The beginning
London, England
“Mr. O’bama, sir, it’s a message!”
“From Equestria, is it?”
“Yes, sir. They’re under attack!”
Barry “Barrack” O’bama, the eighty-seventh Emperor-king-president-minister of the Known Universe marched to the console with broken reading glasses in hand. A dark-skinned Irishman on his fifth five-year term in office, he was starting to feel his age. After the recent victory over the Ones From Beyond, he had but one thing on his mind: avoid confrontation for one more month and retire to Hawaii.
The chain of blocky green text scrolled onto the black screen (just like the special effects in The Matrix). The lackey in the chair back away as the Emperor-king-president-minister approached, his hands waving hysterically above his head.
Changelings attacking Canterlot. Royal Guards under pressure, defences failing. Send help.
Throwing the glasses across the room, Barry jammed his fists against his eyelids before hammering out a reply on the keyboard.
Are my people safe?
For several tense minutes there was no reply, and then:
wqqonsafs sbgawneq12
The war room (Barry is in a war room, by the way) was completely silent, save for the humming of the Gateway. The bodyguards had their guns pointed at the slowly-churning wall of luminous blue plasma lest something would appear.
“Mr. Emperor-king-president-minister,” said one of the men. “You should leave.”
“No,” Barry said, putting up one hand. “Ms. O’tenson, switch the gate to one-way. Make sure nothing comes through. Larry, get me a line to him.”
A collective gasp went around the room.
“Y… You can’t be serious,” Larry said between puffs on an extra-large inhaler. “Not… him! He’s unpredictable! Dangerous!”
“And that’s exactly what we need,” Barry said.
Larry picked up the phone, his chubby hand shaking so much that he misdialed several times before one of the bodyguards stepped in. Relief washed over his red face.
“H… He’s not picking up,” he said. “He’s in India donating another kidney to an orphan.”
“Dammit!” Barry yelled, banging his fist on the console. “Get me a helicopter! We have people in Equestria! Time is ticking!”
#
Somewhere in India
The clinic was lit with candles; barely bright enough for a normal surgeon, but he was no normal surgeon.
A product of a millennium-long breeding program, Gary A. Stewart was the pinnacle of human evolution. Standing at 7 8 feet he towered above all the common folk. His hair was lustrous black, dark as the night. double triple quadruple-muscled, he weighed in at more than five hundred pounds, and could lift ten times that. Artists flocked like hummingbirds to paint his perfect, unblemished face.
In the faculties of the mind he lacked nothing. By age eight he had mastered half of all known languages, and now he spoke them all. With ten PhD’s completed in five years, he was the most educated man in history. His Nobel Prize medals were abundant enough to be made into a belt for his sizable waist. In fact, such a belt was holding up his pants at this very moment.
His muscular back glistened with sweat. An intricate pattern of dark blotches spanned from the lower left side of his back to his right shoulder. Most people assumed it to be a tattoo upon first seeing it, and a reasonable person would not blame them.
Birthmarks were rarely that perfect.
He finished suturing his side. The wound had already stopped bleeding.
Third kidney this week, he thought. If only I had a better healing factor, I could help even more people.
The child would not wake up for a few more minutes. Seeing him sleeping so peacefully brought a single tear to Gary’s iridescent purple eye.
Go on. Be happy. Have the childhood I never got.
Having lost both parents and every living relative in a tragic fire caused by a plane crash in the alley where they were taking family portraits, Gary had been raised since the tender age of five by the Emperor-king-president-minister’s Secret Service. Over the years he rose in rank, until he became director of the Secret Service, the second most powerful man in the known universe.
Then it happened.
Gary wiped his eyes and looked at the palms of his perfect hands. He had everything: respect; fame; fortune; a kickass sword collection. Yet something felt off. He had lost something somewhere; a part of his soul. And now, nearly a year after leaving the Secret Service behind, he was no closer to finding it.
The distant sound of a helicopter caught his attention. His superhuman hearing allowed him to discern the make and model of the aircraft, and what he heard was not promising.
He gave the sleeping child one gentle pat on the shoulder before exiting the clinic.
“Get him to the recovery room,” he said to the nurses waiting outside. “Call me if there’s a problem.”
“Oh, thank you, Gary!” One of them said, giving him a peck on the cheek before hurrying into the operating room.
Gary spoke to no one as he marched out of the hospital. The helicopter was still a ways away, with a searchlight pointed at the ground. He buttoned up his shirt just as the light fell on him.
“Agent BlndDog! Get in!”
Most people could not discern a voice through the deafening noise of a helicopter blade, but Gary could.
The aircraft did not need to land. Gary easily sprang the fifty sixty feet, grabbing onto the landing gears with one hand. The other he twirled above his head, signalling the pilot to leave.
“I don’t go by that title anymore,” he said when he climbed into the cabin. “I’m retired!”
“Sorry sir,” said a pilot, an ordinary-looking Irishman. “It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” Gary asked as the coastline passed below.
“Don’t know sir,” he replied. “Mr. O’bama would not say.”
“He better have a damn good reason,” Gary said. “Where is he?”
“London,” said the pilot.
Gary’s heart sank.
Not this again.
#
War Room, London, England
“Why is he called ‘BlndDog’?” Angela O’tenson asked.
The tension in the war room had dissipated somewhat. Two bodyguards watched the stargate at all times. So far nothing had come through, and the message feed was equally unexciting. Most of the scientists had been evacuated, except for a handful of technicians to keep everything running.
“It’s unassuming,” Barry said, staring thoughtfully into the glowing blue portal. “He’s a very deep character, you know? He’s this huge guy, strongest and smartest man in the world and everything, but he’s also really sensitive. He doesn’t want to intimidate anyone.”
“That’s so sweet,” Angela said.
They barely heard the helicopter before the big glass ceiling came crashing down. The bodyguards turned their attention upwards. A few shots were fired. All of them missed.
The shirtless man landed in a crouching position, leaving a small crater in the concrete floor. Clinging on to his muscular back was a dazed-looking bikini-clad Swedish supermodel.
“You still know how to make an entrance, I see,” Barry said drily, crossing his arms. “And who is your friend here?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gary said, looking at the woman as if for the first time. “I saw here over the ocean. She was about to get eaten by sharks, and I couldn’t just leave her.”
“Well, she has to go,” Barry said sternly.
Gary lowered the woman to the ground. She kissed him on the cheek before the bodyguards grabbed her and took her out of the room.
“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” Gary snapped, rounding on the Emperor-king-president-minister. “You wonder why I left? Well, this is part of it!”
The remaining bodyguards formed a formidable wall, which nevertheless did nothing to slow Gary’s advance.
“That thing is dangerous! I did my best to destroy everything in my lab before I left, and somehow you still managed to get this working. What have you been using it for?”
“Just to contact the aliens,” Barry said, wiping nervous sweat off his brow as he backed away.
“They’re not aliens!” Gary said. “They’re beings from another dimension! Don’t tell me you’ve sent people through this thing!”
“Well, yes,” Barry said. “Look, they were just some street kids. The other side seemed really nice, and there’s not enough money in the budget for…”
“How many ‘street kids’?” Gary interrupted, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“About a thousand,” Barry said slowly.
“You sent the entire orphanage to Equestria?” Gary screamed.
“I’m sorry!” Barry said. Backed against the wall, he sank to his knees and grabbed onto Gary’s glorious golden belt of Nobel Prize medals. “I had to balance the budget, and this portal gave me so many options! It was so tempting, and so easy!”
Gary took a deep calming breath and turned to the portal.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Equestria is under attack,” Barry said as he dusted himself off and joined Barry in front of the stargate. “Something called ‘changelings’. You see, I negotiated a deal with the other side; with ‘Canterlot’, whatever that means. Princess Celestia, their leader, agreed to take as many people as I can send, if we agreed to send help when she is in danger. Now they need help.”
“What do I get?” Gary asked.
“If Canterlot falls, who knows what will happen to the orphans?”
Gary looked long and hard at Barry.
“When I come back, I’m taking your job.”
“I’m counting on that, m’boy.” Barry had a sad look in his eyes. “You know, it didn’t have to go like this. These last few years. But this is not time to dwell on the past.”
The door flew open, and half a dozen balding men in lab coats and thick glasses entered the room pushing rattling trolleys.
“Your gear,” Barry said. “And a few new things.”
Gary went to the first trolley. The orderly trembled as he approached. Balanced precariously across a standard specimen tray was a giant ancient badass enchanted Japanese sword. Its hilt and scabbard were decorated with gold-leaf images of wild horses, and the metal of its blade glowed with a faint blue light.
His ornate black armor was spread out over five carts. Forged inside a volcano and fastened with leather from the last dragon, it was truly a masterpiece. The helmet alone weighed 100 150 pounds, and most people could not move the chestplate.
“I have all I need,” Gary said as he tightened the straps around his chest and adjusted the sword on his back.
“One more thing,” Barry said, putting his hand on Gary’s.
The contents of the last cart was unexpected. The most prominent item was a mint green plush toy with big eyes; a cartoon pony. She it had a gold lyre as its quarter mark. Beside the toy was a black metal rod.
“Something new we developed while you were gone,” Barry explained, lifting the second object off the tray. It was slightly too big to hold comfortably. “Mark 15 Laser Pen.”
Aiming it at the metal wall, Barry flicked the switch. A blinding green beam burst from the business end, accompanied by a whirring noise. Sparks exploded from the target, and a second later there was a smouldering red circle where the beam had hit.
“I don’t like laser pens,” Gary said. “The Mark 14 burned out my eye, remember? That’s why I’m technically a cyborg now.”
“That was a mere engineering oversight,” Barry said rather defensively. “The Mark 15 is designed especially for you. Just take it with you, okay?”
“And what is the toy for?” Gary asked.
“For hiding the laser,” Barry said.
Quickly he stuffed the laser into the toy, and handed the entire package to Gary. The entire process made Gary rather uncomfortable.
“Take care,” Barry said, patting Gary’s chestplate and looking solemnly into his eyes.
Gary sighed and turned back to the portal. It was tall, but he had to duck a little in order to pass through.
It felt like falling, but a lot faster. Gary closed his eyes. A powerful wind howled all around him, and through his eyelids he saw flashing lights and incredible images. He clung to the plush toy with one hand, keeping the other on the hilt of his sword.
And then it was over. Gary barely managed to land on his feet. The force of impact made him release the toy. The armor rattled on his back.
“Pah!”
Gary jumped in surprise.
Standing on the pavement beside him was a mint green pony with a picture of a golden lyre on her flank. Her mane was a complete mess, and she was spitting and coughing. On the ground in front of her was a saliva-soaked metal rod.
“What was that for?” She said, kicking the thing away.
“Where did you come from?” Gary gasped, reaching out to pat down her mane with one gigantic but gentle hand.
“I’m Lyra,” the pony replied. “I... Gah!”
A glistening black and blue creature tackled Lyra to the ground. The black fangs in its griming mouth were dripping with green slime.
“Lyra!”
The poor changeling did not even get to react before it disappeared. Its hard carapace whistled as it sailed through the air, higher, higher, higher, finally disappearing with a glint and a chime.
“Are you okay?” Gary asked, helping her up.
“Yeah, fine,” Lyra said. “I can take care of myself.”
“You should stay with me,” he said, effortlessly picking the pony up and placing her on his right shoulder. He paused at the laser pen in the puddle of drool.
“Take this,” he said, handing it to Lyra. “Careful where you aim it.”
Standing tall, Gary turned in a slow circle. The city around him was full of huge white buildings. To the north was a steep mountain side with a magnificent white castle clinging on for dear life. The red dusk sky was filled with swarming black shapes. Terrified screams and rustling chitinous wings filled the streets, and dust and smoke rose from gaily-painted rooftops.
“Alright Lyra,” Gary said under his breath. “Let’s do this.”
The nearest pair of changelings barely had time to look up before Gary’s fist collided with their faces. They sailed through the air, vanishing into the higher atmosphere with a sonic rainboom that surprised even Gary.
For a split second Canterlot was silent. And then sound of a thousand million beating wings filled the air. The sky grew dark as the entire changeling invasion force rose into the air.
Gary stood there stoically. Lyra clutched the laser pen close to her chest, with a determined look on her face.
“Come and get me you filthy changelings!” Gary cried.