Just another bright day in Ponyville's outskirts, with the mane 6 having a picnic, and Mike and Kra'Ser generally being useless a little further away.
"From what I've seen and read, it seems that all unicorns have telekinesis by default." Kra'Ser remarked, levitating, sitting in the air while holding a book open with one hand. "Doesn't say how exactly it's carried out, only concentration... It seems to be an inborn instinctive trait like... Well... Breathing."
"You already learned levitation, dipshit." Mike ranted, slowly spinning in the air like a planet. "Put me down."
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"You're an asshole, you know that?"
"All too well. Anything you know about teleportation?"
"Do I look like I know anything of that!?"
"Shame. All I could find from this book is that it required a lot of concentration. I wonder..."
Kra'Ser's thoughts were interrupted by a burp that originated from elsewhere. He turned around to figure out what it was, to see Spike barfing a letter with his green flame coming out of his stomach. He realized he had an opportunity, and so, attempted to teleport to Spike's location, making Mike fall to the ground with a scream by not focusing on his telekinesis anymore.
Such was the speed of Protoss reaction time that in the time it took Kra'Ser to hear the burp, turn around, figure out what it was and teleport, the letter was in mid air after Spike barfed it out. Within less than a second Kra'Ser teleported to Spike's location and ended up, although not intentionally, holding Spike's head down with a hand to the ground with enough force to dig it into it, and holding his letter with the other.
"Now what could this be?" Kra'Ser questioned himself aloud.
"Kra'Ser!" Twilight exclaimed, beginning to focus to take the letter out of his hands with her telekinesis.
"Nope." The Templar stated, teleporting right on top of Mike's back as he laid on the ground.
"Give that back!" The purple pony kept pestering him.
"Dear Twilight, I am sure you are etc..." Kra'Ser began reading the letter, although without much interest. "Wedding... Ceremony... Fluttershy do this, Pinkie Pie do that, yaddah yaddah... Twilight... Most important role... Tampa tampa tampa... Kra'Ser and Mike forbidden entry-- Wait, what!?"
"Whut." Mike muttered, raising his head from the ground, and with his lungs being crushed under Kra'Ser's weight.
"Here, read this." Kra'Ser stated, shoving the letter on his face.
"Can't see shi-"
"When I was just a filly, and I found it rather silly..." Twilight began singing.
"What." Kra'Ser and Mike questioned, frightened by the thought of another completely spontaneous theme song being sung.
Their fears were true.
"Get us out of here!" Mike yelled, grabbing the letter on his face with his hand and desperately trying to stand up with the other.
With a firm movement, Kra'Ser struck his palms together. In an instant, they were teleported away. Now they had reached Kra'Ser's base, with their presence being noted by two zealots and a stalker.
"Augh... My neck..." Mike grunted as he stood up. He had not landed properly at all, doubly emphasized by the sound of his neck cracking as he moved it to relieve the pain.
"Wasn't my intention." Kra'Ser reassured him, levitating.
"That's reassuri--"
"Kind of hard to control teleportation properly anyways."
"...Dick." He muttered. Afterwards, he began unfolding the crumpled up letter he had been holding. "Alright, so... It pains me to say this, I assume it's Celestia talking, but Mike and Kra'Ser are forbidden entry to Canterlot while the wedding takes place. If it was at any other moment, we could let them in, but we have to be extremely careful and the security measures that would be needed if they were to enter would be far too taxing. Do not take them with you when you arrive. Worry not about them wishing to go on their own, I'm fairly confident we can keep them out. Also, don't let them read this. Mike, in particular. I fear how they would react. That's all. What do you think?"
"They probably don't want you destroying absolutely everything. Although including me despite you being the brute here was uncalled for."
"Or!" Mike exclaimed. "Maybe... Maybe they are hiding something from us!"
"You're a retard."
"Hear me out on this, maybe they have some sort of forbidden magic they don't want you to use beca--"
"Pack up, we're leaving!" He exclaimed, dropping to the ground from levitation and walking in the general direction of Canterlot with feverish haste.
"Easy now, fuzzy little man peach." Mike stated. From below him, a widow mine appeared, with Mike sitting on it as it ascended into the surface. Soon enough it began walking and catching up with Kra'Ser. "Why don't you teleport us there?"
"I don't know the area enough and I don't know enough of the teleportation spell."
"We've been there several times, what do you mean you 'don't know the area enough'?!"
"Because I wasn't trying to memorize it or even trying to make an effort to remember every detail of that damn place before!"
"Fine, geez."
After a long walk through the fields, the Protoss and the Terran, with his widow mine mount, arrived to the outskirts of Canterlot.
"Well fuck." Mike ranted.
Their trip had been cut short due to an unforeseen factor. Namely, a giant shield that blocked their path into the castle. Or city. City-castle.
Perhaps.
"You know, we could have taken the train." Mike added.
"The ponies wouldn't have let us. Everyone knows we're forbidden entry."
"Hm, I see..."
Mike kept looking at the shield with confusion, unsure of what the purple bubble was. Curious, he raised his right hand and moved it towards it.
"Why did they put up a shield this big?" Kra'Ser questioned to himself, unaware of Mike. "This only raises more questions. Where did they get the technology to power all of this without a pylon...? Must be magic. I wonder if I can learn it..."
Kra'Ser's attention, however, shifted as soon as he heard a strange noise coming from right next to him. A hissing sound, like something being deep-fried.
"...Is something burning?" Kra'Ser asked, turning his head towards Mike.
"We have a problem." Mike stated, looking at his hand that was now just bone. No flesh, no glove, nothing. Just bone.
Luckily, Kra'Ser didn't have a nose to smell the deep-fried, disintegrated flesh and glove material.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Kra'Ser questioned, seeing how Mike was almost completely unfazed by losing his hand.
"It probably does." Mike answered. "I can barely think straight with all the painkillers my suit injected me. Tell me, did I always have three arms?"
Kra'Ser leaned his head away from Mike, thoroughly disturbed by his explanation and the question. Then, he forced himself to focus on the shield.
"The ponies can get in and out, so there must be opening somewhere. Probably guarded." Kra'Ser stated.
"What's the plan?"
"Be patient." He stated before disappearing in a spark of light, having teleported away back to his base.
Mike, dumbfounded, looked around trying to find Kra'Ser until the revelation that he had really left struck him.
"You fucking rotten squid..." He cursed, commanding the widow mine to turn around and walk back to base.
"Kra'Ser, I'm in position." Mike spoke through his helmet's in-built radio, pressing his right hand's index finger on where his ear would be and holding a tiny, cloaked observer under his left arm. His right hand, starting from the wrist, was completely replaced by a slim, mechanical hand. Patiently, he awaited a response as he leaned against the wall of Ponyville's train station, making sure to remain out of sight by any means possible.
Obviously, the observer was visible to him because Kra'Ser's forces were not hostile too him.
Too much.
"Good." Kra'Ser answered through Mike's radio, with the usual static and distortion slightly drowning his voice. "I can see you on my minimap, and I have my screen on you. Now get that observer into the train somehow, if it all goes as planned it'll move through the shield along with the ponies."
"What if it doesn't?"
"I don't know. You get your army and break the shield with brute force, perhaps. Whatever is inside, I want to know it."
"Alright, gotcha-"
"I know what you're thinking, and I swear to Adun if you purposefully make this fail just to attack Canterlot with an entire army I'll break your shins with a coffee table."
"...Fine, fine..."
He lowered his mechanical hand and raised his observer with his two arms in front of him, looking at it.
"You ready, pal?"
The observer made a noise that sounded close to approval.
"Alright. You're lucky you don't have pain receptors."
Mike held the observer with one hand, and with the other he struck the cloaking field activation on his chest. The observer, having heard his remark, made a noise that clearly showed confusion. Quickly, Mike began running towards the train and gathered speed, until he threw the observer a tiny distance in front of him and kicked him forward as it descended. The observer's shield blinked by the strength of Mike's punt, and its Protoss structure bent inwards. The observer, now creating noises of sheer terror and pain, flew right through the train's window, breaking it as it entered and causing commotion among the ponies inside, who could not see the observer but had witnessed the window shattering.
"Alright cap', it's inside." Mike boasted, placing his mechanical index finger on the side of his helmet to talk to Kra'Ser. Feeling pride of his accomplishment, he turned around and walked just a few steps away.
"The observer's shields are depleted and is barely alive. What the hell were you thinking?!"
"Who cares, it's inside. As long as it has at least 1hp it's good as new."
"Adun dammit... You'll be the death of me..."
At that moment, the train's air horn deafened those in the station, along with Mike and Kra'Ser, who could hear it through Mike's radio. Following was the engine's rhythmical sound and the full weight of the train slowly but surely moving along the tracks. Mike, still cloaked, turned around and stared at the train's movement.
"Kras, you seeing this?" He asked.
"Yes indeed." Kra'Ser answered.
Mike moved his mechanical finger from his radio to his screen-view switch barely a few milimetres away and flipped it, rendering one of his two mask's eyes as a complete screen where we could see his current position from a top-down view, the minimap at the bottom left, and a user interface that covered roughly a fifth of the screen at the bottom. The minimap had changed from conventional UIs, now with a switch added that would show the entire explored map of Equestria with Kra'Ser's and his bases scattered around. The default minimap, however, was just big enough to show the fog-of-war-surrounded train station, barely a twentieth the size of the entire unexplored minimap.
As the train moved out of the station into the fog of war, it became revealed and visible, following the tracks into the unknown path to Canterlot thanks to the observer inside.
"I guess that's it for now." Kra'Ser stated. "Only thing to do is wait until it gets to Canterlot. Probably in an hour or so. Or a few seconds if that time anomaly characteristic of this universe occurs again."
"What do you think is inside?"
"Couldn't care less as long as it's something about their magic that I can get my hands on."
"You're no fun, man."
Something startled Mike at that very moment after he finished his sentence. He could see with his peripheral vision how his arm, which he had been holding up for his hand to be placed against his helmet, flickered from transparent to opaque in a quick manner before returning to normal, cloaked. It was a sign that he was running low on energy.
And it was also a sign that his suit was stupidly defective, seeing as it would not flicker even if it was on its last seconds of energy.
"Must be the reaper helmet causing a bit of interference." Mike ranted before turning around again and running away, aiming to stop behind the building of the train station. There, he thought, he would be able to rest and regain energy to escape.
He had succeeded. It wasn't a long sprint, were it too long he'd have ran out of energy and would have been visible to the few ponies that remained on the station. His energy ran out, and his cloak faltered and faded, right as he arrived behind the building. Feeling safe, he decided to sit down against the wall.
"If I may interject," Kra'Ser spoke through Mike's radio, "I don't know much about terran technology, but I suggest you revert to using a ghost helmet instead of a reaper gasmask. To be honest I have no idea what went through your head when you thought that."
"Aw man, I thought it'd look cool."
"Well there's your problem. Anyways, heads up, the observer's about to cross the shield."
"What-- Oh Hell." Mike spoke in surprise.
Immediately, he brought his hand to the side of his mask and tinkered with his screen controls. Surprsingly enough, in the minimap a trail was shown that went to the middle half of the minimap. The train, with the observer inside, had crossed that great distance in just a minute. Contrary to the usual scale of minimaps in the Korpulu sector, this one covered kilometres. He moved his cursor into the minimap and clicked on the end of the trail that cut through the fog of war. Immediately, his screen shifted to the place in question, with the train going at quite a slow pace. Mike moved the screen a slight bit northwards, and noticed the train moving right into the shield Kra'Ser and he had spotted earlier.
The big bad shield that ate his right hand.
The shield's surface in front of the train began flickering in an isolated area, roughly the size of the train's front.
"Brace for impact." Mike stated, seeing the train moving closer and closer.
"Don't get hopeful." Kra'Ser retorted. "Even if the observer's destroyed, we won't launch a full-scale invasion.
"What? Why?"
"Do you not understand that if we attack Canterlot we're going to be fucked for life?!"
"How so? We can't harm them and they can't harm us. Well, too much anyways."
"You're an idiot."
"I've been called that."
"How the hell did you end up as a commander anyways?"
"Dunno. Terran commanders get their memories wiped clean and indoctrinated."
"...Damn, that's depressing."
"Beats me. Hey, look, the train's crossing the shield."
And so it was. The train moved through the flickering area of the shield, slowly, without much trouble at all. Even the observer managed to cross unhindered, leaving them with the idea that the shield blocked everything indiscriminately and that had to be manually 'opened' to let anyone in.
"Well fuck, it got through." Kra'Ser remarked, surprised.
"Mission accomplished." Mike stated in a smug, proud tone.
"Oh shut up, you almost destroyed the observer when you punted it."
"Yeah, too bad. Collateral damage and whatnot."
"What if it was destroyed!?"
"Just send another one."
"As if there'd be another opportunity!"
"Shame."
"You terrans are pretty damn fucking brutal, and not in the good way."
"Yeah, I know." Mike stated, snickering. "You've seen nothing."
"Explain."
"Well..."
"Yeah?"
"This time..."
"Mhm."
"Back in Korhal IV..."
"Uh-huh..."
"When the confederacy was back in charge before the Dominion..."
"Yes?"
"We terrans nuked the planet enough to leave it as a barren wasteland."
"I don't know what scares me more. Your kind, or the Zerg."
"Well it's now the capital of the Dominion after it took over."
"You guys made a barren wasteland your capital? What happened to the other one? Wasn't it Tarsonis?"
"Well, we rebuilt Korhal. Tarsonis... Tarsonis... Ah yes, we unleashed a horde of Zerg with a psi emitter to massacre the entire population and leave it as a lifeless planet."
Kra'Ser was left silent.
"Hey buddy, you there?"
"...Yeah, yeah. Just... Forget I even asked. Hopefully you're too stupid to even come up with a plan like that."
"Like what?"
"Praised be Adun."
"Alright. So, how's the observer going?"
Mike switched focus to his screen. He saw the entrance to the shield, with the train and observer gone for they had moved off-screen. He moved the camera and locked it over the observer, making it follow it as it moved. All over Canterlot, an innumerable amount of guards was present. Far more than ever before.
"Damn..." Mike whispered to himself in awe.
"It's a shame we didn't smuggle more observers in the train. It's going to take a while to see everything."
At that moment, Shining Armor entered the observer's line of sight, just at the time he strengthened the shield with his magic right in front of Twilight Sparkle.
"What the hell was that?" Kra'Ser questioned, intrigued. "Whoever that fucker is, I'll know how he did that even if I have to beat him up."
Mike remained silent, slightly afraid of Kra'Ser's determination.
"Well, he's Shining Amor." Kra'Ser added, now knowing of the white unicorn's name.
"How did you find out?"
"I checked his unit card."
"...Oh. Well, shouldn't we be looking elsewhere with the observer?"
"Oh piss off, I want to know how that white unicorn did that."
"Dammit..."
Kra'Ser's observer remained vigilant, floating over the general area above Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle, following them as they went up a tower and stood in a small bridge connecting it to another.
"Aaaaaany second now..." Kra'Ser muttered, impatient.
He and Mike, despite Twilight and Shining Armor talking of a few events, did not pay attention to them at all. Kra'Ser was solely focused on what Shining Armor had done, and Mike focused on the nothingness of the universe.
All until...
"Look out, pink Alicorn walkin in-- Wait... What." Mike stated upon noticing yet an alicorn that was neither Celestia nor Luna.
"Yeah cool." Kra'Ser shrugged it off, unfazed.
"Weren't there supposed to be just two alicorns?"
"How am I supposed to know? It's not doing anything, I don't care."
"Well, it's talking to Twilight, so it's doing something."
"Mike, we have clearly passed the point where we're surprised by a bunch of animated pastel-coloured miniature horses with giant eyes being capable of speech."
"Damn."
Kra'Ser was left unfazed and uninterested, but Mika still had a clear fascination with the third alicorn. Curious, he hovered his screen cursor towards her and clicked her, marking her with a small green halo surrounding her, and with her information being revealed in the UI at the bottom of the screen.
"That's interesting..." Mike whispered to himself. "I thought there were only two alicorns in this world... I've never heard of a third one before. 'Princess Mi Amore Cadenza'. Fancy name right there. Let's see... Attributes, attributes... 'Biological'. Well, that's a no brainer. 'Light'. Well... She has wings, I guess, so it fits better than armored. 'Psionic', yeah she does magic. 'Insect'. ...Wait, what? Insect? 'Changeling'. What."
He remained dumbfounded, staring at the pink alicorn's attributes.
"Hey, Kra'Ser, take a look at this." Mike called.
"For the last time, if--"
"Oh shut the fuck up and look!"
"Fine! What?"
"Check the pink alicorn's attributes."
"Alright, alright..."
What followed was silence. In that silence, it was clear Kra'Ser was moving his cursor and checking the pink alicorn's unit information.
However, the silence remained for far longer than it'd be normally expected to.
"Kras?" Mike called for him.
All answer that he received was a grim silence. Still, that silence was cut short by the sudden noise of protoss units and buildings being warped in, followed by the violent and abrupt static that cut the conversation.
"Kras, you there buddy? Kras! ...Fuck."
He slowly stood up and switched off his screen view, allowing him to stare at his immediate surroundings with his own eyes.
Lo and behold, he was completely surrounded by dozens of armored guards, leaving any and all chances of escape marginal at best.
"What are you doing here, Mike?" One of the guards asked.
"Oh- Uhm... Fancy day, isn't it?" Mike despaired, backing off against the wall further and desperately looking around for a way to escape.
"You are not allowed in Canterlot, I assume you were told. Why are you here when a train just left for Canterlot?"
"Well... That's a funny story, isn't it?" He said, still trying to figure something out. Until he came up with something that'd only be reserved as last resort: Simply charge against the guards and hurl himself over their lines.
"Gentlemen!" He spoke, raising both arms and moving one step forward. "You will always remember this day as the day you almost caught Commander Michael Angelo--"
"We are leaving!" A voice spoke among a furious electrical noise that originated right behind Mike, just before out of the static appeared Kra'Ser, locked Mike's neck with his arm, and teleported away in the blink of an eye.
"Arcturus dammi-Agh!" Mike grunted, crash landing over the roof of a tower in Canterlot. That tower, as Kra'Ser had desired, was directly above Shining Armor, Twilight and Cadence.
"This psionic technique is still new to me." Kra'Ser stated, levitating down onto the roof. "Come on, get up!"
He had teleported them both in the air instead of on solid surface.
"Looks like they actually expected us." Kra'Ser continued, spotting an entire squadron of pegasi guards flying in their direction through the air.
Immediately, with a horrifyingly distorted warcry, Mike gripped his rifle and made a mad dash for the edge of the roof, jumping and aiming to land right against Cadence. Unfortunately, his plan had failed by not taking into account the tremendous speed of the pegasi, and being tackled by one of them in mid-air. At the same time, a dozen pegasi surrounded Kra'Ser.
Lacking a plan, Kra'Ser simply slowly raised his hands in defeat, sporting a frown.
"Mike?! Kra'Ser?! What are you two doing here?! Attacking us like that!" Twilight exclaimed, now aware of their presence.
Kra'Ser simply looked down to Twilight as she talked. Besides her, he saw Shining Armor and Cadence. Then, he had an idea.
Quickly, he focused and teleported just like before, but this time right behind Cadence.
"Death to the lastborn!" He yelled as a furious stream of electricty began running down his hands, preparing to cast a psionic storm upon her.
Unfortunately, a barrage of magic missiles from below by the unicorn guards struck him, knocking him out instantly. Unconscious, he stumbled back and tripped, thus falling from the small bridge that connected the two towers, towards the ground.
"...Are those the insane ones I heard of?" Shining Armor questioned, frightened.
"She's a zerg! She's a zerg! Arcturus dammit, she's a- Let me go, you fucking oversized flying dogs!" Mike yelled and yelled, struggling against the five pegasi that attempted to restrain him in mid-air. With luck, he managed to swing his rifle with his free hand and swat away four of them, but lost balance and desperately screamed and clung to the last one as they both fell due to his weight, and the inability of the remaining pegasus to keep him in flight.
Twilight could only force an awkward laugh.
"They're more frightening up close." Cadence remarked. "What are they?"
"Well, umm..." Twilight began answering. "One calls himself a 'Terran', and the other a 'Protoss'... Don't ask me what it means. I don't know what 'Zerg' means either."
"Joke's on you, motherfuckers!" Mike screamed as he crawled on the floor with a leg bent the wrong way, and having three pegasi clinging to him in a desperate attempt to stop him. "I still got HP!"
In a moment's notice, dozens and dozens of pegasi piled up on him, creating a small pegasi mountain and finally silencing him.
"We gotta start thinking through these plans." Kra'Ser stated, sitting in a prison cell against the wall with Mike.
"Remind me what a changeling was again." Mike requested.
"A little fucker that changes form to scout the enemy." He answered, trying to get a view from his observer that still flew around, unnoticed. "The Zerg will arrive soon if that's so."
"I see. Tell me, why are we here instead of teleporting away?"
"What else do you think we'll do? Not only would security be tightened by now, if we get out they'll look for us too, and we won't be able to do shit because our weapons are useless against those who are not from our universe."
Kra'Ser spotted something strange through the observer. Through it, he saw Twilight staring through an almost closed door at Cadence and Shining Armor inside a building. Inside, he saw how Cadence casted a strange, green-tinted spell against Shining Armor, who was left disoriented with his eyes slightly green for a couple of seconds. Twilight, terrified, turned around and ran away.
"You saw that?" He asked Mike.
"Damn right I did." He answered, staring at the screen on his helmet's eyes. "Should we inform her?"
"Do you think it'd work?"
"Probably. She knows something weird's up."
"Touche."
Immediately, Kra'Ser stood up and began focusing to cast his teleportation spell.
Kra'Ser and Mike reappeared, engulfed in sparks of electricity for a few seconds before dissipating. They were right behind the throne of the Canterlot palace, having reappeared just on ground level instead of mid-air and crashing.
"You're getting better." Mike complimented Kra'Ser.
"Something's... Wrong."
"Oh, so you finally do something right and turns out it's wrong?!"
"...Shit, I mixed the teleportation and time spells by accident." Kra'Ser noted, seeing through the windows of the palace how it was a bright day. Seconds ago, it was night in the prison.
"Is that even possible?!"
"We put up with things that would make any single Protoss or Terran shoot themselves as soon as they tried to understand, and you're asking me that?!"
"Oh shut up..."
To figure out what exactly was happening, and when they arrived to the palace, Mike and Kra'Ser slowly moved while sitting on the floor to see past the throne towards the entrance. Just then, they saw Twilight, lying on the stairs that led to the throne and crying in front of Cadence.
"I'm sorry..." She apologized, tearful.
"You will be." Cadence answered in a frighteningly low tone, just as her horn began glowing green with magic.
At a moment's notice, green flames began surrounding Twilight in a circle, unable to react out of fright.
"Shoot the fucker!" Kra'Ser commanded Mike, pointing at the pink alicorn with his finger.
"ROIT THEN!" Mike acknowledged with passion, taking out his gun and jumping over the throne. Immediately, he aimed fired a burst against the alicorn, but with no effect whatsoever as the bullets bounced off her just as if they were made of rubber.
Twilight had already disappeared by the flames, but Cadence's attention shifted to Mike and Kra'Ser.
"Whatever that thing is..." Mike spoke, terrified, seeing the pink alicorn walk towards him as he backed off towards Kra'Ser. "...It's not from our universe..."
"What!?" Kra'Ser exclaimed.
"I don't know!"
"You two..." Cadence calmly spoke, using her magic to engulf the two in a circle of green flames. "It was amusing how your own stupidity prevented you from doing anything at all."
Mike and Kra'Ser, seeing how the green flames moved closer and closer, hugged each-other and let out a painfully loud scream. As soon as the flames came into contact with them, a great, blinding explosion was created. Nothing remained save for the black residue of the explosion on the ground.
"...That wasn't supposed to happen." Cadence remarked, seeing as how they were supposed to sink into the ground just like Twilight, but exploded instead.
To be continued...