Ponies Of War by Gallantry Tempest

Equestria.

We all know what it’s like: sunshine, rainbows, wacky misadventures, spontaneous song and dance. It was a paradise.

But, that all changed. That Equestria is long, dead and buried. The Equestria that we ponies know now is just a waste. Whole towns were turned to rubble. All for one thing. A fuel, more powerful than any other fuel known to ponykind.

The fuel is called Kickstart. It’s source? the inside of a Unicorn horn or Pegasus wing. That’s right. About 20 years ago, a scientist accidentally discovered Kickstart when he cut his horn. Well, no so much cut, more like spill a bit of acid on his head. His sacrifice was noble, but, this caused civil war. It was Unicorns and Pegasi against the whole of Equestria. But this was nowhere near as worse as what happened during this war. You see, Kickstart produces a vapour which ponies cannot see, touch, hear, taste or feel. It can be smelt, however, by something everypony, even I, is scared of.

The Horde.

Doesn’t sound particularly scary, does it? It’s an army of everything evil, that have been lurking under Equestria, waiting for this day. Zombies, poltergiest, werewolves, witches, worgens, insane mages, demons, banshee’s, y’know? Everything evil. Forced into truce, the Unicorns and Pegasi united with everypony else to defend what was left of our beloved Equestria.

Well, everypony BUT me. I was given life in prison, accused of ponyslaughter. Clearly, it had been rigged. I even saw the judge leave with 3 ponystitutes that he didn’t enter with.

Then, I sorta... attempted to put a 30 foot hole in his head. And that’s how I got life in this shit-hole.

My name is Rouge, Sierra platoon, squad 117, rank Sergeant in the C.L.O.P.

The C.L.O.P. An acronym I know oh too well. The Coalition League Of Ponies was set up to bring all ponies of all race together, so we could beat The Horde.

It hadn’t worked.

--------------------------------------------------2 MONTH EARLIER------------------------------------------------

I was just sittin’ in my little shit-bog called a cell. There was not a single sound, not even from those Celestia-foresaken mutated rats that make a loud gurgling sound then drop about a litre of saliva on the floor every time they’re hungry. I call em’ Wretches. Then I heard a voice. It wasn’t that damn guard that picks on me. Or the warden. It was... somepony, I didn’t know then.

“Axel! Rippat Door!” he said to the air. Blue and purple sparks flew across my cell door, onto the walls and floor. I slowly got to my hooves and walked to the door. I was wearing some garbs the guards gave on my first day. I hadn’t taken them off during my luxurious stay in the biggest shit hole in Equestria, and I wasn’t planning on starting now. They were all that were left of me. The only innocence left in my hard, cold shell.

“What are YOU doing here?” I grunted

“Take an educated guess. I’m gettin’ y’all outta here! Oh, put this on, y’aller gonna need it”. The stallion in front of me threw me a large dufflebag. The contents were a Horde triple burst rifle, C.L.O.P standard armour and a tactical communication earpiece.

“You are gonna get into a tonne a’ shit fer doin’ this” I warned the mysterious figure.

“Ah no, not no more. Things have changed. Fer the worst. Don’t mean to rush ya none, but we gotta get our asses inna gear!” was the response.

“And the other prisoners? We can’t jus’ leave em’ here” I reminded him whilst pulling my gear on. Bit of a tight fit, but worked all the same.

“Oh, thanks fer reminden’ me! Everpony’ has been pardoned! Hoofman reluctantly let y’all get outta here! What did y’all do to buck his appletree?”

“I may consider telling “y’all””

“Righty, then! Name’s Wingpony!” He offered me his hoof, an expectant  smile was on his face as he said so. I shook his hoof then grabbed my rifle.

“Welcome back, soldier” he jeered.

“Hmph. Shit” I grumbled. It seemed like forever since I last saw these grey, peeling hallways of the prison. Not much had changed, well, excluding the blood drenched paint that now covered almost every wall. Still, nice to be outta that cell! We reached the end of the hall when Wingpony turned to me.

“Well, theres two way’s y’all can go. We can go the way ah came, through the guards quarters, takes time but is much mur safer! Or, y’all can head straight through the prison blocks and get dug deeper than the core of Equestria in the fight. So, take your pickins’!” He makes it sound fun, I thought to myself.

“Let’s take the prison blocks. I’m ready to kick ass!” I hollered to Wingpony.

“Fuck yeah! Let’s do it!” he cheered with me. He proceeded to speak into his mic.

“Hey! Moab! I got im’! Ill be out in bout’ 24 mins tops! Wing out!”

“You’ll need to be faster, pipsqueak. Im droppin’ the bomb soon! Get your shit into gear, Moab out”   Wing turned to me.

“Y’all get to meet the rest of da squad later. That gal down the line? That’s Moab. Short fer Mother of all Bombs”. Sounds promising, I thought. Me and wing made our way over to the door that said “PrISoN BloCKs”. Whoever wrote that has no handwriting skills, I thought once again to myself. I pulled the handle of the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“Allow me!” offered Wing. Before I could tell him he should let me handle this because the door was re-enforced, he started galloping towards the door and did only what I could describe as trying to fly like Superpony straight into the door. It slammed open with a metallic  *CLANG!*.

When I looked at him, after laughing for a brief moment, I swear, I had never been more suprised.

He was practically swimming in a pool of gore. Worse than that, it wasn’t his own blood, bile and rib fragments. The mini pool belonged to half a bloodied corpse dangling from the ceiling. From a quick glance, I noted there was a 12mm hole through his head and a dent in the wall. He been sniped, skinned and put on display, like a sick butcher with dead swine on hooks.

“Nice” I mumbled.

“Saweet Sky Fucking CELESTIA! Whut tha fuck goes on in this prison, Rouge?”  Wing gasped

“All I can say is, you don’t wanna know”. I replied with a hint of darkness on my tongue. He looked at me with a look on his face that said “Were gonna die a slow, lead filled death, ain’t we?”. I just went past him, walking to a set of stairs. As soon as I put my hoof out to start going up the stairs, I felt something snap under the pressure of my size 14 boots.

URRCH.

What the hell was that? Something.. lurching?

URRRRRCH

Oh... shi-

WHOOPH!

I looked up and saw a sharp piece of metal swing at my head with pin point precision. I ducked down quickly, but not quick enough. It left a fairly large gash in the back of my armour and cut through my light cyan colored coat. I shoved my hoof in my mouth and yelled and swore in pain. This wasn’t the first time I’ve been stabbed, but as sure as you can read this it was the most painful thing that has ever happened to me! After stitching myself up, me and Wing went up the stairs. Fortunately that was the only trap we encountered for the rest of our trip through the blocks. Unfortunately, the power to the whole prison block, had been shut off and there was no way we could repair it. Wing found some kerosene (somehow) and some paper. All we needed now was a shaft-like object to make a torch. I suggested we should use a bone from one of the many carcasses that surrounded us. Wing, on the other hoof, suggested that we just scrunched the paper into a ball, drown it with kerosene and throw it like a flare. As you may have gathered from this documentation, Wing wasn't (or still isn’t) the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.In the end, we left it to chance: rock paper scissors, to be exact. I won, beating scissor with rock. I went over to the carcass of the pony next to us. After a bit of somewhat furious tugging, I wrenched a rib out of place and walked over to Wing.

“Man, that’s, y’know, a slight tad inpomane? I mean, we coulda used an irn’ rod...” he told me.

“Hey, ya live, ya learn” was my response.

“Y’all know that when y’all desecrate the dead, they cum’ an’ haunt ye’, right?”

“I’m not sure why I’m suprised. I think it’s a combination of A). You think I give a rat’s ass and B). You actually believe that”. I waited for a response. But I got none, What I did get though, was worse than a smart alecy response.

Wing was crying.

My God, was I really that harsh? Had the prison screwed with my head, and made me the arrogant, cold, asswipe that I am now? Most likely.

“Shit. Look, Wing, I’m really sorry bout’ what I said. 40 years in prison does things to your head” I said sloppily to him.

“It’s not th-that,” he spluttered in reply, “Before I signed up for the C.L.O.P, I was researching your case, y’know the one of ponyslaughter? I had evidence that coulda’ getten’ you outta earlier. ALOT earlier. But I lost it. Whilst y’all were rantin’ at me, I remember where it’s at. I-”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah. The evidence I found suggested that it was suicide, but he was wearin’ y’all’s gloves, y’know? To make it look like murder. When you said y’all didn’t do it, they assumed y’all meant y’all didn’t mean to do it”. I was shocked. Somepony actually was on MY side?

“Wow.. hehe... um.. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say other than thanks” I responded.

“Yer welcum’! Anytime! We ponies got’sa back each other up, see?”

“I guess your right, man. I guess your right/ Well, let’s get movin’!”

“Damn right, get movin! This place is gonna be a crater in 12 minutes! Hurry up!”  Moab yelled at us sown the coms.

“Well, have y’all ever been in a dark, zombie infested prison block, Moab? I would’nt have thought so, since all ya do is fly a fancy, schmancy helicopter all damn day! The last thing need is you a hollerin’ at us! Naow, if y’all ain’t got nothin’ else to scream at us, hush up! Wing out!”

I kept quiet for a few minutes. Truth be told, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a slight bit scared at that moment. I knew there were more than 1 unpleasentries in the blocks, but full of ZOMBIES? That made my blood boil to 1,000,000,000 degrees Fahren-sky fucking-heit. I lost my father to zombies. All I could do was watch him be opened like a bag of chips and have his insides become outsides as they messily devoured his organs and crack his skull like a pinata, brains being the candy.

“You heard the girl, Wing. We better start movin’!” I said with a sickly grin on my face.

“Oka-. Woah. Hold up. Whut’s up with that insane look on yer face?” Wing questioned

“Wh-what look? Theres no look on MYYYYYY face, oh nononononono” My ears were twiching now.

“Uhh.. Rouge? Y’all okay?”

“MEEEEE? OF COARSE, WING. WHY WOULDN’T I BE???? I’M GETTING OUT OF PRISSSSSSSON TODAYYYY!”

“Maybe y’all should, y’know, stay back, fer now..”

“OKAY, WING. Your the boss!” My god, I really had lost it. Worse that that, this happens everytime I hear of zombies. I have flash-backs of my father being torn limb from limb.

But, that would have to settle.

“Wing?” I nervously whispered

“Yeah?”

“I think we should move now”

“Agreed”

“Agreed”  said Moab. With that, we set off. With the dimly glowing bone torch in my left hoof and rifle in the right, we entered the main prison block. No immediate sign of zombies when we first entered. But after we got downstairs, we detected them.

Worse, they detected us. They stopped munching on their pony sandwiches and shambled towards us. Alone, one zombie wasn’t much threat. But as a cluster, they are a near indestructible force. I felt no pity for the lone zombie as I turned his head into exploded jelly. One down, 30 more to go, I thought, and counting. And grouping.

“WING?” I yelled

“YEAH?” he retorted

“HOW MANY SPARE CLIPS DID YOU BRING, EXACTLY?”

“UM....”

You have GOT to be fucking kidding me

“I DID’NT THINK THERE WOULD BE THIS MANY, MAN!”

“AHHH, SHIT!”. There was a door that lead straight to the courtyard that looked like the lock could be picked. Unfortunately, the zombies were circling us fast. It would have to picked in around ten or fifteen seconds if we wanted to not come out in body bags.

“WING, COULD YOU PICK THAT LOCK?”

“I DON’T KNOW HOW!”

“WELL, BUCK THE SHIT OUTTA IT!”

“OHH. RIGHT”

“THROW ME YOUR RIFLE, WING!”. Wing threw me his rifle, landing centimetres away from my hoofs. I swung the torch at the horde, setting two alight. I muttered a quick levitation spell and grabbed the rifle in the telekinetic field. Wing advanced to the door and started bucking as hard as he could. I started screaming at the horde.

“WE”

5 zombies fell to the floor with holes in their necks, blood spurting out.

“ARE”

I could hear the door starting to give way.

“NOT”

Another body was added to the pile.

“ON”

I could hear Wing swear in pain behind me.

“THE”

The door was down!

“MENU!!!”. Me and Wing ran into the fresh air. Oh, the sensation of being free! The joy it brought to me! We saw a chopper sitting a few feet away, propellers starting up. Me and Wing ran like the wind towards our one ticket outta here. Then, an unexpected member of the Horde decided to pop out on us.

The Mega-Miner.

The Mega-Miner. A combination of mining and death. It dug up ahead of us, about 10 seconds in front of us. Thinking ahead, I shot the ugly bastard in the right eye. It flung backwards, using it’s hind legs to stop itself tipping over completely. I slid through a small gap between his legs. Wing followed. The choppa’ was a few feet in the air by now.. I jumped up and grabbed the metal railing. Wing was a few centimeters too low to grab the railing, So he grabbed me left hindleg. I pulled him up to the railing.

“You boy’s ready for a light show?”  Moab said cheekily down the line.

“More ready than we’ll ever be” Wing replied.

“Well, I hope ya packed shades!”

That’s when I saw it.

It was beautiful. The prison was reduced to more rubble than what it already was. All the evil was blown away in the form of beautiful destuction. All my past got sucked away in the roaring flames that consumed the building.

For the first time, in a long time, I was smiling and my eyes were beaming.

The times, I thought, are finally changing. I cannot wait.