Prologue and Chapter 1*
Prologue: Into the storm
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever wonder why we're here?"
"It's one of life's great mysteries. Why are we here? I mean, are we the product of a cosmic coincidence? Or is there a God watching everything. You know? With a plan for us and stuff. I don't know man, but it keeps me up at night."
-Red vs. Blue season 1, episode 1.
Four planes flew through the clear skies of Equestria. Each single occupant vehicle held a member of the Wonderbolts, Equestria’s longest running elite flying unit. While each occupant could fly themselves without the planes, it never hurts to have several tons of armor and weapons riding shotgun when you need them.
“So tell me why we’re doing this again?” Spitfire’s radio crackled to life with Soarin’s voice coming through.
“What? Flying the most powerful and advanced planes in all the world?” Fleetfoot asked.
“No. Flying into the Bermareda Triangle. You know, the place where weird shit always happens at random times to random innocent people like us; to both planes, boats, and flying people like us alike.”
“Can it you two,” Spitfire spat into her microphone, her voice hinting at her dislike of the current conversation. “To answer your question Soarin’ we’re flying down just to test the range on these aircraft and flying back home. Simple. Even an idiot like you could do it.”
“Apply water to the burned area,” came Rapidfire’s voice over the radio with a chuckle.
The chatter died down and the miles of ocean flew past and the ocean remained unchanged as well. They entered the Burmareda Triangle and flew for miles uninterrupted, Soarin’ still voicing his disapproval over the radio and Fleetfoot chastising him for being a baby. The clear skies turned from clear blue to a cloudy gray.
“Cloudsdale tower to Wonderbolt flight, flight come in,” the male voice came over the radio.
“Spitfire to tower, how copy?” she said.
“Captain we have a weather system on radar that looks like a tropical storm heading your way. We advise an immediate U-turn back to base ASAP. Over and out.”
“Copy that, over and out,” she then turned her attention to her squad. “Alright guys, we’re turning around. We’ve got bad weather ahead and I’d rather be out of here before it gets to us.”
“Thank Celestia for that,” Soarin’ made his opinion clear.
The four planes banked left and made an immediate U-turn back towards the Cloudsdale landing strip. As they flew the weather started getting more and more choppy, making the planes shudder as they hit the pockets of air.
Fleetfoot’s voice came over the radio, “Captain, does that look like a funnel cloud to you?”
Spitfire looked up towards where Fleetfoot was pointing from her canopy. Before she could evade it the partially formed funnel cloud bore straight down on her plane. The last thing she heard was combined shouts of “Captain” and “Spitfire” before they faded to static.
As Soarin’, Rapidfire, and Fleetfoot looked back at the now retreating funnel cloud with no sign of Spitfire’s plane as they sped away only one word came over the radio to sum up what just happened.
A very calm, “Shit.”
Chapter 1: Deserts
Inside the cockpit of her plane Spitfire wasn’t having an easier time. Her body was being thrown around and her plane rattling as if the gods themselves were trying to rip it atom from atom. She noticed as the plane rattled the radio came alive with one sided transmissions.
“My loyal subjects, today is a wondrous day in our proud history. Today my sister Luna rejoins us after her very long time away from us-” Spitfire recognized this, it was the speech given at Luna’s reinstatement as co-ruler two years ago, a day remembered by all of Equestria’s citizens.
“Oh the humanity!”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date that will live in infamy.”
As Spitfire listened to these odd radio transmissions the vehicle slammed to the right and her head hit the canopy knocking her out cold.
***
“Hey mom, hey dad. It’s your son Andrew here in good ol’ Afghanistan doing his country proud. But then again who else would it be? Let’s see what’s new? Ah so we just got our replacements in this morning and our CO here is breaking them into the routines we have in place. So that means 2 days from now, 3 for you guys, I’ll be on the first plane back home. One more day of patrols, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?” I paused for a moment, “Yeah I’m pretty sure I just jinxed myself there. But you get my point, one more patrol and I’m on my way home.
“Other than that nothing’s new here. Tell the rest of the family I said hi and to remember to pick me up from the airport at 5pm.” A tap came from my shoulder, telling me that it was the next guy’s turn to use the webcam. “Hey I have to take off now but I love you guys. Remember, Sky Harbor at 5pm. See you in a few days.” I said signing off before sending the video email. I signed off and let the next guy take the computer.
I walked out of the trailer that held all of the base’s telecommunications into the bright desert afternoon and shielded my eyes as they readjusted to the brightness. As I walk down this familiar path to the barracks I hear various fighter jets fly overhead and several Blackhawk helicopters taking off and landing. Many HMVVs cruise from one end of the base to the other, some patrolling the perimeter while others taking various personnel where they need to go.
My name is Andrew Briggs, I am 23 years old, 6’1”, 200 lbs, and of German and Scandinavian decent. Well if you want to get technical I’m a mutt of different ethnicities, but those are the large chunks of it. It was a fun time trying to track my family tree back when I was in high school for a project for health class. Not. And I’m currently a PFC in the Army.
My life was generally uneventful. Grade school had its ups and downs all things considering how brutish children can act like at times, now of all times worse than it was when I was there as I last saw when I made an impromptu visit home to my parents on leave six months ago. When both your parents are school teachers you tend to see the dark side of how children act these days. Sometimes I swear that kids keep getting more stupid as the years go on as parents relatively don’t give a shit about their kids.
I walk along for a moment before stopping feeling the outsides of my pants pockets as though something were missing. I had my ID and some cash in a wallet clip, you know the ones that started selling on TV years ago? My base required sidearm. Ever since the Fort Hood incident Congress and the Senate compromised with the Joint Chiefs and allowed all armed forces overseas to open carry any sidearm they chose while on bases at any time, while back home it only applied to those who were on shift. I had my footlocker key in my breast pocket. I had my baseball cap. What was I missing? I shrugged it off and kept walking, I’d think of it eventually.
Where was I? Oh yes. High school was pretty uneventful as well. I was that quiet kid that no one tended to talk to, it doesn’t help when you’re a transfer student either. I was picked on for a time, but it helps to know that the principal is an old friend of my dad. It also helps when you leave an anonymous tip about one of the jocks smoking crack behind the school to the local PD. By junior year I managed to make a few friends, not many but as the old saying goes “quality not quantity.” Those were some good times, we got in trouble here and there, but nothing ever illegal, though sometimes we did some things that bordered on illicit.
Senior year came around and passed uneventfully as well. I did land a girlfriend, but it didn’t last since we didn’t see eye to eye on anything and she wasn’t willing to budge on anything either so I broke it off. I graduated and applied to colleges and got accepted into ASU majoring in computer programming and minoring in psychology. Shortly after enrolling my parents’ health insurance skyrocketed 200% for no reason since they were healthy as horses and below 50 and they could no longer help me in my schooling other than emotional support.
After a possibly illegal drink or two at the time with a friend he had convinced me to join the Army reserves. That way I would have been able to keep going to college and earn my degree and also serve if called upon, and then also have a career after I got out. During the summer between my sophomore and junior years I went to boot camp and completed it a few weeks before the new semester with just enough time to get registered for classes. Every few months I had to go in and train get checked out by a doctor making sure I was still fit to serve every few months. Eventually I was called to serve half-way through junior year forcing to put pretty much everything on hold.
As I walked into the barracks I took a peek at the calendar, June 17, 2020. I looked at a date a week above today's and knew the reason why it was circled, it was his birthday. His only wish: to go home in one piece, not a bad request at all. Unfortunately no real serious drinking took place since it’s not a good idea to be tanked when there might be an emergency at any time; that would have to wait until he got back home. Speaking of home I bought one of those bank foreclosed homes for a fraction of the price when he was last home. I got it near Luke AFB since I don’t like the gridlock of Phoenix and the huge amount of land and the size of the house itself. It was the house that I always dreamed of while growing up, well other than the disrepair that it was in, but I was counting on my dad and his connections to help me with that one.
“Hey Killjoy, gear up,” Sarge yelled over to me. Yeah my nickname is ‘Killjoy,’ it happened the first day when I said something along the lines of “that’ll kill me” and someone in another squad called me a killjoy and it just stuck ever since. Plus it’s not a half-bad call sign. Still beats out Kenny “Squirt” Mendez any day, he is a good head shorter than anybody else in the squad.
I got my gear from my locker. Your standard body armor, a communications uplink with our squad commander via a small tablet computer mounted on the underside of the forearm, a set of NV/IR goggles, a M4 carbine with EOTECH sights and under barrel 40mm grenade launcher, my combat knife, and a few more clips for my 9mm sidearm.
All geared up and ready to go the rest of my squad and I met at our assigned HMVV to start our final patrol of our tours of duty. We got in and our assigned driver in our group, whom just so happen to be me for today, drove us to our assigned area.
***
Spitfire awoke with a jolt. When she looked around she was still in the whirling wind tunnel surrounding her and her plane still being buffeted by unseen winds.
“Please!” she yelled to no one in particular, “If there’s anyone out there, any god or goddess, please let me out of this!”
The buffeting went on for a few more moments. Spitfire bowed her head in defeat. She would never see her friends and family again, to be forever trapped in this cloudy tartarus. Then it stopped and all she could hear was the droning of the engine of her plane. She looked up, the sky was clear and cloudless, but as she looked below she saw desert plateaus eventually hundreds of miles away turning into a lush forest and sub sequentially into a desert.
“Where the hell am I?” Spitfire asked out loud.
***
NORAD – 6/17/2020 2030 hours
“Sir, we have an unidentified aircraft that passed the Grand Canyon headed south east. FAA says it has no transponder and therefore no flight plan,” the technician reported.
“Contact Nellis and have them intercept with F-22’s.”
“Yes, sir.”
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hmm, you have my interest... I don't usually like humanized ponies but I'll give this a shot.
but it was cute. The details are sufficient, you give us enough info, I can buy their reasoning behind testing out the planes but, aren't they are flying military planes that are stated to be very expensive? you'd think they'd check to see if the weather was permitting a flight out to a very dangerous area before going 
eeh whatever it's not that important, I didn't really think of it until afterwards. but there is one thing that I couldn't ignore, and it was: how did Spitfire not see a funnel cloud that is stated to be right in front of her plane?! I mean if it came at her from the side and Fleetfoot had yelled a warning over the radio, ok I'd understand, but here it's basically right on top of her and she didn't notice until it was pointed out to her? It might not be a huge problem to someone else, but it bothered me and to be honest that's really the only flaw I can find. There are a few grammar errors but they don't detract from the story, it's mostly just spots that could have been worded better.
The characters are... ok I guess, we do get a nice look at their personalities but idk they're just maybe a little bit flat, but it is only the first chapter so I'll give this time to develop. I like the little pun you did there with the Bermuda triangle, to be honest I didn't notice that until it was said a second time
I know what you're trying to say, but grammatically speaking this sentence is incorrect. It should be split into two different sentences as they talk about two different things happening. They might be as a result of the same factor but the action sequence is different. I recommend putting a period after 'plane' and then write another sentence with what's left and edit from there. Or you could put "before she could evade it" at the beginning of the sentence and then continue to describe how the funnel hits her plane. like 'before she could evade it, the partially formed funnel ...... '. I think that would be the best way to fix it.
Do you see what's wrong? This sentence is repetitive. After one writes "as [person or noun] [verb -ed] something [person] [verb -ed]', you repeated the word 'as' and that confuses readers as they now have to go back, reread, and figure out what you meant to say. My recommendation, take out the word 'as' and 'themselves' (which should never be put after 'they'. It makes a sentence repetitive). Also, I'm not sure if the word 'new' was a typo and was meant to be 'now'. If it wasn't.... then I think putting 'now' would be better. It doesn't really make sense to say 'new' there, if you said 'now' it works fine in the sentence.
Oh my gosh, Spitfire's decapitated head is rolling around the cockpit!
yeah, I know you didn't mean that, but that's what it sounds like. Writing 'her body' or even just 'she' would work. If you want to write individual body parts then you have to be careful with what verbs you use to describe what is happening to said body part. Using throw probably wasn't the best choice. One way to fix this would be to flip the sentence and write what is happening to cause her to knock around the plane. Also, the word 'rattled' is in the wrong tense; it should be 'rattled'.
Well I think that is all. Good story, a few rough patches here and there, I think with just a little bit more work this would be a nice story
. I'm sorry for my rather lackluster "review", I am very tired but I didn't want to put this off until later, I hope I was able to help.
3459096
Well I wouldn't call it a "review" but more like a "hey here's some errors now go fix them" type reply. Which is what I'm viewing it as. Hey if you want to read the other two chapters I already have written and beta read them and give me some feedback on what I've got I'd appreciate it, if you're interested of course.
But I'll go ahead and make those changes you suggested.<-- FixedBut as for a few things you addressed content-wise. The real life Bermuda Triangle has been notorious for random things happening at random times. Yeah I know a random cloud in this case seems cliched, but of all the ways to go from world to world it's not the worst one nor the most repetitious that I've seen appear in other stories. The tunnel that inspired that scene was from a night of drinking and watching an episode of Ancient Aliens about both the Bermuda Triangle and Devil's Triangle in which a plane flew through a vortex like cloud and ended up in Miami 3 hours before he was supposed to show up, or at least that's how the guy's story goes. You know how those alien shows go where they over exaggerate a lot of those stories, but you see what I'm getting at.
As for their planes by going by our history the P-51 was one of the most powerful planes in the skies netting more kills than losses every time they were deployed making them the "most advanced and most powerful" planes during the second World War which were even used until the Korean conflict and jets started coming into play. (Yay History channel, well and the internet.)
And I do see the error in the description of what happened in the cockpit and I'll fix that issue since it is a little lacking in description a bit.<-- Fixed, hopefully in an ideal fashion.3459169 well my reviews really touch on every thing from a story. I usually go scene by scene when reviewing, pointing out what was done well, what wasn't, and what I liked. I felt bad that I didn't do that for yours which is why I apologized. that sounds a bit harsh... did I come off that way?
Sure, I'd love to beta read.
Hmm, maybe that's why it didn't bother me as much. It's not really that the cloud was random, I really had no problem with the use of the cloud to get her into other worlds, I thought it was rather creative, it was just that Spitfire isn't notice a huge funnel cloud right in front of her. I see, funny, I was going to ask if your inspiration for her plane appearing in a dessert like area was from the movie 'Encounters of the Fourth Kind' where a bunch of disappeared WWII planes reappeared in Mexico's desert.
Wow, that's cool. WWII has always been one of my favorite topics to study, the history channel doesn't play nearly as much WWII documentaries as they should :/
I looked over all the stuff you edited and with my now more awake mind I think I've found a reoccurring problem. You don't use commas where they should be used. The sentence detailing the other Wonderbolts reactions needed commas to break up the main sentence from the little extra part in the middle of it. Other than that I think it's fine now. you still didn't change the world 'rattling' to 'rattled' though.
PM me about beta reading your following chapters.
3461414
It also helps when my brother went through a phase of obsession with that era and got a shit-ton of books on that time period. It's been a while since I was in my AP English class years ago so I have some catching up to do on that stuff again.
I guess I'll have to go back through the master document I've been editing in Word and see what I've got going on with those errors.
3461471 that would be helpful haha. I think you'll get back into the swing of things soon, once you start using those old skills it all comes back to you pretty fast.
Word doesn't tend to catch missing commas. It really only says anything when a sentence is rendered completely illegible without commas. But I'm sure with a read through a few mistakes will pop up here and there
finally a fanfic related to arizona
As long ago as this story was started, I'm going to assume that these first few chapters don't have the polish of your later work. Having said that, I'm going to make a lot of comments.
Ah so we just got our replacements in this morning
This sounds like a potential violation of OPSEC. You don't talk about stuff like this on unsecured lines to civilians.
HMVV jeeps
HMMWV - the jeep part is subjective, I guess.
NV/IR goggles, a M4 carbine with EOTECH sights and under barrel 40mm grenade launcher, my combat knife, and a few more clips for my 9mm sidearm.
A few more magazines for the sidearm. Not sure of the goggles' effectiveness in the bright daylight. Also not sure why a reservist PFC would have a sidearm.
I am 33 weeks late, but let's just say that this story is setting itself up for lots of awesome. I have a couple sweet spots for stories like this and you hit them all.