The Fourth Race

-Roman Empire, 116 AD-

Egnatius Scipio, a proud member of the Roman military, the finest military in the world, rulers of Europe, stabbers of all, enemies of the barbarians, stood bored at his post.

Right now, the soldier was in his battle armor, guarding the gates of the Great Coliseum of Rome.

He wanted to be on the battle field, fighting in the war against the barbarians. Rome was a perfect nation, the epitome of order, glory, and security, and barbarians were the opposites.

Egnatius heard a noise from behind a nearby building, drew his gladius, and moved over to investigate the disturbance.

"Halt!" he jumped into the alleyway with his shield raised and his sword at the ready.

A large rodent-looking thing shot out towards him, its face comparable to a devil.

*ZAH-KSH* it hissed loudly, breathing a cloud of energy out of its mouth.

The strong soldier backed away, but it was too late.

With time and space falling away from around him, he flailed around a few times, then was gone.

The goat-faced beast smiled and disappeared in a flash of chocolate-brown magic.

-Kingdom of France, 1531-

Joan of Arc looked to the heavens, her visions seemed to have failed her, she heard no voices of the angels nor sweet nothings from God himself.

She mouthed 'I'm sorry, Lord, I have failed you.' to the sky, a trail of tears staining her face as her legs were consumed by the flames.

Suddenly, another angel appeared, this one quite young looking, and very handsome.

Except upon further examination, he was anything but and angel.

A goat horn and deer antler stuck out of his head, a blue bird's wing and a purple bat's wing coming out of his back, his hands were replaced with an eagle's talons and a lion's paw, his feet were replaced by a lizard's claw and a horse's hoof.

"Hello, little lady, you've been very good this year, I'll give you something special," it said, giving a flourish of its lion arm.

Joan merely stared at the sky, thinking about the celestial being, thinking about the war between France and England.

She continued to stare as the flames consumed her body, and all was dark.

Then the dark turned brown.

-Confederate States of America, 1865-

Rick Planter, the son of a farmer, was watching the horizon for any filthy negro-loving Union troops.

Dear God how he hated the Union, their claims of unity and order, but how would there be order if those slaves aren't kept in check?

A single figure appeared on the horizon, waving to them.

Pulling out the small telescope he'd been entrusted with, he saw that it was a gray-clad soldier with a torn uniform and a rifle, waving to them for help.

Slinging his musket behind his back, Rick ran over to the friendly soldier, noting the other man's modified rifle.

A dark, rich brown wood framed the gray steel barrel, with pale bronze braces.

His eyes were reddened, probably from black powder smoke, and his was limping with one horse-leather boot and one leg uncovered.

Helping the ashy-haired man back to the camp, seeing blood trickling from his mouth, and a pained shout as he stumbled revealed a large hole in the right side of his lower jaw, freely pouring blood.

Before Rick could flinch at the sight, his eyes locked on the shoulder patch neatly sewn onto the fellow soldier's jacket.

Anti-Federacy

Chaos Specialist

The other soldier suddenly stepped back from Rick and butt him up-side the head with the stock of his rifle.

Instantly rendered unconscious, Rick saw nothing but a large, single, dirt-brown color.

-Great Britain, 1899, alternate Earth 145-

Thaddeus Steelbone, renowned steampunk and regarded as the 'anti-devil' by the necromancers' guild, was working on his latest weapon.

He called it the shock-rod, a steel blackjack with wires and leads that would give it a shocking strike.

Loading up the receivers with nickel-cell batteries, he fired it up and bashed a chained zombie on the head.

*BZZZT* an audible shock, and the monster went limp from loss of muscle control.

He smiled, "Right-o good chap, I'll just get ready for the expedition then." he donned his steel-studded leather gloves, bronze hot-cut dagger, silver and oak revolver (with pouches full of 'char', 'down', and 'ick' bullets), and finally, his hip-cannon, a brass & aluminum led miniature rail-gun.

Finally, he would strike against the members of the necromancer's guild themselves, ending this pointless war against the undead.

Suddenly, as he entered his foyer, a discharge of some unidentifiable type of magic went off right in the middle of the room, depositing a brown-clad old man with a white goatee and bushy eyebrows.

"Hello Thaddeus Steelbone, I've come to request your services for my land." the old man said in a crusty, yet charming voice.

"I have more important things to do, wizard, I must kill the members of the necromancers' guild, and I cannot stop to chat with you, chap." he said politely, slowly pushing the old man out of the door.

Frowning, the wizard merely said, "Commandeering." and everything went black.

Then the black turned to brown.

-Germany, 1945-

Adolf Hitler sat on his knees, gun held in one hand, bible in the other.

The gunshots from the rifles of the allied-powers' soldiers rang all throughout the street outside.

"And ze Lord said, for zose who vould keel another, redempzhion eez steel possible, for zose who vould keel themselves, you vill vace damnation vor your horrid, zelvish act, Jezus azks you, eez your life not vorth living, even in ze kingdom ov God? Iv not so, then leave." he read, tears falling from his eyes.

He'd wanted the Jews to be dealt with, not dealt with, in the sense that the former meant actually dealing with them, and the latter meant killing them.

Millions, literally millions, dead, because of the constant flow of poor communication, his officers had misinterpreted his orders, then went behind his back and never reported anything clearly.

If it hadn't been for the allied soldiers bashing down the doors, he'd have thought that maybe they were winning the war, from what the reports of the 'kill counts' were.

Raising his Luger to his head, he squeezed his eyes tight shut, and squeezed the trigger.

*B-* his hearing lasted only a fraction of a second, then everything was gone.

--

Except not really, he was now kneeling at an ornate gate, made entirely of gold and gemstones, with two large diamonds for handles, and a rainbow crest of richly colored crystals.

A young-looking man in a brown robe stood behind a podium, shuffling through a few papers.

"Um, hallo?" the blue-eyed man greeted hesitantly.

"Ah, hello, hola, bonjour, guten tag, and all that jazz, yeah, so, let me just find your name... what's your name?" the gatekeeper asked, holding his papers up to his face.

"Um..." what would he do? "Um... Winston Churchill." it pained him to lie like that, but if this was something bad, then he'd rather not get swept up into it.

The standing man shuffled through his papers again "Hmm... no... no... no, I see only six names here, Egnatius, Joan, Rick, Thaddeus, Adolf, and Brian"

"I'm zorry for lying, my name iz Adolf, Adolf Hitler." if redemption was as easy as telling them his name, then he would do it.

"Ah, Adolf Hitler, yes, come with me, we're taking you to a special place." a friendly grin was now plastered across the gatekeeper's face.

"Am I going to hell?" the black-haired man feared what this 'special place' might entail.

"What? Noooo~, really you're not, you've been selected for an all expense paid trip tooooo~... EQUESTRIA!" Discord opened the gate and pushed Adolf through, making the black-haired man disappear in a flash of orange light.

Smiling, the God of Chaos disappeared in a flash of brown light.

United States of America, 2014

Sergeant Major Brian Rosenthal looked at his troops.

His squad, The Devil's Breath, was preparing to be dropped off for a mission deep in terrorist territory.

He signaled the driver to take a brief detour for him to send a message "The Righteous Flood is rushing towards you, it's been flowing for days." he said over his decoy radio before turning to the rest of his men, "All right, those terror-bitches have no idea what's actually coming, as far as they know, a recent sandstorm is striking against our encampments, which has made them more radical in attacking us, which in turn has led to a lot of deaths, we've done good."

A collective "AYE!" was given, causing Brian to smile.

He'd once been stuck behind enemy lines, causing the first squad he'd ever been in to joke about 'Saving Private Brian', but the jokes eventually died down, especially when, after watching the iranians at work, he knew many of their tactics and strategies.

Quick on the spot, he'd escaped easily after he convinced the armorer that he was actually the next guy on the shift, then he used a bit of oil he'd gathered to remove the actual bullets from hundreds of casings, leaving his captors unarmed.

Quick on his feet, he'd ran away before anyone could realize that he'd rendered their cartridges practically useless.

The others met him halfway and shot down the watchtower men.

His reminiscing done, he perked up when the driver informed him that they were close enough, and this was the stopping point.

He said a quick prayer, then moved out, hoping to contribute further to victory in this war on terrorism.

--

Dead, everyone was dead.

All of his squad, a lot of terrorists, all dead. All that remained were a handful of terrorists and Brian.

"RELOADING." he called out to his dead teammates, pretending they were alive, pulling out a grenade and throwing it nigh perfectly into the room that the last few enemy men were hiding out in.

Taking the opportunity to shoot an unarmed enemy, the terrorists fired furiously, not noticing the grenade right behind them.

*BOOM* screams and strangled gasps of pain replaced gunshots, most of them were definitely dead.

Brian moved in slowly, "GRENADE." he heard scrambling inside the room as he refreshed his magazine.

Kicking the door down, he shot the last few in their chests and heads, ending their lives immediately.

He heard a loud metallic impact-with-ground sound outside.

Stepping out into the street slowly, looking side to side in case there were any reinforcements, either terrorist or US.

Nobody, he slowly stepped towards the large black box that had fallen from the sky.

*creak* the lid came off, revealing a modified M4 carbine. Attached to it was an ACOG sight, M320 grenade launcher, suppressor, red-dot pointer, and a maglight.

"Wow, talk about extended combat," he said, unloading and setting down his unmodified M4, then picking up and loading the new one.

He heard footsteps and whipped around faster than most people could react.

A single man, dressed up in a black turban with a burnt-gray face and brown robe, stood about ten feet from him, holding his arms up in surrender.

He looked unarmed, but looking unarmed and being unarmed were two entirely different ballgames.

"English?" the sergeant demanded, clicking his rifle into semi-auto mode.

"Yes, I speak it," the older man said in a calm tone, his voice making Brian think of Star Trek.

"Are you surrendering?" Brian interrogated, keeping his rifle trained on the other one.

"Well, I'm not attacking you, but I'm not surrendering, I'm just sort of... talking to you, I was never fighting anyways."

"Likely story, tell me, how many brothers of yours have I killed?" the soldier asked, trying to sound cruel, but the calm expression on the older man's face was a limitor somehow.

"None, I'm not even from here, just visiting to find someone." damn, he was just an innocent bystander in all of this?

"Who?" the young man found it hard to keep angry, he wouldn't hurt a civilian just for being in the right place at the wrong time.

"Brian Rosenthal." Discord smiled, seeing the confused expression on the soldier's face.

Suddenly, everything went dark, and Brian felt weightless.

Then nothing.

Then brown.

-Equestria, 1004 AN-

Canterlot castle, the most pristine and wonderful place in all of Equestria, was buzzing with activity, mainly soldiers doing marching routines through the halls, with the occasional servant moving something to somewhere.

All of the noises went quiet when one approached the Royal Meeting Room.

"So, the summoning ritual is complete?" Celestia asked Twilight, who was confused by the absence of new things in the room.

"I'm back, so it should be," Discord noted, pondering the absence of the selected beings.

"Yes, I think, the stories told about powerful beings, which were the earth avatars, they organized society, and kept balance amongst the ponies, who are the water avatars, holy beings like yourself, who are the air avatars, and the Jall, who are the fire avatars, but my calculations were perfect, I may have rushed it a little, but that was because of the advancing army." Twilight went on at length, looking through her notes.

"Maybe you wrote a number wrong?" Cadance suggested hesitantly, fearing backlash from the mentally fatigued archmage.

"I never write numbers wrong unless I'm tired, and... I wrote 127 instead of 271, whatever we summoned is in the... if my mental map is correct, whatever we summoned is currently in the dungeon." Twilight facehoofed at her own mistake, flashing her horn to teleport down to the underground area of Canterlot Castle.

--

Brian awoke to find himself locked in a cold, white stone brick, iron barred cell.

"What the hell?" he still had everything on, so whatever this was, he wasn't going to be tortured or anything.

A grate-protected ceiling light in the cell provided ample light, revealing the other occupants of the massive chamber

A guy who looked like a Roman Legionnaire stood in the corner, watching everyone with his shield raised.

"Hello?" Brian asked quietly, looking from the other soldier to the other occupants.

"Hm? You're awake, civilian, do you know what's going on?" the italian accent, combined with not knowing what a soldier looked like, made the sergeant suspicious.

"I'm a soldier, soldier, who are you?"

"I am Egnatius Scipio of the Roman Legions, I was stationed to guard the coliseum, when a demonic beast attacked me and sent me to this cell, I've been awake for several minutes now."

"Hm, did you check everyone, make sure they're alive?"

"I do not know how to do that, I have no medical training."

"Well I know, I had my squad get several basic med-training classes under their belts, so I'll do it."

Suddenly, someone else woke up, a woman clad in platemail.

"Oh God, am I dead?" Joan said groggily, looking around.

Seeing two men, one clad in Roman armor, the other wearing some sort of strange leaf-pattern clothes, the young woman pushed herself to her feet.

"Where am I? This looks like a dungeon." she said, noting the extremely clean look of the bricks, as though they were scrubbed with holy water or something.

"It is, I'm sure of it, you two need to help me get these other three awake." Brian commanded, stooping down to the nearest unconscious person and seeing that he was wearing a Confederacy Army uniform "Wow, I don't know how to feel about that." shaking the downed man, going faster when he started making noise, Brian didn't let up.

Rick awoke with a start, snorting in a bit of stale air and coughing, "*cough cough* Oh, sweet Jesus I'm awake *cough cough* I'm... alive, thank God *cough*" he finally forced in a big breath of air and got his lungs under control.

"Thank god indeed," Joan added, giving the thick, muscly man packing an array of various metal colors a nudge with her boot.

"ALIVE! NECROMANCERS! GAH!" Thaddeus awoke screaming, thinking he'd been touched by a skeleton.

"Vhat's vith all ze noise?" Adolf said as he was picked up and dusted off by a pair of strong hands, he opened his eyes and was met by the helmet of some roman-looking guy.

"I can tell by your immaculate clothing that you're obviously a high-ranking official, sir, and I will protect you until further information is available." Egnatius vowed.

"Wait a second... OH SHIT! FUCK NO!" Brian raised his M4 and aimed it at Adolf.

"No, don't zhoot, I am zorry." the fuhrer pleaded, his eyes filled with sorrow and hopelessness.

"Sure you're 'zorry', tell that to all the innocent people you killed!" the sergeant yelled, keeping his rifle aimed at the other man.

"What kind of musket is that?" Rick asked quietly, staying away from the angry man.

"My orders vere containment, american, not execution, my offizers turned my vords of guardianzhip into vords of a devil." Adolf couldn't help but notice the flag patch on the other soldier's shoulder.

"Likely story... tell me, are you armed? What about the rest of you?" it was obvious that the guy with the biggest, fastest, and most powerful weapon was the one in charge at the moment.

"I killed myzelf vith mein luger, it vas the only vay to give myself ze proper afterlife, but I vas zent here. My point iz I have mein pistol," to prove his innocence, Adolf set his gun on the ground.

"Alright, what about the rest of you?" the young man looked to the others.

Rick set down his musket and sat on the ground, he was a good, honest, honorable man of God, he would surrender with dignity and respect.

Joan pulled out her sword and held it upside down, hand on the pommel and tip against the floor, "I'm not dropping it, Sir... Mercan, it is the sword of Saint Michael."

"My name is not 'murican', it's Brian, I'm from America, United States of. I want all of you to state your names, ranks, and countries with dates." he had a theory, and if it was right...

"Egnatius Scipio, Legionnaire Trainer/Guardian, Roman Empire 116AD."

"I'm sorry sir, but your country will fall eventually, I am Joan, Joan of Arc, Fluer du France and Orleans, Kingdom of France, 1531."

"Wow, that's some old shit, I'm Rick Planter, scout of the army of the Confederate States of America, the only reason I haven't shot you, Brian, is because I'm sure you could shoot me faster... oh yeah I'm from the Confederate States of America and it's supposed to be 1865." Rick said, wiping his nose on the cell's bed's blanket.

"That's the year the civil war ended, and if my patch is anything to go by, then you know how it ended." Brian knew that this had to be real, one person roleplaying a person from the past is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three is a pattern, six is a D&D game, but he wasn't from the past, so it was five people, which was just a large pattern.

"Union bastard." just because Rick was surrendering, didn't mean he couldn't get in a few verbal shots.

"I'm Thaddeus Steelbone, renowned steampunk and regarded as the 'anti-devil' by the necromancer's guild, last time I checked, it was 1899." the heavily armed man introduced, giving a small bow.

"Alright, Victorian Era, I can dig it, and I remember steampunk lore telling of the undead and their masters as the primary antagonists of the steampunks." Brian turned to Hitler, "I know who you are, asshole."

"Vell, zey do not, I am Adolf Hitler, leader of Germany, my time is 1945."

"Well, too bad you weren't pulled late and came here dead!" just being near Hitler filled Brian with a righteous fury.

"Actually, I keeled myzelf, und vas revived he'e,"

"Well fuck me sideways, that's terrible, why would they bring you back?"

"I do not know, zir, please... I beg you, do not zhoot me, I vill explain vhat aktually happuned." he sat on the ground like Rick had done and showed submission.

"Sir Brian, I regret to inform you that we are in what very much resembles a dungeon," Joan informed, recognizing the structure of the room.

"Well sheeit." Rick and Brian said at the same time, looking at each other, "Jinx, you owe me a cigarette." they said at the same time.

"Nah, I don't smoke, it's bad for your breathing." the modern soldier dismissed.

"Bullshit, smokin' ain't never hurt anybuddy." the southerner retorted, grabbing a straw of hay from the cell's bed's mattress and chewing on it.

"Well men, we need to build trust, so we shall tell each other our life stories." Egnatius proposed, leaning up against the wall.

Joan huffed, "I think you'll find, Sir Egnatius, that I am a woman," she informed matter-of-factly.

"Your voice is that of a man, as is your structure and face." the legionnaire argued.

"Trust me, she's a woman, I know history, and I'll give my introduction, I'm Brian Rosenthal, Sergeant Major in the United States of America army, where I'm from, it's 2014." the sergeant introduced.

"Rosenthal? Zat is a German name, German for 'Rose Valley', Brian, vhy vould you hate me vhen you yourzelf are like me?"

"Fuck off, my dad has Spanish and German blood, my mom has Irish and English blood, I was born in 'Murica, so I'm 'Murican."

"'Murica, fuck yeah." Rick offered a fist-bump of national pride.

Brian accepted it, "Comin' again, to save the mothafuckin' day, YEAH!" he sang.

He would have sang the rest of the song, but a new voice entered the area.

"Ah, there they are... Discord why do they look so weird?" Twilight asked as she laid eyes on the summoned humans.

"Are you discrediting us based on our appearances?" Egnatius asked incredulously.

"Nowadays people just call it racism," Brian informed, looking at where the voice came from.

Through the iron bar door, he could see a wide hallway containing a few strange creatures walking towards them.

"Oh what the fuck?" it was those ponies, from that show that his daughter liked, she'd sent him a little plastic figurine of a pony 'to keep daddy safe on his adventures' as the letter had said, he had it in one of his tactical vest's pockets.

Pulling out and looking at the cute little figurine of a lavender unicorn with wings.

He put it back in his pocket, only to find the real unicorn-with-wings herself coming towards him.

"Well, what do we have here?" he said as the two creatures approached, "A mix-and-match monster and some sparkle-butt horse." he was immediately blasted with a ball of force, knocking him backwards into the back wall, "Okay, I was just kidding, standard army greeting is a sarcastic insult."

Twilight blushed slightly at the notion that this thing had been looking at her flanks, while Discord only laughed.

"OH-HO-HO! How did I not think of that? We have sun-butt, moon-butt, heart-butt, and now sparkle-butt, I wonder who's next?" the draconequus starting rolling on the floor in laughter.

"Don't laugh too hard, or your ass'll fall off," Brian sarcastically warned, remembering ROFLMAO, it was oddly satisfying to be able to use it IRL.

"What in the devil's den is that thing?" Rick was confused beyond measure.

"Follow us, you have all been summoned here for a special purpose."

"I vas not avare zat imprizonment vas conzidered 'zpecial'" Adolf joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"That was a mistake, you were supposed to appear in the Royal Conference Room, so just wait a moment." Twilight remembered her magic and teleported the group back up to the conference room.

--

Everyone blinked as the flash of magenta light erupted in the massive room, Thaddeus calmly assured the others that this was a case of magic, something he had experience with.

"Ah, they look... odd, Discord, are you sure that these are the beings from earth?"

"Yes, I followed your instructions to. the. letter. and got the Earth beings," Discord argued his innocence, "Doesn't this look like an Earth being?" he said, grabbing Egnatius by the sides of his head.

"They all look so... different... from one another I mean," Cadance noted, blushing a bit from embarrassment and trying not to sound offensive or stupid.

"Discord, these aren't golems," Twilight stated the obvious, but Discord could be so daft sometimes.

"Golems? You wanted golems, and you got humans? That's... blindness," Brian said disappointedly. He'd been pulled from his mission because of a mistake?

While he couldn't say anything for the others, he had good reason to be mad about this situation, so he aimed his M4 at the ponies.

*crack* the sound was high-pitched, and it caught the attention of the ponies as a bullet flew past Celestia's head and through a window behind her.

"I want to go back, it's obvious that you don't want me, I can't speak for the others, 'specially not Addy there, but I have a life back home, with a family and parents and friends, and I'm a soldier too," this was just too much right now, he shed a couple of tears.

Those little drops of liquid, combined with the gunfire and complaints, spoke volumes of this man's character. His words showed that he was, indeed, a real person, his actions showed that he was desperate, and his tears showed that he actually gave a damn about life.

Luna spoke first, "Well, they aren't the earth beings we were looking for, but I think this one has proven that they are the earth beings-"

"Earth beings." Discord corrected, the capitalization of the 'e' was important.

"The Earth beings we need." the blue alicorn finished, smiling slightly.

"Zo, vhat do joo need us for?" Adolf asked, adjusting his hat and shifting his weight.

"Well, I don't know if any of you have experienced it personally, but..." Celestia stopped as images flashed through her mind, images of Equestria burning into nothing by the hands of the Jall.

"Well... Equestria is..." Luna tried, but it was too painful to say.

Cadance didn't even attempt, she just looked hopefully to Twilight.

"We don't know if any of you have experienced it personally, but Equestria is at war." Twilight revealed finally, watching as the confused looks on the six humans' faces turned to understanding.

"Purple pony princess, I think-" Thaddeus attempted to speak, but Twilight cut him off.

"My name is Twilight Sparkle." the lavender alicorn informed.

"Twilight, I know that I can speak for all of us when I say that... I think it's story time." Brian countered, sitting down in one of the many chairs with his rifle in his lap.

Everyone agreed and sat down, waiting for the stories.

"So, I only caught a glimpse, but tell me, and all of us, what is your experience with war?" Discord asked, leaning in closely.

The humans looked at each other, trying to decide who would go first.