My Little Pony: Invasion

Below, the horns of carriages and chariots honked as the lines of traffic continued in their ceaseless cacophony, the moon was high in the sky, shining down on the brick and plaster buildings of Manehattan, from her balcony, high above the street, Coco watched it all, sighing in melancholy. “Looks like it’s back to searching,” she muttered to herself… Twenty-three years old and already got fired thrice, Coco just couldn’t catch a break, at least her siblings, and most her foalhood friend were successful, at least the ones she still kept in contact with… Perhaps she could stay with one of them, at least until she could find a new job.

There came a hoof-knock on her door… She whined at the back of her throat… She didn’t even need to ask, she recognized that knock… She stayed there, cringing at the voice of her landlord, “Pommel, I know you’re in there, you late on your rent, again!” The old griffoness’ voice full of malice.

Coco didn’t move, she would rather not get her eyes clawed out, perhaps she could find an apartment in Canterlot… Sure they were more patronizing, but less mean… For whatever that was worth. There was always Rarity, over in Ponyville, but they hadn’t talked in years, and Ponyville was not the place to move if you wanted to make bits. Twisting her head up, Coco annoyed the angry knocking and just stared at the starts...

“What?” Coco whispered, starting at three, no, four… Five? Eight? Stars that were growing brighter… Brilliant yellow things, growing bigger in the sky… No… Not bigger, closer! Coco gave a yelp as the streaking, burning stars fell from the sky, leaving trails of acrid smoke smashing into the street below, a few crashing through buildings, she felt the shock as they slammed into the ground, scoring massive craters, she could see more of them, falling down, dotting the city, and feel the distant quaking as they blasted apart the ground… Then, above her, there came a horribly loud BOOM! And the ceiling caved in… Dust, debris, asbestos, and drywall hung in her room, Coco coughed, waving a hoof to help clear the air, screwing her eyes shut. Her eyes were opened by a loud, angry, and incoherent screech from the griffoness, who had decided to kick down the door.

“Coco!” She screamed, “What did I sayyyyyy-” Her voice trailed off, turning from anger to confusion and a little bit of fear, noticing the giant hole in the roof, and the object that had just bulldozed its way through a good twenty stories to end up right inside Coco’s room. The object was huge… A large, metal device of some kind, with four legs splayed like some kind of demi-spider, a strange protrusion from below, four hatches, one on each side, and various lines glowing a bright green, and not with any magic the pony could feel.

Coco cowered in the corner, nearly falling off the balcony… Down below, ponies were milling about the strange machines… Then screams started, and Coco Pommel twisted her head to stare at what was going on. The machines, from inside them, tendrils of green energy were lashing out, much like telekinesis, grabbing ponies by the hooves and chest and head, and dragging them toward the devices, Coco gulped, and stared at the machine in the room…

It hissed, smoking and steaming, searing the floor with the heat created by slapping its way through the building like a cannonball. Coco stared at it, entranced by its green glow and odd lack of magic. “Stop sitting there you useless bitch, and help me get this damned mess cleaned up!” The griffon squealed.

“M-M-Ma’am, I don’t think…” Coco squeaked out.

“Get off your lazy ass and use some of that earth pony strength to get this damn thing out of here, you know how much all this is going to cost to repair!” The landlord huffed, moving forward and grabbing the still hot machine, trying to lever it out of the ground… Coco leapt forward, seeing what happened down below, and tried to push the griffon out of the way before she could touch it, but she was too slow… The moment the griffon laid a clawed talon on the machine, it gave a click, then a hiss, the hatches opened up, revealing dozens of ports, out of which energy flowed, lashing out… Coco tried to kick at the tendrils, but her strikes just passed through them, and it took effort, and no small amount of her natural earth-pony strength, to pull free from their grasps… The griffon squawked as they reached for the bird’s neck, she tried to bat them away with her wings and talons, but to no effect, Coco found her leg being grabbed not by one of the machine’s tendrils, but rather by the claw of her griffoness landlord, “Help me you dirt-bag-bit-” The griffoness gave another squawk as Coco slammed her hoof into the griffon’s head, sending the griffon firmly into the tendrils of the machine, and gave Coco the momentum to go sprawling out of the door, which she then slammed shut before the tendrils could follow her out.

Hyperventilating, heart racing, and mind swirling, Coco slumped against the opposite wall… Half a minute later, dozens of ponies, and a few griffons, came marching out of their rooms, dishevelled and tired, “What is Celestia’s name was that!” A mare shouted.

“I-I…” Coco tried to speak, but her voice failed her, all she managed to get out was a shouted instruction “Get away!” Many ponies were confused or sceptical, one moved and opened the door to Coco’s room, then the next instant, slammed it shut and repeated what Coco had just shouted, in a tone somehow even more panicked... And despite some of the resident’s demeanours, most of them got the hint, hearing the fear in the young mare’s voice, and all started to move toward an exit. A mare and her coltfriend bent down and helped Coco back to her hooves, she was still panting, and her head still felt dizzy, but she got back up with little effort.

“What’s going on!” A colt shouted

“D-Don’t know, something fell from the sky and tried to eat me… Or something… It’s all over town, dozens of them!” Coco feebly replied.

“B-But, what do we do!” An older mare continued.

Suddenly, the door to the stairs burst open, and a dozen or so ponies in plate-mail with spears came rushing in, the royal guard… There was a collective sigh from the residents as one of the guards approached, simply saying “Follow us, some kind of disaster is going on, so we have been instructed to get all of you to safety, everyone fit to fly will follow wingbolt over there,” The guard pointed to one of his companions, a pegasus, “Everyone else will follow me…”

On the ground, the street was in disarray, ponies were being evacuated, rapidly, but the guard could only do so much to contain the mob, Manehattan was a busy place, even at night. Most of the chariots had been moved, and much of the civilians were clear of the numerous ground-zeros for the fallen objects, in just half an hour or so, the local commander, Wintergreen, planned to have this entire section of the city closed off.

As the rest were busy ordering around civilians, a trio of guards approached one of the landed objects, “What’s your opinion, Brightfloss?” A stallion, Death Grip, asked.

“Hmm, they aren’t dead, mostly, a few unlucky souls were right below when it hit, but mostly everyone is fine, the machines seem to have… Spun ponies into these strange green webs, everyone’s unconscious though...” The mare said, pointing at a pair of guards who had busied themselves trying to pull off all the green stuff from the ponies caught by the machine’s tendrils.

The machine had formed quite the crater in the flagstone pavement, dozens of chariots and wagons lay, abandoned, knocked over, trampled by the hordes, running from the machines, and in the area immediately around the device, everything was covered in green fibres, like moss or spider silk, most concerningly of all, the threads saught out the ponies and griffons around the impact site, many were covered in the stuff, knocked unconscious either from the impacts, or some property of the machines. “Where do you think they came from? Some pony couldn’t have just threw them this far?” Death Grip retorted.

“Perhaps Luna just flung them from the moon… Who cares were they came from, I’m more concerned why…”

“Whatever it is, I doubt it’s for any good cause…”

The two continued bantering, but both fell silent as a noise echoed through the street… Some kind of rapid clicking crossed with a strange hissing… “You hear that?” Brightfloss said.

“Hear what!” The stallion replied.

The mare tilted her head, looking up at the buildings, up there, in the window of some industrial building, she saw a pair of purple eyes staring down, there was a small green light coming from inside, and the mare’s ears moved flat back against her head, “Umm… Death…” She began.

Death Grip just scoffed, “What now-” Then, from the window, there was a green flash, and a bolt of energy launched outward, flying through the air with amazing speed and slamming into Death Grip’s back, who gave a loud scream as, whatever it was, melted clean through his golden plate and burned deep into his side, burning deep enough that you could see the charred bone around his ribs and his seared stomach. Suddenly, all the guards leapt into action, Pegasi raising their spears and flying toward the building, more green blasts followed, and one pegasus fell, half his head burned off. As this happened, there came more clicking-hissing noises, this time louder, and more bursts flung from windows or alleyways and all the guards scattered.

Brightfloss narrowly missed a burst as it blasted the ground right next to her hoof, sending green sparks that burned like the depths of Tartarus itself, but she pushed past the pain, raising her wings and biting the air with ease, quickly twirling around the side of a building as a green bolt smacked her in the wing joint, burning through flesh and bone and sending burning white feathers across the ground, she hissed and tumbled as suddenly one of her wings was made useless, and she cringed in pain and revulsion as she halted, staring at her now useless appendage… The bolt had narrowly missed the bone, if it hit, she wouldn’t have a left wing any more. But as it was, she couldn’t fly, and this would take a unicorn’s skill to heal. She gave a quick curse, then galloped down the alley, hoping more of those, things, weren’t chasing her…

Ten minutes later she managed to find Wingbolt, tending to some civilian pegasi, “W-Wing, Wing!”

“What is-” Wingbolt began, his mouth shutting with a snap and shivering in horror as he saw the wound on Brightfloss’ wing, “What happened!” He managed to get out.

“T-Things, enemy ponies, we think, attacked us… Just, out of nowhere, they used this horrible green magic that burned like Tartarus!”

“Q-Quickly, get a hold of a telepath and contact Canterlot, we need to evacuate this area.”

“Weren’t we already doing that!”

“If some pony attacked you, this makes this a military situation, we’re a policing detachment, we can’t handle shit like this! I’ll go inform the captain, we need to secure this area, make sure no hostiles infiltrate the rest of the city!”

“What makes you think the rest of the city isn’t overrun with enemies!”

“I-” He paused, his insides growing icy cold.

“Battlemages, to me!” A unicorn in armour said… Reports had started to come in from all over the affected areas, some unknown enemy was attacking the guards sent to investigate the crashsites, at least the attacked seemed limited to the crashsites themselves, and there weren’t any concerning reports coming in from the rest of Manehattan.

The unicorn raised his sword, hilt glowing with his telekinetic grasp, and blade ignited with enchantments. The rest of the unicorns marched up, horns glowing with power, forming a deadly rainbow of lights. The street was vacant, up ahead was a device, still glowing green, surrounded by ponies and one or two griffons tied up in the strange fibres… But that wasn’t the only concerning thing around the crashsite… Bodies, guard bodies, horribly burned, the ground splattered with nuggets of gold from where their armour was melted under enemy spells, all of them unmoving, dead.

The unicorns cast shields and moved forward slowly, carefully… There came a clicking-hissing noise, and one unicorn marched forward raising a spear in a magical grasp, turning the corner, he gave a startled yelp and backed away, flinging his spear with all his magical might down the alley, several green blasts followed this up, one smacking him in the leg… There was horrible noise as the limb was completely burned off from the blast, but a medical mage was quick to catch the stallion. The rest of the unicorns rushed forward to see what had attacked the now tripod stallion, but as they circled the corner, they found nothing there… Nothing that was, until, from the corner down the alley, the hostels opened fire…

The shield spells flickered as the blasts struck them, but none of the unicorns present had the power to resist more than two or three hits… As the first few unicorns began to fall, the rest backed away, the commander had only gotten a brief glimpse of the hostiles, small bipedal creatures, with grey skin, and large heads with purplish-red eyes, the guards flung their spears at the creatures, but most missed, the one or two strikes that hit had knocked the creatures to the ground, spears in their chests or sides, but many still limped back up, pulling the spears free from their wounds, bleeding yellow blood.

The unicorns rushed to cover, but many were still clipped by green blasts on their flanks or legs. Above them, there was a strange humming, and the commander looked up to see a trio of… Things… Small metal spheres glowing from within, with various metal limbs, levitating through some unknown means… There was no magic coming from inside it, not that the commander could tell. He telekinetically flung his sword at the thing, but the strike simply bounced off its metal hide, then, a single glowing eye within the device turned in his direction, and from it came a blast of burning yellow energy that struck him in the side, melting through his plate and scoring burns underneath… He grunted and swore, but with his telekinetic might, he grabbed the device and flung it to the ground, it was hard though, as the metal eye resisted his magical grasp, but still, as it fell to the ground, it smacked down with a loud clang and it sparked and hissed.

Around him, the battle was not in the ponies favour, already four or five were dead, a dozen more guards were injured, but still putting up a fight, telekinetically throwing their spears at the targets, only to hit their cover, or miss. One of the strange creatures came out of cover and raised its arms, its head glowing brightly with magical energy and from it came arcane tendrils that lashed at the head of one of his guards, hiding behind cover… The guardmare screamed in pain and terror, putting her hooves to her horn and falling over, writhing on the ground, screaming “It hurts it hurts! Help! Someone! Get me out of here!”

“Medic, get over there and help her!” The commander shouted, sending a burst of magic missiles toward the enemy spellcaster, most of which struck the target’s cover, but one smacked the creature in the head, causing it to fall over, presumably dead. “Medic!” The commander shouted, turning to see why his medic wasn’t responding, only to go silent as he saw the medic’s head, or what was left of it, scorched and burned. The commander gave a growl, and poured power into a shield spell, covering himself in a bubble of safety… He felt blasts strike his shield, and the effort required to keep the spell from breaking drove him to his knees, tears building in his eyes… He constructed a new spell, a telepathic spell, one tuned to all arcane frequencies, “This is Commander Wintergreen of the Manehattan Battlemage Detachment, we’re under attack by unknown hostiles, the situation is-Ahhh-” He grunted, as another fusillade of blasts splashed against his magical defences, “Screw it all! He shouted, if you can hear this, get the fuck out of the city! I don’t know what these things are, just run!” Right as his telepathic message ended, he felt his shield spell break, his head erupted in pain from the violent dispelling of his shield, and he fell over, grunting and whimpering from the ungodly headache… He looked, and saw the strange creatures looming over him, then just blackness…