Equestria War Radio

My name is Derpy Hooves, and I am a long way from home.

Right now, I am in hiding. I’m very scared. There are so many things going on around me, so much noise… It’s like the world is exploding. I don’t want to be here… but it looks like I don’t have a choice. It’s very muddy where I’m at right now; my coat is getting stained and dirty.

I really don’t want to be here…

If you asked me what was going on, I would tell you the truth: I really have no idea. This world is not mine; it has never been mine. My world is Equestria, that beautiful land. This is not Equestria, I can promise you that.

As I look out from where I’m hiding, all I can see around me is death. I had wished I would never see such horrors again, after my parents had died; here, it’s everywhere. But this is a different kind of death. With my parents, their deaths were natural, due to increased age.

This death… Lives cut short in their prime. These are only children; what are they doing in a situation like this? No one should ever have to endure this, whether young or old. This is horrible…

I flinch as a loud booming noise echoes throughout my sanctuary. I instinctively reach my hooves up to try to cover my ears; I don’t want to go deaf from this. To never be able to hear anything again… that would be a sentence I wouldn’t visit upon anybody.

As I reach up to cover my ears, my hooves brush the underside of the giant contraption that I’m hiding underneath. From the touch, it appears to be metallic in nature, but it’s absolutely huge. There are two giant rollers flanking me; I guess that’s how it moves. This one hasn’t moved since I dove underneath it for cover, though not for lack of trying. I think it’s bogged down in the sand; for whatever reason, it isn’t moving.

I can hear shouts up above me… Cursing, too. They’re trying to get the thing to work. They call it a “tank.” I guess that’s the official name for it. A tank. It seems oddly appropriate, and this is my first time ever hearing the word.

I look out from underneath the… tank. All around me, these creatures are falling down. Some of them have holes in parts of their bodies; I don’t think they’re natural holes, either, not with all of the tiny pieces of lead flying around. I think those might be called “bullets.” I heard that word used once to describe something kinda similar to these things; I guess it’s as good of a name as any.

From what I can see, there are more of these creatures out here than I can count. Some are wearing different clothing; all of them are entirely too drab-colored, though. I suppose that just makes them harder to see, though, and I guess if you don’t want to die, not being seen is a good thing. At least one thing about them is similar to us ponies: very many of these creatures are different in tone from each other. Their faces don’t all look alike, either.

It’s really an astounding variety. It would be easier to appreciate if there wasn’t all this fighting going on around me…

A body falls down by the wheels of the tank, and I chance a glance at it. That was not the right thing to do. Both of its eyes are missing; I can see all the way to the other side. Victims of bullets? Probably, considering there’s another hole almost dead-center in his head.

I let out a tiny shriek and recoil, trying to get as far away from the dead body as I can. I’m trying at the same time not to get underneath the treads, though; if this thing starts moving suddenly and I can’t react in time… I don’t want to become another casualty. There are enough of those already.

I hear something very loud above me. I wriggle my way to the front end of the tank and look up. What I see amazes me. There are these contraptions flying through the air; they have wings, but they don’t flap like birds’ wings. They’re stationary, in other words. There’s some kind of propeller at the front of the thing; is that what powers it? It must be; the rest of it is much too small to hold any kind of advanced propulsion system.

I hear a shout from close to me: “Oh shit! Bombers!” Those who are out in the open, start to scramble for safety. I see the underside of one of the “bombers,” whatever that means, open up and I see more of these creatures inside. For some reason, I’m reminded of my good friend Lyra Heartstrings; she’s always going on about the existence of some species called “humans”; maybe these are humans? They certainly have many of the same features that Lyra’s described them having. If only she could be here to see this-

Wait. No. I wouldn’t force this upon anybody. No one should have to go through such fighting. It doesn’t matter what kind of bad thing you did; no one should have to go through this.

Anyways, as I’m looking up at the people in the airplane, I see they’re pushing something out. It’s really big and black. I think I have somewhat of an idea what it is, even though like many other things in this world I’ve never seen it before. So, I back up as quickly as I can and once again cover my ears.

Sure enough, the loud “booms” return, and I can vaguely hear more screaming. It sounds absolutely agonizing… Someone must have gotten hit, and not died. I feel so sorry for them; if only they were at home, instead of here, having to go through this hell…

I feel tears slipping through my clenched-shut eyes.  I normally don’t like crying in front of people, but technically I’m not in front of anyone right now, and besides I’m pretty sure that the circumstances warrant a bit of leeway. So, I just let myself cry. I mourn those who have passed, and those who will do so in mere moments.

I hear more firing; more bullets scar the air as they rip through it. More loud booms, more crying in pain. It’s almost too much to bear. Suddenly, an idea comes to me, and I start scooping sand closer to my body. I’m trying to bury myself in the sand; maybe that will help me block out some of this terrible noise.

In a few moments, I start to realize that it just isn’t going to happen. I can’t get enough sand around to completely cover my body, and in any case it looks like the sand doesn’t make a very good noise blocker anyways.

I dare not go outside my rag-tag fortress, either; I don’t want to end up like one of them out there. So, in here I stay.

As I look around in absolute fear, I find myself unwillingly thinking about those that are laying dead around me. What kind of families did they have? Did they have lovers? Some of them probably didn’t; they look like they’re barely out of their formative years… Some of them probably still think girls are weird, or that they’re going to be alone for the rest of their lives.

I don’t want to think about these things; I’m crying enough already. So I try to force my mind onto other things. Somehow my mind settles on the last thing that I remember in Equestria. I don’t think my memory’s damaged in any way, but it is a rather odd memory…

Twilight Sparkle knocked on the mailmare’s door. It took a moment for Derpy to answer, but when she did, she smiled widely when she saw who was at her door. “Twilight…” she said warmly. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi, Derpy,” Twilight responded with an equal smile. “Is the Doctor at home?”

Derpy looked a bit crestfallen that Twilight wasn’t actually there to see her. She had so few visitors, mostly just people wanting to tell her what good of a job she was doing as mailmare, or maybe the occasional person wanting to complain that a letter that they were supposed to be receiving hadn’t come in yet…

On the contrary, everyone wanted to be with the Doctor. He was the town’s resident oddball and genius, and in spite of his wants to the contrary, people just would not leave him alone.

“Sure, he’s here,” Derpy said, stepping aside. “Come on in; I’ll go tell him that you’re here to see him.” Twilight stepped in, seemingly oblivious to the re-shading of Derpy’s face that had occurred.

“Thank you,” she said with a nod, as Derpy walked up the stairs to the Doctor’s room. She was almost to the door and was getting ready to knock, when she remembered where he was. She came back downstairs with her regular derpy grin on her face.

“Heh…” she said, “sorry, but I just remembered. The Doctor is over at Mayor Mare’s house, helping her to fix some things up around the house.”

“Oh darn, so he’s busy…” Twilight looked a bit sad herself. “I wanted to know if he’d want to participate in a little experiment that Princess Celestia wants me to conduct-“

Derpy’s ears perked up. She’d always wanted to know what kind of things the Princess was wanting Twilight to do as part of her research. “Is it anything that I can help out with?”

Twilight looked at her oddly. “Really, Derpy? You want to be a part of the test?”

Derpy nodded, her eyes going askew as they normally did. “I’ve always been curious about what it takes to be a lab rat.”

Twilight laughed at what she thought was a joke, but what in actuality had been a fairly serious statement.

“Okay,” Twilight responded, still chuckling, “I suppose it would be alright if I tested you first. Come on.” Derpy went into the kitchen and wrote a note for the Doctor, telling him where they would be. With that, she set off with Twilight to do this all-important test.

Another explosion, and I’m brought out of my reverie. I don’t know how long I’ve been lost in thought, so I take a quick look around to try to take stock of my surroundings. Thank the powers, the tank hasn’t moved yet. I’m starting to think that it won’t be moving anymore; if it still had the power to move, it would have moved by now.

I’m just about to take my first deep breath in awhile, when a pair of boots hits the ground beside the tank. I hear someone shout, “Well? What’s wrong with the damn thing? Why isn’t it working?”

The human who’s just jumped down off the tank yells out, “How am I supposed to know? I just got down here!” He drops to his knees and begins to lower himself down. Oh no… What if he sees me? I’ve got to hide- but where?

My eyes search frantically, but they’re not finding anyplace for me to escape. He’s almost totally knelt down, but I can’t move at all; I’m frozen in fear. Finally, a face pops down from the underside of the tank. This kid can’t be far out of his parents’ home, and here is staring at me. His bespectacled face is looking at me like he can’t believe what he’s saying.

Finally, he speaks, his words coming out with a tinge of awe: “What the-?” Oh crap. He saw me... What am I going to do now...?

Suddenly, I see the face disappear, though before it went away I could swear I could see a smile on his face. He stays knelt down, though, for another five minutes or so, before standing back up all the way. “It’s shot,” I hear him say. “There’s no way to fix it. We’ll have to continue on foot.”

In a minute, there are soft whumps all around me as people start jumping from the tank to the sandy beaches below. I think as best as I can, in my shocked state, what could have caused him to do what he did. Suddenly it comes to me in a flash, and it almost makes my jaw drop.

“He did this for me…” I mutter. “He wanted to make sure that I had a place to be protected…” I feel the tears welling up again, and once again I don’t even try to hold them in. I let them flow, and as the kids around me searched for cover, I allow my sobs and my tears be the last sensations I am conscious of, before I fade away.