Archangel Of The Rebellion - A New Lunar Republic Fanfiction

Bright and vivid, the moon was a curious shade of orange, large and only partially visible behind the towering and intimidating skyscrapers. The air was warm and humid, the concrete pathways of the metropolis of Canterlot were still damp from the heavy rain the previous afternoon. Huge billboards loomed over the main road through the centre of the city, very few of them advertising products, but instead overflowing with propaganda, totally unnecessary of course, there was no choice of governments, not any more. Many of the posters were torn or blown down, and the majority of the billboards had been defaced. The letters NLR scrawled across the face of the triumphant empress. Celestia.

A lone figure walked briskly along the pavement, the only movement in view, an olive green pony with a deep, dark shade of blue for his mane and tail, his eyes were tired and his coat was dull and stained with oil. He looked at his watch, it was nearly curfew hour. He quickened his pace.

Two soldiers appeared around the corner of the nearest building, laughing. The figure looked at the floor as they approached and the soldiers stopped their joking immediately. The figure continued walking.

“Getting late isn’t it?” Jeered the guard nearest to the figure. He didn’t show any recognition that anything had happened.

“Hey! You will speak when you’re spoken to, you worthless piece of crap!” The same soldier shouted. The figure stopped abruptly and looked begrudgingly up at the thugs.

“Yes sir” he said half mockingly.

“You insolent –.” The first guard began.

“We could just shoot him now, say it was past curfew, nopony would know.” The second soldier suggested.

“Not worth it, he won’t last much longer with an attitude like that anyway.” The first soldier replied, he spat at the figure’s feet and the other guard gave an agreeing grunt before they walked away.

   The figure allowed a sigh of relief when the soldiers were out of earshot. He checked his watch again, 10:28.

He knew he was liable to be shot on sight after 10:30, so he broke into a gallop to get back to his flat in time.

With seconds to spare the figure stopped, panting, in the lobby of the residential building in which he lived and sighed again at the sight of the flight of stairs that he had to climb. No lifts here, lifts are too good for the scum that sleep in this place.

After several minutes the figure was getting close to his floor, so he stopped to gaze out of the window. Before him was the vast cityscape of Canterlot, now totally shrouded in darkness save for the soft glow of the full moon. The figure stood up on his hind legs and put his forehoof on the pane of glass. Outside there was the manufacture district, the mysterious figure could see his place of work, the huge munitions factory.

Many of the commodity factories had started manufacturing weapons now; the war was getting out of hand since the Chaos Dominion had showed up. They had no goals--, their only plan was to remove order from the world. To bring about chaos eternal. Recently they had started random terror attacks within the city and flashing lights could be seen dotted around the financial district, several banks had been targeted. The Chaos Dominion clearly wanted the collapse of the Equestrian Bit to escalate faster than it already was.

On the precipice of the high city was the fabled Canterlot Castle. It could hardly be called a castle any more, it wasn’t vaguely like the ponytale castles of old, it wasn’t even made of stone anymore. The gargantuan metal fortress took up most of the city’s resources, and nobody knew what went on inside, some said they were testing biological weaponry, others that they were constructing bombs that could raze entire cities to dust. Probably both, and almost certainly even worse.

Below the fortress was the low city, sprawled out at the bottom of the mountain that Canterlot stood on. It was mostly just one huge slum, the houses dilapidated and the few skyscrapers unsafe, some looking ready to topple. Towards the edge, the low city slowly turned into a shantytown, with hoof-built one-room houses with whole families in them. This part of the city spread it’s arms out wide to the nearby countryside, which could hardly be called country anymore, the fields were brown and yellow and didn’t grow anything any more. Ravaged by over farming and lack of crop rotation the fields were useless. Further away from the urban sprawl a few apple trees could still be seen, although they were withered and never bore much fruit, the all but collapsed farm buildings weren’t lived in any more, their residents moved into the city generations ago, starving, and expected a better life. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

The figure started suddenly, waking up from his depressing daydream, dropped down on all four hooves again and shook his head, raising his mane from it’s position tight against his neck. The figure looked down at his stained and oily coat, he hadn’t washed for days, water was too valuable. With yet another sigh he continued up the stairs towards his small family flat.

As the figure walked along the corridor, past the rows of doors, he heard screams. This didn’t phase him much though. It was a cruel world, panic attacks and nervous breakdowns were rife, and even worse, the government often sent out house raids, especially to places like these, using excuses like tax evasion even though it is clearly just another way of controlling the populous by instigating terror. He shuddered at the thought.

The figure began to worry as he continued along the grimy passage, as the screams were coming from the vicinity of his home, a cold sweat broke out on his brow as he tried to talk himself out of the possibility of something terrible happening to his family. There was a battle raging in his mind, optimism versus realism. The closer he got to his door, the stronger realism became. As he got to door 583, realism destroyed optimism, tore out its heart and ate it.

Right behind the door the screams and sobs could be heard clearly. The figure stood outside, his mouth agape, wondering what to do. He surely had to go in to save his family, but that would get him killed too, but at least that would be better than life without them, but that would be stupid. His mind raced through all possible options, and rejected all of them. His breathing sped up and his heart began to pound. The figure tried to stop himself from panicking, but it just made him panic more. He was sobered suddenly though, when he heard more voices from behind the door.

“how d’ya like that, you stupid bitch.” Said a gruff, but soft voice from behind the door. The sobbing continued, unfaltered. “Not much of a talker, are ya?” said the same jeering voice.

“oh just get off her and give me a go, you stupid faggot.” Said a second, deeper voice.

“What? You’ve already had a go!” returned the first voice.

“Fine, just hurry up and interrogate her already, you’ve been ages.” The second voice replied.

“Whatever, I’m getting to that bit.” Said the first voice, followed by a soft thud and a scream. “Listen here, you stupid bitch, we’ve had our fun now tell us what we came here to find out.” The sobbing faltered and stopped and a cracked voice replied,

“I swear, we haven’t done a-anything wrong, we’ve paid all our ta-taxes.

The mysterious figure instantly recognised the voice as his wife’s, and it brought him back to his senses, but he still felt powerless to do anything, his legs refused to do what he told them any more.

“You lying cunt!” exclaimed the second voice, followed by a cracking sound and a long, drawn out scream.

“Where’s your husband!” yelled the first voice!

“H-he’s still at work.” Replied a quiet voice, broken by sobs. There was no sound but another long scream.

The figure heard quiet crying from the flat opposite his own, but it was quickly stopped.

“Likely story, it’s curfew now. You want to tell the truth yet, bitch?” inquired the first voice angrily.

“Maybe he’s already dead, might have been late from work.” The second voice said. They both chuckled.

“Whatever” the first voice grunted, “Do you want to do the honours?”

“Alright, if you insist. You never liked this bit did you?” the second voice replied flatly.

“Not if I’ve got a choice, always creeps me out a bit.” The first voice said.

“Pussy.” The second voice answered, followed immediately by a gunshot.

Outside, the figure was close to tears, and the gunshot woke him up. He forgot all common sense and was made fearless by the death of his wife. He rammed the door down and charged at the two soldiers.

“I’ll kill you, bastards!” he yelled at the top of his voice as he kicked the first guard in the small of his back, knocking him forward and smashing his face on the corner of the bed. The second guard pulled out his pistol and shot at the figure, missing his head, but tearing the top of his ear off. He ignored the searing pain on his head and dived towards the second guard, who was still amazed that he had missed and his reactions failed him. The figure slammed into him at top speed and slammed him into a wall knocking them both onto the ground.

“You bastard!” The figure yelled over and over again as he punched the guard repeatedly in the face until it was raw and bleeding and his muzzle was totally destroyed and the guard stopped struggling. The figure climbed off and kicked him in the head for good measure.

“Bastards.” He said once more, but much more quietly. As the figure turned around, his rage completely left as he saw his wife on the floor. Ravaged by the soldiers her body was a mess, her face was heavily bruised and her front left leg was bent and distorted, a shard of bone was protruding through the skin at her elbow and was slowly leaking blood onto the beige carpet of the bedroom. There was a large hole through her right eye socket and the skull had caved in around it, making the right side of her face totally unrecognisable. Around her head was an enormous circular bloodstain in the carpet, with a thick, oozing layer making her consistently well groomed mane into a sticky, stiff mass of hair, separated into strands.

The mysterious figure choked back tears and dreaded walking into his children’s room, but knew that he had to. As he pushed back the door, he retched and nearly vomited, only just holding it back. His two young children had been strung up on the roof, they had stab wounds all over their tiny bodies. The nooses around their necks making the faces turn a dark blue, the eyes were bulging and red.

The figure went back into the bedroom, sat on the bed and cried solidly for several minutes, not trying to stop himself at all like he had been earlier, he no longer had any pride, it was all gone. He didn’t know what to do.

After about half an hour, the figure took the bedsheets off the bed and wrapped up the distorted remains of his beloved family in them, before dragging them outside the door and leaving the few flowers in the flat on top of the makeshift body bags. He then dumped the bodies of the soldiers nearby and scrawled a message on the ground next to them in their own blood, before gathering his few meagre possessions and journeying towards the last beacon of salvation in this cold, corrupt world.

The New Lunar Republic.