Falling Into the Unknown

I stood in a small room with Amber and Azure, waiting for the guards to show up. In the two days since the incident at the warehouse, the four ‘teleportation experts’ had been questioned repeatedly. The ‘Thaumic Coordinates’ that they had talked about were, in actuality, a sort of ‘mailing address’. Apparently, with some effort, someone could lay down a ‘Thaumic beacon’, and, with a complicated spell, transport something to it.

In this case, Celestia had been notified immediately. She was sending a team of ‘elite guards’ (her term), which would be arriving today. Her plan, as set forth in a letter, was to use several local experts in magic to teleport a large group of guards to the spot. They would immediately send a message to Celestia, which would reveal their location, prompting a larger force to go there and attack from the outside, while they moved from the inside. It was a complicated plan, and had a high chance of failure.

Which was why I was going with them.

Ever since I learned two separate attacks had been planned on me, I had been patiently waiting for the chance to kick some pony ass. This raid presented the perfect opportunity, so I would be going with the main force, and, by extension, so would Azure and Amber.

Finally, after a half hour, a guard opened the door and gestured outside. I got up off of the low chair, glad for a chance to get off of it. We quickly walked outside, and noticed a small group of eight guards in heavy iron armor milling around. Half were pegasi, and half were unicorns.

Another unicorn walked up to them and started yelling. The moment he did, the guards turned and stood at attention. He started talking, but I simply tuned what he said out. Suddenly, a tap on my left shoulder caught my attention. Looking to my left, I noticed a pegasus guard standing there.

“The unicorn specialist you requested is here.” He simply said, pointing behind him to a light purple unicorn standing twenty feet away. Nodding to the guard, I quickly walked over to the unicorn, who jumped slightly as I approached.

“You’re the specialist? The one who can duplicate items?” I asked.

“Yes.” She slowly replied, staring at me in slight awe.

I reached into a side pouch of my backpack and pulled out one of the magazines for my Sa-58. If I was going into a cave fight, I would need ammo, and plenty of it, so the guard captain, who turned out not to be an asshole, suggested I ask for a duplication expert.

“Can you duplicate this?” I asked.

She stared intently at the steel object before closing her eyes and lighting her horn. Five seconds later, with a bright flash, four exact copied of the magazine lay in front of me.

“Thanks.” I said, quickly scooping up all five and putting them inside the open pouches on the backpack. I walked back over to the group, where the long-winded guard was done talked. He was probably the leader of the group, but I really didn’t care.

As soon as I rejoined Azure and Amber, however, he waved me over to him. I cautiously went over, partially curious as to what he would want.

Once I got over there, however, he immediately went to a near-whisper and turned slightly hostile.

“Listen, you creature.” He said. “I don’t care what you are. Just keep you and your friends out of our way while we clear wherever they are out.”

“Not going to happen.” I answered immediately. “I am going to be at the head, whether you like it or not. And every single one of those bastards that faces me will die. I don’t care what you think. It’s a fact.”

With that, I walked over to my small group again, leaving him speechless.

“What was that about?” Azure asked as I got back.

“The ‘esteemed guard captain’ decided to be an asshole, and I took him down a notch.” I replied.

Amber winced. “Do you have to start a fight everywhere you go?”

“That’s practically a requirement at this point, sis.” Azure replied.

Several unicorns not dressed in guard uniforms began to arrive in the small area, probably part of the team that would teleport us there. My guess was confirmed when we were ordered into a circle. I pulled my Sa-58 off of my back and switched the safety off, putting it on semi-automatic.

“Ten seconds!” One of the unicorns standing around our group said.

I double-checked that my pistol was in its holster, and clicked off its safety.

“Five seconds!”

The guards around me looked nervous. In a way, I was, too.

“Three.”

The unicorns started to charge their horns.

“Two.”

I held my rifle at the ready.

“One. Now!” The lead unicorn shouted.

A mass of color suddenly swam in my vision, amazingly bright. I shut my eyes as I felt myself being… Moved, is the best word. I opened my eyes a second later to see me and the guards standing on a raised metal platform, with four ponies in front of our group, staring at this in shock.

The guards moved instantly, the unicorns shooting magical bolts at all four before I could raise my rifle. All four fell to the group, dead. The captain of our group aimed his horn at a scroll, sending it to Celestia. Our position would now be known.

We were standing on a metal circle in the middle of a small room, surrounded in rock. It appeared as though we were in a cave, in a small chamber. The only entrance out was right in front of us, so the me, the guards, and my two friends started to run towards it.

Two pegasi in black clothing came running down the tunnel towards us. I raised my rifle and, before the ponies could react, fired two rounds. Both of the ponies tumbled to the ground, dead. The tunnel split off into two directions ahead, and both were marked. The one to the left was marked ‘surface/barracks’, and the one to the right was marked ‘administration’. Azure, Amber, and I went to the one marked ‘administration’, while the others, with a look at us, went in the one marked ‘surface/barracks’. I shrugged, figuring that we could easily take the section with the higher officials. We were suddenly faced with a sharp, 90 degree turn in the tunnel. I inched towards it, peeking around the edge.

A fairly open room carved out of the rock stretched before us. At the end of it, four unicorns in black clothing stood in front of a metal door. Between them and us, around two dozen various ponies in what looked like civilian clothing stood in front of filing cabinets and desks, oblivious to what had gone down further along the tunnel.

“Several dozen ponies, most of them civilians, four guards at the end.” I whispered to Azure and Amber.

“How do we get past them?” Amber asked.

I put my rifle at the read in response, took a deep breath, and stepped around the corner into view.

The talking in the room instantly quieted as they saw me. I suddenly raised my rifle and started pouring shot after shot into the guards at the end of the room, twelve shots in all. The other ponies in the room ran around screaming as I fired, some starting to run past me and a smirking Azure and Amber, rushing to get past us to the exit as the bodies of the guards hit the ground.

I walked through the room, headed for the metal door. It didn’t appear to have a lock, so it was probably just for show. I stood beside it, Azure and Amber on the other side of the doorframe.

I held up three fingers, indicating three seconds, and slowly closed them into a fist. With that, I grabbed the lever to the door and yanked it down, moving to the front of the door a second later. I put my foot up against it and kicked. Hard. The door swung back, reviling a small room with three ponies standing in it, one at a desk, and the other two unicorns holding crossbows.

I pulled back around the corner as two bolts whizzed through the space where I had been. Leaning back around it, I put three bullets each into the unicorns, and watched as they dropped in the middle of reloading their crossbows. The pegasus behind the desk didn’t look happy to see me.

“So you’re the creature.” He said as Azure and Amber followed me into the room.

“Yes, I am. Now why the hell are you trying to kill me?” I demanded, pointing my gun at him.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He asked. “You are from another world, and my… Employers want something like you. What you know can not only chance the world, but benefit certain ponies, or non-ponies in some cases.”

“Who?” I demanded, moving my gun forward towards him.

“Wouldn’t you and Celestia love to know? Sadly, you won’t find out. All the documents I have here are encrypted, and you won’t get anything out of me for your tyrant. So, why don’t you just leave, beast, and go-”

He was suddenly halted as I fired two bullets into his head from a range of two feet.

“Asshole.” I muttered as I walked behind his desk and looking at the papers on it. Moments later, I started laughing, Azure and Amber giving me a concerned look.

“Tyler, are you ok?” Azure asked.

“These aren’t encrypted!” I said, in the middle of a bout of laugher. “He simply used  ROT13, and switched the letters of the alphabet thirteen places up! I used to do this all the fucking time with some of my family. Pissed my parents off to no end. Hold on while I grab as many as I can. We’ll bring them to the local headquarters, where I can translate them.”

Half an hour later, we reached the surface. The other ponies had already secured the rest of the tunnels, as evidenced by the dozens of bodies we passed along the way. It turns out the cave system was located only about twenty miles away from Pullmare, so we were easily able to get back by nightfall. By midnight I had the documents fully translated out of ROT13.

Azure and I looked them over, before doubling back and reading them again. Immediately, we booking ourselves and Amber for a train ride to Canterlot, immediately. We got on the train an hour later, our estimated arrival time around ten in the morning.

We had to present these personally.