Chapter One: Mantis' Hymn

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“Following Dr. Emmerich – or Otacon, as he calls himself –‘s advice, I headed to find Meryl, who had disguised herself as a guard. As you know, she had one of the PAL override keys which I would need to override Metal Gear REX.”

It had been two days since Solid Snake had managed to successfully stop the terrorist cell FOXHOUND from using Metal Gear REX to launch a nuclear strike against the United States, in what was quickly becoming known as the Shadow Moses Incident. Although Snake had planned on going off into the Alaskan wilderness with Colonel Campbell’s daughter, Meryl, he had been tracked down by the government using his codec as a tracer, and brought in for a debriefing. Now, he was facing Colonel Campbell himself, and explaining first-hand what he had experienced in the darkness of Shadow Moses.

“How did you find Meryl?” Campbell asked. Although he had kept some secrets from Snake during the Shadow Moses Incident, he nevertheless respected Snake, and vice versa.

“Well….” Snake chuckled gruffly. “Let’s just say that she has a distinctive walk.” Snake lit a cigarette (the fourth during this debriefing), before continuing with his tale.

“After I managed to find her, I revealed myself to her without the other guards in the room noticing. She then went away to a nearby bathroom, where we regrouped.”

“Was this when Meryl gave you the card?”

“Yeah.” Snake took another puff of his cigarette, not caring about the damage it was doing to his lungs. Although Campbell didn’t realise it, he was purposely stalling the next part of the debriefing. “We met up in the bathroom, and Meryl gave me one of the three cards I would need to override REX.”

Although he didn’t say anything, Campbell inwardly sighed. He never understood why Snake would repeat himself so much during conversations – that is, whenever he wasn’t making puzzled grunts. Campbell was considering looking into the possibility of Snake’s codec affecting his hearing, but wasn’t sure whether he could think of a decent enough excuse for it, nor whether Snake would even allow it.

“And at this point, you were in the nuclear warhead storage building, weren’t you? The same one where you had found Dr. Emmerich and fought that… Cyborg Ninja?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I had fought the Cyborg Ninja to protect Otacon, before heading upstairs to find Meryl. This was all in the nuclear warhead storage building,” Snake continued, either not hearing Campbell’s quiet groan, or not caring. He took a look at his cigarette, disappointed when he saw how little of it was left, before continuing.

“Colonel… let me tell you, this next part of the mission… it was… strange.”

“Strange?” Campbell asked, missing the irony of his question.

“Yeah, strange. You knew about FOXHOUND’s resident psychic, Psycho Mantis?”

“Yes… we had doubted whether he really existed or not, or whether his supposed abilities were real, but from all of the evidence we had, it seemed as though he was a true psychic,” Campbell mused.

“Well, keep that in mind, because the next part of this debriefing is going to sound a bit… odd.

After leaving the bathroom, Meryl and I headed up a corridor to a previously locked door. Based on the information we had on Shadow Moses, I was fairly sure that it would lead towards the communication towers, which we would need to pass through on our way to REX’s lair. We were outside it, about to use a key Meryl had acquired for it to enter when… everything suddenly went silent. I hadn’t realised it before, but all throughout my mission, there had been at least some sort of music playing. But now… that music had suddenly stopped.

As I pointed this out to Meryl, she suddenly fell to her knees, shouting out that her head was hurting. From the way she was clutching her head, I could see that it was serious. I looked around, panicking. I hadn’t been in a situation like this before. Was this an illness? An attack? I asked her directly – “What’s wrong?” The reply I got was nothing short of incoherent – “Don’t come here, Snake!” What on Earth was happening? This all came out of nowhere!

And then, as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. Meryl stood up. “Are you okay? What happened?” I asked. If this was an attack of some sort, it was the weirdest that I had encountered yet.

“I’m fine. Let’s go,” Meryl replied. I didn’t say anything, but compared to before, she sounded… different. As though she wasn’t in control of herself. But what was I to do? She said that she was fine, and we still had a mission to complete. Warily, I stepped through the now unlocked door, with Meryl following me from behind.

As we passed through the door, we found ourselves in a well-furnished room. It felt somewhat out of place – almost like the office of a corporate head, with its fancy couches, paintings, and plants. Unfortunately, it seemed as though our information on Shadow Moses was incomplete after all - there seemed to be no way out of the room other than the way in which he had come. How could we get to the communications towers now?

“Ah!” I spun around at this noise, to notice Meryl acting strangely once more. Only this time, she was moving jerkily, as if being controlled by another, unseen person. She slowly raised her gun at me, and moved in my direction. What was going on here?!

“Snake…do you…like me?” she asked. Just as with her movements, her voice was nothing like it should have been naturally, instead sounding both forced and being spoken in a monotone. I was starting to get really worried now, not knowing what I should do as Meryl made advances towards me, both physically and romantically. As I struggled with how to react, I suddenly noticed the man behind Meryl, who hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Who’s that?!” I exclaimed, half-sure of the answer already.

“Huh? You don’t like girls?” he taunted arrogantly, sure that I couldn’t match him. Before I could think of the best way to attack him, I received a call on my codec.

“Snake. Meryl’s not herself. Don’t use your weapon,” Campbell said, worried for his niece’s safety. Well, obviously, I thought to myself, wondering what sort of idiot would attack Meryl in my position.

“It’s Psycho Mantis,” Naomi Hunter added in, confirming my suspicion that FOXHOUND’s psychic had elected to confront me and Meryl. “He’s controlling Meryl. That tune is his mind control music.” Huh? I thought, wondering what music she was talking about, and why exactly a psychic would use music to control someone. I brushed the thought away, deciding that I had bigger things to worry about at the moment.

“Don’t use your weapon,” Campbell repeated, somehow thinking that I hadn’t gotten the message the first time he told me. “Try to knock her out.” For a moment I was tempted to repeat his statement back to him as a question, but again, I realised that this was no time for joking around.

I exited the codec conversation. Luckily, Psycho Mantis hadn’t taken advantage of my vulnerability during said conversation. I had noticed a similar thing earlier in Shadow Moses whilst facing the other members of FOXHOUND, and I couldn’t fathom a reason why they were ignoring me whilst I engaged in codec conversations. Had Liquid given them orders not to attack me if I were too vulnerable? Did they all have some uncannily common shared sense of honour? Whatever the reason, I wasn’t going to question it.

Meryl was still advancing towards me with the gun aimed. At this point, with her actions controlled by Mantis, there was no telling what she could do. Remembering Campbell’s (rather obvious) advice, I did the only thing I could – I retrieved a stun grenade from my supplies, and pulled the pin. If this didn’t stop her, I’d have to resort to hand-to-hand combat – much riskier, as I could potentially be vulnerable to Mantis himself during this time. Fortunately, my idea had pulled off, and Meryl was knocked out by the grenade.

“Useless woman!” Mantis raged. I was calming down a bit now that Meryl was safe from Mantis, and I got a better look at him. He appeared bald, and was wearing a gas mask with large, orange lenses. Most of his body was made up of… some sort of bondage-like suit, I would have said. From what I could see of his tall, thin body, he was very pale. And I had thought that Ocelot was weird….

Looking over him, I realised why Mantis hadn’t been visible when Meryl and I had entered the room – he had been wearing stealth camouflage, similar to the type Otacon had mentioned to me. Although I felt prepared to fight him, I decided to try and unnerve him a bit.

“Optic camouflage, huh? I hope that's not your only trick,” I said with a hint of smugness. As I had hoped, this increased the anger he was feeling from my stopping of Meryl.

“You! You doubt my power!?” he cried angrily. I readied myself, knowing that he was about to lash out at me. I felt a hint of dread for a moment – what powers did Psycho Mantis have, exactly? Whilst I had the opportunity, I checked on Meryl to see whether she was okay, which she fortunately was.

“Now, I will show you why I am the most powerful practitioner of psychokinesis and telepathy in the world!” Psycho Mantis said as he floated into the air. Okay. I should have prepared myself for it, but still… that was impressive. I was about to say something, when he interrupted me. “No... there's no need for words, Snake. I am Psycho Mantis. That's right... this is no trick. It is true power.”

Now I was starting to feel more threatened than I had at the start of our confrontation. I whipped out my SOCOM, thinking that he probably wouldn’t be able to use his psychic powers with a bullet in his brain!

“It's useless. I told you... I can read your every thought,” Mantis said decisively. My every thought? I wondered. What was he going to do? Read my past? Tell me what video games I liked? “No… that is too simple for the great Psycho Mantis!” he replied, reading my thoughts just as he had claimed. “This… this is the true power of a master psychic!” he declared.

I wanted to shoot the SOCOM… to stop him now, before this fight could get any more dangerous than it already was. But even as I tried to squeeze my trigger finger and fire at him, I found the gun falling out of my hands. A pain had started rising in my head, more excruciating than the worst migraine imaginable. I realised that I had dropped to my knees even as Meryl had before, and that I too was clutching my head in pain. How…? How could Psycho Mantis do this to me? What was he doing to me?

“Yes… yes, that should do nicely,” I heard his soft voice saying. There was a blackness spreading across my vision, but it barely even registered as I fell face forwards into the floor.

…

I blinked. The pain in my head was gone. Just like that. What was Psycho Mantis doing to me? Even as I questioned this, I realised that I was still face-down on the floor. Only… it didn’t feel like the floor of the office should have felt. It felt more like… dirt, as strange as that seemed. But how could that be?

I opened my eyes and got up. I found myself blinking in the harsh light, which prevented me from immediately recognising my surroundings. What was happening? Did Psycho Mantis knock me out and transport me to… to some sort of torture room? Was this all part of his psychic powers, and I was imagining this all? All of these questions, and one hundred more, flew through my head as my eyes adjusted to the light.

After a minute or so, I could see the reason why the floor hadn’t felt right – because it wasn’t a floor. It was a dirt path. Looking around, I could see some trees, grass, a decently-sized village up a few hundred metres away… in other words, someplace that was nowhere near Shadow Moses.

I checked my belongings. I had the exact same equipment as I had had prior to fighting Psycho Mantis, down to the last bullet. With that somewhat reassuring knowledge, I did the logical thing, and called Colonel Campbell on the codec.

“… or at least, I tried to call you, but I couldn’t get a response,” Snake admitted.

“You couldn’t get a response when you tried to call us?” Campbell repeated, once again failing to realise the hypocrisy of his repeating Snake’s question back to him.

“No – and the weird thing is that as you know, I managed to call you fine just before I took out Meryl.” By now, Snake had started his fifth cigarette.

“Hmm… that was strange. We just assumed that you didn’t need our help at this stage of your mission, and that’s why you didn’t call us.” Campbell shook his head, speaking more to himself than Snake. “A pity… I had some great advice for how you could defeat Mantis if you couldn’t work it out yourself.”

Snake gave a small grunt at this, before continuing his story.

When I realised that I couldn’t get through to Campbell or Naomi, I tried calling some of my other contacts. But none of them – Otacon, Mei Ling, not even Deep Throat – could get through to me. After fruitlessly trying to work the codec, I looked down to the small village I had noticed before. It looked as though the best plan of action would be to find out where I was first, and what was going on.

Luckily, as I still had all of my equipment, I had kept my most important tool – my cardboard box. Smirking somewhat at how lucky I was to have the box, I pulled it over myself and slowly began crawling towards the village. As I crossed over a small stone bridge, I began to notice how bright some of the town’s colours were in comparison to Shadow Moses. Wherever I was, it was somewhere far, far away from my mission.

I had just entered past the first house, when I froze. A shiver went up my spine. I had felt some anxiety fighting Psycho Mantis, yes, but this new feeling was pure terror. The unimaginable had happened. Something had happened which I thought impossible.

Somehow, someone had gotten inside of my cardboard box with me.

With sweat breaking out on my brow, I looked to the side of the box. Considering that it could barely fit me in it, I wondered how on earth someone else could fit inside. They’d have to have some sort of reality-breaking powers for it to work, I thought confusedly.

In the darkness of the box, two oversized, almost comical blue eyes were staring at me. I felt another shiver go down my spine. Was this Psycho Mantis’ power? Was this the extent of his abilities, that he could cause my worst nightmare to happen, and have someone invade the sanctity of my box? Then, even as I began to shake at this prospect, I heard a noise. The person was speaking! They weren’t threatening me… they weren’t even taunting me.

“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! Who are you?!”

Chapter Two: Look Before You Sneak

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My feeling of anxiety changed into that of confusion. If this was an attempt on the part of Psycho Mantis to baffle me, then it was working. I squinted my eyes, still trying to work out how this… Pinkie Pie… was fitting into the box with me. After I failed to provide an answer to Pinkie’s question, the high-pitched, somewhat squeaky voice continued to talk.

“Bit of a quiet one, huh? That’s what Twi was like when she first arrived here in Ponyville! But then I threw her this really cool party, and we went to the Summer Sun Celebration, before we went into the Everfree Forest on an adventure! And then we found the Elements of Harmony and stopped Nightmare Moon and met Princess Celestia and Princess Luna! Cool, huh? But it wasn’t just us two, it was my other friends too! Well, I mean, I’m friends with everypony, but these were my best friends that we went on the adventure with! Oh, and we met a sea serpent, and Dashie met the Shadowbolts, and, and –”

The voice kept speaking faster and faster as it went on. Whoever this Pinkie was, she (I assumed it was a she from the voice) was causing my cardboard box to lift higher and higher with every word, almost as if she was bouncing up and down as she talked. I growled, sure that she would blow my cover before I could find out anything about where I was. In one swift movement, I pushed the box off the two of us, whilst drawing my SOCOM with my other hand to aim at her. At least, that’s what I was planning on doing, before I saw who Pinkie Pie was.

In front of me, bouncing up and down in glee, was… a pony. A bright pink one, with a thick messed up mane and tail, almost embodying the very idea of chaos. Although it was hard to see with her frantic bouncing, she seemed to have some sort of multi-coloured mark on the upper part of her back legs, but I couldn’t make it out with her speed. All I make out of it was that it was blue and yellow.

“ – and then Twi got tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala, and I was super-duper excited becau- hey, you’re not a pony!” Pinkie Pie said as she saw me, fully visible now that I was out of the box. The thought of reaching for my SOCOM had completely dropped from my mind, as I was completely stunned at seeing whom my mysterious visitor had been. Pinkie went silent for a moment, and stood still on the spot as she looked over my messy brown hair, headband, stubble, and black sneaking suit. Then she went back to talking, even faster and more excited than before.

“You’re a human! Oh, Twilight’s told me all about humans! She read about them in some of her books! And then she wanted me to read this book which she thought I would like, but I accidentally knocked over her bookshelf, so I had to help her pick up the books but instead I helped her build a book fortress! I wish you could have been there, it was so fun! And then we got hungry so we went and bought-”

I ignored Pinkie’s gushing as I drew out my SOCOM and pointed it at her. I had gotten over my moment of confusion, and I had worked out what was going on. It was the only explanation which made sense.

“Give it up, Octopus. That may be the most elaborate… if unnecessary… disguise that you’ve ever used, but I can see right through you.” I was certain that Decoy Octopus, the master of impersonation from FOXHOUND, had disguised himself as this pony… even if I couldn’t work out why he would do such a thing. Rather than freezing, however, my target fell down in roars of laughter.

“I’m – not – an – octopus – silly!” Pinkie gasped, struggling to speak in-between breaths. She was literally rolling around with laughter, having found my accusation much more hilarious than I had imagined. As I watched her happy giggling, I slowly started to believe that she was what she seemed to be. For one thing, Octopus disguising himself as a pony would make no sense. For another, in spite of his legendary impersonation skills, I failed to see how he would be able to make his mass the size and shape of Pinkie Pie.

As that thought went through my mind, I wondered how Octopus would pass himself off as a person shorter than himself, before brushing it off as unimportant. Still, I wasn’t completely convinced that this sentient, English-speaking pony wasn’t a person in disguise, and so I kept my gun aimed at Pinkie.

“I admire your ingenuity, but the fact that this disguise is so perfect is what betrays you, Octop-” It was no use. As soon as I started to say the name “Octopus”, Pinkie erupted into another fit of giggling, just as she had started to calm down from the first one. After a moment of thinking, I sighed and put my gun away. If this really was Decoy Octopus, I’d rather be captured or killed than have to sit through this inane laughter.

I was starting to walk away, planning on finding another resident of…wherever I was…. when I heard Pinkie calling out from behind me. “Wait! Don’t go!” I turned around to see that she had stopped laughing so uncontrollably, although she was still lying on the ground.

“What is it?” I asked, tensing myself for a sudden fight.

“I can show you around Ponyville if you like!” Pinkie said cheerfully. As she said so, she picked herself up from the ground and… well, the only way to describe her movements towards me is with the word bounced. Pinkie bounced over to me, as if her hooves had springs attached to the bottom of them. I considered her offer for a moment.

“Yeah. Sure,” I replied. As much as I hated to admit it, I was in strange territory here, and had no idea where I was or what could happen. If Pinkie Pie was anything to go by, this place could be filled with… anything, really. For now, I needed a guide.

“Okey dokey lokey!” Pinkie replied, smiling at me. She was somewhat uncomfortably close to me now, apparently never having heard of personal space. I tapped one of my pouches to make sure that I had access to my gun, should we encounter any adversaries.

“Let’s go,” I said. I still had a mission to complete on Shadow Moses, and the sooner that I could find out where I was, the sooner I would be able to leave and return to my mission. Really, I was the only person who could stop my brother Liquid Snake and his group FOXHOUND from launching a nuclear strike against the United States.

“Okay,” said Pinkie Pie cheerfully, unaware of my current thoughts, and how much they likely contrasted with hers. “Just follow me, uh… what’s your name, anyway?” she asked curiously.

“Snake,” I answered instinctively. A moment later I found myself regretting it, as once more Pinkie had fallen to the ground, and was laughing her hooves off at my codename.

===================

Several years ago, I had been sent to the small nation of Zanzibar Land to carry out an infiltration, just as I was now supposed to be doing with Shadow Moses. Whilst there, I had faced an infamous mercenary known as Running Man, who planned to defeat me through a combination of his physical speed and toxic gas. In the end, I had managed to defeat him using some landmines, and had thought that he was one of the fastest people whom I would ever meet.

In hindsight, I can see why I would think so, having never expected to meet Pinkie Pie in my lifetime. This pony just didn’t seem able to stay still! As we walked through the town, which I had discovered was called Ponyville, Pinkie would rush from one place to another, as if worried that I would get bored if she didn’t show me something new every five seconds.

“Ooh, and this over here is Sugarcube Corner! I work there with the Cakes, and I – no, wait, I have to show you the Ponyville town hall! You see how it’s damaged? Applejack was planning on – wait! I can tell you that story later, this is more important! You see how Berry Punch’s house looks like it’s been torn out of the ground? It was all because Big Macintosh and Cheerilee– no, waitaminute, I haven’t even shown you where Fluttershy lives yet!”

“Huh?” I grunted, only vaguely paying attention to the places she showed me. I wanted to be out of here as soon as possible, and wasn’t worrying too much about the scenery. I still had a mission to get to. Pinkie stopped where she was and gave me a quizzical look.

“What do you mean, huh? Does this mean that I have to show you everything again?!” she cried out despairingly. I couldn’t tell whether she herself was getting tired of the tour she was giving me, or whether she was disappointed that I hadn’t been paying attention.

“No, it’s fine, Pinkie,” I reassured her. “Tell me, could you take me to that friend of yours? The one who you said knew about humans?” I was hoping that this friend of Pinkie’s would be able to find a way to send me home. So far, most other ponies, which appeared to be the dominant life form in this place, were avoiding me. I suspected that humans were probably just as mythical and unheard of here as talking, multi-coloured ponies were to me.

“Ooh, you mean Twilight? Good idea! I haven’t even shown you the library yet!” Pinkie said before bouncing off again. I followed her, hoping with all my might that this Twilight friend of Pinkie’s would have some clue of how to send me back to Shadow Moses. Although that being said, if Twilight was anything like Pinkie, I’d probably end up given another tour of town, or being laughed at for another half hour.

“Hey Snake, do you like music?” Pinkie asked, having stopped bouncing along for long enough that I had caught up to her. Instead, she was walking like a normal pony presumably would.

“Do I like… music?” I repeated. It was the first relatively normal thing that she had said, leaving me baffled. Maybe she wasn’t as chaotic as she appeared on the outside. “Yeah, I suppose- ” I started, before I was interrupted by her.

“Good!” she cheered as she started bouncing again, this time in circles around me. I kept on walking in the direction we had been heading, hoping that we were close to Twilight’s house. As she bounced, she spontaneously burst into song.

“Snake is here in Ponyville, whoopee, whoopee!
He’s a human looking for a unicorn pony, pony!
Head over to that big ancient oak tree, oak tree!
It’s where Twily lives in her libraryyyyy!”

Although I had found it somewhat awkward at first, as it made me feel as though I was an outcast here (which I supposed I was, technically), I suddenly found myself grateful for the lack of other Ponyville residents approaching us. Even if Twilight could send me back home... even if I would never see any of them again… nothing would stop the embarrassment which I would be feeling if they saw me with this crazy, pink pony singing directions to me.

Nevertheless, I followed Pinkie’s instructions, and headed over to a large tree, with a sign with a picture of a book outside it. Unlike most trees, this one had a door built (or grown?) into it, and it had several windows. In addition, there were several balconies which I could see on the higher levels. Clearly, this tree had been either modified somehow, or grown specifically for ponies to live in.

As I was about to reach out a hand to knock on the door, Pinkie suddenly zoomed out under my outstretched arm and to the door, and beat me to it.

“Twilight! Twilight! You’ll never guess what I have here!” she called out excitedly. Great, I’m Pinkie’s item to show off to other ponies now, I thought. The sound of hooves walking across the floor came from inside the tree.

“Is it more of those zebra fireworks you bought in Canterlot?” a voice spoke, sounding half-sarcastic, half-interested. The door opened, and I found myself looking at a light purple pony who was about the same size as Pinkie Pie. Her most notable feature was a horn coming out from somewhere behind her dark purple mane, which I supposed made her a unicorn. Whilst I was taking note of her appearance, I noticed a star-like mark on both of her upper back legs, in roughly the same position as Pinkie’s blue-and-yellow mark which I couldn’t see properly. Is this some sort of tattoo they get? I wondered.

Upon seeing me, Twilight’s mouth dropped open. I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, as she seemed at least somewhat more sensible than Pinkie had been, if more shocked. As she took me in, likely comparing me to whatever tales of humans she had heard before, Pinkie danced around me once more, happily gushing once more. “It’s a human! You thought that they were just old mares’ tales, but I knew that they existed and that they wanted to come to Equestria!”

“Pinkie…” Twilight started, still somewhat shocked. “Have you been messing with- with that wall again?” she asked, sounding concerned now. I had no idea what she was on about, but judging by her words, it seemed as though Pinkie was just as every bit chaotic and random as my first impression of her had been.

“Nope! I found him on the outskirts of town!” Pinkie said cheerfully, still bouncing in circles. “He was playing hide-and-seek in this silly box, but I found him, and then he called me an octopus!” She stopped bouncing for a moment to stop and look at Twilight seriously. “I mean, can you imagine it? Me, an octopus?!” The very thought of such a thing sent Pinkie into another fit of laughter. “He’s so funny!” she roared.

“The name’s Snake,” I introduced myself. By now, Twilight seemed to have pulled herself mostly together, and was looking excited at the prospect of talking to a human. “It’s not quite like that, but the important thing is that I’m stuck here in Ponyville. Pinkie mentioned that you’ve heard of humans. Can you think of a way to send me back home?” I wanted to get the point, and not stick around for any longer than necessary. I still needed to stop FOXHOUND’s nuclear threat.

“What’s going on?” Twilight asked, interested.

“Twilight, you’ve got to listen to me!” I had to get back right away, and if being abrupt and rude was the way to do so, I would.

“Who are you? I mean, you're human! How can there be a human in Equestria? It's not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible!” Twilight asked me, ignoring my words in favour of her own. I grunted in displeasure.

“Please, Twilight, this is important!” I was beginning to get annoyed now. Fortunately, Twilight seemed to realise, and restrained herself long enough to listen to me.

“Okay. What is it?” she asked, seriously now.

“I’ve come into your world by accident, and I have to get back to mine. I’ve got an important mission to complete, and I’ve only got a limited amount of time to do so.” I decided not to go into the specifics of the threat, nor the fact that this could all be taking place in my head thanks to Psycho Mantis’ powers. “Have you ever heard of a way to send a human back to their world? Or done so?” I doubted the last part, but it was worth a shot.

Twilight shook her head sadly. “I’m sure I’ve read of a way in one of my books…” she started.

“Good. How soon could you send me back? I need to go right away.”

“…but, well I’ve lost track of it.” Upon hearing this, I glared at her a bit, angry at her incompetence.

“How could you lose track of something like that?” I asked. Twilight gestured with a hoof for me to come inside her house.

“Well…” she started as I walked through, with Pinkie bouncing through behind me. She seemed content to listen to our conversation, probably hoping that I would make another “hilarious” joke. “…I have a lot of books,” Twilight admitted awkwardly.

I took a look around the room. Even with the quick glance I was giving everything, I could see that the walls may as well have been made of books thanks to the extent with which they were packed tightly into the bookshelves. There must have been thousands of books there, and this was just in this room! I could see a staircase leading upwards to another floor, where I was certain there would be even more books.

“You mean there’s no chance of me returning home?” I asked her slowly, as I realised how impossible a task I was asking. Once more, Twilight shook her head.

“No, it’s not impossible,” she said hopefully. “It’s just going to take… really, really long to find the right spell,” she admitted, not meeting my eye. Although I could see that she definitely wanted to help me, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

“How long? You did hear that I have a limited amount of time to return, didn’t you?” I asked, trying to keep my anger in check. I had lost track of time, and had no idea how long there was until FOXHOUND’s deadline ran out. To my surprise, Twilight didn’t seem fazed by this.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true. You’re obviously from a different universe to this one, and from what I’ve learned of time dilation – believe me, I learned a lot about time a little while back – your universe will probably have different rules to this one. So relative to Equestria, time may have slowed down or even stopped back in your universe!” She gave a reassuring smile to me.

May have slowed down? That’s not good enough! I silently thought. As I went over our conversation in my head, I realised that I would probably simply have to stay in Ponyville whilst Twilight tried to find the spell to transport me back to Shadow Moses… for however long that would take.

I sighed. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but what other choice did I have? “Time may have slowed down?” I repeated back to her.

“Yes, it may have,” she replied, giving me a funny look. I sighed, knowing now that my only hope of stopping FOXHOUND lay with this piece of information.

“So, Twilight, I’m guessing that you’ll help me get back to my world?” I asked, just to confirm. She nodded, smiling. “Good. Until then, is there anything I can do?” Twilight thought for a moment.

“I suppose that you should find a place to stay, introduce yourself to some of the town ponies so that they don’t freak out whenever they see you… and otherwise just kill time,” Twilight suggested. As she finished talking, I hear what sounded like an explosion of fireworks behind me. However, when I turned around, all that was there was Pinkie Pie, bouncing up and down on the spot in glee.

“Ooh! Ooh! Snake! Do you want to stay with me?! I live at Sugarcube Corner! It’s so fun! We can stay up all night eating cake and playing games and then go downstairs and eat cupcakes- Do you like cupcakes?! They’re so amazing! I can teach you to make them if you don’t know! All you have to do is take a cup of –” I held up my hand to silence Pinkie, who to my surprise quietened immediately.

“Thanks, Pinkie, but I’ll have to decline that offer,” I replied. There was no way that I was going to stay with this… spirit of chaos. I turned to Twilight. “Twilight, do you have a spare room or bed here I could stay in?” I asked. This library seemed more peaceful than… well, than wherever Pinkie was going to be. And if the reactions of the town ponies to me were anything to go by, I may not be welcome anywhere else, at least not until I had introduced myself and explained my presence.

“Of course I do!” Twilight said brightly. “There’s a spare bed upstairs – I just hope that you don’t mind a baby dragon sleeping in the same room.” I looked to Pinkie, but she had no outside reaction. Baby dragon? Surely she’s joking, I wondered.

I looked around the room, which would be my home for an indefinite length of time. I just wanted to return to my mission at the moment, but for now, I was stuck here. I grimaced, then turned to Twilight.

“Alright, Twilight. Sounds like this will have to do.” At this, Twilight suddenly started tapping her forehooves together in excitement. It looked like she still was somewhat excited at the prospect of meeting a human for the first time, and couldn’t contain it anymore.

“Hurray, slumber party!”

I grimaced. This was going to be a long stay.

Chapter Three: Operation: Cottage Infiltration

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“You know, Snake, you seem to have adapted to the idea of talking ponies fairly quickly,” Twilight pointed out to me. After giving me a tour of her library (during which I found out that Twilight really did have a baby dragon living with her), we were now out on the streets of Ponyville, with Twilight promising to give me a more traditional tour of Ponyville compared to Pinkie’s one. I grunted.

“Believe me, Twilight, this is nothing next to those hamsters I had to get past in Zanzibar Land.” I inwardly shuddered, hoping that she wouldn’t ask about them, which she fortunately didn’t. At the moment, it was just the two of us walking the streets, as Pinkie had said something about needing to work, before dashing off. Although I was pleased with this, I was fairly surprised that she could hold down a job.

As we walked, I noticed that the other residents of Ponyville weren’t acting as cautious as they had before, and that whilst they weren’t approaching me as readily as Pinkie Pie had, they seemed to be somewhat more comfortable with my presence than before. I pointed this out to Twilight.

“Yes, they’re probably just assuming that you’re related to some sort of magical experiment of mine now that they’re seeing you with me,” Twilight replied. As we continued around town, she told me a similar situation which had happened some time ago, in which a zebra visitor was initially feared by the entire town, until Twilight and her friends had realised that she was merely misunderstood.

“… which turned out to be for the best, as Zecora has become a great friend of mine! Although I don’t always get to see her that often,” Twilight finished.

“Huh? Zecora is a great friend of yours?” I asked, having only vaguely been listening, paying more attention to the layout of the town. After a moment, I realised that Twilight had stopped in front of a large, fancy, carousel-like building, coloured mostly with blues and purples.

“What’s this building?” I asked, not as interested as I was pretending to be. Twilight smiled at me.

“This is the home – and workplace, too – of my good friend Rarity! I figured that I may as well introduce you to all of my friends, since you’re going to be staying in Ponyville for a while.” I scowled at this reminder, whilst Twilight knocked a hoof on the door of the building.

“Comiiing!” came a voice from inside in a sing-song tone. From what I could hear of the voice, it was almost… British sounding. After a moment of waiting, the door opened to reveal a white pony with a dark purple mane. Like Twilight, she had a horn, marking her as a unicorn. Her mane was somewhat curly, although stylishly so, rather than naturally so. On her flanks were pictures of three diamonds.

I really do need to ask Twilight what those marks are, I thought to myself. So far, it seemed as though every pony had these unique marks. As I took in this white unicorn (what did Twilight say her name was? Rarity?), Twilight started speaking to her.

“Hello, Rarity. How are you doing today?” she asked friendlily.

“I am doing most brilliantly,” Rarity replied in that same posh accent. “I have just finished designing my latest project, and all that remains to be done is to create it, and then we shall be all set for the Grand Galloping Gala, should we choose to attend this year!” She hadn’t seen me yet, as I was standing a little distance from Twilight, and she was too engaged in her story to pay proper attention.

“That sounds great, Rarity!” Twilight replied, interested. I gave a small noise of displeasure, which she thankfully didn’t seem to hear. Whatever Rarity was on about, it sounded like the exact opposite of great.

“Oh, but where are my manners? Come inside, Twilight!” Rarity said, turning around and heading back in. Twilight gestured for me to come closer.

“Actually, Rarity, there’s a reason I’ve come to visit you… Snake, come inside!” she called out as she walked in. I followed surlily, hoping that our visit to Rarity’s house wouldn’t take too long.

“Rarity, I have a new friend who will be staying with me for a while,” I heard Twilight saying as I walked into the house, nearly bumping my head on the door as I did so. I frowned at hearing this. Since when were we friends? I was just going to be in town for as long as I needed to, that was all. “This is Snake, and as you can see, he’s, well… a human,” she introduced.

I gave Rarity a small nod. “Hey.” As Twilight had when she first met me, Rarity had been staring at me, somewhat gobsmacked.

“A…human?” she repeated. From her tone, I couldn’t tell whether she was amazed or confused. A moment later I got my answer, as her eyes sparkled and she jumped up and down on the spot, in a manner not too unlike Pinkie Pie. “Oh, this is fantastic!” She stopped bouncing to talk to me directly. “I’ve never been able to design clothes for a human before! Oh, I shall have such fun with this! I shall have to completely rethink the way I normally do things.”

“Huh?” I had no idea what was going on here. “You’ve never… designed clothes for a human before?” I asked.

“Why, of course not, darling! I normally only design clothes for ponies!” As she spoke, Rarity had retrieved a pencil from a drawer, and was already hurriedly sketching out on a piece of paper. I noticed that both her horn and the pencil had a blue, sparkly glow around them that hadn’t been there earlier, indicating that she was controlling the pencil with her horn, somehow. “And I mean, how can you stand to wear that black costume all the time? It looks a little, well, simpliste, don’t you think?”

I looked over myself, failing to see the problem Rarity was implying. “I need this suit to be this way,” I grumbled. “It’s for camouflage.”

“Oh, but why didn’t you say so before, Snake?” Rarity asked. From the sounds the pencil was making, it sounded as though she was scribbling out the design that she had been working on, and starting a new one. I looked over to Twilight, who looked as though she was trying not to laugh.

“Don’t worry – she made me try on about twenty different outfits the first time I met her,” she whispered to me. Luckily, Rarity seemed too absorbed in her work to hear her.

“Now, if it had a pattern like this – oh, goodness no, now it looks as though it is covered in bananas – how about this sort of design? No, that would only be useful in a snowy environment… Oh, I know! I shall give it a pattern scheme like this – yes, that looks very useful for disguising oneself! Although it does remind me somewhat of moss…” Twilight looked to me, as baffled as I was. She cleared her throat before speaking up.

“Well, Rarity, it was nice visiting you, but we’d better get going. I’d like to show Snake around town some more,” she said. Although Rarity was still engaged in her work, she stopped to talk to us.

“Ta-ta, Twilight! And ta-ta to you too, Snake! It was nice meeting you, and I shall be sure to have some better clothing for you the next time you visit!” I grimly nodded, not caring in the slightest. For now, I was happy to stick to my sneaking suit.

Twilight and I headed out of the boutique, leaving Rarity to her designs. “Where next?” I asked. Twilight thought for a moment before answering.

“If Fluttershy isn’t in town at the moment, she should be home right now. Her cottage is towards the outskirts of town.”

“Fluttershy, huh?” As I followed Twilight, I took out a cigarette and lit it. “Hey Twilight?” I asked after a moment, with the cigarette in my mouth. “What are those marks you ponies have on your flanks?” This was something which had been confusing me since I had arrived in Ponyville.

“Oh, you mean our cutie marks?” Twilight asked, stopping to look back at hers. Now that I got a better look at it, I could see that the large, pink star was surrounded by several smaller white stars.

“Yeah. Your cutie marks.”

“Oh, well those are special marks that appear on a pony’s flank when they discover their special, unique, talent that makes them different from everypony else!” Twilight sounded enthusiastic about this, and I guessed that it was a topic that was very personal to her.

“Huh. So yours is a star. Does that mean that you’re good at astronomy?” Twilight giggled quietly at this, and I rolled my eyes in response. It’s not that funny, I thought.

“No, my special talent is magic. Unlike most unicorns, I can perform a large variety of spells, not just a hoof-full of basic ones.”

“Perform spells, huh?” I repeated. I thought about it, and it made sense, in a way. “Your cutie marks are similar to the logo which I used to wear when I was in FOXHOUND. Even though it didn’t uniquely identify me, as your cutie mark does, it still feels like an important part of your identity, which solidifies who you are to yourself.” I took a puff of my cigarette before continuing.

“In this day and age, knowing who you are is important. There are so many factors which can make you who you are – genes, memes, even your scene. Particularly in the digital age, when we’re overwhelmed with information, and can be inspired by virtually anything, taking that inspiration on and making it part of who we are; changing ourselves to fit. Who are we, exactly? That’s something you’ll have to work out yourself.”

Whilst I had been talking, I had stopped following Twilight, and had closed my eyes as I talked, thinking carefully about my choice of words. I opened them now, to see her some distance away, looking back to me with an odd expression on her face.

“Uh, Snake? Are you done talking now?” she called out. I walked over to her, and we kept walking.

“You mean you didn’t listen to what I just said?” I asked, confused.

“No offense, Snake,” Twilight began, “but nopony enjoys speeches like that. If you gave them the option somehow, I imagine that most ponies would rather just skip it than listen to the entire thing.” I was stunned. I hadn’t even realised how long-winded my speech had been getting.

“Really? But what if I have an important message to give to people?” I had almost finished my cigarette by now.

“They still won’t listen to it if it’s as long as that, no matter how important it is. You need to find a way to shorten your speeches.” I was genuinely surprised by this.

“Huh. Alright,” I simply said, feeling a bit bitter about her response. Nevertheless, I was sure that there would be someone who would listen to my messages about finding your own identity, even if that someone had to be a pasty, white-haired, unlikeable person with an irritable and constantly nagging girlfriend.

===================

“Okay Snake,” Twilight said, standing outside Fluttershy’s cottage door, “Fluttershy is very timid, and so she might end up a bit startled when she sees that you’re a human. So please try not to be too intimidating, okay?”

I scowled at this. Aside from my initial meeting with Pinkie Pie, I hadn’t drawn any of my weapons at any point since I had arrived in Ponyville. What did Twilight think I was going to do that would be so intimidating to this pony? Surely she wouldn’t be that frightened of me, would she?

Twilight turned to the door once she was satisfied that I understood the message, and knocked. Was it just my imagination, or was she knocking more quietly than she had been at Rarity’s? The door opened slowly.

“Oh, hello Twilight,” came out a soft voice from the door. “What are you doing here?” it curiously asked. I was standing to the side of the door, and so the owner of the voice couldn’t see me, and vice versa. I presumed that it was Fluttershy.

“Hello Fluttershy!” Twilight replied, confirming my thoughts. “I’ve actually got a friend here, who is probably going to be staying at my library with me for a while, whom I’d like you to meet. His name’s Snake!”

“Snake?” asked Fluttershy, sounding slightly confused. “But I thought that you didn’t like snakes, Twilight. Remember what happened at Winter Wrap Up?”

“Oh no, he’s not an actual snake,” Twilight laughed. “He’s… well, he’s not exactly from around here, so prepare yourself, Fluttershy.” She gestured for me to step out and reveal myself.

“Well, I’m sure that no matter where he’s from, he’s – EEK!” I had slowly stepped out, in keeping with Twilight’s suggestion, to see who this Fluttershy was. Upon catching sight of me, she let out a short, high-pitched wail, and slammed her door shut, all in one swift movement. Although it had been incredibly quick, I almost could have sworn that I saw an exclamation mark physically appear over her head when she saw me, but after I blinked it was gone, so I supposed that I must have imagined it.

I turned to Twilight, not sure what I had done wrongly. She shrugged, and went closer to the door. “Fluttershy, are you okay? Snake’s not as scary as he looks.” I frowned angrily. Again, she was mentioning that I was frightening!

“He’s so… big,” I heard Fluttershy squeak out from behind the door.

“Well yes, he is a human, so he is a good deal larger than we are,” Twilight reassured Fluttershy. I got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time she had had to calm Fluttershy down from a fright. After a moment of silence, Twilight leaned further into the door. “Sorry, Fluttershy? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“But he… he looks so… so scary!” came the response, even more high-pitched than Fluttershy’s previous one. I saw Twilight roll her eyes before replying.

“Fluttershy, remember on Nightmare Night, when you were scared by Princess Luna?” Twilight asked, trying to stay as calm and friendly as possible. The only response she got was a small whimper.
I couldn’t take this anymore. Leaving Twilight to reassure Fluttershy, I walked around to the back of Fluttershy’s cottage without Twilight noticing me leaving. If Fluttershy wouldn’t at least try and let me meet her, then I would just have to find my own way to do so.
Examining the back of Fluttershy’s house, I found a window which I could fortunately open from the outside, and which was unlocked. I found myself shaking my head at the lack of security, before I reminded myself that I was in a small town of magical talking ponies, not infiltrating Shadow Moses.

I was halfway through the window, and could make out Fluttershy huddled in front of her door, still talking to Twilight on the other side. With her being as huddled as she was, and at a bit of a distance, all I could see of her was that she had a pink mane and yellow fur.

At that moment, several things happened. Firstly, Twilight realised that I had disappeared, and started calling out for me. “Snake? Snake?! Snaaaaaaakkkkeeeeee!!!!!!!” Secondly, a small white rabbit jumped out from somewhere out of my field of vision, and glared at me. Don’t tell me that the rabbits here are intelligent, too! I thought, frustrated.

It seemed that they were, as this rabbit leapt onto my back, and kicked me in the neck. As I was already halfway through the window, this sent me crashing to the floor painfully. “Oof!” I grunted, feeling like murdering this rabbit. For a moment, I recalled hearing about my mentor, Big Boss, living off rabbits and other wildlife whilst on one of his missions in the 1960’s. Right now, eating rabbit sounded incredibly tempting to me, even though I would normally rather distance myself from Big Boss.

From my position on the floor, I could see Fluttershy turn away from the door at the sound of me crashing through the window. She let out another shriek, but with nowhere to hide this time, she simply cowered on the floor. I picked myself up (ignoring the rabbit running all over me and kicking me), and walked over to her.

“Please- please don’t hurt me,” she whispered, shaking with fear. Getting up closer, I noticed for the first time that she actually had two wings, one on either side of her body. They were pressed so closely to her sides that I hadn’t seen them earlier.

“Huh?” I asked, wondering why she had thought that I was going to hurt her. Okay, granted, I broke into her house, but still….

At that moment, the door briefly gained a purple sparkly glow, and was thrown open. A second later, Twilight galloped in. “Fluttershy! What’s the matter?” She looked up and saw me standing a metre or two away from Fluttershy, who was cowering, naturally.

“I thought that you wanted me to introduce myself to Fluttershy,” I said gruffly. “Since she wasn’t opening the door, the window seemed the best way in.” The small white rabbit was still trying to kick me, so I leant down and picked him up, holding him out from my body so that he couldn’t reach me.

Twilight glared at me. “Snake! There’s having good intentions, and then there’s trying too hard to help somepony!” She leaned down and stroked Fluttershy’s mane in an attempt to reassure her. Speaking half to me, and half to herself, she said “I’ve got half a mind to tell this to Princess Celestia in my next friendship report.”

I clenched my hands into fists, feeling like punching something. I didn’t care who this Princess Celestia was, why Twilight was sending her a friendship report, or how Fluttershy was feeling. I just wanted to get out of here, and return to my mission. All of the ponies in this town were crazy!

However, as much as I wanted to voice these feelings, I knew that Twilight was my only chance of returning to Shadow Moses, and so I restrained my anger. “Twilight. Fluttershy. I’m sorry about this,” I said gruffly, not caring as much as I was pretending to. After a moment of hesitation, I added in, “I think that it would be best if I explored town on my own for a bit.” Let’s face it, being social was not my area of expertise, nor did I want it to be.

To my surprise, Fluttershy looked up from the floor she was sobbing into. “S-Snake… sorry I was so – so scared.” I stared at her. “I hope you can forgive me –” her voice had dropped to a whisper by now “- if that’s okay with you.” I hesitated, before nodding at Fluttershy (which she didn’t see, as she had buried her face back into the floor), and Twilight. I walked over to the door, stepping through so that I was standing just outside it.

“So Snake… I’ll see you back at the library tonight?” Twilight asked slowly. Already, she seemed to be regretting speaking so harshly to me, just as I was regretting acting so hastily. I couldn’t afford to piss off my only way back home.

“Yeah. The library, tonight,” I confirmed. Turning my back on them, I walked away from the cottage, looking to get some space away from these ponies.

I found out later from Twilight that several minutes after I had left, she had said to Fluttershy, “Are you feeling okay now?”

“I am a little, thank you, Twilight. Yay!”

Chapter Four: It Needs To Have About 20% More Friendship

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Orders. They were the reason that I had been sent to Shadow Moses, although the fact that the FOXHOUND terrorists had been threatening a nuclear strike also added to persuading me into accepting the mission. What then was I, a soldier, supposed to do here, in a land where my orders no longer applied? Was this further proof that to the governments, soldiers are nothing –

“Hey, is somepony hiding in there?” A voice interrupted my lengthy train of thoughts. I froze, hoping that the unknown owner of the voice wouldn’t look any closer at my hiding place.

To my annoyance, a moment later the cardboard box covering my body was lifted by a pair of hooves. The owner of these hooves was a sky-blue pony, with a multi-coloured, somewhat spiky mane. Like Fluttershy, she had wings at her sides, but unlike Fluttershy, she was actively using her wings to hover in the air.

“I thought that there was- hey! You’re a human!” the pony said. From the pony’s tone and physical appearance, I couldn’t immediately tell whether it was a male or female pony. I grimaced as the pony recognised me as a human, certain that a minute or so of stunned silence would follow.

“Yeah. What of it?” I asked bluntly.

“That’s pretty cool! What are you doing in Equestria?” To my surprise, this pony wasn’t as amazed at my presence as the others I had met had been. The pony stopped hovering and landed in front of me, possibly to get a better sight of me.

“I was fighting a psychic in a secret facility, when he somehow sent me here,” I replied, warming up to this pony slightly more than the others I had met so far. “Since then, I’ve been looking for a way to get back to my mission.”

“Have you tried talking to Twilight Sparkle?” the pony answered. “She can be a bit of an egghead at times, but at the end of the day, she really knows a lot of useful things. Maybe she can help you get home!”

“Twilight… Sparkle?” After a moment, I realised that this was the Twilight whom I had already met. “Yeah, I met her earlier today, but when she was introducing me to her friends, I scared Fluttershy. I’m staying away from her for a while.” The blue pony, whom I had deduced was a female, rolled her eyes.

“Urgh, tell me about it! Fluttershy really needs to toughen up!” After a moment, she looked to me seriously. “But she’s a great friend anyway. I’m always glad to have her watching my back!” she said proudly. I got the feeling that this pony thought a bit more highly of herself than the others I had met.

I smiled grimly at this statement. “You’ve got to be careful who you choose to watch your back. Despite what we’d all like to think, today’s ally could be tomorrow’s –”

“You talk waaay too much,” the pony interrupted me, sounding bored with my speech. “You should also learn to talk about more awesome things. Like how I do!” She leapt into the air and went back to hovering.

“So tell me, you’re friends with Twilight?” I asked, ignoring her.

“Oh, didn’t I make that clear? Name’s Rainbow Dash! The best flier in all of Equestria!” It looked like I was right about this pony’s pride.

“Rainbow Dash, huh?” I replied. “My name’s Snake. So tell me, what do you do when you’re not being the best flier in Equestria?” It seemed as though Rainbow Dash was a close friend of Twilight’s from what she was implying, so I figured that I should get to know her at least a little if I was going to be stuck in Ponyville.

“What don’t I do?” she replied with a heavy air of confidence. “I learn new tricks to try to get into the Wonderbolts, I work with other pegasi to control the weather, I hang out with my awesome friends – in fact, I was just on my way to visit Applejack. The track we’re on now leads out to her farm.” I thought for a moment. Whoever this Applejack was, she was evidently a close friend of Rainbow Dash’s. By extension, that would make her a friend of Twilight’s.

“Sounds like a plan,” I growled. I didn’t really care about this Applejack character, but I figured I should get to know some more ponies as long as I was going to be here. And let’s face it; I already knew about half of Twilight’s friends, so I should probably meet the others.

“Alright! Follow me, and you’ll see why I’m so awesome!” Rainbow said before flying off, although not so fast that I couldn’t follow at a decent pace. I grunted, before following her.

===================

“What’s Applejack like, Rainbow? Do I have to worry about scaring her, as I did Fluttershy?” We were walking (or flying in Rainbow’s case) past a large, dark red barn, which Rainbow Dash had confirmed belonged to Applejack’s family. Rainbow Dash laughed.

“Nope, Applejack’s one of the toughest ponies around! If you don’t count me, that is.” How I wished that I could have, Rainbow. The entire trip to the farm had been nothing but her bragging about how she had perfected something called a Sonic Rainboom, talking about how awesome some group called the Wonderbolts were, and asking me if I liked Daring Do, whoever that was.

Rainbow Dash led me to a large field full of apple trees, where we found an orange pony with a yellow mane kicking trees, sending apples falling out of them and into pre-placed buckets as a result. Judging by her cutie mark being three apples, I assumed that this was Applejack, which was confirmed a moment later when Rainbow Dash called out “Hey Applejack!”

“Howdy Rainbow,” Applejack replied without looking up from her kicking of the trees. “To what do ah owe the pleasure?”

“Well, I was going to ask you to check out my new move I perfected,” started Rainbow Dash, “but I’ve got even cooler news for you!” She looked down to me from the air and gave me a smile which I didn’t return.

“And what’d that be?” Applejack spoke with something of a Southern accent, and from looking at her I saw that she wore a cowboy hat which I hadn’t noticed before.

“Well, as it turns out, we’ve got a human staying here in Ponyville!” Rainbow Dash pointed her hooves to me as if presenting me, to which I rolled my eyes.

“A what now?” Applejack asked, stopping her assault on the trees to come over and talk to Rainbow Dash. She noticed me as she was walking over. “Oh, a human! Now ah remember Twilight tellin’ me about them!” A moment later, she had dashed over to me, grabbed one of my hands in both of her hooves, and was shaking it furiously.

“Pleased to meet ya! My name’s Applejack! What’s yours?” she asked enthusiastically. I pushed her hooves away with my free hand.

“Snake. Solid Snake.”

“Well ah’ll be! Humans have the same sorta names as us ponies do!” I rolled my eyes, as I wasn’t going to explain the reasoning behind my codename. “So, what’re y’all doin’ in Ponyville, Snake?”

“As I explained to Rainbow Dash, I was sent here by an enemy of mine. I have no idea how, or why he would choose Ponyville of all places to condemn – I mean, to send me to.” Luckily, neither Rainbow Dash nor Applejack seemed to notice my slip of the tongue.

“Well, ain’t that a buck between the hind legs!”

“Huh?” What the hell was she on about?

“Not to worry though, ah’m sure that y’all will be back home quicker than a rattlesnake in July!” Applejack raised a hoof, perhaps to place on my shoulder, before realising that I was much taller than she was and lowering it hastily. “Y’all will be in good hooves with Rainbow Dash, ah can tell y’all that much,” she added. “Have ya been giving Snake a bit of a look around Ponyville, Rainbow?”

“Well, I actually only met him a few minutes ago,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “I was coming here anyway, so Snake asked if he could come. He’s already met Twilight and Fluttershy!” I opened my mouth to add that I had also met Rarity and Pinkie Pie, before deciding that it wasn’t worth the effort, and closing it.

“Well, do ya want to show us all that new move y’all were talking about earlier?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash. “Ah’m sure it’ll be mighty impressive, and it’ll give Snake something to talk about when he gets back to… to… to wherever he’s from!” Neither pony saw me rolling my eyes once more.

“Great idea, AJ! This’ll be sure to impress you, Snake! It’s gotta be at least 20% cooler than the last trick I learned!” Part of me wanted to explain to Rainbow Dash that you couldn’t measure how cool something was with numbers, whilst another part wanted to stay silent and watch to see whether she could live up to her claim. The latter part of me won, and I gave Rainbow a small nod.

Rainbow Dash gave a bit of a smirk, before flying directly upwards. I’ll admit then, that my jaw dropped a little. At the speed at which she had accelerated, it was a wonder that her fur hadn’t caught on fire from the air friction. Once up high enough, she started flying in a wide loop, gaining speed at a near impossible rate. This attracted a large number of clouds to her, which merged together in the centre of her circle into one large cloud.

I couldn’t see the next part of Rainbow’s trick well enough from the ground, but I assumed that she suddenly dropped out of the circle and flew into the gigantic cloud, as the cloud itself suddenly… exploded, sending smaller parts of cloud zooming everywhere. I’ll admit that it did look pretty impressive. As I watched the clouds fly off everywhere, Rainbow Dash flew down to Applejack and I.

“Pretty cool, huh? And I can complete it in just ten seconds flat!”

In the debriefing room, Colonel Campbell was looking at Snake sceptically. That is to say, more sceptically than he had at the start of Snake explaining how he had been transported to a world of magical, intelligent, talking ponies.

“How on Earth could this so-called trick work, Snake? You should know that clouds don’t work like that!” Snake shrugged.

“What can I say, Colonel? Maybe the weather works differently in Equestria to how it does here.” The Colonel shook his head sadly.

“Can’t believe you expect me to believe all of this,” he muttered to himself. He made a mental note to look into Snake’s medical records, and see whether there was any chance of Snake having schizophrenia as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder. After a moment of silence, Snake spoke again.

“Colonel…”

“Snake…”

“Have you ever looked into using pegasi for aerial combat?” After taking a moment for this to sink in, the Colonel exploded with rage.

“What the – Snake, what on Earth are you on about?! Pegasi are not real!”

“I know that,” Snake replied coolly. “It’s just… Rainbow Dash was a pretty good flier.”

“So if they’re not real, why would you suggest such a thing?!”

“They can also move clouds and control the weather, you know. If pegasi were recruited into the air force, I’m sure that their efficiency would increase by at least tw-”

“Snake. We are not discussing this now. Continue with your debriefing report.” Snake grunted angrily, and then continued as the Colonel had requested.

Although Rainbow Dash’s constant bragging and self-promotion had been pissing me off, I had to admit it – she could live up to her claims. Mostly. I gave her a nod, having genuinely enjoyed her trick.

“Well ah’ve gotta say, that looked amazin’ from down here! You’ll be sure to get into the Wonderbolts if ya show off that to ‘em!” Applejack said, clearly just as impressed as I was.

“Thanks. I’ve still got a few kinks to work out with it before I can show it to the Wonderbolts, though,” Rainbow Dash admitted, looking somewhat humble. “I’m thinking of calling it the Sonic Cloudboom.”

“Sonic Cloudboom, huh?” I asked. “That was pretty impressive trick. When will you get a chance to show these Wonderbolts?”

“Unless they end up judging another flying competition, I probably won’t see them until the next Grand Galloping Gala, if then,” Rainbow replied. “And I’m not sure whether I even want to go to another Gala after the last one we all went to.” Rainbow shuddered, obviously having some terrible memory of the last of these Galas that she had been to.

“Now wait just a minute,” Applejack said to Rainbow. “Th’ last Gala we went to may not have met our expectations at first, but we all ended up having a good time by the end of it, didn’t we?” Rainbow Dash shrugged.

“I dunno… I had a good time, but I still really wish that the Wonderbolts had taken more notice of me.” Whilst Applejack and Rainbow Dash continued to discuss this Gala and whether they wanted to go to the next one or not, I quietly lit one of my cigarettes and began smoking. As I inhaled, it occurred to me that there might not be any places in Ponyville where I could restock on cigarettes should I run out. It was certainly a sobering thought.

“Hey Snake, would you be interested in going to the Gala?” Rainbow Dash suddenly asked me, breaking the conversation with Applejack. I snorted.

“No thanks. The only way you could get me there would be if one of the FOXHOUND terrorists were making an appearance as a guest of honour.” Although I had no idea what this Grand Galloping Gala thing was, I had no interest in it. The name told me all I needed to know about it – it wouldn’t provide me with a way home, so therefore it was unimportant. At the mention of the FOXHOUND terrorists, both Applejack and Rainbow Dash gave me confused looks. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to ask me something, when she was unexpectedly interrupted.

“That’s a pity. You would likely look rather dapper in fancy clothes, Snake,” a posh voice rang out. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and I all turned in the direction of the sound to find Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all trotting towards us. Naturally, it had been Rarity whom had just spoken.

“Howdy, y’all!” Applejack called out, obviously pleased to see them. A moment later, she frowned in confusion. “Pinkie, didn’t you say ya were workin’ this afternoon, so y’all couldn’t come for a visit like ya wanted to?”

“I was working, but when the Cakes saw how excited I was over making friends with Snakey here, they said I could leave early so that I would stop causing such a mess!” Urgh, that would be just my luck.

“What are you all doing here, anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked. I had been wondering the same thing myself.

“Well, after Fluttershy and myself met with Rarity and Pinkie, we were looking for you, Rainbow Dash, to introduce to Snake,” Twilight explained. “You as well, Applejack,” she added. “And then we saw this enormous cloud explosion over Sweet Apple Acres, and it was obvious where you were, Rainbow. Who else but the best flier in Cloudsdale could do something like that?” Rainbow Dash grinned, happy with the praise.

“But why were you all looking for me?” I asked, unable to work out what they wanted with me. Twilight suddenly looked guilty, and she looked to the ground rather than facing me.

“I’m sorry, Snake. I was far too strict on you for scaring poor Fluttershy here. I was so concerned with how Fluttershy felt, that I didn’t even consider how you felt, being in a strange land and not knowing anypony!” Strange was putting it mildly. “I’m sorry that I was so harsh on you earlier.” Actually, I had been looking for an excuse to ditch these ponies at the time, but I knew better than to admit that and complicate things.

“And I’m sorry too, Snake,” Fluttershy said softly, speaking to me properly for the first time. “Here Twilight was, trying to introduce me to you, and instead I couldn’t help but panic at the sight of you! I’m sorry that I couldn’t keep my fears in check…” she said, her voice trailing off as she spoke.
Well, that explained why they had all come looking for me. I was about to tell them that they needn’t had bothered, that I had wanted to be on my own, when I realised why they had really come looking for me: all of them considered themselves my friends, as Rainbow Dash and Applejack did too, no doubt. I hesitated in speaking. I hadn’t had a real friend since… since before Zanzibar Land.

Instead of telling them that they needn’t have bothered, as I had been planning to a moment ago, I held out a hand to Twilight, to shake her hoof as Applejack had shaken mine when I first met her. (Albeit less energetically). She took it without hesitation.

“Don’t you worry, Snake! I’ll work as best as I can to find a way to get you home!” To tell the truth, I actually smiled at that. Maybe I didn’t consider these ponies my friends as readily as they considered me to be theirs… maybe I really was the ruthless killing machine which some considered me to be, and which these ponies had no idea about. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t work together with them whilst I was stuck in Ponyville.

“Well, it sounds as though we’ve all learned a good lesson about friendship today!” Rarity suddenly said. My smile vanished.

“Huh?” Where did that come from?

“Yes, good point, Rarity!” Twilight agreed. “Spike, take a letter,” she said, before realising that Spike, the baby dragon she had introduced me to earlier, wasn’t around. Instead, she gave a small smile, and said “I mean, Snake, take a letter.”

What?!

“Dear Princess Celestia,” Twilight started, closing her eyes to dictate. “Sometimes, when one of your friends is hurt or in danger, you can disregard the feelings of your other friends, and prioritise one over another. But in being a good friend, you have to learn to consider the feelings of all of your friends, not just one of them. In doing this, you can see that maybe your other friends have a problem or fear as well, and learn to care about all of your friends, not just the ones who have the most immediate problem.”

“From your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,” she finished, opening her eyes. She turned to me, still smiling. “Did you get all of that down, Snake?”

“Get all of that down? Was I supposed to?”

“Well, it is not as though any of us can write efficiently with a quill,” pointed out Rarity, examining her hooves as she said so.

“But you have horns you can move things with! I saw you drawing earlier today!” I protested. How in the hell was I supposed to have known that I needed to write letters for these ponies?

“Yes, well, I don’t exactly have a quill or paper on my person now, do I?” Rarity asked me. Twilight Sparkle nodded, agreeing with her.

“And neither do I!” A moment after I said this, a thought suddenly occurred to me… A thought which was confirmed as all of the ponies around me burst into laughter.

“Oh Snake, can’t you see that we’re just playing a simple joke on you?” Twilight asked, still chuckling slightly. I frowned for a moment, before cracking a slight smile.

When I had been assigned to infiltrate Shadow Moses, I had been prepared to do my best. To handle any test or challenge which I might need to face – for I can do so many tricks, and have a handful of skills up my sleeves. But I hadn’t been prepared for this: to end up allying with a group of intelligent, multi-coloured ponies.

It looked like this was going to be an interesting stay in Ponyville after all.

Chapter Five: Cutie Mark Acquisition Mission

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“Ooh, this spell looks interesting… and I know from past experience that I can cast it!” Twilight exclaimed as she read one of the thousands of spell books which she had in her library. I threw down the book I had been skimming through (“Supernaturals: Natural remedies and cure-alls that are simply super”), and walked over to her. We were both in her library, surrounded by piles of books.

“You know from past experience that you can cast it?” I repeated after her. I had been living in Ponyville with Twilight Sparkle for two weeks now, and had been spending most of that time looking through Twilight’s books for a spell to return me to Shadow Moses. I was hoping as best I could that Twilight’s theory about time between our universes working at different rates was true, otherwise Liquid Snake would had already launched a nuclear strike, and there was virtually no point in returning to my now-failed mission. In theory, anyway.

“Yes, I sure can!” Twilight said cheerfully. She levitated the book around to show me what the spell she had found did. “How do you think that you would look with a moustache?”

“Moustache, huh?” I was somewhat dismayed that the spell she had found wasn’t relevant to my situation, but for her sake I went along with it. “No thanks, a moustache isn’t really my thing.” After a moment of thinking, I added, “Maybe when I’m old and grey I’ll give it a try.”

“Why wouldn’t you want a moustache? Don’t you realise how macho it makes you look?” Spike questioned. He wasn’t helping us directly with the research, but had been clearing away books, and finding new ones for us to look through. When he wasn’t sleeping, that was.

“I’m fine without one, Spike,” I affirmed, before heading back over to find the book I had been reading through. Twilight and I continued reading through her numerous spellbooks for the next few hours, not speaking unless necessary. I was finding the work tedious – normally my preferred reading material was a bit dirtier than what I was currently scanning through.

As time wore on, I found myself reading the books more and more slowly, until I finally gave up. As much as I needed to return home, I couldn’t find the motivation to keep reading about all of these minor and uninteresting spells. I stared at the cover of the book I was currently holding, not thinking about it, but rather a conversation Twilight and I had had the day I had arrived in Ponyville…

===================

“… so no matter how dangerous it looks, please don’t just lasso a tree without thinking. You’ve got that, Snake?” It was the first night of my stay in Ponyville. Twilight had finished setting up the area of her library which had been designated my space, and was just giving me a lecture on what not to do in the middle of the night.

“Sure,” I replied. I wasn’t exactly sure why she was telling me this information; the only tree which could potentially damage Twilight’s house looked fairly destroyed, as though it had been struck by lightning at an earlier time. Still, Twilight struck me as the sort of mare who would prepare for every situation, so I could vaguely see the point she made.

“Excellent!” Twilight replied, happy that I was complying. As she started setting up her own bed for the night (Spike was already asleep in a small basket), she continued talking. “I’m sorry that my friends were so… forwards with you today, Snake. They do take a little getting used to – especially Pinkie Pie – but they’re the best friends a pony could ask for!”

“Huh. That’s fine,” I answered as I stared out the window to the night sky. Twilight’s friends – and in fact, Twilight herself - had actually been annoying at first, but I was going to give them a chance, so long as I was trapped in Ponyville.

“What about you, Snake?” Twilight asked after realising that I wasn’t going to say anything further. “What are your friends like?”

I hesitated. My old mentor and friend, Frank Jaegar… were we still friends? It had only been hours ago that I had fought him. He had wanted me to kill him, to end his painful existence as the Cyborg Ninja which he had become. It had been both physically and mentally painful to fight him, and I hadn’t been sure whether I even wanted to fulfil his wish.

“It’s…complicated,” I finally answered. “My mentor, Grey Fox… we used to be friends, before we were forced to fight each other in a pointless battle. I…” I paused again, trying to convey the emotions I felt. I gave up after some anguish. I couldn’t do it.

“That’s terrible!” said Twilight, seeming genuinely concerned with my brief explanation. She trotted over to me, trying to comfort me. “So your only friend… is now your enemy?” I thought about this for a moment. With the possible exceptions of Master Miller and Colonel Campbell, did I have any more friends?

“Well… there’s this one guy I met,” I said, thinking of Doctor Emmerich. “He’s a scientist. But considering how badly I’ve failed my last attempt at friendship, I’m not sure whether I could bear to make another friend only to lose them.” For all I knew, Emmerich had been found and killed by now.

“You can’t be afraid to make a new friend, Snake,” Twilight protested quietly. “Before I came to Ponyville, I had even fewer friends than you… I was always ignoring other ponies, and putting my studies ahead of socialising.”
Why didn’t that surprise me?
“But after I came to Ponyville, and my friends and I used the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon – ” Wait, what? “- I realised how magical friendship really could be!” I snorted. How saccharine.

“Look, Twilight, I can see where you’re coming from… but Grey Fox… I just don’t know how I feel about him. I fought him earlier today at his wish, but still… if I had to sacrifice him to save the world, I still don’t know what I’d do.” I sighed and turned away from the window, sitting down on my bed.

“Well, what about this other person you’ve met?” Twilight asked with a hint of curiosity in her voice. “It never hurts to make more friends, Snake.” I laughed humourlessly.

“Sure, why don’t I become friends with this guy? I can make him my sidekick, and we can even get our own secret handshake which only we know!” Twilight couldn’t see the point that I was trying to make: I’d had friends before, but I just couldn’t make the effort anymore. I was a soldier, and soldiers such as I don’t get to make friends. Today’s friend could be tomorrow’s -

“Snake,” Twilight said, interrupting my train of thought, “for your own sake, I’m going to ask you to at least consider making friends with this… scientist that you know.” I didn’t say anything. I’d already said everything which I needed to.

“I’m going to bed,” I growled after a long silence. I climbed into my bed, as did Twilight to her respective bed.

It felt like hours that I lay awake for, although it was probably only ten minutes. There was no way of telling how long had passed. I had a lot to think about since arriving in Equestria. After a few more minutes of thinking, I spoke out quietly in the darkness.

“Twilight… You give good advice.”

===================

“Find anything, Snake?” Twilight asked me, interrupting my recollection. I glanced at the book I had been slowly reading for the past few hours.

“No,” I answered, disappointed. “I was hoping that this book might have some sort of supernatural way for me to get home, but it’s just about all of these different types of plants.” Twilight’s expression of disenchantment matched mine.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure that we’ll eventually-” she started, before being interrupted by the door to the library banging open.

We both turned at this sudden, unexpected noise. I don’t know what Twilight was thinking, but the stealth operative in me instinctively expected the worst, and I was already reaching for my SOCOM before I realised what had burst through the door.

“Alright girls, you know what we need to do!”

“Sure do, Sweetie Belle!” Then, after a moment of silence -

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS BOOK RESEARCHERS!!!”

I relaxed, having encountered these three fillies before. Over the course of the past two weeks, I had been around town enough now that most ponies in town had heard how I had been transported to Equestria, and whilst I wasn’t exactly becoming popular, I was still well-known enough that most ponies were comfortable around me.

These fillies had formed a club (although they insisted on calling it a “secret society”) called the Cutie Mark Crusaders, determined to acquire their cutie marks through any means possible. It looked like today they would be aiming to get their cutie marks in research.

“Hello girls,” said Twilight, wincing a little from their noisy entrance. She stood up and walked over to the trio. “What can I help you w-”

“Twahlight, we need books!” exclaimed the yellow Earth pony with a bow in her red mane. I’d only met the Cutie Mark Crusaders once, and it had been brief, but I was fairly sure from memory that her name was Apple Bloom.

“And we need them right now!” added in the pegasus member of the group. After a moment of thinking I remembered that her name was Scootaloo, a name which didn’t really make sense to me. The name sounded more appropriate for a chicken than a pegasus, but then again, I wasn’t a native Equestrian, so what was I supposed to know?

“Okay girls, what sort of books would you like?” Twilight asked politely. I had forgotten more than once that she was the town’s librarian, as she rarely seemed to actually lend out any of her books to ponies.

“Anything you’ve got on… anything!” Scootaloo replied, clearly excited to get reading. Twilight rolled her eyes (although from the look on her face, she found them more endearing than annoying) and opened her mouth to answer, but I beat her to it.

“Anything she’s got on anything, huh?” I asked, standing up and walking over to the Cutie Mark Crusaders. As I did, I noticed that they cowered a little, and I had to remind myself that I still probably looked fairly intimidating to the younger ponies in town. “Believe me; you won’t manage to hone your skills that way. A soldier has to focus themselves into their work, to learn the ins and outs of something – whether that something is your weapon, your strategy, or even your environment. Everyone has a role to play, and they-”

“What’s the point you’re trying to get to?” interrupted Sweetie Belle, the third member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She was a unicorn like Twilight Sparkle, and was the younger sister of Rarity. I grunted at the interruption.
“The point I’m trying to make is that you have to focus on one thing if you want to master it,” I explained. I noticed that they were paying stronger attention to me now. I was about to explain further when I was interrupted again, this time by Twilight Sparkle, who was nodding to my words.

“Snake has a point, girls,” she said approvingly. “Trying all of these different ideas will only get you so far, before you have to find out which one is for you and you alone to do – that’s when it becomes your special talent, which makes you unique.” The girls exchange quick looks between themselves, before looking back to the two of us.

“So what yer sayin’, Twahlight, is that Snake should train us to help us get our cutie marks?”

What?!

Twilight looked over to me, smiling a little. I couldn’t tell whether she was smiling because she thought that the idea was a good one, or whether she thought that it was funny. “That’s a great idea, girls. What do you say, Snake?”

“Train you, huh?” I asked as I tried to think of an excuse out of it. I had nothing against the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but I definitely opposed the idea of teaching these three fillies high-end infiltration and killing techniques. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of a way to point this out: whilst I had previously hinted at the skills I used on my mission, I hadn’t said anything outright, as I didn’t want to bring such grim and dark ideas into these ponies’ heads. From what I had seen of Ponyville, it was as innocent as it gets.

No, there was absolutely no way in which I would teach these girls the techniques I knew, even if I had to flat-out, bluntly refuse them as rudely as possible.

===================

“Now the first thing you’ll need to master infiltration,” I began, “is the cardboard box.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders and I had relocated to Applejack’s farm, which I had discovered was called Sweet Apple Acres. After Twilight had rebutted all of my arguments against teaching the Crusaders my infiltration skills, she had telekinetically thrown us all out of the library, albeit softly. In the end, I had decided that there was nothing wrong with teaching the Crusaders a few basic stealth techniques, leading us to the farm.

“This is going to sound as though I’m exaggerating… but I’m not when I say that the success of your mission depends upon how you use your cardboard box,” I continued. Sweetie Belle raised a hoof. “Yes?”

“Are we going to go on a mission? Like spies?” she asked enthusiastically. Before I could answer, she turned to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SPIES!” the three of them cried out in unison. I frowned at this. How could they be so naive about the realities of the battlefield? Had Equestria even had any wars, or major battles, in its history? War is never a thing to be glorified. War is-

“I’m going to sneak into Sugarcube Corner!” Scootaloo told the others, distracting me from my thoughts. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom nodded in agreement.

“Maybe we can go there in the middle a’ the night, and find Pinkie Pie makin’ cupcakes!” Apple Bloom said. I found this to be an odd thing to say, as did Sweetie Belle, who frowned.

“Why would Pinkie Pie be-”

“Girls!” I snapped. I was trying to be patient here, but when they simply refused to listen to my lecture, I couldn’t hold it in any more. At my words, the three of them stopped talking and looked to me, suddenly quiet. “Better.”

“Now, as I was saying, how well you use the cardboard box will affect how successful your mission will be. But you have to remember that a cardboard box is ultimately only made of paper, so if-”

“Who wants a picture of a cardboard box on their flank?” Scootaloo interrupted, suddenly sounding disillusioned.

“Yah might not get somethin’ like a cardboard box, Scoots,” Apple Bloom pointed out. “Yah might get somthin’ neat, like… Snake’s suit!” I gritted my teeth in frustration: they had become distracted again. I needed to get their attention with, say… a physical demonstration!

Leaving the three fillies to their minor squabbling, I got out my personal cardboard box, and hid under it, trusting that the Crusaders would be too distracted to wonder what I was doing. I was correct.

“Now girls,” I called out once I was nicely hidden. “Do you see how important the cardboard box can be?” Through a small flap on the box, I could see the three stopped talking to look over at me for a moment.

“…It’s pretty obvious that you’re under the box,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. Hmm. This wasn’t how I had planned my demonstration to go.

“It’s obvious out here,” I started, “but when you’re in an enemy stronghold they wouldn’t suspect a thing. Watch.” I got up slightly, and walked a short distance, still with the box covering my body. “You see? If an enemy-”

“Doesn’t that make it more obvious?” Scootaloo queried. Huh. I’d never thought of that.

“Well, for the sake of the demonstration –”

“Why are you showing us a demonstration where it’s obvious where you are? Shouldn’t you hide so that we can’t find you?” Sweetie Belle interrupted.

“Like hide and seek!” Apple Bloom added as I stood up and removed the box, to which Scootaloo nodded enthusiastically. I grimaced. These three fillies may think that they were being smart now, but they were failing to see the brilliance of the cardboard box.

“Okay,” I said after a moment of thinking, “how about I’ll give you three the box, and you can try and hide from me? It should fit you easily.”

“Why? You’ll find us without even tryin’!” said Apple Bloom. I shook my head.

“No, the point of this is to show is that even three amateurs like you will be able to hide using the box.” My plan was to purposely take a while to find them, so that they would learn to appreciate the box. Then hopefully, they’d be inspired enough to listen to my lesson in full. After a moment of hesitation, Sweetie Belle nodded enthusiastically.

“C’mon girls! What have we got to lose?” she asked the other two. I passed them the box, which they managed to fit over the three of them after a bit of struggling. Although it muffled their speech a little, I could hear them arguing over which way they should be facing, as well as where they should go to hide from me.

I turned around. “I’ll cover my eyes, to give you three a chance,” I explained. As I said this, it occurred to me that this was similar to hide and seek, and I grimaced. How did I end up in this situation, again?

===================

“Have you seen the Cutie Mark Crusaders?” I frantically asked Applejack, ten minutes later. I had looked as far as the trio would be able to get in the minute or so that I hadn’t been looking, and I hadn’t found them so far. Nor my cardboard box.

“Why’re ya askin’, Snake?” Applejack asked, before adding a second later, “Is mah sister alright?!”

“I don’t know. They’ve gone missing,” I said. I was desperately hoped that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had snuck past me and gotten into the Apple house, where Applejack and I were now, otherwise I was stumped.

“What?! What’ve ya done, Snake?!” Applejack was looking pissed at me now, and I couldn’t exactly blame her.

“I was trying to teach them- look, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me – have you seen them? Or my cardboard box, for that matter?” Applejack thought for a moment.

“Now that ya mention it, ah did see some sorta strange cardboard critter goin’ into the Everfree Forest ‘bout ten minutes ago, but ah didn’t think much of it. All kindsa’ things come outta there.”

“What?!” It had never occurred to me that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would go into the Everfree Forest. I had been told from virtually the first day of my exile to Ponyville not to enter the Everfree Forest under any circumstances. Every pony was wary of the place, even Pinkie P- well, not Pinkie Pie, as a matter of fact. But virtually every pony was cautious of the Everfree Forest. There was only one thing left to do.

I knelt down and activated my codec. “Twilight? Are you hearing me?”

“Loud and clear, Snake. It looks like that spell I found works over longer distances than I thought! How are things going with the Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

“I’ve got bad news, Twilight. I’ve got to go into the Everfree Forest.” Twilight must have been drinking something, because I could hear her do a spit take. Looking up, I could see that Applejack wanted to speak with me, but was waiting for me to finish my conversation.

“You’re – what? But why?”

“Long story. I’ll explain once I’m in. I’ve got all of my gear with me, so I should be okay for now. But the important thing is that I leave now.” I needed to get onto the Crusaders’ trail as soon as possible.

“…Okay Snake. Remember to call me if you need to save your game.”

“Huh?”

“Sorry, did I say save your game? I meant, if you want my advice.” Twilight obviously didn’t realise the significance of my self-appointed mission, because a moment later she added in, “I’ve got a book here I’ve always wanted to use: 1001 Proverbs and Where To Use Them!”

“Proverbs, huh? I’ll talk to you later, Twilight.” I ended the codec call then straightened up. Applejack was still looking at me angrily. From what I had said to Twilight, she seemed to have worked out what I was planning to do.

“Snake, ah’m gonna stay here with Granny Smith an’ Big Macintosh… tell ‘em what happened. But ah warn you, if anythin’ happens to mah sister…”

“Don’t worry, Applejack. I’ll get her and the Crusaders back safely.” At least, I hoped that I would. Applejack gave me a grim nod, which I returned, before turning around. I was ready to enter the Everfree Forest.

At a time like this, I really, really, wanted my cardboard box back.

Chapter Six: Into the Everfree Forest

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As I crossed the threshold of the Everfree Forest, I noticed several things about the forest that I hadn’t prior to entering. Firstly, it was deathly quiet. There were no animal noises as there should have been in a forest this large. As I cautiously crept through, it also occurred to me how twisted and demonic-looking the trees were. It was as if some sort of sorcery had physically changed them to look more frightening to travellers… which come to think of it, probably wasn’t far off from the truth.

For the sake of caution, I drew my SOCOM, ready to defend myself against the creatures of the forest, should I encounter any. The thing that I hated about going into the forest, aside from the fact that its reputation made it sound every bit as dangerous as one of my past missions, was that I had no way of knowing where the Cutie Mark Crusaders had gone. It had barely been ten minutes since they had crept in, yet in that time they could have headed in any direction. I wasn’t suited to this sort of assignment. I was a stealth operative; not a tracker.

I had been hoping that they had only gone a small way into the forest, but it seemed that I was unlucky, as I couldn’t find or hear them in the small area I had explored so far. I had to wonder why they had gone so far into the forest. Did they really believe that they were unable to be detected in the box? Was it giving them extra confidence? If so, then I had achieved that much, at least.

I was crawling through the forest on my stomach, so as to not make noise and alert predators to my location, when I suddenly heard my codec receiving a call. The Colonel? I wondered optimistically, as I answered it instantly.

“Snake!”

“Hey, Twilight,” I muttered. I wondered what she was calling me for, before I received an answer to that question a moment later.

"You said that you’d give me a call to explain why you were going into the Everfree Forest, but I haven’t received one yet. Is everything okay?” Oh. Right. I hadn’t even thought about it, concentrating more on the threats of the forest than what I had said before I had entered.

“Sorry, I was a bit distracted,” I answered, nearly breathing in a leaf as I said so. As I explained what had happened, I couldn’t help but marvel at the spell Twilight had found the other day – it allowed us to communicate via codec as though she had one herself. I had no idea how it worked, but it was a great way to talk over long distances, especially considering how out-dated Ponyville’s technology was in compared to mine.

“What?! Why are you going in by yourself, Snake?” Twilight exclaimed as I finished explaining my self-appointed mission. I was still crawling across the ground of the forest on my stomach to reduce the noise I made, and when I spoke, it was in a quiet mutter.

“Twilight, listen. You told me yourself how dangerous the Everfree Forest is. If I go in by myself, I can save those fillies quietly and without attracting attention from the… local wildlife. Besides… this is my fault, and my responsibility.” I thought that this would show her my point of view, but I was wrong.

“What are you talking about, Snake? My friends and I could have come with you if you’d waited! Rainbow Dash should fly ahead and scout for the Crusaders – Fluttershy could calm any of the wildlife – and Applejack –”

“Twilight, I don’t want the help of you or your friends.”

After a pause, Twilight hesitantly asked “…Why, Snake?” I suddenly realised that I may have accidentally offended her.

“Because… because this is my mess, and I’ll clean it up. That’s my responsibility as a soldier.” Although that was partially true, I didn’t tell her the real reason – that I needed to keep my skills honed; to make sure that I was still ready for Shadow Moses when I returned. A stealth mission through the forest was the first chance I’d had at refining my skills since I had been sent to Equestria; it had serious stakes and a real challenge.

“…Don’t hesitate to call me if you need to, okay, Snake?” Twilight finally answered. “Just remember the saying of Star Swirl the Bearded – ” at this point I could hear her flipping through a large, heavy-sounding book, which I assumed was the 1001 Proverbs book she had mentioned earlier “- ‘Geese can be troublesome’.”

I stopped moving for a moment as I processed this. “Twilight… what exactly does that mean?” I asked, somewhat confused. Twilight gave a nervous little chuckle before answering.

“Well, Snake, I would think that’s fairly obvious – geese can be troublesome.”

“I realise that, Twilight. But what does the metaphor mean?”

“Now that you mention it, I’ve never thought about it,” Twilight answered after a moment of thinking. “But there’s a paragraph here going into depth about the proverb, and apparently it means –”

“Yes?”

“ – that geese can be troublesome.” There was another pause as this sunk in. “That isn’t helpful at all!” Twilight complained. I wondered whether this was the first time a book had failed to provide her with adequate information.

“Troublesome, huh? I’m sure it’s unim-”

“I can’t find information on troublesome geese anywhere else in this book! This requires serious research!” I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at this declaration, but I was. “I’ll call you back when I find this out, Snake!” Twilight said, before ending the codec call.

Yeah, this was definitely going to be a solo mission from here.

===================

It had been about half an hour since I had entered the forest, and I still hadn’t found any sign of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I was certainly worried by this, but at the same time, I was sure that I would have found at least some sign had the worst happened.

As I continued to slowly make my way through the forest, it occurred to me how much easier this could be if I had some camouflage on. But even as I thought that, I grimaced at the thought of changing my camouflage every time the terrain around me did. If only there was some sort of suit which would automatically change as the camouflage did…

I pressed myself against a tree as flat as I could as I heard the roar of a manticore nearby. The first time I had heard one, I had rolled into some nearby bushes in an instinctive panic whilst waiting for it to run past, which fortunately hadn’t taken too long. I had called Twilight back immediately after that, who had explained that the beast was a mixture of a lion and a scorpion, in addition to possessing a pair of wings. She had then warned me to avoid it. As if I needed any incentive.

After waiting a few moments for the roars to subside, as the manticore went elsewhere, I crept away from my tree and continued searching. After a few minutes, I found myself at a broad, raging river, with waves rapidly being formed and thrashing violently against the shore. I grimaced as I examined it. I hoped that the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t tried crossing this river. There was no way that my cardboard box would survive it.

I suddenly picked up on a noise I hadn’t heard earlier, coming from further upriver. “Oh-ho-ho!!!” I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It certainly didn’t sound like a wild animal of the forest, but it didn’t sound like the Crusaders, either. After mulling it over for a moment, I headed up the river to see what was making the noise.

I was shocked at the sight before me. A gigantic, purple sea serpent was flailing around in the water, causing the powerful waves which were spilling on the shore. What surprised me most about this … serpent … was the slick, orange hair it had on its head. Even more strangely, it seemed to have half of a moustache the same texture and colour, whilst the other half of its moustache was purple and curly. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t place what.

This sea serpent was the weirdest thing I had seen in the past few days, and considering that I was temporarily living in a world comprised mostly of intelligent, talking ponies, that was saying something. Still, now that I had identified the source of the river’s waves, I knew what I would need to do in order to get across the water.

I got out my Nikita missile launcher from my equipment, took aim, and fired at the sea serpent.

I winced at the sound of the large explosion which followed as the missile exploded against the serpent’s scales. As I waited for the smoke to clear, I put away the launcher, regretting that the serpent had to die for my mission to continue. There was a chance, however small, that Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were on the other side of this river, and if killing the serpent meant that I could cross the river and find them, then it was a chance I was willing to take.

Once the smoke from the explosion had cleared, I saw that the sea serpent had stopped thrashing, but it wasn’t due to the missile. No, he had stopped thrashing around because he had survived my attempt to blow him up – I guess his scales were harder than they looked - and was now staring at me angrily. This was looking bad – I was probably about to be eaten, or worse.

“Whyyyy in Equestria would you just go and do something like that?” he suddenly spoke, waving a hand flamboyantly. I stared, unable to answer. Not only were the ponies in Equestria intelligent and capable of speech, but the random sea monsters were too?!

“Uh… sorry,” I hesitantly answered after realising that he wasn’t going to suddenly attack me. “I needed to get your attention,” I lied, attempting to talk my way out of this situation. He turned away from me and folded his arms before continuing. I couldn’t tell whether he was purposely over-acting around me, or whether he was naturally that way.

“Well, I never! I realise that I was a bit preoccupied, but that’s no excuse to just go ahead and attack a dashing young serpent such as myself!” As he said the last few words, he ran a hand through the orange side of his moustache.

“Preoccupied, huh?” I repeated, not understanding how he had been so. He turned back to me.

“Yes, darling! I was just examining my handsome reflection in the river this fine afternoon –” as he said this, he ran a hand through his hair “- when I noticed – the worst. Possible. Thing!” Following this line, the serpent collapsed into the water, wailing.

This serpent has the least magnetic personality I’ve ever encountered, I thought silently to myself, getting pissed off. Although I was considering just leaving at this point and continuing my search for the Crusaders, I was also at least a little intrigued with his story. “Worst possible thing?” I asked the serpent once he had temporarily calmed down.

“Why of course! How could you not notice?” At my small grunt, he raised a hand and pointed it to his moustache. “The right side of my moustache, which that fabulous white unicorn gave to me, is longer than my left side! I’m – I’m – ” He gulped for a moment here, finding the next part difficult to say. “Asymmetrical!” he finally wailed, before sticking his head under the water of the river. I thought that he might have been trying to hide his face from me, although I couldn’t see why.

“Lovely white unicorn?” I muttered to myself, before I realised what the purple half of the moustache reminded me of – it looked exactly like Rarity’s tail. Going over the serpent’s words, I started to wonder how Rarity’s tail had become a replacement moustache for this serpent, before deciding that I didn’t want to know.

The serpent rose from the water, looking even more distressed than earlier, if such a thing was possible. “So now you can see what a pickle I’m in!” he howled. “Oh, if only I hadn’t – ”

BLAM!

There was a small splash as part of the sea serpent’s moustache fell into the water. Speechless, he looked first to his moustache, then to his reflection in the water. I put away my SOCOM, which had been drawn out. “Oh-hohohoho! My moustache! How wonderful!” he squealed in delight. I had shot off part of his moustache so that both sides were now of equal length.

“There. Now your moustache is how it should be,” I growled.

“It’s so true!” he gasped as he examined his reflection once more. I had been planning to cross the river once the serpent, and subsequently the water, was calm, but a new idea occurred to me.

“Have you seen or heard three fillies around here?” I asked. If he hadn’t, then I would be back to searching the forest randomly until I found them, which I definitely wanted to avoid having to continue doing.

“I think I might have, you know,” the serpent replied after thinking for a moment. “I thought I heard the sound of arguing not too long ago; somewhere off in that direction.” He waved a hand in the direction idly, seeming more concerned with examining his looks in the river.

“That direction, huh?” I asked for confirmation. “Thanks.” Rather than stealthily crawling, as I had been earlier, I instead briskly walked in the direction which the serpent had gestured in. I didn’t want to risk having the Crusaders move elsewhere whilst I made my way to them.

As I headed for the Crusaders’ location, I called Twilight on my codec in order to inform her of my progress. “Twilight,” I greeted her simply.

“Snake! I’m afraid I still haven’t found the meaning of ‘geese can be troublesome’, but I’ve found another proverb –”

“That isn’t important right now, Twilight,” I interrupted. “I think I’ve got an idea of where the Cutie Mark Crusaders are.”

“Really? Good work, Snake! The sun’s nearly set, and I’d hate to think of what could happen to those poor fillies at night!” After a pause, she added “Is there anything else?” I debated telling her about the sea serpent.

“Nothing. Just thought I’d report on my progress,” I answered. “I’ll call you again when I find the Crusaders.”

“Okay Snake, sounds like a plan! Just keep in mind the classic saying – ‘Discord offers empty promises. Recall true friendship, and reject him’. That’s one of Celestia’s!”

“How can chaos offer me anything?” I asked, just as confused with this proverb as I had been by the last one.

“Well, Discord was a draconequus who used to rule –”

“A what? Twilight, are you sure you aren’t taking this too literally?”

“Of course I’m sure!” Twilight replied firmly. “Make sure you avoid any balloons you see in there, Snake! That’s how he got Pinkie Pie last time!”

“…Okay. If you say so,” I answered, deciding to humour her. Twilight may have been a smart unicorn, but she was definitely taking these proverbs too seriously. I ended the codec call and continued on my way.

To my shock, as I was about to walk between some trees, a manticore sprang out from behind one of them! I leapt back in shock whilst reaching for my FAMAS, the assault rifle which I had acquired on Shadow Moses. I had been focusing on finding the Cutie Mark Crusaders so much that I had completely forgotten to stay quiet.

I looked down the sights of my FAMAS to aim, but before I could fire, the manticore roared loudly. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but this roar was so loud that it literally knocked me over, sending me sprawling. Huh. I hadn’t expected that.

I scrambled for the gun, which I had dropped as I was knocked over, but even as I grabbed the handle, the manticore let out another roar and leapt at me.

“Aaaaargh!” The manticore had slashed at my chest, and even though my suit resisted it slightly, I could already feel blood seeping from the wound. The manticore was now moving its head towards me, its jaw opening as it prepared to bite me.

I managed to swing the FAMAS around so that the barrel was pointing at the manticore’s chest. I squeezed the trigger, dozens of bullets spraying into my attacker. Although I was wielding the FAMAS with just one hand, the poor aim was negated by the proximity with which the gun was to the manticore. I didn’t stop firing until the clip was empty.

The manticore recoiled and howled in pain. If this didn’t scare it off, then I was going to be dead in another moment.

I guess I must have been luckier than I knew, because the manticore then fled as fast as it could with all of those bullets embedded in its chest. I was still lying on the forest floor, so I had no idea how injured it was. My chest was stinging painfully, and for a moment, I was content to just lie there and struggle to breathe.

I started pulling myself up slowly, my head spinning as I did so. Lights appeared in front of my eyes for a moment, and as I blinked, it felt as if I was going to black out.

If I can… just get… a ration… I thought slowly, struggling to stay conscious. From where the manticore had appeared, I could see a pony, but I was too dizzy to make out whether it was a pony that I knew. Despite my best efforts, I felt myself drifting unconscious…

The last thing I remember before everything went black was the unknown pony speaking: “What has happened to you, my human friend? It looks as though you’re about to meet your end!”

Chapter Seven: Manticore Eater

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The first thing I noticed when I gained consciousness was the pounding in my head. I slowly opened my eyes and blinked slowly, wincing in pain as I registered the wound on my chest wrapped in bandages. What happened to me? Did Grey Fox defeat me? I wondered.

Trying to shut out the pain in my head and chest, I slowly pulled myself up into a sitting position. I was in some sort of primitive hut, with large, horse-like masks on the wall. There was a large cauldron of unknown liquid bubbling on a fireplace. I was completely alone.

Where was I? I remembered that I had blacked out, but I couldn’t remember how. I took a closer look at the masks hanging from the walls. Something about their physical appearance got me thinking that I was missing something important.

I hadn’t been physically restrained, and I took advantage of this whilst I could by eating a ration. That was another strange thing – I still had all of my equipment on my person. The ration helped me gain a lot of my strength back, and within minutes I was feeling much better than I had when I first woke up. With nothing else to do, I decided to wait for my captor – or as it could be, my rescuer – to return to the hut.

I didn’t have to wait for very long. The door of the hut opened, and a zebra stepped through, equipped with two saddlebags full of what looked to be a variety of exotic plants and herbs. I suddenly remembered everything at the sight of the zebra – being sent to Equestria, meeting Twilight Sparkle and her friends, training the –

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders!” I cried out loud, wondering how much time had passed since the manticore had knocked me unconscious. Anything could have happened to them whilst I was out!

I got off the bed, and started moving towards the door. The zebra was looking at me in bewilderment – understandable, since she likely wouldn’t have known about the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Why do you leave, oh so soon? You act as if a foolish tycoon!” For some reason, she seemed to speak only in rhymes. It takes all kinds, I guess.

As I looked to the zebra, about to explain why I needed to leave immediately, I remembered something that Twilight Sparkle had told me on the first day that I had arrived in Ponyville. “…You’re Zecora, aren’t you?” I asked her. She nodded.

“I’ve lived in this forest, for quite a while. It is good that the ponies are no longer hostile.” I took that as a yes.

“Listen, do you know Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo? The three of them are lost somewhere in this forest, and I’ve got to rescue them! How long was I out for?” Zecora looked shocked at this news, realising the importance of what I was saying.

“I don’t think that it’s yet too late: The minutes you slept were less than eight.” I went over this in my head.

“Eight minutes, huh? Sounds like there’s still time!” As I stepped outside Zecora’s hut, I recognised the trees from where the manticore had sprung, and realised that I had been attacked just out of sight of Zecora’s hut. It certainly explained why she had found me so soon after the manticore had been chased off.

“Wait – you should not leave in a hurry! If you are not healed, I’ll start to worry!” I turned back to her.

“Don’t worry, Zecora. I’ve eaten some rations, you’ve patched me up with some bandages – I’ll be fine. In fact, you can come with me, if it’ll set your mind at ease.” Zecora considered for a moment.

“Then it is settled. I’ll come with you, and we’ll test our mettle!” I was glad to hear this – if Zecora lived in the Everfree Forest, then she probably knew it like the back of her hoof. I pointed in the direction I had been heading before the manticore had ambushed me.

“Good. Now, I was told that the Crusaders were over this way…”

===================

I pressed myself against a tree, and slowly drew my SOCOM pistol. At the next tree across from me, Zecora was likewise concealing herself. We both nodded silently to one another before leaning around our respective trees, and looking into the clearing to see what was there.

As overdramatic as the sea serpent had been, his information had been correct – the Cutie Mark Crusaders were here. At least, I assumed they were, as there was a cardboard box in the middle of the clearing, which was moving as though the occupants were shivering inside. Unfortunately for us, the clearing wasn’t empty – there were several creatures which looked similar to wolves, but seemed to be made of some sort of wood-like substance. Fortunately, they were all sleeping at the moment, but they would still be obstacles to us in saving the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Those timber wolves are not good news; they’ll soon see through the Crusaders’ ruse,” Zecora hissed across to me. I nodded in agreement, not sure how they had missed the Crusaders considering how close they were to them. Unless… maybe the cardboard box smelled like the timber wolves, so they weren’t attacking it? I shook my head. It didn’t matter why the Crusaders weren’t being attacked, what mattered right now was that they seemed safe.

“I’ll have to sneak past them and grab the Crusaders,” I replied back quietly. “There’s no sense in attacking them now whilst they’re all asleep.” Zecora nodded, and I slowly stepped out from behind the tree.

I had to be careful now. My plan was more or less to walk over to the Crusaders whilst making as little noise as possible, and then carry them out of the clearing without the timber wolves waking up. Unfortunately, I had no weapons with which I could take out the timber wolves silently… it was times like this that I wished that I had a tranquiliser gun of some sort.

I stepped over the paws of the timber wolf nearest to me, hoping that it wouldn’t hear or smell me in its sleep. If it did, then Zecora and I would have to fight them off for long enough for the Cutie Mark Crusaders to escape. I had no idea how vicious timber wolves were in comparison to regular wolves, but either way I wanted to avoid a fight.

Fortunately, the timber wolf showed no outward sign of detecting my presence. I breathed a sigh of relief, before stepping over the next wolf in my path. Again, it showed no sign of detecting me. Provided that I could keep this up, I should be able to rescue the Crusaders with no harm done.

After a few more tense minutes, I made it past the wolves, and to the cardboard box which Zecora and I were hoping contained the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I got down on my stomach, now that there was room to do so, and crawled closer to the box. “Girls. Are you in there?” I growled quietly.

The box was thrown up, revealing the three fillies. From what I could make out, they seemed to be okay physically. “Snake! You have no idea how glad we are ta’ see-”

Dun! All around us, the timber wolves woke up upon hearing Apple Bloom. I got up and drew my SOCOM. “Get under the box. Now!” I barked to the Crusaders. Although they were starting to panic upon realising that the timber wolves had woken up, they had enough sense to listen to me.

Zecora had come galloping into the clearing, and was now kicking the timber wolves viciously. I aimed my SOCOM at the nearest wolf to assist her, but upon squeezing the trigger, I got nothing more than a click. Crap! The gun had jammed!

Hearing a noise behind me, I spun around to see a wolf leaping at me. Instinctively, I punched it. Although the wood it seemed to be made of was hard enough to hurt my knuckles quite painfully, it still did the job, and sent the wolf to the ground whimpering. This was looking bad. I had forgotten to reload my FAMAS rifle after fighting off the manticore with it, and my SOCOM was jammed.

“Zecora!” I said to her. She was doing quite well for herself – several timber wolves had collapsed in pain around her, and she didn’t seem to have received any major damage from the wolves. “Can you hold them off for another moment? I need to reload my gun!” In the heat of the battle, it was the best solution I could think of.

Zecora either nodded, or hit a timber wolf with her chin – it was hard to tell which. Either way, I took it as a yes. A moment later I had reloaded, and I immediately fired at a timber wolf which was leaping at Zecora from behind.

The bullets slammed into the wolf, sending it falling to the ground. I noticed that some splinters fired off the wolf where the bullets hit it. As I continued firing, the wolves soon started howling, before running away faster than we could follow. Within moments we were alone. I looked to Zecora and shrugged. I had no idea why they had all run off like that, but I wasn’t going to complain about it.

Zecora and I walked over to the cardboard box a few metres away. I was pretty pleased to see that it was still intact. “The wolves are gone, girls,” I said. “It’s safe to come out now.” After a moment of hesitation, the box was lifted and the Cutie Mark Crusaders emerged.

“Snake!” Sweetie Belle cried out, before cantering over and hugging my leg with her forehooves. The other two followed suit a moment later. It hadn’t realised how scared they must have been until that moment.

“Hey, it’s alright now,” I muttered, trying to imply that they could stop hugging me now. Apple Bloom seemed to be the only one to get the hint, as she switched from hugging me to hugging Zecora. I sighed and simply let the three fillies stay where they were until they had calmed down.

“We’re so sorry!” Sweetie Belle cried, more into my leg than to me.

“We shouldn’t have gone so far into the Everfree Forest, but once we were in the box, we wanted to see how good it really was!” Scootaloo added.

“Can ya forgive us, Snake?” Apple Bloom added, looking over from Zecora.

“Forgive you, huh?” I asked. “Sure I can… if you can tell me what you’ve learned from this.” I was hoping that the Cutie Mark Crusaders would realise that the Everfree Forest was dangerous, and that you should never go into a mission without proper preparation.

“That cardboard box really is awesome!” Scootaloo said after a moment of thinking. I sighed. It was close enough.

===================

Zecora had agreed to lead us out of the Everfree Forest, since none of us knew the precise way to get to Ponyville. Although the sun had set, the moon was full tonight, so it was still fairly bright. I had already called Twilight on the codec, and she was going to meet us just outside the Everfree Forest along with Applejack and Rarity, both of whom had been worried about their sisters. I found it a bit odd that Twilight hadn’t mentioned any of Scootaloo’s family, but I supposed that that wasn’t really my business as to why they weren’t there.

“…and so then we got lost, and when we tried finding our way back, we just got lost even further in the forest!” The Crusaders were explaining their adventure to me – in hindsight, they found it more exciting than scary.

“Do you think that we could get our cutie marks in getting lost?” Scootaloo suddenly interrupted.

“What would that even look like?” Sweetie Belle asked, confused.

“…Okay, it was just a question,” Scootaloo grumbled after realising how silly her question had been.

Sweetie Belle continued telling the story. “So we decided to stay in that clearing and wait for somepony to find us, but then those timber wolves came and fell asleep there!”

“Fell asleep there, huh? Any reason why they didn’t notice you?” I asked. It was something I had been wondering about.

“They didn’t notice us because we’d been in the box!”

“Yeah! That box is awesome!” I sighed. It looked as though I had taught them that much, at least.

“Something I do not understand, is why the timber wolves suddenly ran,” Zecora pointed out, after having been silent for a while.

“Yeah… that was kind of weird,” I admitted. “The second I started firing, they all got away as fast as they could.” Apple Bloom turned to me excitedly.

“Ah think ah know why! Th’ timber wolves have always been afraid a’ loud noises, f’r as long as the Apple family’s been in Ponyville!”

“Afraid of loud noises, huh?” That would make sense – the sound of the handgun had scared them off. It was a pity it had jammed at first – we could have avoided all of the fighting.

Zecora had been leading us on a path which she claimed was usually free of creatures of the forest, and by now I had let my guard down. Even though I knew that soldiers should never let their guards down whilst on a mission, I still had. If only I had been paying more attention, I could have avoided the next thing that happened to me.

Not looking where I was going, I tripped over a tree root, and face-planted into the ground.

“Ooof!!” I winced in pain. Raising my head, I saw that I had fallen face-first into a patch of blue flowers. Behind me, I could hear the Cutie Mark Crusaders snickering. As I picked myself up, I noticed a tingling sensation in my mouth.

“Oh no, you unfortunate human bloke!” Zecora said as she saw that I had fallen over. She quickly trotted over to me. “You’ve landed in some poison joke!”

“Poison… joke?” Apple Bloom stopped snickering and came over to me as well.

“Did ya, Snake? Did ya land in those flowers over there?” She seemed genuinely worried, although I couldn’t guess why. Aside from the tingling sensation in my mouth, I felt fine.

“Did I land in those flowers?” Huh? I hadn’t meant to say that!

“Yeah, that’s what ah was askin’ ya-”

“Asking?!” This was getting weird. I had meant to say “yeah,” but instead I just repeated what she had said, only with a question mark on the end.

Zecora shook her head. “It seems the flower’s affecting you – ”

“Affecting?!” She glared at me before continuing.

“ – and now your speech patterns are all askew!”

“As-”

“What she’s talkin’ about,” interrupted Apple Bloom, “is that the flower’s makin’ ya repeat what everypony’s sayin’!” I was about to ask how that would work, but after opening my mouth, I slowly closed it. Nothing came out of my mouth involuntarily.

“It seems to happen when you talk,” Zecora said, examining me, “so please stay silent as we walk.” Huh. It sounded weird, but it seemed as though what they were saying made sense. I assumed that the problem wasn’t too serious, otherwise Zecora and Apple Bloom probably would have been a bit more worried about it.

In the debriefing room, Colonel Campbell made a note on a piece of paper below the desk, so that Snake couldn’t see it. Remember to go over Snake’s medical records for S.M. mission – check for head traumas, it read. Snake paused in his story for a moment to light up another cigarette.

“So you’re saying that this flower – this poison joke – it made you repeat what people said?” Campbell asked, trying to follow along. Snake nodded.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it did. If I tried to speak, I’d repeat whatever the last person said, regardless of how much time had passed between them and me talking.”

So… what’s the difference? Campbell wondered. “I’d never heard of this poison joke before, not even from Miller.” Snake took a puff of his cigarette before continuing. “Had he ever warned you about it?”

Campbell sighed. “Snake, Miller can’t have warned you about it – it’s not real.”

“Then how do you explain what happened to me?” Campbell opened his mouth to reply, before deciding not to bother. I’ll get the medical records, and let them speak for themselves, he thought. Campbell gestured for Snake to continue the debriefing.

“… how about sailing?!” The Cutie Mark Crusaders were discussing ways to get their cutie marks now, and throwing around different ideas. At Zecora’s request, I was staying silent – not that I would have had much to add anyway.

“No, we should definitely try making music. Just like Vinyl Scratch!”

Apple Bloom shook her head. “Ah dunno. Ah still wouldn’t mind tryin’ mah hoof at mechanics. All we need is some tools, metal, gears –”

“Metal Gear?!?!”

“Quiet, Snake. Now, as ah was sayin’ –”

“Your journey is now at an end,” Zecora interrupted as we left the forest. I hadn’t even noticed until she brought it up. “Come some other time, my young friends.” She smiled as we saw Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Applejack up ahead.

The three fillies trotted ahead, waving goodbye to Zecora as they headed to the mares up ahead. As helpful as Zecora had been, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get to their friends and relatives immediately after being lost in the Everfree Forest for hours. I gave Zecora a small nod before joining the other ponies.

“Hello, Snake!” Twilight greeted me as I approached. “Good job on finding the fillies – I’m guessing that there were no troubles?” Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were hugging their respective sisters, whilst Scootaloo was jumping around happily.

“Troubles?” I needed one of the Crusaders to explain what had happened with the poison joke, but they were all in the middle of reuniting at the moment.

Twilight frowned. “Yes, troubles. There weren’t any, were there?”

“’Course there weren’t!” Applejack replied whilst still hugging Apple Bloom. “Ah gotta hand it to ya, Snake, ya said that you’d save these little fillies, and ya delivered on your promise! You’re a real hero!” I turned away, feeling both guilty and embarrassed. These ponies didn’t know the extent of my activities as a covert operative. I sighed before replying.

“Real…hero?”

“Yeah, that’s what ah said!” Applejack answered, confused.

“Snake, is anything the matter?” Rarity asked, starting to catch on.

“Matter?!” Now that I actually needed to explain what had happened to me, I was finding the repetitive effects of the poison joke incredibly frustrating.

“He accciden’ally fell in some poison joke,” Apple Bloom explained. “An’ now he can’t help but repeat what you’re all sayin’.” The three mares looked at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.

“Repeat what you’re all saying?!” I exclaimed. This wasn’t funny!

“Oh, Snake, don’t you worry,” Twilight said, still chuckling. “We’ve got the ingredients for the poison joke antidote back at the library, and we’ll have you fixed up soon.”

“What is the antidote, anyway?” Scootaloo asked, confused.

“It’s pretty much just a bubble bath, Scoots,” Apple Bloom explained. Wait, what?

“Bubble bath?!” This time I actually did want to say what I did. Unfortunately, every pony seemed to realise that, so this just sent them into more fits of laughter. After they calmed down, we started heading back into town now that the crisis with the Cutie Mark Crusaders was over.

Just as we reached Carousel Boutique, where Sweetie Belle would be spending the night with Rarity, Rarity leaned over to me. “Oh, and Snake?” I nodded to confirm that I had heard her.

“If my sister ever goes missing thanks to you again, I will destroy you!” After a moment of consideration, I nodded. Yeah, that seemed fair enough.

The joke was on Rarity, anyway: I had gotten my cardboard box back, and nothing was going to part me from it ever again.

Chapter Eight: Let's Finish Our Holiday Cheer!

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After my adventure with the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Twilight and I continued to spend the next few weeks researching ways for me to return to Shadow Moses. Although we made some small progresses – Twilight recalled a spell which could temporarily send someone back in time, for example – it still didn’t look as though I would return any time soon. Although I had somewhat adapted to Ponyville by now, I was still clinging to Twilight’s theory that time between our dimensions would pass at different rates, and that I could still complete my mission on Shadow Moses when I returned.

It was evening, and I was currently reading through Star Swirl the Bearded’s Abridged List of Master Spells: Volume Thirteen in the main part of the library. As I idly flipped past the description of how to properly cast an amniomorphic spell, the door of the library opened and Twilight entered. She had left several hours ago to attend a meeting of some sort with the mayor of Ponyville.

“Good evening, Snake,” she greeted me as she slipped off her saddlebags. “How goes the research?”

“Still no progress, unfortunately.” I marked where I was up to with a bookmark (Twilight had been enraged back when she had caught me using a dog-ear to mark my page), and closed the book. I’d been reading for several hours now, and it was getting tedious. “How many of these Abridged Lists did you say there were?”

“Eight more, off the top of my head.” As she spoke, Twilight levitated a carrot out of a small bag, and began to eat it. Evidently she hadn’t eaten at the meeting.

“Eight, huh? Better hope that one of them has this dimensional transport spell we’re looking for.” Until otherwise proven, I was going to assume that Psycho Mantis had somehow physically transported me to Equestria, as opposed to all of this happening in my head. As twisted as his mind was, I couldn’t see why he would be focusing his mental powers on making me think that I was in this land of colourful, talking ponies.

Twilight continued to tell me about the meeting whilst I continued to flip through the Abridged List, only half-listening to her. From what I could gather, there was some sort of event coming up which Twilight was assisting the mayor in organising.

“…and so anyway, in the end we decided that it would probably be best if Cloudchaser went to get the southern birds this time. And then it was all over, and I came back here!”

“Southern birds, huh?” I asked, only catching part of her speech.
I heard Twilight yawning whilst trotting over to the bathroom to brush her teeth, now that she had eaten and finished telling me about her meeting. Once she was done, she came out and asked, “Snake? Are you planning on going to bed anytime soon?”

“Huh? No, I was planning to stay up late again.” The past few nights I had stayed up reading into the early hours of the morning, trying to get the most out the books. Twilight gave me a funny look.

“You do realise that we’ll all have to be up early tomorrow morning, don’t you Snake? It’s Winter Wrap Up!”

“Winter…Wrap Up?” I’d never heard of it before.

“Snake! I mentioned it less than a minute ago!” She had? “It was the whole point of meeting with the mayor – my role in Winter Wrap Up is All-Team Organiser!” I inwardly sighed, knowing now that whatever this was, I wouldn’t be able to get out of it if Twilight was the organiser.

“All-Team Organiser… so what do you organise?” Twilight gave an exasperated sigh.

“I organise all of the ponies into the different teams, and from there their team leaders give them jobs. I also co-ordinate all of the different teams to make sure that they don’t get in each other’s way and that everypony gets their jobs done on time!” I took a moment to process all of this.

“Okay… so what exactly are the teams all doing? What’s the point?”

“To wrap up winter, of course!” she replied. I grimaced. I didn’t like where this was going. “How do you change the seasons where you come from? Do you use magic, like they do in Canterlot?”

“What? No, the seasons change on their own on Earth – we just have to wait.” Twilight had been a bit exasperated, but at this, her look changed to shock.

“The… the seasons change on their own?” I nodded. “And does the weather… always change on its own?”

“Of course it does – humans can’t control the weather like the pegasi can. Haven’t you read about that in any of your books?” Twilight shook her head before giving a small shiver of what seemed to be horror.

“No offence Snake, but it sounds creepy. Sort of like the Everfree Forest…” She had calmed down a bit now that she understood why I hadn’t heard of Winter Wrap Up. “Anyway, tomorrow we’ll have to be up early to help, and- oh my gosh! Snake!”

“What?!” This was getting frustrating – this whole Winter Wrap Up thing was sounding more and more stupid to me.

“I haven’t put you down for a job tomorrow – you weren’t on the list of the local residents, so I didn’t think about it!” Although I showed no outside reaction, this sounded good.

“Not on the list, huh? Guess I’ll stay here and keep r-”

“You can’t stay here all day, Snake!” Twilight interrupted. “You have to set a good example to all of the town’s ponies – some of them are still a bit unnerved around you.” I decided not to mention to Twilight that the majority of the town could go rot for all I cared.

“I can’t really set an example if I haven’t got a job to do, can I?” I asked. I had no idea what wrapping up winter would involve, but I didn’t want any part of it, and this was a good excuse not to participate. This made Twilight think for a minute.

“You’ll just have to find a job to volunteer for whilst I try to find you something,” she finally said. “I did at my first Winter Wrap Up, and that’s how I ended up with the job of All-Team Organiser!” I grimaced again.

“Twilight, I really don’t think that I’m suited to-”

“Snake! Please please please please…” Twilight was jumping up and down on the spot a little – apparently she really wanted me to help.

“Okay, fine,” I finally said. It didn’t look like there was a way out of this.

“Great!” Twilight replied happily. “I’ll have to get up a bit earlier than you tomorrow to go over some last minute details and help organise some things before everypony gets there, but I hope to see you at the town hall for the mayor’s speech at nine o’clock sharp!” Now that I had agreed to help, she was even more excited about Winter Wrap Up than before. I just hoped that there was some sort of husky-sledding job I could help with…

Twilight went to bed soon after that, and after another hour of fruitlessly researching spells, I followed suit.

===================

The next morning, Spike and I got up early, as Twilight had suggested, and got ready for the day’s work after eating breakfast. As Twilight had said, she had woken up earlier than us to help with some last minute details, and was no longer in the house. I was hoping that she could find the time to assign me a job, because I sure didn’t want to have to walk up to different ponies and offer to help them with their work.

“So… what’s your job for Winter Wrap Up?” I asked Spike to break the silence. He was looking incredibly tired from the early start.

“I normally just get asked to help with small jobs here and there,” he answered after a yawn. “Winter really makes me tired.” It made sense, I supposed, seeing as how he was somewhat reptilian. I was barely noticing the cold myself – I was used to weather just as bad as this, if not worse, back in Alaska.

Ten minutes later, we were heading down to the town hall, as Twilight had asked us to. A large crowd of ponies were already gathered around it, in addition to the pegasi who were flying above the crowd. I spotted Rainbow Dash flying around impatiently, although as she was focused on the podium at the town hall, she didn’t see me. Each pony was wearing a vest which was coloured either blue, green, or tan – to protect them from the cold, I presumed.

“Spike! Snake! Over here!” I looked in the direction the voice was coming from to see Pinkie Pie waving a hoof, inviting us to join her. Fluttershy and Rarity were also standing with her. All three of them were wearing vests, just like the rest of the crowd. Spike and I headed over to the group.

“Kept you waiting, huh?” I said to them. “Any sign of Applejack?” I already knew that Rainbow Dash was in the air, and that Twilight was up on the town hall stage somewhere.

“As she is the leader of the plant team,” Rarity began, “she is back on her farm, organising everything for when the rest of the team join her.”

“Plant team?” This was the first that I’d heard of it. “So what jobs do you all –”

“Thank you everypony, for being here bright and early.” Up on the podium, the mayor had started her speech to the crowd. I stopped what I was saying to listen to her. “Most of you should be familiar with how Winter Wrap Up works by now – your vests determine your team, and your team leader shall give you instructions in how you can help wrap up winter.” It suddenly occurred to me that the vests the ponies were all wearing only came in three colours, meaning there were three teams.

“If there are any problems, you should report them to your team leader, who in turn will inform Twilight Sparkle –” the mayor gestured to Twilight, who was standing behind her a little bit, wearing a vest incorporating the colours of all three teams “- the All-Team Organiser. I think that’s all I have to say, so let’s all get started! Good luck everypony!” As the mayor finished her speech, the ponies all cheered, before dispersing to their different leaders.

Spike stayed with Rarity and Fluttershy, who were apparently part of the animal team, as I walked up to the podium where Twilight was talking with the mayor. The mayor had more or less said to report any problems to Twilight, and I was hoping to catch her before she got flooded with demands. I stepped up onto the stage, and opened my mouth to speak to speak to Twilight.

“Three months of winter coolness, and awesome holidays!” Huh? I turned around at the sound of Rainbow Dash, who was … singing, apparently.

“We’ve kept our hoovsies warm at home, time off from work to play.” And now Pinkie Pie had spontaneously joined in. Well, that wasn’t too surprising. Most of the crowd were watching the ponies sing, as though they had been expecting this.

“But the food we’ve stored is runnin’ out- ” wait, where had Applejack come from? “- and we can’t grow in this cold.” This was getting weird now.

“And even though I love my boots, this fashion’s getting old.” I turned back to Twilight as Rarity added in a line. I had no idea why those four ponies had suddenly burst into song, but I was hoping that that would be the end of it.

“Twilight, I –”

“The time has come to welcome spring, and all things warm and green –”

“Twilight! What the hell is going –”

“But it’s also time to say goodbye,” continued Twilight, either not noticing me or not caring. “It’s winter we must clean.” I sighed, and reluctantly followed Twilight as she trotted from the stage and through the crowd, singing all of the way. I was starting to regret agreeing to help with Winter Wrap Up.

“Now I can help – not new you see,

I have got a job to do!

How do I fit in with my planning?

I’ll organise all of you!” As Twilight finished her last line, I caught up to her, and reached out a hand to tap her on the shoulder.

“Winter Wrap Up, Winter Wrap Up!” I jumped in surprise as all around me, the crowd suddenly burst into song. I winced. Not only was this weird, it was incredibly saccharine. As the crowd sung what sounded like a chorus, I looked to see whether there was a unicorn standing some distance away casting a spell over them – but there didn’t seem to be one. As weird as it was, this must have all been rehearsed and practiced.

“Bringing home the southern birds, a Pegasus' job begins – ” I looked up to see Rainbow Dash singing once more “- and clearing all the gloomy skies, to let the sunshine in. We move the clouds, and we melt the white snow.” I was still following Twilight, who in turn had been following Rainbow Dash with the rest of the crowd. As Rainbow Dash continued singing, Pinkie Pie suddenly joined her.

“When the sun comes up its warmth and beauty will glow!” As the crowd started singing the chorus again, I tried to get Twilight’s attention for a second time, but failed. I had to admit though – the song was pretty catchy. At least the ponies could sing well.

By now, the crowd had reached an area surrounded by trees, small hollows in the ground which I assumed were some sort of animal burrows, and snow, naturally. Rarity had somehow beaten the crowd here, and was assembling what looked to be birds’ nests out of raw materials.

“Little critters hibernate, under the snow and ice –” she began.

“ – We wake up all the sleepy heads,” continued Fluttershy, who was standing by one of the hollows, “so quietly and nice.”

“We help them gather up their food, fix their homes below!” I had thought that Rarity would have been above singing, but it looked as though I was wrong.

“We welcome back the southern birds –” started Fluttershy, before being joined by Rarity in the next line:

“So the families can grow!” Maybe seeing them helping the animals reminded me of my huskies back in Alaska. Maybe I had just spent too long in Ponyville, and I was growing accustomed to all of this. Or maybe my first guess was right, and a unicorn somewhere nearby was casting a spell to make every pony burst into song. But whatever the reason was, I found myself grinning as the song continued.

Just as the chorus was being wrapped up, I suddenly felt an urge. I don’t know what could have brought it on… but I got a sudden burst of emotion. Without warning, I felt ready to express all of my feelings about the Shadow Moses mission, and about what I was supposed to be doing.

“No easy task to fight the ‘HOUNDs,

They’ve got a Hind D.

With my SOCOM and FAMAS,

I will make them bleed.

Psycho Mantis, Liquid Snake,

Vulcan Raven too.

I must stop so many guards,

It’s just so much to do!” I faltered slightly on the last line as I realised what I was doing. Embarrassed, I looked around to see whether any pony had noticed my singing, but I seemed to be in the clear. They were all singing along to their own song, cheerful and oblivious to what I had just been singing about. Up ahead, I could hear Twilight Sparkle singing on her own again, surrounded by a crowd of ponies. I had no idea why she was allowed a solo part, but I assumed that it had something to do with her being the All-Team Organiser.

“Now that I’ve planned what they all do,

I have found my place.

And helped with all of my heart,

Tough task that I once faced.

I can assist without my magic,

Help the Earth pony way!

I wanna belong so I must,

Do my best today,

Do my best today!” The other ponies picked up the rest of the song for what I assumed was one last time as I approached Twilight. I really wanted to talk to her, and find out what sort of job I could do.

“Twilight! I need to speak to you!” The rest of the ponies had finally finished singing their song, and I wanted to get this over with before any other ponies approached her.

“Oh, hello Snake. What did you think of the song?” Twilight smiled as I approached. The crowd was spreading into their individual teams now that the song had been finished.

“The…song?” I took a moment to think before answering. “Yeah, it sounded pretty good,” I replied, deciding not to tell her that it had moved me to singing myself.

“Excellent! A good song always helps get everypony in the mood for Winter Wrap Up!” Well, that explains that, I thought. “Did you manage to find a job to help with?” she asked.

“No, and that’s why I’m coming here now – since you’re the All-Team Organiser, I figured you could get me a job.”

“I suppose I could help,” Twilight replied, “but we’ll have to go back to my office at the town hall – I’ll need to look through the paperwork to see what you’re suited for.” I had been hoping that Twilight would simply suggest a job on the spot, but I supposed that this would do.

Unfortunately, when we reached the town hall, we found a few dozen ponies all standing outside, all of them apparently having been waiting for Twilight to arrive. I had no idea what they were doing here rather than working in their teams, but once they noticed Twilight arriving, they came over and started bombarding her with questions.

“Twilight! Where do I need to go if I’m part of the animal team?”

“Who’s my leader, again?”

“Should I really be on the weather team if I’m not a very good flier?” The questions kept bombarding her without giving her a chance to respond – not that that stopped her from trying. Within moments Twilight was talking to the group of ponies, answering questions and asking her own frantically.

“Just find the rest of your team! Applejack! Has anypony seen my quill? No, there are other jobs to help with! No, you don’t have to help if you’re sick! I need scissors! Sixty-one!” As she was slowly pushed into the town hall by the ponies, she turned to me. “Sorry Snake, it looks like you’ll be on your own for now. I’ll try to help you if I get a chance!”

I grimaced. That would be just my luck. I sighed and started walking over to where Rarity and Fluttershy had been earlier, deciding that offering them help would be as good a start as any. Once I reached the area, I found Rarity weaving nests as she had been earlier.

“Good morning to you, Snake!” she greeted me. “Has Twilight assigned you to help with the nest-making?” I shrugged.

“I haven’t got a specific job at the moment, but it sounds as good as anything else. What can I help you with?”

“If you take these materials here, I’ll show you how to weave it together correctly. You should find this fairly easy, since you have hands rather than hooves,” Rarity replied. I knelt down next to her and started dividing up the materials into individual groups. “Oh, and Snake, by the way?” Rarity asked as I was about to start.

“Yeah, Rarity?” I was unprepared for what she said next.

“That was very good of you to join in our singing earlier. I rather liked your improvised lyrics!” I winced. Damn. Rarity had heard me.

“… Please, let’s not mention this again,” I finally answered.

In the debriefing room, Colonel Campbell was shaking his head slowly at Snake.

“Snake…” he started.

“Yeah, Colonel?” Snake replied.

“Please don’t sing again. Ever. I don’t think my ears could handle that punishment again.” Before asking Snake to continue, he added another note to the piece of paper he had hidden below the table – Likely tone-deaf as a result of being in proximity to too many grenades. Under no circumstances should Snake be allowed to sing.

Chapter Nine: 'Cos Tomorrow Spring is Here!

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“…and so then I thought, what if the suit could not only be used to disguise oneself whilst in the snow, but to fit in in a more elegant location, such as a field of flowers by a nice quiet lake, perhaps?” I grunted. Rarity and I had been working on the nests for several hours now, and although I would have been happy to do it in silence, Rarity insisted on telling me all about the suit she was still trying to design for me.

“So… what do you think, Snake?” she prompted after realising that I wasn’t going to respond. “Does this suit sound like the sort of thing which you would wear?”

“Maybe,” I lied, not wanting to flat-out say that I didn’t care. “But I don’t see why wearing a white suit in an environment such as the Everfree Forest would be beneficial.”

“Well, it was just a thought,” Rarity admitted, sighing as she telekinetically attached a bow to a birds’ nest. There was a large line of ponies who were all working on the nests, passing them along one-by-one as they finished a minor task on each. Rarity and I were at the end of the line, and added decorations to the nests as we were handed them.

As we continued to work, with Rarity now telling me about some dresses she had made for her friends to attend a wedding in, a light-blue unicorn came up to us. Her mane had two different shades of blue in it, which reminded me of toothpaste, for some reason.

“We’ve just finished the last of the nests,” she said to Rarity. “They’re still being passed up the line, but we’ll be finished within minutes.”

“Really? That was rather quick,” Rarity said, sounding pleased nevertheless. “I suppose I should chalk it up to Twilight’s excellent planning skills… good to see that she’s not trying to help directly again…” she muttered to herself. As the blue unicorn walked off, presumably to start another job somewhere else, Rarity and I were handed the last two nests to finish.

“So… what now?” I asked Rarity as I attached a red bow onto my nest.

“Well, now that we have finished with the nests, I suppose there is ample time to assist Fluttershy in waking up all of the creatures whom have been hibernating throughout winter,” Rarity replied as she finished decorating her own nest. I grimaced. Decorating nests had been bad enough, but waking up sleeping animals? Not for me.

“…Any other jobs I could help with?” I asked. Rarity put a hoof to her mouth in thought.

“Well, I suppose you could always assist Pinkie Pie and the rest of the ice-scouring team,” she answered. Ice-scouring, huh? That didn’t sound too bad… even if I would have to cope with Pinkie Pie.

“Pinkie Pie, huh? Sounds like a plan,” I said. I asked Rarity where I would find Pinkie Pie and the ice-scouring team, and headed there after thanking her. Rarity herself headed off to find Fluttershy and assist her.

It wasn’t too long before I was standing at the crest of a hill covered in ice. Sloping downwards, the hill led to a large, frozen lake, where I could make out Pinkie Pie apparently skating her way back and forth across it. It struck me as odd that Pinkie was scouring such a large lake by herself, particularly after Rarity had mentioned a team of ice-scourers.

“Helooooooo Snake! Wheeeeeeee!” she called out to me as she spotted me walking down towards her. “What are you doing?”

“Hey, Pinkie,” I said as I arrived at the edge of the lake. “I came to help with the scouring, but you must have made a mistake – Rarity told me that you were working with a team to break up the ice.” Pinkie came whizzing towards me as I spoke, temporarily stopping her work to speak to me.

“Well, don’t tell Twily this, but-” Pinkie giggled here “- I told the rest of the team to go work on the other lakes by themselves.” I frowned.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because –” Pinkie leapt into the air and continued her complex skating “– I can’t do this if I’m surrounded by all those other ponies!” She went into a complicated spin from there, which I had to admit was pretty impressive.

“Huh, not bad,” I said. “So, where exactly are the other lakes?” If Pinkie was happy to break up the ice on this lake by herself, then I might as well go look for another group to help scour.

“Oh, no need to go find them,” Pinkie replied as if she had read my mind. “You can help me here! I’m always happy to spend time with you, Snake!” I grimaced as I realised that by Pinkie’s standards that meant that I would have to help her.

“…Okay, what do you want me to do?” I reluctantly asked. Pinkie skated back over to me expertly.

“You can put on those skates there –” she pointed a hoof at a pair of ice skates lying in an area relatively snow-free “- and join me in skating across the lake!”

“Won’t they be too small for me, if they’re designed to be worn on your hooves?” I asked as I noticed the flaw in helping scour the lakes.

“Nope! I had Rarity custom-make these for you, just in case you wanted to help me!” Of course she had.

“Pretty convenient,” I muttered to myself as I knelt down to take off my shoes. Unfortunately, Pinkie somehow heard me.

“Oh, it’s not convenient!” she cheerfully replied. “I have ice skates stashed all over Equestria, in case of ice skate emergency!” As I put the skates on, I opened my mouth to ask what the hell could constitute as an ice skate emergency, let alone how Pinkie could have known the exact size of my feet. I closed my mouth a moment later, deciding to just accept these things.

I stood up, and put both of my feet on the ice. Although I was pretty out of practice, I had past experience ice-skating, and was sure that I could help Pinkie scour the lake. “Okay, what now?” I asked Pinkie as I slowly and cautiously made my way over to her in the centre of the lake.

“Okay, Snakey, now what we have to do is- ITCHY NOSE!!!”

“Itc-” I started, before slipping over on the ice and smashing into it face-first. I groaned in pain, not wanting to get up as my body’s momentum slowly kept pushing me towards Pinkie Pie.

“Sorry, Snake, but I did try to warn you!” Pinkie said cheerfully, before skating off as if nothing had happened. “Now, if you just skate in a right angle to my direction, we should have this lake scoured in no time!”

I slowly picked myself up from the ice, trying not to slip over again in the process. Once I was up, I started skating once more, being careful not to fall over again. My face was aching from the crash, and it felt as though I had injured my back in the process as well.

“You’re getting the hang of it now, Snake!” Pinkie praised me. “Good to see that you’re not so wobbly and bobbly! Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to help so well!”

“I can skate just fine,” I said, defending myself. “I’m just out of practice.” I kept skating across the lake, slowly picking up speed as I got used to skating once more. After completing a lap of the lake, I felt I was ready. “Okay Pinkie. We gonna do this?”

“Of course, Snake! Pinkie called to me from the other side of the lake. “Just skate so that your path crosses mine! Wheeeee!!!” She started skating once more, this time taking a more deliberate path to avoid the places she had already skated across.

I did as she said, skating at right angles to her path as she had told me earlier. However, it wasn’t long until Pinkie spotted a problem with the situation.

“Why are you staying so quiet, Snake? Don’tcha want to talk? Ooh, we could play a game!” After I grunted in response, Pinkie waited another moment to see if I had anything to add, which I didn’t. She tried a different tact. “Want to hear the song I sing to my p-”

“No!” I did not want to hear any more singing today!

“Well, that’s okay I guess,” Pinkie said as she turned around and skated in the opposite direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll just have to sing a different song instead!” Huh?

“No, Pink-”

“Dashie’s melting snow,

Fluttershy’s cheering ‘Yay!’

Rarity makes nice bows,

Snake’s a grump today!

Take it away, Snake!” Pinkie had forgotten all about the scouring of the lake, and had been leaping around like a maniac whilst singing. I was amazed that she hadn’t hurt herself yet.

Instead of complying with Pinkie’s request, I instead skated to the edge of the lake, and stepped onto the ground. I had an idea to speed up the scouring of this lake, so that I would have an excuse to go and join some of the more normal ponies in breaking up another frozen lake. “Pinkie, you might want to step off the lake,” I warned her.

“Ooh, why’s that?” Pinkie asked curiously as she did as I suggested. A moment later, she got her answer as I equipped my Nikita missile launcher and fired a shot at the surface of the lake. As the missile hit it, large cracks appeared along the lines which we had carved out with our ice skating, although not as large as I had been hoping. I frowned, and was about to fire a second shot when Pinkie interrupted me.

“Good idea, Snake!” she called out from across the lake. “But I can take it from here!”

“With what?” I called back, confused. What would Pinkie have that could break the ice as efficiently as my Nikita missile launcher?

“Oh, I never leave home without my party cannon!” she replied as she produced a small blue cannon from seemingly nowhere.

“Party… cannon?” I said, although more to myself than Pinkie Pie. A moment later, she had aimed it at the lake, and fired it by pressing a button on the top of it. The shot fired too fast for me to make out what was contained within it, but whatever it was, it was powerful: cracks spread across the rest of the ice almost instantly, breaking it up and saving us several hours more of work. I did find it a bit weird, however, that there was somehow now confetti on the ice. I walked around the lake to where Pinkie Pie and my shoes were.

“Whee! That was fun, Snake! Let’s do it again!” Before I could reply, Pinkie bounced away, off to the next lake. I put my shoes back on before following her. I was about to ask her where she had put her party cannon when I got an unexpected call on my codec, which I answered. “Hey, Twilight. Any luck finding me a decent job?”

“Sorry, Snake, not yet. I’m up to my neck in paperwork at the moment,” she replied. Although she couldn’t see it, I grimaced.

“Huh, figures. Maybe I should be the All-Team Organiser, so that I can find a decent job.” Although the assistance I had given so far hadn’t been too bad, I still would rather have had a more enjoyable job, where I got to see a bit more action.

“I would say yes, Snake, buuuuut….” - Twilight seemed to be taking me more seriously than I had intended, and was trying to let me down nicely - “… I am technically the boss here. And there’s only room for one boss, and one Snake.” She chuckled a little bit, not realising that I wasn’t really listening to her.

“So why’d you call me anyway, if you haven’t gotten me a job?” I asked Twilight.

“Oh, well I just thought I’d check up on you and see how you were doing. I remember how disastrous my first Winter Wrap Up was…” Twilight said, sounding concerned.

“Fine.”

“What?”

“Fine. It’s been a bit boring so far, but I’m coping. I’ve helped Rarity decorate the birds’ nests, and Pinkie Pie and I are currently scouring lakes.” As I spoke the words aloud, I wondered how I had ended up going from a dangerous infiltration mission to decorating birds’ nests as a part of manually changing the seasons for the year.

“Oh, good work, Snake!” Twilight replied, genuinely happy. “So you haven’t ended up covered in bees or anything?”

“Covered in …bees?” I repeated, wondering why it felt like I had heard that phrase before. “No, nothing like that,” I answered after deciding that it wasn’t important.

“Well, good to hear!” Twilight answered. “I promise that I’ll try to have you a job within the hour!” I was within eyesight of the next lake that Pinkie and I would be scouring next by now. There were already three or four ponies putting on ice skates and skating across it, and I could make out Pinkie about to join them.

“Twilight, I’ve got to go now,” I said, before smirking slightly. “Any chance I could hear one of your famous proverbs before I go?”

“Uh, sure Snake! I’m sure I’ve got something here…” I heard Twilight shifting around some papers for a moment. “Oh, here we are! ‘Your registration number is to be assigned by your team leader. Please leave this space empty.’” I hesitated.

“…You just read that from one of those paperwork forms, didn’t you Twilight?” Did she really expect me to think that that was a proverb?

“N-no, it’s a real proverb,” Twilight stuttered. “It’s a metaphor… for… life! You see, the registration number is your sense of self; who you are. Your team leader is… is… everypony who inspires you!” I thought about it for a moment. It made sense.

“Huh. That’s some good advice, Twilight. I’ll make sure to pass that on.” As I said this and finished the codec call, I started thinking. What was my life here, in Equestria? Was it real? Was there such a thing as absolute reality? Most of –

“Snake!” Pinkie called across to me, bringing my train of thought to a halting crash. “What are you doing just standing there? Come down and join in the fun!” She turned around and started skating on the lake, starting to sing another of her nonsensical songs. Sighing, I put my ice skates back on and joined her and the other ponies in scouring the lake.

===================

“… hereby I declare that winter is wrapped up on time once again!” It was the end of the day, and the mayor was giving a speech now that winter was over. I had to admit – as weird as it was to help manually change the weather, it was at least efficient. Plus, unlike seasons changing on Earth, there would be no unexpected snowfalls happening months after winter.

“Let’s all give a big thanks once more to our All-Team Organiser, Twilight Sparkle, and the leaders of the three teams for being responsible for the efficiency we all witnessed today!” the mayor finished. As the ponies around me stomped their hooves on the ground, I clapped my hands quietly, which gathered some odd responses in return. Twilight stood up to the podium to make a short speech of her own.

“Good going today, everypony! Despite some of the problems – ” I could have sworn that I saw her eyes flick to some of the ponies that had been pestering her at the town hall this morning “ – everything was a complete success!” I was about to clap my hands again when I realised that Twilight wasn’t finished, as she got out a chart and levitated it next to her. “Now, as you can see, the weather team increased performance by 14% this year, but at the cost of a 34% decrease of the food team’s efficiency. I hypothesise that this is due to…”

I found myself feeling more and more tired as Twilight went on about some of the data for the day, before the mayor cleared her throat loudly after a few minutes. Embarrassed, Twilight blushed slightly. “…So, basically, we did well this year, everypony,” she said. “Good luck next year!” As she stepped down from the stage, the crowd dispersed. I made my way over to Twilight with the rest of her friends.

“Wow, great speech, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly once we were within earshot. “I really liked when you talked about how the thingamajig needed to be more… more… wowzaroonie next year!” It was a good thing that Pinkie didn’t see Twilight roll her eyes, although she was also smiling a little.

“Thank you, Pinkie. I’m just pleased that everything went so well today!”

“Yes, once more a splendid job!” said Rarity, whilst Fluttershy nodded. Rainbow Dash had been hovering just above us all, but flew down to speak next.

“Well, Twilight’s organising may have helped us, but we all know that it was my pegasi team that really helped with the snow and everything!”

“Yeah, but why’d they melt the snow? So that mah plant team could grow all them different types of food!” Applejack countered, although not spitefully. As they friendlily bickered, I noticed that Twilight’s saddlebag had some papers coming out of it.

“What are those papers, Twilight?” I asked her, curious. She took a moment to look back at them.

“Oh, these? Just some last minute paperwork I didn’t have time to get done today – I’m hoping to finish it tonight, as a matter of fact. Are you ready to head back to the library, Snake and Spike?”

“Sure.”

“Yeah. The sooner I can get to bed, the better.” Twilight nodded, and turned to the others.

“Well, we’d better head off now – I still have some paperwork to do, Spike wants to get to bed, and Snake no doubt wants to do some reading before the day is completely over. See you tomorrow, everypony!” The rest of Twilight’s friends all returned her goodbye, before the three of us headed back to the library.

===================

“So, what did you think of Winter Wrap Up in the end, Snake?” Twilight asked me as I drew Star Swirl the Bearded’s Abridged List of Master Spells: Volume Thirteen out from the bookshelf once more.

“Yeah, it was alright,” I admitted. I wouldn’t have called it fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting.

“Good to hear!” Twilight replied cheerfully as she started on the final few sheets of paperwork for Winter Wrap Up. “I’m sorry again that I didn’t manage to find another job for you – when I wasn’t filling out this paperwork, I was trying to manage and look after the teams. You wouldn’t believe how many problems can come from simply changing the seasons!”

“Changing the seasons, huh?” I repeated as I flipped through the Abridged List to my bookmark. “A pity there’s not a spell for doing that for you ponies, rather than having to do it manually.”

“Oh, there is – it’s how we used to do things back in Canterlot,” Twilight answered whilst refilling the ink of her quill. “But since Ponyville was founded by Earth ponies, it’s traditional to do it without magic.”

“Huh.” Twilight and I continued to fill out paperwork and read, respectively, in silence for the next few minutes. I was nearly at the end of this Abridged List, still hoping to find a spell to transport me back to Shadow Moses. “There are too many useless spells in this,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Well, maybe for your situation, Snake,” Twilight replied. “But I’ll bet that any one of those spells can be useful in the right situation – read out one of the ones from the page you’re on now.”

“'Apples to Oranges – As the name suggests, this turns apples to oranges',” I read aloud. “See, now what sort of situation could that be useful for?”

“Well… how about if apples were cheaper than oranges at the market, but you’d rather have an orange?” Twilight suggested. “It would be pretty useful then, wouldn’t it?” I grimaced.

“Yeah, but that’s a pretty specific situation,” I said. “And even then, some of these still aren’t that useful. Like this one here –Dimension Locator. Can be used to –”

“Dimension Locator?!” Twilight asked loudly in shock. I double-checked the spell.

“Yeah, that’s what it say – Can be used to identify the inhabitants and/or contents of any number of different universes. What’s the point in knowing if you can’t interact with them?”

“That doesn’t matter, Snake!” Twilight said happily. “Don’t you see – I can use the Dimension Locator spell in conjunction with my teleport spell to send you home!”

“Teleport… spell?” I repeated, never having heard Twilight mention it. “…Are you sure that it could work?” This seemed too good to be true.

“Of course, Snake! There’s nothing that could go wrong with it!” Twilight leapt out of her seat and trotted up to me. “Snake, we’ve found a way to send you home!”

Chapter Ten: Draw!

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It took me a long time to get to sleep that night. Even though I was going to be returning to Shadow Moses, which I had wanted to do since the moment I arrived in Ponyville, I was worried about what could go wrong. What if I returned to Shadow Moses to find that the deadline had passed? What if Twilight’s spell didn’t work after all, and I was still stuck here? Hell, even if everything went fine, and I returned just moments after I left, I would still have to complete my mission, which was dangerous as it was.

I finally managed to drift off to sleep, and slept undisturbed for the night before waking up the next day. Although I had wanted Twilight to try out the spell as soon as she said that it could send me back home, she had insisted on waiting until today, so that the rest of her friends had a chance to say farewell. I had reluctantly agreed – if nothing else, it would be good to get a good night’s sleep before facing the terrorists again.

“Morning, Snake!” Twilight said as I walked into her kitchen. “How did you sleep last night?” I shrugged.

“Yeah, pretty well. When are we going to do this?” If I had thought that the time looking for the spell to send me to Shadow Moses had been agonisingly slow, it was nothing next to how it felt now.

“Once you’ve had some breakfast, if that’s not too soon. I’ve already contacted the others, and we can all meet outside before I perform the spell.” Naturally, Twilight had been both efficient and organised.

“After breakfast, huh? Sounds like a plan.” I started preparing my breakfast (two pieces of toast and an apple), whilst Twilight double-checked the specifics of the spells that she would be casting.

===================

I went over all of my equipment. I had used up some ammunition and rations during my stay, but otherwise all of my gear was exactly as it had been before Psycho Mantis sent me here. Although I was going to be leaving, I would always have my memories of Ponyville to remind me of my visit. I drew my final cigarette out of the packet – I had been saving it for this occasion.

I was standing just outside the library. All of Twilight’s friends were standing around me, whilst Twilight herself was levitating the Abridged List and re-reading the spell she was going to cast. Although she seemed focused on her work, I knew that she was doing so to hide her sadness at me leaving.

“Please don’t forget us, Snake,” Fluttershy said to me in her quiet voice as I lit the cigarette. “If, um, that’s okay with you…” she added quietly.

I gave a low chuckle. “Of course I won’t forget! This stay… it’s been pretty damn memorable.” Each of Twilight’s friends stepped forwards, and I leant down to hug them (making sure that I wasn’t accidentally breathing cigarette smoke into their faces as I did so). Pinkie Pie was sobbing uncontrollably as I did so – almost comically so.

“I – I never got to bake cupcakes with you!” she bawled as I stood back up. Trust Pinkie to say something as random and non sequitur as that as I prepared to leave. But then again… even as I thought those words, it occurred to me that this might be Pinkie’s way of masking her sadness, just as Twilight was hiding hers behind her book. Although it didn’t feel as though I had made much of a difference to these ponies’ lives, they were still going to miss me, in spite of how little they really knew about me.

“Y-yeah, Pinkie. Sorry,” I said, genuinely meaning it. I turned to Twilight. “Is the spell ready? …Are you?” Twilight levitated the book out of the way.

“Yes, it’s all ready. The dimensional-locator spell should automatically teleport you back to your world… to where you were before you arrived here.” I gave her a small nod.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

Twilight’s familiar purple magical field appeared around her horn as she closed her eyes and started concentrating. I looked at myself to see that the field had also surrounded my body. As Twilight continued concentrating, her horn slowly gradually began to glow white. As it did so, I felt a slight throbbing in my head, which increased as Twilight’s horn continued to glow.

The intensity of the throbbing continued to grow until it started hurting me somewhat. I had been wondering what was going on, when it occurred to me that this was what had happened prior to Psycho Mantis sending me to Equestria. It’s working! I thought.

Suddenly, just as Twilight’s horn didn’t seem as though it could get any brighter, there was a bright flash, which appeared at the same time as I heard a loud CRACK! noise.

…

I got a sense of déjà vu as I realised that I was lying face-down on the ground, just as I had been when Mantis had transported me to Ponyville. It did work! I thought. Thank you, Twilight!

“H-hey… what happened?” Even though I was face-down in the dirt, I recognised that voice. It wasn’t the voice of Psycho Mantis, or any other one of the FOXHOUND terrorists, for that matter. It sounded more like … Pinkie Pie.

I pulled myself up quickly. Had Pinkie Pie somehow been included in the spell, and sent to Earth alongside me? As I was standing up, I noticed a whistling-like sound... although I couldn’t place where I’d heard it before.

Crap. All of the ponies – Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack – were all lying on the ground, as if they had been temporarily knocked out as I seemed to have been. Worse, I was still in Equestria. The spell didn’t have seemed to have worked after all!

“Well, what have we here?” a voice behind me rasped. “Is that you, Solid Snake?” I slowly turned around, recognising the voice.

“Ocelot!” Standing before me… somehow… was Revolver Ocelot, a Russian gunman who was a core member of FOXHOUND. I had fought him just hours before facing Mantis. He was wearing the same leather jacket and dark suit that he had been then, and had an ammunition belt slung from his hip to his shoulder. Unlike when I had fought him, his right arm had been severed at the forearm, an act which I had witnessed, and was now wrapped in bandages. The whistling sound I had heard was Ocelot twirling his trademark revolver in his hand.

“Ooh, is that one of your friends, Snake? How’d he get here?” I heard Pinkie Pie say from behind me. I turned around angrily.

“No! He’s a deadly enemy of mine, Pinkie! All of you – get out of here!” As I spoke, I drew my SOCOM, the nearest weapon on hand. Although Ocelot only had one hand, I wasn’t going to underestimate him for a second. I had no idea why Twilight’s spell had brought Ocelot to Equestria rather than sending me back to Earth, but for now, all that mattered was that I stop him before he hurt any innocent ponies.

“What did you do to bring me here?” Ocelot rasped as he slowly started advancing towards me. He was still twirling his gun – toying with me, no doubt. “Mantis contacted me just before and told me that he had dealt with you…”

It took me a moment to realise what that meant. If Mantis had only just contacted Ocelot… then that meant Twilight’s theory was correct, and time was passing between the dimensions differently. I couldn’t be too sure, but it sounded as though only a few minutes had passed between my encounter with Mantis and the present.

“Tell me, Snake,” asked Ocelot as he continued advancing, “where are we?”

“None of your damn business, Ocelot!” I replied. There was no knowing what he would do if he knew that he was in Equestria. I took a quick glance over my soldier to see that the ponies were all peeking around from the side of the library to see what was happening. Obviously none of them realised how serious this could end up being.

“Hmph. Didn’t expect to get an answer,” Ocelot replied as he stopped advancing. He also stopped twirling his gun, and instead holstered it. “Not that it matters, of course. I have allies all over the world, in virtually every populated area –” surely he had to be exaggerating this “- that are at my command.” He mustn’t have noticed the ponies, or disregarded them as unimportant, judging by his words. “Snake! Prepare yourself!” Ocelot said dramatically.

As tempted as I was to pull the trigger on my SOCOM, I didn’t – having Ocelot here could prove useful. I had already found out from him that time between the two worlds did flow differently, and if nothing else, I might be able to find out more about FOXHOUND’s plans if I defeated Ocelot. I tensed myself, wondering what he was going to do next.

“MROWR!!” I jumped back in surprise a little as Ocelot moved his remaining arm in imitation of a cat’s claws whilst making that… noise.

“Mrowr?!” I repeated, not understanding what he was doing. Behind me, I could hear Pinkie Pie laughing at the sound of Ocelot’s call. “What the hell was that?!” I asked Ocelot, as curious as I was confused. I was trying to draw his attention away from Pinkie and the rest of the innocent ponies.

Ocelot smirked. “You didn’t like my little signal, Snake?” he taunted. I decided that it was better not to antagonise him and point out how ridiculous he sounded – especially at his age. He looked around, evidently expecting some sort of response. I prayed that no pony came out of their houses to see what all the fuss was about. It was still fortunately early, so most ponies were still at home.

After a moment, Ocelot seemed to realise that whatever his signal was supposed to do, it wasn’t doing it. “Hmph!” he said as he frowned. “I’m proud of you, Snake… you’ve managed to transport me somewhere the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo’s influence doesn’t-”

“La-Li-Lu-what?!” I interrupted. It was as if he was making up words on the spot. Could this be something to do with Metal Gear REX? I could hear the sound of not only Pinkie, but of all the ponies laughing at the words Ocelot had just spoken.

In response, Ocelot just smirked. “Don’t worry, Snake, I’m sure you’ll meet them some day,” he cryptically replied. He reached into his holster and drew out his revolver. “But for now, let’s finish what we started earlier. You got lucky last time – how will you handle yourself now?”

He aimed his gun at the ground at my feet, and I dove to the side as I realised what he was about to do. My quick thinking had saved me – a moment later, and the shot he fired would have ricocheted from the ground and hit my throat. I aimed my SOCOM at Ocelot, about to shoot, when I was interrupted. A bolt of purple magic flew towards Ocelot and hit him squarely in the chest.

I rolled over to see that my pony allies had all gotten over their laughing fit (minus Pinkie Pie, who was still giggling uncontrollably), and were galloping out to help me fight Ocelot. Twilight was at the front, shooting bolts of magic at Ocelot repeatedly. Behind her were Rarity and Applejack, whilst Rainbow Dash flew straight into Ocelot, knocking him over. Still behind the library, I could see Fluttershy timidly looking out to see how things were going.

I gritted my teeth as I got up. I appreciated their help, but this was far too risky for them to try helping me. Twilight’s magic wasn’t having a visible effect on Ocelot, and Ocelot himself was currently trying to shoot Rainbow Dash – fortunately, she seemed too agile for him. Acting quickly, I threw a stun grenade at Ocelot whilst he was distracted, whilst leaping to the side at the same time. As I planned, I crashed into Twilight Sparkle, stopping her assault.

“Snake, what are you-”

“Twilight! This man is too dangerous for you! Get out of here! All of you!”

“But we-”

“Now!” The ponies all realised how serious I was, and retreated before Ocelot could recover from the grenade. I could tell that they wanted to be helpful, but now was not the time.

“Would you believe that I’m out of bullets?” Ocelot asked me as he recovered. He swiftly moved away whilst somehow managing to reload with his single hand. “You know, I love to reload in battle! There’s nothing –”

“Well, obviously!” I interrupted as I finally got a chance to shoot off a few rounds of my SOCOM. Ocelot’s coat seemed to reduce the impact somewhat, but it still felt satisfying. “What did you think the alternative was? To surrender and reload whilst a prisoner?” I myself was now reloading, having emptied my clip.

I took a quick look behind me to see whether the ponies had fled, as I had told them to. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that they had.

Ocelot seemed annoyed at my comment. “You wouldn’t understand,” he rasped back to me as he fired off two shots. “This reload time – it’s exhilarating!” The two of us were now hiding behind cover, leaning over and shooting each other when we felt it was safe. I was tempted to take back what I had said before about him being dangerous – Ocelot was making an idiot of himself.

“Ocelot!” I muttered to myself. “I’ll kick your twisted mind out of you!” It was fortunate that I had only said this to myself, as I realised how stupid it sounded a moment later.

“You know, Snake,” Ocelot called out as he fired off some further shots at me, which missed once more, “did I mention that I knew Big Boss when he was alive?” I had been about to fire some shots of my own, and this caused me to hesitate. Was it true? Or was Ocelot just trying to screw with my mine, and defeat me whilst I was distracted?

“Three times I fought him,” Ocelot continued, “and neither of us could defeat the other.” I squeezed the trigger on my SOCOM once more, hearing Ocelot yell in pain as the bullets hit him once again. I was through with this – I just wanted this battle to be over, before any ponies could wander onto the scene and get injured.

“Ocelot! I don’t care about you and your damn crush on Big Boss!” I shouted as I got out from behind my cover and started cautiously moving over to his, keeping my SOCOM aimed at his position all the time. I was starting to run out of ammo for my SOCOM, and I wanted to end this quickly.

I was now right in front of Ocelot’s cover, which had been an empty market stall. “Get up,” I growled, ready to shoot him. I had been stupid not to do so before when he had been talking. I suddenly felt something cold and metal press to my temple.

“Game over, Snake,” Ocelot coldly rasped in his gravelly voice. I had no idea how, but he had snuck around the market stall and ambushed me from the side. His revolver was pressed to my temple, and there was no doubt that he would fire it at any moment. Is this it? I wondered. No dramatic fanfare – no chance to try again? Sweat broke out on my brow as I considered the innocent ponies here. What would Revolver Ocelot do to them?

Click! Ocelot had pressed the trigger, but he had apparently been out of bullets – or at least, he had no bullet in the current chamber. I hesitated for a moment, half out of surprise, and half because I hadn’t planned for what to do next.

“Hmm…funny,” Ocelot muttered. “The last time this happened, I was hit by a motorcycle.” I didn’t know what he was on about, but I took advantage of the opening to knock his gun out of his hand before he could try something else. I spun around and aimed my SOCOM directly at him. There was no way that he could escape now.

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “That was some fancy close-quarters-combat - you’re pretty good!” He made a gesture with his hand resembling a handgun. I was going to shoot him now… but something odd was happening. There seemed to be some sort of … purple energy surrounding Ocelot. Was this Twilight’s doing? “There’s no Cyborg Ninja to save you this time, Snake!”

“Ocelot…” I growled, unsure of what to do. Could this glow actually be something he controlled? He seemed oddly confident.

Damn it all. I’d just shoot him, and deal with any consequences later… or at least, that’s what I was planning to do. The moment I squeezed the trigger, there was a flash of bright light. The bullets I was firing shot through the space where Ocelot had been before he had disappeared with the light.

And that was it. Somehow, Ocelot was gone.

===================

“Any idea how he could have disappeared like that, Twilight?” Once I had been sure that Ocelot wasn’t coming back, I had called Twilight on the codec, and told her what had happened. After I had told them to leave, Twilight and her friends had kept the other citizens of the town away from Ocelot and my battlefield, before retreating to Fluttershy’s Cottage. We hadn’t mentioned it yet… but they were starting to see how serious my work back on Earth was.

I had joined the group in Fluttershy’s Cottage, where they were all drinking tea. “Well, I have a theory,” Twilight replied. “It’s possible that the spells that accidentally brought Ocelot to Equestria wore off, and sent him back where he had come from. At least, that would seem to be the case.” I grunted.

“And you don’t know why the spells didn’t send me back to Earth?” I asked. That was just my luck, that rather than transferring me to Shadow Moses, the spells brought one of my enemies to Equestria. Twilight shook her head.

“The only idea I can think of is that my teleport spell isn’t powerful enough… although why it brought Ocelot here instead, I’m not sure,” she replied. “Unless I can find some way to increase the power of my teleport spell, I don’t think we’ll be able to use that method to send you home, Snake.”

“Look on the bright side, Snake!” Pinkie said happily. “Now you get to spend even more time in Ponyville with us!” She suddenly gasped loudly. “This means we CAN bake cupcakes together! Oh, All you have to do is take a cup of flour—”

“Yes, quite,” Rarity said, interrupting Pinkie. “But more importantly, now I can finish making you your new suit, Snake! I was so worried when you said that you’d be leaving, but now I have the chance to finish it for you!”

“New suit, huh?” I repeated. As I looked over this group of ponies who had taken me in and accepted me into their friendship group, I was only thinking of one thing. Sure, I hadn’t managed to get back to Shadow Moses, and Ocelot arriving could have been deadly to either me or one of these ponies. Maybe I was going to be stuck here for just as long as I already had been.

But at least I was with these ponies… no… at least I was here with my friends.

Chapter Eleven: Pinkie and Snake Bake Cupcakes

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The promised day had finally come. All of this waiting… all of this time I had had to kill… it was finally over. I hadn’t been sure whether I should have been looking forwards to this moment or fearing it, but now that it was here, I would just have to bite the bullet and find out.

“Stop with the shakin', it's time to get bakin'!” Pinkie Pie called out as she opened the door of Sugarcube Corner. I hadn’t even noticed it, but once Pinkie mentioned it, I realised how shaky my hands were. Why am I so nervous about baking? I thought to myself. It’s not as if Pinkie’s going to drug me and then cut me up.

I stepped inside Sugarcube Corner and took it in. I hadn’t seen the need to enter it since I had come to Ponyville, but with Pinkie Pie insisting that I help her bake, I didn’t have too much choice. And besides, I had been sort of curious as to what Pinkie’s workplace was like.

As it turned out, the store was no more different than any other place in Ponyville. The walls were a bright and cheerful yellow, and it was decorated with plenty of confectionery-like ornaments. I had been expecting something more wild and crazy from a place where Pinkie both worked and lived.

“So, what are we making today, Pinkie?” I asked as I crossed into a kitchen. The shop’s closing hours had finished several hours ago, and I was just going to be helping her bake some of the confectionery and pastry that would be sold tomorrow. “Because it’s more fun if you help!” had been Pinkie’s reason.

“Ooh, how about cupcakes?” Pinkie asked me as she got bowls and cooking utensils out of cupboards. “They’re great fun to eat and make! Oh, All you have to –”

“Sounds like a plan,” I interrupted before Pinkie could burst into song. I opened some random cupboards, looking for further instruments which we could use in our cooking. Pinkie interrupted me, throwing something at my face.

“Here! Put on this apron!” she said, although not in an unfriendly voice.

“Apron?!” I repeated as I examined what Pinkie had thrown at me. “How’d you get it in my size, Pinkie?”

“Rarity made it, of course!” Pinkie replied, getting out ingredients now. As I started to put the apron on, I noticed the design sewn into it. It was Pinkie Pie’s head, only wearing a purple turban with a jewel and feather set in it. She was also wearing two crescent moon earrings.

“What’s this?” I asked, confused. “Is it you as a gypsy or something, Pinkie?” Pinkie turned to me from her work and gave me a funny look.

“I’m a baker, not a gypsy! Those two aren’t even related!” Before I could say anything else, Pinkie sat down on the floor and put her hooves to her head in thought. “…Or are they?” I decided not to press the issue, and put the apron on compliantly. I couldn’t find anything in the cupboards of use, so I went over to Pinkie for direction.

“Okay, what do you want me to do?” I asked gruffly. Although I was staring straight at Pinkie, she somehow managed to dart over to my side and take me by surprise as she answered.

“I’ll cook up a solution with the knowledge I’ve accrued,

They say a –”

“Should I just start creaming the butter and eggs?” I interjected before she could continue her song. Pinkie stopped her singing as I started talking, which was probably a good thing judging by the way she was almost teleporting around the room in her singing frenzy.

“Oh! Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!” Pinkie answered cheerfully. “I can make the icing while you do that!” The two of us started our cooking shortly afterwards, with Pinkie directing me and telling me what to do.

“Tell me, Pinkie…” I started as I added an egg to the mix. She turned her head to me curiously whilst still continuing her own task. “Have you considered making these cupcakes more… useful?”

“Useful how?” she asked. “I tried putting streamers in the mix once before for a surprise, but they just burned in the oven.” As she answered, I noticed that there seemed to be less icing in her bowl than there had been earlier, but I decided that it would be better if I didn’t point this out.

“What if you filled these cupcakes with, say… cyanide?” Pinkie gestured for me to continue in my suggestion. “Think about it… you could fill them up… leave them for enemy soldiers… and, well, you can see where I’m going from here.”

“You mean you could feed your enemies?” Pinkie repeated. I frowned, about to explain what I had been implying. “That sounds great! If there’s one way to make new friends, it’s by sharing around lots of tasty food!”

“No…” I said slowly, trying not to sound too extreme. “I mean, if the cupcakes are filled with cyanide… and then enemy soldiers ate them…” After a moment of putting two and two together, Pinkie leapt into the air as she worked it out, spraying icing everywhere.

“Oh! I get it!” she shouted enthusiastically. “They have to try and work out what’s wrong with the cupcakes! It’s like a game!” I sighed as I gave up on this idea.

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” I said. As she started making more icing, Pinkie turned to me.

“But… why would you fill it with cyanide? That could really hurt some people! You wouldn’t be making baked goods, you’d be making… baked bads!”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, humouring Pinkie.

“It would be better if you just made the cupcakes normally,” Pinkie continued. “Then that way you can eat lots of them, and laugh and grow fat!”

Pinkie had evidently missed the point I was trying to make with the poisoned cupcakes, so I simply grunted rather than correcting her. The two of us continued to bake several batches of cupcakes for the next few hours whilst Pinkie told me some more of her random stories, before we put the cupcakes into the oven to bake. Although I wasn’t much of a cook, I was fairly confident that they would come out tasting delicious.

===================

“Oooh, those look much better than the last batch,” Pinkie said as I drew a tray of blackened, heavily burnt cupcakes out of the oven. So far, my cupcake making skills had been disastrous. One batch had been burnt down to ash, and another had somehow exploded whilst in the oven. I didn’t know how it had happened, but it had happened.

Pinkie was happily chomping down several of these cupcakes, so I reluctantly decided to eat one. “Urgh!” I spat out as much of the cupcake as I could – it tasted like ash. Pinkie continued to eat the rest of the tray.

“Aw, what’s the matter, Snake? They taste great!” I gave her a look. I couldn’t tell whether she was just saying so for my sake, or whether Pinkie had a bizarre sense of taste.

“Forgive me. Damn!” I said, feeling embarrassed at the horrible way the cupcakes had turned out. After all, Pinkie’s job did at least partially rely on how well these cupcakes tasted. “I'm a loser. I'm not the chef you thought I was. I'm nothing! Pinkie, I'm sorry! Forgive me.” I realised as I said the words how dramatic they sounded, but at the same time, I didn’t want to let any pony down if possible.

“You’re not a failure!” Pinkie said happily to me. “I like the way these taste!”

I hesitated. “You like the way these… taste?”

“Yep! Cupcakes taste great, no matter how they’re cooked!” As she spoke, there was a ringing sound from a kitchen timer, indicating that the final tray was finished. I sighed, wondering what would have gone wrong this time. “Yum! You have to try some of these, Snake!” Pinkie said as she drew the tray out.

To my surprise, this tray wasn’t burnt. (Or at least not as badly burnt as the previous one had been). “So… what does it taste like?” I asked Pinkie Pie as she tried one.

“It’h gud!” she said with her mouth full of cupcake. I hesitantly reached out for one, and put it in my mouth once it had cooled down. To my surprise, it had cooked perfectly, and was much better than the other ones which I had tried.

“So, do you like it? It tastes great, doesn’t it?!” Pinkie excitedly said to me. Unable to speak with my mouth full, I gave her a thumbs up to show my approval. “Whee! See Snake, it’s just like I’ve been trying to tell you…

“All you have to do is take a cup of flour!

Add it to the mix!

Now just take a little something sweet, not sour!

A bit of salt, just a pinch!

Baking these treats is such a cinch!

Add a teaspoon of vanilla!

Add a little more, and you count to four,

And you never get your fill of...

Cupcakes! So sweet and tasty!

Cupcakes! Don't be too hasty!

Cupcakes! Cupcakes, cupcakes, CUPCAKES!” As Pinkie sung her silly song, I repeatedly tried to silence her, but with the cupcake still in my mouth, I was unable to. I sighed, and waited until she had finished. “That was fun! I love cupcakes!” Pinkie Pie said as she bounced around the room.

“Yeah, we did a good job,” I grumbled. “Is it okay that most of the cupcakes ended up so… destroyed?” Pinkie nodded.

“That’s no problem at all! I got to eat all of the burnt ones, and we can always bake more!”

“Bake… more?” I repeated, thinking about how long it had taken us to bake so far. Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. After a moment of hesitation, I nodded back and smiled. “Sure thing, Pinkie. If we have to, we’ll bake until the sun sets!”

“The Cakes come back at five,” Pinkie pointed out happily. I avoided her sight for a moment, embarrassed.

“Five?” I repeated. “Well, uh, in that case, we’ll bake ‘til the Cakes come back if we have to!”

Colonel Campbell looked at his notes and thought carefully. What’s missing? he wondered. After a moment, he realised what was wrong – he had drawn himself as Big Boss, punching out the Russian soldier formerly known as The Fury, but had forgotten to add an eye patch to his cartoon face. Much better, he thought once he had finished adding it.

“…and so then she said ‘Oatmeal? Are you crazy?!’” Snake finished. He had been so lost in his story that he hadn’t noticed the Colonel doodling on his notepad below the table. Snake patiently stubbed out the remains of his cigarette as he waited for Campbell to take notice of him again. It took several minutes.

“Oh, is that what happened? G-good work!” Campbell said once he noticed the silence, hastily putting away his notepad (which in addition to The Fury, also had another soldier, The Fear, being taken out by Campbell-as-Big-Boss). Snake opened his mouth to continue the story, only to have Campbell hold up a hand to silence him.

“Look, Snake, you’ve spent –” Campbell quickly checked his watch “ – two hours going on about what’s happened in this… this Equestria place. We’re supposed to be hearing about the Shadow Moses Incident, not the… the… the Great Big Pony Adventure!” Colonel Campbell sighed. “What sort of person would want to go to this Equestria place anyway?”

Upon hearing these words, Snake frowned. “It’s all relevant Campbell, believe me. I’ve already told you about what happened with Ocelot, haven’t I?” Campbell nodded slowly. “Good. Then you can see that it does relate to the Shadow Moses Incident.” Snake leaned forwards over the table slightly, and smirked at Campbell. “Anyway, you might wish that you had gone to Equestria after you hear the next part of my story…”

Chapter Twelve: The Big Shell Incident

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“There's no such thing in the world as absolute reality,” I began. “Most of what they call real is actually fiction. What you think you see is only as real as your brain tells you it is.” I paused for a moment as I let these words sink in.

“Wait, ah don’t get it,” Apple Bloom said, breaking the silence. “Why is this important again?” I sighed. At the request of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, I was once again trying to help them get their cutie marks, and this time, I was trying to explain to them how you had to find your place in the world to discover who you are. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to get it. The four of us were all in Twilight’s library at the moment, alone.

“Can’t we just use your box to sneak around in again, Snake?” Scootaloo added. “That was way more fun!”

“NO! I mean, no, you can’t Scootaloo,” I hastily replied. Although I could empathise with the urge for these fillies to acquire their cutie marks, I didn’t want them to do something silly again that would put them in danger. And besides, after what happened last time, I wasn’t going to trust my box to anyone.

“How about sneaking?” Sweetie Belle asked. “You could teach us how to sneak around without being caught. Then we’ll get our cutie marks for sure!” I sighed again – the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all far too impatient to listen to my carefully thought out speech. I was about to give in and teach the Crusaders something harmless, such as how to crawl through air vents, when the door to the library opened and Twilight Sparkle entered.

“Hello, girls! Hello, Snake! How are things going in here?” she greeted cheerfully. She had been over at Rarity’s house for some afternoon tea, which I had politely declined when invited to join in.

“Snake’s going to teach us some of the ways he sneaks into places!” Scootaloo answered before I could say anything.

“It’s sure to get us our cutie marks!” Sweetie Belle added.

“An’ y’all know what that means –”

“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SPIES!” the three fillies all shouted in unison. I looked to Twilight apologetically.

“Well, it’s not quite like that… but yeah, I was thinking of teaching them some of my… methods,” I explained. As I spoke, Twilight nodded to show that she had heard me, whilst focusing more on writing something down on a piece of paper. “What’s that you’re writing?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Oh, this?” she asked, levitating the paper telekinetically to confirm what I was asking about. I nodded. “It’s nothing much – I’m just writing down a reminder that I need to travel to Baltimare in the next few days to visit their local library. They’ve got some books there that I wouldn’t mind having a good read of… come to think of it, they might even have some things to help you find your way home!”

“Find my way… home?” I repeated as I started to think. “How do you mean?”

“Well, it’s nothing definite,” Twilight answered, “but they’re sure to have some spell books there which I don’t have, and who knows what could be in them? You might be able to find a spell to transport you home in one of the books… but nothing’s guaranteed.” I grimaced as I went through this again in my head.

“I’ll tell you what, Twilight,” I answered after giving it some thought. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll come with you to Baltimare to check out this library, and –”

“Hey! No fair!” Twilight and I both turned at the sound of Apple Bloom interrupting our conversation. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been squabbling (presumably over something minor) whilst Twilight and I had been talking, but they had now stopped to join in our conversation. “If Snake’s goin’ tah Baltimare, then ah wanna come too!”

“You want to… come too?” I repeated, confused.

“Why do you want to come with us to Baltimare?” Twilight asked, just as puzzled as I was. “All we’ll probably be doing is borrowing some books from the library and reading them…”

“Because Baltimare is right next to Horseshoe Bay! Duh!” Apple Bloom replied. I looked to Twilight for clarification.

“Horseshoe Bay?!”

“It’s a large bay, right near Baltimare,” Twilight answered. “Nothing too exciting about it, although I hear that the pegasi usually work to make the weather quite nice most of the year.”

“Don’t ’cha see?” Apple Bloom answered impatiently. “We can go to the beach and get our cutie marks in swimming! Or… building sand castles! Or somethin’ like that!” Behind her, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded enthusiastically in agreement. I honestly didn’t know what to say to this, so I turned to Twilight and waited for her opinion.

“Well… if it’s okay with your sisters and parents, then it’s okay with me,” Twilight answered after thinking it over for a moment. She turned to me before continuing. “Snake, you and I will have to go down to the beach to watch over them and make sure that they’re safe after we visit the library – is that okay with you?” I nodded. That was reasonable enough.

“Oh, ah know! Ah’ll bring Applejack along, too!” Apple Bloom suddenly said, speaking a bit louder than usual in her excitement. “We can build a sandcastle together!”

“Good idea! I’ll bring Rarity!” Sweetie Belle said. “…If she likes the beach, that is,” she added a moment later.

“And I’ll bring – oh… never mind…” Scootaloo started before suddenly going quiet. Twilight put a hoof to her mouth in thought as the three fillies spoke.

“You know what, Snake?” she asked me.

“Huh?” I replied, not knowing what she was going to ask me.

“If Rarity and Applejack are going to come too, then why don’t we invite all of our friends to the beach - make a bit of a day of it?” I thought about it for a moment before answering.

“Sure. Why not?” Thanks to Ocelot’s brief appearance, I had found out that time was working fairly slowly back on Earth, and with that knowledge, I could afford to spend a day at the beach. And besides, I was going to pick up some books from the library whilst in Baltimare – it wasn’t as though the trip was going to be a waste of time. “So, when should we do this?” I asked.

“How about… next Tuesday morning?” Twilight suggested. I nodded, as did the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Good! Well then, if everypony else is fine with it, we’ll take the early train on Tuesday to Baltimare, stop by the library, and then head to the beach!” Once Twilight had finished speaking, the Cutie Mark Crusaders started arguing once more over which activity they should try first to get their cutie marks.

“Beach trip, huh?” I muttered, more to myself than any pony else. I hadn’t been to the beach in years, but from the way things were shaping up, it looked like this was going to be a fun trip.

“Wait a minute,” Colonel Campbell interrupted. “You’re telling me that the reason I’d wish that I had gone to Equestria… is because you and your pony friends took a trip to the beach?!”

Snake shrugged. “Well… it was pretty fun,” he answered. Colonel Campbell waited for him to say the real reason why the trip to the beach was so interesting, but was met with silence. After a few moments of awkward silence, Campbell realised that Snake was being serious when he said that it had been fun.

“Snake… honestly, this story is meaningless. Can’t you just skip to the end and tell me how you managed to return to Shadow Moses? Or better yet, pretend that this never happened, and that you stopped Psycho Mantis before he could do any of his mind tricks on you?” Although he wasn’t saying it out loud, the Colonel was assuming that the entire trip to Equestria had taken place in Snake’s head, courtesy of Psycho Mantis’s psychic powers.

“No,” Snake bluntly answered. “Colonel… I’m the one who stopped the terrorists at Shadow Moses, so therefore it’s my story to tell during this debriefing. And if I want to tell you about where Mantis sent me, I will.” He stared Campbell in the eye defiantly, almost daring him to raise another objection.

“…Fine. Continue on with your story,” Colonel Campbell said, finally relenting. As Snake resumed his story, the Colonel withdrew his notepad from below the table, and continued doodling crude sketches of himself.

“Wow! What great weather!” Twilight Sparkle said as the entirety of our group arrived at the beach the following Tuesday morning. We had already been to the Baltimare library, and despite Twilight’s best efforts to borrow every single book contained within, we had eventually left with as much as we could carry, and were now at the beach.

“Well, duh,” Rainbow Dash said, although not condescendingly. “The Baltimare pegasi are under special orders to keep the weather at Horseshoe Bay in top condition for most of the year – it helps the tourism up.” As we all stepped onto the warm, dry sand, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who had been trotting ahead of us for most of the trip, all ran off away from our group, eager to start the next activity in the hopes of getting their cutie marks.

Every pony had their own plans for what to do now that we were at the beach. Rarity was getting a beach umbrella out from a bag. Twilight had stretched out a towel and was now lying down on it to start reading one of the books which she had borrowed from the library. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were throwing an oversized beach ball to each other. Slightly down the beach, Applejack was chasing after the Cutie Mark Crusaders, joining them in whatever game they were playing. Finally, Fluttershy was over at some nearby rock pools, presumably searching for some of the wildlife which she couldn’t encounter back home in Ponyville.

“So what are your plans now that we’re actually here?” Twilight asked me, as she telekinetically opened her book to the first page (whilst being careful not to accidentally get any sand on it).

“I’m not sure,” I admitted as I watched Pinkie Pie tackle Rainbow Dash into the water. I had come to Baltimare for the library more than the beach, and hadn’t actually thought about what I would do now that I was here. “I guess I’d go for a swim, if I wasn’t wearing my sneaking suit…”

“You enjoy swimming?” Twilight asked me, sounding surprised.

“Swimming?!”

“Yeah, you know – where you move around in the water,” Twilight answered, sounding a bit more snarky now.

“Move around in the water, huh?” I asked. “I was thinking more that it’s been a while since I’ve practiced underwater infiltration… It’s not like I can let my skills grow rusty…”

“Your underwater infiltration – of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” Twilight replied.

“You’d like to go for a dip in the water, as it were, Snake?” Rarity suddenly interjected. I looked over to her. She’d been carefully telekinetically spreading out a towel below her beach umbrella so that it was as straight as possible, and was now lying on it. Apparently she had overheard Twilight and I. “If so, then today is your lucky day!”

“Lucky day, huh?” I asked. “What makes you say that?”

“It just so happens that I have prepared a bathing suit for you –”

“Huh?!”

“ – in preparation of today’s outing,” Rarity continued, ignoring my shock. Without moving from where she was, she telekinetically opened a nearby saddlebag, and withdrew a white pair of board shorts from it, which fortunately looked to be my size.

“…How did you know what size I am?” I asked after a moment. It was something which I had been wondering about since I had received the apron from Pinkie Pie, courtesy of Rarity.

“Oh darling, please, I am a dressmaker – it’s my job to know what size to make everypony’s clothes. Now, would you like to try them on?”

“Uh… sure, I guess…” I said reluctantly as I looked for a place to change. A few minutes later, I had changed into the board shorts, and I was back on the beach with Twilight and Rarity.

“Huh, these are pretty good,” I complimented Rarity. “I guess I’ll head into the water now. Thanks, Rarity,” I said before heading down to the water. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were slightly further up the beach, still playing with the beach ball. Just up ahead of me were the Cutie Mark Crusaders, splashing about in the shallow waters whilst being watched over by Applejack. I assumed that the Crusaders were trying some sort of far-fetched scheme to get a cutie mark in swimming, or something similar.

As I approached the group of fillies and the older mare, they stopped what they were doing to pay attention to me. “Is that Rarity’s super-secret project that you’re wearing?” Sweetie Belle asked me excitedly. I smiled slightly before answering.

“Yeah, it is. I’m guessing that you knew about it?”

“She’s been working on that for weeks! Do you like it?”

“Yeah, these board shorts are pretty comfy,” I replied. I was going to keep heading into the water, when a thought struck me. “Hey, girls. You remember that I was going to teach you infiltration tactics?” The Crusaders all nodded enthusiastically. “Here, I’ll show you how I got into the last place I needed to.”

With that, I headed a bit further into the water, before taking a deep breath and diving under the water. Although I had actually made it to Shadow Moses Island through a one-man Swimmer Delivery Vehicle, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to show the girls some underwater swimming techniques.

After I had swum out far enough, and felt myself running out of breath, I resurfaced. I realised that whilst the Cutie Mark Crusaders wouldn’t have been able to actually see me swimming, the distance that I had covered would hopefully impress them, and sate their need to learn more from me.

As I breathed in, I turned myself around in the water to look back to shore. I couldn’t see very well, but most of the ponies both on the beach and in the water were looking in my direction and shouting. It wasn’t until I pushed my wet fringe out of my eyes that I realised what was wrong – Sweetie Belle was missing from the group. As I started to feel myself growing anxious, Rainbow Dash zoomed over to me.

“Snake! Sweetie Belle tried following you – she’s gone underwater and hasn’t come back up!”

“Shit!” I answered as quickly as I could before diving back under the water again. I thrashed my way through the water, looking through the salt for the flash of white which would reveal Sweetie Belle’s presence to me. I found her quickly, and got over to her as fast as I could; not even considering taking the time to resurface for air.

Fortunately, I could see that Sweetie Belle was still moving slightly in the water – she must have still had some oxygen in her lungs. I grabbed her (it was a good thing that she was so small), and kicked my legs, trying to reach the surface as quickly as I could. Fortunately, once we had breached the surface, Sweetie Belle started coughing and spluttering almost immediately – she was alright.

Whether it had been due to the panic or the fact that I had held my breath for so long, my heart was beating as frantically as it could. I hit Sweetie Belle slightly on her back to help with her coughing. I was starting to calm down now that I knew that Sweetie Belle would be okay.

At the shore, the rest of the ponies were all standing together, trying to see what was happening – at the distance Sweetie and I were from them, they probably couldn’t tell, and for whatever reason, Rainbow Dash wasn’t flying out. Helping keep Sweetie Belle afloat with one arm, I activated my codec communicator with my other.

“Snake, what’s your status?” Twilight asked as my codec connected with her spell. Although she sounded concerned about Sweetie and me, she was trying to be as professional about this as possible.

“Twilight? I've got Sweetie Belle here... we've managed to avoid drowning!” I answered, perhaps a little bit more enthusiastically than I should have.

“Good job. Get her over to the shore as soon as you can.” I confirmed that I could do so, before slowly paddling back to the shore. I more or less had Sweetie Belle tucked under my arm – although she assured me that she could swim, I wasn’t going to risk her getting sucked under the water by a large enough wave.

We made it back to shore in one piece, at which point all of the other ponies came galloping up to us. Before I could say or do anything, Rarity telekinetically used a towel to harshly whip my face.

“What were you thinking, Snake?! My little sister could have drowned!” I winced and rubbed my cheek where she had hit me.

“I didn’t do anything –Sweetie Belle who followed me into the water of her own accord.” I turned to Sweetie Belle, who seemed to have mostly recovered. “Sweetie Belle, why did you follow me?”

Sweetie Belle clearly realised that she had done something wrong, as she avoided everyone’s gaze. “I – I just wanted to follow Snake and see how he does things… I thought that I could maybe get my cutie mark…” Rarity moved closer to her sister and began nuzzling her to comfort her.

“Oh, Sweetie, I know that you didn’t mean any harm, but you can’t just do things like that without supervision - you have to be careful around water, you know,” Rarity said.

“I know…” Sweetie Belle said dejectedly. There was a moment of silence from everyone before Twilight Sparkle spoke up.

“Well, it sounds like we’ve all learned a valuable lesson from this! Who wants to join me in writing a letter to Celestia?” As she spoke, we all started moving away from the water and back to the area where we had left our belongings.

“Who is this Celestia, anyway?” I asked curiously. I had heard the name several times during my stay in Ponyville, but so far I still had no idea whom it was or why they were so important.

“I haven’t mentioned Princess Celestia to you, Snake?” Twilight asked. “She’s the ruler of Equestria, who raises the sun every morning with her magic. Her sister Luna raises the moon at night.”

“We send Celestia letters from time to time on the magic of friendship,” Fluttershy added quietly.

“Magic of friendship, huh?” I repeated. “Wonder what she’d say if a human sent her one?” Twilight chuckled slightly before answering.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t even told Celestia that you’re in Ponyville! I should probably do that, shouldn’t I?” I shrugged as we reached our belongings. Some pony had packed a towel for me, and I spread it out and sat down as I answered.

“It’s no big deal, really. If you’ve heard of humans, then I’m sure that the ruler of Equestria has.” I let out a short, sharp laugh. “Hell, I’ll bet she’s probably even got a human as an advisor or something at the moment!”

“Well, I somehow doubt that,” said Twilight as she got out the book she had been reading earlier, missing the humour I had been trying to convey. I decided that for the moment it was probably best if I stayed out of the water, and got out a book of my own to start reading for the next few hours.

===================

The rest of the day continued as it should have – Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie set up a game of beach volleyball which every pony and myself joined in (my team lost); Applejack joined the Cutie Mark Crusaders in building a sandcastle (despite the complexity, none of the Crusaders got a cutie mark in sandcastle-making); and Rainbow Dash was buried in the sand, much to her discomfort.

“Oh my! Isn’t this one beautiful, Snake?” asked Fluttershy as she picked up a seashell with one of her wings. She had spent the past few minutes looking for shells to collect along the beach. I was joining her out of a need for something different to do.

“Beautiful, huh? Yeah, it’s not bad, I guess.” To my eyes, it looked just like any other shell you could find on the beach, but I wasn’t going to ruin the experience for Fluttershy. We kept walking along past the rock pools which Fluttershy had been examining earlier before we came upon a pretty extraordinary sight.

Half-buried in the sand was a large spiral shell. Although we couldn’t see the entire size of it, the big shell looked to be around the size of a pony. “What do you think of that shell, Fluttershy?” I asked her, half-jokingly.

“Oh my, it’s very big…” Fluttershy said as she cautiously trotted up to it. After a moment of hesitation, she tapped it with her hoof. Despite no outwards sign of anything happening as a result of this, Fluttershy flinched. It was almost as if she were expecting a gigantic crab to emerge from it.

“Wow! What’s that big shell?” The Cutie Mark Crusaders had appeared from nowhere, and were fascinated by the size of the big shell.

“Who cares? Ah just wanna go swimmin’, so that I can get mah cutie mark in deep sea divin’!” Apple Bloom answered.

“But the water makes me feel funny!” Sweetie Belle protested. I didn’t know whether she wanted an excuse not to go into the water again after her near-drowning experience earlier, or whether she was making a legitimate claim, but the point was irrelevant either way.

“Who cares about that? Let’s get this big shell out of the sand!” Scootaloo said, ignoring her two friends.

“Girls, I – I really think that you shouldn’t –” Fluttershy began quietly as the Cutie Mark Crusaders all tried pulling the big shell out.

“Let them have their fun, Fluttershy,” I said to her. “It’s not like it will hurt them if they pull it out of the sand, will it?” As I spoke these words, it suddenly occurred to me that with my luck, there would probably be some sort of new Metal Gear hidden below the big shell. At least, if we were on Earth, that probably would have been the case.

After a few more minutes of struggling, during which Fluttershy and I patiently watched the Cutie Mark Crusaders, they finally managed to pull the entirety of the shell out of the sand. “Wow! This thing is huge!” said Apple Bloom. As I had guessed, the big shell was around the size of a regular-sized pony, making it roughly twice as big as the fillies.

“Huh. Good job pulling that out of the sand, girls,” I said to them. I turned to Fluttershy to ask her something, only to see her opening her mouth and screaming. “Huh?!” I looked back at the shell, and to my surprise, a gigantic crab was crawling out of the bottom half of the big shell!

“Girls, get out of there!” Fluttershy said as she regained some of her composure. As if she needed to – the three fillies were already galloping away from the crab as fast as they could.

“Snake! Do something!” said Scootaloo as she ran past Fluttershy and I, heading back to the rest of our group.

“Do something?! What with?”

“Don’t ‘cha have your equipment on you? Like when we were in the Everfree Forest?” Apple Bloom questioned, temporarily stopping her fleeing to talk.

“No – why would I be able to access my equipment when I’m only wearing a pair of boxer shorts?” I asked Apple Bloom in return.

“Well… ah was just wonderin’ how else yah could access all o’ that stuff you’ve got – it doesn’t seem like yah could fit it all in your suit.” I opened my mouth and was about to explain, when Fluttershy interrupted.

“There’s no time for this! Girls, get out of here! Snake, stop that crab!” I gave her a funny look.

“…Why? It’s not doing anything to hurt us,” I pointed out. In fact, since the crab had come out of the big shell, it had just stayed in the same spot, waving its antennae around harmlessly. “And anyway, aren’t you supposed to be really good with animals?” I added. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to fight the crab; it was more that I couldn’t see the point.

“This is a special type of crab- a Big Shell! It – it eats meat!” Fluttershy said fearfully. I made a mental note not to tell Fluttershy that I myself ate meat. I sighed – it looked like I was going to have to take out this innocent crab.

“Fine – it’ll have to be a crab battle, then,” I said to Fluttershy as the crab continued to wave its antennae obliviously. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll go and tell the others not to come around here!” she said as she flew into the air. Of course you will, I thought. How come it was that whenever I had to fight something, I always did it on my own? “Good luck, Snake!”

Sighing once more, I took a few steps towards the crab – the Big Shell, as Fluttershy had called it. “Urgh – this sucks,” I said to myself. What did Fluttershy expect me to do, anyway? Punch out the – “Aargh!” The Big Shell had slashed at me with a claw – and without my sneaking suit to resist the damage, my side was bleeding quite badly.

“You bastard!” I grunted at the Big Shell. Now I was pissed off. Jumping back to avoid another claw swipe, I ran forwards and punched it in one of its bulbous, black eyes. The Big Shell let out a funny noise, and started flailing its claws and antennae, presumably in pain.

I was tempted to continue attacking the Big Shell, but decided to back off instead. The Big Shell started slowly pulling its enormous body towards me, so I kicked some sand at it. “Consider this a warning,” I said to it. I was still bleeding pretty badly, and despite what I had said to Fluttershy, I didn’t really want to attack this crab.

I headed back around the rock pools to where the rest of the group were. It was getting late in the day, and they had started to pack up the beach equipment. As I approached, several ponies came cantering up to me.

“Are you okay, Snake?”

“Didja stop that Big Shell? They’re pretty dangerous, ya know.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answered, covering my wound with a hand in a weak attempt to stop the bleeding. I went over to a basket which some pony had brought, and ate a tin of rations to give my body a chance to heal. Once I had finished, I changed back into my sneaking suit before assisting with the packing up of the equipment, which fortunately didn’t take too long.

“So, did everypony have a good day?” asked Twilight Sparkle as we all waited at the Baltimare train station shortly afterwards. Every pony nodded in agreement, whilst the Cutie Mark Crusaders started going over the events of the day and trying to work out why they hadn’t gotten their cutie marks yet.

“Yeah, it was pretty good,” I answered in direct response to Twilight’s question. “Let’s just not talk about that… Big Shell incident again. I’d rather forget that.” Thinking about it again, it almost made me wish that another FOXHOUND operative had faced the Big Shell rather than myself.

Before too long, the train to Ponyville arrived, and we departed, still talking about the events of the day. As I sat down on the train, I looked over the bag of library books which Twilight and I had borrowed from the Baltimare library. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, one of these books would provide Twilight Sparkle with the information needed to help get me back to Shadow Moses.

Chapter Thirteen: The Best Night Ever

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“…I know, Twi – why don’t we tell Snake about that time we had to break into the Royal Canterlot Library?” Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

“Such a good idea!” Twilight agreed. Twilight’s group of friends – Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Applejack – were all staying over at the library with us tonight. Although it was already nearing midnight, they had spent most of the time so far telling me about some of their past adventures, and didn’t look to be stopping anytime soon.

“It all started in this library,” Twilight began. “As I was preparing my monthly schedule one morning, I was interrupted by my future self, who had travelled back in time. She had come to tell me something important, but because of her ragged appearance, I assumed that she wanted to warn me of some sort of upcoming disaster.”

“You had travelled back in time to prevent a disaster?” I repeated. I shook my head disapprovingly. “You can’t go changing the future like that! You’ll create a time paradox!” All of the ponies, who were sitting around on some extra beds which Twilight had set up, laughed at this. “I was being serious,” I grumbled to myself quietly.

“Anyway, after spending nearly a week trying to stop this non-existent disaster,” Twilight continued, “Pinkie Pie, Spike and I all snuck into the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the Royal Canterlot Library – I was hoping to find a spell to stop time, and therefore the disaster.”

“Time paradox!” I repeated, reinforcing what I had said moments ago. It was the sort of advice which I was sure that Colonel Campbell would give if time travel were possible on Earth. “So what happened in the end, anyway?” I added, curious now.

“Well, we managed to get into the library, but after a while, I realised that there was no disaster to worry about,” Twilight said. “Pinkie Pie found a spell which could send me back in time for a few moments, which I used to try and tell my past self not to worry so much – and the rest is history, I suppose.”

“You suppose, huh?” I repeated. “Where is this Canterlot place, anyway? It sounds pretty important.”

“Well, duh! The Wonderbolts perform there all the time!” Rainbow Dash said enthusiastically. I turned to another pony in the hopes of more useful information.

“You know that city in the mountains, which we can see quite clearly from down here in Ponyville?” Rarity asked me. I nodded as I recalled it. “That is Canterlot! Oh, the prestige! The fashions! The culture! If the ponies there weren’t so high-and-mighty, I would likely move there in an instant!”

“Not to mention that Princess Celestia lives there,” Twilight Sparkle added.

“Personally, I just like the different types of critters which live in the Canterlot Gardens,” Fluttershy said, smiling as she did so.

“Really?” Rainbow Dash asked her fellow pegasus, looking confused by this statement. “After what happened at the Grand Galloping Gala?” Every pony in the room gave a small shudder, as if repressing painful memories.

“Oh, I’m sure that I was just too hasty and impatient that time,” Fluttershy explained. “They’re still all wonderful creatures.”

“What’s the Grand Galloping Gala?” I asked, feeling as though I was missing something. I vaguely remembered being asked about it on my first day in Ponyville, but I hadn’t had it explained properly.

“It’s the most horrible and boring event ever!” Pinkie Pie said, frowning slightly. “It sounds like it’ll be tons of fun, but it’s not!”

“It’s full a’ upper-class, stuck up, snobbish ponies!” Applejack agreed.

“The Wonderbolts aren’t stuck up,” Rainbow Dash muttered under her breath.

“It’s not that bad - it’s just not perfect,” Fluttershy countered.

“It could be better, true, but for what it is, it is enjoyable enough – provided you know who to avoid,” Rarity said. None of this had provided me with answers.

“Could be better, huh?” I repeated. “So what is it exactly?”

“It’s an annual event held at Canterlot Castle,” Twilight explained. “It’s basically a ballroom dance and upper-class party.”

“PARTY?! Those ponies should be sued for false advertising!” Pinkie Pie added, apparently feeling very invested in the subject.

“Anyway,” Twilight continued, “the next Gala is coming up soon – Princess Celestia has sent us all free tickets to attend, but we haven’t decided whether we want to go this year or not.”

“Why bother thinking about it?” I asked. “It sounds like none of you really enjoy it.”

“The Gala itself isn’t that amazing,” Rainbow Dash explained, “but we’ve learned from past experience that spending time together in Canterlot is good fun. So that’s why we’re not sure whether we should attend or not.”

“How long do you have to decide?” I asked. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear the rational part of my brain asking why I was so interested in this girly Gala gunk, but I repressed these thoughts.

“It’s in just under two weeks,” Twilight said. “In fact, now that I think about it, I think that it’s the same night that we’re planning to send you back, Snake!”

“That soon, huh?” I asked. Hearing this reminded me of that day, not too long ago, when Twilight Sparkle had found a definite solution to send me back to Earth…

===================

“That constellation is Canis Major, Snake – not Minor,” Twilight explained as she showed me through her telescope. To tell the truth, I wasn’t that interested in astronomy, but I chose to humour Twilight rather than outright tell her.

“Canis… Major?” I repeated, trying to sound interested. Fortunately, Twilight fell for it.

“Yes – it’s an easy constellation to spot, once you know how to,” she explained.

“I never would have put you down as a fan of astronomy, Twilight,” I said as I tilted the telescope around in a random direction. “I’m surprised that you borrowed so many books from the Baltimare library on it.”

“Well, after reading, astronomy is one of my favourite hobbies,” Twilight said as she took over the telescope from me. “There are so many interesting things out there in space – look at this meteor shower, for instance!” She moved aside so that I could look through the eyepiece again. Sure enough, there were a series of white dashes hastily moving through the night sky.

“Does this particular shower have a special name, or anything?” I asked, struggling for something to say.

“No, I don’t believe that this one does,” Twilight said as she flipped through one of the books which she had brought from Baltimare. “That reminds me, though – I should look to see whether there are any upcoming astrological phenomena that will be visible from Ponyville.” As Twilight continued reading her astronomy book, I took it as an excuse to walk away from the telescope and back to where I was doing some reading of my own.

Unfortunately, it looked as though Twilight had been correct when she had assumed that the spell books I had borrowed may not contain a definite way to return me to Earth. In fact, aside from the covers, the books that I had borrowed were almost exactly the same as some of the books in Twilight’s library, with a few more useless spells thrown in.

I occasionally found myself wondering whether I would never return to Earth, and be stuck in Equestria forever. I was adapting to Equestria fairly well, but it was still a worrying thought. For all I knew, something in the air here could cause me to age faster than I should have naturally been, and leave me drowning in time. Well, if it turned out to be impossible for me to return to Earth, at least I would have another project to work on whilst in Equestria – finding a way to manufacture cigarettes.

After flipping past another spell which was useless to me (“Increase the strength of your telekinesis! You’ll be lifting up train cars in no time!”), I voiced my frustration. “These spell books are just as useless as the ones that were already here, in your library!” I said. “There’s nothing here to help me at all!”

Twilight walked down the stairs by her telescope, to where I was lying on my stomach, reading. She lay down next to me and sighed. “I’m sorry, Snake, but I did warn you that there might not be a solution to allow you to return in these books. I’m sure that there’s a way, though – I know I’ve read one somewhere!”

“Have you really, or are you just saying that to make me feel better?” I asked bitterly. In retrospect, the frustration of not finding a spell, combined with the voice in my brain begging for nicotine, was making me much more impatient than usual.

“I’m certain that I’ve read of one before,” Twilight confirmed, “but I just don’t know where! We were so close with that other combination –if only my teleportation spell was more powerful!”

“More… powerful?” I asked. It was the first time that she had mentioned this, and it was giving me an idea.

“Yes – I’ve given it some thought, and conducted some research, and I’m certain that it was because of my teleportation spell being too weak that I accidentally brought Ocelot to Equestria, instead of sending you back to Earth.”

“Ocelot,” I muttered as I clenched my fists. “It’s a good thing that he returned to Earth after the spell wore off – or he would regret it,” I said. If he had hurt any innocent ponies, I would have cut off his remaining arm – at the very least. “But still,” I said, continuing on from what I had been thinking earlier, “you say that you need to increase the strength of your teleportation spell? Is there any way to do that?”

“Weeeeelllll…” Twilight began, giving it some serious thought, “… the Element of Magic might be able to increase my magical prowess – it can do some pretty amazing things.”

“The Element of Magic?” I repeated. This was new to me.

“Oh, it’s one of the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight explained. “My friends and I each have the ability to wield one of them – when used together, they can perform powerful magic. But what most ponies don’t know is that each Element can be used on its own – they’re just much weaker by themselves.”

Although this sounded promising to me, Twilight Sparkle shook her head sadly. “But I doubt whether it would be able to increase the power of my spell just like that –” here, Twilight stomped a hoof on the floor softly, which I supposed was the pony equivalent of clicking your fingers “- it would probably need to be used in conjunction with some other magical effect.” This didn’t seem to make much sense to me, but I supposed that Twilight was the expert here, not me.

“So you need the Element of Magic, alongside another unknown magical effect, in order to send me back home?” I asked. Although it wasn’t much to go on, at least I had a new lead on how I could return to Shadow Moses to resume my mission. “What sort of magical effect would you be looking for?” I asked, flipping to the Contents page of the spell book I had in front of me.

“Some sort of magical field, really,” Twilight said as she gave it some thought. “Something like… oh my gosh! That’s it!” She stood up and cantered back up the stairs to her telescope. After a moment of waiting to see what she would do, I picked myself up and followed her.

“What is it, Twilight?” I asked her. She was frantically flipping through the astronomy book which she had been reading earlier. After a moment, she found what she was looking for.

“This is it, Snake! This is how I can send you home for sure this time!” she said excitedly. She levitated the book up so that I could see what she was talking about.

“A meteor shower over Ponyville?” I questioned as I skimmed over the page. “That’s nice, but how does that get me home?”

“Don’t you see, Snake?” Twilight levitated the book back so that she could read from the page. “This upcoming meteor shower contains meteors made of Magicinesium – they’ll give off the right kind of magical field that I can use the Element of Magic with!”

“So… if you get the Element of Magic, you can send me home as long as this meteor shower flies over Ponyville?” I asked. It sounded sketchy to me, and I questioned how Twilight could know that the meteors would project the right sort of magical field, but I wasn’t going to complain if this really was a solution.

“Yes, that sounds about right,” Twilight said as she went over the book again. “The meteor shower will fly over Canterlot prior to Ponyville, but that won’t really affect us… I’ll have a five minute window to perform the spell, which should be fine… Yes, it looks as though this really will get you home, Snake!”

Although this sounded like good news, part of me was still a little sceptical that nothing was going to go wrong, especially with the way that Ocelot had been brought to Equestria the last time that Twilight had tried sending me home. Still, Twilight had identified the problem that had happened the last time she had tried sending me home, so hopefully this time she would be successful.

“When is this meteor shower?” I asked as I realised that I might still have to wait for a while before I could return to Shadow Moses.

“You’re in luck, Snake – a little over two weeks from now!” Twilight said. “It’s a good thing that we found this now – it would have been terrible if we had only found out after the meteor shower had passed!”

“Two weeks, huh?” I repeated. “I can handle that. And where’s this Element of Magic kept?”

“In Canterlot Castle, with the rest of the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight replied. “I’ll send a letter to Princess Celestia in the morning requesting it – I’d be amazed if she has a problem with me using it.” She put a hoof to her chin as she thought of something else. “You know, Snake, if you’re going to be leaving Equestria soon, we should probably organise something with all the girls – give you a nice send-off.”

“…What were you thinking of?” I asked, not sure whether I liked the way that this was going.

“Well, Pinkie Pie is the best at parties – all the ponies will agree –”

“No thanks,” I interrupted. “I’m not really the partying sort,” I lied, in reality thinking of how chaotic a Pinkie Pie party would probably be.

“Well then, how about a sleepover?” Twilight suggested after another moment of consideration. Truth be told, I didn’t really want any sort of large send-off, but a sleepover… this I could handle.

“Yeah, alright,” I said after a moment of thinking it over. “Sounds like a plan…”

===================

“... remember that changeling that tried to be me?” Pinkie Pie asked, laughing slightly as she said so.

“Yeah, but that was only because you asked it to, remember?” Rainbow Dash replied, although she was chuckling slightly too.

“Changeling, huh? ...What are we talking about again?” I had been so caught up in thinking about the past that I had lost track of the conversation going on. It just went to show that as much as the past could influence someone, the memories people have are burdens that they have to carry. It doesn’t matter if they’re –

“My brother Shining Armour’s wedding to Princess Cadance,” Twilight Sparkle said, interrupting my train of thought. “We ended up under attack from changelings – it’s a pity that you weren’t here at the time.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, confused. Although it had probably been mentioned earlier when I was reminiscing, this was the first that I had heard of Twilight having a brother, or of these changeling creatures – whatever they were.

“Judgin’ by the way you saved the Cutie Mark Crusaders from th’ Everfree Forest, ah’d say that you’d ‘a been mighty useful in helpin’ us fight those Changelings,” Applejack answered.

“I guess so,” I replied dully. “Did Shining Armour and ... the Princess’s wedding work out in the end?”

“Yes, everything was fine once the changelings were forced out of Canterlot,” Twilight replied. “Say, Snake... do you have any siblings?”

“Yeah...” I replied slowly. “I’ve got a twin brother – his name’s Liquid Snake.”

“Liquid Snake?!” Rainbow Dash asked, sounding shocked. “What a stupid name! It’s the exact opposite of yours!”

“Well... I’m sure there’s a point to it...” I said. Now that Rainbow Dash had brought it up, it occurred to me that it was kinda weird that Liquid’s name was the exact opposite of mine.

“Ooh! Is there a Gas Snake?” Pinkie Pie added cheerfully.

“How about a Solidus Snake?” Twilight suggested. I got the impression that these ponies thought that my brother’s name was silly, but were too polite to laugh at it.

“Solidus Snake? What the hell is a solidus?” I asked Twilight. Surely she was just making words up now to tease me.

“It’s a state of matter in-between a solid and a liquid, Snake,” Twilight explained to me. I grimaced a little.

“It still seems a little... unlikely,” I said. I thought it over for a moment. “If I did have a second brother, his name would probably be...”

“Gas Snake! Gas Snake!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly, wanting her suggestion to be chosen.

“I was going to say Vapour Snake. That sounds much better,” I said, before shrugging. “Not that it matters – I only have one brother.”

“Really, Snake?” Rainbow Dash asked, with a look of mischief upon her face. “How do we know that this second brother isn’t someone important, and you’re just jealous of him?” Although I knew that Rainbow Dash was just teasing me, I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve secretly got a second brother, and he’s the ruler of my country,” I said sarcastically. “...Actually, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have another brother,” I added as I thought about how I still had to face Liquid when I returned to Shadow Moses.

“Why not? Don’t you get on with Liquid?” Twilight asked, sounding concerned now.

“I’ve never even met him,” I admitted to her, “but when I do, it’ll probably be... violent.” I hadn’t even thought about how my confrontation with Liquid would play out, but as I spoke, I started picturing it in my mind for the first time...

===================

In my mind’s eye, I was in Shadow Moses once more. I opened a small, nondescript door, to find myself in a control room, where Liquid Snake was operating a control panel – presumably preparing to fire a nuclear missile from Metal Gear REX.

“LIQUID!!!!!” I shouted as I withdrew my SOCOM pistol and pointed it at him. He turned away from the control panel, and faced me.

“BRRRRROTHER!!!!” he replied, drawing out the word. For some reason, in my mind I was picturing Liquid with an exaggerated British accent.

===================

...No, the more I thought about it, I doubted whether our eventual confrontation would play out anything like that. Surely it would consist of more than the two of us shouting each other’s name loudly. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll see Liquid when I return to Earth – for now, that’s all in the future.”

“An excellent point, Snake,” Twilight agreed. “That friend of yours that you mentioned to me a few weeks ago – Grey Fox, was it? Do you think that he’ll be happy to see you when you return?” I thought back to when I had faced Grey Fox in Shadow Moses. It seemed so long ago now.

“Hurt me more, Snake! Harder! HARDER!” I grimaced at the memory of my former friend being in so much agony, both physical and mental, that he wanted me to end his life in one final battle. “Yeah, he’ll probably love the sight of my face,” I said, with only a hint of sarcasm. “Let’s – let’s talk about something different,” I added, not wanting to think about the wreck of a human being which my mentor had become.

There was a moment of silence as the ponies tried to think of a new topic. “Hey Snake!” Rainbow Dash said, breaking the silence. “Remember that trick I was practicing a few weeks ago? I finally perfected it!”

“You mean the…” I struggled to remember the name of the stunt which Rainbow Dash had shown me when I first arrived in Equestria. “…Sonic Cloudboom?”

“No – the other one, of course!” Rainbow corrected.

“Wait – you’ve been workin’ on a trick other than the Cloudboom?” Applejack asked Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash gave a small chuckle.

“Yeah – the second one’s not as impressive as the Cloudboom, so I decided to show it to Snake before I showed any of you guys. That way I could tell whether it was any good or not!”

“Is it, Snake? Is it is it is it?!” Pinkie Pie asked excitedly.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” I said, giving my honest opinion. Before I could add more, Rainbow Dash interrupted me.

“ ‘Pretty good’? Now that I’ve perfected it, it’s way better than just ‘pretty good’!” She made a sound of disgust. “You need to get better at your compliments, Snake – remember how I had to give you a lesson on how to cheer?” I grimaced slightly as I recalled the day, several weeks ago, when Rainbow had shown me her new trick…

===================

“Now – what have we learned?” Rainbow Dash asked me, flying back-and-forth in front of me. She was at eye level.

“Not to hang around arrogant pegasi,” I muttered too quietly for her to hear me. She flew right up to my face.

“Excuse me? What was that?”

“Loss of control,” I growled, saying the first thing which came into my head. She flew back to where she had been a moment ago, and nodded. “Screaming and hollering,” I added , trying to remember what she had said when she had lectured me on cheering a few minutes ago.

“Yes – and most importantly?”

“Passion!” I said, remembering the final thing she had told me.

“Right!” Rainbow Dash said, landing as she said so. She looked up to me as she continued. “So now that you know the elements of a good cheer, let’s hear one!” I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to do this.

“Good job, Rainbow Dash,” I deeply said in my gravelly voice. Rainbow Dash put a hoof over her eyes in frustration.

“Urgh – you’re gonna cheer for me like that?!”

“Yeah. So?”

“Louder!” she said, exasperated.

“Good job, Rainbow Dash!”

“Louder!”

“Good job, Rainbow Dash!” The pegasus closed her eyes and shouted at me –

“LOOOOUDER!!” I clenched my fists as tight as I could, and gritted my teeth even harder. Anything to get this over with.

“Good job, Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash’s legs collapsed and she fell to the ground, apparently giving up on the idea of teaching me how to cheer properly. “Too loud?” I asked sarcastically.

===================

“Yeah, I remember,” I answered Rainbow Dash, “but it all worked out in the end, right?” She rolled her eyes and muttered something to herself which I couldn’t make out properly.

All throughout the rest of the night, the six ponies and I stayed up, telling stories to one another, and singing songs – which of course, I declined joining in. As each pony began to grow drowsier and close their eyes, Twilight turned to me. “I hope this night has been fun for you, Snake,” she said as she yawned.

“Yeah… it has been,” I began hesitantly, not sure how to say what I wanted to next. “Look, Twilight… no, all of you.” Despite how tired they were, the ponies opened their eyes to listen to what I had to say. “This stay in Equestria… it hasn’t been as bad as I first thought that it would be, thanks to all of you… but still…” I sighed, trying to find the right words.

“The person who sent me here… he’s a psychic. You know what that means? It means that I have no idea whether he’s actually sent me here, to Equestria, or whether this is all in my head…”

“What’s the point you’re trying to make, Snake?” Rainbow Dash asked, somewhat impatiently. I sighed again. Couldn’t they see what I was getting at?

“It means… none of you could be real. You could all be in my imagination, and that you’ll stop existing if I leave Equestria –when I leave Equestria…” I wasn’t sure how they would take the knowledge that they mightn’t be real, but right now, they weren’t showing much of a reaction.

“So what, Snake?” Twilight asked. “Even if you’re right, and we’re not real - that doesn’t mean that our friendship isn’t!” As she spoke, I felt a strange feeling inside my chest. I couldn’t describe it perfectly, but it almost felt like… a spark.

“Hug attack!” Pinkie Pie said from across the room, and somehow launched herself at me as though fired from a spring.

“Aargh! Pinkie – no -!” I started to say as she hugged me as hard as she could. Before I knew it, the rest of the ponies were joining in the hug, all doing their best to convey their feelings of friendship through the group hug.

After a futile attempt to escape, I managed to squeeze my arms out… and reluctantly began hugging them in turn. After all – what are friends for?

Chapter Fourteen: Oh, the Grand Galloping Gala is the Best Place to Sneak!

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“…Twenty-four… twenty-five… twenty-six…” I grunted.

“…Three-hundred forty-three… three-hundred forty-four… three-hundred forty-five…” Rainbow Dash counted beside me. With the knowledge that I was going to be returning back to Shadow Moses to complete my mission in about a week now, I was going over all of my skills and preparing myself as needed. Right now, I was testing myself with sets of push-ups to make sure that I was still in adequate shape.

In turn, I had unintentionally inspired Rainbow Dash with my testing, and she was now bouncing a ball on her head, trying to break the record for the most consecutive bounces.

“…Twenty-nine… thirty!” After the last push-up, I stopped my exercises for the moment, and sat down to watch Rainbow Dash. We were both outside the Ponyville library – Twilight had insisted that I do any exercise outside.

“…Three-hundred forty-nine…. Three-hundred fifty-one… three-hundred fift- wait…” Rainbow Dash stopped bouncing the ball as she lost count, instead letting it hit her head and roll away. She turned to me, looking slightly annoyed. “Darn it, Snake! I was just about to break the record I’ve been trying to beat for months, and then you made me lose count!” I wiped away from sweat from my forehead before answering.

“Sorry, Rainbow. I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to?!” Rainbow Dash wailed. “I was so close! And now thanks to you, I’ve –” The door to the library opened, and Rainbow stopped talking for a moment to see who was coming out of it. Naturally, it was Twilight Sparkle, alongside Spike. “ – I’ve got to start all over again!” Rainbow Dash continued.

“Start all over again, huh?” I repeated. Before I could continue, Twilight interrupted me.
“Snake! You’ve got to come inside straight away! It’s important!” For some reason, Spike looked oddly apologetic. I shrugged to Rainbow Dash, picked myself up from the ground, and followed Twilight and Spike back inside the library.

“What is it?” I asked as I entered Twilight’s main reading room, where Spike and she were waiting for me.

“This letter from Princess Celestia just arrived,” Twilight said, levitating a piece of paper out for me. “You’d better read it – it’s faster than explaining.” I grabbed the paper out of the air, and began to read.

To my faithful student Twilight Sparkle,

It saddens me that I must say the following, but I am afraid that I must decline your request to temporarily borrow the Element of Magic. As has been pointed out by my new advisor Shalashaska, the Elements of Harmony are essential for keeping up the defence of Equestria – you yourself should remember how crucial they were in the downfall of both Nightmare Moon and Discord. Therefore, for Equestria’s sake, I must insist that the Element of Magic be kept with the rest of the Elements of Harmony, in Canterlot Castle, unless something urgent should occur. I hope that you are understanding in this matter.

In other news, I still haven’t received a reply from you or your friends on whether you wish to attend the Grand Galloping Gala this year. As always, you need only ask, and all of you shall receive free tickets to attend. Should you choose not to attend, I would still like to hear a reply – I shall understand if you don’t want to.

From your caring teacher, Princess Celestia.

P.S. I apologise about the delay in replying to your request - I have had my hooves full organising the Gala.

“I’m sorry, Snake – it looks as though we’ll have to travel to Canterlot if we want to use the Element of Magic to send you back home,” Twilight said apologetically as I finished reading the letter.

“Do you want to write another letter to Celestia asking her to make an exception?” Spike offered, holding out a quill and paper.

“Make an exception, huh?” It was tempting… but something felt wrong about this letter. I read over it again and spotted what was wrong. “Twilight, Spike… have either of you ever heard of this advisor before? Shalashaska?” The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn’t think of where I had heard it before.

“No, I haven’t,” Twilight said, levitating the letter back to skim over once more. “I thought it was a little odd that at his – or her – word, Celestia is suddenly refusing to lend us the Element of Magic. She’s normally quite understanding about this sort of thing.”

“Celestia’s never needed an advisor before,” Spike added. “He must be new.”

“New?!” It suddenly occurred to me who Shalashaska was. “Of course he is – Shalashaska is Revolver Ocelot!” Both Spike and Twilight gasped at this.

“But – how can he be? When the spell wore off, Ocelot was sent back to Earth!” Twilight said.

“Yeah! How could he be back?” Spike asked. “If somepony else brought him to Equestria, they’d need to use that dimension spell thingamajig that you two used to find him properly!” I thought it over for a moment. Both of them made valid points.

“What if…” I began, thinking carefully, “…Ocelot didn’t get sent back to Earth when the spell wore off? We just assumed that he had been sent back there, but we never really got any proof.” Twilight gasped again.

“That could happen! Once the spell wore off, it tried to teleport him back to Earth, but since it was too weak to do that, it could have sent him somewhere random instead – and he ended up in Canterlot!” Twilight’s face was anguished as she realised how plausible this was.

“Wait a minute!” Spike said. “How do you know that Shalashaska is Revolver Ocelot, Snake?” No doubt he was hoping that I was wrong about Ocelot’s presence in Equestria – it would make things a lot easier.

“Easy,” I answered. “Shalashaska is an alias of Revolver Ocelot’s.” I had found this out from my support team after facing Revolver Ocelot at Shadow Moses, when I had asked for more information on him. “It doesn’t really sound like a pony name, does it?” Both Twilight Sparkle and Spike reluctantly shook their heads.

“I wonder what he’s doing in Canterlot,” Twilight said worryingly. “Is he also trying to get back to Earth?” I snorted at this.

“I doubt it,” I answered. “If he’s Celestia’s advisor, that means that he’s probably just manipulating her without her realising it.” Admittedly, this was just speculation, but it seemed to fit Ocelot’s character. I sighed. “Looks like you’ll have to find another way to send me home,” I said to Twilight.

“What? Why would I need to do that?” she asked.

“If Ocelot’s working with Celestia, he’ll probably have told her to be wary of me. Assuming that’s the case, then I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be good for Celestia to find out where I am?” Spike shook his head.

“Not unless you want a one-way trip to the moon,” he answered. Somehow, I doubted that he was joking.

“Exactly,” I said. “We need Celestia to give us the Element of Magic – and Celestia’s being manipulated by Ocelot.” I sighed and clenched my fists. I felt like punching something in my anger. I should have known that some other obstacle would come up to stop me from returning!

“It’s true that we need the Element of Magic…” Twilight began slowly. I got the feeling that she was thinking something over carefully. “But… I think that I can find a way to get it if we plan carefully…”

“You know how to convince Celestia to lend us the Element?” I asked. Maybe there was hope after all. Twilight answered me slowly – she was obviously choosing her words cautiously.

“Maybe… I’ll need to think this through some more… I’ll tell you what, Snake- we’ll get all of the girls over tonight, and I’ll explain my plan then.” I nodded and left the room, already beginning to wonder what this all-important plan was.

===================

“So sorry that I’m late, everypony!” Rarity said as she entered the Ponyville Library and closed the door. She was the final member of the group to arrive. “I was sewing a dress up, and lost track of time. I hope I wasn’t a bother!”

“No problem at all, Rarity,” Twilight said. “We were just waiting for you – you haven’t missed anything so far.” From what I had seen of her today, Twilight had been nervous ever since she had begun working on this mysterious plan. I was interested in hearing why her plan was making her so.

Every pony sat down at a table as Twilight went over the details of the letter, and why the original plan to send me back to Earth couldn’t be performed. Upon her telling them all that Revolver Ocelot was Princess Celestia’s new advisor, they all gasped in surprise and denied it, until Twilight, Spike and I explained how he must have never left Equestria.

“You- you mean that not only is that monster still in Equestria, but he’s working with Princess Celestia?” Fluttershy squeaked nervously, shaking as she said so. I nodded grimly.

“Alright, that’s it!” said Rainbow Dash boldly. “I’m going to go and stop him right now, even if I have to fly all the way to Canterlot to do it!” She stood up and took to the air, and probably would have flown out a window and done as she said if Applejack hadn’t bitten her tail to stop her. After a moment of futile struggling, Rainbow Dash calmed down, and sat down again.

“Urgh! Yer tail’s disgustin’, Rainbow!” said Applejack after spitting slightly. “Wash it sometime, ya’ hear?” Rainbow Dash muttered something incomprehensible into her chest in response.

“Girls! We need to concentrate!” said Twilight Sparkle, her voice shaking slightly as she said so. “The news that Ocelot is subtly controlling our ruler is distressing, but I have a plan to both stop him, and still get Snake home on the night of the meteor shower!”

“I have a plan too!” said Pinkie Pie unexpectedly. Everyone looked to her in confusion, not expecting this. “We’ll throw Ocelot a party! Then he’ll lighten up and stop being so grumpy, and he can come live in Ponyville with us! Hey, do you think that he’d want to live at Sugarcube Corner with Gummy and me?”

There was a moment of silence before Twilight reluctantly said, “…We’ll put that down as Plan B, Pinkie.” Pinkie Pie cheered in agreement. “Now, before I tell everypony this plan, you’ll all have to agree to keep it top secret – you can’t tell anypony. Are we clear?” Every pony, Spike, and myself all nodded and agreed.

“Good,” continued Twilight, “because this plan… involves us stealing from Celestia.” There were gasps from all around the table. I realised why Twilight had been so nervous and reluctant to suggest this plan – to her, this was a crime of the highest order imaginable.

“Now Twahlight, ah know that extreme times call fer extreme measure ‘n all… but don’t ya think that this here’s goin’ a little too extreme?” Applejack said.

“I’ll outline the plan, and if you can think of any better ideas, I’m welcome to hear them,” Twilight said, already looking like she regretted thinking up of it.

“So what are you planning on stealing, anyway?” Spike asked curiously.

“Isn’t it obvious, Spike?” I asked. “Twilight wants us to steal the Element of Magic.” Twilight nodded, confirming my suspicions.

“Since we can’t ask Celestia for it directly without Ocelot finding out, there’s no other way for us to get it other than by…stealing it.” Looking at Twilight, I could see that she felt anguished by the need to steal from her mentor.

“Wait – why is it bad if Ocelot finds out that we need the Element?” Rainbow Dash asked. Now that I thought about it, it was a good question. Surprisingly, Rarity was the one who answered.

“If Ocelot has already rejected the request for the Element once, then he obviously has his own plan for the Elements of Harmony,” she said smoothly. After a moment of consideration, she added, “Of course, he may have just denied the request so as to continue his façade as Celestia’s advisor, but one can never be too sure about this sort of thing.” Could Ocelot really have plans for the Elements of Harmony? I wondered. It was possible, of course, but then how would he know to use them?

“Whatever the reason is that Ocelot denied the request for the Element, it doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “The main point is that we can’t get it by asking nicely. Now, I propose that we travel to Canterlot two days from now, and –”

“Two days, huh?” I interrupted. The ponies (and Spike) all looked over to me. “If your plan is to steal the Element two days from now, Twilight, then I doubt that it’ll work.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked me.

“Think about it. You ask for the Element of Magic, get your request denied, and then two days later, the Element goes missing? Looks kinda suspicious, don’t you think?” I answered. “You’ll have to throw suspicion off yourself by doing the last thing that Celestia would expect you to – steal all of the Elements of Harmony.” There was another gasp from the ponies as I proposed this.

“Steal – all the Elements of Harmony?” Fluttershy asked quietly in the silence. “Isn’t that a little, um, wrong?”

“It’s not wrong, Fluttershy – because we won’t be stealing the Elements of Harmony,” Twilight answered firmly. She turned to face me. “Snake, I know that you want to return home, but stealing the Elements of Harmony is not the way to do that. Is that clear?”

“Yeah, whatever,” I answered, frowning. “But if that’s your stance… then what do you suggest we do next?” Twilight had failed to notice that her original plan still couldn’t be carried out.

“Well, we could… uh…” Twilight stammered, trying to think of a new plan on the fly, and failing.

“I know what we can do!” Pinkie Pie said unexpectedly.

“…Another party, Pinkie?” Rarity asked her sceptically. Pinkie shook her head.

“Nope! We’ll go to the Grand Galloping Gala!” she said excitedly. Quite literally everyone’s jaws dropped. I’m sure that we were all thinking the same thing: She wants us to go to the Gala at a time like this?

“Now, Pinkie,” Applejack began, breaking the silence, “there’s a time fer goin’ to the Gala, and there’s a time fer more important stuff.” Pinkie frowned at this.

“Well, duh! That’s why we’ll do both at the same time!” she explained. I frowned as I tried to work out Pinkie Pie’s unique brand of logic. “The meteor shower’s the same night as the Gala, right, Twi?” Pinkie asked Twilight. Twilight gasped.

“Of course! The meteor shower will travel over Canterlot, so – why didn’t I think of this?! Pinkie Pie, you’re a genius!” Twilight said. Every pony was nodding in agreement.

“No I’m not. I’m an Earth Pony!” Pinkie said, oblivious to the compliment.

“Earth Pony, huh?” I asked. “So what’s the logic behind going to the Gala?”

“Don’t you see, Snake?” Twilight asked me. “We can travel to the Grand Galloping Gala, acquire the Element of Magic there, and then once the meteor shower passes over Canterlot, I can cast the spell to send both you and Ocelot back home!” It sounded like a good plan… in theory.

“What about Celestia and Ocelot finding out?” I asked. “This still has the same problems as the original plan.”

“They’ll be too busy with the Gala,” Twilight answered. “Celestia will be greeting guests, and I’ll bet that Ocelot will have to be too, if he wants to stay in good favour with her.” She continued thinking for another moment as a new thought occurred to her. “In fact, we can all keep an eye on Celestia and Ocelot, and make sure that they don’t leave the Gala. This will give you a chance to steal the Element, Snake!” I had the feeling that she was asking me to personally steal the Element to ease her conscience.

The rest of the ponies were all nodding in agreement – it sounded like a good plan. “Okay, so I’ll sneak into Canterlot Castle, steal the Element, get back to you guys, and then you’ll send Ocelot and me home when the meteor shower passes overhead?” I asked to confirm the plan.

“And you’d better not be detected,” Rainbow Dash added. “If you’re caught stealing the Element, then Celestia or Ocelot would have to leave the Gala and be onto you faster than… well, faster than me, I guess!”

“Not be detected, huh?” I asked. It was an annoying limitation, but a necessary one. “Alright, this sounds like a plan.”

“Alright everyone, we all agree to this plan?” Twilight asked. We all nodded. “Excellent! I’ll write a letter to Celestia in the morning to confirm that we’ll be attending the Gala, and then we’ll get ready for our mission…”

===================

Dawn of the First Day – Six Days Remain

“What did you want to see me about, Twilight?” I asked as I stepped into the library. The library had undergone a drastic makeover – there were now graphs and diagrams everywhere, each one planning a different aspect of the Canterlot mission. It was almost as if Twilight was trying to monitor everything. I had to wonder what she’d do if some pony who wasn’t in on the plan came over for a visit.

“I’ve got an update on the plan, Snake,” Twilight said as she plotted something onto a graph. “Even though the meteor shower will be passing over Canterlot, it won’t be for as long as it passes over Ponyville – I’ll only have a five minute window to cast the spell in Canterlot.” I shrugged.

“Five minute window, huh? We knew from the start that there would be a time limit – what’s the big difference?”

“The difference is that we’ve got to arrive at the castle at seven-thirty, along with most of the regular guests – that way it won’t look suspicious. The meteor shower should travel over Canterlot at nine twenty-seven, so you’ll only have two hours and two minutes to get in, steal the Element, knock out Ocelot, and get back to me,” Twilight said.

“Get back to you, huh?” I repeated. “That sounds – wait a minute – knock out Ocelot?”

“Well, the spell takes a few moments to be cast, and I doubt whether Ocelot will give me a chance to send him back to Earth,” Twilight explained. “So yes – you’ll have to knock him out so that I can send him back!” Or I could just kill him, I silently thought.

“Right. How am I getting into the castle, anyway?” I asked Twilight. She grinned and pointed to a diagram of what I assumed was Canterlot Castle.

“Oh, that part’s easy. I’ve arranged for our carriage to be part of the group which goes directly to the castle, and to be at the back of the group,” she explained, pointing a hoof to a road on the diagram. “You’ll hide inside the carriage in one of your boxes, and when we pass over the bridge, you can leave the carriage, still in your box.”

“So I’m guessing that you don’t want any ponies to see me?” I asked. Twilight nodded.

“Sorry, Snake, but if anypony sees you, they could mention it to Celestia unintentionally – then Ocelot would be onto us.” I grimly nodded, seeing the point she was making. “Anyway, once you’re out of the carriage, you’ll go into the moat. I’ve found a hidden underground passage to the castle which begins in the moat. You can use it to approach the –”

“Approach?” I interrupted. Twilight gave me a funny look.

“Yes, Snake – approach. It’s not a difficult word.” She went back to her diagram before continuing. “You can use this passage to approach the castle – if you follow it all the way through, you should come out in a side room from the main hall. From there, you can call one of us on your codec, and we’ll give you further instructions.”

“Codec?!” I repeated. “Does this mean that you’ve performed the spell on every pony?” Twilight nodded.

“Yes – I can give you their frequencies now if you want…”

===================

Dawn of the Third Day – Four Days Remain

It had been a while since I had entered Rarity’s boutique, but I did so now at her request. “You’ll never guess what I’ve got for you!” she said as I entered, jumping up and down on the spot slightly. I shrugged, honestly unable to guess. “Wait right here whilst I go and get it!” she said, darting off to some other part of the boutique. I sat myself down on a chair and waited patiently.

“Here you are, Snake!” Rarity said excitedly as she returned. Levitated behind her was… some sort of ugly, grey suit. “It’s that new sneaking suit which I’ve been promising you for what feels like forever now!” I grimaced as I took the suit in.

The most prominent feature of the suit was the chest area, where it had some sort of metallic guard, designed to look like the ribcage it was protecting. The shoulders and elbow areas of the suit were covered in metallic banded segments, whilst the forearm sections seemed to have a simple metal guard. The rest of the suit was fairly bland and uninspiring, but it could easily be described as ugly.

“Well? What do you think?” Rarity asked, failing to realise the horror of what she had created.

“It’s… not really what I was expecting,” I said, trying not to give the wrong impression whilst still not hurting her feelings. “So what do you call it, anyway?” I took in the ribcage-like area again. “The Skull Suit?”

“Why in all of Equestria would you call it that, Snake?” Rarity asked, slightly shocked. “No, this masterpiece is my Smart Skin Suit! It is designed to place varying pressure on different parts of one’s body, so as to maximise performance! The texture is not far removed from rubber, but – ”

“No offence, Rarity, but I’ll have to decline it,” I interrupted, trying to keep my eyes away from it as much as possible.

“But Snaaake!” Rarity complained, “I was hoping that you’d wear it when we go to Canterlot!”

“Sorry, Rarity,” I said firmly, “but I’m fine with my sneaking suit.” For her sake, I added, “If you want, I can take your Smart Skin Suit with me – I know someone who’ll probably have a use for it.” If I gave it to Campbell, he could probably find some new recruit to give it to.

“Well… have it your way then,” Rarity said, telekinetically folding the suit up. “But whilst we’re speaking of Canterlot, I have designed something else for you…” She went back into the other room, and came out a moment later levitating something else.

“It’s… a facemask,” I said as I took it in. The skin of the mask looked unnaturally smooth – almost feminine. It had long white hair, which looked oddly realistic.

“Yes! I just finished making your suit, and then I thought to myself, ‘What would go well with this suit?’ So I designed this facemask to wear as a disguise!” Rarity explained. “Would you believe that I’ve even found a way to get the eyes to blink whilst you wear it?” she added, obviously pleased with her handiwork.

“Blink?!” I repeated. “What’s the point?” Rarity looked offended.

“I put great care into that mask, Snake!” she replied. “Please do not pick on the small details of it – next thing I know, you’ll be complaining about the fact that the lips cannot move!”

“You made it possible for the eyes to blink, but not for the lips to move?” I said. “That seems a bit of an odd thing to focus on, don’t you think?” Rarity glared at me.

“Well I’m sorry for thinking of the mission,” she said to me snarkily. “I’d lend you my invisibility scarf, but I used up all of its charge whilst fighting a dragon.”

“I can’t use this mask anyway,” I pointed out. “Between Ocelot and I, how many humans can there be in Equestria? You’ll have to admit that it would look a little suspicious for another human to suddenly show up at the Gala – Ocelot sure would.” Rarity sighed, conceding my point.

“Well, I suppose that that is most certainly true,” she admitted. Changing the topic, she said, “Tell me – why is your codename Solid Snake, anyway?” I shrugged.

“It was the codename I was assigned when I started as a stealth operative,” I explained. “I’m not sure why they gave me the name, but it was the name they gave me, and I’ll keep it until I die.”

“Really?” Rarity asked. “I thought that there would be more of a story behind it than that… have you ever considered changing your codename? Snakes are such repulsive creatures.”

“Change my codename, huh?” I repeated. It was an intriguing idea, and one which I hadn’t thought of before. “Yeah, maybe I could…” I said as I started running through names in my mind.

“Excellent!” said Rarity. “It’s good to see that you have some common sense. What do you think of, say, Raid-”

“No thanks,” I interrupted. Whatever she had been about to suggest, it didn’t sound like the sort of name a toughened operative such as myself should have. “I was thinking of something more like… Iroquois. I like that.”

“Fine. Whatever you say, Snake…” Rarity said, obviously annoyed that I hadn’t listen to her suggestion.

===================

Dawn of the Fifth Day – Two Days Remain

I was cleaning my pistol when there was a knock at the door. I walked over to the door and was going to open it, before hesitating. If it was her at the door… Instead of opening it, I stood to the side, and pulled it slightly ajar.

“SNAAAAKE!!” Pinkie Pie yelled as she burst through the door. She fired through the doorway with the speed of a rocket, probably planning to hug me had I been standing there.

“Hey Pinkie,” I said from next to the doorway. Streamers had somehow accompanied her dash through the doorway, and were now lying on the floor. Pinkie Pie picked herself up from the floor, and bounced over to me.

“How’s it going, Snakey?! What did you want me for?” she asked as she hugged me. I gently pushed her away.

“I’ve got a favour to ask of you, Pinkie,” I said, heading over to a table where I had all of my equipment spread out.

“Ooh! Do you want me to throw you a goodbye party?!” Pinkie asked excitedly. “I could bring Gummy and Mr. Cake and Mrs. Cake and –”

“I’m fine for parties, Pinkie,” I said. I grabbed an item from the table. “I need to ask you to hold onto this for me,” I explained as I handed it to her. “I’m not exaggerating when I say that this could literally mean life or death for me, Pinkie. You understand?”

“You want me to hold a yo-yo for you?” Pinkie Pie asked confusedly as she took it. I sighed.

“No, Pinkie, it’s not a yo-yo. It’s a tin of rations,” I explained.

“Oh! A tin of rations! Of course!” she said excitedly. “Why do you need me to hold a tin of rations for you?” she added a moment later.

"These rations can heal me in moments,” I explained. I had never understood why, but I wasn’t going to question it. “If something happens at the Gala and I’m badly injured, I’ll need these rations – it could mean life or death for me.”

“But why give them to me?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Let’s face it, Pinkie,” I started, “if any pony can suddenly appear out of nowhere to find me, it’s you. This way, I know that I’ve got you backing me up, and I should be able to heal at least a little bit if I need to.” Pinkie Pie nodded.

“Okey-dokey-lokey! Sounds like a plan!” she said happily.

===================

Night of the Final Day – Two Hours Remaining

“You sure you’re comfortable in there, Snake?” Twilight asked me.

“I’m fine, Twilight,” I answered from inside my cardboard box. We had been heading to the Gala for several hours now – it was apparently traditional to arrive by carriage. I had been inside the box for the entire journey, in case our carriage was inspected by guards. The ponies weren’t expecting it to happen, but we couldn’t be too sure with Ocelot manipulating Celestia.

“Okay, Snake – this is the drop-off point,” Twilight whispered to me. I heard the door of the carriage open. “Fluttershy, you’re closest to the door – push him out.” I felt a light kick, and then I tumbled out of the door.

“Oof!”

“Oh my! I’m sorry!” I heard Fluttershy call out from the carriage as it continued to the castle. I looked around from my box. No sign of any guards or other ponies. No alarms ringing. No Ocelot lifting up my box and laughing that he had been onto our plan from the start.

It was time for the mission to begin.

Chapter Fifteen: Fun with Codec Calls

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Once I was sure that there were no ponies around to see me, I took off my cardboard box and stored it with the rest of my equipment. I headed to the side of the small bridge that I was on, and looked down into the moat.

“Guess it’s now or never,” I said to myself. I took a deep breath, and dived into the water. Fortunately, it wasn’t too cold. I followed the path which Twilight had shown me on her diagram, and found the secret entrance into Canterlot Castle quickly.

A minute later, I had climbed out of the water, and was in a primitive storage area filled with crates. Eerily, it reminded me a lot of the dock where I had begun my infiltration mission at Shadow Moses. “This is Snake,” I said as I called Twilight Sparkle on my codec a minute later. “Twilight, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Snake!” Twilight replied loudly and clearly.

“Twilight, aren’t you trying to keep a low profile up there? Should you really be talking on the codec so loudly, or saying my name out loud?” I asked her.

“I would normally agree with you, Snake,” Twilight answered, “but this codec spell makes it so that nopony else can hear you but me. So it’s safe!” I frowned, even though I knew that she couldn’t see it.

“Yeah… that’s true…” I began slowly, “but you’re still speaking, aren’t you?”

“You should know as well as anyone that that’s no problem!” Twilight answered cheerfully. “From what you’ve told me, the codec stimulates the bones of your ear, so nopony around you can hear–”

“Yeah, I know that,” I said. “But you’re speaking out loud. The ponies around you will be able to hear that.” There were a few moments of silence before Twilight answered me.

“Oh. Good point,” she said, whispering now. “That explains why so many ponies were giving me odd looks – I’ve moved away from them now. What’s the situation down your end?” I looked around for the exit, and spotted a ladder.

“Looks like the ladder in the back is the only way – wait a minute,” I started. “Equestria is inhabited by ponies. Why is there a ladder down here?”

“What’s a ladder?” Twilight replied, sounding genuinely confused. I sighed loudly, which she probably heard, since her next words were, “You’ll have to take it to the surface – but make sure that nopony sees you.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I answered, ready to continue the mission. “Anything else?”

“If you need to contact me by codec, the frequency is 140.85,” Twilight answered. “When you want to use the codec, push the Select button. When I need to –”

“Select button?!” I interrupted. What was this new nonsense she was on about?

“You don’t have a Select button on your codec?” Twilight whispered, sounding confused. “Then …how do you select which frequency you want to call?”

“Twilight… Codec works on nanotechnology. It’s not a physical piece of –”

“Nanotechnology?!” she interrupted. “I’ve never heard of that before. I wonder whether the Baltimare library has any books on it…” I sighed again.

“Look, I’m ready to go,” I said. “I’ll call you when I need to, okay, Twilight? And make sure that you tell the others not to go around shouting out when they’re on codec.” With that, I disconnected. I couldn’t waste my time talking – I had an important mission to carry out, and a time limit on it. Besides, I was getting bored just staring at a box whilst talking to Twilight.

I headed over to the ladder. To my surprise, it went up a long way – I couldn’t even see where it ended. “Urgh!” I said out loud as I started climbing up it. “If this ends up going on for ages, I’m really going to need some sort of catchy theme music to keep myself entertained.”

===================

After climbing the ladder, I found myself in a small room filled with more crates and boxes. According to Twilight’s diagram, I was just outside one of the main corridors of Canterlot Castle. I dialled the frequency 140.15 on my codec and called Rarity, as we had discussed in the carriage. After Twilight, who would probably be with Celestia by now, Rarity apparently knew Canterlot Castle the next best in the group.

“Rarity?” I asked once my codec had connected up with Rarity’s magical equivalent.

“Snake? I – no, Fancypants, my mind was drifting,” Rarity answered. “I was just thinking of something else – in fact, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I must go and think of it some more!” I heard Rarity trotting away for a few moments, before she finally replied. “Don’t mind me, Snake – it’s not as though I was just talking to Fancypants himself!”

“Sorry, Rarity,” I answered, genuinely meaning it. “I’ve climbed up the ladder, and I’m now just off one of the main corridors – what’s my next move?”

“There’s been a slight change of plans,” Rarity whispered.

“Plans?!”

“Yes, Snake – plans,” Rarity answered in a monotone. “Princess Celestia gave Twilight a special key to unlock the Elements of Harmony, since she assumed that Twilight still wants the Element of Magic after the letter she sent.”

“Element of Magic, huh?” I repeated. “So what, I’ll just wait here until Twilight brings me back the Element of Magic, and then she’ll send me home when the meteor shower arrives?”

“If only it were that simple,” Rarity answered. “As you suspected, Revolver Ocelot is here, and he’s with the Princess. Once she gave Twilight the key, he offered to escort her to the Elements of Harmony – it seems as though he may have his own plans for them after all.”

“Plans for them after all, huh?” I answered. “That’s just gre- say, where are you right now?”

“I am just arriving outside the room which you are in now,” Rarity replied, confirming a suspicion of mine. “You can come on out and I shall tell you the rest in person – nopony is currently around.”

“Huh? What’s wrong with codec?” I asked. Although I couldn’t put my finger on it, I was sure that there was a good reason to continue communicating with codec, regardless of the actual distance between us.

“…Snake, I have just left the most fancy party in all of Canterlot so that I could come and see you,” Rarity said dully. “And you are just now telling me to stick to codec?”

“Fine,” I grumbled, “I’ll come out… Aargh!”

“Snake? What is it?”

“Dead leg,” I answered, rubbing it. “I guess staying still in the same position when talking on codec is a bit impractical, huh?” Once it felt okay again, I left the room I was in to find Rarity standing outside, just as she had said.

“We can’t talk for long,” Rarity began. “Ocelot’s keeping an eye on all six of us, and I’m sure that he’ll suspect something if I’m gone for too long.”

“Too long?!” I repeated. “How the hell did he know that you’re all working with me? Come to think of it, how do you know that he knows that you’re working with me?”

Shaking her head in answer to my question, Rarity answered, “I don’t know how he knows – I can only assume that he recognises us from his brief visit to Ponyville.” I was going to open my mouth in protest, when I remembered that I had talked to the six ponies during my fight with Ocelot. He must have taken notice then.

“And as for how we know,” Rarity continued, “we’re not one-hundred percent certain, but Twilight said that Ocelot seemed to be watching Rainbow Dash and I, so it’s safest to assume that he is paying attention to us.” I nodded.

“And do you know what Ocelot’s doing now?”

“Twilight is trying to keep both his and Princess Celestia’s attention – but that does not matter right now, Snake.” Rarity levitated out a thin, cylindrical rod as she continued. “What matters is that this is the key which Princess Celestia gave to Twilight, which she in turn gave to me- you’ll have to use it to open the vault where the Elements of Harmony are kept.”

“Vault, huh?” I repeated as I stashed the key in with the rest of my equipment. “Got it. How do I get there, anyway?” Although it was necessary for Rarity to give me the key, it still felt like we had wasted too much time since I had entered the castle.

“Head further up this corridor, to the staircase at the end,” Rarity answered, gesturing with her head as she spoke. “If you head up said staircase and follow the corridors, you should reach the vault without too many troubles.”

“Up the staircase? Sure thing,” I answered, starting to jog slowly up the corridor as I spoke. Rarity likewise started trotting back to the Gala, wishing me good luck as she did so.

As I reached the staircase, I heard the sound of someone coming down it. I quickly got out my cardboard box and hid underneath it whilst I waited for them to pass. Hopefully, it was just a civilian who had gotten lost, as opposed to a guard patrolling the stairs.

I didn’t have to wait long. A pure white unicorn stallion with a blonde mane descended from the stairs. He was wearing the collar of a tuxedo. “Urgh!” he said as he spotted the box I was hiding under. I tensed myself in case he was going to lift up the box with his telekinesis. “What is this filthy box doing here? Obviously, somepony has been neglecting their cleaning duties!”

Inside the box, I clenched my fists in rage. No one got away with insulting my box like that! The stallion sighed before continuing, still watching my box. “I suppose that I shall just have to remove the box then – although why I should lower myself to the level of cleaners is anypony’s guess.” The box glowed blue as the unicorn’s magical aura surrounded it.

“Oh no you don’t!” I growled as I threw the box off myself and leapt at him. If I was going to have my cover blown, I might as well get revenge for the comments he made about my box. The stallion gasped in surprise as he took me in in the brief moment before my fist connected with his face.

“Why – why, how dare you!” he said as he raised a hoof to where I had hit him. I picked myself from the floor where I had landed, and raised my fists, ready to hit him again. I needed to knock this unicorn out before he could raise an alarm.

“I’ll have you know that I am the nephew of Princess Cele- oof!” he started before I hit him again. Despite his protests, I continued punching and kicking him until he collapsed to the floor in a bruised heap. “B-but… why?” the stallion weakly asked, looking up at me.

“Nobody insults my box,” I said gruffly to him before landing a final punch which knocked him out. I looked around cautiously. No-one had come into this corridor yet. I hid his body behind a column, hoping in vain that no pony would mind if they found this stallion’s body knocked out and bruised.

===================

The stairs went on for nearly as long as the ladder, spiralling around and around repeatedly. It was a good thing that I hadn’t accidentally set off any alarms before heading up it – that would have just made this section horrible. Once I reached the top of the stairs, I found myself facing three corridors. At the end of the middle one was a door which I assumed was my destination, judging by what Rarity had said earlier.

Unfortunately, the corridors were being patrolled by guards, who were each magically projecting lights from their horns to search for intruders. There weren’t too many, but they would still get in my way if I tried to rush past them and straight to the door. It seemed that the three corridors were connected, as the guards kept moving between them.

I headed down the left-most corridor once the guard from there moved to another corridor. I had barely stepped onto the floor when it split in two. “A trapdoor?!” I said in surprise before leaping forwards to what I hoped was safe ground. Fortunately it was, and a moment later the trapdoor closed again, looking like just another part of the corridor.

I dialled the frequency 141.52 on my codec, and waited for the recipient to reply. “Hey Snake!” said Rainbow Dash. “What’s up?”

“Rainbow Dash – you’re the expert on weapons and traps,” I said. “Tell me, why is there –”

“What? I’m not an expert on either of those,” she interrupted. “Why would I know about them? I mean, sure, I’ve read a lot of Daring Do, but still…”

“Oh… I just thought… ” I started. “I just thought… because of the frequency… Look, do you know why there are trapdoors here in Canterlot Castle?”

“Trapdoors, huh?” she replied. “Nope, I have no idea why they’d put them there. It seems kinda pointless.”

“Yeah… I know,” I answered. “That’s why I was confused by them… there’s no reason for them to be here. Tell me, do you- ”

“You think I should show the Wonderbolts the Sonic Cloudboom?” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “Because I was talking to Spitfire before and –”

“Sure,” I answered. “Especially if it distracts Revolver Ocelot – what’s the situation with him, anyway?”

“I think Rarity’s distracting him,” Rainbow Dash replied absentmindedly. “Look, I’m going to show the Wonderbolts the Sonic Cloudboom now, okay? Talk to you later, Snake.” With that she disconnected. It was a good thing that she had, too – the guard patrolling this corridor was approaching.

I doubled back and headed down the right-most corridor this time, jogging slightly to avoid any more of those damn trapdoors. Fortunately, the carpet muffled the sounds of my jogging. By following this corridor down after the guard disappeared, I managed to reach the door I had been heading for.

I opened the door, and was about to step through when – BEEDLYBEEP! BEEDLYBEEP! I spun around, ready to face the guards… only they weren’t there. After a moment of confusion I remembered that the noise I had heard wasn’t an alarm, it was just the sound of an incoming call on my codec.

I answered the call, which to my surprise was from an unknown frequency. “Snake, be careful! There are Claymore mines around there. Use a mine detector.”

“Huh?” I answered quietly. “Isn’t Claymore a bit of overkill?”

“If they go off, the alarm will be raised! Wheow! Wheow! Wheow! Wheow!” I hadn’t been certain of who the caller was before, but I knew now.

“This is Pinkie Pie, isn’t it?”

“Just call me Madame Pinkie! I’m one of your fans!”

“Pinkie Pie, I know it’s y- wait a minute, how do you know where I am? Codec isn’t visual.”

“I’m above you!” Pinkie replied. I looked up, not sure what to expect, and sure enough, Pinkie Pie was on the ceiling, walking around with suction cups on her hooves. She waved as I looked up. “Hi Snake!”

“W-what are you doing following me?” I asked, confused. “Shouldn’t you be back at the Gala with the rest of the girls?”

“Are you kidding me?!” she asked as she climbed down a wall. “Those Canterlot ponies don’t know how to party or even partay! So I followed you, since you’re always doing something fun!” Pinkie Pie leapt off the wall and right in my face.

“Okay…” I said slowly as Pinkie Pie took off her suction cups. “But how did you know that this area’s been mined? It looks fine to me.”

“Pinkie Sense! Twitchy tail, itchy hooves, scratchy back and then chattering teeth mean that there are mines around!” I frowned at her.

“How on Earth could that mean that –”

“So anyway,” Pinkie said, ignoring me, “you just have to do a hop, skip, and a jump to get past! It’s not very far, just move your little rump! You can make it if you try, with a hop, skip, and jump!” As she sang, Pinkie Pie ran up to the doorway and then jumped across an area of about three metres. “Now you go!” she said cheerfully.

“Alright,” I answered as I lay down on my stomach and started crawling through the doorway. Pinkie started shaking her head when she saw what I was doing.

“Nononono! You have to sing the song!” Pinkie Pie leapt back and forth over the mined area. “Hop, skip, and jump! Hop, skip, and jump! Hop, skip, and jump!” I ignored her and kept crawling until I was past the mined area.

We were in a large hall with wide windows along the sides, alternating between regular windows and stained-glass. Fortunately, there were no guards here. I approached one of the stained-glass windows, where there was a large snake-like creature being defeated by a group of ponies… In fact, as I looked closer, I saw that the ponies in this glass seemed to be my friends.

I turned back to Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie… is this glass you and your – Pinkie, what are you eating?” She was happily chomping something which was lying on the floor. “Pinkie, are those my rations?”

“Well,” she started, “I didn’t know that cupcakes suddenly got the technical name of rations, but they sure are!” I sighed.

“Pinkie, do you remember why I gave them to you?” I asked her. “It wasn’t so that you could eat them, it was so that- Pinkie! Stop eating them!”

“No!” she said in protest as finished eating. “These are my cupcakes now!”

“But Pinkie I might have – urgh, never mind,” I said, giving up. “Just tell me – is that you and your friends?” I asked, pointing to the stained-glass window I had been looking at before. She bounced over for a closer look.

“Yep!” she confirmed. “That’s all of us defeating Discord with the Elements of Harmony!” She stopped and thought for a moment. “You know, the first time we met him, it was in this room… wouldn’t it be something if he suddenly came back now?!”

“Pinkie, I –”

“Ssh!” Pinkie held out a hoof to silence me whilst she waited for something. After a minute or so of impatiently waiting, she finally said, “Nope, doesn’t look like he’s returned!” I decided not to ask her what the point of that had been.

Looking at the stained-glass window again, I asked Pinkie Pie, “How far are we from the Elements of Harmony, anyway?”

“Oh, they’re right behind this door!” Pinkie said, bouncing over to a large door at the end of the hall. It was surrounded by an ornate gold frame, and divided into six segments. At the centre of the door was a sun. As I moved closer, I saw a small hole in the sun.

“Guess that this is where I put the key in, huh?” I said as I got out the rod which Rarity had given me before. I had been wondering why it was cylindrical, and this hole explained everything. As I put the rod in the hole, it glowed blue, and two of the lines which divided the door into segments lit up.

“So… what now?” I asked Pinkie. The door was still shut – the only difference which had happened was the lines lighting up.

“Oh yeah! Twi told me what to do next!” Pinkie said cheerfully. “That key’s made of something she calls a shape memory alloy!”

“Shape memory alloy?!” I repeated, already starting to see where she was going with this.

“It changes the type of magic in the key at different temperatures!” Pinkie explained. “You’ll need to find somewhere hot to heat it up, then bring it back here –”

“-Then somewhere cold to cool it down, then bring it back here,” I finished. “You mean I really have to do all of that backtracking?” She nodded.

“Yep! Seems that way!”

“It sounds like a stupid way to design a key,” I said, frowning as I did so. “I’ve got a better idea. Pinkie, watch the door for guards.” I got my Nikita rocket launcher out as I said so.

“Sure!” Pinkie answered, bouncing away. I fired a rocket at the door, which blew it to pieces. “Ooh! Nice idea!” Pinkie said as she bounced back over to me.

“There aren’t any guards coming?” I asked as I stepped past the doors and into the room where the Elements of Harmony were kept.

“Nope! If they were, I’d let them have some of my party cannon!” Pinkie said. Somehow, I didn’t doubt it.

Lying on the floor was a small blue chest, decorated with jewels. I picked it up and opened it. Inside were a set of necklaces, each with a unique symbol. “Ooh! Ooh! Right there! That’s mine! The Element of Laughter!” Pinkie said, pointing a hoof at one of the necklaces.

“Element of Laughter, huh?” I asked. As I looked at it, I realised that the symbol on it was a balloon, the same as Pinkie Pie’s cutie mark. “So… I guess that’s Rainbow Dash’s,” I said as I spotted the necklace with a lightning bolt, “that’s Rarity’s…” I continued as I saw the necklace with a diamond.

“And there’s Fluttershy’s, Applejack’s, and – hey! Wait a minute!” said Pinkie as she looked into the box properly. “The Element of Magic – it’s missing!”

Chapter Sixteen: Fission Mailed

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“The Element of Magic is missing?!” I repeated, counting over the Elements of Harmony again in the off chance that Pinkie had made a mistake. Sure enough, there were only five necklaces in the box. “Where could it be?”

Pinkie Pie gave a shrug. “Dunno, but we’d better search the castle for it!” In light of the missing Element, she was acting the most serious that I had ever seen her.

“Alright… I guess we’ll have to,” I told Pinkie. “But don’t forget – we’re on a time limit here.” By my reckoning, we had less than an hour left before the meteor shower would be gone for good.

“No problem, Snake!” Pinkie replied, bubbly and cheerful once again. “I’ll start the search now!” She hastily bounced over to the doorway… before being stopped by the sound of an alarm. She had stepped on the mines which she had warned me about when we entered the room.

“What the hell, Pinkie?!” I asked as I caught up with her. She was sitting down on the spot, looking around frantically for the source of the alarm. “Why didn’t your Pinkie Sense warn you about those mines?”

“I- I dunno,” she said, panicking. “I completely forgot about them!” I grabbed her tail and started dragging her away.

“C’mon – we’ve got to hide before the guards –” Even as I spoke, the guards from the previous room burst in, and professionally enveloped Pinkie and myself in a telekinetic field, leaving us unable to do anything.

“Well, well, well – what have we here?” one of the guards asked. “Trying to steal the Elements of Harmony?”

“What’s this one supposed to be?” the second one asked, jabbing his horn at me. “Some sort of mutated minotaur?” I gritted my teeth in anger. If only I could have moved and reached my gun…

“You idiot, Golden Breastplate!” the first guard said to him. “He’s obviously the same race as Shalashaska – you know, the Princess’ new advisor?” He looked a bit closer at me as I struggled to break free of the telekinetic field. “Come to think of it, Shalashaska was looking around in here the other day…”

“That’s enough of that, men.” A voice came from the doorway moments before its owner stepped through. It was a white unicorn stallion with a long mane, streaked with varying shades of blue. He was wearing purple and gold armour on most of his body. He gave Pinkie Pie and I a quick glance before talking to his guards. “I heard the alarm – tell me what happened.”

Before the guards could answer, Pinkie Pie interrupted. “Shining Armour! What are you doing here?” To my surprise, she didn’t sound worried anymore. Shining Armour turned to her as she talked, taking her in properly.

“Pinkie Pie? What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was at the Grand Galloping Gala,” Pinkie began, “but then I got bored and came here with Snakey, and then I was on the ceiling, but then I had to teach Snake how to hop, skip, and jump, so I came down, and then –”

“Snake?!” Shining Armour interrupted, now paying attention to me. “You’re Solid Snake?” The guards were being completely ignored by all of us now.

“Yeah – I am,” I answered. I had just remembered who Shining Armour was – Twilight Sparkle’s brother. “Did Twilight tell you who I am?” Shining Armour’s expression turned from mild anger to disgust.

“I’d be pretty darn confused if she knew who you are,” he snorted. “I heard about you from Shalashaska, of course – apparently you’re quite the criminal where he comes from.” If I could have moved within the telekinetic field, I would have smacked my forehead in frustration at that moment. Of course Ocelot would have told the guards that I was a criminal – and since Shining Armour was captain of the guard according to Twilight, he would have heard this too.

“Shining Armour! You still haven’t answered my question!!” Pinkie called out from her telekinetic field. Turning his back on me, Shining Armour moved closer to Pinkie.

“I’m in charge of security for the Grand Galloping Gala,” he answered. “Tell me, Pinkie – why are you with this human? I know that you’re friends with everypony, but still…”

“Oh! That’s easy!” Pinkie said happily. “Snake’s a good friend! He’s always doing funny things, like baking cupcakes with me, or hiding in boxes, or blowing up things! Twilight, Rarity, and the rest – they’re all friends with him too!” Shining Armour looked back at me with a glance, before turning to the guards.

“You two – go back to patrolling the corridors. I’ll handle these two.” For a moment, one of them looked about to protest, before wisely closing his mouth and heading out the door with his partner. As soon as the guards dropped their telekinetic fields around Pinkie and I, Shining Armour put his up his own around us.

“Don’t you see that Ocelot – I mean, Shalashaska – is using you?” I asked Shining Armour before he could talk or do anything to Pinkie and I. “To government figures like him, soldiers are expendable –they’ve only got one use, and that’s –”

“Does Ocelot work for the ruler of your country?” Pinkie interrupted. “I didn’t know that!”

“No, of course he doesn’t,” I answered, silently scoffing at the idea of Ocelot working for the President. “It’s just that to bureaucrats, soldiers are seen as – wait a minute…” I lost my train of thought as I tried to explain that government officials only see one use for soldiers.

“I don’t know what you’re going on about, and I don’t care,” Shining Armour said bluntly. “But I want to know, Snake – how do you know my sister?”

===================

A door to a private room was opened, and Pinkie Pie and I were telekinetically thrown in by Shining Armour. “But Shining! I thought we were friends!” Pinkie wailed. My hands and Pinkie’s hooves were being restrained by small force fields – as Shining Armour had explained, his special talent was creating barriers.

“Good job, Shining Armour,” a familiar voice rasped. I had been thrown onto my stomach, and I rolled over to see Revolver Ocelot there as I had expected, in his trademark jacket and suit. As I got a decent look at the room we were in, I saw the rest of my friends – Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack – were here and restrained with ropes. “I hope you don’t mind, but once you told me that they were working with Snake, I thought it best to restrain them,” Ocelot explained to Shining Armour.

Shining Armour barely glanced at them. “Just what traitors deserve,” he answered coldly. Next to Pinkie Pie, I heard Twilight let out a small gasp.

“But Shining – B.B.B.F.F.!” Shining Armour ignored Twilight calling out to him, and walked out the door without hesitating. Although I could see Twilight starting to fight back tears, I whispered across to her.

“Twilight – how much longer until the meteor shower?”

“I- I’m not sure,” she answered back quietly. “It should be soon though.”

“So!” Ocelot interrupted. “Here we all are – as we should be! I’ve waited a while for this moment, you know!”

“What do you want, Ocelot?” I asked as I struggled against the force field restraining my hands. “Does Celestia know about this?” He let out a short, sharp laugh in response.

“Celestia? Ha! What would I care about what she knows?” The ponies all gasped at this – to them, this was blasphemy.

“Nopony talks about the Princess like that!” Rainbow Dash said aggressively. Like me, she was struggling against her bonds, but failing to break them. “You take that back!”

“Why should I?” asked Ocelot, taking out his gun and twirling it in his hand. “It’s the truth – and I would think that you of all people would know about honesty, Rainbow Dash.” There was silence between all of the ponies and myself. “…What?” Ocelot asked, confused.

“Ah’m the Element of Honesty – not Rainbow,” Applejack explained.

“Really?” asked Ocelot, still twirling the gun. He seemed genuinely confused. “I thought that you were the Element of Loyalty, Applejack, and that Rainbow Dash…” Both ponies shook their heads. “…Well. Not that it matters to my plans,” he continued.

“What are your plans, Ocelot?” I asked him, intrigued now. “And what do you want with all of us right now?” He let out another laugh.

“Why should I tell you, Snake?” Ocelot leered. “We’re enemies, after all. All I’ll tell you is that I’m not really working for Celestia!” He holstered his gun before continuing, apparently having twirled it for dramatic effect more than anything. “Hell, for all you know I’m not really working for FOXHOUND! Maybe I’m working for the President of the United States! Maybe I’m working for the leader of a group of Russian mercenaries! Maybe I’m working for the La Li Lu Le Lo!”

“You work for a group of non-existent Japanese syllables?” I muttered under my breath.

“You see,” Ocelot continued, “the truth is that at the moment I’m working for –” He stopped talking for a moment to think. After a few moments, he started whispering to himself under his breath. “…Wait a minute… but if I’m planning to backstab him… then if I’m really working for… but why would I pretend to work with them in the first place?”

After a few minutes of this, Ocelot gave up. “It doesn’t matter who I’m really working for!” he said angrily. “The point is, I’m your enemy – and I’ve been planning to get you six ponies all together ever since I ended up in Canterlot!” The ponies all gasped, except for Fluttershy, who let out more of a squeak of fear.

“What?!”

“But how did yah know ‘bout us?”

“I don’t even…”

“That doesn’t make sense! Scientifically speaking, of course.”

“Ocelot! You scum!” As I said these words, Ocelot gave me an odd smile.

“You call me scum, Snake?” he asked. “Be grateful that I’m the one who captured you, not your brother Liquid. If he were here, he’d no doubt be spouting some crap about recessive genes and how he has to prove that he’s superior to you genetically.” Revolver Ocelot paced back and forth in front of the seven of us as he continued talking, minus the smile on his face this time.

“It’s a pity that I don’t still have my right arm… there used to be a nice intimidation trick that I could pull if I had another three pistols…” He faced me, drew out his trademark revolver, cocked it, and then aimed it at my face. “Now tell me, Snake – and no lying,” he began, “why are you in Canterlot tonight, sneaking around upstairs? That’s the one thing I can’t work out.” As he spoke, I heard the distant sound of fireworks outside – no doubt part of the Gala festivities.

“It’s… the Element of Magic,” I reluctantly answered. “Twilight figured out that she could use it to send you and me back to Shadow Moses. I decided to steal it tonight because everyone would be distracted by the Grand Galloping Gala.” I decided not to tell him about the time limit we had, which was rapidly running out. “Tell me, did you take it from the vault?”

Ocelot smirked and holstered his pistol once more. “Of course I did. I realised that you knew these six ponies somehow after you talked to them during our earlier duel, so when Twilight Sparkle asked Celestia for the Element of Magic, I convinced her to deny the request. If you personally wanted the Element, I knew that you could be up to no good. Just for safe measure, I took the Element myself.”

Ocelot opened his jacket cautiously, and drew out something golden and sparkling. “What do you think of it, Snake?” he taunted. Unlike the other Elements of Harmony, the Element of Magic was a small tiara-like crown adorned with Twilight’s cutie mark.

“Yeah, he’s got it,” I said out loud. Ocelot frowned.

“What was that, Snake?” he asked. A moment later, the door of the room we were in was flung open. At the same time, the magical bonds holding Pinkie Pie and I disappeared. In through the door strode Shining Armour, followed by a small group of guards.

“I’ll take that, Shalashaska,” Shining Armour said confidently as he telekinetically lifted the Element of Magic from Ocelot’s hand. “And don’t even think about reaching for that ‘gun’,” he added as his guards untied the rest of the ponies from their ropes.

“Why the hell are you betraying me, Shining Armour?” Ocelot asked furiously. “When the Princess finds out –”

“Finds out what, Shalashaska?” Shining Armour asked. “That you stole the Element of Magic?”

“If you’re wondering, Ocelot,” I said, “I was talking to Shining Armour on my codec a minute ago when I spoke out loud. You didn’t really think that he had betrayed his sister, did you?”

Grumbling now, Ocelot muttered to himself, “…and I could have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling ponies!” As he spoke, I thought back to earlier, when Shining Armour had found Pinkie Pie and me upstairs…

===================

“But I want to know, Snake – how do you know my sister?” Shining Armour asked me. “I swear to Celestia, if you lie –”

“Relax, Shining Armour,” I said. “As you can see, I’m not from around here. Twilight’s agreed to send me back home using her magic – I’ve been staying with her for the past few months.” Shining Armour thought about it for a moment.

“That does sound like the sort of thing Twily would do…” he said slowly. Pinkie Pie nodded enthusiastically.

“She nearly did it once, but then the spell stuffed up and that big old meaniepants Ocelot was sent here instead!” she said quickly. “Which was a real pity, since Snake here really wanted to go home, but had to stay here – but then we went to the beach, and baked cupcakes, and-” As she spoke, Shining Armour released us from his telekinetic field.

“You know what?” he said to me. “If Pinkie Pie vouches for you, then that’s good enough for me. Shalashaska seems a bit… shady to me.”

“Thanks,” I said to Shining Armour gratefully. “Do you know where Shalashaska is now? The Element of Magic is missing, and I’ll bet he’s behind it. Twilight needs it to send me back home.” It made sense – first, he rejects Twilight’s request for it, and then he steals it to make sure that she can’t get her hooves on it. I was just pissed off at myself for not seeing it earlier.

Shining Armour grimaced. “It went missing a few days ago after he did an inspection of this area – now that you say that, I’ll bet that you’re right, and he stole it. We didn’t tell the public that it was missing so that we wouldn’t cause a mass panic.”

“…and one of them was covered in bees, one went to the moon, like Princess Luna, and one of them was a ghost!” finished Pinkie. She had been continuing on in her story without noticing Shining Armour and I having a conversation of our own.

“Pinkie , what are you – ” I started, before giving up. What was the point in trying to make sense of what she was saying?

“Anyway,” Shining Armour said, “even if Shalashaska does have the Element, how do you plan on getting it from him? He’s not going to just tell you where he’s got it.”

“Ooh, I know!” Pinkie Pie said. “Why don’t you ask him to show it to you? Like one of Applejack’s medals!” I frowned, but Shining Armour somehow interpreted her logic.

“Good idea, Pinkie! Snake, if you could trick Shalashaska into showing the Element to you, then I can stop him once you know where it is, and Twily can use it to send you home!” I thought about this for a moment as I formed a plan.

“Alright, here’s what we’ll do – Shining Armour, I need you to learn how to cast the codec spell…”

===================

As I finished thinking about how we had put our plan together, Twilight levitated the Element of Magic from where her brother. Ocelot was being held telekinetically by both Shining Armour and the Royal Guard – I doubted whether he could escape.

“Twilight- how much longer until the meteor shower?” I asked.

“You hear those fireworks?” she replied as she put the Element of Magic on her head. “Those were set to go off at the same time as the meteor shower – I found out that that’s the reason why the Gala was set to be tonight.”

“Set to be tonight, huh?” I asked. “So – wait! That means that the shower’s going on right now! Twilight – you’ve got to cast the spell before we run out of time!” As I had been talking, Twilight’s horn had been glowing brighter and brighter. I noticed a magic field around both myself and Ocelot.

“I’m sorry that you had to go so soon, Snake,” Twilight said, closing her eyes. Once she opened them, her eyes were glowing a bright white, which I assumed was a side effect of the Element of Magic.

“So… soon?” I repeated confusedly as Twilight’s horn continued to glow. All of my friends were standing with Twilight now, smiling sadly and waving goodbye. All of a sudden, the reality of the moment hit me – I really was returning to Shadow Moses! “Twilight…all of you… I –”

Everything went black.

…

I blinked. It felt like I was lying face-down on the floor. The floor was cold, feeling like marble or some similar stone. I slowly picked myself, and looked around. I was back in Shadow Moses, in the small corridor just before the office where I had fought Psycho Mantis.

“…didn’t get to say goodbye,” I slowly finished.

Chapter Seventeen: It's Not Over Yet!

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I looked around the corridor I was in once more… this was definitely Shadow Moses. I had spent all of that time in Equestria trying to get back here, and now that I was here, I felt more regretful than anything. Was it really just because I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to my friends? Or had I found myself enjoying a life devoid of killing?

I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking these thoughts. I had to concentrate on the mission which I had been given so many weeks ago – I was the only thing standing in the way of Metal Gear REX launching a nuclear missile.

I headed up the corridor, and opened the door to the office where I had fought Psycho Mantis. As I had expected, he was still there, using his telekinesis to hover in the air – it seemed as though the time between Equestria and Earth really did run as slowly as I had assumed. Meryl was lying on the floor, still unconscious from the stun grenade I had used on her.

“Hello, Snake,” Mantis sneered as I entered. “Back so soon?”

“Back so… soon?” I repeated. Did this mean that I really had been transported to Equestria physically? That it hadn’t all been in my head?

“Ah, you’re confused. Good, good, that’s exactly how I want you,” Psycho Mantis said arrogantly. “Tell me, Snake- would you like me to send you back? To your world of brightly coloured ponies – to your friends? Where all that you have to worry about is –”

“Shut up, Mantis!” I interrupted. “What the hell would you know about any of that?”

“I know plenty,” he taunted, still floating above the ground. “Would you believe that my favourite pony is Fluttershy? She’s so -”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Psycho Mantis was not going to stand there and mock the world which I had discovered – I fired several shots from my SOCOM pistol into his body. I could only assume that he couldn’t read my mind and avoid the shots due to the blind rage I was in at the time. Taken off by this, Mantis fell to the ground as blood began seeping from his chest.

I cautiously walked over to him, keeping my gun aimed at his body in case he tried something. Although he was still alive, he was weakening rapidly, and it looked as though he wouldn’t be able to use his powers – at least not effectively.

“… and in short, that’s how I defeated Psycho Mantis,” Snake finished. “Kinda ironic, isn’t it? If he hadn’t sent me to Equestria, I wouldn’t have acted so instinctively and stopped him.” Colonel Campbell was paying attention to something under the table, until Snake cleared his throat.

“Oh- uh, what was that, Snake? Something about… what was her name? Rainbow Dust?” Snake sighed irritably.

“Colonel, I finished telling you how I returned from Equestria several minutes ago. And I barely mentioned Rainbow Dash.” To help relieve some of his frustration, little as it may be, Snake started another cigarette – he had lost count of how many he had smoked during this debriefing by now.

“Oh, good! Does this mean you won’t be talking about those ponies anymore?” Campbell asked a little too enthusiastically.

“Talking about those ponies?” Snake repeated. “Well, just wait and listen to the rest of the story…”

As I moved closer to Psycho Mantis, he began speaking, to my surprise. “I... I wasn't able to read the future...” he coughed, a small bit of blood coming out of his mouth as he did so.

“A strong man doesn't need to read the future,” I pointed out to him. “He makes his own.”

“Perhaps so…” Mantis weakly replied. “But I will also read your future...” As he spoke, Meryl regained consciousness, and I helped her up from the floor. “To get to Metal Gear's underground maintenance base... you have to go through that hidden door… behind the bookcase.

“The overland route... it's blocked by frozen glaciers. Go past the communications towers. Then use the tower's walkway.” He spent a moment gasping slightly for breath, before continuing. “But beware, Snake…”

“Beware…?” I repeated. As I asked this, I wondered why he was giving Meryl and me help.

“The stairs of the communication tower… they’ll take a lot out of you. So many stairs…” I grimaced. That was what he was warning me about?

“I’m not stupid enough to go into something like the tower without at least throwing a chaff grenade first,” I answered. “I’d have to be an idiot not to look out for cameras like that.” I had been hoping that he would give us some more helpful advice, such as warning us of another FOXHOUND member planning to ambush us up ahead. “Why are you telling me this?” I added.

“I can read people's minds,” Mantis began. “In my lifetime I have read the pasts, presents, and futures of thousands upon thousands of men and women. And each mind that I peered into was stuffed with the same single object of obsession. That selfish and atavistic desire to pass on one's seed... it was enough to make me sick. Every living thing on this planet exists to mindlessly pass on their DNA. We're designed that way. And that's why there is war.

“But you... you are different... You like ponies. Humans weren't designed to bring each other happiness – ponies were.” I was surprised at how long Mantis was holding onto life for, considering how badly I had shot him up.

“Ponies? What’s he going on about, Snake?” Meryl asked me, naturally unable to comprehend what Mantis had done. I ignored her, caught up in what Mantis was saying.

“From the moment you were thrown into that world, I thought that you would be fated to bring those ponies pain and misery,” Mantis continued. “But you defied my expectations. You befriended those ponies… you didn’t kill everything which got in your way, as I had expected you would.”

“Mantis…” I started, worried about what he was implying. “Does this mean that my trip to Equestria was all in my head? That you controlled everything in there using your powers?” From his apparent intimate knowledge of what had happened, it would make sense…

He let out a hollow laugh. “That would seem to be the appropriate explanation, wouldn’t it?” Mantis asked weakly. “But then again… how do you know that I didn’t read your mind once you returned? That I didn’t use that knowledge to find out what you had done in Equestria?” He let out another hollow laugh before continuing. “Maybe I even saw what those ponies had done for you… and realised that I’m pathetic next to them. That they’ll always be better than me – so I let you kill me.” This took me by surprise – could it be true? Before I could ask Mantis for a proper answer, he continued.

“I thought that I’d seen true evil – you, Snake. I thought that you were just like the Boss… no, you’re better. You’ve let those ponies change you, and make you into a better person.” Mantis entered a coughing fit for a few moments before continuing. From the looks of things, he was holding onto life through will alone.

Weakly, Psycho Mantis pointed a finger to the bookshelf that he had mentioned earlier. “I’ll open the door for you.” The bookshelf slid to one side silently, revealing the hidden door behind it. “If you want to find your future, go through that door. This is the first time I've ever used my power to help someone. It's strange... it feels... kind of... nice.” His voice quietened as he spoke, and I was expecting him to finally die, before he spoke one final sentence:

“I wonder… would the ponies… be proud of me?”

Meryl and I were silent as Mantis breathed his final breath. His head rolled to one side with no force to keep it focused on the two of us. I broke the silence, saying “Let’s go, Meryl.” I started heading over to the door before noticing that Meryl wasn’t following. “What is it?”

“Snake… what was Mantis saying? About those ponies?”

I hesitated before answering. “…It’s a long story, Meryl. Let’s just say that Mantis… without meaning to, he made me a better person. He showed me that I don’t have to kill to save the world.” I examined my handgun, and gave a wry smile. “Heh, next time I go on a mission, I should try to get a gun that only tranquilises my enemies.”

“With that, we continued through the exit that Mantis had shown us,” Snake said to Colonel Campbell. Campbell was paying full attention now that Snake was explaining the rest of the Shadow Moses mission. “But when we reached the communications tower we were ambushed by Sniper Wolf, the next member of FOXHOUND.” Campbell nodded.

“I remember. You had to backtrack to find that sniper rifle to stop her,” he said. Snake grunted at this.

“I hate backtracking,” he grumbled as he stubbed out the cigarette he had lit earlier. “And I’m sure that you’ll remember what happened after I temporarily stopped Sniper Wolf?” Once more, Campbell nodded.

“Liquid Snake managed to capture you, which led to…”

“Torture,” Snake confirmed simply.

I was shackled to a revolving metallic slab. I had naturally been stripped of my weapons and equipment, in addition to the upper half of my sneaking suit.

In front of me, Revolver Ocelot was preparing some equipment. I had no idea what he had in mind for torture, but it looked as though it would be ugly. Sniper Wolf and my brother, Liquid, had already left after taunting me. “Finally, just the two of us,” Ocelot said, smirking. “How are you feeling?” In truth, I was worried – just what was Ocelot planning to do to me? What if I ended up giving in to the torture – what would the consequences be?

What would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash say? I thought, looking to her for inspiration. “Not bad. I caught a nice nap on this revolving bed of yours,” I said. “Too bad I was sleeping alone.”

“Glad to hear that,” Ocelot said, going along with what I was saying. “This is some bed alright. I’m about to show you some of its nicer features…”

“Not as good as the beds in Canterlot, I’ll bet,” I answered. “What’s it like, sleeping in the same castle as Princess Celestia?” Ocelot gave me an odd look.

“What the damn hell are you on about, Snake?” he asked.

“Tell me, Ocelot,” I asked him, dead serious, “did you get sent to Equestria by Twilight Sparkle’s spell?” He continued looking at me oddly, whilst massaging his chest slightly with his hand.

“Snake, I realise that you’re trying to confuse me and escape, and I applaud your imagination, but do you really think that asking me nonsensical questions will work?” Ocelot gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “It really seems that the fear has gone to your head –you really think that I’d give a flying feather about what you’re on about?”

Revolver Ocelot turned back to the equipment he had. “We’re going to play a game, Snake. And we'll find out what kind of man we really are. When the pain becomes too great to bear just give up and your suffering will end. But if you do, the girl's life is mine.”

With that, Ocelot pressed a switch on the equipment. For maybe half a second it looked like nothing was going to happen, before I felt a strong jolt of electricity coursing through my body. Within a few moments, I had already started to shout out in pain…

“I don’t know how you managed to survive that torture,” Colonel Campbell said, shuddering slightly in pain. “Ocelot sending all of that electricity through your body… you’d need some sort of healing factor to survive it!”

I shook my head. “Healing factor?” I repeated. “No, all I needed to survive that was a good hand and quick reflexes.” Before Campbell could ask me what I meant by that, I got to the point I was trying to make. “Colonel… don’t you think it’s odd that Ocelot claimed not to have gone to Equestria?” Campbell rolled his eyes.

“Snake, you realise that I don’t care about this whole –”

“I’m just saying,” Snake interrupted, “because I find it odd that he was rubbing his chest when we were talking about it. That’s where I shot him when he arrived in Equestria.”
Campbell considered this for a moment. “So… you think he was lying to you?”
Snake shrugged. “Then again, maybe it was nothing. Or maybe I shot him there when we fought in Shadow Moses.” He shook his head. “I can’t know for sure – it’s not as if Ocelot works for the President, and we can just ask him. Anyway, from there…”

===================

Snake told Campbell about the rest of the Shadow Moses Incident – how he escaped the torture, killed Sniper Wolf and another member of FOXHOUND, Vulcan Raven, and was tricked by Liquid into activating Metal Gear REX.

“You were tricked by Liquid into activating Metal Gear REX?!” Colonel Campbell repeated. Snake rolled his eyes, not sure why Campbell was so confused when he had been in contact with Snake when it had happened.

“I was tricked by Liquid into activating Metal Gear REX,” he confirmed.

“Metal… Gear?” Campbell asked again.

“Metal Gear REX,” Snake confirmed, resisting the urge to punch Campbell.

Although it had been less than two minutes since Liquid had jumped into the cockpit of Metal Gear REX and tried to kill me with it, it felt as though the battle had gone on for hours. I had fired countless missiles at REX’s radome using my Stinger missile launcher, as Otacon had advised me to do, but it was still no good. Metal Gear REX truly was indestructible.

From the cockpit of Metal Gear REX, Liquid’s voice rang out. “Nice try, Snake. Die!” One of the legs of REX rose to crush me. Although I started moving out of the way, I knew that I was done for… or at least, I would have been, if it hadn’t been for what happened next.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a blur zoom past me, towards Metal Gear REX. Rainbow Dash? I wondered for a brief moment. I turned around to see that it wasn’t Rainbow Dash – but it was still a good friend of mine.

“Hurry! Get away!” Grey Fox said, wearing still wearing the suit and armour which gave him the name Cyborg Ninja. He was holding up REX’s leg by strength alone – his armour must have been stronger than I realised.

“Grey Fox!!” I said, still reeling from his sudden appearance. Although it had just been hours since he had last seen me, I hadn’t seen him since before I had been sent to Equestria… when we had been fighting.

“You look terrible, Snake,” Fox said, still straining to hold up REX’s leg. “You haven’t aged well.” As he spoke, I took advantage of his distraction and ran behind a nearby box, so that I could catch my breath. I didn’t get the chance to see what Grey Fox did next, but a moment later he joined me behind the box.

“Fox, why?!” I asked. The last time we had seen each other, he had been trying to force me to kill him – did he want another fight?

“I’m a prisoner of death,” he said cryptically. “Only you can free me…” He had made similar statements when we had fought earlier. I was going to answer him, when Liquid’s voice rang out from REX once more.

“There you are!” A moment later, a hail of bullets slammed into the box we were hiding behind. Fox stood up, ready for fighting as ever.

“We’re just about out of time,” he said. “Here’s a final present from Deepthroat. I’ll stop it from moving!” I looked from around the box to see what he was going to do.

Grey Fox ran straight to REX without any hesitation. Reacting to this, Liquid fired Metal Gear REX’s rail gun at him – in response, Fox leapt all around the place to try and dodge it. Unfortunately, Liquid reacted much faster this time – using a laser weapon of REX’s to cut off one of Fox’s arms. I winced, amazed at how Fox could keep this up.

Despite this new disability, Fox barely reacted. He did some more flips and acrobatics, and managed to get to a ledge, high in the large room we were in. Spinning around, he drew out his gun – he can destroy REX’s radome!, I thought excitedly.

CRUNCH! Or not. Liquid had managed to move Metal Gear REX quickly enough that the protruding cockpit of it crushed Fox against the wall, pinning him helplessly.

“How strong is that exoskeleton of yours?” Liquid asked, half-curiously, half-mockingly. It was hard to see from my vantage point, but it looked like he was trying to crush Fox, and get rid of him once and for all. “Snake, are you just going to sit by and watch him die?”

Despite having lost an arm, being pinned against the wall by REX, and being close to death, Fox somehow managed to raise his remaining arm and fire his gun. To my surprise, it was powerful enough to destroy REX’s radome – REX could now be destroyed once and for all.

“A cornered fox is more dangerous than a jackal!” Grey Fox said to Liquid. As he spoke, Liquid opened up the cockpit of Metal Gear REX, exposing himself - since the radome could no longer be counted on for visuals, Liquid was going to have to use his own two eyes.

“Impressive. You are indeed worthy of the codename ‘Fox’! But now you're finished!” Liquid said, sounding genuinely impressed.

“Wait a minute,” Colonel Campbell interrupted. “Liquid Snake was in the cockpit of Metal Gear REX, a good fifteen to thirty metres away from you. He wasn’t transmitting his voice through REX either. How could you hear him?”

“Hear him?” Solid Snake shrugged. “You know… I never really questioned it.”

“But that just doesn’t make sense!” Campbell exclaimed. “Are you just making up what he said, or is there some other explanation?”

“Look, Colonel,” Snake started irritably, “what with all of the Cyborg Ninjas, Russian cowboys, Alaskan shamans, and telekinesis practitioners in Shadow Moses, I decided not to question it.” He snorted. “What’s next? A special effects expert who’s really good at holding his breath? A fat man on roller skates drinking wine through a bendy straw? A bisexual vampire?”

Campbell shifted a folder on the desk slightly, so that he could read its label: Dead Cell. “Well Snake, you see…”

“The point is, Campbell, that how I heard Liquid doesn’t matter,” Snake said before Campbell could say what he was going to say. “Now, as I was saying…”

“Now! Fire the Stinger!” Grey Fox called out to me. I looked at the missile launcher in my hands… was he being serious? Firing a missile when he would surely be killed in the explosion?

“Can you really shoot? You’ll kill him too!” Liquid said, echoing my thoughts. Part of me was tempted to… not only would the explosion destroy REX’s cockpit, rending the great beast inoperable forever, but it would also probably kill Liquid, completing my mission once and for all.

“Now... in front of you... I can finally die,” Fox gasped, the damage having finally taken its toll on him. “After Zanzibar, I was taken from the battle neither truly alive nor truly dead... an undying shadow in the world of lights. But soon... soon… it will finally... end.”

As Fox spoke, I raised the Stinger missile launcher, and locked on a missile. I was ready to fire… when a voice from not too long ago came into my head.

“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! Who are you?!”

Despite the fact that she had literally only known me for a few seconds at that point, Pinkie Pie had been willing to accept me as her friend. As were all the rest of the ponies I met, despite that I was completely foreign to them, and a newcomer in town. Hell, I could even admit that I was pretty rude to them at first. Yet… in the end, they had accepted me as their friend, and I had eventually learned to accept them as mine.

I wouldn’t shoot the Stinger if any of my pony friends were in the situation which Fox now found himself in, no matter what the benefits would be. And I wasn’t going to kill Fox, no matter what he wanted.

Fox finished talking, and Liquid moved Metal Gear REX back slightly, causing Fox’s body to fall to the ground. I thought that that finished him off… but just to be sure, Liquid raised one of REX’s legs, and stomped it downwards on Fox. Nothing happened. Grey Fox was still alive, and his armour was still strong enough to withstand the full force of REX’s leg crushing it, despite how close he was to death.

“Die!” spat Liquid, thoroughly pissed off with Fox by now. I looked up to Liquid sitting in REX’s cockpit, and smirked slightly.

“You think you can destroy Grey Fox just like that?” I asked him confidently. “Well, you're wrong, because the Stinger missile launcher is right here! The spirit of Grey Fox got me through every challenge you threw at me!” From the cockpit, Liquid gasped slightly, and paused in his murder of Fox.

“You still haven’t defeated the sixth member of FOXHOUND! The spark didn't work!” Liquid spat. Despite his words, he looked unconvinced.

“But it did!” I said back, not sure exactly what he was going on about. I looked to Grey Fox, still bleeding profusely and dying beneath REX’s leg. “I felt it the very moment I realized how happy I was to hear you… to see you… how much I cared about you!” I was trying to find the right words to inspire him to continue fighting.

I struggled to think of what next to say, before remembering that his foster sister, Naomi Hunter, had injected me with a virus as revenge for ‘killing’ him in Zanzibar Land. “FOXDIE ignited inside me when I realized that you... are my friend!” I said to him.

I turned back to Liquid now, and locked onto him with the Stinger missile launcher. “You see, Liquid Snake, when FOXDIE is ignited by the... the genes, that reside in the heart of us all, it creates a new element: the element of-”

CRUNCH! Ignoring me, Liquid had lifted the leg of Metal Gear REX, and crushed Grey Fox completely with it. “Foooooox!!” I cried out, looking at the bloody smear on REX’s leg.

“Foolish man,” Liquid sneered. “He prayed for death... and it found him. You see? You can't protect anyone!! Not even yourself!” Liquid turned REX slightly, so that it was facing me properly. “Die!!”

“And that’s how Grey Fox died,” Snake finished sadly. Colonel Campbell shook his head slowly.

“Such a pity,” Campbell said. “He started out as such a great soldier, and in the end he was turned into that monstrosity… at least he can rest in peace now.”
Snake nodded in agreement, and then continued to tell the final chapter of the Shadow Moses Incident – how he managed to stop both Metal Gear REX and Liquid Snake, and his escape from Shadow Moses with the help of both Otacon and Meryl.

“So… what are you going to do now?” Campbell asked Snake. The debriefing was officially finished.

“What am I going to do now, huh?” Snake repeated. He briefly went over the events of the mission once again – in particular, his fight with Psycho Mantis. “I’m not going to work for you or the government anymore, Campbell – and I mean it this time. I want to do good in the world. Something more… philanthropic… than before.”

Campbell gave a hollow laugh. “Really, Snake? You’re a soldier at heart. You always have been. And we both know that a soldier’s place is on the battlefield.”

“Not this soldier’s,” Snake said gruffly. “Anyway, I hear that they’re thinking about shutting down FOXHOUND sometime in the near future. After the way Liquid took control of it and turned them into a group of terrorists… do you blame them?”

“Ridiculous!” Campbell said. “FOXHOUND is going to last decades! Next thing I know, you’ll be saying that they should replace me with a computer program!”

Snake got up from the table and readjusted his bandanna, preparing to leave now that things were wrapping up. “Maybe they should, Colonel… You want my advice?” Campbell grimaced, then nodded.

“What is it?”

“Change FOXHOUND around a bit… maybe starting with the coding system,” Snake simply said.

“Why’s that?” Campbell asked, not understanding why Snake was suggesting this.

“Well… what if the highest rank wasn’t Fox, but Alicorn? The next could be Unicorn, followed by –”

“Oh, get out of here,” Campbell said angrily, getting frustrated with the whole pony business. Frowning, Snake nevertheless gave Campbell a civil nod before leaving the room.

===================

Several hours later, Snake called Otacon by codec. He was taking the advice which Twilight Sparkle had given him, and trying to maintain a friendship with Otacon.

“Hey Otacon. It’s Snake.”

“Hey Snake,” Otacon answered. “Did you end up learning anything from that debriefing, like you’d hoped?” Although Otacon couldn’t see it, Snake nodded.

“Yeah, just going over the mission again got me thinking… Otacon, take a letter.”

“W-what?!” Otacon asked.

“It’s something I want to get in the habit of,” Snake explained. “Even if they never get sent or read, I want to get in the habit of writing a letter to Princess Celestia, to remember my friends in Equestria.”

“But Snake- you never found out whether you really travelled to Equestria or not,” Otacon pointed out.

“That’s what I’m about to explain. So write the damn letter!” Snake said, before clearing his throat. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that it doesn’t matter whether something is real, or fiction. What you think you see is only as real as your brain tells you it is.

“And with that in mind, I don’t care whether I really travelled to Equestria or not. I don’t care whether Psycho Mantis was just tricking my brain into thinking that I was in Equestria, or whether he really did send me there… because as a good friend of mine said, ‘Even if it’s not real, it doesn’t mean that our friendship isn’t.’

“From your faithful operative, Solid Snake. Did you get all of that, Otacon?”

“Sure did, Snake,” Otacon answered. “Is it okay if I write to Princess Celestia, and ask her whether love can bloom on a battlefield?”

“Why not?”

“Thanks, Snake,” said Otacon. “You know, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship between us two.”

“I should hope so, Otacon. After all… friendship is magic.”

Epilogue: The Best is Yet To Come

View Online

In a hospital thousands of kilometres away, Revolver Ocelot was just finishing up an important phone call, having just come out from an important and successful arm transplant. “…It takes a well-balanced individual… such as yourself to rule the world. No, sir. No one knows that you were the third one…Solidus.”

As he continued talking on the phone, he flexed his new arm. It had been a stroke of genius, taking the arm from Liquid’s body and using it for an arm transfusion. “What should I do about the woman?” Ocelot asked, still talking on the phone to this mystery person. “Yes sir. I’ll keep her under surveillance.

“Yes. Thank you. Goodbye. Mr. President.” He hung up the phone, looking around to make sure that no one in the hospital had overheard whom he was talking to. Fortunately, it was fairly late in the afternoon, and those who were in the hospital were too busy to pay any attention to an innocent-looking man in a business suit making a quiet phone call.

Confident that no one was watching him, Ocelot picked up the receiver of the phone once more. Rather than dialling the phone though, he dialled his codec, and pretended to speak into the phone so that he wouldn’t look suspicious seemingly talking to thin air.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said. “As I anticipated, the entire unit was wiped out. Yes… yes, even him. I doubt whether there’ll be any more visits.” Ocelot paused to listen to what his contact was asking. “Those two are still alive. The vector? Yes, the spark should become activated soon... Right on schedule.

“Yes. I recovered all of Mantis’s information. ...No. My cover is intact. Nobody knows where I really went. Yes, Vulcan Raven suspected something, but he's been disposed of.” Before continuing, Ocelot looked around once more to see whether he was being watched. Just as before, no one was paying him any attention.

“Yes. The inferior one was the winner after all,” he continued saying. “...That's right. Until the very end, Liquid thought he was the inferior one. Yes. I agree completely. It takes someone who has seen the dark side... such as yourself to rule the world. No. No one knows that you also were sent to Earth... Of course I’ll help you get back.

“Yes. Thank you. Goodbye. Princess Luna.” With that, Revolver Ocelot hung up the phone and exited his codec call. Walking away, he casually left the hospital, and started whistling to himself. Everything was going according to plan.

THE END

My Little Mission: Sneaking is Magic

by DoctorSpectrum

Chapter One: Mantis' Hymn

Chapter Two: Look Before You Sneak

Chapter Three: Operation: Cottage Infiltration

Chapter Four: It Needs To Have About 20% More Friendship

Chapter Five: Cutie Mark Acquisition Mission

Chapter Six: Into the Everfree Forest

Chapter Seven: Manticore Eater

Chapter Eight: Let's Finish Our Holiday Cheer!

Chapter Nine: 'Cos Tomorrow Spring is Here!

Chapter Ten: Draw!

Chapter Eleven: Pinkie and Snake Bake Cupcakes

Chapter Twelve: The Big Shell Incident

Chapter Thirteen: The Best Night Ever

Chapter Fourteen: Oh, the Grand Galloping Gala is the Best Place to Sneak!

Chapter Fifteen: Fun with Codec Calls

Chapter Sixteen: Fission Mailed

Chapter Seventeen: It's Not Over Yet!

Epilogue: The Best is Yet To Come