It was an ordinary day in Canterlot, or as ordinary as a day can get in Canterlot, a city known for large numbers of magical disturbances, and other such strange phenomena disrupting lives in practically any conceivable way. Whether it was magical music competitions, explosions, daemons, rainbow lasers, gigantic flying pegasi, or even mysterious MyStable accounts, the last year had been a hectic one. And there was no end to the bizarre shenanigans in sight for them, if the current state of affairs was anything to go by. The group known as the Rainbooms, consisting of Sunset Shimmer, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, certainly had their hands full containing the problematic magic occurances, and not only that, they had a duty to ensure that these occurances did not become common knowledge, lest the government descend upon them and try to take the secrets for themselves. A power that they could not be trusted with, as they could well try to use magic for evil, and potentially doom the species to exctinction, as well as a destroy a world not meant to house Equestrian magic.
But enough of that talk! Today was proving to be a most sunny day in Canterlot, and out in the main street, three girls whom we will be very familiar with were walking down the street. That's right; the Crusaders, or Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. Far from their exciting adventures of previous months, this day seemed as though it would be positively mundane in its nature. At this moment in time, they were headed for the park, as they wanted to spend some time in the sun. Naturally enough, they were merrily engaged in conversation about what was happening in the next few months.
"I can't wait for the summer holidays!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "Loads of time to have fun in the sun, with my friends, and of course Rainbow Dash! Whoo!" she punched the air as she did so.
Apple Bloom looked sadly at her friends. "Sorry y'all," she said, "But Ah won't be around fer much of the holidays here."
"Why not?" Sweetie Belle asked, taking bite out of a large ice cream she had in her hand, that itself was resting precariously on top of a large ice cream cone, apparently bent on falling of at any moment.
"We're headed off ta Cass, in West Virginia," Apple Bloom explained. "We're holdin' a family reunion there, and naturally enough we're goin'."
"That's the state park with the old logging locos, isn't it?" Scootaloo asked.
"The very same," Apple Bloom answered. "And Ah'm hopin', apart from a trip up ta the top of Bald Knob, that Ah'll get ta see Babs again. Ah last saw her in New York, and that was months ago!"
"I remember that all too well," Scootaloo groaned. Back then, she had made an unexpected trip to heaven and back, which to say the least was a very interesting thing to put on your CV. "Oh look!" she said, abruptly changing the subject and indicating to a poster. "The Canterlot Music Festival's in September!"
"Ooh!" Sweetie Belle squealed. "Countess Coloratura's headlining!"
"And doing a double act with Sapphire Shores!" Scootaloo added. "Those two write great music."
Apple Bloom decided to chime in then and there. "Ya know, if Ah'm gonna be honest, Ah prefer Coloratura's earlier music to her more modern stuff."
"Such as?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Her first hit, 'America: the Land I Love'," the apple girl answered. "Ah can vaguely remember that bein' played on the radio many years ago. When she released her first album, of the same name, people rushed out ta buy it!"
Scootaloo snorted. "Oh, please! Those albums have such thin textures! A lot of early songs sound the same; just vocals, piano, strings!"
"There's an orchestra in 'Move it, Shake it'," Sweetie Belle pointed out, trying to defuse the situation a little bit.
"Her modern stuff's overloaded with too much stuff!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "Noise, dubstep noises, electronics, and don't get me started on the smoke machines and autotune!"
"That was brought in when her label assigned a guy called Svengallop as her manager," Scootaloo explained. "In the old days, he managed Songbird Serenade. Remember her? 'Rainbow'?"
"I can see a rainbow
In your tears as they fall on down
I can see your soul grow
Through the pain as they hit the ground
I can see a rainbow
In your tears as the sun comes out
As the sun comes out!"
The three girls sang the chorus with a grin. "Still," Scootaloo continued, "it looks set to be a great concert, and the other parts of the line up look good. Did I mention the Rainbooms are performing as well?"
"That'll be great!" Sweetie Belle cried. "Think the Crusaders can get a slot?"
Apple Bloom sighed. "Ah doubt it," she said. "We ain't anywhere near good enough fer that sorta performin' at the moment."
The three girls went on, and arrived at the park. It was completely deserted, and as they walked in, a strange mist began to settle all around them.
"What's happening?" Scootaloo asked, the normally confident daredevil looking pale at the change in environment all around her. The fog made it difficult to see where she was going.
"This fog's thicker than a wood fire!" Apple Bloom cried. "Or rather, the smoke produced by a wood fire."
"Sweetie Belle?" Scootaloo called. When there was no reply, she called again. "Sweetie Belle?"
Suddenly there was a scream, followed by a muffled yelp. "HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!"
"Sweetie Belle!" Scootaloo cried, and ran in the direction of the noise as she did so. When she reached the source of the noise, there was nothing there. Sweetie Belle had vanished. "Apple Bloom! Ya seein' this?"
There was also no reply, apart from a loud growling noise coming from behind her. Scootaloo turned around, her heart beating faster than she'd ever known... and looked into the face of a zombie.
Scootaloo's reaction was entirely natural for somebody looking at a body that should have been dead, and yet was standing there right in front of her face. Her reaction was to scream. Pretty loud. So much so, she gave Sweetie Belle a run for her money in terms of volume being produced. "HOLY SHIT! RUN!!"
She sprinted for it then and there, dashing across the smoke covered plain that was the centre of town and formed the park, charging in an unknown direction due to the thickness of the smoke and the mess being made all around. Fires were starting up around her, and she could hear shouting, not to mention voices echoing out of the mist and gloom. Voices shouting in a language she didn't even understand rolled around the gloom, combined with the sounds of screams and footsteps. She took another corner around a bend, and skidded past a large pile of rubble. The entire city seemed to be coming apart all around her, and this was what scared her most. The possibility she may die out here, with no idea what the hell was even going on in this place. No chance to find a solution to the problem. Just madness and death, and no possibility of it being Sparta either. She skidded to a stop to catch her breath, her lungs on the verge of depletion, and then suddenly saw flames shooting out from somewhere, as more of those zombie like creatures were burned in a cataclysmic firestorm of biblical fury. She could feel the temperature of the flames, and so she turned to try and get away from the searing heat or lest be burned. It was then the dice had come up snake eyes for her, as before her very eyes was another hoard of those zombie creatures. She was going to die and go to heaven. Again.
As she attempted to run, a hail of gunfire suddenly echoed through the street, catching the first of the creatures in its path, causing its skull to explode dramatically in a hail of gore. The second one suffered a similar fate, its legs blown down and mangled by flying metal, and then the third was impaled by something, being pulled through into the fog. It vanished through the cloud, bellowing, before suddenly the sound of a blade crashing through flesh could be heard, a sickening squelch concluding in an orgy of metal and blood. The body flew forwards, and landed on the ground, a mangled mess that had once been something vaguely humanoid.
Scootaloo trembled in fear, and then saw a being step forward out of the mist. It was clad entirely in white armour, with red and grey highlights, and a myriad of objects and tools attached to its belt. Mounted to the chestplate was a set of knifes, as well as a radio set. Much of the armour had cord and cable wrapped around it, and the being was wearing a helmet as well, in the same red and white colours, as well as a strange symbol of a being with outstretched arms on one of the shoulder pauldrons. There was a moment of silence, before Scootaloo spoke up. "Don't hurt me! Please!"
There was another silence. "Are you XCOM?" the being asked. "I have orders to link up with an XCOM operative in this area, by the surname of Collins."
Scootaloo was confused. "My surname is Collins," she said quickly. "But I have no idea what this XCOM is. Who are you?"
There was another pause, before the being removed his helmet, revealing his face. It looked vaguely human, but was covered in implants, small white disks, wiring, and other mechanical parts. But that wasn't what was most bizarre. It had orange eyes with no pupils, and the nose looked to be altogether the wrong shape for a human being. "I am Pratal Mox," he replied. "Free ADVENT. Skirmisher."
"ADVENT?" Scootaloo asked. She was seriously confused now. No, make that seriously, seriously confused.
"I was once one of their soldiers," Mox continued, his voice level and monotone. "But I am now free of their imposter gods, and fight to free all of my brothers and sisters enslaved by ADVENT. But we have a more pressing matter at hand. The Lost, the Drak-Ten, have infested this city."
"You mean those zombie things?" Scootaloo asked. It was then she realised what had been happening in the area. "Please!" she asked. "Those things took my friends. We have to look for them!"
Mox's eyes narrowed. "I have my own mission to complete," he said, "but if we find them along the way, we can free them. What do they look like?"
"One is called Apple Bloom. She had red hair and yellow skin, and wears a red bow in her hair. You can spot it from a mile off. The other is called Sweetie Belle. She has white skin and candyfloss hair. If it helps, she's wearing a pink jacket and yellow skirt."
Mox nodded, and put his helmet back on. "Your loyalty to your friends is commendable," he spoke, as he checked his weaponry and set off into the gloom once more. "But we must be careful. If the Lost are in this city, that will mean only one thing."
"And that is?" Scootaloo asked, looking all around to try and see if any threats were there, lurking in the darkness to get her.
"The ADVENT Administration will have deployed Purifiers in order to try and contain the Lost," Mox explained. "They are extremely dangerous, and armed with flamethrowers. They will set anything that isn't one of their own alight the moment they detect them on their sensors, and they are directed by an advanced tactical grid that gives them rapid flexibility and tactical performance. I can only hope we do not run into too many, but if we do, we shall have to be prepared to give them a fight, or else we may fall."
The tension remained high, and thick as a slice of bread (well, exceptionally thick bread if you want to make the metaphor work) as the pair made their way through the streets toward the enemy position. In fairness, it wasn't too difficult, as burning trucks and flames helped to guide them toward where they needed to go. If these 'Purifiers' were one thing, it was not subtle. In fact, subtlety was almost impossible to achieve for a military unit armed exclusively with flamethrowers, and this fact was clearly reflected in what was happening all around them. Flames continued to burn where fire had been discharged, and the stench of burning flesh and burnt clothing, as well as plastic, for some odd reason, hung in the air around them, blanketing the area in a fog of smell, in addition to all the smoke that hung about.
"You seem to know where we need to go," Scootaloo said quietly, hoping she wasn't stating the obvious too much. That had a tendancy to irritate people, and for Scootaloo this was doubly hard, as she struggled to gauge how people were feeling from their body language and tone of voice.
Mox gave a quick response, his voice devoid of emotion as always. "If looking for a target, find the evidence of where the enemy has been, and work your way back from there," he said, his eyes constantly scanning the horizon. It seemed as though he was looking for something, a thought confirmed by his next words. "Ah, there's the contact."
The contact emerged out of the mist and made their way toward the unusual pair. She was wearing boots and jeans, as well as a brown shirt and a green coat with khaki lines as well as what appeared to be kevlar shoulders. In addition, she carried a pistol, and had a grenade on her belt. Her skin was pink, and her hair purple, and the subject's identity became clear in a moment, as she looked at the pair in confusion. "Scootaloo?" she asked.
Scootaloo reacted in an instant. "Mom!" she cried, and broke into a run as she approached her mother.
"Stop!" Pratal Mox shouted. "We cannot afford to alert the enemy to our position."
Cheerilee glanced over. "So, you are Pratal Mox," she said quickly. "I was ordered to meet you here, but we have a problem. I assume you are already aware that the Lost are swarming through the area?"
"I ran into a few whilst rescuing this civilian," Mox replied. "I take it that she is related to you somehow?"
Cheerilee looked nonplussed. "She's my daughter," she replied. "You ran into the Lost?" she asked, changing her direction of enquiry to her daughter. "Where are Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom?"
Mox interrupted. "The civilian told me that both of them had been taken somewhere. I suspect the Lost have them, and have taken them to elsewhere in the city, though what they will do with them I do not know. I fear the worst, however."
"Mom, we have to help them!" Scootaloo protested. "Those things have got them, and probably want to eat them!"
Cheerilee sighed. "Scootaloo," she said, "your loyalty to your friends is touching, but this rescue will not be easy to carry out. We have many miles to go, and furthermore the enemy is all around us. We shall need to move carefully if we are to succeed out here, and there is no guarantee that we will."
Mox, seemingly getting impatient at the lack of motion, spoke up again, his words cutting across the conversation like a knife through butter. "Which is why we must get underway as fast as we possibly can, to maximise our chance of success." He indicated with his hand in a direction which, presumably, was the right way. "Let's go! Targets are in that direction!"
Cheerilee and Scootaloo were in no position, nor the mood, to argue, and nodded, setting off as Pratal Mox continued into the gloom and darkness.
"So, mom... why did you never tell me you were part of this 'XCOM'?"
The gloom continued to dominate, as the smoke made it hard to see. It seemed as if the very sun itself was blotted out, as it was very dark, and the various fires and other such lights soon became the only way to see where you were going in the darkness. Onwards the trio pressed, covering ground at speed despite the poor visibility. In truth, it was not very hard to figure out where the enemy were, as the noise of battle continued to echo all around. However, Mox suddenly indicated to the others to duck into cover, and they rolled in behind a wall.
"What's up ahead?" Cheerilee asked, checking around her with her pistol in case anybody was there. Mox indicated with his hand in front of them. Before them were standing a pair of Purifiers, both of whom were currently busy engaging a horde of Lost closing on their position, flames roaring through the air and toward the undead foes, who were very quickly reduced to being even more undead due to the fire and flames. In the distance, large numbers of the Purifiers could be seen in combat, facing off massive swarms of Lost. To her horror, Scootaloo recognised some of those Lost as her own friends and relations.
"What in the world?" Scootaloo asked. "I swear that there's an entire army down there! Who knows how many might be there?"
Mox nodded. "Yes. An army that we do not have time to face." He aimed his weapon, and fired off a short burst of three shots at the nearest Purifier. The bullets hit home, striking the fuel tank on his back. Pressurised flame roared out of the back of the fuel tank, as the Purifier staggered about like a drunkard, pushed about by the fire from his tank. Then he exploded, a massive fireball detonating a truck nearby, that also went up in a massive fireball.
The huge bang echoed throughout the area, flames and fire roaring through the city and igniting practically anything in the area, with explosions and further blasts occuring as ammunition, fuel tanks, and other objects cooked off all around them, creating a massive inferno. Clouds of acrid black smoke flowed around them, around them and past them, a choking fog that enveloped much of the surrounding area. It took several minutes to clear, reducing visibility to practically zero as they sat there and waited for it to clear. But when it did clear, the wreckage of charred vehicles and burnt armour lay all about them, evidence of complete and utter carnage. But then, another sound echoed through the area, a loud howling noise that sent fear through Scootaloo heart. The very same howling noise she had heard when she had first run into the monsters several hours ago.
"Was that the Lost?" she asked, a note of panic in her voice as she looked about her.
"Yes," Cheerilee nodded. "the Lost seem to know we are here. They naturally move toward loud noise, due to their superb hearing and their complete lack of ability to see anything, or so we think."
Mox nodded as well, his expression impossible to gauge from behind his helmet. "Yes. They are drawn to the sounds of battle. They are... excited by it, for lack of a better term."
Scootaloo threw her arms up in the air. "AND YOU JUST BLEW UP A FUEL TRUCK?" she asked, in complete and utter disbelief.
"There was no other choice," Mox replied. "If we want to save your friends, we do not have the time to go around them. We can take down the Lost easily, if we just keep our heads and behave rationally." The screams and roars continued to echo in the distance as the Lost approahced them at great, running with a speed that belied their undead and rotted appearance so characteristic of zombies in horror films. "Here they come. Prepare to engage." He gripped the trigger with his fore finger, and then squeezed gently, bullets flying out of the end of the weapon. A single loud bang echoed from the sub machine gun he carried, and it struck home on a single Lost, bowling it down and blowing out its brains. It hit the ground with a loud bang, where the other Lost scrambled straight over it. A single shot echoed from Cheerilee's pistol, and this shot felled another which ran at them, this one also falling messily to the floor with a bang. And so this went on, with shots bringing down swarms of Lost running at their position, until they suddenly and quite inexplicably began to tail off. It was just then that Scootaloo spotted something crucial in the crowd.
Near the ruins of the fuel truck, tied up against it and being menaced by another horde of Lost, were Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. Both of them looked pretty bloodied, and had scars on their bodies and tears on their clothes, but they were very much alive. "Look!" she called. "Over there!"
Cheerilee looked closer. "Confirmed," she said. "We have line of sight on the civilians, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. Should we attempt rescue of the hostages?"
Mox looked over, resetting his grappling hook and aiming it at another building. "Let's go!" he shouted, firing it off and flying through the sky, though not at two hundred degrees, thereby meaning he was not Mister Farenheit. After travelling for a brief period, he landed in amongst the swarm, firing at point blank range into several of the Lost, and then switching to his Ripjack, the melee weapon with two blades mounted that he had used to such lethal efficiency earlier when he encountered Scootaloo. The heavy blades cut clean through the undead beings, their bodies reduced to nothingness with each swing and strike. Within moments, the swarm had been reduced to a bloody mess, a pile of courpses to indicate where a swarm had once been standing. The two girls looked in fear at Pratal Mox. But they had no reason to fear him, for he reached for their bonds and slashed through them.
"Vox-tala-for-ten!" he shouted. "This way!"
The two girls were in no mood to argue. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle nodded, and immediately began to run toward safety, as more of the creatures followed them out of the ruins of the city and toward their current position. Mox swung back, firing shots off to clear out the stragglers and remove the gravest threats.
Meanwhile, Cheerilee fired up her radio. "Firebird, we need a hot extraction, now!" she shouted down the radio.
"Roger that, Skyranger getting into position," the radio replied, a female voice crackling out of it on the other end.
A loud engine roar started up overhead, as an aircraft hovered into place. Ropes were then deployed from the aircraft, five in total, and Cheerilee signalled to the others to hold on. Taking hold of the ropes, the girls were suddenly winched upwards, and were pulled into the aircraft safe and sound, their journey over. They were, at last, safe from the madness below.
Then Scootaloo realised something. "Where's Pratal Mox?" she asked.
Cheerilee got on the radio. "Mox, where the Hell are you?" she radioed. "We either go now, or we don't go at all!"
"No!" he radioed. "I do not intend to die this day!"
The Skyranger swung around, to show that Mox was still fighting the Lost off, more and more and more of them swarming in from buildings and from under rubble. There seemed to be no end in sight of the creatures, running the risk of Mox getting bogged down. At last, he reacted, and swung around. He then activated his grappling hook, latched onto an access clamp inside the Skyranger, and reeled it in, landing safe and sound inside the Skyranger, which then shut the ramp and flew away.
If this all seems to cool to be true, or indeed too ridiculous, it is, for shortly after that moment Scootaloo found herself in her bedroom, in her bed, and still in her pyjamas. This is because she had just woken up, and was slowly breathing in and out as her brain tried to process what she had just seen.
"That's the last time I eat cheese pizza in the evening," she sighed, as she hauled herself out of bed, ready for another school day. The streetcar rolled past, late as usual, and then trundled on, sparks flying through the air, their firmly being no zombies, and no Purifiers.
Later on, Scootaloo boarded the streetcar, as she always did, alongside her mother, in order to get to school. And as the streetcar rolled along, looking down from one of the buildings overlooking the track...
...was Pratal Mox.
Author's Note
I appreciate this is a little left-field for my writing, but I fancied giving an XCOM story a go. This is loosely based on a (sadly) long-since deleted story on Fimfiction focusing on Sweetie Belle, but focusing on the same themes.
