The Saga of the Tennyson Empire: The Downfall of Equestria

Celestia's sun shone brightly over the world, not a cloud in the sky on this warm summers day. The tiny river that snaked through the small little hamlet of Ponyville flowed calmly, the birds were singing a merry little tune, and all the flowers and all things green were in full bloom. From the cakes’ bakery, the smell of freshly baked pastries wafted through the streets of the town that mingled with the scent of the previously mentioned flowers and green things to produce an aroma most unique and fragrant. In city hall, the bell in the tower chimed back and forth as though Mayor Mare had called forth some urgent meeting of the gravest of import that required a great deal of the town’s participation that was probably blown out of proportion by her own imagination, or that of her aides, or of any number of equines that resided within the town if one were to be perfectly honest.

It was the picture of serenity. All that was missing were the little ponies that inhabited the town bustling about in their usual endeavors. But there was no bustling, nor endeavoring, nor ponies of any kind. Not anymore. Not unless you were one to count corpses amongst the living, which would not be an adequate way of looking at things in this situation. Not yet anyways.

For the population of Ponyville had taken a drastic decline in the last seven minutes. Where once there had been a town filled with ponies of all ages filled with the life and exuberance that was so typical of their race, of their entire world, now stood a veritable graveyard above the depths of the earth.

But this was no attack born of the savage and untamed fury of the various beasts that inhabited the nearby and oh so often-unchecked darkness of the Everfree forest nor of the unfathomable greed of the diamond dogs. It was too clinical, too surgical, too neat for the former and left much more lying still on the ground than the latter.

The only evidence as to who or what perpetrated this seeming crime in every possible meaning of the word, were the burns, too narrow and focused to be caused by the breath of dragons, that were found etched into the skin of most of them and the shards of diamond like crystal imbedded inside some of them. That, and the thousand or so beings that had set up a square shaped perimeter around the town.

Bi-pedal they all were, a pair of arms each to match their legs. Eighty percent of them were clad in some sort of silver shaded suits of armor. If not for the weapons they carried which resembled long, slender, grey tubes with barrels at the end and grips for their hands (for they did have hands) and the fact that their armor gave off the appearance of being highly advanced and sophisticated, many an inhabitant of the town might have legitimately mistaken them (or jestingly) for monkey versions of the knights of yore that once roamed from Equestria to the Griffon lands. Like wise, they may have mistaken the other twenty percent for dragon food, or outfit accessories, or diamond chandeliers, or ice-sculptures, or just gemstones dug up by diamond dogs that had somehow gained limbs, a head, and a face thanks to some animation spell gone terribly wrong.

They would not say anything now. They were not permitted the luxury, even when they could. Such was the extent of the speed with which they struck, their mercy’s limits far, far, far below.

Inside the town’s sole library, ‘Books and Branches,’ which was unscarred by the slaughter laughingly called a battle like most of Ponyville’s structures, a lone figure stood upstairs, gazing towards the town from the large window in front of him. For he was a he. Unlike eighty percent of the forces outside, which he belonged to, he wore no helmet and thus, his gender was clear to those who laid eyes upon him. He was flanked on either side by a pair of these knights, who stood at attention with their strange weapons and bore a symbol that resembled a figure eight turned on its side on their chest as well as their helmets like all of their brethren. He held his arms behind his back, his hands held behind his back as well as the lime-green and dark grey cape he wore.

He took it all in. All of the terror and horror he had inflicted upon these innocent, unwitting equines in their final moments on this mortal coil. He took of all of the foals. All of the children, now bereft of their energy, eyes closed or gazing up towards the sky before their time. All of the special occasions never to be celebrated. All of the friends and loved ones never to be had nor cherished. All of the experiences, good or ill, never to known.

Not a single identifiable emotion could be picked up on his face, even by someone who was particularly adept at reading them. Not a single sense of surprise was given away when he noticed two Pegasi fly out from somewhere else in town and make a break for the heavens to escape the hell he had made of the ground below. He made no snarky commentary on the futility of such an attempt to get away as he asked one of the knights for a weapon. He cared not for the fact that other, much younger passengers encumbered the both of them. He cared not for the fact that one of them had a cutiemark comprised of bubbles and the other of butterflies.

He just readied the barreled end of the weapon towards them, aimed down its sights, adjusted his posture accordingly, and depressed a trigger on the bottom with his right index ringer.

Two streaks of ruby light shot forth at the speed the word light would imply.