Prologue, part 2: The World, just like ours. But not ours.

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Hello there. Why don't you stay awhile and listen. Made yourself comfortable? Good. Well, before we start our story, let me guide you into this world.

It may seem the same but there are few alterations. Think of it as an alternate dimension reality of your world. Planet slightly bigger. People live longer. About 50 years longer. Records say that there was once a 200 years old man. Some even speculate that mythical creatures actually existed. Or maybe even exist today.

And USSR, the dreaded “Red Threat”. They are the good guys. Their government cares for everyone and their leaders are wise. Rumors say that original leaders of the Party are immortal and some of them are a 1000 years old.

Communist Party themselves though are not the ones who rules the USSR. They merely giving advices to the elected President on how to rule effectively, if President ever needs any. But most of the time people manage to govern themselves rather effectively.

But all this is irrelevant for the time being.

The year is now 2050 A.D.
Our story finally begins...

Curtain is finally up and music rolls in.

Prologue: The World, just like ours. But not ours.

Part 1: When Duty Calls - Modern Field of Battle, with Medals for Honor.

-Take cover!
-Wake and shake it! Russians are bringing you coffee! OFF THE STREETS! MORTARS!

Small group of soldiers stormed into nearby structures for cover, barely dodging artillery strike. Young Lieutenant(2nd Lieutenant that is) Jake Anderson, who went by call-sign “Master”, started talking.

“Alright everyone, I'm betting that Ruskies are moving in as we speak, using their artillery strike as suppressing fire. Once it stops we'll be attacked from all sides, so check your weapons and ammo while we still have time.”

Some moments after, the intensity of shelling went down and finally stopped. It was dead silent.
Jake used his comm-link: “This is Alpha leader to all units. All team leaders, report in.” Responses came immediately.

-This is Bravo. All clear for now.
-Delta here. Zero movement. I have a bad feeling about this.
-Charlie reporting. We're clear.

After getting reports Jake gave out orders. “Set up defense positions immediately, I think we'll be under attack very soon, over.” Radio crackled with simultaneous “Roger” and “Affirmative” from respective squad leaders. And just like Master guessed, attack came like a hurricane after brief moment of silence.

Lieutenant's HUD lighted up showing multiple hostiles. For a while firefight went lazily, one could describe it as exchanging punches. But then something unexpected happened.

“This is Charlie-leader! We are taking heavy casualties! They are breaking through the walls! OH GOD-” Their signal bursted into static and then gone silent. “Charlie, report! Damn it Kyle, answer me!” Jake started shouting into comm-link, but alas, signal was gone. “Damn. Charlie team is down. Does anyone saw what took out Charlie?”

“Negative, Charlie holed up in the far end of the street, by that church. It's too far to see anything.” Delta-leader reported, while shooting back at incoming hostiles. “Hold on, we've got visual... Oh shit! Alpha, they've got armor! It's a BMP! We're under heavy fire, they've pinned us down, need assistance!”

Jake started giving orders again. “Bravo team, can you take it out?” Tactical map showed that enemies were spotted literally everywhere, making map almost entirely red. “Bravo here, we've got your back. Try to draw their attention, we'll burn that BMP good!” Confirming this, Alpha team made it's move as well. “LIGHT 'EM UP!” Entire team started discharging their weapons in direction of the enemy, trying to attract as much attention as possible.

Loud explosion has shaken the area. “Hell yeah, that sucker is down! Whoo!” Apparently, they succeeded. “Cut the chatter Bravo.” “Yeah, and that explosion took out a lot of baddies, you're welcome.” “10-4” Jake started thinking. “We are too spread out. We need to regroup or we will be overrun.”

“Attention all units, disengage and regroup on my position. Our team will provide covering fire for your movement. How copy?” Response came quick. “This is Delta, roger that.” Then came one from Bravo “Bravo here, solid copy. We're just- Wait, what was that?.. They are inside! Return fir-*static*”

At the same time walls exploded inside the building. Coughing from dust last thing Jake and his teammates saw were dark shadows and with few short bursts everything was over. Jake's body dropped down with loud 'thump'.

And then Jake Anderson woke up.

Part 2: Rude awakening. But maybe not so rude.

Base “Harmony's Heart”. September, 2050.

2nd Lieutenant Jake 'Master' Anderson woke up.

Training simulation was over. And he just lost. He hated losing. Don't we all though?
Frankly, in today's training op he wasn't supposed to be a team leader, but captain called in sick and forwarded his second in command.
Jake was a combat engineer. But maybe more of an engineer than combat. Or maybe a Jack-of-all-trades in engineering field. He was known as “Blacksmith”, “Fixer” and even “Mr. Do-It-All”. In his 23 years he mastered everything related to engineering and technology and also learned a bit of chemistry, which allowed him to be a irreplaceable asset in the field. With enough materials and equipment he could create or fix almost everything, from making gunpowder and bullets to fixing cars and creating vehicles.
As a backlash, or maybe world balance stepped in, everything else was giving to him with significant hardships. His cooking skills, for example, was a constant losing battle. He did everything as recipe said but still it would end up in failure. Inedible failure that is.
Nevertheless, his cheerful nature just said “Whatever” and from then onwards his meals was military rations, meals served in garrison kitchen or MREs(Meal Ready to Eat) from local shop that he visited during his leaves. Mostly noodles.
His thoughts about who he is, and his life as a combat engineer were interrupted by closing footsteps.

“You're good, but you are not thinking outside the box at all.”

It was the 'enemy' team leader, Siegfried 'Captain' Schultz. A grizzled veteran who've seen real action. A tall, intimidating man indeed, his scar on his face made him even more... well, intimidating. A skilled survivalist and scout, his leadership qualities were also top notch, never losing his cool even in the most fiery battles, earning him nickname “Iceman” from soldiers stationed at the base.

“Excuse me?” Jake sat down on his VR training capsule. “I'm saying that all your tactics, the ones that you used in today's training were exactly as is 'from the book', which made you very vulnerable to surprise attacks.”

“Surprise? More like totally random! I mean, who the hell blows up a wall just to enter?” Jake was a bit abashed. Siegfried chuckled and said “Exactly. Or did you think that everything on the battlefield would be 'by the book'? Whoever uses a most unexpected plan that works at the right time wins. This is how battles are won, lieutenant. Well, anyway, today was a good day. I bid you farewell.” With this Capt. Schultz turned around and went for the exit with the rest of his squad.

“What was THAT about? Ugh, those USSR folks sure are strange...” With this in mind Jake left Joint Strategies Center as well and went back for his barracks, along with his team-mates.

“Damn Kyle and boys, your asses got toasted way too quick! And what was that 'Oh god'? You crapped yer pants in a videogame? Ha-ha!” “Screw you! It just startled me, alright? I'd look at your face when you get rammed with APC, you dumbass.”

Their voices sounded loudly in this autumn evening.

Evening breeze brought a new tune with it...

Part 3: Hello world. My name is...

Base “Harmony's Heart”. December 2050.

One of the few USA-USSR bases with regular joint ops and researches aimed at increasing level of trust and cooperation between those two.

After that training session 3 months have passed and there came December. A lot of people have come and gone and the only constant military personnel were 2nd Lt. Jake from US side and Capt. Siegfried with his “Wolf pack”.
Speaking of which, this elite team, this “Wolf pack” consisted only of four people, Capt. Siegfried included.
The first person he met(aside from Siegfried) was Vladimir.

Master Sergeant(or Старшина in Russian) Vladimir 'Drakon' Yeremeyev. Yep, it's Dragon but in Russian spelling. And Jake was constantly pissing him off with his accented way of pronunciation, something like “Drake-on”.
He was an interesting fellow, that Vladimir. First of all, he was from airborne troops, the infamous 'Knuckleheads'. But the strange thing №1. He wasn't stupid. Well, he wasn't a genius either but he had smarts, and apparently enough of them to speak fluently in three languages, and to be an expert at weaponry systems and maintenance. Another thing was that he sang. It was his hobby. He knew a whole lot of songs: Soviet, American, modern, pop, military, you name it. And the last thing, he liked order. When everything is planned. Something goes off, there goes his mood. And while he had a lot of opportunities for promotion he remained a sergeant. When asked why, he said:
“Don't like responsibility. I have my partner to command and that's enough. I'm no officer, that's for sure. I like to follow, not to lead. That's what I'm good at.”

Speaking of which,“Wolf pack” also had two more members: Wulfin and Nika.
1st lieutenant Hilda Schultz (form. Meier) AKA Wulfin was second in command.

Tough as nails, she and her husband Siegfried made “Alpha-pair” of the Wolf pack. They both were from GRU SpetzNaz and while he was adept in scouting and survival techniques, she was more on the support roles.
One of those roles were Geo-electromagnetic exploration for natural resources during long raids. She also served as radiowoman and scout-soldier. But even though she was a 'supporting member' one should not underestimate her as she can fight as ferociously as her husband. Working in almost perfect sync they are a force to be afraid of.
And while being German, they were, in fact, a Russlanddeutsche. Nor she, nor him can speak their native language. Hilda was from Altai Germans and Siegfried was a Wolgadeutsche. Despite being married for 10 years they still didn't have kids yet.

And the last one was Senior Sergeant Veronika 'Nika'(or Nike in English) Nikanorova, with codename named not so much after a Goddess of Victory but because there was a lot of 'Nika' in her names.

She and Vladimir make “Beta-pair” of the Wolf pack.
Veronika and Vladimir were childhood friends, born and raised in Far East Russia. Vladimir was loud, joke-cracking and Veronika was the silent one. Parties and everything just wasn't her thing you know. Surprisingly she enlisted along with Vladimir when he joined the military. But from there on their ways went sideways. He went for airborne courses, she took medicine.
Aside from medicine itself she was skilled in creating and handling various kinds of explosives. To top it all, Nika was also pretty good with her shotgun. And yeah, she was the squad cook. Nominally they all can cook, but she was best.

Uh, and final note. Captain and Wulfin were the only ones with actual active combat experience on the whole base. Strange huh? Well, mostly due to actual harmony spreading, all were well fed and well dressed. Mostly.
We humans are a creatures of chaos. And where's chaos – there's conflict, meaning soldiers will always have their place in this world.

But chaos is not always a bad thing. Chaos is a constant change. We move forward, we adapt, we evolve.
That's why this world sees less and less conflict. Soldiers are still needed but maybe someday...

Part 4: Pulling your things together

Base "Harmony's Heart". February 2051.

Small briefing room was dimly lit.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, as some of you may have already guessed you will be assigned on a special mission. For some time we've been looking for optimal team. And that, my friends, is you.” Then Base Commander continued “I believe that for past 3 months you – the Wolf pack, have became friends with your new colleague for this mission, 2nd Lieutenant Jake 'Master' Anderson, and yes, you are being volunteered.” Drakon made a snort, followed by elbow poke from Nika reminding him to be quiet. “And I have another announcement to make, there is another addition to your team Captain. Meet civilian specialist Megumi Hayakawa. As of today she is officially a 'Wolf pack' member."
Young girl came out to the stand.

"She'll also gonna be providing support to the best of her abilities. She-" Introduction was again interrupted by Drakon "I've got two questions: first, what does she do and second, why civvie?" Nika poked him again reminding to shut up.

"Well if you just let me continue 'Tovarish' Starshina, I'll answer all of your questions in due time, alright?" Base Commander continued after slight chuckle "Miss Megumi here is one of the best doctors out there, and before you interrupt me again, I know you have Miss Veronika there, but while she is indeed a medic she's more a combat medic than an actual doctor. No offense." Drakon rolled his eyes. "And besides, it's better to have more medical personnel, just in case, don't you think? She's also going to be serving as expert on animals and, well, uhhhh, how do I say this? She's also in charge of logistics." Surprisingly, this time it was Jake, honestly confused "Logistics? Are we going on a mission to a shop or something?" Drakon didn't miss that and started laughing out loud "Haha, good one yankee!" With a sigh Wulfin and Nika pulled him out of the room so that he could calm himself down.
"No, it means she'll be in charge of the resource flow on your mission." Drakon snuck his head in, still chuckling "What, don't tell me she's also can sew us new threads to wear?" Megumi who's been silent all this time suddenly said "Ummm, y-yeah, I also can do that."
Drakon fell down to the floor laughing hysterically "Oh come on, Commander! What kind of mission could require that?" Nika frowned once again "You know that you're not funny?" At which he answered with more gurgling laughter "Uh-huhuhuh, ahahah-at-hahah-at least I am-hahah-having a-hahahah- a good time here!"

...

"Eheheheh-okay, sorry. Please continue." Drakon dusted off his clothes and finally sat down.
"Thank you master sergeant. So as I was saying - Miss Megumi here is quite capable doctor, one of the best in the world, and Command thinks that you gonna need the absolute best for this mission. Well, chances are you've not gonna require surgeon but you never know. Miss Megumi also have vast flora and fauna knowledge so she can make ingredients for medicaments, I believe that this'll come in handy. And please, have a seat now Miss Megumi."

Drakon raised his hand "Excuse me, sir. Introductions and all are fine with me but when will we get to actual mission briefing?"
Base Commander took out some documents "Alright, this is a non-disclosure agreement. I need all of you to sign it. As of now you are not permitted to talk to anyone about this mission until further notice. Captain, hand this out. After you've all done leave it here."

With Siegfried handing out sheets BaseCom finally started actual briefing. "Alright Wolf pack, listen up! One of our research teams had a major breakthrough in portal technology.
Not only it's actually working but it leads to destination deemed 'Another World' by research team. Initial tests brought good results. Air there is perfectly breathable and from the look of things land is rich in various resources. We are pretty sure this world is inhabited but we're still not sure of how do locals look like. Electromagnetic scans gave no results, meaning that electricity isn't present or at least it's usage is not that widespread. So for now we think that locals development level is between our middle-ages and Renaissance.
Your mission is, for now, a simple recon and building an outpost for future research. All kinds of scanning was done by remote-controlled drones, so this is gonna be first with human personnel. We're not expecting any trouble but don't let your guard down."

"When do we deploy?" asked Captain. "Right now research team is currently making more tweaks to the 'Another World' project to make sure you're not gonna get split into atoms by accident. I'd say it's gonna be another couple months. Use this time to improve your skills and teamwork. We'll keep you posted. That is all for now, dismissed."

Part 5: Jake, what time is it?

Base "Harmony's Heart". 21st of April 2051

Attention Wolf pack! Assemble at briefing room immediately!
"So I guess today is the day eh, Jake?" Drakon and Jake were talking on their way "Hm, I guess so. By the way, would you mind if I asked you a question?" Vladimir raised an eyebrow "Huh? Well, okay, go ahead."
"Are you and Nika dating or what?" This made Vladimir choke by surprise "*cough* What's it to you? Don't tell me that you are interested in her."
"What? No! No-no-no, it's nothing like that. It's just you two seem so close so I assumed..."
Drakon finished his sentence for him "That we are dating? Well, no. We're just good friends. We grew up together. And you know what? It would be too awkward for me if we started dating, you know. I've always treated her like my sister, know what I'm saying?
Even though our parents think otherwise, with something like 'Oh, you look so perfect together, like a pair made in heaven', ugh. And even though I think that she might be interested in me but... Let's just say that I'm not ready."
Jake was a little surprised "Huh, so that's how it is."
"So, what's with all this relationship stuff? Still no luck with Megu-chan?" Jake's face turned red. "Wha-? Don't call her tha-, I-I mean, what are you even talking about?!" In response Drakon made a wide grin "Oh come on, I've seen how are you eyeballing her and all. I think it's pretty obvious that..."
Jake's face turned even redder "S-shut up! It isn't... Well maybe it is but that's not important right now!"
"Oho, is that so? But don't you worry, just trust in uncle Vova to create you enough opportunities, you'll see, she'll be yours in no time!" Jake parried with dull voice "Says guy with no girlfriend."
Drakon's grin became even wider "That's beside the point. Eheheheh, this'll be fun!"

Vladimir's laughter and Jake's grumpy responses continued up to the briefing room.

Wolf pack finally arrived and when they took seats Base Commander started his briefing "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. This is your final briefing before the mission. You will depart at 12 o'clock.
For this mission you will be provided with:
Transport - amphibious ATV, truck with large living and storage module trailer and a modified VPK-39272 "Volk". "Volk" comes with mounted 12.7 mm HMG turret for protection purposes.
Provisions - half a year amount of food and drinks of all kinds.
Weapons - you can bring your sidearms and you will be provided with PDWs and PDRs for personal protection purposes. And 1 rifle for hunting purposes.
You will be also provided with construction materials and medicaments.
All this will be stored in your vehicles.
Any questions?"
Drakon raised from his seat "Sir, isn't 'Volk' a little... Outdated?"
Base Commander continued "Yes it is, but our modifications are compensating for it. Maneuverability, passability and overall characteristics are tuned to be up-to-date with modern technologies. Oh, forgot to mention - all your vehicles will be running on pure ethanol. Because we highly doubt that gas or diesel would be available there. Producing it yourselves should be no problem.
Your job is to go in, build an outpost and get back home in 2 weeks. That is if all goes as planned. All those supplies are just in case if accident does happen. Chances of something going wrong are less than 1% because we checked and double-checked everything. And then checked it again. But hey, better safe than sorry.
And one last thing, this isn't a combat op, tread carefully, we don't want to spark a war by accident.
That'll be all.
Pack your things, bring spare clothes, civvies will be fine too. You can also bring with you anything you want, in reasonable lengths of course. Mp3 players, boardgames, laptops, etc. Because I'm pretty sure you'll be really bored when you finish building that outpost. If you wanna bring booze along it's fine too, but don't overdo it.
At 11:50 you all need to be present in Hangar 13.
Captain and Wulfine, come with me, I'll hand out instructions of what to do if something does goes wrong.
Everyone else, you are dismissed."

...

Finally, time has come. Team loaded up in their vehicles and drove to Hangar 13. Jake and Megumi on ATV, Vladimir and Veronika on "Volk", Siegfried and Hilda on truck.

There it was. The portal, part of that 'Another World' project. Lots of scientists were busy setting it up and doing final checks.
Portal looked like a big circle structure with lots of cables hanging around.
"Drive inside! We're almost ready. That 'Volk' is equipped with special communicator that allows us to stay in touch with you. Be careful with it, ok?" Drakon responded immediately "Roger that!"

11:55.
Tension was almost unbearable. It seemed that tension itself made strange sounds. Minutes seemed like hours. The only ones who seemed calm, as expected, were Captain and Wulfin.
And then it started. Those... whatever it was, those mechanisms inside began to spin, making bright blue lights to appear.
The portal was starting and revving up, making loud roaring noise.

Drakon was sweating bullets. In attempt to ease up tension he shouted "HEY JAKE! YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IS IT?"
Jake shouted back "WHAT?"
"ADVENTURE TIME!"

And with blinding flash they teleported to... 'Another World'.

Hey-hey-hey! Hope it wasn't too long of a prologue.
Sorry in advance for any mistakes, chapter 1 is on it's way.
There is a slight delay because of power outage - almost all of my work is gone. :(
And my drawing tablet is acting funny, so no illustrations for now I guess. :((

Chapter 1: Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you.

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Inter-dimensional teleportation sucks. It feels like a large meat hook stuck in your gut, and said hook is pulling you forward, twisting your insides. You want to throw up, yet you cannot. It is painless, yet it feels like you will pass out from pain shock. You feel very exhausted, as if you just finished 10 km marathon sprinting all the way. It seems like hours yet in reality it only lasts half a second. And after all this you feel just fine.

Part 1: Leap of Faith

Jake felt strange. Like if whole world moved in slow-motion and only he moved at normal speed. His eyes and brain registered that horizon level and ground weren't even. It was, in fact, a really steep slope. And that they all are currently falling down to the ground that isn't a smooth surface but rather a steep slope. In that moment reality returned, crashing down, to normal speed.

With action comes music...

With a sudden strong gust of wind(and realization of his situation) Jake started shouting at the top of his lungs "WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!" Accompanied by Megumi's "ナニコレ、イヤアああああああああああ!"(What is this, noooooo!)
For a few seconds he was in a shock state, driving only on instincts, dodging trees and stones until Megumi shouted some sense in him "ジェーク、ブレーキ、早く！ブレーキ！！"(Jake, the breaks, hurry! THE BREAKS!) This helped Jake to snap out of it "Yeah, that's right, the brakes! Hang on Megumi!"
Luckily, ATV's eight wheels provided enough traction for him to slow down and eventually stop.

Just when he and Megumi took a deep breath to calm down, something flew by them.
It was Vladimir's "Volk" with him screaming curses really fast in multiple languages while driving at high speed down the slope "Ах ты ж ёбаный ты нахуй, сука-pendejo-caralho-filho da puta! Fuckshit! Engelhuren! Shitty fuck! Putain merde! Fucking shit! Бляааааааааааааааааа!!"(It's essentially 'fucking shit' all over and over)
After few seconds heavy truck with trailer joined them.
"Dammit, we're too heavy to stop! Lieutenant Jake! Get your ATV up that hill and wait for us there, we'll be back shortly." Wulfin interrupted her husband: "Don't slow down or the trailer will spin us out of control." Truck increased it's speed.

Obviously, Drakon was nervous enough to switch back to Russian "Товарищ капитан, не могу замедлить скорость, тачка слишком тяжелая! Спереди просто пиздец стена а не лес, мы расшибёмся к черту, что делать?!"(Comrade captain, I can't slow down, car is too heavy! Forest ahead is a fucking wall, we'll crash to hell, please advise?!)
"Не ссы сынок. Выруливай вправо, я вижу там просеку."(Don't wet your pants sonny. Turn right, I see a clearing there.) It was not the Captain but his wife again, leaning out of the window with binoculars. "Зигги, давай тоже туда, потом разберёмся что тут и как."(Ziggy, let's also move there, we'll find out later what's what here.)
"Так точно фрау обер-лейтенант! Герр гауптман, увидимся внизу!"(Roger that Frau oberleutnant! Herr hauptmann, see you at the bottom!) Even in extreme conditions Drakon didn't stop his barrage of flat jokes and witty remarks.
On this Wulfin said only "Держи ровнее старшина, перевернёшься же!"(Hold it steady master sergeant, or you will flip upside down)

They drove into the forest, first 'Volk' at a high speed, then Siegfried's steadily slowing down heavy command truck .
Forest was pretty dense so Jake lost sight of both of them almost immediately

---

"Давай тормози!"(C'mon, hit the breaks!) Even usually quiet and calm Nika was pretty panicked. "Да нихрена не получается, земля слишком скользкая!"(It's not fucking working, ground's too slippery!) Drakon was struggling to take back control of the vehicle but all was in vain.
"Слушай, надо прыгать!"(Listen, we've gotta jump!) Dialog was getting more heated up. "Что? Ты с ума сошел?"(What? Are you nuts?) "А ты посмотри вперёд, видишь?! Там, бля, яма! И хер знаешь насколько глубокая!"(Just look ahead, see?! It's a bloody pit! And who knows how fucking deep it is!) And indeed there was a deep hole. With no means to stop their movement crash was inevitable.
"Давай, ты первая. И не спорь! Я постараюсь хоть как-то выровнять движение а ты прыгай, понятно?"(C'mon, you first. And don't argue! I'll try to align car's movement and you jump, alright?" Nika's face was disapproving of the idea but after a moment of thought she reluctantly agreed "Так точно."(Roger that)

Everything happened in a matter of seconds: Drakon straightened up his car, kicked Nika out of it and prepared to bail out himself. And then came the unexpected "Fuck! Ремень заело!"(Belt's jammed!) After realization of the situation his face turned sad, almost comically sad "О бля..."(Oh crap...) With this his car crashed down into that pit.

Tension filled the air.

Meanwhile, Siegfried managed to stop his heavy truck, which was relatively easy because of the weight and traction provided by all-terrain heavy duty wheels. His relieved sigh was interrupted by his wife: "Смотри, это же Ника!"(Look, it's Nika!)
And indeed it was her, lying on the ground. Both of them climbed out of the truck and hurried to the lying Nika.

"Эй, ты в порядке?"(Hey, you alright?)
Reacting to his voice Nika groaned in pain "Оооо блин, от этого точно синяки завтра будут... Слуш, Дракон, походу это тарщ капитан..."(Oooh man, this is definitely gonna leave a mark tomorrow... Lisn, Drakon, looks like it's c'mrad captain...)

Wulfin and Captain came closer "Ника, а где старшина? Что вообще с машиной случилось?"(Nika, where's master sergeant? And what happened to the car?) Still groaning from the pain Nika sat down on the ground with lost expression on her face "Что? Всмысле?"(Huh? What?) After looking around for a bit her eyes slowly grew wide from shocking realization "Дракон? Ты где?"(Drakon? Where are you?) Suddenly she jumped to her feet and started running to the pit, screaming his name: "Вова?! Вова!!"(Vova?! VOVA!!)

When she came closer to that hole she saw 'Volk' in a terrible shape. Hole was pretty deep but more narrow on the way down. 'Volk' was stuck in it. Due to tinted windows it was impossible to look inside, and besides, height was a little big for this too.

"О нет... Держись, я сейчас!"(Oh no... Hang on, I'm coming!) Nika started climbing down the hole but was effectively stopped by Siegfried "Ты что творишь?! Совсем сдурела?! Отставить!"(What the hell are you doing?! Are you crazy?! Stand down!)
She was desperately trying to wrestle free from the Captain but his grip didn't falter "Пустите! Вова там внизу, ему нужна помощь! Да пустите же!"(Lemme go! Vova is down there and he needs my help! Let go already!)
"Да успокойся ты! Ты посмотри на себя, ты же ранена, а в таком состоянии ты точно ему не поможешь. Сядь и успокойся. Сейчас мы подгоним грузовик и вытащим этот джип. А ты пока займись собой."(Calm down! Just look at yourself, you're injured and in your condition you'll definitely will not help him. Sit down and calm yourself. We'll bring over the truck and pull out this jeep. And for now you should take care of your wounds.)
Siegfried was talking calmly and gently but Nika felt steel hidden in that calm voice "Так точно, товарищ капитан."(Roger that, comrade captain.) She wasn't happy but she knew that Captain was right.

"Хильда, спустись туда и прицепи тросы к кузову джипа. Заодно проверь что там с старшиной, если это возможно конечно. Страховку я уже привязал и проверил. Выполнять. Я пока подгоню грузовик."(Hilda, rappel down and attach tow-ropes to the car's body. While you at it check, if possible, how's master sergeant doing. Belay device is attached, ready and checked. Get to it. I'll drive the truck closer.) Siegfried finished with the instructions and went to the truck.
Meanwhile, Wulfin was rappelling down the hole, attaching hooks. “Dammit, those bloody tinted windows... Can't even see if he's injured or not. Just hold on sonny, we'll get you out of there.” With Wulfin's 'OK' Siegfried activated truck's crane. Yeah, that truck was a mobile construction yard also. “Here we go” he thought to himself and started pulling unlucky 'Volk' out of the pit.

Nika was busy bandaging her wounds. Well not wounds but mostly scratches and minor cuts she got from jumping out of moving car. Bruises also were present but they would heal by themselves. Truth be told, all this medical procedures were mostly to kill time, as she was very anxious about Drakon and his condition. When jeep was finally recovered she hurried to it.

After a bit jeep's door was open. Surprisingly, Drakon almost wasn't injured. He was out cold, had a nosebleed and had a slight cut on a forehead but that was about it. But of course, a proper medical examination was in order to make sure he hadn't had any more injuries. Wulfine and Captain carefully took him out of the car and placed him on the make-shift stretchers.

"Так, где моя аптечка? Ага, хорошо, ничего не разбилось... Нашатырь-нашатырь... Вот он. Ну давай, просыпайся!"(Okay, where's my first aid kit? Yep, good, nothing is broken inside... Ammonia-ammonia... Ah there is it. Come on, wake up!)

Nika took up smelly bottle to Drakon's nose. As soon as his nostrils came in contact with that smell he opened his eyes and started gasping for air. "Тихо, успокойся. Лежи и не дёргайся, я должна обследовать тебя на предмет переломов и тому подобного."(Relax, don't squirm. Lie down and don't move, I have to check you for fractures and stuff.)
Nika was busy doing her check ups. "Хм, похоже переломов нет. А теперь скажи, от чего ты отрубился когда машина упала вниз, может ты ударился или ещё что-нибудь?"(Hm, no fractures it seems. And now tell me, what caused your knock out, did you hit your head or something?)
Drakon thought for a moment "Эээ, да я это, головой о торпеду ударился. Было больно. Черт, да до сих пор больно!"(Uhhh, I, you know, banged my head against dashboard. It hurt. Damn, it still hurts!)
"Да хватит тебе, что ты как маленький? Так, давай-ка сядь, надо проверить голову."(Oh come on, what are you, little kid? Now, sit. Time to check your head.)

"Так, похоже с тобой всё в порядке. Да ты гад в рубашке родился, у тебя даже сотрясения нет. Считай, отделался легким ушибом и правую руку потянул. Царапины я обработаю, а на растяжение положим проверенное средство — эластичный бинт. Уже через день будешь как новенький." (Huh, seems you are alright. Looks like you, scoundrel, was born with silver spoon in your mouth, you don't even have a concussion. Like, all you got is light bruise and strained right hand. I'll take care of your scratches and as for strain, we'll use trusted remedy - elastic bandage. Tomorrow you'll be good as new.)

"Но ты гад меня напугал! 'Прыгай первая', говорит. А сам что? А что если бы с тобой что-нибудь случилось бы? Как бы я потом в глаза твоей маме смотрела бы?"(But you really got me scared you asshole! 'You first' he says. And what about you? What if something happened to you? How I am was supposed to look your mother in the eyes if that happened?)
Drakon looked somewhat guilty "Эммм. Спасибо."(Ummm. Thanks.) Nika stopped her rambling and turned to her usual quiet self "Я серьёзно. Обещай мне что не будешь больше так рисковать. Я не хочу тебя потерять."(I'm serious. Promise me that you will not risk like that anymore. I don't want to lose you.)
Drakon's face suddenly turned into goofy grin "Ну ещё бы! Уж я точно не позволю тебе нести домой радостные вести о том что главная неудача семьи Еремеевых наконец-то покинула этот мир. Ха-ха-ха!"(Well of course! I'm definitely not gonna let you carry home good news about that greatest failure of Yeremeyevs Family finally departed from this world. Ha-ha-ha!) Her face turned red "Ах ты!.. Я о тебе беспокоюсь а ты!.. Дурак!"(Why, you!.. Here I am, worried about you and you!.. Stupid!) She angrily turned on her heels and walked away. Drakon stood up and ran after her "Эй! Да подожди, я же пошутил!"(Hey! Wait up, I was only joking!)

Witnessing all this Siegfried only placed his palm on the face with a sigh. Shortly thereafter Hilda joined him with a slight hug “Что, опять милые бранятся?”(What, another lovers quarrel?) He turned to her with a smile and hugged her back “И не говори. Хорошо что у нас с тобой не так, да?”(You don't say. Good thing that it's not like that with you and me, yeah?) She also smiled in return. Their lighthearted laugh lightened up gathering gloomy atmosphere.

Part 2. Multiple contacts!

Jake was anxious. Radio was silent for a while now and he feared the worst. But his fears were dispersed when Captain came in contact “Hey, Lt! You alive up there?” With a sigh of relief he answered “Affirmative sir, alive and kicking. What's your status? Everything OK?”
“Yeah,we're all okay, but jeep is totaled. We're gonna tow it with truck to your position. By the way, do you see any way up to this hill we could use?” Jake looked around “Yeah, found a decent way up here but you'll have to circle around back for it. How copy?”
“Solid copy. We're coming. ETA 30 minutes, over and out.”

But then came another transmission “Hey Jake, you guys are all alone there right?” It was Vladimir “Drakon is that you? You okay?” response came quickly “Got beat up a little but that is beside the point. I said, are you two alone up there?” After looking around (Megumi was sitting in ATV, writing something down in her notepad) he said “Y-yeah. What about it?” He heard annoyed sigh in response “Ugh! You dumbass, it's your chance! Go for it man! Our trip is gonna take awhile, so do it! Drakon, over and out.”
This made Jake's face go red. But he steeled himself and went to Megumi.

“Um, h-how are you doing?” She was startled “Ah! God, Jake you scared me!”
“Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to!” in response he received a charming smile “Umm, it's okay. By the way, I haven't thanked you yet properly.” surprise spread across Jake's face ”Thanked me? What for?” Megumi gave a small giggle “For saving my life today, you forgot already? How do you Americans say it, 'I guess I owe you one'?”
“Ah, t-that one? Uhhh-heh-heh, ummm, you're welcome, I guess?” Awkward silence filled the air.
Minute by minute, one awkward reply after another, half an hour flied by like a couple of seconds.
"Um, skies sure are pretty here." But before Megumi could answer she was interrupted by loud engine noises. Wolf pack finally reassembled.

"Heeeeeeeeere's Vladdymireeeeee!" Drakon made his entrance to the hilltop, jumping out of the truck and was immediately berated by Nika "Don't jump around so much, I told you that you've gotta lie down for a few hours."
Truck made half a circle turn and stopped.

Jake stood up and came closer "Hey Vlad, what's up with her? She seems angry at you. Well, more than usual."
"First of all, DON'T call me 'Vlad'. It's an entirely different name that comes from Vladislav. You didn't see me calling you Jak, eh Jake? For all I know I can call you Jack. Or Jackson." Jake scratched his nose "Okay, sorry, Vladimir. Didn't know you were so touchy about names, sheesh. But back to the topic, you didn't answer my question." Drakon frowned "Eh, just told her a bad joke at a bad time... Wait. Oh shit..." Jake raised his eyebrow "What?"
"I totaled our jeep! The communicator! Oh shit, oooooooh shiiiiiit, we're so screwed."
"Don't worry, comms are fine. Car may be dead but everything in it is pretty much in one piece." Out of nowhere, Captain intervened in their dialogue. "And besides, we have backup plans is something goes wrong. We, and I mean me and Hilda, went through all kinds of possible situations for this mission so everything is under control."

Hilda showed up and waved to Siegfried "Hey Ziggy, commander is on the line, he wants your report!"
"Okay, I'm on my way! You two, go help girls with unpacking. This hill is a nice vantage point, our temporary base will be here for now."
Drakon sighed and said "This is gonna be a long day."

Later that day

"Those binoculars suck! Can't see anything. Ugh." Lack of decent magnification irritated Drakon who was busy doing visual reconnaissance from the top of the hill together with Jake "So, what's up with that castle? Can't see really well from here but I think I see a... Uhh, some kind of... pinkly-purple forcefield? Huh. This is not so medieval as I imagined it."
Drakon pointed at moving objects which, from this distance, looked like a small dots "Look, I think it's a train! Woah, I see a lot of movement on the perimeter. Security maybe? Looks like something important is going down today in that castle. By the way, Jake, see that town? From where train departed."
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Architecture is fucked up and irresponsible. Like it's somehow violates physics. Same goes for that castle. On a mother-fuckin' cliff." Jake scratched his head "Well, I dunno, maybe gravity here is lower or something."
Drakon jumped up for a few times "No, it seems the same as back home. Well, nevermind. I spot a few key structures, namely a hospital and, I think, a town hall." Jake turned his binoculars as well "Yep, I see it too. Hospital is the one with large cross on it? Hold on, I think I see some AVs taking off... We won't be spotted, are we?" Drakon waves him off "Nah. We already masked our vehicles with camo nets and all. Huuuuuh... I don't like that massive cloud there, See? It's up there, in the distance."
It took awhile for Jake to find it "Uh-huh, looks like a storm cloud maybe... Wait. Is that cloud... Leaking rainbows? What the fuck?" Drakon turn to be surprised "What, you high or something? Hold on, let me see... Waaaaaait, if I'm not crazy I think I see buildings up there too. This world is nuts!"

Captain joined them at their lookout post "Any luck with finding info on locals?" Drakon turned to him and reported "Negative. We've seen a lot of dots but from this distance it's impossible to identify anyone. I suggest we go for a closer look, maybe to this town down there." Captain nodded to him "Roger. We'll get to it, maybe tomorrow. For now we need to settle in and rest a little. And Master, can you look on 'Volk', see if you can repair it?"
Jake cheerfully saluted "Can do, sir. I'll come by in 10 minutes."
"Good. Well, carry on."

'Volk' was badly damaged, but repairable. Jake needed to make some new engine parts and some other small stuff.
This would take time. Overall, it could be fixed in 3-5 days.

Rest of the day passed.

"It's almost midnight. Everyone, you can go to sleep now. I'll stand watch. Wulfin, I'll wake you up when it's your turn. Everyone, good night."

Siegfried was sitting in his camping chair, watching his surroundings. Nature was quiet, which was unusual. No animals, save for some birds. Skies also were crystal clear, with bright stars and large moon on it.
That moon got Siegfried's attention, something was wrong with it. Seemingly, craters on moon's surface formed a head of a unicorn, a mythical beast. 'How strange' he thought to himself.
He also spot some glister on top of the tallest castle tower. 'A watch post perhaps?'
There also was some weird noise in the distance, resembling something like a swarm of insects.

Aside from that, first night was quite uneventful.

Next day.

"Nice weather here, temperate climate, just as I like it." Again it was Drakon and Master on the lookout "By the way, I grabbed 2 cold ones from fridge, want one?" Jake immediately livened up "Beer? Hell yeah!"
"Not beer, cola! I don't drink, you know." Jake was disappointed "You don't call cola 'cold one'. Urgh, I guess cola is fine too."
Drakon passed him his can.
"Whatever, in Russian everything can be a 'cold one', even OJ."

"For your good health! Cheers!" *psst* *ka-chik* *gulp* *gulp* "Ahhh, refreshing! Maybe this is indeed a paid vacation, eh Chief?" Jake only nodded and drinked his coke in silence.
"By the way, my codename is Master, not Chief."
"You can say it's a Russian tradition of calling other people 'Chief'. Well anyway, why the long face?"
Jake looked away "It's nothing."
"Let me guess, it's Hayakawa, right?" Vladimir hit bullseye.
"Hey, it's not!.. Ahhh, fuck it. Yeah it's about her. I just don't know how to talk to her, you know? She must think that I'm a retard, always stuttering near her." Jake was looking at soda can in his hand, thinking about something.
"Don't sweat it man, you already got bonus points for saving her on that slope, remember? Just don't do mayor fuck ups and you'll be fine." In return, Jake turned even more gloomier "Again, says the guy with no girlfriend."
"And again, that's beside the point. After all, I'm not the one who's all depressed because of his inability to get the girl."
"Screw you."
Once again, laughter filled the air.

---

Several hours have passed. In that time Jake and Vladimir upgraded their lookout post with a makeshift couches and mini-fridge filled with snacks and drinks.
"What are they doing in there? Is it a wedding or something?"
Drakon scratched his head "Beats me."

Their leisure time was interrupted by something unexpected. Drakon's lollipop fell down from his mouth.
"Woah... Holy shit." Jake used his radio "Captain, sir. I think you better get here, quick. We've got a situation."
Captain showed up shortly, along with Wulfin "What's the 411?"
Jake replied with "Well... Just look for yourself." and handed Captain and Wulfin binoculars.

A black swarm appeared seemingly out of nowhere and laid siege on the castle. After a while forcefield cracked and shattered, and the swarm forced their way in. Explosion-like puffs could be seen in the distance. This was definitely not good.

"Uh, comrade captain? Any orders? Personally, I don't want to fight in not our war." Drakon was getting tense
"Hide all this and continue with surveillance for now. I'll contact HQ. Stay alert." Captain rushed away
"So, comrade senior lieutenant, what's your take on all this? What will we do?" Hilda lowered her binoculars "In this situation most likely we will retreat back to base. Let's wait for HQ's orders first."
After several minutes Siegfried came back "Okay, pack your things. HQ wants to play it safe. We leave in 10."

---

"Hurry it up, dammit! Nika, where are ya? Help me with... The hell?" Drakon stopped in the middle of the sentence, looking at something in the distance. Nika ran up to him "What are you looking at? ..Oh. My. God."

Something inside that castle made an impulse, an enormous spheric wave of energy. That swarm Wolf pack saw earlier were sent packing through the air by it, and this wave was closing fast.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Captain's voice was loud and clear even in the middle of this racket.
It felt like a strong gust of wind, but aside from that nothing happened.
Surprised by this Drakon asked rhetorical question in a mocking manner "И что, это всё?"(What, that all?)
As if to answer his question something bad happened. Sharp head pain struck everyone.
"Ugh, my head is killing me!" Drakon fell to his knees accompanied by Nika. Captain and Wulfin, while wincing from the pain, somehow still remained on their legs, but somehow it looked that their headache was way worse.
"W-what's going on, everyone?!" for everyone's surprise Megumi and Jake were unaffected.
Severely coughing, Drakon answered "How am I supposed to know?! Aaaaaagrh, it feels like my head gonna explode!"
Jake and Megumi simply did not know what to do.

Pain started to worsen, now even 'Alpha pair' were brought to their knees by it.
And as if headache wasn't enough... "Argh, what the fuck is this?! My insides are on fire!"
Vladimir dropped to all fours, tears dripping, and started to vomit. "*Bleugh* Ughhhh, the fuck!.. Jake! Fuck.. *cough* Jake dammit!!"
He ran up to him "Yeah, I'm here, what is it? You ok?" with much effort Drakon managed to reply "DO I-*bleugh*-FUCKING LOOK OK?! *cough* Aghh-khaa-haa *cough* fucking shit... Go.. check on Nika."
"Don't worry, Megumi is on it." Jake stayed near Drakon to make sure he doesn't choke on vomit.

"Ugrh... *cough* Well. That sucked. A lot." Drakon was sitting on the grass, cleaning his teeth "Everyone, you all right?"
Nika waved away "I guess so. I felt like I had an epileptic seizure, with froth and convulsions and stuff. Don't want to experience that again."
Captain and Wulfin were pale but overall looked better than those two "Yep, we're good. Head still hurts a little but it's nothing compared to before."
Wulfin spat on the ground "But what exactly happened? Last thing I remember this... Purpleish sphere of some sorts. And then that headache came."
"Yeah, no shit. Those 10 minutes of hell felt like 10 hours. Look, my hands are still shaking!" Drakon brought forward his hands, and indeed they were trembling. "But hey, how come you and Hayakawa weren't affected?"
Everyone exchanged glances.
All Jake and Megumi could do is shrug.

"Well, right now our priority is to get back to base. There we can do proper check-ups and all." Siegfried stood up "Let's hurry it up and get out of here. Double time!"

But you know what, if bad luck started having her way with you, it will crank her stuff up to eleven.
"Uhh, captain? Sir, we've got a slight... well, um... maybe not slight..." Jake had something to say to the Captain "What is it? Stop mumbling and say it loud and clear."
Jake straightened himself and blurted shocking words "Our comms and portal are busted, sir!"
Everyone's reactions were quite unique.
Drakon dropped box on his foot, Nika stumbled into him and both of them fell down.
Megumi even sat down in surprise.

Drakon crawled out from under Nika who fell down on him "Whaddaya mean, 'busted'? You sayin' we're stuck in here?!"
Captain asked Jake "Can you fix this?" Jake gulped down "I'm afraid not, sir. Everything's fried. Even the extras have bought the farm. That energy impulse must've done them in."
Drakon's face darkened "Perfect, just perfect. We got EMPed in the middle of nowhere and because of it we're basically fucked. Fucking great."
Jake shook his head "No-no-no, this wasn't EMP. All other..*cough* sorry, other equipment is fine, somehow it's just those two."
Drakon only rolled his eyes "Yeah, like that changes anything"
"I think it's possible to create one from scratch if we had some instructions and materials..." But Jake thoughts were interrupted by Siegfried "None of this will be necessary. As I told you all before, HQ planned for literary EVERYTHING. Current state of events is unfavorable, yes, but it's nothing we can't handle. Standard operating procedures for this kind of situation is..."

---

Vladimir was listening with dumb expression on his face, mouth half-open. "Uhhhh, comrade captain? Mind explaining this once more?"
Siegfried only gave a sigh "Nika, you got all this, right? Fill him in please." Nika rubbed her forehead "We. Wait a week here. Rescue team after 8 days."
"Oh, so that's it! Uh-huh." This earned him a strange look from Nika "What's up with you, you feelin' ok? Usually you're not this dumb. Something's the matter?"
"No... I'm just dead tired. Kinda hard to think straight... *yawn*... I just want to.. you know, get some sleep." Drakon wasn't looking good, with bags under eyes and all.
Nika also yawned "Come to think of it, I feel sleepy myself too. That energy wave effect maybe?"
Their dialog was cut short by Megumi's voice "Hey Jake, you've got a nosebleed."
"H-huh? Uh, yeah, I'll wipe it off." Jake was busy with his handkerchief "Strange, huh? Never had a nosebleed before. W-wha? Heh-heh, it's not stopping. Is this normal?" He was trying to smile but then Megumi saw something else "Hey, your ears are bleeding!"
"What? Why would my.. Oh shit! What the fuck?" Jake touched his ear and saw his blood on his hand "H-hey, it's not funny. I feel fine, why would my ears bleed?"
"Jake, it's not just your ears!" said Drakon, who was now wide awake "Your eyes too!"
This got Jake to panic "What the fuck's happening to me?!"
"Hey, stay calm! We'll patch you up, alright? Bleeding isn't that bad." Megumi tried to calm him down while Nika gathered necessary items from medical bags.
Suddenly Jake started to cough violently until he started coughing blood
"Oh god, it hurts! *cough* *cough* Shit! Urrrgh, it hurts!"
Now Jake was literally bleeding all over the place and started gurgling because of the blood in his throat.
After brief examination Nika came up to the Captain "Comrade captain, this is very bad. We can't do surgery here to treat that kind of internal bleeding."
Drakon broke into the conversation "Hey, there's a hospital in that town down there. How about it?"
Siegfried took a second to think "Alright, Hilda, cover everything with camo net, I'll come to help you shortly. Drakon, prep the ATV, unload everything unnecessary and attach stretchers to it. Nika, get everything you might need for the op. Megumi, make sure he doesn't choke on his blood. Hurry it up!"
He then muttered something to himself "It may be against protocol but I'm not gonna let my teammates die."

ATV was prepped, Jake was carefully placed on stretchers and engine warmed up.
Megumi threw a nervous look at Jake "Captain, he's losing way too much blood. At this rate our time limit for getting there is 30 minutes tops." He gave her a reassuring smile "Then all we need is throttle to the max, right?"

"Alright, saddle up! Hilda, you ride shotgun and spot any obstacles that I may miss. Megumi, you watch Jake's condition. Nika and Drakon, help her. Everyone ready?" Everyone gave a 'thumbs up' "Then let's roll!" Engine made a loud roar.

---

Driving downhill, ATV reached it's top speed very quickly. Road was bumpy but nothing Captain couldn't handle.
They only needed to cross the forest in time. Difficult, but not impossible.

"Shit! He's coughing up his blood all over the place!" Drakon was busy holding Jake in place so that he wouldn't fall out of the car.

ATV was flying at top speed, barely dodging various obstacles that were keep popping up in front of it.
For average person it would be impossible to drive at this speed without crashing but luckily for Jake, and everyone else, Captain was far beyond 'good'.

-Watch the trees!
-I see them...
-Careful, there's lot of rocks here!
-I got it, don't worry.

Speed was unbelievable. Captain really squeezed every km/h out of ATV. Destination wasn't that far ahead anymore.

"We almost there, I can see some buildings up ahead!" Hilda was busy coordinating movement trajectory "Turn right, there's a, uh, kind of entrance to the city, by that apple orchard!"
Drakon added his line from backseat "Comrade captain! I think it's a good idea to use the horn so we won't ram any civvies by accident!" Siegfried smiled "Good thinking master sergeant! And look at the time, we're almost 10 minutes ahead of schedule!"
Horn roared as they advanced to their mark - local hospital. Drakon registered some movement in the alleys, windows and doors slapping shut with the edge of his eye. Ears could also hear some terrified screams. "Not really good for first impression... Ah, to hell with it, we've got more important things to do!" He quickly discarded any irrelevant thoughts.

"There! Large building with red crosses! I think that's it!" Hilda pointed at the said building "Nika and Drakon, once we stop bail out and grab some gurney or something so we can transport Jake to the ICU!"

Once ATV stopped they jumped out and proceeded to the doors. But they were locked.
"Shit! It's locked! What do we do?" asked Nika "Just kick the damn thing down! Stand aside!"
He kicked it with all his strength but doors didn't move one bit. "What the..? That is one sturdy door!"
After few tries and attempted shoulder ramming he gave up "What it's made of?! Fuck it, I've got an idea." He pulled his sidearm, an old trusty Vector pistol.
Nika objected to this idea "Hey-hey-hey, hotshot! Did you think about possible shrapnel? And is it powerful enough to actually shoot out the padlock?" Drakon turned to her "Do you have a breaching shotgun or a battering ram maybe? If you have better ideas I'm all ears." But then they were interrupted by sudden shout out and closing engine roar.
"Both of you, get out of the way!" It was captain Siegfried on ATV "I'll simply ram it open, it'll save us a lot of time!"
"Oh shit! Nika, watch out!" Drakon grabbed her and jumped out of the way.

Entrance was now completely trashed. Captain pulled back a little and parked ATV near it.
Drakon slowly got up and asked "How about you warn us nex-" and got interrupted by Captain "There's no time, grab a trolley and help Megumi load Jake on it. Move it!"

Finally they placed Jake, who, with every muffled cough, spilled some blood on the floor, leaving lots of blood traces, on the nearby trolley and hurried inside in search of the ICU.
Loud footsteps, enhanced by heavy soldier boots echoed through hospital hallways as Wolf pack stormed down them in search of needed room. Different door frames flickered with windows and various medical equipment as Drakon was frantically looking around and thinking aloud. "ICU ICU ICU-... I see you! There!" Team dashed into room he pointed at.
Finally gurney stopped and Megumi, joined by Nika, began their preparations for the operation "Okay, clear this up. Get his upper clothes off him! And barricade the door, I don't want to be interrupted. Nika, you ready?" Nika simply nodded "Then let's begin the operation!"

Few minutes later...

“Shit! DO SOMETHING! HE'S GONNA DIE!” Drakon started to lose it when he saw a fountain of blood, after they cut Jake chest open. Must've been a damaged artery or something.

Both Megumi and Nika were struggling to stop it just didn't want to stop, no matter what they did.

“I can't! Oh god, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! I CAN'T STOP THE BLEEDING!” Megumi was in panic, close to hysteria.

“Calm yourself! You're not helping with your shouting.” Siegfried tried to step in and calm everyone down.

At this Drakon, who was drenched in Jake's blood, simply exploded “Calm down?! How am I can calm down, captain?!”

Things weren't looking pretty. Even though somehow they managed to stop that fountain of blood Jake started to twitch and cough even more blood.
But just when they almost gave in to despair... Suddenly, a mint-colored beam shot out of the open windon and enveloped the injured Jake's body, quickly closing his wounds, which in turn stopped the bleeding.

Everything then went dead silent. All of them stood in bewilderment, and with them all smeared with blood, they looked very sinister, to say the least.

Drakon couldn't believe his eyes. In the open window there was... Bright mint-colored little horsie? With horn? A unicorn? And did it save his team-mate just now? With some kind of magic beam? Really?

And then, IT TALKED. "Um, hi? I used a healing spell on your friend, so I think he'll be okay..." In perfect English, with female voice.
Mint-colored, small little horsie. Or maybe a small unicorn. Talking small unicorn.
His mind went completely blank. All he could say then was...

“Какого хрена это было?”(The fuck was that?)

And the adventure continues!

HELL YEAH! Chapter 1 is finally up!

Now you all can kick me to your hearts content, after all I promised this chapter to come out 2 weeks ago. And I'm very sorry.
First my PC broke down, then inspiration left me and... Wait, I'm just making excuses am I?
Doesn't matter what happened, you were expecting next chapter and I let you guys down, all of you who liked this story.
I sure hope that this kind of screw ups won't happen again.
Because I am myself well know how frustrating it is when you find an interesting story and then continuation never come.
Those kind of things suck.

But putting this all aside...
When I was finishing this chapter my Opera browser glitched and crashed and I almost said "FUCK IT, I'LL FINISH IT TOMORROW" because ending disappeared. Almost another 1k of words. But then I steeled myself and did it again. Saving regularly.

And I'd also like to list stories that inspired me to finally write mine:
Griffin the Griffin - amazing stuff, well written with loads of action and interesting characters, all while not feeling like Mary Sue story even with all powerful protagonist.
Rorschach in Equestria
Article 2 - maybe one of my favorites
Equestria: Global Offensive - interesting take on HiE kind of story. And bloody hilarious too.
Name's Ellis - WHY WON'T YOU UPDATE?! :((
And finally, From the Shoulders of Giants - it made me to finally lift my ass and start writing this damn story I was harboring for so long, about half a year or so. For this, Za Rappini, all I can say is: Stay Classy.

As a bonus for waiting so long is this weapon art, courtesy of my good friend Syzygy.

Some of the weapons Wolf pack uses

Double-barreled grenade launcher. РГС-ДС-050 (RGS-DS-050) Which stands for "Special Hand-held Grenade launcher - Double Barreled" (Ruchnoi Granatomet Specialnii - DvuStvolnii)

PDW example:

This would be a pain in the ass to reload though.

And this will be featured later: a nail gun

As Syzygy himself said "a tool-like kinetic shit used for extreme body modifications lol"

PDWs aren't named yet, so name suggestions for them are quite welcome.
BTW, only 3rd one is western-made, so if you suggest something keep this in mind.

And that is all for today! I know there's a ton of mistakes, typos and writing itself isn't perfect but please, enjoy this story.
Stay tuned! Maniac, signing off.

Chapter 1.2: Keikenchi sokujoujou - EXP points quickly going up and up!

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Part 1: WE'RE GAINING MORE KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THIS WORLD, BUT WHY IT IS SO FUCKED UP??

IT TALKED. IT FUCKING TALKED. HORSE TALKED.
Drakon felt like as if his mobile phone, a trusty device and helper, suddenly grew fangs and bit his ear.

Nika, on the contrary, was, in fact, intrigued. A new sentient species! And little talking horsies look kinda cute too.

Captain and Wulfin were just a little surprised that locals look like horses and not like, say, insectoids.

Jake didn't give a fuck. He felt like shit and wasn't paying attention to the external stimuli. And Megumi was far too worried about him to be worried by something else.

After few moments Drakon broke out of his stupor and looked at Jake. He was no longer bleeding. Wait. What did it say a minute ago? Used a 'healing spell'?
With eyes wide open and nervous smile on his face he asked Jake a question (while keeping his eyes on that colored horsie) "Hei, Jeyk. Arr yu oh-kyei?" which came out with horrible East European(Russian) accent.
"..Wha? Urgh... fuck. Yeah. No longer bleeding it seems. But fucking everything hurts like a bitch. And I feel like shit."
"Zadz gud. Viery gud. Sou, bak tu aurr... Helpyer, iz it? Hu arr yu and vat did yu do?" he looked at the pony, expecting answers.

Lots of thoughts raced through Lyra's head. One part was ready to jump in joy. She finally found THEM. Finally, after so many years of fruitless searches high and low.
Another part wanted to jump down the ladder and run away because they turned out to be very scary. In fact one of them was intently staring at her with terrifying and very creepy smile as if he(she deduced that it was a 'he') was about to jump and break her neck. Plus earlier he said something in scary foreign language. Another fact that they were drenched in blood, BLOOD(and in such quantities), didn't help either.
But she saved one of them, right? They won't kill her, right?

After very awkward moments of silence, he, as far as she could tell, inquired about the health from the injured, who was lying on the gurney, in very broken Equestrian, calling him 'Jake'. 'Jake' answered with raspy, pained voice. His Equestrian was really good but his answer made her ears drop: she never heard anypony say such harsh and dirty words before.
Then the first one asked her a question. It caught her off guard and now she was a little lost because, I mean, just who wouldn't know about magic, or ponies to that extent?

"Erm... M-my name is Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings." Human's creepy smile became even bigger "A-and I... I used healing spell on your... F-friend?"
"Majik, huh? Ooooh-kyei. And zis town. Haw iz it kalled?" Another question.
"Uhhhh, th-this is Ponyville." His eye began to twitch. "End oll off yu arr small horsez?"
She automatically corrected him "It's Ponies not horses." which she immediately regretted as his eyes made an ominous spark.
"...End huu iz yor ruleer?" Lyra broke a sweat from the chilling atmosphere "I-it's Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They raise sun and moon respectively when it's time."
This new info made him go quiet. He looked back on others and whispered something to them. One of them nodded with a smirk. Then the one who was talking to her took a step back.

That human looked around, then raised his index finger as if saying 'Hold on for a moment' and then went for the ICU room's sink to wash himself from blood. Everything was silent save for the sound of running water.
Other humans didn't move or talk, they just kept watching, not trying to intervene.

After he was finished he started ominously walking towards her with his face now expressionless and eyes blank, which was even more creepy than that slasher smile from before. And before Lyra even noticed he lifted her with his hands.

Minutes pass and he simply continues to hold her in his hands. In complete silence. Staring at her with scary, flat expressionless face.
She trembles in fear and looks back at him not knowing what to expect.

Terror continues and reaches it's peak when he finally speaks...

"You're fluffy. Feels funny."

Chapter 2: In Equestria party finds YOU

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I think lots of things change depending on the background. If shit's fucked then everything is fucked too.
But if you're stuck in a funny colorful world everything too can be lighthearted and funny. If the said world isn't a facade for some crazy dictatorship of course.
Even physics are affected. I think. Or how do you explain this: reached for a piece of stale bread and pulled out a big juicy apple instead?

Chapter 2: In Equestria party finds YOU

Part 1: Unforeseen consequences or how to handle anomalous materials.
Ponyville Hospital. April 23rd, 2051

Something uneasy was lingering in the air.

"Huh. Fainted." Lyra's body dangled freely in Drakon's hands. "Didn't expect that. She's out cold."

Nika facepalmed "I should've guessed that you'll pull some stupid shit like that. Now what?"

He scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders "I dunno. How should I know?"

Siegfried interrupted his thought process "Ahem. For how long you gonna hold it, or whatever she is, under your armpit?"

Drakon looked at the Captain with incomprehension in his eyes for a while until he remembered about Lyra. He looked at her and then said "Huh. Now after I've seen her up close she's actually pretty cute. For a horse. Huh. *sniff* She' like, uh, a plushie or something."

Nika raised an eyebrow "Didn't knew that you liked plush dolls. And you're saying 'huh' a lot."

"I'm just a little tense that's why I'm talking nonsense, sorry. That asshole almost died on us [Jake exclaimed "Yeah, fuck you too buddy" from his bed, followed by Megumi's "Please don't talk, you need to rest."], so I'm guessing this is a stress aftereffects. Huh." Drakon placed Lyra on nearby seat and put his hands in pockets and after few moments turned to Siegfried. "Тарщ капитан! А че ща делать-то будем?"(Comrd captain! Whatcha we gonna do now?)

Captain turned "Сейчас подойду, погоди чутка."(I'll be right there, hang on for a moment)
Siegfried and Hilda were by the window, discussing their situation. After a short exchange of words he came closer "Heh, now that I thought about it, it's kinda weird to talk in Russian. We spent almost... Uhh, one year? Talking only in English that is. So, what you were sayin'?"

Drakon scratched his head once again "As I said, what we gonna do now? Ride home is busted, Jake is bedridden and we've scared the crap out of the locals."

Captain looked at Wulfin and they both nodded to each other. "Yeah, about that... You all should go wash yourself. Being all bloody and scary won't get us any popularity points with the locals." He pointed with his thumb on the window behind him "Crowd gathered at the entrance. Ugh, ideally we shouldn't be making first contact but... What's done is done. Protocol dictates... Ugh, well, now we've got to make it official to avoid any misunderstandings and unneeded troubles."

Upon hearing this Drakon sat down on the floor and started giggling "Don't tell me you'll come out and say something like 'We come in peace!'. This cliche line never work!"

"Man, you really did said that!" Drakon was busy laughing out loud in front of dispersing crowd "Now look at them go!"

Siegfried cringed. "That was... unfortunate. This will... complicate things, at least to some degree."

"Don't forget Master Sergeant, you're also at fault here." Hilda gave Vladimir a stern look.

"Wha? How come I'm the bad guy now?"

Nika boiled up rage finally broke through her calm demeanor "Why you didn't left that!... it!... her! Whatever, she is, back at the ICU, you dumbass?! Oh gee, I guess we'll be convincing if we bring UNCONSCIOUS, whom they might think of as DEAD, one of them with us to a negotiation? Surely this'll give us friendly points here! How are we supposed to convince them not to attack us on sight? DO EVEN YOU REALIZE THAT YOU POSSIBLY JEOPARDIZED WHOLE MISSION?!"

"Uh... Shit." Drakon realized how big his mistake was "Okay, I fucked up, bad. You all can kick my stupid ass later but for now we gotta fix this... Any ideas?"

"...ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Nika threw a punch at Vladimir's face but it was intercepted by Siegfried
"Stand down Senior Sergeant. What's done is done. Master Sergeant created a problem, sure. So now we've got to fix this problem, ASAP. It's simple as that."

"First things first. Help me wake up our sleeping beauty." Wulfin was slapping Lyra on her cheeks "Come on, wake up!"

"...Fuck. Alright, let's just get this over with."

Part 2: Who dares, wins... An order to clean up the mess.

The squad (save for Megumi and Jake) gathered around Lyra.

"S-so... You want me to help you?"

Captain rubbed his forehead before answering "Something like that. We had a little... Misunderstanding with your people before you woke up. And we'd like to fix it before anything bad happens."

"But... How can I help?"

Suddenly Drakon interrupted "Can't we just sing and all be friends? That would be SO convenient." Cue elbow to the gut from Nika "Shut the hell up, please."

Lyra's face brightened "Wait, that's it!"

"What's it?" Captain gave her a puzzled look

"A song! A good song surely can prove that you are friendly!"

"Wha..."

"Heh-heh, now THAT'S convenient." Smug grin appeared on Drakon's face "I was right by the way."
"Uhh, who's gonna do the singing?"

Wulfin patted his shoulder with a smile "Ever heard good old saying of our Glorious Mother Russia: 'Initiative is punishable'? Well guess what, YOU gonna do it. Now hop to it, chop-chop!"

"Fuck. Me and my big mouth." Drakon sighed heavily "...Jawohl, Fraulein Oberleutnant."

Wulfin turned to Nika "And what are you standing around for? You're going with him, too. Oh, and bring our special guest with you."

"Whaaaa? How come? It's his mess, isn't it?"

"Sure is, but we're still doing it together. And besides, you guys are beta pair of Wolf Pack, are you not? You can take ATV for this task."

After brief pause Nika shrugged her shoulders "Well... Whatever. Let's get this show on the road."

"Anyways, Captain, what you guys are gonna do while we're off?" Drakon threw a question while cleaning ATV from blood spots.

Siegfried rubbed his forehead once again "Guard duty. Someone's got to keep an eye on Anderson and Hayakawa in case things go south and... Blah-blah-blah. I think you know the rest.
If anything happens, get on the horn, report that shite has hit the fan and burn rubber to our position. You pick us up and we gonna leg it back to our old outpost. Or something like that. You got that?"

"Yep, roger that. I think it's time you got up them apples though," Drakon threw his cleaning rag inside the ATV "We've been talking for who knows how long and they are all alone there."

Captain nodded "Good point. Now, proceed with the mission." He and Wulfin went back into the Hospital "And remember, failure isn't really an option here!"

Part 3: My people... Sons and Daughters of Equestria.

"Так, вернёмся к нашим баранам*..."(Ok, back to our business) Drakon rubbed his hands "You're... What's-your-name again? Lyra... Uhhh... Heartstrings, was it?"

"Um, yes?" Lyra was a little bit anxious, but that's a given with current situation

"Get inside." He pointed at ATV

"Inside THAT thing? What if it's gonna eat me? Or hurt me, or..." Funny thing is, Lyra probably understood that this was just a machine, just like Flim-Flam's cart, but this was ALIEN cart!

Anyway, Nika's patience finally had enough "Oh get on with it you plonker!" With this, she grabbed Lyra and tossed her inside. "See? You're fine. Now let's move it!"

[Jeez, I gotta stop being surprised. Magic? Clouds bleeding with goddamn rainbows? Now I've seen everything.]
"So tell me, which is the best spot here to draw attention?" Drakon was slowly driving through the Ponyville

"I think central town square would be good. Yeah, sounds about right." Lyra was still a little shaken and wary of the mysterious steel beast of a cart that moved by itself.

"If you say so." Drakon eyes still registered closing doors and windows as they rolled through the town "Now point me in the right direction, because everything looks the same to me."

After 10 minutes of arguing and driving in circles they finally arrived at the central town square.
Drakon parked ATV near weird Town Hall building. As soon as they stopped Lyra readily jumped out of the steel beast. Nika also stepped out to stretch her legs after long ride. Only Drakon remained in the car. Not a soul was in sight.

"So what's our plan? We just start singing like idiots and dem locals gonna pop out of their houses to cheer for us?" Drakon readjusted his helmet. "Wait, I actually have an idea. Lyra, get up here."

Nika took off her helmet and threw it inside the ATV "What do you have in mind?"

Drakon answered while stretching his neck "Да ничё особого. Возьму нашу лошадку и пусть она использует матюгальник** чтобы она в него вещала, типа 'Эти ребята норм, не ссыте и выходите' или что-то типа того."(Nothing much. I'll take our horsie and let her use the megaphone to say stuff like 'These guys are cool, don't be a tosspots and come out' or something like that.)

Nika sat on the side of the ATV "И ты думаешь сработает?" (And you think this'll work?)

Lyra tried to interrupt their talk "I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're saying or what do you want me to do..."

"Не, по-любому не выйдет, так просто никогда ничего не получается."(No, definitely not gonna work, nothing is ever this easy) Vladimir unbuckled his helmet strap, took helmet off and started playing around with it, juggling it "Фишка в том что это, ну во всяком случае я так считаю, привлечет изначальное внимание... Оп.. Блин!"(Point is, this will, or at least I think so, get initial attention... Op... Damn!) His hand slipped and helmet fell overboard. "Great. Ah well, whatever. Lyra, get yer ass here. Use this and say stuff like 'Don't be afraid, they are friendly and not gonna hurt us', that kind of stuff. Can you do this for us?"

"W-well, I can try, but I can't promise that they will listen to me, after all, they think I'm 'a strange one'... Um, how do I use this?" See looked at megaphone with interest.

Drakon grabbed the megaphone "Here, look. You hold it like this and push this button, and then... Just look." He cleared his throat "Testing... Testing! Ahem, everything seems to be in order."
His voice boomed through the silent town. And then he continued with goofy grin
"The world, has abandoned us. We fight alone against an insidious enemy, an enemy, who would destroy the commonwealth! Who would have our nation, crumbled, from within. But we are strong enough to prevail!"

Nika, surprised by sudden speech, lost her balance and fell inside the ATV, it took her some time to dig out from all the stuff "What the hell are you doing?!"

"You asked for greatness, I have given it. You asked for victory, it is within our grasp. Do not ask me to surrender to our enemies. I will not!" Drakon was busy with his speech and trying not to laugh out loud to notice Nika's lunge.

Nika and Drakon begin to wrestle for the megaphone "Ack! Our soldiers fight, for the glory of the commonwealth. *Give this thing back!* Our workers labor for the glory of the commonwealth. *Dammit Drakon!* Our children sing! *Stop it!!* For the glory of the commonwealth... Ouch!" Finally Nika timed a lucky strike and wrestled megaphone out of his hands.

"Attention citizens! This was... ahem... a joke, don't mind it please. We have a message to you from your friend and fellow citizen... Lyra Heartstrings! Please, a word... Lyra?" Nika turned to Lyra but she only stood in awe.
"Hello? *snap* *snap* Earth to Lyra, come in, over!"

"W-what? Oh, sorry, it's just that speech was so... Captivating, I don't know. Never heard anything like this before... *Ahem, it's your turn.* Huh? Or right, give me a moment... So you hold this like this and press this? O-okay, here goes nothing..."
Lyra picked up megaphone with her magic and started her own speech.
"Is this thing working? Ow, that's loud. Ahem, hello Ponyville! You all know me, Lyra Heartstrings, and I'm telling you, these guys are friendly. They not going to hurt us. I'm not pressured into telling you this, I'm doing this on my own volition. Their species are called Humans, yes those Humans I've been looking for all those years and they are finally here. So please, come out of your houses so we could talk. Then you will see for yourself that they are just like us. They even will do a song, just for you!"
"Was that okay?" She turned to the gang, and was met with Drakon's facepalm.

"She's really done it. Now we do have to sing. Jeez, this is embarrassing."
Nika patted him on the shoulder "C'mon, time to cowboy up!"

He gave her an exhausted look "Don't tell me to 'cowboy up' when I'm about to sing a child's song, jeez."
Drakon let out a small sigh, slapped his cheeks for a few times and stood up inside the ATV "Aw hell, why the hell not, anyways?"

Nika sat beside him "What song you gonna sing?"
Drakon gave her a wink "We both gonna sing you know."

"What? No way man, it's your mess."

"Oh c'mon! Besides don't you want to sing 'that' song? It was our favorite! C'mon, just for old times sake!"

"Wait, 'THAT' song? You don't mean..."

"Yup. I even have music ready on my tacpad."

"Heh, well alrighty then. But, jeez, this is gonna be embarrassing."

"Hah-hah, damn right. Set your headgear to act as microphone and... Let's get started!"

Part 4: Dosh, grab it while it's hot!

After Lyra's speech few ponies who was brave enough opened up their doors and windows, interested in what those aliens are up to and started to watch.
Lyra was sitting near strange cart and two aliens were doing something in it. Since it was quiet due to everypony hiding in their homes they could hear fragments of their dialogue.
Suddenly both of them started to laugh. To everypony's surprise this wasn't evil laugh, but very lighthearted, akin to children's laughter.
Finally one of them said "Let's get started!"

Upbeat music filled the air
And they started song Lyra promised.

Starlight...
Yes?
How would you describe our friendship?
Hardly a difficult question Rainbow, it's MAGNIFICENT!

All you need is a favorite song
Someone with you to sing along
Your best sidekick, your best chum
You start to whistle and you start to hum
Sing some words
Make 'em rhyme
Clap your hands
Have a good time
Best friends can do most anything with a special song to sing...
Best friends can do most anything with a special song to sing...
Let's sing it!

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be a friend of mine!

Giggle and clown and hang around
The special things we do
Play some tricks share popsicle licks
Tell our secrets too
Runnin' races makin' faces
I couldn't do without you
When you're gone I sing this song to chase away the blues..
How true!

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be a friend of mine!

You're a charmer, what a gal, but more than that, you're my pal!
And you're the one I wanna be next to, if I'm gonna sing a song I wanna sing it with you!

This is when crowd started to gather, finally leaving their houses and coming closer.

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be a friend of mine!

Incredible happened: crowd picked up the song and started singing along with the duo.

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be a friend of mine!

Everybody!

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be a friend of mine!

Starlite - Rainbow Brite
A little wish in the moonlight
Sunbeams sparkle and shine
You'll always be-e-e-e-e a friend of mine!

Just as when the song ended the gathered crowd exploded with ovations.
Drakon stood up and made a playful bow for the audience "Thank you, thank you for your support! Heh-heh-heh."
Then some of them noticed his helmet that was lying around and decided to show a little gratitude for a good show.

"Holy... Hot damn, is this real gold?" Crowd was busy throwing golden coins into Drakon's empty helmet as he and Nika was quietly talking with each other.
Nika's eyes were sparkling with excitement "Can't say for sure but it does looks like genuine gold... Damn, Vovka***, we're rolling in dosh here!"
Drakon also grew a smirk on his face "Heh-heh, just keep smiling and wave, smile and wave."

Part 5: Public relations, Red Propaganda and Skype.

Vladimir, quietly humming old 'Money, money, money' song to himself, was busy moving all those coins inside ATV.
Nika and Lyra on the other hand were giving an improvised Q&A conference
'So you're basically aliens?'
'What's your goal here?'
'How many of you are here?'
'What's your cutie marks?'
'Do you like muffins?'
'How do you move your cart?'
'Is it comfortable to walk on two legs?'
'Wa-ha-ha~!'
And other loads and loads of questions.
Well, their interest can be understood [You don't have aliens appearing in your town everyday, now don't you?], but barrage of them was so unstoppable that both of them couldn't even answer one before more of them appeared.

So, naturally, Lyra decided to take the matter in her... err... hooves.
"ATTENTION PLEASE! Not all at once! We can't answer a single question if you act like that. Please, form an orderly line and ask questions one at a time, alright?"

All ponies present quickly reformed into line. Nika even rubbed her eyes when she saw that. "Wow, impressive speed."
Q&A started to go rather smoothly than before.
But as question progressed, they unknowingly started to ask more sensitive information.
"Sorry, that's classified." Became the response to many questions.

"Hey, you tellin' us you come in peace yet keep secrets from us!" Someone from the crowd made a statement.
"Yeah, what's up with that!" Crowd started to grumble.

Drakon interrupted their grumbling with megaphone "Well excuuuuuuuse me, but see here, we're part of the military, we're soldiers, and there's some things that's not to be shared with anyone who's not directly involved without proper authorization. I bet your government also have classified information, no?"
He gave Nika megaphone with a pat on her shoulder "Yep, you can thank me later for this. Hold on to this, I'll get Captain on the horn. Oh and I'll be doing video-conference call, so be sure to join when you get free."

For a while crowd stood still, then someone from the crowd agreed with Vladimir "Yeah, that fella' has a point. I guess."

'fieldSkype' is loading...
Welcome, user Drakon1337rus
Loading RusGUI
...
Данная версия зарегистрирована на имя: Drakon; организация: Минобороны СССР, Россия
Авторские права. 2003-2051 Skype Limited.
Все права защищены.
Название Skype, fieldSkype, Skype Mobile и другие соответствующие товарные знаки и логотипы, а также логотип "S" являются товарными знаками принадлежащими компании Skype Limited.

Внимание! Данная программа защищается законами об авторских правах и международными конвенциями. Незаконное копирование или распространение данной программы или какой-либо её части может повлечь за собой суровые гражданские и уголовные наказания и будет преследоваться по всей строгости закона.

Загрузка драйверов...
Добро пожаловать и спасибо за то что пользуетесь нашими услугами.

"Semper fidelis, to my Motherland, and to my unit."

*Now reading log #### [You can disable privacy option in the settings menu]
D - User Drakon1337rus
S - User Siegfried_and_Hilda
H - User HildalvzZiggy<3
N - User VeroNika_victory
M - User megu-megu[nippon1]
J - User J4k3theawsum4lif3

D: Fuckin' thing... Why are we even using civvie tech again? Jeez. Is this thing even working? Where's my face? Oh, there it is. But damn... Wasn't there... How's it was called... KULTRACOMMS, by DARPA or CIA or whatever... So much money spent on some crap that doesn't even work. Brilliant! Genius Americans strike again!
Ugh, fuck it. *user sending outbound radio call* Ka-ching, ka-ching, money bling-bling, c'mon Cap, pick up the phone!
S: Hello?
D: WAZZZZZAAAAAAAAAP!!
S: WUZZ.. Ahem, is that you Drakon? Why Skype, something happened to your transceiver?
D: C'mon, don't be a sad mustard!
S: Wha... Master Sergeant, cut the crap and answer the question.
D: Nope, it's just SRDs we're issued have some weird glitch, or maybe it's a local interference, I dunno, but we need to set up an antenna if we want to talk on long distances. Skype on the other hand don't have such problem.
If you'd ask for an uneducated amateur opinion... Maybe there's problem with headset internal antennas or some shit, cause Skype uses my tacpad's. Uhhh, anyway, something just doesn't add up. We need expert's opinion on this.
Have Jake on this problem when he gets up, how copy?
S: Solid copy. What about your mission? From your reaction I take it, it was a success, right?
D: Uh-huh. Well, for the most part. Some of the questions they asked concerns classified stuff, so I'm requesting your presence here for answering those questions.
*background voice; user Siegfried_and_Hilda* 'Ask him exactly what info locals wanted to know.'
D: Is that Comrade Lieutenant? I run this in a conference mode so join too.
*new user joins conference*
H: Alright, I'm in. So what exactly they were asking about?
D: Pfft, ahahahaha!
H: Master Sergeant, did you hit your head or something?
S: You know, your discipline have became really poor lately. Drakon, you really want me to play drill sergeant?
D: Uh, sorry about that. Pheh-heh-heh. It will not *chuckle* happen... again... *more quiet chuckling*
Because, heh-heh, I mean, really? Is this really your username for Skype services?
H: *blushes* It's none of your business.
D: Damn, Lt. have a soft side. That's kinda cute, ahahaha!
S: You know, you can get your skull bashed for talking to my wife like that.
D: No-no-no, that's not what I meant, I mean, you guys are truly an awesome pair, honest! And no sir, I never intended to... Yeah. You are best couple I've even seen, I mean it. I would never cross your path Comrade Captain, sorry for the bad joke.
H: Whatever. Now back to our initial topic.
D: Yeah, about that... Hang on, I'll get Nika, she can fill you in.
*more static*
Nika! Hey! Cap 'n Lt. need you to report stuff, can you join our Skype conference?
*new user joins conference*
N: Comrade Captain, Comrade Lieutenant, this is Senior Sergeant Veronika Nikanorova reporting in.
S: At ease. No need to be so formal.
H: We'd like you to tell us what the locals were asking about.
D: Damn, my tacpad is acting up strangely again...
*user disconnected*
*attempting to reconnect*
*connection failed*
Try to reboot system or wait for awhile before new attempt.
Contact system administrator if problem persists.
And remember, violence and technology is not compatible.
*attempting to join conference session...*
N: ...mostly 'how it works' stuff, uhhh and also something about 'Royal Canterlot voice', but as far as I can tell they meant megaphone.
D: Damn, my tacpad is derping out on me. Did I miss anything important?
S: You can relax, only mundane stuff that I will clean up myself.
H: By the way, both Jake and Megumi are also joined during your malfunction. Anything serious?
D: No, I don't think so. Usual stuff, just a little program crash. Hi Megu... mi. Ahem. *muffled chuckle* Nip on Itchy Bun, indeed.
M: Excuse me?
D: No-no-no, nevermind. Uhhh, Jake? How come there's ceiling instead of your face.
J: It's because I'm lying on the bed you dumbass.
D: I see. Well, heh, J-four-K-three, this is, ummm, r0x0rz my s0x0rz, so to speak.
J: Oh shut up, you yourself have leet in your username.
D: Touche. But still, not so blatantly as you. "Jake is awsum for life", yeah right.
J: What's up with you, did someone cranked your jerk level up to eleven?
S: Ahem! We're not distracting you, no?
D: What if I say "yes"? Heheheh...
S: Drakon, are you trying to piss me off?
D: Oh no-no-no sorry, go right ahead.
S: ...Right. Well, with this I think we sorted this out. Drakon, Nika, I'm already en route to your position.
N: What's your 20, Captain?
S: Moving through some neighborhood. Lot of movement behind wooden fences. Probably curious kids.
N: We should probably log off, there's work to do.
H: Right.
M: Well, take care.
J: I'll be here if you need me. It's not like I can go anywhere else.
D: We'll wait for you here, cap.
S: Be right there.
*user logging off*

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"You can't win unless you try to win, but you can lose by trying not to lose."

*user sending outbound radio call*
S: Nika? Something happened? I'm basically just around the corner, can't it wait?
N: Um, I just wanted to ask in private... When Drakon called you, he didn't come as... Uhhh, rude? As in more than usual.
S: Come to think of it... Yeah, the way he acted was a little strange, usually he's not this impudent. Your thoughts?
N: Well, I noticed first signs after morning "accident" but thought this was normal, giving the circumstances... You see, he's cracking under extremely heavy stress. No way back home, unwanted mission assignment, unknown situation, etc... Guess all this combined gives very negative effect on his psyche.
When he's close to losing it he's getting... Rude, to say the least. I've seen him being like this before, like on his aunt's funeral. This is his way of blowing out steam I guess.
But if he fails to he can do bad stuff. Ranging from simple angry screaming and running around to crushing dinnerware, windows and other stuff.
S: I've read his psychological profile, there was something about 'small temper issues' but this... Someone made a sloppy job. Well, nevertheless, can he get extremely violent?
N: Hmmm... I don't think so. Even in nervous breakdown he sorts of keeps himself in check. But this can get us into unwanted trouble with locals. He's very good at controlling himself and MAY handle this on his own, but I think this time we should step in.
S: What do you have in mind?
N: ...One of his effective methods is... Well it's food.
S: Stress eating?
N: Yeah... Anyway, this is the safest option for now. After building a proper camp we could make a... improvised boot camp, I don't know, to relief accumulated stress by exercising and other training sessions.
S: So what do you want me to do?
N: Nothing much, just let me and him go back to our old camp, under the guise of necessity: we need tents, portable potty, this kind of stuff. Meanwhile I'll grab some things from my secret locker, there's a lot of his favorite treats.
S: I see... Good thinking, I'd rather also bring our Command Center truck but this may cause unwanted negative reactions. So, how are you gonna explain Drakon's favorite stuff for supper?
N: That's the easy part, we've not eaten a decent meal since yesterday and Jake's also feeling a lot better now. A small, but a little festive meal would be just about right.
S: Huh. Good. What's it gonna be?
N: The good stuff: I have marinated meat for shashlik. And frozen fish, chir and sea omul for you-know-what.
S: Wow. Stroganina sure sounds lovely. Now you got even me hungry, well, carry on with the task.
N: Affirmative, comrade Captain! By the way, even if Drakon will act like a total dick, sorry for the language, don't punish him just yet. He might explode.
S: Sure, of course.
*user logging off*

Part 6: Another World.

Drakon were sitting in the ATV with dull face, thumping out a simple rhythm when Captain Siegfried arrived.
"Hello comrade captain... *yawn* Need anything?" Drakon dropped his usual happy-go-lucky persona and replaced it with gloominess.

"Yes, in fact I do have a job for you. While I'll be here, dealing with locals..." He waved to a crowd and smiled a bit for them, then said in Russian "Метнитесь в наш старый лагерь и соберите кой-какие вещички чтобы тут обустроиться. Палатки, переносной "толчок", генератор там, ну понимаешь." (Go back to our old camp and gather things for us to settle here. Tents, portable potty, generator, that sort of stuff.)

Drakon thought for a bit, then asked "А может ещё шмотки притащить? А то не знаю как вам а мне уже немного жарковато в полной униформе таскаться повсюду. Ах да, можно... Нет, разрешите я ещё бумбокс с ноутбуком притащу?" (Maybe also bring our spare clothes? Because I don't know about you but for me it's a little bit hot to run around in full uniform. And, can I... No, permission to take along boombox and laptop?)

Siegfried nodded "Да, насчет одежды это правильно. И да, разрешаю." (Yes, clothes would be good. And yes, permission granted) He scratched his chin. "Мои вещи в грузовике, там сразу найдешь около моего шкафчика, в герметичном пакете. Пакет Хильды там же, на моем отштампован личный номер S-117GRU, на её H-118GRU. Всё ясно?" (My things are in the truck, you'll find them near my locker, in hermetic package. Hilda's also there as well, on mine there's a personal number stamp S-117GRU, on her's H-118GRU. All clear?)

"Эс-117ГРУ и Хэ-118ГРУ... Угу, понял. Так ещё раз пройдемся чтобы ничего не забыть... Палатки, толч, шмотки, еда-вода там, генератор... Бумбокс с компом... Вроде всё правильно?" (S-117GRU and H-118GRU... Yeah, solid copy. Let's recheck to make sure I didn't forget anything... Tents, porta potty, clothes, food-n'-water, generator thingy... Boombox and laptop... Is this correct?) He quickly typed all this into tacpad's txt file.

"Подтверждаю. Ладно давайте мухой, чтобы одна нога здесь - другая там. Я пока утрясу все дела заодно выбью место для нашего лагеря у местных властей.
Ну давай сынок, как там эти несчастные ВВэшники**** орали...? 'Я служу в войсках ВВ, это вам не ВДВ, есть у нас крутой спецназ, нет военных круче нас.'" (Affirmative. OK, get moving - double time. Meanwhile I'll deal with local authorities and get us a place for our camp. C'mon son, remember what those VV guys used to yell? 'I am serving in VV, this is not like VDV, also we got cool spetznaz, there's no army better us!'*) Both of them laughed at the last phrase.

"Не, товарищ Капитан, я предпочитаю ваше: 'Выше нас только звёзды'*1 Ну или своё 'Никто кроме нас!'*2. Даааа... Хорошо что ВВ расформировали нафиг в 40-ых. Ладно, что-то мы разговорились, ехать надо. Удачи капитан!" (Nah, comrade Captain, I prefer yours: 'Only stars are above us'. Or ours 'Nobody except us!'. Yeaaaah... Good thing VV got disbanded back in 40's though.
Damn, we're talking for quite some time now, we should move. Good luck, captain!)

"Да, и тебе не хворать старшина. Давайте за дело." (Yes, you too stay safe out there, master sergeant. Let's get going.)
With this Siegfried leaves to the City Hall, accompanied by Lyra.

Drakon scratched his back of the head and looked around, searching for Nika. For his surprise she was sitting on the right seat, reading something on her tacpad.
"Where did you come from?"

She raised her eyes and looked at Drakon "From your right." Nika readjusted her headgear before continuing
"While you were busy chatting I gathered all coins and put them into money bag Lyra gave me and also cleaned up ATV's trunk for stuff we gonna transport. I also had time to brush up my hair a little."

"Uhh... Right. Fasten your seatbelt then." ATV began to move, and soon it was out of town.

It was a bumpy ride. Drakon didn't notice that this morning but road was terrible. And yet Captain somehow managed to get them into town in less than 30 minutes on top speed. Drakon was an experienced driver himself but under his control car somehow managed to bump into all sorts of rocks while returning back to base. 'Damn', he thought, 'Captain skills sure are incredible'.
Finally, after a hour of 'bumpy trot adventures' they made it back. Drakon turned off the engine and it became silent again.
Time was long after noon so it was getting a bit dark.

Nika always loved nature, but this one was different from beautiful Russian forests she was used to. In fact, it was downright unnerving a little. No motion besides themselves. Almost no birds, and no wildlife. Not even butterflies or other insects. She remembered from talk with Lyra Heartstrings that animals are looking after themselves only in 'Creepy and dangerous Everfree forest, where even clouds isn't controlled by anyone'. Lyra talked about wild animals like it was something that went against the nature. As you can guess Nika felt exactly the opposite.
This no-name small forest in which they made their original camp now felt... Empty. It felt too quiet, like if this forest was dead. And that dead silence gave an eerie feeling to Nika.
She didn't notice that before, because of the squad and lots of work to do but now, when nothing was making noises, unusual silence was deafening.
It was true that Veronika Nikanorova preferred quiet reading to the loud parties Vladimir liked to attend when they were in the University, but 'quiet' doesn't mean total silence. A distant sound of a car driving down the street, some kids playing in the playground, sound of wind blowing through the open window, muffled music and happy laughter down the corridor... All this together created an unique warm atmosphere. All this made the world feel alive, colorful, vivid.
And even when she ventured into various forests, no matter alone, or with company of friends, no matter if she went to look for mushrooms and berries or just for a walk, even then it wasn't completely silent. Sound of birds chirping, occasional hare running through bushes, fox barking and other animals or insects minding about their own business. She loved this.
And this is what this world was lacking. Wind, you cannot hear it even if you feel it. Leafs don't make a sound. Nothing makes a sound. Sure, it was noisy back in Ponyville. But here... Here it was obvious. It was... alien. It was... Another World.

"Well, here we are. What's the plan? Big stuff first or personal belongings?" Drakon was stretching after long ride.

"Let's start small, get it out of our way. Then we'll focus on loading up big things." Nika made a crack with her fingers before heading out to the truck's trailer. "Let's get to it."

And hoo boy, this time Drakon definitely cursed his laziness. Because you can't just throw "somewhere under the bunk" something big like generator. Search was going to be pain in the ass. He looked at his COs neat packages with envy and cursed his laziness again. 'Why I couldn't do the same? Again it bites me in the ass, dammit.' With those thoughts in mind he was busy searching for his belongings under the bunks and other dark places.

Meanwhile Nika encountered similar problem, but for another reason. "What the... Vovka, did you search through my locker?!" Instead of tidy stockpile she found a mess, some things missing, other thrown around.

"Uh, maybe? I'm kinda busy searching for mine so don't bother me! ...Is that your bra?" He picked up a silk under-garment during his search.

Nika's face turned red "Now give that back! You pervert!" She yelled this at him as she snatched her bra from Drakon's hands.

"Yeah-yeah, like I've never seen something like that before." He shrugged and resumed his search. "Women."

"Jeez, sometimes you are unbearable! Stupid, foolish, stupid, dork, idiot... For whose sake do you think I'm doing it... Why the hell I should care anyway... Sigh..." She kept grumbling while gathering her belongings into a bag. Also in that bag she put several sealed boxes from her locker hidden compartment. "Don't you dare to touch my locker ever again, I'm warning you!"

"Yeah-yeah, whatever." He just waved her off.

"You! You!.. Ah, to hell with you. Why do I have to put up with this crap?" She wandered away into storage block, rummaging through stuff in search of something.

Pulling things together took longer that initially planned, but it were getting done. With clothes, water packs and MREs packed tightly into ATV's trunk, all that remained is the big stuff. First came the generator. A big hunk of metal, plastic and other polymers and hard materials that ran on ethanol. (which they also stuffed into ATV, ethanol is a ultimate fuel unit used everywhere - gasoline and basically any other oil-based product is quite rare these days. Not like back home.) You start it, and voila - here's your basic volts that comes in thousands, or even more. Who knows? I don't, because I don't know jack about technology. So anyway, it produces enough energy to keep their camp running, even with everything turned on. Just don't forget to fill 'er up from time to time.
And there's a "new, incredible, thing from future, portable potty!", now it's comes with auto-excavation mechanism for rapid outdoor emplacement. Decades of intensive military science that derails from original goal makes our life simpler indeed. Another credit goes to military origins: it's made so simple so even complete fool would be able to put it together and press a button. Only drawback is it's digging part - it's heavy.

"But wait, about those MREs... Most of them aren't your regular canned meat, or noodles, or whatever. It's the goddamn food pills!" Drakon fell down on his knees. "How could I be so stupid... Sure it was a little surprising hearing we stockpiled half a year worth of provisions in our MCC but this!.. No... I won't accept this! No! This is bullshit!"

He stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs "DAMN YOU BASE COMMANDER COLONEL DOUGLAS DAVID BRADLEY!! DAMN YOU AND YOUR FOOD PILLS!!" He dramatically raised his hands to the sky, following his skyward scream that went through the forest, scaring nearby birds away.

"Are you done with dramatics?" Nika asked him while packaging more boxes for transportation.

He just stood there, 'heartbroken', for a while. "Yeah... Hold on, don't close it in yet, I forgot to pack my Gillette! It's the..."

"Best man can get? Yeah, you keep saying this old ad." Nika chuckled a little.

Drakon made a mock frown. "Why you..! It's no fair stealing my lines! Oh well." He laughed at it too. "Do you think they'll pay me royalties for my advertisement efforts?"

"You wish."

"Yeah..." He smiled. "Oh damn, gotta also pack some disposable razors for Cap and Jake. Gotta run!" And he took off again.

So, Food Pills. Sure, many researcher folks like back at Maggi-Knorr Lebensmittelindustrie Ltd. and such who was responsible for this... Pinnacle of human achievement... Were quite proud with their product. Just imagine: you eat few of those pills and you're well fed and energized! Except the taste, it's terrible. No matter what they did, at best it was really bland. No one can eat this voluntarily for more than a couple days straight without necessity for doing so. But hey, it helped solving some key food shortages in Africa and other places. And it's cheap as dirt.
Either way, they ended up with about 10% normal food, and 90% of the goddamn food pills.

"Can we go now? You got everything? Didn't forget anything this time?" Nika was ready as ever, already changed from her uniform into light summer variant.
Drakon was busy putting his t-shirt the right way so he didn't respond to her immediately. "Uh? Huh... Yeah. Nice Converse by the way. Is that vintage 2012 skate model? How much you paid for it?"

"Around 50 bucks. Are we gonna go or what?" Nika took out small mirror and started brushing her hair. "I'm waiting on you."

"Yeah... Sure. Can you drive? I'll ride shotgun, someone's gotta hold all that stuff we loaded, make sure nothing falls out, yeah?" Drakon put on his jacket "Yep, that's about it."

Road uphill was hell. But road downhill, while loaded, no, overloaded with various stuff, was blazing inferno in the flesh.
Well, for Vladimir at least, having to keep all stuff inside the car and not letting them to fall out. Nika was only worried about driving, and didn't see what was happening behind her. Or more probably just didn't care - rocks, mud, bad road in general was too much trouble to be distracted by other things. One wrong move, and they will do a barrel roll - with a car. And that probably would be fatal. And since both of them preferred to be alive and not dead, extra carefulness was a given.

Oh, and it should be noted that they were contacted by CO via Skype a few times during their trip about things like 'Where are you?' and 'How much longer?' and such.
All in all, the supposed "fast trip" took them many hours, and evening was the time they made it back.

ATV stopped at the now familiar town center. But unlike their previous visit there was some activity, locals going about their business, with some stopping and giving our returnees a curious look.
"Cap? You there?" Headset was being useless as usual. So it took Drakon some time to get in touch with Siegfried and others.
"Goddammit, we're probably the only radio message senders around here, conditions are supposed to be ideal! Yet I have to put up with this crap. Jeez, looks like I'll have to use Skype again..." But before he could finish the radio cracked with incoming transmission.
"..*static*-kon is that you? Jake, get-*static*-thing working properly, will you?" Connection was fairly weak and distorted, but it was there all right.

"Cap? Hey cap! You got yourself an antenna?"

"...There. Is this thing working? *tap* *tap* Better now? How copy?"

"Hearing you loud and clear, comrade captain! This rocks! Much more convenient than that goddamn skype, I tell you.".

"You guys sure took your sweet time. Brought everything we need?"

"Yeah, sorry for the delay. We brought all you asked plus some extra."

"Good. I've managed to get us a few squares of land for our outpost. Made some basic fence and few other things. Move towards our signal and you'll find us."

"Affirmative. We're on our way, ETA 10 minutes. Over and out."

Outpost was fairly big complex(planned to be at least) with temporary wooden fence. Inside there was planned outlines for motor-pool and living quarters, along with place for future portal and other communications infrastructure. For now there only were a lone, crudely made antenna and foundation for buildings. To complete construction team would require their MCC, and for now it was unavailable.

Anyway, now (almost) official, first Human outpost, designated "Homeland-1", was created at the outskirts of the Ponyville.
Small, about 1.5 meter high, wooden fence, foundations for buildings and small wooden shelter with canvas cover on top were the starting point.
With time, wooden fence would turn into concrete wall.
Outlines would turn into magnificent multistory building, complete with motor-pool and trading post.
With time, this place can become a whole 'Human district' in this world.
A shining beacon of humanity in this new world.

ATV was finally parked in the shadow of said shelter.
"Hey guys, what's up?" An unexpected person called out to Drakon and Nika: Jake.
He was very pale, with bags under eyes but aside from that he looked quite lively.

"Oh-ho-how! Hey chief! Medbay churned you out already?" Drakon was glad to see his friend alive and well.
"But what about your injuries? Is it alright for you to be walking around?" Nika was also glad, but still worried about what happened this morning.

"Yeah, no probs. Well, for today at least. As if I'm gonna pass up such feast." Jake rubbed his hands in anticipation.

Drakon gave him a puzzled look "What feast? Wait a sec, you guys, do you... you plan something?" He looked at Nika.

She just smiled "Let's just say it's a surprise party in honor of our successful negotiations and Jake's recovery."

Drakon whistled "What's in the menu?"

"Classified info. Otherwise it wouldn't be a surprise, no?" Nika kept smiling.

"Oh come on, just drop a hint or something?"

"Well... OK. Frozen fish and marinated meat. That's good enough for you?"

"Woah... You mean...?" His eyes widened in excitement.

She nodded "Exactly."

Drakon made a happy grin himself and after brief pause he said "You have a wonderful smile, you know that?"

Sudden compliment caught her off guard, Nika blushed a little "..Thanks."

Part 7: Meet the meat. Meat came, juicy stuff so I fried it. Crispy. Tasty.

"...Damn. If we gonna have a party..." He ran off to the ATV and climbed on it "Then what are waiting for? Let's do it!"

"Whatever you say, master sergeant." Captain approached him "But before that climb down and listen. Let's distribute assignments, who's gonna do what."

Nika raised hand "I'll be doing all this... cooking business. No objections, right?"

Siegfried nodded "Sure. That's one down. Hilda, Megumi: first help Nika with grill and then tables, seats and other stuff, you're on it. Vladimir, you should get extra water, just in case. Heavy stuff is on me. Everyone okay with this?"

Hilda took a step forward "You got it. All right people, let's make it happen!" She clapped her hand a few times "C'mon, get moving, chop-chop!"

"Hey, what about me?" Jake asked.

"Rest. You've been injured. ...But I guess you can help our girls, just... don't overwork yourself, you hear me?" Siegfried grabbed his shoulder and looked right into Jake's eyes "If you start to feel bad, even a little, you tell about this immediately. Are we clear?"

"C'mon, what's gonna.."

Jake was immediately interrupted by Siegfried "ARE. WE. CLEAR?"

"Uh.. Roger that, sir. Crystal clear."

Everyone got their orders and then it was business as usual.
Few tweaks there. and some here. Trivial tasks, but a good day of work nonetheless.
Drakon took a few canisters and one big barrel with him, Lyra volunteered to help, or at least show him to the nearest river.

"Hmm... Listen. After we get back you should probably split. Know what I'm sayin'?" Drakon decided to strike up a conversation while filling up canisters.

"...Split?" Unfamiliar expression confused Lyra.

"Well, you know, call it a day? Just go home and relax, because, err..." He scratched back of his head.

Lyra just sat there "Why? ...Am I... Am I such a bother?" Her eyes started to tear up.

"No! No, it's just... Well..." Drakon rubbed his eyes and sighed "Fine, we're gonna eat meat! MEAT! Get it? I don't suppose your eyes will like something like that, now do you?"

"Um... I won't mind." Lyra shaked her head. "I understand that carnivores need meat and object to that, object to the nature would be... Stupid, yes?"

"Huh?" He did a facepalm. "Well, yeah, sure, whatever. It's your funeral pal. Just don't tell me I didn't warn ya. C'mon, we should get back then."

But Lyra just stood there, eyes wide open, ears twitching.

"What'cha doing back there? Stuck or having second thoughts?" He chuckled to himself.

"You're not... You... You... Gonna kill... Eat... Me?"

That response caught Drakon off guard. "What?!"

Lyra started to back up slowly. "I don't want to attend my own funeral yet..."

"You what...?" After realization Drakon started laughing. "Lyra you silly thing! Damn! That's just an old idiom, you know? It means 'if you do it, all the consequences are your own doing!', oh man... Hah-hah-hah..." Lyra quietened up and just sat there, not saying anything.

So there he was, finished task of filling up water containers. Now another task has present itself to the Drakon: transportation.
'Canisters were easy but barrel? I clearly didn't think this through. Technically you can strap it on your back but it's way too heavy. Either way, gentlemen, we've got a dilemma. Should I haul barrel first and then come back? Nah, it might get snatched by curious locals... Wait, I can leave Lyra to watch it... Ugh, but I don't want to make a double trip, my legs are tired. What should I do, it's heavy as fuck! Wait... What about magic? I guess it won't hurt to ask.'

"Hey Lyra.." Drakon turned to her and she jumped up in surprise "...You okay?"

"W-what? Y-yeah, yeah, I'm alright... It's nothing, I'm just thinking." Lyra was curled up near river.

"What's up with your face? Wait, don't tell me you still thinking about my stupid joke earlier?" He sat down beside her.

"..." Lyra kept quiet for a while. "No, nothing like that. I just did not think that humans would turn out to be carnivores... Wait, that's not right. I guess I'm more concerned what you guys will do if your food stockpile will run out... You're not gonna... Are you?"

"Is that why you're so gloomy? Heh, don't stress yourself out, didn't anyone told you we're omnivores? Veggies and stuff also have place in our ration."

"Hmm... But if you're capable of digesting vegetable diet, why would you eat meat then?" She wondered.

"Well, you see... Main reason is necessity. In a place where I am from, eating only vegetables will get you killed. Harsh environment require a lot of stuff, and meat there is basically is the only source of the much needed nutrition." Drakon sipped some water from his flask before continuing. "We need it to survive. Our bodies are made up that way so while we can eat and live only on plant food it's not... Well, one must have a balanced diet, know what I'm saying?"

"I see..." Lyra nodded.

"Listen kid... You have nothing to worry about." He ruffled her mane. "Well, I guess I'll be nervous myself if some aliens just popped up out of nowhere and told you 'you have nothing to worry about', heh-heh..."
He paused for a moment. "Look, you're our buddy now, and friends don't hurt friends."

Lyra looked at him, surprised. "Friends? You mean it?"

"Yeah. We all owe you for saving Jake's life." He ruffled her mane again. "Cheer up kid, you're a hero."

Lyra made a scrunchy face. "H-hey, um... I have a request that you might think of as a tiny bit strange..." Her ears twitched a little as she made a brief pause. "Would you mind doing this again?"

"Do what?.. Oh, you mean... Like, you want me to pet your head?"

"Uh-huh. Pretty please?" Her eyes sparkled.

Drakon just sat there for a moment looking first at his hand, then at Lyra who's in turn was looking at his hands too. "..Now that I thought about it, I suddenly don't want to."

"No! Um, you know ('No, I don't.') this sensation is very... different from a brush..." Her own wording turned out to be quite embarrassing.

Drakon drank up his flask, and filled it anew with water. "You better help me with that barrel then. Deal?"

Lyra made a happy smile. "Sure!"

What's better than a tasty meal and a good nap afterwards?
Only more of the same! Which Wolf pack was happy to do, venting out accumulated stress.
Small festivities continued up until morning.
And with first sun rays came another... event.

Jake noticed it first. "Yo... Yo, captain! We've got company, looks important."

And indeed it was, Canterlot's Royal Guards.

Siegfried dusted off his clothes and put on his field cap. "They sure love to come in numbers... Keep it cool. Hilda, you're with me?"

"Of course. Let's find out what they might want, shall we?" Both she and Captain went off to meet 'guests', rest of the Wolf Pack remained at the camp fire.

Jake and others tried to hear what they were talking about, but only bits and pieces can be heard.
"Hey, what do you think is gonna happen?" Jake asked Nika.
Nika only shrugged. "I dunno. Probably we all gonna get dragged to some official meeting or something like that."

Drakon nodded in agreement. "When it comes to politics and such, it's always the same, no matter if it's, pffffft *chuckle*, colored equines or anything else. Uh, no offense Lyra."

Lyra only tilted her head. "None taken."

Talk was brief and ended soon. Siegfried gathered his squad for briefing.

Captain cleared his throat. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, listen up! Drakon, Nika, Wulfin and I gonna visit local capital - Canterlot. I want all of you to be on your best behavior there, everything should go smoothly. We'll need to look our best for this. Locals are gonna provide us transportation. Questions?"

Jake lifted his hand. "Yeah, sir, about us..."

"Right. Considering your recent injuries I've arranged that you, 2nd Lieutenant Jake Anderson and Civilian Specialist Megumi Hayakawa can stay here for the time being. And besides, someone's gotta watch our camp. But if you wanted to come along, sorry. This will have to wait."

"Uhh... Roger that, sir."

Lyra asked. "But what about me?"

"Yes, regarding you Lyra... I'd like you to accompany us. Somebody we can trust, to show us around, that'll be perfect. Can you do that for us?"

Lyra basically beamed with excitement. "Yeah, no problem. I'd love to!"

"It's settled then. If there's no other questions..."

Drakon raised hand. "Actually, there is."

"What is it now?" Hilda sighed.

Drakon scratched back of his head. "How do I put it? Erm... I didn't bring my parade uniform with me."

Nika facepalmed. "Who said anything about parade uniforms? Just put on something neutral, like OD or something."

Ten minutes later.

Wolf Pack was finally on the move.
As they were walking towards Royal Guards, Hilda was going through 'objectives' one last time. "Alright, we just have to go in, talk for a bit and that's all. Simple, right? We don't even have to do anything, just stand there and look pretty. Siegfried will do the talking. And remember, we DON'T want to screw this up, you hear me?"

"Ay-firmative. So, where's our r... Errrr... Don't tell me we're gonna go... fly... whatever, on this?" Drakon stood before gold-plated chariots.

"That is correct." Captain answered his question. "Squad, meet Guards*cough*pony Silver Shield and his pegasi 'Shield' detachment of the Equestria's Royal Guard."

"Товарищ лейтенант." (Comrade lieutenant) Drakon whispered to Wulfin. "Как у товарища капитана получается говорить всё это вслух с серьёзным лицом?" (How comrade captain can say all this with straight face?)

Hilda whispered back. "Вот поэтому он и командир, старшина. Всё, отставить разговорчики." (That's why he's in command, master sergeant. Now quiet down.)

Tough-looking white Pegasus took a step forward. "All right you 'newcomers', first of all, let me be clear on this: I don't trust you and so does my team. We gonna keep our eyes on you in case you try something funny. And I want you to know that Silver Shield doesn't like when unwanted guests tries something funny on his watch. Just give me an excuse and I'll show you why 'Shield' is considered Royal Guard's elite. You got that?!"

Drakon only rolled his eyes. "Это он типа нас так напугал?" (Was that supposed to intimidate us?) And got elbow-poked by Nika for this remark.
"Заткнись. Сейчас не время для тупых шуток." (Shut up. This is no time for stupid jokes.)

Captain faced his squad "Wolf pack, at attention, eyes front!"
All of them quickly stood up in orderly formation.
He then turned back to the Silver Shield. "I understand that there's certain... distrust between you and us, but I sincerely hope that we can overcome this." Captain corrected his cap before continuing. "And I assure you, we mean you no harm. Officer's word, if that is of any value to you."

Silver measured him and the rest of the humans with his eyes. "Hmpf. We shall see." Despite his attitude his face expression eased up a little. Perhaps those affiliated with the military do get along faster with each other, another world or not.
"Princess Celestia herself ordered 'Shield' to escort you to the Canterlot Castle, so let's get on with it." Silver Shield nodded towards golden chariots. "Captain Zigf-... Ugh, captain, get your subordinates inside our chariots, I don't want Princess to wait any longer."

Siegfried nodded and turned back to his squad. "You heard him people, mount up!"
"Oh, and 2nd Lieutenant Anderson?"

"Yes sir?" Jake stood at attention.

"While we'll be there you gonna be in charge or our camp here. Take care of civilian specialist Hayakawa while we're gone."

"Sir yes sir!" Jake saluted.

"At ease, soldier. Don't forget to take it easy, you're just out of the hospital son."
Wolf pack loaded up into the chariots and Siegfried corrected his cap once again. "Isn't this festive, so many parties finding us themselves? Well, here goes nothing."

And the adventure continues!

A little afterword

And here it is, finally, the long awaited (by those 3.5 anons who still waited for me to wake up, I'm sorry) chapter 2!
Spread the word!

Illustrations are different because I did them on different days.
Not much music this time, didn't thought that through.
I'm still kinda not entirely satisfied with my writing but this is slowly turning into DNF and I can't afford doing that.
This chap saw 3 complete rewrites, several partial rewrites and some info losses.
Welp, I hope you enjoyed it.

Author's Notes:

*lit. 'Ok, let's return to our sheep'
**something like 'Foul language speaker device', slang name for megaphone in Russian
***Another diminutive form of Vladimir; here's the a few of other possible variants: Vova, Vovan, Vovchik, Volodya, Vovochka, etc; Vlad is NOT a diminutive of Vladimir, it comes from Vladislav who also can be called Slava. But this is talk for another time.
****ВВэшник(VVshnik) - person serving in ВВ(VV), Внутренние Войска МВД(Vnutrennie Voiska MVD / Internal Troops of MVD) (Ministry of Internal Affairs), Russian analogue of gendarmerie. Used when OMON don't have enough manpower and/or for patrolling. Infamous for excessively brutal traning, hazing and other "funny" stuff. Also infamous for police brutality while on duty and general lack of brains due to what was written above. All in all, a decent and honorable members of modern society.

*1 Выше нас только звёзды(Vyshe nas tolko zvezdi) - "Only stars are above us" - SpetzNaz GRU talk.
*2 Никто кроме нас(Nikto krome nas) - "Nobody except us" - VDV(Russian Paratroopers) talk.

*Rhymed translation, literal translation goes something like "I am serving in VV troops, this isn't VDV, we also have awesome special forces, no military is better than us."

Chapter X.1: The Secrets Behind Names

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Someone once said to me that your name predetermines your fate. So, if I had a different name, would my life go different way?... Yeah, right.

And that someone also said that if you want to change fate, change name.
That's bullshit, don't you think?
There's no fate but what we make. If you let some stupid tattoo dictate how your life will go then you're a fool, so don't be one. You still have your freedom, right?
Because "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you."

Chapter 2.X: The Secrets behind names

Someday after "hospital incident"
Somewhere in Ponyville

Unusual sight was walking through sleepy Ponyville.

"Ahhh. What to do?" Drakon sighed.
Because they made first contact with not so good first impression, Captain Siegfried and 1st Lt. Hilda departed to the official audience with local government held in that 'Canterlot' castle to clear up any misunderstandings and stuff.
This would definitely take time.

Nika was busy with dinner preparations and she didn't need his help, so Vladimir had a lot of free time of his hands. Trailer, and almost all their equipment and things they brought along were still up on that faraway hill. And Captain forbid him to go get it for the time being, because 'it would increase unnecessary tension'.
"Damn, this sucks."

For a while he was simply mindlessly strolling through Ponyville, scaring away(so some of them still afraid of us, huh?) random ponies as he walked by.
Then, having nothing better to do, he decided to check on Jake, who was still lying in local hospital.

Drakon entered the hospital room where Jake was stationed for the time being.
Megumi was nowhere to be seen though.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Eeyup. Megumi's help also does it's thing."

"Heh. Lucky you, huh?"

"Eeyup. But I'd prefer if us getting closer didn't involve bleeding like a stuck pig and bloody vomit but, oh well." Despite his words happy smile just didn't leave his face.

"Speaking of her, where is she? And by the way, you sounded like an Englishman just now."

"I think she went out to the doctors office, something about necessary medicaments, their effects and all that kind of thing."

"What, there is more than just bleeding?"

"Eeyup, that's why I'm still here."

"But it's nothing serious, right?"

"Eeyup."

Megumi walked in, carrying a bunch of various bottles. She smiled and waved to Drakon "Oh, hi Vladimir-san! Didn't know you were here."

"I just arrived. Need help?"

"Thank you but I'm afraid there's nothing you could do right now, sorry." She placed bottles on the tray, popped open one of them and poured some liquid into a spoon. "Okay, Jake-kun, open your mouth please!"

"H-hey! I can drink it myself, no need to go that far! Heh-heh..."

Drakon decided that it was his cue to get out of there and leave them alone.
"Don't screw it up, Yankee!" He winked to Jake and left the room.

Great, now his only option to kill time flew out of window.
"*sigh* Boring... It's so boring around here. Boring. BORING! ARGH! This is pissing me off, there's simply nothing to do here! And the word 'boring' is stupid! And English language is stupid-sounding! Как же меня всё бесит!(Everything just pisses me off!)" Drakon became even more irritated and continued his aimless stroll.

"Uh, excuse me..." Quiet voice called out. And since nobody was around he guessed this was mentioned for him.

"Yeah?" Drakon turned and saw that mint colored ~~horse~~ pony... How was it? Lyra Whats-her-name? She's the one who helped with initial 'problems' and helped explaining everything to the locals.

"Ummm, I wanted to say that, ummm, you see... If you're, uhhh..." Lyra clearly wanted to say something but kept stuttering.

"You want something from me?" Drakon raised his brow.

"Well... Uhh... If you're not busy..."

He began to lose his patience "Out with it!"

"Ah! I mean, Element bearers and I wanted to talk to one of you so, if you're not busy right now... You know..."

Drakon looked at the horizon "Fine, there's nothing better to do anyways. Lead the way."

And so they went.

At Twilight's

Twilight and co. could hear grumbling and loud heavy hoofsteps at the doorstep.
*Is this the place?*
*Yeah, everypony is waiting.*
*Every... huh? Whatever. Living in a tree is.. Well, nevermind. Where's the door?*
*Uh, right here?*
*Uwah, it's kinda small.*

To say that Twilight was nervous is to say nothing. Just imagine, a real alien! Well, she did saw those 'humans' briefly but now! Now she'll be talking with one of them, so to say, tête à tête. So exciting!

Drakon finally squeezed through and saw...
"Wow. What a mansion! What is this... a library?" He was busy looking around and not paying attention to the ponies "It's much bigger on the inside than I thought."

Meanwhile Mane 6, on the other h~~oof~~and, examined him with great interest.

Rainbow Dash thought that he did 'kinda' look cool. And a little bit awesome. For an alien. And maybe a bit intimidating. But definitely needed to be 20% more cooler.

Rarity noted that his clothes reminded her of the ones she saw in Appleoosa and Dodge. Rough, plain and simple, but durable and functional. They were also colored with dim grayish camo-like spot pattern, but instead of usual green and brown it used black and gray.

Fluttershy noticed that he had both carnivorous canine teeth and herbivorous molars as well. She thought(from behind the couch) that most likely humans are omnivores.

Applejack didn't thought much, because they just met him and it was a little early to make any judgments. But all in all, he seemed like a honest fella'.

Pinkie Pie thought about how big of a party she should throw this time, because, usually, newcomers show up one at a time. And now it was, like, 6 of them. What else can you think at a time like this, duh?

And Twilight... Well, let's just say that she had a lot of questions to ask him.

~~~

"Ahem!" Twilight tried to get Drakon's attention by clearing her throat.

He turned around "Uh, sorry. You're the ones that wanted to talk? ...I suppose some introductions are in order?"

"Yes, indeed. I am Twilight Sparkle, student of the Princess Celestia and those are my friends:
Rainbow Dash, ('I'm watching you!')
Rarity, ('Why hello there')
Applejack, ('Howdy')
Fluttershy ('...hi')
and Pinkie Pie ('Yay!').
And I suppose that you and Lyra are already know each other.('I'll sit right here')"

Drakon snickered upon hearing this. Rainbow Dash immediately took a step forward. "Hey buddy, you've got a problem with us?"

He started to wave his hands still snickering "No! No, it's just.. *chuckle* BWAHAHA!" He fell to the floor, laughing out loud.

All who were present gave each other puzzled looks, and then looked at madly laughing Drakon.
"What's so funny?" Rainbow Dash was hovering above him.

"Nuttin'! HAHAHA! Yur's Rainbow Dash, right?" He was laughing so hard that tears came out "Радужное Тире нах! Или Радужный Порыв? Радужная Стремительность? Не-не-не-не, это ж бля, Радужный забег на короткую дистанцию! Ох-лол, хахахахаха!" (It's fucking Rainbow Dash! (i.e. dash as punctuation mark) Or maybe Rainbow Dash?(like gust) Or Rainbow Dash?(as in rashness) No-no-no-no, this is fuckin', Rainbow Dash!(i.e Rainbow short range sprint) Oh-lol, hahahaha!)
He managed to sit down but started to laugh ever louder "А ещ-... ещийоооу... Ха-ха-ха, ещё же у нас, хаха, есть, Дрожащий Стыд, ХАХАХАХАХА!! Оооо, блин, Розоватый Пирог, Яблочная Водка, Редкость и, блядь, Полуночный Блеск! Или нет, Сумеречная Искорка! Я ебал! ХАХАХАХАХА!" (A-als.. Alsssssou... Hah-hah-hah, we've also got, haha, we've got, Fluttershy, HAHAHAHAHA!! Oooh, man, Pinky Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and, fuck, Twilight Sparkle!(midnight glitter) Or maybe, TWILIGHT SPARKLE! Fuck this! HAHAHAHAH!)
He covered his face trying to calm down but kept babbling about "Ооо да ну нах, ебаный английский, блин, они никогда не поймут как это до дебильного смешно звучит на русском.. Блиииин."(Ooh fuck this, fucking English, man, they will never understand how stupidly funny all this sounds in Russian.. Maaaan.)

Once he finally calmed himself he stood up(followed by confused looks) and looked closely at his welcoming party.
[So, who we've got here? Let's see...
First is Twilight... Ugh, Twilight Sparkle. Well it's not my place to judge local naming traditions, so whatever. Looks like she's the one to hit the books on every possibility.
She also said she's the student of the local bigwig? I should note that.
Next is, Rainbow Dash. Huh, sounds lame in Russian and that rainbow mane looks gay. Also appears to be (dumb)muscle of the group. Definitely one to act first and think later.
And this is... Heh. Rarity. I can see she's definitely close examining... My clothes? Perhaps she's a... What's that word in English? Fashion... Cloth... Tailor or something. She's also look like someone who cares about etiquette and shit.
...Applejack. Cowgirl or something along these lines. Smell like apples though.
And.. That yellow one. Fluttershy. Uhh, I can say that she's definitely shy. She's afraid of me that's for sure.
Pinkie Pie. Ugh, she reeks of pastry. I hate candies. She's all quirky and shit.
Definitely need more info. Well, let's get this show on the road...]

At first Drakon almost extended his hand for a handshake but changed his mind, because he thought it would be the same as the command 'paw' to the dog.
"Huh. Well, my name is Vladimir Yeremeyev, but you can call me Drakon. It's my nickname." He scratched his head, sat on the nearby chair and then added "So what exactly do you want? Why you wanted to talk with one of us?"

"Well, Mr... Vladimir is it? To be honest, I'm curious. We've never seen likes of you before. And... When you first came here you scared a lot of ponies, you know? Sooo..." First attempts to start a dialog were quite awkward for Twilight.
Rainbow Dash suddenly interrupted "We wanted to be sure that you're not planning to hurt anypony!"
"Uh, Rainbow Dash? It wasn't very nice..." Fluttershy added her two bits from behind the couch.

Drakon stood up "What? Hey, you know!.. Ugh, well, yeah, I guess it'd be quite unsettling if some aliens suddenly showed up and scared the hell out of everyone." He sat back on the chair and ran his hand through hair "Captain Siegfried right now is holding a meeting with your... How was her name? Ah yes, Princess Celestia, about that we are not hostile, we've just had an accident. That's why we barged into your hospital. Sorry if we scared anyone."

"Yeah, about that... Was one of you injured? I've been told that blood was all over the hospital..." It was quite unpleasant for Twilight to talk about something grim like this.

"Uh-huh, something happened to Jake, but he's all right now. That strange impulse from that castle of yours..."

"I see...[one of them was injured by power of love??] Well, I have more questions if you wouldn't mind."

"Sure, go ahead. I've got nothing better to do."

Twilight took out her quill and paper scroll "I was told that you are called 'humans', but can you tell me more please?"

Drakon leaned back and looked at the celling "You want me to explain humanity? Do you know how long that would take?"

“Didn't you say that you 'got nothing better to do'?” Dash queried amusedly.

Vladimir scratched his head "You got point there, alright. Oh well, this is gonna take long."

Time flies fast when you talk.

"...And I think that's about wraps up about what I can tell about humans."

Twilight facehoofed "So, let me get this straight... Humans evolved from primates, your world has no magic, you do everything with your hands and science is dominant, and overall your species are quite militant... Sounds about right? And that seriously all you can tell me?"

Drakon only scratched his head again "Well... Yeah. Hey, cut me some slack, a'ight? I ain't no speechmaker, I'm just a dumb muscle, what did you expect? Oh and yeah, this is all I can tell. Until further notice from Captain at least."

"...Something is different about my theories on humans though..." Lyra muttered it to herself, but was heard by Vladimir

"Theories? What theories?" He turned to her "I'm all ears, fill me in."

"Uhhh, I thought you guys were in touch with nature and stuff. All my findings on the dig sights assumes that... Well, just take a look yourself, here's my notes." Lyra handed to Drakon her notepad

"Hum-hum, les'see... What is this, faux cyrillic font? Nevermind, it's still readable... Okay... Huh... Uh-huh. Wait, what? I see..." After some reading he returned notepad to Lyra "Uhhh... You see..."
Drakon was busy finding right words
"..What the hell, from what I understood, all this time you've been looking for elves and not actual humans. Or maybe hardcore hippies. But that's unlikely."

Lyra stood up with eyes open wide "Elves? What elves??"

"You see, humans have fantasy tales, featuring all the fantasy folk, which for you is ordinary animals: manticores, giants ursas, etc, etc. Hell, even you unicorns and pegasuses [Rainbow Dash corrected: 'It's Pegasi'] are non-existent from where I am from. So, if cut to the chase there's always elves in place of humans in those stories... Or something like that. ['holy shit, there's actual elves in here?!']" Drakon yawned after long speech.

"I forgot to ask this but how come you speak Equestrian?" Twilight finally asked main question that's been bugging her all day.

Surprised Drakon almost fell down from his chair "Equestrian? What Equestrian? I'm speaking English and so are you!" He then yawned again "By the way I also wanted to ask you how you know... English... *yawn*"

"So in your world you know Equestrian as... how did you say it? Ing-lish?" Twilight was busy writing, and so was Lyra, rewriting her theories and facts in her notepad.

"Yeah, English. What a quirk of fate eh? We have the same language, well almost, except for your writing. It's readable but with added hoofmarks and some Cyrillic letters thrown to the mix, heh-heh." He started chuckling from that but was interrupted by his stomach grumbling. "Oh man, with all this talk I actually forgot that my last meal was... 20 hours ago." His face expression turned sour.

"Oh, I'm very sorry! Uh, here, I'll make something right away!.." Twilight headed to the kitchen but stopped in the middle "Umm, what do you eat?"

And before Drakon could said a word, Fluttershy stated "He's omnivorous, but I think his main diet is meat." Surprised by her own actions she quickly retreated back to behind the couch.

Drakon turned to her, surprised "..Now how did you know that?

"Umm.. I saw your teeth." She tried to hide herself again.

Unease filled the room.
Rainbow Dash took a step forward "Hey you, you're not planning on eating us would you?!"

But Drakon only laughed "Relaaaax, I'm not some wild beast! Okay, so I do eat meat but I don't eat sentient species. It's unethical."

"Unethical? That's not very convincing, buddy." Rainbow Dash looked at him with suspicion.

"I mean, I'm a hunter but not a murderer, okay? To eat something that talks, thinks and feels it's just... It's just sick, you know? Like cannibalism. You just don't do cannibalism."

"So you're not gonna eat anypony then?" Applejack looked him in the eyes.

"Of course not, why would I eat ponies?" He started laughing again. Then he proceeded to the kitchen himself "Besides, it's not like we're the only meat-eaters here. From what I understood there's also a lot of other carnivorous folk like griffins and such, yet you talk with them without fear, eh?"

Applejack realigned her hat and nodded "Fella' have a point there."

During his walk to the kitchen he thought ['Heh, as if someone sane would eat ponies. It's not like... Oh crap. Ponies are small horses and... I do eat horse meat. Well, better not mention it. For a while at least.']

Drakon clapped his hands "So! How about I spare you the trouble and cook something myself? Don't worry, I'll keep it vegan."

Lyra almost flew through the air "Can you?? Oh my, oh my, I'm gonna see a human at work!" Everypony else also drew near.

"Can I? Ok! Uhhh, I'll need a couple eggs, butter, bun, preferably not sweet, salt, pepper... Umm, a cucumber, tomato, some garlic, cold milk... And a, uhh, a shot glass. You have all this stuff?" Drakon turned to ponies

"Here you go!" Pinkie Pie appeared out from nowhere with all needed stuff in a bag she held in her mouth. With can of cold milk already on the table.

"Woah! Where'd you... Nevermind, that's pretty neat, thanks." He took off his gloves, jacket and his PDA/Tacpad and threw it on the couch.
"Let's get down to business, shall we?" He took out his folding knife and trick-flapped it open.

"Woah. What's up with that knife? Looked so awesome!" Rainbow Dash was captivated by Drakon's knife

He turned to Dash, trick-closing his knife "You mean, you never heard of butterfly knives? They also call them balisong... Holy shit!" His knife fell down and so did his jaw.

"H-h-h... HOW THE HELL ARE YOU DOING THAT??" He pointed at Applejack who picked up an apple with her hoof.

Applejack looked around and raised her eyebrow "Do what?"

He walked up to her and took her hoof in his hand "THIS. This. Is. Nuts. There is nothing that can hold that apple... Your hoof is completely flat... It's impossible!"

Everyone in the room snickered.
Applejack pulled her hoof away from Drakon and laughed "You sure are strange, mister! What's so mysterious with picking up an apple?"

"But!.. You!.. *Sigh.* Nevermind. ['Damn, this place sure taking it's toll on me. How did I even put up with all this until now? Magic? Talking ponies? Clouds bleeding with rainbows? Riiiight..'] Drakon rubbed his forehead and picked up dropped knife "So, where we left off? And please, just let me eat first, all remaining questions after, ok?"

---

It goes like this...

Twilight and others watched his actions with great interest. Especially the hands movements. Both Lyra and Twilight were making notes on how quickly and effectively he moved them. Sure there was the Iron Will but minotaur isn't the one who they could call both technologically superior and have no magic abilities.

"First, the milk." He took a cup and poured some in. "Feels cold, good. Now, the taste..." Vladimir took one gulp but suddenly grimaced. "Ugh, it's not skimmed! ...Huh, actually it's pretty tasty."
"Next is garlic..." *chop-chop-chop* With practiced move he quickly chopped garlic clove "And the taste is... *chomp* UWAH, HOT DAMN! This is one hell of a hearty garlic I tell you, perfect" .

Rainbow Dash was flying above him looking at what he was doing with the knife "Who actually eat this garlic stuff? It reeks." Her muzzle cringed in disgust.

Drakon looked back at her "Hey, it's good for your immune system! And it's especially tasty with mea... Ahem. Nevermind. Sampling is finished, gotta get the rest out of the way." Tomato and cucumber were cut in a neat slices.
But then he slapped himself on the forehead "Darn, I forgot about... Do you have.." And before he could finish he was interrupted by Pinkie Pie again "Sure we have!" as she hoofed him a slab of cheese.

For a while Drakon looked at slab of cheese. Then at Pinkie Pie, who was busy happily jumping around. And then he gave a long inquiring look onto the rest of Mane 6 and Lyra.

"It's just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie, don't worry about it." Twilight 'answered' his silent question and looked at Pinkie "Just try not to think about it too much."

Drakon rubbed his forehead again "...If you say so." And cut few slices of the cheese into cubicles.

Making sure that all components are ready, cooking finally started.
First you need to cut bun in half, don't forget to cut off both top and bottom of the said bun.
Now you've got two round bun slices. Use shot glass to make round hole in both bun slices.
Spread butter on both sides of both slices of the bun.
Have a frying pan ready and start frying both of them. While making sure that they don't get burned, prepare the eggs.
Crack them open and pour contents into a bowl. Add salt and pepper while slowly stirring them for a while, also add cut garlic.(Garlic is optional though)
Don't forget to take frying pan off the flame at once when slight crust is formed.
Once you've done with eggs place frying pan back onto the flame and put both halves on each other, then pour contents of the bowl into formed hole.
When it bottom gets fried enough, quickly, holding liquid top side with a spatula (or something similar), turn this mini-tower upside down.
Now simply continue to fry until it's ready.

It's ready, you can eat!

"Aaaand, it's ready! I call it 'the Champion's snack'!" Drakon put finished meal onto plate
"It has just about enough nutrition - protein, fat and carbohydrate, to fill you up with needed energy. And if you also..." He gulped down a big cup of milk "If you also drink a glass or cup of milk you'll feel well fed."
"And for those vegetables..." He was busy munching down his mega-cheese-egg-sandwich "You can *nom* eat them with this sandwich as a side dish. *nom* It provides a good amount of vitamins, antioxidants and other good stuff. *nom* And garlic is a natural antibiotic, helps preventing heart attacks and other various related heart problems *nom* It even can decrease chance of getting cancer! *cough* I really shouldn't speak with my mouth full."
He hurriedly and hungrily returned his meal in silence and after few moments he made a sated belch.
"Oh, sorry about that. But damn, that was tasty."
He then poured himself another cup of milk "And all stuff needed costs only about 100 rubles to make one!(around 3-4 US Dollars) How cheap is that for a complex dinner?"

Pinkie Pie: "Yeah, you guys should totally try making one!"

Twilight: What are you two were looking at, and who you were talking to??

"Phew, I'm alive again! Thanks for the ingredients by the way." Drakon happily sprawled on the couch. "So, any other... Wait, where's my jacket.. No, where's my stuff?"

He found both his jacket and tacpad with Rarity and Rainbow Dash examining it.
While Rarity was interested in alien cloth, Rainbow was more attracted to cooler looking thing. It was jet black, with a shiny display and small buttons, way small for her hooves, all over the thing. And oh boy, did it look cool, display kept showing some weird symbols and stuff. She couldn't understand any of it but she felt that that thing breathed awesomeness

"Ahem." Drakon coughed a little to attract their attention "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to touch other people's stuff without permission?"

"Ahhh... Sorry, I guess? But this thing looked so cool! I just couldn't help it..." Rainbow put up a guilty smile and poked Rarity "C'mon, say something too!"

"Oh! This clothes are really fine tailored but... What is with that horrendous look? Those blackish and grayish camouflage-like spots? Horrible! Not refined at all! And that sewed on things, they really clashes and stands out on this... design... Ugh!" And even though Drakon gave her a stern look she just continued as if nothing happend "Although overall quality is unbelievably high as well as functionality, I guess I should say that this is a rather fine piece of work, if only horrendous looking. But it does make you look... Intimidating, I think."

Drakon was about to get angry but then he smiled "Man, you ignore everything I say, then you say bad stuff about my possessions and act like nothing happened. You sure are something, I tell ya."

"Oh. I guess that was pretty rude of me, indeed. My apologies." Rarity was abashed by her behavior

"Don't sweat it. Me too was not on my best behavior today so I think we're even now, heh." He put back on his tacpad, gloves and jacket.
"Well, see here. This isn't exactly civvies, so lemme explain something first." He pointed at straps and insignia "See this? This one here is my country's flag. White represents honor and openness. Blue - loyalty, honesty and virtue. And red stands for courage, generosity and love."

"But what about that one?" Applejack pointed at his another shoulder strap.

"This is the USSR flag, our countries alliance flag. Red color here represents a symbol of heroic struggle of soviet people worldwide. Hammer and sickle means unbreakable union with both working class and countryside peasants, foundation of every society. And star stands for all 5 continents of Earth, living together in peaceful alliance."

"Woah. Sounds nice."

Drakon sighed "Well in theory at least. United States of America sometimes refuses to work together and sometimes there's troubles on our end... Well, we have our share of problems, so it's not all sunshine and flowers, sadly."
"Where was I? Oh yeah. Look at the one below USSR flag. It's a chevron meaning that I am a member of military personnel, or a soldier, in Soviet Union's army."
"Next up is this," Vladimir pointed at his chest straps "This here has my name written on it, see? It reads: 'Vladimir Yeremeyev'. Below it is my blood type and Rh factor. And before you ask: if I'm ever get wounded in the field this helps medics to know right away all the stuff needed in case of blood transfusion."
"Other stuff includes our squad insignia, The Wolf Pack, here, my former military branch here and that's about it." He looked around his clothes.
"As to why it colored in such a way... It's called urban camo. It was used in urban combat as name suggests. And by the way, this pattern is really outdated. It's mainly used for showing your affiliation with military and, you know, it looks cool." Drakon smiled a little "Any other questions?"

Rarity asked "Yes please. I've been wondering about your strange... necklace."

"This?" Drakon grabbed his dogtags "We call it dogtags. All wearer's basic info is stamped on it. It helps with identifying bodi...."
Rarity cut his explanation short "I think I rather don't want to know, dear. You sure are... a violent bunch." Even thought of unnatural death scared her.

All of them looked frightened at the prospect of this, but he only chuckled again "Hey, it doesn't mean that we have wars everyday or happily kill each other, it's actually getting better. Dogtags are a precaution, or more like... A tradition, I don't know. Sure our world a bit dangerous but, you know... Our world is just different from yours, that's all."

After few minutes of awkward silence conversation livened up over small talk.

"So, now can you tell me what's this?" Rainbow Dash poked at Drakon's tacpad, accidentally pushing one of the buttons.

"Hey, don't touch that! Wait, what did you push?" And answer came in form of projected hologram.
Tacpad's holo-projector projected small figure on top of it.

"Hi! Hatsune Miku's here! What song shall we sing today?"

"Oh god..."

Torrent of questions came like a hurricane.

And the adventure continues!

Author's word:

This is still unfinished product. I have to clean this up, do some extra illustrations and I feel the dialogs need some more.ironing out.
But I've haven't been updating for a while so I guess for the time being this'll have to do.

Hope you enjoy and comment.

Another World: Tale of Chaotic Adventures

by Maniac

Prologue: When worlds collide (edited)

Prologue, part 2: The World, just like ours. But not ours.

Chapter 1: Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you.

Chapter 1.2: Keikenchi sokujoujou - EXP points quickly going up and up!

Chapter 2: In Equestria party finds YOU

Chapter X.1: The Secrets Behind Names