Prologue

As I looked over West’s grave solemnly, I felt my blood boil at the mere thought of Dex; he had tricked us all, sold us out for money like we meant nothing to him. My gaze was cast down toward the foot of West’s recently-dug grave, as was the remainder of my squad, the Heroes. The atmosphere of the squad was dreary, for West had been like family to us all. We had thought the same for Dex, the traitorous bastard.

Atop the fresh turf covering West’s coffin were mementos of West placed by my team, giving us all a reminder of how he would pull the team together in times of need. The familiar Canadian accent of Nathan, the squad’s engineer, filled my helmet’s confines.

“Rookie, you got anything to say?” He asked, as if it would make all the difference if I made a speech.

Rookie; that was what everyone else in the Heroes called me from day one. The reason I hadn’t told them to stop calling me that was simply because the title grew on me. That, and the fact that I never really spoke much, much like Tower, who had received his own nickname because of his size and height when he stood in full juggernaut armour.

Of course I wasn’t to give a speech. Long-winded speeches couldn’t heal wounds that were inflicted by backstabbing assholes. I simply nodded and stepped forward, unholstering an old .357 Smith & Wesson revolver from my hip-mounted holster.

The sun’s rays refracted off several mirror-like and shiny metallic objects on the grave as I crouched down at the foot of the grave. The visor on my helmet absorbed the glare and protected my eyes as I placed the revolver down on the dirt. I simply patted the revolver with an unspoken hope and remained silent, remembering the events that took away West like it was yesterday.

--

The phone buzzed to life, Iagi’s ID instantly appearing on its lit screen. West, being the closest one, picked it up and answered. My helmet swivelled to West as I waited for the hopefully good news. The rest of the Heroes were close by, also awaiting the Japanese scientist’s call.

“Iagi?” West asked curiously, raising an eyebrow. I could barely hear Iagi, his voice coming out as muffled. “Oh, you’ve got the serum ready? Great, we’re coming to pick it up right now.”

Go time, I thought, shouldering my SAW as I stood up with the rest of the Heroes.

What happened next shocked me.

The sound of a handgun firing and West slumping to the ground with a bullet in his head echoed through the base. I drew my SAW, ready for action. The silhouette holding the handgun revealed himself to be Dex, a cigar firmly held on his teeth. I wanted to scream in rage and riddle the traitorous bastard with bullets like a pincushion right there and then.

“Sorry old man, but that won’t be happening.” Dex said in a cold tone as Nathan, Jyn and Tower bolted upright with their weapons drawn and at the ready.

“Dex, how could you?!” Jyn said in disbelief, levelling his L96A sniper rifle with Dex’s head.

“Just lookin’ out for number one, kid. There’s an awful big price on you guys.” Dex responded, a sickening form of happiness in his voice.

“So that’s it? This is all for money?!” Nathan shot back, his voice dripping with hatred.

“You don’t get it, do you? GlobeX isn’t just out for us, they’re global.” Dex explained, his lust for money over us becoming more prominent with each and every word that come out of his lying, backstabbing mouth. “Frankly, when this is all over, I don’t plan to be on the losing side.”

“YOU BASTARD!” Nathan cried, a volley of shots pumping from his SCAR toward Dex.

Dex fled from sight, taking refuge behind a steel crate that blocked all of Nathan’s shots. Several familiar black-suited troopers dropped in from the roof. GlobeX troops. Of course, Dex was working for GlobeX behind our backs while trying to throw the blame onto West, who now lay dead on the floor.

“They’re all around us!” Jyn yelled, backing into Tower, who brandished his SPAS-12 automatic shotgun with fire in his heart.

“Come get some.” Tower said, his voice slightly distorted by the helmet.

“HOO-AH!” I boomed, unleashing a burst of rounds from my weapon, striking a GlobeX trooper that had feebly tried to hide behind the couch.

The four of us made quick work of the small group of GlobeX troopers and pushed onto the hangar, where we found Dex taking off with the plane.

“Damn it, he’s taken off with the plane!” Nathan cursed before gasping. “He’s going to kill Iagi and destroy the serum; we have to stop him!”

If Dex kills Iagi, we can’t contain the outbreak, I thought before coming to the same conclusion Nathan had. And if we can’t contain the outbreak, the world is at risk!

--

I shook my head to dispel the memory. That happened three weeks ago, just before I single-handedly stopped GlobeX and disabled the satellite controlling the clones. That scientist had given me some sort of prototype power armour to aid me in my fight against the leader of GlobeX.

Glancing around me, I found myself alone in the courtyard of our base. I could hear Jyn calling out to me. “Hey, Rook? You gonna stand there all day?”

Turning on my heel, I followed the Korean sniper back inside of our base of operations. Best course of action would probably be to stop moping over West, even though he was like family. Being the strong, silent type, like Tower, I had barely anything to say. Evidently, that one event had somehow soured the mood for today, possibly even a few days in the future. Hell, there was nothing to occupy ourselves with since GlobeX was in shambles and wasn’t about to rear its ugly head anytime soon. All we could do was wait and preoccupy ourselves with our daily, non-paramilitary lives.

For normal people, a life without war was one that they strived for. But for us, the Heroes, the thrill of bullets flying over your head was what we strived for. A sane person would call us crazy for defying the common avoidance of war, but someone else’s perspective on the subject wasn’t our perspective.

Nathan was probably in his workshop, servicing his equipment and such. Jyn was in the living room playing video games, judging by the fact that I could hear him yelling in triumph (“BOOM, HEADSHOT!”) coupled with the faint sound of a sniper rifle firing. And as to the whereabouts of Tower, I had no clue. Not to be hypocritical or anything, but the guy was practically silent since I joined the Heroes, saying little more than grunts and physical gestures, possibly coupled with short verbal responses.

Well, there was that book I never got around to finishing…

Thirty minutes later

Wordlessly and immediately, I stood up from the couch with and pitched the wretched book into the nearest trash can. Jyn, who had paused his game, stared at me in disbelief when I had turned around. Silence fell between us, Jyn because of his disbelief and me because of my voluntary silence.

Vampires don’t sparkle! I thought furiously as my perception of vampires was suddenly ruined. Books like that shouldn't even exist!

“You alright, Rook? You just kind of flipped out there,” He said once he recovered from his shocked state, a concerned look replacing it.

“…” . He kept his gaze on the side of my helmet for a few moments before slowly going back to his game. Almost immediately, reports of gunfire and explosions emitted from the television’s speakers.

Finding myself bored and my opinion of non-sparkly vampires tarnished after a few more minutes of watching Jyn completely massacre the opposing team, I decided to wander around the compound that we called home. Tower was still nowhere to be seen, probably doing his own thing in his room or something. A loud, earsplitting klaxon suddenly began to blare, red lights jutting down from the ceiling and flaring like one would see on a police car. The noise worked its way into my helmet, causing me to screw my eyes shut momentarily to recover my sense of hearing.

“PROXIMITY ALERT, TEMPORAL SHIFT LOCATED IN THE HANGAR BAY,” An equally loud, monotone female voice stated as the siren kept blaring without fault. “WARNING, TEMPORAL SHIFT WILL SOON BECOME UNSTABLE IF NOT ATTENDED TO.”

A temporal shift? Who’d be insane enough to teleport into our base!? I turned on my heel and immediately bolted for the hangar. Better yet, we’re in an undisclosed location!

When I reached the hangar, the rest of the Heroes were already approaching what I assumed to be the temporal shift: a large, whirling purple portal on the opposite side of the hangar. Of course, they had their weapons out, precautions and all. Feeling the need to do the same, I retrieved my M249 SAW from my back and  caught up with the rest of the squad.

“What do you think it is?” Jyn asked, a gleaming katana held in his grasp.

“Portal of some kind, I think,” Nathan replied curiously, seemingly fascinated with the portal. “Our location is top-secret, too. Whoever has the balls to open this thing sure didn’t think it though.”

“Why’s that?”

“A teleportation device powerful enough to transmit a receiver from…” Nathan retrieved a PDA-like device from one of his combat vest’s many pockets and waved it over the portal. “That’s weird. I can’t get a bead on the transmitter. It’s like the entrance portal doesn’t exist at all!”

Where does it exist? The land of technicolour horses that can fly and do magic? I chuckled inwardly at the fact that no such land existed.

“Anywho, the only way to position a portal inside of here would be to have some kind of anti-defence countermeasures for radar jamming systems and whatnot. So, whoever or whatever we’re doing with has some pretty expensive equipment to pull a stunt like this.” Nathan concluded, replacing the PDA back in its designated pocket.

Fancy equipment or not, there’s probably a threat on the other side of that thing.

It was at that moment the portal pulsed violently, sending forth a whirlwind of energy that tried to sweep us off our feet.

“Anchors now!” Nathan cried as he tried to fire his wrist-mounted grappling hook, nicknamed ‘anchors’, but was ultimately thrown into the portal.

Tower, Jyn and I followed suit, our concerns for Nathan overpowering all logical thinking at that point. As soon as I touched the swirling purple mass, I felt immense pain briefly before passing out.

An unknown amount of time later

What the fuck…

When I came to from my sudden blackout, the pain from before returned. It felt as though somebody snapped my spine. I opened my eyes slowly. All I could see so far was darkness. Pain was coursing through my hands and feet like I had broken them recently.

“Ugh,” I grunted out, attempting to push myself to my feet while my vision recovered.

However, as soon as I stood up, gravity seemed to hate me for a moment and sent me tumbling onto my back with an ‘oomph’.

Oh gravity, thou art a heartless bitch.

My eyesight had finally readjusted by then, so I craned my neck down to look at my body. A charcoal grey tail was jutting out from behind my legs. My skin was now grey fur and I had hooves.

Hooves. Tail. Fur. Yep, I’m a horse. This is completely normal.

Granted, another individual might have freaked out at the notion of finding out they were suddenly a pony, but I’ve fought clones and something as odd as this was just something to be nonchalant about. Hell, I was surprised that my equipment shrunk to match my new form.

Glancing around, I caught sight of the Heroes, now in pony form, unconscious on the ground. Yep, they were ponified too, and Tower was just as large in pony form. Figures. I pushed myself upright, now crouching on my hind legs with my front legs outstretched on the ground.

Well, time to wake these jackasses up.

I slowly stood up on all fours, something I hadn’t adjusted to yet, and walked over to Nathan, who was closest to me. Everyone still had their weapons and equipment with them, we were just technicolour ponies now. Nathan had cobalt fur and two feathery wings were nestled against his sides. So he was one of those pegasi from Greek myth?

Glancing to my sides, I found nothing but the M249 SAW resting on my back. Well, that sucks. I’m a regular, non-flying pony. I planted my front legs onto Nathan’s side and shook him vigorously.

He awoke with a startled “Huh?” and promptly stared at me. His voice was full of incredulity. “There is a small horse that resembles Rookie in front of me right now; I must be dreaming.”

I simply shook my head. No, no this is not a dream. I prodded his side with my hoof, causing him to look down at himself and discover the truth.

“I’m also a small horse. This isn’t disturbing at all.” He said sarcastically, probably handling the situation worse than I do. “I know you don’t talk, Pony-Rookie, but if you said something this conversation wouldn’t be so one-sided.”

“This is real, Nathan. We are, in fact, ponies.” I simply said, watching his unamused look turn into disbelief yet again.