Princess Luna is monitoring the dreams of all Equestrians as she usually did. Twilight Sparkle dreamed of books, Derpy dreamed of muffins, Applejack dreamed about...err, well, apples, and so on. Nothing was out of order, and it seemed like a beautiful night that no problems would happen.
That was until she saw the many more doors that she did not remember being there until a day ago; Under curiosity, the princess of the night opened the first one, and what she saw weirded her out.
A...human?
She has only seen some photographic images of a human from Sunset Shimmer's occasional visit back to Equestria; seeing them in the flesh is a different story. A human was walking down the street with a bag of groceries in his hand while wearing headphones connecting to something. After a minute or two, the human seemed to sense something was off, as he pulled out a Walkmare player from his pocket and started to fidget with it; he unexpectedly raised his head, perhaps out of fear, then he quickly got down on the ground and ducked behind an automobile next to him.
Luna was understandably confused and tried to fly down to ask the human what was going on; as she was flying down, she saw a blinding bright light coming from another direction. Luna covered her eyes with her hoof, unable to view it directly, and what came next was a loud explosion that would tear the earth and split the heavens.
Before Princess Luna could react, she felt a vast shockwave coming from the light source. She flew up in a panic to not fall to the ground, and she felt extreme heat coming all over her as nearby houses started to have their windows shattered, walls cracking and even falling apart, lamposts began to fall one by one, and electronics snapped like firecrackers. After five minutes, the light died down a bit as Luna lifted her head for a look.
A burning, mushroom-shaped cloud emerged from the earth, lighting the skies into a flaming red, yellow, and orange.
She immediately left the dream, slamming the door shut, took a few deep breaths, and asked herself:
"What was that?"
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A human soldier woke up in shock, drenched in sweat, over at the flatlands west of White Tail woods. The other soldiers sharing the same sheet metal hut do not seem awake, and the moon is still high above.
He could not go to sleep despite his best tries and got out of the sleeping bag. After putting on his uniform and belt, he walked out of the hut for fresh air. After a while, he stopped at the beach. He walked past some similarly crude, paper-thin shacks and into the area where large tents are. Inside the tents, the exiled people, covered in grime, dirt, or dust, are all sleeping. In the distance, the pink glow of the portal is visible, with streams of people coming out of it. The soldiers, police officers, and auxiliary troops still awake kept directing the refugees to set up camp elsewhere.
He sat close to the sea and listened to the waves beating the sand, the distant chatter from the portal area, and children crying when a hand tapped his shoulder.
"Can't sleep, Tommy?" A voice boomed from behind.
The soldier replied, "Just saw the nukes again."
Tommy turned to face the person behind him and asked, "You got a lighter, lieutenant? Mine got busted."
The lieutenant took a flip lighter as Tommy took a cigarette out from the case. "Look, kid, after this, go get some sleep. You still got to rest up for the expedition tomorrow." He sighed as he lit the cigarette.
"Yes, sir." After that, tranquil silence.
"Tommy, on the bright side, this place is warm and bright. Couldn't possibly ask for a better location to settle down."
You're damn right, Lieutenant, but what about all the needed food, water, blankets, medicine, and all the other stuff we most certainly don't have enough of?
"I know you are worried about everything; trust me, kid, when I say everyone is as equally, if not more, worried about the same shit all of us are facing."
I know that.
"Go get some rest for the night. The expedition starts at 0600 hours; you still have some time to sleep."
Tommy stood up and saluted to the Lieutenant, "Yes, sir." He then walked away.
The lieutenant sighed as he lit his cigarette and stared at the moon with empty eyes.
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"The Foward Scouts"
October 27th, 1984,1130 hours
Pvt. Tom "Tommy" Philips
10th mountain division
Location unknown
The squad has already been walking for over 5 hours, and the dirt road along the rapid river in the forest does not seem to end. Their backpacks are jam-packed with food, supplies, and survival equipment the brass can scrape up for the expedition squads. Everyone held their rifles tight; some even had the safeties switched off.
"10 bucks says we ain't finding anything." one of the soldiers said while tying his shoelaces. "Damn place is forest after forest, and even if we do get to meet any sort of aliens, it would be somewhere we will never get before we all die of exhaustion!"
"Lopez, you shut the fuck up before the aliens here eats us alive." another squad member replied to him, eyes glued to the side of the road.
Tommy kept walking along with his squad. The waterfall ahead, which is going down, would be so much better if it were viewed from the bottom, he thought. Nobody wanted to appreciate the wildlife and the scenery, as beautiful as it may be.
Lopez heard something coming from behind as the team passed next to a cave. "Uhhh, sir?" he asked, "Something's in the bushes-"
"Bear!!!"
Before Lopez could finish turning around, a black bear came rushing towards him. He raised his rifle and fired in a panic attack, but after missing his first three shots, his M14 jammed on him. Tommy immediately rushed forward, pushed Lopez out of the way and into the bushes, and tried to raise his rifle, but before he could do so, the bear knocked him over and into the river next to the dirt road. The rest of the squad had their rifles switched to fire and dumped no less than 20 rounds into the bear before it finally couldn't move and slowly died away.
Immediately, two squadmates rushed to try to pull up Tommy, who was desperately hanging on a rock in the river, "Dump the rucksack! He's gettin' washed away!"
But alas, the rock was too slippery for any hands to hold on to, while the water was too rapid for the two to do anything. Before they could get the rucksack off, Tommy got washed away by the fast rivers, unable to hold on to anything.
"Damn it! We lost Tom!" Jim, one of the two squadmates, shouted. "Fucking bears!"
The lieutenant rushed to check on his men, "Lopez, you injured?"
"I'm fine, sir," the private replied, still breathing heavily from what just happened, "we lost Tommy."
"Damn it," he cursed under his breath, then ordered, "Everyone, get your bearings. We will keep on going for 2 minutes. Too many people are counting on us for us to rest."
At the same time, Tommy went down the river and the waterfall into the lower stream. As he descended into the pool of water, he tried to get rid of the rucksack to avoid drowning, but the private slowly lost consciousness. As he got rid of the massive weight, Tom managed to surface for air, but the rapid flow of water kept washing him away as soon as he was able to do so. He tried his best to stay afloat until he could swim for shore.
After god knows how long, he finally got to land. With his rifle and supplies are now gone, he had only his helmet and his sidearm left.
He is stranded.
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Today is yet another perfectly normal day in Ponyville. Celestia's sun has risen above Equestria, the birds in front of Fluttershy's house are chirping, and as usual, Miss Cheerilee turned on her radio for the morning news. As she was tuning the frequency, she noticed a new frequency was broadcasting. Engulfed in curiosity, she stayed tuned and kept listening.
"Hello hello? This is the Provisional Government of European Nations, calling for any form of government or organization in the area for immediate assistance..." somepony spoke in accented Ponish on the radio as Cheerilee's stopped eating her breakfast cereal and focused on the broadcast.
"...we have just crossed the portal with countless refugees; many of them are too weak, frail, and sick. Moreover, we are in a critical shortage of food, fresh water, shelter, medicine, and other necessities. The situation is worsening, and we would appreciate any assistance that should come our way. We cannot locate where we are exactly, but we can see large snow mountains straight up north. If you happen to come across one of our expedition units, please do not shoot and offer assistance to the best of your ability. They are identifiable by their arm patches with the Blue and White flag..."
Cheerilee, at this point, was too shocked even to finish listening. She turned off the radio, hastily finished breakfast, and went to work, and expectedly, everypony who had a radio was already spreading the news of the mysterious broadcast. Everypony had a different reaction to it. Some were weirded out, some dismissed it as a funny prank, some didn't care, but most were just curious about the source of such a broadcast.
On Cheerilee's way to the schoolhouse, she runs into Applejack, who is headed toward Twilight's castle.
"Ah don't know what's with the broadcast. When ah tuned in, it's all just speakin' in fancy!" Applejack said. "Ah still need to tell Twi about this. Catch you later, sugarcube!"
The rest of the day for Cheerilee is primarily regular, but after the students went home, she couldn't help but turn on the radio on her desk to check on the same frequency.
"...Il s'agit du gouvernement provisoire des nations européennes, appelant à toute forme de gouvernement ou d'organisation dans la région pour une assistance immédiate..."
Just who are they? She thought to herself.
Meanwhile, in Twilight's castle.
"...Die Situation verschlechtert sich und wir würden uns über jede Hilfe freuen, die uns zuteil werden sollte. Wir können nicht genau orten, wo wir uns befinden, aber wir könne-"
Click—radio off.
"I don't know, feels like an over-the-top prank," Rainbow Dash commented on the broadcast, "but it's waaaaaaaay too much effort for these ponies to repeat the same message in 4 different languages." She said as she yawned. "Can I go get a nap? Listening to all these fancy languages is making me tired."
"Oh, Darling, we shouldn't be giving up just now! There could be extraterrestrial ponies awaiting our most needed assistance!" Rarity stated as Starlight Glimmer kept tidying up the transcript notes next to her.
Pinkie, as usual, was doing...something. She asked Twilight, "I wonder if these ponies like cupcakes!"
"I hope nopony over there was really sick or hurt; the broadcast sounded serious..."
"Quit worryin' sugarcube. Ah'm sure those ponies are fine." Applejack recalled the latest mischief that Rainbow had committed to a few poor nighttime rail workers with a well-hidden Walkmare and a pre-recorded tape of ghostly sounds. "This may be just another prank like last time Dash spooked the night workers on the train station with that fancy recorder she just bought."
"It's a Walkmare, AJ. Have you listened to how good music sounds from this?" Rainbow Dash proudly showed off her cassette player, "Mmmmm, thank you, eggheads at Soneigh!"
Princess Twilight stood up from her chair and sighed as she put her front hooves on the round table, "This isn't looking good. We have no idea what is happening or where these ponies claim to be. All we know is that these ponies need a lot of help! Maybe we should be looking for them..."
As Twilight spoke, Starlight turned on the radio to listen to the Canterlot News frequency, but when dialing the frequency, the radio picked up yet another signal and started to broadcast:
"Eta shtuka rabotayet?...Ladno, cherez tri... dva... odin... Govorit Novaya Moskva, Ot Vremennogo pravitel'stva Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik. My prizyvayem k nemedlennoy gumanitarnoy pomoshchi i lyuboy drugoy chelovecheskoy natsii, kotoraya byla otpravlena syuda..."
Starlight Glimmer quickly turned the frequency knob, only to hear a third unfamiliar radio broadcast.
"...thank you for listening to this radio call for help, and god bless America. Este mensaje se repetirá en español..."
Everyone in the room looked at each other as the broadcast went on, and Applejack broke the silence between the group first.
"Oh, horseapples."
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October 28th, 1984, 0630 hours
Pvt. Tom "Tommy" Philips
10th mountain division
Location unknown
Tommy has been walking along the river for half a day now. Water isn't a problem as the river left to the road is clean. The bigger problem is food and shelter, as the ones stashed in the rucksack were unavailable, and the limited ammunition supply of his M1911A1 prevented him from taking too many game-hunting endeavors. His occasional saving grace is the roadside fruit trees that still have some fruit on them - ones that aren't already falling to the ground, at least. As for the roadside mushrooms, Tom would not like to get poisoned after nearly drowning.
Still, It was nowhere near enough to fill his stomach. He felt hungry, and the night was still unfavorably cold after he dried his clothes. He kept walking, hoping for a small town or even the slightest glimpse of civilization. Tommy kept walking along the river and the dirt road, which, hours later, led up to an ominous-looking forest. In front of the entrance is a train track that extends to a high bridge over the wide river and a sign that says:
EVERFREE FOREST
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
He walked up as a funny-looking train passed by the train tracks in front of him. It didn't stop, and Tom is sure whoever was on board saw him anyway.
"At least there is sentient life...and civilization that speaks English. How convenient."
Tommy is taking no chances of dying to some wildlife in the forest and tries walking along the rails. That was until another train from the opposite side came rushing towards him. He did not get crushed, but it was enough to convince the private that the tracks were too dangerous. He is not taking chances by swimming again either, so under a very hastily made decision, Tom walks on into the forest despite his guts telling him maybe this wasn't such a great idea.
Everything looks like it could kill him in the forest, overgrown plants and trees. The flowers scream, "this can kill you in a thousand ways, and it's just the stem," The wildlife is still not to be seen yet. However, judging by the plants in this area, Tommy realized it might be too much for him to handle. He picked up the pace and hastened his steps, hoping to get out of this forsaken place before the wildlife decided that today was a good day for alien hunting.
As Tom walked along the dirt road, he noticed a small hut. A door lodged in a tree with decor outside. He pulled his sidearm from its holster, switched off the safety, and chambered a round. He slowly approached the door with the pistol pointed forward at all times and slowly snuck up to the left of the door. Slowly but surely, he turned the knob of the door and barged in, pointing his pistol left and right, shouting, "Freeze! Don't move!"
There was nobody home.
Tommy began searching for anything he needed, a giant cauldron in the middle boiling something that did not seem safe for human consumption, along with jars and potions he dared not to try either.
No food. Perhaps the residents went out for a supply run.
As Tom was leaving the hut, he heard some dangerously close growling. He doesn't need any professional hunter training to know what it is.
Wolves.
He turned to open fire on the wolves, only to see that they were strangely colored, and his bullets did not effectively damage them whatsoever, making the sound of a shot hitting wood, and the wolf flinched a bit.
Tommy immediately started to run, and so did the wolves. He kept running as he occasionally fired in the general direction at his back, which did very little to slow the wolves down, scaring them for a few seconds. He dared not to slow down even if his stomach was not agreeing with the amount of exercise he was undertaking from the food intake of the last 12 hours.
Tom ran and ran and fired his last shot at the wooden wolves. After the slide was locked empty, he threw the pistol at the relentless wolves in hopes of even the slightest damage. But one caught the gun with their mouth and cracked it to pieces, chewing it loud and clear for the private to hear.
As the road ahead started to look more and more like a ravine with a broken bridge, Tommy sped up as the wolves did. He made a leap of faith and managed to hold on to the ledge of wooden boards sticking out of the side of the narrow ravine while the wolves kept snarling and did not follow him across. Tom climbed up and sighed a long breath of relief.
That was until his stomach growled again. He is still hungry and getting desperate.
Walking from high noon into the night, the private's stomach could endure no more, and he started to pick some mushrooms that looked like shiitake mushrooms back home; Tommy ate it, which helped slightly at first, but things went wrong as he saw the exit of the forest and the signs of a small town at a distance.
His stomach felt burning, and a terrible pain shot through his entire body, causing him to fall to the ground and be unable to stand up. He kept crawling towards the open plains and that small town. It could have been a hallucination, but Tom cared no longer. He crawled and crawled, dragging himself on the road of dirt and dust. After finally reaching the exit, his body felt powerless as he couldn't even grab onto his helmet and take it off. His vision started to fade, and before his eyes faded to black, he saw something walking toward him.
What...was...that...?
Tom finally passed out, trying to reach out to the creature approaching him.
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October 28th, 1008, 1830 hours
Pinkamena Diane Pie
Ponyville
Pinkie Pie went on bouncing towards Fluttershy's house. She borrowed her batteries for the stand mixer earlier today, and Pinkie is here to return them.
"Hmmm, weird for those ponies over the radio yesterday not to show up; I would have thrown them a super, duper large party!" Pinkie thought to herself. "How many cupcakes should I make them?"
She continued her happy hopping towards Fluttershy's house as she crossed the bridge. She saw a large rucksack and a long, black, silver object.
"Oooh! a free rucksack and a weird metallic staff! I wonder what's inside!" Pinkie exclaimed as she pulled both objects from the river. She opened the rucksack and went rummaging with its contents. On the top of everything, there was a small piece of metal that had the following written on it:
PFC TOM PHILIPS
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION
2ND BRIGADE 2ND BATTALION
87TH INFANTRY
On the other side, it wrote:
IF YOU FOUND THIS, IM LIKELY DEAD
BURY ME UPSIDE DOWN SO THE WORLD CAN KISS MY ASS
"Woah! Rude!" Pinkie closed the backpack and put it on her back, "I will go through this later."
She kept on hopping until she reached Fluttershy's house.
"O-oh, the batteries? Thank you, Pinkie...Uh, what's with the big rucksack? " Fluttershy pointed her hoof towards Pinkie's back.
"Oh, it's just some goodies I scooped up from the river on my way here! But the meanie that lost it wrote very rude words and put it at the top!"
"I see...thank you for returning the batteries- EEEEEEK!"
"What?"
Pinkie turned to see some creature crawling out from the Everfree forest in the distance.
"A MONSTER!!!!" Pinkie shouted as she pulled out a baseball bat from her mane and started charging toward the creature.
As she approached, the "monster" no longer moved, dressed in green and having a helmet on his head, one of his limbs seemingly reaching out toward her.
"Wait...a human? In EQUESTRIA???"
Pinkie tossed the bat and ran back to Fluttershy.
"Fluttershy! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS! A HUMAN!!!"