It was a normal day when it arrived in a large ball of roaring fire. At first it was slow in its wake of destruction, starting in smaller towns, allowing us to fight back, and we did well for a bit. That is, until it grew. It had stayed small enough to kill ponies and burn small buildings, only at the height of a full grown earth pony.

Then its size doubled, then tripled as the days went by. We knew that their was no way to fight back against a beast such as that. It never spoke, just destroyed so we called it the Slaughterer. The Slaughterers only purpose was to burn and break and kill. All it seemed to be was a large ball of fire and brimstone.

That was 2 years ago when it arrived. Now, it's the size of buildings, with Celestia's castle barely protected against the beast. But with the help of the Elements of Harmony, they released some information. They're building a ship for traversing space, and they want to send 100 ponies of random selection into the expanse for a last hope in this losing war.

They're calling the ship the Last Promise, because it's the only promise of hope. If at all a promise that is, because who knows what'll happen? All we can do though is hope your selected while you wait and survive. The ponykind has moved underground but that won't keep us alive forever, as it's hard to grow crops and feed everypony. Water normally isn't a problem with large pockets of the life giving liquid everywhere underneath Equestria.

The bunkers have all we need to live but the supplies are being diminished more and more everyday as more ponies join, and other bunkers are found and destroyed. Ours is fairly hidden however so hopefully we could last a good while. It is quite hard to stay busy sometimes with so many ponies that all jobs are filled so you're left to just sit and wait for an opening such as cleaning or cooking, but normally it's all filled.

The ponies that have been the longest also direct the new ponies and tell them the rules and 'ranks' in the bunker. This bunker has been here for a little over a year, and I've been here since the beginning almost. I still remember the day I found it.

I was in the middle of a town that had been destroyed, like most towns that it had passed through. For some reason most things didn't work against it and the only thing that seemed to work at all was water but it just slowed it down, but now it does almost nothing. Besides that though, I had to get out of here. If I didn't die from the fire, I'd suffocate for sure if I didn't get away from the smoke.

I started running in a random direction, away from the house in which I had camped out in. (I stayed in a basement) As I ran, the smoke pushed itself into my eyes, causing me to squint as a burning sensation spread across my face, and I sputtered and coughed as the smoke went into my lungs from all the panting. I ran longer, slowly having more and more trouble breathing, until I could see a dimness around my vision.

My body started to get weaker, and right before I collapsed, my good hit a hollow piece of metal. I looked down and saw a trapdoor! I attempted to open it but it was locked, so I banged on it with with my remaining strength. Surprisingly, it opened and welcomed me in, and the pony that had opened it led me to a room filled with bunks and I finally fell down onto it, still panting with my burning lungs.

So now I'm here. The pony that had helped me, Cloverleaf, is long gone now, but she was a big help. She was the first into the bunker along with the ponies that quickly built it, and they immediately chose her as the Leader of the bunker due to her helping wherever and whenever no matter what, plus her quick thinking and selflessness. Now the current leader is a stallion named Steel Bolt.

Steel Bolt may be a good leader, but definitely not as good as Cloverleaf. He helped a lot, usually lifting heavy things and commanding various things, but he wasn't as nice and accepting as Clover was. When somepony didn't get something done or hop up to do what he wanted in a split second he'd get upset. We all could understand his anger, just like everypony else because we've all lost stuff, but we wouldn't take it out on others.

He was good enough though. Especially since he was the only one that really felt like stepping up to keep us in order. When. The bunker started, their were only about 11 ponies, but now we had over 40. At some points we've had more than 60 but normally ponies leave, or sadly they get locked out due to unwillingness to follow rules, or excessive violence. That normally didn't happen though. They could also be locked out from excessive lazyness. It may not happen much, but the thing that happens most is if a position opens and they are requested to fill that to keep up a 'quota' of work, but they refuse a lot, and instead stay in bed all day. They are deemed a 'waste of food'.

Usually the bunk room has a lot of ponies there, just like me. As of right now, no positions were open, but I helped a lot. Usually I would cook, or when Steel was busy, I'd fill in for him. I've heard a lot of ponies saying that I'm a way better leader but others say Steel has enough discipline to know what he's doing. I don't normally care about it too much.

So, as I sat here waiting for more work, reading a small handbook about the rules,
(for the thousandth time) I just waited. As interesting as it was reading about punishment for excessive refusal to eat and/or refusal to stop eating or owning contraband and using it to deface, or threaten/danger another being in the bunker, I really wished I had something to do.

Thank Celestia though that the pony I was waiting on came in.

"Hey Glow, got any work for me today?" I said, leaning up to see her better. She flicked her gold mane back a bit and yawned.

"Yes actually. Cleaning duty. No other pony wants to clean up vomit, and I hate making you do it, but I know that you wouldn't refuse because you're actually responsible." She flipped through some pages and started to go to other ponies, assigning duties as is the norm in the morning.

"Thanks!" I yelled back to her. She yelled something back but I wasn't paying attention, as I hopped up and started my way to the janitorial room for the cleaning supplies. I led myself through a couple different hallways, passing ponies that were off for more work or to use the bathroom or whatever else they wanted to do.

I turned a corner and found myself facing the closet that I have been face to face with many times throughout the year. It seemed that everyone just refused to take this job, but hey, whatever gets me off my butt.

I pulled the mop out and a bucket to go fill it with water, making my way back down the halls. As I was coming up on to the room where the puke was with my bucket of water and my mop, I heard commotion, then sudden shushing in the room past it. I went up to the door and pressed my ear against the cool metal. I couldn't make out any words or specific voices, but I knew that this was a secret matter.

I didn't wanna just barge in or anything, but my curiosity was aroused and I really wanted to know what it was. Maybe it was good and they got news of a food shipment, or maybe they figured out a weakness of the Slaughterer. Now that I thought about it, that wouldn't make any sense because they wouldn't keep it secret. Or maybe it was bad news. What if the princesses had been killed, or the elements of harmony destroyed? What if another one came?!

I was too curios (and worried) to let it go so I reached for the doorknob. Right as my hoof touched it however, it quickly opened, and the pony who was opening it from the other side jumped back as I accidentally startled them.

"Oh... Astral! Good to see you!" The pony, who I identified as Low Light recovered and smiled brightly. So it was good news then. I was about to speak when she said "We have great news! Go get everypony now!"

"You got it." I said, handing her the molecular and bucket and I dashed off, looking for the main office. I turned corners and ran down various hallways and through different rooms until I found the metal door. I tried to open the door only to find it was locked.

I sighed and started to run back to my room to grab the key from my storage thing. We normally had a little area to keep stuff, and in mine help the key to the office, as other ponies had too, but also held other randomly assorted items. Such as my toothbrush and toothpaste, a small dagger just in case a violent pony arrives, and weird nicknacks.

With the key in hoof, I dashed back as fast as possible and, while panting, shoves the key into the lock and went in. Normally their weren't ponies in here unless they wanted to check cameras during an incident, or wanted to announce something on the intercom, which is what I was going to do. I flipped on the lights and grabbed the microphone while holding down the button on the little stand that controlled it.

"Attention all ponies. Please report to too B16 for an important message. I repeat, all ponies goto room B16. Thank you." I put the mic back, turned off the lights and once again speed down the halls after locking the door. As I ran I read the names of the doors looking for the correct one. B11, B12, B13 and so on.

Finally I found it, with ponies filing in, so I hopped into the line. The room was just a conference area with a table and some chairs to sit in, even though their weren't enough for everypony there, which allowed for them to stand up against the walls or just sit in the floor and listen.

I heard several ponies greet me as I walked past, and at the end of the table sat Steel with a stern expression on his face. Most seats were already taken, however one of the ponies directed me to sit down too. I softly sat in the chair at the end, opposite of Steel.

As I said I noticed a neatly written letter on the middle of the large oak table. I couldn't really make out the words yet, as it was too far away to read the small words, but I could see the large signature of Princess Celestial, and Luna at the bottom.

As the last of the ponies in the bunker filed in, Steel stood up from his seat, and cleared his throat.

"Good morning everyone", he said with his deep voice. "We have recently received a letter from Canterlot." At that the ponies in the room couldn't be heard speaking quietly about what it might say.

"Now... This letter doesn't involve everypony but it is definitely good news." He grabbed the letter and began reading. "Dear Citizens of the remains of Equestria, as you all know, we have tried everything in our will to try to stop the beast that has brought havoc upon us. Sadly, nothing has worked well so far, but that doesn't mean we will stop trying. However, we have had great success in creating something that has great potential in the aid against the beast.

With little ideas left, we have resorted to space travel in an attempt to find something that could save us all. We have a list here of all the ponies that must make up the crew of the ship." Steel paused the reading as a large reaction came from the crowd. Some were excited, some were worried, and some didn't seem to care. It was still very loud though because of all the yelling and surprise. Once they quieted down, he started to read off all of the names.

None of us knew any of them, because the ponies selected are from all around Equestria, but then he read off a name we all knew.

"Golden Speck!" A light brown pony with golden wavy hair gasped as her name was called. Years started to stream down her face, be it happiness, worry, or terror I had no idea. Probably all. He kept reading the names, still reading names nopony knew, at one point one gasped and could be heard whispering,

"I know them!" But other then that it was normal. It really didn't matter to me anymore about the names now that one had been called, so I dozed off a bit, and stared into blankness. That is until ponies started telling and shaking me.

"ASTRAL THEY CALLED YOU!" One ponytyelled excitedly.

"OH MY GOSH! Astral Glimmer!? Can you believe this!" Another yelled. I opened my eyes in shock as Steel laid the paper down, and started quiteting then ponies.

"Gold, Astral, you two are too head to a rendezvous point as soon as possible. Ok?" Steel said sternly, and we both shook our heads. "You may leave tomorrow if you'd like" he finished, and dismissed us all.

The day went normally from there, except for the ponies that would congratulate me and Golden whenever they crossed paths with one of us. After lunch I went to pack all of my belongings into a bag and rested a bit, thinking of the possibilities that this has given me. This was gonna be a crazy adventure. Would we even find something to save Equestria with? What if disaster struck? What would happen to the bunker if I was away?

I couldn't worry myself about it. I'd have to go no matter what...

And with that, I lay down, and waited.

Author's Note

Wow that was really fun to write actually. It also took 3 days because I'm bad at this. I'll update it whenever possible, if I have time, because I have lots to do. I'm actually really stressed about school work right now, but I'll try my best