The Last Unicorns

With the final attempts to avert catastrophe proving fruitless, Princess Celestia prepared the world for bad news. An asteroid the size of the Crystal Empire was hurtling through space towards Equestria and no amount of magic would be able to stop it from impacting in less than a day. It was instant anarchy. Panic in the streets, passing quickly to those with loved ones gathering in their homes to await kingdom come.

Twilight Sparkle, Spike, and their parents made haste to the Crystal Empire to visit with Shining Armor, Cadance, and young Flurry Heart in the final hours of the world. The time to impact was less than an hour away. Twilight walked out onto the Crystal Palace balcony with her brother to watch the sun rise one last time.

Looking to the horizon there came a bright flash just before the dawn. Before they even realized what was happening they were floating skyward in a column of light up towards an enormous, mysterious spacecraft. It pulled them inside and the hatch closed behind them, dropping them into a loading bay of some kind with a massive view window. The world below them seemed to fall away as they accelerated up into the sky, yet they felt no movement.

Then they saw it, the massive chunk of stone and metal falling towards their planet. Twilight knew it was moving incredibly fast, but with such a large scale of sizes and distances everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Anything not shaken to its foundation by the global earthquake or flattened by the hurricane force blast wave, burned.

Twilight and Shining had already made their peace with the end of the world. But nothing could have prepared them to bear witness to the circle of destruction spreading across the face of the globe, turning the lush paradise of Equestria into a burning hell. Everything and everypony they had ever known was gone. All he could do was hold her in his hooves as she silently wept.

In an instant, the whole world shrank to a pinpoint in the blackness of space, and the stars around them turned into streaks of light as the spacecraft accelerated away to warp speed.

A door leading to the loading bay opened and a couple of tall, bipedal creatures holding batons of some kind approached Twilight and Shining. They each wore matching one-piece jump suits and made a series of noises that seemed to be some form of speech, though neither pony could understand them. The tone of the creatures seemed calm, but imperative.

"Um, excuse me?" Twilight said. "Who are you?"

They looked at her, but gave no indication of comprehension beyond having heard her. One of them pointed the baton at Twilight, and then at the doorway, waving it back and forth. Twilight was too nervous to move. It walked over to her and gave her a firm prod with the baton. It zapped her flank with a jolt of electricity. Not enough to injure her, but it hurt plenty enough for her to not want a second helping. She backed away.

"Hey!" Shining shouted as he put himself between them and reared up to attack the creature with his magic. And then he learned two things.

First, that their Equestrian magic no longer worked without Equestria.

And secondly, that the power of the baton jolt could be increased.

A firm jab to his shoulder and his forelegs went limp. His entire body felt numb, tingling with the sensation of pins and needles. A couple more creatures in matching jumpsuits walked through the doorway with a stretcher and gently placed Shining on it with care. They carried him through the doorway and Twilight followed after him out of concern more than obedience. She kept within sight of her brother, but also kept an eye on the two creatures with the batons following her.

The two with the stretcher set Shining onto a large bed and walked away. Twilight moved to sit by his side. The other creatures seemed satisfied and walked away, closing the door behind them. With no knob on the inside, it vanished seamlessly, flush with the other wall panels.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked. He nodded. After a couple minutes, Shining regained control of his legs and was able to walk around again just fine. They looked around at their surroundings. They were in a large enclosure with a decent variety furniture similar to a hotel room. The odd thing sticking out was the standalone toilet in the corner of the room.

"It's like a prison," Shining said. One wall was entirely transparent as a floor to ceiling window. Looking through, they could see an enclosure across from them, in what looked to be a long hallway of similar rooms. Twilight tried to look to either side.

It seemed like theirs was the only one with furniture. The one across from them more resembled a dense jungle with tall stalks of bamboo. From where she could see, most of the other rooms looked similar as a recreation of a particular biome, though she could not see the other residents. Except for the one directly across the hall from them. It had a pair of large bears with patterned patches of black and white fur, with patches around their eyes like giant raccoons.

A bell on the wall rang for a moment and a small door opened beside the drinking fountain and a tray slid through onto the small counter. Getting closer, they could already tell from the smell that it was hayburgers cooked to perfection and fries, extra crispy. They were unaccustomed to eating with their hooves, but they managed without their magic well enough. The stress of the whole situation had suppressed their appetite up until that point. As a military veteran, Shining forced himself to eat.

"Who knows when we'll get another chance to eat?" he said, encouraging her to eat as much as she could as well. Once they cleared off the tray, the bell rang again and it retracted back into the wall and the small door closed. They drank the water from the drinking fountain and settled onto the bed to rest. A few minutes later the lights turned off and they were shrouded in darkness. The bed was big enough for the two of them, if only just.

"We haven't slept in the same bed since I was a filly," Twilight said.

"Whenever you had a bad dream," he said.

"I hope this is all just a bad dream," she said.

"Either way, I'll be right here," he said, wrapping his hoof around her. It was a small comfort in this strange new world. But it was enough to help her fall asleep.