[i]Canterlot, 7,439 A.C. A divided and forlorn city. In the smoking ruins left by years of internecine warfare, a few desperate ponies try to survive…[/i]

Hunkering down in the gloom under the porch, you kick the corpse of your hapless opponent. His body rolls over, exposing a tiny box hidden within his belly fur. You draw your flick knife, cut the skin around the capsule, and shove it into your pouch. Mission accomplished, now you must go back to deliver your payload.

And that’s not gonna be easy.

Cautiously, you tiptoe to the entrance and shoot a glance left and right. Amid the rundown buildings, the thoroughfare seems deserted, but your view is blocked by several heaps of rubble. Besides, this district is infested with Nightmare Moon’s henchponies and the ubiquitous silence is no comforting omen.

You know that use of offensive magic is prohibited under the truce covenant and that every spell you might cast will immediately be detected and acted on, but this is no time for caution. Diplomats will settle this later, if need be.

You grasp the slingshot in your pouch and load it with an explosive crystal. Then you conjure a holographic image, that you send away along the street. 

It’s not even five metres away when a blast of energy hits it square in the flank, piercing its insubstantial body. Quick! Your gaze zeros in on the beam’s source, a first floor window of an opposite building. You draw a bead with your slingshot and shoot. The crystal darts straight into the opening and detonates. You hear a muffled cry as flames erupt from the window, but it lasts only an instant. Soon silence returns, as menacing as before.

One less fucker in Equestria.

You can’t afford the luxury of using another decoy, so you emerge from the porch and, hugging the wall, crawl up to the nearest rubble heap. 

There you pause for a few seconds, looking round for signs of other snipers. All seems quiet. Your next hop is that crumbled house, which will offer you a safe passage beneath its ruined storeys to the only drive that leads to the border of Nightmare Moon’s sector.

And beyond, through a breach in the fence, back to the three allied princesses’ sectors, and freedom.

Go! You spring from your hideout like a jack-in-the-box and rush ten, twenty, thirty metres, before hearing a shout. You pounce forwards, just as a beam of energy blasts the wall behind you. You roll ahead as you hit the ground, and finish your tumbling under the cover of a few piled-up boulders. Panting, disregarding the pain in your seared backlegs, you crouch down and grasp your flick knife again, waiting for your enemy to show up.

A couple of minutes elapses and nothing happens. This doesn’t bode well. But forget about that asshole, you’re racing against time. Standing up, you trudge amid unidentified debris, until you reach the edge of that boulevard, with liberty at its end. It’s not even two hundred metres afar, and, despite the murk, you can make out the sign posted on the other side, which proudly boasts “Welcome to Princess Twilight’s zone”.

Time for you to play your last trump card. You pull a metallic phial from your pouch and drink it up. Picking up what’s left of a mirror you look at yourself and grunt in satisfaction: you’re invisible. That will not protect you from detection spells or infrared sensing, but you won’t be as conspicuous.

You come into the open. The road, you know, is studded with numerous traps which will react to your presence, invisible or not. Fortunately, you’ve rote memorised their location and you should be able to ride that last hurdle out.

You look around, concentrate to take your bearings. You’ve pulled it off once, there’s no reason you can’t do it again.

You begin to walk forward.

One. Two… Twenty. Twenty-seven steps. Stop. Flame trap ahead. Sidestep it. One. Two. You  jump and freeze…

Phew. You exhale. One skirted round.

You feel sweat trickling down your forehead as you proceed, veering left and right along the walls of this invisible maze. 

Only fifty metres left. Two last traps to go.

… Thirty-two. You hesitate. Is it thirty-three or thirty-four? You can’t remember. One more step. What now? Your memory is fuzzy. 

You dare another step.

A barricade of glaring red rays springs up before your eyes, as maniacal laughter thunders. You spin round and —