I’m nothing good with names, but I think the title is pretty appropriate.
It’s my 1st pony story, and of the many stories I made, the 1st to be finished cuz all the rest died due to never getting any further ideas.
I admit I never was the greatest at writing perfect English (let alone my native Finnish), but I’m reasonably confident I didn’t completely butcher the language despite taking personal liberties.
There’s a LENGTHY explanations/lore section after the story, which is 100% spoilers. You can use your browser’s search feature behind CTRL+F (I think it’s Command+F for Mac; CTRL+F should work for 98-99% of other operating systems and desktop environments) to search for "THE END." without quotes.
Ponies along with zebra nationalists and the converted Changelings are at war with the zebra anarchists and unconverted Changelings. The zebra race is split in half, with the anarchists outnumbering the nationalists 1½:1. The converted Changelings outnumber the unconverted ones 1.2:1. A thick large cloud of black magic is lingering in the air around the frontline.
Applejack and Pinkie Pie are teamed together to guard the right flank, Alicorn Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash the left flank, divided by a 5 meters tall 25 meters wide tungsten-steel synthetic alloy wall, with Strawberry Cocoa and a Pegasus stallion "Blademaster Alpha" (armed with a retractable blade on the side of the left wing, non-retractable blade on the back end of the wing, and a bulletproof (< 50cal (12.7mm)) largely magic-proof metal armor on top of the wing) in front, outside the wall. Both side flanks have a Pegasus stallion 200 meters behind them.
A zebra mare armed with a gravity-controlled blade on both front hooves, together with a male Changeling comes over the hill further away from the wall.
They notice Strawberry Cocoa and Blademaster Alpha running towards them. The duo starts running towards the ponies while the Changeling is charging his horn.
Blademaster Alpha opens and lifts his right wing up and starts charging it, creating visible audible electricity. Strawberry Cocoa notices the Changeling’s glowing horn, charges hers in turn.
50 meters away, the Changeling fires a tesla ball aimed at Strawberry Cocoa. 2 meters before contact she executes her spell, creating an anti-electricity wall that disintegrates on contact with the tesla ball, destroying it.
Blademaster Alpha swings his right wing towards the Changeling for a counter attack with an electricity ball who side-steps the fairly slow-moving attack, not realizing Strawberry Cocoa has been keeping her horn lit right after Blademaster Alpha launched his, guiding the ball to the Changeling’s left side, making direct contact. He screams in pain, convulses a little, and collapses.
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- WARNING 1 OF 3: Partial spinal paralysis by electrocution: movement offline.
- WARNING 2 OF 3: High magic interference detected: magic systems offline.
- WARNING 3 OF 3: Flight compromised by electrocution: left wing offline, right wing seven five percents online.
- Diagnosis in progress …
~4 seconds later a heavy bang comes far away from the way the Changeling and zebra came.
Strawberry Cocoa executes a spell. She turns to Blademaster Alpha, the zebra stops.
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- Diagnosis thread 1: fatal error: invalid brain interface response.
Strawberry Cocoa whispers:
- That’s a fucking two zero three he, 18 secs. That ling’s a-fucked.
Blademaster Alpha:
Strawberry Cocoa’s Magic Command:
- Charging ‘Short-medium-range dual teleport’.
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- Diagnosis thread 2: mana pool connection restored.
The Changeling gets the feeling something’s off, looks behind up to the sky, and seeing the huge shell reaching ¼ the curve, with 15 seconds left, mutters "Did you morons just … ?".
The zebra realizes the same, turns around and starts sprinting towards him.
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- Diagnosis thread 3: horn interface unresponsive.
The Changeling pulls an epipill from his left front hoof back pouch and bites it.
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- UPDATE 1 OF 2: Leg nerves partially unblocked by adrenaline: movement online.
- UPDATE 2 OF 2: Flight compromised: left wing five percents online.
He gets up and starts clumsily moving towards the zebra.
Strawberry Cocoa whispers:
- Looks like they figured that out.
Blademaster Alpha:
The Changeling’s Magic Command:
- UPDATE: horn interface partially online.
The Changeling tries to use his magic. It’s not working too well, but he gets an injector from the same pouch and holds it above him.
Strawberry Cocoa executes the teleport, moving both behind the wall. 10 seconds to impact.
Strawberry Cocoa’s radio spell:
- Foxtrot-Lima-1 DANGER CLOSE: munition two zero three Halo-Echo count 1, distant unsafe impact 7 !
Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie make a sliding dash to cover. The Pegasi far behind them plant explosive screens. Everyone puts their hooves into their ears.
The zebra arrives to her teammate, turns around, the Changeling jumps on her back, she starts sprinting towards the wall at full speed, he injects her with a yellow epipen.
5 seconds later impact and deafening explosion.
The duo makes it 4/10 of the way to the wall when the shell impacts into the downhill, making a 2 meters deep crater, sending fragments and a very powerful shockwave towards the wall.
The shockwave, facing both forwards towards the duo and downwards, flings the friendly fire statistics into the air, the fragments slice them really heavily. Both make blood-stopping screams. The ponies behind the wall hear them all too well.
The fragments hit the wall, making scratching/thud sounds. 1½ seconds later the shockwave shakes the wall, temporarily tilting ½ a centimeter inwards.
The friendly fire statistics hit the wall top edge at very high speed, the victims making highly sickening sounds of crushed bones and snapped coats, muscles, and spines, falling to the ground behind the wall in front of Strawberry Cocoa, making a sickening splash sound. Both are instantly dead from the impact to the wall, not enough time to feel nor react.
Strawberry Cocoa, with a somewhat louder voice:
- Holy motherfuck, that was disgusting.
Combined with hearing the sickening sounds and seeing the corpses, Blademaster Alpha gags a little and spits, while Applejack pukes.
Blademaster Alpha under his breath: Better them than me.
Textual representation of Applejack’s brain’s internal status:
- Temporal lobe reports ultra-corrupted auditory feed !
- Thalamus reports black magic in visual feed !
- Long-term memory unreachable !
FL1B evac Pegasus on radio:
- Foxtrot-Lima-1: blast dispersed.
Twilight Sparkle’s radio spell:
- Foxtrot-Lima-1, back to your positions.
The evac Pegasi store away their explosive screens.
Applejack is back to her spot while Pinkie Pie is looking towards the other ponies.
Textual representation of Applejack’s brain’s internal status:
- Primary visual cortex reports hyper-corrupted visual feed !
- Blood-brain barrier overrun by black magic !
- STATUS BLACK !!
Applejack starts panting with an open mouth, puke/spit dripping from her mouth, face in a full shock.
She starts muttering unintelligible words. Pinkie Pie hears it, turns around to Applejack, face changing to a wondering one.
Pinkie Pie:
Applejack at a low volume:
- < unintelligible, very garbled >
Pinkie Pie, getting concerned:
- I couldn’t hear you, what did y- … ?
Applejack’s irises start turning red and Pinkie Pie was already moving to stand in front of her, tilts head to the right.
- "Apple- … -jack ?" in a very concerned voice. Applejack’s panting gets heavier and slower.
- "Are you okey ?".
Applejack closes her mouth, lowers her head. A little over a couple seconds later she starts growling lightly. Pinkie Pie is reaching for her radio holder on her neck, when suddenly Applejack lifts her head to look at her, an angry face on, spit foam coming from between the teeth.
Pinkie Pie’s eyes widen as she notices Applejack’s irises are blood-red instead of red, let alone her normal green, and visibly glowing.
Pinkie Pie jumps away in horror. Applejack assaults her, barely missing. Pinkie Pie jumps again. Hits the radio’s big button with the right hoof:
Pinkie Pie’s radio’s machine voice:
Pinkie Pie loudly:
- "Foxtrot-Lima-1-Bra– … !", gets cut off by Applejack’s another assault, misses.
Pinkie Pie loudly:
- Foxtrot-Lima-1-Bravo: Code Romeo-Bravo, unit Alpha-Juliett ! Over.
Pinkie Pie’s radio’s machine voice:
The radio makes some static noise, then clearly, while Applejack is assaulting rapidly:
- Copy that Foxtrot-Lima-1-Bravo, Code Romeo-Bravo medevac en route, E T A 1. Out.
- Hotel 1 copies Code Romeo-Bravo. Madness Box on standby. Out.
- Hotel 1 HQ copies Code Romeo-Bravo.
- High Command copies Code Romeo-Bravo.
Pinkie Pie’s radio’s machine voice:
Pinkie faces and tells Applejack:
- Hang in there Applejack, help is coming.
While the evac Pegasus is coming, Pinkie Pie keeps dodging Applejack.
A minute later Pinkie Pie sees the Pegasus diving fast, waits 5 seconds, faces Applejack and lets her come at her, slightly dodging and carefully pushes Applejack’s head to the ground.
The Pegasus lands on Applejack with a syringe in mouth, stabs Applejack’s right-side neck with it, causing Applejack to yell in pain, and uses his left hoof to push the piston in, which proportionally makes Applejack yell louder, pulls the syringe out, jumps off, and puts the syringe into a bottle. Applejack drops unconscious after 5 seconds of involuntary convulsions.
They start piling Applejack on the special carriage on the Pegasus’ back, Pinkie Pie tightening the straps. The Pegasus takes off.
Pinkie Pie on radio:
- Alpha-Juliett shipment en route. Out.
Hotel 1 on radio:
Hotel 1 HQ on radio:
High Command on radio:
Strawberry Cocoa’s radio spell:
- Bravo-Mike-Alpha reinforcing Foxtrot-Lima-1-Bravo by teleport. Out.
Blademaster Alpha is teleported close by in 2 seconds.
10 minutes later the Pegasus has landed outside the building nicknamed Madness Box where a couple white-dressed unicorn stallions are standing.
Unicorn 1’s radio spell:
- Hotel 1 confirms Alpha-Juliett shipment arrival. Out.
Hotel 1 HQ on radio:
High Command on radio:
Unicorn 1:
- Red Break claims another victim, 1 of Elements Of Harmony no less.
FL1B evac Pegasus:
- I know, right. At least she’s recoverable.
Unicorn 2:
- Yeah. She’ll be back in the field in 5 hours, give or take a few mins.
Using telekinesis the unicorns quickly unstrap Applejack, unicorn 1 takes her out, unicorn 2 places the straps back in the carriage, unstraps and turns off her radio, the Pegasus grabs some water and a blueberry pie slice from a secure box while the unicorns take Applejack into the Box. The Pegasus takes a non-hurrying trip back to Foxtrot-Lima-1-Bravo.
Each Madness Box room is a special both-ways soundproof one with super-soft padding.
Applejack floats while unicorn 2
- injects into the back of her head just under the skull
- puts the injector in a bottle
- injects her with nutritions and water
- injects a high amount of anesthetics into her spine
- grabs a computer tablet from the wall shelf next to the door, taps a button on the screen.
The tablet’s machine voice says "Detection in progress", then 10 seconds later:
- DETECTION COMPLETE:
- INJECTED BOT ‘Zepto Bot 1’,
- PATIENT ‘Applejack’,
- PATIENT CALL SIGN ‘Alpha-Juliett’
- RACE ‘pony, biological’,
- SPECIES ‘Earth’,
- AGE ‘29’,
- SEX ‘female’,
- RESIDENCY ‘Sweet Apple Acres’,
- MUNICIPALITY ‘Ponyville’ OF ‘Western Equestria’.
- PROBLEMS IN PATIENT:
- 1: ‘Red Break’
- AT ‘4 minutes’
- PAUSED BY ‘blackout injection’
- CAUSED BY ‘mental resilience threshold exceeded’
- TIPPED BY ‘long-term external black magic influence’.
- NO FURTHER PROBLEMS DETECTED.
- NUTRITIONAL STATE ‘full, augmented’,
- HYDRATION STATE ‘full, augmented’,
- PATIENT RECOVERABILITY ‘perfect’,
- ‘Zepto Bot 1’ POWER STORAGE STATE ‘full, augmented’.
- ‘Zepto Bot 1’ calibrated.
- Connection to ‘Hotel 1’ HQ online.
- Connection to High Command online.
- ‘Zepto Bot 1’ online.
Hotel 1 HQ on radio: Hotel 1 HQ confirms Alpha-Juliett Zepto Bot 1 connection.
High Command on radio: High Command confirms Alpha-Juliett Zepto Bot 1 connection.
After which unicorn 2 places the tablet back onto the shelf, puts her into a straightjacket not even her exceptional Earth pony strength can damage, and a modular encased very comfortable helmet that allows 0 light. After unicorn 2 verifies she’s secure, unicorn 1 lowers her onto the soft bed on the floor, placing her on her left side, and lowers + locks a highly heavy-duty metal cage over the bed.
