Writagon
Posting this here to perhaps get some thoughts and/or com ents about this fic of mine. Its an alternate universe/sci-fi/dark/adventure story set in post apocalyptic Equestria. This has no relation to the Fallout series and the main/supporting ponies are all OCs. So if you’re still interested after reading all that then I hope you enjoy the story.
Prologue
The Equestria that was once known as the land of the ponies, all that it was, is gone now. An evil has swept over the land of Equestria like a plague and destroyed everything in its wake before the princesses could do anything. Their castles were wiped off the face of the land, like a broom sweeping away the dust as if their power meant nothing. Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight and the rest of her friends, were all killed, slaughtered like they were common vermin. There was no warning, no escape…no hope to survive.
Once the harmony of our world was disrupted, everything went with it. Everything we once knew was no more; there were no more green trees, no blue skies, no clean water and no more home. Ponies forgot their names and everypony lost their cutie marks. All of our magic, it was no more. All we could do is run around like insects unsure of what to do, it was utter chaos.
The creatures that attacked Equestria were unlike no other we’ve had encountered before. They came suddenly, their ship appeared in the sky above Canterlot, none that saw it that day lived to tell about it. In a flash of light, Canterlot was gone and so were our princesses, the city turned to dust in an instant. Then, their army came down upon us like a swarm out of it’s hive. Large flying mechanical abominations resembling locusts rained down upon all of the cities.
These creatures sought out every unicorn across Equestria, killing them and anypony that tried to fight back. It was as if they knew who to remove first, like it was planned. The remaining pegasi and earth ponies were captured and forced into slavery or worse, experimentation. Those that were lucky enough to be left as slaves worked hard labor in the mines the creatures made. Any bit of metal ore that was found they wanted, the ponies being forced to do their dirty work for them.
Those of us that were taken became experiments of deranged science. It was horrible; most would rather die than have to live through that torture. They combined ponies and technology together to make hideous abominations; it still gives me nightmares every night. Seeing other ponies being taken into their ship, I knew that I could never look upon them again. Most ponies didn’t want to witness it, like it wasn’t happening, there were just screams of terror as a pony was carried off until the door shut behind them; then there was only silence.
I remember when I got taken. How could I forget? Being carried off into that ship, it was something you hoped was just a nightmare you would wake up from, only to be awoken by the sheer pain of their operation later on. They didn’t care what you saw, or what you thought. Bodies of ponies were splayed out everywhere like some gruesome graveyard; the stench was sickening to the stomach.
They did horrible things to me like everypony else; it was hard to think of yourself as still being a pony after it. I woke up in a large medical tube after what felt like days of suffering, I honestly was hoping I had been killed by now. I tried to figure out what there was left of me, I stall had a pony face, ears and tail but that was it, the rest of me was now machine; a form of robot pony. I looked around and saw the other ponies in separate tubes; there were three earth ponies and a pegasus here. In an attempt to get out of the tube, I banged my mechanical hooves against it, but the glass didn’t budge; no doubt it was designed to keep its occupants inside.
I just wished I could get out of this damned tube; there was nothing I could do to get my body back anyway. I closed my eyes in frustration and banged my head against the glass and sighed, then I heard a strange noise. When I opened my eyes again, I was outside of the tube. I was confused as to what had just happened, but I didn’t have time to waste; I had to get out of here. It hit me though that I couldn’t leave these other ponies here, I couldn’t leave them to this sick fate. I searched the room and spotted a thick wire coming from the tubes and followed it to a console.
There would be no way I could understand how to use this thing to open the other tubes though. I tried pushing some buttons on it, hoping I would get lucky, but it was no use.
“Damn! Why won’t these tubes open!” I shouted in frustration and kicked the console with one of my hind robot legs, then I heard the strange noise again. I turned around quickly expecting one of those walking mechanical monsters to have found me, but to my surprise the ponies in the tubes were now out and laid on the floor. Then I heard an ear piercing screech; if anything it sounded like an alarm. It was a deafening noise. I went over to each of the ponies and shook them, trying to wake them up so we would at least have a chance to defend ourselves.
“Wake up! WAKE UP!!” I shouted at them desperately, but it was no use they were all drugged asleep. “We have to get out of here now!” I said urgently, having heard the clattering noise of the locusts in the distance, no doubt rushing towards where we were. I panicked as I felt my face being enclosed by metal; everything was black inside the metal mask. A screen lit up the mask with a few glowing dots and then came the text: “Initiating Project Planeshifter.”
“Project what?” I said with confusion, the mask made some openings for my eyes, nostrils and ears so they could poke out. Then each of the four ponies were pulled into what looked like a vortex making the exact sound of the noise I heard previously, and then I was next. Unsure what was happening, I closed my eyes until I could tell I was firmly planted on the ground again. I looked around and saw the other four ponies were here as well, the ship we were trapped on was far off in the distance now.
“What in the name of the sisters just happened?” I said in surprise. That’s when I saw more text pop up in the mask “Project initiated” and then “Codename: Planeshifter.” I didn’t remember what my name was, but I guess this was better than having no name at all. I heard a groan of pain and turned to look behind me; the other ponies were waking up now. “Are you alright, do any of you know your names?” I asked them with a mixture of concern and excitement.
One of them stood up on his hooves and looked at me, he wasn’t as much machine as I was. His eyes had been replaced by black metal goggles and he pulled a camouflage colored cloth mask over his gunmetal gray muzzle . His hair and tail were light brown and very messy, and his coat was green for the most part with darker patches of green spread out across it; his whole body looked like living camouflage. His glowing red goggle eyes focused upon me making a quiet whirring noise. He had what looked like a gray mechanical saddle on except it was literally welded to his pony body.
He looked uneasy while he stared at me and then took an aggressive stance on his hooves. Then his saddle opened up and slung forth a weapon over his shoulder; now pointed at me was a sizeable metal gray laser rifle. I thought I was done for until I heard a voice speak up.
“Duck!” said the intense female sounding voice, and I did just that as quickly as I could dropping flat onto the ground. He fired his rifle, the blue beam shooting over me. Once I got back up I looked behind me to see there was a small black metal locust and he shot a hole through it’s head.
“Wow, bullseye,” I said with a bit of a nervous laugh, and turned back to face the pony again. He cocked his head as if confused and then nodded affirmatively. “Oh, so that is your name,” I said with relief watching as the weapon was pulled back into his robotic saddle.
“That was close, you should be more careful next time.” said the female voice again. I looked around confused wondering where it came from. “Oh right, sorry, I forgot you can’t see me,” she said and I watched as the female pony stepped out from the shadows right in front of me. “I’m codename Shade, who are you?” she asked curiously.
“I’m codename Planeshifter, do you have any idea what happened?” I asked her, taking a moment to look her over. Her coat was a dark burnt orange color with a dark yellow mane and tail that was partly gray on the side. She appeared to be about half robotic, her robot front left leg and right hind leg were metal gray. Part of the right side of her face was too and she had an eyepatch over where her eye used to be, her other working green eye looked at me.
“Well I know what happened to us, but not how we got off that ship,” Shade said taking a look towards it in the distance.
“I’m not sure either myself, I just knew one moment I was in one place and then the next another,” I said and looked over to see that the other two ponies were missing. “Hey! Where did the other two go?” I said with frustration.
“Oh don’t worry about those two, they’ll be fine. I figure you’re new to this?” Shade asked rather casually.
“New to what? If you mean being some kind of mad science project then yeah,” I said sternly.
“Relax, we’re all part of a weapons experiment, test subjects. The ponies they take are used like lab rats, they test to see what works, and whatever doesn’t just ends up as another body onto the pile. There was already Bullseye, Doser, Dynomite and myself before they put you in with us,” Shade said calmly, then looked at me with some suspicion. “But I don’t know you or what you can do,” she added.
“I’m not sure either, what I do know is that we’re finally off that damned ship,” I replied to her. “What matters now is that we group together and put a stop to them somehow,” I added confidently.
“We’re only five ponies and you want to take on an entire army? How do you expect us to do that exactly?” Shade asked sounding annoyed.
I shook my head sadly “I don’t know honestly, but let me ask you this. Would you rather die fighting for Equestria or end up on that pile of rotting corpses in their ship?” I said sternly. Shade looked at me then back to Bullseye who once again slung his laser rifle onto his shoulder which made her smirk.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a ragtag group of rebels then,” she said with amusement.
“So it seems, we’ll have to be quick though. Those things won’t hesitate killing us on the spot if we fight back,” I said with some concern.
Shade grabbed hold of me suddenly: “Quickly hide, one of them is coming!” she said urgently as we cloaked into the shadows. Bullseyes moved next to a part of a destroyed house and lay himself flat with his weapon tucked away again, looking like a common shrub now. Then I heard the sounds of one of the locusts approaching, its gears turning and screeching as it walked along. Quietly we watched it pass by us stopping along the path and turned its head looking around. I assumed it had been sent out to look for the us since we escaped from the ship.
I turned my head to Shade and gave a nod that I was ready and she nodded back. She stuck her left robot hoof out from the shadow and waved to where Bullseye was then pointed directly at the locust. Bullseye quietly stood and Shade uncloaked us from the shadows, the three of us coming together to make a sneak attack on the locust. As Bullseye pointed his rifle Shade’s two robotic legs produce blade out along the sides of them, I knew this was it; this was the shadow of the rebellion.
Chapter 1: Finding Answers
Bullseye took the first shot at the locust, firing his laser rifle at it which blew a hole in its head, but it was not enough to kill it. It turned its attention quickly around to us and rose it’s mechanical wings up, with one large flap it shot out a cloud of razor sharp metal at us. Bullseye and Shade were able to dodge out of the way, I on the other hoof hesitated to move. I panicked and just wanted to get out of the way, a vortex opened up under me and I fell through before the metal hit me. I was then suddenly behind the locust now, I thought for a moment as I watched the cloud of metal still flying away from me now.
I imagined the locust getting hit by it’s own attack thinking I might be able move it. Sure enough a vortex opened up under the locust sucking it through and spitting it out in front of the cloud of razor sharp blades. The creature shrieked before being torn to shreds by the blades, flying through its head and body causing parts of it to fall off onto the ground. It finally collapsed to the ground after being shredded apart and I felt so happy I had defeated one of them, Shade and Bullseye cheered in victory. I felt strange suddenly, and then there was a high pitched noise in my ears.
I saw Shade’s try to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying; then I blacked out and collapsed onto the ground. Everything was black now as I looked around.
“Shade? Bullseye!?” I said in a panic, my voice echoed into the emptiness. As I looked around I saw a mirror suddenly, so I trotted over to it. I saw the reflection of myself before I was part of the experiments. I hardly recognized myself, and I still had my charcoal colored mane, dark brown coat and my tail wasn’t connected to machine, but my eyes and cutie mark; they were different. My right eye was black with strange white spot that looked like stars, and my left eye was white with black spots like holes. I looked at my cutie mark, and it seemed like, it was moving?
As I peered closer at it, I saw what it was; it was a swirling black vortex. I finally woke up; it was just a dream. Here I am now by a small fire with Shade and Bullseyes, my mask retracting so that I could get some air. I went to cough, some blood coming out and landing onto the ground until Shade spoke.
“Are you alright over there? Using your powers too much is rather unpleasant,” she said calmly, trotting over towards me and looking at me.
I nod my head while laying on the ground. “Yeah, I’ll be alright. Also, what do you mean by powers? Our magic disappeared with our cutie marks,” I said with remorse.
“Not all of it, we’re still alive aren’t we? There’s something still left inside of us,” she said confidently.
I shrug my shoulders unsure: “You may be right, but we need to find out for sure. There are questions that need answering about where the magic went. We would need to find somepony still alive that knows about magic,” I said trying to think of who may still be around.
Shade thinks for a while before responding: “What about the zebras?” she asks.
“I’m not certain there are still any around, let alone where they might be now. No doubt they have gone into hiding somewhere,” I said, then stood up to trot closer to the fire.
“Well, I guess we will have to do some looking around then. If I had to guess, they probably made a place where the locusts wouldn’t find them,” said Shade, kicking a stick into the fire.
“Most likely, they may have also disguised themselves as earth ponies so they blend in with the others. To be honest, they could be anywhere, and I doubt anypony will know except the zebras,” I said, giving a sigh.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t find them, but we will have to go into that destroyed town nearby. Hopefully, there will be some ponies left that weren’t captured,” said Shade, sitting herself down on a flat rock by the fire. She turned to look towards the crumbled buildings in the distance.
“You’re right; we have to find them. If there’s any hope left for us to take back Equestria, then we need the zebras,” I said, looking over to Bullseye, who was keeping watch for any approaching danger. I turn my head to look towards the remainder of the town that we were near, and the destroyed buildings made it difficult to tell which town it was. Even if we did find some ponies there, they might attack us on sight because we’re machines like the locusts. I turn my gaze to the sky looking into the red, cloudy dark sky. Without the princesses here to raise the sun or the moon, neither of them moved leaving Equestria in a constant state of twilight.
“If your head is feeling alright then we should get moving before more of those locusts show up,” said Shade, kicking dirt onto the small fire to put it out.
I nod affirmatively to her: “Yeah I’m good to go now, let’s be careful though. I have a feeling any ponies we find will either run or attack in fear,” I warned. “I’d rather not hurt another pony as we need to keep as many of us alive as we can,” I add.
“Of course, though they’ll be more worried about you than Bullseye and me,” said Shade casually, looking over at me. “So you might want to keep that mask away so at least your face is showing,” she added.
“Good idea, let’s get moving,” I said, starting to trot down the dirt path towards the desolate town. Bullseye and Shade stood up and caught up to trot beside me, the three of us each looking around constantly checking for any locusts. As we got closer to the town everything was quiet, the only noise being the wind blowing. It looks like a ghost town; I spot a partially broken sign on the ground and trot over to it. I stuck a hoof to lift the sign and shook it get the dirt and dust off it, the sign read “Welcome to Ponyville.”
I gave a sigh of dismay and frowned, setting the sign back down gently. Shade came over to see what I was looking at, taking a look over at the sign herself. “Even in a nightmare I would never have thought to see this place destroyed as it is now,” said Shade, heartbroken. I took a look around seeing the shambles of the once great town. Some roofs simply sat on the rubble where the buildings once stood, and others had large round holes blown straight through them.
Glass, stone and broken pieces of wood were scattered around on the ground everywhere. There were no signs of life within the town now, and the air reeks of death. The three of us starting to trot again, to go further into the ruins of this place. We finally came to the center of it, and I had bad feeling that something was watching us.
“I don’t like this; something is off,” I said warily looking around carefully.
Shade came up along side of me: “It’s ok we aren’t one of them! We’re ponies!” she shouted out reassuringly.
After a few moments of silence I saw a pony stick his head out into view to look at us, putting a hoof to his mouth to whistle. I heard the sound of hooves turning my head to look, earth ponies and pegasi of all colors emerging out from the crumbled homes. The earth pony that had whistled came up to me, gazing at me suspiciously with a makeshift spear held by his right leg pointing at me. “I’m having a hard time believing you’re a pony; you’ve only got a head and tail on a robot body,” said the stallion sternly with a deep country accent.
“Easy now, I am a pony like you are. I am one of the few ones still alive after being a science project for an army of robotic maniacs!” I said angrily but kept calm afterwards to not look aggressive. The stallion cocks an eyebrow at me then adjusts his straw hat resting between his ears to look at me closer. I look back at him; the dark beige colored stallion was missing his left front leg, which was now just a crutch bandaged up to his shoulder where his leg used to be. He has a blonde mane down to the middle of his neck and a matching tail half as long as his hind legs. His deep blue eyes shifting side to side as if considering my statement.
“I’ll be the judge of that, don’t move or I’ll run you through,” he replies firmly. He moves the pointed end of hi spear closer to my face and scrapes it across my skin. I wince slightly at the cut, not a deep one but enough to hurt and make me bleed. “Yep, you’re a pony alright,” he said affirmatively with a small smile. “Sorry about your face there fella but you can’t be too careful nowadays. I go by Buckeye these days, none of us really remember our original names, but its better than nothing. What are y’all doing wandering around here?” he asks inquisitively.
“Well, I’m Planeshifter; the quiet one is Bullseye, and this here is Shade. We’re trying to find the zebras, that is if there are any of them still left,” I said calmly, looking at him after pointing to Bullseye and then Shade respectively.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to help you there. I haven’t seen a zebra since the day before this all started. Suspicious if you ask me,” he said.
“The zebras may have known about it, but I think even if they had time to warn everypony, we would still be in the same situation we’re in currently,” said Shade with remorse.
“Hm…have any of y’all seen any zebras?” he shouted out towards the other ponies, some of the shaking their head and others shrugging. I took a look through the group of ponies, noticing one particular mare that stood out from the other earth ponies. Her muzzle an odd shape and her eyes shifted nervously as she tries to hide within the group.
“Hey, you there!” I call out looking straight at the strange looking mare. The mare perks up knowing she’s been seen and turns tail to run away from us, taking a turn between two collapsed buildings. I ran after her opening a vortex in front of me so I could transport myself to where she turned. Once I can out where she ran I saw that this was a dead end, but the mare was nowhere in sight. Shade and Bullseye soon caught up with me and saw the dead end as well.
“I don’t get it as I wasn’t far behind her. Where did she go?” I ask in frustration.
“Remember what I said? They could have hidden themselves anywhere. There must be some way to figure out where she went,” said Shade assuring me.
“Hm, I wonder,” I said walking up to the wall, taking a look at it suspiciously. While I was looking I spot an imprint of a hoof on the wall. “Hey Shade, come over here. There’s a part of this wall to place a hoof,” I said waving her over with a hoof.
Shade trots over next to me, taking a look at the wall where the imprint is. “You’re right, I wonder what while happen if I stick my hoof in it though?” she asks concerned.
I shrug my shoulders as I had no idea: “There’s one way to find that out, hopefully it will take us to the zebras,” I said optimistically. Bullseye trots up near us taking a look behind him before looking at us, giving his head a nod as if to say he was ready. Shade reaches her hoof up to the imprint putting it in and pushing on it gently, but nothing seems to happen.
She looks at me confused before putting her hoof back on the ground.
“Well I’m not sure what that accomplished, other than nothing,” said Shade with a tone of annoyance.
“Damn it! How are we supposed to find them now?” I said in frustration. Bullseye taps his hoof urgently on my metal shoulder until I turn to look at him. “What is it?” I ask seeing that he was looking at something. I look up to see a group of zebras was behind us now, and they were all wielding spears pointed in our direction that looked similar to the one Buckeye had; that’s when it hit me. “Of course, Buckeye. I thought that was a rather peculiar name for an earth pony to pick,” I said with amusement.
I turn my head to look around the place; we weren’t in the same location as before. This place was lush, green and full of life: birds were chirping, water flowed freely in the river, there was a large garden with fruits and vegetables, their houses built of wood, dead branches and large brown leaf roofs. “Where in Equestria are we?” I ask, in awe of this place.
Prologue
The Equestria that was once known as the land of the ponies, all that it was, is gone now. An evil has swept over the land of Equestria like a plague and destroyed everything in its wake before the princesses could do anything. Their castles were wiped off the face of the land, like a broom sweeping away the dust as if their power meant nothing. Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight and the rest of her friends, were all killed, slaughtered like they were common vermin. There was no warning, no escape…no hope to survive.
Once the harmony of our world was disrupted, everything went with it. Everything we once knew was no more; there were no more green trees, no blue skies, no clean water and no more home. Ponies forgot their names and everypony lost their cutie marks. All of our magic, it was no more. All we could do is run around like insects unsure of what to do, it was utter chaos.
The creatures that attacked Equestria were unlike no other we’ve had encountered before. They came suddenly, their ship appeared in the sky above Canterlot, none that saw it that day lived to tell about it. In a flash of light, Canterlot was gone and so were our princesses, the city turned to dust in an instant. Then, their army came down upon us like a swarm out of it’s hive. Large flying mechanical abominations resembling locusts rained down upon all of the cities.
These creatures sought out every unicorn across Equestria, killing them and anypony that tried to fight back. It was as if they knew who to remove first, like it was planned. The remaining pegasi and earth ponies were captured and forced into slavery or worse, experimentation. Those that were lucky enough to be left as slaves worked hard labor in the mines the creatures made. Any bit of metal ore that was found they wanted, the ponies being forced to do their dirty work for them.
Those of us that were taken became experiments of deranged science. It was horrible; most would rather die than have to live through that torture. They combined ponies and technology together to make hideous abominations; it still gives me nightmares every night. Seeing other ponies being taken into their ship, I knew that I could never look upon them again. Most ponies didn’t want to witness it, like it wasn’t happening, there were just screams of terror as a pony was carried off until the door shut behind them; then there was only silence.
I remember when I got taken. How could I forget? Being carried off into that ship, it was something you hoped was just a nightmare you would wake up from, only to be awoken by the sheer pain of their operation later on. They didn’t care what you saw, or what you thought. Bodies of ponies were splayed out everywhere like some gruesome graveyard; the stench was sickening to the stomach.
They did horrible things to me like everypony else; it was hard to think of yourself as still being a pony after it. I woke up in a large medical tube after what felt like days of suffering, I honestly was hoping I had been killed by now. I tried to figure out what there was left of me, I stall had a pony face, ears and tail but that was it, the rest of me was now machine; a form of robot pony. I looked around and saw the other ponies in separate tubes; there were three earth ponies and a pegasus here. In an attempt to get out of the tube, I banged my mechanical hooves against it, but the glass didn’t budge; no doubt it was designed to keep its occupants inside.
I just wished I could get out of this damned tube; there was nothing I could do to get my body back anyway. I closed my eyes in frustration and banged my head against the glass and sighed, then I heard a strange noise. When I opened my eyes again, I was outside of the tube. I was confused as to what had just happened, but I didn’t have time to waste; I had to get out of here. It hit me though that I couldn’t leave these other ponies here, I couldn’t leave them to this sick fate. I searched the room and spotted a thick wire coming from the tubes and followed it to a console.
There would be no way I could understand how to use this thing to open the other tubes though. I tried pushing some buttons on it, hoping I would get lucky, but it was no use.
“Damn! Why won’t these tubes open!” I shouted in frustration and kicked the console with one of my hind robot legs, then I heard the strange noise again. I turned around quickly expecting one of those walking mechanical monsters to have found me, but to my surprise the ponies in the tubes were now out and laid on the floor. Then I heard an ear piercing screech; if anything it sounded like an alarm. It was a deafening noise. I went over to each of the ponies and shook them, trying to wake them up so we would at least have a chance to defend ourselves.
“Wake up! WAKE UP!!” I shouted at them desperately, but it was no use they were all drugged asleep. “We have to get out of here now!” I said urgently, having heard the clattering noise of the locusts in the distance, no doubt rushing towards where we were. I panicked as I felt my face being enclosed by metal; everything was black inside the metal mask. A screen lit up the mask with a few glowing dots and then came the text: “Initiating Project Planeshifter.”
“Project what?” I said with confusion, the mask made some openings for my eyes, nostrils and ears so they could poke out. Then each of the four ponies were pulled into what looked like a vortex making the exact sound of the noise I heard previously, and then I was next. Unsure what was happening, I closed my eyes until I could tell I was firmly planted on the ground again. I looked around and saw the other four ponies were here as well, the ship we were trapped on was far off in the distance now.
“What in the name of the sisters just happened?” I said in surprise. That’s when I saw more text pop up in the mask “Project initiated” and then “Codename: Planeshifter.” I didn’t remember what my name was, but I guess this was better than having no name at all. I heard a groan of pain and turned to look behind me; the other ponies were waking up now. “Are you alright, do any of you know your names?” I asked them with a mixture of concern and excitement.
One of them stood up on his hooves and looked at me, he wasn’t as much machine as I was. His eyes had been replaced by black metal goggles and he pulled a camouflage colored cloth mask over his gunmetal gray muzzle . His hair and tail were light brown and very messy, and his coat was green for the most part with darker patches of green spread out across it; his whole body looked like living camouflage. His glowing red goggle eyes focused upon me making a quiet whirring noise. He had what looked like a gray mechanical saddle on except it was literally welded to his pony body.
He looked uneasy while he stared at me and then took an aggressive stance on his hooves. Then his saddle opened up and slung forth a weapon over his shoulder; now pointed at me was a sizeable metal gray laser rifle. I thought I was done for until I heard a voice speak up.
“Duck!” said the intense female sounding voice, and I did just that as quickly as I could dropping flat onto the ground. He fired his rifle, the blue beam shooting over me. Once I got back up I looked behind me to see there was a small black metal locust and he shot a hole through it’s head.
“Wow, bullseye,” I said with a bit of a nervous laugh, and turned back to face the pony again. He cocked his head as if confused and then nodded affirmatively. “Oh, so that is your name,” I said with relief watching as the weapon was pulled back into his robotic saddle.
“That was close, you should be more careful next time.” said the female voice again. I looked around confused wondering where it came from. “Oh right, sorry, I forgot you can’t see me,” she said and I watched as the female pony stepped out from the shadows right in front of me. “I’m codename Shade, who are you?” she asked curiously.
“I’m codename Planeshifter, do you have any idea what happened?” I asked her, taking a moment to look her over. Her coat was a dark burnt orange color with a dark yellow mane and tail that was partly gray on the side. She appeared to be about half robotic, her robot front left leg and right hind leg were metal gray. Part of the right side of her face was too and she had an eyepatch over where her eye used to be, her other working green eye looked at me.
“Well I know what happened to us, but not how we got off that ship,” Shade said taking a look towards it in the distance.
“I’m not sure either myself, I just knew one moment I was in one place and then the next another,” I said and looked over to see that the other two ponies were missing. “Hey! Where did the other two go?” I said with frustration.
“Oh don’t worry about those two, they’ll be fine. I figure you’re new to this?” Shade asked rather casually.
“New to what? If you mean being some kind of mad science project then yeah,” I said sternly.
“Relax, we’re all part of a weapons experiment, test subjects. The ponies they take are used like lab rats, they test to see what works, and whatever doesn’t just ends up as another body onto the pile. There was already Bullseye, Doser, Dynomite and myself before they put you in with us,” Shade said calmly, then looked at me with some suspicion. “But I don’t know you or what you can do,” she added.
“I’m not sure either, what I do know is that we’re finally off that damned ship,” I replied to her. “What matters now is that we group together and put a stop to them somehow,” I added confidently.
“We’re only five ponies and you want to take on an entire army? How do you expect us to do that exactly?” Shade asked sounding annoyed.
I shook my head sadly “I don’t know honestly, but let me ask you this. Would you rather die fighting for Equestria or end up on that pile of rotting corpses in their ship?” I said sternly. Shade looked at me then back to Bullseye who once again slung his laser rifle onto his shoulder which made her smirk.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a ragtag group of rebels then,” she said with amusement.
“So it seems, we’ll have to be quick though. Those things won’t hesitate killing us on the spot if we fight back,” I said with some concern.
Shade grabbed hold of me suddenly: “Quickly hide, one of them is coming!” she said urgently as we cloaked into the shadows. Bullseyes moved next to a part of a destroyed house and lay himself flat with his weapon tucked away again, looking like a common shrub now. Then I heard the sounds of one of the locusts approaching, its gears turning and screeching as it walked along. Quietly we watched it pass by us stopping along the path and turned its head looking around. I assumed it had been sent out to look for the us since we escaped from the ship.
I turned my head to Shade and gave a nod that I was ready and she nodded back. She stuck her left robot hoof out from the shadow and waved to where Bullseye was then pointed directly at the locust. Bullseye quietly stood and Shade uncloaked us from the shadows, the three of us coming together to make a sneak attack on the locust. As Bullseye pointed his rifle Shade’s two robotic legs produce blade out along the sides of them, I knew this was it; this was the shadow of the rebellion.
Chapter 1: Finding Answers
Bullseye took the first shot at the locust, firing his laser rifle at it which blew a hole in its head, but it was not enough to kill it. It turned its attention quickly around to us and rose it’s mechanical wings up, with one large flap it shot out a cloud of razor sharp metal at us. Bullseye and Shade were able to dodge out of the way, I on the other hoof hesitated to move. I panicked and just wanted to get out of the way, a vortex opened up under me and I fell through before the metal hit me. I was then suddenly behind the locust now, I thought for a moment as I watched the cloud of metal still flying away from me now.
I imagined the locust getting hit by it’s own attack thinking I might be able move it. Sure enough a vortex opened up under the locust sucking it through and spitting it out in front of the cloud of razor sharp blades. The creature shrieked before being torn to shreds by the blades, flying through its head and body causing parts of it to fall off onto the ground. It finally collapsed to the ground after being shredded apart and I felt so happy I had defeated one of them, Shade and Bullseye cheered in victory. I felt strange suddenly, and then there was a high pitched noise in my ears.
I saw Shade’s try to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying; then I blacked out and collapsed onto the ground. Everything was black now as I looked around.
“Shade? Bullseye!?” I said in a panic, my voice echoed into the emptiness. As I looked around I saw a mirror suddenly, so I trotted over to it. I saw the reflection of myself before I was part of the experiments. I hardly recognized myself, and I still had my charcoal colored mane, dark brown coat and my tail wasn’t connected to machine, but my eyes and cutie mark; they were different. My right eye was black with strange white spot that looked like stars, and my left eye was white with black spots like holes. I looked at my cutie mark, and it seemed like, it was moving?
As I peered closer at it, I saw what it was; it was a swirling black vortex. I finally woke up; it was just a dream. Here I am now by a small fire with Shade and Bullseyes, my mask retracting so that I could get some air. I went to cough, some blood coming out and landing onto the ground until Shade spoke.
“Are you alright over there? Using your powers too much is rather unpleasant,” she said calmly, trotting over towards me and looking at me.
I nod my head while laying on the ground. “Yeah, I’ll be alright. Also, what do you mean by powers? Our magic disappeared with our cutie marks,” I said with remorse.
“Not all of it, we’re still alive aren’t we? There’s something still left inside of us,” she said confidently.
I shrug my shoulders unsure: “You may be right, but we need to find out for sure. There are questions that need answering about where the magic went. We would need to find somepony still alive that knows about magic,” I said trying to think of who may still be around.
Shade thinks for a while before responding: “What about the zebras?” she asks.
“I’m not certain there are still any around, let alone where they might be now. No doubt they have gone into hiding somewhere,” I said, then stood up to trot closer to the fire.
“Well, I guess we will have to do some looking around then. If I had to guess, they probably made a place where the locusts wouldn’t find them,” said Shade, kicking a stick into the fire.
“Most likely, they may have also disguised themselves as earth ponies so they blend in with the others. To be honest, they could be anywhere, and I doubt anypony will know except the zebras,” I said, giving a sigh.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t find them, but we will have to go into that destroyed town nearby. Hopefully, there will be some ponies left that weren’t captured,” said Shade, sitting herself down on a flat rock by the fire. She turned to look towards the crumbled buildings in the distance.
“You’re right; we have to find them. If there’s any hope left for us to take back Equestria, then we need the zebras,” I said, looking over to Bullseye, who was keeping watch for any approaching danger. I turn my head to look towards the remainder of the town that we were near, and the destroyed buildings made it difficult to tell which town it was. Even if we did find some ponies there, they might attack us on sight because we’re machines like the locusts. I turn my gaze to the sky looking into the red, cloudy dark sky. Without the princesses here to raise the sun or the moon, neither of them moved leaving Equestria in a constant state of twilight.
“If your head is feeling alright then we should get moving before more of those locusts show up,” said Shade, kicking dirt onto the small fire to put it out.
I nod affirmatively to her: “Yeah I’m good to go now, let’s be careful though. I have a feeling any ponies we find will either run or attack in fear,” I warned. “I’d rather not hurt another pony as we need to keep as many of us alive as we can,” I add.
“Of course, though they’ll be more worried about you than Bullseye and me,” said Shade casually, looking over at me. “So you might want to keep that mask away so at least your face is showing,” she added.
“Good idea, let’s get moving,” I said, starting to trot down the dirt path towards the desolate town. Bullseye and Shade stood up and caught up to trot beside me, the three of us each looking around constantly checking for any locusts. As we got closer to the town everything was quiet, the only noise being the wind blowing. It looks like a ghost town; I spot a partially broken sign on the ground and trot over to it. I stuck a hoof to lift the sign and shook it get the dirt and dust off it, the sign read “Welcome to Ponyville.”
I gave a sigh of dismay and frowned, setting the sign back down gently. Shade came over to see what I was looking at, taking a look over at the sign herself. “Even in a nightmare I would never have thought to see this place destroyed as it is now,” said Shade, heartbroken. I took a look around seeing the shambles of the once great town. Some roofs simply sat on the rubble where the buildings once stood, and others had large round holes blown straight through them.
Glass, stone and broken pieces of wood were scattered around on the ground everywhere. There were no signs of life within the town now, and the air reeks of death. The three of us starting to trot again, to go further into the ruins of this place. We finally came to the center of it, and I had bad feeling that something was watching us.
“I don’t like this; something is off,” I said warily looking around carefully.
Shade came up along side of me: “It’s ok we aren’t one of them! We’re ponies!” she shouted out reassuringly.
After a few moments of silence I saw a pony stick his head out into view to look at us, putting a hoof to his mouth to whistle. I heard the sound of hooves turning my head to look, earth ponies and pegasi of all colors emerging out from the crumbled homes. The earth pony that had whistled came up to me, gazing at me suspiciously with a makeshift spear held by his right leg pointing at me. “I’m having a hard time believing you’re a pony; you’ve only got a head and tail on a robot body,” said the stallion sternly with a deep country accent.
“Easy now, I am a pony like you are. I am one of the few ones still alive after being a science project for an army of robotic maniacs!” I said angrily but kept calm afterwards to not look aggressive. The stallion cocks an eyebrow at me then adjusts his straw hat resting between his ears to look at me closer. I look back at him; the dark beige colored stallion was missing his left front leg, which was now just a crutch bandaged up to his shoulder where his leg used to be. He has a blonde mane down to the middle of his neck and a matching tail half as long as his hind legs. His deep blue eyes shifting side to side as if considering my statement.
“I’ll be the judge of that, don’t move or I’ll run you through,” he replies firmly. He moves the pointed end of hi spear closer to my face and scrapes it across my skin. I wince slightly at the cut, not a deep one but enough to hurt and make me bleed. “Yep, you’re a pony alright,” he said affirmatively with a small smile. “Sorry about your face there fella but you can’t be too careful nowadays. I go by Buckeye these days, none of us really remember our original names, but its better than nothing. What are y’all doing wandering around here?” he asks inquisitively.
“Well, I’m Planeshifter; the quiet one is Bullseye, and this here is Shade. We’re trying to find the zebras, that is if there are any of them still left,” I said calmly, looking at him after pointing to Bullseye and then Shade respectively.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to help you there. I haven’t seen a zebra since the day before this all started. Suspicious if you ask me,” he said.
“The zebras may have known about it, but I think even if they had time to warn everypony, we would still be in the same situation we’re in currently,” said Shade with remorse.
“Hm…have any of y’all seen any zebras?” he shouted out towards the other ponies, some of the shaking their head and others shrugging. I took a look through the group of ponies, noticing one particular mare that stood out from the other earth ponies. Her muzzle an odd shape and her eyes shifted nervously as she tries to hide within the group.
“Hey, you there!” I call out looking straight at the strange looking mare. The mare perks up knowing she’s been seen and turns tail to run away from us, taking a turn between two collapsed buildings. I ran after her opening a vortex in front of me so I could transport myself to where she turned. Once I can out where she ran I saw that this was a dead end, but the mare was nowhere in sight. Shade and Bullseye soon caught up with me and saw the dead end as well.
“I don’t get it as I wasn’t far behind her. Where did she go?” I ask in frustration.
“Remember what I said? They could have hidden themselves anywhere. There must be some way to figure out where she went,” said Shade assuring me.
“Hm, I wonder,” I said walking up to the wall, taking a look at it suspiciously. While I was looking I spot an imprint of a hoof on the wall. “Hey Shade, come over here. There’s a part of this wall to place a hoof,” I said waving her over with a hoof.
Shade trots over next to me, taking a look at the wall where the imprint is. “You’re right, I wonder what while happen if I stick my hoof in it though?” she asks concerned.
I shrug my shoulders as I had no idea: “There’s one way to find that out, hopefully it will take us to the zebras,” I said optimistically. Bullseye trots up near us taking a look behind him before looking at us, giving his head a nod as if to say he was ready. Shade reaches her hoof up to the imprint putting it in and pushing on it gently, but nothing seems to happen.
She looks at me confused before putting her hoof back on the ground.
“Well I’m not sure what that accomplished, other than nothing,” said Shade with a tone of annoyance.
“Damn it! How are we supposed to find them now?” I said in frustration. Bullseye taps his hoof urgently on my metal shoulder until I turn to look at him. “What is it?” I ask seeing that he was looking at something. I look up to see a group of zebras was behind us now, and they were all wielding spears pointed in our direction that looked similar to the one Buckeye had; that’s when it hit me. “Of course, Buckeye. I thought that was a rather peculiar name for an earth pony to pick,” I said with amusement.
I turn my head to look around the place; we weren’t in the same location as before. This place was lush, green and full of life: birds were chirping, water flowed freely in the river, there was a large garden with fruits and vegetables, their houses built of wood, dead branches and large brown leaf roofs. “Where in Equestria are we?” I ask, in awe of this place.
