> The bird in the crow family
>  by InedibleBeef
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Big things have beginnings varied in size
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay awoke on cue with the light flowing through his blinds. With a jolt, he fully awoke and hopped onto his feet from his folding cot while keeping his noise level down as he always did. Jays abode was as he left it from when he was last awake. Same fading blue paint, same crack in the wall, same old trunk where he kept his personal belongings. Not like clothes or his books, but he kept his memories of his childhood, his home, friends, family and such peace he was so privileged to live in. Hell, even the trunk itself was a memory. The history behind it could be surprising for something as simple as an old trunk.

Jays morning routine was about as simple as his sleeping arrangements. Wake up, wash face, brush teeth, eat, check his supply level and make a plan for his day. His lunch and dinner would only get as much gas or electricity it needed to be made. After a bit of thought, Jay decided to use the sunlight as his lighting. After all, it was quite nice out. 

His schedule was already done for today. But unlike many other days in his life he only had one thing to do, check on the refugee camp. If only that one thing was easy. 

================================================================================

Celestia closed her eyes and shut out everything around her. She focused all her concentration on her horn. She could feel the great mass of the sun burden her whole. She felt a good grip on it now. With all her might she lifted the great ball of fire into the sky, forcing the moon away from sight. She opened her eyes again to a perfect orange sunrise. Its heat allowed the dew on the grass to rise up along with the sun creating a beautifully executed beginning of her day. However something didn’t feel right, her face twisted into a frown when she started to play I spy with herself. Sweeping the great land before her for an invisible flaw toying with her mind. 

“Sister?” A familiar voice came from behind her. 

“Good morning Luna” she replied as a smile crossed her face again. 

“I must say you did a very nice job rising the sun” Luna said with the same smile. 

“I’m about to make tea, would you like to join me?”.

“Of course sister” Celestia said as she turned around and trotted along with her little sister.

================================================================================

Rations…Check
Water…Check
Spare clothes…Check
Weapons & Ammo…Check
Medkit…Check
Jay knew they would have sleeping and food arrangements but come the worst, he needed to be prepared. After stuffing all his things for the trip in his backpack he took a picture of his mother, father and brother. He took a brief look at them, admiring their smiles just for a moment, and fit them into his breast pocket and secured the zipper.

Jay only had his feet to get him places so he relied on the refugees to pick him up. Of course they couldn’t pick him up directly from his hideout, which meant he had to take a dangerous walk through the streets to a rendezvous point. For extra security, he had four routes to the same pick up just outside the city. Jay double-checked his rota to make sure of which route to take this month, route C. He would use the east wing of alleys that weaved through the city. The second fastest route. Jay picked up his handgun on the table put in a fresh mag, pulled back the slide. He did the same with his rifle, and made sure the reflex sight was working properly.

He made his way to the front door and unlocked all three locks and pushed the heavy thing away. Cold crisp air filled his lungs. He stepped down and shut the door behind him. He greeted the same apartment block with a massive hole from a tank shell with the same thing he always does. “Damn, you never do change do you huh?” Jay stepped out into the open steps leading to the street. Jay’s entire view was almost solid gray except every weed from every crack in the ground and every vine growing on every building was a dead brown. The sky was even gray, you could barley make out the sun. The street was almost completely empty except for the occasional trash bag filled with god knows what. Jay took a quick scan up high for snipers before carefully stepping down onto the sidewalk. Jay counted mentally down from three before exploding into a sprint across the street to the into the wrecked office building. He raised his rifle and sweeped left to right ready to open fire at a moments notice. 

Once he declared the floor was empty, he proceeded to his right. Dodging hanging cables and debris to the C exit. The same capital C and an arrow in blue paint confirmed he was going in the right way. 

===============================================================================
Celestia eased herself in her seat as they passed the transition of rocky to dirt road. “Ahh that’s much better” she said in relief. She couldn’t be sure if she could take any more rough terrain. 

“Don’t worry sister, were almost to ponyville.” Luna said as she herself eased her muscles.

“I can’t wait to give Twilight these new spells” Luna said. 

“What spells are those anyway?” Celestia asked.

Luna glanced down at the notebook. “Oh it’s nothing, just an improved teleportation spell.” Luna answered back with enthusiasm. “I’ve run into some barriers I can’t seem to overcome.” Luna’s energy visibly drained “At the moment, no test came back with success. 

“Test?!” Celestia exclaimed, “Sister that’s quite dangerous, you could get trapped in... in nothing!” 

Luna looked at Celestia with a hint of suprise before letting out a laugh. “Oh sister, it’s not me who is teleporting, it’s an inanimate object!” 

Celestia’s eyes widened in surprise “Inanimate object? How is that possible? Only ones magic can teleport only the host or other ponies around them.” 

Luna couldn’t help but force a smile; she loved to explain new things to other ponies. “It’s nobody’s magic in particular, the magic comes from a charged source like a gem, and it channels its energy to a machine that only knows how to perform a teleportation spell to only one place.” “Can’t you imagine? We could get supplies to towns all across equestria in an instant. 

“Wow… you’ve been busy haven’t you?” Celestia said, proud of her sister. 

“Oh yes, very” Luna said with a nod.

===============================================================================

Jay had only been sitting in the corner of the bus station for ten minutes before he heard the engine of Wills jeep outside. He quickly stood up from his spot and ran outside to greet the ‘green machine’ as Will called it. He opened the back door and slung off his backpack and put threw it in. he shut the door and took up shotgun seat. 

“Hey man!” Will greeted. “Long time no see!

“Heey” Jay smiled and gave Will the casual low five. Will revved the engine and sped out of the gas station and on the freeway. 

“Man, nothing beats the old green machines engine” Jay said with a chuckle. “True that” Will said. “So how was your walk?” He asked. 

“It went smooth.” He replied. “How was your ride?” He asked in return

“Well it was good except there were a lot of shit piles I didn’t remember being there.” “We might have to keep our eyes peeled, I think the NCC are on the move.” 

Jay felt his stomach turn, but eased it off. He knew that he would be at home soon. 

“Hey dude, I got some good news for you.” Will said cheerfully. 

“What’s that?” 

“Johnson might have you come back to New York!” 

Jay’s eyes lit up. “Seriously?” He was at a loss of words, he was one of their best just dumped off at White Plains, the shit hole right outside of New York. He loved the idea of coming back home. “That’s awesome!” 

“Yeah it took a hell of a lot of complaining, but it was worth it.” Will said. “Some of the kids even chipped in.” 

Jay couldn’t believe his ears, could he really go back home? Back to where he belongs? He wanted to start packing immediately, make sure he could clear out of White Plains. 

Suddenly, the side of the road exploded right next to the jeep, causing dirt to fly in every direction. The jeep flipped over, smacking Jay’s head against the bulletproof glass. Everything blacked out and all sounds ceased. Am I dead? Jay asked himself. He tried to look around but his muscles didn’t do anything to his command. He felt like a soul without a body. A tiny speck of light opened up in the infinite darkness, gradually getting bigger. Jay saw it and felt himself being pulled towards the light. Again, he tried to scramble away, but this time he had a tiny bit of strength in him. The white aura had eaten up twenty five percent of the dark and Jay felt his body coming back to him. He frantically looked for something to grab on to, finding nothing, he ridiculously attempted to swim away, but it was too late. The whiteness completely surrounded him, and was glowing brighter by the second. The white nearly blinded him before it all disappeared. Jay could tell he was back in real life, but when he opened his eyes, the jeep crashed and closed them again. Jay could hear a constant hum likewise to an ocean. When Jay opened his eyes he got a crippling head rush and colors blotted his vision. A deafening screech struck down on Jay, but only lasted for two seconds before all five of his senses became clear. He looked at the drivers seat to check on Will only to see an empty seat. He frantically looked around, he found Will, he was lying on the ground in front of the jeep. But the world they were in was different. Colors flourished on every plant and animal. The sun shined gloriously, the clouds were works of art, mountains towered over him, the birds sang songs of true peace. Jay felt as if he could lie at rest forever now, but then he remembered Will. 

Limping, Jay came to his side and examined his injuries. His left side had a long gash that oozed blood. All else could be easily healed. Jay checked his pulse, he was alive, but he was quickly losing blood through his gash.

“MONSTER!!” Something shrieked, grabbing Jay’s attention, he turned toward the owner of the voice. There was an elegant looking horse drawn carriage, except the horses were small for what they were, they were smaller than him. The horses looked funny though, their faces were, surprised. What really amused Jay was that they were wearing ridiculously expensive looking golden armor. After a closer look, Jay realized that these were no regular horses, these were alicorns. “What is it?” one of them asked. 

“Everyone back! Protect the princesses!” A unicorn in high ranked armor ordered. 

The doors to the carriage opened and an alicorn stepped out. But this alicorn was such a sight for the sore eyes of Jay, even if she was an unknown creature to him. Her body was white and her hair was a flowing in the same manner of a river, her hair varied in color, a rainbow. It had   It’s eyes widened at the sight of the two humans. It mouthed something inaudible. An equally monarchial alicorn stepped behind the white one. This one was completely navy blue on its body and its mane was a lighter shade of navy, in the same river flow of the other alicorn. They both wore tiaras and necklaces with symbols on them likewise to ones tattooed on their flank. Jay almost felt as if he could trust these new creatures, they seemed so, harmonious. Jay stood as tall as he could, causing an orchestra of gasps from the equines. “It… it’s so tall!” one of the guards said. 

“You speak English?” Jay asked.

“IT SPEAKS EQUESTRIAN!” another screamed to answer Jay’s question. 

“Can you understand me?” asked the tallest alicorn in a soothing voice.

“Yes.” Jay said back. 

“Am I… dead? Where am I” He asked 

“You are in the land of equestria, and no you are not dead.” Jay’s face twisted. “I am princess Celestia, ruler of equestria alongside my sister, Princess Luna. May I ask your name?”

“Uh, Jay, pleased to meet you.” Jay said sheepishly. “My friend…” Jay voice trailed off as a terrible headache struck him causing him to look disoriented. “My friend is hurt badly and needs medical attention, I don’t want to ask too much, but he might not make it if he doesn’t get help soon.”

Celestia raised her eyebrow. “What about you, you look like you need medical attention.”

Jay looked down at himself, his arms were scarred and three deep gashes ran through his side. “Oh would you look at that” he said to himself “Eh, just a scratch.” He said to Celestia. “Nothing some bandages cant handle.”

Celestia Considered this for a moment and came to a conclusion. “Shining Armor, get a letter to Cadence, tell her to round up the elements and meet us at ponyville hospital.” The newly introduced ‘Shining Armor’ nodded and trotted off. “Lieutenant, get a doctor for the injured creature” Celestia ordered.

“Which one your highness?” The lieutenant asked.

“The unresponsive one” Celestia answered. 

“Jay, you can come with us in our carriage, we need to discuss some things.”  
 




     

> Test?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So what happened to you? How did you teleport here? Where are you from?” Luna asked nearly bouncing out of her seat. 

“Now Luna, lets not pressure him with a barrage of questions, we have to go one at a time.” Celestia said in a calming voice. 

“Oh, sorry” Luna smiled in apology at him.

“That’s fine.” Jay said. 

“But one way or another, we will have to have those questions answered.” Celestia said with a slightly more serious tone. “Lets start with Luna’s first question shall we?” 

Jay thought for a moment, questioning whether he should really tell them everything. He was afraid that it might cause trouble but was unsure just how it would.

“Well?” Luna asked out of more excitement.

Fuck it

“I was attacked by either scavengers or a government task force.” 

The princesses were both taken aback by his answer. “Governments attacking the people?” They both said.

Jay heaved a sigh, he had a lot of explaining to do. “Yes, our president has been waging a war on his people for thirty years now.” He paused.

“It all started a long time ago when president Nicholas O’Hare was elected. Since he ruled a democracy, he couldn’t do just anything he wanted, it had to be passed by the people. So what he did was he asked some of the country’s best scientists and technicians to invent actual brainwashing and mind manipulation in one helmet. He mass produced this and fitted every one of his soldiers with one of these helmets. He also fashioned this into a civilian product and claimed it relieved stress and cured headaches, so many officials used it. From there it was like being the queen ant of a massive ant colony. He could command his entire army and all people who could pass new laws and bills from his desk. Which meant that he could now do whatever he wanted. He cracked down on protestors, killing innocent people, women, children.” Jay paused again and looked at the floor of the carriage.

“Taking my family too. Thus beginning the revolution. This is where I come in, I joined the rebels and fought all over the east coast with my friend Will, as we both grew up together in a bomb shelter, like me, his family was also killed by O’Hare. We eventually secured the northern territories and we established a port with our allies across the seas to come and take refugees to safety. I was assigned at post of a town just outside a large city where we have the refugees waiting for a ship or a plane. I was picked up to come back to the city, and a roadside bomb blew up, there was a bright light, and now I’m here.”

Celestia and Luna couldn’t believe their ears. How could he have gone through all this and still go on? Their jaws hung open in awe at Jay’s story. This creature, calm and caring, has no family, no home, no childhood, no nothing, and yet, sat here before them. They both felt pity for the creature. But they were amazed about how he has grown to be an adult, how he could live with his himself, they admired his refusal to give up.

“B-but, who raised you?” Luna asked out of curiosity.

“The rebels did, I was born around the time O’Hare finished his brainwashing project. I was in my mothers arms when she was killed, the rebels found me and took me as their own.”

Such a kind deed, the rebels must really care about the peoples well being. 

Luna slowly got up and sat next to him, she put her hoof on his knee. Jay looked at her. “I’m so sorry.” She said to him. He smiled and gave a small nod.

The carriage stopped, and shining armor opened the doors. “Your highness, we have arrived.” He said as soon as he was in sight. Just as he saw what was happening in the carriage he broke his professional posture. “Oh, uh sorry.” He said cheaply. Nobody said anything.

Celestia was the one to break the silence. “How are we to get Jay and his friend into the hospital without causing panic?” 

Jay took a look at the hospital; he observed only three entrances through the front lobby, two windows and a front door. No sneaking in.

“He could be put under an invisibility spell” Luna chimed. 

“Good idea Luna!” Celesta said. “Now Jay you will be invisible to everyone, even yourself. Just don’t bump into anypony or knock anything over.” Her horn glowed a bright yellow aurora.

“Whoa, hold on, are you sure this is-

A yellow beam shot out of Celestia’s horn and hit Jay in the abdomen. He felt a slight tickle and every part of his body just evaporated into nothing. 

Safe” He finished.

“Well then, follow our lead.” Celestia said as she stood up and exited the carriage, Luna behind her. 

Jay stood up and followed on. He once again found himself admiring the atmosphere of this beautiful planet, nearly bumping into a Pegasus. Well, no, the Pegasus nearly bumped into him. It had a gray body and a yellow mane, its eyes were crossed and she couldn’t seem to fly in a straight line. Jay briefly considered the idea that she was drunk, but deemed it impossible since the carriages escort would have arrested her, or at least taken notice of her. 

Celestia turned around “Jay are you still there?”

“Yes” He replied.

She opened the door to greet seven colorful ponies. A purple unicorn with a dash of pink in her hair, A completely pink pony with an afro, a light yellow pegasus with a pink mane, a white unicorn with a purple mane, an orange pony with blonde hair with a stetson styled hat, a pegasus with a cyan body and a rainbow colored mane and finally a pink alicorn with purple, dark pink and light blonde mane, she wore a tiara and a necklace similar to the other princesses. Jay figured that she was also a princess of someplace.

“Princess Celestia!” The purple unicorn said with glee. “We came as fast as possible, what happened to you? Are you alright?” 

“Yes I am quite alright, I called you all here because we have discovered a…” Celestia noticed the nurse operating the front desk. “Could you please leave us?” The nurse quickly got from her spot and left to another room. 

“We have discovered a new species. He somehow opened a portal to our world and we met on the road here.” She continued.

“Umm, where is it?” the purple unicorn asked. 

“In front of you” Jay answered. 

Everyone except for the two sisters gasped at the sound of his voice. 

“Jay don’t scare them now, save that for when we disable the spell.” Luna joked. 

“Oh yes, about that.” Celestia said as her horn glowed again and Jay’s body began to faze back to normal. 

The seven ponies gasped at its immense size compared to themselves, its shape and build all terrified them. The yellow pegasus squealed and hid behind the pink alicorn. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you.” Jay said assuringly.

“He indeed is not, and his friend received some serious injuries which is why we called you here.” Celestia said in her soothing voice, which seemed to ease them a bit. 

The pink alicorn stepped forward to greet the behemoth creature. “Hello, my name is Princess Cadence of the crystal kingdom.” Jay admired her bravery compared to the others. “This is Applejack gesturing to the orange pony, Rarity, to the white pony, Fluttershy, revealing the trembling yellow pegasus, Twilight, to the purple unicorn, Rainbow Dash, to the cyan/rainbow Pegasus and.”

“HI IM PINKIE PIE!” the pink pony rang out.

“Yes, and may I ask your name?” 

“Jay, just Jay.” “I like your brave attitude by the way.” Jay said, thinking aloud. 

“Why thank you.” She said with a smile.

“Hey, I’m not afraid of you!” The rainbow pegasus protested, springing up and hovering with her wings. “You just uh, look dashing today.” She said sheepishly.

“What? You cant be serious rainbow, look at him! He’s just so cut and bruised all over, poor thing. You need to fix that up!” The white unicorn said with empathy.

“Well, uh I…” Jay was unsure what to say at this point. These ponies sure are friendly. 

“From the letter sent by Shining Armor, it said her royal highness would like me to conduct a test on you.” Cadence said, saving him from the awkwardness. 

“Test? What kind of test?” 

“A test for the amount of love, and harmony you have inside you.”

Jay grew fearful, knowing he would fail this test. 

“What we will do is look inside your memories and live you’re past to see what you believe in.”

Oh shit. 

“I don’t know if you want to do that.” Jay said.

“Well I am under order of princess Celestia.” Cadence looked at Celestia for support, but only got a look equally as nervous as Jays. 

“Is something wrong?” She asked out of confusion.

Jay looked hard at the ground and fell silent. 

“Jay has had a, well, troubled past.” Celestia said. “But unfortunately, we will have to see it Jay. I understand that you are keeping it from us for our own well being and yours too, but we will have to look into it.”

Jay understood her reason. He was just uncomfortable. 

“Okay, fine. What do I have to do?” 

“Just find a comfortable spot and clear your mind. I will do the rest.”

Jay heaved a sigh. “Okay” He eyed a spot in the corner nearest to him at sat up against it. “Now are you sure this is safe?” He asked Cadence.

“Yes, I assure you nothing bad will happen.”

Jay relaxed and closed his eyes. He heard a chime from her horn. A white flash and he was back in Manhattan. He heard the scream of the F-15s above him. Gunfire rang out from the street. Jay knew what was going to happen. He turned to his side to see his squadmate get shot in the head, blood and brains splattered all over the floor. He pulled his lifeless body behind the wall and replaced him. He opened fire on the unit that killed his squadmate. After five shots the gunman went down. Three bullets hit the wall inches from Jays face before he fell backwards behind cover on top of his dead squadmate. I was clear to him that he needed to move to another cover. He turned and took his squadmates dog tags. And looked out to an overturned humvee. The bulletproof side facing the enemy, perfect. 

Jay took off in a sprint towards the overturned vehicle, bullets whizzing by, barley missing him. He vaulted over a piece of a destroyed BTR. About ten feet from his new cover when a grenade bounced in front of him. He kicked it five feet away from him before he slid behind the vehicle and the grenade exploded. A big piece of shrapnel skimmed his arm, taking flesh. He winced in pain but brushed it off. He had been too lucky today. 

He heard footsteps behind him and spun around to see an enemy rifleman staring at him, already raising his weapon at Jay. Jay rolled sideways and finished off with his rifle raised at his opponent who was now aiming at an empty space on the ground. Jay let three rounds go, dropping the dazed enemy. 

As Jay pushed up against his cover, a canister of purple signal smoke rolled into view just about a foot away from him. Signal smoke. 
They were calling an airstrike on his position! He took a last stand and hurled the grenade back to enemy lines just as the roar of the jets could be heard through all the gunfire and shouting. Those helmets may brainwash them, but it does make them fucking stupid too. The jets came at a low altitude and dropped a single JDAM on the enemy position, obliterating their lines. Cheers were heard behind him as the enemy began to retreat. 

The platoon leader, Barbossa, stood next to Jay and faced the rebels. 

“They are weak!” He shouted with a raised fist, “Finish them!” 

The rebels gave a shout to this as they charged from their lines. 

There was another bright flash, and Jay was running towards a trench with someone draped over his shoulders.

“Come on, don’t give up on me now brother!” Jay said. 

Sniper rifles and the rebels desperately trying to shoot their owners was all that could be heard. About ten feet left to go and Jay was nearly sprinting, but it was still too slow. A bullet hit him in the leg and he came crashing down. He screamed in pain, looking down at the wound. The bullet tore right through his leg leaving a hole exposing the bone. 

“Jay! Go without me, just leave me here!” The rebel said, in an attempt to save Jays life.

“I am not going to leave you here!” Jay shouted back, grabbing his vest. Another bullet struck the ground near Jay’s feet. Jay got up on his good leg and hopped along to the trench. Bullets constantly coming his way. Jay mustered all his strength to shove the rebel into the trench before a bullet struck him in the shoulder and he collapsed in after him. 

A third bright light appeared and Jay was on crutches and bandages covered his two wounds. He was making his way down a long hallway, which led to a room filled with children playing amongst themselves. 

“Uncle Jay!” A child exclaimed. 

“Hey there little dude!” Jay said greeting the boy. His face was similar to Jay’s, and looked very alike to the boy's father, Jay’s brother.

“I missed you so much!” The boy said with a hyper tone. “What happened to you?” He asked, noticing the bandages and crutches. 

“A dinosaur got me!” Jay said jokingly. “But he was no match for me and Will, we kicked his a-butt!”

The boy giggled and said, “You’re silly.” 

The light flashed again and Jay was back in the hospital lobby. Cadence had never seen such violence. Sure equestria had conflicts, but they never received a casualty. Their power of friendship usually solved the problem. This war made their conflicts look like a water balloon fight. All of the ponies had seen it, and they stared a Jay, who had seen so much hate and rage… yet could still love. 

“So how badly did I fail?” Jay asked Cadence. 

Cadence could barley hear him through the buzz of thoughts going through her head. She had seen him kill, but she had also seen him put his life on the edge for another. She had also seen him interact with a child, his nephew. 

“Who was the child?” She asked him.

“Well, he’s technically my nephew, but I volunteered to take care of him after my brother died.” He answered. 

He did the same thing done to him! Luna thought. Rebels who found him abandoned on the street raised Jay, and Jay consciously raised his nephew without a father. 

“You didn’t fail, you passed with flying colors.” Cadence answered Jay’s question. 

The six ponies looked surprised at Cadences answer.

“What?” Jay said in amazement. 

“Your actions may have been violent, but you did them for a good cause. You fight for your people, you eradicate the evil and take care of the innocent. You also saved a life, injuring yourself in the process. And raising a fatherless child! That truly earns my respect. You have proven yourself to have lots of love, but you are trapped in a merciless, unforgiving world.”

Jay couldn’t believe it, he didn’t deserve this, he was a monster. But he was grateful. 

“Thank you Cadence, I owe you bigtime.”

Cadence smiled and said “Your welcome.”

The moment was interrupted by a familiar voice to Jay scream “HOLY SHIT!”

> You cant have my memories!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh god, Will woke up. 

“Hey don’t fucking touch me!” He screamed. 

Jay bounced up and took off in a sprint to the sound of his voice. He hoped to god that the doctors had enough smarts to strap him down. 

“What the hell? Talking horses? WITH WINGS?!”

Jay burst open a door to a long corridor of rooms. One of the rooms had some of those guards outside hurrying to get inside. Jay figured that was the room Will was in. Another few waves of cursing confirmed it. 

With that, Jay ran to the doorway and looked inside. Sure enough, there was Will strapped down to a bed. The guards were just standing there trying to figure out what to do with the screaming alien. 

Will looked up at the doorway and saw Jay. “Jay what the hell is this? Am I tripping on LSD or something?” 

“No Will, calm down, take a deep breath.” Jay said walking closer to him. “Everything you’re seeing is real” 

Will was obviously freaking out “W-what?” he said.

“We got hit by a roadside bomb and it tore a hole through space or something and were now in a world filled with talking horses-

“Ponies” The guard corrected him.

“Right, in a world filled with talking ponies and magic.”

As Jay said that, the other ponies arrived at the doorway. He turned around and noticed them. “Will, meet Princess Luna, Princess Celestia and Princess Cadence.” 

Jay could see in Will’s eyes that he was amazed at the sight of the princesses pure beauty. 

“Leaders of Equestria, the nation were in right now.” Jay said with his ‘so you better behave yourself’ tone. 

“A pleasure to meet you Will.” Luna said, holding out her hoof. 

Jay undid the strap holding down his right hand so he could shake her hoof. Will did so, and kept a light grip on her hoof as he shook it. “So, they’re friendly?”

“Will you’re on a life support machine, what do you think.” Jay said flatly. 

“Oh, right.” Will said as he realized that he was attached to a life support, and all his wounds were fixed up too.

“Are either of you hungry? I can fetch something if you are.” A nurse said. 

“Oh, yes, thank you.” Will said with gratitude.

“Anything for you?” She asked Jay.

“Does water exist here?” Jay asked the nurse.

The nurse was a bit taken aback by the oddity of the question. But she had to remember that he was an alien from another planet and he knew nothing of what or what didn’t exist here. “Yes we have water, I’ll get you some.” The nurse said with a smile.

“Thank you” Jay called out as she left the room. After the door shut behind her, he turned back to Cadence. “So do you have to do the same test on Will? Because his history is no better than mine.” 

Will looked at Jay with one of those ‘what the fuck’ faces. “Wait, hold on, what test?” He said out of his utter confusion. 

“A test for the amount of love you have inside you. We will look into your memories and relive certain events in your life.” Twilight explained to him. 

Will just stared at her blankly. After a few seconds of growing unease in the purple pony, Will just said “No”. Will started to remember everything, how the dead would look at him with their empty eyes, how some would plead for help, what really hit him hard was when his little brother died, the last piece of family he had left just died in his arms. At the thought of this he collapsed his head back onto the pillow and let out a quiet sob. 

Jay knew what his problem was; Wills soft spot was always his brother. When he was alive Will would smack the shit out of anybody that would try to harm his brother. Jay put his hand on Wills shoulder. “No” He repeated. “You can’t look at my memories” Jay gave him a light pat. “He’s in a better place”

The nurse came back with a tray loaded with a lot of fruits and vegetables. She hesitated for a moment but cautiously set the tray next to Will and handed Jay a glass of water. Then backed away again into another room. 

“We will give him time” Cadence said, feeling great sorrow for Will.

Will let out another louder sob and began to tremble. 

Celestia couldn’t take it anymore, the two have seen too much suffering. She felt as if she needed to do something. 

“Luna, Cadence can I have a word with you?” Celestia asked.

“Excuse us” Luna said as she walked out with Celestia. 

“Please don’t judge me… I felt sorry for him!” Cadence cried in a hushed voice. As soon as they were out of the room. 

“I didn’t want to talk to you about that, I wanted to talk to you about helping them.” Celestia peeked through the window in the door. Will was still breaking down. Fluttershy had stepped up to comfort him. “Just look, all we have to do to traumatize them is say the word past.” Celestia said that last word as if it was vulgar. 

Luna thought about this, and then remembered something Jay told her in the carriage, We established a port with our allies across the seas to came and take the refugees into safety. “We can help” Luna said with a bit more excitement. “Jay said something about having allies across the seas, and they come to take the refugees to safety! We could do that!” 

Cadence thought about this, but shook it off. “That will come later, for now we have to find them a place to stay.” She knew they were fighting a war, and she would love to find out more but they need to get some rest before anything else.

“Agreed” Celestia said, draining her energy a bit. “We should go figure that out now with everypony.” Cadence nodded in agreement. 

They both reentered to see Will still a bit shaken but calmed and now eating a few bites off his tray. The other ponies were talking amongst themselves except for Fluttershy, who was comforting Will. 

“Alright everypony! We decided on letting Will have some time gathering his thoughts. In the meantime, we will have to find a place suitable for these two.” Celestia said, getting everyone’s attention. “We can’t put them in a hotel, or put them in someplace where ponies come regularly.” With the thought of other ponies in mind, Celestia would also have to introduce them to the public eventually. 

“I would be happy to have them in the library, we could temporarily close down.” Twilight said. “We could all make proper introductions and get to know each other.” 

All ponies nodded in agreement to the idea. There really was no alternative other than leave them in the forest or hide them in the hospital. 

“Its decided then, Will, Jay, we will all stay at Twilight’s home and possibly slumber there if need be.” Celestia said in completion. 

“Will, do you think you can get up?” Jay asked him. 

“Yeah, but what about the Green machine? We’ve got supplies in there.” Will said.

Jay’s eyes widened as he remembered that the Green machine still had rations, his rifle, a med kit in them. “Shit, you’re right! We need to go back.” 

“Is this ‘Green machine’ the dark green piece of machinery that was impaled on a tree?” Luna asked. 

Will nearly spit out the peas he was eating. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IMPALED ON A TREE?” he shouted, snapping everyone to attention. He was definitely back to his normal self.

“Oh yeah, when we teleported, you passed out and we crashed” Jay told him. Will’s face flushed red with anger. “Don’t worry Will, we’ve fixed it numerous times. It’s been more banged up than this before.” Jay said, reassuring his enraged friend. “How far out is the car do you think?” He asked Celestia. 

“I’m guessing that a ‘car’ is ‘that dark green piece of machinery impaled on a tree’, and it is about a mile out from here.” Celestia said, earning the blushes of both Luna and Jay. 

Jay let out a small laugh at himself. “Yeah, that’s a car. But I might need someone fast to accompany me, we have a lot of supplies in there.”

“Fast?! That’s an understatement for me.” Rainbow Dash boasted, getting a roll of the eyes from Applejack.

“Can you carry some weight with that?” Jay challenged.

“Heck yeah!” She responded.

Jay took off his jacket and his hoodie underneath, down to his brown t-shirt then plopped them by Will’s feet. “Time to go sprinting then” he said with a smile. With that he got up and started making his way to the exit with Rainbow Dash.

Rarity felt a pang in her heart as she saw the shirt Jay was wearing. She almost felt offended by the lack of care in his appearance. “Why did he just take all that off?”

“Well it is the middle of summer, and he was just about to run two miles, and one of the miles he has all his stuff with him.” The orange pony with the Stetson hat said with a slight southern accent.  

“Oh I understand that completely darling, but his shirt was hideous! Why would he expose that to anypony?!” The white one cried.

“I take it she’s into fashion.” Will said looking at the orange pony. 

“Why yes, in fact, she is a fashion designer.” The orange pony said back. 

“Well, that explains a lot” Will said. “So where exactly am I?” He asked nobody in particular.

“You’re in Equestria, a nation on Equis.” The purple one answered.

That’s funny, eqines living in equestria, on planet equis Will thought to himself. “So are you important peop- ponies here?” 

“Yes, this is princess Celestia, princess Luna and princess Cadence.” The purple one said motioning to the three princesses. “And we are the elements of harmony.”

“I’m sorry, the elements of harmony?” This was getting more ridiculous by the second. Sending princesses to deal with unknown entities was one thing, now the elements of harmony? 

“Yes, the elements of harmony.” Twilight noticed that Will probably had no idea what she was talking about. “The elements of harmony are six supernatural artifacts that are arguably the most powerful in Equestria. Each element represents an element of friendship and will only work if it is used by an individual who possesses the corresponding trait and if they are all used at the same time.” 

“Damn” was all Will could say. He sat up to free his legs from the straps. 

“So, if it doesn’t bother you too much, what is the war you are fighting?” Twilight asked. 

“How did you know about the war?” Will asked quizzically.

“We saw Jay’s memories, and the war” Twilight said shuddering.

“Well me and Jay are part of a revolution, against our president. He invented mind manipulation and mass produced a helmet called the MM2 with the technology built in the helmet, this was issued to every single soldier he had. Then he could control the military’s mind, which meant he could do anything. So a revolution began.” Will said to Twilight, who was scrambling to write down every word he said. 

“So what is your world like? I mean, outside of the war.” Twilight asked as she finished writing down what Will had previously been explaining. 

“Well honestly, I don’t know much of what’s outside the war. I’ve heard about a few islands where we take refugees and they were really nice. But you should ask Jay about that, he’s been sent everywhere that we could possibly send refugees to.” Again, Twilight taking note of everything. 

Will fiddled with the final strap and it broke loose, with that he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. He tried to walk over to the door but the wires from the life support machine tugged on his arm. Will just tore them out and continued on walking.

~~

Jay ran in his biggest possible stride. Rainbow dash soaring above him. He carried all of his things, his rifle and his backpack with everything he packed inside. Wills backpack was thankfully small enough for Rainbow to carry on her back. As for Wills rifle, Jay strapped that to his back because Rainbow Dash couldn’t keep something that loose on her and it not get in the way of her wings. Running this distance even with his backpack was normal for him. Even Rainbow Dash had to admit that he was fast for having only two legs. The hospital was in sight and Jay quickened his pace. Guards talking amongst themselves surrounded the carriages that brought him there. He could see a figure of a humanoid, it had to be Will. Eight ponies followed. He slowed up as he was running past the guards who were keeping a watchful eye on him. As he approached the entrance, he unslung Will’s rifle and tossed it to him. Will caught it as Rainbow Dash came in for a soft landing, struggling to take it off, Will unbuckled the straps and it slumped off Rainbow’s back. 

“Thanks guys.” He said. He noticed that the ponies were eyeing his rifle suspiciously. “Don’t worry, I’m not allowed to use it unless I’m under threat” He said, unsure on whether they knew what it was or not. He turned to Jay, who was catching his breath. “Where is the MP-SAM?” He asked Jay. 

“MP-SAM? Since when did you have one?” Jay asked back. 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I installed a small weapons cache in the trunk.” Will said.

“Well still, a MP-SAM plus all the weapons and ammo would be too much to carry.” 

“Quick question, what is a empee sam? Twilight asked.

“No, not an empee sam, an MP-SAM a man portable surface to air missile.” Jay said. “It’s general purpose is to disable aircrafts.” 

“Another question, what is an aircraft?” Twilight asked. 

“An airborne vehicle” Jay said knowing this would take a lot of explaining. “I’ll sketch one for you on the way.” 

“Yes Twilight, we must be on our way.” Celestia reminded her.

With that, Jay, Will and the two princesses climbed into the carriage. The other six hitched a ride on Shining Armors chariot. 

“So what do you think of these new creatures?” Applejack asked Twilight. 

“I don’t know, they seem peaceful, but their war has consumed so much, I don’t know if we should trust them.” 

“Their lack of stylish apparel may suggest that they’re very poor.” Rarity said. 

“Well, they are rebels. Ah don’t know if their access to fine clothing is their biggest problem.” Applejack suggested.

“Will was normal until we asked to see his past, then he broke down. Maybe his past was even worse than Jay’s” Fluttershy said. “And did you hear Jay say he is in a better place? Maybe he lost someone he loved.” 

“Well, the princess told me that Jay lost most his family at infancy, so he couldn’t remember it. She also said that Jay was raised by the rebels.” Twilight said. “So maybe Will’s family died more recently.” Twilight said. 

Twilight turned around to see Pinkie Pie with a flat mane staring off in the distance. “Pinkie, are you okay?”

“No!” Pinkie cried “Those two don’t look like they’ve been to one party in their lives!” 

“Oh Pinkie, there’ll be plenty of time to do that once they’re settled.” Twilight said. With that, Pinkies hair instantly poofed up to its normal state.

“The only thing I noticed in Jay was that he was really fast, he could put anypony to shame!” Rainbow exclaimed. 

“Oh we’ll see about that” Applejack said. 

~~  

Jay finished up his rough sketch of a CV-22 Osprey. His sketch showed the basics of how it flew and a brief explanation on fuel engines. He had previously drawn a C-130 Hercules and an MH6 littlebird. His sketches interested the sisters, they had thought that he was going to sketch something along the lines of a small compartment with giant wings attached to them.

“What are these things?” Luna asked “How do they work?” 

“Well this is a plane” he said, gesturing to the C130 “The power from it’s propellers increase it’s speed until the flaps fold down causing it to lift off the ground.”

“Interesting” Luna said, staring at the paper which he drew the craft. It made perfect sense to her, she was wondering how she didn’t think of this. 

“Now this is a helicopter, or a chopper” Jay said flipping the page to his sketch of the littlebird.

“Why a chopper?” Luna asked.

“Because the sound it makes sounds like its blades are chopping through the air.”

That last part didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Luna, but she went along with it.

“Now the helicopter can take off, land and hover vertically because the blades are spinning at such a high power it lifts the body off the ground. The way it move is that is leans at an angle and the blades provide the power to push it in that direction.” 

The ‘helicopter’ especially amazed Luna, she wasn’t too hard on herself for not thinking of this before because the design was very complex. The entire page was filled with text explaining the uses of every part. 

Flipping over to the next page, the osprey. To Luna, the osprey was the same as a helicopter it just had twin rotors.

“The osprey is a hybrid between the plane and the helicopter, its rotors can face up for vertical take off and landing. But its rotors can also face outwards like a plane for full speed horizontal movement.”

These new vehicles greatly fascinated Luna, she could drop the whole teleportation business and work on building one of these. But it will come another time, for they were almost to Twilight’s library. 

“When we get there, I need to tell the pony in command of the guards something.” Will said. “Something to assist in our anonymity.” 

“Well, I suppose if there’s someone who knows good tactics, it would be you.” Celestia said.

The carriage came to a sudden stop, one look out the small window of the carriage told Celestia they were at their destination. Shining armor came to the carriage doors to escort the princesses to the tree. Shining armor opened the door for them and stepped back, allowing them to pass. Once they were out of the carriage, Will motioned Shining armor closer to him. 

“Are you in charge here?” Will asked him.

“Yes, why?” Shining armor asked.

Will took a rook chess piece out of his pocket and placed it on the floor of the carriage.

“I want your men to spread out in a circle around this library. When you regroup, do it near here, but not directly around the carriages.” Drawing an imaginary circle around the rook.

“And why should I take orders from you?” Shining armor said defiantly.

“Shining armor” Celestia said, poking her head out of the front door.

“Yes?” 

“Do as he says” 

Shining armor turned to Will and Will winked at him before leaving the carriage, Jay behind him. 

Jay had to duck his head to fit inside the doorway, Will being a bit shorter than him didn’t have to duck as much. Inside was the dream of any child, a tree house converted into a legitimate home. Bookshelves lined the walls, overflowing with books. Well, it was a library. The ponies were in the living room, presumably talking about the two humans. Luna was showing Twilight the sketches Jay made on the three aircrafts, explaining all that she knew. 

“Oh, there you are!” Celestia said, “Come, sit” 

They had saved the biggest couch they had for the two. They sat down, thankfully fitting on the couch. They heard the door shut and Shining armor walked in and sat next to Twilight and Cadence. 

“So, we never got the official name of your race” Celestia said.

“Humans, or humanity” Jay responded.

Celestia nodded, Twilight again taking notes. 

“So what is you culture like? How do you live?” Twilight asked them. 

“Well to be honest, its exactly like yours except more technologically advanced.” Will replied.

“Way more technologically advanced.” Jay added.

“So those big metal sticks, what exactly do they do?” Applejack asked curiously.

“These are called rifles, and they’re like crossbows but the projectile travels ten times faster and the bolt is replaced with this.” Jay pulled back the slide on his rifle causing a bullet to pop out for Will to catch and hold it up so they could all see.

“But there’s no resemblance to a crossbow on that when it comes to looks” Twilight pointed out.

“Yeah they work a lot differently but they do the same thing. A rifle shoots its bullets from a tiny explosion in the back from the gunpowder, blasting the bullet forward.” Will explained showing them the back of the bullet’s shell. 

“Is that what killed your friend, Jay? The one you took the necklace off of?” Luna asked.

“Yes, as it has with many others.” Jay said. 

“What was that necklace anyway?” Rarity asked. 

“Dogtags, used for identifying someone with the rebels, or a dead body. I took them because we had to list him as killed in action.” Jay said, showing off his own tag and his brothers. “This one is my brothers, well, was my brothers”

“Jay, Will said you knew a lot about your world. Can you tell me some things about it?” Twilight asked Jay. 

“Well, my world is almost exactly like yours except there’s no magic. And it’s less colorful. But I’ve been to a lot of islands and cities to deliver refugees and they had many different cultures and traditions but as a whole, they were very nice people.” 

This reminded Cadence about what Luna said earlier. “If we set up a portal, could you send refugees here?” 

“Well yeah, it would be a good idea.” 

“Yes, and we could send troops to assist in the war!” Celesta added, turning to Shining armor. “Would you be up for that Shining armor?” 

Shining armor thought to himself but it didn’t take him much thought. “I don’t think so, I’m not up for helping rebels.” Shining only earned himself glares from every living thing in the room. “I mean they let their friends die! No good soldier lets their friends die.” 

Will has had it with this cocky bastard. “You’ve obviously never been in an actual war have you?” 

Shining armor stopped, he never really had been in any life or death situation before. “Well, I um- 

Will stood up, towering over the unicorn. “Your entire army would never last a single firefight. And before we even get CLOSE to your skill sets, you wouldn’t last ten minutes with that ridiculous fuckin armor!”

“Will sit down, he doesn’t know anything.” Jay said trying to calm him down. 

Will just gave him one more menacing glare before sitting down and taking a deep breath.
> Raise the moon?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay stared down at his second dogtag. 

Sparks
Toby H.
“Sparky”
O+
51st squad

Toby’s tags were all Jay had left of him in this wonderland. Jay could remember when his brother died, when 51st died. 

Sparks
Jay M.
“Phoenix”
A+
51st squad

First was Johnny, then Riley, Kyro, Tim, Yuri, Axe… And Toby Sparks. Jay reattached his tags around his neck and looked down at his feet. 

“Are you okay?” A familiar voice asked him.

“Yeah” He looked up at Luna. “Just uh, a little tired.”

She knew he was lying, but decided not to pester him about it.

“I’m about to raise the moon, would you like to come see?” Luna asked.

Jay wanted to see this, Luna was talking about how she raises the moon. Jay couldn’t believe a single word of it. He stood up and walked with Luna to the balcony of the tree house. The sun was dipping over the horizon in between the rounded mountains. A blue glow emanated from Luna’s horn and almost as if time sped up, the sun fell completely out of sight, and a giant, beautiful white moon replaced it.

Jay was at a loss for words; about a million thoughts went through his head at a time. First off, that moon was the biggest he’d ever seen. But what Luna just did wasn’t possible, or was it? It apparently was here. 

Luna looked back to see Jay’s reaction, his mouth was wide open along with his eyes. His facial expression made Luna giggle a bit. 

“W-what?” Jay said still in awe. 

“Do you like it?” Luna asked.

“Like it? That’s an understatement! This moon is beautiful!” 
Luna giggled again “I know.” 

“I don’t know how someone could want to go to bed at the sight of this.” Jay said, finally tearing his gaze from the moon. 

“Well, actually I recently added a magical element on the moon so that its beams will make one sleep better. And it will decrease the amount of nightmares” Luna explained.

“Wow, I might actually sleep outside tonight.” Jay said, now trying to decide whether to just stare at the moon all night or sleep tonight now that she mentioned that. Jay’s trauma included having insomnia, and when he did sleep, he had nightmares. “Absorb a lot of that light” 

Luna had read his mind, alicorns could read minds without using their horns magic. After seeing his memories she figured that Jay would most likely have trouble sleeping, but she could never know for sure. “I might even join you, I haven’t gotten that much sleep lately. Been working on my public appeal.” And she had been, after the events of Nightmare moon, Luna fought hard for her subjects to actually like her.  

“Public appeal?” Jay asked curiously.

“Yes, a very long time ago I was possessed by a being called Nightmare moon and I was banished for a thousand years on the moon. Now that I’m back, well, its quite the challenge to get the ponies to not tremble in fear when they see me.” Luna explained.

At first, Jay thought she was joking. But she had never joked to him before, especially to this extent. 

“You don’t believe me do you?” Luna said, reading his mind again.

“Luna, I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in my lifetime, but I just watched you raise the moon with magic, so I think its possible what you just told me is true.” Jay replied, patting Luna’s neck. “But that must be hard, I wont lie and tell you I know how you feel. I mean, I have the luxury of not caring about what people think about me, and you’re a princess so you must be under a lot of pressure.” 

Luna smiled at the thought that someone finally understands. “Thank you Jay”

“No problem” 

The two just sat there for a while, enjoying the view, when Will broke the silence.

“Hey Jayyy!” He said in a joking manner. 

“Yeah?” 

Jay could hear Will’s feet thump up the stairs. 

“Mommy says you can’t stay up past 10:00!” 

Jay gave a tiny laugh and a smile. 

“Aw, can’t I have ten more minutes?” Jay said, imitating a child. 

“No but seriously, find a place to sleep. Cause it just got dark outsi…” Will saw the moon as he stepped out into the balcony, “Whoa” He stared agape at its light, and Jay could see how ridiculous he looked when he saw it himself.

“That’s a pretty cool moon dude” Was all he could say.

“Fun fact, Luna raises the moon and Celestia raises the sun here, there is no such thing as orbit around the sun.” Jay told Will to confuse him. 

“What?” he asked in confusion.

“Yeah, Equis doesn’t orbit around its sun, and the moon doesn’t orbit around Equis. Celestia and Luna are in charge of raising the sun and moon with their magic” Jay said.

Will just looked at Jay as if he was on drugs. “What is this fuckery? Making the sun and moon appear with magic.” 

Luna just started laughing at him. “You’ll see in the morning, I’ll tell Tia to wake you up early so you can watch her raise the sun.”

Again, Will just stared at them questioning their sanity and/or soberness. “I think you two are full of it” 

Jay laughed again, “You wanna bet?” 

“Yeah I’ll bet you, not like our currency is worth anything here” He said shaking hands with Jay. 

“It’s worth however much the ponies decide it is worth.” Jay said back. 

“Whatever” Will said, turning back to the stairs, “But make sure you get some sleep, we’re most likely going to have a big day tomorrow."

Wills footsteps descended down the stairs, but another set of hooves were coming back up.

“Wonder who that is” Jay said as he laid back against the wall and Shining armor emerged from around the corner.

“Hello… Jay is it?” He asked 

“Yeah, and you are… Shining armor, right?” Jay asked back. 

“Yes that’s me.” Pause, “I came up to apologize for what I said earlier, I didn’t know the circumstances.” He said, obviously showing signs of sorrow.

“Its okay, that’s your job.” Jay said. “I’m sorry for what I said too”

Shining was a little stunned that he took it so well. But he was curious as to what he meant. “My job?”

“Yeah, youre the captain of the royal guard, normally your job would be to oppress people like me.” Jay said. He was right too, and Shining knew it. The word ‘rebel’ usually meant bad news. 

“Well just know that I would be happy to lead troops into your planet and see what we can do to help.” Shining said in a reassuring voice. “And thank you for handling this so well, I know you’ve got the right to hate me.”

“Oh no, I don’t hate you man we just got off on the wrong foot” He held out his hand for a hand-hoof shake. “The rebels could use some magic if there’s plenty to go round” He said as they shook. 

Jay still didn’t fully trust him, but it was a start. 

~~

Twilight now had a finished sketch of a human from head to toe. She now understood that they could stand upright because the joints in the hind legs were inverted to those of a pony. She had checked off the list of everything she could find out about this race. Rainbow dash was interested in this ‘Olympics’ humans had. She wanted to get involved in the kind of thing. Applejack liked the ‘country music’ they had, especially Johnny Cash. She also was impressed that humans climb trees to get their apples if it is too high. Rarity didn’t really like anything about this race, she had not seen any art other than the tattoo on Wills arm. Pinkie pie offered to have a picnic with Will and he gladly accepted which made her go crazy, she had to get everything ready. Fluttershy didn’t talk too much, but she liked the creatures explained to her as ‘fish’ even though she might not be able to help them all that much, but then Will told her about SCUBA gear, which further exited her.   

“So Jay and Luna were talking to me about you raising the sun?” Will asked Celestia. 

“Yes I am responsible for raising the sun and Luna is responsible for the moon hence our names.” Celestia explained.

Will thought if he had a bullshit detector, it would be going through the off the charts right now.

Celestia read his mind and just laughed. “I will wake you early so you can see.” 

“Yeah okay” He said. 

“Will while you’ve been her you’ve seen magic, unicorns, pegasi and Jesus knows what’ll happen next.” Jay said coming down the stairs. 

“Well praise Jesus if it’s teleportation to earth” Will said back.

Jay unclipped his sleeping bag and opened took his medkit out of his backpack before starting back up the stairs.

“Hey Twi, I’m back” An unknown voice said. 

Spike walked in to the behemoth creature that stood in the library. And his brain sent a million messages at once. After seeing Twilight and princess Celestia, he just panicked and tried to pounce on him, Will just stuck his hand out and caught his head in mid flight. 

“Ugh, let go of me!” Spike complained, thrashing about.

“You done?” Will asked.

Spike stopped thrashing and relaxed his muscles.

“Good” Will said dropping him. 

~~

Jay opened his medkit and sat down on his sleepingbag. He rummaged through the mess of bandages and painkillers and found the small black box, he opened it and found a long needle with a blue liquid inside. 

“If you don’t like needles, you might want cover your eyes" he said, turning to Luna.

Luna turned away, but kept one eye peeking at him. 

Jay barley pierced the skin on his neck before shoving the needle deep, making Luna cringe, Jay pressed down, forcing the blue liquid into his bloodstream.

“What you just did would’ve made Rarity pass out.” Luna said.

“I know, I’m impressed you stayed overall intact after watching that.” Jay said.

“So what was that needle for anyway?” Luna asked.

“It was a complex brain neuron growth formula. It stimulates my brain to work faster and more efficient, so in short, I have rapid reaction time and I can process complex situations faster.” Jay told her. 

“Wow, I would take some of that if it didn’t involve shoving a three inch needle in my neck” Luna said, laughing. 

“Yeah, you only have to take it every three months, and it hurts.” Jay said.

Jay took another look at the moon and lay back into his sleeping bag, just staring up at the moon. Luna felt his pure exhaustion and lay a spell for him to sleep soundly. After a few deep breaths told her that he was asleep, she lay beside him, emanating her own version of a blanket for warmth. 

~~

Celestia shook Will lightly to wake him. He gave a grunting noise before fluttering his eyes open.

“Huh?” He croaked

“Do you want to see me raise the sun Will?” Celestia asked him.

Will snapped awake “Do I? Lets go” He slowly got up off the floor cushioned by blankets. And the two began up the stairs quietly. Twilight, spike and some others were sleeping upstairs, so they took care not to wake them. They reached the balcony where Luna and Jay were asleep. 

“Aww how cute” Will joked. 

Celestia ignored him and began to raise the sun. The golden glow emanated from her horn and a light began to show at the edge of the horizon glowing brighter and redder until the sun rose up, lighting up the world. 

“Well I’d be damned” 

Jay and Luna slowly woke from the light. Jay felt the most rested he had been his whole life. “Man, I feel like I could run a marathon”

“Did you take a CNG last night Jay?” Will asked noticing the used needle next to his medkit. 

“Yeah” 

“Well you all wake the others and get settled, I will go make the arrangements for the public showing and discussion.” Celestia said as she turned around and began to walk off.  
> Fire!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A picnic?” Jay said skeptically “You’re making a salad for a picnic?” 

“Yeah man we live in magical wonderland now, might as well get used to it” Will said looking up from his ‘culinary masterpiece’ he was making. “Oh yeah and that dragon puked a letter from Celestia saying that were going to be introduced to the public and we have to answer their questions. And also the jeep is getting towed to the train station so we can work on fixing it.” 

Jay sighed, answering the public’s questions would be a pain in the ass if they had cameras and tape recorders. “Well, we gotta get this over with.” Jay really knew he would have to tell them the truth, and the truth would be ugly with them. Such a peaceful race introduced to a race that varies from people just as peaceful as these ponies and violent powerful people corrupted with greed. 

While Jay thought of all this, Luna was tapping in to his mind, she knew she had to stop doing it, but she felt as if she needed to make sure that he never had any plans of escape. She felt sorry for him because he would soon know exactly how she felt. 

“Hey Jay, would you like to come over to sweet apple acres and collect apples for the picnic?” Applejack asked him. 

Jay had no idea what she was talking about by sweet apple acres, but he figured that it was that apple orchard to the southwest of the library. “Sure why not, but I might need an invisibility spell to get there though.”

“Oh that will be no problem,” Luna said as her horn began to glow and Jay’s body began to fade away. “I will accompany you along the way” 

“Alright” but we need to get to the train station after the picnic” 

“That will also be no problem,” Luna said.

“Where is everybody?” Will asked. 

“There all gathering what they can for the picnic” Applejack answered.

“Damn, ponies really take picnics seriously” Will just said.

“Well lets get on our way, ah reckon those apples aint gonna buck themselves” Applejack said

With that Luna opened the door with her magical grip walked out, Applejack and Jay following.

~~

Twilight had been talking with Cadence, Shining Armor and Celestia for a while now, they all were doing anything but arranging the picnic, they had been doing the inevitable, discussing the human’s presence.

“To be honest, Jay in particular is no different than many ponies like us. One that would otherwise be peaceful had he not been forced into war” Cadence said.

“But what kind of people could they become? They could be more violent than they seem.” Celestia said, deep in thought for her subjects,

“I wouldn’t stick around to find out, Jay’s memories weren’t pretty from what you described” Shining armor said. 

“You can’t judge him for what he’s seen or done in his self defense” Cadence defended him.

Twilight could feel an outburst coming, the lack of logic put in near enraged her. “Oh come on! We can’t talk about this now, they haven’t been here for much more than twenty four hours! What we need to focus on now is opening a portal to their world and set up long term alliance plans.” 

Everypony fell silent at Twilights outburst. It was uncommon she would get that angry with this specific group of ponies. But she was right; they didn’t know either of the aliens well enough to think they would harm anypony.

“We need to get to know them before we make rash judgments” Twilight added.

“I’m afraid Twilight is right,” Celestia said.  “We need to focus on getting them home as soon as possible” 

All nodded in agreement, “It is decided then, we will get to know them, and introduce them to Equestia in Ponyville and Canterlot.

~~

Applejack watched as Jay climbed an apple tree and began picking off apples one by one and dropping them into the buckets below.

“Mighty impressive, I don’t know if anypony can climb a tree.” Applejack said. “But that may not be the fastest way to get the apples off the tree.” 

“There’s a faster way?” Jay said hanging upside down from a branch.

Applejack trotted to the tree next to the one Jay was in and bucked it hard, and the apples fell in their respected buckets. 

“Not bad” Jay said, falling out of the tree and landing on his feet.  

Luna looked over to the front gate of the farm and saw her sister, niece, Twilight and Shining Armor.

“Looks like the first of the guests have arrived” She said trotting towards the group.

Jay looked in the direction of the four and noticed Shining armor, causing him to briefly frown. 

“Well, better get the things out” Applejack said, trotting off into another direction.

~~

Celestia watched Jay relax under the shade of an apple tree, taking a bite out of one of its fruits. He just stared blankly at the sky while chewing his apple.

“So how are you two finding Equestria?” She asked for a friendly reassurance. 

“I love it, really a heaven for me.” Jay responded. 

Will nodded in agreement, “What he said” 

Jay noticed something odd in the choice of food pinkie brought. There were plants in place of where the meat would be on earth. The first example Jay noticed was that flowers were in the sandwiches, then something dawned on him. 

“Are ponies herbivores?” He asked randomly.

“Yes, we are.” Celestia answered him.

Jay cursed under his breath, this wasn't going to be easy.

Celestia was struck with worry, “you aren’t.. 

“Oh no, were omnivorous” Jay said, in a failure to keep calm.

The ponies backed away from them, fear in their eyes. Jay felt like complete shit, he had just made these friends and now they’re terrified of him. 

“No no, we don’t eat ponies” that seemed to calm them a bit, but they were still shocked by the fact that he ate meat. “We won’t eat any meat as long as were on this planet” He said without thinking.

“Woah hold on” Will was about to complain before Jay silenced him.

“I said, we will not eat any meat as long as were on this planet” He retorted with more power this time.

Will huffed and silently complied. The ponies eased much to Jay’s relief, he really wanted to maintain a good bond between these species, mostly because he wanted to keep the peace for as long as he could. 

Applejack saw a pony enter the gates of the farm and run in her direction.

“Ah’d hide if ah were you! someponys comin!” 

Jay and Will scrambled up the trees on the side the incoming pony couldn’t see them and observed the group from above.

“Apple- ja- ck” The pony trying to regain her breath.

“Slow down now, what’s wrong?” Applejack asked 

“There’s a fire- in town- we need Big Mac to help!” 

With that, Jay dropped from his tree and started sprinting to town.

“Dammit Jay!” Will shouted before he dropped and took off after him.

All of the ponies took off in pursuit except for the one pony who came to warn them, who was extremely confused at what just happened.

~~ 

The smoke was only fifty yards from Jay now, the large crowd gathered at the front of the blazing home.

“Jay! Are you insane?” Will called out from behind him.

Jay ran forward, building to building as fast as he could.

“Help! My family is stuck in there!” A crazed pony was screaming for anyone to help him but no pony came forward. Jay ran past the crowd, sending a wave of gasps and screams among the ponies. Jay could’ve sworn that he hard Rarity shout “Father!” only increasing his drive.

“Jay!” He heard Luna call out. He just turned to her and nodded before kicking in the door to the inferno and storming in. 

"Goddamn it’s hot in here."

“HEY! Is there someone here?” He shouted.

“Help us!” A faint response came from upstairs. Jay spotted the staircase, it was built against a wall with the upper floor unguarded by anything but a wooden rail. Perfect.

Jay ran up, placing his foot on the wall and thrusted himself onto the upper floor, using his hands to support his landing, the scorching floor burnt his hands making him groan in agony. 

“Over here! Where are you?” The voice called out. Jay looked up and saw a mother and three children clinging to her in a corner still not fully ablaze. Jay ran for them and they, as he expected, screamed in terror. 

“W- what are you?” An orange filly with a purple mane asked him, trembling. 

“Doesn’t matter, I’m here to get you out. Now I know I’m a big scary alien, you need to trust me if you’re going to get out alive!” 

The ceiling caved in where the staircase was, completely blocking it off. “Shit!” Jay shouted to himself. He quickly got another idea. He moved to the burning wall and started bashing it with his shoulder a hard a he could. 

~~

Will thought frantically on what he could do, his best friend was in a burning building trying to save some ponies, he was probably hurt, the ponies are also probably hurt. 

“They’re trapped upstairs!” He heard a voice shout. He looked up and saw a firefighter on a ladder hacking at the wall with his axe. 

Will ran up to the ladder again a wave of gasps emitted from the crowd. “Hey! Give me your axe!” The firefighter looked down and his eyes went wider than pineapples and all muscle movement stopped in his body. “Dammit” Will breathed as he hopped up and pulled the firefighter down, snatching his axe. Getting to a higher position on the ladder, Will swung the axe as hard as he could at the wall, leaving a long gash on the wood. He swung again, this time, using the more burnt side to his advantage. Upon collision, the wall by the grace of god gave out, leaving a small hole in the house, smoke billowed out of the opening before a familiar shout was heard.

“Oh thank god!” Jay said as he scooped the three fillies up and motioned the mother to follow him. He poked his head out from the hole was met with Will’s, he nodded, handing down one filly at a time. Once they were taken care of he turned to the mother.

“How am I going to get out?” She asked him panicking. Jay just simply picked her up with ease and handed her down to Will the same as the fillies. 

Another piece of the house collapsed and Jay snapped around, Will noticing the whole building was collapsing, grabbed Jay by his shirt and pushed himself off the wall moments before the entire structure gave out into a flattened heap. The ladder was teetering in mid air and both the occupants fell to the ground with a thud. The two each got the wind knocked out of them. For a moment, nothing was heard but the crackling of the flames. But then the ponies started cheering. 

Jay looked up to an entire family, Rarity, the filly and the mother inside the house were all embracing with the pony that was pleading for help earlier. Applejack was holding the yellow earth pony with a large bowtie and Rainbow dash with the orange and purple pegasi. His hands began throbbing again and his vision began to blur, he groaned again and Fluttershy rushed to his side. Every sound was muffled and everything was growing darker.

The last thing he heard was “You’re going to be okay!” before everything went dark. 

Knockout #3

~~

A jolt of electricity woke Jay with a start, Will was holding a pair of charged defibrillators and Fluttershy holding a medkit. 

“Give me the shot” Will said holding out his hand. Fluttershy complied and gave him an adrenaline shot.

“Woah hold on,” Jay was interrupted by Will stabbing it into his chest and injecting him, making Fluttershy squeal. “HO SHIT”, Will quickly removed the needle before Jay nearly jumped out of the stretcher. Color filled his mind from both the adrenaline and the head rush. He hit his head on the ceiling of the pony sized room and everything immediately cleared up, leaving Will bursting out in laughter. 

“Haha, that never gets old on you” He said in the middle of his hysterical fit.

Jay clutched the part of his head he hit, “That hurt” he said flatly. He looked in the corner of the room and saw Rarity, who was to make sure he was healthy, pass out from the treatment. “Guess Luna was right” 

Will had finally settled down from his laughter and began to put back together his medical supplies. “Jay were going to present ourselves soon, you were out for a while. But get all your gear on, cause we might have to explain all of it.” Will motioned to Jay’s vest and weapons on the table, his backpack leaning against its legs. “But first, burning off that adrenaline. "Give me 50!"

~~

“We assure you all they are peaceful creatures, and they mean no harm to anypony” Celestia tried to calm her subjects, but they were completely against the idea of two rebels living in Equestria. “Please! They were both orphaned at a young age by evil forces!” She was almost out of options, they wouldn’t calm down. 

“SILENCE!” Luna boomed in her royal Canterlot voice. “They did NOT intend to be here in the first place! They both love it here because of the peace, neither of them have ever seen real harmony in their entire lives! Can we please demonstrate how well we can all welcome guests? They saved three fillies and the mother of Rarity! The element of generosity!” 

The ponies fell silent, Luna successfully suppressed them for her sister.

“Those aren’t the first lives they’ve saved, we have seen Jay’s memories, and he has saved many lives, we personally watched him carry a wounded soldier to safety, injuring himself twice” Celestia added.

Some of the ponies had admitted defeat in the argument that they were evil, but that they were fighting evil. “But why can’t they use magic to defeat the evil?” One pony from the crowd asked. 

“There is no such thing as magic where they come from, they never had it to help them, only their own technology.” Luna answered.

Fluttershy rushed on stage, hiding behind her bangs whispered in Celestia ear, “They’re ready” and ran back out of sight.

“Everypony, I would like you to meet Jay and Will of Earth.” The two stepped out on the stage and faced the crowd of amazed ponies. The journalist’s camera flashes blinded them in almost three seconds. Not before long, they finished their photo spree and Will kicked off. 

“So, uh, hi everyone!” He paused, he never really spoke that well in public. “I’m Will, this is Jay, so uh, I think Princess Celestia informed you all about us briefly so we’ll start with questions I guess.” 

A multitude of hooves shot up in the front row, and in the back. This was going to take a while. Will gestured to a journalist near the front row. 

“This question is for both of you, what is your world like outside of the war?” 

“That’s a question for Jay” Will said.

All of the heads turned to Jay as if they wanted him to read them a storybook or something. “Well... I’ve been to some islands and different countries and made many friends, overall what I’ve learned is that the less wealthier the country, the less corrupt and greedy people you will find. But we have received lots of help from allies and we are grateful for what we have.”  He paused to let the pony finish her notes and look back at him. “But outside of my country there is actually color and beautiful places” 

The pony generated another question for him, “What do you mean there is actually color” 

“Well everything in my country is mostly grey because of the nuclear fallouts.” He paused again. “If you don’t know what a nuclear fallout is it’s a giant explosion that literally vaporizes anything within its radius. On top of that it releases a toxin called radiation that eventually kills any forms of life.” 

All the ponies were visibly shocked by his answer. Killing all life, yet he lives in it? 

Will motioned to another hoof in the air. 

“My friend was a nurse at the hospital and assisted the doctor that treated you Will, the doctor said that your are carnivorous, is this true?” 

“No, were omnivorous,” He was cut off by gasps and murmurs in the audience. “But! We have agreed to not eat any meat as long as we are in Equestria” that seemed to calm them as Will hoped.

Jay pointed at a pony that had her hoof up. 

“How come rebels like to fight with their government?” 

Jay almost wanted to laugh and slap the shit out of that pony at the same time, they were so oblivious. 

“I hate fighting, I hate war and I hate all suffering. But my government killed my family, as it has with many others.” Jay said, memories flashing through his mind again.

“Do either of you have loved ones?” Another pony already asked Will.

“Jay has a nephew that he took up as his own after the boy’s father died, and well, I only have my friends. I have no family whatsoever.” Will lowered his voice at those last words.

“In all, we have people like you, families, children, elders, they all just want a normal life. We just want them to have one.” Jay said. “Getting them out of the country is our drive.”

Will gave another nod to yet another pony. 

“Random question, do you have last and middle names?” 

“Yes we do, my last name is Kendrick, and I don’t have a middle name.”

“Yeah, my last name is Sparks and my middle name is Matthew” Jay finished.

Only one pony had his hoof up. Will nodded.

“Do you mean harm to anything here in Equestria? Nightmare moon, quite loudly, told us you didn’t, but we wan-”

“Let me stop you there,” Jay interrupted him. “Her name is Luna, and you should have the decency to call your leader that raises the beautiful moon every night for you so that you can sleep peacefully by her real name” The entire crowd was shocked at Jay defending the princess, Even Luna covered her mouth with her hoof in shock. “And no, we don’t mean any harm at all.” 

Just as he finished speaking, a bell rung from above them and a tan, grey maned pony moved to the front of the stage. 

“Well it’s midnight everypony! We should all get some rest, tomorrow is Monday!” She said, trying to end the awkward moment. The entire crowd stirred and began making their way to the door. 

Luna flew over to where Jay stood, “Jay you didn’t have to do that, I don’t mind it.”

“No Luna, you can’t have them call you that forever, you do a lot for them. You don’t deserve that” He rejected. “They need you, and they don’t treat you right.”

Luna just stopped, he was right. If she wanted to have any respect, she should start by having her subjects call her Luna instead of Nightmare moon. 

“…Thank you” 

“No problem, now I think it’s time we get some sleep.” Jay said. “We had a long day.” 
> Sir yes sir!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Will finished opening the last of the latches on the floor and the sides of his jeep, revealing a rack of G36, M4 carbines and FAL variants vertically stacked on top of each other, two MP-7 variants and sig sauer P229 pistols placed at their feet. On the sides were a lone stinger missile and a lone Mk14 Mod 1 sniper rifle. Boxes of ammunition and attachments for every weapon were crammed in every place they could fit. The entire collection stretched from the very back of the jeep and through the back seats.

“Damn” Was all Jay could say.      

“Yeah, a NATO shipment came in, carrying more than enough weapons. My status let me take a neat percentage.” Will explained to him. 

“We should probably suppress every weapon we can” Jay thought aloud. “Are all the suppressors modern?” 

“Yeah” Will said opening a box filled with suppressors. “Oh, I forgot to give this to you” He dropped the box, opened the passenger door and got a medium sized suppressor. “For your G36C, made sure to pick one up for you.” 

Jay took the thin black tube with gratitude. “Thanks! I was wondering when I could get my hands on one of these.” He slid it into his jacket pocked and zipped it shut.

“So I don’t think were going to have to remove this, luck was with us and the tree was not too big and my door took most of the damage.” The driver’s door was scratched in multiple places and one large dent caved the upper metal and the ballistic glass was cracked and broken in several places. The top and some parts on the side were damaged from the flip and the bomb itself. 

“But how are we going to get another door?” Jay questioned. 

“We’re not, were just going to reverse the dents and put another coat of paint on it for the moment.” Will examined the ballistic glass. “But for the glass, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the princesses if there is such a material here.” 

“Reversing a dent in a titanium alloy door?” 

“Fuck man, I don’t know” 

“Maybe some unicorn engineer could whip up some magic sauce” 

“Maybe”

Jay thought for a second, Celestia told him that she sent someone out to help them, but most likely they would be studying the entire vehicle rather that fixing it.

~~

Skid marks, blast hole, and no car. 

What the fuck happened to the car. 

“Command there’s solid evidence that they hit a roadside bomb, but their car is nowhere in sight.”

Huey waited for a response.

“Their car must have been completely taken by scavengers” A crackled voice said back.

“No command, the marks simply end, as if they just tumbled over and disappeared.” 

Again, a brief silence. 

“You’re telling us that they just disappeared”

“Yup” 

Huey looked around, the same rocky terrain showed no signs of the missing vehicle. Little did he know he was not alone. His stalker watched from behind the large boulders. 

Huey knew the feeling of being watched, and he felt it hard. The entity observing him wasn’t taking much care in doing so. Loud breathing accompanied it. However this breathing was definitely not normal, like the breathing that would be made by an insane person. 

The stalker grew impatient and decided to make his move, he fluttered his wings and took off high for a dive-bombing style attack. Huey heard this and snapped around, pistol ready for his attacker, or not. Huey was ready for an insane person, not this… thing. 

It looked like an equine, sized more to a dog rather. It had a completely black body and a dark purple back. Its wings were clear and looked strangely like Swiss cheese, as did its legs and two spiked ears. Its eyes were like an insect, but had a blue shade. The only thing on its bald head was a horn, which Huey figured was used for combat. 

“The fuck!?”

Huey released two shots on the thing but it moved too fast. By the time he registered the thing had moved it was already headed straight for him. He just had enough time to sloppily dive to the side and the insect crashed, throwing him off guard. Huey did not hesitate at his opportunity, he shot at it three times, twice hitting him, causing him to hiss in pain. 

“What the hell is that?” He asked himself.
Huey very rarely panicked, but right now he really didn’t know what to do. So he did what he was trained to do with humans.

“Who are you and who sent you?” 

The creature only spat in return. Huey figured that it didn’t understand him.

“Looking for your freindsss?” it hissed back.

Okay, now Huey was panicking. 

“The fuck are you, and where are my friends?” 

“I am a changeling, and your friendss were transported to Equestria.” 

This thing was giving Huey a headache. “Command I just made contact with alien life and they know about the missing unit! Get down here ASAP!” 


~~

Jay decided to return to the library after he had explained nearly every part of the engine to the ‘engineer’ Celestia sent. He seemed happy with what he learned and finally got to help repair the damaged vehicle. 

He continued the walk through town, getting stares from the locals, but he didn’t care. The tree house was in sight, and so was Celestia, looking through the heavily decorated telescope that sat on the balcony of the upper floor. 

What in the fuck could she possibly be looking at?

He realized that it was aimed at the castle built on the mountain, where he suspected she lived. Jay finally reached the door and knocked twice before entering. The same wooden bookshelves welcomed him. 

“Hello Jay! Made a dent in your repairs yet?” Cadence asked him. 

Jay chuckled, “I bet you’ve been waiting a while to say that to me.” 

Cadence giggled to herself “You bet I did.”

Luna suddenly emerged from the living room, obviously deprived of sleep. Jay had still slept on the balcony last night, but Luna had to help Twilight with the new teleportation spells. 

“Ah Jay, nice to see you.” She said.

“You look pretty tired.” Jay responded.

Luna smiled “I know, I’ll get plenty of sleep on the train ride.” 

“Train ride?” 

“Yes, we are taking a train to Canterlot. You’re coming too.” 

Shit, he had never been on a train before. “I’m guessing Canterlot is the city on the mountain.” 

“That’s right” 

“Do they know about me?”

Shining Armor threw him a newspaper with incredibly accurate drawings of him and Will on the front cover. 

“You’re all over the country, being on the front cover of Equestria daily is pretty serious.” He said.

Jay looked down at the front article.

An alien species known as ‘humans’ have entered Equestria just two days ago. They are supposedly rebels in the world that they come from; this was made clear that their government began killing innocent ‘people’ and both humans were orphaned at a very young age. One of the humans, named Jay (left picture) stated that he hates the war and he hates all suffering in their public appearance. The same human had broken into a burning house and saved four lives, burning himself multiple times in the process. His friend Will (Right picture) smashed the wall of the house when the four ponies and the human were trapped inside, creating an opening for them. The ponies trapped in the building were all related to the element of honesty and generosity, Applejack and Rarity, the mother and one of the fillies to Rarity and one filly to Applejack. The third filly’s name and relations are unknown. No ponies were harmed in the incident but Jay suffered minor burns and passed out due to lack of oxygen.

While these good deeds were done, Will, scolded the royal guard in front of their captain. “You wouldn’t last ten minutes in a real battle with that ridiculous armor!” He said. However, it is clear from their weapons and ‘active camouflage’ that these species are far more advanced in terms of weaponry and experience in battle. Princess Celestia herself said that upon looking through Jay’s memories that his battles made the Griffin war look like a water balloon fight. Apparently, Jay has seen his friend’s brain matter splattered across the floor. 

Jay tossed the newspaper on the table, he didn’t want to find out what else they knew about him. “Telling the media about Will’s outburst eh?” 

Shining armor instantly stiffened his neck up, 

“Don’t worry I wont tell him” 

He relaxed a bit, and let out his breath.

“But really, was that necessary?” 

“I don’t know Jay, he made fun of all my colleagues, and me.” 

“I haven’t seen your troops in action, but your armor is pretty flashy, you’d get sniped pretty quickly.” Jay said, sitting down on one of the chairs in the kitchen. 

“What does sniped mean?” Shining asked.

“It’s when your enemy uses a high powered rifle to shoot or ‘snipe’ you from a maximum of about 2,000 yards away. They use scopes to see farther and clearer. So if you decide to wear gold and diamonds that day, you’re not going to have much fun.” Jay explained. 

Most of that would have flown over Shining’s head had Will not taught everypony the basics of human weaponry. “So what do you want me to do?” 

“I want to give you camouflage, kevlar, titanium and firearms. That is only if you plan on following me to earth.” It seemed impossible for war to have ever reached here, which is why they lack modern armory.

“Don’t know what half of that is, but okay” Shining nodded. “I would take the opportunity for you to train some of my men.”  

The image of him and Will training ponies was amusing to him for some reason. “That should be fun.” Running cadences through town all morning, doing hand to hand, shooting, endurance, survival techniques, parkour, man that would be nice. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty keen on that idea. When do I start?” 

Shining laughed a little, “Well, they are circling around ponyville like you asked.”

“What is your boot camp like here?” Jay asked for curiosity. 

“Well we regularly exercise, practice basic self defense maneuvers, things like that.” 

“Really?” 

“Uh, yeah.” 

“No pissed off drill sergeants, mud runs, obstacle courses, cadences, endurance training, none of that?” 

“No, that’s pretty serious though. Did you have to do that kind of stuff?” 

Jay smiled. “This will be very fun.” 

~~

“Tie it down!” The sergeant barked. 

The grunts scrambled with their ropes, one was loading a tranquilizer dart into his gun. 

“Get that slime to stay still!” 

They held him in a bipedal position in front of the grunt with the tranquilizer, holding him for a clear shot. The shooter slapped the bolt release and took aim at the insect’s chest.

“You shoot one of us we’ll kill ya cowboy!” One of the grunts joked. 

The grunt fired, hitting true. The changeling went limp in the grunts arms. 

“Very good boys! Now get that shit-sucker in the truck, were taking it to camp.” 

Huey approached the sergeant and saluted. “Sir” 

“Go ahead Huey” He said, lighting a cigar.

“Permission to personally interrogate the creature on the subject of the missing unit.” 

“Permission granted, I’ll be watching that.” 

Huey eased, “Thank you sir.” 

~~

“Start the engine!” Will shouted over to the engineer. It rumbled to life, shaking the room. The engine seemed intact, no ignition problems, no unnatural stutters, everything was ok. 

“Okay cut it!” The engine died. 

“Alright, everything is in good shape, thanks.” He said in hopeful dismissal. 

“Oh no! Thank you!” The engineer somehow grabbed his hand and shook it madly. “You’ve taught me so-“ a guard storming in the door cut him off. 

“Lieutenant Will SIR!” 

“What the…” 

“Sir Lieutenant Jay sent me to inform you that you are both now in charge of training a Special Forces group, and that you should be in full combat gear by fifteen-hundred SIR!”    

“Wow, Jay must have done a lot of convincing.” Will was liking this already. 

He was already wearing his ripstop urban digital pants, olive drab shirt and his boots. He scrambled to his backpack and hastily unzipped the pocket containing his gloves, kneepads and empty vest. He threw them all on and filled his pouches with magazines and spare equipment. Finally he wrapped his veil scarf around his neck, re secured his backpack, slung it in his back and grabbed his M16A3. 

“Lets go” 

Will and the guard left out the door leaving the engineer to his own business in observing the massive green beast. 

“So what kind of special forces group are we making?” Will asked the stallion, not bothering to slow down. 

“We picked our best out of the Captains company. I guess Jay thinks our military is too primitive. Captain Shiny said his boot camp was twice as hard as ours.” The stallion rolled his eyes. 

“Hehe, I bet it was, Jay started his training at youth.” Will said, quickening into a sprint. 

He kept sprinting through the streets of the town, using the visible top of the treehouse to direct him. He got weird stares form the locals as usual, but some of them looked scared because of the guard running behind him looked like he was chasing him. 

Turning the last corner sharply he could see Jay standing in full battle dress in front of three lines of celestial guards, doing what looked like to be the pony equivalent of push ups. 

“One! Two! Three! Four! I! Love! Equestrian Core!” They chanted as they exercised. 

Jay turned around and saw Will and the guard barley catching along. He almost looked identical to Will except he wore tight black t-shirt and had only one kneepad up on his right knee. But they did both get curious looks from the guards because of their similarities, even down to the dragon tattoo on their right arms. 

“Your calls now” Jay said. Will nodded. 

“Alright listen up! I am lieutenant Will Kendrick, and you will address me as such. My job is to make the next few weeks of your life hell! Because you are the selected few that will be assigned to guarding your princesses in my world which is a dark, cold and unforgiving hell!” 

The guards tried to do as Jay told them to and to remain an erect posture, look straight and have a blank expression. 

“While you are in training, the last words to come out of your mouths will be sir, and you will follow our command at utmost importance. Am I understood?”

“SIR YES SIR!” 

> Discoveries 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay met with Will back in front of the guard camp after setting up the last of the targets. They had a big first surprise for them. Celestia, Luna and the other seven were waiting from the balcony on Twilights library. Jay checked his watch (which he had been sure to set to equestrian time), 05:00 hours. 

Jay aimed high and fired thrice. “WAKE THE FUCK UP! WERE UNDER ATTACK!” They both ran and tent by tent they scared the hell out of every pony with their gunfire.

“C’MON! GRAB YOUR CROSSBOWS!” Will shouted. Jay started a timer on his watch. 

The guards hurried outside to no real threat, but to the sacks of white powder painted red. 

Jay shot at one, exploding its insides. “Alright you get the idea! Get behind cover and shoot them down!” The guards obeyed, using the logs of wood they had built as a makeshift cover and began shooting at the sacks. 

Jay noticed shadows on the poorly lit ground, circling the entire area. A team of pegasi, it seemed were observing the event unfold. They wore a dark purple and blue armor and their solid colors were similar to each other and to the armor. Maybe they’re the lunar militia. He looked up to Luna for her consent, she nodded. 

“Hold your fire! Friendlies!” He shouted much to their confusion. He looked back up to the militia and tried the hand signal for attack, hoping they would understand it. Thankfully, since the signal used only a fist, three of them swooped down and impaled as many red bags on their spears. Two more came down to finish the rest. The celestial guards gave a synchronized huff at the sight of them. 

“One hell of an entrance!” Will shouted to the five dark pegasi. The last two came and landed near Jay. 

“We heard those noises, but it was only a drill. As we can now see.” A female guard said, taking her helmet off, revealing a light purple mane and large hazel reptilian eyes. 

“What time were you all up?” Jay asked.

“04:00 hours sir.” 

Jay stopped instantly, none of the celestials ever spoke to him like that. “Okay everyone stop!” all froze, lunar and celestial alike. “Say that again please so everyone can hear you.” He said to the lunar in front of him.

“We were up at 04:00 hours sir!” she repeated. A short pause came between the guards.

“Hooves up if you know what that means.” Jay asked the celestial guards behind the covers. No hooves went up other than the lunars.

“Okay you all need to learn from these guys, darker armor and can talk like real militants. Plus you all took,” Jay checked the timer, “three minutes to take out eleven targets. That’s fair, but improvable.” 

Celestia’s face flushed red as Luna smiled and chuckled at her.

“Formations! Were gonna go wake up the town!” Will shouted out to the celestials.

“You all want to join us? Were going to run a cadence.” Jay asked the Lunar militant. 

“Do I?” She turned to her squadmates. “Who wants to go on an early morning cadence?” She asked. A simultaneous shout of approval came from the lunars. 

Jay smiled, she reminded him of Rainbow Dash the first time he challenged her. “Alright lets go! Lunars and Celestials alternate in your lines! Highest ranking in front!” They all obeyed, creating a pattern in the Cadence formation of Gold and purple. Both the humans led them into a jog heading straight to town chanting old marines songs. The voice of all the ponies combined could make the weakest of souls stand up to a hydra.

Celestia decided it to be an appropriate time to begin rising the sun, before the soldiers wake them all up. She lit her horn with her magic and steadily lifted the star above Equestria. The roosters call accompanied its arise, although the shouts from the cadence were more than enough noise to wake everypony up.

~~

“Okay, I will ask you some questions, and you, will answer them.” 

The creature stirred uncomfortably in his shackles.

“What are you?” Huey asked, leaning into its face. It only hissed in return, which really pissed Huey off. 

“I heard you talk to me!” He punched it in its stomach “Speak in a real language!” 

“A changeling!” It said in its scratchy voice. 

“Good you can talk” Huey spat. “Now where is the vehicle and its two operators?” 

“In Equestria” It said through its teeth. 

Huey frowned. “Where the fuck is Equestria?!” 

“Not in this planet, we have created portals between worlds, and we teleported the vehicle to Equestria.” 

Nobody in the interrogation room liked what they were hearing. “Do you know if they’re safe?” 

“Yess, we believe they have befriended the poniesss.” 

“Ponies?” 

“Oh, yess, Equestria, hence the name, is inhabited by many equines. Most famously the ponies, allied earth, pegasi and unicorn races.” It said.

Huey punched it hard again in the stomach, “Don’t bullshit me” 

“Huey wait! Its telling the truth!” The operators distorted voice came over the loudspeaker. 

“You expect me to believe this?” He said, turning to the mirrored glass. 

“Well, no. But the polygraph reads positive. Plus he’s under sodium thiopental.” 

Huey grunted. He didn’t believe this, of course he didn’t. A world with talking ponies, and Jay and Will are now friends with them. But this thing was obviously from another planet, no way the radiation could have made this serious of a mutation. 

“Okay, how do I get to one of these portals?” Huey asked.

“I’m not telling you,” It said in its scratched voice. At this, Huey smashed his fish into his rib cage, cracking one of them. “WHERE IS IT?” The changeling cringed, grunting from his pain. “Never” It muttered weakly. 

Huey’s face twisted into a scowl, “shock it,” he said. The changeling’s body shook and tensed up as the electricity coursed through it. The electricity cut and the changeling’s muscles loosened, his breathing short and fast. “The-h-hi-vv-e” he sputtered. It took Huey a few seconds to realize what the changeling had just said. “What hive?” 

A few seconds of heavy breathing and Huey nearly snapped. “WHAT FUCKING HIVE?!” He screamed, startling the creature. 

“The earth hive! We-we have access to Ponyville, Canterlot, everything!” The changeling was crying now, all hardcore aspects to him had now rotted into mold. “We believe your friends are in ponyville, but they might go with the princesses to Canterlot!”

Princesses, fucking pony names for places, it was too much to take in. “Okay, can you give me a map of… pony world, whatever.” 

The changeling sobbed, “Yess, they are all at the earth hive.” 

“Where is the earth hive?” Huey asked in what he hoped would be the last question. 

“East” the changeling said in a less desperate tone. 

~~

“Holy dumb fuck” 

The sea of pony reporters and journalists had surrounded the library and were trying to get a talk with the humans. Ever since the report of an alien species in ponyville, the numbers of travel writers and journalists in ponyville had been soaring up.   

“Are they here for us or for you?” Will asked Celestia who was also staring at the crowd but with a look of pure amusement on her face. “I think they’re here for you. I haven’t seen ponyville produce this much journalism for a long time.” 

“Great, I guess we have to open the door then” Will said, his hand on the doorknob. 

“Wait” Jay said. “They might trample you” 

Will really wanted to say that he really didn’t give a shit from the bottom of his heart, and he didn’t. He also knew Jay didn’t either, as he never really gave a shit about anything but his family and friends. “Might” He swung open the door and almost immediately regretted his decision. The ponies didn’t do much as trample him but to surround him from all sides and assault him with a barrage of questions. 

“Are you truly carnivorous?”

“Have you ever eaten the flesh of a pony before?”

“Are you aware that the board of magical education is refusing to believe you exist?” 

“Are the rumours true that you are having an affair with the princesses?” Celestia shuddered at that.

Will turned to where Jay was standing for help, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

“Damn your stealthy tricks Jay!” As for Jay, he was just watching the entire scene unfold, biting his tongue to stop himself from bursting out in laughter. It was almost no use as the sight of Will being attacked by ponies was hilarious to him. 

“We demand that we can see your memories Will!” 

Well, so much for hilarity. 

“Who said that!?” Jay shouted, emerging from his hiding spot. None of the ponies dared to make a sound. Will however, his cord had been struck, his eyes were as wide as discs, and he was twitching in several… familiar spots. 

“Nobody, huh?” No response. “Alright, I will answer the questions of ONE journalist, but for now you all need to go away.” Jay didn’t need to say it twice, all of the journalists cleared out as fast as they came, door slamming behind them. Will was left in the same position he was a second ago, the ponies almost supporting his weight that were now no longer there, thus he was collapsing. Just as he began his plummet, a bright yellow aurora surrounded him and he was brought back to an upright position, Jay had already rushed to support him to the nearest chair. 

“Well, that was interesting” A voice belonging to a certain lavender unicorn said. All three turned to Twilight and Luna in the doorway to the living room. Luna however, was not amused especially because of that wonderful journalist who just had that wonderful question. “Yes, most interesting.” The other five ponies followed them out of the living room. Silence dawned over the group, which was broken by Will.

“Do you want to know what happened?” 

Of course they did, “Of course, but what about you both? Won’t you suffer from it?” Celestia asked, concerned for their reactions. 

“I think you should know what happened. Don’t worry about us.”

Jay was immediately alerted by this, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, they need to know before it gets out of hand” Will looked certain. 

Jay gave a very short lived but deep thought. Thank god for CNGs. “You can look into my memories again, Will doesn’t need to see that again.” 

“Neither do you” Will countered.

Jay sighed, “I know, but what they did to you was so fucked up, I only…” he lowered his head, “…watched” Jay exhaled heavily. Once again, silence cursed the room, only to be broken by Celestia. 

“Are you sure? It wont harm you too much?” 

“I dreamed about it almost every night back on earth, I’ll manage.” Jay paused. “Do it” 

Celestia hesitated, but quickly lit her horn and had Jay’s memories project only in the other ponies. 

---

Jay was being dragged through a dark hallway by two armed guards, he was struggling to get out of their grasp, but they were both twice as bulky as he was. Before long they reached a large metal door, upon entering, 51st squad was all seated around a poker table, a snub nosed revolver in the very center.

“Oh shit” Jay said, realizing what this was. The two guards forced him into a chair in between Will and Kyro.

“Oh god man” A large, bald man emerged from the dark and leaned against the dealers space on the table and picked up the revolver, he pulled out four bullets from his coat pocket and slid them into a random slot. He finished and slammed the revolver on the table, sliding it to his right, Yuri.

“NO! YURI DON’T DO IT!”  Axe shouted. The stock of a guards gun came seemingly out of nowhere and shut him up with a smack on his head. 

“SHUT UP!” The man screamed at him and then turned to Yuri, “PLAY!” 

Yuri only looked down at the gun in horror. Yuri, the toughest man of them all, scared. 

“I SAID FUCKING PLAY!” 

Yuri took a quick deep breath and grabbed the gun, he aimed at his head and pulled the trigger, click. 

Yuri exploded into a huge panting mess, and shoved the gun out of sight. Everyone else let go of a breath they were not aware they were holding at that moment too. 

The man took the revolver, pulled the hammer back, and slid it right in from of Johnny. “Play” He growled. 

Johnny slowly picked it up, shaking everywhere. Jay closed his eyes, blacking the projection out and a gunshot penetrated his ears. He opened his eyes again to a limp body on the table, a pool of blood already formed around him.

“NO!” 

The projection flashed, and Jay was in another room, chained to the wall. A rather large window displayed Will’s body strapped down to a table, a doctor stood nearby with a power drill, ready to operate. 

“Okay, Jay. We will ask you questions, and you will answer them. If you refuse, your friend here will suffer from immense pain.” 

Jay saw Will screaming at him to not tell them anything, but he could only see his mouth moving. 

“Where is the rebel base located?” 

Will screamed louder, but it was no use. 

“You dont scare me.” Jay answered. 

“Unwise” 

The doctor powered his drill and drove it straight into Will’s hand. He immediately screamed in pain and tensed in his restraining table. Jay winced and tensed himself, the doctor held the drill in for a good ten seconds until he pulled it out and cut the power.

“I’ll ask you again, where is the rebel base located?” 

“FUCK YOU SICK FUCK!” 

“You just don’t get it, you watch your friends die because you refuse to tell me a simple thing, it is you who is sick.” The voice said.

“WE WOULD RATHER DIE THAN HAVE YOU KILL EVERYONE WE LOVE!” 

“How noble” The doctor drilled again in Will’s other hand.

The projection flashed again, the same man from the poker table stood mere inches away from his face. A curved metal blade pressing against Jay’s cheek.

“Where are they?” He asked in his low deep voice. 

“Away from you”

The man pulled the blade towards him, slicing Jay’s cheek. 

“Alright! I give up! You win!” He shouted. “I’ve killed all your friends, your brother” he motioned to Jay. “But you still WONT FUCKING TELL ME!” He whipped around to face Jay again. “So I will give all of you a deal, I kill you” He said, pointing his handgun at Jay. “I kill him.” He moved out of Jay’s way so he could see Will in a heap, bones all the wrong way, “Or I kill the boy” He motioned to Will’s brother, passed out and leaning against the wall. 

Jay made no second thought of his decision, “ME!” The man stared at him, not doing anything. 

“Do it.” Again, nothing.

“DO IT!” The man approached slowly, drawing his gun, leaning it against his kneecap and fired. 

“Agh!”

There was a pause, where yet again nothing was happening, then the distant sound of gunfire came to the rescue. 

“You all never do give up do you eh?” The man asked through gritted teeth. “But I have to give you credit, you are very brave. If you didn’t answer the way you did, I would’ve killed you because you were a coward.” An air raid alarm sounded throughout the entire base. The man pressed his gun onto the fresh bullet wound, shooting pain through all of Jay’s nerves, he only grunted in return. 

“SO! Since it is policy to make the subjects suffer at maximum!” He turned at aimed at the boy and fired. 

Jay fast forwarded about an hour in time, to see the same room, but filled with a team of rebels. Two were under each of Jay’s shoulders, to support his weight. Everyone was crowded around Will, clutching his brother in his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

--

Jay cut the memories there, and was met by eight faces staring at him with watered eyes. A couple of things became apparent to them, the scar on Jay’s cheek and one large mark on each of Will’s hands.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have shown you all of that” Jay was instantly shot down from the looks of their faces. He looked down and rested his head on his hands and sighed deeply. It was before long Jay felt something wrap around him and nearly squeeze all the air out of him. He looked back up to Fluttershy, crying on his shoulder. At first, he had no idea what to do, but eventually returned the hug softly.

“It’s okay, I’m okay now.” He whispered in her ear. “He’s in a better place…” He paused and looked up, “…they all are” Soon, emotions took over all the ponies and joined in the tight embrace. They all gave Will one too, each personally saying sorry.

“I cant believe it, that was so...” Celestia was at a loss of words, she had never see something so terrible done to somepony, or someone. “Ending a child’s life… That’s just so awful. I’m so sorry for you”  

“It should have been me,” Jay said.

“Don’t say that,” Luna snapped. Jay just sighed.

Will got on his feet and made his way to his backpack, he unhooked a long dogtag chain with seven dogtags on them. He also took Toby’s veil face scarf. He held the two items in each hand and stared directly at them. 

“To 51st” He said. 

“To 51st” Jay repeated.

The ponies watched the miniature reminisce that the two humans shared. 

Just at that moment a timid knock sounded at the door, as if Fluttershy had done it. 

“I’ll... go get that” Twilight walked off to the front door. 

Celestia turned back to the humans and said nothing, she didn’t know anything that could possibly make them feel better now.

“I… I’m sorry you had to see that” Will said. 

Nobody said anything until Twilight returned with their visitor, a foal with a tan coat and a brown mane. His body was smaller than his head, though his head was still small. Both humans noticed that he didn’t have a tattoo on his flank like all the other ponies, they would have to ask one of the ponies later. 

“Um, Jay, Will, I know this might be a bad time but Featherweight here would like to interview you.” Twilight said uneasily. 

“Uhh, yeah t-that’s no problem.” Will said.

Featherweight approached, his pupils almost the size of his eyes themselves. “…Woow” He breathed. Suddenly, he shook his head and turned to the two princesses. “Oh! Um, princess Celestia! Princess Luna! Featherweight at your service.” He bowed his head. 

Celestia chuckled, Luna smiled and nodded at him.      

“You at my service too?” Jay asked. Featherweight again was struck by fear, he stuttered and shuffled his feet. 

“I’m just joking with ya” he bent down and ruffled his mane. “So you can start whenever you’re ready.”

“Right- uh, first question, have you ever eaten a pony before?” He asked, quivering.

“No, eating horse or pony is frowned upon, horses were very important to our way of life a long time ago.” 

Featherweight scribbled down everything he said in exact detail before moving on.

“So hearts and hooves day is coming up, do you have a special somepony back at home?” 

“Um, like someone you love?” Will asked. 

“Well, yeah” 

Will and Jay looked at each other for a moment before they realized he wasn’t kidding. 

“No” Will answered. 

“Nope” 

Featherweight looked at them oddly. “Really? Not even a crush?” 

Will and Jay looked at each other again, smiles creeping on their faces. “I like this kid” Will said, chuckling. 

“We’ve seen some pretty flowers.” Jay said. “But, we don’t really have time for a serious relationship, nor do we really deserve one.”

Featherweight looked at them again. 

“You know, all the war fighting.” Will said. 

Featherweight nodded and continued writing. 

“So that cancels a lot of questions out.” Featherweight lined through some things on his paper. “What do you do for fun? Or in your free time.”

“Hmm” Will thought.

“I like to have good friends, good music playing and a good brew in your hand, but not too much, don’t want to ruin your next morning.” Jay said.

“The civvies are a lot more festive than we are, they have like instruments, and dances around fires and all that stuff. Sometimes soldiers would get pulled in and not have the slightest clue what to do, pretty fun to watch.” Will added. 

“Okay...Okay” Featherweight mumbled as he wrote everything down. 

“Ah’m sorry to interrupt but I’ve got to go get some things together for Canterlot.” Applejack said. 

“Oh, that’s quite alright” Celestia said. 

Four others piped up with their own similar reason to leave, and soon it was only Luna, Celestia, Twilight, Featherweight and the humans in the room. 

“Okay so I only have a couple more questions, do you humans really not have magic? If so, how have you made it through?” 

At that point, both humans decided if this foal went to Earth, he wouldn’t make it that long. “No, we don’t have magic, we rely on technology that we invent ourselves or just survival techniques.” Will said.

“Yeah, technology here is primitive to us. I haven’t seen anything that runs on electricity other than life support at your hospitals.” Jay added. 

“Okay…” Featherweight mumbled again. “How long do humans live?” 

“At maximum around 110 years, but most of the time we die at around 80 to 90 years.” 

Featherweight gasped as he wrote it all down. 

They continued on asking and answering for about another thirty minutes, until Featherweight did the impossible and ran out of questions. 

“Thank you so much for this again, it was a school project so I think I’m gonna do well!” 

“Hey don’t sweat it little man, I’m sure you’re going to ace this one.” Will said about to open the door before a loud knock was heard. “Well, gotta get that” He opened the door to another journalist, this one was almost like Featherweight in the future. He had all the same accessories and the same colors on his coat. 

“Hello Will,” He extended his hoof, which Will shook. “I am Aperture, the best journalist in ponyville at the moment. I have been collectively chosen to be the one to interview you and Jay.” A crowd of other journalists in wait stood a good distance away from the library.

“Sorry pal, we’ve already been interviewed.” Will said. 

Aperture was shocked, “I…was not aware. Who interviewed you, may I ask?” 

Will smiled, “This guy here” He pointed down to Featherweight, who smiled sheepishly. At that moment, there was a small flash on Featherweight’s flank, and an image of a notepad and a journalist’s hat appeared.

A sound left Will’s lips that would accurately transcribe as ‘dafuq’. 

Featherweight looked ecstatic, his eyes were larger than anything on his body, even his ears. 

“Wh-wha?” Aperture stuttered. 

Celestia bent over to Featherweight’s ear level “Run”. And he ran Pinkie Pie fast, chased by the mob of journalists.

Will shut the door, laughing in confusion and at the journalist’s thirst for information.

“What-how did he get a tattoo that fast?” He asked Celestia, she just laughed at him. “What?” 

She stopped laughing, seeing he was serious. 

“Oh, but you have a cutie mark on your arm there.” Luna said, noticing the dragon tattoo that covered his arm.

“No, that’s a tattoo, ink that is permanently, erm, painted on your skin. Well, mine isn’t really painted but Jay’s is more painted since he got them from island tribes.” Will explained. 

Celestia peered in for a closer look on Will’s shoulder, the tattoo was small, it only covered his shoulder bone. She definitely thought it wasn’t natural.

“Jay! Can I see your tattoos for a moment?” she asked.

“Sure” Came his voice from the living room, not before long he emerged and rolled up his sleeve, revealing several different tribal designs all in ink on his arm. He also had a dragon on his shoulder identical to Will’s. 

“They look like the zebras cutie marks” Twilight remarked.

“I got these in a place called Jamaica, one of captain Monty’s contacts was a tribe leader, which he welcomed me into.” 

There were many different snake-like creatures and what looked like to be a phoenix in ink. Though most of the tattoo was just different tribal artwork.

“Wow this Monty guy is something else huh?” 

“Well, that was no tattoo. That was called a cutie mark, ponies get them when they discover their special talent. For Featherweight’s case, it was his specialty in journalism.” Celestia explained. 

Both Will and Jay’s eyes widened at the realization, “OH! Everything makes so much sense now!” Jay said. 

“Well your tattoos are very interesting, we will have to look into this ‘Jamaica’” Twilight said.

“That will have to come later, we don’t have much more than forty minutes until the train leaves.” Luna said, checking the clock mounted on the wall. 

“Yes we have to gather everypony up and be on our way soon.” Celestia said. “Your car has been loaded onto the train and will be on the same train as we will be.” 

“Great! I’ll get my stuff.” Will said running off, Jay behind him. 

~~

After a short run through town rounding up all the elements and (without much consent) carrying their bags to the train car for them. Everyone was finally settled in their own train car and on their way to Canterlot. Jay told his stories of his travels with Monty in the Caribbean, from Cuba, to Jamaica, to some of the Virgin Islands. Monty, being a sailboat courier lived in no place other than his boat and the sea. While the life of a sailor like Monty may have been completely alien to most of the ponies, it interested them nevertheless. Even Rarity took a bit of interest in the stories, the bar hopping, sailing through storms and Jay’s first Cuban cigar she didn’t exactly enjoy hearing about but the native tribes in Jamaica and their sense of artistic abilities (portrayed by the tattoos) caught her eye. 

Eventually Jay noticed Twilight and Luna were fighting to stay awake and decided to save them. He quickly thought of people yawning and soon did the same. 

“Man I’m pretty tired. I think I’m ready for bed.” He faked after his self inflicted yawn. 

“Yes me too, that early morning training really tired me out.” Shining armor added. 

“Oh that was tiring? Now were going to have a whole city to wake up!” Will said laughing.

“Yeah just wait until you’re on earth and mortar fire is your alarm clock.” Jay said. “We should start camouflaging our flour bags."

Shining armor grunted. Once again he was being doubted.

“Well anyway we should all get some rest. It is getting late.” Celestia said. Everybody nodded in agreement and lay back on their pillows. Celestia reached for the button to turn off all the lamps in the room and pressed it, closing her eyes.

> Who said anything about sneaking in? 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay stepped out of the train station, the cool air of the city surrounding him, filling his nostrils. Every building stood an elegant castle design. All the ponies shared an elegance with the city’s exterior. 

“Man this place is fancy” Will said. “For some reason this reminds me of New York. You know, before it got bombed.” Jay smiled, he remembered old videos of New York when it was alive. “Wonder how the boys in New York are doing right now” 

“Probably freezing their asses off in the knee deep snowfall” Jay said.

~~

“Fuck man I’m freezing my ass off!” Gill said. 

“I know, the snow is like knee deep.” Huey said. 

“Then why the hell do we need to lie down while we stalk this ‘earth hive’?” Gill questioned. 

“Gill! Shut your dumb ass up!” Huey shouted trying to focus on what was through his scope.

“I’m just sayin- 

“GILL! Look through your scope!” Huey shouted again. Damn, Gill was arguably the best shot in the entire camp, but he talked too much. 

Huey finally took a deep breath and focused on the hive. There were about five changelings, they looked like they were changing shifts. A couple of jokes and slaps on the back from each other and they swapped. The two that were previously on their shift proceeded through a cave opening, eventually disappearing into the dark. 

“Hey Huey check that out right there, top right.” Gill said. 

Huey moved himself up to Gills direction and adjusted his sights. There was a large cave opening that didn’t go very deep. A large changeling with longer hair stood before a pastel colored equine, much more colorful than the changelings. She had a pink coat and a cream, purple and pink mane. The changelings had her chained to the wall, and her coat was dirtied and ruffled, her eyes drooped.

“Ponies...” Huey remembered. “Oh, SHIT!” 

“What?” Gill asked. 

“That’s one of the ponies the changeling was talking about… Take a picture of it!” 

Gill took out his camera skeptically, zoomed in and snapped a couple pictures of it.

“She looks kinda important, wearing all that jewelry and shit” Gill commented. “I think I even see a unicorn horn and some wings on her too.” 

“Yeah, that changeling might know who she is. Send that photo to HQ and get that changeling on the radio.” 

“Alright” Gill got to work. Huey kept watching the scene unfold between the two equines the pony started crying while the changeling looked like was threatening her. Then something totally unexpected happened, the changeling flashed and she took the form of the pony.

“WOAH! Gill get this on camera!” He exclaimed. Gil sprung back up and zoomed back in. 

“What the fuck…” 

The now pony version of the changeling Grabbed a picture off a table and held it up to the real alicorn. 

“Is that… a human?” Huey asked himself. He adjusted his scope for a better look, he definitely saw a human in the picture, two actually. The alicorn was in the picture herself, hugging another white coated pony with a blue mane. There was a large white alicorn with rainbow hair and a smaller, but fairly large dark blue alicorn. Six other smaller ponies surrounded them. 

“Take a picture of that.” Gill snapped more shots. The pony was sobbing now, the changeling laughed in her face. Huey felt sorry for her, he was no stranger to suffering, but he always hated when anybody cried for anything. 

The changeling threw the picture at the pony’s face, and left, morphing back into her true self. 

“Alright we’ve seen enough, get that to HQ” 

“Already done” Gill replied. “They should be calling up in 3…2…1”

“What’s this you’re sending us?” A crackled voice came over the radio.

“Called it!” Gill said.

“It’s one of the ponies the changeling was talking about. Apparently the changelings can shape shift.” Huey explained.

“We can see that, does it know where the missing unit is?” The voice came again.

“Ask the changeling.” 

“We will, sit tight” 

About ten minutes passed, Huey kept watching the pony sob by herself, making him hate himself more and more for not doing anything. 

“Alright turns out that pony is Princess Cadence of the crystal kingdom. She does know the whereabouts of the missing unit. Also personal friends with them.”

“So what now?” 

“We need to secure her. Nicely get the information out her and get back to her home.”

“Sounds good, when do we get it done?” 

“Now, there’s a recon team already on their way.”

“What? That’s a little fast.” Huey said, surprised.

“We need that unit. Anyway, the team will be there in twenty. Sit tight some more.”

~~

Cadance tensed and shook as she wept in the empty cave. 

“Why is this happening to me?” She asked nobody. 

She was heard. 

The door swung open, a changeling guard entered, carrying a spear in its magical grasp. 

“Quiet in there” It hissed. Anger suddenly boiled in Cadence’s blood, but froze when its blood shot in a straight line out of its head, and it fell limp. 

“Target down” 

Three humans, dressed in full black and white rappelled into the opening and drew their weapons. 

“Clear” 

The human closest to Cadence rushed over and muffled her scream, 

“Relax! Were busting you out.” he whispered. “Are you Princess Cadence of the Equestrian crystal empire?” He asked her and removed his gloved hand from her mouth.

“Yes” 

He took another weapon, what looked like the pistols they had, but smaller. He pressed it against the shackle on her hoof and pulled the trigger, sparks few and danced on the fool below. He did the same to the other shackles and they each eventually became free. 

“HQ we’ve successfully secured the package, proceeding to the LZ” 


The human, without warning wrapped a vest around her and clipped it on his own plate carrier. He stood up, picking Cadence up with him. 

“W-what are you doing?” 

“Just trust me, nobody here has ever tried to deploy a pony but we have dealt with K-9’s” 

“What’s a K-9?” Cadence asked confused. She didn’t get an answer because her savior was busy rappelling down a steep ledge. Cadence let out a short squeal and squirmed around in her vest, trying to spread her wings.  

“Hey you’ll be fine quit squirming.” The human assured. “Just uh… close your eyes.” 

Cadence did as told and fought her reflexes as they dropped ten feet at a time. 

“Watch it, you’ve got a patrol of six below you.” 

All three stopped and held their weapons ready. Cadence kept her eyes closed, preparing for the loud pops of gunfire. Only repetitive clicks rang out. 

“Clear” 

Cadence didn’t want to look.

Eventually they landed and the human unclipped the vest from Cadence. “Lets go” 

“Huey, bag those bodies we cant leave them out in the open.” 

“On it” Huey said. Cadence took the risk and opened one eye, six changelings lay in a pool of thick green liquid. Her heart lurched, she could feel what little food she had been fed coming up from her stomach, she forced it back down and could feel tears coming. She let out a silent sob, noticed by Huey. He cautiously walked over and knelt by her side. 

“Hey, its okay, we’re going to get you home.” 

Cadence took a deep breath, “Its not that… well, it is that but… The changelings. I- my country hasn’t seen war for thousands of years.” 

Huey stepped back, thousands of years. “Well, uh” 

“Its fine, I’m just not used to it” Cadence said.

Huey got another feeling of watching some be miserable with themselves. “Thanks, for being so understanding,” 

“Hey you two we gotta move.” One of the humans called out. Huey nodded and motioned for Cadence to follow him. 

“You’re clear, I’m moving out so you wont get sniper cover. Stay frosty.” A silence blanketed the group. “No pun intended” 

They all continued their run through the snow until they reached a clearing with a jeep identical to Will’s, and a large metal vehicle in a more rectangular shape, the back of the vehicle was folded open. Another human emerged from the opening and waved them in. 

“Move! Move!” They rushed inside, three other humans waited for them, one with an extremely long rifle. The door operator pushed everyone inside und shut the door. “Lets go!” He said banging on the wall. The vehicle rumbled and lurched forward. 

“Awesome op guys!” The long rifle wielding human said. 

“Nice joke Gill, we stayed pretty frosty in negative 12 degrees.” Another joked. 

“Speaking of negative 12 degrees, aren’t you cold?” Huey asked Cadence, all heads tuned to her. They all realized she did have a unicorn horn and wings, but said nothing.

“Yes!” Cadence said desperately. “Oh… sorry.” 

“Its fine. Get her a blanket” Huey commanded. A short human got to it and pulled a thermal blanket from a survival pack and wrapped it around Cadence.

“Thank you” She said. “All of you” 

Murmurs of “Yes” and “Your welcome” hummed through the closed space. 

“So, uh what happened, why were you captured?” Huey asked. 

“Oh” Cadence chuckled. “Long story” Everybody eased up and sat down to listen in. 

“Well, I was going to get married in a couple of days, and the changelings ponynapped me and started acting as me. Just a couple days after two humans landed in Equestria.”

“So they did teleport to another world…” Gill said.

“You know them?” Cadence asked.

“Yes, Jay and Will. I know them.” Huey said. 

“Oh, small universe huh?” Cadence laughed. “Anyway, my fiancée is the captain of the royal guard, so they are going to brainwash him and bring down the Equestrian capital defenses and invade. Taking control of the whole country.”

“Damn, I guess we need to hurry up and bust that changeling.” Gill said.

“The queen changeling is acting as me, so if she is stopped, the whole invasion will be stopped.” Cadence informed them.

“So all we need is permission from Barbossa, and we can stop the invasion.” One suggested.

“No were going to need permission from the president if were going to another world. Plus he needs to talk to the leader of her country.” Huey motioned to Cadence. 

“Why would the president want to talk to a pony princess?” The rebel argued. 

“The eastern revolution is getting crushed, and were the only ones that can get access to Washington DC. Were going to need help where we can get it.” Huey said. 

Nods of agreement ensued.

“Actually, we may not be very much help to you, the closest thing to the weapons you have is a crossbow.” Cadence said solemnly. The entire group sighed. 

“Well… do you have explosive bolts?” Huey asked.

Cadence lit up, “Yes we do actually, we also have armor piercing, shrapnel, electric, stun, firebolt, icebolt, trackers and… and…” 

“Whoa, damn slow down girl.” Gill said, holding his hand up. “That’s some pretty serious stuff right there, how do you make all that?” 

“Well, simple! We use our magic!” Cadence chirped as she pointed to her horn. Her smile faded when she saw the skeptical looks from the humans. “Oh right, you don’t have magic.” 

“No… we don’t have uh, magic.” Gill said, laughing ensued among the rebels. “I’m assuming that your horn is how you use this ‘magic’”

“Yes, we do.” Cadence charged her horn and gripped Gill’s rifle with her magical grasp and lifted it off the ground and into his lap. 

Everyone’s jaws hung in awe at what Cadence had done. She smiled at their reaction.

“Whaaaa” Gill croaked. Cadence giggled. “I don’t believe this.” He said, defeated. 

“I’m going to have to apologize to that changeling I interrogated.” Huey said, smiling. 

Cadence lit her horn again and summoned dirt and a summer rose on the floor of the vehicle. 

“I am tripping” The door operator stared in amazement. 

Cadence lit her horn again to turn the rose into a small tree, but was stopped by Huey. “Ok, stop before you turn the BTR into a frog.” He said waving his hand. Cadence stopped and laughed again. 

“Yeah lets talk about something else,” Gill said. 

“Well since my kind attacked Jay and Will with questions, I guess its only fair if you can question me.”

Now what to ask a pink alicorn? 

“You can fly?” someone asked. 

“Yes, I can. But, here might not be the best place to demonstrate” Cadence said, showing off her wings.

“Yeah, were close to camp though. You can show us there.” The same rebel said back.

“Is Jay and Will okay?” Huey asked her. Cadence smiled.

“Yes they’re doing swell. They save a couple of ponies from a fire and they’re now training a group of the royal guard for combat on earth.” Cadence remembered the morning exercise and giggled a bit.  

“They never do get a break do they?” One rebel said, laughing. 

“So they are like prized heroes there?” Huey asked.

“Yes, the ponies were grateful for what they did. But they didn’t accept them at first because they were warfighters, omnivores, six feet tall, things of that sort. But the pros ruled out the cons.” Cadence answered. “The ponies weren’t used to war either, the stories that were told from Jay’s memories set them on the edge.”  

“I wouldn’t be surprised, Jay was sent on three suicide missions and came back alive. Barbossa eventually decided it was impossible to kill him.” Gill said. 

Cadence gasped, “B-but isn’t suicide attacks a war crime?”

“Well, I don’t know. But Jay is one of the few people they would send on a suicide mission. He’s a test subject for a drug that makes him think faster or something. So the fact that he came back from a suicide mission means the test was a success.” Huey explained. 

“Did you hear the story of his second suicide mission? He drove a truck full of explosives straight into an enemy vantage point, bailed out at the last second. Fractured his leg.” The door operator said.

Cadence exhaled, to know that her friend was a living, breathing science project weighed her heart. “But it doesn’t hurt him does it?” She asked. 

“It affected him mentally in the early stages, sometimes he would came back from a mission and he couldn’t remember who people were and sometimes his own name. He got better after a while though.” Huey said, “But we decided that it makes him no less a person” He retorted, seeing her despair. 

Cadence sighed. “Its fine I just…” She was cut off by the BTR suddenly stop and the engine dying. 

“Were here,” The door operator said, punching a red button. The door hissed, and slowly began to lower. A blast of cold air chilled them all to the bone. Cadence’s blanket flapped temporarily in the small wind. 

The BTR had been neatly parked in a lot next to a small airfield. The entire terrain, save for the roads and the runways. Everyone quickly filed out of the vehicle and closed the door behind them. There was not a point of view that didn’t overlook rebels in their training exercises and jogging in formation. A large sign stood in front of the large hangars.

New York National Guard 174th Attack wing

Camp Firebird

“Hey you guys! In the briefing room, Barbossa’s orders!” A nearby soldier shouted. 




~~

Everyone was situated in one of the princess’s balcony rooms, they 

8:00 and Jay felt a slight throbbing in his head, now it was 14:00 and his head was raging in pain. 

“Do you have any protein supplements?” He asked Celestia. 

“Umm, no. Why?” She asked back, not questioning what a protein supplement was.

“Because when I said that I wouldn’t eat meat here I wasn’t thinking. I tried to go on a vegetarian diet once, and I got deprived of nutrients I needed. So right now I have a real bad headache and I only have so many protein bars myself.” He said clutching his head. 

Celestia felt a pang in her heart, she knew what this might mean. “Eat one of your protein bars now, I will decide more on that later.”

“Here Jay” Will tossed him a ration bar. “Marine core protein ration, nutritionally, that can feed a family of three for a night” Jay looked at the wrapper, USMC survival ration type K. That was enough convincing for Jay to tear it open and take a decent bite out of it. 

“Irrelevant question,” Will said. “That forest on the edge of Ponyville, it looks like a good place for wilderness survival training for the special forces. And it’s only a BASE jump away from here.” He said.

“Did you say… jump? Twilight asked suspiciously. “Into the everfree forest?” 

“Uh, yeah. A BASE jump.” Will repeated. 

“So, jumping from Canterlot into the everfree forest.” 

“Yup” 

“Now hold on a second!” Rainbow dash shouted. “For your information, trying to fly without wings isn’t a very good idea.” 

“We have parachutes” He countered bluntly. 

Rainbow paused, he just stared back at her. Celestia came to her rescue from his blank glare. 

“We don’t have much knowledge on parachutes, much of our early prototypes were unsuccessful and many have just given up the endeavor.” 

Will groaned, “Do you have hangliders?” 

“Actually, yes. We have very successful variants of hangliders.” She responded proudly. 

“Can we use them?” 

“Will stop, the ponies aren’t ready for that yet.” Jay said.

“Y-yeah, and the everfree forest is full of big, scary monsters and dark shadows, and the weather controls itself! Its very dangerous in there.” Fluttershy squeaked. 

“Ah, it’s not too bad, Shy.” Applejack said.

“Not too bad? Its dark and spooky and… and”

“That’s enough. Will, you might be able to go to the everfree forest if you are careful.” Luna ended the conversation. Silence fell in the group. 

“So princesses, about the wedding plans.” Twilight said, retrieving her notepad. “I was wondering when the rehearsal is.” 

“Wedding?” Jay asked, snapping out of his trance. 

“Yes, Shining armor and Princess Cadence are getting married in just three days time!” Twilight said excitingly. 

“Wow, really? A soldier getting married?” Will asked. 

“Yes, he is getting married.” Twilight huffed. “And we would love to have you come!” 

Jay looked at the sisters, “Is this ok with you?” 

“Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?” Luna answered.

“Well, we are alien rebel fighters from another planet.” Jay said. 

“That means nothing to us at this point, you have both displayed good respect, friendship and bravery.” Luna countered him. 

“I…” Jay couldn’t argue with that. And Luna heard him, she smiled. “Oh alright you win.” He said. 

“Where is Cadence anyway? I haven’t seen her in a while.” Pinkie said, bouncing up and down. 

~~

Cadence was escorted in the poorly lit room by Huey and Gill. It was devoid of any decoration whatsoever save for the Che Guevara poster on the wall. A lone table covered with an altitude map with blue and red flags sticking out of it. A tall, bulky man stood overlooking the map. He wore full woodland camouflage with a red beret on his head.  His aged, darker skin was exposed from his rolled up sleeves. He looked up from the map, addressing the trio that stood before him. 

“I nevah thought I would see a real unicorn.” He said in a deep, African accent. 

“Barbossa, this is Princess Cadence of Equestria, she knows where the missing unit is.” Huey spoke. 

“Yes, let me introduce myself boy.” Barbossa said in a calm voice. “I am Captain Barbossa of the New York revolution. It is a pleasure to meet your royalty.” He gave a straight, military salute.

Cadence was taken aback by his manners, “At ease, a pleasure to meet you as well.” He removed his gesture. “So about you friends.” 

“Ah yes! We must get to work on that. Now, you were held prisoner at this earth hive here.” He pointed to a red flag on his map. 

“Correct.” 

“And a portal is there to take us to your world.” He asked. 

“Also correct. But it will be challenging, the changelings already know we have attacked.” She said. 

“So?” Barbossa challenged. 

“I think we need to explain exactly what is going on with the changelings.” Gill said. 

“Gill’s right I do need to explain.” Cadence said. 

“Do tell” Barbossa said. 

Cadence took a deep breath. “I was taken prisoner because the changeling queen is working undercover as me and brainwashing my fiancée who is the captian of the royal guard.” Barbossa leaned in and squinted slightly. “Come our wedding, and she plans to destroy his shields around Canterlot and invade it. Canterlot by the way is the city that your friends are at right now.” She finished. 

Barbossa stood straight and exhaled, relaxing his muscles. “You are right, this will complicate things.” He said, staring back down at his map.

“So sneaking in will be impossible, plus we don’t know where the portal is.” Huey said.

Barbossa looked up and grinned, “Who said I was going to sneak in?” 

> Blitzkreig
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cadence’s body lurched around as the BTR trekked over the terrain. They were moving out to assault the hive with heavy armor. 

“Be advised, no air support will be granted in this mission” Huey’s radio crackled.

All the rebels looked at each other and simultaneously yelled a tired “AW SHIT!” 

The machine gunner crouched from his spot in the top of the vehicle. “Hey don’t worry, the heavy gunners got you covered.” He shouted over the engine. 

“WE only have ARs!” A rebel shouted back. 

“Haha, sucks to be you!” The gunner returned to his respective place. 

“Twenty seconds!” The voice came again. The gunner unleashed a hellstorm of bullets, sweeping from side to side. Completely obliterating the enemies. Cadence found herself covering her ears, trying to muffle the noise pounding in her ears. 

“HELL YEAH!” He screamed over the loud gunfire. The door operator punched the open button and the door reluctantly did as ordered. 

“Come on you old Russian piece of shit!” He shouted as he banged on the side. The door finally dropped to the ground opening up the battlefield. “MOVE MOVE!” He shouted again and motioned everyone out of the BTR. The entire team rushed into the bitter cold and now melted snow due to the immense heat of the engines nearly side by side. The BTRs had stopped atop a hill, overlooking the hive. Masses of changelings had already mobilized since there was a smaller raid earlier. 

A larger APC’s 105mm cannon fired its shell into the changeling’s front formation, a huge rectangle of about five hundred of the equines, leaving a gaping hole in their defenses. The smell of sulfur assaulted Cadences nose, followed by burnt flesh, making her shudder. 

The rebels were already descending the hill in their assigned squadrons. Cadence made a move to join them, but was held back by Huey. 

“Noo way, you’re staying up here.” He shouted over the gunfire.

Cadence shot him a look. 

“I’m supposed to protect you!” He said in his defense. Cadence lightened up. “Okay, lets take overwatch on the hill!” He shouted. The two ran to the edge of the hilltop and watched the battle unfold. Huey quickly attached a small scope on his gun and screwed on a barrel extension in less than two minutes. By then, the rebels lines had mostly broken through the main defenses and merely engaged the secondary line. Huey took a prone position and aimed down his sights. Cadence following his lead although she didn’t have a weapon. Huey pinpointed the rebels, jumping into foxholes for cover. He moved his barrel about fifty yards in front of them. The changelings were armed with crossbows and formed ordered lines of four taking turns firing on he rebels. Just after the changeling fired, he would retreat to the back of the line and reload, letting another take his place. He moved his crosshair on a changelings head, and let of a single shot. The delay of the round took about a half a second before the changeling stopped dead in its tracks and collapsed to the ground much to the surprise of his comrades. Huey quickly moved his crosshair again to the changeling caught by surprise and fired three times, getting as many kills. 

The APC fired another shell into a cluster of the changelings. The smoke clouded Huey’s scope. He didn’t bother to adjust it, he just pulled away and looked with his own eyes. The dust cloud sat in the middle of the defense line. Most of the changelings were retreating, and the rebels were advancing almost directly into the hive entrance. 

“Ay Huey! Get in!” The door operator shouted. Huey obeyed, Cadence behind him. 

The BTR started moving the second they entered, the operator didn’t even bother closing the door. “Alright, get ready for some CQC,” He said, offering him a SPAZ-12, Huey took it with gratitude. “It’s already filled up and loaded, here’s some extra rounds.” He unbuckled his ammo belt and handed it over. 

“Thanks man, I owe you” Huey said, buckling the belt around his waist. The operator didn’t reply, he just smiled. The BTR sped down the hill and rolled through the sea of foxholes made by mortar rounds. They eventually passed the advancing line of the rebels and stopped at the direct entrance of the hive. Cadence and Huey stepped out, greeting the rest of their team. 

“You all missed out!” Gill shouted. “That shit was so easy, I would be embarrassed if I was a casualty. And god-damn me if I was!” 

“Speaking of that, how many casualties were there?” Huey asked. 

“I don’t fucking know. Probably close to zero.” Gill said. 

Barbossa ran up to the trio with his Kalashnikov in hand, Dirtied from the assault. “Enough chit chat” He said. “Same rules apply, protect Cadence at any cost.” With that he turned around to his men and raised his weapon, “Come brothers! If they came for a fight, lets give them a fight!” He shot off his magazine in the air, followed by the rebels roaring in agreement. He took another mag out of his pocket and stuffed it in his gun. The rebels all charged the entrance, the commanders barking orders at each other. 

“Lets go!” Barbossa bellowed. He followed the rebels into the cavern along with the other three. 

“Damn, This place could fit a plane.” Gill said as they entered the stuffy atmosphere.  

“FORMATIONS!” Barbossa roared. The rebels didn’t need a second telling, they each got into four lines in rank order and crouched in their position. Cadence just followed Huey and Gill to their teams line. “Head count!” 

“5-4 Full sir!”

“3-7 Full sir!” 

“4-2 Full sir!” 

“9-0 fu- AGH!” A crossbow bolt piercing his chest plate cut him off. Nearly every rebel in the cave stood up and fired at where the bolt had come from. Yet again, the gunfire pummeled Cadences ears, and she covered them, squeezing her eyes shut.

“FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” Gill screamed. 

“Hold up! Hold your fire!” The commander shouted, all the fire eventually ceased. A field medic rushed to the squad leaders side and began treating his wound. “Alright, lets go, hug the walls and stay frosty.” All mobilized, staying close to the wall and out of sight from the upper levels above them, while watching the level across from them. 

Cadence could feel… no, hear a slight hum throughout the caverns. It sounded like a magical aurora, but was more constant, instead of waving in and out. “Huey, I think I can feel the portal.” Cadence said, tapping on his back. He stopped, halting the entire line behind him. “Yo! We got a direction.” He shouted. 

“Which way?” One commander across from him asked. Cadence stepped up and closed her eyes, focusing on the sound. When she opened her eyes again, another cave passage became apparent to her, and also the smell of green pollen. “This way!” She said, pointing into another tunnel. “I can tell that there’s lots of changelings, so be careful.” 

“Lets go!” 

In no time, the rest of the force had moved into the tunnel, also becoming aware of the smells it was producing. And the green pollen. Lots of ‘what the fuck’s were made as they all stepped in the gooey substance, for a moment they all slowed their pace. 

“Contact front!” Someone shouted and opened fire on the hidden changelings. Everyone automatically hit the ground and found a target. 

“Shit, this is not good man!” Someone yelled, realizing they were all lying down in an unknown substance and also getting pinned down from crossbow bolts. Just to add to it, at least five men were hit in the first second of the ambush. 

Huey stood back up and raised his shotgun and fired randomly into the crowd of flying insects. He started side shuffling to the left side of the cavern, where Barbossa was leading the line while shooting at nothing but the changeling force. Gill saw this, and grabbed Cadence by the collar of her vest before she could even think about following him. 

“Boss!” Huey shouted.

“Huey! What the fuck?!” Barbossa roared in anger. 

“We need heavy weapons!” Huey shouted again, unfazed by Barbossa’s rage. 

“Okay! You do that!” He said, turning back to face the oncoming stampede of changelings. 

Huey threw himself against the wall and pulled his microphone to his mouth. 

“BTR squad! We need heavy machine gun support. The cave is big enough for you, can you do that?” 

Not three seconds had gone by before a familiar voice responded.

“Fuck yeah I can do that!"

That voice was from about 20 minutes ago, just before the assault started. 

It took Huey ten seconds to process this in his brain. But he finally got it. “GET THE FUCK ON THE WALL!” He screamed, but it was too late. The rumble of the BTR’s engine echoed throughout the walls as it turned the corner. The rattle of the gunner’s 50cal booming with it. 

The entire fight was reversed in one single strike. The feared pair of jackasses that operated the BTR sent the changelings retreating in full. Huey could have sworn he heard the bass of rap music shaking the ground. 

Huey decided to encourage the remaining rebels to use the BTR to their advantage. After standing up and screaming “BLITZKRIEG!” he ran deeper into the cave. However, he overall failed since the next to follow him in his rampant attack was the BTR. 

“Aw screw you guys.” He muttered to himself. He took a second to fill up on shells in his shotgun while he was waiting. Cadence gathered what courage she had left and flew to where Huey was. 

“That was crazy!” She exclaimed. 

“Welcome to earth!” Huey said back, bearing a smile. He finished loading his shotgun and kept made another motion for the rebels to move up. 

“Where to now?” He asked Cadence. 

She closed her eyes and ceased all movement. “This way!” She said, pointing straight. 

“Lets move!” 

“Were getting close” Cadence yelled, feeling the vibrations harder than ever. A changeling captain swooped down at her and grabbed her vest, pinning her down. His horn already glowed a light green for an attack. Cadence let out a scream from the surprise and tried to spread her wings, but it was no use. The changeling’s horn bursted into overdrive and was about to discharge when Huey tackled it off of her. Its horn discharged and hit the ceiling of the cave. The changeling hissed with rage and resisted Huey’s grip. Huey unsheathed his knife and shoved it in the changeling’s neck causing thick green blood sprayed his coat. 

Gunfire erupted for the second time as the changelings made their last defensive on the portal. The ear piercing cracks once again had Cadence curled up and covering her ears. Just then, something illuminated Cadence and the entire cave ahead, she opened her eyes to the BTR rolling straight for her. She was about to move, but Huey pulled her out of the way. 

“Damn, that’s three times I’ve saved you.” He said, laughing. Cadence rolled her eyes. 

Huey took aim and pulled the trigger, killing one and hitting three others. Taking out the changelings lines were very easy since they were in a formation similar to the British in the American revolution. 

“Dumbasses!” The gunner shouted as he lit the changelings up. 

Cadence shuddered at the Changelings being torn apart and closed her eyes, already covering her ears. The crackles lasted for about two minutes until it died down.

“Are they gone?” She asked. 

“Yeah.” Huey’s voice came. 

She opened one eye, and instantly regretted it, shutting it again. “Oh no” She whispered. The bodies lay everywhere, and not many of them in one piece. Huey grabbed her vest and pulled her along the advancing line. 

“Were on track.” She said, hearing the magical hum loud and clear.

“No, I think we are here.” Huey said. 

Cadence barley opened one eye again, but this time a much more pleasing sight was there than last time. A huge, round portal displayed the summit of Mt. Canterlot. Cadence would recognize it from anywhere, she used to fly up here many times in the past. 

“Walk in!” Barbossa ordered one rebel. He did as told slowly, and cautiously. Sticking one arm in the portal, seeing that nothing had changed. He slowly shuffled into the portal, and finally his whole body was in another world in itself. The rebel stood and thought for a second, and then started stripping off his heavy clothes. 

“It’s summer in here!” He called out to the rest. 

~~

The entire group of friends sat at the royal dining hall, eating possibly the finest dishes in all of Equestria. They had practiced the wedding almost all day, and they were all exhausted, except for Jay and Will. The day was a break for them. As was the food, Will had said earlier that the entire country was jus a big vegetarian restaurant. Back to the wedding, it was to be held tomorrow. The whole thing was planned many weeks earlier and the arrival of the humans had made no difference. 

“Today was a long one indeed.” Celesta said, taking another bite out of her food. 

“Yes, and the wedding does grow closer.” Cadence said proudly. “Isnt that right Shiny?” 

“mhmm” He mumbled, staring off at the wall, slowly chewing food. 

Will turned to whatever Shining armor was looking at, but found nothing. “Uh, Shiny?” 

Shining Armor snapped and bounced in his seat. His eyes returned to a normal state. “W-what?” 

Cadence giggled. “Oh its alright dear, you’ll be much awake tomorrow.” 

Dear? Jay thought. He had never been to a single wedding in his life, nor had he seen someone who was getting married. But this wasn’t right. Something like marriage couldn’t possibly change someone this much, could it? 

Meanwhile, both sisters were having a telekinetic conversation, thinking the same thing. 

“What has gotten into them?”

“I don’t know Luna, this is suspicious.” 

“I sense our new friends feel the same way.” 

“You sense or you read their minds?” 

No response came. 

“What the hell is the problem?” a new voice came, the voice of Jay.

“Jay? You are telekinetic?”

“What the…” Jay thought aloud. He stared at the Luna who immediately realized she had been absent mindedly reading him while she was talking to Celestia. 

“Oops” Celestia teased. 

Luna blushed at her remark. 

“You can read minds?” Jay asked,

“…Maybe” Luna said sheepishly.

“Yes.” Celestia corrected. 

“Tia!” 

Jay did a mental recap of everything he had thought before. Then he started laughing. “Damn, I’ve thought of the weirdest things in the past couple of days.” 

Luna burst out laughing as well, “Oh! The thought on the wedding!” 

Jay laughed harder, “You heard that?” 

“Yes!” 

“Oh shitt” Jay cackled. 

“What was so funny?” Celestia asked. 

“My dirty mind.” Jay replied. 

“Noo… He said… 

“Marrying the princess of love? Hehe, lucky bastard” Jay said. Everypony burst out in laughter except for Celestia and Shining armor. Shining armor seemed lost again.  

“Jay!” Celestia exclaimed,

“Oh be fair sister, you most likely thought the same thing.” Luna joked. 

“Not with that kind of language!” Celestia argued. 


Just at that moment, the double doors opened, and a guard entered. He casually trotted to where Celestia sat and have her a letter, bowed and then walked away. 
















  

> A fuck up in Canterlot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jay could hear the double doors swing open, and everyone in the temple stood up. A royally dressed Cadence walked regally down the red carpet, her two bridesmaids on either side of her. ‘Here comes the bride’ sounded throughout the room. Eventually she took her place right in front of Shining Armor, beside Princess Celestia and Luna. He felt bad for himself, since his combat loadout was the most ceremonial thing that he and Will could think of. All the ponies dressed in the most expensive things he could imagine, and he’s just sitting here in multicam, Rifle to bear on his back and pistol at ready. 

“Be seated” Celestia said in her trademark motherly voice. Everyone obeyed. “We are gathered here in great happiness to celebrate the wonderful union of Stallion and Mare. Both are which of are very important to the royal family.” She smiled. “Our wonderful niece has met a very lucky stallion, and she is lucky herself to meet this said stallion.” 

Jay couldn’t help but hear something approaching him. It was obviously in the distance, but that was not possible. The sound was extremely distinctive, like blades chopping through air. 

Oh

Jay snapped his head at Will, who had an equally shocked face on. Will slowly reached to his shoulder pouch, where his MBITR was clipped in and turned it on volume on ever the smallest amount. 

“We’ve got a visual on the target. The wedding is in progress.” 

“Phoenix and hawkeye have been spotted. I repeat, we found the missing unit.” 

Everyone shot them looks of death, they had heard their radio. 

“Be advised! We’re too late, changeling assault is imminent! This place is packed with civvies, so watch your fire. That also means guns and knives only.” 

The crowd gasped, and Will took action. He increased the volume and drew his rifle. 

“Everybody down!” He shouted. “I will spend an eternity in hell for this.”

“The changeling have broken through the outer shield, they’re dropping into the city. Awaiting orders.” 

A familiar voice spoke on the line. “This is princess Cadence, engage the changelings and protect the ponies at all costs. I have some personal conflicts to settle with the changeling queen.”

“We’re with you ma’am. Ten seconds until deployment.” 

“Cadence?!” Luna exclaimed. 

~~

The MH-6 sped through the front border of the city, heading straight for the Celestial temple. A whole line of other helicopters accompanied them, flying in infantry and delivering them to the streets. They could already see rebels defending civilian ponies from changeling forces.   

“Five seconds!” 

The rebels readied their weapons as the black hawk hovered over the roof. Ropes were dropped on either side and everyone readied themselves for the drop. They hooked in, including Cadence, lacking the need since she had wings. Also, Huey no longer needed to carry her everywhere. 

“Lets go!” 

The first man of each rope rappelled out. 

~~

Both humans had everyone on the ground save for the princesses who were demanding answers for what was going on. When the black hawk hovered over the roof, all hell broke loose. Or so they thought up until fully loaded urban operators broke though the windows and trained their weapons on anything that moved. Though most of the ponies were too terrified to move. More and more operators swung in and landed with ease in the room. 

“On the ground!” One screamed at the princesses, his weapon pointing straight at them. 

“How dare you?” Cadence challenged.

“How dare YOU?!” Cadence shouted at her own projection. 

The bride looked at Cadence, dressed in an olive vest and a messy mane. She was surrounded by armed, tall and bulky humans all loyal to her. Her eyes shot looks of pure anger. 
“What? How did you escape the hive?” Cadence hissed.

“I didn’t escape” She shot back.

“What is going on?” Jay, Will and all the princesses asked. 

“She’s a fake, a changeling. She takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them!”

Queen Chrysalis’s strings were pulled, her eyes flashed neon green and she ditched the Cadence projection. A mass of green light sprung fro the ground blinding everyone in the room, catching them off guard.  Suddenly, the light ceased and a menacing Chrysalis stood in place. 

She bellowed a painfully cliché evil laugh, “Right you are princess, and as queen of the changelings it is up to me to find food for my subjects. Equestria has more love than any place I’ve ever encountered, my fellow changelings will be able to devour so much of it, that we will be able to gain more power than we ever dreamed of!” She laughed again. 

Will shouted in rage, not only did he feel like he pulled the pin to a flashbang on his chest, but this… whatever this was wanted to overthrow the Equestrian throne. He stood up and pulled his pistol, but Chrysalis was quicker. She electrocuted him with a spark spell, sending him back down. 

“Fool! They will never get past Shining Armor’s protection spell!” Cadence shouted. 

“Hahaha! He is under my control now… isn’t that right dear?” Chrysalis stroked Shining Armor’s chin. 

“Mmhmm” Shining armor mumbled. 

“No! Cadence cried and collapsed to the ground. 

“Chrysalis!” Celestia shouted. “You may have made Canterlot vulnerable to attack, but now that you have so foolishly revealed yourself, I can protect my subjects from you!” She took to the air and fired a bright gold bean from her horn. Chrysalis responded with a green beam of her own, colliding with Celestia’s. At first, Celestia oppressed the queen with her power, but Chrysalis doubled her power and turned the tides in a matter of seconds. Celestia stuttered, noticing the green beam of magic was mere inches from her horn. She was too late, the beam barley touched her, then completely engulfing her in pain. She was hammered to the floor, horn smoking. 

“Tia!” Luna exclaimed. She bent to her side. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Celestia whispered, “Get the elements of harmony and bring her down.”  Tears welled up in Luna’s eyes, she watched her sister pass out right in front of her. 

“That will do nothing! My force is too powerful.” Chrysalis boasted. On cue, gunfire erupted from the outside. Chrysalis groaned. “Minions! Tie these creatures up!” She pointed to the group of dazed humans. About half of the wedding crowd morphed into changelings and tried to tame the humans. All of them resisted, but not many made through. Jay stood up shaking, the image of a changeling trying to restrain him sent only one message to his brain, and only one reaction. Attack. 

He spun around to the changeling and pistol-whipped him in the neck, then he fired on the other two oncoming insects. He made a move to shoot at the others, but was thrown out the window by a magical aroura. All the blood in his body could be felt rushing to his head, He held on to his rifle tightly, as if it was a child. And for the first time, he thought he was actually going to die. Closing his eyes, he waited for what version of hell awaited him, but something smashed him in the ribs. He cried out in agony before he was again smacked on the ground. This time he tried to scream, but he had no air in his lungs.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” A familiar voice cried out. 

“Its fine Luna! Bring cheese legs down!” Jay replied, chuckling at his own nickname for the odd creature. 

“But I hurt you badly!” Luna wailed. 

Jay looked down at his chest and removed his hand clutching the injury. It was bright red with blood. A compound fracture. “Ugh” Jay groaned and fell to his knees while the pain came crashing down on him. 

“Wait, I think I can fix it!” Luna said, charging her horn. 

“Do it quick” 

Luna used her extreme healing spell, and saw his blood recall itself back into the wound and the bone moving back in the right place, and then his skin began to grow back and change its color to a light brown, matching with the rest of his body. Finally, although Luna wasn’t sure how, his clothes sewed itself back together again matching the colors around it. 

Jay watched in amazement, “We need unicorn medics.” He decided. He stood up, and felt nothing. “Yup definitely more unicorn medics. Thank you.” Luna chuckled. 

The ear splitting crack of gunfire snapped them both to attention. They turned to the rebels attacking a group of helpless changelings. 

“Hey!” Jay picked himself up and motioned for Luna to follow. “Hey, freindlies coming in!” 

The rebels lowered their rifles and turned their attention to Jay. “You!” One shouted. “Jay Sparks?” 

“That’s me” Jay replied.

“You’re in charge of all of us for now. Boss’s orders.” 

Jay exhaled, “Okay… Princess Luna” He pointed at Luna. “Protect her. We’re going to breach the upper floor of the castle.” 

The team immediately got to work, most were already on their way to the nearest entrance while some radioed command for assistance. 

“We’ve got marksmen on the rooftops waiting for our go.” The captain informed them. 

“Good” Jay said, leading them to the door. 

Everyone stacked up and the support class planted a charge. Just as he was about to trigger it, six ponies burst through the door, catching everyone off guard and them raising their weapons. They immediately stepped back in fear. 

“Stand down!” Jay shouted. All obeyed, but held their defensive stance. “How did you all get out of that?” He asked them. 

“We barley did,” Twilight said. “We need to get to the elements if we are to save Canterlot!” 

Jay remembered their whole purpose and what the elements were for. “Alright new plan. Redirecting to the elements of harmony.” 

“Elements of what?” a young rebel asked them. 

Just when Jay was about to scold him for questioning orders, Twilight answered him. 

“The Elements of harmony will push out any violent attackers in the city.” 

The rebels looked confused. “Wouldn’t that kill us?” The young one countered.

Twilight drooped. “B-but you’re friendly, right?” 

“No, were killing the changelings on the streets.” The rebel retorted. Silence came over them for a moment before a marksman interrupted them. 

“Hey are you gonna do something or what?” 

“He’s right. We have to do this the hard way.” Jay said, Reaching for his radio. “Were on it.” He said through the mic. “Lets go” 

They swept through the foyer of the castle, distant gunfire and their footsteps accompanying them. They crossed the lobby and proceeded to the stairs. “Aw damn, by the time we get up there, we’re gonna be out of it.” 

~~

Changelings restrained Will on either side. They lined up all the humans to be questioned. One at a time the queen would beat them for answers and get nothing. Although most of the forms of beating were weak by human standards. However unfortunately for them, Chrysalis was growing to realize this. 

Will was finally forced next to Huey, his friend from camp firebird. 

“Hey Will.” He said flatly.

“Hey Huey” Will replied just as flat. 

“We’re in some deep shit you know Will?” Huey muttered. 

“Yeah, I know.” Will said as he watched Chrysalis summon a loaded crossbow and a quiver from thin air and handed it to the changeling captain. 

“Deep shit” Huey repeated as the changeling aimed at an operator. 

Will glanced over at Cadence, who was embracing an oblivious Shining Armor. 

“Hey Cadence!” He said in a hushed voice. She turned his way. ‘Read my mind’ He mouthed. 

I am her voice rang in his head. 

They’re not lookin, can you take off my cuffs with your magic? We might have a chance to break out. 

Cadence looked at him uneasily, Okay, I’ll try. 

Will could feel the ropes moving around his wrists, eventually coming loose enough for one hand to wriggle out of. 

Thanks

Cadence nodded, then her eyes shot open. “LOOK OUT!” But she was too late, the crossbow bolt penetrated straight through the operators body and onto the wall behind him. He screamed in pain and fell to the floor, blood oozing on the floor. 

Will growled in anger bit his tongue in order to not pull his pistol. He squinted at the changeling that shot the operator. The changeling was going to shoot the next man in line, but a bolt of his own pierced the head of the changeling, painting the wall green. An explosion sounded, and the huge double doors were blasted open and rebels stormed the room, guns blazing. 

Will decided it would be a good time to participate in the massacre of changelings and pulled his pistol, also ripping out Huey’s and opened fire. Shooting randomly into the group of the insects. Almost all of them fell in a matter of moments, the rest were cowering in fear. Chrysalis was furious, her best soldiers were being slaughtered in front of her. That was, until she took a bullet to her leg. Her vision blurred and she screamed, the gunfire lasted for what seemed like hours until it stopped. 

“Medic!” the rebels called for their injured friend. Field doctors got to work on the rebel, and Celestia. One was shining a flashlight into Shining Armors eyes. Eventually, an enraged Huey approached Chrysalis, shotgun in hand. 

“Wedding crash” He said as he pressed the barrel against her head and pulled the trigger. 

~~

“Be advised, they are fleeing the city, let them. Bring all injured to sector C grid 4-09 pony and human alike.” The MBITR sounded as Jay drove a medical truck recklessly down the streets of Canterlot. He thanked the builders for making the streets so wide, or else he would have crashed about five times. He could feel the ponies and the injured rebels they had picked up on the way playing jello against their will. 

He was driving to the temporary medical camp, which was situated right outside the local hospital. He eventually had to slow down because of the rebels carrying their injured friends and civilian ponies were scattered along the streets. They parted and made room, and Jay took the opportunity to drive through. There were numerous green shelters set up, and under them were field doctors working furiously on the innumerable patients. The employees helped the humans on the pony patients and vice versa. Jay stopped in front of the tents and killed the engine, jumping out of the drivers seat. He opened the back of the truck and the ponies literally fell out like goo while the rebels carried each other to the tents. 

“I am never doing that again.” Twilight muttered, fighting the urge to vomit. 

Jay ignored her and helped Will carry a marksman with a stab wound to the nearest tent. A pony nurse was waiting for them at the entrance. Right behind them, two more rebels carried an injured pony to the same tent. 

“Get him in!” Will shouted as the nurse passed them through.

“I’m sorry but you all have to wait.” The nurse informed them.

“No! The marksman cried. “Let them through!” Jay and Will stopped, and looked at the nurse. 

“But sir you’re hu-

“Bullshit! Let them through.” He shouted.

The nurse shifted uneasily. “Okay,” She let the pony go through and Jay and Will to carry the marksman back outside. 

“Jay set him down and get some bandages!” Will ordered. Jay did as told, retrieving the bandages from the truck. The ponies still wobbly from the bumpy ride. Once again, Jay ignored them and continued on to Will putting pressure on the marksman’s wound. He unraveled the bandages and applied them to the now elevated leg, tightly wrapping them around it. They then proceeded to put more pressure on his leg and force feed him painkillers and antibiotics until he stopped moaning in agony.

“Hey, help us here!” Another militant cried out for Will and Jay.

“Look after him” Jay said to the ponies as he ran off under a shelter. A rebel lay on the table, multiple burns and stabs covered his body. The entire table was painted a bright red with blood, and a pool of the liquid formed below. 

“He’s losing a lot of blood.” The pony doctor wailed. Obviously overwhelmed with the current situation. 

“I can see. We need some kind of rag,” Will said. “Give me your apron.” He said. 

The surgeon didn’t argue, but removed his already stained apron hastily and handed it over to Will, although he wasn’t sure about what he intended to do with it. But he honestly couldn’t care less. Will unsheathed his knife and cut a large portion off, balled it up and held it against the largest wound. “Hold this” He told the doctor, who complied. He continued cutting off pieces of the apron. Meanwhile Jay prepared a defibrillator because he knew he already needed it.

“He’s got no pulse.” Jay deadpanned, holding two fingers on the bottom of his jaw. 

“Shock him then!” Will shouted desperately. 

Jay didn’t need to be told twice, he charged the device and placed it over his heart. The body shook violently before Jay pulled away and checked his pulse again.  Still nothing. 

Jay charged the defibrillator again, furiously rubbing the two pads together and forced them directly over his heart. Again, his body nearly jumped off the table in the shock. Jay checked his pulse, nothing.

“Dammit!” He blared. Slamming his fists on the table. 

“Jay…” 

He did not answer instead he picked up the defibrillator and began charging it again.

“Jay!” Will shouted, snapping him. “He’s gone now.” 

Jay exhaled and set the defibrillator down, turning it off. He looked at the rebels face, half of it was burnt off from a magical spell. His eyes and mouth were wide open. He passed his had over his eyes, shutting them and closed his mouth. Cursing himself, he sat against a supply crate and stared at the life he failed to save until Cadence paced over. She stared at the body with the saddest eyes he had ever seen. 

“Is he…” She whimpered. 

“Yes” Will sighed. 

Cadence’s eyes watered, she covered her mouth with her hoof. 

“Is not your fault.” Jay said, knowing that was exactly what she felt. He had seen too many recruits blame themselves for the deaths of others. 

She sobbed and said nothing. All who were not being treated or were treating stared on at their first casualty, bowing their heads. While the bustling of the medical teams and the cries of the injured sounded, there was a silence for the one who had fallen.  




     

> The honeymoon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I now pronounce you, husband and wife.” Celestia declared. Shining Armor and Cadence kissed and the audience applauded. All members of the royal family were now dressed excessively special this time, a reason unknown to Jay. He didn’t care though, he just enjoyed the peace while he could. 

Celestia had the most eye catching dress of all, and that was probably unanimous. It was a bright navy, with gold linings. Green peacock feathers covered the back of the dress, stretching down all the way to the floor, gently resting on the marble. Luna’s dress was simpler, bright shades of blue, navy and white. Pearls were strung around the edges, separating the shades. 

As the cheering calmed down, Cadence looked out to the crowd and smiled. “Thank you all! But, this would not be happening if it weren’t for certain ‘people’ here today.” She said. At that moment, Jay and Will covered their faces with their hands, knowing they would be called up to the front of the room.

Sure enough, Cadence called out, “Will Kendrick, Jay Sparks, Gill Sanderson and Captain Barbossa. Please rise and come to the front.” 

They all stood and made their way to the front isle. As they were doing this, Jay and Will realized that Gill was on crutches, and his leg was heavily bandaged. He was the marksman they healed before. They all stood in a line at the altar and Celestia personally stuck a gold ribbon on their plate carriers. 

“Thank you, for your bravery to protect the innocent. And your willingness to put others before you. You have our thanks.” She said. More applause erupted from the audience and they all took a bow. However they ensued clapping for too long, Jay thought. Why couldn’t it be just good job, some praise and sit back down? This was their wedding anyways. 

Finally after what seemed like an eternity of praise, Shining armor and Cadence stepped down from the altar and proceeded down the isle, roses thrown behind them as they walked passed. The humans stood where they were and watched. Eventually walked out the doors and onto a high balcony to greet the crowd that awaited them. Cheers exploded from the outside and nearly rumbled the ground. While this was happening, Celestia approached the humans. 

“I want to thank you all personally. You put your lives on the edge and lost one of your own to save us.”

“No worries your majesty, it was our pleasure to defend civilians once again.” Barbossa interrupted her. She smiled and nodded, then followed the newly married couple. Leaving the humans in their thoughts. 

“Jay, what’s wrong? You look troubled.” Luna whispered in his ear before following Celestia.

“Its nothing, just were going to have to call a meeting with our leader. Its nothing really,” Jay said nervously. Luna ignored it, and continued on, winking at him. 

What the fuck did she- nevermind. He thought. 

“Getting president Scott to agree to this isn’t going to be easy.” Will said. 

Jay mumbled in agreement. 

~~

Just a few weeks ago, Luna had fantasized about helicopters for a whole night. And tried to make her very own model, thinking a ride in one would be a thrilling experience. 

She was so wrong. 

It was only yesterday the real wedding took place, and Shining armor and Cadence were officially wedded. After that, the rebels packed up and moved everything to their camp in one morning. And formal arrangements had been made for the leaders of both worlds to meet at the rebel stronghold. President Scott had stubbornly refused to come to Equestria for security reasons, but they were good reasons. If the rebels were to be attacked while he was gone, the whole aspect of organization would fall to pieces. 

Anyway, here she was, holding on for dear life as the MH-6 littlebird sped across the rocky terrain. She found that her choice in helicopters did not at all consider the safety of its passengers. She sat on the edge of the open center of the vehicle, only a light shove would mean her falling right out. And to make matters worse, she was wedged between two heavily armored and armed rebels that the lighter dressed ones called ‘jugs’. Them squishing her at least kept her in the helicopter. The rebels camp was set up on top of the mountain that Canterlot was built on, and what had previously been a small changeling hive. However the humans preferred staying outside, so they raised multiple tents and raised tarps around them. The helicopters and vehicles were crowded into one small flat space. 

Don’t take the Blackhawk they said, the littlebird is fun they said. Luna thought to herself as the helicopter swerved around to fit into its space. Luna had jumped out before the helicopter even landed properly. She spread her wings and landed gracefully in front of the littlebird’s landing space marked by yellow spray paint. She observed the camp for a moment and watched the humans and ponies already moving equipment into huge metal vehicles and sending them off into the tunnels. 

She started down a short slope to the nearest tent where ponies were being taught basic earth knowledge. She also noticed the guards were in line to get their armor a paint job in some form of camouflage she was not familiar with. However it was similar to what the rebels were wearing. There seemed to be no official uniform, the rebels wore from solid colored tees to full camo. Most who wore camo preferred tiger stripes in a more woodland color scheme. 

Almost all of them were armed with the same weapon, an AK-47 as Will told her. Some carried ones that were identical or similar to Will’s and some carried one that was called an FN FAL, the classic version. She walked past a tarp that sheltered some humans feeding the guards freeze dried foods. The guards all were either disgusted by its stale taste while others were laughing at their reactions. 

“Just what do you think you’re doing wandering around camp like this?” A voice came from behind her. She spun her head around to see who had spoken. A tall human with an FAL slung on his back. Sporting short, slightly greasy hair. He wore camo tiger fatigues, and a red shirt with a black handprint on his chest.

“Well hello Huey, wonderful weather we’re having.” Luna replied. Huey smiled and shook his head. 

“Come with me, the others are waiting for you.” He motioned for her to follow, which she did. After a minute of silent walking, Luna finally spoke up. 

“You didn’t have to kill her.” Luna stated matter of factly. 

“You will see soon that you are wrong.”  Huey said flatly. With that, he opened the enormous tent flap and waved her in. All six elements, Barbossa, Jay, Will, Calestia and Cadence were all crammed in the tent, a map of a land unknown to Luna on the middle table. 

“Ah good, you have finally arrived.” Barbossa said in a strangely warm tone.

“I’ll bring the captain over when he’s done getting painted.” Huey muttered as he closed the flap. 

Barbossa grunted as he placed a red flag over a hill. 

“Time to bring you up to speed,” He said, annoyed. “This is hill 501, the biggest nuisance to our camp at the moment. It is a radio station for the NCC, heavily guarded. Many pillboxes, dugouts, tanks… It will be a challenge to take you anywhere with it there… no less to overtake.” 

“So you want to take it over?” Luna asked.

“Yes” Barbossa answered. “But they outnumber and outgun us.”

“Maybe not with the Equestrian army” Luna said. 

“We don’t know your skill sets, or magical abilities.” Will deadpanned, slightly rolling his eyes. 

The three humans sat in silent pondering, watched eagerly by the ponies. Twilight tried to make sense of strategy but it never made a connection in her head without a book, by then all who were bipedal were pacing the room thinking of their next move. 

“We could bomb them!” Jay eventually said, brightened up. 

Barbossa sighed “You said that thirty minutes ago, we don’t have enough ordinance.”

“I know! But I forgot about the cache at White Plains!” Jay was nearly jumping up and down because he was finally going to get to blow something up. 

“Yes!” Will exclaimed, throwing open the tent flap, “We can blow something up!” He jumped out of the ten and began repeating his reason of excitement to the other rebels, Jay eventually in follow.

Barbossa hung his head in embarrassment of their sheer stupidity. “Idiots” he muttered. 

“Does this mean we can go? This is boring.” Pinkie Pie complained. Barbossa waved them out. They were first greeted by an extremely confused Shining Armor in his new tiger striped armor. He was staring at a group of rebels literally jumping with joy and fantasizing about explosives.   

“Dammit! I never said anyth- ah fuck it.” Barbossa sighed in dismissal. He knew deep down that he would have to blow the place up, he would lose too many men otherwise. 

A long line of Equestrian soldiers readied their packs and weapons. Each was armed very simply, a crossbow and a small sword. They had added cloth to their uniform, covering all that was not covered by the armor itself. This included the face, and their eyes were covered by cupped brass goggles which were tinted a dark brown. They looked badass, as said by nearly every bypassing rebel. 

Many of the rebels sat at the cave entrance and some were in the cave in discord. Some were standing, leaning, or crouching. Their presence tipped off the soldiers, who stood in orderly rows at the appearance of their leaders. 

“On your feet!” Barbossa roared at the rebels as he stormed to a buffel only filled with several riflemen and an MG gunner. He climbed the ladder and took a loudspeaker. 

“UP! BE READY TO MOVE!” His electronic voice sounded at maximm volume throughout the camp. He turned to the rebels near the cave that had lazily gotten up. 

“2nd SQUAD GO FIRST! WE WILL WAIT ON YOUR SIGNAL!” 

A group of rebels mobilized, running into the cave. The rest all stood and watched, the soldiers moved up their lines and the buffel started its engine. Huey ran to the ponies, this time wearing his jacket and gear. Gill was eventually in follow, a shemagh tied around his face and carrying his rifle by his scope. 

“Are we missing something?” Gill asked as he approached them. 

“Ah think your troops are mobilizing.” Applejack said, slightly rolling her eyes and smiling. 

Gill nodded. “Come on Huey, we don’t want to keep them waiting.” Before running off to the cave entrance. 

“All royalty and guests come in the buffel please.” Barbossa called in the loudspeaker significantly quieter. They walked in front of the soldiers standing still as stone. They eventually all piled in the buffels top, kicking out the riflemen. They only had to wait at most thirty seconds before only one of the rebels came out of the cave. 

“Motherfucking NCC!” He screamed. “They’re attacking the hive and firebird!” 

Suddenly, the rebels were all on their toes. Shouting erupted from every direction. 

“TEAMS THREE THROUGH SIX RUN IN TO ASSIST, TEAM ONE BRING THE WOUNDED HERE AND GET MEDICAL ATTENTION RIGHT NOW!” Barbossa bellowed. All obeyed, the ponies stayed right where they were. Luna spotted Jay sprinting into the cave full on with the crowd. 

The next five minutes were the most nerve racking that the six elements could remember. The teams of rebels that were left behind, were just pacing back and fourth. Not a single pony knew exactly what to do other than stand still. 

“MEDIC!” someone screamed. “They’ve got napalm!” All living things with eyes turned to the cave to see the most horrendous thing in any of their lives.

All of them.

A rebel was carrying another; a completely black figure at first but then made out to actually be completely black. His clothing was almost gone, scorched off. His skin was charred a dead black. It spread from his whole face down to his everywhere. His body was still smoking from the burn. The rebel threw him down at another with a medical patch. 

~~

Will picked off an NCC soldier from his sandbag cover. He covered himself to reload his empty mag. 

“Jay! How the fuck are we going to get through?” Wills shouted, seeing no possible way to break through the NCC patrol. He turned to the cover Jay was firing from to see he was not there. Slamming his back against the sandbags and saw him amidst the chaos, with a loaded RPG aimed at the sky. 

“Oh shit” Will muttered. 

Jay fired the rocket, blasting the ears of all the men. The projectile flew straight, on a collision course with an attack helicopter. It struck the main body of the chopper, completely tearing it apart with one shot, leaving the rest of the parts flying in the same direction. The napalm ordinance exploded with it, raining fire on the soldiers below. 

He stood, observing the burning soldiers for a second, proud of his wonderful shot until a bullet whizzed by his head. He then lazily tossed the RPG to the side and unslung his own rifle and slid back into cover next to Will. 

“Nice shot man.” Will complemented. 

“Why thank you” Jay said as he opened fire on a cluster of NCC soldiers, not paying a single ounce of attention to how many went down. 

Will took his turn and emptied his mag on the advancing line of soldiers running from behind a destroyed tank. 

“Reinforcements!” Someone shouted behind them. They weren’t lying, three helicopters rose from over the hill, packed with more soldiers. 

“Somebody get an RPG for all that is good!” Will hollered at the ones in charge of those kinds of things. 

Jay ran back to the cave entrance and next to an ammo crate. More like a crate messily filled to the brim with ammo belts, explosives, and rockets. He took two rockets for the RPG and ripped a loaded RPG from a grunt’s hands. Almost immediately he aimed and fired at the center cluster. Quickly shoving another rocket in and waited for the smoke and dust to clear. However this didn’t last long because he got tired of waiting and fired again. 

Just as he decided that was issue was solved, another arose. And he definitely did not have enough rockets for it. Four tanks rolled over the hill, opening fire as soon as they were in sights. Already one person was running back into the cave. Huey. 

~~

The anxious waiting was once again interrupted by a rampant Huey storming through the cave. 

“Captain Shining Armor! We need your soldiers on the front lines! Use explosive bolts! We’ve got seven tanks blowing our asses up!” He shouted. 

Shining motioned for his troops to mobilize, which they did quickly. Barbossa picked up an MGL-180 and slapped the driver’s window. The horn blew once and most of the ponies scattered out of the way. The engine hummed and drove into the cave. 

~~

“Fall back!” Will ordered. “Fall back!” He ran for the cave but was stopped by a loud horn thundering through the cave. He jumped back, startled. Plus, a crossbow bolt flew beside his head and stuck to a tank and exploded, leaving nothing but a dent. 

At least twenty ponies stormed into the front lines. And jumped behind the sandbags. Many immediately cowered in fear to the cracks of explosions. Though some took aim at the tanks. 

“Fire at the tanks!” Huey shouted. 

Barbossa took aim for himself and fired a grenade, hitting directly on the tank. Upon impact, the plating combusted and fully penetrated to the internal parts of the vehicle, disabling it. 

“Get the fuck out of the buffel!” Barbossa yelled at the ponies, “Get behind it!” They hastily did as ordered, even the princesses. They had all just witnessed ten seconds of the horrors of war, and they wished not to view it more. 

Jay shoved the last rocket into the RPG and aimed at another tank. Nothing interrupted his train of though so he fired. He didn’t pay attention to whether he hit or not, he just lazily tossed the RPG away and unslung his rifle. Before he could so anything, a tank shell blasted the cave sides. The force threw him against the cave, his head smacking against the rock. His vision blurred, and all hearing became muffled.

Will pulled Jay deeper into the cave and set him down on a wall before turning back to the fight. Everything was in chaos, ponies already looked like they had mid level PTSD. 

He took to a line of sandbags completely occupied with ponies and dead humans. He spotted Shining Armor, silently praying with his crossbow clutched in his hands. 

“Snap out of it!” Will yelled in his face. “Aim on the tanks!” Will did so himself, firing the magically enhanced crossbow he snatched out of Shinings arms. “ALL OF YOU!” He screamed at them. They didn’t move. Will silently cursed himself and sat behind the cover trying to thing of something else to do. Suddenly a blast of gold light sped from the cave on directly onto the tank, actually blowing it up. Just as Will attempted to put together what had just happened, a navy blue beam did the same to the last tank. 

“What. The. Fuck.” Will uttered. 

Minimal cheers could be heard from the last of who were alive as the NCC scurried off the battlefield. 

“On your feet!” Huey shouted. At the ponies as Will ran to see if Jay was alright. Somehow, he was standing right in between the princesses staring at the burning tanks.

“Jay! How are you up?” He asked, bewildered. 

Jay looked at him and smiled, “Did you really think some bitch ass concussion could stop me?”