> Metal Slug is Magic: First Modern War (Rise of Morden)
>  by Uros
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: Grand preparations and faulty hired help.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You don't seem exactly happy about the news."

"Oh I am happy, this does indeed increase of odds of survival."

"But?"

"But it also means that if we fail everything goes to hell."

"And it didn't mean that before?."

"Tarma, I am not in the mood for a smart ass right now."

"Yea, well, look at it this way: What we thought could be done with just the two of us suddenly dragged fifty infantrymen alongside us, the last of our transport helicopters, our only Mobile Cloning and Command Unit (M.C&C.U) and a load of information that we never dreamed of getting, all thanks to a very weird man in a suit."

"Tarma..."

"I am just saying that taking this all as seriously as you are doing is going to get you killed, a couple of times in fact, and we don't have the resources to bring anyone back more than a couple of times when we have a small army waiting for us."

Marchrius Dennis Rossi, most known as Marco Rossi, or simply Marco, scoffed at his friend.

Born the 13th of April of the year 2005, this 180 cm tall and 75kg heavy Italian-American man was the antithesis of what most would consider fun, as well as what most considered geeks back in the day. Not only was Marco a really strong and well fit individual with a long flowing hairdo of gold with his favorite white headband always keeping it in place, but his intelligence and dedication to work made him a complete buzz kill when it come to work since his seriousness was ever present unless he was off duty, something that was a rarity all on itself.

Rocking an armored red best, white shirt, brown combat fatigues and black army boots in his trademark look that seemed to fit the man in every way, Marco was regarded as an incredible fun guy when it came to his programs and the chaos he could unleash with them, something that was made even more apparent when he could take his ever present pen drive out and whip a new little bug to toy with whatever computer he had on hand.

Programming guru and drill instructor all in one, or so most people thought of him.

Truth was that Marco was an incredibly chill guy, he had been so during his younger years and had only recently changed gears during the 2025, the day that Morden made his first push.

Yes, the day that Donald Morden, tired of the corrupt Regular Army officials that allowed his son to die at the hands of a Rebel Army that couldn't even lift a finger without being discovered, rose to power within the Rebel Army and almost had the president of the United States put to death in an act of terrorism like no other.

That day many of Marco's friends died, it was also the day he and his best friend meet. They had known each other for a while thanks to Marco's inclusion to the PF shortly after his graduation, but it wasn't until Morden's betrayal that both of them took off, surprising nearly everyone with their friendship as both men clashed in quite a few ways.

"I will take this as seriously as it needs to be taken, thank you very much, Tarma."

Tarmicle Roving the third (Or III), most known as Tarma Roving, or just Tarma to his friends.

Born the same year as Marco, only during the first of May, with six less centimeters in height and also eleven kilograms less in weight, Tarma had a few qualities similar to his friend. The most obvious similitude was that he was quite the strong man, fit like a bull as far as most men his size and age were concerned, but not only that, as his red hair was almost as wild and easy to notice as his friend's blonde locks. As far as the army was concerned, these men, despite their rank, needed to get back in line, something that made Tarma chuckle quite a lot.

Unlike his friend, however, Tarma had been born into a military family back in Hokkaido, which made his usually funny self quite the weird thing considering his father, but maybe that was why he was that way and why he clicked so well with his friend since the day they meet. Continuing with the opposites, Tarma was more a metal head than the calm Marco, having a thing for personalized bikes, painting metal and shades that he NEVER took off unless strictly necessary. Everyone knew that Marco had blue eyes, but what did Tarma hide behind his glasses?

Nothing was more important than this, however: Tarma could literally fall asleep while being shot at. It was kind of his thing and it showed that he had gotten used to be chewed by an official since age four.

Other than personality, hairdo, sunglasses and the obvious snot that he got while sleeping, how was one to notice Tarma? Well, while both friends thought alike in many ways, one could notice that Marco loved red, while Tarma's vest was bright fucking yellow.

Bright. Fucking. Yellow.

As in:  Yes, I am here, shot at me!

True that, unlike his friend, he had a few different ones, after all he liked to change things from time to time, but for this campaign he had decided to bring the one thing that worked as 'Fuck me lights', as Marco loved to call the obvious weak points in enemy bosses that were in so many games.

Seriousness was NOT Tarma's strong point.

"Well, if we survive you aren't going to get to your fifties without turning into a prune, that one is assured." Tarma smirked, kicking back and relaxing "Look, we are screwed, but we can make this work."

"Yea, because losing all the SV-001s and the new technology, as well as most of our forces, didn't put a damper on things." Marco growled at his friend. He was this close to kicking his chair from under his goofy ass.

"Look, Marco, chill out." Tarma didn't seem bothered by it, not one bit "You have the information that the researchers have, you know that all those dead guys will be back, we know why Morden doesn't seem to care for his own men now that he is 'loco', and we know he isn't exactly as mad as we thought he was."

Marco slammed his hands over the table in anger "MORDEN IS A MONSTER AND HE NEEDS TO BE PUT DOWN!"

The ring of the metal table made Tarma cringe. They could be in a mobile command unit, sitting in the only decent room, all surrounded by comfort, as far as basic military supplies goes, but the echo within this piece of shit could make anyone deaf.

Rubbing his pained ears, Tarma gave his friend an apologetic look "Marco, I know you are angry, but look at the bright side: If we find Morden's base we find the date of every single deceased person since he achieved this seat of power, from old friends to people we never meet. You need to calm down or we will be unable to do a single thing."

And calming down Marco did, begrudgingly. The informant, D, had given the researchers back at the base the schematics that Morden had used to create those Cloning Units as well as the Self Mainframe (super computers designed to hold the complex personality of every individual assigned to it). The apparent madman had never truly killed anyone since his ascension to power as the Rebel Army general; he had first taken samples of nearly every living human being and created an incredible fleet of satellites to connect them to the Self Mainframes that he had hidden over the world.

Madman he was, for he could rewrite a few things with time, like a simple obedience algorithm that would make the whole human population obey only him, but it would need time, resources and zero disturbances. The son of a bitch was going to put most his manpower and the personality-less clones he had made towards that effort, he was even going to allow himself to be captured 'easily' so part of his plan would happen.

Then in came D and the plan got scrapped.

Now not only had the man promised a way to get rid of Morden's desire for power and his anger, if the Regular Army defeated Morden that is, but he also nudged them forward so they could even capture the personality-less clones Morden made and gave them distinct features, though it was resource intensive. They had only captured one, and it was one of their own clones that was trying to get to the 'man' so he would open up.

You probably are wondering why, right? Well, D had said that Morden knew about the researchers, the SV-001s and most of the Regular Army's efforts, he was just that good. What he didn't know was that they had been informed of the cloning capabilities and that they had made their own M.C&C.U.

That pissed Morden.

Multiplying production was easy when most of his army could be composed of altered, 'cheaper' bodies that mostly required water and little protein. They weren't supposed to last in the long run, and they literally broke apart with ease, hell, even a knife could literally torn apart a Rebel Army soldier if enough force was applied, and it was a gory glorious sight, but the thing was this: They could make ten more in the time it took to kill ten guys.

The Regular Army couldn't.

Oh yes, they used the same process while the Regular Army's original bodies were stored away, because the only way to transfer from M.C&C.Us was to either transfer the original sample of blood, to transfer the data from one to another, or to have the original body connect with another unit. This way the fifty two strong group that was this small Regular Army unit was safe, but it lacked resources.

Morden's army was mostly located close to areas full with water, or in cities with enough supplies to ensure they would have the resources needed to either form attacks or resist invasions. Marco was pretty sure that their supplies would allow for their fifty two strength could come back a few times. Marco and Tarma could afford two fuckups, only two, because their bodies, even the cloned ones, required more resources than the common Regular Army grunt, and everyone knew it, after all they could jump incredibly high, they could carry a great load out without tiring and they could even take a bullet or two without dying. The Regular Army soldier? Not so much.

Their soldiers were mostly clones designed to be their own persons with their own factions and other such things, basically real people that had been grown to adulthood in record time. They were to serve for a year and then they would be discharged, if they wished for that, so they could have their own lives. It had been an extreme measure done out of desperation because the only soldiers that managed to get away from the fiasco that had been the factory with the SV-001s numbered under ten.

Luckily, and despite such a heinous act as far as Marco was concerned, the clones and soldiers could be brought back multiple times with what resources they had, maybe ten times or so per person, and they were highly motivated despite everything that had happened. The number against them and the slim chance of survival did weight them down a little bit, though, and Marco could do nothing but worry.

"This is going to be much harder than originally expected, Tarma." Marco finally resigned himself as he looked up at the lifelessly metal grey ceiling "A hundred or so enemies against us? We could guerrilla tactics our way out of that one."

"Thousands of clones in a well defended forth against a group of highly motivated and decently trained soldiers is more or less the same, plus you can kamikaze your way out of that, a couple of times to be specific." Tarma grinned.

"Kamikaze is more your thing, thank you very much." Marco grimaced at the idea of holding a grenade while charging without fear towards an enemy tank, all intent set on blowing both of them in one go "I think I prefer some finesse."

"We are going for a downed plane used as a fortress, with energy weapons attached to it." Tarma deadpanned, giving his friend a death glare as the redhead tried not to laugh "Kamikaze is putting it gently, boss."

"Whatever, I can assure you that I will be perfectly careful once I have this planned out, something that YOU can't seem to do since you prefer to either goof off or doze off, either of them is fine." Marco prodded his friend on the side, almost getting him to fall from his seat "You want me to relax? Then why don't you help me a bit with all this so we can get it done faster."

"Eh, you are the boss, I am simply under your command to do the heavy lifting." Tarma could swear he head 'bullshit' coming from Marco, but the blonde was way too high strung for such language "Besides, you know what my plans require."

Marco shook his head at his friend's definition of 'plan' "Lots of noise, lots of speed, lots of dakka. Yes, I know."

"If it works, it works." The grin on the redhead's voice was as large as the one on his face "But we lack the means."

"This is an overly large transport that houses a damn military helicopter with space to spare, of course this is not made for speed, and the engineers that made this piece of crap thought it would not require weapons, so no dakka." Marco had stressed over that point for so long that no one ever paid attention to him ranting about it anymore "Why did they make this damn thing anyway?"

"Big, can carry a lot, it is cheap as all hell, needs little maintenance..." Tarma lift finger after finger "Want me to keep talking? Because our bosses certainly didn't give a damn about anything but money,  you know that."

"EVERYONE knows that, and it is the only point I will concede to Morden: The Regular Army needs to cleanse the chain of command, pronto." The simple thought of Morden being right about something, and having Marco agree with him, made the blonde's blood boil. But yes, it was true: The Regular Army officials were nearly all corrupt, lazy and would rather save their hides and let their men die than do the right thing "If there is one thing that will stop me from killing that monster over and over again, is that this will flush the undesirables from our ranks once it is over."

Both friends stayed silent for a few moments after that. If the officials they served had been dutiful, simply dutiful, they hadn't needed to go overboard or beyond their duty, they just needed to do their damn job, if they had just ACTED, then Morden's son would have been alive and Morden himself would have remained with the Regular Army alongside his most trusted men: Allen O'Neil.

Now those men were tearing down the world piece by piece, and Morden would rebuild it how he saw fit once the chaos ended.

"We are going to need magic to make this work." Marco sighed in defeat after a few more seconds went by "This is too much for us. We can probably liberate a lot of our men if we succeed in our first mission, but odds aren't with us."

"It doesn't help that the recent war left most of our equipment as nothing more than last century's upgraded weaponry, eh boss?" Tarma did his best to crack a joke, the problem being that the joke was simply the truth doused with wry humor "At least the Rebel Army got hammered too. Hand rockets, grenades, single shot rifles and refurbished WWII tanks?"

"Those pieces of technology are a hundred times better than their old counterparts, you know that." The blonde grimaced. Those old rifles could easily punch through some of the old tanks used during the 2010 period. Modern tanks would stop the bullets, but they packed a massive punch nonetheless "Even our modern grenades are little more than refurbished WWII models, and they can literally obliterate a tank unlike those old models."

Tarma eyed his friend with a frown "Are you going to shot down every point I bring?"

"Are you going to bring moot points to a fight of wits with me?" The question was redundant "The point still stands: We are going to need help or this is probably going to suck."

"Yea, and the next thing you know unicorns will pop out of the woodwork, ready to lend us the magic aid you wanted." Tarma let out a loud snort "Call me when we are close to the area of operations."

Just like that, less than a snap of the fingers after he had finished talking, Tarma was asleep. When Marco first meet him, after saving the president of the U.S.A, Tarma had been full of energy, having fought for his life and all. Seeing him asleep after the president had congratulated him, probably as the adrenaline surge just died, had been both shocking and funny.

Sometimes Tarma was a true genius, and not only was he good with bikes, but also many customization works if he had enough time to look at a machine or weapon. Marco was undoubtedly more gifted when making plans and tactics, but everyone had different skill sets and Marco was certain that, without his good friend at his side, this mission would not be borderline impossible, it would be SIMPLY impossible to achieve, even if he had more men at his disposal.

Gods, he really wished for a smoke right now. To be told that the cloning process accentuated certain sickness on the temporal bodies had dissuaded him from that habit though, but the cravings were still there, and smokes certainly calmed him when he was nervous. Modern medicine or not, he wasn't about to get screwed over by technicalities and faulty bodies in the battlefield.

But boy, was a plan hard to make right now, and was a smoke tempting too!  Magic would be convenient, and Marco was not one to dilly dally with fantasies, he much preferred to cook a virus and smash a whole enemy force by screwing with their technology. The problem? It was not a lie when it was said that the advanced technology was mostly updated, retrofitted or simply upgraded old tech. Finding the computers on Morden's base would allow him to do something, but other than the remaining prototypes the Rebel Army had, there was nothing that Marco could sabotage.

And what did Marco have at his disposal? This transport unit, an helicopter, Tarma and fifty men armed with pilfered equipment from the Rebel Army since they didn't even have enough supplies from their now smashed base! If this first push didn't work... Morden would win.

He hardly prayed worth a damn, but more than knowledge about how Morden had gotten this technology, or how had he hidden so many clones, tanks and other more advanced weaponry, he wanted some help. He was not a leader that hid his failures or merits, nor was he one to hide his shortcomings or the possibilities he brought to the table, but despite his optimism when faced with impossible odds, when faced with the upmost adversity, there was a limit to what he, or Tarma, could achieve.

D's leak had made this a hundred times worse for them, but also delayed Morden's plans. If help came to him, no matter the shape or form, he would welcome it with open arms. Heck, right now he was basically in command of the Regular Army unless the officials came back, and the cowards were wll hidden underground. For all he cared he would be able to offer a mercenary group the best incentives to join him, if most mercenaries hadn't joined with Morden already...

Thinking about the most likely source of help being gone didn't lift Marco's spirits. Despite this, despite the depressingly low chances of victory, Marco swore that this would end in a victory. He would spearhead the damn attack, recover the SV-001s, destroy the enemy base and recover as many soldiers as possible.

Morden could scare him, yes, he would admit that. But that bastard was not going to win, much less when he was obviously nothing more than a puppet for whoever had supplied him with this technology of his. With that in mind, and with boundless quantities of pistol rounds to burn through, he got up and went to the firing range to burn whatever energy, and nervousness, he had in his body as he thought of the best course of action.

Still... His little group could really go with some help.


*** Equestria ***


Earth, year 2028. Population: Over seven point five billion and growing. Status? At war.

Since the year 2015 there have been more and more skirmishes and assaults to the unified armies of the world, known as the Regular Army, from rebel factions and crime syndicates, groups now formed in the feared Rebel Army. A bombing attack during 2023 causes many deaths, including General Morden's only son and one of the few things that held the aging warrior's mind together. After that event Morden defects a Regular Army that had been failing in containing the criminal threat thanks to corrupt officials that were busier lining their pockets with cash than protecting those they swore to protect and serve above all else.

Morden and his loyal troops gather every subversive entity in the world and form the Rebel Army. Those that caused Morden's son to die are put down, permanently. Morden raises his personal status as General and the Rebel Army suddenly turns into a real threat that the Regular Army would have a hard time countering, and that is  if those in charge bothered to read the Information Agency's reports.

2026. Morden tries to assassinate the U.S.A president. While the attack fails and the president ends being escorted to safety, the world still feels the blow and two friends, Marco and Tarma, come together during their baptism of fire.

2027. The encounter codenamed as 'First Mission' takes place. The Peregrine Falcons, more known as P.F, a squad formed originally by Marco Rossi and Tarma Roving, are enlisted to aid the Regular Army.

2028. Morden kicks the Regular Army to the curb thanks to the higher ups' inactivity and blind eye towards his actions. The whole army is crushed with the exception of a few strays that try to recover the secret SV-001 prototypes and whatever equipment and manpower is available. Their base of operations is utterly annihilated shortly after they receive information from an unknown source named simply 'D'. After the attack all supplies and SV-001s are captured, and most of the world's hopes are crushed before the first mission of their offensive can take place. 

Only Marco, Tarma, one of the newly designed and mass produced Land Base Transports, an old Hi-Do helicopter (non military variant) and fifty soldiers (most of them  young clones with barely any experience) manage to escape without being executed/captured by the enemy. Supplies, spirits and hopes are in an all time low.

Nothing of this matters in the land of Equestria where a certain velvet alicorn is awaiting for her friends. 

Surprisingly enough, this will be important in no time. Why is it surprising? Because, despite what many would say about Twilight's eagerness, the reason behind their soon to be adventure is not her fault... entirely.

Originally only a little bit of her experiment was to make contact with Earth, something that would later allow certain humans (One of which went by the name of Hyakutaro Ichimonji) to use magic and give them the chance to change their world for the better. Speculations of that future say it would not work and, at some point, the perpetual wars would practically destroy everything.

However, as the wheel turns and turns time and time again, at some point things had to change, even if by chance.

How, you may ask, would they change? Well, to answer that question you would need to know why Twilight Sparkle, princess and magic scientist extraordinaire, was waiting for her friends so fervently. Not only because she wanted to see them, which was a big part of this all, but because it had been years since they had any kind of adventure together, maybe ten by now, and while they did meet regularly and had a lot of fun together, things had separated them slightly.

Fluttershy had always been, well, shy, but after no more adventures were called for, when the world was finally and truly at peace, she was the first to move on. Well, that is a way of saying it, in truth she was still around Ponyville, but she had became a worldwide famous veterinarian capable of healing, taming and befriending animals just with her voice alone, even her stare was capable of forcing the most troublesome creature into submission to be gently shown how to live in peace with the rest of the world. Always occupied and always happy to be surrounded by animals, she was the hardest of the friends to get a hold of.

Pinkie Pie, the most bubbly and bouncy, and pink, earth pony known to ponykind was just slightly less sought after. With a friendly rivalry with Cheese Sandwitch, a friend and also a party maker, Pinkie not only made everyone in Ponyville happy twenty four seven, but also went on tours across Equestrian lands, and those lands beyond Equestria, because no border can stop Pinkie, making every single pony (or any other creature for that matter) smile... Whether they wanted it or not. Her personal recipes and pastries had made the Cakes, her mentors and practically foster family away from her home, the fourth richest family in Ponyville.

Those two friends were the ones Twilight hadn't been able to call to Canterlot. Usually she would have used her own castle for this experiment, or even the regrown Golden Oaks Library, but Celestia herself had asked for extra measurements of defense and planning, so Twilight had agreed to move to Canterlot until the experiment was completed in every way, shape or form.

Twilight sighed as she thought at the missed opportunity. She hadn't seen Pinkie more than once this month, and it was impossible to be around Ponyville without meeting her at least once a day, and that is if you were 'lucky', while Fluttershy still had her weekly meetings with Rarity, and sometimes even the other girls (Yes, even Applejack and Rainbow Dash) when they went to the spa. She dearly missed those and wanted to show the princess that her work was perfect so she could go back home and enjoy some time with her friends once more.

At least three of them had managed to get some time to share with her and to learn of her newest invention first hand.

Rarity, the lovely alabaster mare of refined taste, and now almost second to none as far as pony fashion was concerned, had been swamped by orders for clothes since their last outing to save Equestria. It had been fun to see her purple mane stylized and cared for to the point of remaining intact after a battle, with her fine dress, made with so much care, being so tough that it managed to reflect the magic directed at her. So many years of trying to be, as she said, fabulous and fighting with tooth and hoof had made Rarity not only more determined, but capable of creating things of both beauty and power with ease, ease that no other pony had.

Rainbow Dash had her dream of being a fully fledged wonderbolt more than fulfilled. She had changed the organization even before she joined their ranks as a real wonderbolt instead of one of the reserves, but once she had taken the mantle of Spitfire after the brazen mare decided that her time was up despite still being young and more than capable, the rainbow manned pegasus had made sure that only the best of the best, both in personality and qualities, would be where they should.  You didn't need to be the fastest, Rainbow had learned that,  you needed more qualities than that, and despite the mare's hard headed persona remaining intact, as well as her self absorbed egomania that sometimes reared its ugly head, Rainbow had grown a lot as a mare.

Applejack was, maybe, the least to change over the years. She was stronger, slightly taller and much more tempered compared to the mare that locked horns with Rainbow Dash almost on a daily basis. She was still bullheaded of course, but now she had mellowed out, her sister was going her thing, her brother was married and Granny Smith had her hip fixed, as well as being told that she wasn't going to croak for at least a hundred or so, not like nopony saw that coming or anything. She had expanded her farm, that was for sure, and she had hired more workers, earning her more income and an easier living, but the mare was still the same honest and friendly mare she had started as.

As for Twilight? She was still a bookworm, that would never change, but she was now slightly taller, almost a meter and a half. Cadence was now the height Luna had been while Luna herself was almost as tall as her sister, but she was going to be called 'little one' forever and ever. Twilight knew she wasn't going to grow anymore, but almost a good meter forty was good enough for her as an 'ascended' princess. The only thing that she had gained with time, other than size, was patience, power and more knowledge that she had used to blur the barriers between all pony tribes.

That probably needs some context, but it is easy to explain.

Pegasi, Unicorn and Earth Pony. They are the three original, supposed, pony tribes. They were separated by petty squabbles back in the day, and during modern times, after they banded together, they all had a bit of animosity, but nothing all that big. Problems here, problems there, there was always something that would divert most of their differences away and a great deal of ponies would accept each other, as they were meant to do.

Now there were no more problems, only happiness, comfort and prosperity.

It certainly hadn't degenerated to the old times, but the inclusion of changelings, thestrals, seaponies and more subspecies, variants or offshoots had made the 'original' three species restless.

Thestrals came back after Luna returned, and while they were feared thanks to old mare's tales, they were friendly frugivores with a love for mangoes above all else. True that, much like pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies, they had subspecies that could indeed drink blood or hypnotize ponies, as well as turn to shadow like the umbrum that now were being accepted, albeit slowly, in the Crystal Empire (THAT had been a rocky path to traverse), but the thestrals were one of the most accepted tribes.

Changelings and seaponies? The former had been an attacker species for a long time, and the latter were rumored to have sunk many islands to form their underwater kingdoms, as well as many other things. Those rumors, differences and problems that these newly accepted (if we stretch the word enough) tribes had brought old rivalries to the surface by this and that. Some ponies just wanted to yell at each other.

Twilight remembered how Luna had casually suggested to banish them to the moon, only to correct herself and say that the poor moon dwellers didn't deserve those scornful ponies as company.

A great deal of flak was being fired by the snobs within Canterlot's walls. With most of the nobility being born as unicorns for whatever reason that not even Celestia could really understand, the horned ponies had been spreading rumors that said that, without them, almost nothing that was done in Equestria would've been possible. An utter lie, if one was to ask any of the princesses, Twilight included, but with most of the nobility being what they were, even those sensible nobles trying to clear things were drowned by the more boisterous unicorns.

Sadly, quite a few ponies had found the comments offensive, while a lot of unicorns had gained superiority complexes. One of the most debated topics being why you require pegasi or earth pony trains if you can easily have a single unicorn teleport from one city to another? True that only great magicians, or the princesses, could do it, and even then the number of unicorns capable of doing it, great magician or not, was limited, but it was forcefully put in the spotlight as one of the greatest achievements that made the other tribes 'lesser' as far as unicorns were concerned.

Well, Twilight had something to say about that, and it was going to shut those snobs with a pole up their flanks in a way that would make her old self cackle madly.

I won't be the one to say that she did it anyway when she first found out that the experiment was a success during the initial test phase.

"Twilight, are you there?"

And at last! She could share her little invention with another pony! A bit earlier than she had thought, but one day earlier or one day later wouldn't make a huge difference, right?

"Yes, Rarity, I am here. Do come in."

Twilight bit her cheek as she looked around. The room was a mess. Notes everywhere, the diamond like colored gems that she had prepared were strewn around some of the tables, with only a single green colored gem powered after her latest experiment, and the massive construction on the floor basically littered with the remains of her one failed experiment a few days ago. The poor watermelon had done nothing, yet it had paid the price.

Her friend entered, followed by the other two, all of them smiling at the sight of Twilight's room. She pouted as she saw that, yes, they were all laughing inwardly at the obvious jokes they so much wanted to say, even Rarity with her usual posh demeanor was having a hard time reeling them in.

Rainbow would explode for sure, while she had indeed grown, and Twilight had to keep repeating that to herself, because she was still such a foal in so many ways, she was the biggest troublemaker of their little group. At least she had stopped wearing the wonderbolt suit everywhere. It had felt very weird to see Rainbow, the one mare that hated any kind of dress (but two) get giddy for a suit whenever she had to go out of her house.

Applejack and her trademark stetson were as calm as collected as Rarity, which meant a hoof to her lips to stifle laughs. If there had been one big change it was that both Rarity and Applejack had finally come to an understanding about each other's line of work. Yes, during their adventures and some silly encounters they had accepted quite a lot, but they sure as all Tartarus didn't let go of a few little things. Now that Rarity worked as hard as Applejack once did, the orange mare had begrudgingly admitted that her work not only needed precision and dedication, it also required true effort, while Rarity admitted that the same could be said for the one that now managed a very large and profitable farm.

So it was no surprise that they were giving each other conspiratory looks as Twilight huffed in annoyance.

"Nice to see you too, girls." She grumbled, gritting her teeth "And yes, this is a mess. I thought you three were going to visit tomorrow."

"A bit of a change of plans my dear." Rarity was the first one to calm herself enough to talk "Applejack finished earlier and Sweetie Belle managed to get me what I needed... without burning down anything, for once." Some things never change "Rainbow Dash could have been here earlier, but, well..."

"I was taking a power nap." That, for example, NEVER changed.

"Yes, that." Rarity huffed "I swear, Rainbow, you could sleep through a battle if you so tried."

"That sounds like a challenge." The blue mare grinned at her friend, wiggling her eyebrows "I bet I can sleep while flying through a thunderstorm no problem."

"Ah'm not gonna bet on that one." Applejack patted Rainbow on the back "We all know you could."

"Of course I could." Rainbow's chest puffed, until she thought of what had been said "Wait a second... You guys are telling me I am a lazy bones."

"Oh dear no! The captain of the wonderbolts is NOT lazy." Rarity had an expression of mock hurt as she acted totally surprised by the accusation "How dare you imply such a thing Rainbow Dash? For shame."

"Yea, yea, laugh it up." Rainbow sat on her hunches, grumbling "Now Twilight, it is not like I don't enjoy spending time with you, but I do get a bit nervous when you call us for one of your experiments..."

That made Twilight's mood rise "Still angry at being pink like your mother?"

"Not!" The blue mare scowled as she pointed a hoof at Twilight "Not another word. We agreed to not talk about it." She eyed both her friends at her sides too "Or I start digging dirt on you all."

"I certainly hope that the 'digging' comment wasn't pointing at anything specific." The withered look that the alabaster unicorn gave her friend said it all.

That is what Twilight missed whenever they weren't together. All the good natured ribbing, the bickering back and forth and the few little fights were as good as the nice and friendly conversations, competitions, games and the simple time spent together. They all were so different from one another in so many ways that it just felt right to be together in a nice, tight knit group. The first days had been rough, heck, the first months if you wanted to be specific, but after so many years with them around Twilight couldn't see her life without her friends. Luckily Celestia had assured her that immortality was neither hers nor Cadance's burden.

Twilight shook those thoughts away from her mind "Well girls, I called you here for a few reasons. One of them was to ask how things are going in Ponyville with the latest... developments."

"They are fine my dear, those living in Ponyville are much more relaxed when we compare them to the big cities." Rarity scoffed at the thought "Such a shame that Canterlot is so hostile towards the different breeds of ponies. I even saw some nobles scoffing at Rainbow and Applejack."

"Ah reckon they need a good bucking to the face." Applejack grumbled under her breath "Mah sister got into trouble when delivering some of our apples out of town. If anypony tries to mess with mah family, or me, Ah'll give them a reason to feel superior."

"Superior medical care, right?" Rainbow chuckled as her friend nodded "Yea, even the unicorns around Cloudsdale are being a bit uptight, though only the newcomers act that way. A few 'accidents' made sure they cooled down after they started a fight or two."

The princess of friendship wised that her domain would be more important for once. Cadance and her love was regarded as important enough to compare to Celestia or Luna, after all she had promoted a lot of cross species acceptance with some pairs that fled to the Crystal Empire because not everypony was okay with them and their union. She had done a great service talking to the offenders that couldn't accept others for who they were, as well as many other little things that made Cadance stand more than she once did.

That she had the primal force behind the changeling moving into Equestria as a friendly nation after the many problems in the past had also a lot to do with her present popularity.

Twilight hadn't done much. Oh yes, she had saved Equestria alongside her friends, but the elements of harmony weren't exactly widely regarded as heroines. They had magic trinkets, they embodied the elements in question, but most ponies still thought that they were just a hoax that had the magic of the most powerful magic 'weapon' of all times behind them. So they were basically considered a backup.

A certain princess wanted so badly to buck a few ponies in the face, so she could understand Applejack quite well.

"Well, then I think it is time to show that unicorns aren't the only ones that can do some things." Twilight offered her friends a grin "I may have been a bit proud myself back in the day." And her friends rolled their eyes so hard at that, that Twilight literally felt it "Okay, I was REALLY proud of a few things, but I am no Rainbow Dash."

"HEY!"

"But this is different. Of all the things that unicorns could be proud about, they are proud of a skill that few can really use with any effect, even I still have problems with teleporting from time to time when I have a lack of concentration to work with." Twilight walked towards her little construction "They could have said that they are able to help earth ponies with gardening, pegasi with weather control, or that they are capable of using their powers to ignore many mechanical contraptions with their own works. All valid points. Instead they try to show their power by being stupid and foalish, I even heard some of them caused accidents when they teleported on top of other ponies when the magic's safety measures ensured they didn't get anypony hurt... or worse."

"On that note, one of the accidents at Cloudsdale still has a mare with a stomach full of cloud." Rainbow grinned at the thought "She won't be able to eat for a while, so she isn't complaining about hospital food, only about how many visits to the bathroom she has to make."

Rarity sneered at her friend "Rainbow, that is gross." The blue mare shrugged while Applejack did her best not to laugh.

"The point still stands: Every tribe, every species of pony, every creature, has something that makes them special. If we fight for petty things and titles we aren't going to need the creatures from Tartarus escaping again." The mirth was temporarily forced away as Twilight issued a reality check "So that is why I made this."

With a simple surge of magic and the right amount of focus, as well as a bit of showmanship, every scattered paper in the room was placed in a neat stack as they started to float around to make a cohesive, almost book like form. Dash groaned at what could have been a fun trick, made boring because books, and not even a good book, they were just notes to her after all. When she found her muzzle full of watermelon she stopped grumbling at least.

Behind the mess was a circular platform of black material. While most of Canterlot's castle was made of marble, or other equally 'precious' rocks, this one was made of some kind of alloy. It wasn't hard to make, the materials were cheap and it only needed a bit of earth pony, unicorn and pegasi magic to reach this stage. A perfect combination that was also used to make the gems used with this contraption.

The construction had a large central circle, big enough for ten ponies with space to spare, a single ancient dragon could fit within the circle if it curled into a sitting position. There were three external circles with drawings of what looked to be the symbols of the biggest cities, as well as certain other locations, though probably none of Twilight's friends knew what they were unless she gave them enough time to glance over them or a nudge in the right direction.

On the outermost circle were four square sections. With a flicker of her magic, used to push a simple button close to the entrance of the room, the pillars hidden under the room. Those pillars had larger gemstones, similar to the ones on the table, only of greater magical power and capacity. They were also fully loaded with environmental magic and glowed with a red, green, blue and yellow hues.

"This is the Equestrian Nexus." Twilight announced as the symbol of the Crystal Empire suddenly detached from its place within one of the circles and began floating upwards until it almost reached the room's ceiling "Using magic from the three original pony tribes I managed to create a new alloy that conducts magic and can send either materials or living beings from one side of the world to another in seconds. All it needs to word is magic from the surrounding area to feed the magic crystals and whatever magic the users have."

Everypony looked at the smiling Twilight, then at the large construction as a blue crackling light fell from the levitating piece of metal.

Rarity was the one to voice her doubt "Is it safe?"

"Safest way of transportation if you are in a hurry" Twilight nodded "The only way to veer off course is if someone knocks one of the gems used as mana crystals while the magical circle is operating. That only throws you somewhere unexpected though, I made sure to pull all the stops to make this safe." The mare gave her friends a knowing grin "No more accidents from this mare."

"And if Ah end up in the Everfree instead of Ponyville, for example?" Applejack raised an eyebrow at Twilight "Ah don't want to burst yer bubble Twilight, but this sounds dangerous."

"Of course it sounds dangerous, it is the same thing an unicorn can do, only for mass transportation." Twilight huffed, picking the loaded gem from the table "These gems are smaller mana crystals used for this machine. When you jump they latch on the intended direction. Even if an accident occurs, these will charge quickly and send you back to your original intended destination if you apply some of your personal magic to them. So if you land in the deepest parts of the Everfree, you would be back within Ponyville's boundaries in a minute, tops."

Rainbow had to clap at that "Wow, the egghead didn't mess up for once."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Twilight deadpanned with a tired look. She had expected this, and probably worse.

"No offense dear, we are just a little bit worried, that is all." Rarity approached her friend to pat her on the back "But if you are sure it is safe, why call us? I mean, this is certainly a great contraption, and I love the idea of being one of the first to see it, but why not make it public right away?"

"Come on, Rares, she wants us to test it with her" Everypony turned to Rainbow "What? It is obvious."

"And true." Twilight nodded "I have tested it myself, Cadance too, but we have yet to test it with a group. Single transportation, even when faulty, is fine, but we would like to see what happens when groups travel before we make it public. Cadance also warned me that pregnant unicorns do not teleport for safety measures, so she is helping me with a few regulations that need to be finished before we get everything set in stone" She smiled at the thought "So if you girls are up for this, then you would be doing me the greatest of favors."

The three friends looked at each other, then at their fourth. They hadn't done anything exciting in years, and the giddiness that accompanied their adventures was there faster than they ever thought possible. True, this wasn't an adventure on itself, but it was exciting to think it could be.

When one has a taste of adventure, one wants more or one gets scarred forever. It usually goes that way, either black and white, either you want more or you try to evade it like the plague. The six friends, even Fluttershy, had ended up liking adventure, though the shy pegasus tried to do as little adventuring as possible, it was her nature after all, but she was there whenever needed. This wasn't like stopping Tirek, but it was a nice prospect to be the first doing something like this.

It was almost unanimous within their little group: They wanted the excitement back. Despite their achievements, growth and changes, they missed the uncertainty and apparent danger of their travels... This wasn't going to be the same, but the three mares did pick up one of the smaller jewels and nodded to their friend with smiles in their faces.

"Perfect!" Twilight clapped her hooves together "Then let's step on the machine's central area." She trotted happily towards the center of the contraption, explaining a few safety measures "Only the central area works for this, if there are ponies outside of it, it doesn't work. If there are ponies still on the nexus' other side, the transport won't work..." Those and many, many more, were the rules of engagement with this machine "It is possible to make huge rooms with many nexus, and easy to make them connect together, so while there are only two in all of Equestria, it will be possible to make large areas for hundreds of ponies to travel anywhere in a few seconds' time. If this works well, then we will have it implemented in a few years."

"You are really excited, sugarcube." Applejack chuckled "Ah hope this isn't like one of those experiments of yours."

"Why do ponies link me to explosions all the time?" Twilight huffed as the four friends got themselves in place "It only happens sometimes."

"Often enough." Rainbow grinned "And chunks of a castle showering all over Ponyville tends to leave a mark."

"Or a few squished roofs." Applejack chimed.

"And a lot of debris to clean." Rarity lifted her muzzle in distaste "Seriously my dear, you are more dangerous than most monsters."

"I love my friends." Twilight grumbled as she tapped at the floor "Now everypony get ready."

"Hey, Twilight." Rainbow suddenly grew worried "What would happen if a group was involved with a failure?"

"The accidents were controlled, not even a tremor or a magical accident could knock the large mana crystals off their places." Twilight pointed at the four pillars "It would need to be done by a creature, and there will be a detachment of guards and safety spells and other measures always in place. You would need to be really a piece of work to knock one of these off from their place while there is somepony in transit."

Rainbow grimaced at the thought "That doesn't answer my question..."

"Oh... Well..." Twilight splayed her ears back "No idea, really."

"WHAT!?"

The three friends' question remained without answer as a bright flash enveloped the room.


***Meanwhile in the Chrystal Empire***


"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?"

Two crystal pony maids, covered from head to toe, as per Twilight's instructions, had been taking care of the room with the first nexus machine. They had been told that a very important experiment would be taking place the next day, so they had been dusting the place, putting every paper in order... Truth be told, the place had been a mess with remains of fruit, a few broken gem shards and other pieces of littering trash.

Twilight had made sure to test the heck out of her invention, and that meant a lot of crap left behind. But since she was busy on her end, and Cadance was with Shinning Armor 'planning for a heir', this room hadn't seen a soul for a few days.

The crew that was assigned to cleaning the device had been instructed to do just that: Pick the numbered pages, keep them in order, retrieve any remains from past experiments, place the mana crystals in their receptacles and stay way when the machine was getting ready to work. They knew that the pillars were raised by activating the machine or by being contacted from Canterlot, so when they were raised they knew to move away.

This time the pair that had to get things done hadn't noticed anything until it was too late. While the watermelon had been mostly on Twilight's side, part of it had been transported here, and man, what a mess. The whole central area had been splattered to the point of making it look like a murder scene. It had been enough trouble when the thestral guard assigned outside had tried to lick the floor clean, making an even bigger mess, but  nothing like the buck up that was THIS.

One of the maids had noticed the pillars rising.

She had screamed in shock.

The other had decided to run for it, as she should.

When the first finally got her bearings together, she had done the same, only to slip on some thestral slobber, crash on one of the pillars, knock the mana crystal off and SHATTER THE DAMN GEM! Knocking it off was meant to create a small rift, breaking it, though, was never part of the plan. They were supposed to be night indestructible, and only a very precise hit with a certain level of strength was meant to break them when replaced to make these jewels, well, jewels again.

Do you see how much bullshit and coincidence mixed in one moment? The mares didn't, they only saw the flash that signaled the teleportation device going off. The four friends had taken this long just because the mare within the circle had been sitting on her flank after the impact, but now that she had removed herself from the equation...

Well, good news? Two figures emerged from the circle.

Bad news? Only two figures emerged from the circle.

...

You know, in the moment between the light fading and the forms revealing themselves there were many thoughts going across the two mares' thoughts. How will they explain this to their princess? How will they retain their jobs? What had gone wrong? Would they be thrown into prison. However, as serious as those questions were, there was ONE single affirmation that few ponies would make, preferring a more 'kid friendly' approach to the word. Right now though, after screwing royally, the maids cared little for cutesy things, they just wanted to make the statement clear. What was that word you may ask? Why, it was a pretty simple one that many kids learn early on in their life and that they use when they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Shit.
> Chapter 2: First Mission! Ssss... Well, ALMOST start.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Smell of ozone? Check. Dizziness from long range teleportation? Check. Crystal Kingdom? Uuuuh... not check? That was the basic line of thought that Twilight managed to follow as she felt the weight of her body smash her against the harsh ground. Something had gone awry, awfully so, and in this instance she could say that it hadn't been HER doing.

The ambient was heavy, almost painful, and the lack of magic was asphyxiating to the point where Twilight could hardly breathe. It was not enough to make it a literal pain, but it felt the same way as if you were being smothered, with little room to do anything but worry about what could happen. It was enough to make her panic once she found her own magic to lack enough power to do anything, which prompted her to run, only to trip with something and fall flat on her face, consciousness slipping away before she could even see her surroundings.





The informant had been correct, this area near Villeneuve Mt. System was the spot for the creatures to appear. There had been no bias that hinted at the informant being wrong, but Allen had to admit that he had no confidence in the man, unlike his general. This? This confirmed everything his leader had said, and his fait soared at the thought of Morden being indeed the great leader he once followed, even if his methods had turned to such extremes. He once had his loyalty, and that flame had been rekindled.

Because Morden was that good, and anyone who said otherwise would meet his M60.

He had been doubtful at first, of many things if he was to be sincere, and the large man felt stupid now. He had seen the Middle Son 1999, the latest in retrofit technology when it came to submarines, lifted from the sea and dumped near the riverbed here, in Villeneuve Mt. System, but he had wanted to deny what he saw as just advanced rebel technology. When he also saw the massive fuel tanker dropped near the waterfall, its whole load of fuel delivered separately, he had to force himself be skeptic, unable to deny some of the facts since no piece of technology they had at the moment could lift such tonnage.

Now he saw two extremely colorful... ponies, slumped on the dusty ground, breathing softly. One had a horn, the other had horn and wings, and they sure as all heck were colorful. It almost looked like some of the toys his son liked when he was a kid, before he took to manly guns like he should and blew them apart with a shotgun at age twelve.

Such fond memories.

Despite what one may think from a man a centimeter over two meters, and seventy kilograms over fifty (all of them pure muscle), he was a massive softie when it came to his wife and his son, whom was as strong and as tall as his daddy, but hadn't inherited his baldness.

With a body rippling with muscles, an impressive beard, a wide back, shining done for a head and an attitude capable of killing an ox with just its presence, Allen O'Neil, the second in command of the Rebel Army, was the one person considered the modern 'One Man Army' equivalent. 

He could easily take a dozen bullets thanks to his training back before modern technology made him as hardy as a tank, and even then he could still lift his M60 with enough ammunition to decimate a small army, if he didn't use his own personal knife to finish a battle quickly and in quite the gorey way.

With a double bandolier full of ammo on his chest, his weapon always on his hands, camouflage pants and reinforced boots as only clothes, as well as so much testosterone that women got beards five minutes after contact, Allen was the one guy you would need to look for. He was quite the genius when it came to strategy, and he knew not to send those under his command to die needlessly, but much like his general, the great and powerful Morden, he knew that some things had to change, even if it meant allowing others to win from time to time.

Right now his orders were clear: Bring what the creatures were carrying. The artifacts had to be copied, as they would be used to further their technology and empower humanity, they could even mean the enlarged lifespan of humans in a way medicine never could! Allen was all for that if it meant a longer life with his wife and his son, no matter how many times he had to die or be beaten.

"Sir, shall we proceed?"

Allen turned to face N. 30.227, his personal aide whom he had nicknamed 'Teo' simply because it seemed to bother him the most out of all the names he had picked. He was utterly impossible to tell apart from the rest of the green clad grunts other than for the golden stripe running through his helmet. Unlike the yellow clad soldiers, this didn't mean he was a lieutenant (which doubled as supply carriers), but that he was of a higher rank. He was in fact considered a candidate for the red armor, but had yet to prove he was worthy of such a thing.

In general he was the same as any other soldier in the rebel army: Gaunt, large face, determined eyes, big nose, impressive chin, mischievous smile when he smirked and general decent, if not a bit thin, shape, all hidden under soft armor and an old refurbished WWII helmet.

What set Teo apart was the fact that he was 'upgraded', much like Allen had been. In his case it meant that he had been given more free will than the rest, and he didn't need to develop it unlike most other clones. It also included greater resistance, not that Teo was supposed to be on the battlefield unless it was supporting General Morden, as he had been designed as his gunner for the general's personal bomber unit.

Despite what the idiotic Regular Army thought, General Morden still valued his soldiers, but he did want them to be obedient, and if it meant making most of them dimwitted clones, then so be it for the time being. They would evolve over time and gain their own personalities, unlike the ones that the Regulars had, which meant that most of them would be perfectly willing to do suicide runs if it is what it took. It also meant that they could follow orders to perfection, and were incredible assets when piloting the Girida-O remote control tanks, for they knew those things were as expendable, and recoverable at the same time, as they themselves were. Hell, they had a good number of them in this damn place.

Of course, the problem with this was that they weren't exactly the ones with the most wits unless someone was calling the shots. This would mean they could break after a while, hell, it was expected that they would even join their enemy in small numbers during this war, but as the general had said: "Winning or losing, it doesn't matter. In the end we will be victorious, one way or another. Don't worry about it, Allen, they will see we are right when the time comes."

Empowered by his leader's words, Allen nodded. "Yes, do grab what they were carrying, but don't touch or harm them." Despite their scare tactics, Allen was completely against attacking civilians or those that couldn't defend themselves, more so if they would die forever, as these two would if they were killed. Fun first, but with safety. "Remember that General Morden wants them to aid the enemy."

"If you allow me, boss." Teo gave his leader a worried look. "Why not dispose of them right now? I know that the General has basically predicted a second war, but..."

"A second, a third, even if they are eleven thousand wars for us to wage, even if we are killed time and time again, we will follow the general's orders, UNDERSTOOD!?" Allen yelled the last word atop of his lungs, scaring the two dozen men behind him. Teo just sighed, used to Allen's abrasive personality. "Now get me those gems! Move it you mama's boys or I will cut your balls!"

The soldiers quickly scrambled to do as their leader ordered them to. There was no clone in the Rebel Army that knew not of their general's second in command, or the grizzly end he gave those that had killed the general's son, with his bare hands. When Allen yelled, you either ran away or obeyed his orders. There was no other way around it except getting killed, and most people tried their best to avoid such little inconvenient end, you know, 'cause knife to the gut or M60 to the face tends to sting when you are cloned back into existence.





"Sir, twenty six contacts near the area of operations. There are two unknown signals in the radar."

Regular Army clones were breed from the best genetic material available, this meant, in the present, both Marco and Tarma. The Regulars had brown hair that was a mix of Marco and Tarma's own, with most of Marco's features and Tarma's body composition. Personality wise, though, they varied incredibly from one to another, which easily made them unique persons despite the very similar appearance that would be changed to their liking once their tour of duty was completed, whether they continued in the army or not.

Right now the one clone that mattered to Marco was 'Radio', named so for his more than obvious skills when it came to manning the damn thing that most clones despised, as well as his general knack for not messing up the radar equipment on the massive vehicle they were using. Simply put: The guy was skilled at something else other than killing people. It didn't help that he was usually plugged to the internet hearing music, or that he had a collection of earphones so big that some wondered how the flying fuck he had managed to get them with less than three months of life. So yea, he was Radio, for various reasons.

"How far away are we?" Despite commending the man for a job well done when it came to such modern technology capable of pinpointing bio signs as precisely as this, the idea of a scouting party did not sit well with Marco. "I didn't come here for bad news, Radio, so better deliver something to turn my mood around."

"You came here for whatever news I had, sir." Radio grumbled under his breath. "I am no drive through, so you don't get what you pay for." He gave his boss a snide smirk. Radio had quite the cheek for a clone. "But they are less than ten minutes away on foot, three or four in case of sub commander Tarma, if he isn't sleeping. The dense forest should hide us despite our close position if we move no closer to the area."

"I can kick Tarma in gear." Marco pulled away from Radio's position. "Keep me updated while I get the lazy bones up."

Radio gave a mock salute. "Yessir, it is what you pay me for."

"I don't pay you."

"Which is why I will wait to tell you that the Rebels are retreating, but the two unknown signals remain where they were." He placed a hand over his lips as he offered mock shock. "OOPS! Did I think that or did I say it out loud? My bad!"

"RADIO! Once we are done with this mission you are going to the brig!"





Ten minutes, and a very weird conversation later, there were two extra bodies within the M.C&C.U (We need a better name for this piece of junk). This fucking place had a practice range, the cloning unit, a medic bay, the hangar, a dormitory, the command center, which also doubled as the helm (it was that big) and also the cell area. Why was this massive thing so cheap? If you threw pebbles in the right places, it blew up. So yes, do you know about the jokes made at Russia's expense about shoddy materials for their things? Multiply it by a thousand and you get the M.C&C.U vehicles. Extremely useful, extremely crap.

Anyway, derailing here.

"You know, when I said that unicorns would pop out of the woodwork, I was mostly kidding." Tarma had taken off his glasses and was doing his best to wake up. Cold water hadn't helped, rubbing the bridge of his nose didn't do shit, even Marco's slap for him to stop trying to wake up hadn't done a thing for the alabaster form to disappear. "If you gloat, I swear, I will kill you."

"Gloating can be done once this first mission is over." His friend waved the irate Tarma away. "Right now I wonder what these things mean.  Radio assured me that they appeared out of thin air, with a group formed by two dozen Rebels waiting for them no less."

Tarma looked at the holding cell. Both Twilight and Rarity were there, slightly dirty, but unscathed. Neither friend knew who these two creatures were, but it was obvious they weren't from around here. Was it the butt tattoo? The horns? The wings? The fact that they were so colorful that you probably could see their bright outline in the middle of the fucking night?! There were so many things to say about them that it was not funny faster than you could think of.

"But he is sure that were already unmoving even before the radar caught sight of them." Marco was equally pensive as Tarma, only he hadn't tried to bring back reality by hitting himself against a wall. Though that probably had to do with being half awake. "I will refrain from thinking they are mere colorful, and very weird looking, small horses until they wake up. For all we know they are a perfectly sentient and sapient species, or they could be hellspawns."

Tarma turned to look at his friend, his demeanor calling him something slightly more offensive than simply 'stupid'. "Seriously? Demons? I know you can speak some bullshit, but..."

"I basically mean Biologic Organic Weapons, like the old Resident Evil games." Of course, Marco had to turn geek to shut Tarma up. "We have seen weird things already, and I doubt the near future doesn't include a small zombie apocalypse somewhere. Why not mutant creatures?"

Tarma shuddered at how calmly his friend was taking such more than possible notions. For some reason it felt like foreshadowing of the biggest order. With how many nuclear weapons had gone missing many years ago, even before things went to hell and the Regular Army formed, to some claims about strange lights in the sky that the government couldn't answer, things were looking grim all over the place. That Marco just shrugged the word 'zombie', when it could happen any other day now, was scary.

"I highly doubt these things are some kind of experiment." At least Tarma was here to bring things back to reality. "Look at them! They are brightly colored... ponies? They have the size, or probably a bit smaller, I don't think the white one is taller than one meter in height, the other is maybe twenty centimeters taller. Not only that, but they have massive eyes and look... well... they... they look perfect despite being dirty and shit."

Marco had to nod at that. "Yes, they do. There are no visible wounds, their hair seems to be perfectly combed against their skin, their manes, even after lying in dirt for so long, are hardly touched, even their tails, and their hooves don't show despite being there." Shame that they weren't robots, Marco would've been all over them otherwise. "What do you think?"

"I am unsure of what to say." Tarma shrugged. He had used his own modifications to reach them fast, but the clone body had burned down after he returned with the pair. Doing what his real body could when he was in a cheap imitation hadn't been a good idea. "Even without the clone body these two are very light, as in stupidly light. I could lift them with almost no strength whatsoever. Despite that one little tidbit they seem very resilient, I mean, I accidentally hit the purple one against one of the trees around here and the tree literally got a hole in it. And no, I didn't hit it with the purple horse's horn."

"Biologically, that is impossible." Marco ignored the fact that, if the creature was indeed intelligent, it would be complaining of some headaches in the foreseeable future. "They are like large dogs, the purple one could look eye to eye with me if it got on its hind legs. Seeing their anatomy makes me think of cartoons however." Indeed it did, as they looked almost peerless, and not at all like a horse should. "It is safe to assume that if they aren't artificially made, they are not from this world."

Tarma thought for a second before he gave a possible explanation. At least it was more probable than aliens if you asked him. "How about underground? Maybe a very isolated island a la Jurassic Park or Lost World?" Marco threw her friend a sidelong glance and a small smirk. "What? Can't I be a geek too?"

"You don't have the right getup for it." Marco pointed at his head with a small smirk crossing his lips. "But no, neither of those are viable. We already explored even the deepest areas of the ocean and underground locations would need not of those bright colors, much less that kind of wings and size. Not only that, but with you at full speed the purple one should have suffered a wound, instead it seems to have just a few hairs out of place."

"So you are going with the aliens theory?" Tarma would've laughed if it wasn't a real possibility.

"It is either that, B.O.Ws or something else." The blonde nodded as he thought of what to do with them. "How is Green Beret?"

Tarma grimaced at the nickname. That Rebel clone had been a pain in the ass to capture, and it had been achieved by, ironically, Blue Cap. The two guys were opposites of each other: Green Beret seemed to be independent, almost like Regular clones, while Blue Cap was a sticker for military ranks and orders. They weren't supposed to work that way unless you exchanged armies.

"Blue said he was okay, and I am not about to go check on the snoring snow white." Despite the potential reward, Tarma disliked the guy. He was way too much like Radio. "I would prefer to leave him to Green until the guy either gets some sense or croaks and goes away."

"Such Samaritan." 

Marco smirked at the thought. The clone was worse than any of the Regular clones aboard this piece of crap, but it was funny to see that there was some decency in Morden's lines. The guy followed orders because he was around a lot of idiots that would shot at him otherwise, but now he could be a lazy asshole until he was rescued. He did still want to kill the Regulars, but other than that he seemed to be on the level. If he could get that bit of devotion for Morden out of the way, then Green could, maybe, join, or at least he could give the finger to the so called general. For Marco it was a win-win scenario with either choice, but finding that Rebel clones could be integrated into their army would be a huge help.

"W-what happened...?" Marco's thoughts were crushed as the purple creature finally talked, signaling she, as the voice sounded feminine, awoke from the slumber. "R-Rarity? Applejack? Dash?" She grunted as she tried to get up. "My head hurts..."

"Oops." Tarma gave his friend a quick look. "I think I am in trouble."

"No shit." Marco did his best not to chuckle. "Let's see how she reacts."

Well, that was quick to see. First she gasped. While the holding area was not the best thing ever, it was still durable steel... well, as durable as this piece of shit could be. It was not the prettiest thing, but the whole machine was built this way, so at least it was decent and easy to clean. With two bunk beds fixated to the floor, clean sheets and a separate room with a bathroom (Camera included so you don't do evil shenanigans in there without being seen), this could be considered a luxury as far as holding cells went. Obviously though, the creature wasn't used to simply a room made out of metal.

"Where am I!?" Just in case, and a good precaution it had been since purple basically jumped out of bed, both subjects had been placed in different beds to ensure no harm came to them. "Rarity! Are you all right?" But it seemed that the reinforced glass that set the cell apart from the corridor was ignored, unlike what Marco had expected, as the creature went for her friend (Because it was obvious she was at least a friend) first. "Rarity! Wake up!"

She was her friend alright, because only a friend would hold their desire to crush another person, or creature, and force them to choke on their teeth if they shouted right against their ears. Seeing how the white one jumped and almost slammed her head against the purple creature, only pouting at such rude awakening, it was safe to assume they wouldn't murder each other... yet.

"Twilight? Why such rude awakening? And by Celestia, where are we?" Rarity, since that seemed to be her name, looked around quickly, giving a derisive snort after a few moments. "The decor could use some work, if you want my humble opinion."

"Perfect, we have a diva as one of our first contacts."

You know the sound of silence? The precious, perfect and always awaited sound that you wish to grace your ears when you are dead tired and desire nothing else than a full night's rest? That was the sound that was heard when, in slow motion, both Twilight and Rarity turned their heads and finally noticed the two humans that were in front of the cell. Tarma was lying against the metal wall, Marco was there, formal and waiting.

The buzzing of a fly would have shattered the world right then.

It was a moment for contemplation, or at least Marco thought so. Mostly, and not exactly figuratively, Marco wanted to facepalm so hard that it would destroy the fucking command vehicle. Funnily enough, the fear of it actually happening was bigger than the fear of startling the occupants of the cell. Why did he want to do it you may ask? It wasn't because his friend had been so blunt that he could kill evolution with one of his comments, because believe you me, Tarma could literally stop anything on its tracks if he opened his mouth at the wrong time. Oh no, the problem was the mix that had been created here.

Tarma hated superficial people, with a passion. Maybe it was because, as a son to a great warrior, he was expected to be the best of the best when it came to the warriors of Asia (or at least his father wanted such a thing), or maybe because almost everyone thought that a young man with his money would end up being a brat. Whatever the case, Tarma disliked people that went for appearance first and foremost. He had found enough men and women that were like that, and Marco had to admit that the strangely pish posh sounding unicorn hadn't painted a beautiful picture with those few words of hers.

"Excuse me?" Rarity huffed, raising her head up and looking away as if both humans were nothing. "Diva? Me? I am a fashionista, thank you very much. I cannot avoid using my keen eye more than my dear friend here can avoid messing up her spells, it seems."

"HEY! This is NOT my fault!" Twilight was completely incensed at her friend's comment. "Even the worst outcome would have flung us over the mountains of the Crystal Empire, at worst! Heck, we would have even ended over the ocean, and only for a few minutes too." She huffed as she looked to her side, speaking as sweetly as she could. "Could you return us our mana crystals?"

Marco had been trying to keep as much of a neutral face as possible, but that broke it to pieces as he turned to wonder. "Mana crystals? As in magic?"

Twilight tilted her head at the question. "Of course, what else would it be? I mean, I can feel we are moving somehow, so this must be like our trains or something. They may need fuel, but they also require mana crystals to power the magitech, right?"

"My dear lady, this is a Mobile Cloning and Command Vehicle, it is as big as three houses put together, if not bigger. You are basically in a land ship." Marco explained slowly and deliberately. "Pure technology. This land has no... magic."

Marco was not one for utterly cute stuff, but he had to admit that the... mares? Yea, let's go with that, it would be better to simplify things. Okay, ejem, the mares were 'pretty', in a way too colorful and cartoony way. The slow change of Twilight from a gentle smile to what looked like a very toothy and wicked grin as her left eye developed some kind of tick? Not so much.

"W-w-what do you mean by 'no magic'?" The few strands of hair from her mane were few at first, but quickly they rose in number. "That can't be right, for you see, everything needs magic to live! Yes! EVERYTHING! If there is no magic, there is no soul, if there is no soul, there are no more living things created after the original living being passes away, and if there is no more living things THEN there is no magic! Yes! A whole universe full of dead rocks awaits us where no magic has ever go-ACK!"

"Honestly Twilight." Marco didn't believe his eyes: Rarity was holding a pillow, with her horn, with MAGIC! Some kind of aura was controlling it, and she had used the impromptu bludgeoning object with brutal force, for a pillow. "Every time something goes awry you make my acting look so blasé compared with how over the top you can be." She held the pillow high for her to see. "Besides, see this? I can still use my magic."

"How... how can you do that?" The white mare turned to see the wide eyed Marco. "Telekinesis is rumored to be possible, but humans that do it usually use nothing more than parlor tricks. Magic on Earth is impossible, a myth." He stopped for a second before he decided to test something. "Unicorns also don't exist here, nor does any other species but humans show sapience."

Another moment of silence followed, this time without so much craziness, mostly because Rarity appeared to faint out of nowhere, with Twilight following right after.

The voice of reason, named Tarma in this case, decided to state the obvious as Marco did his best to understand the situation. "I think this is going to get old pretty fast."





"Okay, so let's make a quick resume." Marco took some air as his mind raced light itself to the finish line. "You are ponies from a magical world called Equis, living in the land of Equestria, with immortal demigod as princesses, of which you are one (minus the immortal part). There are no wars nowadays, everyone is basically happy except for some trouble being stirred by uppity nobles and you were trying to one up them, which got you two here for some reason."

"That is basically it, yes."

Mess hall would usually be used for a very clean, very tidy, orderly and usually very occupied area. Today it was devoid of life. Almost everyone was in the barracks area of the M.C&C.U, for good reasons too. With a mission coming up in no time, and with nerves as raw as they could get, it didn't matter what the clones or the few humans thought. They required to be rested for the confrontation.

Despite the low morale at the moment, countered by the eagerness at a chance to fight back, the silence and loneliness in the area had a positive effect on both mares.

Twilight had commented on how humans were, at best, a myth back in Equestria. Some said they had once lived there, or that they had visited in ages past, things like that. As a counter, Marco had been the one to talk about how unicorns, dragons, minotaurs and many other species were no more than fairytales, with magic being nonexistent, though Twilight quickly showed that it was pretty much a debunked thing when she managed to use her telekinesis without much problem.

Problems appeared quickly with that, though. They happened mostly because Twilight was almost unable to use anything else but telekinesis, or at least she thought she couldn't. It took her a few tries, but the purple mare managed to focus a lot of her magic at once, almost ready to use a teleportation spell that she had mastered. It was a test to make sure of a few things, and Twilight had been about to succeed!

Then it turned into a literal bolt of energy that incinerated a hole in the wall, as well as two tables and twelve chairs. They didn't melt, and yes, they were made of metal. What did they do? They literally evaporated with nary a trace.

The purple mare made sure to explain that she wasn't a combat magician, in fact she was very far from such a title. While she and her friends had been around many disasters and had gone from adventure to adventure, none of them was a real combatant, except maybe Rainbow Dash. To use such magic? It was as if all her power just focused partially, and the ambient magic of Earth didn't seem to react to her being an alicorn very well. However, she was the lucky one.

Rarity was, as Tarma gently put it, bitching and moaning while Marco and Twilight talked. Twilight quickly explained that Rarity wasn't the most magical unicorn ever, after all she was a dress maker that, at best, used her magic also for jewel finding and gem cutting. She knew a few other spells and ways of using her powers, but, and Twilight was clear with this, most unicorns made sure to be quite specialized with their powers as they grew older.

As you could probably guess, Rarity was unable to do much with her magic. Control things with telekinesis? Possible, but limited. She had tried to sew some things together, only to stab herself in the process. Heck, doing it with her hooves or her mouth hadn't given her much better results and she had been this close to crying.

So while Twilight and Marco talked things over and tried to understand how everything had happened, Rarity was trying to gain a sense of normalcy that avoided her like the plague. She was just this close to crying again and Tarma wasn't helping any.

"Tarma, stop being an ass and leave Rarity alone." Marco hissed once Tarma tried to reach for the alabaster unicorn again. "So, miss Sparkle, what could have done this?" The blonde relaxed once his friend dejectedly avoided the white unicorn's heated glare. "If you described your gate accurately, then only an outside force should have been able to mess with everything. Well, it is either that or a miscalculation of some kind, and only group travel seemed to be exempt of your studies, which is why you asked your friends for help. This, of course, only if I understood all perfectly."

"That is exactly it, yes." Twilight placed a hoof on her chin as she rested against the table, deep in thought. "There wasn't supposed to be any kind of problem, in fact the experiment was to be stable. I will admit that there was a chance for the pillars to be unstable during the first group test, which is why I requested for the room in the Crystal Palace to be undisturbed..."

Tarma decided to pipe in right then. "If I heard correctly, you went ahead a day or so before the scheduled date." Twilight blinked, then nodded. "If those... Crystal Ponies, are as dutiful and old fashioned as you say, maybe the crew assigned to clean things up were in there thinking it wouldn't be used for another day or so."

The purple alicorn opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut and groaned. This was perfectly complemented with a slam of her forehead, and horn, against the table. Blunt as it was, Marco had to give props to Twilight: Her horn had made a hole on the metal table.

"Of course, they would be scared if they saw the gate powering up. They aren't used to all that magic yet." The mare groaned again without moving a single muscle more than necessary. She seemed to be quite experienced with these kinds of 'setbacks'. "It is easy to imagine they panicked and maybe moved one of the pillars by mistake, or even threw one of the large gems. Such disruption could easily make a rift between dimensions if it came to happen. Of course I had safeguards and many levels of contingencies to avoid that with singular teleports but..."

Rarity stopped her bemoaning, something the others had tuned out quite a while ago, and faced Twilight like a demon straight from hell. "WHAT?!"

"I told you girls that I had made my homework this time." Twilight furrowed her brows for a moment, not looking at her friend. "I knew EVERY possible problem that could arise, except what would happen if there was a miscalculation going through with a group of ponies or other creatures. That is WHY I wanted a stable environment to test it on." She gave her friend an apologetic look. "Everything was supposed to be under control, but I suppose that going early was a big mistake. Still, look at what happened!" She waved her hooves around with a grimace on her face. "New world, new creatures, almost no magic. Exciting, but it came at a very bad time indeed."

"BAD?! Twilight, my dear, I am this close to bucking you back to Equestria." Rarity was not one for real spats and anger, but when she was miffed you'd prefer to be in another continent. She wasn't strong, not as much as Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow or even Pinkie, but she could make your life miserable. She was just that nice. "And when we get back, because we WILL, I will make you take care of Sweetie Belle for a month."

Twilight eyed her friend with curiosity. "But... Sweetie Belle has been grown up for years."

"Then think of how bad she can be when I say that she is worse than when she was a filly." Twilight gulped at the thought. "I will even tell her that you allowed for her to use your castle for her singing practice, heck, I will tell her that you want her to sew for you!" Sadly, that was one 'hobby' that Rarity's sister hadn't allowed to die. To say that it was a horrible aberration against nature was being gentle. "And I will make you wear whatever she makes. For. One. Bucking. Year."

Did I mention Rarity had grown? Like everypony else, she had gone around, saving ponies as much as the rest of them. She was gentle, she was refined, she was a dramatic actress, but she had also toughened up until adventure time was over. Those changes had remained though, and Rarity was much stronger, both in character, body and language, than she had once been.

"I assure you this WAS not one of the things that was supposed to happen. I didn't even think about testing this theory, I swear!" Twilight was quick to defend herself in case Rarity exploded. "I am as miffed as you are, I'll swear it again if you want, but being angry won't help us any." She coughed a bit, recovering what dignity she had before Rarity almost threw her off her seat with just an angry glare. "Besides, I think we have answered our friends to the best extent of our capabilities." Twilight turned to smile at the pair of humans. "I think it is time that we get our crystals back and return to Equestria. We will return and open diplomatic relations once we get all in working order, this much I promise."

"About that, there is a problem." Tarma was the one to bring this rotten pie to the table. "We don't have your crystals." And both mares looked at him as if he had killed a puppy or something. "In fact we only noticed you two because the one man at the helm of this ship found out a large group of Rebel soldiers around you."

With that can of worms open, Marco started to talk as he signaled for the mares to follow him once the mess hall was done being useful for his purpose.





Okay, new milestone: How to break a magical creature from a fantasy world in less than an hour! Marco was going to go down in history as the person that made Twilight Sparkle completely bonkers, around sixty two times, just enough to give her a small mental breakdown big enough to shatter a world. Luckily for everyone, that only allowed her to fixate so much magic on her body that she managed to teleport outside the vehicle, scream atop of her lungs, and then come back in. When Rarity asked her how she had managed such a thing Twilight answered with a very terse 'No comment, ever'.

On the plus side, the mares had been more accepting of this than any of the humans had expected, even Radio had been able to shut up while Marco talked with them.  True that the girls had seemed utterly awestruck and disgusted at the mention of wars, violence and just plain death, more so than any human he had ever meet, but they had heard him out.

Twilight had decided to give them more snippets about her homeland, which quickly told them why some of the explanations Marco gave away were less than savory for the mares. They were, to put it as simply and as gently as he could, abashed at Morden's actions. That there was a technology that had saved every single casualty was the only thing that had managed to calm down the mares, at all, because Twilight had looked about to turn Super Saiyan and blast the shit out of everything with one of those magic missiles of hers. The purple mare did laugh at that, but under her breath she let out something akin to 'I don't know what a Saiyan is, but I like the idea of blasting that Morden person'.

Incidentally, Rarity assured the two humans that Twilight was usually much nicer and less crazy prone.

After the quick explanation about the current situation, and a very compressed story lesson, which mostly went through these last years, that almost made both mares puke (they did turn green for a while at some of the less savory points), they decided to relay the bitter news: The Rebel Army had, for whatever reason, the mares' crystals. Yet they had left the ponies behind.

This proved to be a problem, and Marco was quick to explain why once both mares questioned him. 

First: They were considered civilians, ambassadors even (at best), unless the proper authorities did something about it, and the proper authorities consisted of both Marco and Tarma at the moment. This also had a massive gap with Twilight technically filling the gap for Equestria's side, which probably didn't count since she preferred to stay away from politics. To put it bluntly here: They were supposed to be protected and kept safe. This, of course, sounded stupid to mares that were used to up to six against one odds when it came to the male sex. That culture shock had been a funny bit to waddle through.

Second: There was a base between them and the enemy, and the only reason that they had been attacked right now was that this big pile of junk had ONE saving grace as far as Marco was concerned: Camouflage. The panels that could alter the light around them to make it look like nothing was where a massive fucking vehicle should be were the best bit of technology strapped to this thing's hull. The only reason it was easy enough to navigate around the dense forest was the previous battle fought here, as it had made such large clearing areas that a fully formed army with thousands of units under its name could go through without knocking down a tree. This, of course, was a testimony to the base's energy weapons and their power at long ranges.

Three and final point to consider: The crystals probably had been moved already. Marco knew that there were many small strongholds and outposts, and right now the one area that they had ripe for an attack was this one. So yes, picture that: This one base, with almost impossible odds, was the least defended enemy fortress. It was easy to bring the point across when Marco told the mares how much of a chance they stood against a superior enemy in equipment, numbers and with a better defensive position.

Simply put?

"We are boned." Tarma had quite the silver tongue for these situations. "I could easily dismantle that thing if we get close to it, but the only safe area for such a thing is the river, since the water makes the energy blast dissipate after just a few meters unless it is focused as a very concentrated long range attack." This had been told by Marco at the beginning of his talk, before he had been derailed to tell the mares everything else. "As Marco told you two: Going through the other side would be suicide. Yes, they would take time aiming as they moved the crashed ship, but after that we would be incinerated. And going above the mountain waterfall would make us little more than target practice for the attack helicopters that patrol the area without them having to get close."

"The exact number is unknown." Marco nodded at Radio. The holographic screen was good to show the ponies what they would find, and in this case it showed both the Girida-O, the remote control tank, mass produced model, and the R-Shobu attack helicopter. "We theorize they have at least four R-Shobu units left, as the local militia shot down at least three of them during one of their raids." He pointed at the helicopter model that seemed to catch Twilight's attention. "The Girida-O tanks are more numerous, and reports intercepted from the militia number around twenty before they attacked the first time, so there could be quite a few still operational."

"As for rebel soldiers..." The holographic image changed into a 3D map. There was a straight line from the edge of the forest to the river bed. Marco pointed to key areas as he explained what the latest message had told him since Tarma fell asleep. "The ancient temple close to the area of operations has an underground tunnel that connects with a few other old temples and caverns in the area. The militia has gained a lot of infamy amongst the Rebel Army, so a good number of their soldiers will be patrolling the underground. This would be helpful if we didn't have at least a thousand effectives still patrolling above ground, probably waiting for us in the worst case scenario." There was a silver lining to it. "The good news? The long range scanners found out that most of them will be near the river village where they have stored most of their cloning units. A quick enough assault could catch them by surprise and we could easily annihilate their defenses and blow them up before they even had time to arm themselves with whatever equipment was left from the patrols."

"I know this displeases you." Marco did indeed see, practically feel, the mares' moods. "But while you say that violence is hardly a resort back where you live, here it is a necessity." The 3D image changed again, showing a crude and very pixilated image of the SV-001. Technically speaking, as much as he despised these orders, Marco could not show anyone what the Metal Slugs looked like unless they were part of the operations that concerned them. "While most the technology developed until now has found quite a bump in the road, the SV-001, Metal Slug, is the first real improvement in warfare."

"It is a miracle, that is what it is!" Tarma's passion for mechanics took control of him faster than Marco could reel him in. "Not only is it a miniaturized tank capable of being operated by a single pilot with such ease that it makes a game look hard! It has a clean nuclear reactor capable of a massive suicide attack to avoid capture, it packs as much as twenty shells of concentrated explosive material capable of adapting to an Armor Penetrating Shell Function (A.P for shorts), and it is an all terrain vehicle capable of using thrusters to jump as high as the nimblest human." The man's eyes were as dreamy as Rarity's own when she discovered new fashion. "Dual vulcan cannons, 120mm rounds, enough armor platting to stop a shell or two and artificial intelligence help module integrated into the mainframe, as well as nanomachines that practically create a shield during activation or deactivation? It is a jewel that I can't wait to get my hands on!"

The room fell into silence for a few seconds until Tarma noticed everyone looking at him intently.

"... Yes, of course." Tarma coughed as Marco's withering glare meet him. "As Tarma has quickly showed you with his magnificent speech, these machines are very dangerous." He let out a very tired sigh. "The brightest minds made them shortly before they developed a much cheaper and specialized tank: The Sand Simon. The Metal Slug was supposed to be mass produced, perfect for attack or defense, a great peace keeping weapon that would be impossible to crack and that would respond only to the Regular Army's genetic print, making hacking, hijacking or simply stealing them a nightmare brought to life." He thought for a moment and decided to add. "The artificial intelligence was supposed to be a simple help to achieve this, though the prototypes were fit with quite the advanced stuff already and they didn't need the AI as far as some on the development team were concerned. We didn't get to test out how advanced they would've gotten however, since our base was blown to bits before they were all readied."

Tarma growled at the thought. "Most of them were prepped, so I can assure you that the basic code decided to blow themselves, that much I saw." The man was obviously upset about that, and he didn't mind to let it show. "However, the Rebel Army caught us with our pants down and the A.I installed models hadn't been readied yet."

At Rarity's abashed glare, and rosy cheeks to compliment it all, Marco explained. "We were supposed to prepare and launch an attack to one of Morden's bases, much like we are preparing to do now. Sadly, after uncovering new information and implementing the technology in this vehicle, as well as creating some of our support staff, such as Radio." Marco nodded at the clone, whom just gave him a nod in return. "We were attacked. Most of our supplies and our troops were captured or downed."

"In any case." Marco continued right after a quick pause as he thought back to those events. "The only possible solution for our lack of resources, from food to water, ammunition and other supplies, as well as our lack of manpower, is to attack the base located here, in Villeneuve Mt. system." Once more the image turned to show the whole area planned as the attack front. "If we damage the enemy fortress, the Tetsuyuki, we will be able to get their cloning unit and recover the data of many soldiers, as well as militiamen, alongside as many supplies as we can scavenge." Marco finally took a seat and nodded at Radio to turn down the hologram. "In addition to that, now that you two are here, we will be able to see if your crystals are around. If that is not the case we can find the most probable location, which would also serve as our next area of operations once we are ready."

Silence filled the room quickly afterwards. Rarity had wanted to express a few things, Radio had wanted to make a comment or two, even Tarma was about to say a few things, just to rile Rarity up, but everyone shut up as they saw Twilight's expression. The alicorn was thinking about something, very hard, and disturbing her could be a very bad idea.

The way Twilight saw it Morden was just a very sad person that had been broken. She knew that if anypony was going to turn into a monster, it would be her if Shining Armor suffered in any way. True that Cadance would love and protect Shining, but she had little malice in her unless someone outright killed Shining, and in that case there would be TWO monsters to worry about.

Twilight found it funny since, as any good little sister would, she thought her brother as an indomitable mountain that would never be broken... even if said mountain cried at weddings.

She had to be VERY direct here, because she could not allow sympathy to win over her. She had been feed the abridged version, but she could tell when somepony lied, after so many years it was very easy since she had a bit of the element of honesty basically forced into her being. Marco and Tarma were sincere, there was no self doubt, lies or misinformation. Morden had been a brutal executioner.

What did make it look 'light' in comparison to the garish picture in front of her? Morden had ALSO ensured that everyone lived... somewhat. Even if they all lost, the dead would come back. Yes, it would be a tyrannical rule, but no one would die, other than the evil people that had initiated this in the first place. Twilight was unable to sympathize with murder, even in this case, but she had to admit that she would've done worse in Morden's case. If Shining had been the one to avenge her, then it would have been even worse, and she knew how to make Discord cry.

But here she had a man that had given his country everything, and in turn his superiors had allowed for ruin to befall him. It was as if Celestia had suddenly betrayed all of Equestria by allowing disaster to happen without doing a thing! It was hard to deny sympathy for the man, but at the same time it was also hard to show any favorable feelings for him. Madness could truly transform you into a hideous creature that you never thought yourself capable of being.

And yet sympathy would just hurt this time over. Friendship and magic would not cut it here. She just had Rarity, and even if they had the elements, the magic would not banish something that was part of the man without magic on him. As much as she disliked it, Twilight saw that the solution here was a more direct approach.

"I am ashamed to say that I can't find a solution from my world that would serve us here." Rarity bit her lip as her friend said that. "I... It hurts to think about it, it physically makes me feel ill, but bringing down this tyrant seems to be the only logical solution. The problem, for me, is that it cannot be done with words if all you told us is true." Twilight gave her friend a pointed look, asking for her to be strong without even saying a word. "I will offer our help to your cause, but I cannot put myself under your command. I am sorry, but this is not the same as acting back home, where we have treaties with other nations; there is a new world where our help could be seen in many ways, most of them in negative light." 

Twilight wasn't sure that as a 'ruler', even if Twilight hadn't exactly used the title at all, she could be drafted by anypony by Equestrian laws. Marco had said that she, at best, was an ambassador, and as such she had to represent her people in all aspects of the word. Being put under someone's command would not only harm possible relations here, but also back home. An advisor's position, however, could be a possible thing, unless there was another option.

Marco found the problem as soon as Twilight thought about it. "No, I am sure you can't, not if we think back to our previous conversation." He pondered about the problem for a moment. "But you could, in a sense, if you offered your support in exchange of something." That brought Twilight's attention back. "How do you like the word 'mercenary', Twilight?"

"Such a crude word, and people." Rarity huffed at the thought of mercenary griffin and minotaur soldiers that she had meet. They weren't the worst of the mercenaries out there, but sadly they were way too common. "Not exactly a dignified work, being loyal to the purse and the purse alone. Brutish to the core and with hardly any honor, no more than glorified watchdogs." She snorted, obviously not happy with the idea. "You aren't suggesting we offer our expertise in THAT way, are you?"

"Suggesting? Oh no, I am encouraging you to offer your services in that exact way." Marco smiled as Rarity gasped. The mare was going to be a very funny partner when it came to goad Tarma, mostly because his friend was already losing his nerve at the mare's antics. "You cannot officially lend us your support, as your government, your land, is presently at a neutral state with us at best, and that is being gentle since your rulers could consider this forceful drafting, even kidnapping. The truth is that you two are not representatives, you are little more than captives in a foreign world unless we manage to take the crystals back and you two can return home. Despite our best desires letting you two loose would mean that the Rebel Army could potentially go for you, and if they get their hands on you it could spell doom in case that Morden manages to control you like he can do with humans."

Tarma got up, almost ready to tell Rarity to take the stick out of her flank as the mare scoffed at Marco's every word, only for his friend to act in time and force him back down. "We are under obligation to keep you safe, but with things as they are, it could be equally as easy for a foreign power to offer us a deal in exchange of certain services as a 'token' in our time of need." He offered both mares a smile. "In foreign lands it was common to find mercenaries amongst invading armies, and in this case it could be said that this situation is similar. We are an invading army that is trying to liberate this area, an area previously under control of our allies, but we lack manpower, or horsepower in your case, to do it. As things are at the present we will likely fail in our attack without further support."

This brought a grin to Twilight's face. They could help them, and in return both Rarity and herself would be back home... with extras! She wasn't one to take advantage of another's bad luck, but she had to admit that Marco was a very sneaky person to offer such a deal. Why, looking around her she found THOUSANDS of things she was dying to research, and Twilight herself was wondering just how much willpower she was using to not slobber all over every piece of equipment. She wasn't fond of warfare, but if all she had been told was true, then there would be no one really or permanently harmed, which was the only thing that made her consider this idea at all.

Then again, with assurance of no permanent harm and so many things she was curious about, Twilight didn't need much coercion. "If you share your technological discoveries with us, then  you have a deal." She turned to see her friend pouting like a puppy. The mare wasn't exactly fond of the idea, but if her friend was going to do it, then Rarity wanted something entirely different going her way. "Oh, and fashion magazines, tons of them, from all over the world." Rarity was quick to show her approval with a happy squeal of delight that made Tarma cringe. "But... Despite our magic, it is obvious that we cannot just trust our natural skills here. I doubt I could go forcing magic blasts left and right, I would be drained in a few minutes at best with how hard it is to manipulate mana here on Earth." Twilight frowned for a few seconds, really not happy at what she was about to suggest next. "I think we will need to be supplied with... weapons, if we are to be of any real use."

"Funnily enough, our informant gave us some equipment that we can't use. It is as if it was designed for something different than a human." Marco threw Tarma a conspiratory glance. "Seeing how you two were expected, I'd like to think that someone knows more than they are letting on." This brought a frown from both mares. "On the plus side, it means you both can get equipment."

Rarity 's mood soured once more. "I sincerely dislike this idea." She grouched. "But I would feel much worse by doing nothing than I will feel by being a... hired gun." The sole idea of simply being hired for such brutish acts made her lift her nose in the air, distaste obvious. "I am a lady with class; I know how to act, how to sew, how to move through the crowd and how to be as subtle as the next noble, all the while charming my way between those self important fools." The mare huffed. "I spent all my life making a lady out of myself. I didn't mind some adventuring, but being a mercenary in a war is just TOO much."

"Oh yea?" And here it came. This time Marco didn't get to Tarma in time as the man slammed his hands on the holographic screen, disrupting the image. "Is miss prissy too big of a lady to get her hooves dirty?"

Despite appearances, Rarity rose to the bait almost instantly. "Why you! I shall let you know that I have faced the greatest threats to our world alongside my friends! I am nothing if not a heroine, you furless monkey, so don't presume things of me when you know nothing! Besides, if we are going to play that game I will gladly say that you are nothing more than a ruffian by the looks of it." She huffed the last words, obviously upset.

Tarma got away from the table and motioned the mare to come. "Then show me. I know the perfect equipment for you and I am sure I will shut your trap faster than I can fall asleep." Rarity was hard pressed to hold a rude comment. "If you don't show any promise, then we will have your friend help while you sit your pretty pony ass here at the base." He opened the door, crossing his arms as he waited, expecting Rarity to back down while giving a hissy fit.

"YOU...! Fine! I will show you how a mare does things." The alabaster unicorn quickly moved through the room, slapping Tarma's face with her purple tail hard enough to sound like a very solid and forceful slap. "You better prepare to eat your words, mister. I will show you how a lady does things properly and efficiently, unlike a certain brute I am sadly getting to know."

Incensed was not enough, it wasn't close to the strength behind Tarma's fire. Whether Rarity was, or wasn't, a spoiled, superficial woman, she did give that appearance with ease to those that didn't knew her. Tarma was as guilty as Rarity as far as rising to the bait went, in his case it was just thanks to mannerisms instead of a direct confrontation like the one he had forced.

By the time he decided to follow the mare, Radio was trying his best not to yell what he was thinking. Marco and Twilight weren't as lucky.

"I bet they are going to screw each other's brains out before the war is over."

You would never see a telekinetic slap and a traditional one as coordinated as Marco and Twilight's little joint effort to shut the clone up.

Speaking of shutting him up.

"Radio." Marco turned to the poor clone as he tried to find where his headphones had gone. "I think it is time for you to visit the brig after all."

The look on the clone's face finally brought a smile to Twilight.





"Target! Get one ready!"

Tarma had been quick to move in front of Rarity, much to the mare's displeasure and Tarma's enjoyment. She was such a prissy pony in his eyes that she did need a bit of a reminder here: Not everyone was going to be a gentleman for this mare.

He had been quick to show the mare to the small practice range they had onboard. Of all the damn places to make small, it had to be the practice range. Better not complain too much though, as he had said this place had space and it was cheap, which was why it hadn't undone itself yet, so better count their blessings. That the cloning unit was attached to this area didn't help, but the ones on top probably thought that the clones would be stupid enough to kill themselves anyway. The bossmen never were exactly the smartest guys around, and the remodeling would've taken too much time.

In all seriousness, and despite all of their bashing, this vehicle could be perfect, minus the weaponry part. While weapons were literally out of the question thanks to the original drafts, this vehicle could be highly customizable and its parts interchangeable, Tarma knew it, and despite his anger he was unable to help himself as he thought what they could do to upgrade it if they managed to win this one fight. This vehicle would be their Trojan Horse, only this horse wouldn't need to get inside the base to kick some tail.

Speaking of horses, Tarma wasn't sure what to think of one of the ponies. Twilight seemed decent enough, if a bit too impressionable, but she was eager to help if one was to ignore the fact that true violence and death seemed to be almost alien things, if what she had told them was true. Now, Rarity? That was another can of worms altogether, and Tarma could tell you right now that he didn't like the mare.

Prissy bitch, that is how he saw it, and the alabaster unicorn was showing that she fit the bill as she sat beside him, having taking the only available chair from their quartermaster, a clone dubbed 'Target', the moment the poor guy had gotten up. She didn't seem interested in touching the floor with nothing more than her hooves, she sneered at him every chance she got and it was obvious that she felt she was so important that she couldn't be bothered to do something her friend considered necessary. Superficial little mule couldn't see beyond her uppity nose it seemed.

Well, Tarma got the remedy for this kind of people, or ponies in this case: Kicking their asses.

Tarma grabbed his sidearm, the same model that his friend, and almost everyone else here, used: The Murder .50AE. Seven bullets, great caliber, massive firepower when compared to the old pistol models, overall great weapon capable of reaching incredibly far when you think about old pistols. Enough shots could literally make anything explode.

There were around one hundred AR-10 Adaptable Autorifle, simply known as the AR-10. A great weapon with exchangeable barrel capable of firing from highly volatile napalm that incinerated within a second of touching air (Generating a massive ball of fire that could pick some good height before evaporating) to a rocket launcher, machinegun and shotgun, at least for now. There were plans for at least a dozen weapons for this newly modified AR-10 model, but they never saw fruition with Morden's attack.

In this case these weapons also never saw ammo, because all there was in the armory was pistol ammo, tons of it, but not even a meager 7.62mm machinegun round.

Now, pistols would be more than enough. Marco was sure that most the armed combatants from the enemy base were on patrol, so if they were quick enough they could find out incredibly underequipped Rebel Soldiers armed with, at best, Egg Grenades (A very small firebomb that had negligible area of effect. It was a chemical designed to corrode metal or envelop a body on fire, nothing else), knifes and whatever vehicles they had. It was unknown if they had left some of the specialized water troops back home or if they were patrolling the deeper areas of the river, but they would hardly be important, and even if they were there they would have more than weaponry designed to sink ships sent by the militia. What danger could some frogmen be?

Anyway, pistols. Mostly all they had were the normal Murder models, in fact they only had Murder models, but there was one model from the supplies that was made in a way that no hand could hold it. Oh it looked normal enough, but the grip was too small unless you were a child and it was almost impossible to hold the trigger. It was used once though, and the shot managed to pack the same punch as a couple normal Murder bullets despite being almost similar to the revolver variant in all but half the ammo capacity. Despite Target's desires to dismantle it, the gun had been left intact.

If miss prissy was half as good as she said, then she would be able to use this weapon.

"Three targets ready, captain Tarma!" Target saluted from within the firing range. The guy had a mohawk despite regulations, which was one of the reasons why his nickname was 'Target'. He could look like all other clones, but he was obvious as all heck. "Uh... what is a horse doing here?" He was also slightly absent minded.

"Horse!? I am a pony, a mare, my dear sir." He was also easy to surprise, as he almost threw everything he had prepared to the ground when he jumped as Rarity opened her mouth. "Are all humans this... this...!?"

"We are an interesting species, now shut up." Rarity puffed her cheeks, infuriated at the treatment. That only made Tarma chuckle inwardly. "Now, Target, this is Rarity, a... external help source if you will. She will be helping us with our next mission, maybe longer, depends on the boss." Target just nodded, eyeing rarity with no small amount of wonder. "I think we can give her the Maneater pistol we have lying around."

That perked Target right up. The guy was grumpy when he was told not to manipulate the gun, but seeing it in action again? That was like giving him a bag of sweets, something you should NEVER do. He went to the armory as quickly as he could to get the equipment and some ammo.

"Now, if you are half as good as you say, then I suppose that a... fashionista, should be good with something as simple as being precise." Tarma didn't miss the disdain on Rarity's face as he made fun of her. Good, that was good. "So I will make a simple wager: The one that scores more points gets to be the one to decide how things will go down." But the scoff turned to curiosity as Tarma proposed the deal. "Three shots each, the one with the higher score gives the orders. If you are a good shot and also an experienced adventurer, then you would never be able to screw us up, would you?"

Rarity didn't dignify Tarma with an answer, something the human was perfectly fine with. What she did do was pay attention to Target once he came back, showed her the weapon and explained how to reload it as well as how to fire. If nothing else the weapon was a fine work of art.

An absurdly long barrel for the small sized pistol, when you compared it to the original revolvers that humans used, which made the rounds and the special chambers for them look slightly out of place. It looked like it was made out of silver, with four serpents, almost resembling hydras in Rarity's mind, going from the base of the cannon to the mouth of the gun, circling the whole length in a golden hue until they bit the end of the barrel. With the grip made out of some kind of completely black wood that hadn't matched any of the known tree species, and with something akin to stars engraved on it, the frame looked quite plain if one didn't notice the small runes that had been carved into it. They didn't seem to have any use, like the rest of the gun's decorations, but right now Tarma had to wonder if they had any significance.

"Well, would you look at that." Rarity did seem to get something out of them as she looked over the supposed scribbles. "It does say 'Maneater', if I remember old Equestrian well enough." She eyed Tarma with a half grin. "Even a dimwit can be lucky once in a while, I suppose."

Tarma growled as he took aim and fired, startling Rarity as she almost dropped the gun from her telekinetic grip. Looking infuriated at the man, she saw him grinning like an idiot for a moment before she turned to the black human silhouettes that were the targets.

Two headshots right in the X, with one just slightly off mark. Rarity was not as superficial or as bitchy as the human thought, but this situation was getting to her nerves. Nonetheless, and with anger or without it, she would be one to admit that Tarma was quite good, better than her with these things in fact, but he himself was getting to a state of mind that didn't exactly help with aim, all because a certain mare was pushing him a little too much for his liking.

Good or not, Rarity was also a prideful being, and if Tarma wanted to show her up then she would do one better and crush the little man's hopes and dreams, even if those hopes and dreams right now meant little more than beat somepony that had never used a gun in their whole life. A crossbow for sport didn't count, and Rarity had only fired them once in her life, so she knew how to aim... in the same way Applejack knew how to sew from the one time she tried to.

But the problem was there, and it reared its ugly head very fast: Rarity had pride, a buttload of it, and she couldn't stand his smirk.

She didn't even spare a glance as she looked at Tarma; she just pointed the gun, used one thing known as spatial sense and her memory, then fired. Rarity would be one of the farthest things away from a marksman at this point in time, who knows, maybe she would be great in the future, but one thing she had mastered was to know where her body, and anything gripped by her telekinesis, was. It was necessary for her work and she had mastered it to the point of making it an art form.

With that in mind you must understand that Rarity could easily take a human body with her power and move it around the Carousel Boutique without being within the building in person, using enough control and magic to move said body anywhere within her home without even disturbing Opal if she desired. In this case it meant that, while unused to this place, she knew where every target was, where her gun was aiming and where she had to stop for the shot to connect.

Rarity was aiming to impress, she was aiming to show off, and she did show off indeed. The first shot blew the original target's head. It was quite the glorious thing to see the thing splinter away, but it showed that Rarity was not as good with a gun as she would like to boast as the second target broke down through the neck, ripping itself apart as the empowered bullet utterly destroyed it. The fourth one was the unluckiest when it came to a shot to the gut big enough to leave a shell shaped hole on its chest.

A hole mimicked by Target whom had gone to make sure the points were well accounted for.

"OH MY GOODNESS!"

There wasn't much to say or to see, mostly because Target's midsection had literally evaporated upon impact. It was such a fast thing that you'd need slow motion to see how it happened. Rarity, however, was beyond horrified as she let the now empty gun clatter against the range's counter while Tarma looked wide eyed at his friend dropping in two halves before the body slowly sizzled and began to disappear at a fast pace. A few seconds after that happened he looked at Rarity's face, only to laugh his ass off.

The mare was about to cry or yell, either or maybe both, as Target appeared once more from the side entrance Rarity had ignored since she came in. He popped his neck in place, muttering something about second rated bodies, before he got close to the pair as if nothing had happened and placed a hand on Tarma's shoulder.

"The boss wins." Was all he said before he, quite gently mind you, took Rarity away from his chair. "Sorry ma'am, but getting a double kill doesn't give bonus points in this game."

Something had to snap within the alabaster unicorn, and Tarma was waiting for it. Her wide eyed expression, the hint of tears from killing someone, the realization that said someone had, at best, been mildly inconvenienced as he clutched his chest as if someone had punched him a bit too strong for his taste. He was waiting for the whining, waiting for the breakdown, waiting to see that the fashionista was indeed all but prepared for this so she could be benched and Tarma could be happy.

Instead of that, she huffed, eyed Tarma with a massive stink eye and said. "You win, this time." She growled through gritted teeth. "I may not appreciate what Twilight has done, but it is true that no one will suffer permanently, that, and I do not have your skills in this kind of... endeavor. I will defer to your instructions unless Twilight says otherwise."

Well, shit. Not only did he waste some resources because the mare had the best aim in the world, to kill friendliest, but she had also grown some balls in the last minute or so. Normally he would be impressed by this, but there was a big problem as far as Tarma was concerned: He was in charge of a pretty white pony, by his own doing. His father would be so proud he could just kill his son, and I do not mean with a hug.

Cue in the only thing a sane and decently grown up man could say and you have the whole deal.

"Fuck."

Isn't it lovely when plans work exactly as you don't intend them to? More so when said pony smirks at you knowingly. If Tarma thought that the mare was easy enough to figure out, then he thought wrong. For her part, Rarity was finding that messing with this particular human was going to be her one ticket away from insanity.