Royal Research Facility Command Post
By morning, Shining Armor had assembled a force of three hundred Royal guards, including two hundred of Princess Luna’s elite Thestral Guards: rare and strong bat ponies who were adept at night fighting. During the day, he had pegasi patrol the areas around the swamp with orders to alert him when the human army was spotted. At night, he would have the Thestrals take over patrols. He also sent word to Canterlot to bring in the Equestrian Rangers. Unfortunately, the request was turned down.
“WHAT?! Why can’t we have humans to fight humans?!” He ranted in his command tent at the messenger who told him.
“Sir, Prince Blueblood requested that the humans stay in Canterlot until the court comes to a final decision.” the messenger replied.
“Blueblood? Those humans in some way or another are probably the best way to prevent an inter-species war from breaking out! A war which, despite our probable numerical superiority, we are at a serious disadvantage to fight!” Shining kept shouting. He took a minute to calm down.
“Soldier, send the request again. We need our humans here before any more ponies are hurt or killed. Dismissed.”
“Yes sir.” The messenger then turned and left the tent.
Undisclosed location in the Haysead Swamps
“Sandy...Saaaandy.” a familiar voice called softly. Sandy Shoals lightly opened her eyes enough only to let the light in.
“Rose, isn’t it a little early for training to start?” Sandy murmured groggily.
“What?” the light red unicorn responded not bothering to hide the confusion in her voice.
Sandy let out a laboured sigh. She ran through the events of last night’s nightmare through her head. “Wow, dead brother and captured by humans. Talk about hidden fears.” Sandy thought to herself. Her back hurt from falling asleep in her chair. She attempted to shift to a more comfortable position. Her eyes opened in fear as the restraints and the pole at her back brought her to back to reality and she quickly recalled the terror of yesterday’s events.
“Sandy!” Rose called out in a more hushed yet stern tone. Sandy looked right to her friend since recruitment. Her *colored* her was matted with mud and her horn crudely wrapped in duct tape. She was similarly tied to a pole like Sandy was. Tears of relief welled in Sandy’s eyes.
“Oh Rose, thank Faust you’re alive!” Sandy exclaimed.
“Yep. They caught me with a net and bonked me on the head.” Rose said turning her head to show the sizable knot on the back of her skull. “How did they get you?”
“I got stuck in the mud and then bonked likewise.” Sandy said doing the same for Rose. There was silence for a moment aside from the loud snores from, Sea Biscuit,the aquamarine unicorn tied with them.
Rose finally spoke up.“Look, I’m so sorry about what happened to your brother yesterday...Did you by chance see where Tide Turner went?” Rose inquired.
“Tide Turner…” Sandy looked down and began gently weeping. “... died trying to protect me.” Rose’s jaw dropped in shock. “Oh no! I’m so sorry!”Rose quietly exclaimed, attempting to nuzzle Sandy and comfort her.
““Did you see who or what captured us?” Rose asked. “I didn’t get to see much before blacking out.”
“We’re being held by humans. They aren’t our humans, though. There’s far more of them and they have some strange metal boxes on wheels.”
“Those wheels must have made those tracks that we started following.” Rose deducted. At that moment, the stallion tied up on Sandy’s left, Sea Biscuit, started to stir. Sea Biscuit transferred from the Equestrian Royal Navy a few weeks ago. Like Rose, there was duct tape wrapped his horn.
“Biscuit! Can you hear me?” Rose whispered.
“Oh.. my head. What happened? Why are we tied up?” Suddenly, the tent door flew open, shining bright sunlight into the ponies’ eyes.
“Well you’re about to find out!” Tyler Finn told them. Immediately, three human soldiers came in with leashes and knives. Rose tried to use her magic to cut them free, but the tape on her horn prevented her from using magic. The humans put the leashes on the ponies, cut the rope that kept them tied to the pole, and then walked them out of the tent.
Once outside of the tent, the ponies got a good idea about the scale of this army.
“What- what are those things on wheels??” Biscuit wondered out loud as he looked at the humvees.
“None of your damn business. You best keep your mouth shut until you’re spoken to horse.” Tyler responded annoyedly. Soon the escort came up to a large main tent at the center of the camp, and Tyler opened the door and led the people and ponies inside.
Inside the tent was a small folding desk with the human from the previous night in a camp chair. Elsewhere in the tent sat two cots, a couple of military backpacks, and a nerf rifle. Sandy noted that it looked similar to one of the human rifles, but was still very different at the same time. The humans who walked the ponies over pushed the ponies in front of the desk and stood behind them.
“Good morning little ponies. I hope you’ve had a good night’s rest. I am Commander Stevens.” the human announced.
“I come on behalf of the United States Federal Agency of International and Interdimensional Affairs. We believe that some of our…. ‘property’…. has been misplaced in your dimension.” The ponies remained silent. Stevens smiled so that he could reassure the ponies that he meant no harm. However, he was slightly irked when none of them responded.
“I know you can speak. Please don’t make this even more difficult for all of us.” he warned. Sandy spoke up.
“I’m sorry Mr. hu- I mean Mr. Stevens, but what do you mean by ‘property’?”
“Well young pony, what I simply mean is this.” Stevens walked over to his cot and showed them his Regulator rifle. The magazine was removed and he only had the middle barrel and stock attached.
“Surely you must have seen these somewhere around here before?” Stevens asked.
“Well…. I haven’t seen one like this but some of the features are familiar” Sandy responded. Stevens then looked to the other two ponies.
“And what about you two?” Rose and Biscuit both nodded yes.
“So, young ponies, this is what I am looking for. My government seeks to reacquire these and bring them back. Unfortunately, though, my government also gave orders to terminate any ponies seen dealing with these weapons, so unfortunately, I had to eliminate that base nearby since they were tinkering with U.S. property…”
“... what about them?” Sandy muttered under her breath.
“What about who?” Stevens inquired.
“Sergeant Muscle Shoals and Corporal Tide Turner. They had nothing to do with what was in that base, but they were killed anyway.” Sandy started shaking and her tone sounded more coarse. Rose and Biscuit looked at her nervously, knowing that she was not feeling ok. Stevens looked confused at first, but then remembered what his men told him when the ponies were captured.
“I’m…. terribly sorry about that incident. My men were on patrol and decided to target ponies who were tracking us. I myself don’t want to kill anything while I’m here, but we have our orders to take out any pony who knows about our activity…”
Suddenly, Sandy burst out.
“IS THIS WHY YOU SLAUGHTERED INNOCENT PONIES AT THAT SCIENCE LAB?? IS THIS WHY YOU MURDERED MY BROTHER AND ONE OF OUR FRIENDS?? JUST TO ASK FOR SOMETHING BACK?!” She was suddenly felt a strong tug on her leash as her human kept her under control. Stevens, however, just sat back.
“Like I told you last night, I’m sorry for my troops ‘prejudicial’ actions toward your comrades. I didn’t want anyone or anything to get hurt. However, for the base, I’m afraid that we simply had to destroy it. You see, the blasters that they were working on there, don’t belong to ponies.” Stevens replied.
“Who are you to decide what is ours and what isn’t??” Rose Thorn retorted. At this point, Stevens was starting to get annoyed by the interruptions.
“Again, those weapons are U.S. government property, not horse toys…”
Steven continued “As I was saying, that stuff isn’t yours. Why? Because that’s human technology you’re messing with. You might think that using that kind of stuff will make you stronger, but trust me. You’re better off without it.”
“B-But our humans saved Equestria from invasion with that kind of stuff!” Sea Biscuit replied “If we had it we could- AAAHH!!!” his response was cut off when Tyler Finn suddenly kicked him in the stomach. Sandy and Rose collectively gasped in horror as he fell to the floor, gasping for air.
“Like I said, I don’t like being interrupted. However, you do bring on my next point. Those humans are fugitives since they brought our equipment out here and let you see it.” Stevens pointed to the map on his desk.
“All I want you to do is show me where I can find them. We got this map off of one of the ponies at the science lab. Once we get them and their equipment back to our dimension, no more harm will come to ponies. You’ll also be free to leave our camp once you’ve shown us where they are. Capice?” Stevens gave them a reassuring grin. Rose and Sandy looked at the map and so did Biscuit as he sat back up. It was an up-to-date map of Equestria. Each of the three ponies knew that these humans couldn’t be trusted, yet they didn’t want to upset them again. After giving each other the agreeing look, Sandy spoke up.
“Sir, I am Sandy Shores of the Equestrian Royal Guard. Despite your generous offer, I’m afraid that if we complied, it would be treason. We respectfully refuse to show you the location of our humans.” Stevens’ grin lowered to a blank stare.
“Very loyal horses. ‘Tis a pity” Stevens said bearing a rather bored expression.
“Take them back to their tent.” he ordered. Tyler and his men then dragged the ponies out and tied them back to their post. The ponies began breathing heavily after the humans left.
“What are we gonna do?!?!” Rose panicked. Thoughts of human torture plagued her mind as she tried to struggle out of her bonds.
“Rose! Keep it down! They might hear us! Whisper!” Sandy tried to calm Rose Down.
“Maybe we should tell them anyway?” Biscuit silently weazed. The two mares then turned and gave him a deadpanned look.
“Sea Biscuit! Are you insane?! We can’t do that! It’s treason!” Sandy silently scolded at Biscuit for even suggesting that they give away that information.
“Think about it! Even with their high tech advantage, no army is simply going to march up and take Canterlot! Since it’s our capital, it’s going to be the most well defended city in Equestria! Also, it will take them days to get there without the train!” Biscuit replied.
“What about the Royal Wedding incident?”
“That was different! The Changelings could shapeshift! Humans can’t! The Royal Guards will be able to spot them from miles away!”
Steven’s command tent
“Also, when our humans see what they’ve done to that base full of ponies, they’re gonna get mad, and then they’re gonna knock em back to where they came from!” Unbeknownst to the pony prisoners, Stevens had set up a bug in their tent so that he would get his information without resorting to more brutal tactics. He was carefully taking down notes and preparing the army’s route on the map…
The next day
Sandy woke up to have a leash being put back on her. She and the others had discussed the possibility of revealing where the Equestrian Rangers were, and they concluded that they keep their mouths shut. Fortunately, nothing serious happened after their interrogation the previous day. This morning, however, they were sure that Stevens was going to attempt to extract that information again.
However, instead of meeting him in his command tent, they faced him in the middle of the camp.
“I’m sorry that you guys had to go without food yesterday. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what you said yesterday and decided that we could start searching on our own. You ponies are free to leave whenever you feel ready.” Stevens told them. He then ordered his men to release them. However, none of the ponies moved.
“Thank you Mr. Human, but I’m afraid we can’t leave.” Rose spoke up.
“Why not?”
“It’s pretty obvious that you’re up to something. We can’t simply let you follow us to our army…”
“I understand. You have my word that my men will not follow you.”
“That’s not good enough. Go ahead and leave now. We’ll go home on our own.” Stevens looked concerned for a moment. By moving now, he would give away his route. However, it wasn’t like the Equestrian Army was his target anyway…
“Ok then. We’ll leave right now. Pack up and send a drone East!” Stevens ordered. Immediately, men rushed and began packing up their camp and loading up the humvees. Also, two men placed a drone on the ground and used a remote control to launch it. After about an hour, the humvees started up and all the men boarded. Stevens stepped into his, but not before giving a mock-salute to the ponies, who were still waiting. After he boarded, the humvees took off, following the path of the drone. Once they were out of view, Sandy, Rose, and Biscuit took off West, where they knew the base was after seeing the map the previous day.
Steven’s Humvee
“What are we doing? We know from this map that we’re just driving straight to the ocean!” Finn complained. He noticed the other day that all that lay east of the Haysead Swamps was indeed the ocean.
“Don’t worry. The only thing headed to the ocean is that drone. We’re going North!” Stevens said as he steered left, with the rest of the column following behind him.