Attere Dominatum

Prologue

All was quiet that night as the teal earth pony walked down the old dirt path. The path, covered in freshly laid snow, making crunching-like sounds underneath the pony’s tired hooves. Tall grass, taller than he could ever imagine surrounded him on both sides, but he was not here for the sight seeing. As he continued down the path, he finally reached his destination; a jagged rock on top of a steep hill, the place that he would always go to when he was most distressed.

As he watched the snow continuing to fall, he began to wonder why, why it was that he had this wretched life. But his mind did not wander for long, as his eyes caught a glimpse of a shooting star. Clasping his hooves together, he shut his eyes tight and began to wish. Normally, he wouldn’t believe in such things like wishing upon a star, but tonight, he felt as though something different was going to happen.

The star shot out of sight as the pony opened his eyes, a smile on his face. The pony felt at ease once more. Satisfied, he began to walk back to his tiny home on the edge of town where his loving wife would be waiting for him.

Quite far from the world of pony kind, was a world currently being torn apart by war. Fortunately that wouldn’t be the case for very much longer. A figure laid still underneath some fallen rubble, waiting for its prey to come by. Soon enough, another figure, this time grey, came running down the street, escaping the battle it had just come from.

The figure that had been staying still held her breath, wrapped her finger around the trigger, and was ready to shoot. She watched the prey carefully through the lens of her trusted rifle, waiting for a chance to end its life. Lining up the shot and about to pull the trigger, voices came from the other end of the street, causing her to stop.

“Verräter!” (“Traitor!”) A loud bang rang echoed throughout the street as the grey figure slowly fell over dead. The sniper let out her breath, relieved but upset. Soon, three other grey figures ran past the fallen figure in the direction of battle. Another hour passed as she was forced to go back to her superior for more orders thanks to the advancement of her comrades.

The earth pony finally reached his home, a little quaint house at the edge of the forest, and only about a mile from the nearby village that was subsection of the city that was even further away. The earth pony looked over to the work-shed that he so proudly built in his earlier years, back when he had found out that his talents were in carpentry. He wished he could continue looking at his achievement, but the bitter cold and harsh realities forced him to slowly trot over to the front door of his house. Pushing the door open, he saw that the inside of the house was pitch black, his wife fast asleep in the bedroom.

Sighing out of exhaustion and depression, he began to go to the back of the house where the bedroom was. Upon entering the room, he placed the scarf that was knitted by his wife up on the coat rack on the wall, then, climbed into bed next to the navy blue unicorn who had fallen asleep hours ago. He leaned over and kissed the mare on the cheek before placing his head on his pillow, drifting into the only place he felt safe in the world.

The sniper ran through the ruined streets of the bombarded city. Careful to make sure that she hadn’t been seen, she would slip in and out of the shadows, always vigilant in the search of more potential targets.

Although she had been trained to do otherwise, she knew she wouldn’t be any help if she stayed in one spot long enough. It was the final battle of the war, and her army needed every single able body to fight in order to finally bring down the last of the Fascist reign of their enemies.

After running for some time, the sniper heard the sounds of battle nearby and began to run in the direction of which the sounds came from. Finally laying eyes on a target nearly 300 feet away from her, she took cover nearby in some nearby rubble. She then laid down on the ground to get better control of her weapon. Bringing the rifle up to her head, and peering through the scope, she aimed for the head of her target, who had been too busy focusing on the battle ahead of him. After making sure her shot would be perfect, she held her breath, and pulled the trigger.

With a squeeze of the trigger, the rifle went off, and seconds later, the brains of the enemy splattered against a nearby wall. Not realizing that more enemies were around the corner, the sniper got up from her position, ready to move again. It was a fatal mistake.

“Scharfschütze!” (“Sniper!”) A nearby enemy yelled out after witnessing his comrade’s head explode just a few feet away. Any of the sniper’s enemies who were in hiding were able to pull their attention away from the battle, and began to look around for where the shot had come from. Only looking for a few seconds, her enemies found her.

“Dort oben! Der Scharfschütze is dort oben!” (“Up there! The sniper is up there!”) One of the men in grey called out as he pointed towards the sniper. Turning their attention to the sniper, the men who were out of harms way had begun to open fire on the woman.

Cursing herself for making such a foolish mistake, the sniper quickly ducked back down onto the ground as the bullets of Maschinenpistole 40’s and Karabiner 98 Kurz’s began to fly over her head. Thinking all hope was lost, the sniper began to continue sniping her enemies, not caring whether or not she would live through it, only if it meant that she could take a few down with her.

As the bullets went flying above her head, and the sniper continued to gun down the soldiers who were stupid enough to stand still for her, neither her nor her enemies seemed to hear the sound of artillery firing in the background. It wasn’t until seconds as the shells began to fall all around them that did they realize their fate.

As the shells began to rain down all around them, the sniper got up from her position, thinking it was the perfect opportunity to begin moving once again. Unbeknown to her, one of her enemies hadn’t cared about the falling artillery shells, and aimed his rifle towards her back. With the squeeze of the trigger, the bullet was shot and hit the back of the sniper’s leg, bringing her down for her final moments.

Trying her best to get back up, the sniper continued to move, ignoring the freshly-made pain in her leg. The soldier who had shot her wasn’t as lucky as she, as an artillery shell came down on his position, blowing him and anybody around him apart.

The sniper on the other hand, continued to crawl herself away, using the walls of the buildings around her to support her weight. An artillery shell from her own comrades had hit the building she was crawling against as rubble and debris began to fall down on her. As the sniper watched the rubble fall down onto her, her life began to flash before her eyes. With one last breath, the sniper smirked, chuckling at the unfortunate irony of her outcome.

The sun was rising, and its rays penetrated the small house on the edge of the village. Having his eyes disturbed by the natural light, the earth pony from before opened his eyes from slumber. He cursed under his breath, not wanting to wake up to another wretched day of his life, not knowing that the so-called wretched life would turn for better or for worse very soon.

Alright, so here’s the prologue for my new story. Sorry it’s short, but hey, it’s not the real story (yet), so what do you really expect? Anyways, hope I can get the actual first chapter out soon, but it might be a while since this is sort of a side-project I’m doing while I rewrite and continue my ‘main’ project. I’d also like to thank truekry for translating the German in this chapter, and Super Secret Closet Brony for future updates for the Russian. Also like to thank Hydkore and Glassed for pre-reading.