Death.
Death was not merciful. Death was not forgiving. Death, quite obviously, left you dead, and it did not care. Yet for some reason, Lieutenant Simon Riley and Sergeant Gary Sanderson were quite alive. Similar to the fashion they left Earth, they were side-by-side in a field, noticeably less on fire. Roach was the first to wake up and pick up on that.
"What the... What hapened?" Roach asked to no one. He remembered the events leading up to wherever this was. Recovered the DSM, got betrayed and shot by General Shepherd, set ablaze with Ghost. Where am I now? he thought. More importantly, why am I taking this so rationally? He pushed himself to a sitting position and looked around. A treeline was approximately 100 meters out, but the area was too flat to still be Makarov's compound.
He looked left, right, and behind, but found nothing but grassy hills. The skies were clear and the sun was shining, so that was at least a plus. Roach got to his feet and discovered scorch marks under where he was and Ghost's body. Well, we were in flames moments ago, so I suppose that makes sense. Roach took a step toward Ghost but stopped, feeling something under his foot. He lifted his foot up and miraculously found an ACR with an M203 launcher attached, his to be specific. He stared at it in wonder for a few moment before picking it up and investigating it. After a thorough inspection, disassembling, reassembling, and cleaning, he found that it was just as he had it before leaving for his last op. The safety was still off and the fire remaining on full-auto, too.
"Now this is just strange..." Roach muttered to himself. Suddenly, a thought came to mind. He patted around his body and found all of his equipment present, twenty-one magazines for his rifle, nine rounds for the M203, the AK-47 with a grenadier he was given upon exfiltration with nine mags for it and three rounds for the launcher, four frag grenades, four flashbangs, and ten claymores. This is insane! I know for a fact I was almost dry with pretty much everything by the time we got to the extraction point... Roach realized that his companion was still down for the count. He unceremoniously dropped the rifle and rushed to his partner's side. Roach quickly checked the masked man's pulse and found that thankfully, he was just knocked out, evidenced by his normal heart rate. Roach sighed in relief.
The dead silence of the air around of him allowed the circumstances of their situation to set in better. With another sigh, this one less joyful, he sat down and began the process of inspecting all of his equipment.
Twilight Sparkle sat in the library, copying notes from The Mating Rituals of the Common Woodland Frog. It was another normal day in Ponyville. She and her friends had gotten in a misadventure earlier that morning, but at least there wasn't another monster attack. Even after a considerable amount of time in the town, she couldn't figure out how the citizens could go on with their days so normally after repeated visits from various beasts, let alone the moderate population of the town.
But that was not important to her. What was important was being nose deep in a particularly riveting section when a belch from her number one assistant upstairs broke her from her frog sex-induced trance. Spike came down the stairs grumbling with bags under his eyes and a letter in one claw. Twilight was able to make out something along the lines of, "Letter from Celestia..." by Spike as he tossed it in the air and went back upstairs to nap more. Twilight caught it with her magic and unraveled it, eager to read what her mentor had to say.
"My dearest student Twilight Sparkle,
I'm afraid there is a serious problem. It has come to my attention that two creatures have entered Equestria outside of the Everfree Forest, through methods unbeknown to me. I need you and the other element bearers to capture these two and bring them to Canterlot. I've sent a group of royal guards to Ponyville to assist you if necessary. I cannot stress how crucial it is that nopony else knows of this. This is a matter of utmost national security and importance. I trust you and your friends, Twilight. I know if there's anypony who can do this, it is you. However, be wary. These beings are likely to be incredibly dangerous, so please, ere on the side of caution.
Your loving mentor, Princess Celestia"
Twilight gazed in shock at the letter for a minute, processing its contents. Princess Celestia wants me to capture two dangerous monsters? She was always unsure of herself when it came to tasks from the princess, but a matter of national security?
National security.
National. Security. The words ran through her head again and again, paralyzing her in fear. If she failed, Celestia wouldn't just send her to magic kindergarten. Not even magic preschool. No, she'd send her to Tartarus and make her Cerberus-food. At least, that's what she thought.
She paced back and forth. On one hand, she had handled monsters before with little to no trouble, such as Cerberus himself, an Ursa Minor, Discord, Etcetera. However, there was nowhere near as much pressure on her before. It was a matter of national security after all. That meant Equestria could be in extreme danger if she failed. Of course, she wasn't considering the fact her friends were there to help her, what with her currently being curbstomped repeatedly by pure fright.
Twilight took a series of deep breaths and called for her baby dragon. Spike stumbled down the stairs with half-lidded eyes and with a tone that could kill a manticore said, "What?" Twilight flinched at his voice, but didn't back down.
"Spike, I need you to help me. Princess Celestia's letter said that she needed the girls and I to capture two beasts by the Everfree Forest and that it was a matter of national security! If I fail, who knows what could happen? There might not even be a magic kindergarten for me to be sent to! Equestria is facing total destruction if..." Spike rolled his eyes and tuned out the rest of Twilight's paranoia-fueled rant. He walked over to the book she had been studying for the majority of the day, grabbed it, and shoved it in Twilight's mouth, while becoming slightly disturbed by the title. The action effectively silenced her.
"Are you ready to be calm?" Spike asked. Twilight narrowed her eyes and nodded. Spike pulled his claw back and Twilight spit out the book, wiping her tongue with her hoof in an effort to get whatever was on the covers out of her mouth.
"Spike! You're lucky I had a protection spell on that! Saliva can be incredibly damaging to a book!" Twilight chastised. Spike however, did not really care.
"Yeah, yeah, you've given me the proper book care speech 1,639 times," Spike dismissed. Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off. "I've been counting. It's accurate." Twilight huffed.
"Anyway, I need you to get Pinkie and Rarity. I'm gonna get Rainbow and AJ. Once you've got them, meet me at Fluttershy's house." Spike visibly perked up at the mention of Rarity, causing a massive grin to overtake his face.
He gave a mock salute and exclaimed, "You got it!" With that, he zoomed out the door. Twilight figured that he either caught the reasoning for gathering the other elements during her embarrassing little tirade, or frankly didn't care as long as he got to see Rarity.
She then realized it might be a good idea to bring the Elements of Harmony themselves along. After she had retrieved them from their box, she formulated a plan of action. If she got to Rainbow Dash first, she could send the pegasus off to get Applejack, and explain the situation to Fluttershy, maximizing efficiency. Twilight herself was very surprised she was capable of even remembering what maximum efficiency was at this point, but she had long since learned not to question a good thing. She was about to set off for the ground under Rainbow's cloud house, but was stopped by the shattering of glass from upstairs which was soon followed by the screams of the rainbow mare.
Twilight groaned. "I'm going to have to give that pony a serious lecture about crashing through my windows..."
Roach had just finished re-inserting the clip of his last Beretta magazine when Ghost started to stir. Roach was thankful for his return to consciousness, seeing as going over all of his things twice was rather boring. He gently leaned over and shook Ghost's shoulder, only for the lieutenant to swat his hand away and mumble something Roach was glad he didn't hear. 'Oh, you wanna play like that?' Roach thought. An evil smirk came to his face. At the top of his lungs he bellowed, "Cup check!"
Ghost tensed immediately, and shot up with his hands instinctively covering his crotch. Roach couldn't help but laugh. When Ghost realized that his baby maker was indeed safe, he was less than pleased with his comrade's actions.
"If you'd've gone through with that, you would've been court martialed," he scolded.
"Oh? And how do you think they would've taken to the commanding officer being asleep on the job?" Roach fired back.
He noticed Ghost had nestled his own ACR into the crane of his elbow pointing down, where it pretty much always was. Old habits die hard, he thought.
Ghost scoffed. "Give me break, I've been shot with a .44. I deserve some rest if anything," he spat. He then joined Roach in standing.
"Well, you were also set on fire."
"Exactly, shot and set on fire." The implications of what was just said quickly set in. "Wait a second, I should be dead! And you too, probably. What did I miss?"
"I'm surprised you didn't take that more violently..." Roach mumbled to himself. "Well, I know just about as much as you do. I'd say I've been up for maybe an hour or more than you. All I can tell you is we certainly aren't in Kansas anymore, or Russia for that matter." He cast an arm out and waved around at the scenery.
"Spectacular," Ghost droned as he massaged his temples. "Have you tried establishing comms with anybody? Actual? Archer and Toad?"
"No, sir. I've spent the time going over my equipment. All seems to be in order. I even did a quick check of your stuff. I suspect you have the full loadout you had going into our last op. Don't ask me how you got here with it, I don't know. Praise Jesus and his miracles, amen."
Ghost rolled his eyes, even though it couldn't be seen behind his shades. "First off, I know I'm the senior officer here, but cut the 'sir' crap. I hate being called sir. As far as I'm concerned, as long as a general, Soap, or Price isn't breathing down our necks, you don't have to call me sir at all. Second, I suppose it's good you did that. Work on getting a hold of somebody and let me know if you do. I'll be scouting around. If there's a forest over there, my guess lies with there being some sort of civilization around here using that as a source of wood. I'm easy to find, if I don't find anything within the hour, I'll come back." Roach saluted and started fiddling with the headset hidden beneath his helmet.
What was it that Soap said about him in his journal? 'Raw, skilled, loyal?' Ghost pondered as he surveyed the area. He thought back to the times he read Soap's journal. And then he remembered the time he got caught. Never. Again. Though, he's certainly loyal, I'll give him that. Ghost walked to the peak of one of the foothills and looked about the horizon. He sighed. "Grass, grass, and more bloody grass..." he muttered. He did take note of a large mountain range way off in the distance. He desperately felt around for binoculars to no avail. "I could use a smoke right now..." He repeated the process with the binoculars yielding the same result. At that moment Ghost wished he wasn't in the middle of something important so he could run over to those trees and beat the living termites out of them, like a man.
For half an hour Ghost walked the area, hoping his thousand yard stare could go longer and perhaps see something of interest. The search bore no fruit, and Ghost made a mental note not to get shot and lose sight in one eye again. Not that he planned on it to begin with, anyway.
Something of interest did come from Roach though. His headset crackled to life. "Get back to me ASAP, I've made a rather important discovery." Ghost whispered a quick prayer and ran back to Roach, hoping this wasn't the cruelest joke of all time. If it was, he couldn't guarantee Roach would still have a functioning windpipe after he left.
The padding of his feet upon grass came to an end as he settled down next to Roach, who had his headset on the ground. "Now, at first, you're probably not gonna hear it. In fact, I don't think you could ever hear it without me pointing it out. But listen," Roach pressed two buttons and the familiar and harsh noise of static graced the air around them.
Ghost gave him a disappointed glare. "Static."
"Absolutely correct, Gene tell him what's he won!" Roach waited for any sort of response from Ghost. It never arrived. To break the silence he cleared his throat. "Right, um, that was regular static. Now here's sample two." More static played through the speakers. Ghost was clearly still unimpressed.
"You're testing my patience here, Roach." Ghost clenched his knuckles together. Roach looked a little worried.
"There's the violent man I know and love. Take those off -" Roach commanded while pointing to the headset the masked man beside him had on, "- and listen through these." Ghost complied and now had Roach's headphones on. "I'm going to enhance the part I want you to hear. Listen close." Roach messed with some small dials and pressed another button. The static from before, but a hissing-like noise could clearly be made out. Ghost stared at Roach, who now had a grin plastered across his face, unseen to the world. While masks of all sort were undeniably cool, they didn't provide much in the way of conveying emotion. "I take it you hear what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah... who's frequency was that from?" Ghost questioned. This was perhaps the first not terrible thing that had happened to them all day.
"That's the thing, I have no idea. It makes no sense. Everything that should be working doesn't work and everything that shouldn't work, doesn't work." Roach added a sheepish shrug at the end. Ghost just folded his arms. "That isn't the only off thing though, in fact, this entire place seems off. It's creepy. Doesn't sit well with me."
"Toughen up, soldier. I do know what you're talking about though. You feel like you're being watched?"
"Yeah. I wish we had those heartbeat sensors from the Kazakhstan mission, that would help a lot here. I suppose we should just brush it off and move on." Ghost nodded. The two discussed what their next move was.
They were indeed being watched.
From the forest, a bug pony took to the skies, unseen by either of the strange creatures she was just spying on. She made great haste for the hive. She did have a lot to report, after all.
The Queen would be very happy with her.