Enjoy Your Stay: Blood and Sand

Far, far away from Equestria, in a world of dust and monsters, seven humanoid creatures laid prone in a small clearing. Though the wind gently whirled above them, the air in the shallow crater lingered with an unnatural stillness. The sun set gently to the West, shining harsh light and oppressive heat across the desert. Long, deep shadows loomed over the land, cast by great mountains, thin trees, and… other things.

First Response clutched her head as she gently sat up, wincing as a throbbing pain pulsed through her skull. She brushed the dirt out of her eyes and gently twisted her body this way and that. Her body cracked and popped from the slow movements, as if she had been lying still for days. She cleared the invading sand from her eyes with a gentle burst of magic; a cleaning cantrip that all unicorns in the medical corps were taught to remove foreign contaminants from wounds. She noted that it took slightly longer to cast than it usually did, and left a gentle burning in her eyes upon dissipating. Given the circumstances, it was likely nothing to worry about.

First blinked, ensuring her eyes were clear and undamaged, and cast her eyes around her to find the others. It didn’t take long: they seem to have fallen in the same formation as onstage in Salt Lick. Princess Luna stood unsteadily in the center, realigning the primaries on a wing she seemed to have fallen on. The triplets, lying to her left, were stacked on top of each other like sleeping puppies. Barrel, the only sibling to regain consciousness, was futility trying to squirm out from beneath his brother and sister. It was almost comical. A bitter, cruel sort of comedy.

The pegasus, Swift Wind if she remembered correctly, was still unconscious a few feet to her right. The thestral stood steadily on his feet behind Princess Luna; he must have woken up first. His slitted, yellow eyes were wide as dinner plates, staring up and across the horizon. Swift’s eyes drifted past him and locked onto the view, and suddenly she understood his shock.

The city they had seen through the portal at Salt Lick had been opulent and imperial. Great skyscrapers rivalling the tallest buildings in Manehattan lined the sky amid smaller, but no less impressive structures. Elevated train lines zig-zagged through the city carrying sleek, round train cars at lightning speed. Bright green trees framed the buildings throughout the skyline, blending industry and nature in perfect harmony. And all in the foreground of a beautiful, snow-dappled mountain range reaching even higher than the awesome towers.

The mountains were still there. Everything else wasn’t.

Instead of great skyscrapers, massive piles of stone and brick dominated the earth. Warped metal girders stuck out of the ground, hanging limply like the skeletons of ponies dead from thirst. Dry patches of brown, sickly grass were the only signs of life amid the horrible, wounded landscape.

First stood there, horrified and captivated by the pure, almost beautiful devastation that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions; Miles of dirt and sand and devastation, with no reprieve in sight. There were no signs of a battle. No rampaging beast, or pillaging army, or powerful magics. Everything seemed to have been… vaporized, all in a single instant.

“Um… your Highness?” Barrel choked from the bottom of the dogpile, “I think we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere…”

Five minutes later, everypony had regained consciousness and recovered from the rocky arrival into this new world. Ten minutes after that, everypony had calmed down from their initial panic at seeing their surroundings.

“Alright,” Stock-and-Key said, taking a long drag from her canteen, “I think I speak for everypony when I ask, What the Hay?”

“Something went wrong,” Swift Wind muttered, clipped and quiet as she scanned the horizon around them.

“NO.” Stock clapped her hands against her cheeks, faux-shocked. “That’s Amazing! Way to piece that together, Fetlock Hooves, none of us would’ve ever figured that out!” Lock-and-Key gently rubbed Stock’s neck, murmuring quiet platitudes to calm down. Stock waved him off, but fell silent regardless.

“Specialist,” Princess Luna sternly reprimanded, “Your sarcasm is not called for, nor is it appreciated. Now is not the time to begin turning on each other like a band of common highwayponies.

“Now, is everypony uninjured?” The custodians nodded hesitantly. “Good. Now, we should begin searching for civilization.”

First blinked in surprise. Night Sentinel, that was his name, interjected, “Civilization? Your highness, look around you. Everything is destroyed; there’s no civilization anywhere here.”

“That mountain range is identical to the one we observed from the Equestrian side of the gate.” Princess Luna pointed to said mountain range, and she was correct: it was unmistakably the same mountain range. “That means the metropolis we saw in the foreground of those mountains was real: Not even the most meticulous illusionist would take the time to fashion mountains so exact to the ones on this end of the gate; not when it would hold no bearing on the credibility of the trap. With that in mind, there are two alternatives: Either the portal deposited us in an alternate, parallel dimension to the one we saw, or it deposited us into a different era in time.”

“... Alright,” Night eventually responded, “That makes a bit of sense, but I still don’t see how that leads us to ‘other civilization’.”

“No city gets as large as the one we observed without external communities,” Princess Luna explained. “To grow to such a size a community needs a large population; gathered through immigrants from surrounding communities. Those inhabitants require food; gathered from surrounding farms and agricultural communities. They need housing and workspace; raw material must be imported from external deposits: Wood, stone, iron, marble. More communities need to exist around those raw material deposits to export them to the city.

“Cities cannot exist in a vacuum. It always needs imports and proximate support. Otherwise, it is unsustainable.”

First realized where the Princess was leading, “So the odds are good that some of those communities survived whatever destroyed this city!”

Princess Luna nodded, “Precisely. Those communities, wherever they may be, are our best chance to survive this ordeal. But first, we will need to survey our surroundings. Wind, Sentinel, you will accompany me to the skies. The rest of you, take inventory of our supplies. We may need to shed any equipment that does not aid our flight from this place.” Luna unfurled her wings, kicked off of the ground with a single, powerful flap, and ascended about two feet before plummeting like a stone.

Princess Luna twisted midair in surprise, just barely managing to keep herself upright as she landed heavily on the ground. Swift Wind rushed to her side, “Your Highness! Are you alright? What happened?”

The princess waved her off, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” She looked up into the sky, eyes tracing the air currents as they swept dust and debris through the sky. Luna muttered, “I wonder...” and took flight again, more carefully this time. She made steady progress with a gentle ascent, and turned downward to the custodians once she reached a sufficient height, “Sentinel, Wind, be sure you do not make any abrupt movements while airborne! There is something off about this world; I suspect the ambient thaumaturgic field is very different from Equestria’s!” Princess Luna turned back and resumed her ascent. Swift Wind promptly took flight to follow the princess, but Night stayed aground, looking up at the pegasus and alicorn curiously. After a moment, he glanced at the other custodians,

“D’ya notice how those two seem a bit closer than they ought to?”

First had noticed, but felt it inappropriate to mention out loud. Lock replied coolly, “Whether they are or not, it’s of no concern to us, is it?”

Night stared out into space, unmoving. “...No, I suppose it isn’t. Je ne.” Night’s leathery wings flared out and sent him skywards, bearing in the opposite direction Princess Luna and Swift were flying.

The four remaining ground-bound custodians squirmed in the awkward silence that descended on the clearing. After several long seconds, Barrel shot up a hand and cried, “Dibs on weapons checking!” His siblings groaned, and First felt a chuckle float past her lips. Maybe we’ll get through this after all.

Ten minutes later, First Response shifted on the coarse gravel beneath her feet, trying to find a comfortable position as she tallied up their rations and medical supplies. A magical scan of their foodstuffs had sputtered out and given her a headache in the meantime, so she had resorted to sifting through all the bags by hand and putting them into piles of ‘necessities’; ‘debatable’; and ‘dead weight’.

Most of the dead weight was luxury foods and spices, brought over to exchange with the aliens when they made contact. A gaggle of small jars filled with Appleoosan jellies and jams; A mix of herbs and spices prepared by a famous chef in Manehattan; Seaweed harvested off the coast of Baltimare. All of this was cast aside. No space could afford to be afforded to diplomatic gestures that they may not live to conduct in the first place. The debatables were made up twofold: foodstuffs and provisions that had been damaged during their arrival, and luxury items that were nevertheless light and calorie-dense enough to consider retaining.

First was currently examining a case of the former: A cloth bag of seeds and nuts harvested from the Cervidian Empire. Normally it would have easily stayed: deer were renowned for their uncanny ability to imbue extranatural power into their foodstuffs. Not to mention that they would provide a convenient, non-cumbersome source of protein and nutrients. But the bag had been torn when they arrived. A small gash, but enough to form a hole large enough for the tiny morsels to easily spill out.

First gently placed the bag tear-side up in the ‘debatable’ pile. She reached for a canteen when she felt a poke in her side, followed by,

“So how’s it looking?”

First glanced over her shoulder and saw Barrel-and-Key, fixing her with curious, almost childlike eyes. “It could be worse,” First winced as she stretched over to a bag of gauze and checked it for contaminants, “We brought about a week's worth of food for the expedition: we anticipated that the alien’s foodstuffs weren’t fit for pony consumption. Dried grains, dried grasses, with a few bags of nuts and seeds here and there. Most of it looks undamaged, so we should be able to stretch this to two weeks if we really need to.

“More concerning is our water supply. We’ve only got enough to last us three days, at most. That’ll probably be our top priority once we find shelter.” First glanced at Barrel, who was staring vacantly in the distance; he had clearly zoned out. She shook her head in disbelief. How can someone with an attention span that short get into the guard at all, much less get assigned to a Princess?

First gave the gauze in her hands a final onceover, deemed it clean enough for use and tossed it in the ‘necessities’ pile. “How about our weapons?” she asked.

Barrel snapped back to attention. “Right! So, we’ve got six spears, each with a stunning spell that should safely immobilize any living thing that touches the tip. Twenty bolts for the crossbow, a sword, and about thirty of our bang sticks.”

First raised an eyebrow. “‘Bang sticks’?”

He sighed, “Look, we know it’s stupid. But we needed to name them something, and the only other ideas we came up with were ‘poppers’ and ‘nutcrackers’. Give us a break.”

First huffed a laugh and picked up one of the aforementioned ‘bang sticks’ and scanned it curiously. “So how exactly do these things work? Does it catalyst some homebrew firework cantrip or something?”

“Ha!” Barrel guffawed, “As if! This stuff is absolutely, 100% magic-free. Not a speck of hornspark or anything in these!”

First gaped. “Shut the front door. How the hay do these things work without magic?”

“I’m so glad you asked.” Barrel leaned forward excitedly and pulled out a small pouch from his belt, “So, the powder itself is made up of three components, charcoal, sulf-”

“Hey Bare! ”He was cut off by a low shout from his sister, Stock. “Ya finished inspecting our arms yet?”

Barrel shouted back, “No, checking for injuries is more miss Response’s job! Our weapons are doing just fine though!” First laughed despite herself at the atrocious pun.

Stock shook her head; this was clearly par for the course for her baby brother. “Just quit geekin’ at the medic and get over here! Lock needs help buffing out a dent in his chestplate!”

Barrel sighed, “Aw, horseapples. Well, I gotta go take care of that. But hey, I’ll explain it to you later, I promise!”

First nodded, “I’ll hold you to that.” She watched quietly as Barrel stood up and walked to his siblings before calling out, “Hey, Barrel!” Barrel turned curiously. “‘Hornspark’?”

He grinned, “Baltimare slang! S’what all the sailors back home call unicorn magic!”

First smiled gently. Her eyes lingered on the young earth pony as he squatted down beside his siblings and fussed over a dented breastplate. Perhaps she had judged him too soon; underneath that childlike attitude and attention deficit there was a genuine enthusiasm for his work, and likely a mastery to go with it. She wondered how much there was to him beneath the surface. She wondered how much there was to all of her coworkers.

Group bonding can wait, though. Need to focus on the highest priority. And at that moment, First’s highest priority was checking the dandelion stems for rot. It was tedious, but there were worse things.

Soon, Princess Luna touched down in the clearing with a heavy thud. She looked a bit winded, and was carrying a long roll of parchment in her hand. Scant moments later, Night and Swift touched down as well. After the state of their provisions was relayed, Princess Luna unfurled the parchment to reveal a rough map. “Normally I would be able to generate better cartography than this; the spell threatened to burn itself out when I tried to add greater detail to the image. But this will suffice for now. Do any of you have something to dictate with?”

Barrel hopped up and began rummaging through the sack hanging from his belt. After a few moments he produced a chunk of charcoal, which his brother promptly shaved to a point and handed to the Princess.

“Thank you,” she said, “I cannot provide any specific pathway or exit: only landmarks,” Princess Luna levitated the charcoal and dragged it against the parchment. “Most of the skyscrapers we saw on the other side have been leveled completely, and those that haven’t have been reduced to melted skeletons. Those are mostly around the borders of the ruins.” She quickly marked their approximate locations on the map. “We may be able to use these to help navigate our absconding.

“Proceeding, there is a large lake to the Northwest of the ruins, which could prove to mitigate our water supply issues, at least for the time being. It is a long ways away; we should consider carefully before we make any expeditions in that direction.

“Speaking of, Warrant Officer Swift, what do you have to report?”

Swift Wind straightened, slipping into old, hard-wired conditioning when the Princess called her by rank. “Yes, your highness!" She gestured to the top-right of the map, "First and foremost: we're definitely in a desert. There's nothing but sand and bushes to the North as far as the eye can see. Considering how temperate it is currently and how the sun hasn't set yet, it's likely safe to assume there will be very cold nights and very hot days. The ruins extend about twelve miles to the East, ending just at the base of the mountain. There are no visible signs of habitation anywhere inside the ruins or on the mountains. However, to the North is a large, well-maintained road leading out of the ruins."

Stock clocked an eyebrow skeptically, "What exactly do you mean when you say 'maintained'?"

"I mean that it was completely intact. Pristine asphalt pavement, markings to indicate lanes of traffic, even regular lighting posts. It wouldn't look out of place on the streets of Manehattan."

Luna hummed curiously, “Well, that removes any doubt: there is definitely some form of civilization in this realm. And if they have the power to light the roads that are not close to any habitation, they must be prosperous indeed.” She pointed to the map, at the point where the ruins ended and the desert began. “And the road just ended? Why would anyone bother maintaining a road that leads to a place like this?”

Swift answered, “The road continued into a small, concrete building. The shutters were rusted shut and there were no other entrances.”

“Well then, it is a mystery that must rest unsolved for the time being. Do you have anything else to report, Warrant Officer?” Swift shook her head negative, and Luna nodded. “Very well. Good work.” Luna turned to her right and addressed the thestral, “Master Sergeant Sentinel, what have you to report?”

“Hm?” Night grunted as he looked up from the map, “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking… nah, it’s irrelevant. Anyways-”

First balked, dimly aware of her mouth falling open in shock. To address a superior officer with such disregard and blasé was one thing, but addressing a Princess that way was another entirely. The triplets were similarly stunned, and First Response looked ready to tear his throat out. The most surprising reaction, however, was the Princess’s. Or rather, the lack thereof.

“Master Sergeant, any input you can provide is not unwelcome. Please speak freely.”

Night cracked a tiny smile, “Well, the thing is that I saw something very similar to the South. A lit, immaculately maintained road that ended in a squat concrete structure at the edge of the ruins, just like what Miss Wind described. I’ll bet they even look identical if we compared the two.”

First gulped as she watched Swift begin to turn red at being referred to as ‘Miss’. Princess Luna did not address the breach of formality, and rubbed her chin thoughtfully, “You think they may be connected somehow?”

“It makes sense,” Night nodded, “There might be a tunnel running under the city. Or a portal network connecting the two buildings. Or any number of possibilities; We won’t know one way or another unless we get inside.

“Anyways, besides that there’s a few more things.” Night pointed Northwest of the ruins on the map. “That lake you mentioned? Saltwater.”

Princess Luna muttered a few sullen words under her breath. First couldn’t understand the language, but it sounded rather profane. “How saline is it? Low enough to purify?”

Night shook his head emphatically, “It’s gotta be ten times saltier than seawater. I could literally smell it from a mile away. It might as well be brine, to be honest.”

She sighed, magically snatching away the charcoal and crossing off the lake on the map. “Well, let us consider that option null.” She looked up at Night, “Anything else?”

He hummed thoughtfully, tapping his finger against his chin, “No, I don’t think- oh, right! I almost forgot. There’s a motel a few miles down the highway.”

“…”

“What?”

Stock reached over her brother’s head and calmly cuffed Night across the head, making him yelp in pain.

“Ai, abazure! Those ears are sensitive!”

Stock didn’t look remorseful in the slightest. “You little bloodsucker, you couldn’t have started with that?”

The two looked ready to spit venom at each other, but Princess Luna silenced them both with a silent, scathing glance. “Enough. Sergeant, do you mean you saw a lodge?”

Night cast a final glower at Stock before addressing the Princess, “Well, the word on the sign was ‘hostel’, but I suppose you could call it a lodge.”

“How far?”

“South, about ten miles as the pegasus flies. I got a good look at the terrain between there and us: it would probably take us about five or six hours to reach it.”

“Very well, then. It is decided. Sergeant Sentinel, draw us a path through the ruins. The rest of you, adorn and armor yourselves. We have a long hike ahead of us.”

"Sinkhole there," Swift pointed to an innocuous patch of dirt sitting in their path, which in reality concealed a forty-foot drop into a vast cavern. “We’ll have to go over the hill to avoid it.”

“Aw, dangit!” Stock-and-Key groaned, “How many of these pitfalls are we gonna run into before we’re out of this Celestia-forsaken place?”

“Going by the amount of sinkholes we have had to avoid over the past two hours,” Swift Wind commented, “statistically we’re going to run into thirty six more, with a margin of error of about four.”

“Oh, ha ha.” Stock jeered, “Now the ice queen fancies herself a statistician? As if things couldn’t get any worse around here. Maybe you wanna calculate our odds of getting out of this dilapidated wreck without losing all of our- AAGH!” Stock recoiled as Lock calmly plugged his finger up her ear. “Alright alright! I get it, I’ll cut it out already! Jeez, ya little freak.”

Princess Luna backed away from the deceptively unstable patch of gravel, “Calm yourself, Specialist Stock. If Night Sentinel says that this is the only passable route South, then I trust his evaluation. If it means taking a few detours around hazards invisible from the sky, then it is worth the extra effort.”

“Your highness, with all due respect, why are we even making this hike in the first place? We have enough ponies who can fly to carry the rest of us who can’t: Why aren’t we just flying straight South?”

“For the same reason our Moonlamp keeps going out.” As if on cue, the gentle sphere of moonlight hovering above the ponies’ heads sputtered and puffed into nothing. Princess Luna immediately recast the spell as She spoke, “I do not know why or how, but the ambient thaumaturgic field of this world is much less stable than that of Equestria. Any magical exertion beyond the bare minimum granted by our bodies will be unreliable at best and actively dangerous at worst.” The orb rolled into existence between Her hands, and She tossed it skyward where it hung, silently illuminating the path ahead. “Were Lieutenant Response’s talent not specifically suited to plotting a course through such perilous geography as this, or were she unable to successfully cast said spell, I may agree with you regarding the merit of overland flight. But safety is our highest priority, not speed. I would rather spend fifty minutes scaling a promontory than twenty minutes putting one or more of you in a splint after falling four stories into a trench.”

Stock grumbled something about bats and caves before falling in line at the dip between the hills; First assumed it likely wasn’t complimentary. Barrel hopped off the hill and clapped his sister on the back, “Hey cheer up, Stocky! Sure, we might have to go the long way around, but look on the bright side! Now you’ll finally get the chance to work on your thighs!”

Stock met her brother’s beaming smile with a withering glare. “You aren’t as funny as you think you are.”

The surprisingly scathing insult slid off Barrel like water off a duck. “No, I’m not. I’m funnier! Now come on then, forge onward!” Barrel strode forward with a gallant gesture, leaving Stock to shake her head and sigh as she followed.

First Response was beginning to get frustrated with Stock’s abrasive behavior. This journey would be hard enough without infighting. In fairness, she could hardly fault her frustration in this specific instance; After over two hours of trekking through the ruins, it felt like they had traveled less than two miles. The path Night Sentinel drew was long and winding, swerving and zigzagging between hills and around craters, making a roundabout route to the Southern edge of the city. They were lucky that her Special Talent could map out the ground underneath them. Otherwise, they likely would have to poke every step they took with a ten foot pole.

Speaking of Night, he was chuckling to himself under his breath. He likely still held a grudge against Stock for the cuff upside the head. First glanced over her shoulder and asked, “How much longer should we expect until we’re out of here?”

“About three hours. We made good time so far; we’re almost halfway there. But that was the easy part. It’s gonna take us a lot longer to make the next few miles.

“And you’re sure this is the right way?”

“Positive,” he replied, pulling out the map and pointing at the black scrawl that marked their route, “See, those are the huge mounds we just went around, and the patch of rocks to our South is dotted with metal spikes and bars; likely the remains of a skyscraper or two. It’s impossible to navigate safely, given our inexperience with rock climbing. We’ll have to go East and then Southeast to avoid it. Then we move around a few hills South until we come to a passing across this river.”

“Why’d you circle the road after we cross the river?”

“The path after that is almost completely clear. Once we get over that landbridge, it’s smooth sailing to the lodge.”

First nodded and handed the map back, “While I understand your decision to prioritise safety over speed, have you considered that it might be more dangerous to spend longer outside at night?”

“Well, considering we’re being escorted by the Princess of the Night herself, I figured it was a lesser risk.”

She concurred. With Luna herself at their backs, they were unlikely to encounter anything truly dangerous. “Alright then, fair enough. Stallions first.”

Night dipped into a shallow bow with a grin, and heaved up and over her head with a flap of his leathery wings. First scoffed good-naturedly at his showmanship, and trudged behind him as he gracefully bounded up the hill.

As she climbed, she found herself looking behind her at Princess Luna. Her mane and tail seemed to have lost a good amount of their magical energy; the eternal breeze they flowed in dropping to a gentle, sporadic draft. Though She seemed outwardly calm and confident, First couldn’t help but get the feeling that She was in over Her head.

Before she could dwell on the implications of an immortal, nigh-omnipotent demigod being nervous, she bumped headfirst into Night’s loinguard. She rubbed her cheek and began to ask what the holdup was, and then she saw his face.

When she was very young, hardly out of fillyhood, she did volunteer work at a veterinary hospital to help her chances of being accepted into the Stampford Medical Academy at Trottingham. The experience, in addition to giving her a healthy appreciation for leather gloves, had taught her a lot about body language and non-verbal indications of mood and temperament. Specifically, that there were certain queues that were universal indicators of anxiety across all creatures: pointed ears, low stance, wide eyes, small pupils, ruffled fur.

By those metrics, Night Sentinel looked downright terrified.

He slowly turned to glance at her, silently pressing his finger to his lips. First knew from looking at him that he was serious, and signalled the rest of the group to hold up and keep quiet. Once she saw the others kneel down in wait, she asked, “what is it? something up ahead?”

Night nodded, “something, but I can’t figure out what. gonna take another look, try not to breathe too loudly,” He crept silently up the hill, but rather than ascend to peer over the edge he halted just short of it. First noticed small vibrations hitting her horn, all focused from the summit of the hill. Just as quick as she felt them they were gone, and Night crept back to her side and whispered, “alright, it’s got four legs, it’s at least five feet long, doesn’t breathe, and can’t weigh much more than four pounds.”

First blinked. “that’s... really specific. how can you tell all this?”

“same way you can see where the sinkholes are.”

Oh. Sonic pulses. That’s what she felt when he went to ‘go look’. “I thought thestrals couldn’t echolocate.”

“some can. signal Luna, we need to update her on the situation.”

Pushing aside her disbelief that he had the audacity to refer to the Princess by her first name, First twisted around and waved for the Princess to approach them. She did, quietly, and asked, “What is the-”

“Quiet!” Night hissed. First winced and waited for the bolt of divine retribution, but instead Luna complied.

“what is the cause for alarm?”

“there’s something up ahead. not sure what it is or what it’s doing, but it’s right on the other side of this hill.”

“interesting,” Luna replied, humming thoughtfully. “Perhaps it is bait for an ambush?”

“unlikely. I only heard it because of these,” he gently flicked his earlobe, “and bait is supposed to attract attention, not avoid it.”

“there is wisdom in that. do you think we should go around?”

“no, I don’t. this is still the only safe route along the path, unless we want to take our chances with that sinkhole. we should confront it, and either parlay or scare it off.”

“very well. I shall return to the group and await your signal.”

Luna spread her wings and gently floated down the hill. Once First saw her land, she turned back to Night, “what about me?”

Night looked her up and down, appraising her. “You go first. My spear will be more effective from a distance than your sword.”

First saw the logic in his words, and complied. As he gently tip-toed up the hill, lightly flapping his wings to dampen his footfalls, First positioned herself in front and to the right of him. She readied her sword and heard subtle shifting of armor and cloth behind her, indicating that Night had done the same with his spear.

After what felt like hours but was more likely thirty seconds, they stopped just in front of the crest. First glanced back and nodded her head towards the top of the hill. Night understood immediately. He held still for a few seconds save for the imperceptibly minute twitches of his large ears. He relaxed and nodded, confirming that the creature was in fact still on the other side.

First took a deep breath and steeled herself to rise and greet whoever was over there, and stopped suddenly. Whoever was over there would most likely not take kindly to having a sword waved in their face. The thought that whatever was over there might simply attack her on sight was swept away with little consideration. The thought that she hadn’t given her first thought more consideration was also discarded quickly.

She gently flipped her sword in her hand and slid it into its scabbard. Night went bug-eyed and whisper-shouted, “what are you doing?? you’re going to get yourself-”

First silenced him with a sharp look and a finger to her lip. Night gritted his teeth and braced himself to attack. He likely imagined he would have to save her from some unholy monster.

“Hello?” she said as she climbed up the hill, no longer dampening her footsteps. “Is anycreature over there?” She got her answer in the form of quick, shuffling footsteps over the lip of the hill. Whatever it was, it was tapping its feet in place, hopefully in happiness. “My name is Lieutenant First Response. I’m a member of a group of-”

And then it pounced on her.

She didn’t even have time to gasp in shock. All that registered was a blur of earthy browns hurtling towards her, two jagged forelimbs racing downwards to mutilate her torso. Suddenly her legs were knocked out from under her. She fell backwards and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Her breath abandoned her, and she gasped desperately for air while she flailed to find purchase as she slowly slid down the mound of rubble. The sensation of being grabbed around the ankle, and the sight of a skinny, long blur of motion sailing over her body, barely registered as she frantically sucked air into her body.

She heard a scream from the bottom of the hill. Raw, terrified screaming, overpowering the frantic shouts of alarm. A whine of magic and a whistle of air resistance. A skitter of limbs and a flutter of wings. A deep, staccato burst of hissing. The hand on her ankle left, and she felt a gust of wind as something kicked off from her side. Night Sentinel, she realized, had leapt down to help. She heard one spear impact, without the telltale zap of the stunning spell that should have followed. She heard a second spear strike its target, again without the stunning spell. Then, silence.

Well, not total silence. She heard labored breathing, her own and those of her fellow ponies, and the occasional gust of wind in her ears. But relatively silent. Confident she had stuffed enough air in her lungs, she turned over with a groan and forced herself to her knees.

At the bottom of the hill were enough clues to piece the scene together. The creature had lunged at her from the cover of the hilltop, using its wings to curve around the peak. Night had reacted quick enough to knock her legs out from under her, saving her from the lacerations and blood loss that she surely would have suffered had he not been slower. Then the creature, not one to let new circumstances dissuade a fresh kill, maintained its momentum by gliding down the hill and latching onto Lock-and-Key’s torso. Luna grabbed it with her magic (as She was the only one with magic besides Lock and First), and ripped the creature off of him. Her telekinetic toss must have failed mid-swing, as the thing was able to reorient itself mid-flight and land on its legs. Before it could strike again, though, Barrel-and-Key had rushed over and skewered it. But the dullness of the blade, in addition to the failure of the stunning spell to activate, left it alive, thus necessitating Night Sentinel to leap down from on high and finish the job.

The aforementioned creature, by the way, happened to be a brown praying mantis. A brown praying mantis approximately the size of an adolescent Earth Pony.

First let herself fall backwards onto her rump and heaved air into her lungs. She was only idly aware of the state of her fellow custodians; Swift Wind had firmly placed herself in between the mantis and Princess Luna, who was intensely scanning the towering hills for additional threats; Lock was still shaken from his impromptu insect-glomp, and Stock was fussing over his face and arms looking for injuries; Barrel gingerly poked the crumpled pile of chitin and hemolymph with the end of his spear, as if expecting it to spring up and leap at them at any moment; Night Sentinel was leaning heavily on his spear, the sprint-like leap off the hill apparently took a lot out of him.

“Alright,” Barrel finally said, “I think I speak for everypony when I say, What in the apple-bucking heck just happened??”

“Mantid,” Night shuddered, “Brown coloration indicates a hot, arid habitat. Size indicates unnatural, possibly magical enhancement. In summary: Watashitachi wa ōkina kiki ni hin shite imasu.”

“I’m sorry,” Stock stammered, surprisingly earnest, “Could you run that by us again? In ponish, preferably?”

First heaved herself to her feet, “He said ‘we are in grave danger’. And he’s right,” she gingerly made her way down the hill as she spoke. She turned to address the Princess, “Your Highness, mantises are masters of camouflage and ambush hunting. The longer we stay here the more likely we’ll be attacked again.”

Luna nodded, “I concur. We must move posthaste, lest we be accosted again. Specialist, are you alright?”

Lock still looked shook, but he pushed himself off of his sister’s shoulder and nodded, “It didn’t get me. I… I just don’t like bugs, is all.”

After Barrel insisted on giving the corpse a final poke, they began swift ascent up the hill. Luna nestled up beside Swift in front of the other custodians, “Do you know much about mantids?”

Swift nodded, “A little; my little brother kept one as a pet when we were foals. He was so fascinated by them that I learned a bit about them just by being around him. They’re cannibalistic; they eat just about anything they can kill; the female sometimes eats the male during mating, but not always; they-”

“I mean, do you know much about what they are capable of? In terms of hunting?”

“Oh. Sorry, your Highness.” First blushed, “Anyways, it varies from species to species, but mostly they can’t use their wings to fly, only to increase the distance of their leaps. They attack by blending into their surroundings and ambushing their prey; but they’re mostly solitary hunters.”

“So we most likely won’t encounter them in large groups?” Princess Luna asked.

“Yeah, mantises usually steer clear of each other unless it’s mating season,” she and Luna reached the top of the hill, “The odds of us running into more than one at a time are-” She looked away from the Princess and froze, choking on the final word. “-slim.”

Everypony else had halted, suspended in shock and terror. Only Night Sentinel could muster speech. “Ā, Watashi o fakku.”

Blanket. That was the only way Swift could describe it. An endless blanket of giant mantises. It stretched out in every direction she looked, even behind them where there once was clear landscape. The greys and brown-reds of the ruins were completely covered by fluttering wings and scraping chitin.

They crawled out of burrows and dugouts. They scurried over bricks and stones, and each other. And they were all staring.

“...why aren’t they attacking?” Stock squeaked in a terrified whisper.

“They’re waiting.” Swift Wind spoke, and she almost kept the nervous waver out of her voice. “Waiting for us to blink.”

“Custodians,” Princess Luna said, quietly but firmly, “Assume defensive positions. Slowly. No sudden movements. Warrant Officer, keep overwatch with the crossbow. The rest of you are to take up spears and form a loop around me. Do not stray more than six feet away from each other under any circumstances.”

They complied, quickly forming a rough pentagon around The Princess. First’s focus zipped erratically around the landscape. She saw Lock-and-Key, literally shaking in his boots; Entomophobia, most likely. She saw Swift Wind, doing her best to cover every direction with the crossbow without making any sharp movements; Her body was almost pressed up against the Princess. She saw a mantis, about twenty feet away, gnawing at its foreleg with its mandibles.

“Alright,” Luna said, softly, “I believe I have a plan. First, you said that mantises cannot use their wings for sustained flight, correct?” First nodded anxiously, “Then we must risk overland flight to evade them. Swift Wind, Night Sentinel; you each take one pony, I will carry the other-”

A crash of falling rocks echoed across the hills. Barrel jumped back from the edge of the hilltop, a chunk of debris at his feet falling loose and tumbling down the hillside. The rocks slid down the hillside into the ocean of mantises, making them skitter and flutter out of their path. Everypony glared. Barrel could only say;

“Aw, glue.”

And the wave surged forward.

The Princess screamed, “BRACE!!”, and threw up a magic shield around the ponies. First cringed and leveled her spear at the horde. The mass of chitin and hunger impacted the shield with the sound of a thousand sparrows hitting a window at once. They clambered over each other to reach their prey, crawling up the dome and covering the entire surface. Moonlight was blotted out by the mass of insects, leaving only the light of the Princess’s horn to illuminate them.

“Your highness!” Lock yelled over the din, “What now?”

She didn’t respond. First tore her eyes away from the horde and looked back. Princess Luna was straining. Sweat beaded off Her muzzle like a faucet, and the light of Her horn sputtered and sparked like a broken fuse. Her eyes were screwed shut in exertion as she let her head hang forward.

To the left, First heard a wicked sound like tearing metal, followed by Stock shouting, “CONTACT!”

A jagged gash in the dome admitted two mantises from the horde, a third was cut in half by the fissure resealing. They were swiftly struck down by Stock and Night, but another tear opened on the opposite side, allowing four more mantids to slip through.

First rushed and cut one down as Swift Wind swiftly (go figure) struck down the others with three rapid jabs of her spear. Two more tears opened, allowing more in. They were all cut down quickly, but Lock was nearly slashed across the calf before Night halted the mantis with a thrown dagger.

“Princess, we can’t keep this up much longer!” Night shouted as he retrieved his blade. “You got another plan?”

“no”

First nearly tripped over her feet, “Your highness? Did I hear you correctly?”

“No.”

Princess Luna wasn’t speaking to her. She wasn’t speaking to anypony. The word instead… boomed out of her mouth, echoing off of nothing and pushing a cloud of dust away from Luna’s feet.

“Um, your highness?” Barrel stammered. “Is… is something wrong?”

Luna’s head snapped up. Her eyes were wide open now, glowing light blue with raw power, her pupils slitted and ringed with turquoise. Her face twisted into a vicious snarl, and her voice rang out deeper and harsher:

“NO!”

The air pressure shifted. First felt her ears pop. Outside the dome, she heard a violent, bone-chilling CRUNCH. The mantises were being crushed against the shield by an outside force. In seconds, they were all reduced to shards of chitin and splashes of hemolymph as that nauseating CRUNCH went on and on without reprieve.

With a burst of wind as the air repressurised, the dome violently unfolded. So great was the force of the motion that the pulverized corpses of the mantids sailed through the air in all directions, some flying for over a mile before impacting with a meaty THUD.

Princess Luna’s eyes returned to normal, she took two deep breaths, and then she collapsed.

“NO!” Swift Wind cried out, dropping the crossbow as she flew (literally) to the Princess’s side. She ran her hands over Her neck and face. “She’s still alive!” she cried.

More mantises trickled into sight, emerging from all directions. Night screamed, “Then pick her up and RUN!!”

There was no time to ask questions. Swift wind scooped up the Princess and the crossbow as the ponies fled in a dead run. Night took point to lead the way, and First saddled behind him to watch for deadfalls. As more mantids emerged into view, First noticed that most of them were ignoring the ponies in favor of fighting over the remains of their kin. In fact, more than one mantis leaped right over their heads to pick at the smeared corpse of another. Oh right, she thought, they’re cannibals.

Night Sentinel was on the same page, “We need to get out of the open before they stop fighting over each other!” Scant moments after the words left his mouth, another mantis skittered over to the fleeing ponies. Lock quickly struck it down, but other stragglers began to break off from the feeding frenzy and harass them.

As they ran to the base of another hill, First noticed that a burrow was dug into the hillside. She had an idea. “Wait! Follow me!” she shouted as she broke off and ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Overlapping shouts of protest were overridden by Swift shouting, “No, she’s right! Everypony into the hole!”

Despite doubts the others likely harbored, everypony followed suit and dove into the hole behind her. Once everypony was inside, First explained, “If we go through the burrows, we’ll be able to shave hours off the trip.”

Night Sentinel added, “Not to mention it’ll be easier to fend off an ambush in here than topside. Alright,” he pointed to the triplets, “One of you three light a torch and watch the rear. I’ll take point. The rest of you, protect the Princess.”

It took some awkward squeezes to get into position, but urgency kept it brief. They ran down the tunnels like that for at least twenty minutes. Swift and Lock carried the Princess through the tunnels; Barrel watched for movement behind them while Stock kept the crossbow at the ready; Night would use his Special Talent to scan ahead for hidden threats while First used hers to chart their course.

To First’s surprise, it went without much incident. Occasionally Stock would send a bolt flying down the tunnel to pierce a straggler harassing them from behind; every once in a while Night would suddenly leap to the side of the tunnel and skewer a mantis hidden amongst the rocks and burrows. But the giant swarm of insects that covered the ruins topside like grass were nowhere to be found. She figured that they were busy fighting each other over the easy meals Luna had inadvertently provided.

“We’re almost there!” First shouted, “The exit’s right around this bend!”

Sure enough, rounding the corner revealed a beacon of moonlight shining through a hole atop a steep slope. Swift Wind yelled, “Lieutenant! We’ll clear the area before you come up! Take Luna and hang back with the others! Fruit bat, you’re with me!”

First obeyed unthinkingly, taking the Princess’ shoulder opposite from Lock and stopping at the foot of the incline. Night was less compliant, “Um, sorry, ‘fruit bat’?” Swift didn’t respond, instead grabbing him by the gorget and hauling him forwards. With a powerful beat of her wings she soared out of the hole, twisting around on pure instinct and batting aside a pouncing mantis midair.

“They were waiting for us! Get up here before I make you!” Realizing this was no time for debate, he flapped up and helped drive them back. After several tense seconds of fighting, Swift poked her head into the hole and stuck her arm out, “Come on, we’re clear!”

First exchanged looks with the triplets; somehow, they each understood how it would be done. Lock was the first to go up, he grabbed Swift’s hand and was hauled up into the open. Then he reached down, took the Princess’s arms with Swift’s help, and heaved her up to safety.

Barrel shouted from the rear, “I think more are coming!” He patted his sister on the shoulder and tossed the torch down the tunnel before being pulled up. First heard Night call for help out of sight, Swift and Barrel took up arms to aid him. Lock reached down and pulled up First.

“Oh, heck. Heck! They’re coming!” Stock screamed desperately. She blindly fired a bolt down the tunnel before fleeing to the exit, “Lock! Get the sticks!”

He and First pulled her up and out, “How many?” he asked.

“ALL OF THEM!!”

Lock gasped. He rapidly sifted through his rucksack, breathing deeply to fight off panic. Stock helped First pick up the Princess and they took off in a dead sprint. “Any Day Now!” Stock shouted, pleaded. Finally, he pulled out a string of brown sticks attached to a fuse. With a snap of his finger the fuse was lit, he tossed it into the hole before scrambling to catch up.

Barrel was just up ahead in front of a corner. He batted aside one mantis and ran another through as they approached. “Over here! Come on!”

As they fled, half-carrying and half-dragging the Princess as they went, a dull bwoomf went off back the way they came.

Finally Swift and Night came into view, swerving back-to-back as they fought off the neverending trickle of insects. They were both amazing spearfighters, but they were also both visibly exhausted. The insect’s numbers had worn them down through sheer attrition.

Swift glanced their direction, did a double take, and shouted, “Lock! On your six!”

Before First could register the warning, she heard Lock shriek in horror, followed by the heavy thud of armor hitting the ground. Lock was pinned, the mantis savagely slashing at his head and torso as he desperately shielded his muzzle.

First slapped Barrel on the shoulder, “Take Her! I’ve got him, go!” She ran back and drew her sword.

“GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GETITOFFGETITOFF-” First caught the mantis in an underhand slash, neatly cutting its head in half and flinging the body off Lock’s body. She wildly slashed at several more that approached, then glanced down at Lock.

It was bad; a jagged slash went over his eye, and his breastplate had been torn to shreds. She leaned down- “Come on, get up! Get up! We’re almost out, on your feet!” -and grabbed Lock by the hand and heaved him up. He pointed and screamed,

“BEHIND YOU!”

She twisted in place, blindly slashing the air behind her. She caught a mantis mid-leap, cutting it in half. She recoiled as the chunks of chitin hit her, carried by momentum alone. She lost her balance, stumbled for purchase on the ground.

And the ground fell out from under her.

Somepony shouted “NO!” as she fell. One second. Two seconds. Three Seconds. Solid ground reintroduced itself with a sickening crack. The wind in her lungs had abandoned her, leaving her gasping shallowly for air as she slid to a halt.

First heard the sounds of wrestling topside. Night shouted, “Barrel, don’t! There’s no time, we have to go!”

“NO!” he shouted, “We have to save her! She could still be alive!”

“Barrel, we won’t be if we don’t RUN!”

“NO!!”

A third set of armor joined the melee, “Bare, we’ll come back.” She recognized Stock’s voice. “Barrel, LISTEN TO ME! We Will Come Back For Her. But we need to leave Now or we’ll all be mantis food!”

All First could do was listen. Heavy breathing. A defeated “alright. alright.” Three sets of plate armor sprinting away, Southeast. An oncoming wave of skittering legs, scraping against stone, brick, metal, each other; thundering over her, past the hole, for minutes that felt like hours.

Then, silence.

After a long time, long enough that the moonlight shifted to shine on her limp body, First Response began to think. Panic and Logic waged a brutal war in her mind. Panic charged the line with the reality that she was going to die there. Logic counterattacked by demanding that she take full analysis of her injuries before concluding such. Panic ambushed with the knowledge that her family would never understand how she had died. Logic recovered with reassurance that if she could get out of the ruins, the others would eventually come and find her. Panic made a last ditch assault by scoffing that Stock had only said that to get her brother to leave. Logic replied that neither of them knew Stock well enough to say for certain, and given her lack of familiarity with Stock it was practical to assume that she had meant it. And thus, Panic slinked away, giving Logic the victory.

First Response decided that the highest priority was examining the extent of her injuries. Her head was ringing and she felt sick to her stomach: likely a concussion. Dust and debris clogged her throat and tongue, preventing her from taking anything more than shallow breaths. Her ankle was twisted at an awkward angle in her fall. It felt like a sprain rather than a break, but she likely couldn’t put weight on it regardless. She pushed herself to a sit, to see any other damage she couldn’t feel. Except she didn’t. She could move her head up slightly, painfully, but the rest of her body didn’t respond.
skitterskitterskitter
No, scratch that. She could wiggle the fingers on her left hand. That was something, at least.

She could also still feel the rest of her body. That was a good sign. She most likely wasn’t permanently paralysed. She could feel her backplate bent inwards between her shoulder blades; that’s where her spine was damaged. She could feel smaller dents in the plate along her arms and legs, taken from the tumble down the slope. Her helmet was gone, likely scattered off into the darkness beyond what her pale patch of moonlight revealed. Shame, that. She had a family photograph in there. Her, her parents, her little brother, at her graduation from the academy. It would have been nice to see them one last-

Logic noticed Panic’s campaign of sabotage and snuffed it out. She could do this. She would see her family again, no matter what.
Skitterskitterskitter

If she could move her fingers, that meant she could move her arm. She just had to work at it, had to will herself to move her arm again. If she could move her arm, she could drag herself out of this pit. If she could drag herself out of this pit, she could drag herself out of this city. If she could drag herself out of this city, she could find the others and get to safety. All she had to do was wiggle her fingers until-

Hhhhhssssssssssss

Oh No.

First froze. She tentatively glanced towards the sound: to her right, in the dark. She felt herself swallow. Keeping deep, steady breaths, she gently lit her horn.

There had to be at least thirty mantises standing no more than five feet away from her. They were savagely fighting each other, gnawing at each other’s forelegs and torsos. They were so light, she hadn’t heard them over the ringing in her ears. Some of them were on their backs, back legs flailing in the air for purchase. Others were hanging on outcroppings on the ceiling, trying to maneuver for an advantage in their rictus of battle.

But one mantis, either the odd one left without a sparring partner or the first one to best their opponent, approached the light of her horn slowly. Steadily. Hungrily.

And just like that, Panic burst right back into her mind and bashed Logic’s head open with a frying pan. She started to hyperventilate. Frantically shaking her head, First sent herself into a coughing fit trying to shout. A plea for mercy; a command to stay back; a cry for help. She wasn’t entirely sure herself. Anything to get this monster away from her. Anything to save her life. The mantid tensed, flexed its forelegs to strike-

And then something came.

A guitar was unexpected, to say the least. So unexpected that Panic dropped dead on the spot, leaving Confusion alone as it emerged from its hiding spot in the corner. Confidently and skillfully played, the music ambled in from the top of the pit. It was an odd tune to place: not quite chipper enough to be happy, not quite slow enough to be sad. It sat somewhere in between the two.

The menacing mantid sharply recoiled at the first pluck of the string. It spread out its wings and forelegs threateningly, hissing violently at the intruding musician. The other mantises behind it reacted similarly. Those that could stand either threw up their own defensive postures or took off in a dead run.

The music took a sharp drop down to the top of the slope First had tumbled down. The musician made no sound as they landed. Content. That’s what the music was. Content: Satisfied with life and living. Like taking a stroll in the park in Spring, or sitting in a pavilion sipping tea as the bustle of life passed around you.

Those mantises that had stayed to posture defensively flinched back at its descent, and pivoted to flee like their lives depended on it. Even the losing mantid duelists, half-dead as they were, tried their best to shamble away on their functioning legs. The musician descended the slope, still making no footfalls as they went, until they finally stopped at First’s side. She felt a nagging urge to be concerned, but the music put her at ease in a way she hadn’t been in months. Since her family was last together, at her favorite ice cream parlor to celebrate her acceptance into the Medical Corps.

What little remained of Logic muttered that she was likely delirious from the concussion.

With a gentle flourish of notes, the song ended, awakening her from a trance she didn’t realize she was in. First turned her head to look at her savior, wincing from the pain that shot up her neck into her skull.

It was fitting, First mused dazedly, that such a strange rescue would be carried out by an even stranger rescuer. They were tall: she couldn’t tell exactly how tall from her spot on the ground, but they were definitely taller than most ponies. They wore a worn vest that draped down to their feet, which were wrapped in tall black boots with black metal tips and laces halfway up their shins. Under the long, brown, sand-beaten vest, they wore a short, thick, and black vest over a blue button-up shirt rolled up to their elbows and a black pair of cargo pants. Their hands and forearms were wrapped in black fingerless gloves and alien, asymmetrical vambraces respectively, and what little skin she could see from between them was completely hairless, and nearly sheet-white.

First tried to speak, but a pathetic whine was all that came out. Her savior knelt down and set their guitar down beside them. Now she could see their face clearly; they wore a brown, wide-brimmed hat over a sandy blonde mane, and reflective aviator goggles over an angular grey respirator. “Shhh, shhh shhh shhh, it’s alright,” he- definitely a ‘he’ with that voice- soothed, “Don’t stress yourself. You’re messed up enough as it is.”

He looked up and around the cave calmly, “Alright, it looks like we’ve got some time before they get curious again. Can you stand?” First tenderly shook her head. “Alright, that’s no problem.” He reached into the folds of his long vest, and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out a syrette filled with a clear fluid. “This’ll get you on your feet. Hold still.”

First Response barked a laugh, which came out as more of a violent hack. Not like I have a choice, is it? The savior lifted up her gorget and gently brushed aside the fur on her neck. First felt a gentle prick, and then a lingering soreness as the needle withdrew.

Her savior (she had to ask for his name once she could speak again) tossed the used syrette into a small bag and tucked it into his vest. “Alright,” he said, “I’m not gonna lie to you: You being an alien species of indeterminate metabolism and body mass and all, I had to sort of eyeball the dosage on this stuff. You might experience some minor side effects when you wake up.”

‘Side effects’? ‘Wake up’? Wait, what the hay did he just give-