//------------------------------// // Meet the Lunar Nightwatch // Story: The Alien Warriors: Journey to Equestria // by Texas Style Brony //------------------------------// "Hold your fire!" Ramirez yelled as the rest of the men aimed at the shaking bushes. Ramirez wanted to see what they were about to shoot at, and he also wanted to make sure that they did not shoot a pony. "Who's out there? Identify!" Soon a small purple alicorn and a blue pegasus about the same size of the alicorn came trotting out of the bushes. The men lowered their weapons when Parker piped up. "Oh. My. Gosh! They're sooooo cute!!!!" The others facepalmed. Earlier they agreed that they shouldn't let the characters know that they knew of them and Equestria, and it seemed like Parker was about to ruin it. Twilight blushed at this comment. "Oh um, hi!", she replied waving her hoof side-to-side like a princess. Now it was getting too cute for the other guys to hold their tongues. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, did not like Parker's comment. "HEY! Who do you think you're callin cute?!", she aggressively retorted. Twilight immediately had her stand down. "Hello! I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle, who are you?" Ramirez replied. "I'm Sergeant Daniel "Steelhooves" Ramirez, and these are my men, Jeff Smith, Corey "Yankee" McLaughn, William Parker, and Newbie Andrew Summers. We are the Lunar Nightwatch, a nerf special operations team dedicated to being the best soldiers in our world." "It's nice to meet you humans, I have seen your kind before when I came into your world a couple of times", Twilight replied. "Wait, Twilight, these are the creatures that are on the other side of that mirror?!" Rainbow shockingly questioned. At that moment Pinkie Pie appeared from some bushes nearby. "Hiya guys! I'm sorry that I shot off my party cannon on accident earlier, I didn't know I had it loaded and....OOOOHHHH!!!! What are those things?!" Pinkie pie was now looking at the five bipedal creatures. "HIIMPINKIEPIEANDIHAVENOIDEAWHATYOUAREBUTYOULOOKREALLYCOOLANDIWANNABEYOURNEWFRIENDCANWEBEFRIENDS?WECANHAVEPARTIESANDBAKECUPCAKESAND" "Pinkie!" Dash and Twilight both yelled. "Oopsie daisy, sorry, I tend to get really excited when I see new things", Pinkie replied. The five human soldiers were a little bit shocked by how fast Pinkie Pie could speak, but they regained their composure. "And yes Rainbow, these are creatures from the other side of the mirror, but they all look so plain compared to the ones I saw", Twilight replied to Dash's earlier question. She noticed that they were not as colorful as the humans at Canterlot High. Suddenly she used her horn to shoot a light beam into the sky like a flare. The humans recoiled from this. "Don't be afraid, I just sent a signal so that our friends can come." Within a few minutes, the other two search teams came to the spot where Twilight's team was standing with the humans. Celestia, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Discord seemed to have an unusual fascination with the humans. "My my, I have never seen anything like you before", Celestia noted. "Aww! New animals! Can I keep one?!", Fluttershy mentioned louder than she normally would. McLaughn reached down to pet her, she was always his favorite pony. "They wear clothing! Would it be ok if I made some for you?!", Rarity excitedly inquired. Ramirez always liked Rarity, despite her girliness, and was tempted to accept her offer. "Interesting, they also seem to carry alien equipment." Discord observed. The others were looking at the creatures, wondering why they wore so much and why they were carrying so much equipment. Luna spoke up. "Well, if you do not mind me asking, what exactly are 'special operations teams', and what makes them so much better than regular soldiers?" Parker decided to answer this. "Special Operations teams, better known as spec ops, are small teams of soldiers who are trained to fight numerically superior enemies, usually by means of guerilla warfare and by use of the element of surprise." Luna noted this. "Well if you're soldiers, then are these your weapons?" Applejack inquired, looking at the nerf guns each man carried. "Yeah, but the thing was that we were spec ops in a simulated war, and these weapons were only toys. However, when we came to this world by accident, they started working like real weapons, and we were able to kill a manticore and two cockatrices with them." Smith replied. "Maybe the residual magic that exists in Equestria 'brought' your play weapons to life", Twilight deduced. The soldiers pretended to agree with her, since they still presumed that Ramirez's theory was the real reason it happened. "I'm curious, those weapons do not look like anything fielded by any forces on this world, how do they work?" Discord inquired, although he already had a pretty good idea how they worked. "Oh all you need to do is load it, point it, and pull it!" Smith pulled out his Spectre and fired it into the ground. The ponies all jumped in shock at the sound of the gunshot, and Fluttershy immediately ran and hid behind McLaughn. Discord tried to pick up the dart which was dug into the ground, but immediately let go since it was hot. He then put on an oven mitt out of nowhere and handed it back to Smith. "One more question, if you're all soldiers, then why are you here? Who are you fighting?" Twilight asked. "We were originally going to fight enemy soldiers in our world who were armed with similar equipment like this, but in our world it was only a game since these were just toys. We came here when we discovered a portal along a trail we were taking to go spy on the enemy." Ramirez replied. "Oh ok, Well if you guys need somewhere to stay, you can come with us, my castle has plenty of room." Twilight replied. "Oh no! We couldn't possibly make ourselves a burden on you Princess!", Summers stated in concern. "It wouldn't be a problem. Besides, I'm the only princess without guards, maybe you guys could fill in that role!" Twilight smiled. She wasn't by any means attracted to any of them, but the idea of having human guards with advanced alien weapons would be a first. Celestia and Luna gave her a jealous glare, but held their tongue. "Okay then, lead on!" Ramirez replied. The humans, ponies, and draconequus were soon on their way back to Ponyville. From some shrubbery nearby. A large group of changelings was observing them. They had black exoskeletons and compound eyes. These were loyalists for Queen Chrysalis after Thorax took over. There was about fifty of them in the brush surrounding the group. Soon, the changeling in command gave a loud hiss, and they emerged from the bushes and charged the fourteen-member group.