The Conversion Bureau: New Tactics Part III

Chapters

Chapter 1: The New Conversion Bureau
Chapter 2: A Village In France
Chapter 3: Visitors
Chapter 4: Choice
Chapter 5: Things Are
Chapter 6: In Motion
Chapter 7: Moving Out
Chapter 8: Jumping
Chapter 9: Separated
Chapter 10: Matt's Vendetta
Chapter 11: Assessment (Brief)
Chapter 12: The Gate
Chapter 13: The City
Chapter 14: The End

Chapter 1: The New Conversion Bureau

Chapter 1: The New Conversion Bureau

They were taking ponies down the hill in groups of fives. That was the order given by a small group of humans inside the Bureau. They had tried to take as many security measures as they could to protect not only themselves but those awaiting conversion as well.

Sharpshooters covered the roof of the Bureau, ready to take out any that did not want to abide by the set of rules given. Armed men had also taken up positions in the buildings surrounding the enormous line of ponies. The amount of guards intimidated Matthew Earls, but he wasn't about to turn back now, he had come too far. At first he had thought the measures to be a little extreme, but then he considered what what these humans had been through and understood the need for caution.

The single file line behind him stretched for over a mile. And that was three days ago when he was at the beginning of it, by now it was sure to have increased in size. It had been three incredibly long and boring days of standing around unmoving. A few times he had attempted to strike up a conversation with those nearest to him, but he had no luck. He assumed it was because they just wanted to get through the line and get on with their lives.

But now Matt was at the front. His heart rate was immense, he stiffened as one of the two burly looking guards in front of him received a call on his radio. He nodded to the other who apparently understood the order then turned to us.

"Alright! lemme get five!" He shouted to the ponies in front of him as he put another hand on his weapon "Form Three lines! Three in back, two in the middle and one in front!"

Matt and four others quickly formed the desired positions, with him taking the first slot. Moments later four more guys walked up the hill and surrounded them and began to take them across the field.

The straight path to the Bureau was marked by cones and Matt did the best he could to keep a slow by steady pace across it. He winced a few times when then red flash of a sniper's laser moved across his eyes.

When they opened the doors to the Bureau, he could hardly contain his excitement. He was so done with being an Earth pony. He had been this way for three years now after a mob of ponies broke into his house and converted what was left of his family.

Before his conversion, they had tried convincing him that being a pony would be a better life and after a while Matt actually started to believe it. However it was after his conversion that he realized the reality was a completely different story.

After being converted they had completely abandoned him. He was granted one airship ride to Equestria only to find out that things were much worse for him there. Equestrian Cities were horribly segregated. Newfoals like him had little to no rights and the so called "real ponies" weren't too accepting of them.

He had no money and couldn't find a job so he, consequently, was forced to leave the country. From that point until two weeks ago he had lived in a specialized NewFoal settlement. The hardships he faced there made him long for his old life even more.

"Name please." An attractive looking women asked him. She was seated behind a large, semi circular front desk and was staring into a computer

"You need my name?" He asked confused.

"Yeah." She replied quickly as she looked up to him."We need to make sure you were actually a human and not just some Equestrian pony."

"Oh that makes sense" He said after thinking about it. "Its Matthew Earls."

She typed his response in quickly. "Matthew Earls born on the 19th of November in 2006?

"Correct."

"Where were you born, Matthew?" She asked.

He didn't have to think back. He had thought they might try to test him. "Allentown, Pennsylvania."

"Follow this man." She said after checking his answer.

Matt followed the man upstairs and walked past rows and rows of what had previously been cells. Even though they had their bars removed to him they still screamed of confinement.

Finally he was ushered into a room that already had three ponies waiting. They were sitting on the edges of beds and Matt took the extra one meant for him. A few seconds later a man in a white lab coat rushed in out of breath.

"Alright we have a lot more ponies to get to so I'll keep this brief." He reached outside where someone handed him a tray with four syringes neatly placed on it. "This serum will turn you back into humans. It will take about five minutes and it WILL be painful-Sorry. When your conversion is over you will be tired, you will feel weak and you will be naked. Various clothing will be brought up before your conversion is finished. Unfortunately they will most likely not fit, but you can get some new ones later. We clear?"

"Clear." They said back. He nodded and took the syringes off the tray and started the injections. Almost as soon as Matt's skin was pierced he could feel the changes starting to happen.

The man started for the door before he turned back around. "Oh and please wear the clothes, okay? I'm sick of seeing dicks swinging around downstairs."

No one could answer, the changes were occurring too quickly. "Oh uh." He stammered at the scene. "Good luck." He said as left the room.

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Shining Armor entered his passcode and opened the regal door expecting to see a room full of ponies. Instead he found that all twelve seats in the room were empty. Shining exhaled. He liked getting here early.

His seat was on the domestic side of the roundtable along with five other ponies. The other seats were for the ponies who headed the foreign affairs. Todays meeting was called by their end.

How much did Shining Armor care about Equestria's foreign dealings? Not much. He had been offered numerous high level positions in the New World, but declined to all of them. The topic of Conversion never interested him and he desired no part to play in the Conversion Bureaus. He cared more about Equestria and protecting her and citizens. He never wanted any negative contact with the humans, but unfortunately it was about to be forced upon him.

20 minutes later...

Ten of the seats had now been filled and the meeting had started. The two empty seats were on the foreign side and belonged to Princess Luna and the late Princess Celestia. Her death affected Shining Armor greatly, he had served the princess for many years and had grown very close to her. Her death had served as a wake up call to the world about just how capable a small group of humans in Georgia were. Luna had hardly been seen after what had happened, but he could't think about that right now, a pegasus was giving a presentation up front.

He was telling the situation of what was going on outside the barrier. Things weren't looking good, but Shining had heard them before.

"Ponies are leaving Newfoal colonies by the hundreds, all of them heading to the Atlanta Bureau. They are desperate to become humans again. In 26 days their numbers have risen from less than a hundred to well over 6,000." He paused for effect then pressed a button. A screen lowered from the ceiling and a projector filled it with a picture. "The image you're looking at are heat signatures from over the Atlanta area from one of our reconnaissance airships. This shows that around 93% of the humans are staying within two miles of the Bureau. We believe this is the start of them building an army. "

There was scrambled chatter all around the table. He pony smiled slightly before continuing. "Ladies and Gentlemen ,we must ready all of our conversion weapons against this threat." Some ponies agreed with him including the leader of the Equestrian Army, Storm Hammer.

Ponies like him disgusted Shining Armor. Mostly because he was unfit to lead anyone. He hated that everypony danced around the fact that his forces had suffered a devastating loss under his command. He hadn't even bothered to join the force of the ground. He insisted that he remain in Equestria and oversee the operation from there. Coward. Another thing was that he always argued that his forces were superior to Shining's Royal Guards. If Hammer agreed to something, then Shinning knew he had to speak up.

"Um no, excuse me I disagree." All eyes turned to Shinning Armor. He still commanded respect because, unlike some others, he earned his position based on merit. "I'm sorry no one wants to say this, but the truth that we all must accept is that our time of converting humans to ponies, against their will I might add, is over. You've had, what, like eleven good years of it, but it is finished. If these images are correct and humans are converting themselves back by the hundreds per day then I think its time we rethink our tactics solely to protect our homeland. " He ended his statement with a firm hoof to the table.

The room was silent for what seemed like a long time before a voice he was glad to hear spoke up.

"I agree with my husband." Princess Cadence's voice was good to hear. Normally at these meeting she simply sat quietly and observed. But not today. "When Princess Celestia and Princess Luna left me in charge of Equestria I made a promise to protect her. There is a great threat posed by these humans and I don't want to risk anymore ponies getting hurt in an attempt to try and convert them again."

"Thank you." Shining Armor smiled and nodded at his wife. He was glad she was with him on this. "In addition the best response to stopping the human numbers from rising is to cut off and further discourage any ponies from leaving the Newfoal settlements. I say it's time we contacted our asset in the north."

The room erupted in arguments back and forth about Shinning Armor's suggestion. "They shouldn't even still be alive!" The Mayor of Ponyville shouted. He was surprised she disagreed with with seeing as she was on his end of the table. "Why should we call on them?"

"And what about the settlements in the Americas? Did you forget about them?" Storm Hammer asked.

"Going back into the Americas right now is too dangerous. Right now we need to stop the rest of the world from converging on the bureau. We can cut it off it Europe with the asset." Shinning explained.

"Whats the point?" Storm Hammer asked apathetically. "That option was created by Princess Celestia and it died with her."

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna made that together. As long as she remains alive then he is still under our control. " Shining Armor raised his voice. "We need action now and he's already capable and in place. What more do you want?"

There was muffled chatter all around the table. After a moment Shining out his hoof up. All five others on his side put thiers up in agreement. Storm Hammer sneered as three on his side raised their hooves. Shining smiled. Luna and Celestia's absence made the table tilt in thier favor.

Princess Cadence rose from the table. "Well then please contact our asset and tell him to assist us." With that she walked around the table and left the room.

After she exited more ponies starting leaving. Storm Hammer gave him another dirty look as he left.

Shining Armor was the last pony out and there was someone waiting for him on the other side of the door.

The pony stepped in front of him with a worried look on his face. Shining recognized him. He was an important engineer on the foreign side. Thinking back he remembered he had looked like that throughout the meet.

"Shining Armor, I must speak with you." He said urgently. "It's about the barrier."

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Matt's eyes shot open. He was laying on his back in the middle of the floor. There were other three naked sleeping humans in the room with him and for a moment he was reminded of a party he went to many years before. He stood up and, like the guy said, there was a good sized pile of clothes next to him. He was able find some clothes that fit him pretty well and dressed himself.

For a while he sat on his bed staring at the open door to the cell. Now that he was human he felt he should be doing something to help. He was in pretty good physical condition and unlike what the man had said, he wasn't tired at all.

He also wanted to get his mind off of things. Every time he alone he thought back to the Newfoal settlement. He wasn't sure about other settlements, but his was a nightmare. The only way he could stop himself from thinking about it was moving around and doing something.

After a few minutes he saw a figure walk quickly past the door. He wasn't aware the person saw him until they appeared in the doorway again.

"Hey, you're up already?" The man asked quickly. He was an average height white guy with a slightly muscular build. "Usually you guys need a few hours after your conversion. You know,t to get used to your human body again. I heard it takes alot out of you."

Matt looked himself over. "Well I feel fine."

He smiled. "Thats good. I guess you should probably follow me then." He motioned out the door with hand.

He hurried down from the conversion rooms and passed dozens of humans who had either just gone through conversion or were currently undergoing it. The process was so disgusting to watch that he had to look away and was quick to match the mans pace. Matt didn't know who he was, but he seemed cool enough and he knew it wouldn't hurt to have a friend.

"I think they already started." He said back to Matt as they ran back down the metal staircase. "I really want to get there."

They sped across the main floor heading towards a door on the other side. "Wait, whats about to start?" Matt asked.

The man pushed open the door and went down the stairs. "That." He pointed.

There were two people, a man and a woman, standing atop a raised platform. They were in the middle of one huge open room. Surrounding them was a small group of maybe 30 people.

"-need air power to take back our land!" The man on the platform had already started. "There is a reserve base not 20 miles from here thats been overrun with ponies. I say we take it back!"

He sure is getting the crowd riled up, Matt thought. Nearly whole group were pumping their fists in the air.

"We're not taking our whole force so we need volunteers for a more stealthier mission than when we liberated the Capital building. Who's with us?!" He shouted. Immediately about 15 people raised their hands.

"I'm coming too!" Matt's new friend shouted loudly. He pushed through the crowd right up to the stage. The man nodded and leaned down to slap his back. He turned around looking for Matt and motioned for him to join.

"You coming? I sure we could use you." He said when Matt reached him.

Matt tilted uneasily. Fighting was something he used to be able to do quite well, but he wasn't sure how much skill he had retained after his time as a pony. "I..I..I don't know. I mean I just got converted and-"

"Come on, It'll be easy." His new friend pushed. He wanted to be useful, be loyal, but he didn't want to throw himself so early into a situation that he wasn't prepared for. He had a choice to make.

"Fine." He sighed finally. His thinking was that at least his new task would keep his mind off of his old home in the settlement.

"Good to hear it!" He said happily. "By the way, I don't think I ever introduced myself." I took his extended hand which he shook firmly. "Jacob. Jacob Sanders."

Chapter 2: A Village In France

About 8 miles north of Nice, France...

"Sam quick, hide in here!" Samuel Juste's mother stuffed him into the closet with a firm hoof. "Don't leave until I tell you!"
Sam had tears in his eyes. Never in his seven years had he seen his mom in such distress. Since his father died, the young colt had been trying desperately to use his wings.

Even now he tried as hard as he could to get them to work, but unfortunately today was no different. His wings flapped rapidly and brought him just inches above the ground. He sat down hard, disappointed at his efforts.

Sam wished he was outside, he wanted to see them. He had been playing with earth pony friend of his when a pegasus landed and warned that they were coming. He had been excited. In maybe a week or so he was to be one of them. He couldn't understand why his mother was looked so worried.

The thing was that he was still in the closet. Luckily for him all their stuff had been moved out in preparation for the long journey. France to the southern United States was no short trip.

Outside he could hear muffled foot steps. He shoved his face up against the wall and was able to find a crack just large enough for him to see through. He watched as the weirdest things he'd ever seen came over the hill and into his village.

Most of them were tall pale, pinkish creatures with four limbs, two for walking and two that hung down to their sides.

"Humans!" Sam said out loud in amazement. They looked so strange to him. He almost couldn't believe that he had been born one. He couldn't help, but smiling as they came over. Surely the humans were coming to save them from the clutches of the village's overseer.

In each of the human's hands was some kind of weapon that resembled the ponies dart guns. Sam had heard that the human's had their own versions of guns except that they were much more deadly. Nine humans so far had entered the village. Sam felt so safe, nothing could hurt him now.

Moments later a very muscular human walked right past the others and right into the middle of the village. Sam's mom and a few other older ponies walked up to meet him. Like the other humans, he had a gun in his hands and had it pointed at the ground.

The ponies were so bewildered to see a human that for a long while they didn't say a word. The human also remained silent as he looked over and examined each of the ponies in front of him.

"Good day, sir." His mother greeted him kindly.

"Hello." He said back in a deep monotonous voice. He sounded odd to Sam, he definitely wasn't from France.

"No one has seen humans around here in a very long time. How many of you are there?"

"Only 10, but I'm more interested in you." He said. "How many are in this settlement?"

"Not many, maybe a little less than 50." His mom smiled, but Sam could tell she was still nervous."It is good to see humans again."

"Wrong. Anyway what's that?" He pointed to the full bags that leaned against the sides of the houses in the village. "You guys taking a vacation or something?"

His mother glanced nervously towards the bags on her own house. "We're going to the the United States. We've heard they can convert us back to humans."

The human looked as if he heard the thing he wanted. "How many of you are going?"

His mom let out a small uneasy laugh. "All of us."

The human sighed. "Damn." He raised his gun and fired at the four ponies in front of him.

"Nooo!" Sam screamed as his mother fell to the ground. He watched as more humans started firing at the ponies around the village. Pegasi tried to take flight, but were shot down before they got up to speed. Unicorns tried using magic to defend themselves, but it proved incapable of stopping their bullets.

"Check the shacks!" He heard the odd voice shout. Sam slumped to the floor of the closet, he had nowhere to go. He could hear doors being smashed in mixed with lots of shooting and screaming.

Finally he could hear his own being kicked down. Someone moved quickly around his house, knocking over glasses and furniture as they went. Sam's house was very small it would be too long before he was found.

The door to the closet was pushed open suddenly. Sam jumped as the man from outside stood outside the entrance with his weapon aimed at him.

For a moment he hesitated. "Dammit." He said something in a language Sam identified as english. He desperately tried to use his wings again. They sputtered and he once again rose a few inches in the air before he fell to the ground.

Sam looked up as the man fired a shot. His ears were ringing as he dropped to the ground. Wood splinters fell all over him from the bullet hitting just to his left.

"Alright lets get the hell out of here." He shouted in english again. Sam curled on the ground, still confused about what had just happened.

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In only a few hours Matt had gone from being a pony to gearing up for an assault on an air force base. Things were moving quickly around here and he knew he had to keep up. The pace of his environment prevented any thoughts of the past few years. However a couple of times he swore he could see his old settlement overseer staring evilly at him from across the room.

The man he met, Jacob, assured him "theres no ponies around here." In few hours since he'd met him, Matt found a lot out about him. Over a very short meal he had explained to Matt his very essential role in Celestia's death. Matt could hardly believe it. This average looking man was a hero to him. Matt found out that the man and the women who'd been on the platform had also been some prominent people involved.

"No No No take this." Jacob said. He handed him a suppressed handgun.

"Why can't I take the big gun?" Matt asked, disappointed as he put his assault rifle back on the rack.

"'Cause you're gonna be with me, remember?" He said swinging a very full black duffle bag over his shoulder. "If we do this right and keep quiet, you won't even need that pistol."

Matt hoped he was right. They had all been briefed on the plan and to Matt's ears it sounded like a good one. He really didn't want anything to go wrong and end up paralyzed again. Even though the ponies darts would wear off in a few hours, it was an inconvenience that he hoped to avoid.

"Come on." Jacob said as he moved towards the door. "Lets get this over with." Matt noticed that he hadn't even picked up a weapon.

"Wait, you don't even have a gun! " He exclaimed. Jacob turned around slowly patted the bag on his shoulder while giving Matt a sly smile.

Opposite the main entrance to the Bureau was a section of the field that had basically been turned into a parking lot. Three dozen cars of all makes and sizes were spaced evenly across the grass.

"We should use the electric vehicles." Someone shouted. Matt got into a four door sedan along with Jacob and the two from the stage with the women taking the drivers seat. After Jacob placed his bag in the back, she started the car and drove off the field and on to the road. She was joined by two more cars.

"Okay Hudd, whats the best way to get there?" The women asked as she turned down an empty street.

"Umm give me a second." The man who must've been Hudd fiddled around trying to unfold a map.

"Come on Hudd. You make this decent plan, but then don't know how to get there?"

"Take I-75 North." Matt said. "It should take you pretty close."

Jacob blinked. "You've been there before?"

"Not to the base, but I used to come to Atlanta all the time when I was younger, I'm pretty familar with things around here." Matt said, feeling pretty good about himself for helping.

The man, Hudd, turned around in his seat." Hey, I don't think we have officially met. You can call me Hudd." He said as he reached his hand back.

"Matt Earls." He said back as he took his hand. "Can I ask you something." Something about Hudd had interested Matt since he first saw him. "What's the bat for."

Hudd look at the bat like he had forgotten it was in his hands. "I like to think it keeps me safe." He said quietly as he looked over the metal length. There was a quick expression of misery on his face that made Matt decide to drop the subject.

"So what was in that bag?" He asked Jacob quickly.

He chuckled and shook his head. "Patience, Man. You'll see soon enough."

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"The barrier is what?!" Shining Armor exclaimed. His eyes widened with concern to the earth pony who had identified himself as Gale. Shining Armor could feel himself starting to sweat as his heart rate increased. He was panicking and he had to get it under control. He took in a long deep breath and let it out slowly before the pony continued.

"Ok let me rephrase. "Gone" was bad choice. What I meant to say is that it is extremely faint."

"Just how weak is it?!" Shining asked.

Gale shifted uneasily. "Well... you're not going to like this but...umm..."

"Get on with it!" Shining snapped impatiently.

"Any foreign object going above 20 miles per hour should be able to breach through it." Gale said quickly.

Shining Armor was silent for a long time. If most Equestrian military vehicles could travel faster than that, then he knew the human ones could. "What the hay is going on!?" He blurted out after a while. "On the last check it was normal."

"True, but the last inspection was a month ago. Four days later Princess Celestia was killed " Galesighed and shook his head. "Needless to say we're in a bad position."

"Yeah no kidding." Shining racked his brain for a quick solution. " Oh! Could I put my energy into it?"

"No offense, Shining, but your field over just Canterlot took a lot out of you. We are talking about a barrier over all of Equestria. You'd burn yourself up and die in, at most, five minutes."

"What about Luna?"

"Luna is already giving it all she has, but the fact is that Celestia was just much stronger. The power to make to barrier was not spilt between them 50/50. Celestia played a MUCH more critical role in it."

Shining Armor exhaled heavily and brought a hoof to his head. "What can we do?"

"I'm not sure. I could maybe try to redirect power from the higher altitudes to ones closer to sea level."

"How long?"

The pegasus stammed his hoof on the ground rapidly as he did some calculations in his head. "Ummm, maybe two weeks."

"That's no good." Shining huffed.

"I know." He said defeated. "But right now It's the only thing we can do. I'll get started right away." He trotted away quickly and left Shining Armor almost alone.

Neither of them had detected the pony on the other side of the wall who had been listening on their conversation.

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"Thats a loooooot of ponies." Matt said as he took in the scene before him. He, Jacob, Hudd and the women, who he'd learned was named Rebbeca, were peeking out from one side of a huge aircraft hanger.

They had parked the cars about a half mile away and had approached the air force reserve base from the side. Gaps in the many perimeter fences were easy to find after years of raiding and vandalism. Ponies had taken over the runways with crude Equestrian style structures erected all over it. There were a few two to three pony patrols taking various routes throughout the base, but Jacob assured Matt they were nothing.

Jacob had his duffle on his back and looked like he was just itching to get out there. "Come on!" He kept saying. "Lets get this done."

Hudd looked a little more skeptic. "No no no no, something just doesn't feel right." He looked all around himself until he saw something. "Hold up. I knew it. See that?" He pointed to a row of hangers and buildings opposite where they were.

"Oh shit." Matt said as he saw the ponies that stood watch on top of them.

"Damn." Jacob whispered as he moved back into cover. "We can't get to their barracks without getting spotted; the runway is to open."

Hudd pulled a small radio out of his pocket and pressed in a button on the side. "Are you guys ready yet?"

"Just about." A static filled voice responded. Matt looked around and, with Jacob's help, saw three guys on top of a billboard with another guy still climbing up the ladder.

"Alright." The voice said again once all four were in place. "Who do you want us to kill?"

Hudd started calling out targets to them. The focus was on the ponies on the roofs, not the patrols. A few minutes later they called back.

"Look out guys. Looks like you've got a three pony patrol heading from your right."

"Lets move." Hudd whispered to them. "We have to get to them later. I don't really mind getting seen, but the problem is they'll most likely send a pegasus flying off. I do not want other ponies finding out what we're doing." He led them behind a small maintenance shed.

"Shit! Another patrol is on your left about 70 yards."

"You have a shot on any of them?!" Hudd asked annoyed.

"That'd be a no." They replied.

"Looks like we're spilting up then." Hudd sighed. "Rebbeca, you're with me. Time to see what you can do Matthew. Take out that patrol then get to work with Jacob on those structures. Rebbeca and I will take out this one then move on to the rest. Remember don't let any of them live."

"Gotcha." Matt nodded. He would have loved to appear confident, but his hands were completely sweaty.

"Just wait here." Jacob said after Hudd and Rebbeca left. The two were hiding behind the side of the shed. Jacob let his bag rest against the wall as he brought out a long knife. "You're going to have to trust me ok?"

Matt nodded. He had just met Jacob a few hours ago, but he already felt he could place his life in his hands.

"Ok so basically we're going to ambush the shit out of these guys. As soon as they walk past us, we jump out and kill em' Got it?"

Matt swallowed. "Got it." He readied his pistol, safety off. Jacob crouched and took in a deep breath.

"Im so ready to get pulled out of here." One of the ponies said. "This place gives me the creeps."

"I know how you feel." It was a female voice this time. "Our rotation always takes the longest. How long have we been down here, like eight months?"

"Have you heard what theyr-" Jacob jumped out and grabbed a pegasus around his head. He covered his mouth as he sunk his black blade into the ponies chest. The remaining two ponies turned around and jumped in complete surprise. One of them almost had a weapon raised before Matt appeared. He was already aimed at the first pony and dropped him quickly with a shot to the head. The second tried to start running before Jacob was able to slice his leg tripping him up. Matt ended him with three more shots.

Jacob stood up and started dragging one of the bodies in the shadow of the shed. "Nice job." He said. Matt thanked him before he helped him drag the other two bodies.

"Come on. Let's get to those buildings." Jacob whispered.

The two men sprinted across the runway to one side of the structures. Jacob's bag weighed him down, but he was still able to keep pretty close to Matt.

When they reached the closest wall, Matt leaned over trying to catch his breath while Jacob sat on the ground and got to work. He unzipped his bag, reached in and brought out two small rectangular items.

"Explosives?" Matt gasped.

"Mm hmm." Jacob said casually as he flipped open a plastic cover. He held down a button and a constant green light turned into a constant flashing red. He pressed it on one of the walls and placed the other right next to it. He continued this for the remaining three walls.

"Do you think that eight charges are enough?" Matt asked as they headed to the next building."

Jacob laughed quietly. "Actually I might be over doing it." Matt twisted his face in confusion. "What the hell kind of explosive was he putting on these buildings?" He thought.

After maybe 25 minutes all of the buildings had been outfitted with live charges. To speed up the process Jacob had quickly taught Matt how to activate the charges.

"So were you like a demolitions expert or something?" Matt asked as he placed his last charge on the building.

"Nope." Jacob said non-chalant as he and Matt quickly retreated from the giant bomb they had just created. "But I've had some field experience." He said as they made it to the hangars. Jacob kept going while Matt stopped.

"Don't you think that we're far enough?" Matt asked as he saw the distance between him and the charges.

Jacob shrugged. "You can stay there if you want." He opened the bag and pulled out a detonator. "You want to do the honors?" He asked.

"Really?" Matt raised his eyebrows in excited surprise.

Jacob though about it before shaking his head. "Nahh never mind. I would cover my ears." He ran about 20 more yards before he stopped. He held his hand up and counted down with his fingers. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

Matt had his ears covered, but left his eyes open as brilliant blue flash like lightning made him blink. Milliseconds later a deafening blast brought him to his knees. His ears were still ringing despite his hands presence on them. But it wasn't over. A power shockwave spread across the ground seconds after and knocked him on his back. When Matt looked back towards the runway, there were no more buildings. Just rubble and smoke.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. When Matt turned he saw it was Rebecca. Hudd was talking with Jacob as dust and small pieces of wood fell around. Rebbeca and Matt slowly walked towards the destruction in front of them.

"Well, that was something wasn't it?" She said.

"Yeah." Matt said tiredly.

"Whats wrong with you?" She asked with concern looking him over. "Did you get hit?"

"Its Nothing." Matt shrugged away. "I just need some sleep."

"Well you can rest now." Rebbeca laughed. "This base is ours now."

Chapter 3: Visitors

Shining Armor moved quickly down the hall, determined to find the pony he was after. It had been a full week since he had been informed about the barrier's weakened state. Since then the pegasus, Gale, had not had success in redirecting its power. But Shining was not looking for Gale. He was looking for the most unpleasant pony he knew. In the back of his mind he knew he should have anticipated Storm Hammer not to follow the orders given to him. This was yet another thing about him that annoyed Shining Armor. Storm Hammer always liked to be in charge of things and he would frequently manipulate his orders for what he though would be beneficial.

Finally Shining turned down a corridor and found him conversing with another pony. He angrily marched right up to him.
"Storm Hammer, I need to talk with you." He said sternly.

Storm Hammer, in complete disrespect, held a hoof up to Shining's face. "Just a sec, I'm talking to someone."

Shining's blood boiled. Ten years ago he might have ignored it, but certainly not now. Over the years he had grown intolerant of insolence "NOW!" He shouted. The level authority in his voice was rarely heard as he usually tried to keep a level head.

Storm Hammer sighed and turned to the pony. "We'll talk late-" Shining put a hoof on his shoulder and pulled back hard. Storm hammer spun around and was slammed into the wall.

Storm Hammer laughed trying to hide his nervousness. Shining Armor held him in place against the wall with a hoof pushed against his neck. "I've been told that you gave the humans in Europe kill orders." He said angrily.

"I did." Storm Hammer groaned. He was trying to keep his composure under Shining's hold.

"Why would you do that?!" He barked back. "Those weren't your orders."

Storm Hammer finally pushed the hoof away from him and fell to the floor. "You truly do baffle me, Shining Armor." He said calmly once he caught his breath. "How could someone as talented and sharp-minded as you be remain so blind of our situation? I gave the kill orders because they were necessary."

Shining shook his head in disagreement. "It was never necessary to massacre entire settlements of converts."

"Oh really?!" Storm Hammer jumped. "You've seen the data on the humans in Atlanta, you know how big their numbers already are AND how much they increase everyday! You said it yourself, the only way to stop it from rising is to cut off ponies from leaving settlements. Thats exactly what I'm trying to do!"

"I never meant killing any ponies who wanted to leave. You knew that." Shining said.

Storm Hammer was sounding frantic now. "Fine! While you wait to find another way to stop ponies from leaving, the barrier gets weaker by the day!"

Shining Armor hesitated to respond at the mention of the weakened barrier. "How had he found out? Did Gale tell him as well?" He asked himself. Storm Hammer noticed his pause.

"Oh yeah I know all about that! How long was it going to be before you informed the rest of us of that the only thing separating Equestria from thousands of angry humans is a couple hundred miles of water?"

Shining stammer for a moment, not knowing how to respond. He held up a hoof to try and ease him. "The humans don't know about it and Gale is working on a fix."

"Just how long do you think that will last?!" He said wildly. "Those humans in Atlanta WILL find out eventually and when they do they are going to crash onto Equestrian shores like a tidal wave." Storm Hammer looked away as he sighed heavily. "We will all have to pay for what we've done to them."

"Not me!" Shining snapped quickly. "I've done nothing to the humans. I never wanted anything to do with them in the first place."

Storm Hammer quickly looked back and forth desperately trying to find something that would get Shining on his side. After a while he had something. "And what about Twilight?" He asked. Shining's face turned gray at the mention of his sister. One look and Storm Hammer knew he had him. "Yes what about Twilight Sparkle? They tried to kill her once, Shining. If those humans make it to Equestria they will be looking to finish what they started. You know that"

Shining was conflicted. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of killing humans, but he would do anything to protect his sister. "What do you propose we do about it? He asked quietly.

"For the moment I know of one thing." Storm Hammer said quickly as if he had been waiting for this moment. "Any stand against the humans would be hopeless with our current weapons, so I'll need you to be on my side in the upcoming council meeting."

Shining raised an eyebrow. "On your side about what?" He said skeptically.

"We are in desperate need of a complete defense overhaul and I need you to be with me when I propose my new weapons to the council."

"What new weapons?" Shining Asked confused.

Storm Hammer sighed. "Follow me to my warehouse. There are some things you need to see."
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Matt kept running for his life down the dimly lit corridor. He knew his pursuer could not be far behind. Sure enough he heard the quick noise of hooves close behind him. When he turned left down another hallway is when he was spoken to again.

"Matthew, where are you going?" The voice sounded like two combined together. One was the soft voice of a woman who sounded sad that he was leaving. The other sounded like a demon who would rip him to shreds if they caught up. The combination sounded so horrible to Matt that he used all his strength to go faster.

"You can never leave me, Matthew." They said again sounding much closer. "I've almost got you, Matthew."

Matt screamed and kept going. When he went down another hallway, he swore he could feel a hoof on his shoulder. He yelped and brushed it of quickly, but when he turned around there was nothing there.

Matt flew back as he ran into what he though was a wall. However as the light slowly increased he could see the giant light pink legs of his old overseer. She leaned her giant face right against his and in a voice that was all demon spoke. "You'll never escape me!"

Matt sat straight up on his mattress. He was breathing heavily and was drenched in sweat. He looked around quickly making sure he was still where he ought to be. When he saw a few more rows of mattresses all occupied with humans he sighed in relief.

"Just a fucking dream." He said to himself as he stood up and stretched. There was no way he was going back to sleep. He cautiously stepped over dozens upon dozens of mattress that were spread unevenly throughout the closed hanger. When he finally made it, he slipped through one of the back doors and started his walk in the night air.

There were a few sharpshooters keeping watch in high places, but once he waved and identified who he was to them, he continued walking towards one of the runways.

It had been seven days since they attacked the base and since then, much had changed. There was much work to be done and the first three days were spent just to get the power back on.

The number of humans on the base had steadily risen to just over 400 people. An empty hangar had been accommodated for sleeping and eating.

Matt continued onto the now clear runway. It had been two days of hard labor clearing it of rubble, but now Matt looked over it, proud of what he and others had accomplished in a such short time.

As he continued his walk down the runway, he took a look inside around another hangar. Rows of UH-60 Black Hawks were outside while, to Matt, the more interesting things were inside the structure.

Ducted fan VTOLs gathered dust as they sat unused for years. Seeing them, Matt thought back to more than a decade ago when Equestria first rose from the sea. The U.S. had no idea what to expect, so in response they beefed up their forces on all on their east coast bases- even the reserve ones. There were four that were much more well armed than the other. Rebecca identified them to him as AV-28 Wasps. The other ten had a wider body and was less armed. She said they were UV-36 Night Owls. A bunch of converted military pilots had come to the base and confirmed they could fly them.

As soon as Matt stepped away from the hangar, he could hear a noise far in the distance. He turned around until he was able to pinpoint the direction on the noise. He looked west as the the sun started to rise behind him.

As the noise grew louder and louder, Matt couldn't believe his ears. It had been years since he had heard it. The snipers were as dumbfounded as he was. They shouted and talked back and forth through radios as it grew louder.

Suddenly, Matt saw the source of the unmistakable sound. Two large helicopters came into view from the west. More and more people, including Hudd and Jacob began shuffling out of the hangar as the sound of the helis woke them.

"Hey Rebbeca!" Hudd called. She slowly came outside, still obviously very tired. "Can you tell what those are?" He asked.

The Helicopters were heading over the runway now and had greatly reduced their speed. Now that they were closer they looked so fat and heavy to Matt that he couldn't understand how they were able to fly at all. As the gray crafts began circling the runway Matt could see a red star near one the tail rotors.

People nervously raised their weapons. They talked back and forth with each, unsure of what to do.

"Hold your fire!" Hudd shouted, though he too had a rifle out.

"Holy shit." Rebbeca said wiping her eyes.

"What is it?" Hudd asked anxiously. As the gray crafts began circling the runway Matt could see a red star near one the tail rotors.

"Those are Mi- 26s." She said with fear in her voice. "Those are Russian helicopters."

Chapter 4: Choice

As the helicopters descended, Matt had to hold his hand in front of his face. The Mi-26s were so big and blew dirt and dust from the runway all over the place. Matt was in a bad position. Two Russian helicopters were moments away from landing a few dozen feet from him and he had no weapon. At the moment he couldn't care less that russians were inside the metal monsters. He still couldn't believe that humans, who were obviously very capable, were still around.

The closest one to the ground rotated so that it's rear faced the mass of people. As it touched down everyone, with the exception of Matt, had a gun raised towards the back. Minutes after it touched down a ramp began to lower from below the tail rotor. That moments that followed were the tensest Matt had experienced in his life.

As soon as the ramp touched the ground, the back of the helicopter exploded with people. About three dozen men and women, all dressed in dark green combat uniforms, rushed out quickly. They all carried what looked like the same weapon and had them pointed at the startled, growing crowd in front of them. The troops spread out in a semi circle around the ramp. The half in front went down to one knee while those in front remained standing.

Matt had dropped to the ground, he wasn't about to get himself shot. More people began rushing from the hangars, strengthening the numbers. Hudd, Rebbeca and Jacob were above him. The three of them had pistols and were waving them back and forth and shouting at the soldiers in front of them.

The Russians screamed an yelled right back. They had thick body armor on their chests, thighs and upper arms, but they couldn't hold out against all of them. Despite being out numbered six to one, they didn't cower or back down. They remained as still as statues

"Drop your weapons!" Matt's side yelled.

"Опустите оружие!" The Russians would shout back.

Matt was quite sure that neither side could understand the other. The noise of the screaming nearly drowned out the sound of the second helicopter landing maybe a hundred yard away. When it touched down, the back loading door didn't open as with the previous one. When Matt took a look inside of the first one it was dark, but he could still see the dark figure of a man still sitting down.

Maybe a minute later the man stood up and softly walked towards the loading ramp.

"Опустите чертовски оружия!" He shouted forcefully. Even through all the noise, Matt could still make out his distinctive voice. When he stepped on the ramp he finally came into view. He was a tall man, a few inches north of six feet. His hair was dirty and unkept like he hadn't slept in a while. His clothes, however, were very neat. He wore a very clean suit, complete with nice shiny shoes and a red tie. The man under the suit was quite thin. He was on the older side, around 65 years old and had a small layer of facial hair. "Какого хрена ты делаешь!" He shouted to his forces again.

Matt couldn't understand what he said, but he was able to breathe easier when the Russian troops lowered their weapons. The man continued forward and his people spilt letting him through.

He walked right up to the crowd, who still had their weapons on him, until Hudd stopped him.

"Whoa, hold the fuck up!" He held his gun up to stop him. "Stop right there! Who the fuck are you?"

The man put on a big smile and held out his hand. "Hello." He said warmly in english as he looked around to everyone.

Everyone looked to each other incomplete confusion. Hudd glanced quickly to Rebecca who concentrated hard on the man.

Hudd swallowed then continued. "Who are you and where the hell'd you come from? " He said firmly.

The man looked around with a slight smile on his face. "Surely you Americans did not believe you were the only ones who could avoid conversion?" He looked to Hudd who did not look amused. His smile disappeared as he spoke again. "My name is Kirill Severov and I have not come for a conflict." His deep, raspy voice was drenched under a heavy Russian accent. "I have come here to talk with you."

Hudd shook his head. "No no I don't think so. I think you better get back in your chopper and get the hell out of here."

Severov chuckled. "I think you are wrong. May I ask to speak to who is in charge here?"

Jacob reached down and grabbed Matt's shirt, pulling him to his feet, without taking his eyes off him.

Hudd pointed to himself, Rebbeca and when Jacob coughed, to him too.

He held his hands up. "Fine. I have traveld over 8,000 kilometers over nine days and nights to discuss something with you. Please, let us go inside somewhere and talk."

Rebbeca, Hudd and Jacob huddled together and discussed Severov's request for a few minutes. As far as Matt could tell, Rebbeca and Jacob seemed against it, while Hudd was interested in what he had to say. Matt was more concerned with another man who was exiting the helicopter. He watched as the man, who was clearly angry about something, walked right up to Severov, ignoring everyone else. Unlike like the others he had a black combat suit with no body armor.

"Кирилл, какого черта ты делаешь?" He shouted.

"Нам нужно то, что они имеют, Артур." Severov said back calmly.

Hudd turned back towards him. "We've decided that we'll listen to what you have to say. " Rebbeca sighed as he spoke. She clearly wasn't too happy with the decision. "But you leave ALL your men and weapons out here."

Severov nodded and took off his coat. He then spun slowly trying to show he was unarmed. Hudd thought this was sufficient, because he started walking towards a building that sat just off the runway. "Follow me."

Severov first went over to his worried looking man and held you his hand. He was reluctantly handed a blank manila folder and nodded to his guy. "Выключите и жди меня." He told him.

"Вы действительно не собираетесь с ними в одиночку не так ли?" he said back surprised.

"Артур, нам нужно, чтобы они доверяли нам, чтобы получить то, что мы хотим." He sighed as if they had talked about this before.

Matt watched the two converse quietly. He hated that he couldn't understand the language. It made him wish that he still had his English- Russian dictionary that he received as a gag gift years ago.

"Но можно ли им доверять?" he answered back quickly.

Severov didn't have a response to what ever he asked. He groaned before he followed Hudd and Rebbeca through the crowd. The second man scoffed as he went back to the helicopter to start yelling orders to the forced that had returned inside.

Jacob snapped to get Matt's attention an waved his arm for him to follow. As he moved towards him, he could hear both helicopters starting to power down.

Matt followed behind Jacob and the group of five went towards the building.

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Shining Armor sat in his room. His wife had not yet returned from what had been a very tense council meeting. Storm Hammer had called for it as soon as Shining had seen the weapons he kept in his warehouse. Luna had once again missed the meeting, but no one really expected her to show up anyway.

This was problematic because it may have very well been the most important to have been held. Shining Armor was fully prepared to vote for Storm's weapons to be used in comabt. Like he expected, the other ponies were very hesitant about it. But something he didn't see coming was how far Storm Hammer would go to get approval.

When it looked like they were about to lose 7-3, with the only other vote coming from Gale, Storm Hammer revealed the secret. The room went quiet when he told them about the barriers current condition. Storm Hammer's smile grew when he saw how the mood had changed for the worst. Everyone looked to Gale for some kind of comforting statement, but he could only shake his head and look away.

At that point everyone else except Cadence shot their hooves up. She kept trying to argue that there had to be another way.
Shining felt bad for her. When Storm Hammer had shown and described his weapons on screen, she cringed at his words. But Storm Hammer did not just have weapons. He had drawn up multiple defense strategies for the major cities and towns in Equestria. He had been planning for something like this for weeks. The final vote was 9-1 and after her loss, Princess Cadence said she needed some time to herself to think.

Now at home, Shining Armor watch a video on a pull down screen. It was basically a 3 hour montage of human war and conflict footage starting from around the mid 1950s to 2021. It fascinated him to watch how human weaponry and technology had increased steadily over the decades. Princess Celestia had given him the video years ago. Shining had thought that maybe if he studied it, it would help him as a captain. It hadn't.

Now he only sighed as he watched it. Even with Storm Hammer's new weapons, the humans still had a huge advantage in terms of technology. Magic was the only thing the humans didn't have and it was the center piece of most of the new weapons. However unicorns were roughly only a third of the population. There was so much on his mind. He felt like someone was dumping buckets of stress on him and watching it soak into his head. After 30 minutes, he turned the video off and prepared to leave. He needed to see one of the only ponies who could put his mind at ease. He was headed to Canterlot Hospital.

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Severov was led into brightly lit room. He moved a chair around to one side of a metal rectangular desk and sat down. Hudd and Rebbeca took two seats opposite him. Jacob and Hudd had to stand up on either side of them.

For a moment there was silence as Hudd studied the man in front of him and decided what to say . Severov held his folder tight and started. "Before we begin I want admit my true reason for coming here." Rebbeca glanced angrily over to Hudd who tried to ignore it. "I want to discuss a... trade." He searched his brain for the right words to keep it sounding light.

"What do you want?" Hudd asked.

Severov hesitated. "...We get to that later."

Hudd brought a hand up and rubbed his forehead. "Well what do you have to trade then?" He asked sounding frustrated.

"In times like these, information can be as good as material items, yes?" Severov made a good point. Parts of the world were so cut off from each other that most times you only knew what the person next to you would tell you.

"I guess...If the info you have is good enough." Hudd looked as if he thought whatever Severov knew wouldn't be worth much. "So I've been curious..." Hudd started and Severov looked eager to start. "Who exactly are you with? Russian Navy, airforce, some kind of special forces unit?"

Severov face hardened. "We should not talk about that."

Rebbeca threw her hands up suddenly. "Well you say you want to trade information." She said angrily. "What the hell do you have?"

Severov leaned forward and placed his folder on the desk and pushed it towards her. "This." he said simply.

Hudd flipped open the front cover to find a pile of photographs. He laid out maybe a dozen sheets neatly across the desk. All except Severov leaned in for a look at the pictures.

"Holy shit." Jacob said.

"That can't be what I think it is." Hudd gasped in awe.

Matt looked over Rebbeca's shoulder. Half the pictures were aerial high over a castle with many tall towers that had been built right into the side of a mountain. All of the pictures were from different angles and two of them showed a town that was close by. The other half were much higher altitude shots of a long skinny island.

"That can't be real." Matt said shaking his head. "I mean that can't be...Equesria." He looked unsure towards Severov. "Can it?"

He nodded. "These photographs are real. And they are not from satellites."

"How the hell did you get pictures of Equestria without a satellites?" Hudd asked.

Severov's face darkened as he placed his elbows on the desk and leaned in close. "For years we send drones; try to get pictures." He spoke in a low serious voice. "Until nearly a month ago, every single drone destroyed by the barrier. But, the last one we send, get in and out with no problems. You know what this means."

Hudd shared a quick look with Rebbeca. They were thinking the same thing. Matt also had a theory, though not even he thought it could be true.

"Their barrier is gone." He said, a hint of pride in his voice. "That is my information."

There was a silence in the room as the four tried to comprehend the extent of what he said. Matt had only known the barrier over Equestria to be nothing but concrete. If the Russian was correct, that had completely changed.

After a while Hudd coughed. "How can we be sure that this is real?" In reality, he believed the pictures and what Severov said, but he didn't want to appear too easy.

Severov pointed to one of the castle pictures. "Do you know what this is?" He didn't wait for a response. "This is Canterlot. The only pictures to exist of this are from satellite." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a much smaller picture." There is also this." The picture he placed on the table was mostly black, but had a few distinct white pony shapes scattered over it. "Infrared images." He said.

Hudd and Rebbeca examined the picture. They both nodded before Rebbeca spoke. "What do you want?"

Severov frowned, he knew they would not like it. "In Russia we have received news. News that you have acquired something that can turn ponies back into humans. I need it.

"No way." Rebbeca shook her head. "Absolutely no way."

"I see it a fair deal." he said calmly as he had expected this.

"We need that stuff here." She said.

"I need to revive my country to its former strength. We have essentially the same goal."

"You're wrong. We aim to rid ourselves of the problem that are the ponies."

"And I have given you the information to do so!" Severov voice raised and he almost stood up. "Look beyond your own patch of land. There are five other continents with ponies who need help. You cannot hope to convert the whole world from one location. I have given you the most important information I can. All I ask in return is a small amount to convert and protect my country. I had tried to negotiate this without resorting to...other means. So again I must ask, what is it going to be?"

Chapter 5: Things Are

Matt watched as the second Mi-26 lifted off the ground to join its twin in the air. Both helicopters had spent a little over an hour on the ground. The Russian he had met, Kirill Severov, had came to them in a time of need and he was not leaving empty handed.

Almost an hour ago, Hudd had unvieled a small glass container. Within it was a deep red liquid that sloshed around. After a few minutes, He had placed it into the waiting hands of Severov. Who started into it intently.

"In that container is 5 fl. oz. of Princess Celestia's blood." He had told him. "This is our back up we keep in case of a Luna emergency, so I hope you have a way of keeping it cold."

Severov nodded. "We do."

Hudd brought out a sheet a paper and a pen. "I know the process to turn it to conversion liquid, so i'll write the instructions. Can you read English well?" He asked to which Severov nodded again. "Good."

At that point Hudd began writing down and explaining the very technical directions. Matt couldn't follow it, but after a little less than half an hour, Hudd finished and Severov confirmed he had understood it all.

Before Severov boarded his chopper he handed Jacob another photo. "I believe we target the same pony." He had said.
When Matt got a chance to view it, he could see it was another shot of the castle. But this time he could see a pony atop one of the tallest towers. It was a dark blue pony with a mane that looked like it had captured the night sky itself and displayed it proudly.

"Luna." Jacob said quietly.

Severov smiled. "Yes. As I understand it she has caused us both many problems. "He said. "The drone circled that castle for an hour and she did not move from that spot. Had it been armed we would have tried to take her out." After that he shrugged at his missed opportunity and headed up the ramp.

Most people had already gotten bored and as the helicopters made their way into the distance, only a few stayed on the runway. Matt and Jacob continued to watch until they could not see them anymore. Rebbeca was a couple yards behind them, asking someone about the possibility of getting running water back up.

Hudd sat on the ground with his knees up and his arms wrapped around them. He had his eyes closed and with one hand he lightly rubbed the side of his head. Matt noticed and thought something might be up.

"What's going on, Hudd?" He asked as he walked over to him. "Ya' alright?"

"I'm thinking." He replied without looking at him.

"What about?" Matt pryed.

Hudd opened his eyes and reached out a hand that Matt soon took and used to pull him to his feet. "I'm thinking that Equestria is sitting just a couple hundred miles off our coast unprotected. I'm thinking that maybe we ought to drop by, pay em' a visit

Rebbeca overheard him and walked over. "Oh Please don't tell me you're actually considering going there."

"Whats the problem?" Hudd asked. "We've done pretty well here. I say its time we take the fight to them.

"Thats not the same, Hudd." She began shaking her head.

He shrugged back at home. "What's the difference?"

Hudd we have to approach this carefully." She cautioned. "The difference is that this is the U.S. and no human has been there. I mean this is Equestria you're talking about. We know next to nothing about the place. Their terrain, their wildlife, their weather, It's a whole new playing field. We wouldn't even know where the hell we're going. But what most important is we have no idea what their forces are like over there."

Hudd thought for a moment. "Yeah you're right we don't." He smiled and turned to Matt. "But luckily I know someone who's been there."

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4 Miles North of Genoa, Italy

"Puoi parlare bene l'inglese?" A tall white man asked as he stood over a young female pegasus.

"Yes." She said quickly.

"Good, Im sick of speaking Italian."

The girl was sweating and breathed heavily. Her left wing was injured, a bullet had been sent through a bone by the man who was crouched over her. Like many other ponies in her village, she had tried to escape when the humans arrived. The rumor she'd heard was that a group of them were moving across southern Europe, stopping by settlements for some kind of revenge on Equestria. However she was about to find out that this was much different. "We are not Equestrian ponies..." She started slowly, trying to keep the man at ease. We are on your side and want only to be humans again, like you."

"You see things much differently than I do." The man said. "And we are most certainly not on the same side."

She sighed and looked around to the others. "Why are you here?"

"We are here because we aim to do the right thing. In order to make the world a better place I cannot permit anyone to leave these settlements. No more ponies must be converted back to humans."

The pegasus couldn't understand his stance. Why wouldn't he want more humans? She thought. "Why on earth would you want that?!" She threw her anger into her question.

The man looked out towards the setting sun before he started. "Because I believe humanity can not only be saved through ponification, but even further advanced as well.." He waved his hand to his nine other teammates who had finished their tasks and had converged behind him. "My group shares my vision as do important ponies in Equestria. ...But then there are those like you." He turned back towards her and spoke with a more irritated tone. "The ponies like you along with the misguided humans in the US seem intent on reversing all the progress we've made. If only they could see their error."

The pegasus shuddered and what silent for a moment. "You are crazy!" She spat out finally.

The man smiled as he ignored her and rose to his full height. "Are the unicorns separated from the pegasi?" He asked an asian member of his team.

"Yes, sir." He responded. "The pegasi wings are bound as well."

"Good lets make sure they stay that way." He said before turning back to her. "You're lucky its only a forced separation. Not too long ago we would have taken a...different approach." He turned to the other man again and twirled his finger around quickly. His teammate understood what it meant and pulled out a black rope.

She screamed in pain as he held her down and tied her injured wings very firmly to her sides. When the knot was tied he dropped her and joined his group as they turned away from her.

"You are crazy!" She shouted as the ten left her village. "You are insane!" she used the last of her strength to shout it, but just as the sun had fully disappeared, the humans were out of sight. Her words had fallen on deaf ears.

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Hey, Shining Armor. How're you doing?"" The doctor greeted. "Haven't seen you in what, three weeks?"

Shining sighed. " Yeah almost." he agreed. "I've just been really busy since...well you know."

The doctor nodded. Celestia's death had been devastating, especially to those that knew her personally. But Shining Armor had been hit particularly hard. His sister had escaped the Atlanta Bureau unscathed. Her injuries were something he also had to deal with.

The doctor moved over to a door and placed a hoof on it. "Well You'll be happy to know that's she's doing much better. She can't yet walk completely on her own. but she is showing improvement every day."

"Well thats great. " Shining smiled.

The doctor pushed open the door and Shining Armor smiled at his younger sister.

About Twenty Minutes Later...

After a bit of catching up and a few laughs, Shining Armor thought it was unfortunately time to reveal his ulterior motive for coming to the hospital. He would have done so sooner, but he knew it would undoubtedly kill the moment. Twilight noticed his mood change and frowned.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"Its nothing." He lied. "I just have something for you." He used his magic to levitate a book from one of his saddle bags. He floated it over to Twilight who then took it over with her magic. "I just thought you might, ya' know, get bored and want something to read."

"Advanced Combat Magic?" She asked perplexed as she read the title out loud.

Shining Armor shuffled his hooves. The book was one of many copies given to him by Storm Hammer. He had sarcastically mentioned that he give one to Twilight to keep her safe. Shining Armor, however, found no humor in it. He knew it was the same book being issued to all unicorns in the Equestrian forces as a part of Storm Hammer's defense plan. There was powerful stuff in this book.

"Yeah I saw it and thought you might want to look it over or something."

Twilight wasn't buying it. "Shining Armor, why would I need combat magic? What are you not telling me?" She pressed.

Shining Armor grit his teeth. He knew she would have to find out at some point. "Twilight, some things have happened..." He started.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "What things?"

"Well for starters... The barrier that surrounds Equestria is almost non-existant." He said sadly.

Twilight's jaw dropped. "H..h...how could that be?!" She stammered out.

"We believe it was weakened significantly by Celestia's death, but that's not even all of it. Apparently the humans found a way to convert ponies back into humans. Hundreds, if not more, convert back every day."

She shook her head. "This is not good." She said. "I mean what happens if they find out the barrier is gone?"

"I don't know, Twi." Shining said. "We're trying to do everything we can to prepare, But I want you to look over that just so you can be safe. I know you're more than capable of performing any spell in there."

"What about you? Will you be alright?" Twilight asked.

"I'll be fine, Twi." He said confidently even thought he was quite unsure of what the future held. "I just might not be able to come visit you for a while, so I want you to know that I love you, little sis."

"I love you too, BBBFF."

Chapter 6: In Motion

Late Summer, 2033

"You scared?" Jacob asked casually.

Matt thought hard for a moment about how he would answer. He took in account all that had happened in the past few weeks. The first event that set off this rapid chain of events were the two Russian helicopters that had landed on their air base. One Russian who exited the chopper had told them the news of the barriers weakened state. It had taken Hudd no time at all to want to launch an invasion of Equestria, but preparing for it had taken much longer. Only in the past three days had things actually began.

A convoy consisting of 92 people had driven east to the Atlantic coast. They had secured a few mid size boats and were already enroute to Equestrian shores. Now it was everyone else's turn.

Matt had also been asked question after question by Hudd and Rebecca to find out more on Equestria. He drawn for them a very crude map of all the places he remembered. The spot he recommended they set up a base was one that was really close to the shore. Matt recalled a very large flat clearing that he felt would be ideal to land in. As he far as he could remember, it wasnt too far from Ponyville, which wasn't far from Canterlot.

After that, it became a mad dash to gather as many supplies as possible. A few tons of food and water had been loaded onto one of three huge quad rotor V-44s. The aircraft had been found in hangars at another base in South Carolina.

Matt wasn't sure exactly how many aircraft they did have. But as helicopter pilots went out to nearby bases they almost always returned flying Blackhawks and tilrotors.

They were much needed as only around 400 people could be taken to Equestria at one time. So far over 35,000 ponies had been converted, which left tens of thousands waiting for their ride. Hundreds, if not thousands, of ponies came to the Bureau to be converted everyday. Unsurprisingly, Almost all of them were willing to at least help out in some way. Hudd had a plan for them too. His eyes were set on expansion. As the line for conversion rose higher everyday, It became apparent to everyone that one Bureau would not be sufficient. And with that realization large groups of people had begun to spread out. Older and much smaller Conversion Bureaus in Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina had become available. They were planning to transport security and the conversion serum to them sometime in the near future.

People had taken to calling the first humans to go to Equestria the "First Wave". At first Matt had tried to get out of going. He was no soldier. Though he did okay during the base takeover, he wasn't interested in being in an all out invasion.

Then something came to his mind. The name of the pony who had forced him into his slavery. He knew that she and her lap dogs had fled to Equestria. He was also aware that they had a very large operation outside of Ponyville. Matt told himself that he would find her. And he meant it.

Matt thought about the hundreds of different weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. He looked out a circular window he was reminded of what was going to be flying next to them. It was still early in the morning and dark out, but he could see the lights of an AV- 28 Wasp. The dual rocket pods and gatling guns looked menacing to him. He thought about how the ponies didn't have guns or artillery that he knew of. Lastly he thought about the thousands of humans waiting to follow behind them. Each of them would be carrying their grudge with them to Equestra.

As Hudd gave the order and the V-44 lifted off the ground. Matt had thought of his answer.

"Nope."

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*****************

Four ponies stood around the council table in Canterlot Castle. It was quite early in the morning and the sun was many hours from appearing over the horizon. Gale, the pegasus who had first been aware of the barriers weakened state stood next to Soarin, the pegasus in charge of most of Equestria's aerial forces. On Soarin's right was Shining Armor, commander of the Royal Guard. On the end was Storm Hammer, a pony who Shining Armor considered to be a bit slimy, but highly intelligent. Together, the last three of the ponies were in control of all Equestrian forces- and they had much to talk about.

"So." Shining Armor began by first addressing Storm Hammer. "Where do we stand?"

Storm Hammer cleared his throat. "The emplaced weapons have finished production. They've already been strategically positioned in Canterlot as to not cause a panic. The rest are on a train to Ponyville and to the cites in the east. Soarin, what about you?" He asked.

"Almost all of our war balloons have been called in." He reported. "They've each been outfitted with you weapons, Storm Hammer. Though it does make them even slower than they were before. There is still one High altitude Reconnaissance Balloon remaining over the Atlanta area."

"Any updates from that?" Shining Armor asked.

Soarin shook his head in grief. "The human numbers continue to grow at an increasingly large rate. And our most recent heat maps show that a considerable number are spreading out in all directions from the Atlanta bureau."

Shining Armor sighed then went on. "My Royal Guards have all been previously trained in advanced combat magic. I can only trust that our unicorns around the country have been getting the crash course over the last few weeks."

Gale suddenly cleared his throat. He had been quiet until now while the other three reported in. "Sorry to interrupt, but I feel I should point out something." Gale said confidence lacking in his voice. "It has been weeks since the barrier has been weak and so far there have been no reports or even rumors of humans in Equestria. I know that I was the one who brought this to your attention, and I think maybe I over-reacted just a bit. If they haven't shown up by now, who's to say that they ever will? We don't know whether they've even discovered something wrong with the barrier. I'm just saying, maybe we've been preparing and provisioning for a non-existent threat."

Shining Armor wasted no time in countering. "Gale, there is most definitely a threat. We've seen what these humans can do, and more importantly, they have too. What was happened at the bureau has made them focused, determined and most of all angry. They're not going to stop at Celestia, they want it all and they'll do what it takes to get it. So thats why we do this now. We are not just preparing for today, but tomorrow as well. Because whether it be a week or months or even years, those humans will try for an attack. This is something I'm certain about. They will come.

Storm Hammer looked back and forth between Shining Armor and Gale. There was a long pause as the realization that this would be their future from now on. Always conscious and wary of an attack that may or not occur. Now more than ever Storm Hammer understood just how dependent they were on the Barrier. For the past 13 years it had protected them from Equestria knows what and now it was gone. The thought left him feeling more vulnerable than he cared to be.

"I agree with Shining Armor." He said after a few moments. "That out of the way, whats the next move?"
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************************

About Three Hours Later...

Matt had at first thought that he wouldn't be able to get any sleep . He had been so anxious after takeoff that he could feeling his heart beating heavily throughout his body. But it was a long way to Equestria and the V-44 rocked back and forth ever so slightly in its flight- just the way Matt liked it. In some ways, the ride reminded him of a train he had taken from New York to Boston, a trip which he managed to sleep through entirely.

On the V-44 he was able to rest for over two hours. He was only woken by an alarm bell that rang loudly for a good 30 seconds. Matt jolted so suddenly that he smacked Jacob in the face with his back right hand.

"Oh what the hell?!" Jacob said half to Matt and the other about the alarm. Those around him grabbed their rifles and started looking out windows nervously. Most of them had droopy eyes and were still waking up. But their nerves were calmed when Hudd walked down the aisle shouting.

"50 miles people! 5-0 miles." He said walking up and down. "We gotten no word from our boats yet so we're expecting some resistance."

"Holy shit." Jacob said quietly. He sat straight up and gripped his rifle tightly. For a short while after that, there was a bit of scattered light chatter. However it all ended when Hudd ,again, walked down the aisle.

"25 miles, we just passed Bermuda."

Mat leaned forward in his seat and looked down the walkway into the cockpit. He was able to catch a quick glimpse out of the from window of an that was fast approaching. Equestria was close and so was his objective. Matt's heart starting pounding again, but not from fear. He was going to face his old overseer, no matter how many diamond dogs he had to go through. Matt's goal was revenge, everything else was on the side for him.

"10 miles!" Hudd shouted. "Get ready!" Matt pulled his gun from under his legs and readied it in his hands.

A few moments later the V-44 slowed as the four rotors repositioned to hover. The hold rattled and shook as the smaller as more heavily armed Wasps flew past. They were to provide provide whilst the transports landed.

Matt's V-44 was hardly moving forward now. It slowly circled as it descended into what Matt assumed was the field that he had told them about.

Finally the wheels touched down and bounced Matt up slightly. Moments later he heard the hydraulics lowering the ramp at the rear. Sunlight spilled into the hold as Hudd walked towards it with his rifle. As soon as the ramp hit the ground, he ran outside. Matt rose behind Jacob and the pair were the second to exit. After that people started flooding out of the back. Matt took his safety off and started pointing aimlessly around in sky for pegasi.

There was much confusion, but after a few minutes it became clear that there was no initial opposition to their invasion. A slight smile grew across Jacob's face.

"I guess no welcoming party after all." He said over the sound of the second V-44 Landing.

Chapter 7: Moving Out

Not a week after first landing in Equestria, the humans had turned their plain field into a sizable base. All of thier aircraft took up most of the area, but there was still enough room to live. After the first wave landed two more groups arrived a few days after one another, pushing their total numbers to just under 800 people. The second and third waves also brought with them supplies, food and weapons.

The base was comprised completely tents that ranged in size. The largest tents were allocated for sleeping and eatibg, while the smaller ones were used for supplies, weapons and medical equipment. Cans of propane had been brought in for making hot meals. Currently Matt was content enjoying one. He felt it was quite well earned. They had all been working quite hard since arriving in order to get things up and running. It made Matt incredibly sore and tired, but unfortunately there was more for him to do.

"Matt?" A guy called with his head stuck through the entrance. Matt looked up at him, his fork just inches from taking another bite. "Rebbeca wanted to see you." The man told him. Matt stood up and, taking his cup of Top Ramen with him, left the dining tent.

He was led to a Tent that was in more or less the center of the camp. He pushed open the thick fabric and inside were Rebbeca, Hudd Jacob and a few others. "Hey guys, whatcha need answered today?" He asked tiredly. Over the past few days, he had been asked seemingly endless questions and most had been trivial.

"Don't worry, this is actually serious." Rebbeca reassured after seeing his bored facial expression.

Matt straightened up and thought something might be wrong. "What's going on?"

"Well you know that there haven't been any pony sightings since we landed here. By now they have to know that we're here." Hudd said. " So we think that their holding back; trying to fortify some position to defend from. And I think I know where they're going to do it."

Matt shrugged. "Well where?"

"On the way in spotted some kind of village not to far from here. You know of anything like that?"

Matt racked his brain for a moment, then it came to him. The village he needed to go to. "Ponyville." He said. "That's its name."

Jacob perked up at the mention of the town. Matt assumed he had heard of it before, which was resonable considering how important Ponyville was.

"Hudd that's really really close." He urged. "And its supposed to be where Twilight Sparkle lives."

"That's not all." Matt said to himself as he thought about his own personal mission.

Hudd, Rebbeca and Jacob talked to each other for a moment before Rebbeca looked up and asked, "What do you know about it?"

Matt looked between them. "What are you thinking?" he asked them.

"I wanna hit them first." Hudd said. "We strike first and hit them hard."

"Well then." Matt said pleased with the plan. " I know a little bit. I used to...live there. From what I remember it has no defenses." He thought back to how he would come to the field from Ponyville. "The quickest way to get there would be to go north to the tree line and through the forest."

Hudd nodded as Matt talked and when he finished he stood. "Well." he said as he stretched. "I'm ready to move. What about you, Rebbecca?" he asked jokingly.

"Yeah I think I'm good to go too." She finished and looked to Jacob.

"Good, I'm sick of waiting here." He added.

"Okay then." Hudd said. "We can give the news later today and hopefully move out tomorrow morning." He looked around to the others who made no objections. It sounded good to Matt. For him the sooner they left the better.

However there was one important thing he should have remembered. The quick route he told them would take them through more than seven miles of the dark, mysterious Everfree Forest.

_______________________________________________________________________

*******************

"This is a mess." Storm Hammer said shaking his head.

"I know, but it's all we can do." Shining Armor responded. The two unicorns were standing on the platform of Ponyville station, ushering the few remaining civilians unto the final train. All of their faces were stricken with fear and uncertainty over what would happen to them.

The rumors of humans in Equestria started five days ago. A school teacher had reported it after overhearing her students talking about it in the yard. The next day a small group of Soarin's scouts confirmed it. Evacuations started later that day. The order to evacuate Ponyville came from Princess Luna herself. She had shown herself to Shining Armor only for a moment to tell him.

"Is that the last of them?" Storm Hammer asked.

"I believe so." Mayor Mare said shakily. "I...I just don't understand. How could they be here?"

"I don't know." Storm Hammer lied. "But you get on the train. We have it from here." The Mayor thanked the two unicorns and boarded the train with her citizens.

"Just you and me partner." Storm Hammer joked. "I bet if we work together, We take 'em!"

Shining Armor turned towards him after a few minutes. His joke hadn't gone over so well with him.

"How can you be like that right now?" He asked forcefully. "Why is it impossible for you to even act like you care about what happens to our country?"

Storm Hammer looked to him offended. "I'm ready to do what it takes to protect my country. The same as you." He was going to protest more, but stopped as he thought of something he could use. He had always had the feeling in the back of his mind that they couldn't defeat the humans. But he knew that putting a strong piece back onto the board would at least help to even the odds. "The difference between me and you is that I have nothing to lose if we're defeated."

Shining Armor's face changed. He knew he was talking about Twilight. "My sister has nothing to worry about."

"I don't know..." Storm Hammer said. "I told you before that they'd be looking for her, now they're actually here. Talented as your sister is, can she do any better to protect herself than she did at the Atlanta Bureau?" Storm Hammer knew he was getting close to what he wanted from Shining Armor. "Princess Luna saved her once, maybe she'd do it again, you know since you're too busy to see her anyway."

He watched Shining's face. He could see the brief moment of thought and consideration, just before it went away and Shining replied. "Shut up. The train is here."

It was true. The first of Storm Hammer's forces had arrived. Dozens of Earth and Unicorn ponies exited the train, each of them had a on a set of plain looking armor. Once they all assembled in front of him, he spoke.

"There are humans less than eight miles from this spot. They will most likely come from the Everfree Forest. Or take the long way around it. The emplaced weapons are pointed in those directions to soften their approach. I want barricades on every street, alleyway and avenue. You defend these streets with your lives. If they get through, they will flank our main force. You push them to the end of main street. It goes all the way down to the Market. And at the market at two emplaced weapons. Force them where we want them and then destroy them. You do not fall part the market or you will die. Is that understood?"

"YES SIR!" They shouted back.

Storm nodded. He was proud of them. "This is an enemy we have never fought before, but we will not fear them. They will learn to fear us!" Storm Hammer short speech caused an uproar from the troops as they passed him to fulfill their duties.

After a moment, Shining spoke to him. "We should get going back to Canterlot. We need to report to the others."

Storm Hammer took a step back and pointed a hoof to the door of the train. "After you." He asked politely. He was confident that he had done what he wanted. He felt that Princess Luna had spent far too long in solitude sulking while things crumbled around her. He needed someone to bring her back into the fight and he felt Shining Armor would be the one to do it.

Chapter 8: Jumping

When Hudd said he wanted to leave early, he meant it. Matt was woken up at a little past 4 o' clock in the morning. It had taken them about another hour and half to eat and prepare to move. Finally, at around 6:00am, 400 hundred people started heading into the woods. That left the remaining 300 to watch the base.

The 400 had been spilt into many groups consisting of 15-20 people. Each group had one or two leaders and they were given a small radio to communicate with Hudd and the others. The groups divided across the field, but all stayed within tens of each other.

Matt found himself in a group with Jacob, Hudd, Rebbeca and eleven others. His group was the first to enter the Everfree Forest.

One thing that became immediately apparent was the darkness. Even with the sun coming up, it was nearly impossible to see anything. And it became worse the farther they went. After 15 minutes, the thick canopy blocked out almost 100% of the sunlight. At this point they were lucky that a few in the group had flashlights and put them to good use.

Maneuvering through the forest was difficult, even more so doing in the dark. Stepping over gnarled roots and ducking under low hanging branches slowed their progress. But they were unaware of just how slow things could get.

Hudd stepped quickly, he was eager to get to the patch of sunlight that wasn't to far away. However when he got close, he froze.
The ground beneath his feet squished. Hudd looked down to his boots to find that they had sunk about an inch into the saturated earth. He looked ahead to an area where the forest seemed to stop.

In this area, trees stuck out of disgusting looking, greenish brown water that had bubbles from who knows what that popped with a horrendous sound. Mosquitoes and others small insects flew in the hundreds around in every direction through the wet, sticky air. Small creatures skirted across the water, with some being plucked from the surface by what Matt hoped were fish or frogs.

"You never mentioned a swamp." Hudd said sounding very disappointed.

"I don't know." Matt said shaking his head. "I don't remember this being here."

Jacob pulled out a compass. " We're still going north." He shrugged like it wasn't a big deal. "Ponyville should still be past this. So what now?"

"No idea." Matt admitted. "It could go around for miles."

Hudd thought for a moment before stepping forward. He sank to his ankles and shuddered at the feeling. "We go through it." He said. "If the water comes past the waist, then I say we turn back and go around."

"Sounds fine to me." Rebecca said as she stepped into the swamp.

"Great!" a man said sarcastically. " Now we get to go through a swamp!" The guys name was Josh and he had been complaining ever since they left. So far everyone was doing a good job of ignoring him. "Thanks for the heads up on this, Matt." He said.

Matt didn't respond. He was disappointed that he hadn't remembered this, but it wasn't proving much of a problem, which relieved him. The water was only just above their ankles.

Ten minutes later, things were different. The water had risen to a couple of inches below his waist. By now lots of people voiced their complaints, but Josh still led the pack. He was a few yards in front of everyone else and now he decided to recap everything he'd just said.

"It's hot as hell out here, I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, there's probably a hundred parasites in this water just waitin' to crawl up my ass and-" Josh stopped and coughed into his hands. "And I'm also-" He tried to speak again, but every time he breathed in, he could not continue. Soon he had bent over and began coughing violently into his arm.

"Whoa, Josh." Jacob said concerned. "You alright?"

He was still coughing, but waved his hand backward like he was okay. He hobbled over to a greenish brown tree trunk that stuck straight up through water. But when he tried to lean on it, something was wrong.

Matt's group noticed that the tree wobbled slightly like it was made of Jell-O.
Josh must've felt something was wrong with the texture of it because he pushed away from it almost immediately. All of them followed the "trunk" to his highest point. And when they looked to the top something looked back at them.

It looked like a giant snakehead with green catlike eyes and forked tongue that hung outside its wide triangular mouth. Its eyes were focused directly below at Josh. "Ah, Oh shit!" He jumped back a screamed. He tried to start running back but the snake was faster. It struck down as soon as Josh moved.

It seemed to strike the water directly behind Josh, but then he cried out in pain. The snake had his left leg in his mouth with josh still attached to it. He was lifted a few yards above the water and was frantically kicking the snake in its eye with his other leg.

Before they could react, the water exploded and three more snakes rose to Josh's level. They surrounded Josh with open mouths and ran their tongues over him.

"Kill it!" Josh shouted.

Matt's group lit the snakes up with gun fire, but had to avoid shooting the one holding Josh in the head for fear of hitting him. A moment later, it dropped him back into the water. All four turned to face their attackers and roared loudly. Their tongues wiggled rapidly and each of them had four fangs, each one twice as big a banana.

"Get clear!" Hudd shouted from behind Matt. On his shoulder was an RPG. He aimed towards the open mouthed creature and fired.

The projectile hit where it was intended and when the smoke cleared they could see the aftermath. One had the entire top half of its head blown off and another the right side of another was wide open and had blood and other fluid leaking from it. Strangely all four fell back into the water.

Matt and Jacob rushed forward to help Josh who was slowly trying to push through the water.

"Fuck man!" He said in pain. His leg had deep puncture wounds. Jacob desperately tried to wrap his leg, but he was still losing a lot of blood.

"We got to get him back to the base!" Matt shouted they were starting to carry him over when the ground started shaking.

"Shit." Hudd said loading another rocket." What now?"

Mud starting flying everywhere as something began to rise from beneath the water. Jacob and Matt hurried to get Josh back, but stumbled as a new creature finally unearthed from behind them.

"Oh my god." Rebecca said looking at the creature. Now six of the snake-like creatures were attached to a large dinosaur-esque body. "They're not snakes. It's a...a Hydra?"

Matt turned around and saw what was behind him. Two of them were coming right for him. "Move!" Jacob shouted. Matt let go and dove to the right. Jacob had pulled Josh and himself the opposite direction- right where
They'd struck.
However when the heads pulled back up, it was not Jacob in their months.

Josh again found he in one of their mouths. Only this time he could not fight back. Two fangs found their way through his chest. The head shook his lifeless body around until another took one half in its mouth and pulled him in two.
Jacob scrambled over to Matt and quickly helped him up. Three of the hydra's
Heads took notice and the two giant legs began moving the creature awkwardly in their direction.

"Come on!" The two ran to the right as the hydra weren't after them. It now disregarded the gunfire on its side. There were a few others who also caught in the Hydra's path and ran with Matt and Jacob. The group kept running, but the Hydra focused in and closed the gap between them.

Looking up ahead, Matt’s heart sank. The ground only continued for a few dozen more yards before it dropped off into a steep cliff.

"You see that?!" Someone shouted. "What do we do?"

Jacob looked behind him. "Well I'm not going back! He shouted as he sped up towards the chasm.

Matt's slid to a stop just inches before the drop. A few people had already weighed their options and taken the jump, but Matt hesitated. He took one look over the edge and turned to Jacob. "No way!" He shouted shaking his head. "There is no way we do this and live."

Jacob put his hand on Matt's head turned it towards the Hydra that was at most only a dozen yards behind them. "Better than that!" He said. "We'll make it!" With that he took a running start and jumped off the cliff. Matt watched him flail his arms on his long way down.

Matt took another look behind him. The hydra was upon him. Two of its heads were already reared back for a strike. "Leap of faith then!" He said to himself as he ran forward and jumped.

Chapter 9: Separated

Hudd nudged one of the Hydra's heads with the barrel of his rifle. It turned on its side and blood and other fluid flowed from its mouth.

"Hey, I think it went in this one." He called. A few people who were examining the other heads came over to him.

"What makes you think so?" Rebbeca asked.

Hudd pointed to one of the fangs that was chipped."You see this? Im pretty sure I hit its tooth when I threw it. "

"Well, I wasn't close enough to see it." Rebbeca shrugged. " By the way, I don't think I said before, but that was one amazing throw." She added. Lots of other people chimed in agreeing with her. They were talking about a grenade Hudd had thrown while the hydra had one of its six mouths open.

"Let's just hope it stays this way." Hudd said as he stood up. "We should head back to that drop. See if they lived through it." Hudd said.

"I'm sure they're fine " Rebbeca said trying to comfort him. Both of them had watched from behind the hydra as their friends jumped over the side of the cliff to escape it.

"We should go anyway." Hudd said before pointing to the dead hydra. "Before the smell of this thing attracts something else."

Rebbeca nodded and she and the remainder of their group followed Hudd as he backtracked his way to the cliff.

Minutes later...

"I'm not jumping down there." Someone said as they put their hands up and backed away from cliff.

Everyone else peered down into chasm where a wide stream flowed slowly.

Rebecca knelt to her knees very close to the edge and and touched the side of the wall. Her hand slid off quickly.

"It wet." She informed. "Too slick to climb down."

"Well..." Hudd thought quickly. He was frustrated and desperately wanted to see if his friends had made it. "What about reppelling? Do we have the ropes?"

Someone unzipped their bookbag and pulled out the ropes. "We do, but what do we secure them too?"

Hudd looked around. He found that there was nothing but swamp behind him. Nothing stable enough.

"Shit!" He exclaimed sharply. It was quiet for a while after that until he asked, "What now?"

"We have to do what we came here for." Rebbeca answered, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We regroup and continue to Ponyville."

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********************

Matt coughed suddenly, spitting dirt and water from his mouth. He struggled, but finally managed to rolled over onto his stomach and opened his eyes. For a long time he stared unmoving up at sky.
"Fuuuucccccck." He sighed to himself as he coughed some more. He tried to move again, but his entire body was painfully numb. Matt didn't even worry, he had no energy left. He tilted his back, resting it into the soft mud and passed out.

It was the intense heat on Matt's face that woke him. He opened his eyes and looked directly into the sun. Without out thinking, his hands moved to cover his face. He slammed them shut again and turned his head to the side into the now sun baked mud. When he opened his eyes again, he looked at his fingers and made a fist, confirming he could still move them.

With all his might he rolled back over and sat up. A river rushed in front of him and carried its contents quickly through the skinny canyon. He walked to it and dunked his face in a few times which helped his pain.

Further behind it was the opposite canyon wall. Now that he was on the ground he could that there was no way he could have made it to the other side. For now he was just happy he had lived through his fall. But he remembered that he wasn't the only one to have jumped. He needed to find any other survivors.

As soon as Matt turned he jumped back at the sight of a sizable pool of blood. "I really hope that's not mine" He said as he checked himself over.

The blood trailed for only a few feet so Matt instead followed the river. But he didn't have to go far. Not far from the riverbank he could see a pair of legs sticking out from behind a tree trunk. He ran over to it, hoping for the best.

"You made it." Jacob said weakly. His clothes were soaking wet and he was slumped against the tree with cuts all over him. However there was one that stood out from the rest. It was a long gash that ran from his left wrist to just below his elbow. Dried blood covered his entire arm and the grass where it had been laying.

"Shit man." Matt said rushing over.

Jacob looked down at it like he'd just remembered it was there. " Yeah its pretty fucked." He reached into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out a small switch blade. He cut small sections of his his lower pants off and then tossed them to Matt. "I don't usually like to ask for favors but..."

"I got you." Matt said as he took the scraps and turned to the river. After he wet one of them, he returned and washed out Jacob's wound as best he could. He then wrapped it tightly with the other piece.

"That'll have to do for now." He said as Matt helped pull him to his feet. As they walked back to where they'd jumped from, Matt told him about the blood.

"I heard about it. I thought it was you for a while." Jacob said.

"Wait." Matt frowned. "How'd you know about it?"

"There were two other guys who made it too. They were too scared to stick around to wait for us so they split together. "

"Damn." Matt said surprised.

"Well they did manage to pull me up from the water. But dragging me to the tree got me this" Jacob said pointing to his arm.

When they arrived at where Matt had woken up, it apparent that he had been carried a few dozen yards before being deposited on the river bank.

After a couple more yards they could recognize the triangular point from which they'd jumped. Matt squinted his eyes then looked up. The sun was still nearly right above them. "I'd say its about noon, maybe one o' clock. That means its been what, two three hours?"

"Yeah, sounds right. They couldn't have gotten too far in three hours right?" Jacob asked.

"I don't think so." Matt said. "Most likely there already in Ponyville fucking stuff up without us."

Jacob shook his head. "I refuse to miss that." He went over to the base of the cliff and put his hand on the rock wall. "I don't think climbing back up is an option." He informed after a moment. "Its basically 90 degrees straight up and the rocks are wet too."

"We could just keep going north for a few miles then head a few west." Matt suggested. " I think we'd end up at least somewhere near Ponyville."

"Yeah I think we have to do that." Jacob said as he checked his compass. " Because I'm not about to try climbing this to end up falling off it a second time. Here take this."

Jacob slid a hand gun Matt's way along with a few mags. " I couldn't find my rifle, but I've still got two of these, a few mags and luckily my backpack is still good. Are you ready?"

"Yeah." Matt said. "Lets get out of here."

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********************

"How're we doing?" Hudd asked.

"Still going north." Someone answered annoyed after checking the compass for the ninth time.

Hudd had asked continuously since they left the cliff. Once they were able to regroup with the others in what was more or less a clearing, a count was taken. 388 was the final number. Twelve people gone with only one, Josh, being the confirmed as actually dead. Eleven were missing, four from Hudd's group.
But with no way to locate them and the huge risk of staying in the forest, they had to continue.
At the moment they were in the darkest area yet. People stuck extra close to those that carried flashlights. Fortunately they encountered no more creatures which everyone was grateful for.

As Rebbeca followed a few steps behind Hudd, a very distinct smell rolled across her nose. "How much further?" She asked in response.

"Can't be far now." Hudd said before he suddenly sniffed the air. "You smell that?"

"Yeah." Rebbeca nodded. "Smoke."

The undoubted smell of burning wood rolled over the humans. A few pockets of nervous chatter broke out all throughout the groups.

"What do you think it is?" Rebbeca asked. "Could it be Jacob? Matt?"

"I don't think so." He said through grit teeth. He was looking straight ahead at the traces of daylight that could be seen a few dozen yards away.

"Listen up everyone!" He shouted now. "Let's keep it together. Were almost out of this."

Hudd picked up his pace and those behind him did the same. All were anxious to get out of the forest. As more daylight became visible, they moved faster.

By the time they reached the exit, Hudd was just shy of sprinting. But he stopped in his tracks at what was before him.

"Woah." was all he could say. The look on his face was that of awe and confusion. Nearly everyone who emerged from the forest had the same expression.

"What happened here?!" Rebbeca exclaimed.
Less than a tenth of a mile in front of them was Ponyville, but it was not what anyone had expected.

No resistance, no provisions, no defenses, no ponies.

Ponyville's structures were charred with most having collapsed walls or roofs. Black smoke rose from fires deeper in the town that had not yet gone out. With little to no wind it ascended nearly straight up, making it visible for miles. No one knew how extensive the damage was inside, but now, the thought running through everyone's mind was that Ponyville was destroyed.

************************
__________________________________________________________________________________

Matt and Jacob a been following along side the river a few miles. It had gradually slowed and widened and the canyon walls on both sides had sloped down so that they were now on the same level.

For at least the last ten minutes it had been this way and now Matt thought now was a good time.

"Should we start heading west now?" He asked.

Jacob thought it over before saying, "Yeah." Though when he turned towards the forest he had second thoughts.

"Damn." he said. The forest floor was black. The trees were so close together they blocked out nearly all sunlight.

Matt stood just behind the tree line. He looked behind him to what was a pretty sunny and warm day, however in the forest it was a complete opposite.

"How can it be so dark?" Matt wondered.

"I don't know but the sooner we get through it the better." Jacob brought out his flash light and headed into the forest.

For a few minutes things went relatively smoothly. Each of them had a few stumbles and stubbed toes from roots, but other than that they were fine. But Matt still had a pistol in his hand.

"This place..." Jacob muttered. "I got to say its creeping me out."

"Try thinking about something else."

"Like what?"

"Think of Ponyville." Matt answered, it was what he was on his mind.

"I don't know if I'll be-" He stopped mid sentence. He focused in on something in front of him. Suddenly he got low and covered his flash light with his hands. Matt crouched too.

"Did you hear that?" Jacob asked. Matt listened. He too could hear something...it crunched around in the leaves and twigs a maybe two dozen yards in front of them.

As they listened more, they could tell that it wasn't getting any closer.

Jacob moved first, taking a slow crouched step.

"Wait!" Matt whispered. Do we really want to go towards that?"

"It could be the other two guys." Jacob said taking another step.

"Matt put a hand on his shoulder to stop him." Yeah, or it could be something else waiting to take our heads off."

"We'll just have a quick look then; see what it is and then get out."

Matt nodded reluctantly to this plan and stepped forward with Jacob. As they approached Matt almost screamed. A dark figure had darted across their path a few yards ahead. But neither of them could tell if it was human or not. A few moments later the crunching sounds were joined by wet noises and the sound of something being ripped. Matt's had gripped tightly around the gun. He ad never been more scared in Equestria, not even with the Hydra. At least he had been able to see it. Now, with Jacobs hand firmly covering the flash lights beam, a faint red light was all they had.

After a few more steps, Matt was able to see what was making the noise. Fear took hold of his entire body and he brought his arm up to stop Jacob who was scanning the ground for things he could trip on.

"Oh my god." Jacob said in the quietest voice he could manage. The other two humans were indeed in front of them, but their torsos had been ripped open by two creatures which currently had their faces buried in them. At the moment Matt couldn't make out what they looked like exactly, but it was apparent that they resembled felines and were easily as big as a pick-up truck.

"We have to back up." Matt said. "No way we're getting past them."

"Right." Jacob agreed. "We go back, follow the river for a bit more, then try again."

They both were in agreement and started to walk backwards very slowly. But the combination of darkness, fear and walking backwards didn't work out too well for them.

Jacob had the flashlight and could guess pretty well what was behind him if he stuck to the same path. Matt did not have this luxury. So when he tripped on a root, all hell broke loose.

Oddly enough, it was not the sound of his fall that alerted the creatures in front of them to their presence. Matt fell into Jacob, who was able to catch him. He grunted at the pain caused by the pressure on his injury, but was able to keep most of it on the inside.

In unexpectedly catching Matt, Jacob had dropped his flashlight. It bounced around after hitting the root below it and when it finally settled, its beam was pointed directly ahead.

The two creatures that were now illuminated slowly lifted their heads and turned to face Matt and Jacob. Both had bodies of a lion, but with some extra features. Red wings rose on their backs and were complimented by an equally red tail which ended in a point resembling a scorpion.

One roared and leaped at Matt. He screamed and fired his pistol. He fired four shots and each one connected in the beast's belly. It slid to a stop just a inches away from Matt's feet.

"Run!" Jacob shouted. He snatched up his flashlight and took off, yelling various profanities throughout the forest.

Matt scrambled to his his feet and followed the light of the flashlight. Behind him he could hear the roar of the creature. It was soon followed by subsequent noises farther to his left and right.

"I think there's more!" Matt shouted ahead.

"Just keep going!" Jacob shouted.

Moments later he exploded from the treeline. Matt followed seconds after him. Behind him the forest was alive with roars and noises from animals he couldn't even recognize.

The two began wading through the water, with Jacob making sure to hold his bag over his head as they sunk to their waists.

Halfway across the river, the creatures began to show themselves. One by one, they ran to the onto the river bank. They slid to a stop just before the water and jumped and paced around in frustration.

Matt reached the other side of the bank and joined Jacob who stood still watching the creature on the opposite side. Eight of them in all. Some roared at them from across the river. Others took a quick step into the water to then quickly jump away.

Matt raised his pistol, but Jacob shook his head.

"Don't. I doubt they can use those wings and we wouldn't want to attract anything on this side either." Her said.

"So what do we do?" Matt asked.

"We have to keep moving." Jacob said tiredly.

20 minutes later...

As the two trudged on, the creatures opposite the river followed for a few minutes before snarling and slinking back into the forest.

As time went on, the two were drained, mentally and physically. Matt had to dip his face in the river a few times to keep from sitting down to rest for a moment.

Sooner or later they would have undoubtedly stopped had they not discovered something.

The river widened more and eventually opened into a small bay. When Matt and Jacob saw them, their jaws dropped in surprise. One was floating in the water and the other was beached in the sand. Two ships, obviously military, were in the bay. The ship in the sand had three enormous turbines on its stern and a deflated air cushion underneath it. A loading door in the front was opened and two unmistakable tracks of tank treads as well as boot prints were in the sand. The tracks lead off down the beach- not where Matt and Jacob wanted to go.

At top of the craft, a flag seemed to wave in the wind down to them. Jacob recognized it- the Russian Navy. A smile crept across his face.

They weren't the only humans in Equestria.

Chapter 10: Matt's Vendetta

Matt and Jacob had waded across the river once more so that they were now on the correct side. They were filled with energy from seeing the Russian ships. In the last hour their morale had risen from a few events. For one they were able to avoid the forest completely and they now walked through a hilly grassland. From here nothing could sneak up on them. It also gave them a view of the vertical plume of smoke that rose a few miles away. They both assumed it was coming from Ponyville, but debated on whether or not it was caused by the Russians or Hudd and the others.

However as they continued the grass became lower and patchy. Eventually it stopped completely and the soil became more sandy with rocks and boulders embedded in it.

Jacob ran and climbed on top of one and pointed ahead. "I see Ponyville! Only about two miles away, we're almost there!"
Matt didn't respond. He stared over at something to his left.

"Matt, did you hear me?" Jacob asked as he jumped down.

"Yeah." Matt said, not looking at him. He started moving over to the field, his pace quickened with every step. When got to the middle, he stopped.

Jacob soon arrived next to him. "Whoa." He said as they both peered down into a small hole straight down in the earth. "Wouldn't want to fall down there!" He joked and stepped away.

"Actually, thats just what I was considering." Matt said seriously

"What are talking about?" Jacob said. "You know whats down there?"

"Yes. I know where leads. I can't explain, but I have to go down there." Matt his feet in the pit and sat on the edge.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jacob said getting frustrated. " Ponyville is right there! Everyone else is only like 20 minutes away. What is this this all of the sudden. "

"I told you I can't explain now, but it's something from my days in Equestria. I'm not asking you to help me, you can head to Ponyville now, but I've got to do something first."

Jacob wanted to leave, to aid his friends in Ponyville. But he also cared what happened to Matt. This was something that he obviously felt strongly about. He couldn't leave him here alone.

"Wait." He sighed. " I want to come with you."

***************

Hudd took the lead entering Ponyville. His hands were gripped tightly to his assault rifle. His pace was slow and cautious as he walked past the burned out buildings, aiming his rifle up at empty windows whenever he heard a noise.

"Come on." He called back. There were a few who stayed with him, but the vast majority clumped as one giant mass of people and moved together. As Hudd moved further down the stone path he had to step around large, dismantled, wooden piece of equipment that had been positioned in the middle of the road. Behind it were four dead unicorns. The ponies were covered in silvery armor. Hudd picked up the helmet from one of them and held it up. Sunlight funneled through a small, bloody hole in the back.

"Interesting." He said to himself. He turned and showed the helmet. "Look like they knew we were coming." He said before he threw it back with the other bodies and continued on.

He started passing more and more pony bodies. They were positioned in lines on either side of the street. Some were burned from the fires while others were partially buried from sections of walls that collapsed.

A quarter mile later, the road ended up at a spacious circular grass plaza with one building, like a city hall, in the center. The top of the building would have ended in a spire, but it had been blown off and was now stuck in the earth.

Hudd walked the perimeter of the circle and saw the seven main main roads the connected to it, three of which crossed a very small creek.

"We'll set up here." He said when he had completed his loop. Everyone nodded and began to set up. Everyone was happy to be free of their equipment. The heavier weapons, the M134, mortars and the heavy MGs, were set down in an orderly fashion. Another group began unpacking and setting up the generators.

However, most partook in simply finding a place to sit and rest.

"Get that radio working." Rebecca said as she walked with Hudd past one group. "See if we can't get in contact with our bureau."

Next they moved to a few guys who were sprawled in the grass. "You, you, you, you and you." Hudd said pointing to each of them. "Get some weapons and see if you can find a pony alive so we can figure out what happened here. If you get one, bring back here and come find me." The tiredly agreed and got up. Once Rebbeca assured him she would be alright, he left with them.

*************

Hudd stood in front of a destroyed building. It was one of many on the eastern side of town. After only a few minutes it was clear that Ponyville's destruction had come from humans.

Bullet casings littered the ground as well as empty magazines and spent shotgun shells. Near some of the ongoing structure fires were empty red gas cans. Whoever had been here had to have been well supplied to waste gas this. He thought.

But his most interesting find was on the outskirts of the city. There were deep continuous tracks in the ground that led to Ponyville then turned and left in the same direction "Christ, a tank?!" He said suddenly feeling like he was lacking in the hardware department.

"Hudd!" A voice came from behind him and turned to see one of the guys he'd to search the town. "There you are! We found a pony... alive."

Hudd ran back to the center of the city where two men were dragged screaming pony to the center of a forming crowd. He yelled in pain as his injured leg scrapped on the ground, leaving a fresh trail of blood

"Pick him up!" Hudd shouted, fearing that he would pass out. "Set him down here." he pointed to a spot in the grass where the crying pony was gently placed.

"Can you speak?" Hudd asked.

"Yes." The pony said through labored breaths.

"Good. Because there are things some things I'd like to know."

***************

Matt, you have to tell me where this ends up." Jacob said. Matt had led him down a tunnel and had only told him to be on his guard. He was fine with helping Matt accomplish whatever it was he wanted, but he didn't want to kept completely in the dark.

Matt remained silent. He steered the way through the tunnel with Jacob's flashlight. Matt's whole demeanor had changed. He seemed darker, more serious in nature.

Back at the bureau Jacob had heard stories from some of the converts. They were tales of horror. Some converts were made to work for up to 18 hours a day in fields, orchards, clothing sweats and, worst of all, the dreaded rock farms. If they didn't fulfill their obligations, they would be exiled from Equestria and forced to live in the decaying human lands.The way Matt acted, Jacob became certain that he too had gone through some similar treatment. That in mind he decided not to push anymore. He followed silently behind him until the tunnel split.

It had led them to a chamber with seven paths all with different angles. Matt had stopped in front of him. He looked across from tunnel to tunnel, trying to remember which one.

"This way." He said pulling his pistol out. He moved slowly to the darkest tunnel on his very left. "Are you ready?" he asked

Jacob checked his own gun, his clip was full. "Yeah... What're you doing?"

Matt had his pistol pointed at the ceiling. "Better to have them come to us and get it over quickly." He pulled the trigger and the shot reverberated through the corridor and raced through the tunnels

Moments later a series of howls came from the entrances around them.
Jacob took an uneasy step back.

"What is that, wolves?" He asked. Seconds later he got his answer. He heard snarling in the tunnel above him. He looked up as a large, furry brown creature in iron armor pouncing.

He fired up and got two shots through his armor. "Jesus!" He exclaimed jumping back as it fell in front of him. It resembled a bull dog, but with one or two, very odd human qualities.

"No not wolves." Matt said he killed one that tried to charge him. "Diamond Dogs!"

He began to move cautiously forward into the tunnel dropping two more as he went. Jacob followed, watching behind them.

"That one looks familiar." A scratchy, high voice suddenly echoed through the tunnel.

"Yess! It's himm again." A similar sounding, but different voice said. Matt looked around and checked the ceiling. Something was watching them.

"Where is she?!" Matt shouted.

"Whyy would he want to see her again?" One hidden voice asked.

"Could he be holding a grudge?" The other answered. There was a pause before both of them started snickering. This enraged Matt who charged forward, leaving Jacob in the dust.

"Matt wait a second!" Jacob shouted. He dodged a spear and shot back at another guard. Ahead of him, he heard a few more shots.

Jacob started running through the winding path to catch up with Matt. He feared that it would split like it had before. Moments later he began to understand what Matt had gone through.

Huge lights fell from the ceiling and illuminated a cavern big enough to hold at least a dozen helicopters. Huge columns rose from the ground every 100 feet or so to support the massive ceiling. Tracks with carts criscrossed the ground. In them were precious stones, the likes of which he had never seen. No gold or sliver, but transparent, flawlessly cut gems of various colors. It was a huge operation, but at the moment there was no one around except Matt a few yards in front of him.

He kicked a dead diamond dog over until it laid next to another one. Both had vests of different colors on.

"I got em." He said when Jacob joined him.

"Good,uh, can we leave now?" Jacob said.

"Not yet." Matt said coldly as he moved on.

Minutes Later...

"This is it." Matt said. He stood in front of huge circular door on the opposite end of the mine. "She should be behind here." He said as he pushed against it, completely ineffective.

Jacob unzipped his the bag that had been on his back. "Hold on, I've got something."

"Lets hope the whole mine doesn't come down." Matt said. He was now taking cover behind a column with Jacob, who had placed a few of the charges from his backpack o the door.

"It wont." Jacob said, though he was not completely sure himself. He squeezed the trigger on a detonator and door blew to pieces, throwing shrapnel all around the cave.

Matt moved quickly. As soon the dust settled he was gone from the column and moving through the now open doorway, weapon drawn.

Jacob went after him, but Matt had frozen before the pony in front of him.

Her body was light pink with a purple mane and tale with a white stripe going down the middle of each. A beautiful ornately crafted, pure diamond crown sat upon her head. She sat on a throne of sorts made from solid gold with the multicolored gem stones from the mine.

"Diamond Tiara." Matt said. There was a sound of relief in his voice, like he'd finally found the one thing he'd been looking for. "You're dead you fucking bitch. I'll end you quickly." He held his gun pointed at her head.

"Matt?" She replied. There was clear distaste in her voice as she looked him over. "Yeah Its you. Back again already?"

"For the last time." Matt said. "I'll never be down here again."

"If I remember right, you said that to me a few months ago and three days later, you were back here digging up more gems. All the things we did, all the things to keep you in line, and you and you still came back." She smiled and laughed coldly at him. "You made me a fortune, Matt, more money than my father or anyone could have imagined. I paid you nearly nothing and it was enough to keep you around. Was it that you liked working for me or did you just need me?"

"Shut this bitch up, Matt.", Jacob thought to himself as he watched. They had just got in here, but he had let her talk for too long.

Matt shook his head, he smiled as his eyes welled up. "Not anymore." He pulled the trigger and unloaded his magazine into her head. Before her face was unidentifiable, her expression was that of surprise, like she couldn't believe he had actually shot her.

Her crown had flown off her head and landed in front of her body. Jacob had to pull Matt from stomping on the corpse, which wasn't an easy task. When he finally had him step out of her chamber. He wasn't sure how to take it.

More had happened to Matt down here than being forced to mine gems. Though now, Jacob was sure that he was not going to ask. He no longer wanted to know.

Chapter 11: Assessment (Brief)

2 Days Later...

Hudd was sat inside a check point building on the pony's rail line. The roof was a little low, but in his folding chair, he didn't have to crouch. He had nodded off about an hour ago and now coming out of it. He took a quick look out the window behind him to see if something had changed outside. Once again the view took his breath away. Out of the window, about mile away, was the great Pony city of Canterlot.

Yesterday they'd been picked up by their VTOL's and landed outside of the city. As they were coming in, a huge mass of ponies was forming outside of the city's wall. It was their final force, the last of their defense.

Hudd turned quickly as the door opened and Rebbeca stepped inside. "Bit cramped in here." she said as she arched her back and tilted her head from the ceiling.

"It'll make do." Hudd said. "Lets take another look." He turned back around to the window and took his binoculars from around his neck. Rebbeca joined him with her own.

They peered past an open field to a large, wide bridge that was completely filled with armored ponies. The majority couldn't fit on the bridge, so they spilled out and formed ranks in the field instead.

"My god..." Rebbeca said in disbelief. "How many you think are there?!"

"Few thousand." Hudd said. He wasn't surprised at the number. This was their capital city, this was their last stand.

"See what they're guarding?" Rebbeca asked. Hudd looked beyond the bridge to a door at least three stories high. He looked along the rest of the wall and saw no opening.

"Its just like the pony told us. Its the only way inside the city." Hudd said. When they were back in Ponyville, the injured pony they found had told them more than just about their ambush.

"Look above it, along the wall." she said.

Hudd examined the top of the wall. More ponies stood atop it with spears ready to launch and anything below them. Worse yet, every few dozen yards at the top of the wall was a gap. In the spaces were giant ballistae. Huge bolts were at the ready.
"We'll have to take those down." He said.

"We could have marksmen do it, take out any who try to operate it." Rebbeca offered.

"There's too many of them, another pony would just take their place. It think its a good target for the mortars." Hudd looked far to the right and confirmed something else the pony had told him. Canterlot's wall connected with the mountain side, the face of which was nearly vertical and impossibly high. A waterfall descended quickly along the face. It formed the river the bridge crossed. It flowed faster than any rapids he had ever seen.

"No one can go in that water." He said and pointed her over to the far left side. A steep cliff that led to another waterfall was the cause of the rivers speed. "On the right is a mountain, and the left is a cliff. The only way to get in in straight forward, just like he said."

Hudd looked higher, beyond the city. Canterlot castle was far in the distance, but its many towers were still visible.

"That's where they'll be. " He said.

"Who?"

"The ponies responsible for all of this. Princess Luna, Twilight Sparkle, they'll all be in there. That's where we'll go when we attack."

"Speaking of which, when will we?" She asked. Hudd checked his watch.

"Its almost seven in the evening now, so I'm thinking tomorrow. After the last round of transports, well have, what, 1,600 people? I'd rather hit them now and not give them anymore time to prepare."

Rebbeca nodded. "Very well, I'll tell them to get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we hit them."

***************

The Same Moment...

Shining Armor looked out from a balcony at Canterlot castle. He was utilizing a powerful pair of magic binoculars which allowed him to see farther and with greater detail than with an ordinary pair. He was watching his forces progress as they prepared for what looked to be their final battle. This was not the first time the City was to be under attack. Before he was born it had stood tall against the Griffon's failed siege. Over a decade ago it had held up against an internal changeling invasion, although, admittedly that victory belonged to his sister and his wife.

His main motivation to defend Canterlot would be to keep them safe. Cadence was, for the moment, safe in the Crystal Kingdom, but Twilight was resting in his quarters at the Castle. She was getting much better, but still couldn't be completely on her own yet.

"Hey." Storm Hammer's voice came from behind him.

"How'd it go?" Shining asked.

"Luna's on board." He said flatly. "She'll fight when the time comes. "

"Excellent!" Shining said. "We'll need her."

"Anything else? Sir." Storm Hammer spit out the last part. After the complete disaster in Ponyville, it was a unanimous decision that he be removed and Shining Armor be in charge of Canterlot's defense. Needless to say, Storm Hammer was not happy. He now reported to Shining, something he despised doing, but did it anyway.

Shining Armor sighed. He really didn't have time to care about how Storm Hammer felt. "How are things outside?"

"4,800 prepared to fight and die outside the wall and another 1,500 inside. 6 trebuchets ready behind the wall, and 12 Ballistae along the top of it. Our war balloon are ready to drop magic bombs on your say so. Whats going on out there?"

Shining turned and took another look. "Can't really tell, the mountain side slopes down, so I can't see how many they have, but every 45 minutes or so their aircraft drop off a few dozen more. "He scanned closer and passed an old rail security checkpoint. "Wait a sec... Looks like some humans have the same idea." He held the binoculars up to Storm Hammer. Two humans with binoculars were in the window. They weren't looking at them, most likely observing activity on the wall.

"Hmm." Storm Hammer grunted.

Shining thought for minute as he continued to watch the humans. "Do you think its enough?" He asked finally.

"What?"

"Our defense, do you think it will be enough?"

"Honestly?" Storm Hammer had no emotion. "No. I don't think it's enough. I think our defense will be an exercise in futility. Their technology is simply too advanced. It gives them too much of an advantage. Not even magic can come close to equalizing it. I once thought it could, but clearly I was wrong. Sure we might be able to hold out for a little while, but sooner or later even this great castle will fall. It is hopeless. It will be the single greatest defeat in the history of our kind... and it will come at your hooves. Congratulations, Captain."

Author's Note

Brief chapter. The final battle is coming.

Chapter 12: The Gate

September 28, 2033, Morning

Hudd stood on top of the checkpoint building as an army of humans moved past him. They were just minutes away from beginning their assault on the great pony city of Canterlot. Their opposition was a thick mass of ponies roughly a third of a mile in front of them. His force was much smaller and the ponies outnumbered them roughly 4 to 1. But he was not worried, he was angry.

Standing here, so close to bringing them down, brought back memories of the hardships of the past few years. Memories of what the ponies had done was the motivation of most everyone there.

When the humans ceased moving forward there was no more than a tenth mile between the two front lines. For the moment, neither side made a move and all was still.

"Hudd, we're ready on your go." Rebbeca said through the radio. She was in first line with a LMG in her hands and a shotgun around her back.

Hudd took a slow breath. It started now. "Alright good luck. Mortars on my mark. 3, 2, 1."

On his go, the mortar teams behind him fired their first rounds. They flew past the humans and devastated the pony ranks, sending more than a few flying.

The ponies had only mere seconds of confusion before they sent up a collective battle cry and started charging forward to meet the human lines.

Loud yells rose up from the humans as the first blood had been spilled on the battlefield. Those in the very front with machine guns and assault rifles began laying down fire and sending hundreds of bullets across the dwindling space between the two species.

Dozens upon dozens of ponies were cut down in the front. However more ponies kept coming and as their lines became more and more spread out they were getting closer. It was made worse by the fact that a few dozen pegasi had flown above the battlefield and carried earth and unicorns ponies with them. They moved faster and were more evasive so they were given the priority.

A few more mortar rounds exploded, but the ponies seemed unfazed. They were galloping now, with the strongest earth ponies in front. Some of the unicorns had magical shields in front of them to deflect bullets. The weaker ones could produce one that performed well enough against them, but gave no protection against the mortar shells.

Hudd looked through his binoculars and found one pony that was making an extremely large one. He was farther back in the ranks and was making a pink, spherical shield that surrounded dozens of ponies around him. It was a white unicorn with a dark and light blue mane and tail. He had on purple and gold armor that no one else wore, so Hudd assumed that he was important.

As the pegasi got closer and quickly closed the gap, nearly all attention was turned to them, giving the ponies on the ground a window to move in. The faster and more agile pegasi were able to dive and avoid being shot until the were over the human lines. They would then drop a few ceramic balls the size of oranges, before reversing direction and heading full speed back to the wall.

When Hudd first saw the containers dropping he thought it was more ponification fluid, which amused him. They had liters of there own serum, the tiniest bit of which, would have the revert them back to humans. Attempting to ponify any of them would be only a briefly set them back.

However when the balls hit the ground, a blinding bright light flashed quickly, and left a few of people around it momentarily blinded. White smoke filled the air in front of them after the initial flash. The few seconds of pause were all the ponies needed and the first of them met with the human line. The earth ponies with the strongest legs were the first to reach them. The most unlucky of them were hit from blind fire through the smoke and slid to a stop just a few feet from the humans.

Those that did get through, turned away and with lightning speed bucked their hooves into human chests. The force would knock a good many of them down and those who didn't get up in time were trampled underneath wave after wave of hooves. The only ones who weren't affected by the first ponies, were those with shotguns. They waited until ponies were right in front of them and then eliminate them with single shots.

But only a few carried shotguns and eventually the rest of the ponies collided with the human line.

When the unicorns arrived and with their magic, they blasted any humans off their feet who were caught reloading. However because most unicorns had to be close to be effective and the humans quickly learned that a melee hit a rifle butt could stop one.

With the ponies and humans now engaging head on, Hudd could no longer observe from the roof. He grabbed his pistol and a metal baseball bat, the same one he had used to beat Princess Celestia into submission months ago, and jumped down to join the battle.

**************

Shining Armor moved up quickly across the battlefield. His forces had already gotten past what he knew would be the most difficult part and had made it past the field and made contact with the humans.

As he ran explosions hit all around him, but he had created a giant bubble shield which was holding up well.

He was also confident he had identified at least one of the leaders of the human army and was going to attempt taking him out. He had been on roof of the rail building observing before the battle had begun and wore a black vest that he couldn't seen anyone else wearing.

He was seconds away front arriving where the action was which, due to the proximity, was being fought almost exclusively horn and hoof to hand. He now thought it was time for the second phase of defense.

He let his shield fade away and from his horn, shot a vertical beam of green light into the air. Moments later huge bolts from the city wall flew over him. The bolts were magic and as they lost altitude they would replicate into seven identical pieces. The bolts sliced through the human formation, impaling some and knocking others to the ground.

"Hold them here!" Shining Armor shouted. The onslaught of bolts was successful, but only as long as the humans remained in one mass. If they managed to break off and scatter, picking them off one by one would be next to impossible. At the moment only a few pony lines blocked the humans from moving forward so that it didn't happen.

But only seconds later it was getting much harder to stop them. More shotguns were being passed to the front and were blasting multiple ponies at a time. Grenades were also being tossed by humans in the middle. After a few well placed throws, their line began to row weaker. Shining and other unicorns were using spells to launch various energy blasts over their troops and into the humans'.

"We can't keep them back any longer!" One unicorn shouted. The humans began finding distance between the ponies and firing heavily into them. It wouldn't be long until they'd break out and be all over the place.

It was sooner than he had expected, but he had no choice. Luna would have to be called in.

*****************

The front lines had pushed past the ponies and were moving in towards the castle, they'd scattered and put distance between them and the ponies. The mortars had been ordered to stop firing so the humans could push forward without being killed by their own weapons.

Hudd sprinted past some of his troops on the battlefield. He was now ready for a fight and had located his first victim. A pony had just bucked a human who had fumbled with his mag while he tried to reload. He was about to bring a hoof down on his face, when Hudd ran up from behind. He swung his metal bat with all his might and connected with the back of the pony's head.

The earth pony immediately fell over without even a yelp and blood poured from the new soft spot on his head. Hudd pulled the human to his feet and kept moving.

Hudd was extremely deadly with his pistol/bat combo. He would charge his enemies, taking them head on. He would move his bat gracefully like one would with a one handed sword. He'd hit them in their legs and sweep them off their hooves before killing them with single shots to the head as he stepped quickly past them.

Unicorns were the only ponies on the ground to cause him even the slightest bit of a problem. As he ran to them, they launched all types of magic at him to which he spun around, jumped over and dodged. Stronger unicorns made evading more difficult and if it was too much for him, he'd simply take them out with a pistol at a farther range.

Pegasi were also tricky, they were fast. In addition to carrying what was basically pony stun grenades, they also carried balls that contained unicorn magic. When they threw and dropped these at humans, various effects from fire and ice bombs to miniature tornadoes and hurricanes would spawn from them. Luckily for him these pegasi aimed almost exclusively for larger clusters of humans. Other pegasi carried unicorns in there legs who would shoot long beams of magic across the ground. These pony pairs were much easier to shoot down as they were considerably slower and flew in more predictable paths.

For a while he couldn't find the same powerful unicorn he'd seen before, but a few minutes later his location was given away. Hudd was bashing a unicorn into ground when what look like a dark blue flare shot into the sky and exploded like a firework. Except for color, it was identical to the one the unicorn had launched earlier.

He put in a another mag from his black tactical vest when he noticed something floating in the air a few yards in front of his path. When he focused on it he saw it was a glowing blue orb that was spinning rapidly.

Hudd knew what was coming and stopped in his tracks.

"Wait!" He yelled to the people around him who kept going.

Seconds later the orb exploded. A powerful shockwave spread across the ground sending people that had been closest flying backwards. A blinding light made Hudd cover his eyes and when he opened them again a dark blue pony larger than the others was floating in the air. Princess Luna. Her eyes were white with a blue aura rising from her feet and lightning flashing from small storm clouds that had formed over her. She was clearly very pissed.

"Which one of you killed my sister!?" She yelled in the loudest voice he'd ever heard her use.

"Lunnnnnaaaaaa!" Someone shouted like always when she showed up. Those around her began shooting, but of course it was ineffective. In a flash she hit one in the chest with a powerful rear kick and sent him tumbling backwards twenty feet. Another she enclosed in her magic and sent hundreds of yards into sky before releasing him.

Hudd fought the urge to stick his hand in the air in response to her question and instead paid her no attention at all. He ran to his left and yelled at others to not engage her.

"Not this time, bitch." He said to himself. Months ago he had learned that there was in fact a way to hurt alicorns. Now they were not as helpless as they had previously been against her.

"Aaron!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Dammit, Aaron, where the fuck are you?!" Far behind him Luna was wreaking havoc. She'd started soaring upwards and coming back down again riding a giant, white ball of energy that resembled a tiny, bright moon. It would light the entire battlefield and made air many degrees colder. Any humans or ponies caught directly under it would shatter like ice.

."Aaron, there you are!" Hudd yelled relieved that he'd spotted him. Aaron was a decent marksman and was previously elected to handle the exact situation if it arose.

Aaron hit a pony to the ground with his rifle butt, then lit him up. Hudd moved towards him and reached into one of the pockets on his vest and pulled out the only magazine that was not for his pistol. The curved mag had two small red squares painted on each side, meaning it contained the special rounds. Bullets coated in dried blood of the other alicorn they'd encountered.

"Cover me."Aaron said once Hudd had reached him. He loaded the mag into his HK416 and took aim at Luna as she was rising up for another attack. Hudd watched their perimeter and shot a pegasus out of the sky that had been carrying a unicorn.

"Make them count." Hudd said as Aaron tracked Luna's rapid descent. "We don't have that many."

As Luna got closer and closer to the ground, the ball of energy started to develop. She was about to bring it down on top of a large group of people when Aaron fired four times. There was loud scream and the magic sphere dispersed harmlessly into the ground with a bit of dark smoke. When it cleared Luna was nowhere to be found.

"She teleported, find her!" Hudd shouted as he checked the sky around him.

"There!" Aaron said as he took aim again. She was now much farther away in the sky and flying towards the Castle beyond the city a few hundred yards away. He took one shot, then another, but it was no use. She was too far away and her flight path dropped and rose unpredictably like a mosquito. It was due to one of the bullets going through one of her wings. Her right front leg had also been hit and hung awkwardly. "I got her!" He shouted when he had seen the damage. "Shes hurt."

"Keep that magazine handy." Hudd told him as he watched Luna get closer to the castle and quite possibly medical attention. "We are going to finish her off once and for all; no way shes getting out of it this time. Now come, were almost to the bridge."

It was true too. Less than 50 yards in front of him the river rushed across the plain. It was way too fast to cross as it continued into a waterfall that fell over the mountain side. The bridge was the only way to cross and right now it being guarded heavily by a few hundred ponies who had fallen back. The bridge itself was also completely full of ponies that hadn't even moved yet. Hudd began to move in towards it, but the ponies where determined to keep the humans away from it.

Pegasi were showing there effectiveness. They rose far above the battlefield and dropped their bombs on anyone below. Only a few still carried unicorns with them and they were still using their magic to halt the human advance. Anybody who stopped to take aim at them became perfect targets for unicorns and earth ponies on the ground.

The earth ponies had upped their game from bucking to chucking spears. The weaker unicorns would make shields large enough to protect three ponies: themselves, a stronger unicorn for offense and an earth pony to throw spears.

They ponies weren't extraordinarily accurate, but a couple or so would hit their targets in the stomach or legs. To counter this grenade launchers came into use. They could get projectiles behind the shields and take out the unicorns that created them.

As pony numbers began to dwindle, Hudd continued to move up and forgot about one other method of defense, the ballistae on the wall.

At the current range most humans were easy targets. Most of the bolts they used were magic and would split into multiples on their downward arc. Many people had been run through with replicates as they tried to avoid the original. They were still able to move up, but progress was slow.

Hudd was still determined though. He could see the gate that separated him from Canterlot. He continued to charge forward at his same pace. Any pony that wasn't behind a shield was pummeled and shot by him. When he spotted the same powerful unicorn from before shouting orders at certain ponies, he was filled with more energy.

However as he got closer to the bridge, things became too overwhelming for him to handle himself. He was taking on three and four ponies at a time, while dodging pegasi and unicorn magic.

It all ended, however as he happened to look up. A ballista bolt had just been fired and had a red-ish glow to it as it cut through the air towards him. He ran a few yards to the side fearing it would split, but instead it took on another effect.

When the bolt launched it was the about the size of a railroad track. However when it came down suddenly enlarged to the sized of the locomotive. Hudd's eyes widened at the enormous piece of pointed metal that zoomed in his direction.

"Shit!" Hudd exclaimed as he dived as best he could out of the way. When it hit the ground, it dug in deep and dirt and rocks were thrown in huge quantities from the impact. As the hunk of metal slowed, it carved a deep long trench along the ground. Seconds later when it finally fell still, pieces of earth still fell from the sky.

Hudd was still alive, though his legs were buried under a mound of dirt and other material. His eyes were open, but for a few moments he was completely disoriented. While in this state he could see the unicorn in control staring at him. The pony seemed to realize who Hudd was and began to walk over to him with his horn light brightly. He was only a couple yards away when something happened that Hudd did not see coming.

He was laying on his stomach with the side of his face on the ground. He could feel the ground starting rumble. As the seconds went on, it got more and more noticeable. A quick glance to the unicorn in purple armor showed that he felt it too. He uneasily looked at his shaking hooves and then to something beyond the now distant check point building. The pony started to retreat, but not before flashing a evil look of "next time." to Hudd.

When Hudd pulled himself free he could hear something behind him. An engine, a damn powerful one by the sound of it. For a moment the battle was put on pause as humans and ponies looked back to the building.

Seemingly out of absolutely nowhere, a large green and brown tank made an appearance over the top of the hill. It continued at full speed to where the fight now took place. Everyone had been watching in awe as it moved closer, but only when the gunner starting firing the Machine gun at the ponies, was everyone snapped out of it. Back on the hill, around four dozen soldiers in dark green combat uniforms rushed onto the scene. They looked exactly like Russians that had flown to their base months ago in the States.

They ran in past most of the other humans and started the battle up again. A hole was made for the tank which didn't stop for a pair of unicorns who thought that their shields would protect them from it. The huge cannon was taking out the balistae on the wall like they were constructed of sticks. The machine gunner was tearing ponies into pieces that attempted to form some kind of stand against it in front of the bridge.

As the troops moved up, Hudd stopped one of them.

"Who are you guys with, Severov?" He asked one of them.

The soldier blinked at him. "You know of Severov?" He asked with heavy Russian accent. "Are you the man called 'Hudd'?" Hudd nodded and then soldier smiled at him. "Commander Severov spoke of you. He sends his regards. Stay close to the tank while we take the bridge."

Hudd liked that idea stayed close behind it as it gingerly moved onto the bridge. At first he wasn't sure it could take the weight, but it managed to hold strong.

"Fall back! Fall back!" He could hear the commanding unicorn shout to his remaining troops between lapses in machine gun fire. The ponies scrambled back into the city as gates closed, but it mattered not. The tank simply blew the gates apart in a single shot.

It crawled over the rubble of the mangled metal gates and was the first to enter the Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria. Hudd was among the first people on foot to enter the city. He would be followed by a bridge full of surviving humans who were waiting to get in themselves.

Now they take the city.

Chapter 13: The City

“Were almost out of here. I can feel it.” Matt reassured. Jacob found a foothold in the rock and climbed a bit higher.

“This is like, the second day you’ve told me that.” He said grumpily. “I need out of this place.”

After killing Diamond Tiara, Matt and Jacob never left the tunnels. Matt told of a way to get to Canterlot by traveling through tunnels. On a whim they had both decided to go for it, but now Jacob was seriously thinking twice about it.

The previous day, the tunnels, which had once been all smooth and uniform, had turned into an undeveloped cave system. The floor became uneven and slippery with water droplets dripping from above and forming stalagmites. The ceiling had lowered dramatically and in more than a few areas they had to crouch. In a few most extreme cases, crawling was necessary, with Jacob's bag full of charges scraping against the ceiling. Moving through the cave was difficult and would've been equally hard for a pony, but still they hadn't turned back. Periodically they would find very old carvings of arrows pointing ahead reading "Canterlot" on the walls. They could only hope they were getting closer.

In the past six hours, the path had gradually turned diagonally upwards. It wasn't very steep, but occasionally there would be a struggle to find a way up.

"It's gotten alot colder. I'll bet we're in the mountains now, which would explain the climbing." Matt said.

"You think they made it to Canterlot yet?" Jacob asked.

"I'll bet that too. They're probably-" The cave walls suddenly shook slightly. Water and dust splashed lightly on their heads. "Shit. Earthquake?" He asked.

Jacob placed his ear on the cave wall. He heard frequent rumbles, like thunder, before the cave shook again. "Maybe we should pick up the pace." He said with a worry voice.

They moved hurriedly now and with greater purpose. They were determined not to be stuck in such a dark dank place.

Matt led the way with the flashlight and minutes later he illuminated a small hatch. The caves exit. "Canterlot" was carved across the middle with a arrow pointing straight ahead.

"Thank god." Jacob said relieved. He started ramming the door with his shoulder as it had no knob, handle or latch. Evenually he cracked it open a bit.

The light was the first thing that hit them. By it, they guessed it was near or around midday. The cold was the second thing. The cave temperature danced around 40 Fahrenheit, but now it was well below freezing. Snow and wind hit them in their faces while they pushed the door as far open as it would go.

Jacob stepped out first and shivered as he tried to cover his arms. "You were right, we were in the mountains." He said as he looked below.

"We won't survive long in this weather." Matt said as he looked around.

"You're right, but look." Jacob pointed to a city in the green valley below. It was Canterlot and it was very close. "We made it."

"See that?" Matt pointed to a bridge that crossed a river. There were dozens of people crossing it and a few hundred more waiting in a field before it. They both caught a quick glimpse of a tank before it disappeared under the wall. "From the the ships on the beach no doubt."

Jacob was able to make out a small skinny path that was mostly covered with snow. "They're moving into the city, we need to do the same.

****************

Hudd thought chaos perfectly described the scene before him as he entered Canterlot. The tank partially blocked his view, but he could still see dozens of pony's behind it in the opening square. They looked surprised and horribly unprepared for the vehicle that had rolled into their city. Hudd could tell by the facial expressions that most were deciding whether to run or not.

The tank wasted no time in their moment of indecision. The gunner fired continuously and the rapidness in which the ponies fell added to the rising panic.

A few unicorns did try to attack, but most were killed by the russian troops who spilled out on either side of their tank. Hudd emerged from the right side into the massive plaza with a single tower rising from the middle. Hudd ran with a few others and slid into cover behind a fountain. They leaned over the concrete barrier along with a few others and fired. The targets were the ponies who were trying to load a few catapults on either side of the tower. It took a team of six ponies to load and operate, and when two were down, the others would abandon it.

"Fall Back! Go go go!" A pony kept shouting. As more people came through the wall ponies more and more ponies began to follow his orders. They retreated down the two main roads that split in a 'V' shape at the end of the plaza.

Apparently ponies in the tower hadn't heard. The unicorns fired bursts of energy down from small balconies on certain levels. They knocked out bricks from the fountain and spilled water over the people taking cover behind it. Earth ponies threw spears harmlessly at the tank which had not fired its main gun since it had entered the city.

One of the Russian soldiers was shouting something into a radio. After second later the tank's turret adjusted its aim so that it would hit about halfway up the tower.

Hudd swore he saw one unicorn's terrified expression before the tank fired. The round went through the balcony opening and exploded within the tower. The top half of it started to crumble with little to no support from below. Eventually the weight became too great and the top half, instead of falling over, imploded on itself. Rubble covered ponies came storming out of the tower ready to fight and were followed by a ton of smoke. The machine gunner made quick work of them as soon as they came into view. When the dust cleared, there were no more living ponies in the plaza.

A Russian held his gun in the air and cheered to his teammates in brief celebration at the area they had seized.

"Hudd there you are!" He looked to the gate and saw Rebbecca coming towards him. "Glad you made." She said.

"You had doubts?" He Said smiling as he gazed towards what looked like medieval castle that over looked. "We need to take the city and get it under our control before we move in for the castle."

"The tank should make that much easier."

Hudd nodded as one of the Russians came up to him. "Are you coming?" He asked. Their tank had moved in on the right side of the V and they were waiting.

"I'm coming. Just a sec." He said as he turned to Rebbeca again. "I'm heading down there with them. You take our people and lead them down the opposite street."

"Got it. The city will be ours street by street."

"Nice. Stay in touch on your radio if you need us." He began walking away. "Oh and if you see Aaron, send him to me. He could come in handy. "

***************************

"Враги в открытом! Пятьдесят метров!" A soldier shouted.

"Ponies at 50 meters!" One near Hudd translated.

"I see them." He said. In front of them a few groups of ponies quickly crossed the street and ran into two or three different buildings on the left side. As soon as they were spotted, a barrage unicorn magic and spears started coming buildings on both sides of the street.

Hudd kicked open a door and he and four others quickly took cover inside a house. A Russian knelt a few feet behind a window and fired back providing just enough suppression to allow soldiers who were still in the street to find cover. The rest of his team and Hudd cleared the building floors quickly.

When they were sure it was abandoned, one of them brought out a radio and kept asking, "Какое здание они были в?" to his comrades. After everyone else shook their heads, he turned to Hudd, who'd been examining certain aspects of the house, to ask the same question. "Did you see the buildings they shot from?"

"I didn't, but look." He pointed to window that did not lead to the main street. " We can find out."

The second and last Russian solider dropped from the window and into an alleyway between two buildings. Hudd moved towards the street as bullets and magic whizzed back and forth.

Hudd laid flat on his stomach with his head at ground level and peeked around the corner. He saw ponies shooting from second story windows in buildings about one 250 ft long block away. However there was one building much closer that had lots of movement in it. He could see it was ponies in windows lying in wait for the humans to pass.

He finally moved away from the street and back over to the soldier with the radio. "The grey and white one with the tower, second floor and the red one adjacent to it on the left side." As he said them, they were repeated in Russian through the radio.

Moments later the ground shook as the tank rolled up the street, its gun aimed at the targets. Smoke and debris exploded from the buildings as they were each taken out. Hudd stood up and and shot around the corner from the alley at any ponies who tried to fall back.

That's how things went for a while, soldiers calling out targets and the tank eliminating them. They'd move through and clear buildings, homes and stores on each street side. Progress was made slowly this way, but removed the chance of being hit in the back by hiding ponies.

Every couple of block the ponies would start shooting at them again, but it made little impact. In the heart of the city there was nothing they possessed to stop the tank. The only worry Hudd had was that it might run out of shells, but even with all the targets they had called, the firing of its main gun was very reserved. They relied mostly on the tank's machine gunner who was able to kill some ponies in building without wasting the main gun's ammunition.

The marksman Aaron had also joined them. He would climb to rooftops and warn them of ponies become they'd come into view on the street. He could also pick off certain ponies who waited to ambush them of roofs and pegasi who tried to assault them from the air.

Canterlot Castle was not 300 yards away when the first challenge was presented to them. The straight road took a sharp left and the ponies had dug in deep in the buildings around the turn. To the right there was no where to move, the mountain side had marked the edge of the city. In front were three and four story buildings with much smaller ballistae on their roofs. Ponies threw spears from windows and around the corner. If the tank had been there it wouldn't have caused an issue, but wasn't. It and a few Russian soldiers had gone left a few blocks back to help some of their comrades who had been separated. So for now Hudd and the others were left without it.

"Hudd, we've hit a snag." Aaron said as he reloaded. "The ponies have this corner locked down and they really don't want to lose it."

"Whats the problem?"

"Every building on that corner is filled with them and I'm pretty sure the street around there is too. I take out a few of them in the windows and doesn't even make a difference, more take their place,"

"Damn." Hudd spat. There was no word on when or if the tank would be making its way back to them so, they'd have to find something. There was nothing but a mountain face on his right, but on his left, Hudd found something that might work. "You see that bell tower on the top of that building? Get some of the Russians and see if you can't get to the top."

"Got it." Aaron ran to the side to grab a few soldiers to go with him. Hudd fired from around a large piece of a wall with a few others for a moment until a guy next to him loaded a grenade launcher. Once there was a pause in the pony's fire, he leaned over and fired. When the small, 40mm grenade hit under the window the entire corner exploded.

There was a bright blue, soundless flash followed by a delayed 'Pop'. The shockwave shook the ground and nearly knocked Hudd over. The buildings on the corner crumbled into rubble, with only a handful of ponies making it out alive and falling back to the castle. Piece of the wreckage were thrown into the street before a thick cloud of dust and smoke spread all over the block and cut visibility.

"Hudd! What the hell just happened!" Aaron suddenly yelled over the radio.

"Something big just exploded in those houses." He replied as he shook debris from his shoulders. "I think I'm alright though."

"Shit, was it something of ours? I'm still in the tower and can't see a damn thing on the ground."

"I'm not sure. I think it was-" Hudd saw two figures approaching in front of him. "Who's there?" he shouted aiming his gun. As they got closer, he could hear lots of coughing and choking.

Two humans eventually came through the dust cloud. They were covered in it and waved hands over their faces.

"Jacob?" Hudd asked in awe as he recognized the person who had leapt from a cliff.

"Yeah...its me." He coughed as Matt followed up behind him. "Phew! That was one nice explosion right, Hudd? "

*****************

For the next two hours Matt, Jacob, Aaron and Hudd sat at the base of the long flight of concrete stairs that would lead to the Castle courtyard. They were waiting as the Russians cleared the few buildings that were left. They were there to ensure that no one ponies fell back to the castle. But it also provided enough time to down time to talk.

Jacob told the story of what occurred after he and Matt jumped from the cliff as well as the creature that had chased them across a river. When Hudd explained how they'd acquired the tank and a few dozen Russian soldiers, Jacob in turn told him about their ships that floated in the bay.

After killing two fully armored unicorns who were trying to retreat, the topic turned to what would happen when they reached the castle.

"Luna has to die. We can't let her slip away again. This we all know." Hudd announced as he looked to each person who nodded in agreement.

"She'll be a tough one though. She always has been." Jacob said with disappointment in his voice. His previous two run ins with the pony's night goddess hadn't gone quite how he'd liked.

"Not this time, I shot her." Aaron said proudly." She'll be injured and easy. Another shot with the special bullets and she'll go down. And I'm pretty confident we can take care of that. What about that pony you told me about who developed the conversion fluid?"

"Twilight Sparkle." Jacob answered quickly. "That ones mine. We have a history."

"You can have her, as far as I'm concerned." Hudd shrugged before he thought of a personal target of his own. "There's a unicorn... I'm not entirely sure who he is, but I'm certain he's important to their army. He the one who shot those signals in the air. If we see him, he has to go too."

"Wait, wait." Matt said holding a hand up. "I think you guys are think just a little far ahead. You guys do know that the last of them will be waiting behind that door when we reach the castle, right?" Matt asked.

"You're right."Hudd admitted. "I don't think the tank can make it up these stairs sooooo, Jacob! You have any of those charges left? I was thinking about starting things off with a bang."

"Nah, I used the last of them back on those buildings."

Hudd thought and then hit his head lightly as something obvious came to mind. "Some of us flew to Equestria in armed VTOLs.... Lets fire some up."

Chapter 14: The End

"Bring more furniture, Go!" Shining Armor shouted to one of his subordinates.. "Make sure the other entrances are sealed as well."

His defeats both outside and in the city resulted in the ponies making their final standing in Canterlot Castle. The Castle was not built for an assault, especially not one of this magnitude. Shining understood that it would most likely not take whatever the humans threw at it, but he tried his best to fortify it anyway. It was much harder than it sounded as there was nothing in the castle but furniture that was usable.

Two earth pony soldiers pushed a brown, wooden dresser into the main hall where all the activity was. They slid it down the long rectangular room.

The pushed it near the door where Shining was waiting then fell over breathing heavily. "Here...you go."

Shining Armor's magic enveloped the dresser and lifted onto the pile that was already against the large double doors to outside. Dismantled chairs, tables, beds, desks, cabinets and anything else that could be found were added to the pile. It was a massive structure, but Shining was still unsure about it.

"Is there anything left? What about the council room?" He asked.

"We went through there ten minutes ago, sir."

Shining was clearly very disappointed, but said nothing. He simply stared at the mass in front of the door. One of his soldiers cleared his throat nervously.

"With all due respect, sir,... how can you be certain that they'll come through this one entrance."

Shining turned to him with an angry expression. "These humans hit the Conversion Bureau head on, they hit us outside the gate head on, they moved straight through the city with no problem, and the humans who joined them moved right through Ponyville. They haven't lost a battle in months. They're confident." He started walking away from both them and the exit. "And they have good reason to."

Shining started walking back up the hallway giving orders to various ponies, when something caught his eye to his left. He turned to the cold, marble wall to face the unicorn that was waving him down.

"Let it be known, Shining Armor, that the one thing I like about you is your unending motivation." Storm Hammer was slumped against the wall. His mane was a bloodied mess and blanket was wrapped around him making him appear almost like a beggar.

Shining started at him for a moment and Storm Hammer stared right back with slightly droopy eyes.

"Storm Hammer?" He asked as if he could've believe what was in front of him. "What in Equestria ARE YOU DOING?!" His voice quickly rose to a yell as his anger reached a peak.

Storm Hammer shook his head at the outburst in an attempt to snap back from his disorientation. "I'm waiting." He said simply. He'd been one of the last ponies to make it back to the castle after the humans took the city. Ever since then his whole demeanor had changed. His spirit was crushed.

"We're all helping! You are still a part of this army and I am commanding you to get your lazy hooves up!"

Storm Hammer didn't move. "Give it up, Shining. All you're doing is postponing the inevitable Look around you, there are less than fifty ponies in this room. This is no damn army."

Shining was shaking with anger. He pointed his horn right at his neck, but Storm Hammer still didn't budge. "Get up now or I will kill you for desertion."

He sighed before pointing to something on the opposite side of the room. "You gonna kill them too?" Shining looked in the direction and saw three ponies filling their saddle bags.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" He shouted as he started moving towards them. They looked up in surprised and began to make run for it down a side corridor.

"Just leave them, Shining." He sighed.

"Soldiers who choose to abandon the posts, will have the same fate." Shining snapped back quickly.

"Look again." Shining turned again and this time noticed two of them had on a chef's uniform while the other was dressed in butler clothing. "Those aren't soldiers, Shining. They don't want to die for a lost cause. No one does."

"I would stand alone against these humans. At least I would die with some honor...unlike you."

Storm Hammer laughed. "Die with honor, he says. If you're looking for a good, honorable death you've come to the wrong place. These people burned Celestia To. Death. What makes you think you'll be different? You know what, here's my advice for you: don't die here in this room. Go find your sister, die protecting someone you love and you'll have your honorable death."

Shining's heart sunk at mention of his sister. She was moved to his quarters after abandoning Canterlot Hospital.

He started a sentence, but stopped when he heard a strange noise approaching. It was a low hum and buzzing noise that got louder and louder, the castle walls vibrating slightly at the disturbance.

He eventually heard the noise hover directly above them for a second before moving around to outside where the front entrance was.

The ponies watched the door uneasily and looked around to each other with worry.

Then it happened. Outside he heard a sharp, loud noise and seconds later something big exploded on the door. The door cracked and crumbled to pieces, leaving only the tall pile in front of the entrance. Sunlight flooded into the long room as well as the amplified noise of whatever was out there. Storm Hammer jumped up in attention and he and Shining shared a quick glance before he heard the noise again.

There was another explosion in the pile. It blew it from in front of the door completely. Already dismantled pieces of wood were turned into splinters. Flaming larger pieces were thrown around the room. Shining and Storm Hammer stood next to each other and formed their shields at the same time.

Now they could finally see what was causing all the damage. Outside, hovering about 50 yards away was one of the human's aircraft. A human in control sat behind in a glass cockpit. Two large fans on each side provided the lift. On each wing were a pair of human weapons.

Then it unleashed hell.

Two guns on the wings rotated and fired huge projectiles extremely fast into the castle. The aircraft moved back and forth slightly so its fire would sweep across the wide hall. The bullets were turning scattering ponies into nothing but bloody mist. The force of them was so strong it was blasting ponies off their hooves. Some ponies near the wall were able to escape down other hallways, but any caught in the middle were done for.

The bullets went through the thick outer layer around the main door like they weren't even there. When it penetrated walls, huge showers of sparks were released which set some things ablaze. Large chunks of floor and smoke would fly up when the bullets hits the ground.

Shining Armor could feel the tremendous impact of the bullets as they whizzed past him. He was putting all his energy into making his shield and was yelling at the effort. Every time a round hit his shield, it pushed him back a bit farther.

Then the rockets started coming. It started firing missiles about the side of a large pipe from pods adjacent to the rotating guns. They'd fly around randomly destroying huge pillars or flying upwards and bringing pieces of the ceiling down.

Shining Armor turned to Storm Hammer. As rubble, rock and bullets hit his shield, he looked strained and was clearly having a much harder time keeping his magic going. In that moment Storm Hammer looked to him, the pain evident on his face. He yelled something, but Shining couldn't hear it over the roar of the aircraft's attacks. Then a moment later he was gone.

A rocket had hit directly on his shield. It had happened so fast Shining nearly jumped as blood splashed on his face. The impact blew the unicorn back somewhere he could not see, and he did not dare turn around and lose focus on his own shield. The explosion from it destroyed a huge stained glass window of picture of pony history. Chunks of glass fell along side the the wall and presumably on Storm Hammer as well.

Shining Armor was able to sustain his shield through the onslaught. When the aircraft stopped firing, there was no other noise other than the echo of the guns. His ears rang loudly as looked around the chamber. It was in ruin. There was layer of rubble on the ground and it was getting larger as more and more debris from the ceiling and walls kept falling. Pillars and columns lay across the ground with blast marks on them, some were sizzling and glowed bright orange. There weren't many intact bodies, but the ones that were still together weren't stirring.

As Shining walked alone in the hallway he was able to eventually find Storm Hammer. He was laying on his side with his front legs bent in a way they shouldn't. The hair on most of the front half of his body was either burned off or charred a deep black color. He had a thick piece of glass lodged deep in his right rear thigh, cutting his cutie mark in half. Another jagged piece was stuck under the skin in his chest. But for the moment he was still alive. His eyes were open and he was breathing, if ever so slightly.

Shining Armor simply stared at him. He wasn't a skilled healer and wouldn't even know where to start with him. He was trying to think of anything he could say or do when he heard a loud rumble outside the castle. Humans were running up the stairs and sprinting across the castle courtyard.

"Leave." Storm Hammer said. Shining nodded solemnly and took his advice, knowing that it would be the last thing he would ever hear him say.

***********************

Jacob ran up the stairs to the palace. Adrenaline was pulsing hard through his bloodstream. As they waited at the bottom of the stairs, they had heard the monstrous roar of the gatling cannons that fried from their VTOL. The dual 20mm guns combined with the rocket pods would have absolutely shreded the Castle's main entrance and he was dying to see what the damage looked like.

Over 200 humans ran up with him which was more than enough to take the Castle.

Jacob was going for Twilight. She'd had a big part in making the conversion fluid and it didn't seem right to leave her out.

He was in one of the first lines, along with Hudd and Rebecca to reach the top first. As they emerged unto the large, intricately stone and marble decorated courtyard, they all gasped in what was in front of them.

"Damn." Hudd said sounding highly impressed. Jacob nodded to him slowly sharing his feeling.

He thought the castle looked actually looked quite beautiful up close. The exterior was was very regal , being constructed almost exclusively of a smooth white marble. Shiny plates of solid gold were expertly cut into the rock so that they formed patterns. There were five skinny towers of all different heights that had gold domes at the tops. The Castle was beautiful, save for the main door.

Smoke poured from the entrance and the huge metal doors laid uneasily on their hinges. The marble surrounding the entrance was falling apart. Some areas had large holes through them.

"Watch your heads in here, people." Hudd warned as he stepped over a rubble pile and entered the Castle.

"Can anyone find anything alive in here?" Someone shouted.

Jacob becoming increasingly sure the the answer was no. It had only been a few minutes, but they weren't finding signs of life anywhere.

He had to step over many bodies to stand around the center of of the great hall. Something that pleased him was that the ceilings in the castle were huge and much more than enough to stand comfortable.

"Luna isn't here." Hudd said angrily as he kicked a table leg.

"She's got to still be in the Castle. I mean she's injured, right?" Rebecca asked.

"She can't fly anywhere."

"But she could still teleport." Jacob said. "That's how she got away last time."

Hudd shook his head. "We can't let it happen again. We can't end this without her." He said firmly. "Everyone spread out and search the Castle! We find Luna and kill her."

Jacob took off down a hallway. Luna was important to him, but He was going to find the pony he wanted.

However after nearly fifteen he realized that he'd underestimated just how large the castle was. He'd been through a dozen rooms before he saw a pony that looked like Twilight.

He kicked open a door to an empty room and sat on a bed in frustration. Where else could she be?, He thought with his head in his hands. He sighed and as he was about to get up something he caught something in the corner of his eye. He stood and walked to an open window and focused in on the balcony of the highest tower. He could just make out something purple moving around on it. A smile grew on his face at the possibility.

"Excuse me! Pardon me!" Jacob shouted as he ran down a hallway, knocking into people. He had reason to rush. He thought he'd caught a glimpse of Twilight in the tower and wanted to get there before she decided to leave. He had no way to tell where he was, so he just ran in the general direction of the tower. He opened doors to check for stairs and finally he found one.

He went up the first flight of spiraling steps he could find, getting dizzy at his speed. As he reached the top he slowed his paced and stepped lightly to reduce the noise. As he reached he entered the room at the top, he knew it was for royalty and hoped that it wasn't Luna's.

The bedroom was simply, yet elegant, with dark blue walls and a purple floor and bed. A gold encrusted fireplace was in the far wall and a bookshelf was in the left. Jacob peeked slowly out to the right where the balcony was. He could just barely see the purple body of Twilight Sparkle. She was laying down on the balcony reading a book, completely unsuspecting. She nearly jumped when Jacob came storming around the corner with his gun pointing right at.

"Remember me?" He said loudly. When he confronted her he surprised himself by losing the urge to shoot her on sight.

Twilight slowly turned her head towards him. "Of course I do. Jacob Sanders. You shot me."

Jacob thought back. Oh yeah, he remembered. "Had to be done." He shrugged.

"Perhaps." She said calmly, turning back to her the book in front of her.

"Whats that?" He asked as he cautiously moved out in front of her on the balcony. He was surprised to see it had no front guardrail and offered no protection from the certain death of a fall below.

"Its an old journal of mine. From years ago when I was first brought on to the conversion project. Scientifically it was the biggest thing anypony had done in years, maybe even ever. But I was too rash. Its my fault all this happened. If I'd have thought out the consequences from the beginning maybe I could have saved everyone from this."

"Maybe. I wouldn't have to shoot you for one thing. But honestly Twilight, if not you, someone else would have done it. Don't spend time thinking about things you could've done. It won't change anything. All anyone can do is try to make things better with what they have."

Twilight stood, got in close and looked Jacob right in the eyes. "Do you always kill people who make mistakes?!"

"Mistakes? No. I can forgive mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. To err is human and pony too, right? The problem with you is that you learned nothing. You didn't try to stop what you were doing. You kept going. When I first met you, all those months ago in that cell, you were just as happy as anyone could be. You didn't see what you were doing as wrong. Even if you don't admit it, you wanted conversion, you liked it. And I can't forgive that."

Twilight didn't have a response and for a few moments there was silence between the two. This was until Jacob raised his pistol and fired once into the back of her head. He watched as her body quickly went limp and she fell from the balcony.

As he walked down the stairs, he heard someone calling his name on the radio. "Jacob...Jacob are you there?" It was Rebecca's voice.

"I'm here." He answered.

"I'm sorry, but we had to start without you."

"Where are you now?"

"Throne room."

***********************

Five minutes prior…

Shining Armor ran through the castle. Pushing against the back of his mind was the urge to break down and cry. He had been to his room to find it devoid of Twilight. The humans were already inside the castle and he couldn’t find her. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be while he was standing in front of her.

But now the remainder of his Royal guard fell in the hallways as the humans ransacked the castle. He could not longer search the castle. His last option was to go to the Throne room.
When he entered, he was surprised to see Princess Luna sitting upon the throne.

“Oh no.” He said bitterly as he hurried up the long red carpet. “Princess Luna, what are you still doing here?”

“I can’t go anymore.” She said between labored breaths.

“You should have gone to the medical wing.”

Luna laughed. “They can’t treat my wounds.”

“Please Luna, don’t resign yourself to Celestia’s fate. Use your magic, leave. If you make it alive then I haven’t failed. Our remaining allies could rise behind you. Cloudsdale, Manehattan, Saddle Arabia, they would all fight for you. We can still win."

Luna considered. Maybe they could still claim a victory. “Okay, alright. Just help me up.”

A loud bang filled the room. Luna’s expression changed to that of surprise and horror. There was new blood that had splashed on her face- and it wasn’t hers. Shining looked down at midsection. There was a bloody hole in it.

Shining could hardly feel pain from the shot, but he feel its effects. He could no longer stand and slumped to his knees as he coughed up blood. Luna leaned forward to grab him. He was attempting to say something, but it was distorted beyond recognition.

There was another bang and a large hole as created through his head. Luna screamed as she dropped him, his blood all over her. She turned to the end of the room where a mass of humans stood in the doorway.

“That was a nice shot.” Hudd said to himself as he lowered a rifle. “That was the unicorn I told you about.” He said to Aaron. He had his own rifle, with the specialized bullets pointed right at Luna. He kept his aim on her as they large group moved in towards her. “Well Luna, this is a nice change. You know that every single other time I’ve been in your presence you’ve been shooting some kind of magic at me?”

“I know you. You attacked the Bureau. Twice.” She spat. “I should have killed you in Atlanta.”

“Yeah, yeah you should have.” Hudd said as he put his gun down and pulled his baseball bat from his back. “Funny how things work out, right?”

The group had reached her and a women called on her radio for another human. Hudd began running his bat gently across her wounds which made her cringe, but she kept her composure. He only stopped when it was covered completely in her own blood.

“So are you going to kill me like you killed my sister or is there another savage execution you have planned for me?”

“Me? Nah.” He said shaking his head. “I’m not going to kill you, Luna. You see I’m tired from battle. Killing your soldiers and destroying your city all day has proven to be tiring work. I’m simply here to watch and take my souvenir.”

“Your what?”

“I knew you’d ask that.” He said as he pulled the sling off his back and pointed it to the ground. When he shook it, a long object fell out.

“Oh my-” Luna couldn’t finish. She looked like she was going to be sick at the sight of her sister’s separated horn. A wave a pained faces flowed across her face. Until she’d seen the removed body part, she’d been able to keep her poise, but not now.

“There it is.” Hudd smiled as he raised his bat. “There's the face I remember. It was the same one Celestia’s made after I broke her legs. It was when she realized she wasn’t invincible anymore. That she couldn’t do whatever the fuck she liked to us more.... I like that look.” With that he brought his bat down hard on Luna’s horn.

As with Celestia, magical energy shot from both pieces of the shattered horn. Blue waves spread from the two pieces as Luna screamed in pain on the ground.

“Take her outside and give her to the men.” Hudd said as he picked up Luna’s severed horn. “WE’VE WON!” he shouted proudly as he held it over his head in triumph.

Everyone shouted in celebration with people hugging each other and jumping and screaming as they picked up a screaming Luna and carried her out of the room.

Hudd sat down hard on the golden steps before the throne. It was over. After all this time it was finally over. Jacob slid in from a side door right as Luna made her last exit from the throne room.

“Damn! Did I miss it?” Jacob asked looking around.

“Afraid so.” Hudd said. “You should’ve got here sooner.”

“I didn’t know where the fucking throne room actually was!”

Hudd chuckled and tossed him Luna’s horn. “Nice, huh? I think I like it better than Celestia’s.”

Jacob laughed, but before he could respond he heard a helicopter approaching quickly. The two exited the castle to see a large helicopter, the one that landed at their air base months ago, circling for a place to land.

“Hudd!” One of the Russian soldiers came up to him holding a radio. “Commander Severov would like a private word inside the castle when he lands.”

Hudd nodded. “We’ll talk later.” He said to Jacob before he headed back inside.

*****************************

Three Hours later...

Jacob examined a statue in a vast garden located behind Canterlot castle. He had just discovered the area and it was the one of the only spots left around the castle that wasn’t crowded with other people. He found the garden to be beautiful, though he hadn’t much time to admire it as the sun was going down on him and he would soon lose the light. The air was still warm even as a cool breeze flowed past every now and then. It was going to be a very nice early Autumn night.

“Hey, I was looking for you.” Jacob turned to see Hudd standing a few yards behind him.

“Just admiring things.” He said as he moved away from the oddly composed stone figure in front of him. “So that was a pretty long meeting. What’d Severov want?”

Hudd started walking around the garden and Jacob followed next to him. “It wasn’t just Severov and I. He’d brought others with him. China’s old president, the British PM, the Japanese PM, a German Chancellor and even the fucking President of Brazil. He’d transported them all here. He’d found them all years ago, some were ponies, others hiding out as humans He took em’ to some secure facility somewhere in Siberia.”

“He had all of them in one place for that long?”

“Yeah.” Hudd nodded, acknowledging the difficulty. “So when he heard rumors that we had a way to convert ponies back, he set for the U.S. almost immediately.”

“So what’d they want with you?”

“To discuss plans as we move forward to the next phase. They want me to lead the movement to reclaim the rest of the States. They say they will provide me with anything I need. In exchange I give them large quantities of the serum.”

“Do we have any to spare?”

“Thats the same thing I thought, but we managed to contact the Atlanta Bureau. They say the entire East coast is ours with Bureaus spread from New York to Florida. Over two million have been converted back and we still have plenty of Celestia’s blood left. Combine that wiith all the blood we got from Luna’s body and we could convert tens, maybe hundreds, of millions all over the world. So we settled on an agreement.”

The two walked to a railing at the end of the garden. The terrace stood out over the edge of the mountain side and for a moment the two marveled at the view of the enormous valley below.

“However, things aren’t entirely good yet.” Hudd said resentfully. “There have been reports a group moving through Europe. They try to stop anyone who tries to leave the newfoal settlements. Call themselves the PER- whatever that means.”

Jacob sighed. “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Hmm, perhaps.” Hudd said. He was almost hesitant to bring up the main objective of the meeting. “We...we’re going to make things better, Jacob. Better among us humans. No more tension between nations because of decades old conflicts that are completely irrelevant now. We’re going to start trusting each other, build new relationships. We’re going to be united as one world against our real enemy.”

Jacob smiled. Standing with Hudd on a ledge after the victory reminded him of a few months ago when they stood atop the ponies old conversion bureau. He wanted Hudd to finally affirm something he’d said back then.

“We conquered their city and castle in a day, killed their princesses, destroyed their army, we have millions of ponies converted back to humans with millions more waiting all around the world. So tell me, Hudd, have we won now?”

Hudd smiled as he took Luna's horn from his pocket and moved it around through his finger. He closed his eyes as he did it. He thought back to how they’d been just a few years ago. With hardly any humans left on the planet. Those still alive barely clung on their humanity. Then he opened and saw where he was now. Canterlot the ponies capital. He looked out over the vast lands of Equestria. Hudd did not speak, instead choosing to watch the sun set in silence. But he knew he didn't have to respond.

They both already knew the answer.