War of the Worlds

Chapter 9 - An End Once And For All

Every pony in the room gasped and took a collective step back; the mask had been removed, finally revealing the face of their enemy. The creature’s skin was pale, almost translucent; and it was completely bald. Its eyes were bright luminescent green, just like windows of the fighting machines, and it had thin cat like pupils.

As they watched the human began to choke and panic, “What’s it doing?” Applejack asked as the creature dropped to the floor wheezing.

“Put the mask back on!” Dr Nebula yelled.

After re-attaching the mask the human seemed to calm down, it just sat there, glaring at them.

“I want to communicate with it alone” Princess Celestia said calmly

“What!” Twilight balked

“Please Twilight, I’ll be fine” The Princess replied

“Come” Luna ushered every pony out of the room. Once they were alone Celestia sat down, the human’s eyes never once leaver her own, “I know you can understand me” Celestia said calmly, the human simply stared at her in silence. “What do you want?” The Princess continued, “Slaves, recourses...” but again the human said nothing, it just sat, watching her intently, it’s burning gaze interrupted from time to time by blinks.

Celestia was about to ask another question when she felt a strange sensation, almost like a presence in the room with them. She looked around but saw nothing, then, suddenly she collapsed to her knees, and the pain in her head was incredible. The level of pain increased, forcing her eyes shut; and then as suddenly as the pain had started, it stopped.
Celestia opened her eyes and found that she was no longer in the room, all she could see beyond the single pool of light she was kneeling in was darkness, seemingly stretching on forever. Then she heard a voice, she could detect no direction and the voice was calm and devoid of all emotion.

“Humanity reaches out, for what is ours.” It spoke quietly.

“Who are you?!” Celestia shouted, sounding slightly scared.

“You may call me… the elite” it answered, “I am many bodies but a single mind, a single will, one vision, one purpose”.
Then a form began to appear in the darkness, it was not the creature that they had captured. Though it had the same pale skin and luminescent eyes, it was taller and dressed in a flowing green robe of sorts.

That must be the Elite... maybe it’s the invasion leader Celestia thought to herself.

“You are an interesting race, but flawed with weakness, we were mistaken in our assessment... you never were a threat to us,” the Elite spoke again.

“I think, even after all that you have done to us, we may be able to coexist, if a way could be found... could there be peace between us?” Celestia asked

“Peace” It Replied, almost as though the word was foreign to it, “No Peace”

“What is it that you want us to do?!” Celestia yelled, enraged.

“Die” It answered, “Die”.

Then the pain returned, but with it images flashed into her mind, one after another. She saw two towers of unpainted metal, glinting in the morning sun; the tops were arched towards each other. Around the towers she could see land marks from Ponyville. Then there was a flash, a portal opened in the space between the towers, then massive saucer shaped crafts were coming through, one after another. After this she saw images of the rest of the planet, not just Equestria, in ruins, entire cities on fire.

Then the pain and visions simply stopped. She opened her eyes to see that one of the guards had entered to investigate her pained cry, seeing that she was in pain he had stabbed the human through the stomach with his spear, killing it.

“Princess, are you well?” The guard asked, turning to her.

The princess lay there, panting, as she tried to get back her breath.

“I... I know what they’re planning to do,” The princess answered.

Once the others had been assembled in the room; and the remains of the dead human cleared away, she told them what she had seen. She told them about the towers and the crafts and the fires.

“Oh my! Nowhere would be safe!” Luna exclaimed

“The destruction of the rest of the world would be over in hours” Twilight added

“We have to stop them” Applejack said

“How?” Rarity asked, “We don’t have the elements”.

“We’ll just have to find a way to win without them; we have to destroy that portal”. Luna said

“I have faith in you my little ponies” Celestia said warmly as the group set out, on the long journey back to Ponyville, back home, back to where this nightmare began.

The group arrived at the human’s camp not long after dark, when they arrived they saw a massive human complex, fighting machines patrolled the surrounding countryside and flying machines patrolled the skies. Even more shocking was that ponies had been herded into pens, she counted at least three or four hundred per pen, all of them were dirty, their fur matted and they were terrified.

A little way across what had been the centre of town there was a large white building, with an ominous tower of black smoke spilling from what she assumed to be a chimney.

“What’s that smell?” Rainbow asked wrinkling her nose. Twilight sniffed and found that there was a smell in the air, it was a slightly sweet smell mixed with the pungent aroma of... burning hair. The reality of what was before her made Twilight feel sick, how could intelligent creatures do this, Twilight wondered.

“They’re... They’re...” Applejack breathed, barley able to contain her sorrow or complete the sentence, but everyone else knew what she was going to say. The humans had rounded up all of the ponies that they could find; and had brought them here to exterminate them more efficiently.

As the group watched, a flying machine hovered over one of the pens and lifted up five or six ponies using the claws protruding from its belly. Then it deposited them into an opening in the roof of the white building, which closed behind them.

“That’s horrible” Fluttershy squeaked

“This has to end, NOW!” Rainbow growled through gritted teeth

“How are we going to get in?” Applejack asked

“Yea those mean human things are everywhere” Pinkie Pie added

Twilight looked at them and smiled in a way that made them all nervous, “The same way they are” she nodded at the pens below them; and before anyone could stop her she fired a beam of purple energy high into the sky. The human’s reaction was immediate, the area around them lit up as a dozen searchlights fixed on their location. The ponies in the pens turned to look at them, one of their number - a Pegasus with a light blue coat, a dark blue mane and tail; and bright green eyes – yelled, “Run, for Celestia’s sake just run”. The group just stood resolutely as a flying machine came over them and lifted them off the ground; it carried them over one of the pens and dropped them in.

Over the next two days and nights they watched as the humans collected groups of six ponies from random pens and dropped them into the white building, some of them were already dead and some were still alive. Then it was their turn, a flying machine came over the pen and once again lifted them into the sky, they were taken above the white building and dropped into the darkness.

Twilight awoke in a dark room, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom she could see that her friends were waking up around her. She was in a dimly lit, circular room, it had white, metallic walls; and the only source of light in the room was a series of green strips adorning the upper wall. Twilight could also see that there were other ponies in the room, many of them had been there for hours waiting for something to happen. As Twilight looked around she could see that there were ponies of all ages, from old mares to tiny, scared fillies; and she drew closer to Midnight, who reassuringly placed his wing around her.
Then the floor began moving, groaning as it did so. It tilted up so that they slid downwards, as this happened doors opened at what was now the bottom of the slope. Twilight landed hard and another pony landed on top of her, winding her. As she raised her head she saw that they were in a chamber almost identical to the one they had left, the only noticeable difference was that she was laid on a mesh floor. As Twilight stood up she could see that there was a fine layer of ash on the floor, suddenly she was very afraid.

Behind them the doors slammed shut, sealing them in. Desperately Twilight looked around for something, anything that would help, then she saw it; a window or green glass about half way up the chamber, which was tall and open topped, they were in the chimney… and they were going to be burned alive if she didn’t do something soon.

“Rainbow!” She yelled, “Think you can break that window?”

Rainbow looked up and grinned, “on it”. The cyan Pegasus flew at full speed directly at the window but it, remarkably, didn’t shatter. Twilight was as shocked as Rainbow; this is not good Twilight though. A groaning sound was heard coming from the pit beneath them, and as she looked she could see a faint orange glow. Panicking slightly she began thinking of objects that were harder than a Pegasus, and then it occurred to her.

“Take off your horse shoes” she said to the others, they obeyed although confused, once she had all of them she grouped them together and launched them as hard as she could at the window. It smashed. “Get to the window!” She yelled, Midnight carried Applejack, Rainbow carried Rarity, Flutter Shy carried Pinkie and Twilight teleported. Once they were behind the window, Twilight realised that the others hadn’t followed them, many were too weak and others had simply lost the will to live. The chamber was then filled with flames shooting up from below; and when they subsided there was nothing left but fine ash swirling through the air, the larger pieces falling through the grating.

They were all deeply shaken by what had happened in the killing chamber, but they had not time to morn. They walked through the corridors of the building; it was made up of well-lit white corridors and rooms, all of which were empty. Twilight theorised that they were coming under the towers now; if she was right then they were nearing some sort of control room.
One final turn and they came upon a massive room, at the far end of which was a raised platform and what looked like some form of interface. Above the platform was a diamond shaped container which was emitting a soft rainbow glow, thick cables connected the container to something above ground; probably the towers, as Twilight squinted she saw something familiar.
“The elements of Harmony!” She exclaimed, causing her friends to look up; but also drew the attention of the being standing at the interface. It looked like the human that they had captured in Cloudsdale but taller; and dressed in a green robe. That must be the Elite that Celestia mentioned Twilight thought to herself, slowly the being turned around and regarded them with a look that was almost contempt.

“Miss Sparkle, you have become an annoyance, you fight against inevitability, dust struggling against cosmic winds. Reaching this chamber may seem a victory to you, but even now your greatest civilisations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us”. A voice spoke inside her mind.

“Maybe your right” Twilight answered, “Maybe we can’t win this, but we’ll fight you regardless!”

“Your courage is… admirable, but pointless” The Elite turned and touched the interface, “Behold our power and face your extinction”.

Slowly the ceiling, which would have been the ground to those above, slid apart to reveal that they were indeed under the towers. The Elite touched the interface again; and the container with the elements inside lit up like a Christmas tree, green energy sparking between the towers as a portal began to form between them. This was it, Celestia’s vision, the human fleet was coming.

Rainbow then threw herself at the Elite, but she wasn’t fast enough. The Elite raised one arm; palm exposed and fired what looked like electricity at her. Rainbow’s cries of pain when the electricity connected filled the chamber. The cyan Pegasus dropped out the sky and lay on the floor breathing heavily, but the momentary distraction was all that Twilight needed. She used every ounce of her strength to wrench the container apart and retrieve the elements.

Seeing this the Elite used a form of telekinesis to pin all of the ponies against the walls of the chamber. Then it slowly advanced on Twilight, seeing there was no way that she could get the other elements to her friends without the Elite stopping her, Twilight decided to do something stupid. She hurled the elements with all the strength that remained her directly into the portal, at first nothing happened, then the portal glowed white and vanished.

Well that was anti-climactic Twilight thought, and then everything suddenly went white and silent. The last thing that Twilight heard before blacking out was the voice of the Elite.

“Know this as you die in vain Twilight Sparkle, your time will come, and your species will fall… prepare yourselves for retribution”.