//------------------------------// // Through Time and Space // Story: Captain of Equestria // by MorgothII //------------------------------// Captain of Equestria Chapter One: Through Time and Space December 15th, 1916 Verdun, France… The air is filled with tracers and bullets as men wearing light blue trench coats and Adrian helmets of the same color advance towards the German positions. The French had launched yet another assault against the fortified German positions. The specific area is the village of Vaux. The Germans refuse to give up without a fight, however, as their MG 08/15 heavy machine guns open fire. 8mm M1886 Lebel bolt-action rifles and Chauchat light machine guns return fire as French men begin to fall. "Come on men!" Capitaine Henri Galliéni, commander of a battalion of the 58th Regiment shouts, waving his Lebel Model 1892 8mm revolver. Beside and behind him, the eight hundred or so Poilu infantrymen advance. Suddenly a bright light engulfs the entire unit, riflemen, machine gunners, and even the single 37mm cannon and its crew. Only the crew operating the trench mortars is left to witness the bizarre event unfolding before them. The light suddenly glares even brighter, forcing the remaining Frenchmen to shield their eyes. Then the light fades rapidly. The soldiers open their eyes, blinking furiously. To their shock, Henri and his entire battalion have vanished in thin air. Later, the remaining men inform their commanding officer of their regiment of what happened, and the news is rapidly passed straight to the top of the French Army Command. Orders are rapidly issued swearing the mortar operators to absolute silence. The fates of the eight hundred plus men are buried in history, with the vague description of having been nearly wiped out to a man. The horrific losses already sustained during the Great War makes the cover-up even more believable. Only the men left behind ponder over the fate of their missing and now presumed-dead comrades. November 30th, 1917 Battle of Cambrai… "OI, DRIVER! PUSH FORWARD! GUNNERS, KEEP THOSE JERRY BASTARDS OFF OF US! WE GOTTA GET BACK TO BASE OR WE'RE ALL DONE FOR LADS!" Lieutenant George Townsend shouts to the other seven men inside the dark, cramped area. The 6-cylinder petrol engine roars as it propels the twin tracks of the rhomboid-shaped hull of the twenty-six-and-a-half-foot long metal behemoth carrying the seven men. It is known as either the 'Landship', or better yet, the 'tank'. This particular model is known as the Mark IV. The model they are using is the 'Male" cannon-armed version. One either side is a sponson containing a Quick-Firing (QF) 6-pounder 6 cwt Hotchkiss cannon, with an air-cooled .303-inch Lewis light machine gun. A third gun is in the front, near the driver's position. The tank was part of 'B' Battalion of the newly-formed Royal Tank Corps. The name of the tank, painted in large white letters on the front, is Brian Boru. The Mark IV tank was part of the first-ever mass use of the newly-created war machine as part of a large British counter-offensive. The target is the captured French town of Cambrai, along with the nearby Bourlon Ridge. The area was being used as a major supply depot for the massive network of German trenches known as the Hindenburg Line. At first the attack had met with stunning success. But the attack was meeting heavy resistance, and the crew of Brian Boru had been pushed back. In an attempt to return to friendly lines, Townsend and his crewmates had driven into a trench line that appeared to have been reoccupied with a large number of German infantry soldiers. A bright light suddenly envelops the tank, along with thirty German soldiers who had managed to get aboard the machine. Then the light fades and the remaining German soldiers stare at the smoking area where thirty of their comrades and the enemy tank had just been. In the aftermath, the tank Brian Boru of B Company and her crew were simply listed as 'Killed in Action'. Fall, 1918 Dolomites, Northern Italy… "Come on you bastards!" Luca Vincenzo Cocchiola shouts behind his armor. The member of the elite Arditi unit fires his MG 08/15 machine gun as he moves up the mountain along with five other Italian soldiers armed with smaller-caliber weapons. Austro-Hungarian Alpine soldiers fire their rifles at the muscular man. The bullets simply bounce off the thick metal however, and the heavy water-cooled machine gun simply mows the soldiers down. The eight other Italian elite soldiers pop up from behind large rocks used for cover and fire their dual-barreled (which in turn had been shortened slightly) Villar-Perosa M1915 or Beretta M1918 submachine guns. The hail of gunfire is so strong that the enemy alpine units do not see the sudden flash of lights. They do notice the sudden lack of gunfire. After a few minutes of waiting to see if this was a trap, one brave Austrian looks around. The Italians had vanished into the inexplicably smoking ground….never to be seen again. October 4, 1925 Gulf of Bothnia, Finland… The storm envelops the elderly former Imperial Russian torpedo boat Prozorlivy, now S2 under the Finnish banner. The fifty-three men pray as the ship bucks and rolls in the storm. They cannot see any other ship. Elsewhere, the rest of the fleet is desperately trying to regain contact to no avail. In the darkness, no sailor sees the briefest of seconds of a yellow light before it fades. When the storm subsides, S2 and her entire crew is nowhere to been seen. Given the circumstances, she is labeled as 'lost at sea with all hands'. June 18th, 1942 1:00 PM On the eastern boundaries of the Changeling Empire by the Celestia Sea… In the untamed jungles of the jungle/beach, the sky is darkened by portals as flashes of light surround the land and nearby coast. Soldiers and sailors groan as they lie prone, slowly rising back up. The motley collection of Finnish, French, British, German, and Italian men all stare at their new bodies. All thoughts of fighting are laid to rest (at least, for now) and communication is quickly established between the diverse array of nationalities. A camp is quickly built and defensive trenches dug in facing the jungle. All they can do now is wait and see. And hope that they make contact with more humans. Meanwhile… Southern border between Equestria and the Changeling Empire… Discord's eyes widen as he feels a surge of chaos go through his mismatched body. While the draconequus had felt the rift of tears in this dimension, he hadn't felt any indication of displaced beings like he had felt when Captain Jacob and his crew and battleship arrived months ago. "Oh boy, looks like the good captain prince will be having company. I'll just wait a few months and give him a few months of peace. In the meantime, I think I'll keep my eye," At this the Spirit of Chaos removes one of his eyes and tosses it in the air before catching it and putting it back in. "On the newcomers. Hate for anyone else to make any more chaos there." What the reformed villain doesn't notice, however, is a similar feeling that is far to the west of Ponyville, where it is said that there is an island where Cluny had been imprisoned in before it was turned into his lair. Nor will Discord realize the amount of grief that would come of this unobserved incident.