June 23, 2024
Seoul, Commonwealth of Korea
Brigadier General Michael Stanfill, was not a happy man. In fact, this assignment only served to irritate him even more. His job was to keep the Korean people from going ape-shit and attacking the Asian Empire, by acting as military governor of the newly acquired, and currently occupied American territory. Basically, it was his job to listen to the people bitch about how living to the south of such a monstrosity as the Asian Empire, known jokingly as China v4, was hurting them in someway. They didn’t know what way, but they knew it was someway. Even worse, was the anti-empire protest currently going on outside the Korean legislature building where the Commonwealth Assembly, Korea’s sub-national legislature, was gathering.
The general was nearly jogging his way to the assembly chamber, and when he arrived, he was met by a middle-aged Korean man. “Governor Stanfill, it is good to see you.”
“You too Representative Maeng, how is the assembly feeling?”
“Scared, sir. These protests are getting more violent by the day, we don’t know what to do.” Maeng said. He spoke calmly, but Michael had known the man long enough to understand that he was scared out of his mind.
“Neither do I, other than imposing martial law, and by the way it looks outside it just might come to that.” Michael said, glancing out a nearby window. It was chaos, people getting trampled, property being destroyed, all so they could protest a war that ended six years ago. “Sometimes I wonder if they even notice that the war is over.” He was referring to the third World War. Earth was still recovering from it, the four main belligerents, the United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation, and Asian Empire, fought in alliances of two against the others. America and Europe, fought side by side against Russia, and Asia. The war began when Russia tried to invade Europe, but were held back by a European Army Regiment from Germany, now known as the Berlin Wall Brigade. It was long, and the horrors are still fresh in the minds of those unlucky few who managed to fight, and survive. Asia attempted to use nuclear weapons more than once, but American-European missile shields, and ICBM interception systems took them out every time. Of course, there were those who ended the war, the 7th American Marine Division under the command of Major General James Hammond, known by those who watched them descend from the sky in blazing pods, as the Space Marines. Courageous men and women, who were willing to serve aboard a space station in low earth orbit, and be deployed to earth in drop pods whenever they were needed. They were need only twice, but both those times, they were made heroes. They fought in two battles, that lasted for about three weeks each. The Siege of Moscow, and the Raze of Beijing. Before that, neither nation showed any signs of weakness, in fact they’d have won early on if their plan of blazing American, and European oil fields worked. Well, it did, as in the oil was gone, and pollution containment was a high priority, but it didn’t matter, the U.S. and the E.U. had spent the last ten years developing algae farms from which to produce biofuels. So gas prices were high, for about a week. No matter what, it didn’t matter now, Michael wasn’t one of those marines who ran around bragging about how he won the war, no he was content knowing that it was over, and his home was safe. Michael was snapped out of his reminiscing when he heard a loud, metallic snap from outside, and saw that the protesters had gotten violent, and broke through the gate.
Seoul was in chaos. After the protest became a riot, the assembly was evacuated, and Governor Stanfill declared martial law, personally leading troops to ensure that people remained in their homes. Most of the people understood what was happening and complied, others, well let’s just say it’s a good thing that Michael wasn’t allowing his subordinates to use lethal force. He had taken a squad and marched down what seemed like miles, and miles of street, what he saw disgusted him. Store windows were broken, and looters were taking just about everything not nailed to the floor, groups of men trying to overpower women.
‘By god, they don’t even have a fucking reason to riot, and they’re already starting this shit!?’ Michael thought to himself, firing tranquilizers into the men, watching the woman thank him as he continued marching. They made it about six miles before they encountered any real resistance from the rioters, sometimes there would be a small group of about five to six men with pistols, but they gave up when they saw the large group of soldiers, until they met with a much larger group, the Korean Anti-Empire group, a militant group of former Korean soldiers who wanted nothing less than to fight the Empire to their last dying breaths. The riot suddenly made sense, the KAE group used locals to cause confusion, while they stuck their targets, even worse than that. “You crazy fuckers have a nuke!” Michael said, referring to the one-and-a-half man tall bomb behind the leader of the squad.
“Oh, Governor! How kind of you to join us. We were just about to start the party!” The crazy man screamed.
“You know we won’t let you leave alive, right? Go hot boys!” Michael yelled to his men. They switch their rifles magazines, from tranquilizers to cold, hard bullets. “By the way, where’d you get a nuke?” He asked, aiming his m16.
“Oh, Mister Stanfill, that would be telling.” The leader replied. He and his squad were well armed, AKs, and kevlar, everyone had a side-arm, and he even spotted a few RPG-7s, it was fairly obvious that they were supplied by Russians. The only real question Michael had, was whether or not they actually intended to use that nuke. “Now, Mister Stanfill, we have a few demands, which,” He stopped mid-sentence to tap on the nuke. “I’m sure you’ll listen to.”
Michael thought for a moment, hoping that the guys at intelligence were listening in, and working on a way to disarm that damn bomb, his hopes were answered when he heard a voice on his earpiece. “Michael, it’s Curtis. Don’t talk they’ll know somethings up. Anyway, we have a way to disarm that nuke, I just have to patch myself through your uniform’s camera so I can see who has the detonator.” Michael still waited, his aim never wavering, over the radio he heard someone typing on a keyboard, presumably Curtis looking for the detonator so a sniper a little ways back would know who to shoot so they couldn’t blow the whole of east Asia to kingdom come. “I got it, sending the detonator’s position to the nearest sniper. Twelve seconds later, a bullet went flying and nailed an unassuming KAE soldier right in the chest, sending the remote he was holding, through the air. Michael ran to catch it, only to be tackled by the opposing commander.
“NO! I won’t let you get in the way this time! *THWAK*” He received a swift punch to the face, before he was pushed off the top of Michael, who promptly stood up and searched for the detonator, not finding it he ran for the bomb, hoping he could tear out some wires or do ANYTHING before someone else found that damn remote. He was receiving covering fire from his squad, and just hoping to any god that this worked, he tore open a panel and ripped out the first wires that he saw, and went looking for more, after wreaking three sets of wires, he heard a high pitched beeping from the bomb. He looked back and saw the enemy commander standing, detonator in hand, grinning. Michael grew an expression of abject horror, when he realized what was about to happen. He turned back to tear out more wires, but he was too late. The bomb went off, and to be honest, Michael always thought that getting nuked would hurt more, and he certainly never thought that the explosion would be pink.
-
The 25th of Iunius
Canterlot, Equestria
“Do you think, he’ll be alright Princess Celestia?” A young woman, with purple hair asked.
“Yes, Twilight, he is greatly injured, but I do believe he’ll be fine. I only wish we knew what happened to him, or what kind of magic was covering his body before we removed it. Speaking of which, I wish for you to study that later.”
“You can count on me Princess!” Twilight said, enthusiastically.
“I know I can.” The princess replied with a motherly smile.
“Grraaaghh...” A groan came from inside a hospital room, in which an injured man lay, his burns healed by magic, and his broken bones set in place by doctors or surgeons.
“I believe he’s waking up, Twilight.”
Michael slowly opened his eyes, and was met with a blinding light, and a skull splitting headache. “Oh! Fuck, my head.”
“It’s alright, sir. Do you remember your name?” Celestia asked.
He had to think for a second. “Michael. Michael Stanfill...” He waited a second as the pain slowly subsided. “Where am I?”
“You’re in Canterlot, Galaxia Memorial Hospital.” Celestia told him softly.
“Where is Canterlot?”
“What? It hasn’t moved, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, I’m asking what country it’s in.”
Both Celestia and Twilight were visibly shocked. “Equestria of course.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“... Well, where are you from?”
“America.”
“Uh-Mare-Ick-Uh? Do you mean Adeerica?”
“Adeerica? No, America, The United States, on North America, we border Canada, and Mexico.”
“You’re describing Adeerica.”
“I’m not from ‘Adeerica’. *sigh* Now that I think about it, I assume we’re in Europe somewhere.”
“Europe?”
“What are you saying? You don’t know what Europe is?”
“No, these places you’re naming are foreign to me.”
Michael turned towards Twilight. “What about you... Purple? These places ringing any bells?” He asked.
Twilight thought momentarily. “I’m sorry, no.”
The man was growing annoyed of this, he gave the two women a stern, war hardened look. Twilight froze up, while Celestia felt a jolt of uncertainty throughout her entire body. She had noticed something she missed before. "You have no magic." Celestia said, eyes wide. Causing Twilight's mouth to fall agape.
"Princess, that isn't possible."
"Magic? Really, am I in the middle of some role playing session?" Michael asked, sarcastically.
"Of course not, but Princess, magic is the source of all life, it's impossible to not have it in some way."
"Apparently not, my dear student. Mister Stanfill, I do not believe you are from this world."
