Chapter 2
Fast Skies
I sat there, wide-eyed at the bipedal figures talking in front of me. Two of them came out of the silver beast and began talking... Joking, maybe? Then the one that had told them to go into the beast before turned around and yelled something about coming out. I stared at the creatures as they walked out of the beast and lined up behind the one. He seemed to be giving the orders. One of the things snickered and said something about me being a “horse”.
“What the hay is a horse?” I thought as the other beings burst out laughing. “Hey!” I yelled. “I’m a pony!”
The looks on their faces were priceless. But I guessed that mine was better when they brought their strange L-shaped objects up again. I flared my wings and began to back up. Then the beings surrounded me and the leader looked down at me.
“Well, well. We have a talking hor- I mean, pony here.”
Garret
“Well, well. We have a talking hor- I mean, pony here,” I said as I cracked the biggest smile I could. I motioned with my hand to the soldiers to fan out and search the rest of the area. Then the pony flared its wings... Wait... Wings?
“What the hell?!” I screamed as i jumped back at the sight of a pegasus, a creature of myth. “Sam, am I high or is there a pegasus in front of me?”
I turned and looked at him. He just cracked a smile and said, “Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore...” The sound of hands hitting faces was the only noise that followed.
“Well,” I said, only to be interrupted by one of my missing soldiers walking out of the brush.
“Guys!” yelled Jacob as he walked out of the bush. “Way to forget about me!” He walked over and slapped Sam and slapped us on the back. “Nice to see you guys. Now, would you be so kind as to explain why there is a pegasus in front of us?”
I just turned and looked at him. “That’s kinda what we were figuring out before you got here.”
I turned back to the pegasus. “Well, where were we?... Oh, yes. I’m Lieutenant Garret, that’s Private First Class Jacob, and this is our scientist-in-residence Sam. He’s doing some research on the area we were traveling to. And the rest of these fools who you see walking around are the idiots known as our soldiers.”
Fast Skies
I wanted to jump in the air and do a flip at the fact that I was the first pony to ever make contact with an alien race! But I had to restrict myself to smiling as I stared at Lieutenant Garret.
“Well,” he said, looking at me, “Are you going to tell us your name? We know you talk.”
I just shook my head and looked him in the eyes, still smiling. “I am Fast Skies,” I said calmly. “I’m an ex-Royal Guard member. May I ask what you are?” I just looked at them with the biggest puppy-eyes I could muster.
Finally, the leader answered, “We are humans.”
Twilight
I watched the events going on without moving, just sitting there, probably looking dumbfounded as they talked and finally walked out, followed by the other Element holders.
Pinkie Pie bounced up to the leader of the humans. “Hey! You guys fell from the sky in the bird-thingy! That’s not really a bird is it? It can’t really be a bird, because it’s made of metal! Is it a machine of some kind? That’s nothing like what we have around here. We do have a hot air balloon in Ponyville, but this looks completely different from that! So, it flies? Can we ride on it? Huh? Huh? Huh-” Rainbow Dash shoved her hoof in Pinkie Pie’s mouth.
“That’s Pinkie Pie for you, heh,” Rainbow said. I just sat there and stared at Pinkie Pie.
“Uh, Pinkie I think y’all should let them nice uh...” Applejack started.
“Men,” one of the creatures interrupted.
“Right. Let them nice men talk,” said Applejack.
"I second that... As well as putting duct tape over her bloody mouth," said one of the soldiers that was standing next to Sam.
Sam casually turned and punched the man in the face and then sighed. "Jenkins, every time you do this... Every. Time."
While the girls were more interested in the fight, Fast Skies was more interested in the leader’s answers.
Garret
I sighed. “Alright, Sky, let’s get these questions over with. Some I might not be able to answer...”
She just stared at me with a blank expression. "What?" I asked, "Cat got your tongue?" She just looked at me and asked the strangest question I've ever heard...
"What’s a cat?" I felt like ripping my head off. "Never mind, let’s just move on."
She just smiled at me and asked her first reasonable question. "What are you, Garret?"
I thought about this question before answering. "Well, I'm a human, male, as is the rest of my entourage. And I’m nineteen."
She gasped. "You're only nineteen?!" she asked, obviously in distress.
"Yeah, why?" I asked slowly.
"Because that sounds a bit young to be a soldier..."
I just laughed at her. "For the group I'm in, that is a bit young. But in the military you can join at eighteen. How old are you?"
She just looked at me with a huge smile. "I'm nineteen, too, but we can’t join the royal guards until twenty-five. I was a guard until they found out I was sixteen... But anyways, back to the questions!"
I sighed and thought, “Oh, no.”
"Garret, what is the Army?"
"Well, it’s a branch of the military. There is also the Navy, Air Force, Marines, the Coast Guard, and the National Guard The Army is the main ground-based forces, along with the Marines."
Fast Sky
“Okay, Fast Sky, just keep asking questions...” I thought to myself. I said, "What do you do as an Army soldier?"
"I kill."
My blood froze and I felt lightheaded. “I knew it!” I thought. Out loud, I said, "W-why do you k-kill?"
"Well, in all honesty, my country is a nice place, but some of the rest of the world isn't. There is famine, drought, pollution and wars everywhere. I kill the guilty to keep the innocent safe. There are assholes all over the world who hate my country, America," he pointed to the rectangular patch which I assumed was a flag. "They hate us for our freedom. The American flag, here, the thirteen stripes represent the original thirteen colonies that fought the American Revolution against the British to create our country. The fifty stars here represent the fifty states that are currently part of America."
He sat down after that. I'm pretty sure that my jaw was wide open because he just smiled and left.
Garret
“Sergeant, how’s things going over here? I swear all these things do is ask questions and bug my men.”
Sam just turned and looked at me with a faint smile. “I sort of like that,” he said slowly. “It’s nice to have the men be able to converse with something that isn’t trying to kill us.”
I just stared at him in disbelief and then smiled back faintly. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “I guess it couldn’t do too much harm, right? I just can’t shake the feeling that this is familiar somehow. You know, like something one of the recruits said... Damn it, what was it?”
Sam looked at me and shrugged. Jake then walked up followed by the other six. “Guys, doesn’t this seem familiar to you?”
I looked at him and then back at Sam. “I freaking called it!”
Then the soldiers gathered around us. “Sir!”
I turned to see one of the newbies. “What is it, Private?” I said in an almost bored tone.
“Sir, these creatures are asking us to go to a town with them. The purple one over there is apparently the protege of the ruler of this country. The strange thing is they don’t have a King or a Queen, but two princesses. Their names were...uhhhhhh...”
“Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” the purple pony said.
“What are your orders?” I turned and looked around at the smoldering wreckage and the crates containing ammo and weapons.
“Delta, gather around on the double!” They all ran around me and formed a circle around me. “Ok, here’s the plan. We are going to go to the village, get to the rulers and talk to them, and then get the hell out of here. HOOAH!” I turned and looked around the circle at all the faces.
“Hooah!” the soldiers all called out and then ran around gathering crates and their weapons.
Fast Skies
I looked at the leader and just stared at him as he ordered the men around him. “What could he possibly be doing?” I thought. “We only asked him if he wanted to come back to Ponyville with us? What’s taking them so long? I mean-”
My thought was cut off as the leader hollard, “HOOAH!” and the other humans as they repeated it. They suddenly started to move around and gathering the boxes they had around the clearing. They then proceeded to line up to the right of the leader in a formation of two columns.
The leader then turned and looked at us and smiled. “Lead the way,” he said and started to march his troops into the woods behind us. After a few hundred hoof-lengths they began to sing another one of their strange songs.
“Down by the river,
We took a little walk,
Ran into the enemy,
We had a little talk,”
My blood froze yet again as the soldiers continued to sing this song as if it was nothing.
“We didn't like their attitude,
Didn't like the way they walked,
So we pushed em,
We shoved em,
We threw em in the river,
laughed as they drowned,”
I cringed and stopped walking, bumping into the commander. He just smiled and put me on his shoulders and continued the marching song.
“We don't need the enemy,
Hangin around,
Heyyyy, don't be a fool,
Somebody said we we number two,
They lied!
We're number one,
Go Army!”
They repeated the song along with a few others she couldn’t remember. They seemed to be marching to the songs they were singing.
As they neared the edge of the forest, Ponyville came into view. The commander raised his hand in an odd fashion and the soldiers pulled out their L-shaped objects again.
“Hey,” I said. “What are those? You keep pulling them out.”
He just turned to me and pointed it at a tree. When he pulled a hook on the bottom of the object, sparks flew out of the barrel of the object with a loud bang. The tree he had pointed it at now had a hole in it.
“Did that answer your question?” he asked, looking at me.
Garret
I almost wanted to “d’aww” at the sight of the pegasus’ face when I fired my ACR into the tree. It had to have been the cutest expression I have ever seen. But we had work to do. I had half my men follow the orange mare - Applejack, I believe it was - with our supplies while the rest of us entered the town.
As we walked in, it was dead empty. I heard a snore from my side only to see Fast Skies asleep on my shoulder. I turned to Sam and Jake, “I’m not that soft... Am I?” I said poking myself and then poking Jacob.
“No, no, Jake seems softer,”
We then began to walk through town, nearing the center. My troops surrounded me in a standard patrol. We were just doing what we did best, patrol, and don’t die. When we entered the town square, it was empty.
I poked at the mare asleep on me until she woke up. “Wha...? Where am I?” We all snickered until a few of the lower privates started to laugh their asses off.
“Wake up, sleepy head, where is all your friends that should be here? It’s dead empty - no, wait. A funeral is more lively than this.”
She looked around and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s only noon.”
We continued to talk and mill around, waiting for the other men to show up. When they did, we all gathered and started having a brunch. Then the girls came back and began to ask me more questions such as, “What is your country like?”, “Do you have a family?” They burst into tears when I told them what happened on 9/11 and how my parents were in the planes. They followed through with asking what I like to eat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the looks they were giving me when I said meat.
“What?” I said innocently. “I’m an omnivore. I eat both plants and meat. Mostly plants, anyways.”
As we were talking, we didn’t notice the golden-armored ponies dashing house to house. Well that being said I didn’t... But my sniper did.
“Contact!” We all turned to see a golden pony walking towards us with a... Spear?