Part One

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“It is best to be both feared and loved; however, if one cannot be both it is better to be feared than loved.”

-Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

Chapter 1

Twilight awoke to the sensation of a cold, smooth, surface against her face. When she opened her eyes, all she saw was darkness. It came to her attention that she happened to be in a seated position. A desk? Perhaps she fell asleep at her studies again? She sat up and realized that she wasn't in her room at all. As she looked around the room she recognized the familiar features of a classroom. There was a small light coming from the bottom the doorway leading into the hall. With what she could make out from the small light she saw a blackboard at the front of the room, as well as the metal glint of desks lining up and down the classroom in rows. To her surprise, Twilight noticed that there were figures sitting in all of the desks. As she became more and more confused by the situation, her breath became quicker, and her pulse became faster. She was becoming rather nervous about her situation.

Suddenly, her throat became aware of a cold metal object wrapped around her neck. She realized that it was quite small. As she struggled to free herself from the metal imprisonment, she began to panic. Twilight violently squirmed about in her desk, waking the ponies around her. She was going to suffocate! By now she was breathing heavily, fighting with every fiber of her being for each gasp of air. Was this the moment Twilight met her demise? No.

At last she came to her senses and realized that there was no immediate cause for danger, and that she was in no way suffocating. As Twilight’s breathing began to return to normal, she looked around the room again.

Other ponies were just awakening from their slumber, doing their best to get their wits about them. Among the ones nearest Twilight, she saw Filthy Rich sitting to her right, and Flim sitting to her left. Where had she seen them recently? The train! Then it all hit her harder than a bass drop, the train ride, the tunnel, the gas, and the conductor. Why were they here? What was happening? Why were they in a classroom? Where was this classroom?

Just then, the classroom lights flickered on, and the door opened. Everypony in the room groaned and covered their eyes. When Twilight’s eyes adjusted back to normal light, she saw a stallion standing at the front of the room, a unicorn like her, accompanied by four imperial guards, two on each side of him. He was a white stallion; one could say he was almost pale. His mane was the purest of black, and it hung limply from his head and neck. His eyes were a deep red, the kind of red that one can only be derived from that of pure blood. He wore a sinister smile that displayed an array of snow white teeth. His cutie mark was a red hoof print, still dripping with a red liquid, as though it had not been given enough time to dry before being propped upright. It was almost as if somepony had dipped their hoof in red paint, and brohoofed him right in the flank just before he walked in. The saying “looks can be deceiving” in no way did this stallion any justice in describing the utter atrocities that could barely be seen hidden beneath his plain face.

The guards at his side carried assault rifles, a sight rarely seen in equestria. The use of guns was banned even before the three tribes of ponies united to form Equestria, and had been long since forgotten, save for a few old books that gave nothing more than a slight reference to the use of such a weapon. Twilight had stumbled upon a very small quantity of these books in her never ending studies, but had one such book in her personal library. The topic had fascinated her. The idea that you could kill somepony, end a life, with nothing more than a small piece of metal was unbelievable. A tool used for destruction, the gun was quite simply a symbol of death. What’s more was that guns did not require any sort of magical activation, and were completely functional with the use of ancient sciences that exploited the laws of the universe in unexpected ways.

Upon the sight of these guns, the ponies stared in pure amazement at the weapons that were so foreign to them. This isn’t right. None of this is the way it should be, thought Twilight. She was perhaps the only pony in the room that even had a remote understanding of what the imperial guards were carrying.

“Good morning!” said the stallion at the front, “I am quite pleased to inform you that you sixteen ponies are the lucky residents of Ponyville who have been selected for participation in Equestria’s 153rd annual Pony Royale.”

Upon Equestria’s liberation over one thousand years ago, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna began their reign, together inducing a long awaited era of peace and stability. This allowed for Equestria to thrive, and it was this peace that was sustained up until Princess Luna’s banishment to the moon.

Following Luna’s exile, the citizens of Equestria became restless with the powers at be. They began to question the divinity of Princess Celestia, and some even sympathized with the banished Princess Luna. As conflict continued to escalate, it became clear to Princess Celestia that war was on the horizon, and Discord would once again rein anarchy and chaos throughout Equestria. The need for decisive action imminent, Celestia had to find a way to demonstrate her power over the ponies of Equestria. She needed to be sure of her subjects’ allegiance to the empire.

After bringing the subject to her most trusted advisors, Celestia drafted the PR (Pony Royale) act, in which every year one city within the grasp of Celestia’s power would provide a tribune of sixteen ponies, eight mares and eight stallions, as a symbol of loyalty to her divine rule. The villages, knowing nothing of their tribune’s fate, saw this as an opportunity to prove their loyalty to their princess, and jumped at the chance to be acknowledged by her. The point was simple: if the villages thought they could prove their loyalty through such a sacrifice, then it was a given for them to receive special treatment, meaning it was in their best interests to comply. Through this act, Celestia hoped to spread love for her reign, but more importantly, fear of her empire.

“Pony Royale?” asked Pinkie Pie (mare #6), her voice showing anticipation for something fun. But despite Pinkie’s optimism, Twilight felt that whatever this was, it would not be considered fun. In fact, she could almost feel a ticking clock in the back of her mind. Counting down to the moment when blood will be spilt and all will be lost.

“That’s right,” the mysterious pony said. “Over the next few days, you are going to kill each other until there is just one of you left.”

Twilight’s heart sank. She’d heard stories of the mysterious “Pony Royale” tournament. When Twilight was a filly in Canterlot, the topic was the subject of rumors for many cliques in her school. Things like “You’d better not act naughty in front of the teachers, or else you’ll get picked for the pony royale!” and “Oh her? I bet she was picked for the pony royale,” were often tossed amongst groups of taunting colts and fillies in the hallways. For a long time, Twilight had even believed the stories herself, but as she grew closer to Celestia, she dismissed them as fiction. After all, how could the Princess allow such a thing? She was reminded of something. What was it? She’d heard the conductor say it on the train. “Yes, we’ve got them all out cold. We should be arriving at the rendezvous point on time, so you can inform the Princess we’ll be starting soon.” The Princess. Did she know about this?

“We’re on an island in the middle of the ocean, approximately ten miles in diameter,” the pony at the front of the classroom continued, “There is a small abandoned village on the south end of the island but make no illusions; everypony you see in this room, plus about twenty more imperial guards, is the entire current population of the island.”

“This doesn’t sound fun at all!” Pinkie burst out.

“Shut up!” screamed the mysterious pony, rather blatantly. Twilight felt the clock in the back of her mind get faster, as though it was rather urgently trying to reach zero. “I will have no more interruptions for the remainder of the lecture. Now, as I was saying, we are the only ones on the island. It was evacuated several months ago, and has since then been searched heavily. Also, those collars around your necks are what we use to monitor your position, and to kill you if we chose to do so.” Everypony’s attention was once again diverted to the collars around their necks. “One spell from me, and three blades locked up inside the collar all lash out at once, cutting your neck in three separate places,” he chuckled to himself, “On more than one occasion I’ve seen the head come completely off. Take this as a warning: if you make any attempt at escape or disabling those collars, I’ll kill you.

“On a more serious note, upon the game’s beginning, I will begin reading off names every two minutes, alternating between stallions and mares.” He pointed to a pile of black daypacks in the front corner of the room, next to the door. “Upon hearing your name, you will come to the front of the room, grab a daypack, and promptly exit the building. Once you make it outside, I expect your primary focus to be to kill as many ponies as you can.”

“Now wait just a second mister!” Pinkie Pie once again burst out.

“I said quiet!” shrieked the pony, while at the same time retrieving a knife from the reaches of his subconscious, and hurling it at a supersonic speed towards Pinkie Pie. The knife landed right between her eyes with a force strong enough to throw her head back at and unnatural angle, leaving a trail of spattered blood arcing across the ceiling. Almost a second later, her lifeless body slid sideways out of the desk and lay crumpled on the floor. Twilight now understood the meaning of the mysterious pony’s cutie mark.

“Each daypack has water, food, a flashlight, and a map of the island,” he continued as if nothing had happened, “Each pack also has one weapon, ranging from switch blades to assault rifles.”

Twilight couldn’t believe she was still listening to this stallion’s monologue. Pinkie was lying dead with a knife embedded in her skull, and yet all she could do was continue paying attention to this “teacher”.

Twilight snapped out of another trance and scanned the seats in front of her. In the front left corner, Big Macintosh (stallion #1) hung his head in sorrow, looking straight at the desk beneath his massive nose. Fluttershy (mare #1) was strangely calm, though she wore an expression of nervousness, as though she was being judged. Carrot Cake (stallion #2) looked stunned. He stared straight forward, eyes wide, pupils shrunk. Sweat dripped down his face, and was beginning to accumulate on the surface of his desk. Rarity (mare #2) was face-down on the desk, her face buried in her hooves. Sobbing and sniveling could be heard coming from between her folded forelegs. Filthy Rich (stallion #3) was sitting just to the left of Twilight. His expression was similar to Carrot Cake’s, though he looked slightly more composed, as though he might be trying to prepare himself for the events that lay ahead.

Twilight stole a glance backward and saw Flim (stallion #4) mouthing a distressful conversation back one row to his brother, Flam (stallion #6). The nearby Snips (stallion #5) and Snails (stallion #7) duo was in much worse condition. Snips was paralyzed my fear, curled into a ball on his desk, shaking like a candle in a hurricane. Snails was looking to Flim and Flam for guidance but not receiving any. Rainbow Dash (mare #4) was utterly shocked. She stared straight forward, hooves quivering. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Her friend had died. Nothing else mattered. Applejack (mare #5) stared down at her desk, mimicking her older brother, as though it were a family trait. Cheerilee (mare #7) sat weeping at her desk. Twilight could not describe with words the cries of sheer sorrow that came at just a whimper from Cheerilee’s desk at the back of the room. Caramel (stallion #8) and Trixie (mare #8) sat next to each other. Caramel sat slouched back, with a neutral expression on his face. It was as if he’d seen all this before. Trixie was even more disturbing. She sat upright, completely straight face, paying full attention, with but the faintest trace of a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Are you still with us Twilight?”

Twilight’s immediately untwisted her neck and came to a rest facing back towards the front of the room.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s that when the brightest in the class loses her focus, it is best to pause and regain the attention of the entire classroom.”

Twilight froze. He knew her name?

“As I was saying, you’ve probably never seen anything like these before, so allow me to demonstrate,” upon saying this, the mysterious pony turned to the guard on the right, and snatched the assault rifle out of his hooves. “This is what happens when you’re caught whispering in my class,” he said, and pointed the gun at Flim, who was sitting just next to Twilight. Flim turned away from his conversation with Flam, all too late realizing his mistake.

Suddenly, there was a series of deafening bangs, as flames leapt from the tip of the gun. At the same time, Flim’s body convulsed violently. Blood burst from opening wounds on his body, spattering across Twilight’s face and every other nearby surface. When the onslaught subsided, Flim fell forward. His face slammed against the surface of his desk, splashing blood about. Twilight’s ears were ringing. She was watching her friends be slaughtered one by one. This was hell.

“It’s simple, really. You point it at somepony, and you keep pulling the trigger until they’re dead,” continued the pony at the front of the classroom, “With some guns you can even just hold down the trigger and they will keep firing. Others are designed for long-range attacks. But don’t worry. If you receive a gun, it will come with an instruction manual with everything you need to know about the gun, including assembly instructions.

“And finally, a few more rules. First one: one hour after the last pony leaves the building, nopony is allowed within one hundred meters of this building. If we find you within this radius, I will activate your collar. Second rule: at least one pony must die every twenty-four hours. If one full day passes without any deaths, I activate all the collars.”

A puddle of blood was forming around Flim’s desk. The room was beginning to smell like iron.
“And finally, without further delay, I would like to begin attendance. Stallion number one: Big Macintosh.”

Big Mac looked up, and his eyes scanned the room. He made eye contact with Cheerilee, and stayed there for about three seconds. The tension built until he finally looked away, and walked to the front of the room. Upon his arrival at the door, the mysterious pony hovered one pack over to Big Macintosh. He took it, slung it over his back, and walked out the door. The game had begun.

Ten minutes had passed since the game began. The whole room smelled like blood, and Twilight was becoming nauseous. Twilight couldn’t even bear to look at what was left of Flim, who sat bleeding and almost certainly dead, just to the right of Twilight. All the seats in front of her were empty. Two minutes ago, Filthy Rich had dragged his feet out the door, following a staggering Carrot Cake.

“Mare number three: Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s heart jumped from the pit of her stomach to the top of her throat. This was it. It was time to die. She stood up from her desk and walked to the front of the room. She took her pack and took one last look at the now dwindling group of sorry eyes. They all looked back at her. All but Caramel’s. She turned and stepped through the door, and into the hallway.

The hallway was just like many other school hallways in Equestria. As she walked down it, she saw lockers lining the walls. Some were open, with things strewn about on the floor around them. The occupants of those lockers had to have been in quite a hurry to do such a thing. The ponies must have been evacuated during a school day.

When she walked by the front office she saw what must have been a portrait of the principal. He was an old, brown, tired-looking pony, with faded green hair and grey eyes. He looked sad. Twilight wondered for a moment what kind of life this pony must’ve lived. Was he unhappy with his job? How would he feel if he knew his school was being violated like this? Was he sadder that Twilight?

Twilight had never been this sad. One would think such an ordeal would make a pony the most afraid pony in the world. But all Twilight felt was sadness. She was the saddest pony in the world. It was just hours ago, it seemed, when Twilight and all her friends were on a train to the Grand Galloping Gala. Now she was walking through an abandoned school on an abandoned island on her way to meet oblivion. She was going into the unknown, and she was going to find death.

At last, Twilight reached the front door. She took a deep breath, only to realize that the clock in the back of her mind had long since expired. There was no way she could prepare herself for the events that lay ahead. She opened the door, and stepped outside.

14 ponies remaining.

Author's Note

Oh damn. The shit just hit the fan, didn't it? I'll tell you, this chapter was good fun to write, mainly because it's so different from all the rest.