The harsh sun pummels you with its intense heat and light as you work. You have been scraping and digging for the past three hours, and becoming disgusted at your slow progress you take a few steps away to take a quick break. Your gaze sweeps around and you marvel at the beautiful sight that greets your eyes. You are standing in a large clearing in the middle of the Everfree Forest, while the surrounding trees fill the horizon with a never-ending sea of green. The calls and howls of various creatures in the far distance create a mystic background ambiance as you gaze.
Shaking yourself from your dazed stupor, you fixate your attention on the structure you have been excavating for over a week. It is a large square that was a hill until you began digging into it. As you unearthed its surface you couldn’t help but give a shout of joy. At that moment you knew it was a structure built by the Ancients or those who “were here before”. It was made of what you called ‘manufactured stone’. It was hard and had the properties of rocks and boulders but was not found naturally, leading you to believe the Ancients created it and used it as a building material.
You have already uncovered the top of the structure and are in the process of clearing the dirt from the sides in search of doors or windows, or another way you could gain access to its interior. The side facing the North had already been cleared and to your dismay, had no doors or windows. Now you are clearing the East side and are almost at the halfway point. You grunt from the exertion as you use your magic to wield a shovel and have it fling dirt away from the structure’s side. The clang of the shovel hitting against the side of the ‘manufactured stone’ is slow and monotonous like a large bass drum.
You start to daydream and imagine what untold plethora of information could lie inside the structure as you hear a large BANG! Frightened, you stop the shovel and pause for a second as you analyze the cause of the sound. It sounded like metal hitting metal but that is impossible unless... You bring the shovel against the side of the structure near where you hit it last time, and another loud BANG! reverberates through the clearing. Becoming excited you hurriedly shovel away the dirt over the next few feet making countless BANG!s and CLANG!s as you dig.
As you finish excavating the small stretch you are greeted by a large, red, metal door. It is almost twice as tall as you, since your eyes are only about four inches above the door handle. A small rectangular sign on the door near the top is covered with dirt and is illegible. Using your magic you levitate a small dirt brush you always carry with you and dust away the dirt covering the sign. You look up at the newly cleared sign and gasp in shock. The sign is red and is written in large white letters. What shocks you is that you can read the letters on the sign. The Ancients apparently used the same writing language as Equestria does, or rather, Equestria uses the Ancients’ writing system. You hurriedly jot this discovery down into your personal notepad, barely containing your excitement.
Your excitement quickly fades into caution as you read the sign. It says, “DANGER! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY! TRESPASSERS WILL BE TERMINATED!” You gulp as you gaze at the door, wanting to hurl it open and explore the structure’s interior thoroughly. You would but the warning on the door has made you pause. Taking the cautious route, you step to the side of the door and grip the handle with your magic. You close your eyes as you turn the handle and yank it all the way open. A blast of foul, rancid air rushes through the doorway making a loud rushing sound. After a few seconds the sound stops and everything is quiet, save all of the animals in the forest making sounds in the distance.
You open your eyes and tentatively step in front of the open doorway. A dark corridor the height of the door stretches out until it is enveloped in complete darkness. The mysterious darkened corridor beckons to you, and the urge to leap inside and explore surges throughout your entire body. You stop and catch yourself as you look into the sky. Celestia’s sun has touched the horizon and is disappearing rapidly. On the opposite horizon Luna’s moon is peeking up slowly, hailing the start of the night. You resolve to explore the structure tomorrow and you hurriedly run to your tent to prepare your exploration gear and try to sleep.
Morning couldn’t arrive soon enough in your mind’s eye. You had awoken hours before dawn giddy with excitement of what you might find down in those dark corridors. To kill the time until dawn you had checked, double checked, and even triple and quadruple checked your supplies and equipment. As the sun appeared over the horizon you dash towards the large red door. You open it and the vast dark corridor beckons to you once again. Lighting your lantern you enter the doorway and begin walking down the dark corridor.
You walk about 30 feet down the corridor and it opens into a very large open room with a high ceiling. Your lantern illuminates most of the room and you notice several things. This room along with the corridor, are both made of ‘manufactured stone’ as well as a very wide descending staircase across from you on the other side of the room. The left side of the room has countless crates and boxes stacked on top of each other. The right side is mostly empty except for large reddish brown stains on the wall and floor, as well as the skeletons of several ponies. You quickly put your hoof to your mouth to prevent yourself from vomiting in disgust.
You step over towards the bodies of the numerous ponies as you hold your breath. The smell of decay and death hang in the air. As you step closer to the macabre scene your hooves hit and send several small objects flying and rolling away. They made distinctive “ping” sounds as they rolled and bounced over the floor. You look down and inspect a few of them. They all appear to be small, shiny, hollow, metal cylinders that are closed on one side but open on the other. They once contained something but are now empty and discarded. You grab one with your magic and hold it up at eye level. Curiously, you smell it and a strong acrid and sulfurous scent greets your nostrils. That smell combined with the scent of decay makes you gag as you struggle to keep yourself from vomiting again. You place the cylinder in your pack as you draw closer to the bodies.
You get as close as you can without touching the bodies and examine the bones. Some are broken and mangled, while most of the skeletons are complete, whole, and show little or no damage. You can only imagine at what caused the deaths of these poor ancient ponies. “Perhaps the cylinders on the ground had something to do with it?”, you think to yourself. You mutter an inaudible prayer over the corpses and proceed to the left side of the room.
You inspect the boxes and crates and find that all of them are nailed shut. You read the labels and stencils painted on the boxes to try to guess their contents. Most said, “FRAGILE”, “HANDLE WITH CARE”, “PERISHABLE”, or “EXPLOSIVES”. Becoming curious, you open a box of each label with the crowbar you brought along. In the “FRAGILE” and “PERISHABLE” boxes you find various types of foods, no doubt rancid and rotted away by now. The small box labeled “HANDLE WITH CARE” contains a bunch of small metal orbs packed loosely in some sort of straw-like material. These orbs have what seem like metal stems poking out of them with metal pins sticking through the stems.
You have no idea what they are and you contemplate taking the pin out of one and seeing what would happen. You decide against it, keeping the box’s warning label in mind, and remembering that you shouldn’t tamper with unknown objects. Replacing the small orb in the small wooden box, you move to the box labeled “EXPLOSIVES”. Opening it very carefully you remove the cover and stare into the box. What you see are numerous, stacked, rectangular blocks that say “C4 Plastic Explosive” on the side. You pick up a block between your hooves and examine it carefully. After finding nothing else of notice about these weird blocks, you carefully replace it and begin to trot towards the stairs.
A few crates you’ve missed stops you in your tracks, as you turn around and hover over them. You pry the top off of one of them and the sight that greets you is bizarre, to say the least. Sitting side by side on a rack are several, black, long, metal tubes as far as you can tell. Picking one up with your magic you levitate it in front of you, turning and inspecting it. The black metal tube has another black material in a strange shape on one end of it. While this strange other material also covers most of the other half of the tube. A black, curved, rectangular shape sticks out from the bottom near the strange shape on the one end.
Staring at this strange contraption you have become extremely bemused by it. It was obviously useful to the Ancients for some reason, otherwise they wouldn’t have had it. But what was it used for? You gaze down at the side of the wooden crate and it simply stated, “M16”. Confused even further you put the “M16” or whatever it was, back in its place on the rack in its box. You turn to the staircase and begin to follow it as it descends further into the dark labyrinth of the Ancients’ strange structure.
Descending for what seems to be several minutes, your only company is the sound your hooves make as they hit the steps. The hollow notes of this sound echoed and reverberated up and down the never-ending staircase until you thought the sound would drive you mad. Thankfully, the bottom had entered your view and you happily jumped over the last few steps and landed on the floor below with a slight, jarring thud. Another large and dark corridor loomed in front of you as you started to move forward. This corridor was wider than the first one as it was the width of the large flight of steps you just descended.
As you travel down this wide corridor you notice several metal doors with no handles lining the walls, but you make no attempt to inspect or open them. You have seen several similar doors in other ruins built by the Ancients and no matter what you tried, you could never open them. Eventually, you noticed the corridor started to narrow and it came to a fork. One path forked right, and the other went left. You decide to explore the right path first. SLAM! A metal door with no handle shot up through the floor and hit the ceiling of the corridor, blocking the entire right pathway. It made a loud “CLANK” a second later, as if it locked itself. Recovering from the near heart attack the door gave you, you think to yourself, “Alright, left then...”
Walking down the left passageway you notice some strange tubes sticking out from the walls near the ceiling. You have the unnerving feeling that you are being watched, but continue regardless. At the end of the long hallway you see a strange white door ahead of you. You approach the door and lay your hoof against it. You push on it firmly and it slowly begins to open. A blinding white light strikes you as you open the door. Holding your hooves in front of your eyes you stumble into the room, and fall to the ground as you trip over yourself. After your eyes adjust to the bright light you get back up on your hooves. You scan the room then stop, your eyes riveted to one particular spot in the room. Your mouth flies agape in shock. You point a shaking hoof towards the spot and stutter out, “I-I c-can’t believe it. “Its... its...” You faint from the shock and surprise and as you pass out, the darkness of unconsciousness takes ahold of you.
Part 2: The Horrible Truth (Finale)
A bright, white light blinds you as you open your eyes. You don’t remember closing them, nor do you remember where you are. Pushing yourself up on your haunches with your shaking hooves you look around in confusion. You see a large white room illuminated by a bright white light with no noticeable source. Scanning the room you start to notice some features and objects in your field of vision.
On one side of the room, taking up the entire wall is a large piece of glass. Other than its immense size, it is not very interesting. Looking towards the opposite side of the room, you see a large desk. On the desk you see some pencils, yellowed and deteriorated paper, and other objects of varying sizes and shapes that are unknown to you. Behind the desk is a metal chair with something sitting in it. Gazing at this “something” your memories flood back to you.
Excavating the structure, discovering the door and sign, entering and exploring the structure, opening the crates and inspecting their contents, the bodies of the ponies, the white door, and passing out. Suddenly, your jaw drops to the floor as you realize what you’re staring at. The very thing you have only ever hoped to find in your wildest dreams. Sitting in the chair, is the skeleton of an Ancient. You start to hyperventilate and almost pass out a second time. Steadying yourself, you take large breaths to calm yourself as your heart races faster than Rainbow Dash doing a sonic rainboom.
Finally after all of these years, you now have irrefutable physical and fossil proof that the Ancients existed. You let out a squeal of excitement as you start bouncing up and down happily. Still excited immensely, you gallop over to the skeleton with your notepad and pencil out as you begin to examine the skeleton. Being careful not to touch the skeleton, lest it turn into dust, you carefully examine it and take notes.
The skeleton is sitting upright with its head resting on top of the back of the chair. It clearly is a bipedal creature, and lacks hooves. Instead, its long forelimbs have fingers at the end, while its hindlimbs are backwards compared to those of a pony. Examining the skull you notice the brain cavity is quite large, indicating it was just as, if not more intelligent than a pony. Peering at its jaw, you notice an assortment of teeth common to both carnivores and herbivores. From this you deduce that these creatures were omnivorous, as they had teeth for tearing and teeth for grinding.
The rest of the skeleton was obscured by what appeared to be clothes. Scanning up and down the clothes it wore, you see various insignia and symbols on the shoulders and chest. You also see writing stitched into a small patch attached to the chest of the clothing. You peer closer and are able to read, “Cpt. Flowers”. Recognizing the initials ‘Cpt.’ you realize that this particular Ancient was a Captain. This means they had a military, and what it is wearing was probably the uniform of their military. You hurriedly scribble down this information into your notepad.
Finishing with the skeleton, you begin to look around the room once more. The only things in the room however, are the desk, the chair, the skeleton of the Ancient, and the humongous glass wall. Inspecting the desk again, you notice a red button on the edge of the underside. Curious, you press it and the large glass wall illuminates with a blue flash and turns black. You gallop over to stand in front of the screen as it begins to flash black and white before turning into a scrambled mess of grays, whites, and blacks. A harsh glaring garbling and screeching noise accompanies this screen. You cover your ears with your hooves as you are exposed to this strange and unknown sound.
After a few seconds a voice, albeit distorted and garbled, says, “Begi- mess-ge -lay-ack.” The screen focuses and an Ancient is on the glass wall and is sitting in a chair behind a desk that looks very familiar. You realize it is the same desk in the room as you turn your head back to make sure nothing changed. Nothing did and you are bewildered how this glass wall can do such a thing. Magic perhaps? The Ancient shifts in its seat and clears its throat. It begins to speak.
“My name is Larry Flowers, Captain of the United States Army. If you are seeing this pre-recorded message, then humanity has fallen.”
Humanity?
“In case you are not a human but instead some other intelligent being, I will give you a quick explanation of what we are. We are a species known as humans, and by saying humanity we refer to our entire species in general.”
Ah... that makes sense.
“We are an intelligent and advanced race of beings that once had covered the entire globe with our numbers, but no longer. We are imperfect creatures of emotion and of destruction. Naturally we are competitive and our entire species divided itself into numerous countries or self governing bodies. Some were large, others were small, but all wanted one thing. Power. In our never-ending greed our species was always in a constant state of war with ourselves.”
The screen then showed several moving pictures of these “humans” fighting each other. Various locations that are unrecognizable to you are shown along with many different looking kinds of humans. Some you notice are using the strange things known as “M16”s you saw earlier. A few flashes came from the end of one of them and a fleeing human fell to the ground bleeding. You then realized that these things are weapons. Almost every human shown had one. Whether it was an M16 like the one you saw or another type of M16 that you had never seen before.
“However this time, we humans have truly shamed ourselves beyond anything known in our history. We exterminated over two thirds of our species in our last war amongst ourselves by using the most powerful weapons ever created. Nuclear weapons.”
The glass then showed an image of a large city from high above the ground. A blinding flash covered the screen as a huge plume of fire and smoke enveloped the entire city and spread to the surrounding area, creating a large circle about ten times the size of the city. A huge burning cloud in the shape of a mushroom loomed ominously over the now nonexistent city. You were appalled at the power and destruction of just one of these so called “nuclear weapons”.
“Hundreds if not thousands of these weapons were used all over the globe on various countries and targets. In addition to the immense blast created by them, nuclear weapons also release tons of radiation into the atmosphere. A type of poison you could call it. This radiation or poison, spread over the globe. Killing plants, animals, and even more humans. The world was thrown into ecological collapse as scores of species of every kind died off and became extinct. Convinced we had all doomed ourselves to slow deaths by starvation with the collapse of the food chain, we waited for the inevitable. Then one day “They” appeared.
The glass screen then began showing various pictures of... ponies!? These pictures showed all kinds of ponies. Unicorns, Pegasi, Earth ponies, soldiers, civilians, the young, the old, and even the Princesses themselves. Celestia and Luna both looked younger in the pictures, as well as having a couple differences from what they look like now. Celestia’s mane was pink, and she had a fire in her eyes not seen by her subjects today. Luna looked almost the same as she did now, except a bit smaller. Luna’s eyes also had a much brighter shine then they did nowadays. The voice continued.
“We have no idea how they arrived in our world. Their leader...” He paused. “Their leader, Princess Celestia...” He said with venom in his voice. “Explained that they arrived here by traveling through a portal trying to escape from their world, which was apparently being destroyed. Weary of war we did not want to fight these creatures for land or resources. Instead, we made a peace agreement and gave them some land to settle in. To our surprise even more of them appeared and the countless ponies, so they wanted to be called, moved to unoccupied areas and built settlements. In the years that followed we experienced a time of renewed prosperity as the ponies used magic to help restore the world and rid it of the poison we had unleashed upon it. Species that became extinct returned, and new ones we’ve never seen appeared. We were all awed at this power and mystified by it. We also became afraid. If these ponies could reverse the effects of nuclear weapons, what could they due to us if they thought we were no longer necessary?”
Again, the screen flickers from pictures of ponies to pictures of humans working in what appears to be a factory.
“We began to manufacture weapons again, and rearm and reform our military. Guns, tanks, ammunition, artillery, we built every weapon we could. When asked why we were doing such a thing by the ponies, we replied that we feared other groups of humans might attack us or our new “allies”. Hearing this, Celestia apparently became appalled. “You fight against your own kind?” she asked. To which we replied, “Yes, we always have. That is the reason for our predicament that you found us in.” After hearing this she appeared to grow more distant from us and it came to the point we had to demand audiences with her. Later, we noticed that her military of ponies had increased significantly. We demanded a reason for this suspicious behavior, but she just gave that stupid, smug, condescending smile and said, “To better protect ourselves from hostile forces, foreign and domestic.” We let the issue slide but both sides had an uneasy peace for the next 10 or so years. The pony population was growing faster than our own and minor confrontations became common. They wanted more space to settle, but we would not give up our land. Riots of ponies became common as human and pony police suppressed these conflicts and tried to maintain peace and stability.
The glass showed images of Royal Soldiers and apparently human police and/or military service members holding back a large wave of ponies. The humans had large clear shields and were pushing the rioting ponies back. The Royal Soldiers did likewise.
“Tensions reached the breaking point as a group of ponies killed a human family one day. Our people demanded justice and revenge. We appealed to Celestia, but she did nothing. Her sister, Luna, sprang into action and demanded that those responsible face criminal charges. War was close, but had been averted for now. During a riot shortly after this, a human rioter killed a pony soldier. Celestia used this as an excuse to declare war upon us, while her sister begged and pleaded with us and Celestia for peace. Celestia ignored her sibling and put one of our towns to the sword. Her soldiers burned the town to the ground and slaughtered everyone. Civilians, military personnel, men, women, children, all were put to death, none were spared or shown mercy. We responded in kind and declared war.”
Images of what the humans referred to as “tanks” and infantry flash across the screen. A moving picture clip begins to play and the sounds of battle fill the room. The screams and yells of ponies and humans alike blares from the screen towards you. The humans are shorn up holding a defensive line while a large force of ponies charge them. All of the weapons of the humans shot out light from their ends and wave after wave of pony soldiers were mowed down like wheat being harvested.
The sight is sickening. You once again have to hold your hoof to your mouth to prevent yourself from vomiting. A “tank” moves slowly forward and a light is continually blazing from a hole in its upper part. The tank then shudders with a loud BOOM! as a large flash comes out from the long tube on its upper part. A large explosion follows as it lands among the ponies and sends ponies and body parts flying through the air in a fine red mist. You can’t hold it in anymore, you point your head towards the ground and vomit on the white floor.
More tanks on the glass become visible and launch explosion after explosion into the mass of ponies. It appears the humans have won, but now the princesses appear on the glass. The tanks turn their tubes toward Celestia and fire a salvo at her. The princess was concealed in a large smoke cloud, but after it clears she is still there. Visibly afraid, the humans concentrate all of their weapons on Celestia. After the intense barrage she remains unharmed. A large malicious grin appears on her face as she shoots a magical beam from her horn into a tank. It explodes into a large fireball and engulfs and destroys another nearby tank.
Luna, who looked saddened deeply, launched several spinning crescents at the humans. Her magical blades cut through them and their weapons with ease. Another large force of ponies gathered behind their monarchs and charged. All the while Celestia and Luna launched their magic attacks. The humans panicked. They broke ranks and tried to flee. Their tanks were all destroyed and the pony soldiers easily outran and massacred the fleeing humans. Celestia began laughing maniacally, while Luna looked down at the ground shaking her head. The glass faded to black and the image of Captain Flowers reappeared.
“As you can see, we were defeated. We cannot hope to stand against Celestia and her magic. Our species is currently facing extinction. Celestia has ordered a genocide of all humans as she has deemed us a harmful and destructive race. We continue to fight and resist, but our strength is fading. We leave this message to warn others of Celestia’s ruthlessness and her tyrannical lust for power. It is too late to save our species, but perhaps this warning could help save yours. If you happen to be a pony and watch this, your ruler may not have shown it, but she will never step down from power. Any threat to her regime is removed, while she probably hides behind a false front of peace. She is not the ruler you see, in reality she is cold, ruthless, and evil.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say Captain.” a familiar voice from inside the glass chimes.
“What the Hell!” Screamed Captain Flowers as he turned to his right and pulled out a small weapon from somewhere. Eight loud flashes came from the end of it followed by several clicks. A bolt of magic came from out of view and struck him on the head and he fell back against his chair, limp. The device recording the image was picked up and moved. In front of it stood Princess Celestia with her pink mane and a demonic look in her eyes. “Know this.” She said through the screen. “Everything in this world shall one day be under my control. I will stomp all resistance under my hooves. My victory is neigh, and nothing you can do will stop me!” Celestia began laughing maniacally again and the image turned into the harsh scrambled and distorted hues of gray, black, and white once more.
You sat there utterly afraid, and horrified at what you have just seen. Princess Celestia is actually a blood thirsty tyrant? Your lip starts to quiver as you try to forget everything you saw from the glass wall. You can’t and you begin to cry. Racing out of the room you run towards the stairs through the corridor. For some reason the metal doors with no handles have all been opened. Inside the doors are sights that just make tears gush from your eyes. The skeletons of humans litter the rooms you gallop past. Some clutching weapons, others clutching what you assume to be their family members. All were murdered by Princess Celestia.
You gallop up the stairs as fast as you can, wailing deeply and crying uncontrollably. You reach the top of the stairs and run through the large crate filled room and through the first corridor. Bursting through the door you run headlong into something, and fall to the ground. You look up and find Princess Celestia standing right in front of you.
Still crying uncontrollably you grasp Celestia and cry into her large shoulder. She seems surprised by this, but makes no attempt to remove you from her shoulder.
She wraps one of her large wings over you and says, “It’s okay my little pony. Everything is alright. Tell me, what upsets you so?”
You release your grasp on her and wipe away the tears from your face. You then proceed to tell her everything you saw and discovered down in the human structure. She listens intently, and is surprised at what you tell her. When you tell her about the images in the glass that were shown to you, Celestia has a genuinely shocked look on her face and her mouth hangs agape. After finishing you clutch her leg and look up into her soft, caring eyes, and ask if any of it was true.
Celestia closes her eyes and her mouth and breathes deeply. She then says, “I suppose the truth was bound to be discovered sooner or later.”
Alarmed, you release your grip on her and ask how she could do such a thing.
“Isn’t it obvious?” She said. “The same way I’m going to keep this information from being discovered!” A devious glare was upon her face as she approached you. A demonic look had entered her eyes like in the images from the glass wall you saw.
You begin to back away from her and you notice you’re backing down the corridor into the structure. She follows you as you backstep down the corridor, through the room, and stop at the edge of the stairs. You burst into tears once more and ask Celestia why she is doing this. You beg and plead for her not to kill you, and you promise never to reveal the information you stumbled across.
Celestia responds, “I’m sorry my little pony, but you know too much. I cannot let you wander free now that you know my secret. I do not doubt your honesty and sincerity, but it is a risk I cannot take.”
Your eyes grow wide as you now know without a doubt that the human was right about Celestia. You close your eyes and sob deeply. Suddenly, the wind is knocked out of you and you are sailing through the air. You fall down hard on the stairs several times and finally land at the bottom. Intense pain shoots through your entire body as the fact that several of your bones all over your body are broken, registers in your head. You scream from the pain, but also from the horrible truth that Celestia is evil at heart. You cannot move, but are able to gaze up at the top of the stairs. Standing there is Princess Celestia gazing down at you with an evil grin upon her face, and the demonic glint in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” She calls down mockingly, “You were right. The Ancients or humans did exist. Now you can spend the rest of your life with them!” She laughed as she walked away from the stairs.
A loud SLAM! echoed throughout the structure as Celestia closed the outside door behind her forcefully. You sob and wail from the pain of your broken body and the pain of betrayal from Celestia. You wish that you never came to this ruin, and that this was all a bad dream. Unfortunately for you, this is not a dream. Your cries, sobs, and screams rise and fall in the empty structure and echo in response as if mocking you. Sniffling, you curl yourself into a ball as best as you can with your broken bones. With only the echoes of your cries and sobs, as well as the dead that inhabit these halls for company, you patiently wait for death. And you were never seen or heard from again.
-End.
