the castle out of sight. The girls all had tears streaming down there face, especially Twilight.

‘This is all my fault; I shouldn’t have brought them here! I shouldn’t have let them go in the portal’ she thought, blaming herself for what had happened.

They reached the bottom of the hill, but didn’t stop for fear somepony might come after them. But they were so distracted by fear that they didn’t pay attention to the disturbed pattern in the dirt in front of them, and without warning, found themselves falling into a newly opened hole in the ground as it gave out under their legs. It wasn’t a deep hole, but the force of hitting the ground took every last bit of energy out of the lot. Twilight seemed to be the only one able to look up. She looked at the sky, confused, but then slowly and painfully shifted her gaze to running sounds coming somewhere from her left. She looked at her friends. They were all now badly injured, and Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s injuries had only grown more severe. She looked again to the left to see three silhouetted pony figures standing before her. She heard a slightly muffled voice, saw a hoof raise into the air, and then everything became dark.