The Everfree Forest
The tranquility of the day was broken as the air tore itself open with an unearthly rending. A dark miasma seeped from the hole in reality as physics tried to reassert itself, a low spine-chilling hiss seemingly emanating from it.
The rend began to pulse, slowly at first before increasing in frequency. As the oscillations reached a crescendo, an unholy light spilled forth into Equestria. With one final flash, the portal spat out an armored figure as it collapsed with a crack of displaced air.
"Ow."
Guardsman Alexander sat up, the whole front of his body sore from impacting with the tree behind him. Groaning, he rested his helmeted head in his hands, wondering for a moment where he was, and how he had gotten there. He inhaled sharply as his mind caught up with him. He remembered the gellar fields on his troopship collapsing, the screams of men and women as they were torn asunder from the inside as the warp surged into the ship. Only the fact that he had been in the armory doing inventory saved his life when the armory void-shields went up. In fact the last thing he remembered before waking up was arming himself before everything...exploded.
"Oh God-Emperor, they're all dead." Alexander felt...numb, unable to fully comprehend the fate that had befallen his comrades.
After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, Alexander took stock of his surroundings and inventory. He appeared to be in a small forest clearing, a baby-blue sky above. The carapace armor he managed to pull on before he...ended up here (wherever here is) was a little too big for him. Several of the plates hung loosely, and continued to do so even after several minutes of struggling with the straps. Giving up on the armor, Alexander looked to his weapons. He had only three frag grenades; his laspistol pack had only half a charge left, and only one of the four spares was charged; the decrepit flamer he had grabbed from a repair bench was bone dry; and the chainsword looked ready to fall apart at a moment's notice. The only positive Alexander could come up with was that at least the duffel he had grabbed-almost as an afterthought-had plenty of spare parts for his equiptment.
As Alexander began to contemplate the lack of water in his canteen when he tried to take a drink, despair overtook him. "I'm going to die here." He sniffled.
Alexander shook himself. "No, I am not giving up." He swore. Gathering his gear, Alexander stood, and after a moment's hesitation began trekking in the direction he thought to be North. He only made it about a yard when a child's terrified scream shattered the silence of the forest.
As the terrified screams continued, Alexander ran full tilt through the brush trying to find the source of the commotion. He ground to a halt as he arrived at a small grotto to behold a leonine monster with leathery wings and a poisonous tail menacing a trio of small...ponies?
"Somepony, anypony, HELP!"
A cold fury fury engulfed Alexander, any confusion as to what was in front of him delegated to the back of his mind as he drew his laspistol and chainsword.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been trotting through the Everfree Forest in an attempt to get their "forest explorers cutie-mark."
"Ah don't think we should be in here," exclaimed the red-maned earth pony. "Ah promised ma sister that Ah wouldn't go inta th' Everfree Forest without an adult."
"Lighten up, Applebloom," replied the orange pegasus filly. "We'll be fine, right Sweetie Belle?" She asked the purple-pink maned white unicorn filly next to her.
"Right Scoots, not like we'll run into anything scary at this time of day-" Sweetie Belle swallowed her words as a very large and hungry leonine form landed with a snarl in front of them.
The adventurous trio shrieked in terror and tried to run before realizing that they were trapped between the Manticore and a small cliff. As the beast stalked towards them, Scootaloo screamed for help.
"Somepony, anypony, HELP!"
A sharp CRACK-hiss reverberated through the forest grotto as a beam of angry red light burnt away a hoof-sized hole in the manticore's hide. Following the beam back to its origin, the three terrified fillies watched in amazement as a olive green, two-armed bipedal insect-like creature with huge, pupil-less shiny black eyes emerged from the forest at the edge of the grotto. As the manticore turned on the newcomer in rage and pain, the strange alien looked directly at the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
"Run!"
Alexander watched as the three fillies ran from the grotto. The manticore gave no heed to the escaping ponies as it focused its rage at the Guardsman. It would maim this thing and devour it alive.
Revving his chainsword, Alexander snarled behind his rebreather. "Let's see how you do against a target that can fight back."
With a earth-shaking roar, the manticore pounced.
In the large tree in the center of Ponyville that housed the town library, Twilight Sparkle was searching for a book on Equestrian history while her friend Rainbow Dash hovered nearby with a look of supreme boredom when they heard the front door being pounded on frantically. Twilight opened the door, spilling three fillies onto the floor. "Hey girls, what's wrong?" Inquired the curious unicorn, as Rainbow Dash looked on.
"Wewereintheahdidntwanttoforestwewereattckedmanticoresavedneedshelpqui-"
Twilight held out a hoof. "Hold it, one at a time." She looked at the peach filly. "Applebloom, what happened?"
"We were in the Everfree tryin' ta get our Cutie-marks when we was attacked by a manticore!" yelled the filly.
"It was going to get us at a grotto, but somepony started fighting it!" Scootaloo continued.
"He needs help!" Sweetie Belle panted.
Twilight ran out the door, followed by a cyan and rainbow blur that yelled out instructions to the three exhausted Crusaders. "Stay here!"
A few minutes later, Twilight and Dash found the grotto, and could only look on in shock at the battle that was raging in the clearing. The manticore was dueling with a bipedal creature that had what seemed to be an olive exoskeleton. It was armed with a blocky looking sword of the same olive coloring that did not look like it could cut anything, much less harm something as formidable as a manticore.
As the manticore struck with its tail, the creature dodging the appendage and swinging its sword. As the sword swung down, it emitted a piercing screech, removing the tail from the leonine monster. Roaring, more in rage than in pain, the manticore smashed a paw into the biped, sending it crashing into a tree.
Alexander gasped in pain as he felt his left forearm scream, most definitely broken. His breathing hurt, too, probably a broken rib. How he had survived this long against the beast was a mystery, one that he did not have time to ponder. Alexander knew he had to end it soon, or he'd be cat-chow. Staggering to his feet, he held the chainsword in his good hand as he prepped a grenade with the other.
Sensing that its prey was weakened, the manticore lunged at the creature that dared to fight it. Alexander dodged, barely, and as he did so, he shoved something into the creatures' mouth before the manticore could turn around to attack again. Before it could do anything however, the manticore's head burst as the grenade it had just eaten exploded, the explosion throwing the battered Guardsman into another tree.
Oh, definitely a broken rib now...
Groaning, Alexander shakily stood up and staggered over to the steaming corpse. Giggling euphorically, he looked down at the body. "Yer toast ish burnt," he slurred. "And no amoun' a scrapin'..will remove..the...bla..ck..parts."
As Alexander lost consciousness, he felt decidedly weightless, not noticing the magenta haze surrounding his beaten body.