AUTHOR’S NOTE
Yes, I’m well aware that this story doesn’t have much of anything to do with the canon universe, as of the time of this writing. Trust me, the story ties in heavily to the canon universe in later chapters. I would also like to mention that I don’t have much motivation to write, or for that matter, to continue writing. If you like the story and wish for me to continue, please say so. As of now, I’m only seeking critical feedback; I’m not trying to entertain. If you would let me add more, I’ve been having formatting errors. That is all, for now.
All civilizations are eventually swept from the sands of time by the tide of war, for war is an evening tide. It is a thing of many forms, of many permutations and manifests. It can show itself in a capacity as weak as, say, gravity- one thing trying to climb upwards, another force pulling it downwards. More often though, it comes in the form of bullets, of bloodshed and of desire. War is always an option that comes around by choice, on the behalf of its conscious wielder. Its counterpart, peace, is often a favorable alternative to the destruction that war wreaks upon not just what it is used against, but by what uses it. However, peace does not offer instant gratification, for its effects are often withheld from the casual observer until long after the original reasons for favoring peace over war have been forgotten.
BANG
But war, war is instantaneous.
BANG BANG BANG
Like the bullets from my gun, it kills its opponent swiftly and cleanly, to say nothing of recoil.
I glared at what I had done through the dusted lens of a rusted sniper rifle. Three ponies lay dead in the street, their mouths (or what was left of them after my sharpshooting) stood agape and their legs twitched about in a post mortem manner. Blood slid off of their bodies in a perpetual waterfall to stain the concrete beneath them, tainting it a deep red. One of them may still be alive. I could go down there and check. Wouldn’t be much of a problem.
One of the corpses began to twitch, its eyes rolling around furiously in its sockets. A scream formed on its lips, before I silenced it once and for all.
BANG
I quickly swept over the area surrounding them, and found nothing save for a vast, hellish expanse filled with flaming buildings and bullet-strewn corpses. An omnipresent swirl of smoke, ash and golden dust filled what negative space there was amongst the ruins. Finding nothing of any great interest or danger, I let go of the operating lever and it wooshed up in front of my face, before it mechanically clicked into the backbone of my sniper rifle. I swished my tounge around in my mouth a little to rid it of the cold, metallic taste that the operating lever had left on it. A few green hairs were ripped from my muzzle by the almost comically fast movement of the lever.
“Aaand that’s everypony. Good job, I guess.” I looked over to Unit 3, my spotter. She was busy surveying the ground with a pair of binoculars, which she clutched in-between her hooves. She lowered them and turned her shaggy, brown head to face me. Her blond mane obscured about half of her face.
“You sure? Remember last time-”
“I fucking remember ‘last time’. Don’t remind me.” She paused for a second, analyzing my face for any sign that I had been insulted by her harsh words. I assume that she found none. “Let’s go,” she quickly added.
She motioned her hoof towards the space behind us. I followed the movement to lay my eyes upon what could have once been a kitchen, back in the so-called ‘golden days’ of a place called Equestria. Now, it looked like a pyromaniac’s warehouse if it resembled anything at all. The light from the fires that seemed to perpetually burn around every nook and alley of Industrial Canterlot illuminated piles of furniture that had been scorched black by innumerable decades of rot and decay. What little had survived was shoved against the back wall, serving to brace a door. A corpse lay in the center of the room, its skin mummified in a strange, waxy substance and its mouth wretched open in an eternal scream. The body stirred a feeling deep inside me that I can’t quite explain. I suppose that it may be akin to what a pony wandering through the remnants of his house feels; a strange feeling that what he’s looking at is alien in nature, yet still bears upon him a horrific degree of familiarity.
Unit 3 interrupted my observation. “Not that way, dumba-...erm, sillypony.” She made a sharp thrust diagonally downwards. I once again traced the bobbing movement of her hoof to see a black abyss; the monotony of its darkness broken only by spasms of light that refracted from a metal ladder. I felt as if I were looking into a pond that was filled with murky, black water.
I facehoofed. “You can call me anything you want. I deserve it.” I’ve never been an observant pony (admittedly, sniping was probably a bad career choice), but I must have been trying pretty hard to ignore the huge, gaping chasm literally a few noses below me.
Unit 3 was about to say something, but before she could speak, a sharp report of automatic gunfire emanating from somewhere in the distance cut her off. “I’ll go first.” She tip-hoofed off of the construction beam that we had been perched on and then scampered through the hole like a centipede, quickly descending the ladder down into some unforseen depth far below. I quickly (well, relatively speaking) followed suit, after making certain that my rifle was securely fashioned against the right side of my body. Before I descended into the hole, I jerked the oiled strip of leather that fastened the rifle to me, just to ensure that it wouldn’t slip and break against whatever lay below. I wasn’t keen on the prospect of hoof to hoof combat.
We descended into what seemed to be a defunct atrium of some sort. Gutted furniture lay across the room in pieces that were constantly strewn up and whipped around us by the furious forces of shockwaves. Several decayed corpses covered in the same black, waxy flesh that had entombed the poor bastard above me littered the room. What looked like a chandelier had collapsed over a pool table, ripping it in two during the process. Several of its lights winked on and off periodically, throwing up webbed shadows that danced with the bright flashes of light that invaded the room from the streets. In the dark horizon that marked the edges of my vision, I could make out a few gambling machines, some of which had the remains of ponies flash-fried across their surfaces. The air was filled with the scent of death and a constant auditory parade of gunshots.
Unit 3 suddenly spoke up.“Okay, you’re the smartest one out of the two of us. Where to next?”
I thought for a second. “Doesn’t matter to me. Everything around here is the exact same sort of everything that you’d find anywhere else. Although, we should probably head somewhere higher up.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so? What’s the point in gibbering?” Before I could respond, she quickly added “That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.” I sighed.
“You should know where we need to go. Unless you want to trade positions with me and be the sniper.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You seem to be under the impression that I have the slightest fucking clue as to what we’re doing here.” She paused for a moment. “S...sorry if that offended you.”
Dear Reginald, what a bitch! “Fine, I’ll get the map.” I reached my left hoof to my side, and set to work on undoing a brass zipper that was woven into a fine, silken bag. I plunged my hoof into the bag’s interior and shoved my way around ammo boxes, flares and...hunting trophies before my hoof fell upon a piece of wrinkled paper. After tugging it out of the bag, I pressed it against the floor, smoothing it with my muzzle until it resembled an actual map and not the puddle that typically resulted from a spilled inkwell.
I was greeted with a tangle of lines and rectangular boxes that were, in turn, labeled with microscopic lettering. Letters reading ‘Downtown Canterlot’ dominated the top of the faded yellow map. I only had to glance upwards to see a sign posted above what I assumed to be an exit that read: ‘Big Shots Casino Royale Grande Exit.” Printed under the sign in bold, golden text were the words ‘Why bother leaving, when there’s more to win?’ I re-focused my attention to the map and began to search. My eyes scanned through dozens of lines of text before they managed to find the needle in the haystack; a little dot, marked with a line of its own that read ‘Big Shots Casino Royal Grande’. I took note of the area surrounding the casino. Dozens of other commercial venues surrounded the place like flies over a corpse. Far too many of them dotted the map for me to memorize them in the few precious minutes we had. To compensate for my lack of time, I memorized the best local routes from building to building, from alleyway to alleyway and from street to street before I folded the map back up.
“Just shut up and follow me.” Unit 3 nodded in response. With a few flicks of my hoof, the map was back in the bottom of the bag.
*****
Several days later, I lay awake in the midst of a bloody midnight, lost in thought.
I don’t know quite why I decided to become a soldier. I don’t know why I wanted to squander my talents on a single nation’s interests; a nation that no longer exists because of ponies like me. Because of armies of ponies like me. Because some 300,000 ponies were united in a sole, driving desire to wage war against an opponent that they knew was unstoppable. The proposition that peace could have saved us -could have saved Equestria- haunts me to this very day. Why does war exist, when we can all coexist like we had been doing for centuries prior to the outbreak of the Conflict that smothered Equestria in the feathers of war-going Griffons? I suppose that the motivations of many things are hidden from their progeny, yet are obvious to others.
I turned to Unit 3. “U3?”
“Ugh...what do you want?” She lifted her head from a moldy pillow, one of her eyelids lazily fluttering upwards in response to my call. The opalescent pearl underneath bore heavily into my right eyeball.
“I...I want to know why we’re fighting this war. What’s the point in fighting?”
A confused look overcame her face. “This is the first sleep we’ve gotten in weeks, and you’re still philosophizing the war?”
“So I’m curious.”
“You want to know what I think? I don’t think that there’s a purpose to this war. We don’t even know what it is that we were sent here to do, except survive. There’s no enemy to kill; we’re basically just shooting everything that shoots us. It’s stupid.” She turned her back to me, and before long, the perturbing melody of her snores filled the tent.
Content with her answer, I fell asleep.
****
It may have been months, or years since that night had passed. There was no way to keep time since my watch had cracked into small, dusty flakes as a result of being hit with a bullet.
The sky all around me shone a sickly gray that gave no trace as to whether day or night lay above it. Below the sky, raggedy buildings broken down into mere shadows of what they once were slumped upwards, as far as the eye could see. The ruins were the grass of this seventh circle; the fires that seamlessly travelled between them, the souls of the damned. My eyes caught the pebbles of light that were several pegasi clad in cyan armor, busying themselves with weaving their way through huge,smoking spires that jutted into the sky like stalagmites. The burned out shells of buildings loomed over me like a hole-strewn cliffside as I watched the scenery go by. Everything was oddly relaxing, and I was almost sleepy from the bobbing movement of the armored stagecoach that I found myself riding in. I perked awake at every auditory phantasm that rung from the deadness about me, only to fall backwards and relax. Thankfully, this area was too irradiated by decades of magical warfare for anypony but the likes of me and Unit 3 to travel through. For once, I wasn’t in any danger.
Whatever army I had been conscripted to earlier in my career had possessed the logic and perhaps the foresight to clad its soldiers in suits of red armor. There were slight variations to be found across different forms of this armor; for instance, my set had pitch-black legs to interrupt the smooth flow of red across every other part of its surface. From what I’ve observed, the armor is virtually useless in conventional warfare. Admittedly, it has saved my life more than once when I’ve had the luck, or lack thereof, to run into some asshat toting a Glowstick; an extremely powerful Magical weapon that irradiates its target on contact. It’s the only gun of its kind in existence, fortunately enough. The suit also seemed to stand up to conventional biohazard situations, like the one I found myself in.
I began to grow bored, as the hours (days?) droned onwards. “U3?”
The stagecoach slowed for a second. “Hmm?”
“Where are we going?”
“Out.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m trying to find a way out of this city.”
“There’s no way out of the city.”
“You have a map, don’t you?”
“It’s borderless.”
“Well, shit. What am I walking for, then?”
“Exercise?”
“Fuck you.”
“Heh. Same.” Probably the only reason why Unit 3 hadn’t snapped by that point was because she still had this delusional dream of a vast, natural expanse that lay just beyond the borders of Industrial Canterlot. I don’t know where she gathered such a foolish idea from; probably, her own imagination. It was all I could do to support the conjecture, if only for the sake of her dying sanity.
PSSSSSHHHHGGHT
The ghastly shriek of a Glowstick ripped the air into pieces around me, tearing a scream from my lungs. Flecks of molten metal spewed in front of my face, and I tumbled sideways out of the stagecoach. More bolts struck me and the stagecoach before its armor finally gave way in a geyser of liquid steel and rusted cogs, exposing its wooden interior. The sound of wood igniting took hold of my ears, overpowering the sound of gunshots.
I hastily scampered across the ground for whatever cover I could find, which happened to be an upset piece of concrete. More shots streaked past me like vertical lightning, searing the air around their trajectory. I felt as if I were inside of an oven set to the highest temperature. Part of me wanted to leap up and flee from my assailants, yet my brain overpowered such primal instincts as those and kept me firmly planted behind my cover. Another part of me desperately wanted to see that Unit 3 was safe, but I couldn’t block that out.
After what felt like an eternity spent in the midst of a firing range, the shots stopped. I took a risky glance over the concrete chunk and saw what looked like a bunch of silhouettes painted onto a cloud of smoke. For a terrifying second, I made eye contact (or the equivalent thereof) with one of the figures. A chorus of hushed whispers broke out amongst the crowd. I rapidly pulled my head back down, only to feel a tsunami of pain smash against my neck. I tenderly raised a hoof to my neck to gently probe a soft, mushy pit that curved away from the rest of my flesh. My armor had seemingly disintegrated around that area.
“Hey, um, we didn’t mean to shoot you.” That, folks, was the most legitimate statement of a lifetime. “You can come out now...or not...I really-”
“Oh, shut up.” A far more gruff, masculine voice made itself apparent. “I am Sgt. Potshot, of D company, squad 99. You are ordered to make yourself apparent, under threat of immediate execution.” Potshot...Potshot...Where have I heard that name before? His name had a very odd ring to it that stirred a distant memory.
I risked another glance over the concrete. This time, I saw a group of ponies clad from tail to muzzle in dull, red armor standing in a loose half circle. Several of them had weapons clenched in between their teeth: large, powerful-looking combat rifles. At least one of them wore the Glowstick’s Tiara. Another one of them had a long, cylindrical device prodding out from a set of cast-iron tanks strapped to his backside mounted atop his head. The whole assembly looked absolutely ridiculous. I probably would have laughed, had the circumstances not been so dire.
My hoof dashed instinctively to my side, only to feel my armor’s smooth, almost aquatic texture. Where had the fucking gun gone?! I awkwardly managed to position my head so that I was looking at my side and I groaned when I saw only the tattered remains of a leather thong tapered in strips about my armor. My eyes scanned the cratered dirt around me, searching furiously for my gun. It was nowhere to be found.
Out of fear and anger, I began to furiously curse at myself. Tears were streaming down my cheeks when I found that my silken saddlebag was no longer against my left side, after another brief moment of investigation. It was official: I was out of options, and out of luck.
Aaaand this is where the chapter ends. I apologize for cutting it off so quickly and at such a cliffhanger, but I do have suspense to build here.
