Act I: Project HURRICANE

Three weeks earlier, Northern Everfree, 00:34

The afterglow of battle has a funny way of calming oneself, does it not?

Why is that? Juxtaposition, perhaps? After all, few things were more desperate than the dance of life and death. Hearts pounding, eyes open as wide as they can be, furiously scrabbling, clawing, biting, kicking, shooting, stabbing, until no foe remained alive. After a guy did all that, sitting in a tall tree did seem a bit boring, didn't it?

Even if said guy did have a lot of practice in the matter.

He sat perched precariously upon a branch. His dark cloak and armor, still dripping with fluid from his recent skirmish, concealed him amidst the shadowy trees and the black night sky. The only giveaway to his position, as far as one could see, were the blood-red lenses of his helmet that glared from the canopy. He scoped out his target from his viewpoint, making sure to jot down the important-looking buildings while at the same time swiveling his head from side-to-side every once in a while, making sure nothing could sneak up on him.

However, as he quickly found out, hunching over and craning his neck out for extended periods of time wasn't very comfortable.

"Uugh, my back's killin' me here," he complained silently, shuffling his position a bit to try an ease the soreness of his strained muscles. No luck.

Sighing quietly in resignation, he went over what he had to do.

Step one: Explore the surrounding area and find a good vantage point. Considering they had landed in the middle of a forest, that was simply a matter of finding the tallest tree, climbing up it, and then just sitting there like a big dumb crow. So, mission accomplished.

Step two: Look and mark down anything that looked important, especially things that looked like villages or even houses. He had already spotted a small town, roughly five miles north, and he now devoted his attention to it. Zooming in using the technology in his helmet, he began step two.

The first thing he noticed, aside from the river and the clusters of houses, was a big, yellow, building.  At least twice as big as the ones immediately surrounding it, it towered above the others and was illuminated nicely by the glow of the moon. Zooming in, he could just make out a podium, set up in front of a large clearing. He guessed it was important, a gathering space of some sorts.

He marked it down and drew his hand up to fiddle with the knobs on the side of his helmet. With a quiet whiirr, the mechanisms in his helmet sharpened his vision to an almost painful degree, the night vision filter clearing the shadows from his eyes. After giving his eyes a few minutes to adjust, he continued to sweep the village.

Only to have his attention snapped up by a big honking tree in the middle of the town

"What the hell...?" he thought to himself, adjusting his helmet once more to try to get a better view of the tree.

His helmet obliged, zooming in to the tree as he craned his neck to see the arboreal oddity. It was directly lit by the moon, casting a pale glow on the front of the tree and rendering his night vision useless.

Sighing quietly in frustration, he turned it off, changing his view from pale green to nearly pitch-black. Narrowing his eyes behind his helmet, he was able to make out a few key features.

First of all were the windows. He counted about nine, and that was excluding the ones that he was sure lay on the other side. The next thing he noticed was the door, or at least it looked like one from his position.

"So what? Is this the planet of the squirrels or something?" he thought again to himself, filing the tree away for later.

He looked around, trying to see if there were any other important buildings that might've escaped his notice. He noticed a windmill slightly to the north of the tree, and he saw what seemed to be a few acres of farmland, complete with a red barn. But, instead of seeing fallow fields or lush crops, he instead saw another forest.

"Oh sure, because there's such a shortage of trees that they needed to make more," he thought sarcastically.

Hus mind began to wander, trying to find the cause to this effect. Maybe this planet was inhabited by chipmunks and the tree farm was just real estate. Maybe trees were some sort of religious symbol and this was just their way of respecting it. Maybe they were insane.

"In that case, I'd blend right in," he smirked bitterly under the helmet, realizing a bit too late that his joke might actually not be a joke at all.

He searched for anything else he might've missed, but he saw nothing. Determining that he had gotten everything he could get from five miles, he quietly slipped down the tree. Landing almost silently on a much lower branch, he began his trek to the spotted village.

He flew through the jungle-like forest undetected, making hardly a sound except for the rush of wind parting against his helmet and the dull fluttering of his duster as it streamed out behind him. He breathed easily, steadily, the filters attached to the helmet regulating the wild rush of air that would've otherwise choked him.

"Step three: if you do find civilization of any kind, go and scan them. If this world doesn't like us, we'll have to change into something it does like," his boss' voice rang out inside his mind, loud and clear.

He hated this part, he really did. Made him feel like the worst kind of pervert, not to mention a psycho. But, even he was able to realize that they had no choice. His suit of armor was his bubble, protecting him from the possibly-hostile atmosphere. But he couldn't keep it on all the time. He needed know what could survive here, get that knowledge to his team, and he needed to do it fast.

Suddenly, a loud rustling erupted to his left, yanking him out of his distracted thoughts.

Immediately banking off his course in the opposite direction, he landed with a muffled thud behind some shrubs. He rolled to absorb the shock, taking the impact on his shoulder and letting the momentum carry him upright against a tree. He quickly pressed his back flat against said tree, recognizing and using the uncertain shadows that the canopy painted upon the bark to conceal himself.

He heard an animalistic sniffing from where the rustling came from. A big animal, he guessed by the tone and the pitch of the noise. Maybe even bigger than him, but still small enough to hide in the forest. Carnivorous? Maybe, but he wasn't willing to risk it. Sapient? Also another big maybe. But, again, not willing to risk it. Better to hide and avoid detection then to have to explain the results to his boss.

He waited, heart as steady as it was up in the perch, breathing calm and under control. His armor masked his scent, that much he was certain of. As for if he was found anyway...

He grinned wickedly at the thought of it. Explanations were a pain, but sometimes necessary.

After a few seconds of hiding, whatever was trying to find him apparently gave up, emitting an irritated snort and crashing back through the canopy to wherever it was going.

The figure remained hidden for a few seconds though, just in case.

"One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi..." he counted inside his head.

After reaching ten, he emerged from hiding, confident that the coast was clear. Resuming his journey to the village, he blazed through the trees once again, getting rapidly closer and closer to his destination.

"What was that thing?" he couldn't help but wonder. "More importantly, is it edible?"

A muffled growl from his stomach told him exactly how important that last question was. He was pretty hungry, but he was used to that. Still, it was pretty annoying, so he shoved it out of his mind, instead wrenching his mind back to what that creature was. If he had just woken it accidentally from his nap, that'd be pretty convienient. But if it was nocturnal, he'd have to tell the others as well. A random animal wandering into their camp would be, to say the least, inconvienient.

After an alarmingly short amount of time, he arrived.

He hid, this time among one of the sparse copses of trees that lay on the outer fringe of the forest he had just trekked through. Scanning from a distance, he picked up a few new buildings, although none as tall or as grandiose as the two he had spotted from his earlier view point.

He did see one building that caught his eye, a gaudily-decorated little piece with what seemed like a carousel theme. Maybe it was a circus tent? Or maybe some sort of pretentious, high-class brothel? Taking into consideration the hearts that also featured upon the already overloaded designs, not to mention the horses, he assumed the latter.

He continued to scan the rest of the quaint little town, unable to get rid of a niggling little feeling in the back of his head. Something was off, but what?

Gazing at the brothel again, he spaced out for a few seconds as he thought about it. Making it all the more shocking when it hit him like a rifle slug to the gut.

Everything looked like it had been hit with too much paint softener.

The houses, the tree he was hiding by, even the grass itself seemed to be colored by a child's plaything. Even the brothel he had spotted earlier, as much of an eyesore as it was, was at least bearable due to the muted qualities of the purple and white.

His mind went into overdrive, trying to think of what could cause this. He looked down at his own body, and noticed with alarm that even his own body and armor bore a smooth darkish-grey pastel color instead of being the scratched-up mess that it usually was.

"Gas," was his first thought. There was something in the air, a kind of natural hallucinogen that was making him see all this. His second was that maybe he banged his head somehow during the earlier battle and was suffering an unusual type of concussion. His third thought was that something was heading this way, and he could hear it approaching.

Wait...

Violently startled into a action, he shot up the nearest tree like a cat. Reaching the top in a blink of an eye, he wasted no time camoflauging himself in the canopy.

"Lyra...?" Came a voice in perfect English.

His eyes shot open, so wide that they almost ripped at the corners. His shock unbalanced him, causing him to almost fall out of the tree. Thankfully, he steadied himself in time, causing only a near-imperceptible rustling.

"The hell?" he thought to himself, still numb from shock. "They speak English?"

"Lyra? Are you sure this is safe?" the voice came again. Unmistakably female, but also rather high pitched, almost child-like. "I mean, we're awfully close to the Everfree."

"I told you Bon-Bon, I saw something come out of that forest. I don't know what it was, but it might be dangerous! We have to go find it!" Another voice piped up, this one slightly deeper than the other, but still unmistakably female.

"Lyra, come on! Can't we at least get sleep before going to find It? It's past midnight" the one called Bon-Bon complained.

"Shush, what's that sound?" the one called Lyra blurted out suddenly, silencing her companion.

"Uhh...what?" Bon-Bon responded.

"Don't you hear it? A thump-thump-thump sound. Faint, but it's there! Come on, listen harder!"

"I don't hear anything except our bed. Don't you hear it Lyra? It's saying sleeeep in meee..., sleeeep in meee...."

"I'm serious!" Lyra said firmly, not shouting for fear of waking other ponies.

"So am I Lyra! Now let's get back to bed. The only thing I hear is you making a racket in the middle of the night and dragging me into it."

The thumping sound, as Lyra put it, was actually his heartbeat, ringing out like a sonar as it pounded against his chest.

He peered out from his canopy, peering at the two technicolor talking horses bickering in the middle of the night. First conclusion: definitely something in the atmosphere. Second thought: check the filters on his mask. They obviously weren't doing a good job at filtering out whatever wonder-gas was making him see anime-eyed equines that were trying to track him down

But first, the situation at hand.

He scanned the two ponies, the mechanisms in his helmet whirring softly once more as it analyzed body and bone structure, plus x-ray to see whatever organs might be necessary to survive in whatever Looney-Tune paradise he and his colleagues had ended up in.

"Quiet! Do you hear that?" Lyra, who looked to him like her mother had eaten a bit too much mint toothpaste while carrying her, whipped her head around frantically.

"I don't hear anything Lyra, now come on!" Bon-Bon, an honest-to-God blonde pony with a cotton-candy mane, tugged on her companion's hooves. "I'm tired!"

"But Bon-Bon!" Lyra whined.

The more the two argued back and forth, the more trouble he had not bursting out laughing. It was getting to the point where they seemed like they were rehearsing a comedy routine rather than trying to find him. It was mild at first, them bickering back and forth about whether or not it was dumb to go running out into the night to chase a shadow, but then...

"Pweeaaase Bon-Bon?" the one called Lyra begged, sitting on her rump not unlike how a small child would sit, with her eyes wide and pleading. It was difficult to tell from this distance, even with his excellent vision, but he swore he saw tears glistening in the mint-colored horse's eyes.

"No Lyra!" Bon-Bon said, grabbing a leg and yanking on it, leaning her whole body into the action. "We need to get home! Bed! Now!"

"What am I even watching?" their silent spectator asked himself, desperately holding back laughter. Lyra was now strewn aross the ground like a nuaghty child, while her companion was busy trying to lift her up off the ground. Both of them were bickering back and forth, and, combined with their comically high voices, was actually teeth-grindingly hilarious.

"Bon-Bon, leggo of m-woah!" As he watched, both ponies went tumbling head-over-hoof, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground and painfully forcing out a short bark of laughter, loud and sharp as it was yanked out like a loose tooth. Almost immediately after, he clasped his hands over his mouth and stood dead silent.

"Crap!" he panicked, rolling deeper into the canopy.

But the dynamic duo didn't even seem to notice him, continuing their bickering even while they were in a heap. Eventually, the one called Bon-Bon won, dragging her complaining companion back to wherever their house was. He granted himself the luxury of a sigh as he dropped quietly out of the tree, making sure to put the trunk between him and the retreating duo.

Making sure the data of their body-structure was stored in his head, he headed back the way he came, making sure to go slower and more carefully.

He had what he needed, now to head back and report to his teammates.