Prologue: The Final Days of Planet Earth

***

In the year 2020, an island appeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Upon this island was a portal: this portal, impassible by human beings or their technology, led to the magical land of Equestria, home of a species of sentient ponies. At first, the ponies of Equestria seemed more than willing to co-exist with humanity. However, what no one knew was that within Equestria's borders there was a deadly plan in motion... a plan set in motion by a being once known as the benevolent Celestia, though she would soon be known by another name: Empress Astra Solamina Maxima, the Sun Tyrant. No one knew how, but she had transformed from a benevolent Diarch into a despot tyrant.

The horror would begin for Earth with the Conversion Bureaus, monstrous buildings, within which human beings were transformed into more ponies: a process that healed all physical and psychological harm... and completely destroyed the individual's soul. These places were initially set up to allow individuals to enter Equestria for the purpose of diplomacy, but would eventually become something far deadlier.

In 2022, a field of energy toxic to human life and utterly destructive to man-made technologies - soon to become known simply as “the Barrier” - began slowly expanding across the world. It's source was the portal to Equestria. This Barrier swept across the world: everything man made was incinerated upon touching it, every weapon fired was ineffective: even the mighty power of nuclear fire did nothing against that greater power. One by one, nations fell. People died running from the barrier, people died fighting it, people chose to die at their own hands. Many, however, chose not to die but to live instead: the Conversion Bureaus were more than happy to accommodate them.

The entire world fell before this power in only two years, two years of terror, panic and desperation. Earth's mightiest nations fell before this power, unable to stop it or even slow it down. The entire planet fell: of seven and half billion people on Earth, over five billion chose to surrender to ponification, and the remaining two and a half billion died.

Except one damp little island. Though they had never realised it, never suspected it, the people of the islands of a Great Britain and Ireland had lived on land with it's own magical protection, a protection Equestria's energy field could not penetrate. It was as though the land itself refused to bow before the tyranny of the corrupted Ponykind without a fight. On this damp little set of islands, one hundred and forty million human beings, the only remaining humans left in the whole world, survived, protected by a power only a handful understood.

This insult to her power the tyrant Solamina could not stand. She declared her nation an Empire, and declared the last of humanity an affront to her rule.

And so, with the combined forces of billions of converted humans and other ponies, the nation of Equestria attacked Britain. Britain was devastated by this conflict, but her people - native and adopted alike - still fought back: aided by ponies who realised the insanity that their ruler had unleashed, they formed an army, the last army: civilians, ponies, soldiers from a hundred nations, hardened Royal Marines and SAS commandos, naval forces from across the world that had fled this far…

All stood and fought against the forces of the Tyrant Empress. They fought with everything they had - weapons from wars long past alongside the finest mankind could build that had been saved, blades and armour alongside guns and bombs. They fought as long and as hard as they could, and miraculously, they held for six long years.

Even so, their resistance was impossible. One day - tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, none could say - they knew they would fall.

Unless something intervened first.

***

The End...

They stood opposite one another. One, an armoured Alicorn with golden energy surrounding her like some mockery of a halo: Tyrant Empress, a monster who had once been the most benevolent of creatures, but was now twisted into a creature of hatred and oppression. The other, a tall, silver-armoured human man, a massive, ornate Zweihander drawn and held out in challenge: an Avatar of justice and vengeance, or a murderer - depending on who you asked. But more than that, the Avatar of the last humans, the voice of a people.

"You know you cannot defeat me," the Tyrant said angrily. "Nothing can."

"I can," the man replied. "It is my destiny, my purpose. The lives you have destroyed call for vengeance, for retribution. Your people scream in horror for the things you have forced them to endure. The souls of the Converted lie shattered at your hoof. For them, I will claim vengeance."

The Tyrant laughed, a cruel, mocking sound.

"You think it is you of all beings who will stand against me?" she said, her tone darkly amused. "You can barely stand up."

"I have strength enough in this form for this," the man said, not flinching, not even moving, the massive ornate Zweihander held up still, pointed directly at the monstrous Empress. "I have fought your mockeries and slain your Captains. Now, Astra Solamina Maxima, former Celestia, I will finish what I started."

The Alicorn - Empress Astra Solamina Maxima, once the benevolent Celestia - snorted. "You will finish something little man - your pathetic life. I will take great pleasure in mounting your severed head on a spike and putting it before the people of your home, the final proof that their cause is hopeless."

"There is always hope," the man said, a soft smile forming on his face. He span the Zweihander, faster than one could imagine such a massive blade moving, and then aimed it at her again. "To the death, creature."

"To the death," Solamina replied, snorting. And then she charged...

***

Wrong bit!

Oh, sorry for interrupting, gentle reader, but I'm afraid there's been a mix up. That little segment you've just reds is the end of this grand tale of derring do and heroism: or at least, the climax: the final, epic duel between good and evil, the moment John Williams would come in and throw his "Duel of the Fates" in (or "Battle of the Heroes", since that's the more tragic sounding tune, but I think I've bludgeoned the fourth wall far more than necessary for the moment) and everypony - or I suppose everyone in your case - would be on the edge of their seats. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint, but we're a bit ahead of where we're meant to be. Exciting as climaxes are, there's no point getting to the fun and gory final battle if you don't know who's fighting it, why they're fighting it, what they've fought to get there or any of that detail. Even I can admit that, and I actually happen to appreciate the idea of starting at the end. It's - well, I suppose you'd call it a little bit of narrative dissonance - Chaos in prose, so to speak. Certainly, I find it the most interesting bit.

I suppose you want the real beginning, though, don't you? They usually do. I wouldn't normally oblige you but... on this occasion, I feel generous.

So how did it begin? Give me a moment to recollect, oh gentle reader, and I might just tell you...

Author's Notes:

Greetings, readers. Welcome to this, my humble story. Hope you liked the intro.

A few points before we continue this fic: point Número Uno is that I didn't come up with the Conversion Bureau idea (obvious much?). My thanks therefore to the author "Blaze" who wrote the original, and to the various brilliant writers who came up with the story "The Other Side of the Spectrum", which is my primary inspiration for this piece. I can't match their work in terms of quality, characterisation, descriptive capabilities etc, and to be honest I'm not trying to. I just wanted a go at writing something with a similar concept and to do the best I could with it. Needless to say, my interpretation is in no way related to theirs, and I've tried very hard to take the basic concept and not just do a "same old, same old" runaround with it (probably not succeeded but hey ho).

Secondly: in this, my interpretation, there's a heavy reliance on some (very) loosely interpreted Arthurian mythos, and there's a few light crossovers from other fandoms. Specifically, there's a Buffy reference or two, some fairly heavy Doctor Who/Whooves (though we're good with that I'd hope?), possibly some Star Trek and most prominently, the character of Hell Blazer, or rather John Constantine. These aren't going to be impossible for people to understand: for the most part, I've tried to write this so people don't actually get massively confused by the whole thing, but they are there, just so people know.

Thirdly: this is my first ever attempt at a My Little Pony fan fic, and I have only recently gotten into the whole thing (subjectively speaking: by the time this is read, I'll have probably been reading/watching/etc a combination of fan material and the canon show for about a year). As such, I don't doubt that I have made many mistakes, and I don't doubt people will find fault in my interpretations of canon, fanon, et al. I figured I'd make you aware that this is the case. If nothing else, you've been warned I'm a (comparative) noob.

Fourthly (and lastly: I know my author's notes can be a bit long-winded): I've done my best to create a story lacking in Mary-Sue's and other unfortunate fan-fiction cliches. That being said, despite my intentions they might well still be there: if you have any constructive criticism, I'm more than happy to hear it/read it.

Thank you, and enjoy the story.

EDIT: This chapter was edited on 23rd March 2015.