• Published 3rd Jan 2013
  • 5,251 Views, 454 Comments

A Marine and His Ponies - USMC517



A U.S. Marine is somehow sent to Equestria after a special operation involving a high value target goes wrong. He finds himself alone, wondering just how he will get home, if he can get home.

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Answers Please?

James automatically thrust himself up as he awoke from yet another nightmare. The sun was barely peeking through the windows of his new, new home. He had been sweating profusely before he awoke, and his left arm was numb and unresponsive to any sort of stimulus it was given. "Jesus Christ, that was the worst one yet." He said to himself as he stroked his arm. He attempted to look at his watch on his left wrist, but had to flip his arm into the right position to look at it. After a few minutes of it not moving, it began to come back to normal. He was awake and did not want to go back to sleep, his dreams had gotten much worse the past few days from when Rodney was killed, then to the night he had been captured on his first time out as a special operator. He still did not know how his team mates found him.
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James' team went by the call sign of 'Black Widow actual', only one fire team was sent in to sabotage an I.E.D. factory that was located in tunnels that ran underneath a village, then to specifically capture the man that made them. James had been moving up alone to cover, his three team mates stayed behind to provide security as he crossed some open ground. However as he was sneaking around, he passed by a small pen of goats, one of them was startled by his sudden appear-ance and let out a screech, alerting an insurgent that had not been seen from their observation point by the pen. He quickly turned around and saw James just as he dashed for cover. The insurgent shot his weapon into the air, alerting everyone of imminent danger. James knew it was over, but he did not allow himself to be captured without a fight; he shot the insurgent and signaled for his team to stay back so they would not be caught in any fire, they had fallen back a distance so they would not be seen. As some enemies rounded a corner coming to his position, he let go a burst from his suppressed rifle, dropping the insurgents where they stood. Unseen to James and even his team, some enemies came around the corner and shouted at him to drop his weapon. Even though he could not understand what they were saying, he knew it was over; so he complied and got down on his stomach, but not before smashing his radio so they had no way of hearing incoming chatter over the line.

His team had seen it all go down from their position and could not help at the moment, but after the insurgents knocked him out and drug him off , they formulated a plan to both accomplish the mission and get James back. If their intelligence was correct, then the target they were going after would more than likely want to see James; if they caught up quickly with the prisoner takers, they could follow them to the target and also get James back, killing two birds with one stone. They stayed close to one another, leap frogging their way up to the group that held James captive, lead by their night vision devices. The captors rounded a corner and headed inside a building, unfortunately Black Widow actual had not seen which building it was. They went closer in to the village they had been sent to, looking around for some sign of where they had taken James. They looked at the sand to see if any marks could point to James' whereabouts, but it came as no prevail because all of it had been scuffed and kicked at recently.

"Anything yet boys?" The team leader Chester 'Chesty' Petersen asked the rest of Black Widow actual.

"Negative." The other two replied.

"Damn it, we need to look harder." He ordered. They decided to start room clearing and if any hostiles were met, they would be expunged from existence. Regardless of James' condition, they still had a job to do. After looking for the building for several minutes longer, they heard a loud scream coming from one of the buildings they had already cleared.

"Anybody else catch the direction of that?" Chesty asked.

"At my seven." One of the others reported, they all went over to the building with their weapons raised. The three stacked up on the door with Chester at the head of the chain. They did not have flash-bangs this time, so they went in quietly, Chester went forward, the other two went left and right scanning for hostiles. They searched the building but came up empty. Another scream was heard from underneath them, giving away where they were holding James. They found the hatch they had brought him down, it was very well hidden, even though it was in plain sight.

"We'll need to do this fast and quiet, no one here leaves alive, and we get our boy back, understood?" Chester asked the team.

"Roger." They both replied in a whisper and a nod.

"When he screams again, we go. Alex, you take point and drop any of those assholes you see."

"Understood." He replied as they stacked up once more.

Ahhhhhhh! "Go, now." Chester said to Alex with a tap on his shoulder. He lifted up the wooden hatch slowly, scanning for any immediate threats, luckily there were none in the small room that the hatch lead to. All three went quietly down the steps, Alex was in the lead, Chester was behind them, and the teams' corpsman Paul Mullaney was at the rear, watching their six o'clock. The whole tunnel system was lit by a few lightbulbs placed about every twenty five feet, casting a soft yellow glow along the hallway. They were moving quickly down the one hundred foot long tunnel, approaching a dug out room. Alex moved up to the side of the doorway and leaned into it while aiming down the holographic sight on his weapon, searching for hostiles and his comrade. The only thing in the small room was a work bench and what appeared to be explosives of some sort. Since it was clear he motioned for his team to keep moving forward, and after they passed, Alex dropped in behind. They continued down the hall, clearing three more rooms of the same nature, one of them had blasting caps and detonation cord, another had suicide vests, and the last was a weapons cache with several Kalashnikovs, two RPG launchers, and one RPD machine gun, plus ammunition for all of the weapons. They had done a full rotation in the group, putting Chester back in the lead. All three men had their suppressed, short barreled M4A1 carbines raised and pointed to the front, left, and right, waiting for anyone to step into the sights. They moved down to the end of the tunnel in a total of thirty seconds, moving like a well oiled machine. The tunnel split left and right leading to two separate doors.

They stopped where it split at, listening for a moment to try and pick up on James' location. After ten seconds of no noise, they made another plan to take the two doors. "Alex, you take the left door. I'll take the one on the right, and Paul, you're on security right here." Chester told them. They both went to their positions and waited for Chester to give the signal to breech the door. Three seconds later he nodded his head and the two went into action, they kicked down their doors and quickly swept their weapons side to side, scanning for hostiles. Chester's door housed the bomb factory they were sent to destroy, although it was a small room, only a rough fifty square feet, it housed a major amount of explosives; including mortar shells, stolen plastic explosives, hand grenades, several vats of highly volatile nitroglycerin, and other things that could be made into explosives such as bottles of oxygen gas. Four men were inside working on making pressure activated IEDs, they snapped up as soon as they heard the door break down, and after a few seconds of confusion, tried to grab for their weapons, but were cut down by Chester's rifle. Paul could hear the fire coming from his right and recognized the familiar sound of a suppressor.

"Clear!" Chester shouted at his two comrades. Paul heard him but Alex did not because he was already engaged in a firefight.

"I have eyes on James!" Alex shouted to his team. Chester ran back over to where they were at before, yelling at Paul to give Alex back up. He slid into Paul's position to take over on security as he ran to help his team mate.
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James was sitting down and tied to chair, completely stripped of his combat armor and equipment, leaving only the undershirt of his uniform, pants, and boots. The terrorist that they had come for had entered the room.

"Well my brothers, we have a new guest... I believe we should show him how we treat new guests!" The man said to everyone in the small room. He withdrew a knife from a sheath attached to his hip, then slowly sliced across James' chest, cutting his shirt and flesh. James let out a scream as the burning pain traveled to his brain.

"Why are you here American?" He asked as he wiped the blade on James' shirt.

"My name is James Crossland, Captain, Unites States Marine Corps, 811- 73- 5239." He said back, not giving up any information.

"I do not care! Tell me why you are here. To kill me? To sabotage me? WHAT!?" He shouted in absolute frustration at James. He repeated himself, still not giving up the information. His captor became even angrier and took a fast slash at James' chest once more, producing a deep gash in his chest and an ear piercing scream from his mouth.

"Do not play games with me soldier, I will kill you and your friends, I know they are here!" He shouted just inches from James' face. He still repeated himself, enraging his captor even more. The terrorist signaled to someone in the back, the person brought out a car battery and hooked up the leads to some metal contacts on the chair.

"Tell me what I want to hear, and I will not have them touch you two together." He tried to bargain with James.

"Do it!" James shouted at him. The one holding the positive lead clamped it down, sending the current through the chair; luckily though, the chair was insulated enough to block out a large portion of the current, but the pain was still excruciating. He screamed out again as his body snapped up and his back arched. The interrogator gave a hand signal to stop the electrocution.

"It can all stop you know, just tell me." He tried once more.

"You can go fuck yourself." James spat back at him as his chest heaved up and down as he tried to breathe again. His captor cocked his arm back far and let his fist fly into James' eye.

"Do you really think anyone cares if you die!? Maybe your mother and father, but no one else does; you are just another soldier to them, another fly on the pile of swine shit that is America." He tried to break James mentally.

"I don't want to be brought to the light in glory, I would much rather stay the silent warrior that I am!"

"Well then... I will make you die silently and alone soldier boy." He said with a devilish smirk.

"Make my day." He said back, trying to show he cared none at all if he did die.

CRASH. "Get down!" Alex yelled to everyone in the room. It took the insurgents a few seconds to realize what was happening, then one of them grabbed a weapon and shot at him, causing him to take cover. He shouted for his team to give him back up and was soon met by Paul.

"He's in there!" Alex shouted to Paul over the sound of assault rifle fire.

"You go and then I'll get in right behind you!" He shouted back to Alex. Alex popped out and fired at where he remembered seeing his enemies at. He took out two of the five, then Paul moved in right behind him, clearing the left side of the room, both of them had seen the interrogator and immediately recognized him as their target. Paul shot at his knees so he would not be able to move if something happened, then they both rushed over to him and kicked his rifle away. Alex worked on getting James free from the chair while Paul zip cuffed their target. After he had taken care of the bomb maker, Paul went over to James to patch up his wounds with his medical kit.

"Hey, you're gonna be all right man, but they fuckered you up pretty good." He said to James for comfort.

"They tried to kill me... but they couldn't." James joked in an attempt to show that he was okay.

"Think you can carry on Marine?" Alex asked him.

"Yeah I'll make it, where's my kit at?" He confirmed looking around the small room.

"Well luckily they're stupid and just left it right here, so you really lucked out today partner!" Alex exclaimed. James stood back up and stretched, after his chest wounds were dressed, then put on his equipment.

"Looks like they smashed your radio." Paul said to him.

"No that was me, didn't want 'em listening to friendly comms if they sent me side straddle hopin' to the pearly gates!" He joked again as he loaded a round into the breach of his carbine. He had a slight limp and a hard time seeing out of his eye, but other than his chest wounds, he was able to walk.

"You're a hard motherfucker James." Alex complimented him.

"Did you find the bomb factory yet?"

"Affirmative, just next door to us. If they hadn't knocked your goofy ass out, we probably wouldn't have found it since we had no positive intel on the exact location." Paul said to him as he slung the wounded bomb maker onto his back using a new state-of-the-art injured personnel carrier.

"Any ideas on how we'll blow this thing?" James asked as they all moved to the doorway Alex had busted through.

"One of the rooms had det cord and some caps, probably use those and also throw their cache into it as well for some extra bang." Alex told him. They went through the doorway and met up with Chester.

"You look like shit James!" Chester teased him.

"Missed you too Chesty." He shot back.

"Now that we have you and him, we can send this whole cave to Allah and be back in time for tea!"
He exclaimed as he pointed at the bomb maker on Paul's back.

"'Rah, let's do it!" Alex exclaimed as he went to the room with the detonation cord and blasting caps. He returned a few moments later and began laying out the long orange roll of shock cord that was found behind the rolls of detonation cord, the rest of the team had moved to the entrance of the tunnel system. James was guarding the bottom of the stairs and Chester was in the building at the top, daring anyone to come through the door and try to sabotage their operation further.

"Hey, we got extraction in three zero mikes, let's move it down there Black Widow!" Chester yelled down the stairs as he looked at his watch.

"Throwing the fuse on the shock cord, give me a second and we'll move it!" Alex yelled back up to him.

"Copy that!" He acknowledged. Two minutes later the explosives were primed and ready to go. There were five bombs laid out, one in each room linked to another one in a chain by the detonation cord; they had carefully packed the nitroglycerin containers on top of each one of the bombs as a booster, along with other explosive materials to completely bury the tunnel system in the final sequence of the charge.

"Explosive is armed, move up the stairs, we have one mike on the fuse before it all goes up!" Alex shouted to Chester as he unrolled more of the orange cord.

"Roger!" Everyone acknowledged him, then moved up the stairs waiting for him. After he played out the last bit, he moved up the stairs, James was scanning outside while everyone else waited for Alex.

"We clear out there?" Chester asked James.

"Affirmative."

"Move out to where we entered at and wait for Alex to bring up the rear, then we move to extract, understood?"

"Roger." They all replied, then moved out. Alex waited until they were about one hundred yards away then started the timer fuse and ran fast to catch up with his team, all the while scanning for enemies. One minute later the tunnel exploded, destroying several huts and caving in the ground while sending up a large plume of dust where the tunnel used to be.

"Black Widow, this is Black Widow actual do you copy?" Chester asked operator.

"I copy Black Widow actual, give me a SITREP, over."

"Tunnel is buried and we are moving to the pick up, ETA is two five mikes, how copy over?"

"I read your five by five, moving to extract, ETA on your pick is two eight mikes, out." The operator told them. Twenty four minutes later, they arrived at the extraction site and were airlifted back to their forward operating base. James was treated for his injuries, and three weeks later was returned to active duty with his team after being cleared for any mental and physical conditions.

James' reminiscing was interrupted by a quiet but audible whsshhhhh. He snapped up from his makeshift bed, searching for the source of the noise. He spun his head around and located it, it was coming from the kitchen. He quickly ran to the area and looked around more, then he spotted the location of the problem. The water pipe under the sink had burst open. "Damn it." He said to himself with an unamused expression. He went over to the water shut off valve and turned it, the leak stopped but water was still everywhere. "It's gonna' be one of those days." He sighed as he started cleaning up the mess. The sun had come up and was shining bright through the windows.
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The two princesses of Equestria were up and getting ready for their visit with the human. They had a carriage waiting for them, everything that they would need for James was already packed. The only thing they were waiting for was a message from her personal student Twilight Sparkle, informing the princess that she was indeed ready for her arrival and that a formal town parade was not necessary. Moments later, the letter arrived.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I was not aware that you knew of the human and his existence, I assume that you will explain all when you get here. I will be expecting your soon arrival, and as such, I will summon the others to meet me at my home. I cannot for sure say about the human, but I am sure that he will understand.

Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle

The two princesses boarded the carriage and departed for Ponyville to meet with James.
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"Spike, send a letter to each of the girls, I'm sure James will come with Fluttershy." Twilight ordered.

"You know, I haven't even seen this human guy, what's he look like?" Spike inquired as he began writing the letters.

"Well... he's tall, and he's kind of big, really big actually. He has something called a pistol, and has a vest of some type that has a bunch of stuff on it. Really that's all I can say, you'll just have to meet him yourself." She explained to the dragon.

"Hmm, well I guess I'll just have to wait and see then." He said aloud as he sent a letter, it was going to Rarity. A few minutes later, all of the letters were sent and now they were waiting for them to show up. The first to show up was Rarity, then Pinkie Pie, then Rainbow Dash, then finally Fluttershy and Applejack.

"Howdy Twilight!" Applejack greeted as she came through the door with Fluttershy.

"Hello everypony, you know why I have brought you here right?" Twilight asked.

"Spike sent us somethin' about the princesses comin', so ah guess it's important?" Applejack asked.

"Indeed... she is coming to meet with James."

"Well I s'pose it would happen sooner or later." She said back. "Speakin' of him, where is he?"

"I don't know, Fluttershy he lives with you, do you know where he is?" Twilight asked.

"I- I don't know, he said he was going out to find a new place to live yesterday and I haven't heard from him since." She said with a very worried tone. "Rainbow, do you know where he is?" She continued.

"He sent me home yesterday after we left, and I haven't seen him since." She shrugged.

"Has anypony seen him since yesterday?" Twilight asked them all. They all replied no, but Pinkie had not heard them worrying over James' well being, she was occupied with Owlowiscious and his head turning 360 degrees that she tried to mimic. Then when she did she immediately answered them.

"I know where he is! He's over in Cranky Doodle's old house, he got it yesterday! Ooo oo ooo! Do you know what this means!? A housewarming party!" She said with absolute glee.

"Oh no, that's too far away! The princess will be here any minute and she'll be expecting him to be with us!" Twilight worried as she began to pace back and forth. Applejack trotted over to comfort her.

"Twilight, it's okay, we'll just tell the princess when she gets here, and we'll all go together." Applejack tried to calm her down.

"But... she is expecting me to not let her down, especially with something as important as this!" She bawled.

"Twilight, it's alright, ya know that not all the time ya can expect things to go as planned, ya'll will just have to manage with it and tell her the truth about the matter. Shoot ah bet ya'll can stretch that into a lesson about friendship, then she might not even care!" She tried once more to calm down the nervous unicorn.

"Well I suppose that I could, but still what if she doesn't forgive me for it?"

"Twilight, stop yer worryin', everythin' will be just fine."

"If you say so." She said as she sat down. Knock knock knock.

"That must be her." Rarity said as she went to the door, Twilight immediately shot up from her position and tried to tidy up a little bit. Rarity opened the door and was met by the alabaster alicorn named Celestia, and behind her was Luna.

"Hello Rarity, may we come in?" Celestia asked in a calm and almost soothing voice.

"Yes of course!" She exclaimed with a bow, as did all of the others. The two princesses stepped in and Rarity closed the door.

"I am sure you are all wondering why we are here, yes?" She asked them all.

"Is it for James!?" Pinkie asked as she bounced up and down.

"So I can just assume that everypony knows of his existence then?"

"Yes princess." Twilight spoke up.

"Is he here?" She asked looking around the room trying to spot him. Twilight was starting to get nervous shivers.

"N- no princess.. he is not." She confessed as she drooped her head.

"Well, where is he?"

"He's at Cranky Doodle's!" Pinkie exclaimed as she pranced around Celestia and Luna.

"Do you mind summoning him for us?"

"Well, he's sort of... far away... too far away." Twilight said sheepishly.

"Oh I see... well, I would like to see what my faithful student has learned."

"What do you mean princess?" She asked confused.

"Have your magic abilities increased since the last time we met?" She asked as she moved closer to Twilight.

"Well yes of course princess, why do you ask?" She asked still confused by what she meant, and partially from her nervousness.

"Have you practiced the teleportation spell enough to being able to send more than just two or three ponies at a time?" She asked trying to get her student to see what she was getting at.

"Oh! I see what you're saying, sorry. I have done the six of us before when discord first came back, but that was a small distance." She said as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"Shall we see if you can my student?" Celestia asked with a smile, trying to make herself not look all that intimidating.

"Yes princess, can I get everypony to stand in the middle of the room here?" She asked all of them, they obeyed and stood in a semi circle in front of her, Luna and Celestia were in the middle of the bunch, Spike was not included in it. Twilight's horn began to glow purple, and after a few moments of charging her aura up, they all disappeared in a brilliant white flash.
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Shh... shh... shh... slick smack! "Ahh, I need a different set of tools." James cursed at himself after he hit his hand on the inside of the cabinet that housed the plumbing of the sink. He sat up and looked at his hand, it caught an edge in the wood and with his hands being soaked with water, a portion of skin had been torn off of his knuckle. He shook his hand for a second then looked at the damage done. He concluded that it was nothing and to just get back to working. He leaned back under the sink and with his multi-tool pliers, he tried to once again unscrew the drain from the sink. Knock knock knock.

"Ah damn it, who the hell is it, probably just Dash or Pinkie dropping by." He thought as he climbed out from under the sink, he took a quick peek at his watch; "Wow, 10:30? That time flew."Knock knock knock. "The door's unlocked you can come in!" He shouted from the kitchen to whomever was at the door. The door cracked open, then Pinkie Pie burst in.

"Hi James! Happy housewarming!" She cheered as she bounced up and down. Then the rest came in, Rainbow Dash was of course in front of them.

"Hey James! You got a new place and you didn't even invite me over?" Rainbow said trotting over.

"Hello Dash, I actually just got this yesterday evening, and really didn't have time to tell you or miss Fluttershy that I was here, my apologies." He said to Dash and then spoke up at the last part so Fluttershy could hear him.

"I know, I'm just giving you a hard time." Rainbow said as she elbowed him in a playful manner.

"James you had me very worried last night, Angel had to stay with me all night just to calm me down." Fluttershy said.

"I am very sorry for the emotional stress I caused you miss Fluttershy, that was wrong of me, can you forgive me?" He asked.

"Yes I can, I could never stay mad at somepony. To me it was just as if you were my child and you just left all of a sudden is all."

"O- oh, I see, well really I don't know what to say other than I am very sorry for my actions." He apologized again. As soon as he finished his sentence, the two princesses walked in, catching James off guard. Both princesses stood and looked him over for a minute.

"You must be princess Celestia I presume?" He asked the tall white alicorn.

"Yes I am, and you are James Crossland, a human, a Captain in the United Stated Marine Corps, and you have been in over forty different combat missions over the past decade on your planet." She stated, showing that she knew a great deal about him.

"Well let's not beat around the bush then. You, I'm sure know why I am here, and as for the one on your right who is Luna correct?" He asked as he cocked his head to the side.

"Indeed I am Captain James." Luna replied.

"Very good, and sorry about the mess in here, I wasn't expecting any guests and had no time to clean up, especially since the kitchen sink broke and water got everywhere." He apologized once more while putting away his multi-tool.

"It is nothing of worry to myself or my sister, we did not expect any sort of formal greeting." Luna answered him.

"Well alright then, now if you don't mind me asking, how and why am I here?" He threw out immediately, not looking for a social event.

"Everypony I suggest you find a seat, we will be here for quite a duration of time." Celestia told them all as she tried to find a seat, Dash sat next to James and once all of them had found a seat, Celestia began to explain James' existence in their world.