Author's Note
Just a bit of experimentation. Bored.
Set Out
Shining creased his eyes to shield them from the flying daggers of the freezing air. He stood out of the cupola as his P1A1 tanks careened across the icy snows of the former Crystal Empire. The stallion's tank was flanked on all sides by a plethora of vehicles, from the mighty battletanx to the humble supply transport trucks. The P1A1 was a common vehicle on the Equestrian continent, sporting a long, wide, and almost flat rectangular hull with a similar turret, it was nearly impossible to penetrate its armor. Its 120 mm cannon made any who tried unable to regret their decision.
Speaking of.
Shining covered his ears when the cannon went off, belching out fires and gases from the aftermath. A tiny vehicle in the distance turned into a ball of fire when the shell collided with its body, sending shrapnel and burning fuel over the snow and exposed, blackened stone. He watched as several more of these tiny vehicles rolled over the icy dunes and sharp rocks, their tiny tracks and single navigational wheel at the front bouncing rapidly like dice in hand.
The stallion slammed his hooves onto the roof of the turret before putting his helmet back on. "We have incoming! I don't think I need to remind you that the mototanks' machine guns will tear everyone behind us to shreds."
"No sir!" the loader and gunner said together.
Shining focused as hard as he could on the horizon, seeing the number of vehicles increase among the immense ruins of what once had been a technological hub for his country. Giants of steel and concrete filled with ponies parched for research that were developing a multitude of technologies and theories that were helping the world develop.
"And be destroyed..." Shining grumbled to himself.
The former captain grumbled to himself, a nasty habit he had developed since the virus made its rounds through the planet. It was relaxing in a way. Meditative, even.
"I counted twenty-two mototanks and three rattlers," Shining announced.
The stallion jerked to the side when the tank shifted gears, causing the others around to split apart.
"Rattlers? Are you serious?!" the driver complained. The tank shifted harshly again. "Stupid trapezoids." He accessed the comms of the platoon angrily. "We've got rattlers in the bunch. Newbies, watch out for the thirty millimeter gatling cannons. They'll ruin your day."
P1A1s spread apart as the platoon roared together when they approached their enemy.
Shining threw his helmet on the cold ground next to him, letting the fire crackle before his eyes. Another day, another group of would-be marauders with stolen weaponry roaming the land. The soldiers and engineers were all looting everything they could from the remains and seeing what could be recovered or reused for their other vehicles. Cadance sat in front of him, her eyes sunken into the sparkling light consuming the dead wood to stay alive. Shining felt a pang of guilt, seeing the eyes of his beloved wife devoid of all natural light, requiring the flames to stay alive. Her once luxurious mane was now faded and rough like straw. Her coat was dusty and darkened with dirt, and her crown had long been removed in a bid to minimize the attention she could get from afar. Having so many colorful ponies kept her pink coloration from sticking out.
"Will you be alright, honey?" Shining asked.
The mare heaved a heavy sigh. "Yes..." she answered weakly.
Her husband attempted to reach out to her but pulled his foreleg back. He could feel the stress eating at her and stayed quietly, not wanting to boil the water over.
"King Armor," a soldier called out.
Shining cringed. He hated that title, but it was befitting the situation. "What is it, soldier?"
"We went through the remains, and we can recover two of the rattlers and about three mototanks. The rest are ruined beyond repair."
"Then loot 'em and boot 'em."
The soldier saluted and hurried off excitedly toward his fellows that eagerly went to grinding and cutting apart the wrecks. He thanked one of the cooks that brought him a bowl of wishwash and joined his wife to get her to eat as well.
"I think it's filled with cabbage, corn, parsley, and spinach this time," Shining said softly.
Cadance looked at him and gave him a weak smile, taking the opportunity to lean her head against his broad shoulder and use her magic to raise the bowl to her mouth. When he watched her cringe at the flavor, he took a sip himself and shivered.
"I didn't realize soldiers were so tough," Cadance wheezed.
Shining coughed. "I think the cooks put in too much spice."
They had been on the 'road' for months after losing their initial hold, and finding ways to cook was always difficult. Wishwashes used the overheated washers dropped into empty and cleaned out tin cans that were then dropped in huge, dented pots of broth. It was both efficient and inefficient, but it was more effective than using a ton of wood, and the washers could be reused. As its name attested, those that ate this awful meal wished it tasted good.
"Do you think we'll ever find a home out there?" Cadance asked. "I'm worried about what we'll do for our family."
Shining paused and exchanged looks with his own reflection, hoping it might know the answer. "I'm going to be honest with you, Cadance."
"You always are," she teased.
"I don't know. We're all looking for a new place to live. The Crystal Empire collapsed after everything happened."
"I know," the alicorn interrupted. "Everything is polluted and criminals have popped up left and right." She sighed and forced herself to drink more wishwash. "And no industry means no products which means no farming tools. Not that we can farm the land anymore."
Shining gagged when he ate more. "We just need to find the places furthest from the wars. There must be places like that! The world is too big to just be this now."
Before Cadance could continue, a soldier came up to them, visibly shaking from the food he just ingested, his ice blue mane a complete mess. "Good news, your highness: We found a fuel cache buried under some debris in the city. It will take us a few hours of digging and transporting to get it back with us to our camp."
"Fantastic. Just make sure you don't linger there too long and keep to the security codes," Shining insisted. "If anypony wants to join us, then let them."
"Make sure you vet them," Cadance added. "Can't...have any spies or...things like that."
"Yes, ma'am."
The soldier turned around and galloped back to the ruins sticking out of the land like broken bones through skin. Shifts were made to keep watch over the encampment at night, allowing everyone to get a relatively good rest after days of stress and anxiety. The following wouldn't be any better.
The group had gotten out of the snowy fields of the Crystal Empire, having exhausted every point they could in their search for supplies. They had now become a rich convoy of heavy weaponry and resources. As he rested his head in his forelegs and enjoyed the warmth defrosting his bones, Shining realized that, in normal circumstances, they would be avoided at all costs by any would-be raider. Unfortunately, the times they lived in made that impossible to imagine.
"Anyone see anything?" Shining asked through his headset. He received a bunch of 'negatives', setting his mind ablaze.
Having something was always good. It helped to manage one's expectations of what lied ahead. Having nothing at all? Well, that was downright suspicious. Even the dregs of train tracks writhing on the ground didn't pull up any alarm bells.
"Smoke columns in the distance to our left," one voice rang out.
Shining looked to the side and pulled out binoculars. "Looks like the leftovers of a battle."
"Should we go inspect?" a tank commander asked.
It was a tempting prospect, but they currently wanted for nothing. "Best to steer clear. We're already full as is with plenty of tanks and supplies. Don't need to risk them for greed," Shining explained.
"Yes sir."
It would all better serve someone else that might pass by in the future. Shining couldn't help but feel like they should stop by Canterlot now that they had entered Equestria, but what were the chances the other princesses were still around? Outside Cadance and his sister, Luna and Celestia were always...odd when it came to their powers. Whatever limits they had were never mentioned. One time they would be able to overwhelm a magical blizzard capable of destroying an entire country. During others, they could be overwhelmed by just a few ponies. He didn't know whether their powers waxed and waned, or they did all that on purpose.
So he and the other soldiers creased their lips and clenched their teeth when they saw multiple banged up, metal signs jutting out of the land, the previous text covered in poorly spray-painted graffiti. They were the usual warnings of any power hungry ganger. 'Stay out', 'X territory', 'Beware', and so forth. However, the name of this gang drew attention: Solar Celestials. Their symbol, likewise, was a sun cut in half with fragmented lines coming off the intact portion.
"Celestia is around here," Shining warned over comms. "Looks like she chased off the gangs around here."
"Trying to retake Equestria, sir?" one of the soldiers teased.
"Yeaaaah. Let's just try and get through this witho--" A P1 further up front went flying into the air before exploding, followed shortly after by a second one. "Scatter!" the stallion ordered. He looked around until he found the source and felt his blood turn cold. "Hornets!"
Several tanks with flat, rectangular hulls emerged from cover, chasing off their camouflage of debris and foliage. The arms of their turrets, vertical hexagons, unleashed a deluge of unguided rockets at the column, soon followed by their own P1s and mototanks. Shining ducked when one of the P1s blew up to his immediate northwest, sending debris and crew flying. His eyes locked onto a disheveled pony with no jaw and several metal bits grafted onto his body. It was like looking at a zombie, then he realized why he felt so uncomfortable.
Slamming the hatch shut, Shining got into position and adjusted himself in his seat. "They're Cold Warriors! Assume they'll keep coming even when dead. Be thorough!"
The warfare was titillating to the mindless freaks, rotting from the fallout of the virus and the world war that came from it. Errant shells and rockets crashed into nearby rock shelves that showed anyone nearby with debris. The P1s held up well enough, cared for by the ponies of the Crystal Empire, but having their kin fighting against them felt odd to the crew members.
The interior of the tank shook violently every time a shell impacted the hull. Were it not for the protective helmets, the crew's heads would have popped open against the metal interior like an egg. Shining looked through the windows of his hatch, giving orders to try and coordinate with the soldiers, but one enemy hornet shot one of his tanks and blew it up in his face, startling him and showering the vehicle in sharp debris. Using a periscope instead, Shining bore witness to a field of smoldering wrecks and caught sight of something horrible rolling in from the left.
"We've got a goliath!" the stallion bellowed in panic.
The radio became aflame with chatter when a hornet blew up from an immense shell coming from the newcomer tank. Its trapezoidal tracks came from a high elevation to the rear that sloped down sharply to the front. Its turret was blocky with its two-hundred-and-ten millimeter cannon slightly offset, but the elevation gave it an unparalleled view of the battlefield. Fortunately, firing said cannon created enough recoil to prevent rapid shooting since the tank would be sent flying by its own power. That, and Shining's brows furrowed when he saw a mototank get run over by the super-heavy, leaving behind a pancake of a tank. He didn't want to imagine what happened to the driver inside.
"Focus fire on it! Don't stay too close together and keep moving!" Shining ordered.
"Should we try to disable it?" a voice asked over the radio. "Queenlord Cadance would need such a monster to stay safe."
The stallion pursed his lips, feeling the sweat of fear trickling down his saturated fur to the dryer patches below. He didn't want his wife to fight at all. She wasn't made for it, but with what his scouts and detachments reported to him, the few surviving mares had become worshiped by gangs and become what were now known as 'Queen Lords', something the outsider ponies had brought in with them when joining the Crystal Army as they searched for a better life. Their insistence on getting a goliath tank for Cadance to ride around in started infecting the other soldiers' minds, projecting their dead wives, fiancés, girlfriends, daughters, and sisters onto the princess and eventually fearing for her life. Even magic couldn't fully stop something like a tank shell without multiple unicorns trying. Plus, whatever child they have, it couldn't stay behind in a supply truck for safety and would likely grow up, adapted to the world. Shining took a deep breath and relented.
"Fine. Try and disable it if you can, but you need to destroy the others," the stallion commanded. "We're losing too many ponies already."
The fight with the goliath lasted at least an hour. The other tanks were distracted by Shining's Army, giving free rein to take out the goliath with no escort. Even when the armor covering its tracks were blown off, and it could no longer move, it still managed to take out twenty-one P1A1 tanks, much to the horror of everyone present. Thanks to an errant shell damage the turret, the goliath was effectively disabled, allowing some hoof troops to wipe out its crew. By some miracle, the tank was captured, something that Shining didn't think was possible without finding a warehouse. All the other encounters with its kind were...not productive, to put it mildly.
When the last enemy P1 was taken out and the survivors, resembling cybernetic undead, were finished off, it left the medics and nurses to rush to the field and scour the wrecks for survivors. Like always, the more loot-driven were compelled to get the tanks, with multiple recovery vehicles following closely behind with their lumbering metal bodies. While not many P1s were recovered, the looter-scavengers recovered plenty of parts, hornet tanks, and the wilder ponies were already dancing around the goliath, celebrating the arrival of a 'sacred guardian', as Shining perceived it. Cadance would have to learn to defend herself at some point, and in this world consumed by survival wars, she could no longer afford to sit by passively. It was time to bring her into the real world.
At a distance, Celestia gazed through a telescope sitting atop a stone tower, its body wracked with moss and cracks. "Cadance is there," the princess noted. She pushed the scope to the side and squinted. "We must capture her. Us princesses need her to help restore the pony populations and prevent our extinction," she stated.
"Should we send an armored corps to their location to capture her?" a soldier asked.
Celestia gave the question some thought. She could feel parts of her mane falling out from stress, but her magic had gone wild since the virus. Destabilization everywhere, fallout thanks to a lot of competent nuclear plant workers dying, the wars that occurred shortly after to gather and hoard away all the mares.
"I'm not sure," she responded. "We should wait and see where they're going. Minimize any damages and loss of life. If we capture her, we can subsume the rest of the band, but Shining worries me. He's tougher than he looks."
"Then there's your sister."
Celestia grumbled at the reminder. "Brought back from her exile then leaves me behind again because of disagreements." She readjusted the telescope and gazed through it again. "Brat." The alicorn snorted and stood straight. "We wait and see what happens."
"Opportunistic?" the soldier asked.
The alicorn nodded. "Opportunistic." She went for the stairs and let the soldier go before her. "How are the buffalo doing?"
"Still resisting, but they aren't very numerous. They either join us or they die out."
Celestia smiled. "Very good. One less threat to our people's survival."
