2016: The arrival on Earth of Equestria, a magical land populated by ponies. They bring gifts, including the ponification potion, a serum that transforms human beings into “Newfoals”. At first, nothing is suspected.

2019: After unrest, concerns about the Newfoals and their growing divergence from their original human personalities, and other issues that have sparked violence across the world, the Barrier, a large wall of magic that destroys all humans and human-made objects it touches, begins expanding outward from its origin point in CERN. War is declared by humanity on the ponies for this deliberate attack. They are aided in this by sane ponies, largely led by the PHL, founded by Lyra Heartstrings.

2025: The year that war ended.

But before all that, there was an age of giants and legends, an age of heroes and monsters… an age that has yet to tell all of its stories…

Hull, July 1st, 2019.

All around the world, people were watching a livestream broadcast. Actually, they were watching two: one was shakycam footage, men shouting as they raced through a castle’s halls. The other was a grey haired, tired-looking woman. She was hurriedly dressed, and had forgone makeup. And yet no one cared what state she was in, for the state that she was in was nothing compared to the state everyone feared she was about to be in.

“Jesus,” Sam Lake said. He was a blonde man in his twenties, his expression grim as he watched the television footage.

“People of Britain,” the woman on the screen – Queen Elizabeth the second- said, her voice superbly calm. “I regret that this may be the last time I am afforded the opportunity to speak with you.”

No shit, Sam thought, his eyes wide as he watched history unfolding.

Devon.

A man in a tweed jacket was watching the footage at the same time. He had a pair of half-moon spectacles perched upon his nose, and a comfortable cardigan under his jacket. He was watching the footage and softly tutting.

“Something up, Colonel?” someone asked him sarcastically.

“A great deal,” the man replied. He didn’t comment on the inaccurate rank, and he didn’t elaborate. No way he could really point out the many, many problems with the security that he’d noticed from this footage.

Her majesty deserves better, Algernon Spader thought. We all deserve better.

He’d never thought that the government was up to snuff about this pony business: when the first ‘potion bombing’ had happened, they’d be entirely too timid and sluggish in their response. He could guess that they were drawing plans somewhere, but plans were useless if you never did anything with them.

Those PHH and PER types, for a kickoff, Spader thought, stroking his chin. A few solid raids on their places of interest and we’d have something there. Then of course building a force, arming the troops. Need to build some connections, of course, but it wouldn’t be a difficult thing to do with the right people. He sighed. I shall have to give Mike a call.

“As you watch this…”

London

“…Balmoral Castle has been invaded. I have asked my staff to flee, and they have done so, but I shall remain here.”

Lyra Heartstrings was crying as she watched. She knew what was bound to happen, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She hated it: she hated this feeling of powerlessness, this feeling of impotence. It was like she was just a foal again, afraid of the monster under the bed.

Damn this, she thought, her eyes dripping tears. Damn this, and damn Celestia for letting this happen.

It astonished her how calm Queen Elizabeth was being. She had always been a dignified, regal, wise presence, but this? This was insane: she was calmly addressing the nation as she prepared to die.

I have to do something, Lyra thought, right there and then. I have to make this right. I have to stop this from going any further.

“It is important, in such times as these, that fear should not rule our hearts…”

“…But remember always, courage is not the absence of fear, but the refusal to bow to its demands.”

“Hear, hear,” a redheaded man in a tweed coat said, raising his glass as she spoke.

“She’s gonna die,” someone said from next to him, a scowl on their face. “Show some respect.”

“She has all my respect,” the tweed-coated man replied. “She’s showing dignity and courage in the face of her demise. That’s heroism.”

And far more in keeping with her, he thought silently. Somehow, he’d never thought shouting about insults had really fitted the image of the serene, dignified old woman. That, mind you, was probably just an aberration of that timeline. Still, it makes one wonder just what else is going to change.

“I remain the servant of the people, Queen Elizabeth of the House of Windsor. Farewell.”

A man with a shakycam in his hands follows another man, armed with a shotgun and a bad attitude, into the woman’s bedroom. There’s adrenaline running through his body: this feels a little like attacking the house of God. They’ve all grown up with this old woman as some constant in their lives.

But that doesn’t matter. A greater authority moves them now.

“Here! Here she is!” the man with the shotgun yells.

“Oh, hello,” the woman – the Queen, if such a title can be given to a mere human – says. “How nice to have visitors at one’s age.”

“Potion the bitch, get it done,” someone says from behind the camera.

“How rude,” the Queen says, her expression barely changing as she picks up a cup of tea. “Wouldn’t you care for some tea first?”

This is such a non-sequitur that you blink, and your confusion is echoed by those around you.

“Shit, she’s gone fucking senile,” someone finally says.

“And mind your language, young man,” she says, looking at the perpetrator of the oath.

“Where are the others?” your colleague with the shotgun says angrily.

She simply stares at him. “What others?”

“Just potion her already,” someone else puts in. “She can tell us when she’s a damn Newfoal.”

“Ah.” She puts down her teacup. “I’m afraid that will not be happening.”

Something in your blood runs cold at that. It sounds so…

“The fuck does that mean?” you ask.

“That you will not be achieving what you intended today,” she replies, and she gives you a small smile that is broadcast to the entire world. “Good day, gentlemen, and if you’ll forgive the vulgarity... see you in hell.”

You have about one second to consider what she means by this, and then suddenly there is a bright light, a searing heat, and you know nothing more.

Buckingham Palace. July 3rd, 2019.

In a room in what some might have called the moral heart of Britain, a man was watching the most heart-wrenching thing he could possibly imagine.

“As you watch this, Balmoral Castle has been invaded. I have asked my staff to flee, and they have done so, but I shall remain here. It is important, in such times as these, that fear should not rule our hearts. But remember always, courage is not the absence of fear, but the refusal to bow to its demands. I remain the servant of the people, Queen Elizabeth of the House of Windsor. Farewell.”

“Here! Here she is!”

“Oh, hello. How nice to have visitors at one’s age.”

“Potion the bitch, get it done.”

“How rude. Wouldn’t you care for some tea first?”

“Shit, she’s gone fucking senile.”

“And mind your language, young man.”

“Where are the others?”

“What others?”

“Just potion her already. She can tell us when she’s a damn Newfoal.”

“Ah. I’m afraid that will not be happening.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“That you will not be achieving what you intended today. Good day, gentlemen, and if you’ll forgive the vulgarity... see you in hell.”

Click. Rewind.

“…remember always, courage is not the absence of fear, but the refusal to bow to its demands. I remain the servant of the people, Queen Elizabeth of the House of Windsor. Farewell.”

Click. Rewind.

“I remain the servant of the people, Queen Elizabeth of the House of Windsor. Farewell.”

“You shouldn't torture yourself, son.”

Prince Harry of Britain clicked the pause button on the recording and turned to see his father, now King Charles III of Britain, staring sadly at him. The older man looked quietly maudlin, his grey, thinning hair and wrinkled face looking ten years older than he had a few weeks ago. He was stood in the doorway of the small room, arms folded. He looked weary and heavy-hearted, and it was a harsh reminder for Harry that yes, he had lost his Grandmother, but his father had lost his mother, someone he had known for all of his many years, and a loss Harry was all too familiar with.

“There was nothing you could have done to save her,” Charles continued, stepping into Harry's room, his expression dour but nonetheless resolute. “We must be thankful that she died with her humanity intact, instead of becoming one of Celestia's… puppets.”

Harry turned away from his father with a miserable sigh.

“I should have defended her myself,” he said quietly, looking at the image of his grandmother, the expression on her face defiant and resolute to the last. “With a gun, with my body, with my very life if I had to. She shouldn't have had to die at the hands of those bastard lunatics.”

“She didn't,” Charles replied, sighing as he stared at his mother's visage on the screen with an unreadable expression halfway between sorrow and pride. “She died at her own, speaking words to comfort and inspire her subjects, just as she knew she should.” He smiled a grim smile. “As far as deaths go, I think Mother would have been more than satisfied with it. Some are already calling it ‘the Balmoral address’, or so I've been told.”

“She should have died in her sleep, peacefully, surrounded by her family,” Harry said angrily, resisting the urge to smash the television. “Those bastard ponies and their potion. I knew it was all trouble, I always did.”

“Perhaps,” Charles said amicably. “But there are those among ponies who don't agree with what's been done by their… leader.”

He sounded somewhat disgusted when he said leader, and Harry noted that he refused to say 'Queen': Charles had respect for that title and what it entailed after all, and it was more than apparent to anyone paying attention that Celestia did not.

“I don't care what they don't agree on,” the young Prince said, and his father sighed unhappily. “Fat lot of good they've done. Where were they when Celestia's puppets did this? Where were they when this ponification nonsense started in the first place? Why are they even here at all...?”

“Son,” Charles said firmly, a stern look upon his face. “Like it or not, the ponies are here to stay, both those who are our enemies, and those who are our friends.”

“Father,” Harry said, his voice as determined and resolute as his father's had ever been, “for what they've done, for what they've allowed to happen – to us, to this country, to the world – no pony is my friend.”

Welcome to Cry Havoc, the Reduxverse version of Once More Unto The Breach. This story is essentially meant to be the origin story of things like the PHL, UNAC, HLF etc.

In that vein, I hope you enjoy it. 🙂