> Flames of the Rainbows
>  by ShadowFall
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Discovery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Equestria
	

The brightness stung.

        They had already come from a rather bright place, but traveling through that portal had given them a momentary blackout. To be honest, it felt a bit good to walk on something besides concrete or sand. 

        Stretching himself, Rocky looked back towards the other ponies that had come through the gateway. They too were shielding their eyes and stretching. After the last pony had come through the portal, Rocky whistled, gathering their attention.

"Okay, you know what they said, you know what they want. And of course, you all know what to do." Rocky solemnly looked at the small group of stallions in front of him, seven others. They were of various species. A few pegasi, earth, and unicorns made the party that had emerged from a gateway that now closed behind them at the edge of the Everfree Forest.

        Rocky could tell that once the others had set foot onto Equestria's soil again, a few gained a twinge of uneasiness. 

        "Look, we have a mission, and when we get this done, we'll have done something extraordinary to further a perfect world that we could live in. Do you really want to be defined by your gender anymore? Well, do you?", Rocky stared at each of the ponies, who quickly returned the solemn look back at him.

        "Good. Okay, let's get our delivery down to that castle in Ponyville."

        They began to head down with the stallions pushing several crates towards the small and peaceful town that lay in front of them, as well as the castle inside that looked so out of place in a town of wooden and thatched houses. Instead, this one was bearing crystal structure and gave off an aura of regalness and posh. Most of all, it was a symbol of injustice and prejudice. 

        For as long as Rocky could remember, Equestria was always ruled by the Princesses, controlling day and night as well as overlooking their kingdom. Then, more and more Princesses began to emerge. Princess Cadence, and now, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Even another alicorn was born, going by the name of Flurry Heart. Through all of this, there had always been something that nagged at his mind.

        Where were the stallions?

        The nation was ruled with an iron hoof by only the females, leaving the stallions to rest at the bottom. Since when had there been a male ruler? The only that would come to mind would be King Sombra, who was disposed of thanks to the aforementioned Princesses, twice. Not to mention the corrupt caste system that had passively stemmed out of the ponies with unicorns ranking at the top with their magical abilities and earth ponies to perform all of the menial tasks and labor. How rare was it that an earth pony would be found in Canterlot, the home of the rich and wealthy compared to the unicorns?

        The more he thought about this, the more Rocky was convinced that what he and the others were about to do would be justified in every sense of the word. The "humans", those odd yet strangely ideological creatures would offer them a perfect world in their own image, should the ponies help with their plans.  It sounded more and more attractive with each second that passed. Looking back, it sure had the same effect on everypony else. They were itching to pull this off for the betterment of equality.

        How many students had Celestia had that were male? None. What happened to male "opponents"? Brainwashed, destroyed, imprisoned. What about the females? Given a second chance and allowed to reintegrate, even if they were to plunge the entire planet into eternal darkness or given a nudge out of the country.

           Rocky grunted as he walked onward towards Ponyville, the others wheeling the crates behind him. Entering the town, they decided to make a beeline straight towards their destination: The Castle of "Friendship". Oh how skewed that term had now become. Princess Twilight Sparkle inhabited the huge out of place castle, along with some other baby dragon inside. The main priority was the Princess, as their superiors had instructed them.

        Since those humans had found these stallions and invited them back to their world for a brief time, they were such strange creatures. But the way they spoke through those expressionless and blank white masks, their beliefs that shared so much with them, and especially helping them escape from their prison of prejudice, how could they not accept their help? They gave them their aide for their goal, and now, it was time for the ponies to fulfill their promise. They strolled through the town with their crates, heading towards the castle. 

        Then, a grey mare with a blonde mane fluttered above them with her wings, and landed in front of them.

        "Oh, was there a delivery I was supposed to make? Maybe I forgot about some packages again."

        Rocky kept his face straight as he responded, meeting her crossed eyes. "No, we're making a special delivery. This isn't any of your business."

        "But... it is. I'm Ponyville's mailmare.", the grey pony responded, a tone of confusion in her voice, "It's my job to deliver here."

        Then, Rocky motioned for his group to proceed onward.

        "Maybe if you got your eyes fixed and let a stallion be in charge, then we could all be a little bit happier with the results that would follow."

        The mare's ears flattened, unsure of what the stallion meant by saying all of those mean things, but before she could rebuttal, the ponies were already heading away.

        That stung. A lot.





        Starlight Glimmer wasn't as busy as she had expected today. She was mainly studying up on "Theories of Friendship: Volume 3" after she had written a letter to Sunburst back in the Crystal Kingdom. She knew that now he was the royal wizard, and as such, he was far busier than he normally made himself out to be. She didn't mind, though. He wrote back every chance he got and she was very content with that, having a pen-pal and all. 

        "Hey Spike, how's Twilight doing with her research on alternate universes? Are you sure she doesn't need any help?" Starlight asked with a "please say yes" smile on her face.

        "Nope! She still wants you to take it easy after the whole incident in the Crystal Kingdom." Spike waddled over to the pony.

        "Yeah, I've read so much already to pass the time, I've written to Starburst, and now I'm feeling a little..."

        "Bored? I know just the thing! Maybe I can show you the notes Twilight took on dragons when we went to the Dragonlands!"

        Starlight instantly perked up.

        "Dragons? I hardly know anything about them! Sure, get the notes. I'd like to know a thing or two more about your kind." Starlight smiled. Spike scampered away enthusiastically. To be honest, it was kind of amazing of how Starlight had changed her behavior in these past few months she had lived in Ponyville with Twilight. She never wanted to go back to the corrupt village she had founded in the first place. Maybe she could write a letter to the villagers asking how they were doing and more importantly, apologize for possibly the tenth time for the heartache and torment she had put them through.

        Suddenly, a knock came on the door.

        Starlight found that Spike was still off somewhere getting the notes. She wouldn't blame him. The library was gigantic. Pushing her seat away with her magic and walking towards the door, she gripped the handle with her aura as the knocking began to get more and more impatient.

        "Jeez, alright already...", she muttered to herself as she opened the door. Presented to her were eight stallions with two very large crates in their group. 

        "Can I help you gentlecolts?", Starlight asked politely towards the stallions.

        "Packages for Twilight Sparkle. We need to wheel these in." the lead stallion spoke.

        "Uh, I don't recall Twilight ordering any. What are they?"

        "Twilight Sparkle isn't here?” The stallion suddenly narrowed his eyes slightly at the mare in front of him. "Where is she?"

        Starlight glimmer got a tiny sense of hostility from the stallion, but she pushed it aside.

        "She's busy at the moment. If it isn't too much trouble, I'll ask her what she ordered."

        The stallions suddenly started to wheel the crates inside.

        "We got to get these inside and have Twilight Sparkle sign them off. It's some... frozen goods."

        Starlight stepped to the side.

        "What kind of frozen goods?"

        At this point, she was ready to get Twilight down here right away to deal with these intruders, but they had already made their way inside.

        Then, what happened next shocked her. A unicorn stallion slammed the door behind the group with his magic, locking it.

        "What the- get out of here or I'll summon the guards! Don't make me all deal with you all myself!" Starlight's horn glowed aggressively.

        Then, the stallions opened the first crate. Some sort of device reared itself up with a pair of antennae, and emitted an odd frequency and energy when it was switched on. The magic that gathered on Starlight's horn instantly and forcefully disappeared as the stallions shoved the lid off of the second crate. Inside were rather bulky devices, each able to be handled by another stallion. Taking one for each and handing each other small boxes  of metal, they loaded them into the devices they held. The machine they unveiled cut off her mana supply to her horn from its energy that it emitted, making her magic useless. The stallions began to fiddle around with the other smaller machines that they took from the second box.

        Suddenly, Starlight Glimmer's face drained of color. She had seen these devices before when she had visited alternate timelines before. They were weapons of terrifying power and unstoppable strength. They called them "guns", and she was the only one who knew of the imminent danger she was in.

        The ponies took something else from the second crate. Blank white masks that only had eyeholes for any sort of features or breaks in the expressionless cover. The masks were rigid  and sturdy, and all the more terrifying.

         "W-What do you want?! Who are you all?!"

         The lead pony took out what Starlight recognized as a handgun and pointed it at her head. Starlight backed away slightly as the pony spoke through gritted teeth under his mask.

          "Where. Is. Twilight?!" He pressed the gun against her temple.

        Then, Princess Twilight Sparkle emerged. Her hair was messy and she seemingly had the energy drained from her after never taking a break from studying. Her vision was a little cloudy as she walked towards the source of the commotion.

        "Starlight? Is everything okay? My magic suddenly stopped working and I hear some people out in the front-", then, her vision cleared and she saw Starlight Glimmer, her eyes in a look of pure distress and fright looking back at Twilight. Behind her were roughly eight or nine stallions with blank white masks on and holding objects that closely resembled the "guns" that Starlight had lectured Twilight about after coming back from an alternate timeline.

        "You, shut it. You don't make a move unless I say so, or I'll redecorate those walls with your brains." the stallion armed with a handgun ordered the Princess, "Now let's take a walk into this home of yours."

        "What the- you can't do this! Do you have any idea how much trouble you will-"

        "MOVE IT!", the pony smashed the pistol against her head, sending a shock of throbbing pain into her temple. A yelp came from her as Starlight struggled behind the grip of another stallion. The two ponies began to walk deeper into the castle under the escort of their new visitors.

        All the while, Spike had heard some commotion at the front, but was still busy trying to get the notes that Twilight had taken about his kin. Scampering back to meet Starlight Glimmer, he suddenly heard very masculine and gruff voices coming down the hallway.

        "Let's just keep walking and don't make a sound so no one else gets hurt. You understand, your majesty?"

        Twilight gave a light nod as she and her student walked down the hallway. Peering from a corner, it didn't take a genius to realize what kind of situation and danger Spike’s two friends were in. Silently tiptoeing away, he grabbed a sheet of paper and a quill and hid underneath a table.

        Spike frantically began to scribble.

        
"Help! There are stallions in the castle who are threatening Twilight and Starlight! Please help!"


        It was brief, but it clearly held the message. Spike opened his mouth to send the letter with his fire, but the table was suddenly flipped over onto its back. The baby dragon now found himself peering down the barrel of what obviously was a weapon pointing at his head. The stallion's white mask hid the expression underneath, but the voice containing the tone of urgency and command did not.

        "What's that you got there?", the stallion wrenched away the letter. He read the note, giving Spike a hollow feeling in his gut as he was now exposed.

        "So, thought you could warn your females, did you?", the stallion pushed the barrel to his face, "Burn it now."

        Spike looked back at the stallion.

        "B-Burn it?"

        "Yes! Now do as I say or you'll be in fucking pieces!"

        Spike nodded and without hesitation, burned the letter, the ashes floating up towards the ceiling. The armed colt then took the dragon by his arm, and pulled him away to regroup with his other group members.

        For the longest of times, Spike had always been bothered by being a dragon and having himself be surrounded by ponies that didn't know much of his own species, let alone himself in that regard. Most ponies always thought that all dragons are warlike brutes that ate ponies every chance they could get. He always hated those accusations of his kind, and was all the more happy when his friend Dragonlord Ember defied those stereotypes.

        However, this was the first time that Spike was grateful for a pony having no knowledge of dragons and their mystical fire as the ashes of the letter slowly began to travel out an open window...






Afghanistan


        "Standby... standby... BREACH!"

        The charges went off on the dusty and sandy door, as well as a window on the left of the room, blowing the door clean off of its frame and blasting the window to pieces. The dust and smoke settled almost immediately as gunfire erupted from inside of the structure. Bullets riddled the ground in between the two soldiers as they both prepped a flashbang grenade to unleash inside. A couple of seconds later, the devices were in and a deafening "crack" and burst of light shot through the room. 

        "Go!", the voice com of the woman spoke to the man as the two operators fired into the room, their HK416 rifles’ lasers each finding their targets. Suppressed shots rang out in quick succession as one by one, four bodies dropped to the ground. The clattering of their weapons were heard as their targets perished from their rifles.

        "Clear!"

        "Clear!"

        The operators hopped along inside, less unwillingly as they had thoroughly scouted out the "thought-to-be" secure compound with mini drones and assistance from a UAV, or an unmanned aerial vehicle beforehand. Advancing, they pushed deeper into the structure, heading down the only corridor of the building. Their lasers followed each inch of the wall and ahead, ready to spring onto another enemy that dared showed their face to them.

        Sure enough, footsteps were heard coming from a door to their left, giving away an enemy attempting to intercept them. One shot from the male operator, and the white mask the other man had peered out into the hallway with found a new coat of red plastered onto it, and on the walls. 

Coming deeper and deeper into the structure, the lights suddenly turned off. Perhaps the enemies cut the power generator to make an escape or blind the attackers, but the only escape in this structure was the corridor to the front door, as they had previously jammed all other exits shut before invading.

        "Activate IRNV."

        "On it."

        The darkness gave way to green and orange and restoring vision to the soldiers as they pressed on to the end of the hallway. Before them was a double door hiding whatever was inside. Whoever it was, they had to be ready.

        Then, the male operator took a small minidrone from his pack, and wheeled it through the doors. They barely made a sound as they parted ways for a brief second to allow the drone to enter. The infrared night vision became clear on the drone as the operator looked around for his potential targets. Sure enough, he found plenty.

        "Four contacts, two in the front, two in the back, same number left and right. Handguns and one rifle in the back. No IED's detected, no tripwires found."

        "Mark them."

        Tapping on the touchscreen of the drone's control, four red dots visible on their goggles were shown through the walls, each marking where the enemy was hiding. They marked their feet, so aiming up would allow their bullets to find head or center-mass. Putting the device away and getting his rifle ready, the two shot out the glass windows on the tops of the door and hurled in another set of flashbangs. Once again, gunfire riddled the metal door as the rifle bullets created bulges on the other side. Other rounds went through the windows and found themselves splattering against the walls behind them.

        Then, the gunfire stopped and a click was heard on the other side.

        Following, deafening blasts of disorienting light and sound emanated from the room.

        "Breach and clear!"

        Kicking the doors open, the operators took two on their respective sides, filling each of their enemies with two shots to the chest cavity.  In almost less than a second, four men wearing apparel more suited to a laboratory environment were laying on the ground, pools of blood expanding beneath them. Their masks hid whatever expression they had before their deaths.

        "Clear!"

        "Clear!"

        At that point, the female activated her encrypted communications link.

        "This is Valkyrie to Rainbow, building is secure," the woman spoke through her communications device.

        "Valkyrie, this is Thatcher. Acknowledged. What's the situation over there?" the British accent filled the earpiece.

        "Eight White Masks dead, four look like scientists of some sort. We're restoring power now," Valkyrie responded, "Got it yet, Blackbeard?"

        "Almost." the other operator grunted as he pulled the switch down to reactivate the generator, getting the lights back on, "Atta boy."

        One by one, the lights flickered on. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary besides the weapons laying around all over the place. L85 rifles lined up against the walls, as well as various pistols and packaged grenades.

        However, one thing clearly outshone the rest. In the back of the room was a gigantic circular device that held a sort of arch over it. If any sort of science fiction geek were with them, he'd obviously associate it with something they'd find in that show "Stargate", or something like that. 

        "Thatcher, we've found another weapons cache. But... there's something else here as well. Something big, and... I have no idea what it is." Valkyrie spoke back.

        "Come again? Does it look like a warhead or anything along those regards?"

        "Definitely not. We're going to snap some pictures around here and secure the stash. Are any other military units inbound?"

        "Negative. As far as the world as concerned, this building and what is inside doesn't exist."

        "Roger that. Stay on the channel, new intel might be coming back."

        The operators immediately got to work taking pictures of the weapons stashed in the building, but most notably of the large machine in the back of the room that was hooked up to a huge load of cables.

        "Jesus, what is this thing?", Blackbeard snapped another picture.

        "My guess is as good as yours. Nice shooting, by the way."

        "Same to you. Hey... do you see that?", Blackbeard pointed to a small panel on the machine. Apparently, it was imprinted with some sort of text.

        "Is that...?"

        "That's Russian text."

        "What the- how could this be Russian? No way they would be giving them this sort of technology after the White Masks bombed two Catholic cathedrals. Maybe they stole the tech. These bastards can practically get away with anything." Valkyrie spoke as she snapped another image.

        "Whatever it is, we've secured it now- wait. What's that noise?"

        It was a phone ringing. And if there was a phone ringing out of nowhere when none of your guys brought a phone, every single person involved in the armed forces knew what was going to happen next.

        "Bomb! Move!"

        The two rushed out of the room, and through the hallway. A massive explosion was heard behind them, rocking them violently and throwing sparks from the lab. Smoke quickly billowed up as the two exited the building. More and more explosions went off inside. Looking back at the building as they were a good distance away, electricity and energy suddenly arced from the building, and with a blinding flash, the two operators were on their backs in the sand, their ears ringing, now clearing their vision to witness the crater that stood before them.

        "What... the... fuck." Blackbeard breathed heavily as he got himself up.

        "You okay?" Valkyrie asked, earning a nod from Blackbeard. "Jesus Christ, this is some messed up shit."
> Escalation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The anti-magic machine that the humans had made in collaboration with the ponies was a magnificent accomplishment. Blending the same kind of nullification used at the Equestria Games and put into a transmission device, the entire town block was practically a dead zone for all unicorns. No unicorn guards could teleport into or cast spells in the field, which was the main threat to the group.

It was a bit awkward to wield the rifle in his hooves, but thankfully, magic existed in all ponies. One such magic that was shared by all of the species was to grab and manipulate objects such as levers and wine glasses, something that a fingerless species had no chance of doing otherwise. As such, they were able to use that magic to pull the trigger of the weapon at will. It was a magic that was unaffected by the machine that was put up, as it only blocked direct use of magic, such as unicorn spells and pegasus flight.

In addition, it was a hassle to bring the machine up to the same floor that they held the hostages on, but they weren’t going to leave it by the front door.

Rocky sat on the table on the second floor of the castle. He had ordered one pony to stay in the cutie map room in the castle’s basement, three to be on the third floor, while he and three others stayed by the princess and her student.

“Okay. We’ve gotten them rounded up. I need a sweep of the place for any other ponies inside. Got it?” Rocky spoke into a handheld radio, the device that he and his squad would be using to communicate while on separate floors.

            “I gotchya. I’ve found a baby dragon who attempted to write a distress letter to Celestia. I forced him to burn it.”

Rocky paused for a great amount of time. He looked back at the radio, then called again.

“You made him burn it?”

“Yes, I did-”

“You fucking idiot! Dragons can send messages through fire! We haven’t even thoroughly swept the place yet!”, Rocky shouted as picking up weapons wasn’t the only thing he had gotten from humans.

“But the magic-nullifier should-”

“It blocks pony magic, not dragon! Damnit… it’s too soon!”

Rocky was shouting through the handheld radio while Twilight and Starlight sat against the wall with cable ties wrapping their hooves together watching the scene unfold. All the while, Twilight and Starlight instantly grew paranoid about the whereabouts of Spike. 

“Here he is.” The stallion that had discovered the baby dragon and threw him in front of Rocky, his mask staring down at him with a gaze that could penetrate steel. Looking up at the pony, he couldn’t speak. He was frightened out of his mind. 

Then, Rocky took his rifle and smashed him across the cheek with the butt of his L85. Spike toppled down onto his side as he yelped from the blow. Twilight shouted as she tried to rid herself of her cable ties.

“No! Stop! Don’t hurt him! What do you want from all of us?!” Twilight screamed through tears beginning to trail down her face. 

“Shut the hell up! Do you want me to tie a rope around his neck and hang him from the window?!” he shouted furiously as Spike crawled back over to Twilight and Starlight, a gigantic bruise on his face. “Look here, I’m going to make everything here simple and clear for you, Princess. Keep your mouth shut, and do as I say, and before long, everything will be better for all of us.”

“What are you going on about?” Starlight asked as stoically possible.

Then, Rocky got an idea.

“You, get a scroll or a piece of paper. Since Celestia is on her way, we’ll speed things up a bit.” Rocky was handed a scroll from a stallion that had picked one up from a table. Giving him a quill too, he began to jot down his letter to Princess Celestia herself.

All the while, a stallion in the same white mask as Rocky tied up Spike next to Twilight and Starlight.

“Are you okay, Spike? How badly did he hurt you?”

He had to choke back a sob to barely respond with: “A lot.”

Twilight looked back at the pony that had them at his mercy. If she could get out of this right now, she would personally send him to the infernal prison of tartarus. She’d never wish a pony to such a terrible fate, but now, her mind has changed. She could feel Starlight would act in the exact same way.

Rocky had finished his letter after taking a great amount of time on it.

“Done.”

Then, he walked up to Spike and dangled the note in front of him.

“You know exactly what I want.”

Spike looked back to Twilight, who nodded reluctantly.

“If you try to burn any of us, my ‘friends’ on the other floors will march right up here and slaughter you all, as well as the rest of Ponyville. And you’d better believe we have the firepower to do that.”

“Okay.” Spike sniffled and opened his mouth. A quick flame ignited out and caught the letter ablaze. Dropping it, Rocky let the letter burn up and watched as the ashes sailed outside.

“Now, gentlecolts, we wait.”





        Celestia had received the first letter. She was used to Spike’s handwriting, which was incredibly neat for such a young fellow like him. However, aside from the contents of the note that she got, the writing was frantic. It had Spike’s strokes to it, but they were longer and more messy, as if he had written in a hurry and in distress.

        Not to mention, stallions threatening Twilight and Starlight? 

        “Your highness, we’re on standby.”

        A guard saluted to Celestia, his spear at his side. The Princess of the Sun looked over to him and nodded.

        “Await my orders. We still need to know the whole situation that’s unfolding right now. I can feel a null-zone of magic surrounding the castle. Maybe they forced Twilight to cast a spell.”

        “I can get a squad in there and get the princess and all other subjects out.”

        Celestia looked over by the castle. 

        “Have all of the citizens of Ponyville been evacuated yet?”, the princess asked the guard.

        “Yes your highness. The town is clear.”

        She looked back towards Twilight’s home.

        “Send a squad to scout the place. I want a full report on what’s happening.”

        “Yes, Princess Celestia.”

        Then, the guard took several others down towards the castle.

        Celestia didn’t know too much of what this whole situation was presenting to Twilight, Starlight, and Spike. It must be terrifying to be held at knife point. However, she had faith in her guards to handle to situation. They were well trained and had the best armor Equestria could make.

At that instant, another letter reformed right in front of her face. Taking her attention away from the guards, she read over the letter:




“Hello, Celestia.

                I’ve always wanted to talk to you for such a long time. However, being in prison for twenty years hasn’t given me a chance to have a conversation with our esteemed leader. I’ve heard that you’ve finally succeeded as a teacher and created another princess.


Congrats.


        However, I’m not your friend, nor will we be friends. I would never associate myself with a bitch such as yourself for all of the injustice you have enforced on our own kind. I hope you can understand why I had to take Twilight under my wing now, instead of yours. As such, I have some favors I would like to call in after rotting in that cell for the last two decades. Time flies, doesn’t it?

        We want you to step down as leader of Equestria and reform the government under the superior vision of the White Mask Movement. In addition, we wish for a number of stallions to be released from prisons all across Equestria. Another thing we want is transportation to the Everfree Forest and for that area to be declared a null zone for your nation. No other pony except those we say may come near this forest.

        We will give you two days to meet these demands, or the prisoners we’ve taken will be executed. After that, we will head out from the castle, take our weapons, and slaughter every single pony that doesn’t follow our lead. Stallion, or especially mare, if they don’t follow us, they will die. We have weapons the likes that you could never imagine. We know that immortality prevents death from age, but not forced death. Such as how the great dictator Sombra had met his end.

        Time is ticking.

                -Love, Rocky Quarry”




        She grew increasingly panicked as she kept reading through the letter. Her breathing actually accelerated from viewing their demands and what they would do. Surely no pony could ever expect such demands to be fulfilled. The claim of these “weapons” that could slaughter everything they say, it couldn’t exist. Could it? Physically speaking, the crossbow has just been developed, which was the most advanced weapon they had right now. It would be impossible for them to have something that could kill so many like they spoke of.

        Princess Celestia began to remember when Twilight was still the eager and learning unicorn she was, writing to her every week on what she had learned about friendship. She read and kept every letter she had received. Even now, she had grown up into the responsible and kind-hearted princess she deserved to be and worked so hard towards.

        All of that could have been gone in an instant now.

        Celestia gritted her teeth towards the castle.

        She had never had blood on her hooves in over a thousand years, and she was most certainly not going to start with Twilight Sparkle, her new student Starlight Glimmer, and her ever-so faithful assistant, Spike.

        The guard squad was on their way to scout the area, hopefully to give her insight on what’s truly going on outside. The null-magic zone that had been created was deeply troubling, but that meant ponies inside couldn’t use magic as well.

        The guards weaved in between the buildings, peeking from corners, then moving up with shields raised.

        “Up, up, up! Move!” the squad leader silently told his six other squadmates, pressing towards the eerily silent Castle of Friendship.





        Waiting around was tedious, but it was the nature of these scenarios that the White Mask ponies had created for the princess. Twilight and Starlight had remained silent for a very long time, and Spike’s stomach growled.

        Obviously, Celestia would offer food to them in order to ease some of their demands. Rocky wasn’t feeling generous at all. She would give them food to extend their time. He wasn’t leaving here without a single demand tended to. If not, then she knew exactly what he and his ponies would do.

        Then, a stallion leaning by a window give Rocky an alert.

        “Hey, we have some guards coming towards us. West side of Ponyville.”

        Rocky immediately rushed over and looked out the window. He could see through some binoculars a small squad of guards peeking from behind a building, then moving across the street.

        Already, she’s throwing away her stallions like that? If Rocky knew one thing, if he were leader, he wouldn’t have done something so foolish and careless.

        “So, you don’t take us seriously?” Rocky narrowed his eyes at the guards outside, and spat his words out, “Your mistake, Celestia. These guards are going to pay for it.”

        As he walked back, he told everyone to ready their rifles and take an ammunition check.

        “Have the crates been moved up here yet?” Rocky asked a stallion.

        “Yes sir. Just a few minutes ago. Should I-”

        “Yes. Get me the belt-fed.”

        The male walked over to the crate that had stashed the weapons and ammunition, and pulled out what Starlight could recognise as an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or a SAW. She knew about the terror these kinds of weapons held, spewing out a seemingly never-ending stream of lead as long as the trigger was pulled.

        Her eyes widened greatly, and Twilight began to scream.

        “N-No! Don’t! Please! Stop!”

        Rocky ignored every word Twilight had said as two stallions got next to a window, and Rocky loaded up the machine gun with armor-piercing incendiary ammunition.

        The guards were beginning to move across a street, shields raised.

        They had no idea of the death that was lurking over them.

        Then, Rocky threw the shutters open, as did his two other stallions. Right as they did so, the guards noticed, and he could hear one shout, “Hey! A window just opened!”

        The stallions lined up the front sights with the back sights, placed both over the group, and opened fire.

        The rifles opened up first, blasting out round after round, peppering the guards with a volley of slicing and impacting death. The guards shields could only stop one or two before the rest found themselves going through and smashing through their much weaker armor. One by one, guards dropped like a rock on the streets of Ponyville. Dust scattered around them as the rifles’ magazines were quickly emptied into them.

        They screamed in chaos and agony as their bodies were torn apart from the attack. Shortly after the sound similar to rapid and successive thunderclaps, an even louder and more frightening sound gripped the deserted Ponyville as the M249 started to fire.

        Rocky easily handled the weapon with his naturally built strength, pumping 5.56 millimeter API bullets into the guards down below. Tiny explosions with their shields caving in were seen as the rounds tore straight through them, ignited, and blasted through their bodies. Bullet shells clattered to the floor as the hail of gunfire kept on going. Twilight at this point was screaming and in tears as the guards down below met their demise.

        Celestia could hear the sounds coming from Ponyville. She had never listened to something so terrifying and ominous before. 

        The only guard left alive was the squad leader. He laid still in the ground, playing dead as Rocky washed bullets over the bodies, ensuring that they were truly dead and that anypony else that came would receive the message. Looking to his left and right, the petrified eyes and face of the guards stared back at him, blood pouring from their mouth and nose. The machine gun had run dry, a pile of shells had formed up on the ground next to Rocky. 

        “There. You think we’re a fucking joke? I’d gladly do the same to you, Celestia.” Rocky spoke coldly through his mask, “Get some tape around the hostages’ mouths. The screaming is more grating than the gunfire.”

        When the stallions broke away from the windows, the squad leader got up, and made a break for it. Hiding behind a building and getting out of the null-zone, he teleported straight out.

        Celestia now felt something that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Hopelessness.




        
        The former GSG-9, now an operator on Rainbow Team slung his ballistic shield onto his back, and took a hold of the hostage’s hand.

        “You’re going to be okay! Stay behind me and move with me!”

        The woman nodded through all of her fear and fright that had ensued beforehand. 

        “Let’s go! Stay behind!”

        She looked over towards the children’s room, finally seeing for the first time the state that it had become. Bullet holes and scorch marks of explosions had riddled across the once-cozy room, with no other signs of life. 

        “Come on. Stay calm,” Blitz reassured to the hostage he was now escorting to safety. All the while, he felt so vulnerable. His shield was now on his back as he needed to guide the woman to safety with a free hand. The other hand held his P12 handgun to defend himself and the hostage.

        “Down the stairs. We’ll be out in no time. Okay?”

        The woman nodded quickly as the two slowly came down the stairs. On the steps was another man laying across the floor. He was dressed in black gear in contrast to Blitz’s grey armor and jeans. The gas mask the body wore hid what face it had before its death. Plastered onto its shoulder was “SAS”.

        Down the steps, another body was leaned over the wall that faced the end of the stairs. A ballistic shield similar to Blitz’s was draped over the corpse. Clearly printed on his armor was “GIGN”. He was seemingly burned and blasted to a crisp, his facemask was blackened and his armor had smoking gashes in them.

        “Let’s keep going. We’re almost out.”

        The little laser on Blitz’s pistol traced around him as he watched for any sort of movement that could be pursuing him.

        Then, he saw it.

        Peeking from a corner from the kitchen that was to their right was the unmistakable green camouflage uniform of the Spetsnaz soldier aiming his VSN submachine gun directly at Blitz.

        The German lifted his pistol to stop the Russians intent on reclaiming the hostage.

        BANG!

        Smoke shot from the opposing gun as Blitz pulled the trigger on his. However, his gun failed to operate. Only a click was heard as the bullet supposed to be inside failed to fire.

        Then, the woman disappeared. The house’s painted walls formed back into plain plywood and plastic. The bodies that were on the stairs and wall groaned as they got up, stretched, and looked over towards Blitz and Kapkan, their guns still aiming for eachother.

        “Simulation Ended. Attackers neutralised.”

        Blitz lowered his pistol and placed it back into his holster. The Russian walked over, his SMG on his chest held with one hand.

        “If that wasn’t me, but a White Mask, you would be dead.” Kapkan’s self-sustained realist views reflected in his tone of voice, the hooded and mouth-covered former Spetsnaz talked down the GSG-9. Blitz only stared back, and gave a little smile underneath his balaclava that was partially hidden by his helmet.

        “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t, then. That was a nice shot.” Blitz replied back, his jovial attitude directly countering Kapkan’s serious one.

        “Indeed it was.” Montagne put his own shield on his back as he got up from the wall, “Is it me, or have your traps become a lot more subtle now?”

        “Sure. Go along with his traps. If you would have let me detonated mine before the German here shot me, you both would have been done for.” Smoke, the ex-SAS sounded frustrated at not getting to let his part of the plan go off.

        “Thank god it’s a simulation. I would hate to be on the receiving end of that gas.” Blitz nodded to Smoke, who began to walk away.

        “Good work everyone. Very well done.” Another voice came out from the other side of the massive enclosed room they were in that hosted the simulated combat environment. Approaching them was another man in the black SAS gear similar to what Smoke wore, except that his gas mask was off revealing the decently aged man underneath.

        “It’s apparent that the simulation still has some kinks to iron out, but for now, good retrieval of hostage. Blitz, you didn’t even hesitate when Montange was scripted to go down alongside you.”

        “Thank you, sir.” Blitz replied to Thatcher, one of Rainbow Team’s newest leaders, “But Kapkan got me while I was escorting the hostage. It wasn’t good enough.”

        “Heh, not exactly.” Thatcher gave a chuckle as he held up a tablet showing the replay. To Kapkan’s disbelief and Blitz’s frustration, Kapkan actually ended up shooting Blitz in his earmuff protection instead of his actual head, but the simulation still scored it as a “headshot”.

        “What?! That’s bullshit! I would have gotten you in your actual head!” Blitz looked back at Kapkan.

        “Damn. Oh well. That’s a bummer.” Kapkan sighed watching the replay.

        He walked away after storing his weapon and passed by Ash, former American FBI SWAT in the hallway.

        “So, took down the mighty Blitz?” the woman asked as she walked past, “Or did you give him deafness in one ear?”

        She chuckled as Kapkan went past her.

        “Americans…”

        Coming back to his quarters, he could see his comrades inside doing their various hobbies. Tachanka was sitting in a corner polishing a classic Mosin-Nagant rifle extremely carefully, Glaz was painting on a small mounted easel, and Fuze was currently making adjustments to his cluster charge insertion device with a screwdriver.

        “Well, I got Blitz in the earmuff. First time I’ve seen him throw a fit about something.” Kapkan sat down on his bunk.

        “Simulation counted it?” Fuze asked, looking over.

        “It did.”

        “Heh. Technology is overrated. I remember when paintballs were the deciding factor in direct training, not some stupid computer.” Tachanka was still polishing his rifle.

        Kapkan smiled a tiny bit. “I heard there’s a little package of Vodka coming in for us.”

        Fuze grunted. “I swear if it’s generic shit aga-”

        “Adnam’s Longshore.”

        Tachanka placed the rifle against the wall. “About time we got something different.”

        Glaz finished up on his easel and turned it over towards them.

        “What do you think?” the artist turned sniper showed them an absolutely gorgeous depiction of the Kremlin back in Moscow.

        “I can feel the nostalgia coming off of it.” Tachanka leaned back into his bunk.





        “Got me in the earmuff. Unbelievable.”

        At this time, the other German operators were currently on a training exercise. As Blitz walked down the hallway, hands in his pockets, he looked up.

        Walking towards him was none other than Rainbow Six, otherwise known widely by everyone else as John Clark. The old man had long retired from combat, but headed the Rainbow Team program with masterful decisions and strategy. 

        Instantly, Blitz whipped his hands from his pocket and gave a solid salute. “Sir!”

        Clark nodded towards Blitz. “At ease, Elias.”

        Walking past, Clark gave a smile back. “I know. It’s a load of crap too. We’re still working on it.”

        Blitz shrugged. “Well, it was too close. I can’t accept anything as ‘close enough’. You’ve done a good job in teaching us all that.”

        Clark gave a tiny affirmation back and headed down the hallway. Apparently, Thatcher needed to see him for a matter of utmost importance. Usually, that meant something really, really bad.

        Arriving in his office, Clark saw the familiar face of Mike Baker, known as “Thatcher” to practically everyone else.

        He was sitting in front of his desk with his tablet in his hand.

        “Okay, what have you called me here for?” Clark sat down on his side of the desk.

        “Operators Valkyrie and Blackbeard are currently arriving back from Afghanistan. They located a White Mask structure that housed a laboratory inside of it. Nine hostiles confirmed dead, none of our guys were injured,” Thatcher started to explain to Clark, “however, in addition to finding a decently sized weapons cache, they came across this peculiar device in the back of the room.”

        Thatcher showed Clark the machine the operators had snapped a photo of before it was destroyed in the fiery explosion that followed.

        “What in god’s name is that?” Clark leaned in closer to examine the picture.

        “My guess is about as good as yours. Ran the picture through images on the internet, nothing. The only thing we can infer about it was Russian text on it. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s stolen tech from Russia.”

        Clark shook his head.

        “That can’t be right. This looks so… abstract.” Clark zoomed in on the photo, “So, you say there’s no sort of records, files, or anything like that?”

        “Nothing. Double checked. I even ran it by Tachanka, and even he couldn’t tell us anything about it. That bloody Russian could practically be the world’s greatest Russian historian if he wanted to be.”

        Clark ran his fingers over his chin. “Get Ding in here.”

        “Rainbow Five? Of course.”

        Thatcher called for Clark’s good friend, partner, and son in law. Domingo Chavez was one of the very few people Clark could entrust his life with, and vise versa. From hunting warlords in Japan to Africa, Clark and “Ding” had history together. Very good history.

        When eco terrorists posing behind the biotechnology company Horizon Corporation were to distribute a super virus that would wipe out 99.9 percent of humanity, they had stuck together with the original Rainbow Team.

“You called, Mr. C?” Ding sat down next to Thatcher, “So, this is about that machine those operators found in Afghanistan?”  

“You’re on point. Basically, we know nothing of this machine. Knowing that it was in the White Mask’s possession, it can’t be good news for anyone in this world.” Clark spoke to his friend.

“Amen to that,” Thatcher responded.

“No files, no records, nothing from Tachanka either. All we know is that it’s reminiscent of Russian design, albeit incredibly abstract.” Clark looked away, his hands clasped together.

“So, where else do we look?” Ding asked.

“Well, I got an idea. There is another man who might know even more history than Tachanka.” Clark spoke as if the subject was of utmost sin to mention.

“No. You can’t possibly be thinking of-” Ding started against Clark.

“It’s precisely what I’m thinking of.” Clark replied.

“I’m sorry, but who’s the man in question here?” Thatcher had no clue who Rainbows Six and Five were talking about.

Clark sat back on his chair.

“Dmitry Popov. Remember those terrorist attacks that occurred before Horizon Corporation was to launch its first act of wiping out humanity at the Olympics?” Clark asked Thatcher.

“Yes. One of those attacks targeted right in my homeland, in the same fucking hospital that both of your wives and daughters worked in.” Thatcher began to immediately grow a distaste.

“Well, he organised those attacks that allowed Horizon Corporation to gain the security firm at the Olympic stadium. However, he realised what they were doing, grew a conscience, and spilled the beans to us. If it weren't for him, then we all wouldn’t be standing right here at this moment.” Clark explained the man in question, Popov.

“Jesus Christ.” Thatcher looked back at Ding.

“I don’t like him any more than any of you. In fact, I would like to personally go down to that private island he’s living in right now and cut his balls off.” Ding looked back at Clark.

“But if there’s something I know about that ex-KGB, he knows his history. Perhaps a bit too much.” John explained, “Which is why we should be heading over there and paying him a nice visit.”

Ding grunted. “Well, considering it’s the White Masks, and it’s usually their downtime right now, it wouldn’t hurt too much. Operators Thermite and Blackbeard can keep the team in check while we’re gone.” 

“Then it’s settled.” Thatcher then got up. “Clark, no offense, but when was the last time you fired a gun?”

“Yesterday for the past something-something years. I may be a geezer, but this geezer knows how to handle an MP5.”

“Wouldn’t anyone?” Ding remarked under his breath, smiling.





        Sitting inside the Stealthhawk helicopter, Thatcher was busy sharpening his knife next to one of the gunner-window mounted Miniguns that were installed inside. The pilots gave notification that their destination was approaching.

        Preparing to repel down onto the island and the vila below, the three Rainbow Team operators stood ready for the signal.

        When the signal was given, they dropped down like spiders onto the rather nice looking house, considering it housed a former Russian spook inside. Landing on the roof, the helicopter was instructed to reconnect to a tanker jet waiting miles away and stay in orbit over the island.

        Clark, Ding, and Thatcher walked across the roof and stopped by a chimney. At once, Thatcher took out a minidrone and dropped it down the smokestack of the house. “Drone’s going in.”

        The tiny robot dropped into the house, where the fireplace was bare of any sort of flames. Driving around, it didn’t take long to find the only occupant of the house. He was elderly, but not on life support at all. He appeared to be watching a soccer game on an absolutely gigantic flatscreen.

        Thatcher despised him even more after he saw the face that could hide murder and terrorism beneath.

        “One contact, sitting in the television room. No weapons I can see, no tripwires, electronic detector seems clean.” Thatcher replied to Ding and Clark.

        “Alright. Let’s give him our warm welcome. I’ve never been too fond of soccer.” Ding spoke as Thatcher prepped up one of his EMP grenades, the Jack Union Flag painted on the top of it. He dropped it through the chimney, and the other operators went to repel down the window below.

"Devices going dark." Thatcher spoke as the EMP grenade was dropped down.

        Meanwhile, Popov was tuning into the latest game, only to find the Russians getting destroyed by Brazilians in soccer, by all chances. Then, he managed to hear the sound of an incredibly suppressed helicopter noise, but unmistakably a helicopter nonetheless. The noise slowly died away as he glanced over towards a window, noticing the faint outline of a military helicopter zooming off.

        He had a glass of scotch in his hand, just as the lights, and the TV immediately went out with a “zap!”

        Afterwards, he could see two little lasers come over his chest with two men dressed in black hanging out of the window. Sighing, and remembering that his Makarov handgun was in the drawer under his feet on the table he had them on, he looked at the two men in black and spoke out loud. “You left the safety on.”

Then, the soldiers moved in, parting the window’s sliding glass door.

Their guns were still trained on him, as one of them spoke up. “We need to have a conversation, Popov.”

Then, the Russian spook looked closely into the eyes that penetrated from the headgear. “Clark? Is that you? My god you haven’t aged well.”

“Shut it, we still remember what you tried to do with our wives and daughter at the hands of the IRA.” Ding spat back at him. At that moment, Thatcher came in through the opened sliding glass door.

“Okay, Popov. Let’s get right down to business.” Thatcher took the tablet from his case and gave it to Popov, the screen illuminating them in the darkness, “We need to know what this is.”

Popov took the tablet from Thatcher, and put on a pair of reading glasses to get a better look at the picture.

Almost all at once, Clark noticed Popov’s eyes widen at the image. His hands began to grow shaky at the tablet. His breathing began to accelerate. His whole body began to shake in some way as Ding placed his hand on his chest. “Holy shit! I think he’s having a seizure!”

Then, Popov threw open the drawer underneath him with his foot, and pulled his Makarov out. He aimed it straight at his own head, his eyes as wide as dinner plates.

“Y-You can’t know! This secret will die with me! Don’t take another step!”, Popov has suddenly gone from a cold, calculative, and arrogant person from a man who seemingly wanted to commit suicide from PTSD.

“The fuck- Popov! Calm down! Put the gun down, slowly, okay? We discovered this machine at a White Mask compound, and we need to know what you can give us. Please. Calm down…”

Clark placed his own MP5 down as he spoke more and more calmly to the frightened man before them. He then told Thatcher and Ding to do the same, and they did so reluctantly. Both Ding and Thatcher had their hand over their handguns in case this went more south than it did.

“Popov. Calm down. Easy… easy…” Clark slowly backed away from him.

Then, Popov trained the gun on the three other men that were in front of him. “You cannot know. No one should know!”

“Know what? Popov, listen to us, the White Masks have this machine. If it’s something worth killing yourself over, you have to tell us instead.” Clark kept his voice calm as sweat beaded on Popov’s forehead, “Just… just keep it easy. Lower the gun and put it on the table. That’s going to be step one.”

The Russian’s eyes darted back and forth in between the three as he began to lower the gun from his temple, and slowly placed it on the table in front.

“Okay… are we okay now?” Clark asked Popov. He was still breathing heavily, but was making the effort to calm himself down. 

Popov breathed heavily and slowly as he put his hand on his chest, feeling his heart that had been weakened from age slowly rest itself down to stability. Looking back up at the three counter-terrorists in front of him, he placed his hand back onto his leg, the glanced back at them.

“I’ll… get you all some drinks. You might need them if you’ll ever believe the truth.”


        
        
> Entry
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “Thank you.”

        “Thanks.”

        Ding didn’t respond as he was handed his drink.

        Popov had poured himself one as he allowed Clark and Thatcher to sit on the couch overlooking the central coffee table, while Ding took a seat from the dining room and brought it over. Popov claimed his recliner after he had calmed down from the previous panic attack.

        “Alright, got our drinks, so let’s hear your story.” Thatcher placed his drink back on the table, not willing to take a drink just yet. Clark and Ding got the same idea as well.

        “Come on, do we really have to start off like this again? Where are your snipers overlooking me?” Popov chuckled a bit as he downed his own drink. Noticing that it was poured from the same bottle that was poured for the Rainbow Team, Clark picked his back up and took a sip, “Okay, let’s start.”

        “I’m all ears.” Ding replied.

        “This story is going to start like every other science fiction story there is. Let’s rewind ourselves back to the 1960’s. 1962 to be precise.”

        “The Cold War. Of course we’d start there.” Thatcher looked back at Clark.

        “The Cuban Missile Crisis?” Clark asked.

        Popov nodded. “That’s right. So, you all know the story. We got our weapons pointed at you and let’s face it, we had our fingers on the trigger at that point. However, we were one step ahead of the United States in regards to nuclear retaliation.”

        Thatcher and Clark took another sip while Ding still sat back, watching Popov carefully.

        “You, I recommend that you start to drink up, because it’s going to become crazy.” Popov pointed towards Ding, who still wouldn’t take a drink.

        “Okay, have any of you read any books or seen a movie about gateways to other places? Like portals?”

        “Oh, get the fuck out of here.” Ding smiled and shook his head, “You cannot possibly get me to believe that this machine is some sort of ‘teleportation device’.”

        Ding ended up saying the last part with air quotes as he for once took his drink and downed a decent amount of this, “You’re right. I do need this.”

        “It’s not a teleportation device. It’s a gateway. And the motherland found a way to make it happen.” Popov explained again. Clark took another sip, finding the whole story to be just as unbelievable.

        “So, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the leaders of Russia, like Khrushchev using a team of the best scientists he could find had just finished with this gateway to an alternate plane of existence in case if earth were to be plunged into a nuclear war. The plan was that if we fired our nuclear weapons at America, before they could fire back, all of the leaders were to go through the gateway to a selected alternate world and inhabit it, starting an Adam and Eve project to populate it.” Popov continued, the story feeling more and more like science fiction the more it went.

        “Come on, this was during the Cold War. How on earth could Russia of all nations create something like this?” Thatcher commented.

        “I can’t tell you, but I always figured this sort of experiment took place straight after the second world war had ended. Roughly twenty years later, they finally nailed it down.” Popov went on.

        “You sure know a lot about this. How come there was no other mention of this sort of project or any documents regarding this?” Clark asked, skeptically.

        “The reason why there isn’t any record was because of what would happen shortly afterwards when we began to experiment. As for me knowing about this whole program…”

        Popov placed his hand on his temple, squeezed it a bit, then looked back up.

        “That was because as a teenager, I was one of the test subjects when they began to look into other worlds.”

        “Get out of here.” Ding shook his head, dumbfounded.

        “You have to believe me! This is the truth! The only reason the project was shut down was because the worlds we first saw were hideous and terrifying. Horrible things. Horrible, horrible things. One world, something came out and killed four scientists before we killed that monster. It was literally a wolf made of solid tree bark. When we killed that thing, we burned it as soon as we could. That’s how I got these.” Popov rolled back a sleeve to reveal a set of four claw marks that had scared on his arm.

        “That could have been a normal wolf. God knows how much of those you have in Russia.” Ding replied, still not convinced.

        “Damnit! If the White Masks have this technology, then the entire world could be in jeopardy! Just think of all of the things they could bring back here! Diseases, monsters, maybe even more advanced weapons. Let’s not forget that wherever they are, they are searching for that perfect world. They know what we were trying to do, and they won’t stop until they have another place to spread their idea of a civilisation. Maybe they have found it already.” Popov kept going on.

        “How come you were never caught after the experiments ended?” Thatcher asked. 

        “I was a crafty person. I escaped the labs, took on a new name, and eventually became a completely different person. The KGB actually tracked me down and hired me to assassinate every person linked with the project, which I did. Soon, I were to be killed myself, so I faked my own death, took on a new alias, and here I am now, spilling all of the beans to you three.” Popov knew that he was straying further and further from convincing Clark, Thatcher, and especially Ding.

        “That’s a hell of a story. But this Vodka didn’t get me to believe you, buddy.” Ding placed the empty glass on the table.

        Then, Popov stood up suddenly, earning a reaction from Ding to put his hand on his M9 in its holster.

        “Okay, maybe this will get you to see the truth. The Russians, I admit, stupidly kept the first prototype of the portal hidden away in a secret storage facility in the motherland. They wanted to keep it in case they had to reactivate the project, but I ended up making everyone forget. The documents were never burned, only scattered. The White Masks are tricky bastards. If anyone would find it, they would. The technology today can recreate the portal. But I’ll take you to the original gateway, and if it isn’t there…”

        Ding stood up, “Or what?”

        “Then you can kill me. I will bet my life on it. I deserve to die for the crimes I have committed, so if it isn’t there, then you have my world. Shoot me in the damn head, but this is the only way you will ever believe me!”

        Clark, Thatcher, and Ding looked at each other.

        “Betting your own life on a myth? Sure. Why not.” Ding took his hand off of his pistol, “What do you think, Mr. C?”

        Clark looked back, “Right now, the attacks have ceased. One day in Russia wouldn’t hurt. But trust me Popov, I’m not going to shoot you. Instead, you’ll expose yourself as the terrorist you are. Deal?”

        “Deal.” Clark didn’t expect Popov to quickly take him up on his offer, knowing that it would probably deface his country even more.

        “Have Rainbow Team on standby. We’re going to need the readiness of all available operators if things escalate any higher,” Clark instructed Thatcher.

        Popov took up his cell phone and looked back towards the three operators, “I have connections. I’ll get my private jet and they’ll fly any gear, no questions asked. When we arrive in Russia, the gear will be dropped off at one of my safehouses. Sound good to you all?”

        Ding rolled his eyes, “I wonder what else they’ve smuggled for you. Sure. But you’re going unarmed.”

        The ex-KGB nodded as Clark confisticated his Makarov handgun. Afterwards, Ding came over to Clark and began to ask questions again.

        “Are we seriously going along with this? Dimensional transport? This is a load of shit, and you know it too.” Ding looked over as Thatcher began to check his inventory on his EMP grenades.

        “It is a load of shit, but if the White Masks are involved in anything, a nursery or a football stadium is probably going to get blown up. This isn’t some sort of science fiction novel, but we’re going to learn more about these monsters and their motives. There’s plenty to find in Russia. If we’re feeling like it, we’ll hand him over to authorities there. Knowing that he planned terrorist attacks of huge scale, they’ll want to look good by dealing with him.” Clark spoke as he inspected his M9 pistol.

        “Kind of a little late for that.” Ding commented on Popov’s grey hair. The Russian walked back over towards the Rainbow Team.

        “Plane’s coming. Three hours for the plane to get here, same time to fly to Russia. I’m going to forge some passports and identification for you.” Popov put his phone away.

        “In three hours?” Thatcher asked, putting away his grenades.

        “I have gotten quite proficient at it. I’ve already got some blank slates, so all I need to do is ‘fill in the blanks’, figuratively, of course.”

        At that point, Clark had radioed the helicopter to return to base and await further instructions. Thankfully, the tanker would ensure that it would arrive back, albeit a slow pace.

        “Well, gentlemen, let’s go visit the motherland.” Popov went off to forge the identification.





        “We came as fast as we could!” Applejack stopped in front of Celestia, sweat beading from her forehead. Behind her were the other four of Twilight’s dearest friends, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity.

        They all couldn’t believe the news just as Ponyville had been forced to evacuate its citizens by order of Celestia, and they grew increasingly concerned as Twilight was nowhere to be found in all of the hysteria.

        “I’m so sorry to all of you…” Celestia looked down at the ground, unsure of how to tell Twilight’s companions about her fate in the hooves of these stallions. Then, the tiniest sound like something was scurrying through the grass was heard behind her, but she ignored it.

        “Sorry about what, you're highness? Where’s Twilight?” Pinkie looked around the area where Celestia asked for them to come.

        The Princess looked back up.

        “She’s back in the castle, and she’s currently being detained by stallions with weapons.” Celestia pointed her hoof towards the crystal structure that was encased in the magic null-zone.

        “What?! She’s being held against her will?” Rainbow Dash looked over to the castle.

        “I’m afraid so, and…” Celestia choked up a sob, “I don’t know what to do. I sent guards towards the palace, but I heard these awful noises, and the only one that came back was covered in blood and he kept going on about how he heard thunder. The next thing he knew, his fellow ponies were on the ground, holes in their shields… and in them.”

        Fluttershy looked over towards the guard in question, who had been given a blanket and was surrounded by other guards. He was shivering, despite it being 83 degrees in the sunlight outside. Asking for permission, and getting approval, she walked over to  help care for the guard who’s white coat was stained pink as not all of the blood could be rubbed out by the towel.

        “Oh jeez…” Rainbow Dash immediately deflated after looking back at the guard. If some big and tough guardspony came back like that, not even she would fare too well either.

        “We want ta’ help in any way we can. We’re not gonna sit back and let Twilight be a hostage to these ponies.” Applejack walked up to Celestia, determined to help her friend.

        “Applejack, listen to me. I’ve aged so much meaning my magic has slowly faded away, as well as the null-zone, and I don’t want to know what kind of terrible weapons they have that could do that to the poor stallion over there! I’ve never seen anything like this before and… they’re using her as a bartering tool. They want me to step down and give them immunity from invasion in the Everfree Forest.” Celestia stared ahead at the castle that had gone eerily silent from the previous noises of terror.

 “I fear that it might be the only thing I can do to save Twilight and her friends’ lives. Even then, those stallions could just march out and do more horrible things. Nothing would stop them. Not even me.” she continued.

At that point, a shadow flew overhead, bearing the characteristics of something far more slender and more jagged that a pegasus. Looking overhead, Rarity easily was able to recognise the characteristics of her friend from the Badlands, Dragonlord Ember.

“Prin- Dragonlord Ember? What are you doing here?” the unicorn questioned as the blue dragoness landed down.

“Celestia asked for me to come. She told me that Spike and Twilight Sparkle were in trouble. She explained what she knew to me in a letter… and… I had to come. I couldn’t believe a single word, but I still had to be there.” the Dragonlord nodded back towards the castle.

“Spike must be scared out of his mind right now…”

        Placing her hoof on her shoulder, Celestia spoke up again, “I need you to send letters into the castle to communicate with the stallions.”

        Ember nodded, “Right, right. I’ll get to work. Have any for me?”

        “Not at the moment, but expect them to be arriving soon.”





        Inside the castle, Rocky had finished reloading the M249 and took a check with the ammunition. Taking his personal handheld radio, he gave a check.

        “Testing… everypony’s radio clear?” Rocky asked into the device. The stallions had met back up in the hostage room and all nodded, hearing the voice come out of their radios, “Good, now get back to your places and await further instructions. I’ll be sending another letter to the bitch.”
        
        Three headed back up to the third floor, while one head back to the basement, leaving the other four stallions behind with the hostages. At this point, Twilight and Starlight’s mouths had been bound by duct tape, with Spike being free to send letters to Celestia. He never made an uproar, as he knew better than to do that.

        The baby dragon looked back at Twilight, but only to find her simply staring at the wall that was across the room. Had she given up as well?

Starlight Glimmer kept eyeing the stallions, furious that her mouth was shut.        

Rocky had finished up composing another letter, then held it in front of Spike. Without hesitation, Spike huffed a tiny stream of fire, and sent it away. Rocky turned back to the other three stallions on his floor.

“Stay tight boys, our reinforcements will be coming soon.” 





        The plane ride was rather nice, albeit sitting across the table of a man who was responsible for nearly having an entire hospital staff killed, including his and Ding’s daughters and wives.

        Clark kept his face of neutralness as Popov stretched and looked back to the alcohol cabinet.

        “Vodka? Scotch? Wine? ...beer?” Popov said the last choice with far less enthusiasm.

        “I’ll pass.” Clark replied.

        Ding and Thatcher were still busy checking their equipment, avoiding contact with Popov. As they were busy, Popov leaned closer towards Clark and began to whisper.

        “Listen to me. This gateway. If the White Masks have this technology, they had to be able to replicate them. You said they found one in Afghanistan, but the technology was far more modern and improved than the first prototype. You must promise me something.” Popov spoke to Clark, as in desperation.

        “What is it?” Clark kept his stoic expression, still believing that this was all crap.

        “This power, if it were to be leaked out, imagine what disaster would happen if politicians suddenly start a circle-jerk around these wonders of technology. A gateway to another world? Count me in. The war of all wars would start to simply blow up the other side so only a select few can escape to god-knows-where. This could literally jeopardise the entire human race.” Popov was frantic, yet quiet.

        “Like what you nearly helped accomplish?”

        “Damnit! You still think I’m full of fucking shit! Let me tell you, if you don’t take this seriously, then we could literally be here to witness seven and a half billion people disappear and nuclear fireballs while maybe twenty of them go fuck off in some other dimension!” the Russian looked over to Ding and Thatcher.

        Ding tapped his earpiece, hearing the conversation, “We’re flying with you to Russia over some magical portal. I guess you could say we are as crazy as you.”

        “Please, Clark. Listen to me. When we find this portal, you have to find every other one and destroy them. The technology can’t be reproduced fast. You cannot let this power fall into the hands of any country. Whether it be your own, mine, or any other. The White Masks know this too, so that’s why they’re giving so much effort to keep it hidden. They’ve probably ramped up their security on those facilities, knowing that you’ve discovered one of their portals.”

        Clark took a deep breath, and looked back at Popov.

        “Remember our agreement. If this is a load of shit, or until I say it is, you’re going right to the authorities. You’re a healthy man. I give you another ten to fifteen years.” Clark looked back on him.

        “It isn’t a load of shit, and you’ll be proven that.” Popov sat back in his chair.

        The plane had landed in a private airstrip, while Clark, Ding’s, and Thatcher’s gear had ended up in Popov’s safehouse. Coming out of the plane and heading into the truck that Popov had called for, he got into the driver’s seat, instructed the other men to come along with him. Popov’s pistol was still with Clark. 

        Ding was still placing his hand on his own handgun, while Thatcher had placed both of his hands on his legs. 

        “So, where’s the magical portal, Popov?” Ding looked at the back of Popov’s head.

        The snowy and poorly maintained roads gave quite a lot of discomfort while traveling around.

        “The structure is located by the Atyozero body of water. Incredibly deep into Russia.” Popov kept on driving.

        “Never heard of it.” Ding spoke up.

        “Thankfully, the airport wasn’t very far away. Give or take, a two hour drive. Don’t worry, this vehicle was built to withstand these kinds of conditions.” Popov turned as Thatcher was surprised a road even existed here.

        The team took a bit to relax through the bumpy roads, checking on their handguns.

        Soon enough, it was a thirty minute drive when they came to a very uninteresting and small compound, made of concrete with the windows boarded up.

        “One of my many safehouses. I’ll get the door.”

        Popov had put on an extremely thick coat as his breath became visible. Thankfully, the other men were graciously given coats. Arriving inside, the duffle bags were on the tables.

        “See? Like I promised.” Popov got over and opened the duffle bags, showing them their familiar gear.

        Clark and Ding both took their MP5 submachine guns and loaded a magazine into each. Thatcher’s AR33 was given its magazine placed back into it. The team loaded up on their gear, some of it consisting of body armor, flashbang grenades, Thatcher’s EMP grenades, minidrones, and a plethora of other electronics and spare ammunition.

        As Clark checked his submachine gun, Popov walked over.

        “So, since you’re all loaded up, I’d like to have my gun back, please.” 

        Ding caught the handgun as Clark tossed it across with a smile, “Not a chance.”

        “Wish we had Rook’s R1N body plates. Always feel a lot safer with them.” Thatcher commented on the GIGN operator that was most likely back in their headquarters in the UK.

        “Loaded up?” Clark called off.

        “Loaded, Mr. C.” Ding replied.

        “Yes, sir.” Thatcher slipped in his six-inch knife into the sheath on his arm.

        “Alright, let’s get to the portal, shall we?”





        The drive took another hour and fifty minutes, due to the increased snow beginning to form. The truck easily surpassed the icy and covered roads. Clark and Ding’s MP5’s were across their coat while Thatcher’s AR33 sat on the right of him in the truck.

        Sitting shotgun, Clark spoke up, “I see a body of water. We’re here?”

        Popov nodded back and pointed towards a white complex out across the lake, “Almost. Get your gear ready.”

        As the truck drove around the large lake, the operators checked their weapons one last time as the complex began to get closer and closer.

        “I’m getting too old for this.” Clark spoke, of whom which Popov quickly replied, “Same here, comrade.”

        Ding pointed up ahead, “I see someone there.”

        “What? Where?” Popov squinted his eyes to look ahead. The truck stopped in front of the complex where one lone figure stood in front. 

        Then, every single heart in the truck sunk.

        The figure was wearing an incredibly thick coat, but with a frighteningly familiar mask draped across his face. It was a White Mask.

        “Hey! What the hell?!” the man shouted as he aimed an AK-74 rifle up towards the truck and didn’t hesitate to squeeze the trigger.

        “Holy shit! Get down!” Popov warned everyone as a hail of bullets blasted through the windshield of the truck, spraying glass all over the place. As the glass rained around the operators ducking for their lives, Ding pulled out his M9 and put it to the back of Popov’s head.

        “You son of a bitch, this was a set-up!”

        Popov looked back, “I would never affiliate myself with these mother fuckers! If I were, they wouldn’t kill me! I would be too valuable-”

        The guard let loose another volley of bullets after pausing to see the damage done to the truck.

        “Fuck!” Clark took his MP5 and returned fire, barely making his head visible. Three bullets impacted into the thick coat, knocking the White Mask down onto his back. He was about to get back up, most likely doubling up his wardrobe with some body armor. Before he could get the chance, Thatcher lined up the red dot in his sight and nailed him twice in his head and neck.

        “Give me my gun! I can defend myself!” Popov shouted as he quickly unbuckled himself.

        “Fuck your gun, and fuck you!” Ding shouted back, “We got more coming out!”

        Three more terrorists headed out of the complex through the main doorway. Two of them also held rifles, while the third in the back was running towards them with something far, far worse. The unmistakable shape and bugle on the top of the weapon highlighted the rocket-propelled grenade that the terrorist was now taking out and leveling towards the truck.

        “RPG! Get out of the truck!” Clark shouted as he threw the door open and fired back at the three new adversaries.

        Popov had gone out and ran to take cover behind a fair sized rock in the snow. Ding moved out towards Popov, firing as he went, while Thatcher shot his rifle while moving towards Clark.

        Then, the White Mask wielding the RPG fired the grenade. The explosive sailed straight for the truck and blasted it into a fireball, just as the operators and the ex-KGB had gotten clear.

        The Rainbow Team returned fire, battling with the two rifle men. Thatcher instantly dropped the RPG trooper as a quick and precise volley from the MP5s nailed the riflemen in their masks.

        “Everyone okay?!” Clark called out.

        “I’m good!” Thatcher replied back.

        Then, Popov took his hand from his coat, and saw his hand emerge covered in blood. Taking off the jacket, he found that while he was running, an AK bullet grazed him across his waist.

        “Blyad…” Popov cursed in his own language.

        “Popov’s been hit!” Ding called back.

        Then, what happened next was even more unbelievable than Popov’s story about the portals. A rather small-sized horse in a white coat armed with a rifle and standing on its hind legs walked out of the doorway, and began firing at Popov and Ding behind their rock.

        “What in the name of hell?! Is that a fucking horse?!” Thatcher didn’t hesitate to fire back at their new assailant.

        Popov looked over the rock and shouted back, “That… that creature… it had to have come from the portal! The White Masks are using it now! It’s the only explanation!”

        Thatcher had dropped the horse with two more shots.

        “Bloody hell! What in the name of fucking God is this?!” Thatcher shouted as three more horses came out of the complex, accompanied by two White Masks in heavy lab gear.

        “Open fire!” Clark yelled as their weapons once again lit up a hail of lead.

        The ponies, having a larger profile to shoot at were quick to go down, as the scientists fired off their own rifles.

        “Reloading!” Clark spoke into the communications of his fellow teammates.

        Thatcher and Ding ended up killing the other two horses while Clark had finished reloading and shot down both of the scientists. Even a 72 year old man like himself still had his skill.

        “Clear!”

        Popov held his wound as Ding took him up and carried him over towards Clark and Thatcher.

        “Move in to secure the objective. Ding, stay with Popov.” Clark ordered.

        “Will do, Mr. C.”

        Clark and Thatcher moved in towards the complex, their guns raised.

        “Drone it.” Clark spoke.

        Thatcher threw in his minidrone, and drove the little device around. It was a solid three minutes before he came to his conclusion.

        “All clear, Rainbow Six.”

        Clark instructed for Ding to bring Popov towards the complex. Heading inside, there were a multitude of crates in the building, but there was one machine in the center, and it was still running. A bright white field of energy pulsed in between the arches of the machine.

        “Unbelievable…” Ding spoke out loud as he set Popov down.

        “See? It’s as real as I told you.” Popov took the bandages Clark gave him and wrapped his wound.

        “So, this must be the portal.” Clark stood in awe of the device.

        “Still operational.” Thatcher spoke as well.

        Then, a ringing of a cell phone echoed through the complex.

        Popov checked his own phone, finding that it was currently off. The team members instantly knew what it was, as well as Popov.

        “Shit! IED!” Thatcher shouted as Clark and Ding were ready to head out.

        “No! Use your grenade!” Popov pointed to the EMP charges on Thatcher’s pack. He didn’t hesitate.

        Activating the grenade by twisting the top, Thatcher threw it high into the air, directly in the middle of the complex. A burst of energy emitted, and the ringing stop, as well as making all of the lights go out.

        “Holy shit… the machine’s still active.” Thatcher looked back towards the gateway.

        “It was built during the Cold War. Of course it would withstand an electromagnetic pulse.” Popov replied.

        “Good call.” Ding admitted.

        “Well, what now? I’m guessing we secure this machine. Probably prepare to blow it up.” Clark nodded.

        “No. We have to see what’s on the other side.”

        The group looked back at Popov.

        “The machine is able to sustain a small number of people. The prototype here is able to sustain five beings to transport. Electrical equipment has a lot less effort needed to sustain than a living being. That’s why only a few could enter. We have to know where the White Masks have ended up.” popov gave his idea.

        “Those horses… what the hell were they?” Clark looked outside at the corpses being blanketed by the snow.

        “We have to know. We have to go in. Who knows what the White Masks are already doing.” Popov pointed at the portal.

        “Why should it concern us? If the White Masks are fucking off in another dimension, then it’s that dimension's problem.” Ding gave his insight.

        “And what happens when they come back? The White Masks love destruction. They’ll use this new world as a staging base while also starting the Adam and Eve project,” Popov explained.

        “Fuck me… we’re not just going to walk through the machine.” Thatcher replied.

        “Then send in the drone.” Popov pointed out.

        “Are you sure that our controller's reception is going to reach across to a separate dimension?” Ding asked with the slightest hint of sarcasm.

        Popov looked back, “The machine can sustain anything that you bring into it. It only has trouble with large objects and living beings. In that case, it would be able to harbor communications, should the signal have to pass through the portal.”

        Thatcher took his drone out and set it on the ground, leading up to the portal.

        “Well, here goes nothing.” Thatcher activated the touchscreen on his controller, seeing clearly through the tiny machine’s camera feed. Rolling the drone straight into the portal, it went straight through, and didn’t come out the other side.

        “Woah!” Ding didn’t see the drone exit the other side of the arch.

        Rolling the drone ahead, all Thatcher could see on the screen was white. Then, the colors began to form in the screen. First, grass was visible. The outlines of the jagged and short plant enveloped around the drone’s feed.

        Then, more and more colors were made clear. Trees of oddly thick growth surrounded the drone as Thatcher swiveled the drone arounds, its two wheels driving in opposite directions to spin itself around.

        “Huh. looks a lot like a forest here…” Clark commented, him, Ding, and Popov all surrounding the tiny screen that Thatcher controlled the drone with.

        The last colors came into view as the entire picture was clear. Thatched roofed houses made up a community down below, with a large castle that looked to be made of pure gemstone, or crystal.

        “Wow… this is remarkable…” Popov’s eyes looked around the feed.

        “Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Popov was right. There is practically an entire world through this archway.” Clark looked around the screen, then found more of the horses that they had encountered before, “We got company. You think we can listen in to them?”

        “They must be the ‘humans’ of their world. They’re the sentient race.” Popov acknowledged.

        “Sure,” Thatcher replied as he wheeled the drone closer to the group of ponies not too far away from where the drone came through.

        Upon approaching them, their voices sounded incredibly feminine, obviously signifying their gender. That drone wheeled up behind the group, and listened in. The voices were a little distorted, but Thatcher was already trying to clear them up by tapping around on the drone’s controls.

        What amazed them was the language they spoke in. It wasn’t whinnying or neighing like they would have expected, but it was full-blown English.

        “... sorry ... all ... you…” the tallest one with a mane that seemed to flow on its own, despite there being no apparent wind for all the other horses’ manes to be doing so.

        Ding chuckled and pointed around the screen, “Unicorns. How funny. What were the ones with wings?”

        “Pegasus, I think. I don’t know the plural for it,” Popov answered back.

        “...about what, ... highness? ... Twilight?” the pink one began to speak up.        

        “...in the castle, ... currently ... detained by … with weapons.” The tall one, apparently the leader of the smaller ones held its hoof towards the crystal structure.

        “What?! She’s ... against her will?!” the one with a rainbow mane looked over to the castle.

        Clark listened attentively to the conversation, “Looks like we’re snooping into the right conversation. That town looks deserted, and from what I hear, phrases and words like ‘against her will’ and ‘detained’ sound like…”

        “A hostage situation.” Thatcher finished up the sentence.

        “No doubt made by those White Masks. I knew it. They’re already inside that world and stirring up whatever shit they can.”

        Ding looked back at Clark, “Mr. C. I don’t think these horses are truly affiliated with the White Masks. Maybe we can get a ton of free intel if we go in, and bag those white-faced assholes.”

        “That’s tempting, but we still need to deal with the horses and what they’ll think. They’re intelligent, and the White Masks may have made a few more allies, judging by the horses we just killed out there.” Clark pointed out.

        “Wait, they’re talking again.” Thatcher called for everyone to pay attention. “I’ve managed to refine the sound.”

        “Applejack, listen to me. I’ve aged so much meaning my magic has slowly faded away, as well as the null-zone, and I don’t want to know what kind of terrible weapons they have that could do that to the poor stallion over there! I’ve never seen anything like this before and… they’re using her as a bartering tool. They want me to step down and give them immunity from invasion in the Everfree Forest.” The tall white horse began to speak again.

        “So this is a hostage situation… and these creatures have probably never seen one before.” Clark examined what the white horse was saying, “If I were her, I’d be planning to step down out of not knowing what to do.”

         “I fear that it might be the only thing I can do to save Twilight and her friends’ lives. Even then, those stallions could just march out and do more horrible things. Nothing would stop them. Not even me,” she continued.

        “Wait, stallions? Then…” Thatcher looked back towards the dead horses.

        “The White Masks have made friends here. They’re going to be doing their dirty work.” Popov looked at the other men.

        “Holy shit… this is fucking crazy. Like, absolutely god-damn fucking crazy,” Ding spoke up as he listened into the conversation.

        Just at that moment, Clark got an idea. “I know how to get in there and get what we need.”

        Ding and Thatcher looked back as Popov spoke up, “How?”

        “We do our job,” Clark answered.

        “Wait, you mean we go in there, and we handle the situation? These are horses that probably don’t even know what humans are. If they do, it would probably be from the White Masks.” Thatcher voiced his objections.

        “I think they would take any method to safely return their friend to them. They seem tame. This whole situation must be incredibly pressuring to them.” Clark began to talk again before giving a smirk to Ding, “Besides, Chavez here is a real lady-killer.”

        Ding had a sense of humor to laugh a bit, but returned to his composed self, “Real funny, Mr. C. But this is risky. You really sure this will work?”

        “There’s only one way we can find out,” Clark replied.

“But first, we need to put those horses’ bodies back through the gateway.” Popov pointed out, “We need to do so in order for us to enter into their world, as we need to get rid of the machine’s efforts to sustain them on ours.”

Stepping back out into the snowy terrain, they began moving the ponies’ bodies one by one, having at least three to four people carry each of them. The deceptive weight of the horses caused a ton of discomfort as they moved across the snow in the Rainbow Team's´ heavy jackets. Tossing them back into the portal, Popov brushed his hands clean as he looked back.

“I’ll go in first to make sure it’s safe.” Popov reached his hand out for his Makarov, to which Clark nodded to Ding. The handgun was back into Popov’s possession as he looked up at the glowing white energy field that stood before him like he did as a teenager.

He took a deep breath, the disappeared through.

The Rainbow Team waited.

They stood on standby as they did a final check on their gear.

Popov emerged again and smiled, “Well, it feels like summer time over there. Ditch the coats.”

        

        


        

> Assessment
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        The group of humans wished they had brought sunglasses when they stepped through the gateway into this fascinating world. It was a rather strange feeling traveling through. At first, the operators felt like their whole body was being prodded by pins and needles, similar to when you sit funny and the blood drains from your legs. Next, it subsided and Clark put his hand in front of his face. It looked like there were a million hands reflecting off of it, traveling in a straight line and going behind him.

        Then, everything snapped back into itself, and Clark found himself walking on grass. Fresh and crisp air surrounded him as he took a deep breath. He had to admire the scenery. Any human would. The beautiful landscape was surrounded by trees of thick and odd shape, grass that seemed way too healthy with no brown patches, and clouds that didn’t look like fuzz, but actually had patterned swirls in them, as if a person had sculpted them.

        “Wow…” Clark spoke to himself as he took in all of the scenery.

        Ding and Thatcher had come through the portal, each stopping once they exited to get an eyeful of what lay before them. Ding’s eyes moved from tree to tree as he had never seen these sorts of foliage in his life. Thatcher’s gas mask concealed his gawking mouth when he walked on the grass and saw a small family of squirrels scatter away.

“It really is a sight to behold.” Popov let a ladybug fly off of his hand, “It really is a shame that such violence would grip this place.”

“It’s incredible. It really is. However, we have a job to do.” Clark stretched himself and        
pointed ahead, “Let’s get going, men.”

        “Just another minute.” Ding said jokingly as he stared up towards the patterned clouds up ahead. He too moved along with Thatcher, Popov, and Clark, but just had to watch as the cloud slowly drifted across the sky.

        




        “A letter has come.” Ember handed the scroll to Celestia, who picked it up with her magic and unrolled it. She read through it, and closed the letter.

        “What does it say?” Rarity asked as she looked back towards Fluttershy, who was still caring for the stallion. He was still shaking badly, but his white coat had lost more of its pink shade from the blood that stained it before.

        “They’re growing restless. They want food and water.” Celestia sighed.

        “We’re really gonna give them that kind of stuff? Why would we help these ponies if they were the ones who fillynapped Twilight, Spike, and Starlight?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes narrowed.

        “We need to keep them stable, or they might hurt them even more. Possibly worse…” Celestia once again looked back towards the castle.

        “Why don’t we just get them sleepy with one of Zecora’s potions? Maybe we can sneak them in a treat!” Pinkie voiced her opinion.

        “You know… that might not be a bad idea. If they all go to sleep, we can detain them and rescue our friends.” Celestia nodded back to Pinkie Pie.

        Then, another voice came out from their left side. It held the tone of age and discipline behind it, but the voice came from a taller source than the ponies.

        “I wouldn’t try that. They would eat one at a time, and if one of them began to feel a little off, something bad’s gonna happen.”

        The ponies and dragon turned to their side to lay eyes on four tall creatures clad in black and holding oddly long devices in their arms. The only thing similar that they could compare them to was a minotaur, but with a more slender and balanced construction of their body. That, and their head looked nothing like a bull.

        “What… who are you…? And what are you doing here?” Celestia looked at the creatures presented in front of her, “You look… familiar…”

        Clark looked back to Ding, “We do? Well, then you must be familiar with us. Allow me to introduce myself for the ladies who aren’t, though.”

        The ponies looked at each other as Clark began to speak.

        “My name is John Clark, head of Rainbow Team, a multinational counter-terrorist force that deals with the very situations that you all have found yourselves unfortunately a part of. To my left is Domingo ‘Ding’ Chavez, my second in command. To my right is Mike Baker, callsign: Thatcher. The scraggly old man with us is Dmitry Popov, an ‘acquaintance’ of ours.” Clark pointed back to Popov who was looking rather unamused.

        “Counter-terrorist…?” Celestia asked.

        “Yes, your highness. We’re the best of the best, and we would like to offer our full assistance.” Ding remembered that the tall white one with the eternally flowing mane was referred to as their leader.

        “We have a common enemy, and we can identify the organization that these ‘stallions’ that have taken your friend are affiliated with.” Thatcher nodded, taking off his gas mask.

        “You can?! Who are these stallions, and what exactly do they want-” Celestia jumped at the opportunity for answers, until the guard captain suddenly bolted from where he was being tended to by the other guardsponies and Fluttershy.

        “Your highness! Those were the same kind of weapons that killed my squad members! They’re with the hostage takers!”

        Suddenly, the MP5 Clark was holding was forcefully slammed to the ground by an aura of golden magic, and his hands were forced behind his back.  Instantly, the others reacted by pulling up their own weapons, lining up their lasers with Celestia’s head.

        “You monsters! Do you know what kind of horror you have inflicted on this kingdom with those weapons?!” Celestia angrily shouted as her magic kept Clark restrained.

        “Gah! Those weapons were stolen!” Clark shouted back, “We have a common enemy, and that is the White Mask terrorists!”

        Celestia narrowed her eyes as she tightened the grip behind Clark’s hands behind his back, “White Masks? What are you going on about?”

        “Lower your weapons, men! That’s an order!” Clark commanded back, getting Ding and Thatcher to point their guns down.

        “Give me those weapons.” Celestia demanded, to which Clark nodded. If things got more ugly, their sidearms would be more than enough to fend them off. A golden aura came over the two MP5s and the AR33. Levitating towards Celestia, she took up Ding’s submachine gun and ended up ejecting the magazine from it, as she ran her magic along the side of the gun and ended up hitting the magazine release.

        Inside the magazine were little tiny casings that held a shiny metal inside.

        “So… these weapons fire these tiny things out?” Celestia examined as Ember and the rest of the Elements of Harmony stood back.

        “Yeah. They do.”

        She looked back at the group, “Such terrifying technology. Who would ever need anything like this?” 

        “Your highness, we can’t be at each other’s throats like this. If you want to see ‘Twilight’ again, then you need to let us help.” Clark explained.

        “How do you know about Twilight?” she asked.

        “We’ve been… eavesdropping. With a drone.” Clark admitted.

        Celestia looked back behind her. Apparently, the rustling in the grass she had heard before wasn’t from a mouse or a squirrel, but a tiny black robot with two wheels for propulsion.

        “How rude…” she narrowed her eyes.

        “Look, we’ve been tracking the whereabouts of the White Masks and… they’ve ended up here. We come from a different place. A very far and different place.” Clark went on.

        “I’ve never seen anything like you, before.” Celestia put the guns on the grass in front of her.

        “That’s because… we come from another world. Or dimension. It’s just as new to us as it must be for you-”

        “I understand.”

        Celestia looked back towards Clark, “You’re humans, but apparently a different kind than what I’m familiar with. Does your skin tone differ at all?”

        “Some more pale, some darker. Not really going into the red-yellow-blue spectrum.” this time, Thatcher spoke.

        “Please, we can’t be turning on each other while those stallions still have your friends. We assess and handle these situations. It’s what we’re trained for, and it’s what we’re the best at. We have a common enemy, so we need to work together to make sure everyone returns to their family and friends safely.” Ding spoke, emphasising a secure tone in his voice.

        Celestia looked down at Clark, who was on his knees and with his hands behind his back.

        “I…”

        Applejack came back up to her and looked up, wanting to speak to the princess.

        “Princess Celestia, with all due respect, ah’ think you can trust them. They mean well, and I can tell it in their voice. They want to help, and they’re bein’ sincere about it.”, the Element of Honesty voiced her thoughts, “Ah’ don’t know what else we can do, but these ‘humans’ might be able to help us. In return, ah’ think we should help them.”

        The leader of the ponies looked back to Clark, and released the magic around his hands. Getting back up slowly, Clark nodded.

        “I’m very thankful that you can trust us. I know this must all be incredibly harrowing and terrifying for all of you, but if we can work together, then it will all turn out to be a happy ending.” Clark addressed each and every pony in front of him.
        
        “Nice going, Mr. C.” Ding whispered.

        “Well, now that that’s settled, I think it’s time for you three to start your job.” Popov nodded back to them.

        “Actually, we got something for you to do, buddy.” Thatcher put his hand on his shoulder, stopping Popov from leaving so soon.

        “And what’s that?”

        “You’re coming out with me to guard the portal. I’ll be calling for other operators to get here. You’re going to get your private airline to taxi as many operators as we need.” Thatcher explained.

        Popov thought about all of the costs regarding jet fuel and travel, as well as paying extra to ship ‘questionable goods’. He looked back at Thatcher and gave a reluctant smile.

        “Of course. Of course.”





        The group had moved past a hill that overlooked Ponyville so a wandering eye coming from the castle wouldn’t catch the presence of humans in a world full of ponies. Clark had instructed exactly who he wanted here up and front to Thatcher, who exited out the portal to communicate back to headquarters.

        “Alright, first thing’s first. Who do we know is in that structure?” Clark asked his first question.

        “At the moment, Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike are known to be inside the castle. I don’t know of any others that could be held in there.” Celestia answered back.

        Clark nodded, “Okay, do we have any blueprints or construction plans of the castle? Architectural plans would do as well.”

        The other four ponies looked at each other sheepishly, and returned their attention to Clark.

        “Well… not really.” Rarity rubbed the back of her head.

        “What? Why not? A building to be constructed of that size has to have a ton of-”

        “Nope! It came right out of the ground when we defeated Tirek!” Pinkie interrupted Ding. She immediately apologised with a, “Sorry.”

        Clark looked back, dumbfounded, “It came out of the ground.”

        The four ponies nodded, even Fluttershy who was tending to the guard had overheard and said a barely audible, “Yes.”

        Rainbow Six and Five breathed a heavy sigh.

        “Alright, we’re going to need to work on that later. I’m inferring that the ponies inside haven’t been held for very long, right?” Ding asked his question.

        “Yes, just this afternoon, we evacuated Ponyville and an hour later, I got the letter of demands.” Celestia spoke.

        “What are their demands?”

        “They want me to step down as leader, recognise the Everfree Forest as impassible land, and probably take Twilight with them as well…” Celestia shivered at the last thought.

        “Typical.” Ding remarked.

        “Don’t worry. None of that is going to happen.” Clark reassured, “We still have a lot more things to plan about in the meantime.”

        “Right, what else do you need to know?”

        Clark thought a bit, before looking back towards the princess before them, “Do you have an estimate on how many hostiles have taken hostages in that castle?”

        Celestia shook her head, “I don’t know. The guard claimed that at least three attacked his squad when he tried to get his squad closer to the castle.”

        “Bad choice. You never want to make any aggressive actions so early on, or you might risk a hostage dieing.”

        At this, Celestia’s eyes narrowed, “Really? Now how was I supposed to know something like that?”

        “Okay, three ponies. That’s a start, but there has to be more. What kind of weapons were they wielding?” Clark inquired.

        “Probably the same you humans have.”

        “There are hundreds, if not thousands of different guns of fair size.” Ding voiced himself, “Does anyone recall a shape or anything like that? How fast did you hear those ‘banging’ noises?”

        “From where I could hear them, I heard short, rapid bursts of them, and then one of them just went on and on and didn’t stop until a long time.” Celestia remembered the sounds echoing from Ponyville.

        Ding nodded, “Automatics and quite possibly a machine gun. Damn, these ponies are sure armed to the teeth.”

        “No offense, but… how are you four going to stop this whole situation? The guy with the grey hair who left us doesn’t seem to be much of an energetic fellow…” Dragonlord Ember looked over the humans.

        “That’s why we’re calling in more operators. They’re specially trained to deal with different scenarios, so that’s why we’re calling in all available ones.” Clark explained.

        “Huh. Alright.” Ember nodded back, “That sounds like a plan.”

        Then, another letter formed out of fire in front of Celestia.

        “What the- how did that-” Ding pointed at the letter.

        “Oh, you’re not very familiar with magic, that’s right. You see, dragons can bind a receiver that they can deliver letters to. How they do this is by incinerating the letter with fire, allowing the ashes to be coated in magic and be carried to the receiver. That’s how the ‘terrorists’ are communicating with us, using Spike as a mailbox…” Ember growled the last bit of the sentence, clearly furious at these ponies for using Spike as a tool.

        “What does the letter say?” Ding asked.

        “They’re hungry, and they want to eat.” Celestia told them.

        “Well, give them some food. Show them you care. Don’t give them crap like prison rations, or they’ll get more and more angry. We want to keep them calm.” Clark pointed out.

        Then, Celestia looked back towards Pinkie Pie.

        “Pinkie, I want you to bake some cookies for Twilight, her friends, and… the stallions as well.”

        Hearing the conversation of keeping everyone happy for their own safety, even the hostage takers, she agreed with a very cheerful, “Okie-dokie-loki!”

        Ding chuckled, “At least someone’s remaining cheerful through this whole ordeal.”





        “Okay, how many of your operators am I going to ferry? The plane can only hold up to five if you include all the gear that they’ll have to travel with.” Popov got his phone ready.

        “Five. Seems to be the magic number today. Five through the portal, five in the plane.” Thatcher began to contact the headquarters via his earpiece.

        Meanwhile, Popov began to talk on the phone.

        “Okay, I need you to make more trips for me… yes, of course I’ll pay for the fuel as well… and yes, they will be carrying more ‘questionable goods’, which I’ll be paying you directly for… no, no connections, directly as close to the airstrip you landed on before… I don’t give a shit if it’s an abandoned Russian military runway! Do you want a quarter of a million or not?!” Popov paced back and forth, sweat beading from his forehead.

        “Okay, these are going to be the operators I need first. Get IQ, Pulse, Glaz, Mute, and Doc here immediately. They will be rendezvousing with a private jet that will take them to the specified coordinates. This order is coming directly from Rainbow Six Actual.” Thatcher got his communications through without much of a hitch, “Good, and tell them to not drink on the flight.”

        Popov shook his head.

        “Actually, if they’re going to believe the camera footage we’re going to show them of these ponies, they’re probably going to have to be wasted as fuck.” Popov laughed a tiny bit, “Fucking talking candy-colored horses… with guns.”



        
        

> Preparation (Pt. 1)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “Where in the name of fucking tartarus are those reinforcements…?” Rocky began to pace back and forth, breathing heavier and heavier as he went. Twilight and Starlight tried their best to not agitate him any further, as he already seemed like a bomb about to go off. 

        Apparently, the White Masks had promised the stallions a reasonable reinforcement of a few more armed ponies, but they were two hours behind schedule. The handheld radios only had communication with the others in the vicinity, but the Masks had given an allotted time, which they failed to meet now.

        “Not like we needed them anyways. We have all the firepower we need.” a stallion smirked underneath his own mask, “Does Celestia have a belt-fed? I don’t think so.”

        The other pony was right. They had enough ammunition to purge this town should it come down to it. Those dead guards from before had to have sent a concise message about what these ponies were to do if their demands were not met.

        It had grown awfully quiet outside as the whole town had become deserted, something a bit concerning to Rocky.

        “You, take a peek outside.” Rocky pointed to a stallion. He looked out a window and gave a scan of the area with his eyes.

        “Nothing. I think they went behind those hills over there.”

        Rocky chuckled, “Too scared now. Typical.”

        At this, Twilight’s eyes looked back up. Did Celestia just abandon her? She couldn’t have, not after all the years they had spent together. She had to be coming up with some dastardly plan to break her out, she just knew it.

        Then, a letter came in. 

        Sitting on the ground in the middle of the room, Rocky trudged over and picked it up. The message from Celestia told them of a delivery of food coming in for them, which is what Rocky read aloud. Twilight’s, Starlight’s, and Spike’s stomachs growled at the mention of food.

        At once, Rocky ordered the stallions to back up against the corners of the room and behind doorframes, “It could be some sort of explosive. I’m not in the mood for tricks.”

        Thankfully, any sort of pony magic that came in would be negated by the machine, but a physical bomb wouldn’t.

        They waited a tiny bit, until a red box, wrapped rather neatly and carrying the logo of the Sugarcube Corner was printed on it was teleported outside the null-zone behind a building. A stallion was sent to get it, armed to the teeth, and retrieved the bright red box. Bringing it back to the castle and up to the second floor, he placed it on the floor in front of Rocky.

        “Check it.”

        A stallion trudged up to the box, and lifted the cover. Inside was an assortment of cookies and donuts inside, as well as miniature cakes. It smelled amazing. Looking at the sweets, the hostages’ mouths either watered through their tape, or visibly to the terrorists.

        Rocky had ordered only one stallion to eat first, in case if the batch was poisoned. Of course, he didn’t tell him this, he simply said, “You deserve it, pal.” Taking a cake from the box and placing it into his mouth after lifting the mask, he nodded, swallowing the treat.

        “Hmph. We’ll still eat later.” Rocky ordered the other stallions. Instantly, the other stallion knew what Rocky had let him do, and sat back in a corner of the room, paranoid for a while.

        Spike’s stomach rumbled again.

        At this, Rocky took a cookie from the box and held it in front of his face.

        “Oh, wow. Peanutbutter. Smells really good, doesn’t it, dragon?” though nopony else could tell, Rocky had the biggest grin he had ever worn in his life plastered under his mask. Spike looked at the cookie, then back at Rocky, not daring to move.

        Then, Rocky took a bite out of the cookie, laughed hysterically, and ate the rest of the thing in the left corner of the room after walking over there.

        “I’m sorry, but I had to. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Oh, and if anything happens to me or that stallion who ate, you all know what to do.” Rocky spoke up.

        A stallion chambered his rifle, earning widened eyes from Twilight and Starlight. They prayed that Celestia hadn’t done anything to those cookies. They tried to ignore the hunger that had started to bother them, but the more they ate, the more of that smell that filled the room, the harder it was to push to the back of their thoughts.

        Spike was having the hardest time. He wasn’t going to eat from the crystal walls. Not only did they just taste awful, but he was afraid to do anything at all.

        “How nice of Celestia. I’ve only remembered prison food. It does tug at my heartstrings a bit.” Rocky laughed, earning the other stallions to laugh right along.

        Rocky activated his handheld radio.

        “Hey boys, a few more hours, and we have some grub to share with you guys. I’ll send a gentlecolt from up here to bring something down and up for you all.”

        The stallions either gladly acknowledged the news or spoke of how it was about time. Some even joked about Celestia, saying that she was spending more time baking than doing something to save her friends’ lives.

        Rocky had to laugh at the joke. He wish he had come up with something so clever.





        The private jet was currently housing the operators inside as it soared through the Russian air. Inside was a very diverse cast of operators that had been called in for an operation of “utmost priority”. 

        IQ, former GSG-9 was currently on her touchscreen device and was rolling around a drone in front of her, making sure it was working properly. Doc, experienced from the GIGN was checking on his medical supplies, including his portable defibrillator and his stim pistol. 

        Against the side of the plane, Pulse, hailing from the FBI SWAT had activated his HB-5 cardiac sensor, sweeping it around the plane. The device’s screen showed red circles where the four other operators and the pilot were as he moved the screen left and right. Glaz, experienced by serving within the Spetsnaz wasn’t painting at the moment. He was checking his flip sight to make sure the picture ahead was clear. 

        Lastly, Mute, former SAS had counted his inventory on his portable jamming devices. He didn’t bother to activate one, as the plane could suffer from the lack of communication, and possibly even response from the controls.

        The Rainbow Team back at base had met in the meeting room, awaiting transmission from John Clark, as were the team members in the plane. The door to the cockpit was locked to make sure the pilot didn’t hear anything, and all communication in the plane coming from Rainbow Six would be relayed through headsets and replied to underneath helmets. The operators in the plane gathered around a tablet brought by Mute, listening in and waiting for their instructions.

        The meeting room was filled by the other operators, among them were operators like Ashe and Jäger who had recently been pulled from their training exercises for this briefing, while Blitz and Kapkan had been at ease, yet managed to sit further apart from each other.

        “Haven’t heard anything on the news, lately. Could be case-sensitive intel.” IQ spoke to the surrounding operators.

        “Same back here. How’s the flight for you guys?” Thermite brushed some dust off of his shirt, overseeing the broadcast as it was streamed to both the tablet and the meeting room.

        “Rather nice. Still hate planes, though.” Glaz spoke through his mouth covering.

        Mute then pointed back to the tablet, “He’s coming in.”

        The screen flickered a bit, to reveal the image of John Clark and Domingo Chavez in what appeared to be a sunny area with an abundance of grass. In the background, trees dotted the landscape with a monstrous mountain in the background. Looking closer towards the mountain, a massive white structure rested on it. It obviously wasn’t a house from its massive size, but whatever that building was in the scenery, it had to be gigantic.

        Clark seemed to be in a sort of stupor, as if trying to think what he was going to say.

        Then, he spoke, “Okay operators. I’m going to make this short and simple.”

        John held up the camera towards Celestia.

        “Say hello, your highness.” John pointed his tablet towards Celestia, who looked back and asked, “What’s this? Is this a camera?”

        Every operator either widened their eyes, stood from their seat to get a better view, or said something along the lines of “what the fuck?!”, “is that a talking horse?!” or, “where are you, Rainbow Six?!”

        Clark sighed, “Okay, okay. You have to believe everything what I’m saying, because this is the real fucking deal. Do you understand me? Do not speak unless given permission.”

        Ash was about to object, but Thermite held his hand up, stopping her.

        “So… I’m in a land of magical talking colorful ponies.”

        Immediately, Tachanka burst out laughing, Jäger stepped closer towards the projection to get a better look, and Montagne turned around and said, “Something’s not right.”

        Clark then held up his hand, “Montagne, I’m fine. You have to believe me about what I’m saying. You know that I would rather die than pass a lie onto you all to get you killed.”

        “He’s got a point.” Fuze whispered to Kapkan, “Okay. Rainbow Six, if I may?”

        “Yes, Fuze?”

        “What the hell is going on? First you disappear for an entire day while you’ve strictly put yourself in retirement from combat, and you’re now in some grassland?” Fuze spoke up.

        Ding cut in, “Okay, you all need to pay attention right now. Especially those of you on the plane. Talking to you, IQ, Pulse, Glaz, Doc, and Mute.”

        Then, Celestia picked up the tablet with her magic, and hovered it in her face.

        “Is it rolling?” to which Clark and Ding nodded, “Okay. Well… ‘Rainbow Team’, my name is Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, and in dire need of help in this crisis that has unfolded in my land.”

        Tachanka was busy trying to prevent another outburst of laughter, whispering to himself, “This has to be a dream.”

        Sledge elbowed Tachanka, getting him to quit his behavior.

        “Roughly six to eight hours ago, my student and her friends had been taken hostage by ponies claiming to be part of the ‘White Mask’ movement. They want me to step down as leader and grant them access to the Everfree Forest. If I don’t comply, they’ll kill three innocent beings and slaughter every pony the can find.” Celestia did her best to explain.

        “That’s what’s going on here, team.” Clark’s voice came off from behind.

        The meeting hall and the plane was silent. Then, Blitz took the initiative. 

        “Okay Celestia. What are we looking at here? Mentioning the White Masks is never a good thing, so this means serious business. What kind of information can you give us?” Blitz asked, genuinely. 

        “They’re being held in that castle in the center of the town. You cannot miss it. They’re stallions armed with the same kind of weapons you all use.” Celestia replied.

        “Wait, how can a pony use a gun with hooves?” Ash crossed her arms.

        “We have a magic that allows us to manipulate objects as if we had hands. It isn’t direct use of magic, which brings me to the next thing. There is currently an anti-magic null zone in effect around the area of the castle. That’s why my guards can’t get anywhere near it.”

        “Wait, ‘magic’?” Twitch asked.

        “You better believe it.” Clark said as he let Celestia levitate an apple in front of her face, then proceed to crush it into a pulp in thin air.

        “That has to be an illu-” Smoke was about to talk, before Clark silenced him.

        “Smoke, this is fucking serious. I’m literally in another world with Thatcher, Ding, and another friend of mine. What I’m saying and showing is one hundred percent truth.” Clark narrowed his eyes.

        “I think he’s telling the truth.” Jäger spoke up, “He would never lie to us, and this must be taking millions of dollars of video editing if the White Masks are behind this. Have you even seen their recruitment videos?”

        The team nodded to each other, bringing back from memory that White Mask videos were nothing more than a camera pointed at a man giving vague promises to those who would join. Oddly enough, their membership was even a force to be recognised with by even ISIS. The Islamic extremist group would probably have contacted the White Masks to join them, hadn’t the White Masks themselves also claim that all religion was to be disposed of, and proceeded to bomb mosques and even go as far as assassinate one of their ringleaders.

        “Rainbow Six, why are we en-route to Russia when you’re obviously somewhere far from it?” Pulse asked though his communications mic.

        “It’s going to house the way to get there. When you arrive at the airfield, there will be a truck waiting. Our acquaintance had called beforehand to place it there and put in the GPS coordinates. There will be more trucks as I will need more and more of you to arrive and handle the situation that is here.” Clark spoke back to the group of operators in the plane and in the headquarters, “I will keep the channel open and encrypted so you all can be updated by the second. Take mental and physical notes about what Celestia and I discuss. Is that clear?”

Blitz looked back towards the operators sitting behind him, and Mute looked back up at the four others around him.

“Understood, Rainbow Six.” the entire headquarters and the five operators on the plane        sounded off.

IQ leaned back on her seat and looked over towards Mute, “Clark’s in a land of magical ponies? If I were still eight years old, I would be the happiest girl on earth.”

“But this can’t be real. No possible way could any of this be real.” Doc shook his head, “It’s impossible.”


        

        Then, Mute spoke up, “You heard him, and we know Clark. He would never lie to us if we were put at risk. He would rather die than let us all fall into a trap. That horse couldn’t be pre-recorded CGI. It was able to react to just about everything in the conversation.”

        “I still don’t trust any of this. Get your gear ready when we land.” Pulse placed his cardiac sensor on his hip.

        The private aircraft soon found itself heading towards a runway that seemed to be devoid of any sort of people or other working aircraft. On the side, the ruins of a decommissioned MiG-15 Cold War jet lay on the ground. 

        “Tachanka would love this place…” Glaz noted his other comrade who was currently back at HQ.

        Looking out a window, a truck was waiting for them on the road adjacent to the runway and hangars. The large pickup was gathering snow on its roof as the operators stepped out of the plane in heavy coats to give ample protection from the frigid weather. They unloaded their gear from the cargo compartment of the plane, wondering how much damn money the pilot must have been payed to keep his mouth shut about this.

        “Geared up?” Pulse checked the others out while he slung his UMP-45 under his arm.

        “Roger.” Glaz replied, checking his communications mic while loading his OTS-03 sniper rifle.

        As the group was finished preparing, IQ had gone over to the truck and took her Electronic Detection Device, or EDD and placed the screen in front of her eyes. The smartphone sized flip-up screen displayed to her all electronic devices that were in front of her, and showing their outline on the screen, as well as displaying the distance towards the detected object.

        Scanning over the truck thoroughly, she nodded back to the operators, “The truck is clean. Load up.”

        The operators climbed into the truck, finding a GPS with a pre-selected destination ready for them.

        “Rainbow Six, we are en-route to the destination.” Mute spoke as he took the wheel, started the vehicle, and stepped on the gas. The truck responded perfectly.

        “Roger that. Stay on the channel for any updates. I’ll be sending another list of operators that I’ll need here shortly.” Clark replied.





        “Okay, so the dining room is here on the second floor. Next to that, there is a living room that is overlooked by three windows. That’s where the guard believed that they had fired at his squad from. There is a hallway that leads to both of those rooms. There is a staircase that leads to the massive turret on the west side of the castle. That would be the third floor.” Celestia was trying incredibly hard to remember where each room was, and what lead up to them.

        “Is there a basement?” Ding asked, drawing a rough sketch of the layout on a piece of paper.

        “Yes. It is rather small, though.” Celestia nodded.

        Ding was occupied by drawing new lines left and right the more information he was being fed. The first floor was no problem to get drawn down, but the second floor still remained mostly a mystery as Celestia hadn’t explored too much of it. Same for the third floor. She had never been up there.

        The other five ponies of various personalities helped quite a bit, describing bedrooms, and other places within Twilight’s home.

        “Are you getting all of this, Rainbow Team?” Ding spoke into his com.

        “Affirmative.” Thermite from HQ and Mute from the truck responded.

        “Images are coming up now.” Clark said as he snapped a picture of the castle and a picture of Ding’s rough sketch, “We’ll have more up when the truckload gets here. We’re going to need drones.”

        “Alright, how long are the days here? I feel like it’s been a good amount of time, and the sun hasn’t moved at all. They said they’re going to execute in two days. How long is that?” Thatcher asked as he and Popov were still in the structure in Russia that housed the portal.

        “It can be as long as I or my sister allows it.” Celestia acknowledged.

        “Excuse me?” Clark asked.

        “Oh, forgive me. There’s still a lot that you don’t know about this world. You see, I control the day cycle, while my sister, Luna, controls the night. I raise and lower the sun, while she does so with the moon. Wither of us can do the same if the other cannot.” Celestia explained.

        At this, every human that was listening in fell silent.

        Then, Ash gave a chuckle and asked, “Come again?”

        “Point the camera up.” Celestia ordered Clark, who did so.
        
        The sun moved to the three o’clock position, then to the five o’clock position. Then it came back the the place it was before, then back to five o’clock. It went back and forth, earning widened eyes and even open-mouthed gawks from those who were watching the footage.

“Holy fucking shit! Y-You just moved the SUN?!” Ding stopped what he was doing and looked back up. 

“Move it in circles.” Smoke crossed his arms to see if it wasn’t pre-recorded.

The sun moved clockwise in a circular track, then counterclockwise.

“You can move the sun? What other powers do you have?” Montagne asked, amazed.

“Well… that’s the biggest extent to it. My magic is useless against that null-magic field that those terrorists have put up, and my immortality doesn’t stop death by force, otherwise known as me getting killed. Plus… I’m rather old. Over two-thousand years isn’t too long for you all, right?” she said with the slightest of red on her face and a smile.

“Not at all.” Ding grinned and chuckled.

“Okay, so she’s an immortal goddess that’s asking Rainbow Team for assistance on a hostage situation. Even though she can control the daylight cycle, those terrorists must be counting by the hour should the sun not set. We need to manage our time efficiently.” Thatcher responded.

“Rainbow Six, how have negotiations been going?” Blitz asked Clark back at HQ.

“Not much progress. Celestia is sending letters back and forth, and we recently sent them food.” John Clark began to start another sentence.

“You all know what’s going to happen in a situation like this.” he looked back at the camera.

        The other operators got the message.

        “I’ll discuss the full plan when the other operators will be enroute. For now, we must plan up to that point. That is your ETA on arriving at the destination in Russia?” Clark spoke.

        “One hour. We’re making good progress.” Mute replied.

        Clark nodded as Celestia looked back at him.

        “What do you mean, ‘what’s going to happen in a situation like this’?” Celestia asked, growing a tiny bit suspicious.

        Clark turned around and shook his head, “Twilight and the others will be fine. The fate of the terrorists will be decided soon.”

        She narrowed her eyes, “Surely any that are left alive will be put on trial in our system of justice.”

        “We’ll talk about that point when we get to that. For now, I need to prepare for the other operators that will be arriving shortly.” Clark spoke back as he took out his tablet.






The truck pulled up to the structure that rested in the middle of the massive lake as the GPS indicated that the destination was at this very building. Stepping out of the truck, Pulse took out his cardiac sensor and sat down by the vehicle, scanning around for others that might be watching him.

“Not seeing anything out here. Two signatures in the complex.” Pulse announced over the communications.

“Roger that.” Doc took his MP5 and with the squad, advanced towards the building. 

Another figure in a thick coat was waiting for them outside. The facial features of the man well in his fifties were soon displayed to the other operators, giving them the opportunity to recognise Thatcher.

“Thatcher, what a day to be here. Hostage situation in a world of magical ponies?” Glaz wiped some snow off of his goggles.

“Yeah, tell me about it. The gateway’s inside the building.” Thatcher pointed inside.

“Gateway? So we’re literally jumping into a hole to go to another dimension?” Mute asked.

“Sort of. You walk straight through it. Let’s get inside, get situated, and ditch the coats. It’s a fair bit warmer over there than here.” Thatcher opened the doors to the complex, showing the massive machine resting in the center of it, as well as another man in a designer suit sitting inside.

“More of your friends?” Popov asked Thatcher.

“Yeah, portal’s still operational, correct?” Thatcher and the team began to check each others’ gear.

“Still up and running.” Popov looked over towards Glaz and recognised the green camoflauge, “Spetsnaz. Such a privilege to have that kind of expertise in this situation.” 

Then, Smoke spoke up back at the HQ, “If the point is to get the hostages out alive, then why are you sending in the Spetsnaz?”

He was about to laugh at his joke, but instead earned dirty looks from all of the other operators. Glaz just rolled his eyes and thanked Popov in his own language, “Spasibo.”

Popov sighed and laid back. Thankfully, none of the other operators knew who he was, or more unnecessary conflict about the trustworthiness of this whole situation would sprout.

“Rainbow Six, we are ready for insertion.” IQ communicated to Clark.

“Roger that. We’ll be emerging and you’ll take our place. We will relay instructions from inside the building while you’re in Equestria.” Clark responded.

Then, he gave Celestia a little earpiece.

“Take this so you can hear everything.” one more question was to be asked by Clark, “You have a sister. Where is she at the moment?”

“Luna is currently on a diplomatic visit to the Deer Province. I’ve warned her of the situation here, but she needs to finish up her visit.” Celestia explained.

“Okay, we need every pony to get away from Ponyville while my operators will perform their tasks. Same goes for your sister. Understood?” Clark said as Ding was already heading back towards the bright white gateway that floated inside the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.

Celestia didn’t exactly know how to take another person ordering her, but she knew better than to question Clark in a situation like this.

“Okay.”

Clark then headed back to the energy field, and brought himself back to Russia. 

The operators were once again amazed as Ding had emerged from the portal, as did Clark as well.

“Alright, head inside now. I’ll be on coms and relay further instructions to you.” Clark pointed to the portal.

IQ, Pulse, Mute, Doc, and Glaz did a final check on their guns and gear, and walked into the portal, each taking a deep breath.





         

> Preparation (Pt. 2)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “Damn… that felt fucking weird…” Pulse shook his head to clear the blur he had in his eyes. Thankfully, he was the only operator wearing sunglasses when they came through the portal, as the others shielded their eyes from the sunlight.

Almost immediately when they came through the portal, an orange pony with a stetson trotted up to them.

“Hey, y’all must be the other pon- humans that are supposed’ to come through. Celestia’s waiting for ya guys.” Applejack greeted the operators that had materialised from the portal.

“Dear Christ, you’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.” IQ chuckled as she followed the pony, as did the others. Applejack narrowed her eyes as she looked away from them, giving a silent, “Cute. Really.”

        The operators walked over towards a small gathering of ponies that were behind a hill overlooking the town of Ponyville. Surrounded by four other mares, Celestia looked over towards the five new humans approaching her.

        “Here they are, Yer’ Highness!” Applejack called out.

        One by one, the operators walked up to Celestia.

        “Ah, more help. Please give Clark my thanks for aiding us in this crisis.” Celestia smiled warmly at the humans.

        “No thanks is needed. It’s what we were trained for, and it’s what we live by.” Doc nodded back, “Pardon myself, you can call me Doc, former French GIGN, now available to administer first aid to those need it.”

        Celestia smiled, “A doctor. Just what we need. I have a stallion who’s still shaken up from his squad getting killed by those terrorists before. Are you experienced in therapy?”

“But of course. A doctor not only heals a person physically, but mentally as well.” Doc walked over towards the stallion, who had calmed down now, but was still having relapses of the prior event.

“Pulse. American FBI SWAT. Here to scan and assess the number of hostiles.” the man with sunglasses nodded to Celestia.

“Call me IQ. Experience from the German GSG-9 counter-terrorism unit. I was sent here for the detection of electronic devices that will pose as a hazard to all.” the woman in a grey hoodie with light armor on underneath spoke to Celestia, “Let me tell you, if I was still a little girl, I would be all over this place.”

Celestia laughed a bit. She could already tell that she would like this young woman. Then, the man in green camouflage and ear protection walked over to Celestia.

“My name is Glaz, former Spetsnaz. I’ll be providing overwatch for intelligence and should the enemy decide to have other plans and walk out.” Glaz actually shook the hoof of Celestia, “Oh, and that man over there is Mute, British SAS to employ electronic countermeasures. He doesn’t speak a whole lot if he doesn’t know you. Don’t take it as rude.”

Celestia glanced over towards Mute, the one in the black gear and gas mask who was currently checking one of his signal disruptors. Glaz then walked over to the group of ponies and spoke up.

“Okay, we are in a land that none of us are familiar with, so we need to work together. We’re going to have questions that hopefully can be answered by you all.” the sniper kneeled down to put himself at the ponies’ height. 

“First off, what odd things did you notice around the town before this whole situation unfolded? Suspicious personnel, odd behavior, anything along those lines?” Pulse asked the group of ponies.

At first, none of Twilight’s friends could say they say anything, as each had been in different places at different times away from the castle, but a grey mare with crossed eyes brought herself up to the front.

“Hey! I think I might know something!” she waved her hoof in the air.

“Go ahead.” Mute pointed at her.

“So… I’m Ponyville’s mailmare, so I know about all the deliveries that take place! I mean… it’s kinda my job… but I say this group of… I think… eight stallions? Yeah, eight stallions saying that they were going to Princess Twilight’s castle for a delivery. They were wheeling in two really big crates towards the castle, and they were pretty mean to me…” she twiddled with her hooves as she voiced her experience.

“Eight possible hostiles. That’s going to make my job a lot easier.” Pulse nodded.

“We know that there is a sort of magic nullification device there in place. Any other sort of electronics that advanced?” IQ asked.

None of the ponies knew how to respond. Maybe these ponies weren’t the best to be questioned on technology.

“Ah, shoot. Twilight would know about that sorta stuff.” Applejack rubbed the back of her head.

“I really miss her…” Fluttershy looked down at the ground.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t worry. That’s what we’re here for.” Glaz held up his hand, unsure of how to keep everypony else calm. Usually Clark would be the man to handle citizens whose loved ones are currently being detained by terrorists.

“I’ve managed to stabilize our guard captain. Anyone else injured or in need of aid?” Doc walked back with his medical bag, “No? Good.”

Glaz turned to the ponies, “I need to know the highest point in that town so I can get a clear line of sight to the castle. Would anyone know where that would be?”

“Well, I would suggest the Town Hall, but that’s far too close to the castle.” Rainbow Dash pointed over the hill.

“Try the Carousel Boutique! The top of it has a clear view of the castle.” Rarity suggested, “Here, I’ll get a map and give you directions.”

Rarity had gone off into the crowd of ponies asking around for a map of the town as communications from Clark had come back in.

“Alright team, we’re about to initiate phase one. Get a final check on your gear and await my orders.” Clark spoke through the mic, “We’re shipping the other operators now.”

        Back at HQ, ten other operators were boarding another set of private jets that Popov had contracted. Every phone call the Russian made, the more and more money he lost. 

        Then again, saving your own world and another should be worth any price tag.

        Thankfully, both planes could easily handle the excess weight from the firearms and gear that were being flown directly into the plot of unsupervised Russian land.

        Then, Clark’s voice came on in Celestia’s earpiece, “Alright. We need you to lower the sun into night. It’s been a considerable amount of hours, so day one will end. We need darkness to initiate our plan.”

        The Princess of the Sun asked back, “Lower the sun? How will the stallions inside react?”

        Clark remained silent for a few seconds, then spoke.

        “I doubt they’ll do anything stupid. If they send you a letter to give them light again, then we’ll do so. At that point, we’ll already be in position.”

        The Princess took a deep breath, looked up at the sun, let her magic flow through her horn, and concentrated.





        
Hunger could hardly describe the pain that Twilight, Starlight, and Spike were now feeling now as the stallions had engorged on the treat box that had been shipped to them.

“That mare sure knows how to bake…” a stallion laughed as he watched out the window.

“When we’re done here, they won’t even get the privilege to make our food for us…” Rocky nodded back and checked his radio, “Radio check number four. Check in.”

The stallions all replied on their radios. Everything was coming together perfectly.

“Hey, the sun’s setting.”

Rocky looked out the window as well, tightening the grip on his rifle. Currently, the belt-fed was sitting on a crate in a corner of the room.

Rocky broke another smile under his mask.

“She’s going back to her royal duties. Princess has to set the sun at some point. That’s just ending day one. One more day, she’d better step down or there’s going to be a lot more than two ponies’ and one dragon’s blood on her hooves.”

Twilight and Starlight were too overcome with hunger to pay too much attention now. They leaned back against the crystal walls, looking at each other, then back at the stallions. At this point, they had their hope drained from them for a long time. Deep down inside, Twilight knew that Celestia would not give up until she was free, but with all that was put against her, she didn’t know for sure now.

“Shouldn’t we worry about them coming in the night?” a stallion asked.

“Don’t sweat it. The castle runs on back up electricity since our machine disrupts pony magic, which is the source that lights up the castle in the first place. We just gotta keep the lights on, and no amount of guards they have can get past our firepower.” Rocky patted the M249 SAW on the crate.





        Luna had seen the sun go down earlier than usual. She had been notified of a grievous situation back in Ponyville, but she had to complete this diplomatic visit. She kept worrying about what was going on back at home, and was thinking about what a terrible surprise it would be when she got back.

        “Princess Luna, are you okay?” one of the deer asked the alicorn.

        “I’m very sorry. My sister had sent me a letter informing me of a catastrophe back home. However, I must-”

        The deer shook his head.

        “Go back, Princess. You’ve already proven that you had changed from what you had become before. Help your kind.” The leader among them nodded.

        “Are you sure?” Luna asked, to which she recieved a nod and a smile.





        Under the cover of darkness, Pulse and IQ were currently staking out in a house that was nearby the castle. They had moved once it had gotten dark in order to get to their destination before the stallions could adjust to night vision. Thankfully, the lights were on in the castle, so that may be out of the question.

        IQ took out her EDD and pointed the screen in front of her.

        “EDD active. If it runs on batteries or has wires, it’s going to show up.” she said as the operator moved her screen back and forth.

        “Cardiac sensor online.” Pulse spoke over the radio.

        IQ scanned around the castle, and managed to find a plethora of signatures. However, at the distance they were at, she could only recognize one of the devices from its outline. It was the only large machine shown in the complex to be operational.

        “Possible anti-magic machine found. Second floor. I see four other electronic signatures on the second floor as well. Three on the third floor, one in the basement, it seems.” the powerful detection radius of the device was highlighted when she pointed it towards the bottom of the castle, “We may be dealing with suicide vests. Those electronics are moving around like people.”

        Meanwhile, Mute was behind the house. He had one of his jammers out with a wire running from it to his touch screen controller.

        “I don’t think they’re explosives. I’m picking up a lot of radio interference that isn’t from us. I’m trying to fine tune the frequency to discover the channel. We’ll be able to listen in on them.” the SAS spoke.

        Pulse had gotten his cardiac sensor out and moved it over the shape of the castle. As he scanned around, tiny red circles showed up every time the sensor made a sweep, similar if you had a sonar that pointed out directly ahead.

        “Confirmed. Three on third floor. I detect… six… no, seven signatures on the second floor. One in the basement.” the American kept scanning over the castle to make sure that he didn’t miss anything, “Three on the second floor must be the hostages.” 

        Doc was currently with Mute, also trying to find the radio signal. Then, as he turned a dial, he heard a voice.

        “...rhhghas...greahhhs… shhhhh.... I’m going to send another letter to Celestia. Gonna tell her get the sun back up soon…”

        “I found the frequency. Channel twenty five.” Doc nodded to Mute, who tuned in , as did the other operators.

        “I hear him. That must be one of the stallions.” IQ noted.

        “Sun’s coming up soon? We’ll need to pull out beforehand.” Glaz kept looking down the sight of his rifle, seeing figures once in awhile pass by or look through one of the lit windows of the castle.

        Clark came over the communications link, “Alright, we can’t risk your discovery now. How much intel have you gotten?”

        “Good amount. Confirmed eight contacts, three hostages. Three third floor, one in the basement. Four are guarding the hostages.” Glaz radioed back.

        “They are communicating with each other by using hand-held radios. Be advised, possible suicide vests may be employed by the the opfor,” IQ contacted back.

        “I have two windows on the room of the hostages. Three on the top turret.” Glaz radioed in to Clark.

        “Alright, good work Rainbow Team. There’s one last thing that needs to be done.” Clark announced.

        “Drone it?” Mute already reached for his minidrone that was attached to his pack.

        “Drone it.”

        Immediately, the operators took their tiny black drivable cameras out, and activated their touch-screen controllers.

        “Drones are spinning up.” IQ spoke as she drove hers out the door to the house they were hunkering down in, and met up with the other three drones that had been deployed. They waited a bit for Glaz, as he was quite a considerable distance away.

        Once Glaz’s drone came up to the others, they all rolled behind the castle. Despite their small size, they had a deceptive amount of strength behind them. Activating a backwards anchor, Glaz’s drone pushed one of the heavy crystal doors open just ajar from the back of the castle, the drone whining from the effort and pressure that was being put on it. The four other drones rolled inside, as Glaz’s drone slipped away from the door inside just as it closed.

The tiny robots rolled around the place, with four heading upstairs, and Doc’s heading towards the basement.

Rolling to the deeper level of the house, Doc found a large table that reminded him of holographic projections. Looking around with the drone, he managed to find the one pony in the basement. The White Mask was on the stallion, as well as in his grip, was an M1040 shotgun in his grip.

“Confirmed, White Masks.” Doc showed the footage to the operators who were already in-flight, and Clark who was watching all of the footage.

“So they are here…” Clark grimly spoke.

Going up to the second floor, the three drones that had split away from the one silently rolled into the room, peeking from a corner of a doorway.

“Hostiles found. Four confirmed. Hostages located.” Mute spoke up.

“So the electronics are radios. I can see them on their waists.” IQ pointed out.

“Three hostages confirmed. I have eyes on the packages.” Glaz spoke to the rest of the team.

Then, Pulse’s drone had gone alone to the top turret of the castle where three more enemies were hiding.

“Three hostiles on third floor.” Pulse confirmed, “Same story, radios.”

Clark watched all of the footage and nodded back, “Roger that. Getting all of this, Rainbow Team?”

“We hear and see loud and clear.” Fuze nodded back on the plane.

“Same on the other airline.” Thermite nodded.

Then, Celestia’s voice came over on the communications.

“They’re asking me to raise the sun again. I’m going to have to comply, or-”

Clark nodded back, “Raise the sun in five minutes. My team is almost done with the first phase.” 

Rainbow Six then spoke back to the drone controllers already in Equestria, “Park the drones, and keep them hidden. Keep those cameras online so we can see what they’re up to.”

The five operators acknowledged the order, and hid their drone underneaths desks, behind furniture, anything they could find to keep those drones hidden. Now, the entire team could view the camera feed of those drones, knowing exactly where the enemies and hostages were located at all times. If they moved, the drones could always follow at any time.

It was too bad, Clark thought, that there was no chance of a real negotiation. None of the operators were adept in that field, and the entire scenario of this mission had to remain top secret.

“Good work, team. Mute, get a jammer behind the building you’re at. Don’t activate it, but just leave it there.” Clark ordered.

“Roger. Jammer’s going up.” Mute spoke as he placed the black device down behind the building he was behind.

Celestia spoke up, “I need to raise the sun now. Are you finished?” 

Clark replied, “Yes, give my team a few minutes to get out, and raise the sun when they’re clear over the hill.”

“You heard Rainbow Six, let’s get out of here.” Glaz said as he began to climb down the Boutique, and the other operators used the shield of darkness to relocate away from the town.





        Phase one was complete. However, Clark had been thinking the whole time. In addition to planning what was about to follow, he had to talk to Celestia about a few things. He knew that she wasn’t going to take it well, but at this point in the operation, there was no way she could refuse.

        Clark, still in the Russian structure in the separate universe looked back at Ding.

        Then, Ding spoke to Rainbow Team.  “This is Rainbow Five. Phase one is now complete. Prepare for phase two.”

        Clark got on the radio as well, “We will be planning our attack.”


> Attack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Ten more operators had arrived outside the facility that housed the gateway to Equestria, bringing the Rainbow Team’s presence to a very considerable number. Among these that had been called in were four operators designated to assist Thatcher. They were to soon go in and plan for the upcoming assault.

        In this group, Thermite, Montagne, Blitz, Fuze, and Thatcher who were already at the facility were checking their weapons while the other five, Tachanka, Jäger, Castle, Smoke, and Rook, as well as Twitch were busy carrying the much heavier equipment from the provided trucks that Popov had commissioned for. 

        The costs were adding up to him. The Rainbow Team might as well have gotten revenge against his deeds in the past by forcing him to become broke, though he was still far away from it. The Russian ex-KGB watched the entire scene of all sorts of people of different nationalities gearing up, conversing with each other, and cooperating on one objective: the protection of innocent lives.

        Clark was still communicating with Celestia, discussing to her what his intentions of attack are.

        “Clark, are you really sure about this? What if when you breach that room, the stallions will just kill the hostages?” she spoke her concerns.

        “Then we’ll hit them so hard and so fast, they won’t even know what just happened. Funny thing is, you ponies kind of act like humans in the way you think and how you react to something you’ve never experienced before. You’re drawn to it, like a train wreckage before recognising the danger that it beholds.” Clark spoke back.

        Then, Thatcher came over to Clark, “We have a problem.”

        “What’s that?” Rainbow Six responded.

        “There’s only two windows and two doorways to the hostage room. That’s too few lines of sight for a five-man team, as well as the doors being able to carry sound down the hallway too easily and within line of sight for crossfire. Those walls are solid crystal, so I have no idea what can blow them up and what can’t.” Thatcher pointed out.

        “I’ve been thinking of that, if we use too much explosives, we could risk killing the hostages from the force or the shards that will be thrown all over the place.” Clark nodded back.

        Thermite walked over to them, the American overhearing the conversation on the radio communications, “If I may, Princess Celestia, I need to know about the melting point of that crystal the castle is made of. You see, I have this invention of mine called the exothermic breaching charge. Utilising controlled and fast-acting thermite paste, I can melt through reinforced materials and blow a chunk out of the wall, making a new opening.”

        “I… don’t know too much about things like the melting point of crystals…” Celestia put a hoof to her chin. Then, Dragonlord Ember had also overheard the conversation and notioned for Celestia to give her the earpiece for a minute. Knowing that she was a dragon, Celestia complied.

        “Hello, this is Dragonlord Ember, and I know practically everything about minerals and gemstones. It’s literally a dragon’s diet.” she spoke into the tiny microphone.

        “Alright Ember, what can you tell us?” Thermite asked as he got down by a table and began to tweak his exothermic breaching charge.

        “You see, the kind of material that Twilight’s castle is made of is a kind of gemstone known as ‘Royalty Gem’. It tastes awful, but it was made at one point to create elegant castles. It tastes bad to us, partially because it’s hard to digest. Us dragons have a natural fire that burns within us at about over a thousand degrees celsius that we use for digestion and the extraction of minerals from the stones we eat. Royal Gem has a melting point of over 1800 celsius, so it takes a long time to digest and takes a lot more effort.” Ember explained.

Thermite smiled, “No problem. My thermite paste burns at over 2000 celsius, and it’s fast acting. Give me a few seconds, and I’ll have cut a hole in that wall. Thanks for everything, ‘Dragonlord’.” Thermite had to chuckle at that name.

“Wow… 2000 celsius from a paste? Unbelievable…” Ember said to herself as she handed the earpiece back to Celestia.

“Alright, that’s the wall taken care of. Now we got to worry about the hostiles above and below.” Clark though a bit, then walked towards Twitch. However, he turned off his earpiece for a second as he walked over to her.

“Twitch, turn your earpiece off.”

The French operator did as she was told to, and looked up at Clark.

“Yes sir?”

Clark then explained the situation, “We have one hostile that’s hiding in the basement. I need you to take your Shock Drone before the assault takes place, and neutralise him with a taser so we can get him out of the way. The portal will allow drone control signals to pass through, so it shouldn't be a problem.”

Twitch nodded, “What will we do with the pony that’s going to be knocked out?”

Clark looked around, made sure his earpiece was turned off before talking to Twitch again.

“We’ll be detaining him and bringing him back to earth. So much intelligence can be sitting in one of those pony’s heads. Think about it. Other ponies involved, where those portals are…” Clark ran through the possibilities.

Twitch checked the Shock Drone and fired a taser at the wall to test it using a pair of metal prongs to activate the launcher.

“I understand, and I’ll get it done.” she replied.

“Excellent.” Clark nodded and turned the earpiece back on. He would have to explain this to Celestia, but not yet.

“Alright, we also need to kill the lights in the castle, but leave that anti-magic machine still on to keep those ponies from flying or levitating guns down the hallway.” Ding spoke through the microphone.

“My EMP grenades can be set to a certain parameter to short out smaller electronics like a room’s lighting system while keeping something as massive as that machine up and running.” Thatcher talked to Clark, “That’s plenty of time. We’ll clear the hostiles out in less than three seconds in the darkness.”

“Everything is looking pretty good now.” Clark spoke, “We’ll be making final preparations for the attack. Celestia, we’ll need you to drop night again for the attack. No exceptions.” Clark radioed to her, “And team, Mute had left a jammer behind the house under the east side of the castle. We activate that, and we’ll cut off their radio feed.”

Ding smiled at Clark, “So the team’s gonna do it like old times? Breach, flashbangs, and hit them like a hurricane?”

Rainbow Six nodded back, “Something like that, but even more flashy.”

Celestia was still behind the hill, amazed at what all of this sounded like. These humans seemed to know everything to do, everything what to do, and every variable that stood in their way.

“Alright team, prepare up. Thermite, you’ll be coming with your exothermic charges to open up a new hole in the wall.” Thatcher pointed to Thermite, who was locked and loaded.

“Fuze, you’ll be using your Cluster Charge to clear the third floor of all hostiles so we don’t get collapsed on.” Fuze nodded after Thatcher pointed to him, the final preparations to his sub-munition insertion device were in place.

“Blitz and Montagne, you’ll be up front in the hole Thermite makes with your respective shields. Blitz, your flashbang charges attached to the shield will aide in the other flashbangs that will be thrown in. I’ll be rappelling on the eastern exterior wall and blowing open the windows after I have used my EMP grenade to take the lights out on the second floor.” Thatcher explained.

“Twitch, you’ll be disabling the assailant in the basement with your Shock Drone.” Thatcher ordered. Twitch had already placed her drone on the floor of the facility, and drove it back and forth, signalling that she was ready.

Celestia could hear the voices on the other end of the Rainbow Team’s radio. They were actually going to do it. They were going to rescue Twilight and her friends.

“Alright, team sound off!” Thatcher called.

“Ready!” Thermite’s SG-556 was ready to go, as well as his exothermic breaching charge.

“Good to go!”, Fuze’s AK-12 was loaded as the Spetsnaz sounded off, his Cluster Charges hanging off his back.

“Roger that!” Blitz checked the three rows of eight flashbang charges on his G-52 Tactical Light Shield and nodded.

“Yes, sir!” Montagne’s extendable ballistic shield, infamously and simply named “Le Roc” was ready to extend and protect his, and whoever was behind his shield’s entire figure from incoming bullets.

“Drone’s ready and spun up!” Twitch sounded off, giving her drone a scoot forward from her touch screen controller.

Thatcher prepared his own AR-33 and his EMP grenades and looked over the team.

“Alright, let’s go save those hostages. While we head out, I’ll go over the plan one more time...”





        Clark knew he had to tell her at this time. It would be too late for Celestia to object at this point in the operation knowing that Clark and his team were her only hope in getting Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike back.

        He didn’t have a pain in his gut knowing what might happen to that pony. They needed that intelligence, and Equestria would probably benefit just as much as humanity from it, knowing that the White Masks could no longer come into their world.

        Clark took a breath, and stepped through the portal back to the other world after telling Thatcher that he needed to make one more thing fall into place.

        Walking a bit, Clark came up to Celestia behind the hill, and nodded to her.

        “Clark? What are you doing here? Isn’t your team going to be attacking soon?”

        Clark nodded, and motioned for Celestia to head off with him in private.

        “Oh, okay.”

        Clark leaned against a tree as Celestia asked, “Is something on your mind?”

        Clark nodded, “We’ll be detaining one of the ponies alive. The rest are going to perish in the attack we’ll be performing.”

        “Well… I understand. You have your ways of dealing with these situations while we have none in the first place.” Celestia nodded, “For all that it’s worth, I thank you so much for everything that you’re doing.”

        “Well, you’re welcome. It’s what we’ve trained exactly to do. However, there is one more matter I need to discuss with you. It’s about the stallion that will be detained.” Clark looked back at her.

        “Oh, well, we’ll be able to process him in due time, but for the crimes that he’s committed…”

        “You won’t be getting that pony back. We’ll be taking him back to Earth to interrogate him.”

        Celestia looked back to Clark, unsure if what she heard was correct.

        “Come again?”

        Clark replied, “We need the intelligence that’s inside that pony. Our world and your world are in mortal danger if we don’t stop the White Mask’s plans, and that’s why we need that information from any means possible. Back at the HQ, we have a lot of means.”

        Celestia shook her head, “You’re going to torture that stallion?”

        “Most likely not. Torture is unreliable. We’ll sedate him with drugs and we’ll get it out of him that way. If not, we’ll have to escalate our methods.” Clark spoke to Celestia.

        “He’s a citizen of my country, Clark. What are you even going to do with that pony when you’re finished, or even if he doesn’t talk at all?” Celestia was getting more and more aggressive with her words.

        “If we can, we’ll find a way to ship him back to you. If he gives us the location of more portals, we can arrange a deposit. If not… well… we will think of something else.” Clark explained.

        At this point, Celestia couldn’t believe her ears. These humans were literally abducting a pony, criminal or not from their world. On one hoof, the crimes that these ponies were committing were unforgivable. On the other hoof, he’s a pony, and he should be processed through Celestia’s own law.

        However, Clark mentioned that both of their worlds were in mortal danger, as he explained the White Masks’ intentions of using this world as a staging base, gathering an army through firepower, and going back to Earth and to other places around Equestria to cause chaos when they felt like it with no retaliation.

        The Princess sighed, and looked back up.

        “I’m expecting that you’ll return him to us.”

        Clark nodded back, “We’ll do everything in our power. Now, we’re moving to rescue Twilight and her friends.”

        Clark turned to head back to the portal.

        This time, Celestia didn’t stop him to say “thank you”.





        Night had fallen earlier than usual. Under the shroud of darkness, the five team members slowly approached the castle, hiding behind building every chance they got to obstruct their line of sight. Finding Mute’s jammer behind the building that was marked, Montagne pulled the handles apart, activating the machine. The frequency of jamming was set to that of the ponies’, so their own communications remained unobstructed. 

        Back in the facility, Twitch drove the Shock Drone through the portal and steered it towards the castle in the town after coming into its borders.

        “Drone’s coming through.” Twitch radioed to the team.





        “That fucking bitch. I told her to keep the sun up.” Rocky spat his words, growing more and more frustrated. 

“You, send a letter to Celestia saying that when that sun comes up, or in two hours, we’re going to slaughter these pigs. You, get another draft up. I want those reinforcements now. Those White Masks have about twenty five other ponies that I want here now. I know Celestia. She’s planning something. When she fails, I want as much firepower to slaughter every mare and guard that I see.” Rocky began to pace back and forth, infuriated. 

        Twilight and Starlight now looked back at Rocky, growing the most frightened they had ever been in their entire lives. Twenty five more ponies could be coming on the side of these hostage takers. Spike now feared that this set of letters will be his last to ever send. A puff of fire, and the two letters were gone. One towards Celestia, one to a very different location. Rocky knew that the traveling ashes of the letter would go through into one of the portals, since he specifically told Spike to send the letter to coordinates that were not found on Equestria, but to an abandoned luxury yacht in Canada, a human country.

        “Third floor, come in.” Rocky spoke through the radio.

        “This is the third floor. Hear you loud and clear.” the ponies above responded.

        Rocky nodded to himself. Third floor was checking in. Then, he activated his radio again, but there was a lot more static than usual at this time.

        “Basement, come in.”

        No response. Only static.

        “Basement, check in now.”

        The same result, static filled the radio.

        “My radio’s not getting a response either.” another stallion listened to his own radio. Rocky snarled and stormed out the door from the living room, rifle in hoof. Approaching down the stairs and walking into the basement, he peered in to find the stallion that was supposed to be hidden down below to look up at him, as if nothing was wrong.

        “Something up, Rocky?” the stallion asked.

        Rocky marched over and took the stallion by his neck, “Why the fuck aren’t you checking in?! I’ve called twice!”

        The pony, suddenly shaken by the grip on his neck dared not to fight back, “Y-You were? I never heard anything on my radio! I swear, it’s always next to me! Maybe it’s out of power or something.”

        “Bullshit. All of ours are working fine.” Rocky took the other pony’s radio and clicked the receiver button on it, blaring a ton of static.

        “What the fuck… what the hell is going on?” Rocky tried a few more times.

        “So… what now?” the stallion asked, but quickly bit his lip when Rocky turned his head around and glared back at him.

        “Alright, you know why you’re in the basement while we’re all upstairs?” Rocky asked.

        “Y-Yeah. If those guards come through the doorway and up the stairs, then I flank and shoot them in the back.” the stallion responded.

        “Exactly. Radio’s aren’t working now, so just go up to the second floor. I’ll cover for you down here.” Rocky patted his shoulder.

        “Oh, uh… thanks.” the stallion turned to head back upstairs.

        Rocky swore to himself as he believed the stallion was incapable of the important task he had, “Fucking idiot… you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Something down here is probably causing the interference.”

        At this point, Rocky had began to wander around the Cutie Map room, looking for possible sources of magical interference. It was a bit odd, though. Considering that they had the anti-magic machine up and running, nothing that was made by ponies could be stopping their radios from working.

        A few minutes had passed, and Rocky couldn’t find anything. He sat down in one of the throne chairs at the table, as if he was the rightful subject to lounge in it.

        He decided to get back up. Taking his rifle off the table, he started another sweep of the basement, until he heard something enter the room. It sounded… tiny. The noise had a bit of a metallic whine to it, and a small shadow moved across the edges of the room.

        Picking his gun up, he headed over towards the noise.

        Behind a box, emerged a tiny little black device with two wheels on it, and a faint red light glowing off of it.

        “What the hell is-”

        Rocky couldn’t finish his sentence as the machine fired out a pronged cable, depositing a continuous stream of 50,000 volts through his body, dropping him to the ground in an instant. He convulsed in short and small spasms, hardly making a sound as his entire body felt like it had pins and needles dancing around inside of it, him unable to control which way his arms and legs went.





        “Shock delivered. Still have four more loads with thirty seconds each.” Twitch notified as she watched the Shock Drone’s camera feed.

        “Copy that, scaling now.” Thatcher spoke as he threw the lightweight titanium hook up onto the castle’s roof, catching onto a jutting crystal perfectly, cleanly, and silently.

        Fuze had landed his hook as well, and together, they both began to climb up the castle wall. They took it easy, slowly getting up the walls to not disturb whoever was listening inside. One step at a time to get up the castle. 

"Wish we had some of that active camouflage. Those Ghost Recons are lucky bastards." Fuze muttered as he made his way up the castle's walls.

        On the other side, Thermite, Blitz, and Montagne were already scaling, finding that from the rooms described by Celestia and Twilight’s friends, there was a dining room with a large window to overlook the west side of Ponyville. Montagne got to work with a glass cutter, drawing a square on the window. An adhesive glove was worn by Thermite to take the chunk out and lightly push it in front of him, setting it on the floor in front.

        Their night vision goggles gave a clear picture of their progress in the forced night as Montagne drew another square to fully fit the shape and tallness of a human. Another gentle grasp with the sticky glove, and it was on the floor. 

        “This is wall-breach team. We are entering the structure.” Blitz got his feet inside and took out his shield, the three operators moving slowly into the building.

        “Copy, we’re getting the Cluster Charge now. Proceed with exothermic breech. Check drones for safe location.” Thatcher ordered as he and Fuze made their way to the third floor.

        Fuze climbed up to the third floor turret and pulled up his touch screen controller. Cycling through the drones already in the building, including the one was that currently tasing that pony in the basement, he found the three stallions in the same turret he was outside of.
        
        Getting under a window, he took his Cluster Launcher from his pack, and placed the adhesive end on the surface of crystalline glass. Pulling the pin from the device, arming it, Fuze lowered himself away. The ponies inside the turret had no clue what had been placed just at the border of one of their windows.

        “Cluster Charge in position.” Fuze radioed off.

        Thermite had checked the hostage room from one of the drones secretly parked inside. Left-most breach will do it, as the hostages were located on his right side.

        “Marking hostiles.” Thermite said as he painted tabs on each of the ponies’ hooves, “Red is hostile, yellow are hostages.”

        “Roger that.” Thermite and the other two operators that flanked him slowly moved through the dining room and into the kitchen, where a wall separated them from the living room. The sound that they made by heading down couldn’t be carried all the way down the hall, and around to the doors in the living room, so they were in the clear.

        Thatcher had worked his way down along with Fuze, both taking out their breaching charges. Unfolding them and placing them on the window, the lack of light pollution that Ponyville had gave the darkness of night a true pitch-black dark. The lights that were on inside also gave the ponies no night-vision from light adaptation, so the breaching charges were well hidden from a glance at the window.

        Rolling up the exothermic breaching charge like a mat on the wall, Thermite pulled the pin out, arming the two-stage detonation. He watched the little blips on his night vision goggles, knowing exactly where to place the charge.

        Blitz readied the flashbang charges on his shield, and Montagne was ready to fully extend the full protection on his shield.

        Fuze had the detonator of the Cluster Charge in one hand, while the other held his AK-12 by the grip. He and Thatcher were facing towards the ground, their feet on the walls of the castle. They were suspended by the solid titanium hook that was lodged on the roof, ready to act.

        Clark and Celestia were watching everything from their respective tablets, one being given to the Princess. She was biting her lip almost hard enough to draw blood. She was sweating in the coolness of night. Her heart raced like never before as she had cast a rather simple nightvision spell, her being able to see the faint outline of Thatcher and Fuze hanging from the eastern wall of the castle.

        Clark and Ding were on their tablet, and the entire of the rest of the operators back in the Russian compound were silent as they watched on their own tablets.

        Popov was listening in to everything. This was the moment where the fate of humanity and the fate of another world were decided by the Rainbow Team’s actions.

        Then, Clark spoke.

        “Breach.”





        

“Lights out.” Thatcher’s EMP grenade went off, shorting out the lights in the living room. The anti-magic machine was still running, and their breaching charges were hard-wired to withstand Thatcher’s gadget. He could hear voices inside, wondering why the lights went out, and some shuffling around. The drone feed inside showed one of the ponies moving to a corner, wondering what was going on, the red blip following him and marking his every movement.

        “Cluster Charge detonated!” Fuze spoke through the communications.

        RRRRRRRR- Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump!

        The drill on the Cluster Charge went to work, slicing through the window and allowing the device to pump in five miniature grenades, each packing enough explosive power to rival a full-sized M67 frag grenade into the turret where the three stallions above were lurking.

        “A real big fucking hole coming right up!” Right as the Cluster Charge went off, Thermite activated the first stage to his exothermic breaching charge. He and the other two operators looked away from the incredibly bright thermite paste as it ignited and began to crawl its fire into a square shape on the wall. On the other side, the stallions looked towards the new source of light, only to be blinded by what looked like to be an entire new sun growing out of the wall, splitting into two and snaking down and back around.

        They were too dazed and disoriented, focusing more on rubbing their eyes to get rid of the square-shaped light burned into their eyes like an old arcade machine that had the top score burned into its screen. 

        “Breach and clear!”

        The order was given by Thatcher. Montagne’s shield extended out, covering his entire body and legs as Thermite hit the second trigger on his detonator, blasting out the chunk of crystal wall. The wall fell down just as the windows exploded, sending little shards of crystal onto the floor and further disorienting the hostage takers, who had no clue what the hell was happening around them. At this point, they forgot about the hostages and wondered what the hell was going on and some tried to frantically fire at the wall where the new hole from the kitchen was made.

        The bullets impacted harmlessly against Montagne’s shield as Thermite, Thatcher, and Fuze threw in three flashbang grenades, one per each. Blitz took point and flashed the entire room with the flashbang charges built into the front of his shield. He could see the stallions and the hostages each recoil from the flashbangs, screaming and firing at the shield-wielding operators, each having no effect to them whatsoever.

        What Celestia saw outside the castle amazed her. A thousand years of ruling, and she had never seen anything like this. Fuze and Thatcher hung upside down from their grappling cables, and began to fire into the room of the hostages. Suppressed gunshots now mixed in with the rifles of the enemies. The window breachers instantly dropped two hostiles against the walls that separated the kitchen from the living room, and Thermite had shot down the stallion to the right of the room, while Blitz gunned down the stallion in the left corner, lining up the laser with his body and blasting 9mm ammunition directly into his figure.

        Up above in the third floor turret, the grenades launched from the Cluster Charges began to detonante, throwing bits and pieces of metal around the room, slicing apart the bodies of the terrorists up above. The explosive force from some sent a leg flying off two of the stallions, while one had detonated right under the hooves of another, blasting shrapnel up into his stomach, giving him a very messy and gruesome death.

        Spike was screaming as he laid down on the ground, unable to cover his ears from his arms being cable tied. Twilight and Starlight Glimmer were on the ground, screaming through the tape that was on their mouths as their vision suddenly began a painful white from the flashbangs.

        Everything happened so fast. The lights went out, then everything went white. Twilight heard all sorts of gunshots afterwards. Was she dead now? She saw only white in her eyes. She felt her chest rising up and down, despite all of this. She couldn’t hear anything but the incessant ringing that crawled into her ears.

        Then, her vision slowly began to restore. The whiteness gave way to five taller and bulky figures, two of them swinging into the window.

        “Clear?!” Blitz looked around for any other possibility of hostiles.

        “Clear!” Thatcher confirmed. At this point, they didn’t waste time. 

Thatcher and Thermite stayed with the hostages as Fuze went up above to check on the turret room that he had blown to smithereens with his sub-munitions. It was a grisly sight up there. Blood was sprayed all over the room, with a leg lying across a table that had been blown off one of the deceased stallions. Another was laying on the ground, a massive pool of blood spreading out from beneath him.

        One of the stallions had his leg blasted off. As Fuze approached him, he miraculously was still alive as his chest was still rising up and down. His rifle was all the way across the room, dropped when the grenades began to blast everything in the room. Blood leaked from the stump that his leg had been reduced to now.

        He wasn’t going to live anyways, so Fuze put a bullet from his AK-12 into his head, ending the stallion’s fleeting life. The last thing the stallion saw was a tall bipedal figure covered in green camouflage, and the green helmet with the black visor that stared down at him.

        Heading downstairs, Montagne and Blitz got into the Cutie Map room in the basement. It didn’t take too long to find the stallion that was still being tased by Twitch’s Shock Drone for a solid minute and a half. It was a light amperage that was being delivered, so it couldn’t stop the well-fit stallion’s heart.

        Pulling the taser from the stallion’s chest and kicking his rifle away, Blitz got to work. Doc had prepared a special cocktail in a syringe that knocked the stallion clean out as he forced in the liquid inside.

        “This is Blitz, hostile asset is secured.”

        Clark breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the next phrase was radioed in.

        “This is Thatcher. Hostages are secure and are unharmed. Team, we did it.”

        Celestia immediately broke down into tears and smiled as she gasped at the news. Twilight’s friend looked over.

        “Is Twilight and…”

        Pinkie was cut off by Celestia turning towards them, tears in their eyes and sniffling, “Yes, they’re okay!”

        At once, the five other mares broke down into tears, embracing Celestia. Finally, all of the hardship and pain they had experienced these past few days were finally over.

        Up above on the second floor, Twilight, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike began to have their senses return to them from the violence that had ensued before. The whiteness in their eyes and the ringing in their ears slowly subsided to reveal the entire living room in a mess with shards of glass everywhere. Scorch marks were on the massive hole that was made in the wall separating the living room from the kitchen, as well as blackened burns were around the windows.

        Four stallions lay on the floor, and on closer look, they were bleeding from the head and the chest, one circular wound in each with a bloody mess behind. 

        Then, the two figures in black gear were above them, and one took the tape off of Twilight’s mouth. She was still shaking from the initial explosions.

        “Hey… hey… everything’s okay now.” the one wearing goggles over its eyes spoke to her, “We were sent by Celestia to rescue you.”

        Thermite used Celestia’s name in hopes that it would calm down the hostages.

        “Y-You’re humans…?” Twilight shakily pointed a hoof at him. When she did so, she felt a bit… faint. Her backside had this dull pain in her that was being forced out due to the adrenaline that was coursing through her now.

        “Yeah, but probably not ones that you’re familiar with. Are any of you hurt? Did they do anything to you?” Thatcher asked Twilight, Starlight, and Spike, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

        He held up three, to which each responded with the correct number.

        “Celestia sent you…?” Starlight asked as she had her cable ties cut from her.

        “That’s right. Everything’s okay now. Your friends are waiting for you all.” Thermite nodded.

        “M-My friends?! Are they okay?!” Twilight got up, but was forced back down by Thatcher pushing her lightly with his hand. She felt another sense of dizziness come over her.

        “Take it easy. They’re fine, but you’re still in a shake from what happened before. Sorry about the loud noises, that’s how we do things.” Thatcher spoke, his accented voice breaking through his gas mask.

        The lights had already come back on, and the operators took their nightvision off. 

        “Clark, the hostages are unharmed.” Thatcher radioed in.

        “Damn good job. Couldn’t say it any better than myself.” Clark leaned back on the crate he was on in relief.

        Then, Spike tugged at Thermite’s sleeve.

        “What is it? Are you hurt?” Thermite asked the little dragon.

        Then, Twilight remembered, and so did Starlight Glimmer. One of the two letters Spike had sent had detailed a reinforcement of more armed stallions that would arrive in an hour and a half. Remembering a quick glance Spike got at the letter, he remembered the phrase “25 combat-ready” on the letter.

        Immediately, Spike spoke up, “More of them are coming!”

        Thatcher stopped what he was doing and looked back at the tiny dragon, “Come again? What did you say?”

        “I… I think more stallions are coming! Twenty five of them!” he began to panic again.

        “Twenty five? Are you sure?” Thermite asked one more time, to which Starlight responded.

        “Yes, their leader wanted reinforcements in an hour and a half. I remember looking at the clock at that point, and it’s at an hour past now.” Starlight explained.

        The other Rainbow Team members heard the news on the radio.

        “What?! We’re not equipped to fend off a damn platoon!” Fuze radioed in.

        Clark had overheard, “Fuck me… more are coming…” 

        Rainbow Six gritted his teeth. This new invading force could jeopardise the entire operation. The portal could only sustain five individuals that weren’t supposed to be in the worlds they traveled to, so he couldn’t just send in more operators.

        Celestia heard about this too, but kept herself quiet, waiting for Clark’s response.

        Suddenly, another voice came on the radio com.

        “This is Thatcher! One of the hostages has been hit!”

        “What?!” Clark nearly jumped up in surprise.

        “Twilight had been hit in the side! The hostile in the corner must have gotten a blind shot off on her!” Thatcher was now covering the wound that Twilight, through her shock hadn’t even noticed before. The wound had been placed at her hip, thankfully away from vital organs, but a rifle bullet had exited out the other side, thankfully cleanly with an exit wound to boot.

        “Fuck! We have no medical gear here!” Thermite spoke as he cut off his own sleeve with his knife, making a makeshift gauze to apply over Twilight. The pool of blood had leaked more behind Twilight, and the smoke that was beginning to clear from the room hid the blood that was trailing on her leg.

        “We still have twenty five more hostiles, and an unconscious hostile down below.” Montagne spoke up.

At this point, Clark was thinking as hard as he could, and Celestia grew pale in the face, hearing that Twilight had been hurt. She was thankful that it wasn’t worse, but the way that the Rainbow Team described it, it was a serious injury, and the anti-magic machine was still in effect to not allow magical assistance. 

Then, five operators came up to Clark.

They were Castle, Smoke, Tachanka, Doc, and Jäger. Operators that were adept in defensive combat and securing areas.

“Rainbow Six, I can get up there and give medical assistance to Twilight. Marks my words, she will not die.” Doc had already loaded up on his medical gear, “And Smoke came up with a plan.”

“Let’s hear it.” Clark and Celestia both spoke.

        “Okay, we can only have five of our guys there. We have enemies we need to kill, and we have a pony that needs help. It will take us too long to get there and set up in time, as well as to wait for the others to come back to the portal to swap out, so here’s what I’m suggesting.”

        Smoke began to go into detail about his plan, “Celestia, can you teleport others?”

        “Yes, I can do so.”

        “Alright, the five of our guys already in the castle head out and get out of the anti-magic zone. Celestia teleports them to the entrance of the portal, they come out, we go in with all the stuff we need, and we get teleported in front of the castle. Boom. Fast travel.”

        Celestia thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded back.

        “T-That could work. But why do you want to defend the castle? Why don't I just teleport Twilight to safety?” Celestia asked.

        “We can’t risk moving Twilight right now, and those hostiles are going to be here soon. Either you let us go into the castle, which is the most defensible structure in that town and fend off the enemies, as well as give medical aid to Twilight, or we will let them occupy your town, and all of our efforts in stopping the White Masks in your world will go to waste. We need to get to the castle and defend.” Smoke pointed out.

        “Then Thatcher, you’d better get your men out of the castle now.”

        Thatcher had instructed that help would be arriving, and that Starlight and Spike needed to apply pressure to Twilight's wound. Whatever they did, they could not deactivate that anti-magic machine. 

        Celestia had informed them that doing so still left a residual anti-magic presence in a unicorn’s horn for a good amount of time, so the only good it would do to turn off the machine was to aid the other stallions coming in.

“We’re pulling out now!”

As the attacking team was beginning to leave the castle, the defending team was preparing up for the fight that was to ensue.
        
Together, Tachanka took a weapon that he always employed on his defensive operations. An RP-46 Soviet-era machine gun that stood on a tripod with an extension that allowed the machine gun to be fired from a standing position was disassembled and placed onto his back. Modified to hell and back, and loaded with armor-piercing 7.62 mm ammunition, no body armor used by his foes has stopped the might of his machine gun. In addition, he carried packs of barbed wire that had been rolled up at his sides.

Smoke’s Compound Z8 gas grenades were at his side, as well as Tachanka’s tripod was being carried on his back. The gas grenades dispersed a tear-gas like substance that stuck to the skin and eyes of an enemy, causing blindness, violent coughing, and burning on the skin. In addition, they could be attached to a wall, doorway, or a surface on the floor and detonated remotely as a trap, or to be used as a traditional smoke grenade to block a line of sight to an area with its thick yellow haze.

Castle’s UTP1 Universal Tactical Panels were rolled up like posters, the lightweight kevlar panels could stop a plethora of armor-piercing rounds from passing through it if it was covering a doorway or a window, and they rolled over them like a mat. Easy to deploy, and strong as hell. His door panels were also accompanied by a deployable ballistic shield that he was carrying in front of him.

Doc’s medical supplies were in a crate that the Rainbow Team had gotten from the structure they were based in, and loaded up their other supplies inside. To add to his medical supplies, Doc carried his MPD-0 Stim Pistol, a dart gun that fired a 1mg dose of epinephrine in a saline solution, capable of reviving a person who had passed out or had been knocked unconscious nearly immediately.

Last, but certainly not least, Jäger’s ADS MK-IV “Magpie” active protection system was ready to be used. The small turret that he could place on a wall or floor surface acted as a shield against incoming explosives, firing an interception projectile at the approaching threat. Grenades, thrown, launched, and even RPG rounds were a thing of the past with Jäger’s active protection system.

The defensive team had loaded their supplies into their crate, and on themselves.

“We’re ready to go!”

With a massive heave, Tachanka, Jäger, and Doc lifted up the crate and held it as the attacking operators had been teleported back to the entrance of the portal and came back in.

“Give them hell, comrades!” Fuze shouted as he came through.

Then, the defending team walked into the portal with their crate and other supplies, heaving the heavy load along.
	
	
	
> Defend
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “Move, move, move!” Castle shouted as he and his team carried the incredibly heavy crate through the portal. They didn’t even falter or stumble when they exited on the other side, continuing to hoist the supplies with all of their strength.

        Celestia could feel several surges of magic collectively gather at opposite end of Ponyville. The portals that were opening gave such a strong signature that Celestia was able to “feel” the energy gather and form on the other side of the town.

        “Clark! I can feel the other portals! Where are your-”

        “We’re here!” Doc shouted as Celestia saw five more individuals coming down towards the hill that the ponies had taken shelter behind. The crate that they were carrying looked to weigh far more than any group of stallions could possibly lift.

        “Okay, I’ll send you in. Get indoors as soon as possible. And… good luck.” Celestia spoke before her horn began to glow with magical energy.

        “Alright buddies, just like we’ve drilled,” Smoke muttered beneath his gas mask.

        One golden flash, and the five counter-terrorists along with their supplies were teleported straight to the edge of the anti-magic forcefield. They looked up at the castle; the video footage from their helmet-mounted cameras being displayed on the tablets back at the Russian compound.

        “Lights are back on. We can’t waste any time turning them all off. Get up, assess the hostages, and prepare for the incoming attack.” Clark instructed through the mic, “Celestia, drop night again. Rainbow Team, do not engage the enemy through any windows that look over the outdoors. We don’t know if the enemy has snipers or rockets. Best not to provoke them.”

        “Copy that, Rainbow Six.” Jäger replied back.

        The team of operators burst through the front door with their crate. Upon coming inside, they looked ahead at the flight of stairs that lay before them. 

        “Alright, no delay!” Doc shouted. The operators took their crate and carried it up the stairs to the second floor where the hostages still were. The entire process was grueling, but it was hardly a problem for the well-trained and very well-fit Rainbow Team members.

        “We got this, Doc! Go up and tend to the injured hostage!” Castle shouted.

        “I’m on it!” Doc went ahead upstairs.





        Spike was using a piece of tablecloth that was on a small overturned table to stop Twilight’s bleeding, who was continuously taking painful breaths as the cloth had become red with blood. Starlight had taken a rifle from one of the dead terrorists, and was sitting by Twilight, rifle in hoof to guard her friend’s life.

        Then, she heard a shout down the hallway.

        “I’m on the second floor! Where is Twilight?!”

        Down the hallway, Starlight could see the familiar figure of a human with a clear face shield mounted on his helmet. Instantly, she sighed a huge puff of relief as she lowered the rifle and shouted back.

        “Over here!”

        Doc rushed towards the injured Twilight Sparkle, who watched with weak vision as the black-armored man knelt down beside her. Doc did not hesitate to open up his medical kit, filled to the brim with all sorts of drugs, syringes, and packs of various fluids.

        “Okay, okay,” Doc talked to Twilight, “You’re in good hands now.”

        The medic set down his MP5 and dug through his medical kit, taking out what looked to be a massive vial containing what looked to be some sort of white cotton inside of it.

        “Little dragon, remove the tablecloth.” Spike was commanded by Doc, and complied. As he did, Doc could see the massive wound that Twilight was struggling to remain alive against. The rifle bullet did serious damage to Twilight’s hip, practically taking a chunk from it. “Alright, we’ll stop the bleeding now.”

        Doc took the massive vial, and put the end towards Twilight’s wound. 

        “This is going to hurt, okay?” Doc looked at Twilight, to which she nodded uncomfortably.

        Then, Doc pressed the plunger on the top of the vial, inserting in what turned out to be super-condensed sponges into the wound. Instantly, they started to collect the blood and expand into the bloody mess, turning red. However, the sponges began to dramatically slow the bleeding down. Expanding in the wound, her bleeding eventually stopped in a solid twenty-five seconds as the sponges filled the cavity in her.

        Unfortunately, this was probably one of the most painful experiences that Twilight had ever experienced in her entire life, as the sponges began to expand in her injury. She couldn’t help but scream, her adrenaline taking over as she suddenly began to shake frivolously. 

        Then, the pain slowly went away and she began to calm down as a small injection anesthetic was administered to her at the same time the sponges were inserted.

        “You are going to be okay, mon amie,” Doc spoke as softly as he could, “See? The bleeding has stopped.”

        The medic could see the rest of his team rushing down the hallway with their crate.

        “How is the hostage?” Tachanka asked as he and his team dropped and opened up the crate. The first thing that was out was Rook’s RN-1 Rhino body armor plates, which the operators all took a plate for themselves, opened their vests, and placed the plate inside. They hardly noticed a weight difference. One panel was slid across the floor for Doc to put into his armor.

        “We’re getting her stabilised now.” Doc replied, and saw that two Rainbow Six drones had suddenly come out from under a table, and one wheeled down from the third floor. 

        “This is Thatcher. We are relocating the drones to provide camera feed throughout the castle for the incoming attack. We’ll be parking them in the most advantageous positions. You can view them on your drone controllers.” Thatcher radioed in.

        “Roger that. Those bloody ponies will be in for a fucking big surprise.” Smoke replied through his headset, “Alright! Get those walls reinforced!”

        Then, Tachanka took a smaller box out from the crate, and opened it up. Inside were bundles of Semtex explosives bounded by tape with a remote detonator on top of the explosives.

        Tachanka smiled. Kapkan always comes through.

        “Take your Nitro Cells, comrades! Courtesy of Kapkan!” Tachanka tossed bundles out to the other operators to catch.

        While the other operators got to work, Doc still wasn’t done with his. Suddenly, the medic hit a massive problem.

        “Shit… I don’t know what will happen when we give a pony human blood!” Doc radioed back to Rainbow Team, but then looked at Starlight Glimmer, “Maybe saline would have to do…”

      Then, Doc found himself glancing at Starlight Glimmer and Spike.

        “Please for the love of God…” Doc whispered to himself, “Spike, Starlight Glimmer, what are your bloodtypes? And what’s Twilight’s?”

        “Blood type?” Starlight Glimmer looked at Doc. If what Doc was thinking what she was thinking, she would do it for Twilight in a heartbeat.

        Twilight was far too weak to speak coherently, and the anesthetic wasn’t helping too much. However, Spike spoke up, “Actually, ponies don't have advanced antibodies. They can pretty much donate to one another, unlike species like Minotaurs, who have very specific blood types.”

      Doc glanced back at Spike, “Are you sure?”

      “Yeah. Twilight got me to read pony anatomy at a pretty young age.”

        “Thank Christ. Starlight, Twilight, I need to perform a direct blood transfusion.” Doc spoke up as he got together two needles and a tube.

        “I’ll do it.” Starlight did not hesitate as her friend began to slip into unconsciousness. Doc had hooked up a small pulse monitor to Twilight’s fetlock, or where her leg gave way into a hoof to monitor her vitals.

        Meanwhile in the same room, Spike watched in amazement as the operators took steel devices from the crate and placed them at the base of the crystal wall, including the base of the hole that was blown into it. The humans then pulled a lever, extending a layer of solid reinforced steel to raise up on top of the surface of the wall, reaching all the way up to the ceiling. 

        “Wall reinforced!” Jäger shouted as he threw the lever down towards him, setting the anchors into the ceiling above and into the floor. 

        “Wall can withstand assault!” Tachanka shouted as he finished up on his section of the wall.

        “Armor panels deployed!” Castle had rolled down the panels over the windows that had been blown out by the attacking team. Rolling them down like a mat, he took out a massive stapler to further reinforce the panels.
        
        Then, Smoke got a transmission in his radio. It was Celestia.

        “I can feel the energy fluctuations! You have hostile ponies on your way!” she notified the defensive crew.

        “Alright! Two minutes max! Double-time!” Tachanka finished up reinforcing the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.

        Then, Jäger started to take out his active protection system turrets, and began to stick them onto the walls of the living room. The small and lightweight machines instantly activated, a small projectile was primed and ready to be launched at any incoming explosive threat.

        “You can stop worrying about grenades now.” Jäger nodded to the team members.

        Then, Tachanka looked at the ground. One of the terrorists that had been killed in the assault had a light machine gun on the ground next to him. He recognised it all to well as an M249 SAW.

        “Castle, take that LMG! Jäger! Come with me! We need to deploy two killing zones!” Tachanka ordered.

        “Roger that!” Jäger had placed another active protection system down and headed out of the room with Tachanka and Castle.

        “Castle, you cover the hallway by the kitchen! I’ll cover the hallway directly coming to the living room!” Tachanka pointed towards another doorway. Jäger had handed Castle two active protection charges and mounted them with a hook on his utility belt.

        “‘Preciate it.” Castle nodded and headed off.

        Tachanka was now carrying the fully assembled RP-46 machine gun on its standing tripod, and Jäger was also carrying the deployable ballistic shield they had brought to the castle. Slapping the bottom on the floor, Jäger grabbed onto the handle, and pulled the shield up to its full height. It was measured perfectly for Tachanka to keep nearly his entire body behind the shield, with his gun’s barrel pointing clear of the shield’s metal.

        Jäger placed around the active protection nodes around Tachanka, as extra had been brought in the crate, and Castle had placed his around.

        “Killing zone: North Hallway!” Tachanka shouted.

        “Killing zone: West Hallway!” Castle also acknowledged. 

        Then, Castle got an idea. He went into the dining room, and found a fairly small dinner table that was out of the wall of the main one. Taking the smaller table, he dragged it into his hallway, and kicked it over. He then took an armored panel, and spread it over the front of the table, stapling it down. The operator had just created his own bullet-proof barrier.

        Jäger and Smoke went past Tachanka, heading down towards the lobby.

        “You ready for this, kid?” Smoke spoke as he got his Nitro Cells ready, as well as his Z8 canisters.

        “Ready as I’ll ever be.” the German replied to the British.

        Coming to the front entrance, Jäger placed the Nitro Cell just above the doorway to the castle. He looked up at the explosive that was stuck to the wall, and looked back at Smoke. The former SAS operator stuck his canister of mystery gas on the wall next to the door.

        “Nest ready to knock up…” Jäger could swear that a terrifying grin slowly crawled up Smoke’s face underneath that gas mask as he spoke over the coms.

        Smoke patted Jäger’s back, “Good luck.”

        Jäger sat back near the top of the staircase, and took a look through his drone controller touchscreen. He now waited…

        Apparently, the enemy ponies that were en-route were to be arriving soon. All the while, the Rainbow Team was putting their finishing touches to their “welcome party”.





        The blood transfusion was underway, as Starlight gave a part of herself to make sure that Twilight lived through this whole ordeal. They had come so far, and she would be damned if Twilight would never wake up now.

        Then, Doc motioned for Spike to come over.

        “Alright, I need you to take this.” Doc handed him another syringe full of clear liquid.

        “What’s this?” Spike asked the medic.

        “Our friend over there that we’ve brought up.” Doc pointed towards what looked like to be an unconscious terrorist pony from before, and on further examination, looked very similar to the self-proclaimed leader of the group, “If he stirs at all, if he moves a muscle, stick this into him and don’t stop squeezing what’s in here until it’s all inside. Do you understand?”

        Spike looked at the syringe, then back at Doc.

        “O-Okay.” he nodded nervously.

        “Good. I need to tend to Starlight and Twilight right now. If you have any trouble, call for me.” Doc patted Spike’s shoulder and gave him a thumb’s up.

        “This is Clark. We have a drone overlooking outside. We have a visual on the OPFOR incoming.” Clark was looking through the camera of a drone that he had driven from the lobby of the castle to outside.

        “Roger that, Rainbow Six. What are we looking at?” Jäger radioed in.

        “Assault weapons, submachine guns, and they are armed with grenades. I can see one with a sniper rifle. I’ve been counting, and there is a total of twenty-five enemies incoming towards your defenses. They are taking their time, though. They might believe that everything is still going okay inside. However, that might change when they remember that our unconscious pal hasn’t sent any more letters back to them.” Clark described what he was seeing.

        “Wait, they’re splitting up now. Majority of them are going straight towards the front entrance. We got some coming towards the back side of the castle to access the secondary doors.” Thatcher informed the defensive team.

        “Roger that.” Smoke nodded and headed down towards the back doors of the castle.





        Night had soon fallen again. Luna had teleported several times, as it was impossible to teleport from one country to another instantaneously. It did drain her energy very well, but she soon found herself coming back to Ponyville.

        Then, when she found a group of ponies, she brought herself down towards them.

        “Greetings, everypon-”

        Celestia immediately came up, put her hoof over Luna’s mouth, and put her on the ground.

        “Shhh! Quiet, Sister! There are armed ponies in the town, and we can’t let them realise that the entire population is behind this hill!”

        “What? Armed ponies? Why don’t we both deal with them?” Luna asked.

        “They… have weapons of untold destruction and lethality. It’s been a long past days, and a big story to tell, but let’s just say that I’ve been getting some outside and professional help.” Celestia huffed as she looked back towards the castle.

        “What kind of help?”





        “Something isn’t right about this. Seven of you, go around towards the back! You two with the sniper rifles, get on that building over there! The rest of you, come with me to the front!”

        The stallions, armed with all sorts of rifles and weapons began to make a beeline for the castle. Rocky hadn’t responded in a while, and from what it looked like, the castle had grown eerily silent. Odd grey panels were now on the windows, which was something that the first group that had gone in did not take.

        However, the anti-magic barrier was still on, so that was a promising sign that the stallions were still well and controlling it.

        Then, the stallion directing the group took something else from his back. Now in his hooves was a Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, or a SMAW. The SMAW was a rocket launcher that the White Masks had managed to obtain by paying for a weapon’s cache that the Taliban had ended up looting from a Marine base, but not before the White Masks had killed their dealers shortly after.

        The stallion loaded in a rocket in it’s case into the back of the launcher, and ordered the stallions to head to the front while the others took a detour.





        Jäger was on top of the staircase that overlooked the main doorway to the castle. Looking down his red dot sight, his shortened 416-C rifle was poised towards the door. He was hiding behind the wall corner at the top of the staircase that lead to the second floor.

        Then, he heard a shaking at the door. The stallions were here, and they must have realised that the door was locked.

        A shotgun was heard, and the lock in between both of the doors was destroyed. 

        “I have contact! First floor, main entrance!” Jäger braced himself.

        The door flew open, and a large group of stallions began to muscle their way inside.

        “Detonating Nitro!” Jäger called out on the mic as he pressed the button on his detonator, blasting the plastic explosives. The explosion sent two of them flying outward, as their back were turned to the explosive that had been stuck on the upper wall behind them, and one of them who was under the explosive practically vanished in the smoke and explosion.

        Jäger opened fire with his rifle, placing accurate and consecutive shots into the group of enemies. Amidst all the confusion, another gadget went off, spraying yellow smoke all over the ponies. The fine mist clung to their eyes and skin, making them feel as if they were on fire, and smoke of it came straight into their respiratory system, forcing violent coughs and wheezes from the unfortunate victims of Smoke’s Z8 compound.

        At the other doorway in the back, Smoke had let the stallions bash down the door, and gave them a healthy dose of his chemicals as well, getting them to cough and struggle to see who was aiming his gun at them. Smoke’s FMG-9 went off, filling whoever’s body was in front with bullets.

        As the smoke cleared on Jäger’s end, six stallions lay dead at the doorstep as the others managed to come in. He fired again at the group, and dropped another one that rushed in. Then, he could see a stallion what what obviously was some sort of rocket launcher being aimed at him. At this, Jäger immediately pulled away from the staircase and ran down the hallway.

        A thump was heard, and the rocket exploded where he once was, shards of crystal wall being thrown everywhere as Jäger looked back at his last position, which seemed to have been reduced to a scorching blast mark.

        Smoke began to withdraw from his area, and quickly made a detour into another room that held a staircase to the second floor. Smoke took what was a rolled up barricade of wooden planks, and rolled it down over the doorway he went into. He kicked it into place, and placed a Nitro Cell above the doorway.
        
        “That outa slow them down.” Smoke said to himself as he began to head up towards the rest of the operators.

        “This is Jäger! Hostiles inbound to second floor! Be advised, one is armed with a rocket launcher!” Jäger notified his teammates.

        “That’s why we have active protection up here!” Tachanka slapped the disk magazine on top of his LMG, “Lead them into the killing zones!”

        Jäger and Smoke each bolted up the staircase, with Smoke stopping briefly to detonate the Nitro Cell he had left when he heard the ponies attempting to break down the barricaded door. Screams were heard as the massive thump went off in the castle. As Jäger and Smoke came up their separate staircases, they quickly slid down another rolled-up wooden barricade across the doors at the top of the staircase, and ran towards where their friendlies were waiting.

        When Jäger turned away from the barricades, and quickly glanced out a window, the glass instantly shattered and the crystal wall next to him ended up having shards thrown out of it.

        “Shit! Snipers on the east side! Keep your head down from windows!” Jäger alerted his teammates.

        “Roger that! The killing zones are free of windows!” Castle kept aiming down the hallway with the captured M249 machine gun behind his self-fabricated cover, while Tachanka was doing the same in his hallway with his RP-46.





        “The transfusion is complete. Starlight, don’t make any sudden movements, or you’ll pass out.” Doc bandaged up the donation wound that Doc had made with the needle, as he did with Twilight.

        “Is she going to be okay?” Starlight asked, lightheadedly.

        “She should be. She had more blood-”

        Then, Twilight’s vital signs dropped.

        “Shit!” Doc turned around, and took the portable defibrillator kit mounted on his chest.

“T-Twilight!” Starlight Glimmer tried to shake Twilight to wake her up, but was blocked by Doc’s arm.

“Don’t do that!” Doc primed the device, and placed the two pads to twilight’s chest.

“Stand clear!” Doc pumped a burst of electricity into Twilight, making her twitch once in a violent fashion.  

“Clear!” Spike looked in horror at Doc and Twilight, one trying to revive the other. Doc had now started to administer CPR to Twilight, giving chest compressions and rescue breaths.

“Clear!” Doc tried again, and with this zap, the vital monitor began to beep again. Doc opened up his face shield, wiping his forehead.

“That was too close…” Doc huffed as he turned to Spike. “She’s okay! How is the terrorist doing?”

“He hasn’t moved yet!” Spike looked back at the pony that those hostage takers referred to at “Rocky”. 

“This is Smoke! We have the bastards coming up to the second floor! We’re luring them into the kill zones!” the radio lit up with activity.

“Copy that! We’re waiting and ready!” Tachanka’s eyes narrowed to the end of the hallway.





        Jäger could hear the barricade he put over the door he went past get shot down by gunfire. The stallions weren’t taking any more chances as they tossed a grenade into the doorway, trying to blow up any sort of explosive device that had been left there.

        The explosion sent shrapnel down the hall, but not before Jäger had turned the corner, avoiding the blast.

        Smoke was leading his group of stallions towards Castle’s emplacement, while Jäger was leading his towards Tachanka’s.

        “Jäger, we have ten stallions following you! Smoke, you got five on your tail! That’s ten for Tachanka, five for Castle!” Doc had quickly monitored the parked drones in the castle to give the heads up as the stallions went past.

        “More for me…” Tachanka kept his gun trained at the end of the hallway.

        Then, he saw Jäger burst down the hallway, running as he fired two shots back around the corner he came around. He ran straight for Tachanka’s emplacement, and vaulted over the deployable shield that he was behind.

        “They’re coming!” Jäger took his rifle and aimed over the deployable shield with Tachanka.

        “I’m linking up with you! Castle can handle the group on me!” Smoke vaulted over the bulletproof table that Castle was behind, the American nodding at the British as he went past.

        Then, the stallions rounded the corner of Tachanka’s machine gun and realised too late what was poised at them.


TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK-TACK!


        The two stallions in front met a grisly demise as their bodies were pumped full of machine gun bullets from the mounted gun. Blood sprayed all over the walls behind them as Jäger too began to fire back. Bullets sailed back and forth, with the shield stopping the enemy’s bullets from doing any sort of harm to the operators. Jäger shoved his head to the side as he felt a rifle round sail past, and pressed a button on his detonator, exploding the Nitro Cell that was hidden under the carpet the group of stallions were on as they fired back.

        Castle unleashed his own hail of gunfire on the armed ponies coming for him, his M249 literally tearing an arm off of one stallion as the operator gunned him down. The gun spewed forwards a massive amount of smoke, bullet shells clattering around him as he squeezed the trigger down in long bursts.

        Suddenly, Castle’s machine gun went dry as he had slain another stallion, giving his killcount two so far.

        “Fuck!” Castle cursed as he quickly got behind cover as the terrorists, taking advantage at the pause in fire suddenly turned the corner and began to fill the table with gunfire, knowing all too well that their rifles could penetrate the wooden furniture. 

        What they didn’t know was that Castle’s tactical panel mounted behind the table absorbed all of the bullets effortlessly, bulges being made in the solid layer of pure kevlar-ceramic armor.

        He hid behind the table, taking out his M1014 shotgun, loaded with buckshot ammunition. Castle waited for the right opportunity. 

        Then, the gunfire stopped, and Castle heard clicks on the other end. The stallions’ magazines had run dry.

        “Amateurs,” Castle remarked, burst from the table and fired a blast at the stallions. One of the pony’s throats instantly poured red as a pellet had torn straight through it, and the other three dropped the magazines they were attempting to load into the gun to hide back into cover out of panic.

        Castle looked over the barricade and began to fire towards the stallions who were behind the corner of the hall. As he did, he took out a Nitro Cell, and simply flung it to the end of the hallway.

        He got back down, and hit the button right as it landed at the end of the hallway, right around the corner of the stallions who looked at the tape-wrapped Semtex that had landed at their feet.

        The massive explosion was heard as Castle braced behind the table. Looking over, a massive black scorch mark was where the stallions were, as well as a massive plaster of red all over the walls.

        He then hopped over the barricade and advanced down the hallway.

        “This is Castle! My hostiles have been dealt with! I’m flanking around to engage Tachanka’s enemies!”

        “Roger that!” Tachanka gunned down another stallion who stupidly tried to peek past the cover.





        Rocky’s eyes were beginning to come open again. He had a throbbing pain on his chest. His hearing still had that incessant ringing inside of it, but rapid and ample thumps were among the other sounds he could discern.

        He looked over, and found a human.

        They were here?

        How? And why? He wasn’t expecting the White Masks themselves to come already.

        Then, he looked closer, and found that the human was dressed in black armor, and was tending with the hostages that he had already taken before.

        It was a counter-terrorist.

        Rocky suddenly tried to get up, but found that his hooves were bounded by cable ties, just as he had done to Twilight and her friends. He could see a purple silhouette standing above him. It wasn’t very tall, and he soon recognised it. It was Spike, Twilight’s assistant. 

        Spike found that Rocky had began to move again, and quickly called to Doc.

        “H-He’s moving again!” Spike pointed to the dazed Rocky.

        “Give him the injection! Don’t delay!”

        Rocky heard those words too well, and knew all too much what was coming to him. He struggled to somehow break free of the cable ties. He grit his teeth, and yelled as he tried to thrash about.

        Then, he felt a sharp pain enter his side, and everything began to slow down once again.

        Spike kept squeezing the plunger down. He couldn’t look away from the eyes of the terrorist. Spike in his life had never seen a look of such hatred and horror in another living being’s eyes, like what he had found in Rocky just as he slipped into unconsciousness. 





        Tachanka was now standing in bullet shells as he quickly reloaded his machine gun. Jäger covered him by firing his rifle again at the stallions, who were well in cover.

        “Done!” Tachanka once again, opened fire at the stallions down in the hallway. Collectively, the operators reduced the ponies’ numbers drastically, as now only six hostile ponies remained inside of the castle, with a sniper threat located outside at the east side.

        Then, one stallion quickly rounded the corner, and aimed up his SMAW.

        “Rocket!” Jäger got behind cover, knowing exactly what was going to happen next. He tried to pull Tachanka down with him as well, but his hand slipped on Tachanka’s shoulder.

        Tachanka tried to pull himself down, but the rocket had fired out. Immediately, Jäger’s active protection system detected the incoming explosive and fired out its intercept projectile. The two collided in the middle of the hallway, and a massive blast erupted, sending a huge shock wave at both ends of the hallway. Tachanka was blown clear off his feet from the blast, as well as Jäger and the shield had toppled over.

        The blast yield in that rocket was no joke. Jäger groaned as he turned around on his back, and fired back at the stallion, dropping him. Because the terrorist was fazed by the explosion, it was an easy kill. However, Tachanka wasn’t moving. He had been knocked out.

        “Tachanka’s down! We need backup in the north hallway!” Jäger radioed in.

        Suddenly, the stallions turned towards another side of the hallway as Castle opened fire with his shotgun, flanking the enemy and taking them by surprise. This allowed Doc and Smoke to come into the hallway, with Smoke tossing his gas grenade into the middle of the hallway. Detonating it, the noxious smoke was so thick that it blocked view of the downed operator, just like a traditional smoke grenade.

        Doc unholstered his stim pistol, and fired the syringe into Tachanka’s back. Almost immediately, the Russian was violently awaken by the chemicals, and pushed back into the living room by Jäger.

        Smoke rushed through the gas cloud, his mask preventing any of the fumes from getting in his system, and emerged right in front of the remaining five stallions behind the corner of the hallway. His submachine gun roared to life, filling the stallions with 9mm ammunition. Taken by surprise, they fell one by one, with the last two standing as Smoke had his weapon empty by now. 

        The British operator, one who reveled in battle and quite possibly had the most questionable psychological profile of all the operators immediately engaged in close-quarters combat, drawing his knife and punching one stallion in the face. The pony dropped his rifle as he recoiled and dropped to the floor as Smoke sliced his throat with his blade. The other stallion aimed his rifle, and tried to fire, but Smoke grabbed the barrel of the AK-74, and pushed it against the wall. 

        Bullets ran alongside the hallway as the stallion let go of the gun after exhausting his magazine, and headbutted Smoke.

        Smoke purposely fell flat on the ground, knowing what was behind him. Right as Smoke was out of the way, Castle blasted the last stallion inside the castle with buckshot, throwing him back against the wall and killing him instantly.

        “We’re not out of the woods, yet! We got snipers-” Castle was cut off as a window he hadn’t put a tactical panel on blasted open from a bullet coming from outside, “Fuck!”

        Then, Doc got an idea.

        “The stallion that had the rocket launcher!” Doc rushed over, and took the launcher from the stallion. Examining it, the launcher was still able to be operated. The French operator was thankful of American construction that wasn’t cheap for once.

“Smoke! Get a drone to locate the enemy! Castle, get the crowbar! Meet me at the windows in the living room!” Doc took the launcher, and scavenged the body to find that he had two more rockets. Only one would be needed. 

“Roger that!” Smoke knew immediately what Doc planned to do, “Jäger! Get our hostages out of the backblast zone!”

“On it!” Jäger rushed into the living room. Upon entering, he found that the panels that had been placed over the windows of the hostage room had a few bulges in them. The snipers had been taking shots.

“That’s not a good idea! I think the sniper has their eyes at these windows!” Jäger pointed out.

“The third floor turret! Upstairs!” Doc motioned for Castle to come up with him. On the third floor, Castle had also barricaded the windows of the turret in case they had to further fall back from the living room.

Smoke drove the drone outside, and began looking up at the various houses. The night vision aided in him locating two ponies on up on the roof of a house, with very noticeable scoped rifles in their hooves.

“Marking.” Smoke painted two digital dots on the ponies. The HUD came online, and Doc took the rocket launcher. He aimed directly at the window panel that was supposed to be facing the east side, where the snipers were. He lined up the iron sights with exactly where the dots were located, ensuring that when he fired, the rocket would find its mark.

“Count of three. One, two, three!” Castle wrenched the armored panel off the window with his crowbar.

The ponies with the sniper rifles noticed light emerge from the turret, and aimed their rifles up. Unfortunately for them, Doc and the SMAW had already known where their targets were.

The entire room and its debris from before “whooshed” into the air as the backblast shot backwards. The rocket flew out, and almost immediately found its destination. The snipers never knew what was coming as the entire roof of the house was blasted into pieces, along with them. Roof tiles fell from the sky, and Doc could swear that he saw a wing come down too. One of them must have been a pegasus.

Doc dropped the rocket launcher on the floor and nodded to Castle.

“This is Castle. We’re seeing no more enemy activity. We can prepare for extraction now.” he radioed in after a few minutes of the operators casing out the town with their drones.

Clark breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He knew that even after this, Rainbow Team’s job would be far from over.

> Departure
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Twilight brushed her head against something soft. She felt like she was wrapped in a bed, but it wasn’t her own. It felt smaller, and more restricted. The ambient noise of some ponies walking around her then broke the illusion of her being back at home. She had opened her eyes to find that she was indeed, resting on a hospital bed. The Ponyville Community Hospital was tiny compared to the one in Canterlot, but that was because not many ponies got seriously injured, despite the strange and dangerous occurrences that often happened around town.

        The ponies that were walking around were speaking in muffled voices, but most likely from the fact that Twilight still hadn’t had her senses fully adjusted.

        “The Princess is waking up.” the familiar voice of Nurse Redheart came from Twilight’s left as she trotted over and looked over her.

        “She seems to be okay.” the nurse smiled and nodded to a group of ponies waiting in the doorway, “You all can come in, but take it easy. She’s still a bit tired from what happened earlier.”

        Twilight felt all of the happiness in her life return when she saw her five friends walk into her room.

        “Guys…” she looked up, a tear forming in her eye.

        “Hush now, Sugercube. It’s all over now.” Applejack patted her mane, “You’re a real tough pony for overcoming all of that.”

        “I’m glad that you’re okay now. All of that must have been horrifying…” Fluttershy brushed her mane to the side of her face.

        “I’m not sure if I’m really the brave one here. Those humans were the true heroes of the day, rescuing Spike and Starlight-” Suddenly, Twilight nearly bolted up, “W-Where are they?! Are they okay?”

        “Yeah! They’re in the next few rooms! We stopped by yours first before we saw them!” Pinkie Pie smiled and leaned on her bed, “I gotta throw a ‘Welcome Back Twilight, Spike, and Starlight’ Party! Or… is that name a bit too long?”

        Rainbow Dash chuckled, “Leave it up to Pinkie to throw a party now. Honestly, I think it’s what we kind of need after all that happened…”

        Twilight then looked back at the group of friends that were before her.

        “Where did the humans go?”

        “From what I last heard, Celestia and Luna were talking to them before they were going to return home, as well as taking that prisoner with them.” Rarity spoke up, trotting around to Twilight’s other side, “Honestly, I hope a pony like him would never show his face in Equestria again.”

        “But what do ya’ll think those humans are gonna do with him?” Applejack rose an eyebrow in thought.

        “Maybe it’s best if we don’t really pay much mind to it. I’m very certain that those humans will just transfer him back to a prison here. They seem to work on the side of the law, and with these ‘terrorists’, as they call them, they must believe that they deserve process of the law.” Twilight replied back.

“Ugh… why did this conversation become so booooring? Twilight, Spike, and Starlight are fine!” Rainbow Dash hugged her friend around her shoulders, being sure not to disturb her bandaged injury.

“Awh… you guys…”

“Specially cautious group hug!” Pinkie gleefully called as her friends enveloped Twilight around her shoulder area.





“Move it along, buddy.” Tachanka nudged Rocky along back towards the open portal that lead back to Russia. As he did, Rocky once in awhile squirmed in Tachanka’s grip.

“You really think you’ve done anything good here?! The White Masks will only come in greater numbers and help achieve my image of a male-ruled Equestria!” Rocky spat back.

The Canterlot Royal Guards that were lined up in salute to the departing Rainbow Team members never changed their stoic and stern faces as they walked past them.

“Look at all of you! You are nothing more than bitches for Celestia! Bitches!” Rocky was about to say more, but Tachanka shoved him forward and gripped the back of his mane.

“You think these soldiers are bitches for their leader? Fucker, I shot up your little buddies. I saw their arms and legs blow off as I mowed them down. You want to know what a bitch is, I will make you my, and the rest of this team’s, bitch!” Tachanka roughly muttered into Rocky’s ear as he kept him moving along.

Doc had recently finished up by telling Celestia that Starlight and Spike had no substantial injuries, and Twilight would be making a full recovery. However, Starlight would need a minor blood donation since drawing her blood for Twilight left her pretty “drained”. On the other hand, Luna had to be told about the whole situation from Castle, and with each word and description he made, she seemed to be filled with more and more guilt.

“I should have been there. What kind of Princess isn’t even in her own country when this happens?” Luna looked down.

“You had duties, and you still came back despite them. That truly shows your loyalty to your country, and the citizens within it.” Castle patted her shoulder.

Then, Jäger came over, “Castle, it is time to get going now.” 

“In a minute, kid.”

Jäger then walked away, fuming a bit, “Kid… Twitch and IQ are younger than me.”

Castle chuckled a bit, and so did Luna.

“Well, I hope you all take care. Best of luck to all of you, and hopefully, nothing like this happens again.” Castle smiled and waved to the two Princesses as he took up his supplies and rejoined the rest of the crew.

Smoke was standing by the energy field that reconnected to Earth, and watched as each one of his team and Rocky enter in through the portal. He waved briefly to the ponies watching the humans disappear, then walked through the portal.

“Fucking horses…” he chuckled to himself as he walked through the portal.

When he arrived back there, as well as with the rest of the team, he was greeted by the tons of other familiar faces already there, applauding the defensive team when they stepped through.

Thatcher nodded to Tachanka, taking possession of Rocky as the other operators gave their congratulations to every one of each other, as all of the operators here in the compound played a vital part to the success of the hostage rescue.

Then, Clark looked back at Ding after he was done clapping, and ushered him to follow. 

They walked back into the portal that lead to Equestria, emerging behind the grassy hill like before.

Celestia quickly noticed the two approaching her.

“Oh, hello Clark and Ding. What brings you back so early?” Celestia asked.

Clark began to speak up, “Alright, we have possession of the terrorist that seemed to be leading the other stallions. However, we’ve run into a problem with returning him to you.”

Luna rose her brow, “A prisoner?”

Celestia nodded to her sister, “One of those stallions was apprehended by the Rainbow Team. But what seems to be the problem?”

“You see, we are going to have to destroy the portal that is in Russia currently, as we don't want these sorts of devices being discovered by anyone else on our world. It would only spell disaster for both of our universes if our governments found out about this technology. Wars would break out over it, and from the scale of what these portals have to offer, it might be our last war.” Ding sighed dreadfully, “And not in a good way.”

“So we are going to interrogate that stallion to see what he knows about the other portals, where they are located, and so we can go on a hunt for them. Hopefully, there won’t be too much. And since none of those stallions are reporting back after we have killed them, those White Masks would probably guess something terrible happens in your world, so they will probably cross it off of their list.” Clark noted.

        “But the problem is, since we are destroying the portals, we have no way of returning our captive to you. We can’t just bring him along if we clear out a portal, since we risk him dying in the process, or letting White Mask reinforcements show up.” Clark continued on with his reasoning.

        Then, Celestia and Luna smiled, “I think we have a solution to your problem.”

        “You do?” Ding asked, interested.

        “You see, we also have our own portal device in our world, but it is only activatable every thirty moons. Currently, we have connected to another alternate universe that looks similar to yours, and ours blended together, but Twilight would be able to take that frequency and modify it to find your world. We can even open up the portal at specific coordinates.”

        “Really. Wow. The wonders of ‘magic’, I guess.” Ding chuckled and looked at Clark, “So Mr. C, should we give them coordinates?”

        Clark then asked for a paper and pen, and was given a scroll and quill. He quickly scribbled down some numbers of degree, latitude and longitude, and handed them back to Celestia.

        “That’s our headquarters. I entrust that esteemed leaders like yourselves will not share this information with anyone else.” Clark spoke to Celestia and Luna.

        “Of course. For everything that you and your team have done for us, this is the least we could help you accomplish. Even then, you’re still giving us back our prisoner.” Celestia graciously smiled, “I hope you can at least not bloody him up too badly, even considering what he’s tried to set in motion…”

        “We follow guidelines.” Ding said, of all people.

        “Well, best of luck to both of you and your team. You are all such amazing beings for doing what none of us could.” Celestia nodded, a beaming smile on her face.

        Clark smiled back, “That’s why we exist.”

        The two counter-terrorists waved goodbye as they walked back to the portal.

        “Nice girls.” Clark chuckled at Ding.

        “Hey, if I were going to be the underdog of a civilisation, I wouldn’t mind being ruled by those two.” Ding laughed as well.

        The two friends shared a hearty laugh, one they haven’t had in a long time.





        Upon coming back, they found that the rest of the Rainbow Team had finished packing up in the various trucks they had arrived in, with Popov being the last one in the compound.

        “How did it go? Besides the hostage rescue?” the Russian asked.

        “Well, now we have to go on a hunt for the rest of those portals around the world. Need to destroy every one of them we can find, and hopefully, the White Masks will get the message.” Clark stretched himself.

        At this, Popov sighed with relief, “I’d never thought I would hear myself say this, but thank you. Thank you all so much for what you and your team are doing.”

        Ding cracked a little smile, “Funny coming from you of all people…”

        Then, Ding shook his head, “You know what? You’re okay. For a terrorist before, you might as well have helped save the world twice. I think that’s a pretty appropriate redemption.”

        “Nah, you still have to cure cancer.” Clark chuckled as the three men walked out of the compound.

        When they hopped into the truck where Thatcher was waiting inside, as well as Rocky in the back seat, Clark got into the passenger side, Popov at the driver seat, and Ding flanked Rocky in the back with Thatcher on his other side.

        “This is Thermite. All ready to go,” Thermite called, as he was ready to drive the attackers back.

        “Jäger here, good to go.” Jäger also noted, starting up his engine with the defensive operators.

        “This is Pulse. Let’s head home, everyone.” The preparations operators all nodded inside their truck.

        Then, Thatcher clicked the trigger on his detonator. The compound blasted apart as the C4 detonated, blasting the roof from the entire structure and vaporizing the contents inside. The bright explosion got the operators to shield their eyes as they turned away from the blast in their trucks and began to drive off.

        In Equestria, the Princesses watched the energy that the portal was sustaining flicker, then disappear all together.

        “Well… that portal is gone. I guess we should be working on ours now.” Luna noted.

        “We will wait until Twilight makes a full recovery before she gets to work.” Celestia nodded back.

        In Russia, Ding tapped the back of Popov’s shoulder.

        “Hey, Mr. Russian Spook. About those plane charters…”

        Popov sighed and at the same time, groaned.

> Interrogation 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        “This is going nowhere.” Bandit grumbled behind the see-through mirror as he looked at Rocky, who was sitting in the only chair in the poorly-lit room.

        “He’s a fanatic. Devoted. Zealous. Corrupted. He’s not going to cooperate until he’s rotting in a landfill.” Doc tapped a syringe in his hand, “Perhaps another dose is in order?”

        Bandit shook his head. If this pony wasn’t going to cooperate with Doc’s cocktail of “truth-serum”, then he didn’t know what else to do.

        “I’m getting tired of this fucker. I’m going to get my car battery and give him a jump-start he will never forget.” Bandit turned towards the door, looking back at the pony, “Things like that pony make me sick.”

        Then, the door opened before Bandit could exit. Standing in front of him was a very well-dressed elderly man who looked past Bandit.

        “The prisoner is in here?” the man asked.

        “What are you doing here, man? This area is restricted. In fact, this entire building is restricted.” Bandit narrowed his eyes through his balaclava. 

        “Rainbow Six had called me in. He knows me.” the man nodded.

        “Popov, is that you? What are you doing here?” Doc broke away from viewing the pony and walked up to the familiar Russian.

        “I was called in by Clark to help interrogate the prisoner here, considering my background.” Popov tightened his sleeve.

        “KGB. Fantastic. Only thing worse for interrogation would be the CIA.” Bandit shook his head.

        Popov chuckled a bit, “I’m afraid shocking him with your car battery wouldn’t have made him very reliable in anything he spilled.”

        Doc looked over at Bandit, “He wasn’t really going to go get it. This... ‘pony’ has been a frustrating one.”

        Popov then looked over the subject in question. Taking a deep stare at him through the one-way mirror. He looked over his physique, and the way he sat. He stared back at the mirror, as if he knew that he was being watched, and seemingly exactly where each human behind it stared back at him.
        
        “How long have you had him?” Popov questioned.

        “About a week by now. Nothing yet.” Doc replied.

        “Drugs? What about that?” Popov asked another question.

        “His physique and body seems to resist them pretty well. This thing is very sturdily built.” Bandit admitted, “Not to mention, with how much he spews on about his ‘male-lead vision’, I don’t think he’s in any place to betray those who nearly helped him make it come true.”

        “Funny. The White Masks would have just fucked him off after that.” Doc mentioned.

        “We could use that against him.” Popov noted, “These sorts of people, or in this case, ponies, the ones that are full of themselves and what they believe in should be slowly put into uncomfortable situations… you have to keep making them more and more surrounded by the opposition, and slowly make them become it.”

        “I don’t really follow.” Bandit popped his neck by tilting his head.

        “We should first try and tell him that he was abandoned, forgotten, all part of some scheme that would have turned out bad for him in the first place. Then, we make him a bit more uncomfortable. Get him a stable. A horse belongs in one. Saddle, bridle, bit, and maybe some saddle bags. He should get welcome to what we see in a horse.”

        “And if that fails?” Bandit asked Popov.

        “Ever heard of a sensory deprivation chamber?” Popov looked back at the German.

        “Plenty.” Doc nodded.

        “What is that?” Bandit asked.

        Popov began to explain what the chamber was, “A wonderful technology it is… it’s a pod that can surround your body in water, and more or less, intoxicate you so you can achieve what many people call a ‘perfect hibernation’. It’s often used for therapy, but I’ve heard that Japan had used one to interrogate a criminal, and the information they got was very accurate. And besides, even the KGB has used them in the past, and we were pretty successful.”

        Then, Popov spoke again, “Not to mention, the criminal in Japan was a foreigner detained abroad.”

        “Well, I’m sold on the pod, then.” Doc nodded, “But they cost a fortune to transport.”

        “That’s why we will start from the ground-up and use the pod as a last resort.” Popov looked back at the two men, “Shall we set forth the plan?”

        “Let’s try it.” Bandit nodded, “I’ll tell Jäger and Castle to construct a stable. They’ve been having a lot of free time lately.” 

        “Good. You…” Popov snapped his fingers, trying to figure out the French operator’s name.

        “Gustave. But call me Doc.” the medic patted his medic insignia on his shoulder.

        “Alright. Doc, I’ll be getting a chair, and fetch me a polygraph. I’m going to talk with the prisoner.”

        “Good luck, mon amie.” Doc nodded and watched outside of the mirror.

        “Spasibo.” Popov thanked him.





        “How does that make you feel?” Popov asked the subject in question. The pony only chuckled.

        “It feels good, because you simply don’t know what the White Masks are capable of. Right now, they are getting together to come right over here and slaughter you all like the shit you are…” the pony smiled.

        “I wouldn’t count on that. You obviously know the ‘deal’ they had with the Taliban? What about the one with with the IRA a while back?” Popov leaned back in his chair, “Well… they got the guns, ran with the money, and returned to shoot them all up.”

        The pony looked back at him, not at all convinced.

        “What about you? You get those hostages secure and you clear out that town you took them in, and what happens next? I’ll tell you, they will come in, kill you and your friends, then just spread over Equestria. No pony will rule, male or female. Only the White Masks will.” Popov kept talking.

        “You don’t know shit about them.” the pony grit his teeth.

        “I know more than you do, my friend.”

        “Stop calling me that! Fuck that word! Fuck everything that word stands for in Equestria!”

        Popov looked back up. It would appear that he had found a trigger.

        “Interesting… I hope you would tell me more, but I’d like to know your name first.”

        “My name is: Up your ass.”

        The polygraph scribbled its needle around, indicating the fib. Not that Popov would have needed that,

        “Alright, ‘ass’. Let’s start from square one again.” Popov smiled again. He had been doing this for the past five hours.

        Then, Doc came in with a glass of water for Popov.

        “Here.”

        “Thank you.”

        Popov’s noticeable adam’s apple bobbed as he downed the glass. The pony kept looking at the glass and the water as it disappeared down Popov’s throat. He could obviously tell that the pony was thirsty.

        “Would you like a glass?” Popov asked the pony.

        He didn’t respond.

        “Tell me your name, and I’ll fetch one for you.” Popov offered. Again, there was no response from the subject.

        “Silent treatment. Classic.” Popov nodded to Doc, who exited and still monitored the two behind the mirror.





        The stable had been finished, and painted pink for the extra measure.

        “Hello, we got something for you here.” Popov walked into the door where the stallion still was. He could easily tell that he was getting tired of seeing his aged face and hearing his thick accent.

        Then, the door opened, and a tiny stable was wheeled in, partially disassembled. Jäger and Castle screwed in the planks so it was fully assembled inside.

        “Seeing that you are a horse in our world, which are often utilized as old-fashioned transportation, or as a pack animal, we thought that you should feel a bit more comfortable as one. So, some of our wonderful soldiers here have built you a shelter.” Popov explained.

        “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m inside a room.” the pony clearly and too obviously voiced his discomfort.

        “It’s the thought that counts.” Popov smiled.

        At that moment, Rocky was about to object to the pink coat of paint on the stable, but kept his mouth shut.

        “Don’t be shy.” Popov ushered him towards the back.

        The pony didn’t move.

        Then, Popov pulled out his Makarov handgun, and pointed it at his head.

        “Get in.”

        Rocky slowly trudged on inside, and watched as Popov locked the door in place, his pistol trained on Rocky the whole time. Then, he turned away and exited the door.

        “Goodnight, friend.”

        Rocky exhaled heavily, trying so hard to keep his rage hidden inside of him. All of this was unbearable to him.

        He never revealed it, but he wanted to get out of the stable. Those humans probably didn’t know, but stables only existed for prostitutes back on Equestria, with how they were presented…

        And here was Rocky, of all ponies, inside one of them.





        He was getting tired of this. He lost count of the days already, because the Rainbow Team would put more things to add on top of the stable should he damage it in the slightest, even by carving days in the wood. However, they fitted him with a saddle, and placed a bridle in his mouth - lingerie! - all by gunpoint anyways.

        At this point, he would have prefered to have been waterboarded or beaten, something that he was sure these humans would do. He was called things such as “sick” and “demented” before, but to him, these humans deserved that title more than anything else.

        Rocky wasn’t even sure if this was an interrogation anymore. He kept having this nagging thought in the back of his head that they were just abusing him in the best ways they could…

        He was forced to wear make-up, and kept having this song played in his quarters, something called the “My Little Pony Theme Song”, over and over again. It was ear-grating, and for some reason, had voices that sounded eerily similar to the Elements of Harmony…

        That singing drove him insane. He wanted this to end. 

        Perhaps, a bit too much.

        “Hello, my buddy. Shoot… I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Popov asked as he sat down in front of the stable.

        “R-Rocky.”

        Instantly, Rocky looked up at Popov. The Russian easily knew spilled beans when he saw them, and the polygraph failed to detect a lie.

        “Well… we are off to a fantastic start, Rocky.”

        Rocky slunk backwards into the stable.

        “What’s the matter, Rocky? All of this too much for you-”

        “Fuck you! Fuck all of you! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Rocky crawled to the back of the stable, shivering, and having his voice muffled by the brittle in his mouth.

        Popov shook his head at the sight before him, and left.





        “It’s arrived?” Clark asked.

        “Yeah, the pod has been delivered this morning, and we’ve placed it in the second storage unit. We cleared it out, and currently, we got Bandit filling in the water. It should be ready for use in a few minutes.” Ding replied, putting his tablet away, “We should go get the prisoner. He really is a sight to see…”

        “Oh, I know.” Clark nodded as he walked down towards the lower levels of the compound. One of the cells, the largest one, held Rocky inside of it. He just kept staring down at the floor as the men observed him behind the mirror.

        “Wow, Popov. You’ve really done work.” Ding took a closer look.

        “I have. Recently, I managed to get ahold of who planned the mission. Shabir Assad. Wanted terrorist mastermind in the Middle East, ex-ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He was identified as one of those killed at the building in Afghanistan by two of your operators.” Popov went off.

        “That checks out. The photographs that Valkyrie and Blackbeard took confirm plans of invasion using the portals.” Clark scratched his chin, “What else?”

        “Tells us that most of the weapons were from the IRA. How he would know that beats me, but that could be a clue that he knows far too much for the White Mask’s own good.” Popov chuckled, “Think about it. All of this information would be useless to the ponies. But the White Masks never would have suspected that we would stop their plan in Equestria of all places, let alone, catch a stallion.”

        Clark nodded, “He must be filled with so much secrets. Oh, and the chamber has arrived. We were planning on using it now.”

        Popov turned around, “I have done a lot here to break him. He’s in a prime situation to be subjected to the sensory deprivation chamber. Maybe insert a bit of drugs into him afterwards, and we should be able to get what we need.”

        “Exactly. Let’s get him out right now.” Ding opened the door, and unlocked the front of the stable.

        “Alright, let’s get going, "Buttercup". We’re gonna take you somewhere where you can forget about all of this.” Ding took a rope that was attached the the brittle and tugged him along like some donkey.

        Rocky just kept having this blank stare in his face. He knew they were going to kill him now. To be honest, he was thankful for that.

        He was lead blindfolded through the headquarters for a fairly long time. He knew that others were watching him, seeing what he was wearing, seeing how he had been locked up.

        Then, he heard a door open, and he was brought inside. 

        They made him walk up to something. He couldn’t tell what it was, until his blindfold was removed. Before him was some sort of white pod, completely smooth to the touch.

        Then, Clark pressed a button, and the pod opened up to reveal water inside, with an eerie blue light making the water glow inside.

        “What is this?” Rocky asked, a slip of the tongue. 

        “You’re going to take a bath. This is how our bathtubs look like here.” Clark spoke up. Rocky hadn’t cleaned himself in a very long time, he must have figured.

        He had no other choice, anyways. He climbed in, and got affixed with a specially designed breath mask with a tube attached to it. So drowning him in it as an execution seemed to be out of the picture.

        When he climbed in, he noticed that the water was salty. He laid back, and the water encased him everywhere, except for his face.

        “Get clean.” Ding spoke as the door was lowered, trapping Rocky inside of the pod.

        In the initial closing of the pod, Rocky’s heartbeat began to accelerate, and thumping was heard on the inside of the pod.

        “He’s attempting to break out.” Doc noted, who was at the controls of the machine, “Beginning accelerated sleep.”

        Then, Rocky started to feel… elated. It was if all of what had happened earlier just seemed to disappear into an aether. The water felt… soothing. His breathing slowed down. The machine didn’t hum inside. The glow slowly died down in the interior, calming every muscle and putting his mind to rest...

        “He’s going to hibernate. We will give him two hours max, and we will bring him out.” Doc stated as he worked the controls on his tablet, “Wow, his dopamine is off the charts.”

        Rocky felt at ease through this.

        For once in a very long time, he felt good.





        “Alright, time’s up.”

        The pod’s door came open, and Rocky had his mask removed. He was brought out of the pod, and laid on a medical stretcher that was brought for him.

        “Alright, let’s get to work.” Doc injected him with all sorts of drugs, and shone a light over his face.

        Ding then spoke up to him.

        “Hey, Rocky! It’s me! Weights! Dude, it was incredible. The White Masks came in and killed all of those fucking humans!” Ding used the name of one of Rocky’s friends, another name that the pony had slipped out of his mouth.

        “Uhhhhnnn… Weights… you have to make sure the portals are okay… our dream is so close…”

        “Not anymore. I’m afraid that you are the only one that knows where they are now. The humans’ military has taken control of them, but they’re scattered and unorganised. We can strike back.” Ding kept talking.

        “Fuck… I feel so wasted…” Rocky mumbled.

        “Rocky, we need to know where those portals are. They hunted down the ones that knew, and you’re one of the very few left. The option to mount a counteroffensive is with your knowledge!”

        Then, Rocky moaned.

        “The one in Afghan was destroyed… Weights, you know this too…”

        “They knocked it out of me, those human bastards. I managed to escape. Come on, remember. For our dream of those Princesses to be thrown away like the trash they are.” 

        “Okay… there’s one in Canada aboard the abandoned luxury yacht in the icefields… there is also one being operated inside the basement of that meth house in Oregon... “

        Clarks’s tablet was recording, as well as the other operators.

        “Ugh… the one in Brazil… in that compound outside the west borders of the capitol…”

        Rocky had spilled the names of at least five portal locations.

        “Is there more? We have to know!” Ding asked again.

        “That’s all that I know… but I know a lot… heh…” Rocky laughed a bit at himself, and Ding gave the thumbs up to Doc, Clark, and Popov.

        Ding laughed as well, placing his hand on Rocky’s shoulder as he was showing signs of slowly regaining his senses.



“You’ve done Rainbow Team a good service, Rocky.”




> Hunt
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Stepping through the once running ship was ominous enough. 

        Knowing that the people that were supposed to be there were leaning against the wall, dead with bullet holes all over their lifeless bodies, only added to the discomfort the men in masks felt as they combed through the ship. They waded through the snow that had gotten on the floor of the abandoned yacht, scanning their surroundings with the flashlights mounted on their guns.

        It was currently pitch-black dark inside of the boat, which was off putting, considering that the other White Mask technicians had installed lighting along the walls. Those were off, too.

“Stay together. They should be down this hall.”

Then, one of the White Mask troopers stepped on a pile of snow, and instantly, the sound of metal clamps biting up and burrowing into his leg caused a shrill cry of pain in the darkness.

“Oh god! My leg!” he cried out, what looked to be a sort of bear trap-like device that had his foot clamped to a panel on the ground. When another White Mask went over to help him, he too stepped on a trap buried under the thin layer of snow inside the ship, clamping him in place too.

It was all of a sudden when a woman, holding an S-90 Shotgun burst from a pile of snow that had gathered in a corner of the hallway started to blast buckshot at the enemies, who were only roughly three to four meters away from the ambusher.

She dropped three of the eight White Masks, with the shotgun, and quickly retreated around the corner of the hallway’s end.

Three White Masks lay mutilated, two of which were the ones caught in the traps. As the other six started to pursue, the hallway wall behind them suddenly blasted apart, a man holding a C8-SFW rifle with an underbarrel mounted “Skeleton Key” shotgun emerged through the wall. Since it was frozen solid in the chilling temperature, the wall shattered into pieces as the shotgun attachment blasted into it.

He came out, and fired his rifle into the group’s backs, filling three more unlucky terrorists with precise fire. He quickly retreated again, leaving only two left.

One of the remaining White Masks immediately turned away from the bloodshed, running to escape his two assailants.

“Fuck! Fuck!” he shouted as he fled the scene, his other White Mask comrade behind him. They were running towards another doorway to escape the two assailants, but the one behind noticed far too late.

There was a subtle laser that was shining at the bottom of the door.

“No, no, no, no!” he reached out to stop the soldier in front of him, but for the White Masks, it was over . The one in front tripped the laser, causing a massive explosion to erupt from the right side of the door. The one in front was thrown like a ragdoll across the room after he got inside, over one hundred ball-bearings had been thrown into his body from the directional charge. 

For the one who was behind, he was thrown sideways and smashed his head against the wall. He nearly blacked out from the injury, and saw that the frozen and wooden door frame that was once there had embedded into his stomach as shrapnel, blood pouring from his coat and onto his hands.

A man in green camouflage, unlike the other two assailants in coats, walked out, leveled his VSN submachine gun to the White Mask’s head, and pulled the trigger.

Then, the woman, and two men came together.

“Damn, that was a true hunt.” Kapkan nodded to Frost, the woman operator, “I am glad to be of assistance to you both.”

Buck, the other man smiled, “Fuck, those White Masks are idiots. They should have known something was wrong when the snow got indoors. By the way, that was a smart idea to conceal your “welcome mats”, Frost.”

“Thanks. I learn from the best.” Frost patted Kapkan’s shoulder, “Isn’t your guys’ Stealth Hawk picking us up?”

“Yes, it should be arriving soon. Let’s get out and scan the perimeter, now.” Kapkan took his SMG and motioned for the Canadians to follow.

When the got to the top, their night vision goggles clearly lit up around them. The gigantic white behemoths of icebergs were certainly intimidating to look at, but they focused more on the surrounding water below them.

“Clear on my side.” Buck called out.

“Same here.” Kapkan sounded off.

“Looks good here.” Frost nodded.

Then, the Stealth Hawk radioed in.

“This is Jackal-1, we have affirmative confirmation on your strobes. We are beginning our approach to the LZ, over.” the pilot of the helo called out over the radio.

“Roger that, Jackal-1, we have the LZ secure, and the objective has been neutralised.” Frost radioed back.

By neutralised, they meant dumped over the side of the boat, strapped with C4, and blasted to the bottom of the sea.

Then, Kapkan narrowed his eyes.

“Binoculars. Now.”

Kapkan was handed the pair from Buck, and placed it to his IRNV goggles. Looking through, he saw two faint lights approaching the ship from the east, and through the binoculars, there were two boats, both with some sort of small floodlight on them. They were approaching fast.

“Are we expecting any small boats by any chance?” Buck radioed in.

“Not that I’m aware of. We’ll be deploying a Raven drone to check it out.” the Stealth Hawk pilot called back, “Vega, get that drone out.”

The door gunner of the helicopter got off of his weapon, took the drone that was currently folded in a case, unfolded it, and threw it out the holding doors.

“UAV deployed.” Vega spoke as the drone began to travel towards the incoming boats. The helicopter didn’t want to risk a search-light identification by flying lower towards the boats, because the Stealth Hawk wasn’t meant to take direct fire from quite possibly 50. Cal machine guns that could be on the boats.

The drone approached, and through its night vision camera, relayed information to Vega’s tablet. The distinct white masks of the passengers confirmed the hostility of the boat.

“Be advised, two hostile watercraft confirmed, estimated eight soldiers on each.” Vega radioed in.

“Fuck… we can’t fight that off…” Buck swore.

Then, the helicopter pilot began to speak again.

“This is Jackel-1, we are fully loaded and ready to engage any hostiles.” the pilot gave the announcement after Vega flashed him the thumbs up, indicating that his M134 Minigun was spooled up and ready to fire.

“Roger that, Jackel-1. We got a plan. Get that helo behind an iceberg, and we will start to fire at the enemy at the top of the ship. Once we do, you are cleared to engage the hostiles.” Kapkan and his team were already repositioning.

“Copy that, changing position.”

The Stealth Hawk moved away and flew over towards an iceberg, putting it in between the enemy boats and the helicopter.

The floodlights from the boats shone onto the ship, and the operators all fired their guns. As they fired back at the boats, the incoming bullets would draw the attention of the White Masks to them instead of what lurked behind the iceberg.

The loud noises of the boats’ motors drowned out the dampened sounds of the Stealth Hawk’s rotors.

“Jackel-1, you are clear to engage!” Frost gave the order.

The helicopter immediately moved out behind the iceberg, and started in a menacing beeline towards the small aluminum boats. The White Masks had no idea what was hurtling above them in the darkness.

Vega lined up the IR laser mounted on the Minigun straight onto the lead boat, the green beam following the boat’s every movement. Then, he held down the trigger. The Minigun’s six barrels immediately spun up and started to spit out 7.62 mm tracer ammunition at an astonishing 100 bullets every second, completely decimating the first boat in a three second burst, crumpling the aluminum like paper, and blasting the gastank of the motor in a fiery display.

From the boat, it looked like a tail made of fire had sprouted from the helicopter and just caused one of the boats to vanish, replacing it with a fireball. The occupants on the other boat heard the roar of the Minigun, and immediately turned their boat to try and avoid the inevitable second burst. 

Vega simply aligned the laser ahead of the boat, and pressed the two buttons down, sending forth another decimating hail of bullets, letting the White Masks simply run into the maelstrom of lead that rained from above. At once, the boat split apart into two, now seeing that it had been made of grey-painted wood. The splinters caught fire from the tracers, and the Minigun stopped firing, the incessant buzzing noise ceasing.

Vega smiled at the turreted gun, and patted it, “Damn... screw the M60, I’m sticking with this one now.”





        “Breach!” 

        The wall was smashed down by Sledge’s hammer, with Montagne at the lead of the pack, his shield fully extended over his legs, top, and sides as Ash entered from behind him. She fired her rifle once, taking out the White Mask on her side as Sledge shot down the one of his left.

        “Clear!” Montagne called out as he moved into the hallway, a hail of gunfire pelting against his shield. He quickly retreated back in the room.

        “Fuck! We’re pinned down!” Sledge cursed.

        “No we’re not!” Ash took her specialised M120 CREM, or Compact Rifle Entry Munition breaching grenade, and slid in a fresh round into the launcher. She immediately held it up and aimed at the wall that would take them away from the hallway. 

        She fired the launcher, and the grenade stuck into the wall. A brief second was given for it to drill itself in, and blast the wall apart.

        “This way!” Ash motioned for the operators to hurry through the opened wall away from the killing zone in the hallway. Upon doing this, they entered into a shower room, and proceeded to flank their way through the many rooms of the meth house. Coming around behind the riflemen in the hallway, they shot them down onto the floor.

        Then, they approached the second floor of the building. Seeing a camera mounted on the wall light up, Sledge immediately shot the device.

        “They know we’re going up this way.” Sledge shook his head, “Other way around. Glaz, what do you see out there?” 

        The sniper called over the radio, “I see two on the second floor, both aiming where you once were. Still an unknown amount more.”

        “Roger, we’re flanking again.” Montagne spoke again.

        “Marking enemies with the drones.” Rook called out as he was currently operating the drones that were inside the building with his controller, planting red dots all over the second story.

        The team came around to the second staircase, and stopped at the base.

        “Sledge, you stay with me. Ash, get outside and breach from the east windows. Glaz, sniper support on the west. And Rook, don’t stop marking those enemies.” Montagne ordered.

        “On it.” Ash quickly exited out of the building while the other two operators acknowledged as well.

        Once Ash rapelled up to the balcony of the second floor, she got her grenade launcher ready with another breaching round.

        “Ready!”

        “Drones are marking!”

        “I have eyes!”

        Montagne looked back at Sledge.

        “Breach!” 

        Sledge knocked the door straight off its hinges with his sledgehammer, allowing Montagne to proceed, and Ash had blasted the window open with her breaching round. 

        The red dots showed every enemy’s location.

        Their gunsights tracked the dots as they slowly moved around the corner, putting a shot into the White Mask’s chests and heads when they rounded each bend, clearing out the second floor in amazing time.

        Glaz blasted one’s head into a bloody pulp through the poorly maintained wooden wall of the house with his sniper rifle, and shot another one in the neck as he was moving away from the other three operators wreaking havoc in the house.

        “Clear!”

        “Clear!”

        Sledge and Ash called out at the same time as they rounded a corner, and met guns.

        The operators wasted no time running down to the basement where the only location for the portal’s whereabouts were left.

        Sure enough, it was barricaded up through a hallway.

        Montagne didn’t have to say anything, and neither did Sledge. Ash had her launcher ready, and she fired. The wooden barricade was reduced to splinters as Montagne’s extendable shield deployed its armored panels to fully protect him and whoever was behind. Gunfire erupted from the end of the hallway, but was quickly silenced by a frag grenade thrown by Sledge.

        The mangled screams of the White Masks caught in the storm of shrapnel died as fast as they were shouted from the messy explosion.

        “Clear!”

        A quick sweep of the room showed no more signs of hostiles.

        Then, they turned into a room, and the portal was right there. Cables were all over it, and the design of the archway looked similar to the photos in Afghanistan. 

        “We found the objective- ARGH!” Ash fell down as she turned to her left, and a White Mask that had emerged from a tunnel in the back of the basement fired a shotgun at her straight in the chest, and turned immediately to flee.

        “Ash has been hit! Hostile is fleeing!” Sledge bent over Ash and started to remove her top clothing to see if her armor could have possibly saved her.

        When the White Mask emerged outside, he was blasted in the back of the head by Glaz’s OTS-03 sniper rifle.

        “Not a chance.” Glaz let go of his exhale once his target dropped like a rock.

        As the operators looked over Ash, she suddenly held up her arm, and pushed away Sledge. She took out what was one of Rook’s R1N armor plates, filled to the center’s brim with buckshot, and dropped it on the floor.

        “Fuck… remind me to trust the French when he makes my armor.” Ash chuckled and was helped to her feet by Montagne.

        The portal lay in front of them, ready to be destroyed.

        Only there was one thing.

        “Fuck. We don’t have C4, and I’m out of breaching explosives.” Ash shook her head.

        “We got nothing out here.” Glaz radioed in, with Rook also shaking his head.

        “Sledge, you got another grenade left?”

        Sledge didn’t respond. He stared at the portal under his gas mask, the SAS taking his sledgehammer in his hand.

        “Is he…?” Ash asked.

        “He is. Back away.” Montagne backed up along with Ash.

        Parts of the portal were thrown everywhere as Sledge went to town on the contraption, never taking a single break in decimating the portal with his hammer. Swing after swing, and the portal just seemed to chunk apart all over the place, pieces thrown clear across the room.

        “Jesus fucking Christ…” Ash stared in awe at the sheer destruction a human with a hammer was able to inflict.





        “Oh… how funny. I was just about to ask if you could help. But…”

        Twilight giggled at Celestia, “Of course I’d help. We got to get back in contact with those guys. And it shouldn’t be too challenging. I can alter the frequency rather easily to match their world’s, modify the machine to enter in even more precise coordinates, and amplify the power to allow nearly limitless beings to travel between worlds.”

        “And the best part, we’d get to control it.” Twilight found herself giddy with joy after making her recovery, thanks to the sped-up healing from unicorn magic.

        “Isn’t science and magic amazing?!” Twilight beamed to her former mentor, earning a laugh from her too.

        “Alright, let’s get to work on this portal.” Celestia placed her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, “Together.”
	
	
	

> Closing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        It had now been a month after the two assaults that were made against the abandoned yacht in Canada and the meth house in Oregon. Both had been successful in dispatching the terrorists located at the sites, and in destroying the portals that had been built.

        Soon afterwards, the Rainbow Team had sent their numerous operators to the other locations. One in Brazil, another in China, and another one located in the state of  Wyoming. Every time they had arrived, the supposed structure that had been snapped photos of by satellites or drones had been burned to the ground, and sifting through the rubble by the operators had found charred and destroyed pieces of metal, very similar in shape and composition of the gateways constructed by the White Masks.

        To Clark, it seemed that the White Masks suddenly realised that they were being hunted from both the world that they had made contact with, and the world where they originated. They must have feared either more of their scientists could have been captured and interrogated, revealing the other portals, or another military force stumbling upon them, revealing the technology to the numerous governments of Earth.

        To the White Masks, they feared that the countries could do far more destruction than they could over gaining the power of access to an alternate dimension, leaving no Earth to cause chaos in and no world they could flee to. In that point, they had to have abandoned the project, and destroyed any remaining portals to keep the secrecy of the operation.

        The terrorists would either let themselves be hunted down due to a pony that had been captured, or risk spilling this secret to the government. Neither option was good, so they decided to abandon the whole project.

        This theory that Clark made was still a long ways off from being proven, but from the almost half-monthly attacks that the White Masks enacted, the past month and a half showed nothing happening in their name.

        Rocky was still being held in his cell inside of the Rainbow’s headquarters, him now being freed from additional interrogation. He offered to tell everything he knew, as long as they would keep him safe from the White Masks. Apparently, the torment had turned him from a ruthless and unrelenting fanatic to a pony, scared for his life.

        From the things he told: future attacks, how the White Masks said they would help him and his stallions achieve his vision, and even how they managed to get the stallions out of prison. Apparently, they had actually been imprisoned for rather low-end crimes. Burglary, fights, and public disturbances. They had their bails paid by an unknown source, and were told to eventually meet at a certain spot in the Everfree Forest. Once there, a human emerged, and offered a new life and a new country, under their ideals.

        Once they had agreed, the White Masks learned of what the stallions wanted. Collectively, they wanted a male-led civilisation, with females being at the bottom of the barrel. After this, Rocky explained that the terrorists “riled them up”, exposing them to drugs, weapons training, and exercises.

        They supplied them with the guns, and went into hiding, with the human terrorists still committing their attacks to draw attention away from a possible cross-world plot.

        Then, they were transported to all sorts of different locations, the White Masks disguising them as small horses, since they only chose stallions with a believable coat color. Rocky’s had been brown.

        They were transported, and then prepared for the assault once the portals were ready.

        When Popov questioned how the old and nearly forgotten program of the portals had been discovered by the White Masks, Rocky said he didn’t have the answer to that. The polygraph had agreed with him, detecting no lies.

        “Well, it was good to talk to you, Rocky.” Popov nodded with Clark sitting next to him.

        “Okay.” Rocky could only muster up.

        They left, and then began speaking to each other.

        “That really worries me. That intelligence is still out there about the portals, and someone’s going to screw with it again.” Popov shook his head, “My country should have destroyed those records the first chance they got.”

        Clark nodded, “Some things will slip by. And thankfully, nothing on the internet exists about those machines. You’ve done a lot of good work keeping people silent about it in your KGB times.”

        Popov chuckled, “I am a mixed bag. I am nearly responsible for destroying civilisation, but I’ve helped in saving the world twice. To be honest, that doesn’t excuse for what I’ve done.”

        Rainbow Six nodded, “It really would have been something horrible that you nearly did. Thank god you went back on your actions, or those ecoterrorists sixteen years ago would have actually succeeded in their biological attack. Now, you’ve saved the world from two things: unstoppable terrorism from another world as a staging base, and quite possibly World War 3, had any of these countries found out about the portals.”

        “Well, I guess we wait for those ponies to finish up modifying their own portal.” Clark looked back at Popov.

        “You really think they’re trustworthy with that kind of technology? For our sake?” Popov asked back.

        “You’ve really only seen the bad of them, as far as I know. I’ve seen the good, too. Their leaders, Celestia and Luna are the actual fairy-tale kind-hearted leaders that you’d want making the most important decisions. This time… we needed to take control for a couple of days.”

        The men continued to walk down the hallway, discussing more topics that eventually strayed from the ponies, and back to the White Mask’s possible plans in the future.





        “Alright, test number twenty seven.”

        Twilight pulled the lever, and the portal suddenly hummed to life once again. The brilliant multi-colored energy formed from around the arch, drawing to the center of the mirror. The whining of the machine’s restored power echoed through Canterlot as the twenty-seventh attempt to connect with the Rainbow Team was made.

        However, there was a reason they hadn’t succeeded on the first try.

        Once the portal connected the bridge to both worlds, a massive plume of water erupted from the portal, blasting all over the floor of the testing room. Twilight was knocked clean off her hooves as the torrent of ocean water swept her away, but not before she quickly pulled the lever in the opposite direction, cutting off the portal’s power.

        “Gah!” she yelped as the water smashed into her. Immediately, Celestia went over to her side and asked if she was alright.

“Y-Yeah… I’m fine. Heh… guess I gotta work on those coordinates again! The machine’s pretty stubborn with how precisely it can lock on.” Twilight chuckled, and she looked over towards a fish flopping in the middle of the mess.

“Oh, let me get that.” Twilight's horn lit up, and all of the water suddenly reformed off of the floor and into a massive sphere of water above her head, with the fish swimming inside of it.

“I think it will do okay in the aquarium. Let me take care of that.” Celestia smiled as she took the sphere of water and teleported off.

“Well… let’s try again. I’ve managed to actually get on the right world, but I just have to find the right location…”

She tried again, but only found herself in some sort of dark tunnel. The air inside seemed to feel extremely cold, but something else was coming into view.

Two lights, both incredibly bright, and rapidly approaching. Twilight had no clue what it was until a horn blared from the incoming object. Painted yellow and white and traveling at an incredible speed was what looked to be the front of a train.        Immediately, once again, she closed the portal down, breathing heavily.

“Phew… okay, looks like I need to readjust the mirror for the coordinates again.”

Celestia teleported back, and walked back over to Twilight.

“Any progress?” she asked.

“Plenty, but I think this should finally do it.” Twilight turned around, “And don’t say that I said so the last ten times! ...Your majesty.”

Celestia chuckled at the red-faced Twilight, and patted her shoulder, “Let’s try again.”

The mirror lit up for the twenty-ninth time, and the glow filled the room.





        Clark and Popov were just about to enter into Clark’s office, when a massive swirling vortex of yellow, pink, and blue magic formed right in front of the doorway, just as Clark was about to unlock the door and enter.

        “What the-” Popov stepped away from the energy, nearly putting his hand on his Makarov.

        Clark looked at the portal, and suddenly, a figure was seen on the other side. Two, to be precise, with one being shorter and sporting a lavender color, while the other was as white as snow, and much taller.

        Then, they heard a voice as the image cleared up.

        “Clark!” Celestia suddenly smiled and stamped her hoof with joy.

        “Celestia?!” Clark couldn’t believe his eyes, and neither could Popov.

        “You… got your portal working.” Popov pointed at them, a bit stupefied and stating the obvious.

        “Yeah, it took a couple of months, but we never gave up until we got to you!” Twilight gleefully explained, overcome with joy at a successful result, “So… how are you all doing?”

        Celestia giggled again at her former student’s behavior, “How has the stallion been doing?”

        “Well, we’ve gotten a lot out of him. He’s been a great asset, even if we had to play a little dress-up to do so. Do not worry, we haven’t harmed him physically…” Popov nodded back, “And maybe not too much mentally.”

        Celestia’s eyebrow raised, “Well, I’ll be the judge of that. Shall we take this stallion back now?”

        “Of course. The hallway is a bit confined, though.” Clark looked back.

        “Don’t worry! Since I’ve homed in on your location, I can direct the portal to another room.” Twilight explained.

        “Try the planning room. It’s literally right below on the third floor.” Clark suggested.

        “Got it.” the portal vanished, and the two went to get their prisoner.

        “Thatcher, this is Clark. Get all the operators here in the meeting room.” Clark radioed in.





        Rocky was brought into the wide room; the tables and chairs had been moved aside. He was being escorted by Ash, and was brought up to the portal where a squad of Royal Guards awaited.

        “He’s all yours.” Ash let him walk through the portal, and Rocky was immediately whisked away by the guards.

        Twenty-seven humans stood in the meeting room, four people in five groups, two in two more groups, six of them a different nationality, and Popov, Clark, and Ding stood in front of them all.

        When Celestia looked over all of the operators, she whistled in awe.

        “What a sight…”

        Then, she did something that gave a little surprise to the operators, and the three other men.

        “I invite all of you to join me inside Canterlot Castle. I would like to thank all of these courageous individuals for the heroism they have presented not only to your own world, but especially to ours.” Celestia graciously offered.

        Clark was taken aback. From the beginning, Rainbow Team operated as a “blacker than black” organisation. Only a few souls knew of their existence, and as such, they were hardly ever directly congratulated for anything.

        Then, Clark looked back to all of the operators, who were all awaiting Rainbow Six’s response.

        Clark turned back to Celestia.

        “I think that would be great. It’s time that we got ourselves a celebration for all the work each and every one of you have done.” Clark smiled, a rare sight for the other operators.

        All the operators either smiled, nodded, or shouted their enthusiasm. 

        “And don’t worry. We’ve amplified the power so all of you can cross over.” Twilight beamed at the humans.


“Alright, Rainbow Team. And Popov. Let’s go.”






        Not one operator could stop gawking at how high they were up. It was literally a castle built onto the side of an enormous mountain. The architecture seemed hundreds of years advanced for this feat to be accomplished. 

        “Oh my god. I would give up my entire life savings to come back here.” IQ stared at the massive view.

        “I wish I brought my easel. I have to paint.” Glaz looked at the marble sculptures that were around the castle.

        “Beats the outpost I live in…” Buck whistled as he once again, looked out over the mountain.

        Clark was currently speaking to Celestia and Luna.

        “This is all amazing. Every ounce of it. How did you manage to get this done?” Clark asked Celestia and Luna.

        They both replied at the same time, “Magic.”

        All three shared a laugh as the team followed close behind, each of them either chatting amongst themselves, or bombarding Twilight with questions.

        Oddly enough, Tachanka asked the most, and were very specific.

        “Your guards only use spears and shields around here?” Tachanka asked.

        “Well, I don’t know too much about that, but the armory does have crossbows and swords. They end up going around with spears when they are on guard duty.” she answered to the best of her abilities.

        “Come on ‘Tach’, give her a break. Soon, you’ll ask if she’s single they way you keep pressing yapping with her.” Ash chuckled at the Russian.

        “Let him talk if he wants to. Twilight seems to be having a good time.” Mute patted Tachanka’s shoulder.

        “Funny coming from you of all people.” Rook chuckled from the side.

        “Yeah, if you have any questions, just let me know! I love sharing trivia with any of you!” Twilight giggled and kept walking alongside the operators.

        “So… about this place called ‘Saddle Arabia’...” Blackbeard, the ex-Navy Seal spoke up.

        Then, Celestia turned around to face the entire group.

        “Alright, I’d like to treat you to a royal dinner. My treat. I’m sure that you’ll love our selection of- yes?” Celestia pointed to a hand that was raised from Sledge.

        “Do you eat meat?” Sledge asked.

        Celestia’s smile dropped, “Oh, you’re omnivores. Well… uh…” 

        Then, Castle rose his hand, “You got a bar? We already ate pretty recently, and we’d love to try what kind of drinks you got here.”

        “Oh, we don’t have a bar in Canterlot. The only tavern had recently burned down from an accidental fire.” Celestia rubbed the back of her head.

        Then, Twilight walked up.

        “Actually… I think I might know a place.”





        “Flying in a horse-drawn carriage, in mid-air? How is this not a damn dream?” Ash chuckled as she kicked her legs up inside.

        “How do they even do this…?” Thermite looked out the window at the pegasus guards that were pulling the carriage through the air.

        Inside another carriage, Bandit had the window open and was sticking his head out.

        “Holy shit guys! This is fucking crazy!” he said, looking down at the moving ground.

        “You’re telling me. This is amazing.” Blitz looked out of his own window.

        The carriages soon found their way heading over towards a barn, surrounded by acres of apple trees.

        “A barn? What is this, Iowa?” Castle chuckled, ignoring Ash’s remark about her just being there.

        “Huh. Reminds me of my parent’s farm. Glad I got out of there.” Twitch chuckled as the carriages dropped down and came to a stop.

        When the operators exited, Frost took an apple from a tree, and quickly took a bite out of it, earning a glance from Thatcher.

        “What? There’s millions of them here. And oh my god, this is probably the best thing I’ve ever had.” Frost chuckled as she took another bite.

        When the group of humans walked up to the barn, it was currently closed. Twilight and Celestia were standing back, each of them with a smile on their faces.

        Clark looked back at them, then looked at the barn doors. He walked up, and opened them up-

        “SURPRISE!” 

        Clark stumbled backwards, and was caught by Ding before he fell on his ass. The other operators either had their eyes widen for a sec, jump back, or laughing and saying “You have to be kidding me”.

        Inside, were Twilight’s six other friends, and Spike, each of them holding up a banner proudly saying “Rainbow Team Welcome to Equestria and Saving Twilight, Starlight, and Spik-”.

        “We ran out of space.” Pinkie nervously smiled, “But this is your Rainbow-Team-Welcome-to-Equestria-and -Saving-Twilight,-Starlight-and-Spike-and-Looking-Cool-While-Doing-It-Party!”

        Rainbow Dash smiled and rolled her eyes, “Just saying, we could have kept it simple at ‘Rainbow Team Party’.”

        Then, the operators noticed kegs on their sides with spigots in them. Next to them were wooden mugs.

        “Is that… rum?” Thatcher asked.

        “Not really, Sugercube. That’s Apple Family Cider. And ah’ guarantee that it’ll be the best thing you’ll ever drink.” Applejack proudly stated.

        Then, Glaz stepped forward.

        “I’ll see about that.”

        He filled the mug one-quarter full, swished the liquid inside a bit, smelled it, looked down into the cup-

        “Oh my god, just drink it!” Valkyrie threw up her arms.

        Glaz took a sip of the cider.

        He took another sip to be sure.

        He swallowed what was left.

        He filled up the mug half-way, and chugged down the rest of the cider.

        “So… how is it?” Ding chuckled.

        Glaz turned back to the team, “This is the best thing I have ever drank.”





        The party had kicked off a good fifteen minutes ago, and already, the operators were all doing various things, grouping up together, and conversing with Twilight, Celestia, Luna, and all of her friends.

        “Are you kidding me, I love animals. I have two dogs and a cat back at home.” Montagne looked at Fluttershy’s bunny, Angel.

        “Awh… they must really be so happy to live with you. And what about you, Angel? Are you going to say hi as well?” Fluttershy smiled down at her rabot, who held up one of his individual paws.

        “I’ve been drinking a lot. That bunny just flipped us the bird.” Twitch pointed at the rabbit.

        “The bird?” Fluttershy rose her brow.

        Meanwhile, there was chanting and cheering going on as Valkyrie and Tachanka were arm-wrestling each other. Rainbow Dash was at the head of the chanting, pumping her hooves in the air.

        Suddenly, Valkyrie slammed Tachanka’s arm down on the table, and suddenly got up from the seat.

        “Yeah, that’s right! Beaten by a bitch! Fucking suck it!” Valkyrie looked around, “Who’s next?!”

        Then, Rainbow Dash got on the opposing seat.

        “Bring it on, sister.” she cockily smiled.

        “Oh, well, if you insist.” Valkyrie chuckled and wrapped her fingers around Dash’s hoof, “I’ll go easy on you the first round-”

        Thump

        Rainbow Dash had slapped her arm down against itself, taking the victory.

        “Oh boy, you shouldn’t have done that.” Pulse pursed his lips as Valkyrie rolled up her sleeve.

        “Alright. Got me while my guard was down. Ain’t gonna happen again.”

        As the two arm-wrestled, Applejack chuckled as the other Russians: Glaz, Fuze, and Kapkan kept downing the cider, as well as the other Americans: Thermite, Ash, and Castle.

        “Wow, you must really like my family’s cider. Hey, when ya’ll head back home, take a keg or two. On the house… er… barn.” Applejack nodded to them.

        “Really? My god, that would be awesome!” Ash finished another mug and quickly poured herself another one.

        “Hey, don’t get too fucked up!” Thatcher called from the table where he was sitting with Clark, Ding, and Popov.

        “Let them have some fun. We deserve it. Right, Mr. C?” Ding patted Clark’s shoulder.

        “Yeah. Hey, I’ll get you guys some more drinks.” Clark was about to get up, then Popov stopped him.

        “Let me.” he got up, filled up four mugs, then brought them back to the table. When he got back, he took a flask of Vodka, and poured a bit into the cider, “I should start a new brand.”

        Clark chuckled, “You’ll get sued.”

        “Not in Russia, old friend.” Popov smiled, each of the men did cheers with their mugs, and drank.

        Meanwhile, Rarity had struck up a conversation with Glaz as he moved away from the bar.

        “So… you’re an artist?” she asked with great interest.

        “I dabble. But my job application comes off as ‘sniper’.” he laughed.

        “I’d love to see your artwork someday. If we meet again, give me one of your pieces. I’m sure it would be fantastic.” Rarity nodded.

        Then, Twilight came over, “Having fun?”

        “We sure are! Oh, I think Pinkie Pie needs you!” Rarity saw Pinkie Pie on top of Valkyrie, who was on all fours with a saddle on her back, and Pinkie on top of her with a cowboy hat.

        “Yeehaw!” she giggled as she threw the hat in the air.

        “See what happens when you try to take on the champ?” Rainbow Dash chuckled in her face, “Be a bit smarter when making your bets.”

        Then, music started playing from a phonograph. The western styled tunes got Mute to get up from his seat and walk over to IQ.

        “Wanna dance?”

        IQ chuckled and got up, taking his hand.

        They began to do a sort of slightly drunken, but mostly horrible square-styled dance to the music, earning groans from the Americans.

        “Oh my fucking god…” Blackbeard put his hand to his forehead, “Leave it up to a German and Brit to fuck this up…”

        Pinkie excitedly joined them, as did Applejack. Twitch was drunk enough not to care about dancing with Pinkie Pie, and Jäger shrugged, dancing with Applejack.





        POW!

        Blitz’s P250 went off, the apple that was sitting on the fence bursted into chunks.

        “Boom. Even with a shield.” Blitz was holding a keg in his other hand to put more weight in front of him that he had to carry.

        It was later in the evening, and the operators were now sobering up, or drinking lightly.

        Thermite got up, took his M1911, and blasted another apple to pieces after quickly drawing his pistol, and blowing the gunsmoke after he shot.

        “Easy.”

        Then, another pistol shot was fired, and an apple that was set up at twice the distance exploded, the bullet coming from Glaz’s GSH-18 handgun.

        “Heh, still a sniper with a sidearm.”

        All the while, Starlight was talking to Twilight.

        “They are really amazing, aren’t they? These soldiers that saved us act like us afterwards. They just want to have some fun and downtime after all of their hard work.” Starlight spoke.

        “Yeah, and they are all really nice when you get to know them.” Twilight smiled at the humans before them, as Clark fired off his M9 and scored an apple.

        “Fuck! Old geezer’s still got it!” Smoke laughed.

        Clark chuckled back, “72 years old.”

        Then, Twilight looked down at the soldiers, and Spike with them. 

        “Oh, absolutely not.”

        She came down and stopped Ash from telling him how to operate her handgun, gripping it with him.

        Starlight giggled at this and looked over to celestia and Thatcher talking. They kept going on about whether or not “Queen” would be a more suitable title for a leader than “Princess”.

        Then, Clark looked down at his watch.

        He quickly got a keg, stood on top of it, and got everyone’s attention.

        “Alright. All of you, you have done absolutely amazing work. You have shown the best of your abilities in what has probably been our most daring mission yet. However, the fight is far from over, as if terrorism still stands, we are not done. Rainbow Team has been renewed for activation for five more years.”

        The operators cheered at this, but quickly quieted down.

        “Unfortunately, we should be heading back now. For what we know, we’ve just disappeared off of the face of the Earth. Celestia, it’s been wonderful, and we are glad to have met all of you.”

        Celestia blushed, and smiled back, “The same for all the men and women here in front of us.”

        The operators packed up, with some of them taking two kegs of cider along with them.

        Twilight was waving goodbye, until Tachanka came up to her again.

        “Hey, Ms. Sparkle. Could you tell Sunset Shimmer that I said hello?” Tachanka asked.

        “Oh, of course I will- wait. How do you know about her?” she looked up in confusion.

        “Why wouldn’t I? She is best pony.” Tachanka walked past Twilight, and rejoined the group for their departure.


“Best… what? She isn’t even a… and that doesn’t answer my question!”


“Wait! We need a picture!” IQ waved as she got out her tablet.

 “Oh my god, I almost forgot!” Ding came back, and gathered everyone around.

The ponies and humans got together, some kneeling down, others standing up. All together, they smiled or posed.

“Say: Rainbow Team!” Ding chuckled as IQ set up the tablet and ran back to the group as it counted down.

The operators either groaned, rolled their eyes, or smiled. The ponies giggled at Ding's phrase.

“Rainbow Team!”





        It had now been a year. 

        The White Mask’s activity had stopped dead in its tracks. Nothing more had come from them after the assaults on their portals, and their own destruction of the program. They had either gone into hiding, or were simply non-existent, but intel had suggested they disbanded due to internal struggles.

        Glaz had painted a new portrait of Sweet Apple Acres once he got back, claiming he simply got the picture from memory. He claimed that he would paint Rarity next. Saying this out loud gave a lot of teasing from his comrades directed at him.

        A framed picture sat atop Clark’s desk with his team and the ponies inside of it. He always looked at that picture, as well as one of his wife and two daughters, and brought him to smile every time he looked at them.

        The cider had been finished in three days.

        Popov had sold the island he was living on, and bought himself a new mansion in the UK, sixty minutes away from the Rainbow Team’s headquarters. He had been granted immunity for his previous crimes by order of President Jack Ryan of the United States, after John Clark had contacted him.

Blitz was the victim of getting shot in the earmuff again in the training simulation. Thankfully, he laughed it off this time.

In Equestria, a statue had been built in recognition for the bravery that was displayed by the Rainbow Team’s operators in their country’s time of crisis.

It was a sculpture of a shield with the number “6” in it, in honor of John Clark, or Rainbow Six.

A plaque was implanted at the statue’s base that read:






Equestria is beyond thankful for the heroism displayed by those humans that have helped saved Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, and Spike the Dragon. We hereby dedicate this statue to:



John “Rainbow Six” Clark


Domingo “Rainbow Five” Chavez


Dimitri Popov


Jordan "Thermite" Trace 


Jack "Pulse" Estrada


Eliza "Ash" Cohen


Miles "Castle" Campbell


Meghan J. "Valkyrie" Castellano


Craig "Blackbeard" Jenson


Mike "Thatcher" Baker


Mark "Mute" Chandar


James "Smoke" Porter


Seamus "Sledge" Cowden


Gustave "Doc" Kateb


Julien "Rook" Nizan


Emmanuelle "Twitch" Pichon


Gilles "Montagne" Touré


Marius "Jäger" Streicher


Dominic "Bandit" Brunsmeier


Elias "Blitz" Kötz


Monika "I.Q." Weiss


Shuhrat "Fuze" Kessikbayev


Maxim "Kapkan" Basuda


Timur "Glaz" Glazkov


Alexsandr "Tachanka" Senaviev


Sébastien "Buck" Côté


Tina "Frost" Lin Tsang



Equestria will never forget what you all have done for our peace, what you fight for, and our, as well as your’s, strengthened bonds of friendship.