X-Com: Equestria
He ran, ran away as fast as his hooves would carry him. His legs ached, but he kept running. His lungs burnt from the cold, damp air, but he kept his pace. He cried the whole way to Everfree Forest. How DARE she. It was brutal, unfair, plain cruel. “I am sorry,” Yeah, I bet you are. “I did not mean to hurt you,” Well, you did. Bitch. “but this could never have worked”. With this one sentence, she had shattered all he held dear, all he centered his life around, unhealthy as it sounds. She smashed his hopes for a brighter future, she crushed his dreams of a family. She just left him, out in the rain, staring at her front door.
She left him. It had not yet fully sunken in. Finally, he slowed down. Stumbling through the underbrush of Ponyville’s darkest, loneliest piece of greenery, he made his way to a clearing. The clearing where he had first kissed her, a year ago. Might as well have been a lifetime. He allowed his tired legs a moment’s respite and lay down on the damp, icy ground. Above him, Luna’s full moon clung glumly to the indigo night sky, tinting the clouds above an eerie gray. Still sobbing, he looked up at it, wishing for the goddesses to just strike him down, snuff him out like a candle. Frankly, he would welcome it. Little did he know that a creature with just this intention lurked in the darkness behind him. When a twig snapped under the creature’s cautious steps his ears slowly, tiredly swiveled around. He did not have a lot to live for right now, but he still had the same instincts any herbivore has – millions of years of evolution, ingrained deeply into his brain. When his eyes finally followed his ears, they instantly narrowed. There was somepony there, watching. Staring right into his eyes.
“Go away.”, he croaked hoarsely. No response.
“Get lost!”. More anger than sadness.
“I want to be alone, so BUCK OFF!”. He screamed those last words at the top of his aching lungs.
What followed was silence. The kind of silence that suggests not the absence of noise, but the presence of something so dangerous nothing DARES make a sound. The eyes seemed to keep staring. Unblinking. Now the whole situation sank in: he was out in the forest, alone, at night, nopony even knowing about his absence. And there was something potentially dangerous lurking in the shadows not 20 meters from him. This was not good. Very much absolutely and totally not good. Slowly, shakily, he rose. Still fixing the creature in his gaze, his flight reflex finally kicked in and he took off. He did not make it to the edge of the clearing. A beam of green, bright light briefly illuminated the forest and struck him right in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground, a glowing hole in his chest calmly sizzling in the light drizzle that started a moment ago. Nopony would miss him until the next morning.
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“…on a creepy side note: There was another missing pony report filed with the PPD this morning, while we had another case of bluish eldritch light from the Everfree Forest the very same night.I tell you, it’s aliens! ALIENS! It’s the only pos- OW! Okay, okay, I will stop it, just don’t punch me! Anyway… This was your faithful DJ Pon3, radio legend and conspiracy theorist, accompanied by the lovely Octavia for Canterl-“ *click*
“Hey Twilight!”
“Spike! I wanted to hear that!”
“Oh, you will like what I have much better than crazy rambling about extraequestrian ponynappers. Your brother wants you to come and see him in Canterlot first thing tomorrow morning. You, as in you all. Y’know, the whole Elements of Harmony thing.”
“What? Why would he want us in Canterlot? He must be terribly busy with all the vanishing pon- OH! I bet he wants our help to solve this mystery! But I am not even ready to pack, I haven’t made a checklist with the things I need to make a packing checklist! And what about the missing ponies! What if it’s really aliens! Oooohhh this is not enough time!“
“Twilight-“
“And what if it is not aliens but zombies! Or zombiealiens!”
“Twilight, just-“
“I DO NOT EVEN KNOW AN ANTI-ZOMBIE SPELL!”
“TWILIGHT!”
“Yes?”
“Calm. Down. Slow breaths. Focus. What will you need in Canterlot that you CAN NOT just get there?”
“Right. Right. No panicking. Okay… Books! I need some books on the subject at hand which I can not find in Canterlot so easily. Spike, fetch me “Aliens and Abductions - an Abstract”, “Uncovering the Unknown if You are Uncertain” and “Combat Spells for the Clinically Cautious”. Oh, and could you please get my labcoat? I have a feeling this will take a while.”
“Riiiiiight. So you really think it is murderous aliens tartarus-bent on… what? Ponynapping everypony setting hoof in a remote area at night? To experiment on them? Really, they should just come here and get a book on pony anatomy if they are that curious.”
“Spike, this is no laughing matter! Nothing else would make sense! Diamond Dogs are not active in the Everfree Forest or any other area too dangerous or too close to pony settlements. Even a feral dragon eating the ponies would leave evidence. They are, after all, predators with messy eating habits. No offence. Anyway, none of the other explanations would account for the strange light seen from a distance. Only the most powerful spells would cause such a phenomenon, and this in turn would leave such an imprint of thaumic energy that I could feel it from here! As the great Sherclop Pones once said: “When you eliminate all other possibilities, what remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer.” And I am going to PROVE IT!”
“Alright, I will go and tell Pinkie to tell the others.”
“Sorry Spike, but I may need to convince the girls to drop everything they are doing and come with me. I think it would be better if you stayed here and prepared my bag.”
Mumbling to himself about stupid ponies going on stupid adventures, Spike made his way upstairs to find Twilight’s desired equipment. The purple pony in turn hastily made her way to the library’s front door and quickly shouted a “Thank you, Spike!” before slamming it shut and galloping straight to Sugarcube Corner.
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24 hours earlier, Barracks of the Royal Guard, Captain’s Office
“SIR! We… Uh… we have… kind of… a situation here. Sir.” The young soldier looked terrified, shakily saluting before Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, currently hidden behind a pony-high mountain of reports.
“Is it critical to the continued existence of equestrian civilization as we know it?” he asked, accompanied by the scratching of his quill.
The recruit shuffled his hoofs slightly, staring down. “Well, you might phrase it that way, Sir.”
“Then stop bumbling around and tell me already, I am in the middle of the 45th missing pony report THIS WEEK.”
“Sir, uh, I… I am afraid it is not that… easy. Sir.”
“BY CELESTIA’S PLUMB TEATS, GET A GRIP AND SPILL IT!”
“What was that about my teats, Captain?”
Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, noble and fierce warrior, fearing not the most dangerous foe, wore the expression you would see on a bunny upon being surrounded by a pack of angry Timberwolfs. Ears turned back, his head ever so slowly rose above the towering pillars of reports and he shakily saluted before Celestia’s grinning visage.
“Well, Sir, I kind of… wanted to warn you her majesty was on her way here with a very serious expression on her face but at the same time I kind of did not want to disturb you so I kind of panicked and kind of…”
Shining Armor’s head snapped in the recruits direction and he barked, a little more harshly than intended: “DISMISSED.”
The last he saw and heard of the recruit was a tail vanishing in the doorway behind Celestia and whimpered “Yes Sir.”
“I must say, I am impressed by your vocabulary, Captain…” a still smiling Celestia purred, coaxing another panicked expression from Shining’s face.
“Err… You see, your majesty, the recruits tend to use rather crude language and it DOES tend to stick with you in startling situations…”
“It’s perfectly fine, Captain . I am not here to question the way you talk about my reproductive organs, though I would prefer you limit use of such swears to the most dire of moments. The reason I came is much more sinister than this, even more sinister than the missing ponies for whom you have been organizing search parties the past month. We face a threat that may end Equestria as we know it. What I intend to do is so far gone from any training you could have possibly received, that I do not think I could merely tell you. Please, follow me.”
While talking, she was already turning around and making her way down a narrow side-corridor.
Shining Armor mumbled “Uh… Yes, your majesty” while falling in step next to her. He had to walk uncomfortably close to her in order not to tear his uniform on the narrow, rough-hewn stone walls surrounding them. There were no windows, all illumination was coming from sparcely-placed torches. Shining Armor was absolutely certain he never was in that corridor, though it was HIS Barracks and he had been there since he enlisted. At the end of the passage they were greeted by a solid steel door, not unlike what one may find on a submarine. It was massive, with no apparent locking mechanisms. Celestia lightly touched it with her horn, but nothing happened for several seconds. Just as Shining Armor was about to blurt out a stupid question, he was saved from further self-indignation by a whirring sound from the massive metal behemoth blocking their path.
Suddenly, with a very jerky motion and a good portion of dust descending from the ceiling, the steel door made it’s way upwards, revealing a gap of half a meter. This thing was MASSIVE. Celestia explained “Captain, what you see before you is a secret military command center, deep inside Canterlot mountain, implemented decades ago, after the first council meeting.”. Noticing the very obvious question marks gleaming from his eyes, she stated “Do not worry, it will all be explained shortly.”
Just now the white unicorn noticed that the tunnel was no longer illuminated by torches, but by gemstones imbued with a lightspell and a magical charge. They gradually lit up, one after the other, down the corridor, upon detecting the presence of two living creatures. To both sides small doorways could be seen, with smaller doors of build similar to the main portal they had just passed. A hundred meters in, the corridor opened up into a wide cavern. After the claustrophobic experience of the tight hallway, it seemed almost impossibly huge. In the middle of the room floated a huge, colored representation of the Planet, with all nations and bigger settlements labeled and marked. On gigantic screens along the walls various kinds of information were presented, from police reports recently filed to weather data, the globe was under complete surveillance.
The monitors were staffed with various unicorns and earth ponies, even the odd pegasus walked by now and then. Shining Armor stood and stared, slack-jawed. This. ALL THIS had existed in HIS city, in HIS palace, in HIS barracks, right UNDER HIS BUCKING NOSE and he had no idea. He was torn between amazement and fury. It was too much. Thaumic computing was a very new technology in Equestria, aside from some universities and government institutions nopony owned a computer, most had never even used one. With unicorns staffing most clerk positions, there was no need to. But this… all this. The data on the monitors right now could fill hundreds of filing cabinets. He could see the reasons for using this kind of system. It was very advanced, more so than anything he had ever heard of before.
What he could not see was a reason to build this kind of facility in the first place.
Celestia gently smiled at his confused expression. “Please, follow me to the conference room, it should become quite clear what you are supposed to do here then.”
This room was massive as well. It held a huge, circular table illuminated by almost painfully bright gem-lights placed in a similar circle in the ceiling. On the wall facing the doorway hung another downright immense monitor, this one currently turned off. Celestia walked up to it and placed a hoof gently on a button on it’s side. Immediately, it switched on. At the moment, it only displayed a slightly grayer shade of darkness. This seemed not to irritate Celestia in the slightest. She just faced it and started talking, calmly, in what Shining Armor had come to call her “political tone”.
“Greetings. I bring you the officer I suggested for this task. As per your request, the files concerning his outstanding abilities have been sent to you. You may begin.”
Suddenly, the screen lit up. It was still very dark, but faint blue outlines could be seen of what appeared to be an eagles head, dog ears, and a dragon’s snout, framed by what clearly were pony ears to the left and right of the trio. He was not so much impressed by the situation as he was by the fact that someone managed to get these guys in the same room without them murdering each other.
“Hello, Commander.” A deep, gravelly voice rolled from the speakers. Judging by the motions of the heads, the dragon was talking. “In response to the alien threat, this council of nations has chosen to activate the X-Com project.”
“Wait, ALIENS? I thought-“
“You have full command of X-Com headquarters. You must learn more about the enemy to expand our capabilities as well as the abilities of our operatives. This facility is equipped with the most advanced technology available on this planet, staffed by the best scientists and engineers you will find and can draw from militaries all over the world in order to recruit the best of the best for the task at hand. Any questions?”
Shining Armor put on his most professional expression, trying to drink it all in without overloading his brain. In that moment, still very confused, he made a split-second decision that would both come to save him and bite him in the proverbial flank. “Yes, actually. May I make requests regarding the personnel?”
“You may.” Growled what was clearly a Diamond Dog.
“Very well. You stated you have the best of the best regarding science, engineering and combat. I doubt that.”
“And vhy vould zat be?” inquired the griffon.
“For one, your science department obviously lacks the best scientist I know.”
“Ah, and who iz zat brilliant mind we so carelessly missed?” came a very sarcastic response.
“The Element of Magic, personal protégé of Princess Celestia of Equestria, Goddess of the Sun, powerful mage, genius-level scientist, all-around hero and my sister. Twilight Sparkle.”
Celestia gave him an incredulous look with just a hint of “Why the buck are you exaggerating like that?!”
“Well, your majesty, with all due respect… If you deem all that” he made a vague gesture around himself, encompassing the facility “necessary, then I assume the situation is dire enough to justify any and all measures. Including the recruitment of the Elements of Harmony.”
This time, the pony to the left of the screen spoke.
“It seems the commander’s right,
We lack the tools to truly fight.
I heard tales of those heroes,
You so proudly name,
I hope they will not put your words,
To shame.”
“Ahem, what ze southern tribe’s chief means to say is zat we do, indeed, support ze idea of bringing in more talented personnel. Provided they can prove their abilities in the field and laboratory. Contact whoever you deem necessary.”
The dragon spoke up once more.
“Good luck, Commander.”
With a blip the monitor turned completely black.
Shining Armor wordlessly nodded to Celestia, who, equally silently, summoned quill and paper.
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12 hours later, Fillydelphia, City Plaza
Oh crap.
Never had this thought been more appropriate to the Great and Powerful Trixie. Well, maybe that one time in Ponyville with the Ursa Minor, but that was not her fault. Like, at all. Pesky kids. Just like this complete and utter mess was not her fault. She was resting in her new and improved wagon while classical music played (one of Ocatvia’s recent records, if she was not mistaken), sipping a delicious cup of coffee brought to her by a rather handsome stallion whom she seemed to have impressed with her late night show on the city plaza. Well, of course she had.
Anyway, while she was sitting there, minding her own business, planning new and awesome tricks, this rude two-legged thing stumbled into her wagon .Through the wall. And out the other. It looked a bit like a two-legged bull. If bulls had fangs. And were as big as four ponies. And wanted to apparently eat her. This rude intrusion, of course, shattered her concentration and she had to drop the noise-blocking spell. Now new sounds made her way to her twitching ears. Outside, ponies seemed to gallop all over the place, screaming something about terrible monsters. Obviously.
Very cautiously she peeked out of the gaping hole in her mobile home. The streets were utter chaos. Ponies were running, flying, stumbling and in one bloody, painful, legless case even crawling to presumed safety. Every few seconds a high pitched whine would tear through the cool nighttime air, accompanied by a blindingly bright, green light. And, seemingly without failure, every flash of green light would cut off another screaming pony. Trixie just stared. Slack-jawed, she took in the scene before here. Ponykind had not known war since Nightmare Moon’s fall a thousand years ago. This, this was not even war. It was terror.
An angry roar slightly to the right of her field of view brought her back to reality, insane as it seemed. Her head snapped in the direction of the intimidating, guttural noise. It was the two-legged bull thing. Locking eyes for only a fraction of a second, they reached an understanding.
I will SO eat your sorry flank.
NOPE.
And Trixie took off like a bullet. She dodged a rolling, flaming ball of hay, which continued to obliterate a storefront, managed to evade a barrage of green, burning light by diving behind the fountain in the center of the plaza and finally ducked under the massive, snapping jaws of the murder-bull (as she had come to call him in her mind), sliding into the narrow basement window of a toy store. The monster gnarled and growled at her for a few seconds, trying to stick his maw through the window. All he ended up doing was slathering her in his saliva. Quite a lot of it. Ugh.
When it finally trotted off with an infuriated snort, Trixie took a look around. She was in a rather creepy basement, surrounded by stuffed animals and wind-up toys giving her the most accusing look. As if she could have done anything! She tried to fight them! Honest! Well, she at least considered various scenarios in which she would attempt to save the day, errr… night, and they all ended with her getting killed by green, murderous lightning or getting eaten by angry, blood-thirsty, two-legged bulls. In the relative safety of the basement, surrounded by piles of toys, she just HAD to think of the poor foals out there, losing their family. Trixie knew that feeling all too well, and did not want them to experience the same horror. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and shoved a big box of plush monkeys below the window, using it as a makeshift surveillance platform.
Outside, madness still firmly reigned. The legless pony she briefly saw from her (now totally obliterated) wagon was no longer moving, the blood behind the stumps where his legs used to be had already started to form a crust on the rough cobblestone. Closing her eyes, Trixie dove into the thaumic plane. It was even more terrifying than the physical world. On the lavender-indigo backdrop of the world between worlds she could see the bright-white living forms of ponies and various other creatures, surrounded by a bright red aura, signifying fear, anger or similarly strong emotions. What she could also see where the dull, grayish hulls of dead ponies. And these by far outnumbered the living. Her spirits dropped to depths until then unknown. She did not want to acknowledge them, but there were bodies of foals, too. Lots of them. What terrified her beyond her wildest dreams, however, was the fact that the attackers seemed to be basically invisible on the thaumic plane.
Many would argue that Trixie was not a real magician, and they would be right, but being an entertainer of her proportions (solo, nonetheless) required in-depth study of the magic arts. She was, therefore, more skilled in magic than most other ponies. So she focused harder. They HAD to leave a trace. “NOTHING is truly invisible. If you can not see it, you just don’t have the right instruments.” her science teacher used to say. Taking this statement to heart, she focused. Hard. Realizing she was indeed not picking up anything, she reconsidered – she would try to look for the absence of thaumic energy. Grimacing from the exertion, she delved deeper. And she found them. The invaders were not invisible, they were, for lack of a better word, INERT. They did not react to her attempts to read an aura, they did not even appear, really. What she sensed was like a black hole. Something she could NOT grasp and analyze.
She found the two-legged murder-bull right outside, chewing on what appeared to be a pony’s hindleg. Focusing hard, she attempted to read his aura again. He was close. It should have worked. Nothing. No, wait. Something. Faint, but there. It was… rage? Anger? She felt a vague urge to destroy something. Quickly, she withdrew. Okay, so they DID have feelings. Good sign, very good. Now she attempted to manipulate it, lift it with telekinesis. An easy spell. One of the first foals learn. She thought she had mastered it, but it did not work. They did not seem to even notice magic. Grasping at straws, she tried to find something physical. The beast had broken THROUGH HER WALL, it was, obviously, a physical object. So other physical objects should interact with it. Of course, the burning haybale! That damn thing was basically a huge ball of fur, like most creatures in Equestria. And fur does BURN! She found the still blazing ball of hay on the other site of the plaza, it had rolled TOWRADS her. She reached out with her magic, channeling all the power she could draw towards it. And slowly, very slowly, the inferno rose up. Trixie allowed herself a smile. Gotcha.
The beast turned just in time to see an above-average campfire heading straight for it’s face. FWOOSH. It let out an infernal wail and thrashed around, engulfed in flames. Trixie grimaced. She did not like to hurt it, but it needed to be done if she wanted to survive this. Looking for something to distract her from what she just did, the light-blue unicorn closed her eyes reached out further, in all three dimension. She sensed more “holes”. Way up in the sky. Wait. Bulls could not fly. Not even the two-legged murder variety. Focusing harder, she felt a surge of energy from one of the holes, accompanied by a high-pitched wail. OF COURSE! Those things were in the sky! That explained why no pegasus got away. And why she did not see the source of the lightning at first. It was great, to finally know what she was up against, but terrifying at the same time. Those things could FLY. And they had weapons far more dangerous than any spell she knew, and any weapon she ever saw the guards in Canterlot use.
There was no bucking way she would make it out there. Ever. The white lights outside, on the thaumic plane, had all turned gray. She was positively stuck. No one would come to help her. Gazing out of the window, she hoped THEY would just go away. She was about to consider a long-range teleportation spell when she heard a low thrumming sound from outside. Up in the sky, a huge metal contraption hung. It was shaped vaguely like a bird, with huge wings. Slowly, it descended. It IS an alien spaceship. OH GOD IT IS ALIENS. Trixie was positively panicking then. But right then, something weird happened: The aliens used their lightning guns on the newly arrived “spaceship”. The back of the ship opened, and Trixie, for the second time that day, stood slack-jawed.
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Notes: Cliffhangers, YAY! I promise this will quickly update, as the first ~4 chapters are fully planned out, so bear with me while I try to not butcher both MlP and X-Com at once.
