Legends of Equestria: DemonStorm

Present Day, 396 days since the Void crisis, 164 days since magic failed, 295 days since 'the twilight times'.

The brown coated, grey maned Earth pony that ponies simply called just; Dust, trotted quietly through darkness which was the Everfree Forest with his small squad of ten ponies, recruits really, each younger than himself but each had their own skills, they were all armed and armoured in Equestrian-Canterlot gear, a bluish colour iron and steel plating and everypony were all wearing a gold-brown coloured leather saddle which held some sort of weapon. They were after a group of humans reported to have been camping in the area, Dust and his team were part of the EHCG, or Equestrian Human Clean-up Group. It was their job to find and capture, or kill any human renegades hidden in Equestria.

The group were closing in on where the encampment was, slowly drawing closer. One green Pegasus, Tye Lin, shot into the air to scout the surrounding area in hopes of spotting something, anything that could speed the day up.. The flying Pegasus could see smoke from a fire lifting into the air not to far away, these humans weren't hiding very well and would soon be either dead, in prison or with the over humans in the compound Princess Celestia had built for them as a place they could survive, even after they came to kill everypony.

Tye landed and nodded to Dust, who lowered the gun saddle, aiming straight ahead. Equestria had changed since the human battle, both in good terms and bad. But magic had been failing and despite what unicorns may say, it is dying. The land had been in twilight for over seven months now and the world was suffering. The humans had obviously left most of their weapons when the portal closed over a year ago and pony engineers had attached the human guns to saddles, much like the spear or sword. So ponies could now use human weapons against them. Equestria had certainly changed. And not for the better.

"Dust!" A pony shouted, the colt ran instinctively into a clearing from where the fire had been and the pony had called. Around the campfire was a sight worse than death. The entire encampment was covered in blood and gore was splashed everywhere, torn limbs and bones scattered around, the few humans that were recognizable were covered in blood. One had what looked to be a gun shot wound to the head, a decay pistol lay at the dead mans side. Something had come here and killed the encampment. Something big. It had just torn through these humans like nothing, killing everyone in sight.

"What do you suppose it is?" Tye asked. Dust bowed his head and released the gun aim with his hoof, the weapon tilted upwards again, no humans to kill, but possibly some sort of Everfree spawn, either way, lunch was ruined.

"I don't know Tye." Dust replied, he wasn't very good with Equestrian monsters but Dust was smart enough to know no Hydra could've done all this death and destruction.

"Couldn't have been. Ponies?" Tye asked, a stupid question really, but the young pony meant well.

"Ponies? No, it wasn't any of us, we are the only ones out here. Even the Changelings aren't that brutal." Dust said. There was a loud roar suddenly, long, and deep, everypony went dead quiet, some began to twitch and even a gun went off through misfire, a single tree was hit and the quick decay meant the rather large black wood tree fell whilst the shot continued to burn through, much like a brown acid.

"Never heard that kind of noise before." Dixy said, the group mage, she couldn't use magic, like any other unicorn at the moment, but was brought along because she knew about the monsters of the Everfree, and if she didn't know what that noise was from. It would have to be bad.

A pony screamed out and vanished into the forest suddenly, there was a quick ripping sound and cries of agony before. Silence. Whatever made that noise wasn't discriminating against humans.

"Run!" Dust shouted, bringing the gun down and firing at random, trees began to decay and everypony began to panic and run. More and more ponies suddenly screamed out and more ripping or crunching.

Dust soon found himself trapped, Dixy ran out of the forest and stood with Dust, bringing her gun down.

"We will fight it then." Dust muttered, aiming down the gun, hoof on trigger.

"Its been an honour sir." Dixy muttered, crying slightly, this unicorn was just a filly. Really. Barely above a novice level mage when the magic stopped working. Too young to be fighting. The poor mare.

"Same Dixy." Dust replied slowly, they were going to die. A pony screamed out and then silence.

The pair stood ready in front of a rock for almost ten minutes, the pair debated whether to run for it or not. Then footsteps could be heard, giant, loud footsteps. A tree feel nearby and suddenly, the attacker was seen. A huge red, glowing bull man stood still. It had a pointed purple tail and two white horns, veined wings were attached to its back and the thing held a huge fiery mace. The spare hand was all claws. It roared again and began to walk toward the two ponies. They shot with their weapons to no effect, Dixy screamed out and shot wildly.

"What the fuck is it Dixy!" Dust shouted, the figure got closer and prepared to swing its weapon.

"Dust!" Dixy shouted, noticing the attacker prepare a blow.

"What. The. Fuck. Is. It?" Dust repeated, generally scared, this was it, the end of Dust. It had been a good life.

"Demon!" Dixy shouted. And with that, pain overtook Dust and he died crying.