TCB - Zero Hour

Chapter 9

Celestia found herself standing on a hill just outside of Canterlot, the fresh, vibrant Equestrian grass felt wonderful under her hooves. Slowly she bent her head and took a mouthful of the grass; it tasted amazing, after two years of eating only dried hay the sweet, juicy stalks were like ecstasy. The white alicorn closed her eyes, and a small moan escaped her lips as she chewed and swallowed the mouthful.

She was about to bend and take another when a heavy explosion shook the ground and shattered the silence that had prevailed. As Celestia looked about, trying to locate the source of the explosion there was another, then another and another. Boom... Boom... Boom. The sound echoed through the still air, scaring the birds from their perches in the trees with a clattering of wings.

Celestia took to the air, desperate to find the source of the explosions. She didn’t have to travel very far before she came upon a bank of artillery, five pieces in all, and looking around, she could see five more perched on top of a neighboring hill. As she watched the guns opened up again, firing one after another. Boom... Boom... Boom... Boom... Boom. As the last gun fell silent, she tracked the trajectory of the shells as they arced into the sky; and landed in a sort of no-man’s land between two armies. On one side, figures dressed in green camouflage were lying prone behind earthwork defenses, firing at the advancing Royal guard, their bullets bouncing harmlessly off the magical shield surrounding the golden armoured ponies, who were returning fire with arrows, spears and multi-coloured bolts of magic.

As they got closer to the humans the unicorn guards were beginning to show signs of strain, many of them were panting and sweating with the effort required to maintain the shield under the hail of lead. Eventually the shield collapsed and the bullets tore through the earth ponies and unicorns like tissue paper. The guard had realised very early on in the conflict that, against a 5.56mm round traveling at twice the speed of sound, their armour was about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Celestia watched as the order was given for a retreat and the guard began to flee the battlefield, the unicorns still firing multi-coloured spells at the humans as they ran. The whole engagement was over in less than five minutes. Even though the defeated guards were fleeing, the humans did not pursue them. They would not approach the city, this fact made the white alicorn smile; it was a testament to her power.

As the last few ponies disappeared behind the pink coloured shield surrounding the city, the human’s artillery resumed its bombardment.

As Celestia listened to the rhythmic pounding of the human’s guns she became aware of darkness in the corners of her vision. She stared as darkness began to grow, spiralling quickly inwards, and filling her field of vision like a large, black stain. The white alicorn began to hyperventilate as the “stain” covered her body and moved up her neck, she felt as though she was being smothered. As it passed her mouth, she squeezed her eyes shut, wishing it would stop, and then, quite suddenly… it did.

Celestia opened her eyes to bright sunlight, the darkness was gone and in its place was bright green Equestrian grass. She was seated at a small, round table on one of Canterlot Castle’s many patios.

“Are you not going to drink your tea?” The voice snapped Celestia out of her trance.

“Huh”, the white alicon answered, looking in the direction of the voice. Sitting opposite her, with a confused look on her face, was her sister Princess Luna.

“I said, are you not going to drink your tea?” Luna repeated. Celestia looked down to see a delicate china cup filled with golden liquid, almost without thinking she grabbed the cup in her hooves, not bothering to use magic, and drank the contents almost in one gulp.

“Is there more?” Celestia asked almost frantically. As her sister poured her another cup Celestia looked around, the first thing that she noticed was that there was no barrier, just a clear blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds. Then her ears picked up tinkling laughter, Twilight Sparkle, her friends, Shining Armour and Cadence were sat on the sprawling lawn beside a neat flower bed. Judging by the scowl on Shining armour’s face, she guessed that a joke had been made at his expense.

“Are you quite well this day sister?” Luna asked, drawing her attention.

“I’m fine Luna, I just… never mind.” Celestia smiled and closed her eyes. It had been ages since she had been this relaxed, and combined with the warmth of the summer sunshine made her want to fall asleep right then and there. Just as she was starting to dose, however she heard her sister gasp. Opening her eyes Celestia saw her sister wide-eyed and open mouthed, pointing at the sky. As Celestia followed Luna’s hoof, she saw something bright orange streak across the sky, trailing white smoke.

The white alicorn screamed internally, knowing exactly what this “mysterious object”, which by now had been noticed by all, was; but as she opened her mouth to scream externally, the object vanished in a flash so bright it seemed as though the sun itself had materialized above the castle. The ponies on the lawn turned away, shielding their eyes from the flash. The world appeared to slow down as Celestia watched each pony in turn writhe as their flesh was consumed by flames, as the temperature of the air around them skyrocketed.

Celestia finally did scream when she looked down to see that her own white coat was covered with dancing flames, though she screamed not because of any physical pain, but the mere sight of the flames forced a scream from her throat, as a pony who had swallowed a fly may be forced to gag. Celestia was so focused with her own burning flesh that she barely noticed the ear splitting boom; or that her student, Twilight Sparkle, her friends and even her own sister were now nothing more than greyish, carbonised statues.

Then the shockwave shattered her brittle and burned body into a thousand pieces, sending them flying through the air. Through all of this she was awake, staring, screaming…

Celestia woke, gasping for air and drenched in cold sweat. “It was a dream, it was just a dream”, she said to herself trying to calm down. Once she had stopped hyperventilating, she lay down again, but try as she might sleep proved elusive, the images of the nightmare were haunting. Images of what could have been. Of what almost was.

(Bell Reve Internment Camp, Equestria)

Fluttershy slowly opened her eyes, the room she was in was dark, but she could just make out a sliver of silvery moonlight shining through a boarded up window. It took her a moment to realize that there were ponies huddled all around her.

What in the world? She thought, dazed. Where am I?

A jolt rocked the entire room and shook off Fluttershy’s tiredness. She looked around and noticed that there weren’t just ponies in the room, but also buffalo, a lot of buffalo and also a few zebra, most of them were shaking in fear. Some of them were even crying. A putrid stench of stale urine and vomit pierced Fluttershy’s nose causing her to wince.

“Um… excuse me” Fluttershy asked a blue maned stallion standing next to her, “Where are we?”

The stallion looked down at her almost sadly, “We’re on a train”.

Fluttershy could see it now, although all of the furnishings, seats, carpets and curtains had been ripped out, it was still recognisable as a train carriage. OHR had even boarded up the windows to ensure that almost no light made it into the cramped interior.

“Where are we going?”

The stallion knelt down beside her, “I don’t know; I was going to lunch with some of the other guys in my unit when they came for us…”

“Who?” Fluttershy asked.

“OHR, their soldiers burst into the mess and said that we all had to come with them immediately. They told us not to ask questions, and that everything would be explained once we got to the train station… but when we got to the station they just bundled us onto this train and left”.

Another blue maned stallion then piped up, “I’ll tell you where we’re going… to our deaths, that’s where. You think that those buckers are just going to let us go when we reach wherever the hay we’re going!” He shook his head violently, “No man, this is a one way train ride… return ticket not included”. Then the stallion flopped down and started whimpering.

“Ignore him” The stallion smiled, “I’m sure that they’re just taking us to a holding camp, like the United Nations did during the war, besides, why would they go to the trouble of putting us on a train and transporting us hundreds of miles just to kill us”.

Another jolt shook the room, causing several ponies to fall over. Fluttershy hoped that the stallion was right, but she had a horrible feeling that something very, very bad was about to happen.

(Veritas Private Jet, over the Mediterranean Sea)

“I still can’t believe they just started shooting like that” Rarity said shaking her head.

“I told you they were evil!” Rainbow said loudly, banging her front hooves on the table, “I knew they’d do something like this”.

“Don’t you think we should be more worried about the fact that… THEY TOOK FLUTTERSHY!” Twilight interjected.

“What do you think they’ll do to her?” Rarity asked Josh, who was sitting in a cream leather chair watching them intently.

“Nothing good, I imagine” Josh sipped his glass of brandy, the ice tinkling at the bottom of the glass, “I don’t think they’ll kill her though if that’s any comfort”.

“I can’t believe we just left her there” Rainbow Dash fumed.

“There was nothing we could do” Atom answered, up until this point the brown unicorn had been staring silently out of the window, “There were too many soldiers”.

After this the four friends went back to talking amongst themselves. Atom however, was staring intently at Josh. He couldn’t work out whether Josh intended for Fluttershy to be captured by OHR. He certainly wouldn’t put it past him.

Atom watched as Josh handed a white envelope to the stewardess, asking for it to be posted as soon as they landed.

This has something to do with you, Atom thought as he went back to staring out of the window. It always does.