Goldhearts Book 1: Securing a bright future

by General Sparky

Prologue

Night Light looks at the dark clouds in the night sky. He had waited a long time for this opportunity. The opportunity to escape to a land called Equestria with his fellow creatures. As part of the military efforts to enhance warfighting capabilities, they have experimented and enhanced the physical capabilities on two horses, Goldhearts and Cleo and captured a night fury dragon named Star Light.

Star Light was on a routine flight to search for food on the ocean floor and was captured in the process. Meanwhile, the two other horses were experimented on as their intelligence was assessed to be extraordinary when compared to other horses. What the military did not know was that both of the horses has extraordinary intelligence as they were secretly Unicorns, capable of utilising magic for both good and bad. The Unicorns had been hiding their horns from the humans all the time, with only a select few who could see their true selves.

One of the select few is Night Light, a Night Fury dragon that could transform between his dragon form and human form, allowing him to bridge the connection between the magical creatures and the soldiers or researchers at the base. In order to facilitate projects, he would mostly stay in his human form and work closely with the other magical creatures in equipping them with soldiering skills the military demands of them. Due to his special position on the project, he was given large amount of independence and time to train and develop the magical creatures to the military standards. He has trained them in basic and intermediate infantry tactics and weapons systems used and generated an order of battle for the group to facilitate the training. Night Light spends most of his time with his partner, Goldhearts, taking her along for short horse rides within a certain perimeter from the base in their down time. While he never explicitly stated it, he longed for a time where they could be free from the military control, an escape from the human world where he could be in his dragon form all the time, without having to switch between them whenever the military thinks its convenient for them to do so.

While the magical creatures are in captivity, the human researchers injected several liquids and mixtures into their bodies to enhance both their physical and mental attributes, allowing them to tolerate heavy loads and interact with various weapon systems such as machine guns and cannons. The creatures wanted to escape the site for a long time but have not found the right time yet. That is until Goldhearts and Night Light chanced upon a site with high magical concentration during a routine horse ride, near a neighbourhood school and a portal to another world, a world called Equestria. Since that encounter, Night Light, working closely with Goldhearts, made repeated trips to the school and created a detailed plan to escape this facility and to go through the portal to Equestria.

As the moon rises and the sky turned dark, the plan would be enacted. Night Light used his human form to get into the operations room under the cover of important discovery. He extracted the secret files that contains the information of the magical creatures and the keys to the containment site and placed them in his saddle bags. Afterwards he transformed into a dragon, starting a fire in the operations room and left.

Sirens blared throughout the base as soldiers rushed to respond to the fire in the operations room. While soldiers rushed to put out the fire, no one notice that he was freeing the magical creatures. Star Light, Goldhearts and Cleo put on their personal issued equipment such as camouflage coverings and helmets and dashed into the forests surrounding the base.

Using a map that Night Light had plotted prior, the group navigated their way through the forests and reached within a closed proximity to the school. The group rested here for a short while to recover from the fast march they did to get here. Now, as the group rested, Goldhearts used her horn and located the portal. All she needed to do was to cast a spell and the portal would open and they would be in Equestria.

As the group rested, the military was recovering from the fire that Night Light had set on the base. The military did a re organisation and realised that their high value assets had escaped. While the fire had burned a significant part of the Operations room, it did not destroy key infrastructure, mainly thier tracking systems were still online and the men could use the tracker inserted in the creatures to locate them. Soldiers were ordered to put on their gear and draw their small arms and get into thier vehicles and move at a quick pace to where their position was.

The vehicles stopped near the group’s supposed location and dismount. The soldiers spread out on foot and went inside the forest with their guns loaded and ready to fire at any contact.

The group rested adequately and was about to move off to the horsed shaped statue when they hear vehicle engines roaring and coming to a stop. The troops had dismounted. With this newevent, Night Light ordered the group to head into the school and advance towards the statue. The group moved through the school building without much issue and reached the school’s main entrance, where they were wihtin a 100 meters sprint away from the statue.

“Goldhearts, cast the spe–” Night Light word were cut off as sounds of gunfire came from behind them. The group quickly took cover behind the walls, Goldhearts and Night Light on one side, while Star Light and Cleo on the other side. The two groups glanced at each other on what to do.

“Dragon I know you are in there! Come out now and we can settle this the easy way. I give you up to twenty seconds before we will do this the hard way!” The section commander shouted, with his men standing in front aiming their guns at the group’s cover.

Night Light contemplated on his next actions as the commander counted down.

“Twenty, Nineteen, Eighteen, Seventeen..”

Night Light tapped Goldhearts and whispered, “Later I will run out of cover to confront him and I will yell ‘group, advance’, cast the spell and immediately run for it, do you understand?”

Goldhearts stared hesitantly back at Night Light, as if coming up with a rebuttal and refusal to carry it out. Her eyes started to tear up looking at the Night Light. The dragon she trusted the most and the only one who supported her all throughout the tough challenges the military gave them. She can not bear the thought of going to Equestria alone without him, she does not know anything, how could she survive alone, with a child in her belly no less.

Night Light leaned in and used his claws to stroke her belly gently and run his paws through her mane. “Goldhearts, It’s okay, I will find another way to join you. Make sure to take care of the little ones for me, okay?” Night Light assured Goldhearts and kissed the mare in the lips.

Goldhearts nodded pessimistically and lit her horn in preparation to cast the spell, holding back tears in her eyes. Night Light took off his personal equipment and placed it on Goldheart’s back. Goldhearts wanted to ask what is that for and Night Light, as if reading her mind, “It is to protect you.” Goldhearts sighed, whatever they were feeling now, they had to throw it away and cast it aside, for nothing was more important than the mission at hand.

“Five four three two..” Night Light walked out of cover and stared at the section commander and his men. He cast a menacing gaze at the soldier in front and stood on his two rear claws and yelled something in the dragon language. Night Light spread out his wings and covered the group as Goldhearts cast the spell on the statue and they made a run for the portal.

Cleo and Star Light ran to the portal first with Goldhearts being the in the rear. While the two entered the portal, she stood still and looked back at Night Light’s position, she could hear the gun firing and it simply ricochet off his thick skin and he flew towards the portal. She could see the struggle in Night Light, as he try his best to fly to the portal but then she heard a rocket launcher going off and hitting Night Light, causing him to crash down onto the cold concrete below. Goldhearts wanted to grab him but she could hear the soldiers coming near behind.

Night Light looked to be in severe pain, but still that did not keep him from casting a glare at Goldhearts, as if asking her why she was still standing there? Start going through the portal!

“Not without you!” Goldhearts cried. Night Light tried to balance his best to get up and Goldhearts used her hooves to pull him up and now Night Light was standing upright. Night Light muttered a soft “I am sorry, Goldhearts, this is for your own good.” Using all the strength he has left, he pushed Goldheart into the portal. Goldhearts, surprised at this, had no time to react as she fell through the portal.

As the soldiers walked towards Night Light, Night Light mustered up all his strength to prepare a plasma blast. He glanced towards the soldiers approaching and cast a devil smile. “What are you…. NO! Soldiers capture him now!” The commander shouted and widen his eyes as he realise what is about to happen.

Night Light turned around and fired a plasma blast at extremely close proximity at the base of the statue, causing the statue to explode and shatter into a thousand tiny pisces, collapsing the portal and the shock wave blowing the Night Fury back on to the concrete floor, his eyes closed, his body unable to handle the damage the his own plasma blast had created. The last thing he saw was a group of soldiers gathering around him, pointing their rifles on his head before he blacked out.

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The three creatures came out of the portal, landing on a cold castle floor. Starlight and Cleo quickly reorganised and waited for the other pair. Goldhearts fell out of the portal soon after. Starlight looked with anticipation, waiting for Night Light to come through the portal.

“Goldhearts, where is Night Light?!” Star Light asked, concerned for a fellow Night Fury.

Goldhearts, who had been hiding her tears all this while, replied coldly “He did not make it.” Silence fell on the room. They took a moment to process the information. Noticing the solemn atmosphere, she tried to cheer up the group. “Even if he is not here, he definitely will not want us to worry for him. We need to focus on the task at hand. We need to quickly understand this world and establish normal lives in this new world.”

Cleo nodded, “Agreed. I am planning to establish my life here with Star Light. What about you, Goldhearts?”

“I do not want to interfere with your love life, I think I will do fine by myself.” Goldhearts stated.

“Are you sure, Goldhearts? Its going to be pretty tough without a pony by your side, especially with a baby coming soon.” Star Light asked as he gestured to her belly.

“I would have wanted to live my life here with Night Light.” Goldhearts sighed as she reflected on her old plans. “But if I need to raise her alone then so be it. Night Light took a risk to make sure that she could grow up safely, in this world, it is thus my duty to fulfil this goal with or without him.” Goldhearts replied confidently. Her ears quickly picked up, she could hear hooves steps hitting the ground nearby, someone was coming!

Cleo and Star Light quickly took cover and hide behind some of the furniture in the room while Goldhearts simply threw up all her gear and uniform on the floor and simply curled up on the floor and started crying.

Upon hearing some pony crying, The pony walking down the hall took a quick turn and slowly entered the room and asked “Hello is anypony here?”

Goldhearts glanced up and was amazed by the mare standing in front of her, her tri colored flowing mane and her glistening white horn and wings made her looked both graceful and wise.

“Hey, don’t be scared, my little pony. I am Princess Celestia and I have no intentions to hurt you.” Princess Celestia said as she raised a hoof to the crying Unicorn on the floor.

She analysed the mare and she seemed to have good intentions and so with a big leap of faith, she grab on the Celestia’s hooves and pick herself up. “Nice to meet you Princess, I am Goldhearts.” Goldhearts said, while wiping away the tears in her eyes.

She may not know much about this princess, but something in her heart told her that she was a mare she could trust and that was one great step forward into assimilating into this brand new world.