X-COM: Friendship is Magic

by ChaserGrey

We've Got Fun and Games (Revised & Updated)

"Aw, come on Twilight! Tonight I'm trying out my extra-special experimental carrot cupcakes and I need someone to test them out on."

"Uh…sorry Pinkie. But I can't." Twilight Sparkle felt a little bad about lying to her friend, but the last time she'd volunteered to taste one of Pinkie Pie's "experiments" it hadn't ended well. "Besides, I thought rabbits like carrots. Shouldn't you be trying them out on Angel and his friends?"

Pinkie's face lit up. "Oh hey, great idea!" Then she let her head droop. "Oh, but Fluttershy said I'm not allowed to test things out on her friends anymore. Somethin' about unethical experimentation and crimes against ponydom."

"Uh…huh." Should have counted on that. "Well, Spike and I-" she nudged the dragon walking alongside her- "have a report due for Princess Celestia."

"That figures. Twilight Sparkle, you're probably the only princess in the whole wide world who still gets homework!"

Twilight shook her head. "No, this is different. Ponies have been disappearing from all over Equestria in the past couple weeks, and the Princess wants me to see if anything like it has ever been recorded. There have been all kinds of other phenomena going along with it- strange noises, lights in the sky-"

"Uh." Pinkie raised an eyebrow, craning her neck to look past her friend. "You mean...kinda like those?" Twilight frowned. At first all she could hear was the normal sounds of a pleasant Ponyville day- wind in the trees, birds singing- but then she heard a low, throbbing hum coming from the edge of town. She whirled around, and saw a group of strange blue lights descending from the sky towards the edge of town.

"They're here! Spike, get a letter off to the Princess!"

"Right!" Spike took off for the library at a dead run. When Twilight turned back to Pinky, she saw the other mare was smiling.

"Don't worry Twilight. I have a plan for just this sort of situation!"

"And that is?"

Pinky jumped into the air, all four hooves flailing as she shouted. "PANIC!" In an instant she was gone in a cloud of dust, heading in the direction of the town's market screaming something about "Everypony for herself!"

"Wait, Pinkie!" Twilight ran after her friend, but just then a giant screaming sound filled the air, like a griffon's cry magnified a thousand times over. Twilight threw herself to the ground as wind stronger than a rainstorm's threw up the dust around her and the noise got louder, crossing her hooves over her head before sneaking a look with one eye. Something else was landing next to her, vaguely bird-shaped with silver skin and making the most terrible racket Twilight had ever heard. Some kind of ramp banged down from the back and four gleaming two-legged figures raced out, three times the height of a pony and covered from head to toe in gleaming metal armor. A fifth figure followed, a skeletal giant made of metal with arms wider than the gorilla who had once come as an ambassador to Princess Celestia's court. The pitch of the screaming increased and the bird-thing started to lift off, climbing back up into the sky.

"Okay, people!" That came from one of the bipeds, in a voice that could somehow yell and be completely calm at the same time. "Fan out, check for survivors, shoot any hostiles you see. You know the drill!"

"Uh, Boss?" That was from the giant, his voice somehow harsh "How do we know what's hostile?"

The one they'd called "Boss" looked around at the scene for a moment, then shrugged. "From what we've seen so far? If you've ever seen it before in your life, shoot it. Otherwise, hold off." It took Twilight's brain a moment to realize something else was strange about the scene. She could understand the metal creatures' language just as easily as Standard Equestrian. It didn't seem possible, since they looked like nothing she'd ever seen or heard of in Equestria.

Equestria...that's it! The metal creatures were shaped like the humans she'd lived among briefly during her adventure with Sunset Shimmer, although they looked taller and much heavier. Could they be related? And if their language was enough like humans' for her to understand it, was it possible they could understand her?"

"Um. Excuse me?" Boss wheeled around, the metal tube he held in his hands pointed at her, then relaxed and pointed the end of it up at the sky. "Who are you? And what's going on here?"

***

It could talk. Well, of course the purple unicorn could talk. Colonel McKay wasn't sure why he'd expected anything else, really.

"My name is Col- my name is Alex." Best to keep to basics for now. "As for what's going on here, I wish I knew. But those things over there-" he pointed one hand towards the outskirts of Ponyville, where green lights were starting to flash and buildings beginning to burst into flame, "-they're our enemies. We're going to make sure nobody gets hurt and make them go away. Don't worry, you're safe Miss-"

"Twilight Sparkle. And I don't care about being safe."

Alex leaned down towards her, pulling his helmet off. Maybe she'd be less frightened if his voice wasn't coming through the suit speakers. "Well, Twilight, maybe you should be. We're going to be fighting down there, and that's no place for-"

"I'm not a foal!" Twilight leaned up at him, and Alex was surprised to feel himself take a step back. Twilight might come up to his knee and sound like a twelve year old, but there was determination in her voice that made Alex rapidly revise his initial estimates of her. This was no child. "I'm coming with you. I need to-" she came to an abrupt stop, her eyes going wide. "You...you're human!"

***

Twilight's irritation at Alex's tone disappeared as he took his helmet off. The head underneath looked almost comically small against the wide shoulders of the armor he wore, but it was without a doubt one of the same creatures she'd encountered during her mission on the other world. She managed- barely- to stifle the flood of questions that began to race through her mind. Screams and a menacing sort of sizzling zip were starting to sound from the edge of Ponyville, and as Twilight watched some kind of glowing green fire shot towards them. It struck a mature tree a few feet from them, and with a crack as loud as thunder the tree blew apart, leaving only a pony-high stump and smoldering chunks of wood. This wasn't the time to indulge her curiosity.

Instead she leaned up towards Alex. "Can you stop this?" The human looked past her for a moment, eyes defocusing as he took in the chaos that was starting to spread over Ponyville's outskirts. Then he nodded.

"Yes."

"Good." Twilight turned towards the fighting, glaring at Alex over her shoulder. "Then follow me. This is my town, and I'd rather it didn't end up looking like that." She lifted a hoof at the tree stump, now wreathed in smoke as the burning splinters around it set the grass afire. He watched her go for a moment, then shook his head and pulled his helmet back on as he turned to his squad.

"Welp. You heard the lady." Captain Li Ming Xu cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow.

"We taking orders from a purple horse now, Boss?"

"She knows friend from foe, Smash. That's better than we were doing five minutes ago. Now c'mon." Alex gestured at the flashing lights ahead. "We're still on company time."

***

Alex sprinted down towards the fires, rifle snapped up and sensors on alert. Plasma bolts were still coming from the direction of the grounded UFO, but still no sign of the shooters. One part of his mind ticked off Xu and Hawkins spreading out to cover the flanks as they passed the first group of buildings, dodging their way through terrified ponies running in the other direction. Then he was past the building and behind a tree trunk, already burned to charcoal from an earlier plasma bolt. Still, it was cover, and it gave him a look at the scene below.

The half-dozen Floaters and Sectoids in front of them were spread out over a wide front, burning down any ponies that tried to flee from the matte black abduction cubes that had dropped into the middle of town. The ground was already littered with the outlines of ponies encased in slimy green cocoons, and Alex's stomach tightened involuntarily at the sight. For an instant he wasn't there, looking down at this strange new battlefield. He was back in the alien base on Earth, the first time they'd cleared one of those labs, finding the tanks full of abductees, the pinned-open bodies of surgical test subjects, the red-pink paste that leaked from the ruptured alien food containers-

No, dammit! Alex shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and forcing himself to concentrate on the present. The alien formation was well-suited for catching as many fleeing ponies as they could, but it also meant the invaders were too far apart to support each other. They weren't expecting opposition, which meant success lay in killing them before they realized there was any. After a moment, Alex keyed his com.

"Smash, Magnet, go wide. Get their flankers then start rolling up the center." Xu and Captain Jessica Hawkins took off in opposite directions, their suits glinting silver in the firelight. "Hinge and I have the center." Doyle nodded and slapped the loader on his particle cannon, lighting his MEC's arm with a pale blue glow. "Floaters will probably try to go high and flank us. Horseman-" Alex turned and grinned at Captain Lazaro "-when they do, get me some heads. Check your targets and do not use explosives without permission. Let's not have our first impression here be lots of collateral damage." Clicks from the comm system as the squad acknowledged, and a quick glance up at his HUD confirmed that Xu and Hawkins were in position. "X-COM! Ready...steady...GO!"

The early days of the Long War had been brutal for X-COM. Abduction forces like this one had cut a swath through the world's best soldiers, sending Skyrangers back half-empty and adding more and more names to the Memorial Wall. A few of those soldiers had survived and learned how to fight a merciless enemy. Strike One consisted of five such survivors, equipped with the best weapons and gear Earth had developed during the war. And within thirty seconds, they showed just how far they'd come. Green plasma scythed out from the human positions, killing most of the abduction party before they realized anything had gone wrong. One Floater tried to drop in behind them, only for Lazaro to take its head off with a single neatly placed shot. Its partner, slightly smarter, dropped down behind a ridgeline, and Alex frowned. The book said fix and flank, but that might give it time to get away with information or abductees. So-

Before he quite realized what he was doing Alex was on his feet, pounding up to the ridgeline and dropping down the other side. His position covered him perfectly from the Floater, and a single shot sent it crumpled to the deck in an orange fireball-

And, unfortunately, did very little about the extra trio of Sectoids who'd been hiding a bit further back. They dove into cover, weapons coming out, and Alex's position against the side of the ridge gave him no cover from that direction. The muzzle of the first one's pistol tracked in on him, glowing green...

A purple glow surrounded the aliens' weapons, jerking their muzzles to the side. The shots went wild, glassing the ground around him but leaving Alex unharmed. For a second, he just gaped in disbelief. He'd heard about missing a ninety-percent shot, but this… Then he bared his teeth.

"My turn." His rifle snapped up and picked off one, as his squad reached the top of the ridgeline and opened fire. Seconds later, another alien was dead and the last was running empty-handed back for the ship.

"Boss, do we follow?" Doyle was still firing his particle cannon, picking up the pace as the alien drew away from everypony.

"Negative." Alex picked himself up off the ground, turning back to face his squad. "I'm not doing anything else until we figure out what's going on here."

"Indeed." Alex started and whirled around. Dammit, there hadn't been anything there thirty seconds ago. It wasn't fair that there could suddenly be some kind of flying chariot with a pair of *glowing* unicorns in it, flanked by a long line of stern-faced ponies in golden armor. Alex opened his mouth to demand an explanation, then caught the expression the bigger unicorn, pure white with a rainbow mane, was wearing. Then he was reduced to hoping that look wasn't directed at *him*.

Princess Celestia, absolute ruler of Equestria, narrowed her eyes. "We would, very much, like an explanation for today's events."

The look on her face told Alex that he had better start talking very, very fast.

Author's Note:

Last revision, I promise. But I needed a MEC trooper.

Comments

[ShadeJak]

Ethereal Leader: "Behold, the next intriguing discovery by the Ethereal Ones for the Gift... found in a race evolved from a docile species which harnessed it in three profound ways... yet still, a disappointment as they were restrained by the conviction that the Gift's fullest potential is not harnessed by advancement and evolution, but by a social bonding ritual they called 'friendship'"

[the one guy on the left]

NO! NO RETREAT! NO PRISIONER!

[Just_A_Nopony]

You should add the Enemy Within DLC bits; like AJ becoming a MECtrooper, and Rainbow getting gene modded

[Alphanian]

heheh please dont make the ponies OP, as I see that way too much. Good chapter though and heh...celestia is such a bitch

[ChaserGrey]

Naw, the OC tag is for the X-COM troopers, who are going to be a major part of the story. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure they won't be showing up in any future FiM episodes.

[Clicker]

3677012 Are they ponyified?

[ChaserGrey]

3678313 That wasn't my intention. Is there a different tag I should use?

[Clicker]

3678331 No, I just don't like ponyfied humans, I will read it latter.

[ChaserGrey]

3678339 You're safe then.

[Arzoo]

3678331

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you just don't use a tag for the humans. The "Human" descriptor for the story is enough. They're considered distinct enough that they aren't treated as normal OCs.

[Clicker]

3678343 When you reach 10,000 words I will give it a read.

[Clicker]

3689325 You need the tag if being human will influence the story.

[Earthpatriot117]

I love mec's!!!!!!!!!
This story sounds awesome!!!!
When next chapter?

[I_am_catkid]

Moar