Flight to Dreadlands

Deep underground, under what used to be Canterlot, an earth pony stallion was walking.

He was confident in himself. He was given an important mission, and he wouldn’t fail. It was up to him to restore Equestria now.

The earth pony entered the council room. By the obsidian table, many pony scientists sat. There was one chair far larger than others. He sat in it.

“Everyone is here?” he asked.

“Those that aren’t here had not made any contact since before the earthquake. According to the director's plan, they should be.”

“Professor Pickaxe, why have you taken the Princess's place?” asked another scientist.

“You heard what she said before asking us to get here. If she doesn’t contact us in a week’s time, she’s dead. Therefore, as it was her will, I am the new Prince of Equestria and Director of the Obsidian Council.”

“Prince Notched Pickaxe. It sounds ridiculous,” said the pegasus to his left.

“You are the vice-director now, Dinner Bone.”

“Right, Prince Notched,” said another scientist. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Wait, wait. Twilight might not be dead yet!”

The council started arguing between those ponies that still hoped Twilight would come back and those that wanted to respect her orders and follow Notched Pickaxe.

“Silence!” Prince Notched shouted. The scientists recently obeyed. “First, we need to assist our damages. What is the situation of the Canterlot Shelter Zone?”

“The damage to residential districts and the research districts was minimal. There were only a few ponies injured, lucky none of it fatal. The damage is being fixed. However, the industrial districts and the mining districts…”

“What happened to them?”

“The enchantments put to protect them were far weaker than the ones in the center, and snapped when this magical earthquake struck us. We managed to evacuate many ponies out of them, but sadly, we couldn’t save everyone in time. Most of the industrial and mining areas have collapsed.”

“What about supplies and food production?”

“Stable. Professor Bone’s inventions in genetically modified agriculture increased the output and decreased the need for felitizers. Canterlot will not run out of food. We also still have enough supplies to survive even with our industrial base in ruins.”

“We have enough robots to rebuild it, right?”

“Yes, but it would take time.”

“Ponykind already waited a thousand years, we can wait more,” Prince Notched said. He turned to the red unicorn to his right side. “Jebediah, have you managed to get contact with other Zones?”

“Sadly, not. All corridors and railroads out of Canterlot collapsed. We have no signal from outside. Even the Blockwork communication doesn’t work.”

“Blockwork stopped working? It was supposed to be always working.”

“Yes, but it seems the connection was severed. Probably something causes connection issues. Me and my team will fix them.”

“Connection issues, you say?”

“That, or…”

“We are alone…” finished Prince Notched.

“I’ve begun designing a special subtype of Blocker, capable of quickly mining tunnels in order to dig our way to the other Zones. We will manage,” said Jebediah.

“We will manage. Ponykind survived far worse. We will rebuild our country underground. We will wait for the right moment. We will reclaim the surface!”

“About the surface…” said one of the scientists.

“Yes?”

“Some corridors were flooded. We sent Blockers to fix them, but the moment they entered the flooded area, contact was lost. Only one Blocker returned, horribly irradiated and barely functioning. It broke down, but we managed to recover the recording it took. It seems, there are cracks that go from the Zone to the surface. However, the magic at the surface interferes with the Blockwork in a catastrophic way.”

“So, we cannot send Blockers outside? We can send Ponies, then. Unless the magic is dangerous.”

“It isn’t dangerous per se, but there is another problem. Old Canterlot is now underwater.”

“Underwater? It was built on a mountain. Unless…” Prince Notched looked at the documents he had. “Unless the readings were true. Parts of the land fell kilometers down, while others fell only slightly. It means the surface was horribly shattered.”

“So, Equestria is gone?” asked another scientist.

“It isn't,” said Prince Notched. “It isn’t because we are still here and we will rebuild it. Even if we have to do this block by block with our own hooves. We cannot fail.”

Notched Pickaxe, the new Prince of Equestria and Director of the Obsidian Council, was confident in this. He will lead ponykind into a new age. He will rebuild Equestria.

Maybe, thousands of years later, future ponies in reborn Equestria would remember that it was Prince Notched Pickaxe who rebuilt it.