Falling Into the Unknown

The mist I had come to know in my dreams formed around me. Yet again, I felt myself lower onto the invisible ground. Out of the mist in front of me, Luna came towards me, stopping around ten feet from me.

I walked to about five feet from her and stopped. “You know,” I said, “It seems to me like you enjoy tormenting both my days and my nights. Am I right, or is this all a coincidence?”

Luna sighed. “If you would stop telling untruths to Us, then We might consider stopping. Consider thy ‘weapons’. We do not see how they would possibly have that kind of power, or do what you say without magic. And We sense no magic on them. These ‘Nuclear Bombs’, as you called them, are likewise impossible. Only We or Celestia are that powerful, nothing else.”

I shook my head. She really needed to learn that I don’t lie. “Feel free to look through my memories. Actually, I’ll show you them, or at least what my imagination can work up. They won’t be actual memories, since I haven’t been in warfare. Here’s the first, about guns.”

Looking through my mind, I imagined up a gun range. It quickly came into being, complete with a table loaded with a dozen different types.

I walked over to the table and picked up a classic M16. I walked up to Luna, holding out the gun.

“This is an M16. It’s an older gun, outdated now, but still a good example. I don’t care if you believe what I’m about to show you, but I’ll do it anyway. This fires in either Semi-Auto mode or Full Auto, the difference being that Semi shoots one at a time, but Full shoots as long as you pull down the trigger. Do you follow?” She dumbly nodded, and I continued, pulling out the clip. “This is the clip. It holds twenty bullets, the projectiles that the gun fires.

“Now, I’m going to fire it at one of the targets on the range.” I raised the rifle and fired one round. It punched through the small wooden target, leaving a small hole. Luna gasped, and looked at me.

“This shouldn’t exist!” She exclaimed, earning an amused grin from me.

“It definitely does,” I said, “And remember; don’t try to take mine away from me. You have your guards for defense, I have my rifle. Therefore, we are equal.”

I took a small detour in my mind as she was thinking it all through. Why was I telling them all of this? Well, a part of my mind said, It had to come out eventually, and now was as good of a time as ever. But, overall, now that she’d seen it, I was finished for the night.

“Hey, Luna.” I said, catching her attention. “I’m going to end the dream, Kay? I’ll just give you memories of what I know about Nuclear Bombs and leave you for the night.”

“Yes, please do that,” She said, “We need time to think this over.”

I concentrated on the mental image of what I knew about nuclear weapons, intentionally leaving out how to make them or the specifics of how they worked, and simply mentally moved it over to her. Immediately after that, I broke the dream apart, wanting to get started on the new day.

Daylight entered my eyes, forcing me to quickly snap them shut. I groaned. A new day, and already I was pissed off at the sun. I opened my eyes, slowly this time, getting used to the high level of light inside of the room. It was probably around ten o’ clock in the morning, judging by the light.

I crawled out of the sleeping bag, quickly picking myself up off the cot. I fished around in my bag for a couple of apples, deciding that now was the time to eat. I quickly chomped down one of the apples, eating the other one much more slowly, savoring its sweet taste. It may get boring after a while, but at least it tasted good.

Searching through my bag, I pulled out my laptop and started it up. If nothing else, I could simply lose myself in some gaming. I checked the battery: currently at 50 hours remaining. With nothing else to do, I started up Minecraft, hoping to lose myself for a few hours.

Forty-five minutes later, the sounds of the door unlocking reached my ears. Sitting up, I looked at the door and saw the dark blue pegasus – Amber, I remembered being told yesterday – there, with her helmet off.

“Hi, what are ya here for?” I asked, some concern showing in my voice. They didn’t normally come into my cell, except when they had something important to say. And Amber was one of two ponies they had that were connected with me, although in her case by… unfortunate circumstances.

“The wedding is in an hour, and I was asked to come and check in on you. Luna is apparently concerned for some reason, so I need to ask; is there anything that you need?” She asked, her voice saying that she didn’t think so.

“Actually, yes.” I said, enjoying the surprise on her face. “If I could have a slice of cake from the wedding, that would be awesome.”

“Any particular reason why? I don’t even know if your kind has weddings – or cake.” She said, a joking tone in her voice telling me to not take her seriously.

I nodded my head. “We have both, and wedding cake is always better than regular cake, for some reason.” I had a feeling that this afternoon was going to be awesome. I had always loved cake, and as I had said, cake from weddings was always better than normal cake. No exceptions.

She gave a slight nod. “I’ll see what we can do. Anyway, I have off-duty during the wedding, and I’d rather not waste it.” She quickly trotted out, the door closing after her and locking. I sighed, left with several more hours with nothing to do.

I hopped onto my sleeping bag, opting to take a small nap. If nothing else, I could simply sleep the time away. Laying my head back, I closed my eyes and drifted off.

I was awoken suddenly, about an hour and a half later. I could judge the time by how much the light from the window had moved, so don’t judge me. I don’t know what had woken me up, but something felt… Wrong, like there was something in the air that shouldn’t be there. I had learned, over the past week and a half, to trust my instincts, so I sat up in the cot.

Outside of the door, I heard faint shouting and the sound of small explosions. The same sounds also came from the window, only louder. I boosted myself up on the cot for a look out of the window, and stared in silent shock at what I saw.

Outside, a few thousand black specks were moving around in the sky, small bits of green fire reaching out from them and hitting the ground. From the window, I could see them landing on the city below the castle, as well as some landing overhead in the castle itself. Several golden dots seemed to be diving in and out of the edges of the mass, obviously guards, but I could tell that it was a losing battle.

I quickly hopped on the ground, grabbing my G-17C and stuffing it in my holster. I grabbed my Sa-58 raising it to my shoulder. I didn’t know how I would get out of here, but assumed that now was as good of a time as ever. I slung my rifle, stuffing my sleeping bag and laptop inside of my backpack, and slinging it on my back. I grabbed my Sa-58 again, ready to move out.

The shouting in the halls stopped suddenly, and without warning the door blew down, revealing one of the black creatures standing there, twisted horn glowing. It looked like a cross between a pony, an insect, and some sort of monster. Its glowing blue eyes stared at me, at what it had found.

I raised my rifle to my shoulder and fired twice, sending the thing flying to the ground in a spray of green blood. I quickly moved to the hallway and looked left, towards the exit, spotting four of the bug-like things. Looking to my right, I saw two guards on the ground, apparently knocked out.

The things down the hall turned to look at me, blue eyes glowing brightly in the dim hallway. I smiled and raised my rifle, switching the selector to auto and unleashing a torrent of fire at the creatures. One of them shot a green ball of fire at me, which I easily dodged, stopping to fire three rounds at him. After the second round, the rifle clicked, empty. Looking down the hallway, I saw all four dead, giving me time to reload.

I grabbed the clip, pulling it off of the receiver and placing inside of a special area on the side of my backpack. I opened another pouch by feel, grabbing a full magazine and putting it into place, enjoying the small *click* that accompanied the magazine sliding home.

I looked back at the two guards, who were starting to wake up. One, a unicorn, got to his hooves, leaning slightly again the wall.

“What- What happened?” He asked, his voice announcing that we was quickly waking up.

I turned to look at him. “Whatever these things are crashed in here, knocked you out, blew down my door, and then I shot them all.” At that, he quickly woke up, seeing me standing near the bodies of five of the things. He stared in shock, before his pegasus friend hit him on the shoulder, looking at me.

“I don’t know how that works,” He said, motioning to my gun, “But we should use it as best as we can. We need to take back the castle. I don’t really care what you are, but you should know that there is no way you could possibly escape with all the Changelings out there. So, do try to help us, unless you intend to die in here.”

I nodded at him, gesturing towards the way out. So that’s what they were called, then. Changelings, although I don’t see how the name fit. I walked down the hallway, rifle at the ready, the two guards following right behind me. We turned a corner, quickly finding the staircase to the upper floors. Guarding it were two Changelings.

I raised my rifle quickly, firing a round at each one, making a perfect impact on each of their heads. The guards stared wide-eyes as they crumpled to the ground, dead instantly.

I looked back at the two guards. “Come on! I need you two to lead, I don’t know my way around here.” The pegasus nodded, quickly taking point as we rushed towards the stairs. Looking right, I could see a Changeling charging down the stairs much, bigger than the others. I shot six rounds at it, watching as the giant insectoid fell off of the stairs and down to the floor below, impacting with a loud *BOOM*. We continued up the stairs, running at full speed.

The guards seemed to have gotten over their temporary shock at what my weapons could do. We finally reached the top, two minutes later. Up ahead, the sound of explosions and that of magic being cast rang through the hallways. The guards and I came up behind a small ground of changelings, firing their green bolts own the hall at a small ground of guards that were taking cover behind small bits of a crumpled column. The cleanup for this was going to be a bitch, I thought. I motioned for the two guards to come over to me.

“Ok, we need to hit them from behind. Try to stay behind me, but for God’s sake do something if you get the chance.” They nodded, and so we began a small walk down the hall.

The first gunshot drilled through the head of one of the Changelings, causing the rest to turn around. I fired round after round, hitting them one after another. When it was down to two Changelings, a green light erupted at their location, blinding me for a moment, and when I blinked, they had vanished.

I shrugged my shoulders, moving with the two guards towards the other group at the end of the hallway. They looked at me warily, as if they expected me to attack them next.

“What is that THING doing here?” One of them shouted.

“HE was helping us clear a path to you. He also cleared the Changelings out, as in dead.” The pegasus with me answered back.

The other guard persisted. “How do we know you’re not one of them!”

I butted in. “Listen asshole, I just got finished with that little massacre of those things back there, so I’m definitely not one of them. I know they aren’t because I saw them get knocked out by those things, so will you cut the shit out so we can clear this castle of them?”

A light blue pegasus poked its head out from behind a column, followed by Amber a moment later.

The light blue one spoke up. “Hey! It’s Azure, by the way. I lost my helmet in the fight, so don’t be surprised.” I wasn’t. “Anyway, we need to fight our way to the throne room and take it back. Word has it that Chrysalis, the queen of this swarm, has captured Celestia and the Elements. We need to get them back, and we need you to do it. We don’t have the ponypower to take it by ourselves.”

“Yeah!” Amber shouted, causing me and several other ponies to wince. “Let’s beat their flanks back to the Badlands!” I didn’t get half of what they were saying, but I knew enough to simply nod my agreement. Killing an abomination of nature as ugly as those things would be worth it.

The rest of the guards began to move down one of the hallways, with me in the middle of the pack. I was taller than the ponies by about two feet, so I could easily see over them. We moved down the hall, not encountering anything except for damaged walls and small sections with bodies of ponies and a far greater number of changelings, as if there had been a recent battle.

The group stopped at the edge of a hallway, three minutes later. Azure, the self-appointed leader of our small group, spoke up.

“Around the next corner is the throne room. There were most likely be a lot of Changelings in front of it, so remember to cast your spells correctly. Pegasi, take to the air, we will need the support. Ok, let’s do this. For Equestria!” The guards gave out a small shout, charging around the corner and stopping suddenly.

In front of a set of two massive doors I remember from my trips here, sat a small army of around two hundred Changelings. As one, they turned to look at us. Immediately, half of them took to the air, followed by the pegasi. A third of the remaining ones charged their horned, followed by our unicorns doing the same. The guards let out another shout and charged forward.

I raised my rifle, aiming at a Changeling that looked like it was a commander. It had dark blue armor on, unlike those around it. I fired four rounds, immediately causing it to fall to the ground, along with a Changeling behind it.

Green and various other multicolored magical bolts flew everywhere. I dodged right to avoid one, aware that there was a battle raging around me. I slung my rifle, quickly pulling out my G-17C. This would be a close-range fight.

A black shape moved to my left. I spun, firing two rounds into it, watching green blood splatter onto the ground as it fell. Two others loomed behind it, apparently frozen by the death of their comrade. I quickly pumped a bullet into each, killing them. Two feet to my left, Azure was on the ground, kicking in the chest of a Changeling. I gave a quick nod to him, watching as he returned it, before focusing on the battle in front of me.

A green bolt flew past my head, gaining my attention. I looked at the Changeling who had done it, green horn glowing, before I emptied four rounds into its body. Slowly, more Changelings began to enter the hallway, forcing us to move back down the hallway. Slowly, we were being pushed back from the doorway, as more and more entered for each one taken down or killed.

One of the large Changelings entered, about twice as big as the normal ones. It charged up its massive horn, aiming at a pegasi in the air. It fired, scorching the pegasi – as well as the four Changelings he was fighting – and blowing a large hole in the wall, opening it up to the air. Looking out of the hole and across the cityscape, I could see fires raging, both red and green, and magical bolts of all colors streaking across the streets.

Forcing my attention back to the fight, I could see the large Changeling charging up for another blast. I put my pistol up, aiming for the head. I fired off nine rounds, the first five bouncing off of the thick skull before the last four entered, turning its insides into mush. My pistol clicked as I attempted to fire off a tenth round, empty.

“Damn it!” I yelled, quickly reloading the pistol and putting the empty clip back inside of a pouch. Aiming forward, I knew we were going to lose. Even though the massive thing was dead, more and more normal ones were entering every single second. We were fighting a losing battle, and we knew it.

Suddenly, a massive pink wall came flying from the doors of the throne room. Every live Changeling was picked up by it and either flung into a wall, dead, or thrown out of the massive hole in the wall. The pink wave passed over me and the other guards, leaving us unharmed.

I turned my head, watching as it passed over the city, until it stopped outside of the edge, sending the Changelings flying off and forming what looked like a large shield. Immediately, I collapsed onto my knees, taking a deep breath. The battle had left me exhausted, but I was nearly giddy with excitement. We had won! Inside, I was wondering when I had accepted the notion of ‘We’ when referring to ponies that probably hated me, but I was too excited to care much.

Azure and Amber walked up to me. Although their armor bore plenty of nicks, cuts, and scraped, both were unharmed, unlike many of the other guards.

“So,” Azure said, talking to me. “We did it. We beat them.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “We managed to fight them off. Can we go check on Celestia so I can go to sleep?”

Amber nodded, and together with some of the guards we walked up to the doors. They opened of their own accord, and behind it stood several ponies. Six of various colors and types, whom I recognized from my former roommate’s posters as the main characters of the series, stood in a small group, with the white unicorn, apparently Shining, standing with a pink one with both a horn and wings. Behind them stood Celestia, smiling gently. Their smiles disappeared the moment they saw me.

Celestia was the first to speak. “What are YOU doing here? Were you aiding them? Answer me!” She yelled out, causing me to grab my left ear for a second.

“Calm your tits, woman.” I said, causing her to glare at me. “I was the guy who got your guards as far as here. I nearly died several times so we could save your sorry ass, so don’t go around and act as if YOU’VE had a bad day.”

The orange one glared at me. “You’re the thing that stole mah apples from my orchard!”

“So?” I said, causing her to glare all the harder. “You try to survive when an entire town is hunting for you, and see if you need to eat. I’m not sorry for it, so don’t try to guilt-trip me.”

The pink one spoke up next. “Who are you? I heard Celestia and Luna talking about you, but I haven’t managed to see you yet, what with being foalnapped by Chrysalis.”

I momentarily paused at the ‘foalnapped’ part, before figuring out that was the equivalent of ‘kidnapped’ and shrugged it off. “I am Tyler Maddox.” I said simply enough.

“Why are you here?” She asked.

I sighed. Nobody was going to look good after th next explanation. “Well, on my world, I found a portal in my bathroom and decided to go into it. A day after entering and falling on my face, I saved a group of kids from some weird mutant-”

“It was a Manticore.” The purple one said, becoming 60% more annoying by the second in my book.

“Whatever,” I said shrugging it off. “Anyway, after saving a bunch of kids, I get nearly hunted down by the entire town. Some sense of justice, right? Then, after making a small house, I get attacked by a single guard, Amber Star over there, whom I accidentally knock out.”

“I still need to get you back for that…” Amber mumbled, much to our amusement.

“Anyway, I knocked her out and tied her up, before deciding to keep her there. I couldn’t let anyone know where I was. A day after that, I needed to take some things in town, so after dark I snuck in, made myself a knife-”

“Of something which is harder than Iron, which is impossible without enchantments.” The purple one interrupted again.

“It’s steel. Anyway, I made the knife and took some cloth.”

The white one with purple hair chose that moment to interrupt. “From MY store!”

I chose to ignore her this time. “Anyway, a day later and I was chased all over the mountains for a day before being knocked out.”

“By me.” The purple one said again.

I glared at her, causing her to shrink back. “Can you shut the fuck up for a moment?”

The white unicorn glared at me. “Don’t talk to my sister that way!” He said.

Celestia interrupted next. “Just… Continue. I am finding this interesting.”

I nodded to her for deescalating an argument, before continuing. “Then, I wake up here. Several days have passed since then, over which I have been questioned, slept, and then questioned more. Finally, today, I wake up from a nap to fight a fucking battle raging outside my window. After my cell door gets knocked down, I go through the halls, shooting those things, until I join up with more guards, along with Azure and Amber over there, for a battle royal outside of your doors. Then, a gigantic pink wave comes at me and knocks all the abominations of nature away, which leads us to right now. Happy?” I asked, no humor in my voice.

The pink one studied me for a moment. “Interesting…” She whispered for a moment before looking right at me. “Well, I am Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but you can call me Cadance. Thank you for making your attempt at helping us, and I hope you have luck in returning to your home.”

Celestia walked forward. “Let us not forget why we came here. Shining and Cadance, direct the recovery efforts. All of you, we need to prepare.”

“For what?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “Why, for the real wedding, of course. For now, though, you can simply rest with the rest of the guards. The events of today have not forgiven you, but I do trust you now.”

I looked over at Azure and Amber, who both nodded. I walked away from the small group of ponies and with Azure and Amber, who had joined the rest of the guards. A few still gave me looks of distrust, but even more gave me ones of awe and disbelief. I had a feeling I would get those reactions more than ever now.

“Come on!” One of them said, motioning for the rest to follow.

The guard room was apparently two levels above the prisons, so they could easily catch someone trying to escape. I felt a bit foolish for thinking I could get out without much of a struggle, but hey, how was I supposed to know.

Upon reaching the room, me and the others simply started collapsing on the benches. It was a brief fight, about an hour long, but let’s see you run and jump all over a castle for an entire hour while fight an army of bug-like creatures.

Before drifting off into sleep, I could hear the cheers coming from the city. A battle had been won today, and they (and I) had been the victors.

It might not be so easy next time, if there was going to be a next time.

With that, the arms of sleep snatched me up, bringing me into a deep rest.