I have already lost my tracking of time ever since I hid in this dark basement when it all began. I, Lucky Swirl, was repairing the damages Ponyville had sustained from the bombings above the sky. There were ponies that stayed behind here whilst the others had ran off to somewhere far away for safety. When I heard the shouts of the soldiers and royal guards that alerted everypony that they were coming, I stopped working and ran straight for the basement at my home, where I use it as a shelter now from these things. I had already packed the supplies that I need to survive before, just in case that I will be staying inside for a long time.
Minutes after I went inside my basement, there I could hear the loud bangs, terrifying noises, screaming of both soldiers and other ponies before they were cut off and the voices that I barely understand what they're saying. The noises that came from the outside, which sounded metallic and unnatural, had all left me shaken to the very bone inside of me along with the mix of fear and dread within me. My basement already has steel doors that can be locked from the inside, so I was assured that they won't be able to get inside to come for me. But nevertheless, I would sit on the floor and stare intensely at the doors for the sake of my own safety. I don't want to die, I don't want to die to some nightmares that no pony has seen before. Goodness, this smell. I feel sick just by breathing that burning smell.
The sounds from the outside had persisted for hours upon hours until recently where everything had seemed to go quiet all of a sudden. I had already grown tired from stuck inside this basement, but the noises from before and dreading about anything from the outside finding this basement and myself didn’t even allow me to sleep. The basement has grown colder than before, so I put on a scarf, which was really the only thing I had in there to keep me warm. I can see smoke slowly filling up the room, whatever happened must have ended by now. By that time, I had already grown hungry. So I went to the crate that holds apples that came from the Sweet Apple Acres, which holds the most tastiest apples in all of Equestria. I reached for an apple in the crate and took a bite from it, it sort of still has that same taste even after all that went through Equestria.
It has been hours already and everything is still dead silent. Was there anypony left out there? I need to know. I looked at the locked steel doors of the basement, my mind is telling me not to go outside but at the same time it's telling me to go out to look. I have a bag of mixed feelings and uncertainty within me, maybe there is anypony left in Ponyville or maybe not. As I got closer to the doors, I had a tense feeling in my body. It's telling me that something is really bad down there, but the urge to go out is fuelling inside me. Of course I could have just backed away from the doors and stay inside the basement, but I can’t help myself anymore. I don’t want to just stay inside this dark room for the rest of my life, I want to see if there is any pony left outside, I need to know. I held the key that was under a rug in front of the doors with my mouth and inserted it into the padlock before turning it with my hooves.
I got the padlock away from the handles and slowly started to push the door open to avoid making a noise, only to be greeted by a grey fog. I started to cough for a bit after breathing the dirty air that was present outside before putting my scarf over my nose and mouth. As I fully exited the basement, I could now clearly see the grey world around me. The houses and buildings on all of Ponyville have been flattened and reduced to only pieces of wood that is left standing while also being covered entirely in ash. The thick fog is engulfing the entirety of the town, making it hard to see if anypony is there. I was in a state of shock, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing here. If this really is a nightmare, please let me wake up. I don’t want to stay in a world like this! After I let out a sigh, I proceeded to walk through the remains of what was left of Ponyville, seeing that there isn’t a single pony that is either inside or outside the houses. I was able to see a couple of destroyed places that I could recognise a bit, such as the Sugarcube Corner and the Carousel Boutique. Ponyville really feels like miserable place in such a state like this.
I was able to reach to the place where the town square should be, with the town hall’s top half being being completely gone and the statue of a pony that was there before toppled and crumbled to pieces, save for the head. Suddenly, I heard what appears to be a deep metallic horn that which it had jolted me. I recognise that sound, I had heard it before when I was at that basement. I ran straight to a house that didn't manage to fully collapse to find a good spot to hide there. I stood in a corner where there is a darker spot in the house, just under the staircase. I stayed in that spot for minutes before hearing a scream that sounded like a pony’s voice. I took curiosity by that as I walked slowly to a window whilst avoiding the light coming from the holes on the roof. I looked to see that a white and brown stallion pony was running before stopping to look around. This is it, a pony! I finally found a pony that's still in Ponyville! I was both excited and happy to see one that is still here, but there’s something wrong with him. His face has the look of fear on it, he was running away from something and is crying for help. Moments later, the stallion was suddenly snatched away from above into the fog, to which he screamed before it was abruptly cut off. I could not believe what I have just seen, that bit of hope within me all suddenly died off. There is something big and tall that is literally hunting the ponies that are still in Ponyville, snatching anypony that it sees. This must be a bad dream, this has to be a nightmare! Please let me out of this!
I slowly backed away from the window back to the dark spot to not attract any attention to whatever there is out there, but not until I started hearing what sounded like metallic footsteps. I sat into the dark spot with my hoofs to my mouth so that wouldn’t hear me breathing. As the footsteps grew louder, my sense of dread started to fuel even more as I pray to Celestia that they wouldn’t find me and end up like that stallion. I closed my eyes as the footsteps come to a halt, with tears starting to leak from my eyes and my body shaking with fear. After a couple of indistinguishable sounds and voices were heard, the footsteps then started to fade away, indicating that the thing is moving away from where I am. I opened my eyes and let my hoof from my mouth before letting out a sigh of relief as the footsteps went quiet. I wiped the tears on my eyes and stood up before leaving the house.
I checked for the last time to see if any of those things are around, to which there seems to be none. I darted out to left to get away from the town square, not before accidentally tripping on a piece of stone. As I tried to get back up, I suddenly hear a voice of a another pony, a mare, calling for help in the distance. I quickly got up and went towards the source of the voice. After running towards the place where I heard the cry, there was nopony there. Still just emptiness and devoid of life. Then suddenly, a huge slab of metal crashed near me, causing me to fall to the ground. When I looked at the metal slab, I noticed that there is bars metal that is protruding from the slab and when I followed it, I was greeted with the sight of a large spotlight coming from a metal structure along with three more of those bars and slabs to which they looked like legs. The structure then emitted a metallic groan to which I realised that I have been caught by one of those things, a machine.
I quickly tried to get up to run away from the thing, but I was grabbed by the neck by a long thick wire coming from the machine. The wire held me tightly as if its strangling me. The machine then pulled me to the air with the wire to have me facing towards it and close to its eyes. I held me for a minute before I felt the wire growing tighter around my neck and then feeling my head being jerked along with the sound of a bone breaking, which would be the last thing I will see and hear in my life.
Squad Members:
Flawless Victory - Leader
Forest Monsoon - Medic
Ember Hazel - Engineer
Amethyst Melody - Scout
Flawless Victory was sitting near the bonfire with his squad deep inside a cave within Everfree Forest, with their weapons next to each other and a radio by their side to contact anypony nearby. It was night time outside, so he has to be careful not to track attention with the bonfire. The green, red-haired pony sitting next to Flawless was Forest Monsoon, the squad’s medic as seen by the medical symbols on his uniform and bag. Next was a creamy coloured and brown-haired glasses-wearing pony named Ember Hazel, an engineer skilled with repairing equipment and machinery. Last was the purple mare unicorn Amethyst Melody, a sniper and a scout. The all-unicorn group is not without some degree of injury, with Hazel losing her leg and having it replaced with a prosthetic one and Melody having lost her left eye and covered with an eye patch. The squad are all staying silent for a few minutes until Forest Monsoon spoke first.
"So, what are we going to do now?" He spoke out.
"I don't know, I'm still thinking." Flawless Victory answered.
Flawless Victory is still processing the events that happened the past day, the princesses are all gone and Equestria has completely fallen. The Universal Order, an empire that came far beyond this world, has effectively taken full control over Equestria and the whole planet as well. The Order had first came to Equestria during the Crystal War, where King Sombra and his army of enslaved crystal ponies have invaded Equestria and were taking swathes of territory. They had offered the Equestrians aid with advanced technology capable of defeating King Sombra, to which they accepted and utilised it to regain their lost territory and eventually defeat King Sombra.
After the war, The Order had issued a proposal to Equestria and the princesses to serve them for using their technology, to which the princesses rejected. In retaliation, the Order had begun fighting against the ponies into submission with bombings from orbit, capturing Equestrian territory and slaughtering the population; a repeat of the Crystal War for the ponies. The technology that the Equestrians received from the Order did not prove to be effective against their war machines along with their superior troops and weaponry. After just five days, Equestria eventually fell, with the ponies either on the run, collaborating, enslaved or dead. As for the princesses, no one knowns what happened to them, they're probably hiding somewhere, captured or dead. Flawless Victory's squad was just one of the lucky few that managed to run away and hide from them, and it's only a matter of time for the Order to find them.
"Where do we go!? We can't go anywhere without getting destroyed by those darn machines out there!" Ember Hazel spoke out.
"I know, we just need to find the right moment to get past through them." Flawless Victory replied.
"If only if the princesses were still around..." Amethyst Melody spoke out.
"The princesses? Who knows where they are now! They're all probably dead anyways." Forest Monsoon spat
"They're the only ones who could guide us. If they really are all dead then all of us would have died too." Amethyst Melody said.
"You're suggesting that they're still alive hiding somewhere?"
"I don't know."
"Great, no one knows! That's for sure."
"If only we hadn't accepted their 'aid' and left us alone, we could have defeated King Sombra and his army ourselves without them!" Ember Hazel ranted.
"We would all still die anyway without them." Amethyst Melody counteracted.
"At least being enslaved by Sombra is better than being enslaved to the Order."
Flawless Victory watched as his squad argued each other over theirs and Equestria's failures, to the point which they started fighting for how all of this could have been prevented. Flawless Victory could not let them continue fighting each other as to not give away their position to the enemy, so he decided to intervene.
"Silence, everypony! Do you want to reveal yourselves to the enemy by arguing each other this loudly!?" Flawless Victory scolded.
The ponies then eventually remained silent after Flawless' command.
"We lost, that's for sure. But Celestia gave us her final order to continue fighting, now matter how it ends. Which means that there are still some soldiers out there surviving. It appears what we must do is regroup the scattered soldiers that are still surviving and keep on fighting." Flawless Victory spoke out.
"But we can't just fight against a huge empire with a small size like that! Most if not all of our forces are gone!" Forest Monsoon argued.
"...I know, but at least it will give them some trouble." Flawless Victory replied.
Suddenly, the radio beside then started to activate and the squad began to hear a faint voice from it. They were all still haunted by the panicked voices from other soldiers and of the horrors on the radio during the war, their screams and cries for help were something that stayed with them. Flawless Victory approached the radio and tuned it to the right signal to get a clear voice for the pony speaking.
"This is Commander Golden Bolt, I repeat, this is Commander Golden Bolt. We may have lost but our fight isn't over, we must fight until our very end! To any surviving ponies or soldiers out there listening to this, head to the Undiscovered West immediately. I repeat, head to the Undiscovered West immediately!"
"Would you look at that, looks like some of them are still willing to fight after all of this." Forest Monsoon commented.
"Ponies don't seem to give up so easily, do they?" Amethyst Melody further commented.
"The power of friendship is what makes us strong, isn't it?" Ember Hazel followed.
"So be it, everypony. Our next objective is to make our way to the Undiscovered West and regroup what remains of the Equestrian army. You got it?" Flawless Victory outlined.
"But what if its a trap set up by the Order?" Ember Hazel questioned.
"I doubt that it is a trap. Not a lot of ponies have ever visited the Undiscovered West. Besides, it's only a matter of time before the Order fully sweeps through the entire planet." Flawless Victory replied.
"When will we be leaving?" Forest Monsoon asked.
"We will leave by dawn, but Amethyst will make sure if it is safe for us to come out of the cave." Flawless Victory replied.
The squad all gathered in a circle and bumped each others' hooves.
"May Celestia protect us all." Flawless Victory prayed.
