Equestia: Ballad of a fallen world

Year 2100 – Five Minutes Before Operation Ragnarok

"Every ending is a beginning of something new."

Such noble thoughts crossed my mind when I was creating Project Ragnarok with my mother. These words by Libba Bray fit perfectly here. Together, we worked on this operation when the Shadows invaded our planet. We knew we didn’t stand a chance against them, so this ultimate act of desperation pushed us to it. We were well aware humanity probably wouldn’t survive, so we wanted to give others a chance. However, we didn’t realize how much we would have to sacrifice to make it happen.

Now, I’m being carried by Kit to the cryogenic chamber. Just a few moments ago, Zeira sacrificed herself so I could live. And now... because of it, I feel lifeless. As I looked at my reflection, the only thing I noticed was how unkempt my fiery red hair looked, and how my green eyes seemed to have lost their color. Tears welled up, but I tried not to cry.

Kit finally arrived at the chambers. A doctor was supposed to check me for injuries that needed bandaging, but upon finding none, I looked at perhaps my last friend. "Will we meet again in the new world? I don’t want to be alone."

"I’ll do my best to always be with you, my friend." replied my mechanical companion, stroking my head. I smiled faintly, though a single thought struck me.

"Can... I step outside one last time? Just to see the world once more?"

"That’s not possible, Sasha." Interrupted ZEUS. "Operation Ragnarok will commence in exactly five minutes. The cryogenic capsules will activate then, and there will be no way to exit until I deem it appropriate. The most I can do is allow you to enter the capsule and project your consciousness holographically to the surface of the facility."

"Alright. I’d be grateful for that. At least something. Kit, will you come with me?"

My friend only nodded. I smiled and glanced at the capsules. Not everyone would survive till the end... Eh. I hope at least half do. Mother and I worked hard to ensure that. From the beginning, she said this was a risky project, but it was worth the fight. The capsule opened, but before I stepped inside, I looked at her photo. Her fiery hair, which I often joked about by calling her "Wise Bacon," always amazed me. How could she have such a unique hair color? She said it was a very rare shade of red. To me, it was beautiful. Smiling at the photo, I stepped into the capsule, which closed shortly after.

I closed my eyes, feeling light tremors and a headache until I felt nothing. When I opened my eyes, I found myself on the highest possible point of our base, the ruined communication tower. I sat on its edge, and shortly after, the holographic Kit joined me. Together, we looked at the ravaged Earth. Numerous ships hadn’t yet launched, including the mothership that blocked out the sun. These creatures would destroy our planet until the very end.

When I saw human survivors, mostly civilians desperately trying to enter the protective field but failing, I felt an immense thirst for vengeance. That would come when I awaken. Together with other races, humanity would journey to the Shadow's planet to finally destroy them. Eh. Those are dreams, but for now, I must watch as invaders kill children and their parents.

"Attention," a loud voice boomed from the speakers. "Four minutes remain until Operation Ragnarok." After this loud announcement, there was silence again, interrupted only by roars and pleas. I looked at Kit, who touched my back. Yes. This is possible.

"Do you think the new world we wake up in will be better?" I asked, on the verge of tears, not even sure what I truly wanted to say. Kit simply looked down and then at the scenery as the voice announced there were thirty seconds left.

"One can only hope, Sasha... The only thing I know is that we’ll be there together." The voice announced three minutes remaining as a shadow loomed above us. Kit turned and showed me it was a hologram of the Shadow King in armor. "Would you like to be alone with him now?"

"Yes, please, my friend."

Kit vanished as the King approached. His armor seemed almost ephemeral, as if it were dissolving into darkness. He had no helmet, revealing his face, a black and purple werewolf like snout. Eh. He wasn’t some strange, unknown race. He was Lykarion, or rather, what was left of them. Once a race of proud and noble warriors, they had been corrupted by darkness during a war with another extinct race. Not all of them, of course. Those who didn’t want to be corrupted perished, while the corrupted survived. This supposedly happened billions of years ago in another universe, but no one wanted to believe it. Not until the corrupted Lykarions attacked.

Their hierarchy ranged from Omegas, the weakest, to Betas, akin to nobility. Above them were Alphas, an elite group, and at the top stood the Rasvertar, the strongest of the Lykarions and their king or queen. Such is the hierarchy of the Shadows.

The King approached me from the side and looked at the landscape as if relishing the sight, yet he said nothing. His eyes and expression were stoic and emotionless. Still, he placed a clawed hand, covered in armor, on my shoulder. This was possible because the holograms tracked limb movements and created an illusion of touch. "Your race has my respect until the end of time." He said in a calm voice. "I must admit, at first, I underestimated you. Now, seeing your courage, I must honor you."

Honestly, even if he killed me now, I wouldn’t care. I just had to point something out. "What honor is there in attacking the weak?"

He didn’t react. He didn’t get angry or try to kill me. He merely lowered his head slightly.
"I know. It tarnished my honor. I tried to remain honorable, but it wasn’t always possible. I heard that humans possess a weapon capable of stopping me. I had to strike first. What I do... is for a greater good. I know you don’t see it that way, but it is so."

"For the greater good, you’re annihilating an entire galaxy?"

"There are far worse things than me. Without my actions, the Titans would awaken, and it would be much worse."

"We would’ve defeated them."

"Perhaps them, but not her... But that’s not why I’m here. Where is the royal Thalven? I know she came here. I intended to kill her for their honor but was occupied with someone else."

"She’s dead. She fell in battle against an Alpha."

"At least she died honorably."

The voice announced one minute remaining. "I assume this countdown is your plan?" I nodded. "I see. I’ll ensure you are remembered."

He disappeared, and in the last minute of my time on Earth, I tried to absorb my planet’s essence. This might be the end, the end of everyone but the end of the Shadows is yet to come... The voice announced the final ten seconds. The countdown began, and gradually, the Earth was enveloped in even greater darkness than before. A solar eclipse... The Shadows didn’t understand what was happening, so they stopped what they were doing, only to watch as an even greater darkness consumed them. When the countdown reached five seconds, I felt a chill. I took a deep breath, and when the countdown ended, everything went black.

Present Day – Canterlot

I really hoped my friends wouldn’t be so insistent with Kit… Really. I was so wrong. Apart from the princesses, everyone bombarded him with questions as we made our way to the bunker. Even Cadance couldn't hold back. What will happen when they meet Goliath…? Kit couldn't answer a single question before another came his way. The princesses, particularly Princess Luna, seemed to sympathize deeply with him. Eventually, she approached him, shielding him with her wing.

"Friends..." she began, silencing the group. " I understand your excitement about meeting an ancient being like Kit. But even a robot needs a moment to breathe so to speak." She took a deep breath, smiling gently at him. "Kit, may I ask you something?" He only nodded. "What was the world like before the war with the Shadows? We saw another being, Thalven, from a different planet. Were humans allied with them?"

"Well..." Kit started. "The Shadows attacked our planet in 2098, and humanity fell two years later. The war against them in our galaxy actually began ten years earlier. Before all that, things were better, simpler. Earth developed slowly until 2050, but that year we made contact with our first extraterrestrial race: the Greys, from the nearest star system. They initiated peaceful communication with us."

"There's more than just Thalvens?" Applejack asked, her eyes wide with curiosity. "I can’t wait to meet them all. Think of all the apples we could share!"

"Another party!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, hopping with excitement.

"If I may ask," I interjected, "How many races were there in the galaxy?"

"Honestly, my database has suffered from the wear of time, but I recall at least eleven other species besides humans, though there were likely more. The Greys, Qalmarian, Tigerd, Thalven, Wicherry, Zelturai, Tryyl, Qazer, Guddan, Serrter, Mimmirc, and Kautchia. Then there were the Rndartry, though I’m unsure if they count, as they were simply artificial intelligences that gained sentience after their creators perished. No one knows what happened to them."

"Incredible." Princess Celestia said, her voice filled with wonder. "If these races survived, they could rebuild the alliance, and this time, Equestria would join."

"Do you want to join?" Kit asked, his tone curious. "On most planets, the idea was to prepare cryogenic preservation and organize a counterattack to obliterate the Shadows completely. Judging by what I’ve observed, your race seems rather peaceful."

"That’s true, friend." Celestia replied. "But now I realize that such a conflict could happen here. Shadows could attack us, and apart from our magic, we have little means of defense. If we are to fight, I wish to stand alongside allies, not alone. I don't want anything to happen to my little ponies."

"Princess. I understand that you are afraid but the shadows have not attacked us since as long as we've existed which, by the way, I'm going to want to know how that happened. Perhaps what humans once did has meant that the Shadows are no longer here."

"Twilight." Celestia interjected, "Even if the Shadows are gone, I’d like to establish peaceful relations with other races. A trade or cultural alliance seems like a great opportunity. What do you think, dear Kit?"

"Well." Kit mused, "It sounds like a good idea. Humans joined the alliance not because of wars but for trade and peace. They had excellent relations with others. My creator, for instance, was in a relationship with a Thalven, a proud warrior race. Oddly enough, my creator followed more in his mother's footsteps. He was the scientific type... albeit a reckless one."

"What do you mean by 'reckless'?" Rainbow Dash asked, smirking. "Sounds cooler than being careful like Twilight." I rolled my eyes.

"Well, he often lost things, was clumsy, and loved experimenting with strange ideas. For example, once, he tried firing long strands of spaghetti at the speed of light into a black hole. I never learned the outcome of that experiment, but he always did such things with his mother. Both were scatterbrained scientists."

I was about to ask something else when I noticed my brother, Shining Armor, hadn’t said a word since we arrived. He wasn’t asking any questions or engaging at all, just silently watching. Maybe he doesn’t trust Kit... Perhaps I should show him the immortal of the ancient. It might convince him. But not now. Just as I was about to decide, we reached the cave. Shining and Cadance weren’t there, so their jaws dropped.

They didn’t know what to say. They looked at the pictures, especially the one of Sasha's father, who turned out to be the creator of Kit. He was a general who sacrificed himself so his son could live. I can't even imagine the pain he must have felt when that happened. After that, they moved on. Fluttershy didn’t even want to approach the shadow picture, but Cadance and my brother did. They gently stepped back and ended up bumping into Goliath, who waved at them. They waved back while Pinkie jumped onto his head.

"Goliath! Hey! How’s it going?! Any news?"

"Hey Pinkie. Yes, I have something new. Can you get down? I’ll show you." She jumped down eagerly and Goliath shot confetti from one of his fingers. He must have learned that from Pinkie. She was overjoyed. "Do you like it?"

"Do I like it?! That was amazing! You know how to do it! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I’m so happy!"

She jumped on him, hugging him. Applejack and Rainbow tried to pull her off so she wouldn’t accidentally break him, but they couldn’t. Kit finally flew up to the doors. He touched them with one of his limbs, which seemed to activate them. Slowly they started turning blue until they began to open. This time, I started jumping with joy, but Kit didn’t look happy. Fluttershy noticed and approached him.

"Did something happen? Are you sad?"

"These doors should have opened almost immediately. They shouldn’t be this slow."

"Maybe just time has taken its toll on them."

"They should be in perfect condition for five million years... If they’re barely opening, then too much time has passed."

"Is that bad?"

"Cryogenic capsules can only keep people for a certain amount of time. If it’s too long, something bad could happen to them."

Hearing this made me a little worried. Since it’s been over five million years since humanity’s fall, and these cryogenic pods have a limited operational time, I got concerned. I felt an unpleasant sensation in my stomach. Slightly nervous, I watched as the doors opened, but there was nothing inside. Just a massive chasm. Cadance was the first to look down.

"Did people know how to fly?" she asked. "I didn’t see any wings in the pictures."

"No, they didn’t." Kit replied. "They had special machines or suits for that, but naturally, no. It seems that due to explosions and time, the elevator broke. I also can’t activate the gravity well from here. The jump down could be fatal, so I suggest using wings."

"And what about those who don’t have any?" Applejack asked.

"Goliath can help. You can climb onto my back. I have jet engines."

Pinkie was the first to jump, all excited. Applejack climbed up, followed by Shining and Rarity. I approached Kit, who flew into the darkness, and I followed right after him, with the others behind. Goliath lit the way for us with his eyes. As we flew down, I saw many claw marks bigger than me. I swallowed nervously at the sight. The shadows must have been huge. With that uneasy thought, I flew further down. Fluttershy, scared, flew onto Goliath, and the princesses were carefully observing the tracks. They seemed quite worried as well. They must have communicated telepathically because, after a moment, they nodded at each other.

The descent took us about five minutes before we landed on something solid. Kit said it was the elevator and opened a hatch. We climbed into it and finally stood in front of the doors. Goliath stayed on the roof. He pressed a few buttons, which seemed to be for opening the doors, but nothing happened. He said something was broken, opened something, and began fixing it. For a moment, nothing happened except for blue sparks and light, but soon the lights came on, and some music played. It was calm and soothing. Kit said it was typical elevator music, and finally, the doors opened. It was dark, but Goliath could enter and light everything up. The first thing we saw was a human skeleton. Fluttershy probably noticed it first. She screamed in terror and flew into Goliath. Kit tapped it, but all we heard was an empty sound.

"Plastic." He said. "Someone must have left Halloween decorations up." We all looked at him. "I’ll explain later. Probably, the ones who weren’t frozen were just having fun... Alright, now to get the power running. You can look around if you want... Oh, and you can turn off the translation spell in our direction. I’ve already analyzed your language and uploaded it to the database. Oh, and..." He activated smaller versions of himself, which each flew over to us. "These are the Wiki information drones. Just so you know."

Wow. That was fast. Well, thanks to magic, I lit up the way ahead and tried to examine as much as I could. There’s so much interesting stuff. Judging by the room I entered, it looked like a small kitchen. There was a fridge, which I recognized, and a strange device called a mixer, an induction stove, and something called a Roomba charging station. According to Wiki, it’s a very old model of a cleaning robot. But why is there a knife taped to it? Anyway, I went into another room where most of my friends had gathered. There was a device called a television, which could display various things like series or movies, but mostly ads.

"Were there... farming shows?" Applejack asked.

"Yes, indeed. There were tons of them..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Suddenly we heard a loud scream. Princess Luna came running from the kitchen where I had been earlier, hiding behind us. Moments later, the Roomba came rolling out with the knife attached, making strange noises as it moved. The princess was terrified, but Wiki had told me how to turn it off, so I pressed a big button in the center, and it stopped.

"Can I get an Awa Awa?"

"Awa Awa!"

The Roomba said, then turned off, and Pinkie repeated it. That’s when it became clear, and Kit shouted that we had to go to the chambers quickly. The sightseeing would come later. We headed there, and he gave us access to the bunker by scanning us, as Wiki called it, and we entered. However, we were stopped by a robot, another one. It jumped out so suddenly that my brother was about to jump on it, but I stopped him.

"Unit EIR. What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing? I don’t even know. I’m waking up after who knows how many years, there’s no one around, I can’t hear anything, and the only thing I see is that someone got authorization, and now I see you." He pointed to us with his tail, which had fallen off. "Rusty? It should have lasted a long time..."

"Mr. EIR, probably it’s been too long," Princess Celestia said. "But we need to go to the capsules to save the people."

"No way. You have so many new species of bacteria that aren't in the database, and you’re probably not resistant to them here. Also, there’s probably nothing to save. I detect only two life signs... or maybe my sensors are rusty. Fine, go ahead, but I’ll examine you later."

Hearing that only two people had likely survived, we ran after Kit, who took off pretty quickly. Worried, we didn’t know what to think until we reached a huge hall, where there were probably human capsules in the walls. Kit started pressing things intensely on a console, trying to find or activate something. After a moment, a number appeared on the wall next to us. Eleven million? At first, I didn’t understand what was going on, but then it hit me.

"Eleven million? So many people survived?" Shining asked, but unfortunately, he was wrong.

"No, bro bro. It’s been eleven million years since the fall of humanity..." Everyone put a hoof to their mouths, not knowing what to say.

"That’s six million years longer than the longest scenarios predicted..." Kit stated. I approached him and wanted to calm him down, but he flew to another console. "This is impossible. ZEUS was supposed to disconnect them then. What happened? Oh no, no, no!"

"What happened?" Cadance asked, slightly agitated. "Why are these points... turning red?"

"No one survived."

Tears fell from my eyes when I saw how the small dots on the hologram, as Wiki called it, were turning red, meaning the people there were dead. There were about a million people in the whole large bunker. The red dots became a literal wave. Everyone was dead. The princesses had to sit down, Fluttershy started crying in Rainbow’s shocked arms, and Applejack and Rarity couldn’t stop staring with their jaws dropped. I, saddened that I wouldn’t meet any humans, but also that no one had survived, was about to leave when I suddenly heard a faint beep. When I turned around, I saw one dot on the hologram, at the very end, wavering between green and red. I immediately ran over.

"Someone’s alive!"

Kit immediately flew to the panel and started pressing things again quickly. I was so happy that there was hope. I watched as a gigantic mechanical arm reached for the last capsule, placing it near us. We ran to it. Unfortunately Kit couldn't find the other man so maybe the EIR was wrong. Anyway, when we got there Kit flicked a few buttons and until I saw the happiness in his eye.

"Sasha..."