My evening commute home that particular day started normal: down one of the more desolated roads of Canterlot, in one of the more 'ghetto' areas of the large city I lived in. I lived an average life, with a wife and a single child, and all of us lived in a small, one story house on the corner of Chain street and 56th avenue.
Allow me to formally introduce myself. Starnote's the name, and playing's my game. Bass, that is. I'd like to say right away that that's my cutie mark, and I'm damn proud of it; playing the bass was my primary career at the time. And I kicked flank with it.
Green base fur. Shaggy, spiky blue and red mane and tail. Basically your average Earth pony. Nothing out of the ordinary. Yet.
Like I said, the commute home that day was average. I had my usual yearning to get the hell out of my studio and get home, where I could count on my wife and filly waiting on me.
It was always a winding path to get home from my studio, but over the several months that I had been working there, I had developed a few simple shortcuts to get home. One of them led me directly into the middle of a major street, with several high rise buildings. That's where I was when it happened.
The asphalt directly beneath my green hooves shifted about an inch. I though nothing of it other than just being weird, so I continued on my way.
It happened again. This time, a small crack appeared in the street to my right. I looked up and ahead of me to find that a small cloud of dust and ash was rising from the horizon, getting larger and closer by the second.
I heard one word coming from the screaming mouth of a pony further towards the cloud of ash, which set everypony into panic.
"EARTHQUAKE!"
I felt it. The harsh rumbling of the ground beneath me, followed by the explosion of cracks in the ground right at my hooves, followed by a pounding spike of adrenalin, followed by me turning away from the cloud and running like hell.
I could vaguely see the faces of other terrified ponies as their sad images rushed by me, but that didn't stop me. I was hell-bent on survival, and I wasn't sure what was going to happen to me or them.
I kept running... And running... And I was sure as hell not looking back now. My heart rate went through the roof, as only one thought screamed throughout my head: Run. So I did.
I was blurry eyed from the ash that was catching up to me, and near deaf from the harshly loud cracking and jolting sounds coming from the street below me, the crashes of crumbling buildings behind me, and the deep and harsh screams of ponies meeting their fate face on.. It was only then that I realized what I was actually running to: Canterlot Palace. I knew that I would be safe once I got there, but the real problem was making it there alive.
The image of the gleaming white castle and the large mountain it was on gave me a spark of hope. I picked up more speed, but by now I was nearly deaf. I could tell that there were several ponies running alongside me and in front of me, but if they were trying to tell me something, I couldn't tell.
The castle drew nearer still. I could feel the ash biting at my flank, and it stung. I couldn't stop though. I had to press on. Although I wasn't headed for the castle itself, the slope to the right of it provided some safety.
It was only about another twenty meters until the mountain started its slope, so by now I was exhausted from bearing the pain and the running.
The mountain's slope had started, and the stampede of ponies that had galloped their way up here came into clear view of how large it was. About fifty ponies... But as I looked closer, I could tell that something was wrong. All of them were Earth ponies.
However serious that may have been, I had no time to think of it. The slope of the road was becoming steeper and steeper by the second, and that meant that my legs were becoming less and less capable.
I had risen about fifteen meters above the level part of the road before the road turned to dirt and grass, and became even steeper. Just as I thought I would pass out from exhaustion, the ground slowly leveled out, and about twenty vertical meters later, I found myself on the top of the mountain with several other ponies.
I collapsed in pure shock, confusion, and trauma. I don't think I had ever been more satisfied to crash down into the soil and grass below me.
I poked my head back up to see a plume of smoke and ash billow up from the slope below me, resulting in all of the ponies on the mountaintop (including me) to cough up our own storm, which honestly hurt like a bitch that I obviously hadn't met before.
By the time we were done scraping our throats from the inside out, the plume had dissipated, allowing the rest of us to see the wreckage and debris below us. What was usually a tall, well run, clean, white, and friendly city was now a wasteland, torn apart from the ground up, leaving most of the buildings either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. To make matters even worse, the ash had lingered in the air for a good five meters above the streets, creating a thick layer of death that coated the once busy streets.
The visual and physical pains that came from this were quickly erased from my mind when an emotional pain made its way into there.
My wife and kid could be dead...
I was in shock. My stomach wretched itself in place. It couldn't be...
There was an oddly dramatic silence coming from the crowd as we looked onward, until somepony behind me broke it, sending everyone into despair instantly. "Holy shit. What the fuck do we do now?"
"Well, we sure as hell can't get off this mountain. Look at us! We might as well be surrounded by lava! This stuff has got to be pretty damn deadly!" Another voice spoke up.
I snapped out of my state of complete paranoia and looked back to find several arguing ponies on the grassy mountaintop. Trying to find a good thing to say to them and failing, I just decided to say the first thing that came to mind.
"The castle."
Several ponies stopped and stared at me with a look of confusion on their faces.
"Canterlot palace! Can't we just go there?"
A few murmurs emitted from the crowd before somepony responded a few seconds later.
"Yeah, why not... We could look for help there. Celestia and Luna aughtah be here, right?"
"Yeah, sure. Let's head down there." Somepony else said.
In one odd motion as one fairly ordered crowd, most of the group turned around and went back down the mountain slightly. The rest of them just stayed behind, clearly in too much shock to do pretty much anything.
As we neared the castle gates, which were just above the blanket of ash, we discovered something: The gate was locked, and on it was a note written on a small scroll attached to the lock keeping the gate shut.
Somepony read it aloud. "Dear loyal subjects, The Princesses Celestia and Luna are currently in Manehattan dealing with the several problems that seem to come with Parasprite invasions. If you have questions or problems with this, please reach... It ended there! What the hell is this? Both of them gone? Coincidence my ass. I'd like to speak them..."
The group erupted into Discord-grade chaos. I personally left within a minute of it, knowing that we would get nowhere with everypony acting like idiots. I trotted around the perimeter of the fence lining the entry courtyard, looking for a possible way to get around or over the fence, finding nothing for the first twenty or so meters.
Twenty one. That's my guess of how many meters it took for me to realize what I was looking at. A fence. Not just any fence, but a fence that had been standing for only a few days... Coincidence? The 'innocent' thought of Celestia and Luna predicting this event and not bothering to care soon turned into the thought of them planning it. I tried not to think much of it, because I knew it would just end up in me making false accusations and assumptions.
I walked further around the fence until I spotted something a little more interesting: A hole dug out. Right under the fence, too... like we weren't the first ones to suspect something.
I decided I wanted a closer look and crawled through the hole as a result. It was fairly small and took some time to work my way through, but it was worth it once I found myself on the other end of a normally locked-in fence. I looked over at the group of ponies, who were still pointlessly rambling out conspiracies.
Looking back to what was in front of me, I had a sudden urge to get into the castle to find more details on what exactly was going on here. I trotted forward, having no time to admire the always-colorful gardens out front. It wasn't a very long walk to it, but the tension and doubt that I had in me stretched that time out before I got to the massive double-doors leading into the main hall.
With a shaky push, the doors creaked open just enough for me to slip through and find what was inside: Nothing. The entire place was vacant, and not a single pony was in sight. The main hall, even though I had only been in here twice, looked oddly... well, oddly frightening.
Seeing nopony there gave me a green light to look further into the massive building, so I began to look. I wasn't exactly sure what for, but I had a feeling that I'd know it when I saw it.
I vaguely recalled that Celestia's and Luna's rooms were on either side of the massive staircase that stretched across the front of the hall, so I decided that it was best to search there first. The wooden stairs sounded lonely as their creaking echoed throughout the empty room, and it only pounded the thought of death further into my head.
Sure enough, after only a minute or two of walking, I found myself in front of the door leading into Celestia's chambers. The door was wide and wooden, and also appeared to be unlocked. I nudged the door open with my hoof to find a shockingly messy room in front of me, with something in the middle that made my heart rate spike again.
An earth pony, who appeared to be a guard, was sitting on the ground weeping. I stepped up to him and asked him what was going on.
"What's going on here? Why are Celestia and Luna gone?"
"I-it's... n-not... p-parasprites..." His voice was dark and shaky.
"What?"
He turned towards me to reveal his face, which was mangled and bloody. "CELESTIA WANTED TO KILL US ALL! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?"
I cringed and tried to regain thought to reply to him. "She knew about this? How?"
He waited a few seconds before responding. "I know too much... I've seen too much..."
Before I could comprehend what he was trying to tell me, he pulled a pistol out of nowhere, making me jump back. He slowly pointed it towards his own head, his hand shaking the entire way as he looked towards me.
I tried to say something to stop him. "Hey! Wait! What are you doing?"
It was too late. The trigger had already been pulled, echoing the sound of an explosion throughout the entire building. An explosion of crimson shot out from his head, staining an entire wall with his blood. His now lifeless body slumped to the ground, letting go of the gun as it fell to the ground and skidded towards me.
I was in shock. Questions began spraying mindlessly through my head as I shakily picked up the gun and stored it, knowing that I would probably need it later. What had he seen? What had he felt to make him end his own life?
I had to look for more clues. I tried to ignore the lifeless body in front of me as I trudged through the messy room, eventually ending up at a nightstand next to a large bed. On it, was a journal. I picked it up, noticing that the title read "TOP SECRET" on the front. I sheepishly opened the cover and began to read it. It read:
Property of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Do NOT read.
I flipped the page.
The process has started. Project Underground is underway. First few tests have been completely unsuccessful, more tests will be underway soon.
Confused but interested, I flipped the page again.
The next few tests hinted success, although the result only lasted a few minutes before the test had to be terminated.
The results of the last few seemed to only work on half of what we wanted, with examples being that some only received wings, while some only received horns.
I was shocked. Expirementing? With what? I read on.
Our first test subject that received both came forward today. However, the mutations spread and the subject was soon dead.
I feared the worst... Was she trying to create other alicorns?
The test subjects appear to come out healthier and healthier every time. However, successful the tests may be so far, the subjects never seem to survive longer than a few hours afterwards.
I kept asking myself more and more questions. Who were these 'subjects'?
We reached a milestone today. One of our more recent tests has lasted an entire day. Two days doesn't seem to be far off.
I could only think of this as twisted... I didn't know what to say...
One week has been hit. The survival times are increasing exponentially: More good news is on the way.
I couldn't speak. My throat was cringing in my neck at just the thought of what was happening.
We've done it. Magic, flying, and everything... Another one of us.
It ended there. I dropped the journal in pure shock.