The city of Isen. Before the war, it was the capital of the rebels from the other clans who had come together due to a shared distaste for the wars that were constantly breaking out across the island. It had been founded on the West Coast of the North Region in order to keep as far away from these civil wars as possible.

The position they had chosen also seemed to want this for them. Sea Stone, a rare blue mineral that was the result of the ocean magically hardening on a night of a full moon, was a relatively common occurrence in the nearby firth of Pirate Bay. The material gave the illusion of an uneasy sea when viewed from a distance, so when every building was created using this material, it served as a form of protection for the populace by deterring any would-be attackers.

Years of peace and development had allowed this new country of Free Wolves to successfully develop into a thriving nation, and in the process, become a tempting target for other clans. The civil wars had laid bare many of these clan’s resources and brought about untold suffering due to the nigh endless conflict. However, despite the massive threat the Free Wolves posed due to their undamaged economy and strong army, some clans still decided to start wars.

Free Wolves had fought long and hard, first defeating Iron Wolves from the North, later Red Tails from the East, and lastly, the Lunar clan. Despite the reason for the nation’s formation, Free Wolves still felt the sting of war after what had been centuries of peace.

High casualties, weakened industry, ruined cities, and starvation. It was only a matter of time until Lunarium, having already conquered a whole island, would accomplish what two other clans had failed to.

However, thanks to an agreement between Lunarium and Free Wolves, Isen had avoided destruction. The agreement had spared four million citizens. However, this was only a temporary respite, as the war eventually found its way to Isen, and it did not care to arrive all too gently.

What had once been taverns and restaurants, places where wolves, werewolves, and wolf-ponies alike gathered to drink, eat, and listen to music, were now nothing more than splinters, torn to pieces by thousands of bombs and artillery shells. The glass walls, which once reflected the rays of the sun, now glimmered with the dancing lights of the fires that were raging all over the city. Songs that once resonated throughout the city had been silenced by the whistles of bombs and deafening explosions.

Areas once calmy traversed my thousands on a daily basis were now riddled with traps and mines, just waiting for any unaware scavenger. Beaches once pristine and best described as paradise suffered a similar fate to the city, with hundreds of craters from artillery pot-marking the sand, while dozens of ships lay beached and bleeding tons of oil into the ocean, turning the surface a chromatic black.

However, the thing to suffer the worst fate was the air. The putrid scent of decaying or burnt corpses and low hanging smoke choked the air, turning every breath into an insufferable necessity. Even gas masks didn’t provide much help, as when one would tread the more toxic sections of the city, the horrid miasma would manage to worm its way past the filters.

The war had changed everything, turning the world into a pile of ashes and dust, marked almost exclusively by blinding pillars of flame. However, the war wasn’t over just yet.

Wake up, darling. Wake up and fight for what is left. Don't let this sacrifice be wasted. Your battle has just begun.

Corporal Tarli woke up with a start on the floor of an empty room, gasping and shooting his eyes open to take in his surroundings.

“What the fuck was that voice? What’s happened? Where am I?” Each of these questions reverberated off the walls as the wolf-pony nervously began looking around. To his left, a small window allowed the flickering lights of large raging fires to leak in. From his position, Tarli could see dark, oppressive clouds that seemed to completely consume everything in the skies through the window, only reflecting the light from the source of their production. A moment later, when he looked down his torso, he noticed that half of his body was pinned beneath a heap of rubble. He tried to move in an effort to get free, but the weight of the stones was too much.

“It’s Tarli. Bravo 1-1. Come in, over,” he said into his headphone, trying to call out his squad, but only the sound of static greeted him. “It’s Tarli. Bravo 1-1, come in, over,” he repeated, less confident as flashes of memories began to come back. To begin, it was only single images. He could remember that he was standing on the roof, waiting for an evac chopper, but in a blink of an eye, a sudden fireball ripped off its tail, causing the machine to start flat spinning in his direction.

“Run!” Somebody’s scream kept echoing in his mind, though Tarli couldn’t remember to whom the voice belonged.

“Tarli, Bravo 1-1, come in. I’m trapped in a building in the exfil zone. I need help, over,” he said as another fragment of his memory resurfaced.

A sudden explosion followed by the sound of a crumbling building. The roof where he was standing unexpectedly collapsed, sending him into darkness. Tarli looked up, and it seemed that his mind was right. Through the hole above him, he could see dark clouds slowly drifting.

“Imma try on group’s channel” he whispered, turning around a small knob on his headphone. As he set up the right frequency, a loud beep came out.

“Corporal Tarli Harlki. E3, Bravo 1, 3rd Assault Group. Come in, over,” he said with hope in his voice, which slowly disappeared with each second of static and harsh noise that followed.

It can’t be true. They couldn’t just die. He thought, trying one more time, but still nothing.

Anybody… answer, please. Just pick up the fucking headphone. He could feel tears slowly appearing in his eyes. The realisation that he was alone in a destroyed city, trapped underneath rubble began to sink its hooks into his mind. His death seemed unavoidable. Either he would starve, or the enemy would find him. In both cases, this crumbled roof seemed to be his grave. Tarli set up a global frequency, reaching all Lunar forces in a ten-kilometre range.

“Corporal Tarli Harlki. E3, Bravo 1, 3rd Assault Group, 203rd Assault Division. Anybody… please come in, o-over,” he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking as he waited for an answer. The seconds of silence seemed to last forever. Tarli laid back onto a pile of rubble behind him and closed his eyes, waiting for death.

Come on. Get your shit together. Maybe your radio just doesn’t work.

“Even so, I’m fucked anyway. I can’t get out from here” he said to himself as he ineffectively moved his legs.

You call that “Trying”? My granny puts more effort into getting out of her bed.

This answer shocked him and made him wonder if he’d just berated himself. He clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, and pushed the rubble again, trying to free his legs just a bit. It worked somehow, as the rock moved, but it was still not enough to escape.

“See? No way,” he grunted as the rubble once again pinned down his limbs.

Are you giving up already? And you call yourself a descendant of Free Wolves, huh? Just a pussy, nothing more

“What did you say, cunt?!” Those words made the wolf-pony pissed. Once again, he pushed the stone on top of him, however, this time, it was way harder than before. Finally, the rubble moved enough to allow him to free his legs. The rubble suddenly shifted as he did this, causing him to remember that his thick, dark-green tail was still under the rock he was pushing on. In a second, he flicked it up so it was between his hind legs, and just in time, as the stone hit the ground again when it slipped from his paws.

“Free at last,” he cheered before pain shot through his entire body like a shockwave, causing him to release a strained groan. “Gimme a second. I need to walk this off,” Tarli slowly slid down a pile of rubble to a concrete floor, careful with where he put his dirty brown paws. When he tried to stand, a wave of incredible pain suddenly shot up his right rear leg, paralysing his body. This pain caused his leg to involuntarily lift up, resulting in the wolf-pony to lose his balance and fall to the ground, loudly growling in pain.

“Not good,” he whispered, checking his leg and releasing a hiss at even the gentlest touch. He tried to move his digits, but they weren’t responding. Tarli was about to pull out a bandage from his med box, but it wasn’t where it should be - on his belt. He looked around the room frantically and noticed a section of his brown belt peeking out from underneath the same pile of rubble where he had been trapped only moments ago.

“Fuck’s sake” he murmured while hopping back over. The box thankfully hadn’t been stuck as bad as he had been thinking. He took the belt into his mouth and pulled, but the med box resisted.

“Damnit! Won’t come out easily?” he asked himself, still holding the belt in his teeth. He placed his left paw on a pile and pulled back as hard as he could. Unfortunately, he used too much of his strength, and when the med box broke free, it whipped back and slammed into his nose, sending him to the ground again.

“Cunt!” he hissed, looking at the white box with a green cross painted on it while massaging his nose. The med box thankfully wasn’t all that damaged. At least, it looked better than its owner. Tarli opened the box after the pain in his muzzle subsided and pulled out a small elastic bandage.

“Ain’t much, but it’s better than nothing,” he said, carefully bandaging his damaged leg. “So, what now?” He went closer to the window and started looking for any landmark that would help him determine his location, but everything had changed since the last time he saw the city. He snorted in annoyance, finding nothing helpful.

I recommend finding your squad. He hissed with pain as the voice caused him to stand up instantly, forgetting about his wounded leg.

“That’s an idea” he nodded, limping towards a broken doorway. “Maybe we’ll at least find their bodies, and a working radio”. Once he entered a tight corridor, the black, toxic cloud mercilessly began stinging his eyes. The soot in the air burned his lungs and forced him into a fit of coughing as he tried to locate a staircase. But the only things he could make out through his blurred vision were the outlines of rubble and the burned remains of furniture.

Not too long after he started this search, he spotted a huge stream of black smoke emanating from an open doorway a few meters to his left.

“Got ya,” he said, crouching down and beginning to crawl towards it underneath the shifting black ceiling of toxic smog, doing his best to breathe as shallowly as possible.

“Oh shit,” Tarli whispered when he reached his destination, only to notice the staircase’s poor condition. The entire flight of stairs was gone, save for three platform-like pieces that were somehow still attached to the sides. The wolf-pony peeked out and stared at the bottom, instantly regretting his decision. All he could see there was a lake of fire and dozens of mangled rebars protruding from the floor like spikes.

“No other option I guess,” he said, backing off. With only three legs in decent condition, even the smallest jump would be a challenge, if not impossible. Though, it was his only option if he wanted to survive. Otherwise, he would slowly suffocate from either carbon dioxide or monoxide poisoning. That was if the building didn’t just collapse before then.

“Here goes nothing” Tarli ran as fast as he could and jumped as soon as he reached the door frame. After he passed the threshold, he made the mistake of looking down at the lake of fire, causing his body to lock up from the realisation of how close to death he was. Being on solid ground and seeing a deathtrap down the staircase felt nothing like being in the air right above it. The landing caught him unprepared, making the wolf-pony squealed as he hit the floor with his damaged leg. Tears appeared in his eyes, and Tarli curled up as a really strong wave of pain enveloped his body.

“Fuck!” he screamed as loud as he could. He needed a few minutes before he was able to stand up again, and this time, his fight for balance was even harder. Tarli carefully peeked out over the edge of the landing to try and figure out what to do next. As he looked down, his face went pale when he noticed that there were still two more jumps ahead of him that looked just as bad. The fire below him seemed to be glowing even brighter, appearing as an open stove burner with spikes.

“Guess I didn’t think this through,” he whispered, gathering his strength for another jump. He looked at the third platform which seemed to be almost impossible to reach, as the gap between the one he was about to jump to and it was several metres wide.

That’s gonna be tough, Tarli thought as he looked at the fire again, which only seemed to be getting bigger. The stairway was slowly filling up with smoke, which was becoming denser with each passing minute.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” He said, trying to cheer himself up as he pressed his body against the wall to make as much room as possible before then snorting, “At least I’ll die trying.”

Fighting with the pain coursing through his whole body, he sprinted to the edge and jumped. The landing once again wasn’t soft, and he hit the platform with his broken leg. The pain instantly sent the wolf-pony to the ground screaming and hissing.

“I wonder where my squad is.” Tarli tried to distract himself in order to ease the pain, but it didn’t work. No matter what, the leg wasn’t going to make this journey any easier. “As soon as I reach the street, I’m going to head to the town hall. Lunars should still be there.” For some reason, this thought gave him quite the surge of hope and strength, which quickly faded as soon as he looked at the impossible obstacle he had seen when he had first looked down from the doorway.

“Long jump. With fucked leg…” he murmured, picturing himself as he fell into the inferno. He could feel the rebar stab into his body like spears. If the temperature wouldn’t kill him, those metal rods surely would. The wolf-pony shook his head, trying to dismiss those thoughts as he stood up. Taking a deep breath, which he instantly regretted as it caused him to begin choking, he made as much room as possible on what little he had and tried to calculate a jump.

“I just hope the fall ain’t gonna hurt,” he said before running as fast as he could. Once in the air, a spark of doubt that he wouldn’t make it crossed his mind.

Tarli threw his paws forward, hoping to catch the edge of the last landing. When his right paw barely missed, the visage of his imminent death appeared in his mind once again. He could feel the heat of the fire at the bottom of the shaft. Then, his left paw managed to catch the edge. He grabbed onto it as hard as he could and quickly threw his second paw up and started to fight for a grip, but his claws were slipping.

“Luna, if you are somewhere up there, please, don’t let me die. Not like this,” he started to pray, and apparently, it worked, because his claw caught a small protrusion on the floor, stopping his fall. He roared as he redirected all his strength into pulling himself up. When he was halfway to safety, he screamed again and pushed his body to its limits.

“I need to… rest,” he murmured, breathing heavily as he threw himself as far away from the edge as possible. The smoke was slowly filling his lungs, but he had no power left to even cough it out.

Fall asleep here and the carbon’s gonna finish you off.

He heard the voice in his head again and cursed him, but he was right. Tarli stood up and jumped over a small gap between himself and the exit. Even if it was a really small jump, he landed on the ground like a brick. He just couldn’t keep his balance anymore. At the end of the corridor, he could see a bright light piercing through a dense layer of smoke.

Come on, mate. No time to rest. The voice tried to rush Tarli. He groaned and started to crawl towards the light, fighting with grogginess, but suddenly, the world in front of him began to spin.

Carbon. You need to keep going! The voice kept shouting at him. He was close. Just a few meters separated him from freedom, and then darkness came.

Tarli! He heard just before he lost consciousness.

_____________________________________________

The chill of the stone street caused Tarli to wake up. He instantly looked around in panic and confusion, only to notice that he was surrounded by soldiers seemingly frozen in time. The whole area was strewn with fireballs. The air was swarming with countless bullets, many of which were glowing like fireflies, while others looked to have recently hit a soldier’s head and turned it into a bloody mist.

As Tarli was taking in his surroundings, he noticed a small barricade that had been torn apart by a huge explosion. Through a storm of broken wooden planks, rubble, and dust, the wolf-pony could see that several unlucky soldiers had been turned into living pincushions by the resulting shrapnel before being thrown into the air.

Tarli stood up, seeing only more carnage and an APC. The huge, six-wheeled armoured vehicle had apparently been slowly rolling up the street. From this side, it seemed to be fine, but when Tarli moved closer, avoiding more mangled bodies stuck in time, he spotted a rather big, red fireball on its right side. An anti-tank grenade seemed to have found a weak spot in the vehicle’s protection, launching its melted metal into the assault compartment and slightly pushing the armoured carrier to its left, as the APC’s small turret shot at something hiding between buildings, sending its twelve-point-seven millimetre bullets into the shadow.

Tarli came closer and slightly touched its massive body. His paw was greeted by the freezing cold steel and the feeling that his senses had been struck by what he could only describe as engine vibrations, even though the world was in stasis.

As Tarli passed the APC, he quickly noticed another massive vehicle. It was the huge, unmistakable shape of a Janara main battle tank. Lunarium’s finest piece of machinery, and the backbone of their armoured formations. It was leading the assault and slightly angling its body in order to give the infantry as much cover as possible. Tarli could read a motto First to fight on its armour skirt. Those tanks were indeed the first ones to engage the enemies, attracting thousands of bullets, but only showing slightly scratched paint from such assaults. The Janara was standing strong, sending dots into the shadows from both his coaxial light machine gun and heavy machine gun on top of its turret.

Tarli slowly looked up as a Lunar flag mounted on the wall above him caught his attention. It was the only other object that wasn’t frozen in place, as an unnoticeably gentle wind was slowly blowing against it and causing it to wave. The four-pointed star on it was shining with a silver light, though it was slowly fading like a candle at the end of its life in a dark room. The flag seemed to be getting closer to the wolf-pony though, despite the fact neither seemed to be moving. He could feel a strange power coming from the star, one which was slowly being snuffed out.

Soon after, the star turned black, and the edge of the flag began to burn, converting the material into ashes and smoke in a matter of seconds, ash and smoke which commenced surrounding the wolf-pony and obfuscating his sight. The haze slowly disappeared after this, revealing that he was now encircled by a wall of flames. Tarli began looking around, trying to find a way to escape the death trap he now found himself in, but the fire encompassed him on all sides and was only getting closer by the second. He ran towards the red wall, thinking about jumping over the flames, but came to a stop soon after when he realised that he likely wouldn’t be able to clear the flames without getting burned.

Several minutes desperately searching for an exit followed, only for the first tongues of flame to gently touch his white-stained right, rear leg. He jumped at this development and began to hit his leg against the ground in order to extinguish the fire, but it had no effect, the fire simply continued to quickly spread up over his body. He felt an incredible pain when the heat reached his head, only to then dull his senses. Tarli tried to scream, but as soon as his mouth opened, the fire jumped inside, burning his tongue, and going down his gullet to sear his vocal cords.

In a split second, the fire had reached the lungs and engulfed his guts. He felt to the ground, twitching and shaking in agony, before losing consciousness once again.

“You all will burn alive” he heard a deep, harsh voice intone. A moment later, Tarli couldn’t feel or hear anything at all.

______________________________

A sudden cough dragged Tarli out of his dream. A large amount of black liquid was erupting from his mouth as his body desperately tried to expel the soot from his lungs. The rapid contractions weren’t permitting him to even look around, not to mention stand up. With a heavy breath, at last, he managed to crawl out of the smoke-filled building. The soft wind gently touching his dark-green mane upon his successful withdrawal. The breeze may not have been as clean as it had been months ago, but it was better than what was inside.

He managed to crawl across the street, fighting with his need to cough the entire time, before finally reaching a brick wall. As he forced himself into a sitting position to lean back against it, he took in his surroundings. All around him lay the ashes and burnt bodies of citizens and soldiers. Everyone was stuck in a single position, appearing as nothing more than fragile mannequins, ones which would turn to dust upon the lightest touch. It looked as if somebody had tried to reconstruct the city using only small dolls found in a fire. Some wolves were stuck in running positions, some seemed to be trying to take cover when the flames got them. But some looked to have been caught unprepared. Tarli noticed a wolf sitting next to a burnt table with a burnt cup and the black remains of a phone still in his paws. These statues looked exactly like those he had seen in his dream.

Tarli looked up and noticed the yawning black holes of missing windows on almost every building, most of which were partly collapsed and spewing flames from their interiors. This street used to be filled with the colour of Sea Rock, but now everything had been turned grey and black.

“Fuck me…” Tarli tiredly began summarising everything he had experienced so far, wincing the entire time as his leg began to hurt again. He’d woken up in a burning building just a few minutes ago already exhausted. He just wanted to fall asleep and never wake up, avoid this whole journey through hell. After all, he was dead anyway. It was just a matter of time. He couldn’t run nor sneak around with a broken leg, so if he met an enemy on his way, he’d be doomed. Not like he would have an idea of where to go anyway. His squad was missing and HQ wasn’t responding. High chance his radio was busted, so he couldn’t count on any help. He was swearing at himself for not taking a map with him, but on the other hand, he knew they wouldn’t give it. It was reserved only for squad leaders, which he wasn’t.

Giving up already? The voice had returned, which only made Tarli mad.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” He screamed with tears in his eyes. “My leg is broken, I dunno where my squadmates are, I dunno where to go nor where I am. If Lizard pushed us out of the city, I am as good as dead, cause I’m guessing all the evac-zones have been compromised.” He angrily yelled all this between coughing out what remaining soot his lungs still had left.

Townhall? Maybe they’re still there?

“No way. It’s right in the middle of town. Ain’t gonna make it with a broken leg.” He paused for a second, looking at his bandaged paw. “Anyway, I don’t even know the way. Everything seems so different now,” he added sadly, looking for any street nameplates, but finding none, not a single legible one. All of them were broken or covered with black soot.

Okay. Listen. Maybe we should start by splinting your leg. You won’t get anywhere like this.

The wolf-pony nodded. “That’s something.” He began looking around himself for anything that he could use for that. Fortunately, he was surrounded by planks and metal pipes. He eventually found two metal rods that matched the lengths he needed. He quickly started bandaging them to his leg as tight as possible, trying to hold back tears due to the pain each touch brought with it. After that, he inspected his work. Ain’t perfect but will do the job.

“Alright. At least we’ve dealt with that bullshit,” he whispered, looking around one more time. Nothing caught his attention, so he pulled himself up onto his three still working legs. For a second, the world spun in front of his eyes, making him fight for his balance.

“I guess I’ve got some kind of poisoning,” he said, slowly walking down the street, hoping to find anybody not willing to kill him. After a few meters, he felt like something heavy had been attached to his legs and the world began to spin around, making him sick. Suddenly, in the corner of his eye, he noticed movement in a window to his right. Right where he had been lying.

“Contact. Right, parter” he whispered, quickly hiding behind a pile of rubble. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or if it really was somebody sneaking around. He sat in his cover, staring at the window for quite a while, waiting for any further movement. When he was about to stand up and keep going, a strange shadow flashed in the building again. Tarli wasn’t sure what it was though. All he could see was a four-legged creature. With wings? Am I crazy?

“Are you kidding me,” he whispered, trying to remember what wolf species had wings. As quickly and quietly as possible, he moved to the window, trying to sneak a peek through it. All he saw though was an empty room with a broken table in the middle and a pile of rubble to the left.

Winged or not, it surely isn’t a Lizard. They move on two legs. He changed his position to the next window. Suddenly, he heard steps in the nearby shadows.

“Got ya!” he yelled, jumping through a window, but nothing was there. He now noticed the remains of a huge wardrobe next to the pile of rubble. He stood there for a second, waiting, but nobody was coming. He was about to give up and get back on the street when he heard a silent noise from underneath the rubble. There was a small hole in it, and fresh tracks visible in front of it. He carefully came closer, preparing himself for a trap.

“Anybody in there?” he asked, doubtfully peeking inside the small cave, but all he could see was darkness. He put his nose deeper into the hole. “Are you….?” He broke off when something suddenly punched his nose, making him sit down on the burnt wooden floor.

“Oof! I am on your side!” he yelled with a combination of fear, anger, and surprise.

“Who are you?” He heard a female voice coming out from the hole.

“Could you come out? I’d like to see who I’m talking to,” He ignored the question, massaging his slightly bleeding nose. Whoever was there, they surely knew how to punch.

“Say who are you first,” the answer came out, and Tarli rolled his eyes.

“Corporal Tarli Harlki. E3, Bravo 1, 3rd Assault Group, 203rd Assault Division” he said impatiently before waiting for a response. For a short time, nothing happened, and Tarli was about to peek inside again. Suddenly, somebody started to move under the pile. A few moments later, a strange, bright-yellow nose peeked out, covered by a long, sky-blue mane.

“Holy… a pony?” Tarli yelled happily as the creature slowly came out, looking at him with its bright-green eyes. He never would’ve expected anything like this here. As she continued to emerge, the wings on her sides became visible. This was what Tarli had seen earlier.

“Pegasus, to be more precise,” She said, sitting in front of Tarli, looking to the ground in shame.

Author's Note

Here is Tarli's art ^^