I didn't sign up for this
The skies were blue, the clouds were white, and Frost just realized that there’s a rainbow-coloured body flying near his aircraft. Or, that’s what he thought. The only visible thing he perceived was a wide variety of different spectrum of colours.
However, being just that: a wide variety of spectrum colour, his suspicion barely rose as he had all the reason to suspect that it’s possibly just a reflection of a rainbow. He shrugged it off.
He turned to his left where his wingman was supposed to be flying next to him. But, his wingman, otherwise known as Eagle by call-sign, or just Fred by his real name, was not where he’s supposed to be.
“This is Frost, contacting Eagle. Please proceed to patrol formation, forty-five degrees. Over,” he said through the intercom. He heard nothing. “Eagle, do you read me, o-“
“Uhh yes, I read you Hec-“ he stopped. “I mean, Frost.”
Eagle usually call Frost by his real name by accident during flight. Of course, the pilots are more or less obliged to use the call signs assigned to each pilot so Fred’s mild stutter would have been ignored if it weren’t for his slightly agitated voice that Frost noticed.
Before he got the chance to ask him what was wrong, Eagle provided him with an answer without much coaxing.
“I have a visual on an unusual flying object. Three o’clock. No radar on it.”
Frost looked to his three o’clock, expecting some sort of aircraft or at least a fast moving object. He didn’t see anything. Only the fluffy heavens of the white clouds, the green and visually appealing forest they were flying over, and that damn rainbow that seemed to follow him everywhere.
“Uhh, I’ll need a visual description on that.”
Eagle seemed to have taken a rather long pause before answering. “Appears to be rainbow-coloured.”
Frost thought for a moment. “Say again? Rainbow-coloured?”
“Yes, I have a confirmation. It is rainbow-coloured. Unusual behaviour counteracts the natural effects of spectre. Approximate coordinates: five-two point three-one-six-five-six in latitude and negative one-four-five point one-six-eight-six-five in longitude. Distortion would be two point sixty-eight. Shall we proceed to investigate?”
Frost thought for a few seconds.
Could that be some sort of advanced enemy aircraft? No, it couldn’t be. They would have fired at us if it was the case. And why would they have painted it with rainbow colours? It doesn’t make any sense.
He finally made a decision.
He tapped in to the M-Coms. “This is Frost from Squad 4-4-2, requesting permission to proceed investigation towards five-two point three-one-six-five-six latitude, negative one-four-five point one-six-eight-six-five longitude. Distortion: two point sixty-eight. Unusual spectre activity sighted. Possible threat. Over.”
The radio buzzed. “This is Tower Four to Squad 4-4-2. Permission granted.”
Frost nodded to nobody in particular. “Copy that.” He looked down at his controls as he adjusted the speed for a turn. “Eagle, I would like an alpha check on those coordinates.”
“Confirmed.”
“Copy that. Proceed to starboard side, five-six-one Angels three. How copy.”
“Solid copy. Five-six-one Angels three,” Eagle repeated.
Both aircrafts simultaneously turned right to the source of their suspicion. Both pilots approximately reached 3 G’s as the glorious mechanical beasts dashed through the skies. The wings caught a bit of cloud shortly before the jets came to a halt almost instantly. The sudden and rather rough halt of the two planes weren’t caused by some sort of malfunctioning in the engines. Rather, it was caused by the amount of shock that momentarily took over the two pilots as they took a closer look at that rainbow.
It wasn’t a rainbow. Neither a jet. It was none other than a very adorable cyan coloured pony dashing through the skies.
“Wh-what the hell is that?” Frost managed to spurt out.
A few moments passed before Eagle’s brain finished processing. “Umm... I don’t know.”
Stay calm. What is there to worry about? It’s just some sort of sentient unknown to man that is more than able to murder us all with its cuteness...
...Prioritize.
First order of action: contact HQ.
Frost tapped a few buttons before commencing his communication. “This is Frost from Squad 4-4-2. We’ve encountered some sort of... unusual flying body...”
The radio buzzed. “Squad 4-4-2. This is Tower Four. Is it hostile?”
He looked closer. The mysterious creature was mere metres away from him. As strange and unusual as it was, it didn’t seem to be up to anything. “Negative.”
“Copy that. Request for a visual description needed.”
Eagle intervened with the description of this strange occurrence. “Feathered wings, soft... soft cyan coloured fur, cute cuddly wubbly hooves, soft, squishy, huggable, adoribu tummy, big, cutie woobly eyes, awesome, rainbowy hair-”
“Umm, I think that’s enough, Eagle,” HQ interrupted. “According to our research... it seems to be a Pegasus Equine from the TV show: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic...”
There was a long and rather awkward silence. Despite the pilots and the people in HQ being ‘salty’ as one might say; they’re still humans. Humans with feelings, humour, and way too many jokes for the current situation.
This uncomfortable state of affair was luckily grounded to a halt thanks to commander Lion’s curiosity, who had just joined the conversation.
An F-18 was seen joining Eagle and Frost’s formation and positioned itself on their starboard. “So... what should we do?”
HQ did not waste any time in communicating with him. “Lion, you have been scheduled to provide air support one-hundred miles west from here, on top of the Opportunity Battleship. What are you doing here?”
“Already done. Area was clear and Opportunity made it to their location ahead of schedule. I was heading back to HQ when I realized that this is adorable Rainbow Dash flying next to you guys.”
“Rainbow Dash?” Frost asked.
“That’s the name of the pony,” Lion replied. “Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash,” he chuckled. “I think we should safely capture her and then try to use basic communication to find where the rest of the cute and adorable pony species are.”
“Right...” Frost said. “May you explain how one could ‘safely’ capture something?”
Lion thought for a second. “Well... you capture them... safely... right?”
“You can’t capture anything safely, Lion.” Eagle intervened. “The word capture is to take something in to your possession by force. I doubt that ‘by force’ would be ‘safe’ for the one being captured.”
“Yes, but, for example; hostages need capturing to save them from their current situation.”
“We don’t capture hostages, we rescue them.”
“Then that’s what we’ll be doing with this pony. Rescuing it.”
“Oh, and rescuing it from what, exactly? It seems perfectly fine from here.”
“Look, we’re going off topic,” Frost interrupted. He looked downwards to his control panel, all the while keeping a very close eye on this pony Pegasus, or, as Lion seemed to call it, the Rainbow Dash. It seemed very calm, minding its own business dashing through the skies and paying nearly no attention towards the F-18’s flying next to her. “HQ what should we do now?”
There was no response.
“This is Frost contacting Tower Four, do you read me?”
There was a long silence until HQ decided to answer. “Oh, hello Frost. We’re just watching the first episode of My Little Pony.”
“What?! Why are you doing that?!” Frost shouted.
“Calm down pilot,” HQ replied. “It’s for research. If we watch and study how Rainbow Dash acts in the show, we can surely learn her special moves, so we can capture her, and the rests of the ponies and use them for world domination.”
“I suggest you watch Sonic Rainboom if those are your intentions,” Lion said.
Frost sighed annoyingly, knowing perfectly well that this was probably the weirdest moment in his life. Sadly, he didn’t have any time to think about the meaning of his existence due to the sound of a fourth jet which broke his concentration.
Another F-18 joined the formation, slowly accelerating right next to Eagle’s aircraft. Suddenly, he saw the F-18 deploy missiles.
“I think we should shoot it,” Commander Jaguar said.
Before Frost could answer, Lion’s aircraft was seen flying sideways right before stopping in front of Jaguar’s jet, blocking his shot.
“And why would you want to do that?” Lion asked.
“It’s a pony! It’s adorable, cute, and a threat to humanity.”
“Okay, how is being adorable and cute a threat to humanity?”
Jaguar overtook Lion, finally having Rainbow Dash in his sights once again. “We must destroy it before it takes over the world along with their pony minions!” He pulled the trigger.
There was a moment of shock between the four aircrafts. A quarter of these aircrafts wanted Rainbow in the safe zone. Another quarter wanted this ‘threat’ to be destroyed. And the rest, being Frost and Eagle, just wanted to go home.
However, despite the momentary and intense moment being that of a trigger being pulled, the missile zipped straight passed the flying pony, leaving a trail of smoke for miles on end.
“You can’t radar lock on ponies, dimwit.” Lion chuckled. “You know, for a moment there, I was actually worr-“
Rainbow Dash exploded.