//------------------------------// // Aftermath // Story: Survival of The Free World // by BiasedAmerican //------------------------------// He turned the corner while being followed by 2 Secret Servicemen. "Alright, tell me what's happening." Bush asked as he stopped behind Parker. Parker was surprised that Reagan didn't come instead to their tower overseeing the now makeshift P.O.W. camp. "As you can see sir, we've won the battle with little casualties and we've prepared a P.O.W. camp, surrounded by the National Guard and MP's. The creatures have been separated by species and variant, their tents have been split by a maze of fences." Parker said as he pointed out the camp to Bush. Bush nodded and was impressed, "Good good, now. How are our troops in New Mareland?" Bush asked. "Well sir, they're still stuck there and have been left to their devices. We'll send help extracts once they've done enough damage. It was Reagan's plan, sir." Parker explained. "Fair enough, keep up the good work." Bush said as he walked away to report to Reagan. "Weird inspection but okay." Parker said as he looked back to the camp. A soldier ran up to Parker. "Sir, Schmidt's men have been captured, our scouts haven't seen them in their assigned spots." He said as he carried a radio on his back. "The scouts await your orders." Parker groaned and grabbed the radio, "Tell the scouts to infiltrate and extract. Tell them to do it secretly, any witnesses must be terminated to limit the risk of their presence being known. If any VIP's are seen, knock 'em out without killing them. We don't want to start another war than the one we're in." Parker ordered. "Yes sir." The radio blurted as it cut out afterwards. "I wonder how those two idiots got captured." Parker said as he looked at one of his guards who shrugged his shoulders. "We're already tied up as it is, and I still don't know why Schmidt still has men stationed in Canterlot." Meanwhile in Canterlot... "Alright!" Luna slammed her hoof onto a table. "Why are you two here?!" She yelled. Two guards removed the blindfolds on the two soldiers. The Portuguese soldier looked around and saw he was in a dark old room with a single door and a single light that barely was working but still lit up the room. The American soldier coughed from the dust in the room and said, "Fuck you." As he tried his best to act tough to allow the Portuguese to not take the fall. Luna gasped in disbelief. "How dare you?! I'm the Princess of the Moon and you treat me like this?! You're kind is only alive because of me!" She screamed to undermine the Humans to give up and spill their secrets. The Portuguese soldier laughed, "Y- You think we're alive because of you? Come and attack us, we'll bring the war to this very location! You've seen our power in this city before, and now we won't discriminate." He said in an intimidating tone. Luna's plan backfired on her. Instead of scaring the humans, they scared her. She tried to undermine them with a simple lie, but the truth came out from the humans, and might have sparked a reason for war. But they were spying on her, so it's somewhat reasonable to interrogate them. The American spoke up, "Yeah, if our species is going down, we're taking you with us!" He said with a proud face. Meanwhile outside the interrogation door, 2 lines of 6 scouts in plain green camo lined up outside of the room. A soldier who forgot to ready his weapon when they moved into the castle, started twisting a silencer onto the tip of his gun barrel. His squad leader grabbed his attention by snapping his fingers and pointing to the corner of the hallway where a guard was approaching, so he readied and aimed his rifle. The guard turned the corner and her eyes were now wide open and her mouth wide open. The humans she heard of were now in front of her, they were leaning on the wall of the room she was told to guard, and their faces were covered by black masks and their eyes blocked by their goggles. She wanted to scream out of fear of seeing this creatures firsthand. Her fear consumed her body, and she tried to run, but the scout had already pressed the trigger and a bullet went straight through her helmet and skull. "Target down." The scout whispered. The squad leader counted down his fingers from 5 to 1. He kicked down the door and the squad rushed into the room. Luna screamed as the door broke down, and the two guards started running to the humans flooding into the room, but two hushed shots were more than enough to deal with the two guards who now lay on the floor, lifeless. Luna charged her horn to fire onto the soldiers but. The scout who recently attached his a silencer on his M14, hit the back of Luna's head with the stock of his rifle, knocking her out in an instant. "Nice hit." The captured Americans soldier scoffed. The Lieutenant in charge of the squads lowered his rifle and pointed to the two soldiers, "You two, how in the living hell did you get captured by talking horses?!" He yelled. "Well sir, they trapped us and we were ordered to not bring any harm to the ponies." The Portuguese soldier answered. "Interesting that you don't know, we're ordered to shoot on sight personnel that isn't important." The squad leader mentioned. "Now, let's get out of here. You two are going back to Schmidt and we're going to evac through trucks." The Lieutenant ordered. The scouts untied the two soldiers as the rushed out the room to regroup with the other squad guarding their escape. Several guards passed by and all of them were shot and killed so they couldn't alert more guards as the scouts ran through the massive hallways of Canterlot Castle. Meanwhile in a research lab in a cave, multiple black humvees drove through the checkpoints of the entrance to the lab and drove straight to Canterlot Castle. The commander got on his radio and said, "This is Hog 3-2, approaching your position 3-7, over." "Roger, this is 3-7, headed to exfil. Over." The radio replied. "Copy." The commander said as he got off his radio and looked around him as he got up into the gunner seat, and saw as his and the other 2 humvees entered Canterlot with many eyes staring at them in fear and many ponies running out of the way of the humvees. The squads were rushing down the staircases into the main area where many dead bodies of guards now lay, they saw the humvees arrive and parked in front of them, with their gunners scanning the area. "Move your asses!" The commander yelled to the squads. Just as ordered, the squads rushed into the humvees until they and the escapees were in them. A soldier in the front humvee hit the humvees roof twice as he got in, making the gunner hit the roof where the driver's position is to signal to him to start moving. The first humvee started moving and so did the others, but when more guards were rushing down the staircase to pursue the convoy, the humvees we're already outside of the castle's borders and we're halfway out of Canterlot already. The two escapees let out a large sigh as they were saved from boredom, and probably death. Meanwhile in New Mareland, the special forces were regrouping in the town square as fires spread throughout the city from military targets and some civilian under the orders to cause as much chaos as they can to distract enemy forces. Rogers' squad was one of them, and they were stationed in defensive positions and ordered to fire on anyone who wasn't human and was headed directly towards them until helo extract arrives. "Great, waiting duty. I'd rather be planting bombs than be bored to death." Alejandro sighed. "Calm down, we already caused enough destruction as it is. Half of the city is destroyed because of us, and I'm already sure we're just here to cause more harm than good, because their main forces might be obliterated when approaching Fort Liberty." Rogers explained. "True, but there's nothing else to do here, the only remaining troops loyal to Jet are dead or fleeing. And those helos aren't getting here fast enough because their carrying bodies from the big battle going on at the FOB. And we might accidentally start a war with Equestria with the damage we caused here." Alejandro added. Twilight was strolling across town until she came across Applejack. "Hey Applejack, did you hear about what's happening to the Humans?" She asked. "No idea, but all I heard were soldiers lining up. Don't know who's troops they are though." Applejack answered. "Well whatever it is, we need to check it out before things get messy." Twilight suggested. Applejack nodded and they both went to gather the others. A day later, the Mane 6 were traveling to where they heard New Mareland troops were gathering. But within the Heart of Fort Liberty, Reagan and the council have decided to declare all nations a threat, and are debating if they should release a New Mareland POW to deliver this message or to let a diplomat deliver the message. But just in their luck, a soldier walked into Congress and was given the opportunity to speak out. "Excuse me, but I think we may have found the solution to this debate. Celestia's disciple and her group have been spotted moving to our location unarmed." He spoke out. The room cheered until he added more to his sentence, "Should we detain them or welcome them?" He asked. The entire room was filled with talking as he asked and they all decided once a senator from Washington stated, "We'll let them in, and we'll let them send the message since we have our hands full with New Mareland." The soldier nodded, did a quick salute, and walked out the room to report to Shepard. Meanwhile in the treeline, "Ugh, what is that horrible wretched smell?" Rarity asked as she tried to cover her nose. "No idea, but it smells worse with the smell of something burning." Rainbow Dash added. "Wait, why are you walking? Why aren't you flying?" Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash answered, "I can't risk being shot by the humans, they might think I'm hostile if I'm going fast over them." She gulped. Twilight rubbed her chin to think as the group stopped with her. Pinkie Pie had no idea on what's happening but she went along with them, she didn't even notice that she's in the forest on a dirt path to somewhere, but the smell she couldn't ignore. "So, we'll approach them slowly and walk up to the first human we find so we're not thought as hostile to them." Twilight spoke. They all nodded and continued on their path. A few minutes later, they figured out what the horrible smell was. Twilight was the first to see and almost threw up. Rarity and Fluttershy passed out and Applejack stood still as her face is was in horror. Rainbow Dash barfed and Pinkie Pie's colorfulness drained away as her hair straightened and she looked depressed and is on the verge of crying. The group was collapsing in keeping their senses. What was once a beautiful green field, was now brown with fires, dead bodies, organs and blood mixed with the mud, craters filling the field, and only a few dead trees remain standing. The field was covered in bodies, with the humans soldiers walking around the field, firing their weapons onto the bodies to see if their dead. But not only did the human infantry strike fear in her. The cold heartless steel that the beasts are made out of, the same steel that went through hell and brought hell to it's foes, it surprised her that the humans were able to make this without magic. She's overheard some of the humans call it a "tank", she's seen what they can do during the incursion at the Capitol, and now they were aimed at her allies, the destructive power of a lifeless beast under control by the ruthless humans. She never understood how they work, all she knows is what they can do, and how no one in the Royal Guard or any conventional form of magic can take down, or even slow down the mighty beast, it stared at her as the humans clad in green and helmets discovered her position and started running to her. Twilight was unable to move due to her state of shock, Applejack asked, "Alright Twilight, we don't have much time. We go to 'em or we hoof it and run! Either way, I'm stayin' here with you." She said as she got in front of Twilight and into a defensive stance. Twilight couldn't decide. She just stood still as she tried to hold her tears on the amount of lives were lost and the feeling of guilt that she could've prevented this if she had arrived earlier. "I- I could've stopped this..." Twilight muttered to herself as she looked down. Rainbow Dash wiped her mouth and tried to get Twilight go start thinking straight. She yelled at her, "Twi! We need to move or we get captured by the humans. So what's our move?!" She screamed. Twilight rubbed her eyes go get rid of the tests and she took a large breath. "We'll let them take us. We need to show that we mean no harm." Twilight explained. "Well, if that's what you think is best. Then I'll go with it." Applejack stood up. "Yeah, well, we need them to carry Fluttershy and Rarity if we're going to surrender. I still don't trust the humans." Rainbow Dash pointed. The soldiers were sprinting up the little hill that the group was on, and they stopped in front of them with their weapons raised. "Wait no!" Twilight raised on of her hooves. "We're here to investigate what's going on!" She explained. The soldiers still aimed their FAMAS rifles at them until a soldier wearing a cap approached them. The soldier spoke in a French accent, "Are you Twilight Sparkle?" He asked. Twilight put her hoof down as Applejack and Rainbow Dash stood next to her. "Y-yes. That's me." The soldiers looked at each other in confusion on what to do with her until the French Lieutenant ordered, "Tell Lucas to report our findings. Tell him to double time it." One of the soldiers nodded and ran back to the M60 tank they were accompanying. "Anyways, you're coming with us." The Lieutenant said as the soldiers surrounded them at a distance to watch over them and cover them. "Just have to wait for a truck to arrive." The Lieutenant added.