Search and Rescue

UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES

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We arrived at a round building. Or according to the ruins, was a round building. Fluttershy ran into it, and began digging at any old location. I did the same, and began to remove debris and rubble.

"Fluttershy! What are we looking for?"

"A trap door! I can't remember exactly where it is, but it should be around where you are, exactly." she said, trying to move a dressed up mannequin.

"Okay, and we're looking for a white unicorn with..?" I asked, throwing more bricks away.

"Purple mane." Fluttershy looked around, and began moving some drywall away.

"All right." I replied. I lifted up some more drywall. And I heard tapping.

"Hey. I hear tapping over here!" I yelled. "If you can hear me, tap three times!"

Three soft taps. Right under me.

I shifted backwards, and began to dig there.

"Move out of the way!" I heard a feminine voice call, from underneath. I saw some debris glow, before it blasted out of the way, showing a basement. On the stairs was a extremely starved white unicorn, and a smaller white unicorn, who, while looking underweight, certainly was in a better shape.

"Fluttershy!" I called. The older pony collapsed, the younger moving to her side.

"Rarity! Sis! Don't joke around! This isn't the time!"

Fluttershy's ears pricked up at the younger voice screaming, who I assumed to be Rarity's sister, and pushed me out of the way. I looked on from the top of the stairs, before walking down myself. The sister gave me most terrified look as I examined Rarity's condition. She was definitely malnourished. I put my index and second fingers on her neck, trying to find a pulse. I don't know a good God damned thing about equine anatomy, but I wasn't going to let it stop me.

Failing to find a cartoid pulse, I decided to put my ear against Rarity's chest. I remember when I had a dog, and his heart was near the front, by the neck. No pulse.

"Shit..." I said. The mare's eyes were still opened in a look of solid determination. Whatever power she had, the force of it must've killed her on the spot.

I shut her eyes, before looking at the young girl.

Fuck. I never thought I'd ever have to declare someone dead.

"I'm sorry..." I said quietly. The girl practically exploded into tears. Fluttershy hung her head low and hugged the girl.

I looked outside. The sky was getting darker, and this was the only shelter around.

"Guys." I said. "It's getting dark. I think we gotta stay here, if only to escape the cold."

Fluttershy looked up at me. "Yeah...But..." she stuttered, looking at Rarity's body.

"You want to bury her?"

Both ponies nodded.

I sighed. "I suppose we should."

There was a full moon, although it was blood red. We worked for two hours to dig a large enough grave, before we managed to bury Rarity and find a suitable bit of debris as a grave. Fluttershy stood over the grave.

"Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess. In that peace, know harmony."

I decided I should say a few words myself, seeing as she did my job for me. I tried to remember my uncle's funeral. "Umm..."

Shit. I can't even remember Uncle Johnny's funeral. That was only three years ago.

"Back on Earth we'd have a large celebration of the person's life, but I seem to have completely forgotten what to say." I said. Fluttershy and the filly gave me odd looks. "...But I guess I can still say something. Of course, on Earth the eulogy was left to the eldest child. I do not know if Rarity had any children, so..." I looked at the filly. "Maybe you would like to say something?"

The filly stepped forward. "She was the best sister I could ever ask for...Even down there, she gave me food and water. She never kept any for herself, even when I had to make her keep it." she choked up, before turning to the makeshift headstone. "Thank you...Sis."

The girl kissed the gravestone, before walking back to Fluttershy. I knelt down. Even if I wasn't truly a practising Christian, it seemed appropriate to say a quick prayer...

"What on Equis is that!?" I heard a gruff voice say. Fluttershy and the filly turned around. I stood up.

"Who's that? You another survivor?"

I was answered with a screaming bird thing attacking me. I swung my fists in panic and clocked something in the face, catching my ring finger on something sharp as I did.

"Arrgh!" the attacker cried.

I looked at the attacker. It was a griffon. I only knew about them because I thought they were cool when I was younger. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Salvage, what else? This country's gone, why let it go to waste? It's all it was ever good for anyway."

"You do realise we're technically refugees, right?" the filly said.

"Don't care."

"Could you go away? We're trying to conduct a funeral."

The griffon looked at Fluttershy. "I'll take the mare there, then." Fluttershy gasped and backed away.

"You can take my fist up your fucking ass and dance to a disco beat if that's the way you're gonna go about this."

"To be honest, I was hoping for a fight." the asshole said. "Been spoiling for a rumble for a few weeks now."

The griffon slashed at me with his claws. I jumped back and kicked out. Fluttershy and the filly ran into the basement. Good, they needed to stay out of this.

The griffon jumped up and tried to hit me with his hind claws. I ducked, and punched upwards into his crotch. When in doubt, go for the dick.

The griffon winced, and crashed to the ground. Fluttershy ran back up, holding a metal pole using her mouth.

"Thomas! Catch!" she said, before running back underground.

The pole landed short, and I picked it up. The pole had a spike at one end.

I flipped the pole to the blunt end, and waited for the griffon to get back up before swinging the pole as hard as I could. Something cracked as the griffon went down and stayed down.

"Bitch." I said angrily. "Who the fuck do you think you are to interrupt a funeral service and attempt to kidnap a woman? Seriously, the nerve on kids nowadays."

I had no idea why I was shouting at the griffon, seeing as I knocked him out cold. I noticed a water bottle on his side. I walked over and took the bottle, before drinking about a third. I walked back to the basement stairs. I stopped when I heard a conversation.

"Sweetie?" I heard Fluttershy say.

"Yeah?" Sweetie replied, quietly.

"Are you okay?"

"What do you think?" Sweetie said, starting to sound almost annoyed.

"Sorry..."

I walked down holding the bottle. "Hey. That dick had some water." I offered it to Sweetie, for lack of a name. "Sweetie?"

Sweetie nodded, and I handed the bottle to her. After she drank some, Fluttershy took the bottle and finished the bottle off.

"Right, so who do you want to find in the morning, Fluttershy?"

"Pinkie Pie. Pink mane, pink coat."

"Alright." I looked outside into the night sky. "Actually, I think I should move that griffon into a shaded area."

"Why?" Sweetie asked.

"So he doesn't die in the morning."

"But..." Fluttershy said. "He tried to kill you, and he...wanted me..."

"Yeah, but no-one wants to go out in the morning and see a corpse. The grave's depressing enough. Yeah, he might've been a colossal dickbag who tried the old "Rape pillage burn" but honestly, I think letting him live with the shame is bad enough."

Sweetie stood up. "I say we leave him there. It was his choice to attack you."

"Sweetie, haven't you heard of forgiveness?"

"Yeah, but seriously." she replied. "Just leave him."

I ignored Sweetie as I walked outside into the cold night. I wished I was wearing something more substantial than a work shirt, tie and pants as I shivered outside. I picked up a part of drywall and placed it above the unconscious griffon. When I was finished, the griffon was encased in drywall and bricks. I wondered if it could crush him to death. If it did, well, I'd feel kinda bad. Killing isn't my scene. It's cool when you get a nuke in Call of Duty, or when you get your nemesis in TF2, but in real life? Hell no.

"That should do it." I said to myself. I knelt down to the griffon. "You better be grateful for this."

I looked at the griffon, before heading back down to the basement.

I shivered. "Can we get some heat down here?"

Sweetie shrugged. "We can't have a fire down here."

"I know...Okay, huddle up." I said. Fluttershy placed Sweetie under her wing, and I crawled up next to them.

"So...Does anyone know what the fuck happened around here?"

Fluttershy sighed. "Twilight went to Canterlot a few hours before it happened. She had a letter saying that Princess Celestia-"

"Sorry, who?" I interrupted.

"She was our princess. Our leader. Descendant of the Goddess, along with her sister, Luna." Fluttershy sighed again. "She was one of the nicest mares you could meet. Twilight was her student."

"Who is this Twilight mare?"

"Was." Fluttershy corrected. "She was one of my best friends. She was a unicorn, until she ascended."

"Ascended? What's that mean?" I asked. I had a lot of questions, and pending any more griffon attacks or exhaustion, we had practically all night.

"She became an alicorn - Unicorn with wings, like Celestia and Luna. Oh, and Cadence."

"So, you have these unicorns with wings, who ruled the country. What happened next?"

"Well, I don't know, but apparently, the Princesses found a special teleportation spell. Intradimensional or something like that. And then...I saw Canterlot disappear in a green explosion. All I saw then was myself behind my burnt out house. I didn't know what happened..." Fluttershy let out a slight sob. "I know that the Princesses are dead. They were at the epicenter...Spike too." Fluttershy looked at Sweetie. "Maybe we have to leave Equestria. Go north to the Crystal Empire, or south to Zebrica. We can't go to the Griffon Union."

"Why? They hostile towards ponies?" I asked.

"No. The government collapsed in 1978CE and they've had a civil war ever since."

The year surprised me. "Wait, it's 1978? What's CE?"

"No, it's 1987PE. And CE means: 'Celestial Era.' " and PE means 'Princesses' Era.'" Fluttershy sighed. "I guess that era is over. It's the Final Era."

"Final Era?"

"In the Book of Harmony, the ending was the end of ponykind caused by magic." Sweetie said. "It said that the Goddess' descendants will enjoy a time of greatness, before magic would end the world." Fluttershy looked up. "When four unite, the world will die. When those who live, shall envy the dead. What shall go, through the Descendant's head...When she unleashes magic...on the ill-prepared..."

I thought about mentioning human end of the world bullshit, but I decided that hearing about their beliefs might be more interesting for the night.

"Shit, that's poetic."

"Not all the book is in song or poems." Fluttershy said. "It's split up between the Book of Legends, the Book of History and the Book of Harmony. All three are called the Goddess' Texts." Sweetie says. "Miss Cheerilee always used to read it at Friday afternoon. Even if you don't believe in it, it's still interesting."

"Yeah. So, this Goddess. What is she like?" I asked. I was interested in the whole thing.

"The Goddess never has a name in the Text." Fluttershy said. "She's an alicorn, who first created the world when she was born. At the year 0FE, she gave birth to Celestia and Luna, the Descendants."

"So these were your Princesses?"

"Yeah." Sweetie Belle said.

"In the year 985AE, Luna - The younger alicorn - became a twisted shell of her former self. They fought a civil war for five years, before Celestia had to banish Luna to the Moon."

"Shit." I said. I still couldn't exactly believe half of what was happening or what they were saying. "That's metal."

"I personally fought Nightmare Moon...It was after Twilight came along. We all had to retrieve a weapon from the Old Castle."

I nodded in interest. A weapon? If it could help us fend off attackers, at least non-lethally...A great explosion rocked the basement. We heard a building collapse, and smelt smoke and gunpowder. Fluttershy motioned for us to stay down, before peeking outside the makeshift bunker. She poked her head back in.

"Guys...this isn't good."