Chapter One: The Weary Trail Ahead
Beep...Beep...Beep
"Wha... I-is thi-" I mumbled, my eyes rolling dilating. "He's awake!" I heard someone shout, followed by squeals in the distance. Bump. "Keep 'em down! We're almost clear!" I heard another voice shout.
In direct retaliation against the voice I tried to get up, but I got a hoof shoved into my shoulder. "Stay down, Civvie!" Bump.My vision became slightly less blurred. It was a guard pony holding me down and I seemed to be in a carriage lying down.
"Sir! Four o'clock!" I heard somepony shout from behind me. There was a high pitched squeal followed by the sound of rocks kicking up. The whole carriage shook, sending me rolling off the stretcher I was on.
"This is Lunar Guard Team! We're approaching the LZ and we've got the Package!" I heard the voice in front shout again. "Roger. Lunar Commander inbound, Jenkins!" Bump. There was another squeal, but much a closer. "Get down!" I heard the voice in the back shout.
The carriage went airborne and flipped a few times before landing right-side-up on the ground. The impact of the landing destroyed the carriage and several more squeals were heard as meteors flew all around me. I looked up and saw one coming for me. I put my hooves in front of my eyes, preparing for the worst.
But it never came. The next thing I knew I was in the air in the arms of a Pegasus. I stiffly looked up to see my rescuer, but they put me back down with their chin. "Are you what's left of Lunar Guard?" The pony asked, flying turbulently through the sky.
"I-I-I guess...?" I said, blood leaking from my mouth. "Dammit..." I heard the pony say under their breath. "Alright. We're gonna set down in this cave and you're gonna tell me what happened." The voice said descending.
We landed with a thump into a dark cave with hardly any light and I was plopped down onto my side. The pony walked over and looked down at me. "P-princess Luna...?" I asked, squinting. "There's no time! What happened out there, dammit?!"
I coughed up some more blood and told her all I knew. She sighed. "They were all that was left after the initial bombardment..." I sat up and scratched my aching horn, only to find that half was gone. "W-what happened?" I asked, rubbing the knob on top of my head.
The princess sat down next to me and looked at the ground. "It's not your concern. What is your concern is how you're gonna survive alone." "A-a-lone? Can't I just find somepony else?" I asked.
"Are you kidding me?!" She shouted, pointing outside. "We're it!" I scratched my head, unsure if this was all dream. "I'm leaving. Might as well spend what time I have left at home..." She said, trotting towards the cave entrance with her head down.
"I want a straight answer! What happened!" I shouted. She turned around and walked back, getting in my face. "The world ended. Wake up, butturcup!" She shouted, slamming her hoof into the ground.
She turns around and walks away again. Accept this time I choose the Paragon option. "If we're it... If we're really it... We should stick together..." I say weakly. She gets to the exit and begins her flight.
"Horse apples!" I shout , kicking the dirt. I too walk to the entrance and watch the endless meteor shower. I sit for about an hour before she returns with a small covered steel wagon behind her.
"You owe me..." She grunts, motioning for me to get in. I chuckle a bit and hop in the back. She begins flying and I notice the air getting thinner. "Where are we going?!" I shout, the wind muffling my voice to a whisper. "Safety!"
Chapter Two: Survivors In Sanctuary
Chapter Two: Survivors In Sanctuary
Luna told me to sleep, and that's what I did. When I woke up we were down in a desert. I slowly pulled myself out of the wagon and saw Luna kicking up dust. "Horse apples!" She shouted.
I slowly trotted up to her. She looked over her shoulder at me and winced. "You look pretty wrecked..." She said, disgusted. "I do?" "Take a look..." She said, using her magic to create a reflection of me in thin air.
My face was scratched all the way from the bottom of my right eye to the corner of my bottom lip on the right. "Oof." I said, patting it. "No, I meant your mane." I sighed, but eventually realized that my mane was pretty beat up too.
"So, what're we doing out here?" I asked watching a tumble weed drift past. "Last night I got in contact with a group of survivors. They said they'd meet me here... But all I found was a note under a rock."
"What are they survivors of? A meteor shower?" I said, chuckling. "It wasn't just a meteor shower, you fool. It was a full-scale invasion." "What invaded?" I asked, defensively. "Our worst nightmare..."
I sighed. "So what's the note say?" "All I can make out is that they were attacked and left..." She replied, turning the paper every which way. "So, lemme get this straight, you want me to run away from something with you but you won't even tell me what it is?" "I didn't WANT you to come with me. If I wanted a filthy rott-" A bolt of light whizzed over her head. "Run!" She shouted, galloping full speed towards a falling rock about twenty feet away.
"What was that?!" I shouted, wobbling far behind her. "A bullet, idiot!" I groaned and started trying to pick up my right back leg but had no success. I came down onto it and it twisted, sending me in a tumble.
"Kid!" Luna shouted, peeking from behind the cover. The creature that shot the "bullet" began running up to me. That's when I saw Luna sprout from behind the cover and fly into the thing. She wrestled with it on the ground for a few seconds before it got off another shot. This time, however, it didn't miss. The bullet went directly into Luna's ribs and she rolled over.
"UHHHG!" She shouted, holding her chest. Using the broken remnants of my horn, I pulled the black box away from the thing and flung it behind me. It got up and limped towards it, apparently Luna hurt it. I lunged onto it, sending it to the ground. However, it was able to overpower me and it rolled over and had me on bottom.
As I wrestled, in the corner of my eye, I saw Luna desperately reaching for a stone. Then, suddenly, the creature glocked me in the chin, knocking me out.
When I came to I was laying in the wagon, with Luna outside trying to use her magic to heal her wounds. She was sobbing loudly, which was what woke me up. I moved my numb hoof that was hanging out and nudged her. "Oh, thank goodness you're alive. T-that thing... I-I killed it..." She said, pointing towards the corpse.
Whatever it was, it wasn't pony. It had four legs, but two of them were up towards its neck and when it was alive it seemed to walk on the other two. It was fully clad in armor and wore a shiny red helmet over its head. It was very interesting to look at, since you don't see an alien menace lying motionless dead every day.
"I had to... It was trying to kill you..." She cried, her horn getting brighter. "It's alright..." I said, rubbing her back. "No! It's not alright. I've practically become them..." I frowned, removing my hoof from her. "You got beat up pretty bad out there... You OK?" She sighed and looked over at me.
"It penetrated too deeply. I can patch up the first layer... But I'd need a doctor for anything else..." I thought for a second about where you'd find a doctor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. "The survivors... Would they have anypony?" I asked.
"Well, Redheart was with them... But they're gone now. Who knows where they are..." I rolled out of the wagon and got up on my feet. "I'll try to follow their tracks... You stay here." "No! I'm not letting you go!" She shouted, her face now a river bed. "I thought I was rotten and insignificant!" I shouted, turning around and walking.
"You don't even have any supplies!" She yelled as I trotted away. "They'll have some! That paper looked recent. They can't be too far..."
With that I disappeared. I had an awful lot of time to think. It was just then that I remembered my family and friends. I wondered where they were and if they were even alive. But all that was irrelevant. Those things, those armor wearing monsters, were what I needed to worry about.
Those black boxes were my biggest issues. Whatever they were they could kill a pony in one second. They were also heavy, something I could use to my advantage.
The whole walk I troubled myself enough to forget that deserts are hot. Yeah, imagine that. Forgetting that deserts are hot...
