> Three Guys in a Stryker Return to Equestria
>  by Citrus Solutions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Forward Thinking
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I think we would always take a chance to get away from an angry CO." - Tech, Or whatever your constantly-changing alias is. 



"Uh oh..." The crew said in unison at the sight of their airfield... Or what was left of it, rather.

"Oh my." Celestia whispered.

"Echo One Actual, report!" A voice called over the radio.

"Hey... Cele-... Princess Celestia, could we come back with you for a bit?" Splash pleaded.

The pony chuckled. "Please, you may just call me Celestia, and yes, I owe you that much."


...


With a flash, pop, and fizzle, three guys and an alicorn returned to Equestrian soil, specifically, the Canterlot Castle's courtroom (which had suffered quite some damage), even more specifically...

"I'm at grid: Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero." Splash said with a smirk, receiving a disbelieving look from Raptor.

The ponies that had stayed within the room subsequently to the group's departing looked to the re-arriving humans that stood to the side of their princess, who looked as tired as ever. A group of six who were commonly known as the "Elements of Harmony" approached.

"Princess? Are you okay?" Twilight asked.

The room's occupants looked to the princess in question, she'd been wounded in her combat with the changeling queen, ending up with a scorched horn. The alicorn had only made her condition worse when she'd teleported herself, a armored fighting vehicle, and it's crew to and from another world in the multiverse.

She huffed wearily. "Casting something like that takes plenty of energy, I may need to have cut back and have some tea."

Splash snorted and grinned. "Tea... Hold on Celestia, I got you covered."

The gunner walked back to the stryker, where the telltale sounds of rummaging came from seconds later. The last two crew members continued to stand by Celestia.

"Well," Roar started. "You guys're probably wondering why we're back, or here in the first place."

"We're all girls." Rainbow Dash corrected him.

"Gals." He amended, before continuing. "It's pretty obvious we're military right? So on our world we were guarding our base, when all of a sudden, this helicopter comes around-"

"What's a helicopter?" Applejack said with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh oh oh I know!" Pinkie said. "I made one, it's a type of thing in which lift and thrust are supplied by rotors! It lets ponies without wings fly!"

"You... Made one?" Raptor questioned disbelievingly.

"Anyway, so this heli comes around right? It's big, loud, makes stuff go boom, and it had bad guys in it. After the guy that just left, Splash, tried to shoot it down, it crashed on us."

"It made us very ded." Raptor supplied, remembering the pain.

"Dead?!" Twilight shouted.

"We respawn, it's all good." Roar continued. "Anyway, we're about to respawn, and unknown period of sitting in the void later, we wind up in this stryker, just like the one that had been destroyed, about a click away from the castle."

"Click?" Rarity asked.

"Kilometer."

"Kilometer?" Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"One-thousand meters?" 

"What'sa meter?" Dash said.

"Nevermind." Roar sighed. "It's like two minutes away with the stryker, plus three from the mountain climb."

"I'm back." Splash said, appearing beside his crew. He popped open a reflective blue can labeled "Nos" and took a swig before offering it to Celestia. "Here you go."

"Oh my god." Whispered Raptor.

The alicorn cautiously accepted the aluminum can, looking within and inspecting the contents before looking back to Splash, who simply grinned. Celestia levitated the can to her mouth and tipping the container enough for a small amount of the liquid to wash over her taste buds.

She clucked her tongue, considering the taste, before taking a larger drink. Silent moments passed before Celestia's eyes dilated in half a second.

"I can see sounds." She whispered, standing rigid. 

Roar administered a smack to the back of Splash's head before continuing the story. "Anyway, Celestia teleports us back to our world and we see our base just completely torn apart! After we get there our commanding officer calls in sounding absolutely pissed, so Splash here asks if we can come back."

"And she said yes, which we are very grateful for." Raptor finished.

"Well then, it's great that you came when you did. I don't believe we've all been acquainted." Rarity spoke.

Raptor cringed at her voice for some reason, earning a "Don't be fucking rude" look from Splash.

"I'm Splash," The man started, pointing to himself. "Number three in our unit and the guy that operates the Stryker cannon."

Roar spoke up. "I'm Roar, Echo One-Two. I drive the vehicle."

"And I'm Raptor, Echo One-One Actual, I'm here to make sure these two don't screw up." Raptor finished with a smile.

"Ah have no idea what's with the numbers and titles..." Applejack deadpanned. "But I'm Applejack, Element of Honesty."

And so it was that the each of the ponies, representing their respective Element of Harmony, introduced themselves to the crew of the M1128 Mobile Gun System. Before anything else occurred, the leader of the pony group that had fought along the Stryker stepped into the room. His armor was still on his body, matted by goo and dents, his face was covered by dirt and scratches. Through all that you could still see his blood red mane and brown coat.

The pegasus snorted at the antics as he walked in. "Oh don't forget me, I'm River, a lieutenant of the guard."

Roar blinked. "Alrighty."

"No problem." Splash filled in. Then rubbed his palms together. "So, how long are we able to stay?"

The lieutenant shrugged. "I figure that's up to our highness, except she doesn't really seem to be in the position to make decisions right now."

Roar gave Splash an accusing look. He looked like he was about to say something when River spoke again

"It's no worry though, we can work out something temporary, considering that 'the Metal Rhino'has been declared hero of the city."

"The Stryker doesn't look anything like a rhino." Raptor frowned.

River shrugged. "You tell the populace that. Also, you three will be expected to make a public appearance, be sure to explain that it's just a vehicle, because I get funny looks every time I've mentioned the thing's 'crew'."

"Public appearance." Splash frowned. "Gross."

The stallion snorted. "I'm sure you'll be fine, you had a lot of eyes on you during the invasion."

Splash rolled his eyes, but smiled. "I was behind a barrier of solid steel during that."

"Uh huh, right, sure. Come on, let's get you three settled."

"Auntie!" The voice called from down the hallway outside the throne room. "Aunt Celestia!"

River visibly jerked at the sound of the voice. "Actually, maybe later."

He gave a mock salute to the crew, smiled, and flew off through the changeling queen sized hole in the throne room's main window.

The crew noticed a grimace on the face of Rarity and Applejack as another unicorn came into the room, a stallion with a blonde mane and pure white coat, he looked slightly shaken with his disheveled mane and messy collar. He wore a extremely dissatisfied expression on his face.

"Celestia, what happened? Those changelings interrupted something very important of mine!"

"I have seen the end of all time..." Celestia whispered. Still in a shock-like state.

"Important?" Roar raised an eyebrow and gestured to Shining Armor and Cadance, who hadn't yet spoke. "I'm pretty sure these two were having a wedding."

Blueblood looked to the Stryker crew, facial expression shifting from annoyance, to surprise, to disgust.

"Eugh!" He groaned. "What is that garbage you're all wearing!"

Roar pulled his aviators down the bridge of his nose. "Don't fuck with the aviators."

"And I'll have you know," the unicorn continued unaware of Roar's challenge. "My hygienic procedures are very important!"

"Procedures?" Raptor asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you know, someone with such royal status like mine must bathe frequently."

"Big-fuckin' whoop!" Splash snapped, stepping forward. "Oh I'm sooo sorry your greatness that your bath was interrupted. Riddle me this, asshole. While you were getting scrubbed, who was fighting and getting hurt out in the street? Do you see the armor on our vehicle? Those changelings were hitting us nearly fast enough to punch through that, and civilians were out there getting hit by them!"

Silence, wide eyes throughout the room. The accused unicorn's jaw was slack, he soon excused himself from the room, the deafening silence proving too much for him to handle.

"Hardcore as hell." Roar finally chuckled.

Everypony looked to Splash, except Celestia. Cadence finally spoke. "Are you always able to switch between happy and irate like that?"

Splash's only answer was an apology and a smile. Which was replaced with a frown with Raptor spoke.

"You know, the MGS is only resistant up to Seven-Six-Two rounds."

"I know," Splash replied with a shake of his head. "But he didn't need to know that. Hell, those KSVKs we see bushwookies toting every now and then is probably enough to punch through the driver's armor and make a mess of Roar's head."

The driver shuddered.

"Speaking of guns, did our gear come through?" He asked.

"I don't know," Splash replied. "I mean, my Nos did, so surely..."

He trailed off, walking back to the stryker and looking in the rear entrance before reaching around within, his crewmates following shortly after. The normal IAV Stryker would easily fit a squad in addition to the crew. In the MGS however, where one side of the interior you'd usually see seats there was an ammo rack containing a plentiful amount of one-hundred-five millimeter HESH and AP rounds along with the turret's autoloader. The little bit of space remaining was dominated by dufflebags and "coyote" packs.

The three men knew that one of them contained nearly ten satchels of a remote high-explosive, thanks to respawning gear, and handled the bags accordingly until the bag containing them was found and loaded onto Splash's back.

Dufflebag number one contained rations, each including the much needed sixteen fluid ounces of liquid composed of caffeine, guarana, vitamin b-twelve, b-six, L-theanine, and taurine.

"I don't believe you." Roar said to Splash.

Dufflebag number two contained spare clothing, containing replicas of the crew's current getups neatly folded within. The crew, however, didn't remember packing them.

The third pack contained what the men had been holding their breath for. Their firearms, their sweet, noisy, and (in Splash's opinion) damn sexy firearms. 

"Found the guns." Splash said jokingly.

Raptor placed himself between Splash and Roar and reached into the bag, rifling (Hue) through the bag and retrieving an Springfield Armory M14, a red-dot scope attached to the weapons top. He grabbed the rectangular magazines before hastily stuffing them into his tactical vest and retreating.

Splash took to one knee and reached into the bag, he pulled out three large green boxes that jingled when they were nudged, then he reached to the bag again and pulled out a hunk of metal weighing seven and a half kilograms, the Mike-Two-Fourty-Nine. A devastating weapon that spewed five-point-fifty-six like no one's business. He put two of the boxes in the few pouches that would carry them before attaching the remaining box to his weapon and stepping away.

Finally, Roar retrieved his weapons. The first to come out was AKM, a symbolic Russian-made seven-point-six-two assault rifle that'd been in service for fifty-five years, and was likely to see continued use. After slinging it over his back and stuffing it's magazines into his vest he kneeled down and reached into the bag again. 

His hands fell upon his trusty hockey stick, and when they did, thunder cracked in the distance. This was no ordinary hockey stick, it's power was immense, rumored to have been forged in a volcano. The Canadian man himself had pulled the stick from an enchanted stone, and he alone bore the will to wield it.

He nonchalantly holstered it on his back.

"TWO, THREE, REPORT STATUS."

"READY."

"WAITING."

Raptor turned to his crew, eyeing them critically, or pretending to really. He looked to Splash, who stood straight, arms at his side, and trademark goofy grin on his face. Then Raptor looked to Roar, who had been trying to straighten his vest out before cleaning the lenses on his aviators. His headset was around his neck instead of on his head, there wasn't much point as squad chatter always came through with or without it.

He cleared his throat to get their attention and spoke loudly. "I hereby declare this point, FOB Echo!" 

"S'cuse me." Splash started. "Lemme tell you why that's a terrible idea."

Raptor looked to his crew mate confusedly. 

"You see,  'Echo' is the callsign of our unit. During radio communications if someone said 'Echo something something blah blah' we might confuse that for FOB Echo instead of our unit, Echo, or vice versa." Splash continued.

Roar was the next to speak. "You're overthinking this."

"I'm not overthinking," Came a grunted reply. "I'm thinking ahead, which you seem to have trouble doing."

"Excuse me." Roar spoke, putting his hand to his chest in mock offense.

"Besides," Raptor started. "Who's going to ring us up here in Equestria? Crossroads? Yeah right."

Directly behind Raptor stood Princess Celestia, he could hear her erratic breathing almost directly into his ear. His fellow crewmates stared at the tall mare, eyes wide with fear. It could've had something to with the twitching eyes, concerning smile, and dilated pupils.

"I am Crossroads." She whispered, before snickering to herself quietly, with her eyes leaving their posts and turning away from eachother in their sockets.

Splash hadn't screamed like that since the Cloakers.
> Operation Cell
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Visiting the library was not a common thing for this unicorn, he was a well-known stallion, and was known not to visit libraries. Pleasure reading did not appeal to him, any information he needed could be fetched by somepony else. But, he needed answers, and the subject of his research was rather sensitive.

"Oh, hello, uh. Sir." The librarian said, surprised.

The librarian was an aged unicorn mare, wrinkles had began to show on her face naturally, albeit discretely. Her mane was a gold with brown fur and had glasses resting on her nose.

"I require information," The stallion began. "I need information on creatures, the uncommon sort."

The librarian nodded. "I can find that for you."

She stood and walked away from the main desk, stopping at a row of bookshelves a few yards away and peered down the path that wasn't usually investigated. Her horn lit up and she began to grab at books.

"How uncommon are you looking for?" She asked.

"Two legs, sentient, probably magically impaired."


Meanwhile...


"You could be in a bed right now."

The voice startled Splash into Defcon 2, he blinked multiple times in attempt to make his vision clear. In time he was able to make out Luna through the darkness, she was looking down on him. Where was he? He looked around, high ceiling, large stained windows; must be the throne room they arrived in. The Stryker was behind him, that confirmed his first thought. He looked to the princess in front of him.

"I am Princess Luna," She explained. "I am the sister of Princess Celestia."

Splash blinked. "Alright. Nice to meet you, i'm Splash. I uh, I actually fell asleep..."

He muttered aside to himself. "The fuck am I doing out here?"

The Princess of the Night answered him. "You passed out after several minutes of one single scream. You asphyxiated yourself, I believe."

"I am Crossroads." Echoed through Splash's mind, he shuddered.

"Your sister drinks decaf, doesn't she?"

"Aye." Luna nodded.

Splash picked himself up, he stood, albeit wobbly. He lost his balance and began to fall, Luna leaned him against herself. The man exhaled loudly. 

"Okay, i'm good. I think." He stood back up. "Where is my crew?"

"Come, I shall guide you to them."

Splash bent down to pick up his weapon before tailing alongside Luna. The hallways were lit, each of them looked the exact same and so much more imposing, no longer being within the confines of a alpha victor such as the Stryker. He tried not to let it bother him too much, instead he stuck very close to the Princess. At frequent intervals there were two or sometimes just one guard, each looking slightly beat up, most sporting dents in their armor and some had black eyes. Although, as Splash and the Princess walked by many broke their vigil stance and looked at him, offering a grateful smile.

"Your guards seem to like me." He commented happily.

"Ah yes, most are aware that you humans were actually controlling 'The Metal Rhino', defeating an army's leader does tend to earn you hero status among our ponies."

"Doesn't look anything like a rhino." Splash repeated as Raptor had stated.

Luna stopped at a set of tall double doors and looked at Splash. "Well, I suppose it will be your duty to inform the populace of such, many still believe your vessel is nothing more than an animal that happened to be sympathetic to us... Or perhaps just aggressive to changelings."

Splash snapped his fingers. "Changelings, I was trying to remember what they were called."

He pushed the doors open, not acknowledging the question Luna was hinting at. The man found one of his companions sitting on a bed polishing his hockey stick, the Canadian looked up and welcomed them in before returning to his hockey stick. A running shower could be heard in the other room, steam rolled out from under a door on the far left of the room, Splash assumed it was the bathroom. 

The bedroom they'd been given included double window doors on the far side that led out onto a balcony, there were curtains to cover it, though they were pulled aside. Near the balcony sat a wardrobe and a large mirror. There was a red velvet rug strewn across the floor, and only two beds lay ready. Roar's AKM was propped up against the closest bed, the one he sat on. He wore his chest rig, but his bag was on the end of the furniture.

Splash scuffed Roar's hair on his way to the other bed, he gently put the bag of explosives on the floor beside it along with the SAW before hopping in himself.

Luna looked between the beds. "There seems to be a lack of furnishings to suit the three of you."

Splash lay his head on his hands. "Oh it's fine. Raptor can sleep in the tub or something."

Luna stood awkwardly at the door, as much as she'd have liked to she had no idea how to make conversation with the men. It was a few minutes before she simply nodded to herself and exited quietly. As he heard the door close, Splash rolled onto his side facing Roar.

"Did Raptor say anything important while I was gone?"

Roar leaned his hockey stick against the wall and sat cross-legged on the bed facing Splash. "No, I don't think so. What was the deal with the princess?"

Splash stretched his back. "I dunno. She came into the throne room and woke me up from my little snooze."

A fully dressed Raptor came out of the shower talking on his cell phone for some reason or another. "Yeah. I'll let them know." He cut the line and stuffed the device into his pocket. "The wedding is back on, guys. We're on the attendance list."

Roar asked the reasonable question. "How the fuck are you on your phone?"

Raptor shrugged and turned to Splash. "We gave Celestia your phone while you were out, by the way."

Panicked, Splash looked down and checked his pockets, finding no cell phone. He looked at his leader, his mouth moving but had no words coming out. 

"There's nothing bad on it, is there?"

Silence for a few moments.

"N-no?" Splash croaked.

The three stood there awkwardly.

"We should probably go get your phone, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah."


"Objective: Retrieve Evidence"


A stand with a map displaying the castle was suddenly erected in the middle of the room, all crew members standing around it professionally, Raptor being just to the side of the map. He pointed to a large red "X" in the middle of a room labelled "Celly's Room".

"To our knowledge, this is the current position of Splash's phone. In order to minimize contact during the course of this operation we will not be using the Stryker. We will breach, retrieve the phone, and return to FOB Echo. Questions?"

"Civilian presence?" Splash asked.

"Minimal civs mixed in with a large amount of royal guards, which you may only engage if being engaged."

"Why go to FOB Echo?" Roar spoke.

"It's the only play I feel safe in this damned castle."

"Hooah." Splash started. "So this is sounding an awful lot like a stealth mission, is there any way we can disable the lights?"

"I think most if not all the lights are magical, and we've got nothing on that. Also the guards are finicky as fuck after that attack, I think killing the lights would incite total chaos in the castle."

Roar spoke. "I figure Celestia's room has guards watching it."

Raptor nodded. "Probably. We might need to find a secondary entrance which would probably be like a vent or the balcony or something. The vent sounds more reasonable, and there's one that leads in from here."

Raptor pointed to a room labelled "Blueblood's".

"Great." Splash rolled his eyes.

"Okay. Leave your primaries and packs here, we want max mobility and least suspicion. The guards like us so that'll work heavily in our favor."

The three exited their room. Their hands were empty, in terms of weaponry all the crew had were their sidearms and one hockey stick. They proceeded casually through the hallways, returning greetings as offered. They knew the distance from their objective, it was close, surely merely just around the corner.

Suddenly, the lights went out, as if a breeze just blew through and extinguished them. As a whole Echo pressed themselves to the nearest wall, pulling night vision goggles over their eyes and looking at each other questioningly.

"Okay, we're just going to roll with it, okay?" Raptor whispered, getting nods from the other two.

The man peeked his head around the corner, seeing the target room doors, and then the doors leading to their access point, which actually had two guards leaving their post to go help another two ponies guard the princess' room, Raptor snickered at this. Before turning back to his crew.

"Let's go!"

The three rounded the corner and noticed light emanating from the guard's horns. It was intense due to the NVGs light-amplification, but the light did not reach them. The team, sidearms in hand, stacked up on Blueblood's door. Raptor pushed on it gently, the door slid open with no creak. They pushed in quickly and quietly, leaving the entrance open. The team located the vent low on the wall between the bed and the balcony entrance. The vent access was not bolted or screwed on, making it easily removed. Raptor went in, then Roar. Splash lagged behind, looking at the bed. A still figure lay underneath the blankets, a sleeping mask on his face and surrounded with books. He shrugged and crawled into the vent.

The shaft was large, obviously made so a pony could access it and perform maintenance. The three could about fit side by side, and had much more headroom than a vent shaft on Earth. Through the next vent access panel Raptor saw a light, making a fascinated-looking Celestia visible. The princess was awake and playing with Splash's phone.

"Oh that's not good." He whispered.

"What?" Splash hissed ahead, trying to catch up. "What's going on?"

"Celestia is on your phone." The leader replied. 

Just then, one of the guards from outside entered the room. "Your highness, you're awake?"

The princess looked at him and smiled. "Why yes, what concerns you my little pony?"

"Ma'am, there seems to be a security issue. All lights have suddenly extinguished."

Still smiling, "Ah yes, it would appear they have. Let's go see if we can find the problem shall we?"

Celestia guided the ponies out and shut the door behind her. Splash pushed off the access panel to the vent and scrambled out, picked himself up, and ran for the phone that'd been left on Celestia's bed on the opposite side of the room, grabbing it up quickly. The stomping of his feet was heard outside, and the door slammed open.

"Contact!" A pony yelled, before sending a blast of magic hurling Splash's way.

It slammed into the man's side, sending him through the balcony windows and into a freefall off the castle. 

"Back, back, back!" Raptor hissed at Roar, crawling backwards.

While the two exited from the way they came, escaping easily in the darkness, Splash was still falling with a trail of verbal curses. He steadied himself and looked down at the approaching ground. There was a lake below him, formed by water falling from the mountain, it could not have been more than three hundred meters down. The helpful little screen that always told him his altitude was not there, so he judged on sight. At about two hundred meters he pulled his chute, letting out a sigh of relief seeing the large cloth push open above him. Not having the altimeter was concerning, it could mean that not all of The Rules That Bind were in effect for them in this realm, it'd be best to let the others know as soon as he regrouped. 

That thought was interrupted when he smacked into the surface of a cold lake.

Shock dominated his body, but subsided enough for him to make it to land before becoming a mansicle. Splash gasped as he crawled onto the shore, soaking wet and covered in goosebumps, and fell on his back with a loud plop. He lay there for minutes, simply just trying to catch his breath and regain his strength. With time he was able to reach into his pocket and unlocked the screen, deleting all the files he was afraid of Celestia finding.

"No one," He rasped. "Shall ever read my fanfictions."

Splash looked back up at the castle, where the lights were just coming back on. It was strange, just before the lights went out he could've sworn he heard the snapping of fingers. 


"Objective Cancelled: Retrieve Evidence"



...


A shattering noise startled Blueblood awake, he took of his sleeping mask just in time time to meet a pair of glowing green eyes.

"Sleep tight." One owners of the eyes whispered, then closed his door.
> Pre-Coffee Combat, Gross
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Splash woke up the next morning to the stomping of hooves. He made a movement to pick himself only to be picked up, and immediately thrown across the lake shore, he bounced twice before dragging his fingers against the dirt and stopping himself. He looked up and focused on the armor clad figure in front of him. A unicorn covered head-to-hoof in fencing gear, a sword in it's grasp.

Splash picked himself up with a groan. "This is more Roar's sort of thing."

"You, demon!" The slightly muffled voice called out to him. "You may have the rest fooled, but not me. I shall beat you where you stand!"

Splash cracked his knuckles. "I'm going to kick your ass for that rude awakening."

The man and pony charged each other, at the edge of his enemy's telekinetic grasp on his weapon, Splash slid past the unicorn's side and tripped them as he went. His target exposed, Splash rolled on his back planted a kick right on the unicorn's ass, as promised. The pony yelped and rolled away, picking himself up as Splash did. 

The unicorn slashed at him with their sword, and in an attempt to lean back out of the swipe Splash received a cut on the neck. He found it was not life-threatening and charged the fencer. He grabbed the handle of the sword before his enemy could react and pulled, sending the unicorn sprawling towards the man, who then kicked him square in the chest. The telekinetic grasp on the sword was broken as the pony was sent flying backwards for a moment or two.

The enemy got to their feet and sent fierce magical blasts loose at Splash, he lost his grip on the sword and fell onto his back as they struck him. He looked up just in time to evade a downward stab from the sword, he rolled to the right and finally pulled loose his sidearm. Splash emptied the seven-round magazine into his enemy's side, the strange blue bolts of energy burning into the fencing armor. The unicorn went down with a whimper.

Splash picked himself up, holstering the empty sidearm and approaching his fallen enemy. He grabbed the pony up by his collar and growled.

"Who are you?"

He received no reply, instead he received a headbutt, stunning the man and causing him to drop his enemy. Splash heard hooves clopping away as he rubbed his head and realized the unicorn had fled into the nearby woods, there'd be no catching them. The man sighed, laying down with his hands intertwined on his chest and one leg retracted. He decided to rest more, surely his team would be coming to collect him shortly.

The sun was in the middle of the sky when the rumble of an engine and the creak of breaks alerted him to company. He opened his eyes, seeing the sun and the front end of a Stryker. He couldn't make himself get up, it was like his body was plastered to the ground. The clopping of hooves approached and Celestia graced his vision. The sun behind her nearly silhouetted her face, forcing Splash to squint so he could make out who it was. She looked down on him with a smile.

"Hello my human friend, did you need your device back?"

Splash blinked. "Yeah."

"That is fine, thought it would've been preferable had you asked." The princess' grin only grew.

The princess stepped back and was replaced by Raptor, who offered Splash his hand. The man hoisted up his friend and began explaining the situation.

"The guard as a whole has assumed you were a changeling due to the low-light in Celestia's room, though I doubt they would've acted any differently had they actually seen it was you. Celestia and a few guardponies found us at the FOB as we were setting up floodlights, though she was the only one that noticed that you weren't with us."

"Right." Splash said, balancing precariously on his feet. "So I take it the guards still don't know it was me. Why did the lights go out?"

Celestia shook her head. "I'm afraid we could not find the cause, though they are functional once more."

"Alright... Hey Raptor?"

"Yeah?" 

"Have you tested The Rules That Bind lately?"

Raptor frowned. "No. Why?"

"I didn't see my altimeter as I was falling last night. I thought it'd be something to look into."

"Excuse me," Celestia said, walking between the two. "Rules That Bind?"

"Noosphere stuff, really funky stuff that he doesn't understand." Raptor butted in, earning a dirty look from Splash.

"I'm no expert," He continued. "But it's some invisible sphere of energy. In our realm it controls our emotions, acts, et cetera."

"It is also what brings us back to life." Splash added.

The two men fell deathly silent at that revelation.

Celestia spoke up. "So... If one of you die here, you run the risk of dying for good."

Splash stuck his hands in his pockets and scuffed the earth with his shoe. "I suppose so. Yeesh, Permadeath, that's a terrifying concept."

The princess nodded. "Luna and I have lived long; thousands of years in fact. As purebred alicorns it is legend that we shall not perish of old age. Waking up tomorrow with a wrinkle on my face would be an alien and terrifying thing."

The crew members chuckled with the princess.

"It's okay Princess. No amount of age could take away your beauty!" Splash joked, sending the mare bursting into laughter.

"Immortal or not, you my dear human, you just made me feel a thousand years younger."

A metallic thunk and grinding was heard, Roar poked his head out of the Stryker's driver hatch. "Hey, can we go now?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure." Raptor climbed onto the Stryker, leaning against the gun.

Celestia started for the vehicle, but was stopped by Splash, he held his phone out to her. "Here, you can have this back. I only needed it for a little."

Celestia took the device in her magic, smiling gratefully. "Why thank you."

The mare leaned forward suddenly, placing her mouth just to the side of Splash's head and whispered to him. "It's not like I was going to tell anyone about your fanfiction."

Splash choked as the princess turned and jumped onto the Stryker. Roar and Raptor looked at each other questioningly, but shrugged it off. Splash himself eventually clambered onto the vehicle and sat himself beside a smug Celestia just beside the driver's hatch. The ride seemed like it would remain silent, but Raptor noticed something odd about Splash.

"Splash, why is the slide to your nineteen-eleven locked back?"

The man turned to his leader, startled. He pulled out his sidearm, the slide was locked. The weapon was empty.

"Oh, that." He started dumbly.

"What does that mean?" Celestia asked.

"It means he used all of the ammo he had loaded, Splash what the Hell?"

Splash shook his head. "It's not what your thinking, I didn't engage any guards or anything. Well I engaged someone but they attacked me."

Raptor raised an eyebrow, frowning. "Someone or somepony?"

"What."

"What was your contact?"

Splash shrugged. "I don't know who. They had fencing gear covering their entire body. It was a unicorn, they tried to stab me with a sword!"

Celestia leaned forward with interest. "Did they say anything, perchance?"

Splash met her eyes. "Said I was a demon, had you all fooled." 

"Fooled?"

The man shrugged. "Last time I checked, we were here for rest and relaxtion."

Celestia looked down, her eyes soft. "One of my ponies has attempted to murder you."

The group was silent for a few moments as the Stryker wound its way up the hill, then Celestia looked up with a ferocity in her eyes.

"This simply will not stand. We're going to the war room."

Once more they parked the Stryker in the throne room, the princess lead them on through the maze of corridors her castle contained, coming to doors that looked far older that the rest, completely made from a sort of metal unlike it's wooden neighbors. Princess Celestia pushed open the ancient decorative doors, wincing as the hinges creaked. There was nothing but darkness ahead of her and she grabbed for the unlit lights with her magic. One by one, as she found them, a yellow flame would appear in some of the scones adorning the walls at intervals. The room was lit and Celestia walked in with the Stryker crew in tow. A layer of dust covered the floor with cobwebs across the ceiling, old decayed maps littered the walls, the graphite on them smeared and faded. One lone table sat in the middle of the room, it glowed as the princess entered and what looked like a map of the entire world appeared atop of it.

Celestia set her hoof on the table longingly. "Ah, it's been far too long since I've orchestrated a domination."

Echo One passed concerned looks. Splash decided to address the scones.

"Only half of these lights have been lit." He said.

"Ah, that was a tradition between Luna and I in our old castle. Half the scones would be lit by me, she the other. Of course, I banished her because of an insurgency long ago, before this castle's existence. It's just that such habits die hard."

Suddenly the remaining scones burst into blue light, the men and alicorn in the room looked towards it's entrance at the voice that called out.

"In a time so peaceful as that which we live now one would hope such a tradition need not continue, my dear sister."

Celestia smiled at Luna. "Please Luna, do come in."

The dark alicorn walked in, studying the room. "My, I had expected after my banishment there was no need for such a room. Pray tell, what mighty conquests did you plan from here?"

The other sister grinned smugly, tapping her chin. "Well, I remember glassing Glascow as if it was last week. Spared the Ibex Empire total annihilation. We annexed Prance, but that wasn't anything special. Burned the Scorched Lands. Had Marelantis sank at some point. Then finally there was the incident at the Eternity Bridge."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "What happened at the Eternity Bridge?"

"Long story short, I sank it too."

A slap was heard as Luna put her hoof to her face. She grumbled, "I loved that bridge."

By this time the Stryker crew had subconsciously placed themselves against the wall away from Celestia. She only smiled and stared down at the map, her horn lit up and the map seemed to zoom in on Canterlot itself.

"Canterlot," Celestia began to explain. "Has produced the most recognized fencers in the entire world for decades on end. I suppose it would make sense that, if any, a pony involved in fencing would attack as they are fiercely competitive, and sometimes just plain aggressive."

"There has been an attack?" Luna asked.

"Indeed, Splash was attacked at the bottom of Canterlot Falls."

Luna moved up to the map. "We do not know by whom?"

"I am afraid not."

Raptor and his squad mates resumed their positions at the other side of the map.

"So," He began. "You think the fencer would be from Canterlot."

Luna spoke. "It would be a safe bet, Ponyville boasts no fencing community, and you have shown no presence anywhere but the small village and here in Canterlot."

"But why?" Roar asked, his arms crossed. "We just finished kicking changeling ass for you all."

"It's an odd manner." Celestia told them. "All our ponies seem to think of you as great heroes, the ones that know of you, anyhow.

Something clicked to Celestia. "Which as of right now, not many of them actually know of you three."

Raptor nodded. "That narrows it down. We can start making a list then and go through it."

"I'll start on it right away. It'll give myself an excuse to dismiss the court early if I even bother with it."

Luna snickered. "Well, you three could interact with the populace of the castle and possibly gather clues."

Raptor nodded to his crew. "Okay."

"We rollin'." Splash cheered as he left the room, his team mates in tow.

"So where are you guys heading?" Roar asked, looking at Raptor and Splash.

"My gun." Splash said, receiving a sound of agreement from Raptor.

Roar looked forward and nodded. "Same."
> Testing the Waters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"RELOADING!"

Raptor stared hard at his crew mate, as he stood there manipulating his hands in the same exact way each time. Cover up, belt off, box out, box-in-vest. New box out-of-vest, box in, belt on, cover down. He then repeated the pattern, again.

"Stop." Raptor deadpanned.

"Tactical reload!" The reply came.

"Anyways..." Roar started. "When we split up, we should probably keep in contact since we've got some random prick hunting us down."

"Agreed." Raptor spoke. "We'll start getting to know ponies and just keep in contact through radio."

The man began to walk out of the room. "Come on, split up, let's move."

The sounds of bullets jingling and metal against metal became more distant as Raptor left the room and began his venture throughout the castle, weapon held loosely. Occasionally catching something out of the corner of his eye and leaning through doorways to investigate something, nothing major held his attention.

He traveled down the winding halls, oddly noting the lack of ponies in the area. He was led to a tight stairwell access, the winding stairs only went up. Always being wary of stairs, Raptor tentatively put one foot on it. It felt as natural as marble brick could feel, so he took the step on and began climbing up. It was only five minutes before Raptor realized something was wrong, he had found no exit and the stairs showed no sign of ending.

Raptor turned around, and the hallway he'd come from graced his eyes, it was as if he'd only taken the first few steps.

"W-what the fuck?"

He pulled his radio from his chest rig to his mouth and began transmitting. "Squad, this is actual, do you copy?"

His thumb came off the transmit button. Five seconds passed, then ten, then twenty before Raptor decided he wouldn't be getting a response. He raised his weapon and backtracked down the hall, scanning each corridor at the intersection. To his surprise, the side corridors were darkened, he could not see down them. Panic was rising in his chest, Raptor began to run back to the stairs. He climbed two steps a time as quickly as his legs would carry him up until one gave out, and his head fell onto one of the steps. His head bounced, and his body remained still.

All was quiet, the sounds of rapid steps fading away.


...


Splash navigated through the halls in a slow fashion, not finding a thing that interested him. He was in a rather populated section of the capital, as ponies filtered in as the day went on in order to do their pony things. They left Splash to himself, but he saw curious looks from some as his eyes looked all around, shadowed by the bill of his cap. He came to a dead-end hall with a staircase going down to his left, and to his front a glass window showing him a courtyard below. Just about every pony down there was doing some kind of physical training, the first notable one being running a track. 

He observed for a few seconds before deciding to get a little closer, he turned and walked down the stair case to a open room leading to the outside. He stopped out in the sun beside a light green-maned earth pony with a pale sandy coat. A beret with the Insignia of the Royal Sisters rested on their head.

"PT?" Splash asked, nodding.

The officer looked up at the man for a moment before looking back across the field. "Yes." A notably feminine voice answered.

Splash observed for a little bit, deciding to ask about something that was bugging him. "How the Hell do ponies use weapons if they don't have magic?"

The officer shuffled and looked at him. "All ponies have magic. I figure you're talking about how unicorns can channel it."

The pony sat down and began to explain. "Whether guard or army, enlisted ponies are trained by their race. It's not segregation, it's how it needs to be to ensure the success of our fighting forces, because those different races must be trained with different techniques. Training all three groups with one program would be a fault, what good is unicorn tactics to a earth pony like myself? These three separated programs insure ponies get the training they need in a timely manner. Unicorns will be taught how to handle weapons with their magic, and how to turn magic itself into a weapon. Pegasi will be taught how to use a weapon with their forelegs, using their wings as a balance. Earth ponies will be taught how to use a weapon with their forelegs, but at the same time being taught how to use their weapon itself as a balance, in addition to superior balancing technique with their hindlegs."

The man tilted his head. "Using their weapon as a balance?"

The officer nodded. "Earth ponies are largely limited to the use of polearms, spears, halberds, the like. They need to stand only on their hindlegs, and hold the weapon with their forelegs, this would normally cause them to loose their balance in combat. Unless, however, they were taught how to keep themselves from falling on their face by using the shaft of the polearm to keep them upright. It's almost like dancing, if you'd believe it."

Splash grinned and looked forward. "Like dancing on a pole."

A few seconds later he had his legs torn from under him and landed on his back with the air knocked out of him. He looked up to see the officer, leaning up on a training polearm, a slight blush on her face but she grinned wickedly at the man.

"If only it were so delicate." She tutted.

Sucking air back into his lungs he was able to reply. "So you like it rough?"

The officer shook her head and put the polearm from wherever she got it and helped the man up. 

"Please," She started, red still on her face. "Were you here for something?"

Splash smiled at her. "Bugging you wasn't a good enough reason to be down here?"

She snorted. "Oh so you just woke up today and said," She then began to speak in a voice that mimicked Splash's. "Oh I think today is the day i'll go pester that cute, innocent, pony down at the courtyard I have no idea exists."

The real Splash looked up in wonder and began to stroke the hair on his face before humming and answering. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Mm. I expected to be one of Canterlot's heroes to be more... I don't know, reserved?"

Splash shrugged and pocketed his hands. "For me that's usually not much to ask for. I guess i'm still consumed with the excitement of the battle. I'm always excited around combat time, almost hyper."

"Sounds like you have a acute stress response issue."

Splash looked at her with a puzzled expression, prompting her to explain. "It's like your brain responding to a threat to your survival, it causes your body to produce adrenaline, among other things. It's like a coping method, and honestly you sound like your pretty vulnerable to it. I mean sure excitement is fine, but if it's really influencing your actions that's a huge issue."

"What do you mean?" 

"In order to cope with the situation you produce so much adrenaline you become uncontrollably excited... You're essentially getting high off combat. It could be fatal as you should always be focused on the battlefield. Not to mention the remorse that could hit you after recovering from the high."

Splash thought back to Pakistan, situations that found him engaging the enemy without a Stryker. Thinking of instances in which he'd run into oncoming fire to break a defensive line, a few times resulting in his death.

"Huh." He started dumbly. "I'm like a doped-up Rambo."

"What?"

"Sylvester Stallone, man!" Splash bumped the mare playfully. "Action hero!"

She blew a stray strand of hair away from her face. "Don't act like I know your dimension's celebrities."

The man snickered. "Fine, fine."

Splash crossed his arms and stood in silence with the pony, watching the field. Tranquility settled in for the two, until...

"So what about Tony Stark?"


...


Roar found himself playing catch with a colt near the hedge maze. The child had initially been throwing something almost resembling a football, then sprinting across the open area to try and catch it before hitting the ground. Unfortunately he'd overshot on one throw and it landed inside the maze, the colt was too afraid to navigate the hedges to find it. Luckily for the colt, Roar was passing through when it happened, and had the perfect thing to substitute.

Roar did not explain the ball-like object he possessed was an Mike-Sixty-Seven Fragmentation Grenade.

"So what're you doing out here yourself, kid?" Roar shouted over to the colt.

"Well sir," He began. "My daddy's with the guard, and my mommy's out of the country. I can't be with him when he's on-duty, so he wanted me to stay in one of the guest rooms."

"So, why aren't you in the guest room?"

The colt shrugged. "Not enough space to throw my ball."

Roar nodded, then caught the grenade for the last time and stuffed it in a pouch, to the colt's dismay.

"I'm going to get your ball back for you, where'd you throw it?" The man asked.

The colt pointed towards the hedge, Roar walked over to where the child directed him and examined the bush. He easily decided he couldn't go through it, but it looked thick enough to climb onto with out breaking on him. With a foot, he gave the bush an experimental push, it held well, giving less than an inch against the pressure. He grabbed on and pushed himself up, making it to the top of the hedge before being pulled off, he lost his grip and fell off. Roar hit feet first, but was unbalanced and fell on his ass.

He looked behind him, thinking someone had pulled him off. "The fuck?"

Picking himself up and trying again, the only warning he received was a small rustling, not too different from the sounds from his own climbing, before a thick branch pushed him out of the hedge and shoved him off.

"Holy sh-" He slammed onto his back, cutting him off and knocking the air out of him.

The colt could be heard laughing behind him as he picked himself up with a grumble.

Roar ran and jumped onto the hedge, climbing it rapidly. A tendril spread from the bush, picked him up by his vest and flung him off. He slid across the ground, rolling backwards before coming to a stop.

"That's it, no more nice Canadian!" He screamed at the bush, standing up.

The man brushed himself off and stomped towards to colt, he picked the young one up in one arm, ignoring the yelp that emanated from him.

"W-where are we going?" The colt squeaked.

He pulled the grenade back out of his vest. "I'm not about to let some shrubbery beat me, screw that."

The two stopped fifteen meters away behind a fountain, he dropped the colt there and held the grenade in both hands, looking at the hedge and calculating his throw. He spared a scan of the area, wary of passerby, but all was empty and quiet. He pulled the pin, the sound of metal quickly sliding against metal rang out, he brought his arm back and then forward, chucking the grenade towards the hedge. He went prone behind the fountain and pulled the colt down with him. A loud boom thundered out, sending a vibration through them and causing a ringing in their ears. Flares of magic spread throughout the opening, shredding the immediate hedging, throwing up dirt, and riddling the nearby castle wall.

Roar jumped up and threw his fist through the air. "Yeah! Take that shit!"

The colt stood up shortly after. "Woah! That was cool!"

Roar laughed and ran out towards the small crater that'd formed by the blast. Amazingly he saw the ball on the opposite side of the hedge, completely intact. He grabbed up the ball and ran to the colt. 

"C'mon," Roar laughed. "Let's get you back to your room before your dad or some other guard comes to give us trouble."
> Distractions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A throbbing, head-splitting pain greeted Raptor upon his awakening, so immense the only thing he could think to do was hold his head and groan at the sheer agony for a time. The man could feel every joint pop and every muscle groan trying to sit up, finding himself laying in a blank slate, devoid of color and objects, there was only white for as long as he saw.

"Hello?" He called out.

No Echo responded, nor an actual echo.

Raptor stood there, watching, waiting. Something did happen only a few moments after he'd called out, a small black crack that appeared as if it was in front of him on the ground. He pointed his weapon at it, ready to engage if need be. In the time of a blink a large black tendril burst from the ground, causing Raptor to jump back fearfully. It stretched far and high, and simply faded. A horrible, earsplitting roar followed suit, and the man watched in awe as something tore through the ground. It was some sort of floating reptile-human like head with dozens of zig-zag tentacles emanated from behind it, it's eyes were closed with it's nose above Raptor.

"I... Am Ob'Mukol!" It rumbled. "God of staircases. Dare you enter my realm again, heretic?"

The man stood there slack-jawed. The strange god creature took note of the silence after a few seconds and pried one eye open to look down at Raptor.

"Wait," Ob'Mukol said, opening both eyes and moving closer to Raptor, where the man found the thing was so big he could probably easily crawl inside it's sinuses. "You are not my green horse nemesis!"

The booming blast of his voice nearly knocked Raptor on his back, but he managed to keep his balance, and readied his weapon, aiming right at Ob'Mukol's eye.

"Why am I here?" The man demanded.

The god hummed. Turning his face to focus on Raptor with his left eye. "That is the question, now isn't it, human?"

"I don't know. I was just trying to climb stairs, now send me back!"

The god floated back, and began to laugh. "Oh no human, you won't be going anywhere without a proper offering!"

He finished laughing and focused on Raptor again, who had a grin on his face and metal ring around his left thumb, a folded piece of flat metal hanging on it. Ob'Mokul felt a explosion erupt in his non-existant throat, and opened his mouth to release the blue flames burning throughout him. The god weakly fell to the "ground" beneath him.

"Oh yeah, that's my offering." Raptor said with a smug grin, and walked away.

At least, he would've, if a tentacle hadn't cut him off and smacked him back towards Ob'Mokul. Raptor landed on his back and looked up to see the god looking down at him angry.

"Oh shit!" He yelped, rolling to his right to avoid being eaten as the god shoved his face into the ground.

"I'm the Duke of Jukes!" He taunted, running to the side of the giant head, simultaneously firing his weapon.

Ob'Mokul roared, shrugging off each bolt of magic that struck it. The zigzagging, slightly stair-reminiscent tentacles begin to fly for Raptor, the man jumped, weaved, and rolled to avoid getting struck. He kept an eye on the head and remained wary for attacks, all this while sucking air greedily, he became more worn each time he had to dodge and attack.

"How do I kill you?" He yelled to the god during a break in tentacle-volleys.

He received his answer in the form of another attack that clipped him and sent him spiraling to the ground. After he'd picked himself up Raptor saw Ob'Mokul had gotten the striking appendage stuck in the ground, forming what looked like a hole in broken glass and revealing a black void beyond. The unbroken parts of the ground had dug into the tentacle, Ob'Mokul was panicking as he tried to dig it out, and Raptor soon realized it was sucking the god in. Whatever was out there, Raptor didn't want any of it so he began to sprint in the opposite direction. The man spared a glance behind him to see the head had almost been consumed, he looked forward only to run right into something and fell on his back, nursing his head.

He looked up at the object he'd ran into; a sturdy wooden door. Everything suddenly seemed brighter and more painful, but Raptor found it in himself to get back up, open the door, and step out. He was in the empty marble hallway, behind him was the intersection and beyond that the staircase.

"No more stairs, never again." Raptor said to himself, walking away.

After a few minutes of just trying to get as far as possible from the staircase a pony found him and kindly directed him somewhere serving water. Raptor sat at a table in some sort of cafe room with a random pony, their face obscured by a newspaper, an untouched cup of coffee sitting in front of them. After taking a few drinks of water and letting his heart calm down he tried to reach his squad.

"Squad, actual. Radio check." He spoke into the radio.

"Yeah, i'm here." Responded Roar.

"Splash?" Raptor asked.

A few moments of silence passed, before the radio crackled to life again with a amused sounding female voice on the other end. "Your friend will be with you shortly after i'm done wiping the floor with his flank, Raptor."

Raptor raised an eyebrow. "Splash? Hello?"

"Hey," Roar started. "I'm at a high point, i'll try to scope him out."

Raptor quickly drank the large cup of water while waiting for a response from his teammate.

"I think I have him. Where are you?" The driver came back.

Raptor took out his GPS and was happy to see a grid reference on it, and read out the numbers to Roar.

"Okay uhh, looks like he's a hundred meters west of you. Some sort of courtyard. Bunch of ponies crowded around him right now, they look like royal guard."

"Oh my god Splash what'd you do?"


...


Splash slid across the ground backwards after having his ass handed to him the third time by a pony. It was the officer he'd been speaking to earlier, who had revealed her name to be White Grape. This started after they'd been discussing comic book heroes from each other's worlds, this led to comparing them, which led to arguments over which one would win if the two were pit against each other. Splash was quick to tell the mare Thor would easily win if combating Mistress Mare-velous, and Grape was quick to disagree. So like any honorable pony or human they agreed to resolve their argument in the ring.

Splash was losing, but at least had the chance to roll out inappropriate jokes here and there. He picked himself up and the practice polearm up, then readied himself for combat. Still feeling ridiculous that he looked like he was fighting with a giant Q-tip, he charged and swung horizontally at the mare that leaned against her staff. She parried his strike down before swinging up at his face, knocking him backwards and causing him to feel nauseous. She then proceeded to take her staff and knock his leg out from under him, sending him face first into the dirt. The man emitted a groan before rolling over and looking up at the mare painfully.

"Okay," He admitted. "I'm done getting beat up."

"Get the fuck away from him!" Splash heard his leader scream out from beyond the circle of ponies that had formed between him and Grape, the guards divided and made a path for him. They were slightly panicked at the crazy human waving around a what was, to them, a big heavy stick.

Raptor made it through the crowd, his weapon readied and aimed, Splash quickly picked himself up and ran a few meters over to him waving his hands, when he got close he gently directed Raptor's aim to the sky.

"Woah woah woah!" He said. "It's fine, we were just having sparring!"

Raptor lowered his weapon. "God damn. Thought you were getting your ass beat."

Splash leaned his head back and forth, thinking about it. "Well, I was. But y'know I can't hit a gal."

Raptor rolled his eyes, and looked to Grape. "Sorry about that. The whole gun pointing around thing."

Grape smiled at the man, "If you had fired, you had better not have missed."

He blinked. "Oh."

"She's a bit feisty." Splash jibed at the mare and ruffled her already messy mane, poking fun at the mare since the guards had mostly dispersed. "Raptor this is White Grape. I made a friend."

"So did I." Roar broke in, walking up. "Just mine was smaller, I won him with explosions."

Raptor sighed, slinging his weapon around his back. "I was kidnapped by a some sort of god."

Grape and his men stared at him. Roar's mouth moved, trying to form words for a few moments before giving up and he looked to Splash, who shrugged in return and asked Raptor to explain. The man recounted the details of encountering Ob'Mokul, sounding genuinely disturbed over the entire ordeal, up to the point where he slammed into the wooden door that'd appeared out of nowhere and allowed him to exit the strange pocket realm. After he finished recounting the tale officer excused herself to go find her beret.

"Huh. Guess we all did something interesting today then." Splash said with a smile.

Roar shrugged. "So Splash, did you ever ask pony girl about the ponies who are after us? Or have you just been offering you ass for kicking the entire time?"

Splash glanced at Grape for a moment, who was picking her beret off a nearby bench and replacing it on her head. "No, didn't cross my mind. Do you think she'll have info?"

"Any of 'em could."

Splash nodded and began to walk to Grape but was stopped by a glint of light in the corner of his eye, he turned his head to the source. Light had reflected of a monocle, worn by a noble looking unicorn who was just standing there staring at Splash. Upon being noticed however he jumped into motion, speed walking to the exit and looking away. 

Splash chuckled. "It's like they've never seen a human or something."

He stopped behind Grape, who noticed his shadow and turned to address the man.

"You're friend must be insane." She said blunty.

"Something like that. Anyway, could we talk to you somewhere else? It's important."

"No." She deadpanned. "I don't know how your military works but I can't just walk out while on duty."

"Business, ma'am?" A standard-issue unicorn stallion asked, taking a side by the officer. "I can take over the drills for a while if you'd like."

He grinned, adding, "Come on you workaholic, you've been putting in extra hours anyway."

Grape rolled her eyes and tucked a stray clump of mane under her beret. "Fine."

She looked up at Splash. "If my CO comes up and sees me not looking over these ponies, I'm flinging you off the castle!"

Splash turned to his crew and gestured them to follow, he led the group through the way he entered. Maybe it was because they were back on the topic of some pony trying to kill them, but the atmosphere seemed more tense as Splash lead the way to their room in the castle. Splash himself felt paranoia seeping into his thoughts, the halls had plenty of bustle and any one of the inhabitants he saw could have it out for him and his crew. A pang of guilt made itself apparent as he begun to think how he could be putting Grape in danger just by trying to make an ally out of the mare.

The other Stryker crewmen, Raptor and Roar, did not have such wonders as they tailed Splash down the halls. They scanned through the ponies, idly listening to them converse.

"Some stray changeling in Celestia's chamber broke..."

"... Sort of energetic release in the garden..."

"I wish I had hands like that."

"Soldiers wear armor, so what are they?"

Raptor twitched upon hearing the last voice and turned his head trying to find the source, but to no avail. He thought about what he heard as he walked and realized some ponies might not hold them in high regards if they saw them as just mercenaries rather than actual soldiers. He frowned, they were military! Just private military that can be hired by anyone with enough cash and can get by doing things conventional armies legally can't.

When the three men and single pony made it to the crew's bedroom Splash and Grape entered first, Roar and Raptor stayed outside for another few moments glancing around before entering and shutting the door behind them. 

"You three seem tense." Grape said, taking her beret off again and setting it at the foot of the nearest bed. "What's going on?"

"Someone's trying to kill us." Raptor told her.

"You three? The heroes of the city? Why?"

"We don't know. Splash was attacked this morning at the bottom on the mountain, where the waterfalls lead. The pony attacking him was covered with fencing gear and said something about us being demons."

"At the base of Canterlot Falls? What was Splash doing down..." The mare trailed off, looking towards the man as the look of realization crossed her face. "It was you that got blasted out of the Princess' chambers, wasn't it?"

"I needed my cell phone." Splash grinned sheepishly. "I gave it back to her afterwards."

"As for the lights?" She raised an eyebrow. 

"Hey we didn't have anything to do with that." Roar interjected.

"Anyway," Raptor started. "Would you know anything as to why we'd be targeted like this?"

Grape shook her head. "Not a clue, though the guard had been briefed on your stay in the castle and that you were from... Ahem... Another, uh... Dimension following yesterday's interrupted wedding, we must have the most information on you out of anypony. Then again I don't see how it'd cause any of us to target you."

"So some random pony might've seen us and started spinning crazy stories about us being Satan?" Roar gruffed.

"Could well be, and there's a lot of ponies out there with fencing gear."

"Hold on." Splash spoke up. "This was before we even appeared in public."

He looked to his crewmates. "Unless you two made some sort of appearance when I asphyxiated or whatever?"

Raptor shook his head. "We had dinner and talks with the princesses, the marriage couple, and those six random ones; the Elements of Harmony."

Grape spoke up again. "As long as one of them aren't secretly after you, which I doubt they are, you have the support most of the largest figures in the nation. Could anypony else have seen you?"

He shrugged. "At that point the castle wasn't nearly as occupied as it was today, just guards, nobles, and maids."

"Couldn't have been the guards, we'd never go against the princesses. The nobles have the resources to pull crazy stunts but I don't think they'd be willing to get their own hooves dirty unless it really means something to them. As for the maids it's possible, but they've probably seen more crazy things than a few bipeds in a giant metal rhino."

"It's not a rhi-" Splash tried to say, but was interrupted by Raptor.

"About the nobles, they wouldn't do it themselves, but you think they could contract someone to kill us?"

"I..." Grape stopped for a few moments. "I know there is ponies out there who will do many things for money, even murder."

Roar spoke aside to Splash. "Pony PMCs man."

Splash snorted. "They better not be PMCs, we already get a bad rep back home, there's a difference between PMC and contract killer."

The man was silent for a few seconds after until he said: "Usually."

Grape was silent, her lips locked into a frown as she thought. After a little while she looked up to the men.

"I'll keep my eyes and ears out," She spoke. "I should get back though, stay safe."

The mare put her beret back on and left the room after taking one glance back. She shut the door behind her.

Raptor sighed, and sat on closest bed, pulling his rifle off and setting it behind him. "I hope this ends soon."

"It'll be fine." Roar said matter-of-factly. "These ponies haven't got anything on us."

There was a knock on the door, and very quickly each of the men's primary weapon was trained on the door when a blue head poked through the door, the owner shocked by the reaction.

"Is it a bad time?" Luna asked.
> Taking Fire!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna stepped into the war room in the lonely area of the castle, once again lighting half the torches along the wall with an exotic blue flame. The room appeared to have been cleaned, there was no longer a layer of dust over everything and the cobwebs had been removed, the old torn graphite maps had simply been removed since there was a giant interactive one in the middle of the room. Celestia, the men noted, was not present.

As if sensing it, she assured the group. "My dear sister will be with us shortly."

She set a hoof upon the table, which responded by lighting up. It's mystical display of the world still focused on Canterlot. What the Stryker crew had not noticed before, is that if they looked closely enough they could see ponies going through their day to day lives. It was like having twenty-four seven unmanned air vehicle coverage all over the world. 

Splash freed his eyes to look up at Luna, who just winked.

"Ah, sister, Echo." Celestia walked in, closing the doors behind her and lighting her torches. "Pleasure to see you all again so soon. I had expected this to take longer, but when it comes down to it the list was fairly short. But first, did you happen to learn anything?"

The crew looked between each other, the only real info they got was from Grape. When they thought about what she'd told them, only a little bit of it was useful.

"We met an officer named White Grape," Splash started. "She told us right away the guard couldn't be responsible, but she did say the noble's had enough resources to send people after us."

Luna nodded. "They would, and many of Canterlot's fencers are of noble blood, relating to the original attack."

Raptor added on. "I overheard a conversation about us, somepony in a crowd was saying we couldn't be real soldiers since we didn't have a real uniform or what they think is armor. Which to be fair, we are security contractors. It might make for some negative opinions on us."

Celestia's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Security contractors? And you three were chosen to operate such a vehicle as the one settled in the throne room?"

Roar grinned. "It was a loose ship back home."

Splash nodded. "We do come from a place where we never die for good."

"I suppose I can see that." Celestia said, before nodded and levitating a parchment over to Raptor. "Look over these names, are any of them familiar?"

When Celestia said 'fairly short' the men had assumed it would be maybe a dozen names. The entire page was filled with names in very small cursive, and almost side by side, only being separated by commas.

"This includes guards, right? We can just mark those off." Raptor said.

"No." Celestia shook her head. "I excluded them from the list, and Capt-... Excuse me, Prince Shining Armor is conducting his own investigation into the guard just in case. Originally the list started with the nobles who attended the fake wedding, however I realized by talking to some that news of your existence as individuals spread quickly throughout the noble families and... Oh, there's a back side to that, I ran out of space so the last five are just family names."

The men groaned. Luna walked over to the men and upon looking at the list, shared the reaction.

"Pray tell, dear sister. How are we going to go about finding the culprit among these names? 'Tis a needle in a haystack filled with heated caltrops!

The mare earned stares from every set of eyes in the room at the analogy.

She groaned. "I mean it's going to be difficult, and this pony may have gained support in the time we've been trying to find out who they are."

A collective 'Oh' replied. Celestia stepped forward.

"Please Luna, it is unlike your sister to not have a plan. I assure you I know what to do..."


...


"A fucking party. Can't believe that." Roar growled for the umpteenth time as the train ride progressed.

Between the clacking of the tracks and the occasional sounding of the steam whistle, Roar's complaining was all they heard. They sat in a nice privacy cabin wherein the lavender seats were soft enough to sink into. Raptor lay in his seat opposite from his two friends swinging his phone between his index finger and his thumb. Splash sat with his legs crossed, closest to the window, Roar was leaned against the interior wall. They'd left their primary weapons in the Stryker, assuring the Princesses they could manage without walking into the small town armed for bear.

"At least it's a plan." Splash sighed as he stretched his arms above his head, arcing his back. "Half baked, but still a plan."

Raptor nodded in agreement.

"Okay, I still don't see why we need to head all the way to the town we arrived in to get clothes, if we need something formal we could've had it done in the city."

"Apparently," Raptor said. "Celestia chatted up one of the Elements of Harmony. One of them is a tailor or something, she said she'd do it for free, but her shop is in Ponyville."

Roar sat up. "For free? That's ridiculous." 

"We don't have to pay so I don't see the problem."

"Well yeah, but there's gotta be a catch."

Raptor sat up and shrugged before looking out the window, Ponyville was getting closer. The train began to brake, though screeching was at a minimum. He stood up, grabbing a handrail on the ceiling. This was a bit of an experiment, as well as a necessity. The three needed proper clothes for the "formal party" Celestia had planned, but at the same time they'd be seeing how the public would react.

The train stopped, and ponies began disembarking. None of the men opened the cabin door, and they began to look between eachother.

Roar finally cracked and yelled. "These ponies are fucking scary okay?"

Splash and Raptor blinked in surprise. With a sigh of reluctance, Raptor opened the cabin door and the men stepped outside. Only the conductor stood in the hall staring at the men, he'd doubtlessly heard the outburst. Echo stepped out of the train and onto the station platform. The area around the station was fairly devoid, the only ponies around getting of or onto the train. Of course, all movement stopped as the ponies took note of the tall bipeds. It was like catching a deer in your headlights. Fortunately Celestia had thought of the three, and had a royal guard waiting there at the station. The grey coated pegasus flapped their wings and boosted over to the group, with a friendly smile.

"Hello sirs, i'm to accompany the three of you to the Carousel Boutique."

He wasted no time for questions, which was fine, the men had none. The followed close and within twenty minutes, they arrived at what was to them, a giant tent.

Their pegasus escort stopped at the door and stood aside. "I shall remain outside, and keep watch."

The men each said their thanks, Raptor pushed the door open and the men entered. A chime alerted the shopkeeper to their presence, and Rarity soon stepped in from the other room.

"Why hello!" She said gleefully, Splash's eyes darted over to Raptor to see discomfort evident the man's face.

Rarity continued. "I'd been told to expect you by Princess Celestia, I hear I have the privilege of creating suits for you fine gentlemen, oh i'm so excited! I'll begin by taking your measurements. Who's first?"

"I'll go." Splash said with a smile, and fell into step behind the mare.

Raptor turned towards the door as Splash and Rarity went into the other room, he threw a hand into the air and simply said "I'm out of here."

Roar pulled him back in when he was halfway out the door, the door chime sounded multiple times, leaving Rarity to wonder what the Hell the other two humans were doing as she started on the one in front of her.

"Woah woah woah man you can't just leave." Roar said. "That'd be a dick move."

Raptor grunted. "If I knew Rarity was the tailor I wouldn't have come in the first place, you're right we should just have this done back at Canterlot.

Raptor turned away again, and Roar turned him back so they were face to face. "What's the deal? She's just another pony."

"Her voice." Raptor grumbled. 

Roar deadpanned. "She's handcrafting-hoofcrafting-whatever making us suits and your going to leave because her voice?"

His leader frowned and looked away, but not yet relenting.

He sighed. "I can make a way for her not to talk to you, at least much, okay?"

Raptor thought for a moment looking up at the ceiling. "Alright, alright."

When Splash stepped back into the room, Raptor looked to his other subordinate expectantly. The man sighed and stood from his seat, which Splash then sat in. Roar led himself into the room where Rarity was waiting, measuring tape around her neck and reading glasses rested upon her snout as she scrutinizing some schematics. She turned to the man as he entered and lead him onto a pedestal, he stood facing the mare, mirrors to the side and behind him.

And then, a blinding flash.

The cameras! Oh they loved him! He was the star, envied by many, equaled by none! All his beauty and passion come to fruiti-

Roar blinked. Surprise and confusion was obvious on his face.

"Dearie," Rarity asked. "Are you okay?"

"D-does that happen to everyone who steps up on this thing?"

"Does wh-..." The mare gasped. "You had the vision! Why if you had a flank I bet you'd something related to fashion appear on it right now."

She looked the man over, thinking. "Take off your pants."

"W-what?!" 

"Relax dear I just want to see if you earned a cutie mark. You'd have to take them off anyway. While your at it, your vest, shirt, and that... thing slung around your torso."

Roar sighed, but complied, leaving his underpants on.  

Rarity hummed. "Well, no cutie mark here. It's okay dear, keep your dream alive."

Roar shook his head. "We can't get cutie marks... Besides." The man raised his hands, looking into his palms. "These hands are meant for hockey."

The mare chortled. Some silent moments passed with Rarity quietly working before Roar worked up the courage to execute his plan.

"Hey Rarity, about your voice..." Roar started sheepishly.

"What about it, dear?"

"Look, don't take this the wrong way I just... Is it possible to like... Change it?"

Rarity blinked, not sure how to answer the question right away. "I um... I'm afraid not, this the octave I speak at."

"Sorry I just uh..." Roar rubbed the back of his neck. "Back where we come from, I uh. I mean I understand this is how you usually speak it's just that back home, a woman's voice gets like that when she..."

Roar felt his face burning red hot, how the Hell did he come up with this bullshit?

"When she what, dear?" 

"When she's horny."

Rarity reared back, her blush surpassing Roar's as her face went firetruck red in half the time.

"I see, and this attracts the. Umm. Males." She looked away, saying that.

"Yep." Roar coughed awkwardly. "I... Don't worry about Splash or I, we're cool. But uh, Raptor y'know he's a real maverick. I think it would be a good idea to just not try to make conversation y'know? Don't worry about him talking to you though, he's like the strong silent type."

'Holy shit I think i'm going to vomit.' Roar thought, fighting down the urge to smash his face into the nearest brick wall multiple times.

"I..." Rarity's face contorted in a fashion Roar couldn't begin to describe as she resumed her work. "Thank you, that must have been hard to say."

The man dragged his hand down his face. "You have no idea."

"You're measurements are done, you're free to dress and leave, Mister..."

"Roar." He finished for the mare. He dressed and swiftly left.

"I need to find a table to drink myself under." He said to his friends, pulling the front door open and leaving the building, leaving Splash and Raptor to look at each other questioningly. 

Rarity poked her head out from the privacy curtains separating the two rooms and waved Splash in, the man looked at her with a confused face but got up and walked to the mare regardless.

"Don't worry." The mare told him quietly. "Your acquaintance explained Raptor's um, interesting condition. Could you please explain to him the process of taking measurements?"

Splash raised his eyebrows, but nodded and turned back for Raptor. As Splash stopped the man sitting before him looked up.

"Apparently Roar said you had some kind of disease or something, because it doesn't seem like she'll be talking to you herself." Splash said to him.

"Huh. Whatever works, I guess."

Splash shrugged, and continued. "Anyway, she'll want you to undress so she can get your measurements, when she's not walking around you with measuring tape she's probably done."

The man stood up and began walking to the other room. "Simple enough."

Raptor's measurement session went by harmlessly, to his surprise. The mare didn't open her mouth once, but her body language concerned him, she moved as if every part of her body was stiff. The measuring tape was pulled away and the mare left him standing on the pedestal, she was on the opposite side of the room writing dimensions or drawing designs. Raptor re-dressed and quietly left.

"That was weird." He said to his partner, opening the shop door.


...


Their escort led them to a small restaurant, where he'd led Roar to previously. It was a square building with double doors at the front and two large arching windows on each side. The inhabiting ponies had been capable of ignoring the single human in the establishment, but with two more coming in they had started to grow uneasy. The two newcomers found their friend sitting at a bar with a clear glass of water. They seated themselves on opposite sides of him.

"Hey Roar," Splash said, looking at him with concern. "You alright?"

"Yeah, yeah." The man shook his head. "I just needed to sit down and clear my head."

"What'd you tell Rarity?" Raptor asked.

"I don't really want to talk about it. I'm not proud of what I said to her."

Splash spoke again. "The way you're talking i'm surprised you aren't drinking yourself, and I quote; 'under the table.'"

The man shrugged. "Funny story actually, when I asked for a stiff one they gave me a cup of water mixed with a lot of salt, it was disgusting."

"How're you paying?" Raptor raised an eyebrow. 

"In bullets."

Raptor and Splash stared at their friend, eyes wide with alarm. It took a moment for him to catch their looks.

"Oh, oh Jesus not like that. I mean i'm literally giving them bullets."

Splash shook his head. "That's still a terrible idea."

Roar shrugged.

There was a moment of silence between the three which allowed them to realize how quiet the establishment actually was. Echo slowly turned their heads to the rear to find the once crowded restaurant was now completely empty but them. The door was still in the process of closing itself, it seemed all the ponies just silently got up and left. Including the bartender, who was no longer to their front scrubbing the bar.

"Nice job Roar, you scared them off." Splash joked, but like his friends, he was cautiously reaching for his sidearm.

They stood to approach the door, just as an explosion blew it off it's hinges, and shattered the two front windows into tiny bits. It was all Echo could do to shield their eyes as tiny bits of glass embedded themselves into any bare skin and the force of the explosion sent themselves flying over the bar.

Roar, being the incredibly unlucky one in this scenario, was thrown over the bar then straight into glass bottles containing salt water of different concentrations. He fell to the floor screaming, the glass embedded in his back and saltwater trickling into the wounds. A dazed Raptor tried to pick himself up at the wrong time as red flares of magic began to burst through the breaches at the front of the building, one hitting him in the side of the head, slamming him into some of the glass bottles behind the bar before he crumpled on the floor on his back. Seeing this, Splash stayed low, the man's eyes darted between his two incapacitated team members. The concept of permadeath came to the forefront of his mind again as he began to succumb to uncontrolled panic. It was all he could do to put his hands over his head as flares riddled the wall above him and sent shards of glass raining down on him. 

The barrage was deafening, the wall and bar were becoming scorched black and sparks danced across the wood as it began to ignite. Splash saw this, and apparently the attackers as well, the barrage only increased to fuel the fire as it spread to the walls and roof. Over the roar of the flames the man heard a large bell ringing frantically, possibly to warn the town of the burning building he currently inhabited. The barrage stopped shortly after, and did not resume for a minute. Roar had long-since stopped screaming, and shakily push himself up and rested on his knees. Splash calmed a little down seeing one of his friends get up, and cautiously stood to look over the fire. Whoever had attacked them was gone, but ponies could be seen distantly with buckets of what was hopefully water approaching the building quickly.

"Roar." Splash stuttered. "Get outta here, they're gone."

The man, who looked barely conscious, nodded sluggishly. Roar rose to his feet, and despite the way his legs shook with the pain and shock he'd just endured, was able to carry himself out of the building. Splash stood over Raptor's head and knelt down, he wrapped his arms under his friend's and linked his hands together at Raptor's chest before rising slightly and slowly dragged the man out from behind the bar. As he did so Roar's payments exploded from the immense heat under the counter, sending blue flares of magic flying out.

The smoke choked Splash, his rushed and panicked breathing only serving to make matters worse. He only remained in the building for a sixty seconds at tops, but to him it felt like several minutes. when he breached the smoke and came out into the open air relief flood through his system, but his legs did not stop moving. Splash's hands remained locked as he continued to drag Raptor away from the building until he bumped into a pony who squealed a little, not noticing the human. Splash apologized and finally set Raptor down, then scanned the area for Roar. The man had passed out yards from the building in prone, and was now being dragged to safety by a pony whose mouth was clamped down on a carry handle on his vest between the shoulders. Splash looked down at Raptor, who wasn't looking too hot, literally. Sweat was showing on his face, but his body was unnaturally cool to the touch.

Splash turned on his knees and grabbed the pony by her upper arms and demanded a medic. The mare pushed the man's arms away.

"I'm a doctor, I can help." She told him.

Splash stepped back and the mare took off a pair a saddlebags he hadn't seen, they bore a red cross on the flap. More ponies in proper medical gear began to appear and lifted Raptor onto a litter, a few meters away, the same was happening to Roar, and eventually they brought one for Splash, who had lost his standing strength. He could hear the burning building collapse as he was carried away.
> Weapons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roar grunted as another piece of glass was pulled from his back, he didn't bleed too much though, much to the nurse's pleasure. He laid on his chest, both his teammates in his vision with his head laying on his right cheek. Splash, who lay in another bed in the middle of the three men, turned his head over to him and grinned reassuringly. Splash then turned his head to the final member of the team, who lay flat on the bed. Raptor had just woken up a few minutes ago, he caught Splash's gaze and sighed.

"I'm going to start loosing brain cells with all these head injuries that i'm suffering here." He said.

"After I dragged your ass out of the fire, I think you could stand to lose a few pounds too."

Splash laughed as a thrown tissue box bounced off of his head.

The room door clicked open, both princesses Celestia and Luna stepped into the room, smiling kindly at the men. Luna bore three small blue paper-wrapped boxes with red ribbons.

"Presents? For us?" Raptor asked, grinning.

"But of course." Luna said heartily. 

Celestia spoke after. "Consider them gifts, a wish for you to get better."

"But you can't open them until you're considered healthy enough to walk out of here on your own two hooves." Luna said with a wink.

Splash hummed, setting the box beside him on the bed. "So what would you think of our first public visit? Went pretty well I'd think."

"I wish I shared you enthusiasm." Celestia nodded. "Did you catch any details of your attackers?"

"Nothing." Splash shook his head. "The guard you sent might've, but we don't know where he went off to."

"The guard... I sent?"

"Yeah."

"I did no such thing." The confused alicorn said. "Are you okay?"

"No, hold on." Roar cut in. "You did, there was a written document before we left and everything."

A piece of hardened wax floated over to the men, grasped in Celestia's aura. 

"This is the Royal Seal," She explained. "Your document had no such thing did it?"

"Shit." Splash sighed while putting a palm to his face. "I fell for an stupid old trick."

"It's all right," Raptor reassured him. "We should confirmed with someone. We wouldn't have known the Royal Seal when we saw it anyway."

"And yet thy mouth pronounced no need for your teeth." Luna chuckled.

Roar scoffed. "Didn't seem like the kind of town that'd barrage one of their own buildings with some sort of magical cannon."

"Magical cannon?" Celestia asked. Roar only shrugged and directed the mare's attention to Splash.

"I didn't get a good look at it." He admitted. "It was like a never ending barrage of weapon's fire."

"We saw the damage, but we haven't a clue what could've put out so much magical power in such a fashion."

"It felt like I was under machine gun supp-... You don't have anything like that?"


...


"God damn it!" Splash slammed his fist on the top of the Stryker's turret.

"They fucking took it!" He screamed. "They fucking took the Two-Forty Charlie!"

The coaxial mount that usually held the Stryker's secondary weapon was currently unoccupied, the burnt wiring and metal making it appear as if it'd been cut off with a torch. The crew, not concerned with recovery time, had rushed back to Canterlot to confirm Splash's fears. The men's own weapon had been turned against them, not only that, but several trap wards had been discovered across the Stryker's outer hull. The wards had to be dismantled by the princesses and the magical pony equivalent of Explosive Ordnance Disposal before the crew were permitted to investigate for any further disturbance. The vehicle was locked up tight however, and no further disturbances were discovered.

Now several hours later as the sun began to set, Echo and the Royal Sisters sat in the cafe Raptor encountered, which they had come to know was named "Arsaga's." The group had their preference of beverage and pastry. There was no conversation, Splash was still brooding over the loss of the Mike Two-Forty Charlie, his snack partners were individually wondering how this latest development would affect the situation.

"This weapon, it's slightly less devastating than that of your main armament, but can be quickly deployed anywhere?" Celestia finally inquired.

"Yes." Raptor answered.

"And," Splash answered with a sigh. "If any sort of ballistics from our realm has carried over, the seven-six-two by fifty-four millimeter cartridge is enough to penetrate certain places in the Stryker's hull. I doubt they'd know that, but if we directly confront confront them directly with the Stryker they might be desperate enough to try and use it against us. Then again, they didn't use the penetration effect on the bar so... Maybe not. I don't know."

Raptor spoke up and pointed at his fellow crew members. "Each box only carries a hundred rounds, they probably expended most of that in the attack yesterday."

"Mhm." Roar mumbled. "Except one of the ammo boxes that normally sit by the MG was missing as well."

"So they have a little over a hundred rounds to send downrange at us, with some way to ramp up the rounds per minute if the later stages of the attack are any indication." Splash concluded.

"What do you mean?" Celestia asked.

"Our weapons, the Mike-Sixty-Eight one-oh-five millimeter cannon and Mike-Two-Forty-Charlie have a certain rate of launching projectiles, this is called "rounds per minute," for each round the cartridge containing the bullet is chambere-" Splash was stopped by a elbow bump from Roar, he sheepishly cleared his throat before speaking again. "Raptor here was knocked out, and I don't know how much Roar noticed after getting hurt like he did, but as the building began to catch fire the gun seemed to exceed that rate, which actually is making me worry about any heat damage that may have came to it."

Raptor put his hand to his chin in thought. "To manipulate the moving parts like that they'd need to have known it pretty well i'd think, magic or not."

"Yes, even with a ward being placed upon it, whoever created the ward to manipulate all the moving parts would had to have familiarized themselves with said parts." Luna said simply, Echo had forgotten she was there.

He hummed, looking down for a moment before looking back at the alicorns at the table. "Do you have any armorers that're fascinated by things with moving parts? Some sort of pioneer in war-time technology?" 

The princesses looked at each other for a moment, then to Raptor.

"We know just the one." Celestia grinned.

Once again the three were lead through winding corridors and long halls. Some of them of course clearly showing where a large fighting vehicle clipped the wall, or simply slammed through it. Any loose marble chunks or dust had been removed though, to the credit of the cleanup crews. Celestia didn't show much reaction as they took shortcuts through the breaches, but the crew caught a glance from Luna, to which they replied to by sheepishly rubbing the back of their neck or looking the other way. Over time the three found themselves coming closer to the portion of the castle reserved for guard business. They were led down a winding marble stair case, wherein the walls and steps gradually became charred and covered in soot.

"I feel like I should be wearing a gas mask right now." Roar mumbled, observing the change.

Finally they came to the bottom, the room was lit by furnace and torch. Ponies worked and tables with molten metals, sounds of metal hitting metal reverberated throughout the room. As it so happened ponies were covering their mouth and nose with scarves wrapped around their snout, some wore goggles.

"I've got some health concerns for this workshop, Celestia." Raptor told the mare.

"I do as well, however that's neither here or now, i'm afraid."

They stopped at a secluded corner of the workshop, a relatively small beige unicorn sat there, his mane was a orange color but darkened with the soot. He wore on his face what looked like muffle attached to a short tin can stuffed with coffee filters. Echo wasn't concerned about that, they were more interested in the rudimentary open bolt mechanism he was tinkering with, the one he tried to cover inconspicuously when he noticed the group standing in front of him.

"O-oh!" He started, genuine surprise showing on his face. "Wow uh, h-hello. Princesses, and uh, stallions?"

"Hello." Raptor said, smiling politely. "We're here to inquire about a pony about a weapons system with several moving parts."

The stallion looked at the man for a moment with his big blue eyes before tilting his head innocently. "A weapon s-system with... Moving parts? If you need something to do with a crossbow there's another smit-"

"I'm more interested in what you do."

"I... I've attempted to develop small weapons using explosive propulsion to launch projectiles in rapid succession. But my research has gotten me nowhere."

"What about the research of others?" 

"Of others? I believe i'm the only-"

At this point, Splash of course lost his patience. He slammed his palms down on the desk as he leaned against it, startling the pony and causing him to reveal the bolt as he drew his hooves back. Splash grabbed the bolt and stepped back, examining it.

"This is similar to the bolt mechanisms used in machine guns like the two-forty. Why, how, and where did you get this?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, that's property of the Equestrian Royalty, p-princesses!"

The two alicorns only watched as Splash carelessly tossed the bolt into a cauldron of molten metal. Their eyes then turned to the unicorn.

"I believe it's best you answer his questions. Honestly." Celestia said with the heart-stopping tone of disappointed mother.

The small unicorn slumped his back and sighed. "T-they came to me because I truly am the only person working on the subject. I wasn't sure q-quite what I was looking at until I took it apart and spent a few hours analyzing the parts. I told them how they could possibly make it fire faster, then asked if I could analyze it further but they demanded I put it back together and then just left. T-that bolt was all I got out of the deal, and I made it just from memory."

"Who's 'they'?" Raptor asked.

"T-they tried to hide it, b-but they were definitely nobles. They way they talked, walked. That slicked-back hair with their nose in the air."

"Did you recognize them?" 

"No." The smith shook his head. "T-they wore cloaks... I couldn't have seen their cutie mark either. That's all I know, honest."

"Come," Celestia gestured to the men. "He cannot tell what he does not know."

Raptor sighed and turned away, following the princesses. His men eyed the tech for a few more moments before doing the same. As they ascended the blackened stairs they did not notice the unicorn crawl out from under the tech's desk and dust himself off.

"Ugh, disgusting." The posh stallion grumbled.

"Cry me a river." The tech grumbled, any trace of the nervousness he'd been showing a moment ago was gone. "I'll need to remake that bolt, gimme those specifications."
> Intermission: The Wrath of Equinity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Takistan was a dirty, disgusting place. Almost everything was covered in sand, it blew across the landscape and plastered itself on your sweating face. The heat was intense, only to be intensified by the warfare. Bullets slammed through brick, wood, and flesh. Grenade shrapnel riddled structures and bodies alike. This describes typical business in the Takistan region, but today it was more than just a simple skirmish. 

The extremely corrupt government in place had gotten their hands on one of the Soviet Union's mobile ballistic missile launch platforms. The how was an unknown, but the where had been revealed to Blufor intelligence. Feruz Abad, a city smack-dab in the middle of Takistan. Government forces were protecting the launcher there, but were having trouble holding out. Their tanks were second-hand T-55s, due to the terrain infantry anti-tank units were able to neutralize many of them easily. However the terrain worked in the Opfor favor as well, and the anti-aircraft guns were positioned to exploit that, preventing helicopters from inserting troops and leaving only one method of approach open: The roads.

With the government tanks reduced to burning metal, this method was far less costly and dangerous than it would've been normally. The government forces engaged the advancing Blufor troops with KORD heavy machine guns for a time, but were met with little success as the armor on the advancing AAVP7A1s were so thick that the machine gun rounds did not completely penetrate. The guns were then suppressed by the forty-millimeter grenade launcher atop each vehicle. However as the Blufor troops got closer the danger intensified, previously suppressed targets attacked the AAVs with explosives as the vehicles moved past, some loosing the ability to continue.

Echo One was, unfortunately, in one of those vehicles. They were sharing the vehicle with another contractor group when they were hit in the side from the north, sending some out of their seats. The men could all hear the engine still running, but they were not moving.

"The track's out, the track's out!" One of the crewman turned in their seat and yelled.

The passengers looked at each other worriedly until Splash blurted "Nose goes!" 

Echo quickly put a finger on their nose, the rest of the contractor's fates were sealed. They were stopped roughly one hundred meters west of Feruz Abad, to make it to the city in one piece they'd need to move quickly. The AAV's cargo door opened and the first few men sprinted out, one immediately taking a hit and falling down, immediately resigning to roll behind a rock and pray. Echo ran out last and grouped up on the south side of the vehicle, the men looked about, scanning for threats. The fire seemed to be coming exclusively from the north and west, Echo began to move and tried dodging cover to cover, often going one at a time until finally they reached their first building where they caught their breath.

"Are either of you hurt?" Raptor exhaled.

"Nah." Roar said, Splash gave a thumbs up.

"Alright let's go." Raptor went around the corner and immediately began firing with a scream of surprise.

After a few hostiles dropped dead he began to reload, Splash moving ahead of him to cover. For the next thirty minutes they pushed through the enemy forces, constantly stopping to reload or patch up. As they finally reached the center of town they realized it was oddly quiet, a quick check of the map revealed they were the last squad remaining. After turning one more corner they found their target at the palace with several apprehensive guards around it.

Then Raptor's phone rang.

"Do you uh... Need to take that?" Splash said, raising his eyebrows.

The man pulled his phone out of a vest pouch and looked at the screen with a puzzled look. "Celestia's calling."

He answered and raised the phone up to his ear. "Hello? ... Princess i'm sorry but we're really bu- ... What kind of trouble? ..."

Raptor paused, looking at his men, then looked around the corner at their objective. "Yeah. I have an idea. Give us just a few minutes, okay?"

Raptor hung up and stuffed the phone away, then readied his weapon. "Let's go."


...


Celestia followed Raptor's instructions, waiting patiently, but apprehensively. Despite all her conquests, Celestia's kingdom did not stand strong enough to fend off the Sonney Kingdom, especially on short notice. Hopefully her human friends had a solution, for otherwise she feared Equestria would burn, and the thought of her precious little ponies enslaved by the  hideous creatures to work in horrible cramped mines made her shiver.

There was a ringing tone, Celestia brought the cell phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"We're ready, bring us over."

Celestia hung up the phone and charged her horn. She reached out through the multiverse and grabbed Echo, along with what she assumed to be their vehicle. When they emerged into her realm she stared in confusion, it was not their Stryker she saw, but a larger vehicle painted a pale green. It had a face and eyes somewhat resembling a frog, with a large silo-like object on it's back.

"I'm confused." She simply said.

Raptor patted her on the withers. "That's fine. Let's take a road trip and give the Sonney's their ultimatum."


...


Celestia stood at the large wooden gates of the Sonney Kingdom, large walls made of upright logs stretched as far as her eyes could see. The land was flat, and with few forests nearby she questioned how they acquired the materials. Though she supposed the Sonney's had been around a long time, staying in this very land since their original ancestors. The only expansion they'd done was when they needed more living space, never once curious about the land outside their sight. They were a race in the dark, and their technology reflected such. Still, there was uncountable amounts of them, more than enough to overwhelm anything they wanted.

Which after all these years, suddenly they wanted to.

She knocked, and waited.

"Raptor?" She said. "A few quick questions, if you don't mind."

"Yeah?" Raptor said through the small speaker device in her right ear. 

"What is this vest you have me wearing?"

"That's a khaki flak vest fitted with a few storage pouches, it was actually refitted for a pony by Roar, dunno why. It's meant to stop bullets, but should offer some protection if they try to attack you with a wooden spear or something. Keep that phone where we put it, we'll be able to see a lot of what you're seeing through the camera, and hear some of what you're hearing. It's almost as if we're there."

Celestia smiled a little, then frowned. "What exactly are you planning?"

"Well, we'll give them a chance to back down, I mean surely they'll see reason, you control the sun after all. If they don't, we'll fire this... Uh..."

Celestia heard Raptor speak to the background. "How many kilotons is that?"

A distant voice replied, it sounded like Splash. "I don't fucking read Russian, how would I know?"

Raptor sighed and spoke into the phone again. "We have a projectile that will cause a large explosion and poison the immediate environment. This is the same type of weapon that'll probably kill off humanity some day, so if it comes down to us detonating this make sure it's the last this world sees."

Celestia nodded to herself and looked up as the wooden gates creaked open. Two Sonney guards stepped out with neutral faces. Celestia didn't know this, but to Echo they looked like hedgehogs that simply walked on their hindlegs and had manual dexterity.

Fifty kilometers away, just barely outside of Equestrian borders, Raptor and Roar stood outside the Scud watching what was going on through the former's phone. Splash was inside the Scud, already setting up for the launch. A whir sounded as the vehicle's stabilizers lowered themselves to the ground, then the missile itself rose to an erect position. Raptor and Roar heard one of the vehicle doors slam shut and Splash soon arrived by the men, leaning over to watch the screen.

Roar looked at Splash for a second. "I'm amazed Celestia's willing to do this."

"She made it sound like do-or-die." Raptor said. "She's worried for her kingdom."

"You must yield!" Celestia said suddenly on the other side of the transmission. "I wish to leave you in peace, horrible things will happen if you do not stop preparing to attack Equestria."

The men saw a large hedgehog sitting atop a stone throne, gold riches piled around him. He simply shook his head at the princess and spoke one word.

"Death." A deep voice rumbled. Splash returned to the Scud and quietly pressed a large red button.

Celestia could be heard sucking in a large breath. The missile thrusters ignited, and it was gone a few moments later.

"So be it." The princess said darkly.

"We heard everything, Celestia." Raptor said. "Get far away, to those mountains you originally teleported to."

There was a short cut in the transmission as Celestia teleported to a mountain range several clicks out. She watched the huge settlement, now barely visible, and waited for the fate she'd bestowed on them all. She sat there quietly, with no idea how much time had passed until she heard Raptor speaking.

"S-sorry, what?" She asked.

Raptor sighed. "I was wanting to let you know the missile was coming down. That was like fifteen minutes ago or something, put on Roar's shades."

Celestia blinked, then looked down at the vest. She telekinetically pulled the aviators from a small pocket vest and put them over her eyes. A few moments later there was a flash of light as intense as her sun, then she heard the explosion, the mare's ears to flattened against her head as the sound came. Her ethereal mane was blown back by the shock wave, she was barely able to hold her ground.

The shock wave passed quickly, and Celestia looked up at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance. 

The mare blinked tears out of her eyes. "What have I done?"
> Contact!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The ground cracked before anything else happened, a patch of land several meters suddenly split upwards leaving a crater in the middle. From the sky came a thick beam of pure light, and struck that exact position, shaking and splitting the ground further. The light faded, leaving nothing but thick, black smoke drifting upwards. It was eerily silent for a moment, before a leg appeared from the smoke, placing itself of the edge of the crater. Then the rest of the man appeared, stepping up and out of the landing zone. He cracked his knuckles, then his neck.

"What a shitty insertion point." Crossroads grumbled.


***


It was about noon on the day of Celestia's planned banquet when Echo walked down the now familiar palace corridors alone. The three had been discouraged from their investigation in the previous days, with the last lead having gone cold. It had been all they could do, to simply wait.

"So, Raptor." Splash started, the other man turning his head to face him. "How exactly will this event Celestia planned tell us who the bad guy is?"

"There's a few ways it can happen, I guess." He shrugged. "The pony after us may skip out of the event to continue plotting or set up some type of trap for after, we can note that absence and put suspicion on that individual. In another way, probably wont happen, but they might just stand up at the banquet and try to light us up there."

Roar nodded with a faint smile. "That'd be interesting to see."

"Up until the point one of us gets nailed in the face again." Splash chuckled, elbowing Raptor.

"Glad you guys enjoyed the show back there." He deadpanned.

"Don't worry, we won't let it happen again." Splash assured.

When they came to the end of the corridor a larger-than-normal set of doors stood in their path, with a guard on each side. The three men looked at each other debating whether to knock or just open the door until it cracked open on its own. A waiter came out, a small light pink earth pony with a rosy mane came out without immediately noticing the humans, as she was focused on closing the door behind her. She must have felt their presence, because her head swiveled to the taller creatures before her, then had a miniature heart attack. The mare backpedaled into the door, opening it completely with a thump loud enough to garner the attention of every pony in the dining hall.

After the incident in Ponyville, Echo did not remain without their primary weapons in arm's reach for very long. Standing there in front of possibly a hundred ponies with their standard clothing and gear on felt more than awkward, they received stares that gave them the feeling that they'd just kicked a puppy in front of a large group of children. At the opposite end of the table sat some familiar faces, Twilight was waving at them excitedly and pointing to three empty chairs. Roar started forwards, and the small mare walked backwards, making room for the three. Raptor whispered his thanks to the poor girl as they passed. Curious or frightened stares and disgusted glares did not go unnoticed as they walked along the length of the table to the elements, Echo took up the three seats by the end. There were two chairs at the table end, presumably reserved for the Royal Sisters.

Splash chose to seat himself by Twilight, then Raptor by the Princesses' chairs, with Roar in the middle. Their metal guns clunk awkwardly against their chairs, causing no shortage of disturbance within the room. As they finally got themselves comfortable hushed conversations ensued.

"Oh my god, so many contacts." Splash whispered feverishly.

Twilight tilted her head at the man. "What?"

"He doesn't do well with a lot of attention." Raptor interjected, leaning over. 

Twilight leaned to talk to Raptor, as Splash was busy meeting awkward eye contact with each unfamiliar face that looked his way. "What do you mean? I thought he was sparring with guards the other day."

"Well, yeah but that's different, I guess. I don't know." The man fumbled for an explanation. "Where's Celestia? Or Luna?"

"Don't worry, they'll be here soon." Twilight assured with a smile.

"God I'd hope so." Raptor mumbled, leaning back to speak to Roar. "Hit Splash, without the Celestia or Luna here the chances of us getting engaged are higher."

Roar nodded, then smacked Splash to get his attention, and quietly relayed the information to the man. He nodded and fidgeted uncomfortably, continuing to scan each pony attending the dinner. If one of them so much as shifted he was focused on them, leaving Raptor to worry about him overreacting to something sudden. He could see it now; a pony bursting into laughter and slamming their hoof into the table, Splash reacting by chucking a live grenade at their face. Raptor wondered if notifying the man of increased danger was a good idea.

Splash, in his own mind viewed himself as perfectly collected. Quickly taking new contacts and assessing them, then moving on. This continued until he realized there were ponies not seated at the table, his eyes shifted to observe the glint of light in his peripheral vision. Contact, he thought. Guardsmare, twelve o' clock. Ten meters.

He observed the mare, who stood perfectly at attention with a metal tipped staff leaning against her. After a few seconds, she looked back at Splash, then winked at the man with the slightest of a smile. The man raised his eyebrow at her, until the false colors on her body shimmered, showing the sandy and light green colors of White Grape for a moment until her illusion resumed. Splash returned the smile, and let some of the stress he'd unknowingly accumulated flow out from his mind. His tense body relaxed, and he reclined in his chair slightly.

There are friendlies here. He thought. We'll be fine.

So, naturally, that's when the AN/PRC-52 on his shoulder cracked to life with seemingly senseless noise. Splash sucked in a breath and calmly pressed the speaker button, muting the integrated speaker and sending the garbled traffic through her earphone instead. He looked to Raptor, who was standing up.

"Sorry everyone, something's just come to our attention, we'll need to excuse ourselves." The man spoke out loud.

A set of confused murmuring arose, growing louder as Echo moved closer to the double doors. Distant radio contact? In Equestria? Not a chance, unless something followed them from home. The contact must have been at least five clicks out, or on the other side of Canterlot mountain with all the interference, but that did not stop the itchiness in the men's trigger fingers, nor the temptation to ready their weapons.

A pony stood up from the table, and pointed at the men. The men, who in turn, didn't even notice until the pony pink-haired bastard screamed. "The demons use those devices for calling in reinforcements! They're invading! Guards, apprehend them!"

With the guards already hesitant about attacking Echo whether they were armed or not, Splash and Roar had enough time to draw their firearms and cover Raptor's rear, freezing any guard who'd thought of moving. Raptor in particular exerted a feat of strength, kicking open the large ornate doors. The doors collided with the guards on the other side, leaving them dazed. Raptor then drew his Colt, scanning the hall and moving forward.

Roar lightly slapped Splash's back and began following Raptor, leaving the gunner to take up the rear. He carefully walked backwards, at the door he stopped, taking his left hand and reaching for a ball object on his vest. At that point he caught Grape's conflicted stare, the mare looked halfway between restraining herself and charging at the man. 

He hadn't really thought about what he was just about to do, but when he did it was a little too late. He'd pulled the pin on his Mike-Fourty-Eight grenade and under-handed it back into the room. Splash had the door closed before it hit the ground. Grape's eyes had been on the small object from the moment Splash reached for it, his thumb looping into the metal ring on pulling it out. The lever popping off, then suddenly the ball bouncing off the marble floor and above the dinner table.

"Everypony, get down now!" She screamed.

Splash, now halfway down the hall, heard the explosion from the other side of the doors. The doors even shook slightly, making the man wince, suddenly he felt like a stranger to combat again.

I'm so sorry. He tried to apologize--mostly to himself--unsuccessfully.

"Contact front!" Raptor's yelp was followed by weapons fire, Splash whipped around in time to see...

"Not the face not the fa-"

... His squad leader get decked by the mighty fist of Crossroads. The man who was somehow dodging bullets at point blank, the very image of Crossroads blurred as he moved with inhuman speed. Raptor was punched onto the ground, clutching his face. Roar didn't have much successful either, as Crossroads sidestepped his shots at close range. Then, grabbing Roar's AKM, he slammed the stock into Roar's stomach before entirely ripping the gun from his grasp and using it to club him in the side of the face. The Canadian hit the wall and fell to the ground.

With Roar now out of the line of fire and hopefully not dead, Splash leaned back with the Two-Forty-Nine. He placed a steadying foot behind him and grabbed the carryhandle, leveling the gun at Crossroads. Splash spewed fire at the man and did not plan on letting go of the trigger, Crossroads was stalking towards the gunner, absorbing few of the rounds. Most of the bullets ricocheted off him, peforating the walls and windows instead. Splash's box ran dry, but his finger still refused to come off the trigger. 

Crossroads grabbed the man by the neck, and lifted him into the air. Splash dropped his gun and tried to support himself on Crossroads' arm. 

"H-how the Hell?" Splash choked out.

"PT, son!" Crossroads explained, and tossed Splash into the air. He barely had time to acknowledge he had taken flight before he heard his former commanding officer taunt again.

"Don't fuck with this officer!" 

The Stryker gunner could only watch in stunned fear as his enemy jumped and drew back his leg before delivering an diamond-breaking kick to Splash as he came down. The strike sent him flying back down the hall, and through the already abused dining room doors before landing on whatever was left of the dinner table.

Splash's hand clutched at his chest, he couldn't breath! He writhed in pain and struggled in panic to get breath to his lungs. The man looked up to see Crossroad's sneering face. 

"... And five clicks ain't shit, boy!" He said, raising his boot above Splash's head...

Then getting pummeled in the face with a polearm before he could bring it down, Crossroads went skidding across the floor. Grape now stood above Splash on her hindlegs, leaning against her staff. The mare was slightly burned, and did not wear her helmet, with nothing holding up the illusion she looked her normal self. She spared a glance down at the man and smiled.

"You owe me such an amazing dinner." She joked.

Splash brought himself off the ground and onto his knees, still regaining his breath. He looked to Crossroads, who picked himself up off the ground and popped his jaw back into place, the ever confident commander looked like he had lost something extremely important. 

"Shit." Splash hissed, reaching for his Forty-Five. Crossroads saw this and began to flee towards the door. 

Splash took the reaction shot, emptying his magazine into Crossroads at ten meters. The bright blue flares smashed into him, sending the man through an unoccupied space of wall where a stained window used to be. With the danger at least gone for now, Splash's arms fell to his sides and he slumped over, falling to his side on the floor in exhaustion.

"To think," He said to Grape, who was staring at Crossroads' exit point. "I'm supposed to be on vacation."

"Sorry your invasion didn't go so well." The mare replied jokingly. Splash only made a short guttural noise in response.

The guardsmare sighed, then spoke to another guard. "Send for the princesses, that plan she had to get these guys to have some one-on-one with the nobles didn't go too well."

"This was planned?" Splash groaned. Noting Raptor stumbling in, supporting Roar.

"The Princesses not being here? Yeah. Another one of you showing up? No. Not at all."

Splash started to stand up, Grape offering herself as a support. Once on his feet he looked at the shattered window bitterly. 

Lot of questions are going to come from this... And maybe some jail time. He thought.


***


"The noble suspected of involvement with the radical cell has been apprehended." Celestia read off from the parchment as she sat on her favorite plush cushion. "Multiple injuries were sustained in the dining hall. Sixteen nobles and four guards in treatment for concussion, mana burn, and mana overload, which was caused by a small device emitting a single powerful burst of magic."

Celestia looked away from the report to the mixed assortment of smoke and fragmentation grenades before continuing. "Eyewitness reports state an unknown party attempted communications with..." She looked up at the men. "You three... Shortly thereafter another human breached the premises, attacking... Rhino Echo?" 

She shook her head. 

"Prior to the attack, Rhino Echo attempted to escape shortly after the communication from the unknown party." Celestia smirked as she read the next line. "Then, without proper cause or authority, Prince Stockholm ordered their arrest. This action caused the foreign dignitaries to react in their own defense, launching a non-lethal attack to cover their escape. Each member of Rhino Echo was then attacked by the alleged unknown party, the attacker was repelled, escaping through a window. At this time the popular consensus is that Rhino Echo excused themselves in order to minimize public causality. The offending unknown party has not been apprehended. For security reasons, the party of Rhino Echo was apprehended by Sergeant White Grape. Sergeant Grape has been credited with first retaliation and saving the lives of the dignitaries, and has been submitted to receive the Sentinel's Medal." 

She finished reading the report, setting down the paper and taking a sip of tea before wondering aloud. "Hmm, I should see to that, though it's a little late."

The Princess smiled and looked up at Splash. "You wouldn't happen to know what time the dear sergeant normally goes to sleep would you, Splash?"

The man, who stood behind the sitting Roar and Raptor with his arms crossed, responded: "Beats me. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Splash noticed Raptor staring at him with a mixture of alarm and revulsion, he returned the stare in confusion for a moment before turning to Celestia and seeing the smirk.

"Oh." He whispered, his eyes widening quickly at the realization.

"Oh!" He exclaimed. "No!"

"I don't get it." Roar mumbled.

"Oh I understand, no worries." The princess set her teacup back down, when she looked back up her expression had become deadly serious. "There are a few things we need to discuss. Before coming to our realm, your weapons were extremely lethal. How did you know these handheld explosives of yours had undergone the same effect?"

Splash smiled, knowing his answer was going to get him put six feet under. I didn't, it was my immediate reaction to what was presumably an overwhelming hostile presence staring me in the face, and I was prepared to kill each and every single one of them in order to protect my team.

"Well, you see..." Splash started.

Roar interrupted, speaking with a blunt tone. "I used one in your hedge maze trying to retrieve a little kid's ball."

Celestia blinked in surprise, now looking at the driver. "Oh, that was you?"

"Yeah," He confirmed, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Sorry, it pissed me off."

The mare only smiled. "It has that effect on ponies like you. The guard detail barely noticed, it had almost grown back completely when they found it. Well, I suppose that's fine, nopony was seriously hurt. Though I suspect apologies are in order. Nonetheless, this "Crossroads" individual..."

"He is a very dangerous man." Raptor affirmed quickly.

Celestia's eyes scanned the report again. "Yes, I see that."

"I don't think anything short of the Stryker cannon will take him down." Splash said with a frown. "He was shrugging off rounds when I lit him up, point blank too. I can't help but be scared shitless of the possibility of him just shrugging off hollow charge."

"Which, by the way..." Raptor started. "We hit him with nine, seven-six-two, five five six, and the only thing that affected him was Grape, then your pistol. Why?"

"It's obvious." Splash shrugged. 

"Huh?"

"Forty-Five ACP just kicks ass."

"God damn it Splash."

"Can you three handle it?" Celestia asked. But it was not with a worried tone, it was the tone that expected the answer "Yes, ma'am." Nothing more, nothing less. The members of Echo looked at each other, it was hard to say yes, knowing their opponent.

Celestia sighed. "My beloved student and her friends, who in turn are mine as well, were in that room when this so-called Crossroads attacked. None of them were hurt, but it is obvious that this will not be the last time an attack occurs, and that attack I cannot formulate a plan for in which my little ponies remain safe. You cannot stay, as this threat obviously wishes for your demise, and will destroy anything in its way."

Raptor grimaced, she was going to ask them to leave.

"However," She continued. "Until the threat is dealt with, I cannot risk you leaving, either. As you three are the most qualified to handle it."

"So what do you propose?"

"I believe I have an idea."


***


Crossroads grunted and gasped, finally stopping at a pond and taking cover behind a tree, probably a good three clicks from the castle. The man sat down in the grass and clutched at his stomach in pain.

"What is this pain I feel?"

He sucked greedily on the fresh tasting air for a few moments, then pushing himself back up on his feet and stumbled farther. He had to get away from the enemy. How had this happen? So much power, suddenly gone. What'd changed? It all started in that room with the horses, he thought. Then that green horse, with the staff hit him. The horse. Crossroads realized. It must've stripped me of that power.

The power. He needed to get it back. He had to kill them. He had to kill them all.
> We've Failed You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	In the bright, lovely castle of Canterlot, the residing ponies were often glad to wake to a gently rising sun. Looking forward to a day of being pompous and royal. Unless you were a servant anyway, then you were already up before the sun making breakfast or doing other morning chores. Wouldn't be bad work if they were honest, if it wasn't for high-class Canterlot nobility. Nevertheless, everypony was awake and startled by the sudden and unmistakable buffeting scream of Princess Celestia herself.

"Your ass is grass, Splash!"

Splash turned out of the Stryker with his Two-Forty Nine, facing Celestia to their rear as the flying mare chased them. The engine was roaring, and the tires skid at every narrow castle corner, the entire machine threatened to flip on its side. Roar wouldn't have it with his longtime experience in driving the vehicle. Celestia came into sight again, rounding the corner easily and gaining on them once more as they tried to escape. Splash aimed his weapon at Celestia, gave plenty of leading space, and let rip. The burst of fire went wide, ripping up a section of wall and ricocheted into an expensive chandelier instead. Still, Celestia hit the airbrakes, wanting to keep herself far away from the incoming fire.

"She's always so ladylike." Splash said aloud with a mock dreamily sound.

Shortly thereafter she resumed her chase after the still-speeding Stryker, and began engaging with her own magic. She launched a focused blast at the Stryker that would've taken off Splash's head if he hadn't ducked. The entire Stryker shook, and Roar nearly lost control. With a slew of curses, he straightened the vehicle out and pressed even harder against the gas pedal. Splash popped out of the hatch again, and looked at the dented and burned section of metal on the top of the Stryker near the driver's hatch.

"Bounced off." He reported shakily.

Ahead of the Stryker, some alert guards took action. Not hesitating to start lancing magic at the vehicle. Splash took a hit between the shoulder blades, as the hatch wasn't covering him from that direction. With a gasp of pain, he fell back into the Stryker, the hatch closing above him.

"Incoming fire!" Raptor reported, then looked back and saw his teammate's status.

"Y-yeah. I noticed." Splash cried. "G-gimme a sec."

Raptor shook his head before looking back to his console, staring ahead he saw yet another tight turn. Despite Roar's ability, he was getting sloppier with each turn, and it was getting hard to believe they could keep making these turns without hurting any civilians.

"Roar, send us through that wall up ahead." He commanded.

"Uh, that looks like a express way to death by gravity." The driver commented.

"We'll be fine."

Celestia hovered just barely above the Stryker, should she try landing on it? Maybe not. Shouldn't they be slowing down? They were coming to another turn. When the turn came down to a distance measurement she could count on her feathers she realized what was going to happen; they didn't plan on making the turn.

Another wall, really you three? She thought disdainfully.

The Stryker smashed through the marble brick wall at high speed, the impact set chunks of rock and shards of glass both inside and outside the new corridor exit, the Stryker earned a few new dents as well. Once outside they instantly began to fall, the huge machination plummeted from the high castle and down into the city streets. The vehicle crushed the brick underneath it, making a miniature crater. Inside there were no shortages of bouncing around and hitting consoles or interior sections. A startled and disoriented Grape landed on top of Splash, both began to scream.

"Holy shit, I forgot you were there!" Splash yelled.

"You ponies are crazy!" Grape yelled back.

"That's because we ain't ponies!" Roar shot, reorienting himself in his seat.

Roar looked out the driver ports frantically, considering turning out. He could hardly see the street, ponies were scattering to make way for them. He cursed and pushed the hatch open, poking his head out. The first thing he saw was a small foal, scared stiff, and right in their path. At ninety clicks an hour, Roar hastily turned to dodge the child, smashing through the corner of a furniture building. For his good deed he was rewarded by nearly getting nailed by a chair.

"Oh you three are going to get me killed." Grape groaned, covering her eyes with one hoof. The other hoof was actually death-gripping Splash.

Princess Celestia had landed and calmly trotted to the edge of the new castle exit. She admired the work of Echo, there was once a time she could simply smash through walls all she wanted. Good times. What a fantastic chase too. Convincing. She thought. With all that noise, the ponies after Echo would believe Celestia was no longer associated with the humans, and the same for that Crossroads individual. Though, she couldn't get those rude comments Splash made out of her head. She couldn't help but laugh, nopony talks to her like that. She walked back to the throne room thinking on the past ten minutes, a goofy smile on her face the whole way.

"Jesus Celestia, how do you fit those flanks through these corridors like that?" Splash had said at the beginning of their chase.

"Assmouth." Celestia snickered under her breath. She sat atop her throne, which yes, she could still fit in.


...


Roughly ten clicks away from Canterlot Mountain, Echo stopped and took a breather. Grape was the first to crawl out of the Stryker and onto the through Splash's hatch and onto the ground, more or less pressing the side of her face into it. Splash was making his way out behind her.

"Solid ground." She whispered. "I missed you."

"Drama queen." Raptor said mockingly as he stumbled out. The man made it a yard from the Stryker before emptying his stomach contents on the ground. 

From their position they were skylining on a grassy hill with a treeline behind them, Canterlot Castle still in plain view. They let themselves stay there for pleasant amount of time, recovering from the ordeal that'd just occurred. An ambitious plan had been executed within a rather small timeframe. In the early hours in the afternoon, Celestia and the Stryker crew pieced together a plan to get Crossroads away from Canterlot. That planned involved making as much noise as possible on their outbound way, leaving Canterlot altogether. Crossroads would follow, and with Grape's assistance they could beat Crossroads without endangering a soul. Hopefully at the same time such an escapade would ease the current psychotic tendencies of the noble party.

The sun had begun to set when Raptor sat up from his position in the grass. 

"Let's take off. If we make some noise while head out we can make sure we have Crossroads on a lure."

It was about thirty minutes of driving as the sun continued it's journey to the horizon, stars began to twinkle in the sky as the moon began to make it's presence known. A few shells had been fired off when they began to move earlier, Grape had been quietly looking at the autoloader since.

"Raptor." She finally broke the silence.

The sound of his voice shook the crewman awake. "Y-Yeah."

"Is this really just a machine? Does it follow your will at the pull of a lever and the turn of a valve? Or is it some twisted creature, bred to raze and kill? Because I'm... I think I'm afraid to think it's just a machine."

She took her gaze off the autoloader, and looked directly into Raptor's eyes. "I'm afraid to think that intent to raze and kill is yours."

Raptor blinked, and looked away. "We don't raze, and we don't kill without reason."

Her gaze lowered. "There's no right reason in killing. Not ever."

"It's different where we come from." Splash jutted in to help Raptor, but neither he would look at the mare that was seating right beside him, in a tight little corner the crew had cleared for her. 

"In terms of the lives you live here you could almost say our lives aren't real back in that other world. Like it was all make-believe." He tried to explain.

"No one dies forever. Permadeath is a like something out of a scary story there. Scary, but not real." Roar spoke.

"Undying... Spending your eternities engaging in constant warfare." The mare said. She looked back at the autoloader.

It was silent for a few more moments before Splash broke the silence again.

"Sure." He said. "Why not? It's what we're meant to do. The day we came to existence we knew what our job was. It's our job to occupy the enemy, keep them from going anywhere else or harming anything else. We'd foil the enemy plans at every corner, forcing them to struggle and exhaust themselves for every inch of ground they took. Sure they'll come back, sure we'll have to do it again. I'd say that's better than the other option; leaving them to their own devices."

Grape stared at the back of the man's head for the longest time, before sighing. "I guess if I was supposed to understand, I would be one of you instead."

Splash turned his head to the mare after a few seconds, when he saw her, the hairs on the back of her neck had bristled. There was some sort of discomfort in her face.

The man tried not to take offense. "I know you don't like it, but--"

"N-No, not that." The mare interrupted apologetically. "There's something else...There's something in the air. Something big, something... Wrong."

"What the hell?" Raptor suddenly burst. "She's right. Stop the vehicle."

Splash turned back to his screen, and Grape moved to look over his shoulder. Blue sparks were forming up ahead, the small bursts of energy coming from thin air. The group stared for a minute or two until it intensified, and with a sonic boom blue maelstroms erupted. Three of them in a triangle formation in the air. Only moments later odd shapes formed, and air vehicles burst from the portal. More than a normal base would field at once, each one flying in tight formation. 

Blackhawks, gunners visible on each side and infantry sitting patiently in the cabin. Chinooks, with ropes suspending the armored vehicles beneath them. Armed Littlebirds fluttered out behind them with two human shapes visible within. Then, with the roar of jet engines appeared the Warthogs and an F-35. All these vehicles speeding off in the direction the Stryker crew had originated from, passing swiftly over them with no sign of recognition. The Stryker shook intensively as all the active rotors passed overhead.

"W-What the... Your vehicles can fly too?"

Roar covered his mouth. "That's our entire air fleet. Why are they here? How are they here?" 

Raptor spoke. "They went towards Canterlot, why would they be..."

Synapses fired. The cabin suddenly felt very cold when he said, "I'm so sorry."

"W-What?" The mare leaned towards him, obviously worked up after seeing the horrifying armada pass overhead. She didn't get an answer from Raptor and turned to Splash. "Why is he sorry?"

The gunner stared at the vehicles flying away on his screen, the screen which he had enveloped in a white-knuckle grip.

"W-We gotta go back. We're going back, right?" He pointed the question to Raptor.

"Someone tell me what's happening!"

Roar took the vehicle out of park, and pressed on the gas, swinging the vehicle around. 

"All those vehicles and troops are under the command of one man." He explained. 

"... And that man is going to burn Canterlot to the ground."