Things had sounded bad on the radio back at the jungle, a bug force big enough to make Gauss panic was not something to be taken lightly.

The situation was much worse by the time we finally arrived at the research outpost, the pilot had to do some fancy flying to get us onto the roof of the outpost when all of a sudden, a trio of Plasma Bugs had started bombarding the outpost, and to make matters even worse the airspace was filled with Kamikaze Ripplers.

As soon the ship finished dropping us off the pilots bugged out as fast as they could make their ship move because they had a swarm of Ripplers hot on their tail.

Left behind were 10 troopers from the base and three Marauders with the mission to get inside the research outpost and secure it until reinforcements could arrive. If they arrived.

Once inside we were greeted by Vector Squads C.O. He led us deeper inside their defensive location to a hastily made war room, I was so grateful that there was enough room for a marauder suit because I was not getting out of my Hellhound. As soon as we were gathered, Vector squad’s C.O. briefed us on what we were up against.

"The plasmas bugs destroyed our outer defense walls and turrets so their pals could get at us, Ripplers control the sky while Warriors and Spiders swarm at us, we've already been pushed back to the cargo tunnels and are making a stand there" as he explained he gestured around him at the screens showing the many attackers from surviving security cameras.

"Anyone else manage to get through?" Cadmus asked, his voice strong and confident to inspire us to be the same.

"Echo tried to punch through but were forced to divert to Zegema beach." the Lieutenant said "Zulu and Tango were already there and said that a Tanker was with the swarm over there" to prove his point a video of a tanker bug came up on one of the screens, this one from a helmet camera before the wearer of said helmet was engulfed in flames and the screen went blank. I shivered internally, tanker bugs spat flames that were hotter than napalm, I would rather die by a suit breach in space than melting.

"This shits getting crazy" I heard Dingo comment "There's way more bugs out there then there should be!" he exclaimed and for the first time in my life I actually agreed with the Australian and found myself adding my own input when I suddenly had a thought.

"How the hell did they get Ripplers, Plasmas and a Tanker anyway?" none of those breeds of bug were here before, and the last Plasma nest was fried a year ago so at most the Brian bug was only supposed to have Hoppers, Warriors and Jungle Spiders.

Vector Squad's Lieutenant shook his head showing he had no idea.

"We can figure that out later, fleet already has a ship nearby with reinforcements and is diverting her, she'll be here within the hour so we just have to hold out till then. As soon as they arrive we can expect more troopers and even orbital strikes." he informed them as he set down a holo-Projector which flared to life showing a map of the outpost.

"Now we've set up choke points here, here and here" three large corridors were highlighted in green, the corridors were big and long enough to fit a whole convoy of flatbed trucks inside "My guys are spread too thin. So I need you guys to split up and reinforce each Choke point, one Marauder for each though. We have managed to set up a Gatling turret at choke point Bravo, and a laser canon at Charlie. Though the bugs haven't broken through the doors yet." Cadmus nodded and called us to attention.

"Gauss, Dingo, Juan, Jackson take Choke point Alpha" the three men and Duck Marauder set off to their objective "Doc, Honeydew, Xephos your with me, we got Bravo. Franklen, Lee, Garrus your with Sargent Shimmer at Charlie." I would have face palmed right then and there if it didn't mean damaging my Marauder’s canopy glass, I can already feel the eyes of the rest of the Squad boring holes through my armor at the news.

"Move out Troopers!"L.T. barked

"SIR!" We replied and went to our destinations.

As soon as my team began to make our way to point Charlie I was bombarded with questions. Too many at a time to even keep focus.

"So when did the L.T promote you?" Lee asked "And why didn't you tell us?"

"I've not even got my official notice yet so I'm not even a Sergeant yet" I pointed out with an annoyed tone, why did Cadmus have to tell them?! "And I only found out this morning when the lieutenant mentioned that Jackson was shipping back home in a few days."

"I thought it would be Gauss for sure to get promoted." Garrus said thoughtfully while following to my left. "But I guess he could have chosen worse." he added playfully and I huffed at that.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked in a faked offended tone.

"He could have promoted Dingo."

"Yea..... If that had happened then it would have been better to just shoot ourselves and save the bugs the trouble." Franklin said making us all murmur our approval, I would sooner throw myself in front of a Tanker if that had happened.

"Yep, we got lucky with Ms. Sunbutt's promotion" Uhhgh! Dammit! Ever since Doc saw my Sun tattoos on a routine checkup that nickname had stuck, even on our ship ‘The Catburg’, the name Sunbutt was known all around.

Eager to escape the conversation I quickened my pace, almost going as far as using my boosters to speed up, when we finally reached choke point Charlie I was already feeling like two mini suns had been placed over my cheeks.

Waiting for us were three members of Vector squad who were standing behind hastily made barricade of crates, one shouted over to us as loud as he could.

"Quick get over here, Bugs are about to break through!" We didn't waste time and got into position. I could already hear the loud bangs coming from the large door at the other end of the Corridor, flicking on my radio I contacted Cadmus

"Sir be advised, bugs are about to breach the main doors here at Charlie." I said as calmly as I could.

"Roger that point Charlie!" Cadmus shouted through the radio, in the background I could hear gunfire and bug screeches "We're up to our necks right now, Bravo Out!" I closed the line with B, and opened a link with everyone around me.

"Alright everyone, stay sharp and aim true, we can get through this." I told them as I aimed the small Gatling on my left shoulder and the Grenade Launcher on my right shoulder down the corridor ready to blow apart whatever burst through that reinforced door and to get a better shot I zoomed in with my visor. I even closed one eye and slowed my breathing to make the first shot as well as I could.

Slowly but surely bug sized dents started appearing in the door until a small hole appeared in one of the corners, it was just too small for the large Warrior bug that I could see through it and while the hole may be too small for the Warrior to get through, it was big enough to fire a grenade through.

I queued up three grenades and locked in a targeting solution. I waited just a few seconds more for the Warrior to pull back before I let them fly. I felt their vibration before I saw them fly out of my shoulder launcher.

I watched with a smile as the Grenades soared through the hole and made three large booms followed by a number of satisfying death screeches from the warrior bugs.

"Nice shot!" one of the Vector troopers said.

Unfortunately the explosions had weakened the doors and with one final crash the bugs were in. Instantly the other troopers began firing, chewing the bugs up. With the added fire from my Marauder and the other troopers the corridor was filled with lead, explosions and a red laser coming from a laser cannon being manned by one of the Vector troopers, a pile of shredded bug bodies was quickly forming in front of us now and I ended up exhausting my Grenades firing over the pile since they didn't use the crystal type ammo and I was forced to use my machine guns on the ever increasing wall of bodies. This was where it became difficult, the dead bugs would look the same as wounded and healthy bugs in this chaos and a trooper could end up shooting the same bug multiple times.

‘But that’s why I’m here.’ I thought and with my machine guns I hosed down the pile to make sure they were all dead while my Gatling on my shoulder fired at the healthy ones, once I was sure the pile was dead I stopped the Gatling and used my arm guns on the bugs trying to swarm over the pile. I couldn’t remove the smile on my face as I showed them who the boss was and turned many warrior bugs into piles of shredded exoskeleton.

The bugs however were completely oblivious to how many of their comrades were dying like they always were and simply continued to swarm us.

"Hey Sunbutt!" Oh seriously! Go fuck yourself Franklin! I'm going to get you back for that when this is over.

"Think you could put those flamethrowers of yours to good use?" I felt a grin grace my face, did I ever tell you flamethrowers are my best friends? Fire is pure and cleansing, so I was going to clean the place up.

Switching from my Machine guns to my flamers I quickly started bathing the corridor before me in flames, bugs were sent writhing on the ground screeching in pain as their carapace and flesh was reduced to charred ash and bone. The wall of bodies was set alight too and the bugs that had yet to climb over recoiled at the flames, lesson 1 about fighting bugs, they hate fire.

We all cheered at the smell of burning bug but then it occurred to me.

"We remembered to turn off the sprinklers right?” Our cheers quickly subside as the fire suppression system kicked in and extinguished the fire with a mix of water and a foamy substance which made me glad to have my helmet on since this stuff was a pain to comb out of hair.

Slowly as the fire began to fade the bugs found the courage to continue their advance "Son of a!" I didn't bother finishing my curse and fired my Machine guns at the oncoming horde.

"Choke point Charlie fall back to rally point!" Cadmus shouted over the radio "Shimmer meet Doc and Gauss at the main lab, Spiders got in and the Scientists are saying something about one of their experiments being very dangerous."

Shit, that's not good. "Copy that sir, Alright you apes you heard the Lieutenant, FALL BACK!" I started to walk backwards and firing my guns to keep the bugs back while my team beat feet to the doors behind us, the bugs sensed this and pressed the attack intending to catch their prey before they escaped.

"Not on my watch!" I shouted and doubled my rate of fire nearly exhausting my ammo by the time I had reached the doors which slammed shut and locked. The bugs were already slamming against the doors and sounded mighty pissed off about losing their prey. But the door was strong and it would be a while before they got through, I asked one of the Vector troopers to give me directions to the main lab which he quickly did while also doing some hand motions to help me visualize where I was going.

I quickly thanked him and walked ahead while waving yelling a good bye to my team, while I passed through the rally point I saw the troopers that had already arrived erecting defenses such as Laser Sniper turrets. After a moment of backtracking I found an elevator that the trooper had told me about and took it straight down, it was only then that I realized how deep the outpost actually goes, a mile underneath the main outpost was a was a massive cavern that had been reinforced with steel so bugs couldn't burrow into it. Finally at the bottom of the elevator shaft was the ‘Main Lab’ and waiting for me was Doc In her 'Duck' Marauder and Gauss in his 'Ape', both were fighting a large Jungle spider what was in between them. They couldn’t risk firing their weapons in the lab with so many volatile chemicals around so they opted to stomp the bugs to death.

"Bout time you showed up Shimmer!" Gauss shouted as he tried to hit the slippery Spider with his marauder’s fist.

"Dam buggers keeping us out of the Lab!" I jumped off the elevator before it reached the ground and used my thrusters to cushion my landing before adding my fire (Literally) to the attack, focusing specifically on a damaged ventilation shaft that I could see another spider trying to get through.

"What's got the Scientists so worked up?" I asked as I managed to hit the monstrous Jungle Spider with my flames. I felt a light behind me eyes as I enjoyed seeing it burn.

"They said they were studying some dimensional crap and if the bug even touch it we can all kiss this planet goodbye" Doc told me as she hit the thing with a missile blowing a good chunk of its head off "Something about the energy being too unstable" That didn't sound good.

Inside the Lab there were bugs, bugs and more bugs and all were instantly aggressive towards us, at the center of the large circular lab was a bug containment vat and inside was.... A mirror? "What's so bad about a mirror?" I found myself asking as A Spider made a jump at me, a chainsaw later it was in two messy pieces on the floor.

"I don’t know. But if the bugs want it then it must me bad!" I turned to see Gauss shooting up a group of bugs that were coming down the elevator shaft.

"Soldiers! Stop the bugs before they destroy the mirror!” One of the lab’s scientists screamed into or radios and I turned for a moment to see there were cracks forming on some strange glass vat as an injured Spider slammed its body as hard as it could against the glass.

"Shimmer come on!" Doc was already surging forward with her Gatling blazing, I followed behind her finishing off any bugs that she missed, the bugs were doing everything they could to keep us from the vat.

Working together we made it halfway to the vat before a resounding Crash was heard and the glass vat shattered.

"NO!" I had already rushed past Doc's Marauder and kicked in my thrusters to launch the Hellhound' into the air towards the Mirror? I didn’t have much time to think on it, I was already too late, a Spider raised a mandible into the air and down onto the mirror.

But instead of shattering like glass the mirror exploded into a blinding light that engulfed me and everything went white and then promptly black.

Twilight was roused from her sleep by a bright light coming through her curtains.

"Uhhh, why does Celestia have to raise the sun so early?" She moaned as she covered her face with her pillow, after a full night at one if Pinkie's parties, all Twilight wanted to do was sleep.

Then she sensed a suddenly increasing magical surge coming from the Everfree and realized that this light wasn't the sun. She quickly forced her eyes open and rose to her hooves, looking at a nearby clock her suspicions were confirmed when her clock said it was only 4 in the morning. Way too early for the sun to be up.

A loud knocking at the door of the library made her get out of bed, she would normally send her assistant to go answer the door but considering the time the baby dragon was probably fast asleep and would be next to impossible to wake.

As Twilight descended the stairs to the library proper she noticed that the light was most definably coming from the direction of the Everfree forest, which meant it was likely connected to the magical surge. As Twilight opened the door she was greeted by her five friends who were looking worried, the light was brighter out here then inside. Some of the townsfolk had been woken up but were returning to bed, strange things were rather common to Ponyville.

"Twilight there's a weird light coming from the Everfree forest" Applejack told Twilight, Sweet Apple Acres was closest to the Everfree so she was probably the first to have noticed the light.

"Yes and all the Unicorns in town are feeling allot of magic in the air" Rarity added, by the look of it the fashionista had been in the middle of her beauty sleep and still had some of that facial crème she puts on to make herself look younger.

"And the animals are acting scared, even my bear friend doesn’t want to go back to the forest. " Fluttershy said in concern but her voice was barely heard.

"Yeah and I nearly got knocked out of the sky by a bunch of birds!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

Pinkie Pie literally shook herself into the library, her hooves hitting the floor so much that it sounded like a woodpecker.

"yyy yeah tt twilight!” she said in a shaky voice as her whole body twitched. "MMMMy Pinky sssense hhhas bbbeenn going lllocco" Twilight realized that Shaking meant that a doozy was about to happen. Pinkie was going so crazy it seemed that even she couldn’t handle it.

"Don't worry girls!" Twilight assured her friends as she guided them all inside. Twilight took a moment to think up her next step but when she did everything else fell into place for the master planer.

"Rainbow Dash could you wake up Spike please, I need to send a letter to Celestia and then we'll go and see what's making that Light."

“Right now? But it’s so dark.” Fluttershy squeaked.

“I know but it will give us the best chance to follow the light. Now it might be a long journey so you are all welcome to have a snack in the kitchen.” Twilight said as she went to close the door to her home.

As Twilight closed the door she found herself worried about this light and the magic behind it.

‘What could be so powerful as to let off this much amount of magic? And in the Everfree of all places?’ the Alicorn thought to herself.

Celestia felt the familiar magic emanating from the Everfree Forest before she saw the light. A sober expression cast itself upon her face, it had been a long time since she had felt this kind of magic, there had been a similar kind when Twilight had gone through the mirror to the human world but there was key differences between the two. Her former student had never known that the human world she had visited hadn't been the only one.

"So they have broken their word...perhaps a simple warning was not enough for these barbarians." Celestia said to herself as she summoned a guard from outside her room.

"Have my chariot ready and wake my personal guard" she told the stallion who bowed.

“What of Princess Luna, your majesty?” The guard asked but celestia shook her head.

“It is none of her concern, now go.” She commanded and the guard left at a quick pace, trotting down the hall.

When Celestia was finally alone again she looked to the light.

"I will not let the taint of your world corrupt my little ponies." Celestia said firmly before leaving her balcony to get herself ready. Out in Everfree the light faded until it was as if the light had never been there.

Below an apple tree in Sweet Apple Acres, a large insect creature raised it's head and looked up at the light coming from the forest, it's blue eyes showing recognition at the light. The creature had been considered as a friendly changeling by most of the residents of Ponyville since it arrived Three years before.

‘Why does that light look so familiar?’ It thought and found that it could not look away from the light.

Author's Note

What do you think so far, I'm trying a new writing style and I know it needs a bit of improvement but I think it turned out alright.
well anyway, Comment, Like Follow and If your interested in editing this please leave a message.

UPDATE: NOW SPELL CHECKED :)

Again, Thanks to Sneaky Breeze for the edit.