The full moon was shining bright in the night sky as its white and soft light washed over the dunes and plains of the afghan desert. The wind blowing a light breeze taking a few specks of sand with it. Here and there a cacti could be seen. In the middle of said peaceful desert stood a not so peaceful little village, the reigning silence since long gone and replaced by the sounds of firefight. Bullets hitting and destroying cover, grenades exploding and the wounded screaming in pain.

For 40 year old SAS Captain Éire Dunwall and his squad this was supposed to be a regular, stealthy assassination mission. They were tasked with killing an insurgent lieutenant by the name of Benghazi Barazu, who also had strong connections to al-Qaeda. The Intel they received assured he was located in the small village of Bazakuri, in which Éire and his squad now where. However, everything had gone to shit, they were expecting them, and Benghazi was nowhere around. To make matters worse, they couldn’t communicate with HQ, it seems they were being jammed.

The squad was formed by four soldiers. Captain Éire Dunwall, he was a red headed Irishman, fairly tall, and he had deep dark green eyes that could pierce your soul; he was currently taking cover behind a brick wall as the ak-47 bullets impacted on the other side, eating through his only cover. His beige vest was dirty with sand and little pieces of cement and rock that once were houses, his helmet had a big dent in it. He was clutching his L85A2 close to him, his L9A1 pistol on the holster in his right thigh, his Military Tactical Knife SharkM2 on its sheath in his left thigh.
The next one was Lieutenant Barry Strongheld. The short, black haired, brown eyed lad lay dead next to Éire. Three 7.62x39mm bullets in his belly had cut through flesh and broken bone, tearing everything in their path. The poor soldier’s uniform completely wet with blood.
As for the two Second Lieutenants...A grenade had exploded between them, complete tearing them apart and dismembering them. A shower of gore on the ground nearby, splats of blood, organs and members lying around.

Back to the last survivor of this unlucky SAS squad. Éire knew he had to move soon, otherwise the ak-47 rounds would kill him once they finished destroying his cover, which would happen soon. He dropped to the ground just as the upper part of the cement wall above him exploded in a thousand pieces from the power of the enemy assault rifles. There was a single moment of peace, an opportunity to turn this battle around. He knew that two insurgents were on the windows of the house thirty metres from his cover, and one was on the house to the left.
He looked at his gear, one grenade left. ‘It could come in handy later...’ he thought ‘Fuck it, it is now or never.’ He took out the grenade, pulled the pin, and, without looking, threw it in the general direction of the hostiles.
He heard them scream panic and took his chance. He went back to a crouching position, looked over his cover, aim at the hostile on the house to the left and pulled the trigger.
The hammer hit the primer of the 5.56x45mm NATO bullet, igniting the white powder, which in turn combusted and exploded, making the assault rifle spit the bullet forwards. A split second later the projectile reached its target and went right through the Arab man’s forehead, instant death. A second later the grenade exploded hurling shrapnel everywhere, but harming no one as it exploded far enough from the house it didn’t damage the walls or injured the two men inside. Captain Dunwall shifted his aim towards the other house, but it was too late as he was already targeted by one of his enemies, which fired his gun. The ak-47 kicked back as it fired the lead round which quickly found its way in and out Éire’s ribcage, barely missing his heart and arteries.
He let go of his rifle and fell to the ground screaming in pain as he clutched his wound, blood pouring out at an alarming fast rate.
He just lay there, his hand on his wound, forcing his eyes closed and gritting his teeth in agony.

He heard footsteps approach and could distinguish two voices speaking arabic.
Éire opened his eyes slightly and saw two insurgents stand above him. “ماذا نفعل معه (What do we do with him?)” one of them asked. Both of them wore regular civilian clothes, but had their head covered with a white cloth.

“واصيب، أننا لا نستطيع ترك له هناك. ما سبيل المثال من شأنه أن يكون لابني (He is injured, we can’t leave him there. What example would that be to my son?)” his comrade replied.

The first man nodded and crouched next to him.

“ماذا تفعلين (What Are you doing?!)” a voiced yelled.

“نحن نذهب ليشفيه (We are going to heal him.)”

“ماذا؟ هذا هو الكافر حثالة (What? This is infidel scum!)” a third man with a revolver in his hand came into view. He was wearing white robes and too had his face covered.

“ولكن اصيب، وقال انه لا يمكن ان تتحرك حتى (But he is injured, he can’t even move).”

“هذا الرجل هو قتل أطفالنا واغتصاب نسائنا (This man is killing our children and raping our women!)”

“ماذا؟! هذا الرجل يكذب على الجرح الأرض- (What?! This man is lying on the ground woun-)”

“أسكت (SILENCE!)” the person wearing the white robes aimed his revolver at Éire’s head.

“P-please...” said the Captain, his hands were now shaking.

“وداعا (Goodbye.)” the third insurgent said and then a loud gunshot was heard.

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“But Shiny!” pouted Cadence.

“I said no, honey.” Shining Armour replied as he walked around the crystal throne room. So majestic it was, that city of Crystal. Encircled and protected by a dome of blue magic emanating from the powerful Crystal Heart.

The pink alicorn let out an exasperated sigh. “I tell you, I’ve been feeling a dark magic pulse all week. And it’s not too far away from here!”

Now it was Shining’s turn to sigh. “Look honey. I can’t send a squad of guards into the freezing cold just because you felt something weird. I’m sorry but I can’t put my soldiers through that just because of a haunch.”

“But-” the princess of love was going to argue, but realized it was useless. “Fine. But if something happens, remember I told you so.”

“Okay honey.” Prince Armour said, the reply was more automatic than anything else.

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Éire felt he was being pulled down, he opened his eyes and realized he was in a dark place, much like a void. He looked around but he only saw darkness, he suddenly became aware that he was falling at a great speed. He tried to move and to scream but couldn’t, he could only roll his eyes around staring at the eternal darkness.

His heart was racing and pounding as he fell through the dark void, he was scared. What the hell was going on? The speed continued to pick up and he started to feel a tingling sensation in his head, then his chest, and then the rest of his body. In a second, the tingling sensation turned into pain, a pain which grew more and more every second that passed.

He felt a pressure on his chest, he started falling faster, the pain increased.

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Éire woke up screaming, stood up and started running in panic until he tripped with a rock and fell down into the snow, panting heavily.

He got ahold of himself, sat up, and looked around. He was in a snowy landscape, the wind blowing hard. He looked up but could not see the sky because of the amount of snow that was falling from the sky.

He checked his equipment. He still had his vest; his L85A2 with six magazines, including the one already loaded in the rifle; his L9A1 pistol with three magazines, including the loaded one; his combat knife and flare gun which he would not use since no one would see it.
He put his right hand on his head, the helmet was still there. He felt around for his canteen but didn’t find it. Nor did he have a backpack with MREs. ‘Where am I? What the fuck is going on? Is this a prank? Was I on a mission?’

Then it hit him. He was lost in the snowy arctic cold in what could be described as a blizzard with his desert gear as his only protection against the incredibly low temperatures, no food nor water.

But still...How had he gotten there? Wasn’t he in the desert? Where was his squad? He felt something was very wrong, but decided that things would be even worse if he didn’t find shelter.

With that in mind, he put on his desert goggles, which came in handy in this snowy shithole, and started jogging through the snow so that the movement would keep his body warm for a little longer. However, his legs and arms were already numb and he was shivering violently, the cold slowly reading his chest and head.

He stopped and dug a hole in the snow two times bigger than him, he got in there and digged a little deeper in the part of the hole where he wasn’t crouching. He had learn that in the SAS, the cold would go to the deeper part of the hole and the heat would stay with him. It partially worked since he felt the cold stop advancing on his body, but it wasn’t good enough. He needed real shelter. He stood up and looked around, nothing could be seen. ‘Fuck! This is bloody bollocks! There is nothing around here! No-- What is that’. He saw something in the distance. It was a shiny light, that was all, but it was still his best chance.

Éire took a deep breath, jumped out the hole and sprinted in the direction of what he had seen. The only sound he could hear came from his footsteps on the snow and the jangle of his equipment.

He knew his situation was desperate and that he was probably going to die, but couldn’t avoid feeling sort of relaxed in the relatively peaceful silence that reigned in this ‘Snowy shithole’ as he had taken to calling it.

He realized that all this time he was looking down as he sprinted so that he wouldn’t trip over any rock or falling into any hole on the snow. So he looked up and saw the city was much closer by now. So close, in fact, that he could distinguish it was engulfed in a kind of blue-ish shiny bubble, inside there seemed to by a tall tower resembling the Eiffel Tower.

Suddenly he heard a scream followed by a roar. ‘Civilization! People! Was that a bear? Good, a meal for tonight.’ he thought, but then realized something. That scream was a female one, it actually sounded like a little girl, and there also was the roar of a bear...Little girl, bear. ‘SHIT!’ he started sprinting as fast as he could towards the source of the commossion.

He could hear them very close, but did not see them due to the blizzard which had just gotten much intense. Éire failed to see the sloped down snow and fell forwards losing grasp of his rifle, he rolled in until he reached plain snow, his L85A2 landing somewhere near him.

He got up looked down to see a polar bear in position to attack a little horse which was so small it barely reached his upper thighs, both looking at him. The little horse was crying, clearly scared of the polar bear. A little further there were two other bigger yet dead horses, the snow beneath them stained crimson red. One of them had a slitted throat and the other one’s gut was clearly showing, some intestines out touching the snow.

The bear was going to kill the other horse. Usually he would just walk away. But this was an animal like he’d never seen before, its eyes showed it was scared of Éire too, but also pleading him to save it.
The SAS soldier moved his right hand to grab his pistol but the predator was faster and swiped him with his unusually long claws, the blow directed at his belly. However, due to the magazines in Éire’s vest all the bear did was scratch the bullet holders and rip the magazine pockets: The predator did however continue the swipe and slashed the human’s lower right arm with its three claws.

He yelped in pain and dropped the handgun, lucky it wasn’t a deep cut. The bear lunged again, but Éire was ready as he moved to the side and drew his knife. The white haired ball of death hit the snow and the Captain embedded his knife in its back. The bear roared in pain and, in one swift motion éire did not expect, stabbed one of its sets of three claws into his belly and then jerked its paw back.

Dunwall grunted in pain and fell backwards into the snow. The bear walked up to him, and then stood on two legs, ready to give the killing blow. Éire frantically used his arms to push himself back when he felt something with his right hand, he looked to the side, it was his assault rifle. He quickly grab it and, without even aiming, sprayed the bear, which in turn fell backwards as it growled in pain. Its once pure white fur now being stained red by the blood emanating from the bullet holes.

The human got up started to walk only to feel an agonizing pain shot from his belly as he took the first step, making him fall to his knees. Using all the strength he had, he holstered his pistol and crawled towards the little horse; though due to its size he thought it would be more appropriate to call it pony.

The pony in question had a quite shiny white coat, a lively red mane and tail, dark green eyes just like Éire’s and a...Horn?. Even though it was scared to the marrow and wanted to run away, it couldn’t, it was in shock.

He got next to her and half whispered half stuttered “H-hey the-ere. I-I w-will no-ot-t h-hurt you.”. In that moment, he collapsed to the ground as the pain momentarily took over his body and then receded back to his belly. He got to a crouching position ‘The city.’ he looked to the pony, he wanted to leave it there, he wouldn’t make it if he had to carry it, but he just couldn’t. His vest and uniform in his thighs were covered with blood.

Summoning all his strength; he picked up the pony and rifle with his left arm, clutched his wound with his right hand and started walking towards the city. Each step he took shot pain through his body. He felt like giving up at a moment , but shook that thought off his head ‘I’m a fucking SAS soldier, I was trained for this. I will NOT give up.’

He continued walking, the trek seemed like an eternity, the cold and pain making everything harder.
Finally the city was at less than one hundred metres. Suddenly, Éire’s strength banished and he collapsed to the ground dropping the pony and panting hard. He felt the distinct cold and dark of death embrace him. ‘N-No...Fuck no...’

With herculean efforts, Éire gritted his teeth and got up. He picked up the pony and continued. As he neared the protective transparent blue-ish bubble he noticed that inside there wasn’t even a snowdrop, it actually seemed like it was...sunny?.

He walked through the bubbled and stepped through the green field that led to the shiny city. Then he collapsed for good, no matter how hard he tried, he could not get up. In that instant he remembered something ‘Flare gun.’ and so, with the last of his strength, he took the small flare gun out of it’s holster in the upper left part of his vest, aimed at the sky, pulled the trigger and immediately passed out.

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Cadence was sitting in front of her desk. A mountain of papers in front of her. Her magic gripping a quill as she signed important documents and wrote letters to different world leaders.
Since the Crystal Empire was a new country, there was a lot to deal with. Like catching up to the current technology, economy and worldwide political relations.
This day had been exhausting. Signing crap, writing crap, crappy meetings, not to mention looking for a personal guard. It was tradition that the leader of the Crystal Empire had a personal guard.

Suddenly, something catches her eye. She looks out the window and sees a red flare leaving a trail through the sky and then explode in the air.

“Shiny Shield!” she called one of her guards “Gather ten guards right now!”

The pony saluted and bolted off to the barracks.

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Cadence and ten guards arrive where she had seen the flare being shot out from. She can only stare as the scene before her.
A bipedal creature wearing clothes was laying in a pool of its own blood, a filly crystal pony with her blood covered coat no older than the CMC with tears running down her eyes was nuzzling it, hoping for it to wake up.

Author's Note

This is my second fic. I'd like to think I have gotten better at writting since I started.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed the first part of this story and want more. And if you did enjoy it, please like and favourite it, it means a lot to me.