It was two o'clock in the morning, on a normal Thursday at Osan Air Base, or at least it seemed that way. For the North Korean sleeper agent living in South Korea, it was going to be the day he proved to the Great Leader that he was, in fact, a capable agent. The skinny man crawled through the bushes towards his prize, an American attack plane parked on the ramp.
The agent looked down at the payload he carried in his arms, a small box with a blue glow emanating along its sides. He did not know what it would do, but the scientist who told him how to build it had assured him it would cause all kinds of destruction to the Imperialist jet it was attached to. The Korean wasn't entirely sure that it would be a capable device- but the Great Leader had trusted him to do this, and he knew that the Great Leader would only use capable equipment against the Americans.
As such, the man made his way to the belly of the aircraft, and upon reaching there, he opened a panel behind the wings of the aircraft using a length of cable. Inside was a group of electrical cables, which he ignored as he jammed the device into the minimal space around the cables, and turned on the twelve hour timer. He immediately closed the panel, ensuring it was locked and secure, before crawling back to the bushes to make his way back to his non suspicious looking vehicle.
Lawrence Robinson was convinced his Warthog was in working order for its flight as he ensured that the lights on board were in working order. He had checked the plane over inside and out, as he had done before every other flight on every plane he had ever flown, and today had no reason to be different. Today was simply another exercise, more time for the 25th Fighter Squadron to get some practice up in the air.
Lawrence gave a thumbs up to the crewmen standing around as he climbed into the cockpit of the A-10. He followed the other A-10, his buddy Robert's plane Mustang 2-1, to the runway after getting his clearance to taxi. As his friend requested clearance and taxied onto the runway, he moved to hold short of the runway and requested his clearance.
"Osan Tower, Mustang 2-2 is holding short of runway niner requesting straight-out departure."
"Mustang 2-2, this is Osan tower, You are cleared for taxi onto the active and straight out departure."
"Osan Tower, Mustang 2-2, cleared for straight out departure on runway niner."
With that, the pilot increased thrust smoothly as he taxied onto the runway's center line. It didn't take long for him to pull off the ground and raise the landing gear. Looking at his clock, he saw his time of departure was 13:42, meaning he had plenty of time to practice maneuvers before he was to return to base at 16:00. "Mustang 1-1, Mustang 2-2 is airborne and enroute to waypoint Alpha."
As the pair of Thunderbolt II strike aircraft flew along the DMZ, practicing formation flying, the pilot of one of them noticed some thing after performing a hard turn. "The electrical power is looking a little low..." Lawrence noted to himself in the cockpit, "Hey Mustang 2-1," Lawrence called out on his radio.
"Copy that, Mustang 2-2, go ahead." Robert in the lead A-10 replied quickly.
"I seem to be having trouble with my-" His voice cut off, followed by a loud Boom coming from about a mile behind Robert's plane.
The pilot of Mustang 2-1 looked around frantically behind him as he called out to his friend "Mustang 2-2, come in!" He repeated messages of that nature over his radio before turning around for another look. With no signs of his friends plane, he pressed a button changing his radio transmission frequency to that of Osan tower.
"Osan Tower," he called in, "We've lost Mustang 2-2, I repeat, Mustang 2-2 is down."
"-Electrical power. How do you advise 2-1?"
As he was talking, Lawrence did notice a blue glow around his aircraft, and a change in the landscape below the airplane. He instantly checked his GPS, which showed no signal. "Oh Fuck." The pilot groaned as he called in on his radio to the frequency of Osan Tower. "Osan Tower, this is Mustang 2-2, do you read?"
In a minute, he received no response. This isn't right.
"This is Mustang 2-2 to all aircraft, do you read?"
Again, no response, so he changed channels to that of Incheon International Airport in Seoul.
"Incheon tower, this is Mustang 2-2, is type A-10 Thunderbolt II of the United States Air Force, do you copy my transmission?"
With this being his final attempt and receiving no transmission, he gave up and began looking for a visual below him. He saw a large white and gold castle on a side of a mountain off in the distance, and immediately below him was a village, one that to him looked very similar to that of a medieval European village. He continued approaching the castle, wanting a closer look at that than at the small town.
As he flew on, a rainbow trailed projectile flew up towards his plane from the village that was now behind him, his instincts kicking in, he punched flares and initiated an evasive maneuver. Seconds later, the rainbow trailed entity caught up with the canopy of his plane and began flying off to his right. It was a horse. A flying horse, a pegasus if Lawrence remembered correctly. A rainbow colored one at that. The horse looked as though it had trouble keeping up with him.
As though the horse noticed him, it waved at him. Lawrence leaned back in his seat in more confusion, but decided it wouldn't be polite not to wave back. The next thing on the pilot's mind was finding a place to land. And preferably figure out what was going on.
He continued looking at the horse, and the more he did so, the more he realized that its snout had a far different shape than that of what you would expect from a horse. Deciding he had more important things to do than investigate a horse, Lawrence increased thrust and sped off towards the massive castle that had caught his attention earlier.
A frightening thought came to the Captain that he was in some fantasy world, like Lord of the Rings or something. He almost wished he had more knowledge of the fantasy genre now. What the Captain didn't need to know much about the fantasy worlds to know, however, was that there wasn't going to be a smooth runway anywhere for him to land on. Which meant he'd have to find something very flat.
The pegasus caught up with him again, and looked as though it wanted to challenge him, to this the pilot paid no mind; for he needed to prioritize a spot for landing, and not run out of fuel before doing so. He looked at his fuel gauge, he made more desperate attempts to contact anyone, but they were in vain. He was now less than 10 miles from the castle, and the rainbow pegasus was still outside his window.
The pilot could see fields below him, but he wanted to use those as a last resort, but if it came to it, he knew he could land in one with minor damage. He just had to make sure it wasn't a rice paddy.
As the pilot took his thoughts away from his landing options to investigate the castle, he realized it wasn't just a castle, it was a whole city. And the damned thing was massive. He had heard of European castles being built on the side of mountains for defense, but this thing looked like it was far larger to any of those castles. As he looked around the city from above, he noticed a railroad track leading into the city.
Lawrence was overjoyed at this. Maybe this isn't a fantasy world after all! Maybe they have airstrips! Maybe they have radios! He tried again to find any sign of radio activity near the city by searching his radio. More nothing.. He truly wasn't surprised- even if this society had radios, the odds they would use the same frequencies for communication in such a large spectrum is highly unlikely.
The horse on his side flew down to the city below him. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the rainbow pegasus was intelligent. It was a frightening thought that a flying horse could be the dominant lifeform on this planet. I just hope they have a need for two thousand foot-long runways... It seemed unlikely, but it was a hope that he had. Then, several other shapes with gray contrails flew up towards him, followed by another rainbow contrail.
I guess I must have violated their airspace, Robinson dumped flares and banked hard to the left, away from the city. Soon after, the objects flew up to him again, the same rainbow pegasus leading other pegasi to his plane. The others were all similar colors, and their colors were almost as glossy as a freshly waxed car. The Hog Pilot deadpanned. Should have guessed it was just more of these horse things.
One of them, with a similarly shaped nose to that of the rainbow one, made a gesture indicating it wanted him to follow. Lawrence responded with a nod and a thumbs up. The strange creatures lead him back towards where he started, he thought they were taking him to the village again, but once they got close, they turned right heading south east towards a desert and canyon are. They lead him to a marked clear area near what looked like a small base, and one gestured with its forelimbs like a crewman vectoring a plane to the ramp.
He nodded as acknowledgement and lowered his flaps and landing gear and turned around for an approach. As he landed he felt a couple of bumps, but he had landed on worse. One of the pegasi lead him to a ramp where he turned off the engines. He proceeded to shut down his plane, and ensure it is in working order from the cockpit. He lowered the ladder using a button in the cockpit and climbed over the edge and onto the ladder.
A pegasus wearing what looked like a military dress shirt was waiting for him. He climbed down, and the horse-thing spoke in an authoritative tone. "Identify yourself."
This would have surprised some men and made them freeze up, but if he did then he wouldn't be a very good attack pilot. As such, he responded in a practiced, neutral tone. "Captain Lawrence J. Robinson, United States Air Force."
The small horse- which he assumed to be female at this point- brought its hoof to its face. "And what exactly are you Captain?" She asked.
Representing humanity to an alien species? Check that one off the bucket list. He stood straight up with a proud smile on his face, "I'm a human, and I come in peace," He managed to keep a straight face at that cheesy line.
The thing in front of him smiled at this and spoke. "Welcome to Equestria, Lawrence. My name is Spitfire, Captain of the Wonderbolts."
She motioned him to follow towards the building.
"Wait, you never told me what you guys are?"
"Ponies."
Oh, there's a surprise.