Disclaimer: My Little Pony is owned by Hasbro. Command & Conquer is owned by EA Games. Please support both companies. Also, translation from English has been done via an internet translator, transliteration to the English alphabet has been done manually. The author politely requests that Russian speakers (native or not) do not attempt to throttle him over the internet for any accidental transgressions against Russian words and/or grammar. It just isn't worth your computer screen.

The Eagle, The Bear, and the Ponies

Chapter 2: Where the Buffalo Roam

Over a Unknown Desert...

The disappointment inside the Mi-17 transport was so thick one could probably taste it. They had all been eager to deal out punishment to the Allied fools who dared venture so close to the motherland's territory, but the bizarre events had put a damper on that.

When the helicopter crew and the Spetsnatz they were transporting came to, they had found themselves on the ground, with the engine shut-down, and on top of some desert plateau. Upon contacting the base, they had discovered that all the units that had been sent out to attack the American raiders had likewise been scattered in the area and were promptly ordered to return to base.

"What the-!" The co-pilots exclamation cut through the dismal mood. "There seems to be a herd of animals moving on our three o'clock low…"

The Spetsnatz team jostled for position with each other and the door machine gunner for a view out of the helicopter. As they did so, the helicopter slid rightwards in the direction of the sighting. Once each member of the team found themselves settled, the Special Forces trooper's eyes were immediately drawn to a cloud of dust being kicked into the air below.

"Are those Buffalo?" One of the troopers asked, squinting down in puzzlement. The chatter over their headsets, a necessity when running about in a noisy helicopter, began immediately.

"Can't be anything else." The squad sniper said. "I thought they were endangered, but that's a pretty big herd..."

"So we are in America then?" The machine gunner studied the herd below. The stampeding creatures had apparently noticed the helicopter some hundreds of meters above them and if the man didn't know better he would swear that they looked confused.

"Buffalo come from America, yes." This came from the squad leader, a sergeant who was probably the most educated man in the vehicle. "But not from the desert part of it, which is awfully close to the front right now... and I don't hear any artillery."

After another moment the helicopter began to turn away back to its original course, the pilot probably deciding they had seen enough. It was at that fateful moment that the same trooper who had first spoken up commented: "I heard buffalo meat is delicious."

The nine-men in the compartment, eight spetsnatz and one door gunner, shared a look as the same thought occurred to them simultaneously. As the squad leader switched his headset to talk with the helicopter's pilot, the sniper slid towards the door and flipped the safety off of his rifle.

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Little Strong Heart, like the rest of the buffalo in the stampede, only heard the machine a few seconds before it swept overhead. The tribe was on the move, heading for a drink out of one of the few rivers that cut through the desert. Her first thought was there was some kind of insect swarm coming from their left, but that quickly faded away as she realized the buzzing was too steady to be one of those.

Then it roared into view directly overhead and most of the stampede looked up in surprise. None of them stopped running, of course, but they couldn't help but tear their view away from the front at least temporarily.

In just one glance, Strong Heart knew it was not a pony machine. The ponies' vehicles had an intricate and almost whimsical look to them, something that was standard for many of the more tool-oriented species of Equestria. This machine… it seemed to be of a completely alien design. Its round body gave her the vaguest impression of a bumblebee, but the construction and immense moving disk that apparently held it in the air made the flying contraption look… brutish to Strong Heart, something built to achieve a purpose with little or no room for any other job.

The machine stayed there for a good ten or fifteen seconds, easily keeping pace with the herd as it moved. Then it tilted, beginning to slide away from its overhead position. Most of the herd thought that was that and those who had not returned their attention to the ground yet did so, but Strong Heart kept watching and she saw the machine suddenly tilt backwards and slide towards the back of the stampede.

Strong Heart herself slowed, falling further back as the rest of the stampede overtook her until she dropped out behind it. In this part, there were only a few stragglers who did not keep up… not out of inability (the tribe provided for those) but out of laziness. The machine had also fallen back here and was now maintaining itself steadily even closer to the ground, but off to the left of the path.

Strong Heart squinted and was able to make out an opening on the side of the contraption's body, a bit behind a large… window on the vehicles front. The little buffalo thought she saw some kind of figure kneeling in the opening with a protrusion pointing out…

There was a flash from the opening, followed a few seconds later by a distant CRACK!

At the same time the sound reached Strong Hearts ears, Taking Easy, one of the rear-most stragglers, collapsed mid-stride. Strong Heart noticed this and thanks to her relative small size was able to break and turn towards the collapsed figure very quickly. She almost immediately regretted it.

Whatever that noise had been, it had clearly drilled through Taking Easy's head. The left side of the buffalo's head featured a relatively neat hole, but the right side… the right side had exploded into a mess of flesh, blood, bits of bone, hair and pieces of brain splattered onto the ground nearby. Strong Heart gagged and had to stop herself from throwing-up.

She was saved from losing her breakfast by the flying machine, which roared in from just behind her at an extremely low altitude. Fear welled up inside Little Strong Heart as she realized the machine was going to land! Frantically, she glanced around for somewhere to hide and almost instantly found one of the innumerable boulders that dotted the desert. From behind the rock she watched the machine land facing away from her, close to Taking Easy's body. It was then that the four creatures emerged…

They stood on only two legs and in place of forelegs they had a pair of limbs that ended in a hand, like a raccoon. The creatures were only slightly shorter than the average buffalo… or more than twice the size of Little Strong Heart, who was about the same size as most ponies! Beyond their dimensions, Little Strong Heart couldn't tell what the creatures actually looked like. Their actual bodies were hidden underneath what she recognized as these things' equivalent to the clothes that the Ponies sometimes wore.

Mottled green fabric that stood out against the backdrop of the desert covered everything up to their head, which was then obscured by strange and terrifying black masks with some kind of mouthpiece that jutted forward and large, even blacker lenses. Completing the ensemble was what Strong Heart knew was called a helmet, something the Ponies often used when doing construction… only those were bright yellow.

The creatures rapidly moved up to Taking Easy's still body, clutching some kind of… large metal-and-wooden sticks. One of them suddenly slung its stick over its haunch equivalent and strode forward, calling back to the other three. "Pomogite mne nesti eto!"

Strong Heart blinked, confused by the utterly alien sounding language the creature spoke. For a moment, she thought it was those masks that made them sound different.

Two of the other creatures followed the first's movement while the fourth looked across the plain where the stampede had gone... it would just be beginning to turn around by this point. A buffalo stampede is hard to reverse. The three creatures lifted Taking Easy's body off the ground. They paused for a moment and looked at each other. "Leghche, chem ya predpologal."

Shrugging, the creatures began to carry Taking Easy's body back to the flying machine… back to the flying machine for what?

Suddenly, the full weight of realization came down on Little Strong Heart: one of her fellow buffalo had just been killed. Not just knocked out for a few moments by a Pony apple pie or injured from a twisted hoof during a stampede, but actually killed. He had been rendered dead from an unnatural cause, by black-masked creatures who rode in large flying machines.

And now they were taking his body. Why, she didn't have any idea but she doubted they were just going to bury it…

That thought initially horrified Little Strong Heart. Respect for the deceased was a concept that both the Ponies and the buffalo shared: when one of their own died, they were mourned, remembered, and honored in a funeral ceremony. If the deceased's body had been retrieved, it was respectfully disposed by burial. But the body was always handled with utmost respect, not almost-dragged uncaringly into some noisy contraption to who-knows-what-fate.

Then her thought transformed into anger. These things were desecrating the dead! Worse, Strong Heart realized, they had killed a buffalo for seemingly no purpose! That was... she couldn't think of how to express the horror of the idea.

Strong Heart had always been a deceptively small buffalo, but she was also an emotional one. For her, anger easily became action. She didn't waste another second observing the creatures and with a wild cry that cut over the roar of the nearby flying machine, she lept from her cover and charged just as the three beings carrying Taking Easy reached the strange contraption.

Those three froze, their heads whipping around as they saw the small buffalo come at them. But the fourth swung around and raised its strange stick. Strong Heart was able to perceive the brief flashes of fire from the stick, a very loud, chunky, and brief TAK-TAK noise, a series of whines and hisses, and finally felt something akin to a really dull horn stabbing into her left fore-haunch. The small buffalo managed another step before toppling forward, pain bellowing at her from the joint.

Strong Heart did a cartwheel, coming down on her back and with a wild cry of pain she twisted her head to see blood rapidly flowing from a neat hole drilled exactly where she had felt that impact. She heard the strange creatures muffled chatter but all of her attention was focused on the wound, a kind of sick fascination taking hold as the buffalo dully realized that it was her blood.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over her and Little Strong Heart looked up to see the creature standing over her, looking down at her body and with its stick, what had to be a weapon, pointed at her. At this distance she could make out details on the creature's clothes: strange folds and attachments whose purpose she couldn't figure out.

The creature just stood there, looking down at her, and for a moment, Strongheart thought she saw eyes through those black lenses. Then there was a shout, the creature turned away and moved out of sight. Strong Heart attempted to roll over so she could stand-up… only for her injury to protest so much she collapsed with tears in her eyes instead. Abruptly the roar of the flying machine increased in volume and a strong, sustained blast of wind and dirt pounded at Strong Hearts body. Now she squeezed her eyes shut until the wind abruptly stopped and the noise rapidly grew distant before vanishing altogether.

Opening her eyes, Strong Heart tried to stand once more only to stop as her haunch voiced its complaint. Lifting her head to glance around as best she could, Strong Heart noted that the only evidence Taking Easy was ever here was his trail of blood… and her of course, as a witness.

Another rumbling noise echoed from the distance, but this was much different than the flying machine sound. The stampede was finally returning. Too late to save Taking Easy, Strong Heart thought bitterly. Then the buffalo realized she was feeling a little light in the head and glanced at her wound again. An icy fear reached up into her heart and she prayed they were not too late to save her.

Taking Easy had to have someone who saw what happen warn every buffalo, after all.

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"It really is lighter than I expected." The Mi-16 pilot communicated over his headset with the Spetsnatz squad leader. "Are you sure you did not grab a scrawny one?"

"I did not, comrade. Focus on getting us on back to base; I'll worry about the meat." The sergeant looked around at his team, who were all eyeing the dead buffalo with varying degrees of curiosity. All except one… "Is something wrong, Vasily?"

Vasily, a long-time member of the team and the one who had provided watch when they retrieved the buffalo body tore his gaze away from the troop bay's ceiling. "Erm… no, comrade sergeant. I was just… thinking about the small one that came at us from behind a rock."

"What about it?" The sergeant pressed. "It was actually rather good shooting on your part."

"It's not that, comrade. It's just… when I took a closer look at it… I could have sworn…" The trooper shook his head. "It's nothing, just my imagination."

The sergeant was not satisfied and kept pressing. "Then it should be no problem to share. What did you imagine?"

Silence for a few moments, then six out of the nine men in the bay started laughing. The sergeant simply settled for an amused grin while Vasily flushed with anger.

The last man who did not laugh was the squad marksman. Instead he coughed noisily into his headset, grabbing everyone's attention.

"Comrade Sergeant, if I may." The sniper said, and then leaned forward and plucked something out from behind the dead buffalo's ear, holding it up for the entire squad (and the door gunner) to see. "Did any of you notice this nicely groomed feather and wonder how it was inserted so securely behind the bison's ear, like a decoration?"

Everybody stared at the feather and a memory clicked with the sergeant. A movie he had seen years before, an American import... "It looks like an Indian feather, from those American westerns."

It took another few seconds before the squad fully was able to contemplate that statement.

Unknown Forest...

The remnants of Gins's company moved in a tight column. Normally, the captain would have hesitated to allow his men to bunch up so much, but this forest was too dense for armor and there was still enough spread to minimize any potential damage from a rocket propelled grenade or handheld FlaK gun. If they came in contact with enemy infantry, they could rapidly overwhelm them and then move on before hostile artillery and airpower came looking or, if the opposing force was too great, they could fall back into the thickets and disperse.

But looking around the forest, Gins suddenly doubted he was anywhere near where he should be. The forest was too swampy to be in Mongolia and some of the bird calls too familiar. But birds were not the only noises the group heard, there was the rustling of creatures in the bushes and everybody in the company could feel hidden eyes on them. Predators, most likely… If this place was as remote as Gins thought, then the predators were unlikely to have encountered humans and just as unlikely to try and eat an unknown creature.

The only man separate from the group by any significant degree was the point man, an assignment given to Sergeant First-Class Donald Burns, known respectfully by everyone else as Fallout Boy. A native of South Carolina, Burns was probably the single most respected figure in the company and simultaneously the most distant from everyone else. He rarely talked and when he did everybody listened, but most of the time he was either performing a task asked of him or listlessly staring into space with haunted eyes. Gins had placed him on point because of his experience growing up in the relative wilderness of the Appalachians.

Gins understood that Burns was not the same man he used to be and for very good reason… the same reason he had that nickname. As far as Gins knew, nobody who had survived Chicago was ever themselves again.

The company wasn't itself anymore either. Burns and Vince were one of the six non-commissioned officers left in the unit, and for officers it was literally just Gins and Mullivan… all the rest were dead. The Captain also now knew that he had precisely fifty-three men left. More positively, by stripping everything they could from the dead, the company had replenished their ammo and tripled the quantity of all their other supplies. They had also redistributed any spare heavy weapons, increasing the firepower to manpower ratio.

Suddenly Burns stopped and an instant later so did the column. Gins immediately moved to the front and joined the assigned point man. The captain didn't have to ask why Burns had stopped, it was abundantly clear. The forest abruptly stopped too and the terrain turned into much more open grassland and rolling hills, the degree of change so drastic that Gins actually found it kind of disorienting.

Taking a quick scan of the terrain, Gins located the tallest of the hills he could find before saying anything. First, he turned to Burns. "Good work sergeant, go and tell the company to rally here."

The NCO merely nodded in response before turning and moving back into the still thick forest. Barely five minutes later, the rest of Gins troops were around him, peering out of the undergrowth. The Captain pointed at the hill he had located and said, "We're heading to the top of that hill, double-time. We're in the open so keep your spacing."

The average Allied infantryman carried approximately seventy-pounds of gear, which made running anything more than short distances a predictably exhausting venture even on flat ground. By the time every one of the GI's reached the top of the hill, they were all panting from the exertion made worse by the previous weariness inflicted by combat and the modest march through the forest. But true to their training, they remained alert and did not drop down to rest until Gins gave the okay.

The Captain had taken one look around and decided that there was no immediate threat to his company. One of the first to reach the hill, his eyes had immediately been drawn to an even taller hill another five kilometers away and two very familiar structures atop it, one red and one white.

Gins made a more thorough inspection with his binoculars. Through them, he next sighted the trees with familiar red shapes a short distance from the barn and house. Even an American with no experience in agriculture would be able to tell that was an apple farm. The only life he could see was pigs in a pen next to the barn… but there had to be someone caring for them.

"I'm going to check out that farm, ask the locals where we are. Take a ten minute breather, then grab nine men of your choice and come with me."

Gins waited for the sergeant to acknowledge before turning to his XO, who had set-up a little kettle. Gins paused at this sight for a few seconds before shaking his head with a sigh. "Lieutenant Mullivan, I'll be heading out in ten minutes with a squad, you'll be in charge until I get back."

"That's quite alright Captain." Mullivan replied. "If I may say sir, this place does make me feel rather comfy."

Gins took a moment to consider his XO's words. Now that it had been brought to his attention, the locale was making him feel rather comfortable too. Every which way he looked, beautiful hills of lush green rolled away, dotted with the occasional tree or shrub. The apple farm actually added to the peaceful scenery, with the only blot being the more foreboding forest his unit had come out of.

For Gins the suddenly serene setting came off as bizarre and astonishingly new. He had spent almost a year in the sterile confines of a military facility (permanent and otherwise) or the wretched hell of both urban and rural combat zones. In both locations he had largely concentrated on surviving, carrying out his orders, and monitoring the situation of both his unit and any others he was working with. He had forgotten that there was such a thing as peace… or more accurately had become too used to the strain and toil of war.

That thought was rather unsettling so Gins shoved it away, along with the feeling, and decided to grab some water from his canteen instead.

Soviet Industrial-Military Complex Headquarters, Unknown Desert

Voroshilov was a very unhappy man. Upon returning to his office, the first thing he did was order all Soviet formations he could contact back to the base. After that, he asked for information. When that came, he immediately called a staff meeting.

The staff consisted of eight colonels (one of whom was from Soviet Frontal Aviation), four majors, the divisional KGB commissar, the psi-corp detachment head, Voroshilov's aide, and Nikolai Ryzhkov.

Ryzhkov actually was not part of the usual staff. Instead he was the head of the civilian communist party representatives who had been sent from Moscow to observe the Chronosphere test. Now he was sitting directly across from Voroshilov, clearly feeling a little out of place amongst all the military men.

The 16 assembled officers sat or stood around a table that was actually meant for a little under a third of that, so it was quite crowded despite the availability of space elsewhere in the room. Seating arrangements were determined by rank and seniority, with Ryzhkov automatically getting a seat for being a guest. The psi-corp head could have taken a seat too, but had elected to remain standing. Nobody asked him twice about it, nobody ever asked the psi-corp twice about anything.

"Comrades," Despite his anger, Voroshilov kept his voice steady which was quite at odds with his expression. "You obviously know why I have called you here."

Before he could continue, Ryzhkov spoke-up. "I am sorry to interrupt, comrade general, but where is Doctor Zelinsky?"

Voroshilov nodded, Ryzhkov had been polite and it was a valid question. "The good doctor is reviewing the data, trying to figure out what went wrong with the test. Obviously, it is connected to why we are here… wherever here is. Lieutenant Ialovskii?"

Voroshilov's aide, Valeriya Ialovskii spoke up. Despite her relative junior rank compared to all of the other officers, she was the general's aide and thus actually wielded plenty of power within his command. In that context, her lack of nerves at addressing so many superiors was understandable.

"Comrades, we have no idea where we are. Our instruments are either telling us nothing or giving us nonsensical data. Ever since the test, all communications with other bases and formations have ceased. We have also confirmed that the satellites-ours, the Allies, and the independent states-are no longer there. It is as if they never existed in the first place. Additionally, intercepts show that the only radio, microwave, or other signals we can locate are those used by all formations and personnel that were stationed at this base and at the workers camp."

The 'workers camp' was the location where most of the base civilians lived. It was the living quarters for most of the scientists and engineers who worked on the base and the industrial plant that surrounded it. The apartments which existed within the facility belonged to the less-essential labor.

"Now, according to both inertial navigation and computer star charts, our location is at thirty-one-point-two latitude and negative-seventy-four-point-nine longitude."

Ialovskii gave the assembled officers a few moments to run the numbers through their heads and compare them to their education. When they did, their eyes widened in disbelief.

"You can't be serious Lieutenant." Commissar Fyedor Lyvaskov sputtered, "That's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!"

"The Western Atlantic Ocean." Voroshilov corrected, "Almost 400 kilometers off the American coast."

"Certainly not a desert." One of the majors said sardonically, his tone of voice set Voroshilov off.

The general slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "Do you think this is funny? Without knowing where we are, we might all die out here!"

Silence followed that proclamation. All eyes were on Voroshilov as he fumed in his seat. Finally he looked up at another one of the Majors, the one in charge of base supplies. "Comrade Malashenko, I want an inventory on all water, food, and fuel supplies, in that order. Then get me the status on our spare parts."

"Good, now the rest of you, I want you to be ready to move your forces." As Voroshilov spoke, the door into the meeting room slowly swung open and a messenger slipped in. Only the psi-corps head noticed him as he walked up to Ialovskii. "We have already placed the base on heightened alert in response to the American raiders, but that should be wound down in preparation for-"

At Lieutenant Ialovskii's interruption, Voroshilov scowled for a moment before remembering that Valeriya would not interrupt him if it was not important. "What is it, lieutenant?"

Ialovskii placed the paper the messenger had given her in front of him. "There have been further developments." She stood back-up, "First, the Spetznatz team made an unusual discovery on their way back to base and, just now, an intruder was apprehended…"

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Trixie was not lost. Yes, she was hot, she was thirsty, and she couldn't find any landmarks in this desert, but she was not lost. The Great and Powerful Trixie did not get lost! It was inconceivable! Trixie paused to think, was inconceivable the right word? After a moments consideration she decided that yes it was, she had used it after all.

Trixie was happy to finally be well beyond merely back on her hooves after that annoyance in Ponyville. It had taken more work to keep showing her amazing powers, but Trixie had managed to reacquire everything she had lost.

Only a little while ago she had gotten the idea of taking her show to the more remote parts of Equestria, like the desert town Appaloosa. She had rejected taking one of the train lines, after all crossing a desert was simple feat for The Great and Powerful Trixie! And so far Trixie was right again! Just as right as she was about not being lost!

With a sigh, the real Trixie, without The Great and Powerful decoration, collapsed onto the ground. The heat was getting unbearable. Making the decision to travel at night would be better since she could just follow the night lights to Appaloosa… or maybe one of the buffalo tribes. Shrugging off the harness that she used to pull her stage/house cart, she walked alongside the carriage and levitated a canteen of water for refreshment. This heat really was merciless!

As she drank, a glint of light a ways off in the distance caught Trixie's eye. After placing the canteen back, the blue unicorn turned to take a better look, shielding her eyes from the sun. Her spirits soared as she saw a pool of water shimmering in the desert heat. Quickly hitching her cart back up, she began to run towards the inviting oasis.

It was only when the oasis seemed to vanish into thin air five minutes later did Trixie realize she was chasing a mirage. The unicorn slowed down, once again thirsty. Despondent, Trixie again unhitched her cart, turned, and froze.

For a moment, she thought the massive wall a few hundred yards off was another mirage. It was only after watching the strange obstruction for another few minutes that Trixie realized it was not, in fact, a mirage. Giving one last glance at her cart, Trixie set off towards the structure for closer examination. As Trixie got closer, she realized the wall must tower over thirty feet off the ground. Its material was also strange, not even the extremely high-quality stone the structures in Manehatten were made of looked this tough!

Trixie also made out thick strands of some kind of wire on top of the wall, broken up by points where the wall jutted even higher than usual. Strangest of all were the giant vertical red stripes painted onto its side. Looking to either side, she noticed the wall seemed to stretch into the horizon on an unusually flat plain.

Trixie was pulled out of her thoughts by a scuttling sound to her right. Suddenly alert, she spun towards the sound and found… nothing except a small formation of rocks three or four dozen yards away. Cautiously Trixie crept forward, thinking that maybe it had just been her imagination. Only a few feet from the rocks, she paused and listened. Nothing but the wind, the unicorn relaxed and turned away, wondering why she had suddenly gotten so worked up.

With a shriek, Trixie leapt back, crashing into the boulder behind her as a half-dozen metal… things leapt out at her. Momentarily disoriented, Trixie righted herself and got a better look at what had burst from the ground. They were strange machines with a single round body and were mounted on four legs. Trixie further noted that each legs' end had a drill the size of her hoof attached to it. Both the drills and the section of legs they were immediately attached to apparently cackled with electricity… but Trixie could sense no magic from any of the machines.

It took Trixie another precious moment to realize the machines had backed her up against the rock she hit. She looked for a way to run, but all avenues of escape were cut-off. Before the unicorn realized she was going to have to fight, the middle machine sprang towards her.

She barely had time to even register the machine spring off the ground towards her before one of the legs made contact. Trixie screamed in pain as it felt like her central nervous system was set on fire before she blacked out.

As Trixie's body hit the ground, the Terror Drone standing over her took a moment to judge its target. The creature was unconscious, but according to the drone's sensors was still alive. If the Terror Drone were sentient and capable of emotions, it might have had concern over whether the amount of voltage from its tesla spikes would merely incapacitate the target. The amount used was a calculated guess on the part of the machine, made based on the biological data collected by the drone during its observation of the creature. Then it factored in tesla weaponry's unique kinetic and thermal effect alongside the electrical charge. The machine took a moment to request further instructions from the group controller, instructions which came only moments later.

The drones monitored the body for a few more minutes until the Soviet Armored Personnel Carrier arrived. The soldiers within were astonished when they saw the drones discovery and soon Trixie was being driven into the base, an unknowing prisoner of the Soviet Union.

Appleloosa, Painted Pinto Desert, Equestrian Frontier...

Silverstar, sheriff of Appleloosa, stepped away from the wooden porch of the infirmary that he had been leaning on and turned towards the familiar voice. Simultaneously Chief Thunderhooves stood up from where he was resting, he had already sent most of the buffalo tribe on ahead and stayed in the town to wait for the news about Little Strong Heart personally.

"We're not entirely sure, Braeburn." Silverstar said, he indicated Thunderhooves with his head, "The Chief here knows part of the story… but only Strong Heart can give us the whole thing."

"And?" Braeburn anxiously looked past them and into the infirmary. One of the first buildings established in Appleloosa, it actually had some bricks in its construction as opposed to the mostly wooden structures throughout the desert town.

"And we have to wait for the doctor's judgment, until then we will just get in their way." The sheriff nodded to Braeburn, "In the meantime, I think you should fill him in on what you know."

Thunderhooves sighed. Concern over losing one member of his tribe and the potential loss of another created a very anxious buffalo, concern which he expressed clearly in both his face and voice. "The tribe was moving to one of our drinking holes when this strange flying machine appeared. I had never seen anything like it before… it certainly was no pony machine and obviously could not be buffalo. It merely followed the Tribe for a bit before turning away and most of us thought that it was then harmless."

The chief shook his head and continued. "I did not see Strong Heart fall out of the tribe and the first clue that anything was wrong was a distant, unfamiliar crack. I brought the tribe to a halt and we realized two of our own were missing: Strong Heart and Taking Easy. I turned the Stampede around and we found Strong Heart… but the only sign of Taking Easy was a large…" He hesitated, "a large pool of blood. And Strong Heart, her leg… some kind- of… hole had been… I don't know. We brought her here first thing we could… your medicine is better than ours."

"So… the doctors have not told you anything?" Braeburn asked. He and Little Strong Heart were very good friends, a state which had actually made him the most trustworthy pony in Appleloosa in the eyes of the Buffalo.

"Not yet." The Sherriff repeated, "As I said, you and I would just get in their way and the chief… well."

"You need not shelter your tongue: I am too big. We are lucky that Little Strong Heart is… little."

Before Braeburn could say anything else, the clinic's front door creaked open and the doctor stepped out onto the porch. The unicorn pony was telekinetically holding something really small, which hovered next to him. Then he looked at the Chief and said, "I may not be as good with buffalo as with ponies and I had never seen something like this before but… she will live."

Thunderhooves mood visibly improved at the news. The sheriff clapped the buffalo chief on the shoulder and said, "I knew she would pull through!"

The doctor coughed, the tiny object floated forward and up to the chief. "I found this lodged in Strong Heart's knee, probably what created the hole. She was very lucky, given the speed this must have been moving, a smidge to the left and it would have shattered her leg bone. An inch to the right and it would have severed an artery… there would have been nothing I could do."

Braeburn visibly paled, but the sheriff and chief were too interested in studying the projectile. The sheriff had picked it out of the air with his hoof and was holding it so both Thunderhooves and he could examine it.

"Some kind of projectile, I think." The town doctor said, "I actually took a bit longer to do some personal studying of its material. Now I don't know as much about metals as, say, Forty-Niner, but I do know enough to say that it's made almost entirely of lead… although oddly enough there are some scraps of copper around the edges. Given the way it deformed, it must have been moving at tremendous speeds when it hit the poor pon... buffalo. There was actually some damage to the tissue it passed by, it was moving so fast."

"Hm." The sheriff put it in the pocket of his forward vest. "I better find Forty-Niner then; see if he can give me any more information."

"Alright, I'll catch-up with you later sheriff." Braeburn said. Silverstar tipped his hat in response and trotted off.

"Can we see Little Strong Heart?" Thunderhooves asked next. The doctor removed his hat for a moment to scratch his mane in thought.

"She's sleeping right now, so maybe Braeburn can as long as he does not wake her up… but, Chief Thunderhooves, I'm sorry but you are… well."

"Too big?" Thunderhooves grinned as the doctor nodded. "You ponies should be more upfront sometimes."

The doctor did not know how to take that from the buffalo chief, so he just remained quiet.

"I'll wait around." Braeburn said, "Thunderhooves, go-on… your tribe needs you."

"Braeburn." The earth pony corrected. The chief paused, embarrassingly apologized, and then continued.

A few moments of stillness passed as the buffalo chief tried to figure out a way to make his exit.

This will probably be roughly the update speed for every chapter, plus or minus a month. I was going to wait until Wednesday, when I meet with my Beta Reader, before throwing this up but then I figured I would just edit it when that day rolled around.

Any how, I'm going to push up another chapter, then I got to devote my attention back to my Touhou/40K x-over Intrusion of the Dark Stars (I never quite realized just how pretentious italicized fanfic titles actually look… ah well) which has been languishing for far too long.

You might have noticed the presence of both the imperial and metric systems. For the records, I am running on the assumption that Ponies use the Imperial system. No, it does not make much sense, but then again they are talking ponies! I also kind-of lied about the RA3 thing… I am stealing some of their better idea's (the V4's multi-warhead missile, for instance), but at its core I plan to keep the C&C-side of this fic more firmly in the earlier Red Alert games, before EA went overboard with the silliness.

A bit of a fact adventure: Nikolai Ryzhkov is a real person… which probably makes this a kind-of real person fic, but oh well! In our timeline, he was Premier of the Soviet Union from September 1985 up until just before its collapse. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the (historical) USSR's power structure, this means he was their Head of State BUT much like the recent Royal Family of the United Kingdom, the Premier was more a figure head then actual leader. The real power lay in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (commonly known as the Politburo), which was led by the General-Secretary. However, it there were a few cases where the General-Secretary too also take the position of Premier, a stunt which both Khrushchev and Stalin pulled.

Now this is in OTL, obviously in the Red Alert timeline the Soviet power structure has changed as a result of its defeat in the (alternate) World War 2, what with Premier Romanov and all being the absolute ruler (supposedly… coughYuricough). Will that become important in this fic? No.

The Bear, The Eagle, and The Ponies

by ObssesedNuker

Where the Buffalo Roam