SEALs & Ponies)

LCpl. Kevin Brooke
2nd Battalion 1st Marines
Canterlot Castle, August 27th Day 5 09:03:16 AM

Corporal Carter turns off his radio after talking to the USS Anchorage, and packs up all his equipment into his MOLLE backpack.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he explains as he struggles to put on his backpack on him. “All commanding officers are on their way as of now. We just need to keep our radios active until they call us.”

“How far are they away?” Cutup asks clipping on his ballistic vest.

“Don’t know. Judging by how far we are from our signal to them, it’ll be at least four hours or less.”

“Okay, we’ll have to ask the princess where our bird can land.” I count out my supply load to make sure I have everything. Eighteen magazines in total with two empty, six pistol magazines, ten HE rounds, twenty-four shotgun rounds, four frags, two flashbangs, and two smoke grenades each a different color. All that totals up my load out, two-day and regular supply.

Before everyone else is ready, the door is knocked three times. We all stand there for a moment, staring at each other of who will answer.

“I got it,” Cutup says with a slight annoyed tone, getting up from his chair and approaches the door.

When he opens the door, the Navy SEAL blinks a few times to see six colorful ponies and a reptile grouped together in front. All of them have a nervous look, except for the pink one, who has a chimed smile and seems to almost struggle to keep itself on the ground due to a large amount of balloons tied to its waist.

“Um, can I help you?” Cutup asks.

“Um, w-well, good morning,” the purple unicorn introduces. “Um, I-I’m Twilight Sparkle. This is Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Spike.”

“I’m a dragon, just to let you know,” Spike points out, causing the SEAL to arch an eyebrow at the small reptile.

“Name’s Cutup. I’m guessing you’re the princess’ tour guides or something?”

“Uh, um… well, technically, I’m Princess Celestia’s personal student, and uh, we’ll be accompanying you uh… humans… for the day.” Twilight and her friends smile nervously, obviously not amusing to the Navy SEAL, who stands in the doorway with a bored look in his eyes.

“ ‘Ey, Cutup!” Honeydew calls from behind. “Who’s at the door?”

“The princess’ friends,” Cutup turns around, then back at the mares. “One moment, please.”

“O-oh please, go ahead,” Twilight offers still showing her nervous smile. Cutup walks back inside, allowing the mares to have a peak inside the room.

“I have a bad feeling ‘bout this,” Rainbow whispers.

“Give it a moment,” Rarity replies back.

After a moment of chatting with the rest of the men, Cutup turns around back to the mares, and waves his entire arm for them to come in.

“Come on in." Twilight’s eyes glistens and nearly rushes inside, while the rest of her friends nervously enter, except for Pinkie who happily bounces in.

I stare at the small group I recognize as the Elements of Harmony enter as I start packing up my ammo supply in my ILBE. One of them struggles to pull in a cluster of balloons until she finally manages to bring them in after several yanks.

“Welcome ponies,” Michaels introduces and walks up to the group.

“Um, uh, hi,” Twilight timidly responds.

“Hey, no need to be scared. We made an agreement, correct?” Michaels kneels down in front of the lavender unicorn.

“W-well, that is true.” Michaels smiles and pats Twilight lightly, causing her to blush lightly, before getting back up and walk back to me.

“What are your names?” Honeydew asks with a greeting smile.

“O-oh, I’m Twilight. This is Spike, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie.”

“Well, nice to meet you young ladies. My name is Honeydew, and the buddy who answered the door is Cutup.” Cutup waves from his chair. Looking at the group, I notice Rarity starts to blush, probably from Honeydew’s gratitude. Carter gets up from his seat and walks to the mares.

“Nice to meet you, name’s Carter. That’s Brooke over there, and you probably know the other fella’ next to him, right?” I notice at least three of the mares’ eyes widen in shock when Carter mentioned my name.

“Oh, um, yeah, hehe,” Twilight chuckles nervously scratching the back of her head, then turns to Michaels and I. “Um, n-nice to meet you, M-Mister Brooke.” I stare at the mares and reptile offering me big smiles, utterly confused as to why.

“Oh, don’t worry ladies,” Michaels says wrapping an arm over my shoulders. “My brother here is fine as long as no one here hurts me.” Leaning away from him, I turn my head to Michaels with a shocked and confused face.

“Wait, what?” I ask. “What did you tell them?”

“Um, some things about how, uh, you might go on a rampage if anyone here hurts me.” Michaels sentence was rather quick when he spoke. He gives me a nervous smile while scratching his neck with a finger, leaving me confused and annoyed to why my friend would do that during his so-called ‘questioning’.

“Wh-what?! I’m not like that!” I hear several giggles emerging from the mares as well as from the rest of our guys. I can feel my cheeks starting to heat up, a sign of being embarrassed, something that gives me a nostalgic feeling back in high school.

We all walk down the large hallway, with Twilight, Applejack and Rainbow Dash leading up front, while Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Spike and Fluttershy trail behind, Pinkie happily bouncing about. It slightly annoys me.

“So,” Rarity breaks the silence. “Um, mind if I ask what clothing you are wearing?” Her voice has a hint of disgust in it.

“MARPAT woodland camouflage combat uniforms is what the marines wear,” Honeydew explains. “Cutup and I also wear the same type, but it’s a bit different compared to theirs.” He leans in closer to the white mare and whispers. “It’s better and more comfortable.” Carter snarls under his own breath after easily hearing the SEAL. All of us did.

“Well, I am a bit interested of how you manage to get these tiny colored squares—”

“Ooh! Look at those tiny squares!” Pinkie cuts Rarity off in a cuddly tone, inspecting rather closely at the SEAL’s urban camouflage uniform.

“It’s called digital pattern,” Honeydew corrects the two mares.

“Digital?” Twilight turns her head, now a little curious about that word.

“Yeah. These tiny squares if you look closely, are actually pixelated.” Honeydew explains more about our uniforms, from our woodland to our desert. Apparently, this intrigued Rarity more than Twilight. More questions emerge from Twilight about our own gear, but we keep it as simple as possible to not lead the ponies into a whirlpool of confusion.

“Well, here we are,” Twilight finalizes as we approach a rather large door, but not as large as the one that leads to the main throne room. The door is a large white with gold rims. Somehow, there’s no door handle. With her own two hooves, Twilight pushes the door open, and we enter into a large dining room. Luckily, I kept my lightweight helmet strapped on; otherwise my jaw would have hit the floor. In the center of the long room, is a dining table, roughly over ten meters long and a little over a meter wide. Four medium-sized chandeliers hang from the ceiling, with one larger one in the center a couple meters above the table. Michaels whistles at the sight as we walk further in. I look around the room, noticing four ponies dressed as maids on each side of the large table. All of them put on a shocked face the moment they spot us.

“Now, this is interesting,” Cutup comments quietly as we move to our own seats. The mares and reptile sit on one side of the table, while we sit on the opposite side. We all remove our backpacks and settle them next to us along with our guns afterwards. Then, we all sit in silence as the maids just stare at us with a look of fear. Out of respect, I remove my helmet and place it in front of the plate at an angle so I will be able to see the mares. The rest of the men did the same.

“S-so,” Twilight begins. “Um, now that we, um, you know… come to an agreement…”

“Let’s have a welcoming party!” Pinkie shouts waving her hooves in the air.

“Um, maybe later, sugarcube,” Applejack suggests with a crooked smile.

“Aw! I wanna introduce our new friends a warm welcoming.”

“Um, we can do that some other time, Miss…?” Carter says, but stops when he forgot the pink pony’s name.

“Pinkie Pie! I’m everypony’s friend! I host a lot of parties as well, and they’re all fun!”

“Interesting...”

“I hope it’s not one of those ridiculous college parties,” Michaels says with an annoyed tone.

“Oh no, silly!” Pinkie chuckles. “It’s where all the ponies gather and just have fun! Lots of balloons, cake, pastries, fun… cake, balloons, and fun! Especially the cake and fun!” I can’t help but smile a little at the pink mare’s exaggerated explanation. She seems so lively every time, and does have a friendly and funny voice. “What about you, uh… humans?” I suddenly feel myself lean back, and looking at my teammates who all does the same.

“W-well,” Cutup begins scratching his head. “What we do, isn’t really called ‘fun’.”

“O-oh.” Pinkie’s expression suddenly changes to concern, but still keeps her smile. “Then what is it called?”

“Duty, sometimes survival, honor, sacrifice. I don’t know what our friend Michaels told you, but… we’re soldiers.” I take a glance at the rest of the mares; all of them, including the small reptile, have slightly shocked faces.

“Y-yes,” Twilight replies. “Your friend has told us a few things, but kept a lot of it secret.”

“Well, since you know a few things about us, what about you?”

“Sorry?”

“Why don’t you tell us about yourselves? Each of you.”

“And so there I was, watching Rarity fall along with the Wonderbolts, and I swoop down with all my might, and ‘boom’!” Rainbow Dash smacks her hooves together in one loud clap, startling Fluttershy who is minding her own business. The five of us listen as to what happened next to Rainbow’s somewhat over exaggerated story of her in this sky city called Cloudsdale for the ‘Best Young Flyer Competition’. “I did it! The sonic rainboom! Everypony was like, ‘wooah!’ I swooped down and caught all four of them just a hoof from the ground, with Rarity screaming for her life!”

“I wasn’t like that!” Rarity complains.

“Shh!” Pinkie hushes the white mare. “You’re ruining the best moment!”

“Yeah, so everypony was like, ‘yeah! Go Rainbow! Woo!’” Rainbow resumes, mimicking the cheers of her fans. “Best moment of my life! I even get to fly with the Wonderbolts for a whole day!”

I take my last bite of my breakfast; a plate of pancakes, eggs, and grilled vegetables. Best meal I ever had since going out to a lot of these fancy restaurants with my parents. Usually, since we are in a world filled with ponies, I would think that the only things they would eat are hay, fruits and vegetables. Apparently, Twilight and Pinkie Pie explains they eat a lot of other things like pastries and vegetarian meals much like our own.

“So, let me get this straight,” Carter points out. “You go so fast at the point of Mach speed, you make a sonic boom?”

“Not ‘just’ a sonic boom, a sonic rainboom!” Rainbow corrects, putting much emphasis on the ‘sonic rainboom’ part.

“Brooke, any Pegasus you know back in school that can do that?” Carter asks turning to me. I shake my head with my mouth full. He then turns to Fluttershy who is hiding half of her face behind her mane. “What about you?” The butter-colored Pegasus shoots straight up in her seat with a small squeak in her voice. She suddenly finds herself in the center of our attention.

“We-well, I uh… um,” she begins, stuttering on her own words as she figures out what to say.

“Fluttershy isn’t exactly an athletic pony like me,” Rainbow explains. “She’s more of a caretaker.”

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Carter replies nodding his head. “She somewhat reminds us of our friend, Pelayo.”

“Another of your, uh… what was is again?” Twilight asks rubbing her chin, then digs around in her saddlebag.

“A marine. He’s a private, fragile like a child, but damn, he is sure one marine you don’t wanna mess with.”

“Hey, just like Fluttershy and her stare!” Pinkie compares. Flustering red in embarrassment, Fluttershy hides underneath the tablecloth. Michaels, Honeydew and I start giggling from the mares’ remarks about their friends, reminds me how Michaels and I did it during our first year in college before we joined the Marine Corps.

*****

“So, you and your kind run only on electricity and advanced technology?” Princess Luna asks curiously, as she and First Sergeant Keane strut down the hallway continuing their conversation.

“That’s correct,” Keane nods.

“Just… how advanced may I ask?”

“A lot of advanced computers, small robots, phones, basically we’re entering the digital age. We even have a brand new ship, most advanced piece of equipment ever done. Almost everything on there is digital.”

“Interesting…” Luna’s face becomes more eager to find out more about his species, but fights off to keep her calm until her sister shows up.

“Mind if I ask something?” Luna snaps her mind back to reality after a moment of imagining a world where magic is replaced with metal contraptions and electricity flying everywhere.

“O-oh, of course.”

“Is there any space that could hold two large objects, about sixty feet in length and ninety feet in width each?” The princess stops in her tracks, staring at the marine with a profound look of confusion.

“Um, we do have the Royal Garden, but, I don’t think it is large enough to handle the objects by your description. Though, we could take it outside of the castle walls. May I ask what are these objects?”

“They’re our air transportation.”

“Ah, yes, you made a brief explanation about them.” The two resume on their walk down the hallway. “Oh, I almost forgot. It is for your leaders and our last guard to show up, correct?” Keane nods his head.

“Yes. We just need a location for them to land.”

“I see. So… how long will it take for them to arrive?”

“Probably more than a few hours in my guess.”

“Very well, then.” Luna takes a glance down at Keane’s M249 SAW, with some written text from white paint on the body and the stock. Feeling almost like her sister, looking at this so-called ‘weapon’ the marine is carrying gives her goose bumps when she remembers what it does back at the beach. Still, a lot of questions swarm around her head all at once the more she scans the light machine gun. “Doesn’t carrying that thing make you tired?”

“Sorry?” Keane turns his head to the princess.

“What you are holding in your arms. Isn’t it heavy?”

“It is. But I’ve kept it ever since I was first deployed about a year ago. I was a sergeant back then as a machine gunner, with enough experience as my squad leader to keep my boys alive. Now, this weapon is a part of me. Kept it ever since.”

“Hmm, you must have been a great leader, then.” Keane sighs.

“Not really.”

Silence ensues on both the marine and night princess as they continue down the hallway, where Keane spots several paintings and other masterpieces hanging on the wall to their left. The first piece of artwork catches the first sergeant’s attention; a painting of the sun and moon conjoined in the center, and two ponies circle around, one white with a pink mane, the other dark blue with a much lighter mane of the same color.

“That’s me,” Luna pronounces, pointing to the dark blue horse. It’s obvious to Keane it would be the princesses, but it’s a little troublesome for him to understand. “My sister raises the sun, and I raise the moon.” The marine darts his eyes to the princess with a baffled expression.

“W-wait, you raise the moon?”

“Of course. We use our powers to bring forth the day and night. You do not have that?”

“No. Scientifically, our moon orbits around our planet, while it orbits around our sun. It does that naturally.”

“Hmm, interesting.” The princess ponders at the scientific explanation, barely able to believe how their sun and moon are to move on their own. She wonders if their weather is also controlled ‘naturally’ as well.

The two take their time looking at the other artifacts and paintings. Luna mostly explaining the historical events as they pass by. Another painting takes the first sarge’s attention. The painting shows of a multi-mixed creature with each part of its body representing something different, flying through a dark cloudy sky over a burning ancient city.

“This here is Discord,” Luna explains again. “This was well over a thousand years ago, when the spirit of disharmony rained chaos and unrest over Canterlot.”

“Spirit of disharmony?” The princess nods.

“Yes, he is the one who despises harmony and peace.”

“I see. Where is he now?”

“Twilight and her friends defeated him with the Elements of Harmony. But just to be safe, we locked him in the archives.”

“Well, if this Discord fella’ were in our world, he would have a great time.” Princess Luna turns to the marine with a look of confusion and wants to ask him what he means, but the two were interrupted by the sound of clopping hooves resonating from around the corner a few meters ahead. A few seconds later, Princess Celestia comes around the corner with a pink pony with a multi-colored mane, a princess Keane recognizes as the crown easily gives it away.

“Oh, Luna. What a surprise to see you,” Celestia says. The other princess’ eyes seem to widen in surprise when she and the marine meet.

“Same to you, sister,” Luna replies. Celestia then turns to Keane.

“Mister Keane, this is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, wife of Captain of the Royal Guard, Shining Armor, and ruler of the Crystal Kingdom.”

“A pleasure to meet you ma’am,” Keane gives a quick bow.

“J-just call me Cadance,” the crystal princess pronounces nervously.

“O-of course.” Silence quickly settles on the small group. “Um, I would like to apologize for one of my marine’s actions against, um… your husband.”

“O-oh! Princess Celestia has explained about what had happened. Um, w-we would also like to apologize our actions against you as well.”

“I guess it makes us even, then.” Both Keane and Princess Cadance give each other a smile, the princess however, a little more nervous.

“So do you know when your leaders will arrive?” Celestia asks.

“I’m sure they will be here in a couple hours, ma’am. Princess Luna and I have been discussing where they will land. I’ll just have to inform my marines, that’s all.” Princess Cadance turns her head to Celestia with a slight shocked face.

“Very well. In the meantime, let’s discuss about it.”

*****

Pinkie Pie laughs so hard she bangs her hoof on the table after Michaels told her a short story how he managed to get himself stuck in the toilet stall while we were set sailing to Hawaii from San Diego, along with the rest of the mares who all just giggled out loud.

“It’s funny because he forgot he locked himself!” Pinkie chokes as she tries her best to settle her obnoxious laughter. I don’t blame her for laughing too hard. I remember that time when Michaels told me he tried to kick down the stall in a hurry to meet us for an exercise, but realized he had it on lock.

We exchange a lot of information between the ponies and us. With Twilight doing the most talking and note jotting, she tells us how the pony society works, almost similar to ours, except there is downgraded technology and magic. Putting that aside, each of the ponies talk about themselves and what they do. A lot of times, we sit back in confusion how they explain about the princesses raising the moon and sun, Pegasi controlling the weather, and a creature called a draconequus causing havoc across their town and they managed to turn him into stone with their Element artifacts.

Us, on the other hand, manage to put them in a state of shock and confusion as we tell them about ours; no magic but advanced technology, fast transportation, sources of power harvested naturally, corrupted governments, and about how our sun, moon, and weather work naturally.

“So, you don’t have anypony controlling the weather?” Rainbow asks with a surprised tone.

“Well, we have people that predict weather, and tell us through television or radio,” Honeydew asks finishing his third cup of coffee.

“What’s a tele—tele… those two things you said,” Pinkie asks giggling. “It sounds so fuzzy when you pronounce it, like soda pop on your tongue.” Before any of us could answer, a loud burst of crackling echoes around the room, startling some of the mares.

“Black— Bravo— this is White Kni— two. How co— over?”

“Wh-what was that?” Applejack asks.

“Hold on! Give me a moment,” Carter says, quickly lifting up his MOLLE backpack on to his lap, and takes out his laptop and equipment.

“Blackja— Bravo Two— is White Knight— two. How— over? I’m not— any sig—”

“One of our birds?” I ask.

“Wait, you have a pet bird?” Rarity asks slightly confused.

“No, it’s a little acronym we describe our air transportation.” I quickly glance at Twilight, who swiftly writes down more notes with her quill held in a lavender aurora. I turn back to Carter, who is finishing setting up his stuff while the radio continues to call out.

“Blackjack— one, this is White Knight—. How copy, over?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold on a minute, guys,” Carter mumbles. He plays around tuning his radio to the correct frequency. Slowly, we can hear their voices clearly. “Now watch this.”

“Blackjack Two-one, this is White Knight Three-two. Do you copy?” Carter grabs his radio after finally setting up his stuff.

“White Knight Three-two, this is Blackjack Bravo Two-one. We read you loud and clear, over.”

“How is talking into that box?” Rainbow Dash whispers to Pinkie Pie, who just shrugs in return.

“Two-one, we’re reading your signal. Be advised, we’re about twenty mike from your tracking location. Mark a beacon for our landing zone, over.”

“Roger, White Knight. We’ll inform when the beacon is placed. Blackjack Bravo out.” Carter turns off his equipment, but keeps his radio antenna positioned up high for him to make any more contact. I turn back to see the mares’ faces, and not to my surprise, they all have surprised faces on them.

“Wow,” Applejack says. “How’d ya’ do that? All I saw was some tiny metal things.”

“It’s called radios. Communication devices,” Carter explains, then turns to Honeydew. “We gotta’ inform First Sergeant about our birds coming in.”

“Don’t worry,” Twilight calls. “I got it covered.” All of us turn to Twilight writing on a sheet of paper. “Okay, what do you want to say?”

“Um, what exactly?”

“I’m writing a letter to your squad leader. What do you want to say?”

“How are you going to send that?”

“You’ll see.” Carter exchange glances at us before turning back to the lavender unicorn.

“Okay… First Sarge, we got a radio message from our bird. They’ll be here in twenty minutes. Meet us in the dining hall.” Twilight writes down what Carter said, the rolls up the paper.

“Spike.” The baby dragon leans to the side as Twilight tosses the rolled up paper, and breathes a green fire at it until it’s gone. All of us stare at it with a displeasing look.

“Yeah, nice joke there,” Carter comments with an uninterested look. Twilight looks at him confused.

“What do you mean?”

“’What do you mean?’ You let your dragon burn up the letter!”

“What? No. I sent it.” In a split second, the dragon burps out the rolled up paper in the same green fire, except the paper has a seal on it. Twilight unrolls the letter with her magic, and reads the contents. “’Be there in a second.’” I suddenly feel something moving behind, like the wind is winding around me. Before I know it, a flash of light passes by with an audible ‘poof’, followed by a ‘thud’. We all turn our heads to see Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, a pink horse with a multi-colored mane, and First Sergeant Keane groaning on the floor.

“How’d the hell did you do that?” Cutup asks, as we stare at the princesses for a moment while processing what just happened.

*****

“Come on, Banana Seed. It’s time to go home.”

“But, pops!” Banana Seed complains, but stops when Banana Peel starts speaking again.

“Come on, now. We already did our part in helping them. They don’t need us now, and we won’t interfere anymore. You know what Mister Brooke said.”

“I know. But I just wanna be like them so bad! They look so awesome!” Banana Peel walks along one of the streets of Ponyville, pulling the empty cart while his grandson rides on top.

“Banana Seed, you’ll understand when you get to my age. You don’t always get what you want. And if you want to do what your heart tells you, you do it. Just as long as your family appreciates it.”

“Okay, pops.” Seed’s ears lower, as the colt feels disappointed he was unable to tag along with the marines on their adventurous mission. But, he hates to admit, Mister Carter was right. This secret mission was for those who are trained, and Banana Seed didn’t know a clue about being a marine. The only thing he knows is that they carry a lot of heavy stuff and look cool.

“How about this,” Banana Peel suggests turning his head to his grandson. “Since Mister Carter, or Brooke, told you were a brave little marine, how ‘bout we get a treat from the Sugarcube Corner before we head home?” Banana Seed’s ears perk right back up and flutter. Judging by his grandson's excited expression, Banana Peel smiles. “Okay then, let’s—” The two were cut off by a faint ‘whup-whup’ sound, like somepony is banging on a base drum at such a fast rate that is slowly increasing in volume. The two earth ponies look around to where gradual increasing sound is coming from, only to find other ponies looking around just like them.

“What’s that noise?”

“Anypony here that?”

“Well, it’s certainly not me.”

After a few seconds, the sound becomes fairly loud for some ponies to cover their ears.

“In the sky!!” a pony screams, and all the residents turn their heads. Banana Peel and Banana Seed does the same, their eyes widening in shock when they see two grey-colored beastly like objects flying over them at tremendous speeds. Most of the ponies run for their lives screaming, while some stand still like statues aweing as the flying objects pass over them, the sound quickly dying as fast as it came. Even the Royal Guards stand with their mouths agape.

“P-pops?” Banana Seed quietly asks Banana Peel, still pondering at his mind at the objects.

“Well,” Peel begins. “We both know what those are, don’t we?” The colt looks down at his grandfather, and they both smile.

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