//------------------------------//
// Operation Cell 
// Story: Three Guys in a Stryker Return to Equestria 
// by Citrus Solutions 
//------------------------------//

Visiting the library was not a common thing for this unicorn, he was a well-known stallion, and was known not to visit libraries. Pleasure reading did not appeal to him, any information he needed could be fetched by somepony else. But, he needed answers, and the subject of his research was rather sensitive.

"Oh, hello, uh. Sir." The librarian said, surprised.

The librarian was an aged unicorn mare, wrinkles had began to show on her face naturally, albeit discretely. Her mane was a gold with brown fur and had glasses resting on her nose.

"I require information," The stallion began. "I need information on creatures, the uncommon sort."

The librarian nodded. "I can find that for you."

She stood and walked away from the main desk, stopping at a row of bookshelves a few yards away and peered down the path that wasn't usually investigated. Her horn lit up and she began to grab at books.

"How uncommon are you looking for?" She asked.

"Two legs, sentient, probably magically impaired."


Meanwhile...


"You could be in a bed right now."

The voice startled Splash into Defcon 2, he blinked multiple times in attempt to make his vision clear. In time he was able to make out Luna through the darkness, she was looking down on him. Where was he? He looked around, high ceiling, large stained windows; must be the throne room they arrived in. The Stryker was behind him, that confirmed his first thought. He looked to the princess in front of him.

"I am Princess Luna," She explained. "I am the sister of Princess Celestia."

Splash blinked. "Alright. Nice to meet you, i'm Splash. I uh, I actually fell asleep..."

He muttered aside to himself. "The fuck am I doing out here?"

The Princess of the Night answered him. "You passed out after several minutes of one single scream. You asphyxiated yourself, I believe."

"I am Crossroads." Echoed through Splash's mind, he shuddered.

"Your sister drinks decaf, doesn't she?"

"Aye." Luna nodded.

Splash picked himself up, he stood, albeit wobbly. He lost his balance and began to fall, Luna leaned him against herself. The man exhaled loudly. 

"Okay, i'm good. I think." He stood back up. "Where is my crew?"

"Come, I shall guide you to them."

Splash bent down to pick up his weapon before tailing alongside Luna. The hallways were lit, each of them looked the exact same and so much more imposing, no longer being within the confines of a alpha victor such as the Stryker. He tried not to let it bother him too much, instead he stuck very close to the Princess. At frequent intervals there were two or sometimes just one guard, each looking slightly beat up, most sporting dents in their armor and some had black eyes. Although, as Splash and the Princess walked by many broke their vigil stance and looked at him, offering a grateful smile.

"Your guards seem to like me." He commented happily.

"Ah yes, most are aware that you humans were actually controlling 'The Metal Rhino', defeating an army's leader does tend to earn you hero status among our ponies."

"Doesn't look anything like a rhino." Splash repeated as Raptor had stated.

Luna stopped at a set of tall double doors and looked at Splash. "Well, I suppose it will be your duty to inform the populace of such, many still believe your vessel is nothing more than an animal that happened to be sympathetic to us... Or perhaps just aggressive to changelings."

Splash snapped his fingers. "Changelings, I was trying to remember what they were called."

He pushed the doors open, not acknowledging the question Luna was hinting at. The man found one of his companions sitting on a bed polishing his hockey stick, the Canadian looked up and welcomed them in before returning to his hockey stick. A running shower could be heard in the other room, steam rolled out from under a door on the far left of the room, Splash assumed it was the bathroom. 

The bedroom they'd been given included double window doors on the far side that led out onto a balcony, there were curtains to cover it, though they were pulled aside. Near the balcony sat a wardrobe and a large mirror. There was a red velvet rug strewn across the floor, and only two beds lay ready. Roar's AKM was propped up against the closest bed, the one he sat on. He wore his chest rig, but his bag was on the end of the furniture.

Splash scuffed Roar's hair on his way to the other bed, he gently put the bag of explosives on the floor beside it along with the SAW before hopping in himself.

Luna looked between the beds. "There seems to be a lack of furnishings to suit the three of you."

Splash lay his head on his hands. "Oh it's fine. Raptor can sleep in the tub or something."

Luna stood awkwardly at the door, as much as she'd have liked to she had no idea how to make conversation with the men. It was a few minutes before she simply nodded to herself and exited quietly. As he heard the door close, Splash rolled onto his side facing Roar.

"Did Raptor say anything important while I was gone?"

Roar leaned his hockey stick against the wall and sat cross-legged on the bed facing Splash. "No, I don't think so. What was the deal with the princess?"

Splash stretched his back. "I dunno. She came into the throne room and woke me up from my little snooze."

A fully dressed Raptor came out of the shower talking on his cell phone for some reason or another. "Yeah. I'll let them know." He cut the line and stuffed the device into his pocket. "The wedding is back on, guys. We're on the attendance list."

Roar asked the reasonable question. "How the fuck are you on your phone?"

Raptor shrugged and turned to Splash. "We gave Celestia your phone while you were out, by the way."

Panicked, Splash looked down and checked his pockets, finding no cell phone. He looked at his leader, his mouth moving but had no words coming out. 

"There's nothing bad on it, is there?"

Silence for a few moments.

"N-no?" Splash croaked.

The three stood there awkwardly.

"We should probably go get your phone, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah."


"Objective: Retrieve Evidence"


A stand with a map displaying the castle was suddenly erected in the middle of the room, all crew members standing around it professionally, Raptor being just to the side of the map. He pointed to a large red "X" in the middle of a room labelled "Celly's Room".

"To our knowledge, this is the current position of Splash's phone. In order to minimize contact during the course of this operation we will not be using the Stryker. We will breach, retrieve the phone, and return to FOB Echo. Questions?"

"Civilian presence?" Splash asked.

"Minimal civs mixed in with a large amount of royal guards, which you may only engage if being engaged."

"Why go to FOB Echo?" Roar spoke.

"It's the only play I feel safe in this damned castle."

"Hooah." Splash started. "So this is sounding an awful lot like a stealth mission, is there any way we can disable the lights?"

"I think most if not all the lights are magical, and we've got nothing on that. Also the guards are finicky as fuck after that attack, I think killing the lights would incite total chaos in the castle."

Roar spoke. "I figure Celestia's room has guards watching it."

Raptor nodded. "Probably. We might need to find a secondary entrance which would probably be like a vent or the balcony or something. The vent sounds more reasonable, and there's one that leads in from here."

Raptor pointed to a room labelled "Blueblood's".

"Great." Splash rolled his eyes.

"Okay. Leave your primaries and packs here, we want max mobility and least suspicion. The guards like us so that'll work heavily in our favor."

The three exited their room. Their hands were empty, in terms of weaponry all the crew had were their sidearms and one hockey stick. They proceeded casually through the hallways, returning greetings as offered. They knew the distance from their objective, it was close, surely merely just around the corner.

Suddenly, the lights went out, as if a breeze just blew through and extinguished them. As a whole Echo pressed themselves to the nearest wall, pulling night vision goggles over their eyes and looking at each other questioningly.

"Okay, we're just going to roll with it, okay?" Raptor whispered, getting nods from the other two.

The man peeked his head around the corner, seeing the target room doors, and then the doors leading to their access point, which actually had two guards leaving their post to go help another two ponies guard the princess' room, Raptor snickered at this. Before turning back to his crew.

"Let's go!"

The three rounded the corner and noticed light emanating from the guard's horns. It was intense due to the NVGs light-amplification, but the light did not reach them. The team, sidearms in hand, stacked up on Blueblood's door. Raptor pushed on it gently, the door slid open with no creak. They pushed in quickly and quietly, leaving the entrance open. The team located the vent low on the wall between the bed and the balcony entrance. The vent access was not bolted or screwed on, making it easily removed. Raptor went in, then Roar. Splash lagged behind, looking at the bed. A still figure lay underneath the blankets, a sleeping mask on his face and surrounded with books. He shrugged and crawled into the vent.

The shaft was large, obviously made so a pony could access it and perform maintenance. The three could about fit side by side, and had much more headroom than a vent shaft on Earth. Through the next vent access panel Raptor saw a light, making a fascinated-looking Celestia visible. The princess was awake and playing with Splash's phone.

"Oh that's not good." He whispered.

"What?" Splash hissed ahead, trying to catch up. "What's going on?"

"Celestia is on your phone." The leader replied. 

Just then, one of the guards from outside entered the room. "Your highness, you're awake?"

The princess looked at him and smiled. "Why yes, what concerns you my little pony?"

"Ma'am, there seems to be a security issue. All lights have suddenly extinguished."

Still smiling, "Ah yes, it would appear they have. Let's go see if we can find the problem shall we?"

Celestia guided the ponies out and shut the door behind her. Splash pushed off the access panel to the vent and scrambled out, picked himself up, and ran for the phone that'd been left on Celestia's bed on the opposite side of the room, grabbing it up quickly. The stomping of his feet was heard outside, and the door slammed open.

"Contact!" A pony yelled, before sending a blast of magic hurling Splash's way.

It slammed into the man's side, sending him through the balcony windows and into a freefall off the castle. 

"Back, back, back!" Raptor hissed at Roar, crawling backwards.

While the two exited from the way they came, escaping easily in the darkness, Splash was still falling with a trail of verbal curses. He steadied himself and looked down at the approaching ground. There was a lake below him, formed by water falling from the mountain, it could not have been more than three hundred meters down. The helpful little screen that always told him his altitude was not there, so he judged on sight. At about two hundred meters he pulled his chute, letting out a sigh of relief seeing the large cloth push open above him. Not having the altimeter was concerning, it could mean that not all of The Rules That Bind were in effect for them in this realm, it'd be best to let the others know as soon as he regrouped. 

That thought was interrupted when he smacked into the surface of a cold lake.

Shock dominated his body, but subsided enough for him to make it to land before becoming a mansicle. Splash gasped as he crawled onto the shore, soaking wet and covered in goosebumps, and fell on his back with a loud plop. He lay there for minutes, simply just trying to catch his breath and regain his strength. With time he was able to reach into his pocket and unlocked the screen, deleting all the files he was afraid of Celestia finding.

"No one," He rasped. "Shall ever read my fanfictions."

Splash looked back up at the castle, where the lights were just coming back on. It was strange, just before the lights went out he could've sworn he heard the snapping of fingers. 


"Objective Cancelled: Retrieve Evidence"



...


A shattering noise startled Blueblood awake, he took of his sleeping mask just in time time to meet a pair of glowing green eyes.

"Sleep tight." One owners of the eyes whispered, then closed his door.