TCB: A Kinder World
A Conversion Bureau story with one foot in the Ten Rounds ‘verse, By Silvertie
01 - On the Brink

---

Humanity was a master of warfare - a race does not simply spend its entire life in conflict and not become a master of it. Humans had the art of war down to a science - they knew when a fight was a sure thing, and when it was going to be a washout, even when it didn’t seem like it.

There’s a difference between knowing, and being able to admit it, though. And admitting that humankind was doomed was a very bitter pill to swallow.

What remained of the Human Liberation Front was staring down that pill right now. For some, it was a pill in the form of a spare 5.56mm round, loaded into a gun pointed into the underside of their chins. They accepted it, and couldn’t chase it down fast enough.

For others, it was in the pegasi dropping canisters of purple, ponifying, brainwashing gas from the dark, night sky. In the unicorns lobbing strange, rune-carved rocks that exploded in balls of magical, transforming energy. In the Earth Ponies that ran them down, pinned them to the ground, and shoved potion down their facemasks.

For Richard Ides, it was in a simple mathematical problem. Every time he subtracted one pony from the hordes trying to ponify him, two more took its place. His guns plinked and tinged as they cooled, barrels almost glowing red from overuse. They were due for replacing, anyway - this was his last prepared clip of 9mm SMG rounds, and he doubted the ponies would give him time to prepare any more.

Fort Forlorn Hope was the last, far-northern, snow-clad stand of humanity; once strong walls had been breached in multiple places; the gates held, but it was pointless when the walls surrounding it were fallen and reduced to rubble. The HLF had defended it well, and the grounds outside and inside were almost covered in equine bodies; but as Richard kept discovering... that old exponential problem came to the fore.

“All humans, fall back to the lab!” Richard’s radio crackled. “I repeat, all humans, fall back!”

Richard grunted, and ran for it through the fort’s main courtyard, past a line of statues; it was hard going, running in a fully isolated explosive ordnance detonation suit with a shotgun on your back, but he carried on. The sounds of hooves behind him told a tale of how he wasn’t going to make it unmolested.

A heavy weight hit him in the small of his back, and he twisted as he fell forward; he landed on his back and skidded to a halt, looking up at the orange earth pony mare pinning him to the ground. It made him sick - ponies didn’t wear clothes, but this one was even wearing a hat, in parody of humans! Was she taunting him? Was it a trophy from someone she’d ponified?

“Y’all gotta become one of us, pardner,” she said, holding up a vial of potion. “The Princess says so.”

“Richard says, no!” the human spat, hot breath fogging up his faceplate as he bent his arm, to bring his SMG to bear, aiming for gut; the mare looked down, and realized she’d made an error of judgement.

“Shucks, Twi,” Applejack panted, “Y’ know Ah’m always keen to help mah friends, but...”

“What’s wrong, Applejack?” Twilight asked, pausing at the top of the stairs down to her laboratory-slash-workshop under the library.

“It’s jus’ that this here doohickey’s a mite heavy,” Applejack protested, shifting the apparatus on her back. “Couldn’t you build it lighter? Or git somepony else along to help me?”

“Well, I could have asked Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “But she’s not the strongest pony I know, and she’s busy setting up the experiment, anyway. Don’t worry, Applejack,” Twilight patted the farmpony on the shoulder. “Almost to my lab. One more set of stairs to go, then we can go back for the last one.”

Applejack groaned. Big Macintosh was right - she did have a habit of biting off more apples than she could chew.

Richard pushed the limp orange mare off him with a heave, and got up, pointing his gun at her head.

“Gotta... one of us...” the mare gasped, bulletholes in her chest proving to be slowly, but surely, lethal.

Richard grimaced, and finished it with one more bullet, this time to the head and not the gut. It was less an act of mercy than it was a precaution; wounded animals were the most dangerous ones, and many a good man had been lost to a wounded pony who found the strength to pitch one last vial of potion.

“Applejack!” a haughty voice rang out, and Richard looked to see a white unicorn running his way.

“You killed her, you... human!” the mare shouted, swinging dozens of vials around like a tornado, blue magical glows giving them a strangely hypnotizing appearance. “She was just trying to share the gift of ponification with you!”

Richard ducked under a vial, and tried to give the unicorn more of what her kin had already tasted; two dry clicks from his guns told him that he was out of luck, though, and the unicorn seized her chance.

With a whump, a blue ball of energy shot out and slammed into his chest, throwing him back like a ragdoll, once more landing on his back.

“Oh, you’ve done me a disservice, you scoundrel,” the unicorn said with a trembling voice, walking closer, vials no longer orbiting but ready to throw. “You’ve taken one of my best friends from me. But I’ll forgive you once you join us and become a pony; after all, I am nothing if not generous.”

A vial was raised, and-

CRASH

With a screaming of steel and metal, a thick-set, bipedal machine that Richard recognized as an armoured personnel utility mech plowed through the stone statues and with the massive pnuematic clamp mounted on its left arm, grabbed the unicorn, turning to use the size and bulk of its main torso to block line of sight and stop her throwing the vials at the relatively vulnerable Richard.

[Go, human,] the machine intoned, purple fluid dripping down its chestplate, [I, Palladion, will defend you to the last and cover your escape.]

“Thank you,” Richard gasped, getting up and resuming his run for the main building.

“Take your dirty claw off me, brute!” the unicorn demanded, beating ineffectually at the steel holding her tight, her magic no use against the clamp. The APU mech did not comply, responding with a grinding, whirring noise as the mining-class drill mounted on its right arm came to life.

[Law one dictates a human cannot be allowed to come to harm,] Palladion stated. [You intend to cause harm, non-human.]

Richard ran, the sounds of wet splashing and garbled screaming echoing behind him, and saw what few survivors there were running into the building ahead of him; looking back, he saw only Palladion’s APU causing carnage, alongside other non-organic combatants; the few humans left out there wouldn’t be human much longer, as they feebly resisted the removal of their gasmasks and helmets while lying on the ground, amidst the thin purple gas that was everywhere.

It was so that Richard was able to see a terrifying sight; on the other side of the still-standing gate, a radiant light shone, like a sunrise.

Sunrise wasn’t due for another three hours. Richard gulped. She was here.

Richard ran once more, casting his depleted weapons aside and plowing through the main doors. On the other side, two more bipedal mechs stood guard, stooping slightly to fit under the already high ceiling; unlike Palladion’s APU, these were not civilian machines with misapplied loading and mining systems. No, these were built to kill from the moment they rolled off the assembly line.

“Celestia!” Richard shouted. “She’s here! She’s here!”

The mechs jumped slightly; unlike APUs, combat mechs were never permitted to be piloted by an AI. The potential for an AI to go rogue and kill all humans dictated that the strongest and most destructive mechs be human-only.

Funny how priorities changed, wasn’t it?

“R-right,” one mech said over its loudspeaker, an arm coming up and brandishing a mounted chaingun which revved to make a point. “We’ll show her not to fuck with humanity.”

The other mech remained silent, but as Richard ran past, he thought he heard someone mumbling something.

“Our father, who art in heaven,” the pilot’s muffled voice echoed, “Hallowed be thy name...”

Richard made the sign of the cross as he ran. He’d never been a religious man, but when times got tough, and humanity was at its end... what better time to find God, right?

“Is the runestone in place, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

“Yes,” the pegasus nodded. “Angel was kind enough to squeeze under the dais and install it for me.”

“Where is Angel, anyhow?”

“He’s gone to the river,” Fluttershy said, “He got a little grubby, and he wanted to go and clean himself up. Was that okay?”

“No, it’s perfect,” Twilight nodded. “Thank you, Fluttershy, let’s just do one more check and we can get started.”

Richard descended the last of the stairs, and finally arrived at the lab. Located just slightly below ground level, it was less a lab and more an emergency shelter; fitting, given that that was what it was before the HLF moved in.

A decent array of supercomputers and apparatuses lined the far wall, and some desks and tables between. In the middle of the lab, a large machine sat, draped in drop-cloths. Closer to the front, desks had been cleared and tipped over to form a barrier against the inevitable pony onslaught; the windows had been blocked and barred with steel, and all air vents were cycling on their own, secure systems.

It wasn’t just a lab, it was a bunker. A place for Humanity to make its last stand.

Richard hurdled over the desks, with difficulty, and staggered to a halt before the Regional Commander. Covered in blood and clad in a standard military biohazard suit, the Commander nodded.

“Good to see you’re still alive, Richard,” he nodded. “I don’t suppose Ridgeback...?”

Richard flinched, and shook his head. “I... no. She didn’t make it.”

The Commander spotted the omitted detail, but let it lie. “I see. I’m sorry - I still owed her for that time she saved my life in Pittsburgh.”

“I made sure they paid for it,” Richard said quietly.

“Rest in peace, Ridgeback,” the Commander said. “Well, no time to waste. Grab a gun, and prepare to join your daughter, Richard; this is where we stand.”

“I know.” Richard spotted a crate of guns, and took one for himself - a standard M4 carbine - and pocketed a handful of magazines. “Let them come.”

The Commander looked at his comrade, shook his head, and put a hand to the radio in his ear.

“Alright, men, listen up,” he said, addressing all surviving humans and machines over the radio. “This is it. Humanity is officially on the brink. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. To the Enclave projects about to launch, we salute you - good luck, God keep you safe. To the soldiers and fighters who stand with me today in Fort Forlorn Hope - know that you are all that stands between survival and the defeat of the human race. We’ve come too far to fall to a bunch of talking horses, and sacrificed too much to lose today.” the Commander coughed. “Make ‘em pay. For Humanity!”

“FOR HUMANITY!” the soldiers at the barricade cheered, raising weapons, when the sounds of bigger gunfire gave them pause. Each one of the defenders looked up at the ceiling, hearing the gatling fire and dull explosions of the two combat mechs fighting.

All too quickly, it ground to a halt, and everyone gripped their guns just a little harder.

The sounds of hoofsteps began to echo through the closed lab doors; then silence. Everyone held their breath.

With a magenta glow of magic, the doors opened, and revealed nothing less than pure sunlight. Defenders started shooting, to no avail; the dust cleared, and revealed that all the bullets had been stopped dead by a translucent barrier blocking the doorway, a finely-armoured unicorn stallion’s horn glowing to indicate he was responsible for it.

“Humans,” the sunlight declared, fading in intensity to reveal a winged unicorn - clad in gold and jewelled regalia, Celestia herself had come to the front lines to finish this. “This is the end. Surrender now, and it will be swift.”

“We’ll never join you!” a defender jeered. The shout was repeated by dozens of defenders along the line, and Celestia frowned. Not in anger, but... in frustration.

“Fine,” Celestia said. “So be it - if you will not join my herd of your own free will, then you will join by force. Shining Armour - drop the shield. I will protect my ponies myself.”

The stallion nodded, and stepped back, horn’s glow fading. The barrier vanished, and the world turned to white.

“Ah don’t know, Twilight,” Applejack shook her head. “This don’t feel right. Ah know Pinkie’s usually th’ one with all the twitchin’ and pinchin’, but ah’m feelin’ itchy in Kicks McGee, and that ain’t never a good sign.”

The orange farmpony stood to the side of Twilight’s laboratory, her part in the experiment finished with the placement of the (very heavy) equipment. Fluttershy and Twilight were busy double-checking that everything was in place, while Rainbow Dash loitered near the ceiling, waiting for Applejack to leave.

“Come on, AJ,” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Let’s just go and leave Twi and Fluttershy to their science thing - I wanna race you through Whitetail wood again.”

“Your... twitching is noted, Applejack,” Twilight said, ignoring Rainbow Dash and making a note. “But you’ve got nothing to fear. I’ll carry out the experiment, and Fluttershy will be on hand to pull me back if something goes wrong, okay?”

“Ah don’t know, Twi,” Applejack shook her head, and adjusted her hat. “Ah think Ah’d better stick around, just in case.”

“Oh, ponyfeathers,” Rainbow Dash stopped circling, and landed on the top of a bookcase. “If AJ ain’t movin’, then I guess I gotta stick around. Make sure AJ doesn’t punk out of this race like she did with the last one we organized.”

“Ah told you, RD,” Applejack defended. “Ah had to go and buck the south orchard! Ah didn’t ‘punk out’, Ah just plum forgot Ah made a promise to somepony else first!”

“Silence, please!” Twilight shouted. “I can’t think with you two bickering like that!”

“Sorry, Twi,” Rainbow Dash and Applejack apologized simultaneously.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Well, while I’m here... what is that thing?” The cyan weatherpony pointed at the large machine in the middle of Twilight’s lab.

Four pillars of stone and metal curved around a central dais in a cross shape, like four claws reaching out of the ground. Inside the claws, a complete ring of rune-carved stone and metal sat upright in the center of the dais, spinning slowly.

“This is hopefully a machine that will create a portal to another world,” Twilight declared. “Hopefully. If my figures are correct. Either that, or it will be a very impressive spinning thing. Either way, I don’t think the day will be a complete waste.”

“It’s also terrible heavy,” Applejack added quickly. “Ah’m not gonna forget that’n in a hurry. Somepony else can move it next time.”

“This part,” Twilight said, pointing to the central ring, “Is the actual portal.” She pointed to the claw-like pillars. “Those are the safety field generators which will isolate the portal if Fluttershy pulls this lever, here.” Twilight shifted her hoof to point at a red-knobbed lever sticking out of a console, seemingly that console’s only function.

“Wait, so this portal thing goes to another world?” Rainbow Dash asked, and Twilight nodded. “What kind of world?”

“I... don’t actually know,” Twilight confessed. “It will be a parallel world, where this machine has also been built. Our machines will start at the same time for various reasons, and we will be able to bridge the gap between two completely separate worlds!” Twilight caught her breath. “Isn’t it exciting?!”

“Exciting?” Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves. “That ain’t the right word, Twi.” Rainbow Dash swooped down, and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders. “This. Is. AWESOME!” The weathermare swooped back up to the ceiling. “This talk about parallel worlds and stuff is just like Daring Do and the Window of Eternity! I wonder if there’s another me out there!” Rainbow Dash swooped down. “That would be so cool. You gotta let me use it. Come on, pleasepleasepleaseplease-”

A purple glow of magic shut Rainbow Dash’s mouth. “Rainbow, okay. But for now, you have to wait over there with AJ, okay? We’re going to start the machine now, and we can’t afford any distractions. The slightest mistake could change everything.”

“Right, gotcha,” Rainbow Dash nodded, and shot back to Applejack’s side, stiff as a board. Applejack looked at the mare curiously.

“Admit it, RD,” Applejack said, “Y’all are into this science thing.”

“Am not!” Rainbow Dash retorted, hotly, before blushing and looking at her hooves. “Well, maybe just a little. It is pretty awesome.”

“Alright, everypony,” Twilight declared. “Let’s begin the experiment. Fluttershy, are you ready?”

Fluttershy nodded, the yellow pegasus placing her hooves on top of the emergency lever... just in case.

“Alright,” Twilight said, grinning as she pulled goggles over her eyes, and her horn lit up with magic. The machine ground to life, runes flickering to life all over the dais and ring. “Let’s make history.”

The battle raged; Celestia’s initial flare of sunlight blinded only half the defenders, and so her strategy was slightly flawed; those with polarized or reflective eyepieces covered those who had no such protection, and held the initial assault at bay.

True to her word, though, Celestia protected her ponies as they ran through the door; bullets aimed at her or those she was protecting vaporized in small flashes of light,  and so the defenders backed off. As they did, the ponies spread out, and suddenly, there were too many for Celestia to protect.

Bullets were exchanged for vials, blade met hoof and needle met flesh as the humans fought on; in the mayhem of battle, Richard found himself visor-to-snout with the Princess herself.

He raised his rifle, firing a shot that went wide of Celestia, and a flash of light sliced it in two before he could fire a second.

“You, human,” she said, taking her time. “You are the one who detonated the bomb in Washington?”

“Aye,” Richard said, stepping back and bumping into a large, boxy machine, dropping what was left of his gun and feeling around for something he could use. “What of it?”

“Twilight Sparkle was in that library,” Celestia said, eyes hardening. “She was like a daughter to me, and you killed her.”

“Then we’re even, you whore,” Richard said, finding a lever.

“We never killed your daughter,” Celestia retorted. “We only gave her a future as a pony!”

“A brainwashed future!” Richard yelled, leaning on the lever. “You didn’t put the bullet in her pony brain...” He leaned harder, and the lever dropped with a solid THUNK sound. “But you killed what made her, her.”

A dull whine built up, and the fluttering of cloth filled the air as a drop cloth was thrown into the air by a machine. Four metal pillars surrounded a rapidly spinning ring, arcs of electricity jumping from the ring to the pillars. The thrum of power filled the air, and the combat slowed to watch Celestia and Richard.

“The portal project!” one human soldier gasped, ignoring the pony they were in combat with, who was frozen mid-reach for another vial of potion. “It’s working!”

A tornado of wind was building up in Twilight’s lab, sending paper and even whole books flying.

“Is this supposed to happen, Twilight?!” Fluttershy shouted, clinging to the console for dear life.

“I’m sure nothing’s wrong!” Twilight replied, “Look! You can see something!”

Everypony looked at the spinning disc; the disc spinning sideways, an act that usually gave the illusion of a sphere - only this illusion seemed to be anything but, and in the surface of the ball, they could see a fish-eyed view of something that wasn’t the other side of Twilight’s lab.

“What in the hay is that?” Applejack asked. “Is that... the Princess?”

“W- what is this?” Celestia gasped, stepping forward and involuntarily forcing Richard towards the portal, her calm demeanor shattering. “I see... Twilight?”

The Sun Princess stared into the portal, and Richard looked around; nearby, on the ground, lay a sparking power conduit; nothing essential, it seemed, since the machine was running, but with exposed, live wires nonetheless.

“Why don’t you go and... see her, then?!” Richard said, jabbing the stump of cable into Celestia’s neck. The Alicorn screamed and jolted as currents of power flowed into her, but being made of sterner stuff than mortals was her saving grace, however, and she merely staggered sideways numbly.

But she staggered enough to give Richard an opening, which he took, ducking around behind Celestia. With a mighty shove, he slammed into Celestia from behind, and pushed her forward, straight into the portal. With a gloopy sinking sound, she vanished into the sphere, leaving no traces - not even a ripple.

“Celestia!” a pony screamed. “The princess is gone!”

“The Princess has fallen!” Shining Armour shouted. “Everypony, retreat!”

The ponies hesitated, taking one or two steps back. The humans couldn’t believe their fortune.

“Give ‘em hell, boys!” the Commander shouted, raising his carbine. The surviving HLF soldiers whooped and ran after the ponies, who broke into a full gallop; within seconds, gunfire started, and within the minute, the lab was empty; just one or two wounded ponies remained, corpses scattered about, and Richards, standing alone with the spinning, crackling portal, amidst the torrents of wind being produced, feeling numb.

Had... had he done it? Had he killed...

Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash screamed as they watched some sort of thick-set bipedal creature stab Celestia with a metal rope.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight shouted, on the edge of her metaphorical seat.

With a shove, Celestia was sent stumbling into the portal’s viewpoint, and with a flash, vanished.

The ponies watched as more bipedal creatures ran forward, and brandishing metal sticks, chased the ponies out of the other room, leaving just the first bipedal creature, standing and staring into the portal.

“That... thing just stabbed the princess with a rope thing!” Rainbow Dash gesticulated wildly. “Twilight! Can I fly in there and teach that parasprite a lesson?”

“No!” Twilight held out a hoof, stopping Rainbow Dash from advancing. “We don’t know what happens if you go into the portal!”

Rainbow Dash twitched. “Twilight, you feel that?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Feel what?”

Rainbow Dash unfurled her wings, and tilted her head as if listening to something. “The air. I feel like I’m in a breeze, going towards that portal.”

“It’s probably just the mini-cyclone being generated by the spinning ring,” Twilight dismissed. “Fluttershy! Get ready to shut down the portal!”

“Got it!” Fluttershy replied, placing her hooves once more on the lever, only to make a small squeak of surprise as the wind suddenly stopped.

“What in tarnation?” Applejack asked, resetting her hat on her head. “Is this supposed t’ haaaaaaa-”

Without warning, the air suddenly jumped towards the portal, as if the portal was the new “it” place for air to be.

Twilight Sparkle, the closest to the portal, found out about the effects of sudden atmosphere displacement first, plucked off her hooves before she could react and yanked towards the portal, hooves flailing.

Well, she thought, I guess I’m going to find out what happens to things that go through the portal the hard way.

Just like her mentor on the other side of the portal, she hit the surface with a gloop, and vanished from sight.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy screamed, holding onto the console with one hoof - a poor hold by any means. The inevitable happened, and with a scrape, her hoof was suddenly holding nothing, and Fluttershy was looking at the dubious award of “Second pony to pass through a strange portal”.

Rainbow Dash struggled to beat her wings; unlike Applejack, who had been firmly on the ground, she’d been airborne, and had much more trouble staying out of the portal.

“RD!” Applejack shouted over the rushing of wind. “Pull th’ lever!”

Rainbow Dash looked at the console Fluttershy had been clinging to - sure enough, the lever sat there, bright and inviting, an easy end to a horrible ordeal. Rainbow Dash banked over to it, drifting closer and closer.

Sweat dripped from Rainbow Dash’s brow and flew into the portal as she reached out a hoof, and-

Richard jumped as the air suddenly stopped rushing past him, and looked around.

“What the hell?” he asked, the sounds of his own breathing the only sounds left in the room. Even the portal itself ran silently.

Warning! an overly chipper voice said in his suit. Change in air pressure detected! Closing all air vents and switching to internals!

Richard frowned - the suit’s rudimentary AI was horribly annoying, but above all else, it was usually right. Why was the air pressure changing? Unless-

With an explosion of wind, he found himself suddenly being exposed to what his suit cheerfully called ‘Explosive Decompression’. The wind screamed as it ripped past him, bits of debris filling the air and flying past him.

The EOD suit’s weight was, for once, an asset - Richard’s body wanted to fly into the portal, but the EOD suit’s mass and general lack of aerodynamics argued a good case against. He grabbed a nearby handrail, just as his legs lost contact with the ground, and looked into the portal.

On the other side, the ponies he’d seen seemed to be facing much of the same problems; Twilight was picked up and pulled into the portal in short order, same for a yellow pegasus he’d never seen before. A blue pegasus struggled to reach a console, and back against the far wall was a very familiar orange pony, with a certain hat...

A squeak of fabric on metal got his attention, and he looked at his grip; once again, the EOD suit which saved and condemned his life on a regular, alternating basis was condemning him once more; EOD suit gloves were not exactly slip-resistant.

A fact that Richard acknowledged as a bit of a design flaw; given his current predicament, mid-flight towards a strange portal of unknown destination, perhaps even fatally so.

He sent out a prayer to a God he’d only recently started worship to.

Dear God, why must you shit on my life so?

He hit the portal, and just like Celestia, with a gloop, he was gone.

-pushed the lever into the down position; almost instantly, Rainbow Dash shot into the wall at high speed, as the safety measures Twilight had put in place kicked in; a glimmering shield now encasing and isolating the strange machine, the portal on the other side still spinning, but slowing down.

“RD?” Applejack called out. “You alright?”

“Never better, AJ,” Rainbow Dash weakly called out, her head embedded in a shelf of encyclopaedias.

Applejack watched the portal spinning down, and frowned. What happened now? Twilight... what had happened to Twilight? Where did she go?

The portal kept spinning; there was no power going to it, but something... something was visible in the portal, as if very far away!

Applejack leaped to the side as she realized that the image in the portal was fast becoming a reality, and watched a strange, khaki-green, bipedal creature bypass the shield altogether, it seemed, and fly through the space she’d been standing in to land face-down on the ground.

Applejack set her hat tighter, and got closer. The thing only appeared to have two legs, and two claws like Spike. Was it a bigger dragon, of some sort?

Hmm, nah. No scales. Applejack wasn’t a fancy zoologist like Fluttershy, but she knew a dragon when she saw one. And this was no dragon. For one, dragons didn’t usually have strange metal and wood sticks strapped to their backs. Or tubes. Strange, dried red fluid, though...

Applejack wrinkled her nose, and reached out a hoof to touch the strange creature...

Twilight Sparkle came to, groggily. Her head was dizzy, like she’d tried to play a contest of holding your breath. With something that didn’t breathe, like a goldfish.

Or was that metaphor for a staring contest? She wasn’t quite sure right now, her head throbbed like one of Vinyl Scratch’s parties; hard and relentlessly. She felt a hoof on her back, and looked. Resting next to her, only just waking up, was Fluttershy.

“Fluttershy! Are you okay?” Twilight poked Fluttershy with a hoof, and the pegasus stirred faster, moaning.

“Ooh. Yes, Twilight, I’m... well, I’m not okay, but I’ll live.” She got up, and Twilight followed suit. “Ow. My head really-”

“Hurts?” Twilight nodded gently. “Yeah, I’m getting that too. Ooh, yuck. Do you smell that smell? It smells like-”

“Blood!” Fluttershy squeaked, hooves to her face in horror. Twilight turned, and promptly sat down in shock as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing.

They were standing on a metal platform; around this, there was little to distress. Further out, however...

“It’s... it’s a sea of... a sea of dead ponies!” Fluttershy gasped, hovering anxiously. “Twilight! They’re all dead!”

Twilight looked around, and saw something lying on the dais, behind the metal ring; she double-checked, and blinked. “Princess Celestia?!” She turned back to Fluttershy. “Fluttershy! Can you fly out and see if there’s any other ponies that need help? I’ll see if the Princess is still alive!”

Fluttershy looked like there was a million other things that she’d rather be doing, but she nodded grimly and shot out over the bodies, looking for ponies that still seemed alive.

“Princess!” Twilight Sparkle shook Celestia’s side, trying to wake her up. “Princess Celestia! Wake up!”

Celestia moaned, and an eye fluttered open to focus on Twilight. “T-Twilight Sparkle? What are you doing here?”

“There was a portal!” Twilight gushed, hugging her Princess. “We got sucked through, then we came here, and then-”

“A... portal?” Celestia’s head craned up to look at the now still metal ring, and her eyes widened. “Twilight! Watch out!”

A cold snick of metal sent chills down Twilight’s spine, as the sensation of a cold metal tube against the back of her head was felt. She looked around, and out the corner of her eye, saw Fluttershy in a similar predicament, an anonymous, featureless biped holding one of those metal sticks to her head.

“By all rights,” a cold voice said, “I should kill you where you stand, pony. But I think the Commander will want you... alive.”

Twilight shook with fear as her hooves were pulled behind her back, and she was shackled. What had she landed in now?

Next Chapter: Can't Deny Nature Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours