2028 hours
Nine (9) days after first contact
In the Equestrian city of Manehatten

Vasilyev looked out across the docks at the sea beyond them, the water taking up the entirety of the horizon. Elation filled him as he looked upon it. They had done it! They had fought across the entire city, and reached the other side!

"Overwatch, this is 5-2. We have reached the other side of the city." Vasilyev said over the radio a moment later.

"Copy that, 5-2." Overwatch responded a few seconds later. "We've secured most of the city. Hold your current position, and wait for instructions."

"Copy. 5-2 out." Vasilyev replied.

Overhead, one of the American F/A-18s flashed by, flying parallel to the waterfront as it chased something...

Lieutenant Miller fired off another burst from his cannon, ripping apart the flying chariot, and sending the 'passengers' inside flying. Internally, he had reached the point to where he stopped questioning the things he had seen. A group of half a dozen chariots, being pulled by pegasi in formation and flying at Mach 0.85, was one of the lesser things he had seen today.

So far, they had proved easy pickings, and while the unicorns inside had shot bolts at him, they had always missed. He had taken down four so far, and the last two would hopefully be as easy as the first, even with his wingman having broken off several minutes ago.

Suddenly, the two remaining chariots ducked down to a mere four hundred feet above the ground. Miller tilted his jet down, firing off another burst as he did so. It blasted one of the two out of the sky, sending it cartwheeling into the water below them. Only one left. The unicorn in the back fired off a rapid series of bright pink bolts, forcing Miller to dodge quickly to the right.

All of them missed, but it left Miller in a mostly stationary position once he leveled off. Just as he aligned his sights with the chariot, the unicorn in the back did... Something. A bright, pink beam shot out of its' horn, lasting for several seconds as it impacted the left wing.

Miller was suddenly barraged with warnings, as multiple status lights burned a bright red. Data scrolled across his helmet's HUD, warning him of a series of critical failures in the left wing's flaps. He reacted quickly, pulling away from his pursuit and checking both of the engines for damage. After a quick check, he concluded they were still functioning, and so he turned back to the south, towards his carrier.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday! This is 'Slam' 1-2, I am declaring an emergency." Miller said over the radio seconds later.

"Rodger that, 1-2. What is the nature of your emergency?" Overwatch, the E-2 Hawkeye circling far away from the battlefield, asked several seconds later.

"Port wing is hit, unknown total damage." Miller replied. "I've lost my flaps on that wing, and I have half a dozen systems in the red. I can't launch ordinance, and it is possible they might have been affected. I need clearance for an immediate landing."

"You are authorized to land immediately." Overwatch responded after half a minute of silence. "Good luck, 1-2."

"Copy that, Overwatch. Thanks." Miller said, turning off his radio before muttering to himself, "I can't believe I got hit again... Fuck me."

"What's this about getting hit again?" His wingman asked over the squadron band, which Miller had forgotten to switch off.

"My left wing is damaged." Miller deadpanned. He was even less amused when his wingman burst into laughter.

2053 hours

"This is interesting..." Corporal Sergei Yuden, former tank crewmember of the Soviet Union, murmured to himself as he sat down in a room aboard the massive ship he had been 'flown' to. Truthfully, he had never expected to see another human again, aside from the long-buried corpses of his comrades, and those of the Germans. He had given up all hope of being rescued shortly after he had arrived in this strange land, surrounded by enemies.

Surviving those many years had been hard, but with his ever-dwindling ammunition stocks, he had been able to fight off the monsters that came to kill him, and drive away the stranger creatures that tried many times to explore his 'camp'. After almost two decades, the number of things that came to intrude upon him had dwindled to nothing.

Many things, some memorable, others less so, had happened in the years between. To finally be among his countrymen, however different they were now, was truly a relief.

"So, let's start." A man said from across the room, sitting down in the seat across from him. "I am Captain 1st Rank Aleksei Volkov, commander of this ship, and of most of the Russian ground forces at our disposal. I am sure you have many questions, and I would like to get through them as quickly as possible. Ask them now."

"Alright, thank you, comrade Captain." Sergei said. "My first question is, what year is it back home? And what precisely is left of our country?"

"2015." Volkov replied. "Late January. Our country, the former Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, is long gone. Twenty-four years ago, it dissolved. Communism is gone, and the Russian Federation has come." He finished bluntly.

Sergei blinked. "Well... That is a surprise. I do not particularly care for the fate of my country: I was never deeply involved with it, and the NKVD took much of my family on my Uncle's side. That is all I feel I needed to ask: You may start with your questions."

Volkov nodded. "Thank you. What were you doing when you found yourself here? And what happened in the 'battle' that apparently happened?"

"It was a simple test, but I guess somebody fucked up." Sergei said. "We were doing live-fire drills for the prototype, and something flashed white... The very next thing I saw through my position next to the driver was a German tank. The next few minutes were spent in some sort of battle, with at least a dozen of them versus a similar number of ours."

Sergei paused, before continuing. "All of them died. Every one of our allied vehicles died. Every single crewmember, including our Commander and the NKVD Commissioner, who had been in the rear compartments was dead. There we were, myself and four others, with nothing but our field rations and what we could scavenge from the dead.

"Contrary to what some damned civilians might think, not everything is blown apart when you destroy a tank. The ammunition may occasionally go up, but it is often the engine that is wrecked, with the crew dead from shrapnel. The only reason we lost much of our tank was due to the shoddy armor that our prototype had. We were able to take a large array of weapons, ammunition, and supplies from the dead, and with hundreds of them to supply the five of us, we had quite the assortment of gear.

"Eventually, though, my comrades died off. The first two to go were gone within a week: Killed by some type of winged beast that I learned to hate the more I fought them. Another lasted a year before a group of wolves took him, and the last killed himself. I was all alone from then on.

"I taught myself how to scavenge, what to eat and what not to, and how to handle myself in nearly any situation. I have lived for a long time, comrade, far longer than I should have. Contrary to what you might see, I move as if I am fifty, and not the eighty-six I truly am. That is a mystery I have never solved."

"We shall look into it." Volkov promised, looking at him with more... Respect? Sergei did not know, and felt that he would be better off remaining ignorant. "Another question: Do you know about the native inhabitants of this land? The 'ponies', as they call themselves?"

"You can actually speak with those bastards?" Sergei asked, to which Volkov nodded. "It always sounded like gibberish to me."

"They speak English."

"Ah."

"Have you met them before?"

Sergei grimaced. "A few times. About two decades ago, give or take a few years, I met one of their young in the woods. Before that point, I had driven them off with a few gunshots, and that was that. I knew they were intelligent, but I also knew that were I to give them leeway to journey into my 'area' around the bog battlefield, they would do so persistently. I drove off one of the distracted wing-scorpions-"

"Manticores. Persian mythology." Volkov said.

"Manticores... I like it. In any case, I drove it off, and found one of their young cowering from it. Naturally, the young thing immediately started jabbering in its' strange language, and persisted in following me even as I tried to shoo it off. At that time, I did not want to harm it, lest I bring down more of them upon me, and so I waiting until it left.

"It came back the next day, jabbering to me. I talked, and it did not understand me. It left again after some time. For many years, it came every few days, talking to me as if I understood it. As nearly a decade passed, with myself venturing out each day to find enough to eat, only to occasionally find it waiting for me when I got back.

"When it had probably reached adulthood, it brought a few others to meet me. They did not react well. Although it reached me once every few weeks from then on, it was apparently restricted from doing so often. And then they came.

"One of those days, it was missing, and in its' place were a bunch of white ones with wings or a horn, all holding weapons. They raised them when I approached, and charged at me. I killed them and left one to return after I broke its' spear. Another thing I found out: They are camouflaged. When you remove the helmet, they revert to their 'natural' colors. Why they do not use this to make themselves unable to be seen, I do not know, but it is a mystery that I used many times to my own advantage.

"The visits became less frequent, until it was only every few months that I would see the formerly young one. Occasionally, one or two of the guard ones would come out and attempt to harm me, but they were easily dealt with and dumped into the bog. The last time I saw the one I had met was half a year ago, and the last attempt to find me was two months ago, by a group of three.

"And that is my story."

After a short silence, Volkov was the first one to speak.

"That was quite the story, comrade. Thank you for telling it." The captain said. "But why did you fire on our team? How could you confuse them for us?"

Sergei chucked. "That is a story I would love to share. For the past two years, and especially on the most recent 'visit' from those not friendly, another species has tried to kill me. It flies around and often stands on its' hind legs, at least when fighting. It looks like some kind of bird-lion combination. And, well, sometimes they'd yell things I understood. Which is precisely what those men looked like to my first glance."

"Interesting. You've encountered Griffons then, I suppose." Volkov mused out loud. "Well, I don't know if we'll have many more questions for you, but you've certainly given us quite a few to ponder."

"That I have, I suppose, Captain." Sergei said, chuckling. The former Soviet tank crewmember stood up as Volkov did, crossing the room to shake hands. "I suppose I'll head back to my room, then. In all of my years, I had ever thought I would enjoy all of the amenities available to the Politburo, and many more besides. That is, if you have no other questions?"

"Actually, I do have one more, for my own curiosity." Volkov said, much to the surprise of Sergei. "This pony that visited you, that you grew to know, what did it look like?"

"Well..." Sergei said, humming in thought. "It was most likely male, and was one of those with a horn, which it used occasionally for some kind of lifting. It was dark grey in color, and its' hair was some kind of dark blue. That is all I can consider features, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity." Volkov replied. "Thank you for your story. I shall hope to see you soon."

"Thank you, Captain." Sergei replied, chuckling. "I shall also hope to see you again."

And with that, Sergei walked out of the room, planning on receiving some well-deserved rest at last.

2100 hours
In the Equestrian village of Hollow Shades

"Well, this sucks..." Legal Record muttered to himself.

"Cheer up, Record!" One of his friends nearly yelled into his ear. "I'm pretty sure that this is just a drill or something."

"Why did I even sign up for the Reserve Guard?" Record asked himself out loud. "I have the perfect dead-end job as a clerk in a small town in the middle of nowhere, a reputation as a 'crazy pony who wanders into the Everfree', and a perfect excuse not to be here!"

"It's because nopony ever expected to be called up." The bartender of their small town, nicknamed 'Mugs' by the rest of the town, replied from a short distance away. "Besides, it's probably some kind of error. Even with those creatures I heard about passing through town a while back, the way they've been described leaves me little doubt that if we had a problem, th' Elements would just blast it away."

"Right." Legal Record whispered to himself. The creatures had been the talk of the town recently, with their loud passage through the town. Legal himself had been inside of the Hollow Shades Lumber Co. building's office when a stallion had burst in, quickly blurted out a incoherent description of what had happened, and then left.

More than that, it unnerved him in several other ways as well. Hollow Shades had long been known for 'strange' occurrences, especially in the woods. With quite a few Royal Guard squads having disappeared, and with Griffon vanishing into the woods, it almost had a 'evil' air around it.

Of course, Legal Record was one of the few ponies alive to know the real reason behind the disappearances. When he was a colt, he had been teased relentlessly for his descriptions of what had happened, and from then on he had only confided in his closest friends about it.

The descriptions of the creatures themselves had given him pause, as well as the similarities to... Well... He hesitated even to think about it. Maybe when this all blew over, he would go into the woods again. He could always use a place to speak his mind.

A Royal Guard clad in brilliant gold armor strode through the crowd standing in front of the Town Hall, walking up the stairs to the door and behind the podium there. The stallion cleared his throat, quickly quieting everypony in the crowd down.

"Thank you for being here today." The stallion said once he had their attention. "By the decree of Princess Celestia, all Royal Guards, as well as those in the Reserve, are being called up. Trottingham has already fallen to a group of creatures, ones who have doubtless plundered the town and slain the inhabitants. They dared to stride through this town almost a week ago. Even now they strike at Manehatten, at the heart of our Commerce."

Legal Record nearly felt his heart leap into his throat. They were being called up, against beings that had already taken down a city. He did not know if they were the same ones as... Him, from the forest, but if they were, the things that one could do...

Uninterrupted by the shocked crowd, the Guard continued.

"Fear not, for though they may strike us and kill us, we will soon have the advantage. We slay more of them in battle than they do of us, and they will be dealt with as we deal with monsters from the Everfree: With all possible speed. Pick up your armor from the Train Station tomorrow: We leave on the ten o' clock train."

With that, the stallion strode down, leaving one particular unicorn in middle of the crowd in shock - and unsure of his own survival.

Author's Note

This was originally going to be finished in a week, and be a 1,000-word, boring chapter.

Yeah, you can see where it went.