The group of humans wished they had brought sunglasses when they stepped through the gateway into this fascinating world. It was a rather strange feeling traveling through. At first, the operators felt like their whole body was being prodded by pins and needles, similar to when you sit funny and the blood drains from your legs. Next, it subsided and Clark put his hand in front of his face. It looked like there were a million hands reflecting off of it, traveling in a straight line and going behind him.
Then, everything snapped back into itself, and Clark found himself walking on grass. Fresh and crisp air surrounded him as he took a deep breath. He had to admire the scenery. Any human would. The beautiful landscape was surrounded by trees of thick and odd shape, grass that seemed way too healthy with no brown patches, and clouds that didn’t look like fuzz, but actually had patterned swirls in them, as if a person had sculpted them.
“Wow…” Clark spoke to himself as he took in all of the scenery.
Ding and Thatcher had come through the portal, each stopping once they exited to get an eyeful of what lay before them. Ding’s eyes moved from tree to tree as he had never seen these sorts of foliage in his life. Thatcher’s gas mask concealed his gawking mouth when he walked on the grass and saw a small family of squirrels scatter away.
“It really is a sight to behold.” Popov let a ladybug fly off of his hand, “It really is a shame that such violence would grip this place.”
“It’s incredible. It really is. However, we have a job to do.” Clark stretched himself and
pointed ahead, “Let’s get going, men.”
“Just another minute.” Ding said jokingly as he stared up towards the patterned clouds up ahead. He too moved along with Thatcher, Popov, and Clark, but just had to watch as the cloud slowly drifted across the sky.
“A letter has come.” Ember handed the scroll to Celestia, who picked it up with her magic and unrolled it. She read through it, and closed the letter.
“What does it say?” Rarity asked as she looked back towards Fluttershy, who was still caring for the stallion. He was still shaking badly, but his white coat had lost more of its pink shade from the blood that stained it before.
“They’re growing restless. They want food and water.” Celestia sighed.
“We’re really gonna give them that kind of stuff? Why would we help these ponies if they were the ones who fillynapped Twilight, Spike, and Starlight?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed.
“We need to keep them stable, or they might hurt them even more. Possibly worse…” Celestia once again looked back towards the castle.
“Why don’t we just get them sleepy with one of Zecora’s potions? Maybe we can sneak them in a treat!” Pinkie voiced her opinion.
“You know… that might not be a bad idea. If they all go to sleep, we can detain them and rescue our friends.” Celestia nodded back to Pinkie Pie.
Then, another voice came out from their left side. It held the tone of age and discipline behind it, but the voice came from a taller source than the ponies.
“I wouldn’t try that. They would eat one at a time, and if one of them began to feel a little off, something bad’s gonna happen.”
The ponies and dragon turned to their side to lay eyes on four tall creatures clad in black and holding oddly long devices in their arms. The only thing similar that they could compare them to was a minotaur, but with a more slender and balanced construction of their body. That, and their head looked nothing like a bull.
“What… who are you…? And what are you doing here?” Celestia looked at the creatures presented in front of her, “You look… familiar…”
Clark looked back to Ding, “We do? Well, then you must be familiar with us. Allow me to introduce myself for the ladies who aren’t, though.”
The ponies looked at each other as Clark began to speak.
“My name is John Clark, head of Rainbow Team, a multinational counter-terrorist force that deals with the very situations that you all have found yourselves unfortunately a part of. To my left is Domingo ‘Ding’ Chavez, my second in command. To my right is Mike Baker, callsign: Thatcher. The scraggly old man with us is Dmitry Popov, an ‘acquaintance’ of ours.” Clark pointed back to Popov who was looking rather unamused.
“Counter-terrorist…?” Celestia asked.
“Yes, your highness. We’re the best of the best, and we would like to offer our full assistance.” Ding remembered that the tall white one with the eternally flowing mane was referred to as their leader.
“We have a common enemy, and we can identify the organization that these ‘stallions’ that have taken your friend are affiliated with.” Thatcher nodded, taking off his gas mask.
“You can?! Who are these stallions, and what exactly do they want-” Celestia jumped at the opportunity for answers, until the guard captain suddenly bolted from where he was being tended to by the other guardsponies and Fluttershy.
“Your highness! Those were the same kind of weapons that killed my squad members! They’re with the hostage takers!”
Suddenly, the MP5 Clark was holding was forcefully slammed to the ground by an aura of golden magic, and his hands were forced behind his back. Instantly, the others reacted by pulling up their own weapons, lining up their lasers with Celestia’s head.
“You monsters! Do you know what kind of horror you have inflicted on this kingdom with those weapons?!” Celestia angrily shouted as her magic kept Clark restrained.
“Gah! Those weapons were stolen!” Clark shouted back, “We have a common enemy, and that is the White Mask terrorists!”
Celestia narrowed her eyes as she tightened the grip behind Clark’s hands behind his back, “White Masks? What are you going on about?”
“Lower your weapons, men! That’s an order!” Clark commanded back, getting Ding and Thatcher to point their guns down.
“Give me those weapons.” Celestia demanded, to which Clark nodded. If things got more ugly, their sidearms would be more than enough to fend them off. A golden aura came over the two MP5s and the AR33. Levitating towards Celestia, she took up Ding’s submachine gun and ended up ejecting the magazine from it, as she ran her magic along the side of the gun and ended up hitting the magazine release.
Inside the magazine were little tiny casings that held a shiny metal inside.
“So… these weapons fire these tiny things out?” Celestia examined as Ember and the rest of the Elements of Harmony stood back.
“Yeah. They do.”
She looked back at the group, “Such terrifying technology. Who would ever need anything like this?”
“Your highness, we can’t be at each other’s throats like this. If you want to see ‘Twilight’ again, then you need to let us help.” Clark explained.
“How do you know about Twilight?” she asked.
“We’ve been… eavesdropping. With a drone.” Clark admitted.
Celestia looked back behind her. Apparently, the rustling in the grass she had heard before wasn’t from a mouse or a squirrel, but a tiny black robot with two wheels for propulsion.
“How rude…” she narrowed her eyes.
“Look, we’ve been tracking the whereabouts of the White Masks and… they’ve ended up here. We come from a different place. A very far and different place.” Clark went on.
“I’ve never seen anything like you, before.” Celestia put the guns on the grass in front of her.
“That’s because… we come from another world. Or dimension. It’s just as new to us as it must be for you-”
“I understand.”
Celestia looked back towards Clark, “You’re humans, but apparently a different kind than what I’m familiar with. Does your skin tone differ at all?”
“Some more pale, some darker. Not really going into the red-yellow-blue spectrum.” this time, Thatcher spoke.
“Please, we can’t be turning on each other while those stallions still have your friends. We assess and handle these situations. It’s what we’re trained for, and it’s what we’re the best at. We have a common enemy, so we need to work together to make sure everyone returns to their family and friends safely.” Ding spoke, emphasising a secure tone in his voice.
Celestia looked down at Clark, who was on his knees and with his hands behind his back.
“I…”
Applejack came back up to her and looked up, wanting to speak to the princess.
“Princess Celestia, with all due respect, ah’ think you can trust them. They mean well, and I can tell it in their voice. They want to help, and they’re bein’ sincere about it.”, the Element of Honesty voiced her thoughts, “Ah’ don’t know what else we can do, but these ‘humans’ might be able to help us. In return, ah’ think we should help them.”
The leader of the ponies looked back to Clark, and released the magic around his hands. Getting back up slowly, Clark nodded.
“I’m very thankful that you can trust us. I know this must all be incredibly harrowing and terrifying for all of you, but if we can work together, then it will all turn out to be a happy ending.” Clark addressed each and every pony in front of him.
“Nice going, Mr. C.” Ding whispered.
“Well, now that that’s settled, I think it’s time for you three to start your job.” Popov nodded back to them.
“Actually, we got something for you to do, buddy.” Thatcher put his hand on his shoulder, stopping Popov from leaving so soon.
“And what’s that?”
“You’re coming out with me to guard the portal. I’ll be calling for other operators to get here. You’re going to get your private airline to taxi as many operators as we need.” Thatcher explained.
Popov thought about all of the costs regarding jet fuel and travel, as well as paying extra to ship ‘questionable goods’. He looked back at Thatcher and gave a reluctant smile.
“Of course. Of course.”
The group had moved past a hill that overlooked Ponyville so a wandering eye coming from the castle wouldn’t catch the presence of humans in a world full of ponies. Clark had instructed exactly who he wanted here up and front to Thatcher, who exited out the portal to communicate back to headquarters.
“Alright, first thing’s first. Who do we know is in that structure?” Clark asked his first question.
“At the moment, Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike are known to be inside the castle. I don’t know of any others that could be held in there.” Celestia answered back.
Clark nodded, “Okay, do we have any blueprints or construction plans of the castle? Architectural plans would do as well.”
The other four ponies looked at each other sheepishly, and returned their attention to Clark.
“Well… not really.” Rarity rubbed the back of her head.
“What? Why not? A building to be constructed of that size has to have a ton of-”
“Nope! It came right out of the ground when we defeated Tirek!” Pinkie interrupted Ding. She immediately apologised with a, “Sorry.”
Clark looked back, dumbfounded, “It came out of the ground.”
The four ponies nodded, even Fluttershy who was tending to the guard had overheard and said a barely audible, “Yes.”
Rainbow Six and Five breathed a heavy sigh.
“Alright, we’re going to need to work on that later. I’m inferring that the ponies inside haven’t been held for very long, right?” Ding asked his question.
“Yes, just this afternoon, we evacuated Ponyville and an hour later, I got the letter of demands.” Celestia spoke.
“What are their demands?”
“They want me to step down as leader, recognise the Everfree Forest as impassible land, and probably take Twilight with them as well…” Celestia shivered at the last thought.
“Typical.” Ding remarked.
“Don’t worry. None of that is going to happen.” Clark reassured, “We still have a lot more things to plan about in the meantime.”
“Right, what else do you need to know?”
Clark thought a bit, before looking back towards the princess before them, “Do you have an estimate on how many hostiles have taken hostages in that castle?”
Celestia shook her head, “I don’t know. The guard claimed that at least three attacked his squad when he tried to get his squad closer to the castle.”
“Bad choice. You never want to make any aggressive actions so early on, or you might risk a hostage dieing.”
At this, Celestia’s eyes narrowed, “Really? Now how was I supposed to know something like that?”
“Okay, three ponies. That’s a start, but there has to be more. What kind of weapons were they wielding?” Clark inquired.
“Probably the same you humans have.”
“There are hundreds, if not thousands of different guns of fair size.” Ding voiced himself, “Does anyone recall a shape or anything like that? How fast did you hear those ‘banging’ noises?”
“From where I could hear them, I heard short, rapid bursts of them, and then one of them just went on and on and didn’t stop until a long time.” Celestia remembered the sounds echoing from Ponyville.
Ding nodded, “Automatics and quite possibly a machine gun. Damn, these ponies are sure armed to the teeth.”
“No offense, but… how are you four going to stop this whole situation? The guy with the grey hair who left us doesn’t seem to be much of an energetic fellow…” Dragonlord Ember looked over the humans.
“That’s why we’re calling in more operators. They’re specially trained to deal with different scenarios, so that’s why we’re calling in all available ones.” Clark explained.
“Huh. Alright.” Ember nodded back, “That sounds like a plan.”
Then, another letter formed out of fire in front of Celestia.
“What the- how did that-” Ding pointed at the letter.
“Oh, you’re not very familiar with magic, that’s right. You see, dragons can bind a receiver that they can deliver letters to. How they do this is by incinerating the letter with fire, allowing the ashes to be coated in magic and be carried to the receiver. That’s how the ‘terrorists’ are communicating with us, using Spike as a mailbox…” Ember growled the last bit of the sentence, clearly furious at these ponies for using Spike as a tool.
“What does the letter say?” Ding asked.
“They’re hungry, and they want to eat.” Celestia told them.
“Well, give them some food. Show them you care. Don’t give them crap like prison rations, or they’ll get more and more angry. We want to keep them calm.” Clark pointed out.
Then, Celestia looked back towards Pinkie Pie.
“Pinkie, I want you to bake some cookies for Twilight, her friends, and… the stallions as well.”
Hearing the conversation of keeping everyone happy for their own safety, even the hostage takers, she agreed with a very cheerful, “Okie-dokie-loki!”
Ding chuckled, “At least someone’s remaining cheerful through this whole ordeal.”
“Okay, how many of your operators am I going to ferry? The plane can only hold up to five if you include all the gear that they’ll have to travel with.” Popov got his phone ready.
“Five. Seems to be the magic number today. Five through the portal, five in the plane.” Thatcher began to contact the headquarters via his earpiece.
Meanwhile, Popov began to talk on the phone.
“Okay, I need you to make more trips for me… yes, of course I’ll pay for the fuel as well… and yes, they will be carrying more ‘questionable goods’, which I’ll be paying you directly for… no, no connections, directly as close to the airstrip you landed on before… I don’t give a shit if it’s an abandoned Russian military runway! Do you want a quarter of a million or not?!” Popov paced back and forth, sweat beading from his forehead.
“Okay, these are going to be the operators I need first. Get IQ, Pulse, Glaz, Mute, and Doc here immediately. They will be rendezvousing with a private jet that will take them to the specified coordinates. This order is coming directly from Rainbow Six Actual.” Thatcher got his communications through without much of a hitch, “Good, and tell them to not drink on the flight.”
Popov shook his head.
“Actually, if they’re going to believe the camera footage we’re going to show them of these ponies, they’re probably going to have to be wasted as fuck.” Popov laughed a tiny bit, “Fucking talking candy-colored horses… with guns.”