De Luce et Tenebris Umbra

Chapters

Somniorum Porta Praeterita et Futura
Nova Initia
Species Tenebris
Komprometiruyushchie Situatsii
Crepe, Serrature, e Portali.
Once More Unto the Breach
Into the unknown we go!
Danger Looms in the ever present Shadow
Chapter 9 (Title to be changed)
Intermission
Intermission 2
Recon Pt.1
Recon pt.2 (poss. inc.)
Hidden Message
Night Before the Storm
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Somniorum Porta Praeterita et Futura

De Luce et Tenebris Umbra
Out of darkness and light comes a shadow

Somniorum Porta Praeterita et Futura
Dreams gate, past and future

Dreams can be a link to the past, revealing once hidden information. But if your mind is in tandem with the energy flow of the universe, then they can show you the future.

I ran through the forest, the trees and brushes flying past me in a blur of colors in the dim twilight. I have to keep on running, until I break the tree line. I know that some of the Jayeer managed to escape my grasp in the last engagement, their raptor-like physique's allowing them to escape my grasp, but I don’t have time to worry about them now; there are more pressing matters to attend to.

I keep on running, my lungs burning as if they’re on fire, my throat is dry, and my eyes are stinging from the smoke and fumes. I just catch the movement in my peripheral vision as a figure flies at me from my right. I easily sidestep and pivot despite my exhaustion, bringing my armored gauntlet down on the Jayeer’s head, pulverizing the skull, and turning the brain into a slimy soup.

I grab its shoulders and throw it with ease towards another approaching figure on my left. The sounds of bones breaking and death rattles are lost in the howling wind as I leap forward to escape the burning forest’s choking embrace. Those were the last two nuisances I would have to eliminate on the road to my target. I can see the trees thinning through the smoky haze, and so I take one final leap to escape the forest and enter the charred field.

He stands there, waiting for me...ever waiting. Slightly leaning and holding the wound in his side, he favors his right leg as his hood falls from his face. His gaze is the same as ever, ever furious, ever hating, ever questioning, “HOW,” his voice seething with rage, “Did YOU… manage to… DO… SO MUCH!” He rasps the final words, and coughs repeatedly as he spits out blood.

I stare at him, and then turn my gaze to the sights and sounds surrounding us, stretching out my arm as I do so. To the flaming lands and toxic clouds of gas and ash, to the glassy fields that are all that remains of the life on this planet.

“Because, I HATE seeing THIS! This destruction, the death. You wreak havoc everywhere you go! There was no safety, no mercy, THERE WAS NOWHERE THEY COULD HIDE OR RUN FROM YOUR FORCES!” I turn my gaze back to him as he lifts his hood and pulls down the mask. “Here is where it ends, for the both of us.”

He just chuckles; he chuckles every time, raising his guard as he does so.

“So be it, you insignificant shadow. Let us see then, who is truly better fit to survive.”

He begins the old Creed of Balance to signify an end for a new beginning.

“The balance between the Light and the Dark,” he begins.

“Begins when there is choice,” I continue, dropping my blades as we start to circle each other.

“Just as Light cannot exist without Darkness...”

“Each one tempers the other, creating Shadow in between...”

“The Shadows are ever neutral...”

“Just as Shadows cannot exist without light…”

“Shadows cannot exist without Darkness...”

“The Shadows surround the remaining Lights to fend off the Darkness...”

“A simple choice is all it takes…”

“To become Light or Dark...”

“But with only one...”

“It cannot balance the other.”

We stop our circling and he takes the opportunity to dispose of his cracked and twisted armor; as I look down to see mine, also blackened and cracked, I disengage the straps to drop it so it wouldn't hinder me, letting it fall to the earth. But like his pure black armor, mine is a swirling mix of black and gray.

“After so long… it finally ends,” I whisper and then look up, preparing myself for this final confrontation.

The battle itself is a blur, a blow landed here, a slash avoided, a stab parried, the endless circling and whipping of the wind, continuing until we finally cease exchanging blows. I come back to my senses to realize that we are both exhausted, but even then the fighting will not cease. I can feel the blood oozing from the gashes, the creaking of my bones at fracture points. My vision tinted red at the trickle of blood running into my eye, of which no amount of blinking would remove. I see his face and realize that he is scared… scared of dying. We may be immortal, but we’re certainly not invincible, we haven't been ever since that accursed war...

I feel saddened as I continue with my plan, unable to find any other successful outcome. I clench my right fist and focus all of my remaining energy into my last resort, and gain a calm determination. Looking up I can see his fear turn into hope as he realizes that I have only one chance. Then he raises his own hand in unison with mine as we draw for a final strike.

---HPOV---

I raised my hand to mirror his, and signal the beginning of our duel. We dashed forward with our last bits of energy, the ground pulverized beneath our feet. If I can just block his attack then I have a chance to attack him with my hidden dagger. Within my own mind I was chuckling at his trust that this fight would be fair. As a being of the blackest darkness, I had an almost unspoken duty to cheat.

He lunges forward and… SLIPS! ‘Of all the ways he could die, he would die by a slip! No matter,’ I curl my mouth into a cruel sneer as I twist right out of the way of his strike and start to unsheathe my dagger. My smile is triumphant as I begin to raise it,… only to have my arm disappear in a flash of red mist.

I stared at the stump in shock, until my gaze travels farther downwards. I could feel the warm fuzzy feeling in my chest as it was spreading from a gaping wound where my heart was supposed to be. His arm was protruding from my chest!

I raised my eyes to his face and saw a tired, sad look in his eyes, eyes that had seen horrors beyond imagining, and yet felt the warm touch of joy. Eyes with a fierce coldness that backed every decision, the ¾ face mask revealed nothing else. He had tricked me! Made me believe that his strike was on his right arm; taking advantage of my delay with the dagger.

I smiled at him and said as I collapsed into ash, “Sneaky Bastard.”

---SPOV---

Being in such exhausted states as we were, I was not surprised to see him fall for my deception. I was surprised, however, at the dagger that was currently sticking out of my side, leaking what little life I had left into the world. I could feel the cold numbness spreading, as I watched him crumple into ash, muttering, “Sneaky,” as his last word. Crumpling to my knees, I observed what remained of my foe, only to see it shift and stir as the Darkness attempted to escape. I couldn't destroy it, not in my state, but I could seal it. With that, I reached into the pile of ash, mentally grabbed what remained of it, and absorbed it, sealing it away inside me until such a time as I could seal it away properly, or destroy it. Then a sharp pain erupted in my chest, causing me to keel over.

At the same time, the ground began to shake, as is something was moving the very planet itself by walking. In the background I could hear a voice calling out to a name, a name I recognized, a voice I recognized.

“Wake up Ghost! Wake up! It’s just a dream!”

“Now Luna remember, this chamber shall only open when the time comes,” teased her father.

“But father, why can we not open it now?” begged Luna, almost bouncing with curiosity.

He sighed, ‘Curiosity robbed the cat of its meal when it lost track of what was happening around it.’ In Luna’s case… sometimes things had to be repeated,...in greater detail. “As I said, it shall only open when time is right, and the information is nee…” He stopped Himself, but too late.

“When it is needed?” Luna was confused. “If the,” Luna stopped, remembering her mother’s lessons on the RCV (Royal Canterlot Voice), “If thou chamber’s information shall be needed, then should we not be prepared ahead for the fact?”

He shook his head sadly, “No Luna, this is something that nopony can prepare for.” He thought for a moment looking for the proper comparison.

“It is somewhat similar to your magical growing spouts,” He finally said with a chuckle. Then he turned away from the chamber and started a slow walk back to the sun-room by the Palace gardens. There, Celestia and her mother were having a debate to prepare her for the many courts that would she would have to attend to during hers and Luna’s eventual rule.

Luna however, stayed next to the chamber entrance as a tapestry was lowered over the door. Her face was flushed with embarrassment and she was pawing at the ground nervously. Her last MGS had blown a hole in Celestia’s chambers, creating cause for a remodeling of the balcony to make up for the increased space.

By the time she recovered her composure and looked up, her father was already far down the hall. She quickly set off after him not wanting to be left behind, and now that her initial embarrassment was gone, she was more determined than ever to discover what important secret information resided within that room.

When He heard quick hoof steps catching up to him clattering on the stone, he stopped and turned waiting for Luna to catch up. He immediately registered the “I’m hungry for more knowledge and will pester you with questions and puppy eyes until you spill out all of your deepest secrets” look.

He maintained his calm and regal shell, but was panicking on the inside. He needed to get Luna’s mind off the room quickly, or else it was going to be a very, very, long night. He thought frantically jumping from one thought to the next, until he stumbled over a memory from the week before. Luna had been repeatedly trying to modify the night sky and create here own personal canvas. As ponies often ignored the night, she wanted to make it more desirable. But even after many weeks, she still had not managed to do so, so He had promised to teach her how sometime soon. Though it was soon forgotten when he had revealed the secretiveness of the chamber, so hopefully he could reverse the situation in his favor.

As He ran through what he was going to say, and gave one final hopeful wish to his wife, as Luna finally closed the remaining bits of distance between them.

“Father,” she began, already beginning the large, watery puppy eyes, and quivering lip; about to start her barrage of questions when he cut her off.

“Luna dear, does thou still wish to learn to create thou’s personal canvas of the Night Sky?”

“Oh Father! Yes, yes please!” Her puppy eyes and questions were quickly abandoned at the prospect of learning this long sought after skill. Now she really did, literally, start hopping around him in excited spinning circles. Just watching her go around, and ‘round, and ‘round, and ‘round, and ‘round was starting to make him dizzy. So he used his magic to catch her in midair, and turn her so he could look at her in the eye.

“Come now, I said I would, and so I shall,” he said smiling, “We shall begin your lessons tonight, as soon as you raise the moon."

Luna was about to scream with joy, but he quickly covered her mouth with his hoof.

“Come, we must hurry or your mother will not be pleased at our delay for your court lessons.” Luna nodded, he released her, and they both started a quick canter down the hall. He was hurrying along, but by the sound of things, Luna was either running in circles, or bouncing off the walls. He feared to look back, lest he lose what sense of balance remained from earlier.

Celestia was just finishing an economical debate with Mother when Father and Luna walked in. Her father seemed to be immensely relieved and yet worried at the same time. Then there was Luna, practically floating with excitement behind him. Celestia knew why he was nervous, as he had made Luna miss out on the entire lesson, something her mother was not pleased about. But looking towards her, Celestia could see that she was more amused by the sight of a relieved father and floating Luna than irked.

Celestia could tell that something important had happened, and her curiosity grew almost to the point of showing, almost, but she quickly reined it in and contained it. Maintaining her regal form as her mother had taught her, not allowing her emotions to get the better of her. The curiosity was still there though, so she filed it away for a later date. For now she would just enjoy the sight in front of her.

Nova Initia

Nova Initia
New Beginnings

If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly.
-- Nick Lappos, Chief R&D Pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft.

“Wake up Ghost! Wake up! It’s just a dream!”

I open my eyes, and am not surprised to see the face of my second in command Alex Rent (Call-Sign “Pick”) Nickname “Toothpick” after that habit of his to always have one of them sticking out of his mouth between missions.

“Welcome back to reality,” he sighed. “Had to make some Black Ops threats to keep the crew from coming to see what was goin’ on. You gave me and the rest of the team a bit of a scare, hearin’ you hollerin’ like that,” he continued with a worried expression.

“I’m fine,” I say slowly getting up, my shirt is soaked with sweat, “Just a dream.” The bulkhead next to my bunk is dented in several places from several past ‘Dreams’.

Alex shook his head slowly, “If this shit keeps on happenin’ then we won’t be able to stop the medics from forcin’ you into a check up.”

I sigh and reach for the canteen that I keep on my locker. Taking a swig, I swish and spit into a nearby sink, seeing a bit o’ blood, I realize that I had bit my cheek. I turn away from Alex and reach up to the laceration, healing it with a quick thought. No one knows what I can do, and I intend to keep it that way.

“Man, ya’ need ta’ stop be’n so stubborn all the time.” Alex sighs, finding a corner chair, “One of these time you’re gonna have to open up to someone, about these ‘Dreams’ else they’re gonna take ya’ off the roster. They’ll probably chalk it up to all these HSBEL assignments.”

I chuckle lightly, “They won’t, I’m too good to bench.” Then I reconsider, “Actually, they might considering we have the upper hand in the war now.” I start to chew on my newly healed cheek and say jokingly, “Next assignment we get I’m askin’ for separate rooms, and soundproofing.”

“Yer mad, is what you are,” Alex smiles shaking his head, holding his face in his hands. “Well,” he grunts getting up from the chair, “As long as it don’t get you killed then its okay, to a…” There’s surprise on his face as he stares past me, but the only thing behind me is the sink and my locker… Shit, it’s still open, exposing my wooden carvings of the beings in my nightmares.

He was about to say something when the terminal on the other side of the room gave a sharp trill. I took the opportunity to slam the locker shut, sealing it. Alex gave me a weird look and I just shook my head mouthing, “Another time,” as the message began to play.

As it turns out, it wasn’t a prerecorded message, but rather a call from the bridge, from the third member of my team Dan (Call-Sign Maverick) Nickname “Tortoise”, used to be Turtle, but he wanted Tortoise.

“Ghost, we got a…” he paused when he saw Alex and gave him a look that said, “Another one?” Alex just nodded and gestured for him to continue.

“Anyway… we got a new set of orders from command and apparently my codes aren’t qualified to get into the file, so you guys need to get down here to the bridge fast as you can,” Dan continued with a slightly confused face.

Alex stared openmouthed at this statement, and I sat there trying to contemplate how highly classified these orders were to not accept the primary clearance orders of our communications officer. I was the only other person on the ship that had clearance equal to his, and then some, so hopefully they open to mine. Then again, there were other ways that he could get into the file.

“Did you try…” I started before Dan interrupted me.

“Yes, I did, not even those.”

Now, that had me stunned. Either command had caught wind of Dan’s unorthodox ways of getting into encrypted files, or they needed a full biometrics scan from the two, to maybe three, individuals on the ship with the highest security clearance. Which would be me, Dan, and Alex.

“Well fuck. Looks like we aren’t getting a break anytime soon,” I sighed. Alex glanced at me and started to say something, but I cut him off. “I said I’ll explain it later, for now let’s just get this over with.”

The quick march to the bridge was uneventful except for a few sidelong glances that I got from the crew. They would travel with us to the gates of hell, but these recent reoccurring “dreams” were starting to trouble them. Some of the crew were new, and would probably take the first chance that they got to get back at me. I’ve been cracking down on their heads and war monger attitudes since they arrived. Their Special Forces “I’m a Badass” attitudes had to be put in their place.

Meeting up with the others at the bridge, we stood in front of the terminal, speaking our respective clearances, ranks, serial numbers, the whole 9 yds.

*Beep*

A small window popped up with the words:

MESSAGE PRIORITY LEVEL ROMEO-WHISKEY.

I heard running behind me as the rest of the crew that were present rushed out of the room. The consequences for someone that was not cleared to observe one of these messages were, ‘Severe’.

Alex rubbed his hands together with a maniac smile on his face.

“Well then, let’s get started shall we?” he said with his maniac excitement as he opened the file.

*URGENT MESSAGE INCOMING*

CLASSIFICATION X-RAY ZULU 0-2-1-2

RECOMMENDED CAUTION LEVEL--- ROMEO<>WHISKEY

There has been an incident at Research Facility Theta in the Epsilon Eridani system.
The lead scientist (Call-Sign Wide-Eyes) has disappeared in an experimental trial to observe a classified anomaly (Call-Sign LDorm), and is missing; presumed captured.

X-RAY ALPHA and X-RAY BRAVO squads are being dispatched to investigate this anomaly and observe the surrounding area for Renton Van activity. (Suspected Involvement)

X-RAY ALPHA will determine the location and status of LSci.-Wide-Eyes.

XA-Lead (Ghost) Will make the call either to retrieve or sterilize the package to prevent the spread of possibly lethal ‘contaminants’.

X-RAY BRAVO Will secure the facility and await further orders from XA-Lead.

RESEARCH FACILITY THETA

Facility spans 1 X 1.5 km

Border fences and guard towers are present.

1 Barracks

1 Main Research Lab

1 Vehicle Depot

1 Main Recreational Facility

3 Landing Pads

Occupants

25 Researchers

35 Combat/Defense Personnel

Technicals

2 Medium Class Light Transport Vehicles

1 Medium Class Armored Personnel Carrier (AAIPC)

1 Light VTOL Transport Aircraft

NOTE:

As per recent events caution is also placed as the facilities distress call may be false in an attempt to eliminate more of our special forces. You are our very best; Ladies and Gentlemen; we can’t afford to lose you.

Be Careful…

Good Luck.

At 0425 all reports must be sent to Intel Prowler (Call-Sign “Black Cat”)

CURRENT TIME: 0330

SLIPSPACE JUMP: 0430

MISSION START: 0600

*END TRANSMISSION*

We had about 1 hour to type out our reports and send them through an encrypted channel to our intelligence ship. Then we were to immediately go dark and com silent until we reached we reached the research facility on Cherok IV. It was named after General Alfred Cherok who successfully stopped the Renton Van advance but lost his life and his ship as he forced his crew to abandon ship. He became renowned for this act as it led to the Van’s retreat and allowed us to tear their Frontal Invasion Lines to pieces. In his honor the nearest life sustaining planet was rechristened from XZ-212 to Cherok IV.

Moving to one of the two main briefing rooms, I met up with rest of my team. I stood outside of the door and tried to think of what I would say. Looking to my right I could see the other briefing room’s door. Rex, X-RAY Bravo’s squad lead was also standing outside only he was looking at me with an expectant look as the rest of Bravo walked into the room. I just shook my head slowly and sadly. I had promised both teams R&R when we got back from our last mission. I had even pulled most of my favors to get all missions passed off to the somewhat experienced Charlie and Delta teams, they’d been stuck on backwater cleanup with the occasional ‘Van encounter, and were starting to get restless. To bypass everything I had called in especially a few major ‘secrets’ meant that this was a special case, and that we hadn’t been given all the information.

Rex walked into his room, with his shoulders hanging tiredly. His team had taken the brunt of the last mission. Luckily there had been no casualties, but his second had been hit pretty hard. Again I had called in favors to get her the best medical treatment possible. She should have died from her wounds on the dillo’s ride back, but I had a say in who’d been at her side enroute. I had personally kicked Death out the gangplank before he had even gotten in.

Rex was getting too close to her, and I couldn’t let Alpha’s backup fall behind. I couldn’t really blame him for doing it. The end to the war was in sight, and they’d spent all of boot and most of their service together. But it’s always on the home-stretch, with the finish-line just in your grasp, that something will come to trip you up.

I rolled my shoulders before I entered the room, and popped my neck before striding towards the wall monitor. Everyone just sat in their respective chairs, and corners, as I explained why their leave for next god knows how long had been canceled once again.

Our target was a field research scientist call-sign “Wide-Eyes” that had been deployed to study the recent increase in Electromagnetic activity in this area. Only his extensive research into this anomaly, led to an experiment that brought him near an inter-dimensional rift. That most of us call a “Wild Dormy” because of their unpredictable nature. The other researchers claimed that during the experiment, Wide-Eyes claimed to have seen a visual shift in the size of the dormy, along with a sight of something moving from the other dimension through the rift. Apparently he thought that he should get a closer look at this anomaly, but the localized EM field was preventing any visual recording equipment from recording a decent picture or video. Any equipment that came within 15 meters was rendered useless. No matter what was tried all that came out was a grainy or extremely pixilated image of the anomaly. So Wide-Eyes attempted to get close enough to attain a decent view of what was on the other side.

There was an audio recording from one of his assistants, “H…he just w…walked closer to it and t...tried to get a p...peek through, but then he shouted out a..and th..this arm came out of nowhere and grabbed him!” “We were all sc...scared and d...didn’t want to get close to it.” After this he broke down and started sputtering something along the lines of, “Sh…should’ve helped him… some…somehow.”

Another assistant continued for him, “We were all sorta expecting him to come back smiling with the thing on a leash, ready to publish another theory for interdimensional travel. But then things thing with bright yellow eyes started staring at us through the rift and tried to get through, so we shut it all down, and are now filing this report.”

By the end of the briefing I had gotten some curious glances at what this mission briefing entailed.
“Interdimensional Search&Rescue sir? Isn’t that a bit out of our forte?” spoke Dan with an innocent look on his face.

I rubbed my eyes as Alex face-palmed.

“Yes, Dan. We have no info on the latter of our mission.” I said with a slightly creepy smile. “We have absolutely no idea what we’ll be facing in the ‘Twilight Zone,’ but if worse comes to worse we can feed you to whatever’s there, I’m sure you’ll taste just like chicken.’

I referred to his ancient collection of psychological animations, and his favorite phrase when trying to get us to eat his ‘Mystery Meat’ during an LS mission.

‘Come ooonnn. Just try it. I assure you, it tastes just like chicken.’

A possible ambush or alien species, we could handle. Eating more Mystery Stew? Not so much.

Species Tenebris

Species Tenebris
Appearance of the Dark

3000 kilometers off of Cherok IV.

0550 hours

The stars disappeared and were replaced with a dark distortion of the fabric of space.

A clump of metal soon appeared from the distortion, quickly followed by the rest of the 1.5km ship.

The ship, ‘Elizer’s Night’, emerged quickly from the folds of space, 10 min. ahead of schedule.

Bridge

“Well, here we are,” sighed Captain Mathias, “another rescue mission for a poor ignorant civie.”
He turned to the hulking armored shape beside him.

“Well, Colonel? How long do you think you’ll be gone this time? My men need to cash in their leave time.”

“As long as it takes captain,” Ghost replied.

“And you wouldn’t care to inform me of your mission more than the fact that some important big shot Civie is missing?”

“Why would they even send men like you to do something like that?” He scratched the back of head before slicking his remaining hair back and replacing his cap, “Unless it was really that bad, or there’s something more to it.”

“The specifics are classified as always Captain, you know as well as I do that cannot divulge anything more at this time.”

Mathias sighed rolling his shoulders.

“Hmph! Can’t help but try. My little girl’s birthday is next month, and I’d like to make it back… this time.”

Ghost nodded and turned to look at him from the veiwscreens where the planet was slowly getting larger.

“Don’t worry; I’ll have you back with enough time to help set up her party. No matter what.”

Mathias sighed with relief. Whenever Ghost made a promise like that, he always kept it no matter the circumstances they faced.

“Sir!” cried the helmsman. “We’re nearing their radar range, should we begin deceptive measures?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

The false pings would prevent the planetside stations from detecting the ship as nothing more than an asteroid, allowing them to approach undetected until they had taken stock of the situation.

Canterlot, Equestria

Lt. MoonShadow was a relatively new pony to the Palace Royal Guard. Patrolling the castle halls was the last thing she wanted to be right now, but since one of her subordinates was sick, she had offered to take his place. She had never expected to be in Canterlot so soon, especially on friendly terms.

She had seen service in her town’s guard, then the New Lunar Republic Army. They had been at war with the Solar Empire for a couple of years now and she had just been promoted to the NLR Special Forces when the new threat had appeared.

1 month ago the Solar Empire and the New Lunar Republic had faced off in what was to be one of the greatest decisive battles in the war. They had been evenly matched, and the battle had been at a stalemate for several days.

Moon could still hear the battle cries of countless ponies on both sides as they had approached their final battle on that fateful day. Only that, once both sides had been immersed into the combat, these new foes emerged, blindsiding the two armies, and leaving mass confusion in their wake.

She stopped her patrolling for a moment and shook her head, trying to dispel the ringing in her ears. It wouldn’t go away and she clasped her hooves over her ears and shut her eyes tight trying to figure out what the noise was… then, it hit her. She listened closely to the ringing, only to be gripped by fear and grief.

The noise wasn’t a simple ringing, but rather the cries of fear and pain from countless ponies… the memories were coming back.

Frantically, she searched for somewhere to hide as she unsheathed her dagger and tossed it to the other side of the hall. Spotting a large tapestry 10 ft. away she ran towards it, taking comfort in the dark space behind it. Clasping the empty sheath tightly in her mouth, she lay down and shut her eyes, tears already falling down the sides of her face as the horrifying images returned.

1 Month Ago

“You have your orders, good luck.” General Slighthoof dismissed his ponies with a solemn look on his grizzled old face.

MoonShadow practically flew out into the early morning with her three other squad mates. This was to be the last battle of the Everfree campaign. It was going to be all or nothing for the allegiance of Equestria. Her excitement was unparalleled, as she had just been promoted to the prestigious NLR Special Forces. They were to spearhead a flanking attack on the SE’s main force and stir confusion within the enemy providing the NLR with an advantage.

1 Hour Later

MoonShadow paused at her vantage point in an ancient pecan tree on a hill at the edge of the Everfree forest. At first her interest had been peaked at the size of the tree. Normally Pecan trees were not this tall, but then what could one expect of the Everfree forest?

She raised her binoculars to get a view of the sparsely treed field. The two army camps were only 6 miles from each other, but still close enough for Pegasus recon, but those that were sent were quickly discouraged by Unicorn AA.

Moon settled down into the crook of her branch and motioned for the rest of her team to do the same. It would be a while yet until the two armies marched on each other. Looking Eastward toward the slowly rising sun, Moon could just see the blurred shape of a town on the horizon.

This battle was going to be fought dangerously close to the neutral boundaries of Ponyville. The Elements of Harmony had pledged to remain neutral in the war as they would be a decisive factor in all battles. It had been made clear to both armies that there was to be no fighting anywhere within a 3 mile radius around the town.

Even then though, the citizens had made the offer that if a pony was too wounded to be taken back to their respective camp, then they would be somewhat welcome at the town hospital under truce terms, as eventually there would be wounded of both sides within the town.

Moon shook her head at the idealistic view of the soft spoken Pegasus that had put forward that proposition. She had given up her home to be within the boundaries of the town, but took her animals with her. According to reports, she still made occasional trips back to the forest to care for whatever animals had come to her empty doorstep, but only under the protection of a small contingent of the town’s guard.

Moon wrapped her rear hooves around her branch and rolled over to pop up in the face of her second in command, StarWatcher. He nearly fell out of the tree at her sudden appearance.

“You’re on watch, wake me up when they start moving,” she whispered, before swinging back up to her branch not even waiting for a confirmation before settling in for a nap.

StarWatcher sighed at the antics of his friend. She was always either sleeping or napping, and she claimed that there was a difference between the two when he did not see any.

Hearing the soft snores of his commanding officer brought a small smile to his face. He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small box. On it was a small tag labeled, ‘To MoonShadow’. Opening it he revealed a pair of earrings and a folded note. He had discovered his feelings for his long-time friend only recently, and had been trying to figure out a way to tell her. He had planned on a dinner and dance in a small restaurant in neutral Ponyville, but decided to confess his feelings through a note just in case…

As sad expression formed on his face, there was a reason he was called StarWatcher. He could see artificial formations of stars in his dreams that gave him glimpses into the future, and for the past week he had been getting the same message. That he would die in the upcoming battle or soon after.

Many would say that the future isn’t set and can always be changed. Star agreed with them completely. He had changed some of the outcomes that he had predicted, but only slightly. He couldn’t make the changes by himself, but everypony that he involves in the predictions has died while helping him. In a way it seemed that the very things that he tried to prevent from happening, happened because he tried to prevent them.

He put away the box and determination filled his face. No matter what, he would confess to MoonShadow, and he would survive the battle. He closed his eyes and visualized the scene, but not her answer.

His father had told him that, ‘To visualize the scene will make it happen, but do not visualize the outcome, as you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. I mean just look at you, I wanted a big and strong son that would catch the ladies at first glance like me, but instead I got the lean intelligent scruff that’s you!’

Star allowed himself another smile at the memory of his father’s teasing life lessons, but it quickly vanished when he heard a low rumbling sound. Looking around he saw that the others of his squad were up and alert, so he reached up and gave Moon’s overhanging hoof a jab.

Moon woke up with a start from a jab to her hoof. Looking down she could see Star pointing to the field. Raising her binoculars, she could see the two armies nearing each other. She lowered the binocs., and readied her gear. Now all they, and the other teams, had to do was wait for the signal… and there it was, flying high over the rear of their army near the command center.

Flying from their positions within the Pecan tree's branches, they approached the nearest trees as stealthily as possible.

Moon could feel the tension in her muscles and the jitteriness that were her nerves. Landing softly in the thick leaves of a tree, she watched as the two massive armies clashed before her eyes. The forest had been silent until now, but now it rang with the battle cries of both sides.

Magical artillery flew back and forth, and pegasi dropped magic concussion grenades to disorient the enemy.

Moon and the others were frozen with awe. They longed to join the fight, but had to wait until the second signal was sent.

Before it could be sent however, new sounds began to overlap the battle. Moon and her team could only watch in horror as bright flashes of light and fire appeared on the field, quickly followed by the sounds of strange whining explosions.

Then, instead of the proud cries of fighting ponies, they could only hear the fearful wails of both armies as an unforeseen force tore into them.

Then the second signal went up, a bright ball of light that separated into three lights of green yellow and red, showing where the SF teams would be most needed.

“Come on guys,” yelled Moon, as she took off at full sped for the red light that hovered over the far side of the battle.

StarWatcher was rooted in place. His dream was coming true! The red light surrounded by blue fire, a flaming dart followed by a burning pain in his chest, and an unequstrially roar. These moments marked his path towards his death, and so far only the 1st had happened. Seeing Moon take off towards the red light, he immediately followed not willing to let her get hurt. The time was here and one had passed, he only had to survive the next two and he would be home free, he hoped.

Closing in on the new threat.

(POV) Solar Empire SF Captain ShiningBrow

He and his men were hastily redeployed to face the new threat under orders from Celestia herself. Brow had been unnerved at the new development on their left flank, but now he was terrified. His orders had included that he was to work with the NLR’s troops as well if needed.

“Sir, there they are!,” cried his lieutenant.

Brow looked downward only to be horrified by the sights that awaited him. Ponies from both sides had been torn to shreds by this new force that seemed to be composed of giant apes with battle axes, only that they had the agility of rabbits. Not only that but they were lobbing small grenade like objects that emitted a whining sound shortly before exploding into shining balls of blue flame, incinerating anypony lucky enough to be caught in the blast. Those that were unlucky enough to be caught at the edge suffered serious burns and lost limbs. Not even the off-limits medical ponies were being spared, with the bright red crosses on their armor. In fact, it only seemed to make them more attractive targets to the beasts.

Suddenly a flurry of light red flashes caught his eye. Turning slightly he saw several red lights flying towards him.

‘What could those be?,’ he wondered, ‘They look like… arrows!,’ only seconds before being impaled by the cloud of burning spikes.

StarWatcher dived and weaved, slashing at the tall beasts with his sword. Gone was the thought of fighting the Solar Empire, right now he could only think of covering Moon’s back.

Suddenly, there were two bright flashes of light above the field, and everything stopped, even the new beasts, to look up.

There, above them all were the two princesses, talking to each other!

“All ponies from both sides here our call!”

‘What the hell?!’

“We have called a temporary truce between us to combat this new threat to ponykind.”

As they explained, their horns glowed with power and an invisible wedge was driven between the apes and us. They retreated several yards and stood glaring at us. All fighting had ceased.

Suddenly, Luna’s voice rang out, “Now be gone foul beasts!”

A bright light engulfed the apes and they seemed to disappear before our eyes.

Both sides watched in awe at the display of power that been banned at the start of the war by mutual agreement. The results were terrifying.

The apes remained where they were, the earth around them scorched and blackened while they remained unaffected except for a slight shimmering that seemed to cover their bodies.

Our jaws dropped and several clumps of ponies turned and ran. We didn’t stop them; the only thing holding us there at the front was the fact that we had the princesses’ backup, but not even Luna’s power had affected them.

StarWatcher remained hovering several dozen yards above MoonShadow, only about 10 feet below the princesses. Then, the beasts started laughing. This caused even more ponies to flee, screaming and falling over bodies in their haste to get away.

Star looked up to see the two princesses with looks of shock and fear on their faces, they had lost their focus on the shaking mass of mirth before them.

Star heard a distinct ‘click’ through the laughing and looked down in time to see one of the apes hiding behind some others pop up with a long metallic object in his hand, taking aim at Luna, who was preparing another spell along with Celestia, and fire. Star barely even had a thought as he shot upwards to deflect the spike with his sword.

Angling his sword, he caught the spike perfectly, deflecting it away from the princess, but didn’t catch sight of the second one until it was nearly upon him. He brought his blade to bear, and gave a slight smile, the crisis moment had been averted, only to have the spike punch straight through his sword, creating a neat hole in the middle of it, and penetrate through his armor.

Time froze as the brave Pegasus fell from the sky, only to be caught by several others and gently settled to the ground as the medics rushed to him.

All around him, the ponies began to unfreeze, shocked into action by the bravery of this lone soldier. They gathered at the invisible shield separating the two sides, pure rage overtaking their faces. At the same time a contingent of pegasi formed a protective barrier in front of the princesses preventing any more of the assassination attempts.

A lone figure stepped in front of the apes’ line and began clapping.

“Brava! Brava! I didn’t expect to see such courage from the like of your weak race, but nevertheless it will be fun to watch your world burn,” he said his words dripping with malice.

MoonShadow hadn’t recognized that it had been StarWatcher that had sacrificed himself, and so hadn’t rushed to his side. Instead she took her place at the head of her line next to the acting commander of the Solar Empire’s SF.

Whoever that thing, thought it was, it would pay dearly.

2 predicts down 1 to go.

StarWatcher lay inside a huddle of bustling medical ponies from both sides as they worked on him. A single thought kept going through his mind.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m…’

He lost consciousness right before the third came true.

Celestia and Luna prepared to fire their combined magiks upon the creatures when the one that had spoken raised his arm and waved his claws. The magic that had been gathering above them suddenly dispersed into the clouds creating a thunderstorm.

Celestia and Luna were shocked, whatever this thing was, it had the ability to cancel, or at least redirect, their spells.
He simply smiled at them and lifted his forehoof into the air, only to be interrupted by a terrible roar.

Listen here please.

Allow both to load and play respective parts in order to get the full roar.
First video start at :35/end at :55 (video here)
Second video start at :30/ to end (video here)

Both sides froze at the sound.

The ponies were terrified at the possibly new threat, that terror only increased when the apes began to flee.

"It's the Daemons! Flee! Flee!"

Their terror for the being that the sound came from was as transparent as daylight.

Soon only the cloaked figure remained, but it also seemed to be terrified out of its wits.

Before fleeing he called out one more thing, "You may have won this one, but we will be back!"

Ponies scrambled into loose formations and were all frantically searching for the source of the noise. The enemies that they had just faced were powerful and terrifying. So what could make them so scared?

They stood there, waiting, watching, trying to find the source of this apparently new threat.

Only...

It never appeared.

Komprometiruyushchie Situatsii

A Compromising Situation

Note that titles will range in a variety of languages depending on recommendations and mood.

Please note that a single word or name that is in italics means that there has been a change in point of view. May be accompanied by a short description.

‘Elizer’s Night’

Low orbit around Cherok IV

0640

Ghost

Pin backing, firing pin, trigger spring, the three pieces fit together with repetitive smoothness. Slide on the bolt, push down, compress, and add rear bolt lock. The rest of the pieces of my rifle’s bolt made small clinking noises as they came together. Holding down the trigger I replaced the bolt and moved it through its paces. It slid quickly and locked into place, then reset and relocked.

Ping

The old rifle’s light ping let me know that the firing pin hit the dummy round solidly. I allowed myself a small smile. The new rifles had very few moving parts and didn’t allow for this kind of meticulous work, but these ancient ones were made to last.
It couldn’t compare to the fire rate and accuracy of the newest sniper rifles, or the penetration power, but it still had one hell of a kick when it hit you.

I slipped on the composite titanium bayonet, and went through the motions of close range hand-to-hand combat. I finished up with a lunge towards the foam target that was hanging by the door.

Hisssss

The door opened and the newest member of my team, Charise, or “Char”, walked in.

“Col…”

She froze at the small flash produced by the bayonet stabbing into the target not 2 feet from her head. Her eyes flew open so wide that I was temporarily worried that they would fall out of her head.

I thought about apologizing, but noticed that she was still frozen in place. So instead I chose to yell at her for her inaction.

“Sergeant!”

She jumped and unfroze, immediately leaping back from the embedded blade, and her eyes jumped to me.

“S…sir?” she whimpered.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. ‘Whimpering? Freezing from the sight of an approaching weapon? Just what kind of new squad mate did command send to me?’ She was young, granted, but she acted like she was straight out of ‘boot’, not the SF Academy like the rest of my squad.

“What the hell are you doing! 2 ft. farther to the left and you would have been impaled!”

She started shaking, and stared at me as I pulled out the blade. Then I noticed that her eyes were not fixated on me, but rather the bayonet. I noticed one of the classic symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I thought back to her record and recommendations.

{--------------------------------------}

Charise Wilkenson

Age: 24

Height: 5’ 7’

Weight: 160 lbs

Firearms: 98/100

CQC: 95/100

Strategic Planning: 99/100

Explosives: 90/100

Seems to have a special interest in pyrotechnics.

CS: 99/100

Fitness: 95/100

Cov.Op: 90/100

*Advisory Warning: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by the systematic execution of most known relatives in the Vercrumb Colony Massacre.*

Post Mortem autopsies of bodies recovered by the rescue forces suggest that most were tortured slowly with sharp, blade-like objects. All major arteries were avoided during the torture.

Death by public execution: the severing of both the Jugular and Corroded Arteries, with said objects.

Subject in question was, according to recovered video records of street cameras, present in most of the executions. Forced to watch.

Enlisted in the military soon afterward. Quick advancements through regular service.

Recommended for Orion Colony SF Academy: Age 22.

Symptoms of PTSD caused by exposure to sharp, thin objects.

Subject reacts in two ways.

Frozen in fear: has received several reprimands for its obstruction during training.

Uncontrolled Rage: 3 trainers sent to emergency medical wards for broken limbs and Sharp Force Trauma.

{----------------------------------------------}

‘Oh shit!’

I quickly pulled off the bayonet and placed it in its sheath at my waist. As I walked over to the table where I had left the case for the rifle, I heard slow movement behind me. Turning my head slightly I just caught sight of Char’ leaving the room, a dazed look on her face.

“Sergeant!”

“Sir?”

I waved her back and pointed to a bench near the door.

“Sit.”

“Bu…”

“That’s an order.” My tone quickly became serious. I would have to rectify the situation quickly, or else risk having a major liability in the upcoming mission.

I finished packing away the rifle and wiped off the excess grease from my hands with an old rag. Char’ sat down slowly on the bench, her eyes flickering back between me and the floor. The look on her face told me all that I needed to know. It wasn’t good, but would help me with what I was planning to do.

“I know about what happened 4 years ago.” I said calmly.

Her head shot up, a frightened look on her face. She was taking a gamble on where I was going with this.

“You…you’re not going to dro…drop me from the mission are you sir?”

I shook my head, lowering myself into a crouch in front of her.

“I won’t drop you unless this becomes a problem. Will it?”

Relief flooded her face, and she let a breath that she was holding.

“No sir!”

“Good,” I sighed, giving her a small smile, “Look, your file had that as an additive, a warning so to speak.”

“Bu…”

I interrupted her raising my hand as my face became serious once again.

“As long as you keep it in check I won’t say anything,” I put my hand on her shoulder, and gave it a slight squeeze, “But let this be my warning to you. These things can’t be held in forever, so if you need someone to talk to I’ll be here,” her face tinged slightly red as she looked away. ‘That was odd,’ I hope she isn’t catching anything, then I’ll really have to bench her. “But if I’m not available, you can also have a chat with Alex.”

This time the flush disappeared and confusion laced her features.

“Pick… why?”

“Cause you’re sorta like him in a way. Only you’re more outgoing than he was at the time. He was a shut in anytime we weren’t on a mission, except for the few times that he’d come into the mess hall.”

Now the confusion disappeared and astonishment covered her face. Lifting an eyebrow she asked, “Was he really like that?”

I nodded before standing up and taking a seat next to her. Leaning against the wall I closed my eyes and began to recount Alex’s journey from being a shut in, to the constantly lively, joking, and pranking, guy that he usually is. He was practically the living soul of the team now.

Char’ laughed as I retold the story of the party and Dan and I threw for Alex’s birthday, but she started yelling at me when I said that the major joke was when we put a hidden, inflatable punching glove in the cake, and the resounding mess that it created.

“You bastards wasted a CAKE!? Just for a prank?”

She gave me a shove and I tumbled off the bench laughing at the images that were flashing through my head. His face covered in cake, the laughing and joking at the present crew, his eventual giggles that transformed into full-blown laughing as he started throwing icing at us. It turned into a mini food fight that ended in us having to clean the mess hall.

At the time, no one had liked the fact that Dan had wanted to waste a cake for a joke, but when I revealed that we had enough spares for everyone, there were smiles and shaking heads all around.

“Do you know how hard it is to just get the supplies to make one cake?” Char’ kept on yelling at me as she chased me around the room. I didn’t care, I kept on laughing as I ran, I hadn’t expected it to be this easy to break her out of her mood.

Then she jumped on me and got me into a headlock before I could escape.

“Oi! We had just saved a colony from the ‘Van and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. We weren’t even supposed to be in that system, we disobeyed orders and risked our lives to lend a hand. Once we were done, instead of command court marshaling us, they gave us medals, took the credit for sending us, and creating a false mission to cover up the fact that we had gone AWOL.”

She let me out of the headlock as she ran that through her head.

“So you guys went AWOL, saved a colony, nearly got court-marshaled, and you got cake?!”

“No,” I coughed. “We got the supplies to make the cakes.”

“But… the ship couldn’t have possibly have had the cooking tech needed to bake it.”

I shrugged, “It didn’t matter, Dan got the crazy idea to make a small airtight chamber and use a flamethrower as a makeshift oven.”

She shook her head smiling, “You really are crazy and bipolar at the same time. First you’re barking orders and won’t take any shit from anyone, and now you’re trying to cheer me up?”

I froze, damn how did she know?

She looked at my face and gave me a small mischievous smile.

“I know what you’re thinking, ‘How do I know this?’.”

I nodded slowly.

“Well… it’s because that’s what my older brothers used to do whenever they came across someone who was depressed… especially me.” She sat back and scratched her head.

I sat down slowly and wearily.

“That’s it?”

She nodded, “That’s it.”

“So you’re not going to hit me for wasting cake?”

“Nope. Even though the last guy I caught wasting food, I beat to a pulp.”

Crap.

I don’t know what possessed me, but my mind wandered back a month to an after mission break when Dan had planned something he dubbed, ‘History Night’. We watched an ancient recording of a comedian from several centuries ago, and I remembered one part and response that would fit perfectly in this situation.

I raised the pitch of my voice and said, “Why?”

I hoped to whatever supreme being that was out there, that she wouldn’t give the same response. But… low and behold my chances with fate… she did.

“Because he couldn’t make me laugh.”

I sat there stunned and sighed with relief that I had avoided a pre-mission injury.

I froze when her smile widened.

“That reminds me…”

Oh shit…

“Even though I won’t beat you to a pulp…”

Oh no, no, no, no…

“You guys still wasted a cake,” her smile grew even wider as she raised herself into a crouch.

Holy mother of…

“I had you in a headlock right?”

My last thought before she leaped at me was, ‘Dear God someone help me!’

{-----------------------------------------------------------------------}

Meanwhile…

The rest of the members of Alpha and Bravo teams were getting their equipment ready for the upcoming mission.

Rex, Dan, and Alex were loading a Dillo’ with their weapons when Alex suddenly stopped.

“What's wrong,” asked Dan.

Alex twitched and licked his lips.

“Sweet… almost like frosting,” he mumbled.

Dan and Rex looked at each other and shrugged. They moved back to lift a crate when Dan suddenly twitched. He felt shivers going up his spine.

Rex paused, “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t know,” replied Dan, “Felt like someone was insulting me.”

Rex raised an eyebrow and turned back to move the crate when he sneezed.

Alex and Dan looked at him.

Rex just looked at them and said, “Felt like that time when you two were going to start fighting in the exercise room.”

Wait a sec’.

It didn’t take them long to piece everything together.

Sweet taste, almost like frosting… Cake!

Insulting Dan… the only things to insult him about were his cooking and his collection of ancient video recordings.

And a fight in the exercise room.

They all came to the same conclusion at once. There was only one other person on the ship that would insult Dan’s collection, talk about Alex’s birthday, and fight in the Ex. Room all in one go.

“Ghost,” they all said in unison before sprinting off.

{--------------------------------------------}

Can’t… breathe… need… air!

Char’ had me in a choke hold that pinned my arms at the same time.

I started to tap out when the door burst open and Alex, Dan, and Rex rushed in.

They all immediately froze at the sight of Char’ having me in a choke hold.

“Well I’ll be damned.”

Char’ and I simply looked up at them, and our still scene was interrupted by the crackling of the PA system.

“All teams make final preparations for launch in 45 minutes.”

I twisted out of the choke hold and jumped to my feet.

“You heard the order, now get going!”

Rex and Dan bolted out the door to finish loading the 'Dillo, but Alex stayed behind as well as Char'. He was giving me a look that said that he wanted to find out what had happened.

I motioned Char' out of the room with a wave of my hand.

"You need to finish up checking on your gear, the comms were still a bit faulty last time we checked."

She just nodded and marched off, her face stoic even though the red tinge had returned.

I turned back to Alex to see him with an eyebrow raised and a small smile adorning his face.

"I never expected you of all people to be beat in Hand-to-Hand, especially by her."

I laughed, "She's a lot better than you think."

I started to walk out when he caught my shoulder.

"Soooo..." He started in a teasing voice.

"What did you do to make her jump on you like that?"

I flinched.

"It was nothing like what you're thinking."

"Oh yeah?" He started accusingly leaning forward arms crossed, "Then why was she blushing when we caught the two of you sparring like that?"

'Was that what that was?' I thought, 'I'd better fix that as soon as I can.'

"Again, nothing like that," I told him giving a slight shove, "If you must know I damn near caused her to have a PTSD attack."

Alex stood there, his joking attitude wiped off his face to be replaced by worry.

"You helped her out of it though?"

"Yeah," I sighed, "I told her about when Dan and I first got you to laugh."

He froze.

"What else did you tell her?"

"That talking sometimes helps, so I offered to listen if she wanted to talk, but if I wasn't available, then for her to come talk to you."

Alex sighed, "So she knows then?"

"Yeah."

"Hmph!"

"Ah... don't worry," I laughed giving him a slight shove, "Now you can have that little talk with her that you've been wanting since she dropped in."

"I...what...how?"

"Don't worry 'bout how 'ah know, just worry 'bout what your goin' ta' say," I continued with a slight accent as I led him out the door.

"If we don't hurry then Rex 'll get a pick of the gear before we can... Race ya'."

Alex's old demeanor returned, giving me a sidelong glance he said, "You're on."

Crepe, Serrature, e Portali.

Crepe, Serrature, e Portali.

Cracks, Locks, and Rifts

Canterlot, Equestria

Present Day

MoonShadow

Shaking and covered in sweat, MoonShadow slowly rose from her position behind the tapestry, the long gone sounds of the battle still ringing in her ears. Taking a deep breath, she realized that she no longer had the sheathe between her teeth. Looking around she found it protruding from behind the tapestry. She quickly retrieved it and moved to find her dagger.

As the tapestry fell back into place, she did not notice the door that was hidden behind it, nor its six locks. One lock was broken and it had the picture of a roaring bear on its cover. Another yet was slightly fractured, but had the picture of a door.

Moving away he started on her way down the hall, determined to finish her patrol and visit her wounded squadmate, he had thankfully survived his wounds and had just woken up from his coma. Her friends said that he had something very interesting to say, and give to her.

‘Probably another sketch of his,’ she thought, ‘I wonder what he drew this time.’

{-----------------------------------------------------------------------}

StarWatcher had been reached fairly quickly, so the medics were able to stop the bleeding and whisked him off to the nearest hospital for treatment. He, along with the surviving wounded were taken to nearby Ponyville where a certain yellow pegasus and the hospital staff were waiting. With the truce in place, the town had served as a temporary meeting place for the two princesses and their commanders.

Both sides had waited anxiously for the meeting to end, and orders to be given, but over the course of the following week they had only received one.

Cease-Fire

Neither side knew what to do, so the remaining commanders simply events let things take their course.

Both sides began to intermingle and friends, who had been separated since the beginning of the war, began to meet up at the local bar.

By the end of the week even the commanders from both sides had to admit that should the Attack! order be given, it would be highly unlikely that the fighting would resume. There were too many ponies from both sides that taken a stance to cease their fighting, and band together against the new threat.

It was no surprise to anypony that when the Princesses and their advisors returned, the war had ended by mutual agreement against a common enemy.

Survival takes precedence over ideals.

The being that had seemed to be the commander of the ape/bear-like creatures, had sworn that they would return, so preparations were being made while the Official peace negotiations were taking place. Needless to say that all throughout Equestria, celebrations erupted at the announcement, but at the same time, there were also dark feelings and fear circulating about their new foes.

Out of the original two armies, both 10,000 strong, only about 18,000 remained. The original casualty list that was presented to the princesses and their advisors at their meetings, were that approximately 400 ponies had been killed in the initial fighting, before the beasts had entered the fray. This had not been surprising as the original casualty projections had been around 6,000-10,000 total had the battle gone without interruption.

What had been surprising was that 1,600 ponies had been killed by the beasts, which were now being called Ursa Primors, but there had only been an estimated 250 of them, including their leader. The greatest shock was not the casualty list or the impossibly small, and deadly, force that had attacked them. It was the fact that only an estimated 5-15 were killed.

The correct number could not be obtained however, as it seemed that in every attempt to recover the bodies, they had disappeared in a flash of light and the ponies present reported that, “It had felt like copper was coating our tongues...”

Both princesses and their advisors were extremely worried. The technology and weapons of their new foes were far ahead of their own by hundreds if not thousands of years. The fact that no technology was able to be recovered did not help.

By the projections of a combined group of strategists from both sides, should the Ursa Primors attack again, it was still likely that they could be defeated, but at a horrendous cost. The best estimation was that only 4-6 companies of their forces total (1,150 at best) would survive, if the previous numbers were to factor in.

Full-Scale research divisions were set up in preparation for their next encounter which surprisingly, but thankfully, had not happened yet. Using new spells, the researchers had been able to view the memories of the ponies that encountered and managed to kill a ‘Primor. Needless to say that most were wounded, if not close to death when their memories were examined and stored. Defeating one came at a high price.

Now the recently rejoined country was on edge, waiting for the ‘Primors to reveal themselves again. Meals were had and last goodbyes were said. Anypony who were part of the quick response teams, spent as much time with loved ones as possible, never knowing when they would be called away, most likely to their deaths.

{-----------------------------------------------------}

Cherok IV

Planet’s Surface

1 Mile from Research Facility Theta

Charise (Char’)

We were approaching the facility from the North in a spread out 30-Pace Diamond formation, with Ghost on point. He had Rex and Bravo land their Valkyrie in a forest 15 miles from us and approach the facility from the West with the ‘Dillo.

I was on Ghost’s right as his Number 3 with Dan on his left and Pick covering the rear.

The dense foliage blocked our line of sight from each other. Even with our positions shown on our mini-map it was still reassuring when you could see your squad mates.

A small flash of blue drew my attention to the M-Map. Ghost’s small dot on the map had flashed blue twice. It was the signal to get into our positions so we could approach the base.

Even though I trusted his judgment, I thought Ghost was being a bit too cautious. We hadn’t detected anything from the ship, nor could see any hesitations or signs of foul intentions when we contacted the base commander. In fact, he only showed signs of relief. That could still go both ways of course, so we arranged to have a decoy Valk’ fly into the base as we approached it from the ground.

Arriving at my position on a hill that overlooked the base I could just make out Ghost’s silhouette as he and Pick slowly approached the base.

‘If you need someone to talk to, I’ll be there.’

My face flushed as I remembered our conversation on the ship. On the flight down, I had already decided to speak to him once the mission was over.

My face began to burn as I imagined spending time with him, alone, in a room. Not even the thought of having to relive my memories was troubling me. I knew that he’d be able to pull me out again. He wasn’t exactly the most handsome person on the team, Pick took the cake for that one, but he by far the most… mysterious. His mood changes quickly, and he’s almost unpredictable in most situations. When he puts on his mask before he puts on his helmet, he becomes a completely different person.

From a squad leader who’ll cheer up and play pranks on his team, to a cold-hearted, ruthless killer who executes the wounded ‘Van or terrorists who survive our encounters. Before I joined the team, I had heard rumors about how he could collect information from prisoners like no one else, both Human and Non-Human. How he wouldn’t allow anyone else into the interrogation rooms, or allow video to be taken, only audio too prove that the information he gave in his reports was true.

I still remember the day he came to the base where my old battalion was stationed at, right after we had left the Academy, to choose a new squad mate. We hadn’t even known who was coming, only that they were some of the best Special Forces teams in the field, who needed replacements.

{---------------------------------------------}

2 Months Ago

Rear Base Jefferson, Planet Timeon

“Hey Char’… Char’ wake up!”

“Mmmmnnnnnhhhhhh…..”

“Oh come on, you don’t have time to be sleeping. Two of us are getting shipped out today.”

My eyes immediately shot open. ‘Shipping out!?’

I jumped out of my bunk and started pulling on my boots, nearly knocking over my bunkmate in my haste to get to my locker to find my Class-A (or Dress) uniform.

“Whoa! Slow down girl!,” she said as she pulled me away from the locker towards my bunk, “The Recs’ won’t be here for another five hours.”

‘Five Hours!’

I groaned inwardly as the rest of my bunkmates chuckled at my frantic display.

‘Wait…Recs?’

“Wait a sec Claire,” I stopped and turned around, “You said Recs’, as in more than one?”

“Yep,” Claire said smiling. Then her face acquired a sneaky look. Leaning in she whispered, “We don’t know who’s coming, not even the base commander knows.”

“What!”

This time the whole room went silent, apparently this was new information.

Claire looked around, “Yeah, I just got back from listening in on one of their meetings. We won’t know who’s recruiting ‘till they get here.”

This was news to all of us. Usually we know who’s coming and that gives us a chance to decide if we want to volunteer and compete with the candidate that the Rec’ chose.

“You know what that means don’tcha?”

A voice came from the back of the room; even a deaf person wouldn’t miss the cockiness in it.

This time the whole room groaned.

“Gomez, the hell you talkin’ ‘bout?”

He leaned forward off his bunk.

“If they’re not telling us who’s coming, then that means they’re classified.”

Once again silence engulfed the room, everyone waiting for him to continue.

“And there’s only three teams that we can’t look up.”

There were sharp intakes of breath across the room and everyone got what he was implying.

He held up his hand to continue, counting off as he listed the call signs.

“1, Foxtrot; 2, Sierra; 3, X-Ray.”

Later

Main Auditorium

“Ladies and Gentlemen take your seats.”

The base commander stood on the stage in front of the microphone, the battalion arrayed in front of him, spread throughout the seats. They could just make out the two silhouettes that stood behind him in the shadows.

“Now, this is not going to be a usual recruitment.”

Heads turned at this, ‘What did he mean?’

“There can be no volunteers…”

I turned to look at Claire and mouthed, ‘What do you think?’

She just shrugged, a worried look on her face.

“Those who have been selected can either accept or decline. Your choice.”

There were murmurs at this news, it was nearly unheard of. The commander turned around and we could see one of the figures making motions with his hand, as if to hurry him up.

“And without further adieu…”

The figure gestured again.

“You know what, I think I’ll just let them speak now,” he said with a sly look on his face as he walked off.

“Finally!”

“Shut up Gomez!”

The first man walked up to the microphone, but we weren’t watching him, we were watching his friend.

I turned to Claire to ask her what she thought, but she was just ogling him. I shook my head and smiled, first hot guy she sees and she’s just about ready to jump on him.

Turning my attention back to the man in front of the microphone, I listened attentively to what he had to say.

“You know why we’re here, so I won’t draw this out and’ll get straight to the point.”

“We have selected two of you as replacements to fill up vacant positions in our squads.”

There were resounding murmurs traveling through the seated soldiers. They were all eager to hear who exactly had been selected by these mysterious men, but there was still an ever present question looming in the air.

“Before you tell us who you picked,” came the annoying voice of arrogance from the back, “Would ya’ mind letting us know who you guys are.”

I looked back at Gomez. He had his arms crossed with a slight smirk across his face. For a second it seemed as if the air behind him was shimmering in the heat, but it quickly disappeared.

I shook my head, convinced that the low-lighting and tension were getting to me. I quickly turned my attention back to the stage to see the reactions of the two recruiters.

They had their heads together and were discussing something between themselves. Then Pretty-Boy (as I decided to call him) decided to step up to the plate.

“We had a feeling that this would come up,” he chuckled, “After all you guys just can’t join up without knowing what you’re jumping into huh?”

He looked out over the group with an expectant face, as if waiting for a remark. Surprisingly enough, it came from beside me.

“So get on with it then!”

He smiled at Claire, almost as if he was grateful.

“I’m Alex the second-in-command of my squad,” then gesturing to the scowling figure beside him he continued, “an’ this is squad leader for the other squad in our company. As for which company we’re from, I ‘ighly doubt ya’ve heard of us. We represent two of the eight squads that make up X-Ray Company.”

There was a large reaction to this news. Actually there were no reactions to this news. We were too stunned to have any. There were some gasps from random people, but the lot of us simply sat there staring at them.

X-RAY!??

Naturally there was a flood of questions, but once we got that out of the way, we came back to the same problem that we had faced at the beginning.

Who Was Being Selected?

‘Alex’ walked up to the microphone and pulled a folded slip of paper out of his pocket.

Reading it in an exaggerated manner, he leaned forward slowly and said the first name.

“Staff Sergeant Charise Wilkenson.”

I sat frozen in my seat as all heads turned to me, and I met Alex’s gaze and saw that he had a slight smile.

“Char…”

‘I can’t believe it! They chose me!'

“Char!”

I looked up to see who was calling me.

“Sergeant?”

I glanced around, but no one was speaking to me.

Is it just my imagination?

“Kid are ya there?”

Everything was frozen around me.

Who was it?

{---------------------------------------------------------}

“Pick… I’m not getting anything from Char’, how ‘bout you?”

“Nothing… but she was having trouble with her comms on the way down.”

“Aye… do a roundabout and check on her would you.”

The world around me receded and I was once again in the tree fumbling about to keep my balance. Opening my comm. channel I sent a hurried reply.

“Sorry! I had to reboot the transmitter, this thing’s not working right.”

{-----------------------------------------------}

Ghost

“Sorry! I had to reboot the transmitter, this thing’s not working right.”

I glanced at Pick and he made a circle motion with his hand, asking if I still wanted him to check on her.

I shook my head and raised two fingers, indicating that he should wait a bit. I turned to see Dan poking his head out from behind a tree 30ft behind me. I motioned to him to move slowly to Char’s position, something didn’t sound right.

“Is it going to be a problem Lieutenant?”

“No sir!” She replied quickly, no static, and only a slight delay, typical of someone sending a response.

Dan stopped and looked towards me, his tilted head asking if I still wanted him to keep going. I just nodded.

“Give me a few minutes to look it over at the base would you,” called Dan, “We need everyone at their best before we try anything.”

“Roger.”

I lifted myself to a crouched position as I searched for Rex’s position. Using a laser pointer, I flashed it twice at his relative area.

“Rex, you got eyes on?”

“Aye,” came his reply with a responsive red flash.

“Alright, everyone move in.”

{------------------------------------}

We all fanned out as we approached the main gate, and I was about to step out into the open to reveal myself to the guardsman when Pick stopped me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing just…”

I tilted my head and he got a michevious tone.

“Since we’re not getting a break anytime soon, can I have a little fun with this guys?”

I sighed mentally; I knew that something like this was going to happen eventually. The only problem with this, time is that we wouldn’t be able to shoot the guy that Pick decides to scare the living daylights out of. Though considering that either I let him do it now, or he was going to do it when faced with an actual enemy, it would actually be safer with a friendly, as his rounds wouldn’t penetrate our armor to begin with.

At least… a short burst wouldn’t.

Sighing and shaking my head or what seemed to be the umpteenth time today, I wearily agreed.

“Thank ya… Now…,” he chuckled slightly as he crept up to the edge of the wall activating his active camouflage as he went, “Let’s see what ya’ll do.”

He snaked a fiber optic probe around the corner and sent the video feed to our helmets.

“What’s going on Ghost,” radioed Rex, “Why am I seeing a base gaur… Oh no.. don’t tell me he’s gonna?”

“Aye.”

“Wait… what’s going on?” asked Claire worriedly.

“Picks’s makng an ass of himself again,” replied Rex with a groan.

I could almost imagine the idiotic grin on Pick’s face as he planned out his move. I’d never understand how he thinks.

Taking a gamble, I reached down and picked up a good size rock already anticipating his request. I could see that the guard was a good one and would need a distraction.

“Ghost could you… oh.”

I would only give him one shot at this so I lifted my hand and held up five fingers and counted down slowly.

“Oh you’re no fun,” he remarked as he prepared to jump the fence.

As soon as I reached zero, I tossed the rock towards the nearest building on my map.

Clack… Thump

“Birdy?” came the guard’s call.

I thought back to the message I had received from Mathias shortly before, that ‘Birdy’ would be the call and a three-note whistle would be the answer.

Turning my attention back to Pick, I could just see the slight blur of the optical camouflage as he scrambled over the wall.

“BOO!”

Thump!

My head snapped up and I could see Dan raising his rifle.

“Well… that was unexpected.”

What the hell?

“What happened?”

I could hear scrambling over the channel as Pick moved something.

“He fainted.”

………

The gate slowly creaked open as Pick walked out to wave us in.

I took one look inside and could see the body of the unconscious guard sitting upright by a wall on a patch of damp ground. I walked over to him and crouched to take his vitals.

“What did you do to the poor guy?” came Dan’s question.

“Nothing… I just dropped in front of him and released the camo.”

After checking to see that the guard would be okay I stood up.

“Let’s go find the Base-Commander,” I told them with an exasperated tone. In the background I could hear the snickers of some of the guys from Bravo.

“Should we introduce ourselves Ghost?”

I brought out my mini-map and saw Rex’s vehicles a short distance from their gate.

“Go ahead but head straight for the AOI, we’ll deal with the commander.”

“On it.”

I just started to walk to the main Plaza when Dan called me over.

“Hey Ghost? I see the BC can I go introduce us?”

“Sure, why not.”

As Dan and Pick walked over to him, I noticed a presence at my side.

“You okay Char’?”

She looked up at me, “Yeah I’m just fine.”

I nodded slowly and saw Dan waving me over. I gestured for them to go on without us and caught Char’ by the shoulder as she began to walk away.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine…” she stressed, I could almost hear the disdain in her voice as she shrugged off my hand and kept on walking towards the others.

I took a look around and saw some civilians in lab coats grouped together and talking, occasionally glancing at me. I stared at them and shifted the color of my visor so that it became clear and stared them down, waving them along.

As they walked away I reached up to idly rub my arm, only for my hand to be met by a metal plate. Lowering my hand I slowly moved to follow the rest of my squad, settling to roll my shoulder to try and relieve the tingling that I felt.

I was feeling antsy. Something wasn’t right here.

{-----------------------------}

Unknown

Watching from two mirrors made of puddled water, a shadow watches the progress of the eight black armor-clad figures.

Hmm...these soldiers may be a problem...but no matter, they shall fall as easily as all the others that have gone against me.

He turned towards two of his minions, both officers of the Renton Van.

‘Go! Prepare our prisoner for the arrival of our guests.’

He clasped his hands together and began to speak again, but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. Fiddling with a canteen at his side, he drank some of the amber liquid that soothed his pains. Massaging the old scar on his chest, he shook the container, listening to the splashing sounds that revealed much more air than liquid. It was running out quickly, but finding more shouldn't be a problem. Creating it in its refined state while remaining unnoticed though? That would take quite a distraction.

With my power slowly returning, and that old meddler gone, nothing will be able to stop my plans...though I feel as if something is still watching me...

He thought back to the being he had discovered not to long into his journey to this dimension. The one who could enter dreams and monitor the night. The one who he had taken care to avoid ever since he first arrived, but no longer.

Pitiful fool...the night is simply another realm of the darkness that has been tainted by the light. Let us see how well you fare against my own terrors of the dark.

Once More Unto the Breach

Quick Author's Note

Sorry for being so late in updating, a lot of personal issues got in the way, so I made up for it by adding 1k words for every week I missed besides the usual 2k.

{----------} means changes of setting in the present story. (Same Character)

[----------] means changes to memories or different characters.

(=========) means changes of setting in memories

Ghost

“Is that all?”

I was standing by a monitor giving the base commander and the scientist a glare. I had taken off my helmet, but I had left my mask drawn up to my eyes. The amount of information that they had provided us with was staggering, and yet it was all nearly useless to us.

He was shaking slightly and was running a cold sweat, while the scientist was simply glancing around nervously, but at the same time he looked somewhat annoyed from being pulled away from their work.

I sighed and shook my head as I leaned against the wall, rubbing my eyes to ease my nerves and to think. This mission was already going south and we hadn’t even officially started yet.

I glanced back up to catch his second in command staring at me quizzically, but she quickly averted her eyes and started to shuffle through the reports in front her as if trying to find something that we might have missed. A crucial detail, piece, or fragment, something that would have made the time we were using meaningful instead of a waste.

{--------------------------------------------}

After confronting the base commander we began to pour over all of the information that couldn’t be sent, even, over encrypted channels and then some.

By confronting him, I mean that we had all practically materialized out of thin air as he returned from a patrol. If that and recent events hadn’t shaken him up, learning that 2 squads from X-Ray Company had been sent personally to deal with the anomaly had.

Dan had stayed with me to interrogate the scientists and anyone who had been on hand at the time, as Char and Alex sorted through and analyzed all the footage that we could get our hands on for anything that could provide even the barest clue of what we were dealing with.

Meanwhile, Rex and his team had gone to the Point of Interest (or PI) to set up a perimeter around the area to keep anyone from getting near and possibly being pulled in as well. We didn’t need to have more than one civilian nuisance to deal with.

{-----------------------------------------------}

“Is that all?” I repeated.

The base commander gave a shaky affirmative while the scientist only nodded slowly. The second stopped going through her TACPAD and took quick glances between me and Dan before settling her gaze on me. I stared back at her calmly and slightly raised an eyebrow questioningly when I noticed something odd. Her face was familiar…very familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I had seen her before.

Before I could take the matter further my earpiece crackled and brought my thoughts back to the matter at hand.

“Sir we found something that ‘ah think ya’ll should know about,” radioed Alex.

“Go ahead.”

“It’s going to have to be team only though Ghost.”

I looked at Dan and saw that he was already reaching for his helmet so I turned to the others in the room and motioned that they could leave. As they stood up from their chairs I walked over to the table on one side of the room, picked my helmet, which was resting atop a pile of crates, and started to slip it on when one more thought passed through my mind. Before they passed through the door I stopped them one more time.

“Meet us in the main plaza at 1930 hours.”

The scientist was practically skipping with joy at the prospect of returning to his work, while the Commander simply saluted and marched away to see to the rest of the patrols. His subordinate however hesitated before walking out.

She gazed at me coolly as I secured my helmet, and slightly tilted her head as if trying to contemplate something about me. What it would be; I had no idea, but before she turned away I caught a glimpse of something her eyes.

Disappointment

I walked past her and held the door open as she walked out. I nodded my head slightly as she passed.

“Warrant Officer”

Once outside the door she straightened and saluted before walking away.

“Colonel”

Disappointment… what was she disappointed about? It was something about me, that much I could guess, but what could it be? Was she expecting something more when I took off my helmet? Possibly a bare skull, or a human-machine hybrid?

I shrugged mentally.

We were notorious, both within our allies, and our enemies. We were the Bogeymen who crept in the shadows; sabotage, assassination, capture, rescue.

We were the Daemons who faced down armies of our enemies and slaughtered them. Soldiers, civilians who were trapped by hostile forces. One day they would be on the brink of capture or execution, the next they would wading through fields of the bodies of their enemies. We were to be the very best at what we do, both respected and feared by friend and foe alike.

I closed the door tightly and turned to see Dan tapping the side of his helmet, the indication to check if our comms. were secure. I quickly ran a scan of my equipment and let out two pings to signal that I was green to go, which were quickly followed by three more sets of two.

“Okay Alex, report.”

“Before ‘ah do, did ya’ get anything interesting out a’ the scientist by chance?”

“No nothing…why?”

“Hmm… that’s strange.”

“Wha…”

“Anywho ya’ll better get down here right quick…this is some interesting shit.”

I turned to Dan who simply shrugged in response before asking questions of his own.

“And where, pray tell… are these interesting things you two found?”

This time Char’ decided to answer.

“We’re currently in Wide-Eyes’s lab, tearing through anything and everything in his personal files.”

“…”

“Before you ask, it was my idea and I’m using one of Dan’s worms to get through the firewalls…you should see the type of things this guy kept in his private journals. Paranoid ignorant scholar,” she spat.

Dan and I were already standing outside the labs by the time Char’ finished reading one of his entries. The words, ‘untrustworthy, indiscriminant, thieves, slackers, arrogant, and government thugs,’ kept popping up as she read.

Dan let out a low whistle when she finished reading as we keyed open the doors and began walking to the back were the LSci’s office was located.

“Hey!”, yelled a guard as he rounded the corner.

“No one’s allowed inside ri…”

He froze when he saw us, but then again most things did. Two highly trained soldiers in all black powered armor, plus armed to the teeth with the biggest combat knives he was probably ever going to see. For many…it was the last thing they saw. For this guard…it was his point of interest for a split-second before he snapped to attention.

“Um..I..uh..,” he stammered out before swallowing.

“I apologize, I was not aware that you would be coming to this area sir!”

Dan, who was in the lead, simply nodded at the guard and kept walking.

“Hey Ghost?” he called back to me on a private channel, “You catch that?”

I did. What did he mean by he ‘wasn’t aware’? Hadn’t he already seen Alex and Char’? If not, how’d they get into the office without being spotted?

“Yeah hang on,” I radioed back before switching back to our team channel.

“Hey Alex, did you guys…”

“Sneak past the guard?”

“Yeah”

I could hear him scoff before he replied.

“He’s about as blind and deaf as a Torvish snake a…”

I quickly cut him off, “You use active camo and a stone didn’t you?”

“…”

He didn’t respond so Char’ answered for him, “Yes, yes he did.”

I turned a corner and looked through a window that was placed in the wall. Behind it was a load of technicians working on some kind of equipment, but at the pace that they working at…something didn’t feel quite right.

“Hey Ghost?’

“Yes Char’?”

“If you happen to pass through the hallway where some techies are working on some big complicated thing, don’t worry.”

“What a coincidence I was about to call ‘bout that.”

I tilted my head questioningly even though it was over our comms, it was an odd habit, but it seemed to work during interrogations.

“And why exactly should I not be worried about it?”

“We saw it on the way in, and one of the Wide-Eyes’s files explains it.”

There was a pause in which I assumed that she was reading over the file again. Turning my attention back to the window I found Dan staring through it at the machine, the slight side to side movements of his head let me know that he was getting footage of it to review later.

“So what exactly is this thing?” Dan piped up.

“It’s going to be our only way through the portal and back again.” She replied thoughtfully.

Dan turned to face me and motioned that we should start walking again.

“How so?”

“Well… in order for us to be able to jump through the ‘door’, the EM field needs to be strengthened first before it can be opened. Sorta like the key for an interdimensional lock.”

“So why are they building a new one?”

“Remember in the reports we were sent, they said that some equipment was damaged when the portal snapped shut?”

*Sigh*

“And that was it?”

“Yep”

“So we have to wait ‘till they’re finished?”

I stopped in front of the office’s door and knocked twice before opening it.

Stepping inside I saw that Char’ was leaning over a computer in a corner desk while Alex was standing in front of a wall screen, watching a loop of the incident. Char’ looked up at us and gestured me over to the desk while Dan went over to the TACPAD for the wall and started messing with the clarity of the footage.

“Not really,” she said as she moved over to allow me behind the desk, “They’ve been working on it ever since Command sent them the word.”

She tapped on her helmet and made a flicking motion with her hand sending over the file.

“It should be done by 2000 (twenty-hundred) hours.”

“Here,” she said pointing at the screen, “read this part.”

{-------------------------------------------------}

I read through the file and all the promising characteristics of the machine as written by ‘Nathanial Williams’ our LSci., but as I read further into its characteristics and possible future applications for scientific exploration, I could see the possible military uses as well.

“Oh shit!”

“Oh no”

Our reactions were typical of someone being told that an attack could come and that you’d be helpless to do anything about it.

{--------------------------------------------------}

“If an army had one at their disposal they could easily travel unnoticed and pop up nearly anywhere!”

I slammed my fist into the metal table in the mess hall leaving a deep dent in the 1 ½ in. steel. The base commander and his highest ranking officers were with him on the other side of the table. The current lead scientists working on the project were grouped a few meters away. I had Dan on my left and Rex on my right, as I had sent Char’ and Alex to reinforce the teams around the anomaly.

The base commander was stunned and his subordinates were trying to come up with a contingency plan in case of the technology or plans being stolen. The fact that such a machine was possible was terrifying, but that wasn’t the worst of it!

“Why the hell are we barely finding out about this now!?” I yelled at the scientists.

I was furious that none had seen the implications of creating such a device, and not only that, but they had kept the BC in the dark the whole time, so security around the labs was in a pitiful state.

I vaulted over the table and started walking towards the scientists leaving my helmet on the table. They were backing away quickly but were stopped almost immediately by Dan and Rex. No one made a move to stop us. I grabbed the current top scientist and lifted him off the ground and growled in his face.

“You made a working model of the machine in 24 hours! With only spare parts and written plans!”

I tossed him back and focused on the rest of them.

“They not only have had 36 hours to work on it, but they also have the damn man who created it! And who knows what kind of tech support they got! They could already have a working one up and running!”

“But Nath…”

I rounded on him before he could finish. I had never lost my cool before, not even in a firefight, but knowing that you can’t stop an attack from coming either at you or at civilians that you cannot reach in time is a horrible thing.

“You…” I took a slow breath and closed my eyes trying to slow down. Anger makes you erratic and careless and your rational mind goes out the airlock. I turned around and slowly walked away from them taking a seat at the table.

I looked up at the sci’s and they looked like they were going to faint. Rex’s eyes were wide as dinner plates as were Dan’s, but he was walking towards me. Turning around to see if the others had noticed my little tirade I saw that they were too busy preparing for the worst, some were even running out to scramble all the armor they muster. *Armor = Vehicles *

The only ones that were looking at me were the commander’s second and her assistant, but the assistant’s presence was lost on me as I froze, looking into the fearful eyes of the Warrant Officer. I could see the fear in her eyes, but that wasn’t all, there was something else as well. That had been the point at which I froze, the point at which the whole world around me that disappeared, when time itself had stopped.

I could see now who she was, where I had seen her before and why she had been disappointed. But it was the fear in her eyes that took me back to a time before now. It was the same fear that I had seen 7 years ago in the eyes of a young 18 year old sergeant.

[------------------------------------------]

Planet Demanti, Korbos System

111th Semi-mechanized Infantry Battalion

Ghost

Age: 20

Dropping through the atmosphere of this besieged planet was something that was almost out of a movie I saw when I was a small boy with my parents. If you were to back-track a few years and asked me what I was going to be when I left school, I definitely wouldn’t have said a soldier. Maybe a doctor, or a pilot, an explorer, and if I was going into the military maybe a strategist…but definitely not a foot soldier.

But here I am, in the ‘hold of an Avio, watching the ramp fall as we hit the ground. To say that we had exited in a proper military fashion would be an overstatement. We had lost 1/6 of our birds coming down, that’s 120 soldiers. Men, women, my brothers and my sisters, the people who I would trust and follow to the ends of the universe, as they would with me.

The first thing I did when the ramp fell was start barking orders to my men. We had to get out as quickly as possible and get the Avio’s into cover while our air-cover lasted. At the same time we were to start loading as many civilians as we could, mainly women and children, the old and the sick, but any able-bodied man ages 17-40 who volunteered to help defend the spaceport would be welcomed gratefully.

Once I had finished issuing out primary orders to my men, I quickly jogged over to the makeshift command center in the control tower to get my new orders.

What I walked into was the least of my worries, but what came after would haunt me over the next several days of hard fighting.

(---------------------------------------------------)

“What the hell do you mean the engineers won’t be done in time?! I ordered that those buildings be mined to collapse, and there should be 30 remote detonators on this screen.”

The Commanding Officer of this whole operation was a General A. Leewit, and he was practically famous for his almost insane adherence to plans. If something wasn’t exactly right or ahead of schedule then he would consider it to be unacceptable. Needless to say though, he’d been involved in some of our most successful operations to date, so us grunts let it slide.

“If there should be 30, tell me why the hell are there only 20 that are greenlit?”

Now, I had barely arrived, but just by hearing the end of the conversation, I could tell where it was heading. The only bad part…I was the only actual combat ready soldier in the room, and somebody had to go help the engineers.

‘Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t, plea…’

He turned from his position leaning over the holo-map and faced me, as did the rest of the people in the room.

“Captain!”

*Gulp*

“Yes sir?”

“I want you to select a team of thirty-five men besides yourself and go provide extra support for the engineers.” He turned away from me and started going over the map again.

“Take some of the Pumas an’ get out there quick as you can.”

Ah shit…

“Yes sir!”

(========)

“How’s the situation Corporal?”

The man shivered in the nonexistent cold as he placed the last few charges on one of the main supports of our current building.

“It’s…we’re in a bad way Captain.”

He turned away and began to replace the extra pieces of the charge in his pack.

“Every time we step out into the open we’re hounded by snipers. Those Puma’s you brought us are a godsend…hmph…we should be done in 10 minutes, give or take 1 minute or so.”

I grabbed his shoulder as he began to move away.

“Make it 5.”

“Yes Sir!”

I sighed and began a quick jog over to our next position and I nearly tripped over an oddly placed bush in the middle of a mound of rubble. I didn’t even notice the grayish-white camouflaged barrel until it fired, sending me 3 ft. straight up.

“Ha.ha.ha.ha.”

“Dammit Lieutenant!”

I was breathing hard at the scare and my left ear had a slight ring from the shot.

“You should have seen your face Capt’n!” he laughed as he stood up from his position, the Ghillie Suit and netting molding into a floating pile.

I let out an exasperated puff of air and continued to walk on with the lieutenant right behind me.

“How many are left?”

“Ja’yeers? Hmmm…let me think. There was one right now, two when we got here, one I found sneaking around,” he flipped his knife out of it’s sheathe and replaced it, “And if I’m right then another should be gone in…3…2…1.”

WHIZ…BOOM!

A contrail appeared streaking across the sky above us for a split-second before the side of a nearby mountain disappeared in a flash of light, fire, and tons of flying stone and earth.

“I decided to let the boys in artillery have some fun and marked a couple positions that I found.”

I shook my head and waved him off.

“Go an’ keep at it, I don’t want to get shot in the back on our exfil.”

“On it”

As he jogged away, I moved on to our makeshift forward command center to see who had reported back already. What I found was that most teams were finishing up and several were loading the Puma’s.

I walked up to the top of our CCenter, and looked around at the surrounding area. There was no movement that I could see except for the slight fly sized shapes of dropships in the distance. Landing in areas that our anti-air couldn’t reach, it was only a matter of time before they started their attack.

The only question was, could we finish placing charges before then?

“Captain?”

I turned around and was faced by a young Sergeant who had volunteered for the assignment. She was probably the youngest of us here and was still unsure of herself. Why she had volunteered was a complete mystery to me.

“What’s wrong kid?”

She shuffled her feet and wrung her hands before opening her mouth and closing it again.

“Sir…I was wondering”

She hesitated again and I crossed my arms.

“Sir…um”

“Yes…”

“Um…what exactly are the charges meant to do? I sorta signed on without knowing what I was getting into.”

I mentally slapped myself.

No wonder…but that’s not what she wanted to ask…why the change?

“The charges are meant to cause a domino like collapse of many of the buildings blocking access through and delaying the enemy advance for another few hours. They’ll have to go through it as they can’t go over it since our anti-air has this whole valley covered. This city is in a narrowing of the mountain range causing it to be a near natural chokepoint. We’re to place charges and collapse the buildings when the enemy enters the city to both cause casualties and confusion.”

“Oh”

I sighed, really need to start doing less of that.

“Did you finish your assignment?”

“Huh…oh right…yes sir we did, about 6 minutes ago.”

“Then what are you still doing here? Go get in the Puma’s with the rest of your team and await further order…”

Eeeeeeeeeeee

Shit!

I leaped forwards and tackled her around the waist and down the stairs just as the room we were in detonated.

“Go! Go! Go!”

We were running as fast as we could out the side of the building when I heard the first reports start to filter through my headset.

“We’re under fire!”

“Covering!”

“I’m hit! I’m hit!”

“Medic!”

“Requesting fire support in coordinates 55 Foxtrot Tang…click!”

“Shit! Sniper!”

“Get him! I’ll cover you!”

“Come on stay with me.”

I looked around the area and saw my helmet on a nearby worktable. Quickly slipping it on I turned and saw the sergeant loading her weapon and pulling on her own helmet.

I grabbed her and pointed to the main lot where we had left the Puma’s.

“Get in and start them up! Be ready to move out soon as you’re loaded!”

She struggled against my grasp trying to get past me.

“But I want to be in the fight sir!”

“There’s no time for that,” I continued to yell at her as I heard the screams of my men over the radio, “We need to get out of here as soon as possible! Get the Puma’s ready and wait for me to come back with the rest of them. We need to be out by the time the charges start blowing!”

She stopped struggling and started running towards the lot, so I picked up a nearby shotgun and loaded some rounds before strapping it next to my rifle.

(=====-==)

“Fall Back! Fall Back! Give covering fire as you retreat in squads.”

We were retreating as fast as we could; all of the engineers and our fire-teams were filtering back to what remained of the CCenter and the waiting Puma’s.

Eight of my men lay dead in the streets and five more were wounded, two critically so.

Arriving at a destroyed wall I could see my men jumping into the backs of the Puma’s, covering each other with the mounted guns. The one nearest me was half-empty and they were waving at me to jump in.

Securing myself into the back I saw that the first ones were already leaving and roaring down the road.

The last one to leave was the one that I had left the young sergeant to drive. As she stepped on the throttle and sped away, she glanced at me through the windshield and smiled. I waved back at her to say to hurry up, went me and the men nearest the end of our Puma saw movement to our right. Around me, the men were bringing their weapons to bear as I yelled frantically through the comms.

Her eyes darted to her left, our right, and her face blanched. My men opened fire and my helmet muffled all outside noise to compensate for the gun going off right next to me. She turned the wheel hard and jinxed the tail end of the Puma around, swerving to provide a hard target…but it was too late.

The glowing projectile rocketed out of the side of a building and impacted dead center under the Puma.

BOOM

It was literally blasted off of its wheels, and I watched as it was sheared in half before smashing through the side of a nearby market.

We were leaving the scene quickly and from the looks of it, there would have been no survivors. My blood began to boil and my vision gained a tint of red. Eight more of my men had just been killed and I had been powerless to stop it, but there was nothing that I could now without putting more of my men at risk; revenge would have to wait.

BOOM…SNAP!

Oh no…

I could hear the explosive charges detonating around the city, and the shrieks of metal structural supports as they tried to support the weight of whole buildings without the main bases. We weren’t even halfway out of the city yet.

It’s too soon!

Suddenly the Puma bucked and rocked as the street under us cracked and warped from the shock waves, sending us into an uncontrolled roll. There was nothing I could do as I was flung out the back like a rag doll and smashed through a window, landing in the window display of a shop.

I pushed myself up groaning and trying to regain my bearings as I realized that I wasn’t the only thing groaning. I looked up out of the window that I had just broken through and saw building start to buckle and bend, falling onto each other…just like dominos.

I jumped to my feet and started running, shock and adrenaline drowning out the cries of pain of my battered body. I could hear the crashing behind me as the building that I was just in was caved in by a piece of concrete the size of a light-tank.

I kept on running even though I could hear the sounds of baseball and football sized chunks of concrete and metal falling all around me. There was so much noise and so many things flying around that I barely registered the Van’ Major jumping at me through the side of a building.

I turned to jump out of his way when he suddenly jerked sideways and fell against a wall, and stayed hanging there…a piece of rebar the length of my arm protruding out of his head. His shields had stopped the rod of torn metal from tearing straight through his head and the wall next to him, but instead slowed it down enough that it entered his cranium and imbedded itself in the wall, his body hanging from it like a bird impaled by a arrow.

Then the ground fell out from under me and I realized that I had just ran off the edge of the street and I fell to a drainage ditch below. There was a flood pipe sticking out of the ground at one end, and looking up I could see a building begin its collapse in my direction. I didn’t give it a second thought; I just dived straight into the pipe, slid on top of the mud, and hoped for the best.

The inside was dark and I stared sloshing my way down trying to find the nearest exit. My helmet’s night-vision system wasn’t much help and the headlamps were not working properly, flickering on and off periodically. When they finally shut down for the last time my vision was smothered by the blackness. At first I thought that my helmet had failed…until I felt something shaking my arm, and a cool breeze across my face.

“Hey soldier…wake up!”

(========)

I jerked awake and shook my head, and finding myself in a dimly lit room I automatically reached for my sidearm, but felt a firm arm grab my wrist.

“Calm down mate’. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I looked around and blinked a few time to clear my vision, before landing my eyes on the grizzled old face of a man in ragged clothes.

“Do you want some water? You’ve been out for two days.”

TWO DAYS!?

I slowly nodded yes and watched as he left the room before examining myself.

My helmet was missing and my left sleeve and right pant leg had been rolled up revealing some clean bandages. My combat vest was missing, as were my sidearm and extra ammunition, but my knife was still in place. Before I could come up with a course of action the man returned, canteen in hand.

“Found you in a drainage ditch, covered in slop, and halfway up the side. You were so out it that at first I thought you were dead, good thing I’ve spent my fair share of time in the military as a combat medic.”

He chuckled as he handed me the canteen, before stepping back and sitting in an old fashioned, wooden rocking chair. I slowly sipped the water and took the time to look around the room. It was sparsely furnished and the windows were boarded up and some medical supplies were piled in the corner, right under some pictures of several children and who I assumed to be their parents.

He caught me staring at the pictures and spoke up.

“Those are my children and their grandchildren, right before they left for New Galapagos.”

I turned to look at him. New Galapagos was the scene of where several new species of mammals and reptiles were found. The mammals were huge and quick, but they ran on so little food that it was inconceivable when they were first found.

The reptiles were moderately sized, about the height of my chest, and their skin was almost as tough as the chassis of our Puma’s. The largest of them could get hit by a transport vehicle going 50 miles per hour, and just get up and walk away like nothing had happened, but they would leave the vehicle completely totaled.

Surprising enough nearly all the species were gentle giants, the only aggressive one were so small that they were only considered dangerous in packs, but there had been no reported deaths caused by them.

Besides that…New Galapagos was also the sight of our first contact with the ‘Van. There was no warning, no introduction, no talks held, just a pure heartless massacre.

We learned later when a Special Forces team captured one of their ships, that there are scattered races across our galaxy, and several are human-like. They were hunted for sport by the ‘Van until their numbers dwindled and so they went looking for new prey, us. But that was 4 years ago.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head.

“I got over it a long time ago, like the soldier I was.”

He looked out of one of the uncovered windows.

“I been waiting for payback, so when I heard they were coming here I prepared myself.”

He hefted himself up and walked over to a nearby locker pulling several rifles out along with a backpack. He walked back to me and handed me the backpack and the rifles along with some netting and some tape.

“Ever since the town was evacuated and you guys started setting up defenses, I’ve been planting IED’s along the roads, in the sewers, and in the walls of buildings. They’re all designed to go off under a set of circumstances.”

I stared at him.

IED’s? Where the hell did he get the ordinance for that?

He glanced at me and smiled.

“You’d be surprised what kind of contacts an old soldier can dig up for supplies.”

He once again strode away and this time walked to the picture, took it off its hanger, and revealed the compartment behind it.

Reaching inside, he pulled out a metal box and turned to me.

“I’m getting too old for all this Black Ops shit.”

He opened the box to reveal a remote trigger and held it out to me.

“I’m just gonna sit on my front porch and blow the shit out’a anything that moves. I’ll leave the actual timing up to you.”

I slowly took the trigger out of the box and placed in one of the pockets of my new vest.

“Each bomb detonates on its own, the trigger just arms them, and at the same time each bomb appears as a weapon cache marked EXPL. on any nearby allied comms.”

“Thanks.”

I slowly stood up and felt slight tingling in my leg and arm, but I still had full control of my limbs.

“Just gave you some local anesthetic to keep off the pain, mixed with a stim, it just dulls the pain but leaves you with control.”

“Are you sure you want to stay?”

He nodded his face adamant.

“I going to die soon anyway, you know, war wounds, conditions, and old age.”

He picked up one of the rifles and a few clips before moving towards the door.

“Oh an’ one more thing youngster, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh it’s …”

He froze and turned around dropping his gun as he did so. His whole demeanor had changed in an instant. The look in his eyes was almost frenzied and his head and hands were twitching almost as if he was having a seizure.

This can’t be good.

(==========)

“The name! He has been waiting for the NAME!” he cried.

“All these years he has been waiting for you!”

I scrambled away from the crazy madman and his continuing hysterics. I was absolutely horrified at his current state, and I gave up all thoughts of trying to reason with him.

“Who?” I yelled back at him.

“Goddammit WHO!”

His eyes glazed over and he started to sway slowly on his feet. A slow smile spread across his face from ear to ear as if he had been waiting for my question all along.

“You will find him soon enough,” he rasped, “Or maybe…he will.. find.. you!”

He finished his tirade of nonsense and almost as if in slow motion, toppled over onto the floor.

“Sh…ing…or…ou,” he mumbled incoherently.

I knelt down next to him and slowly turned him over so that he was face up.

“What are you trying to say old man?”

He took a long rasping breath before giving his last words.

“She’s waiting for you…,” he slowly raised a bony hand to point to a door on the other side of the living room.

Beep…Beep

What the hell?

“They’re coming!”

Oh shit!

The old man slowly rolled over and stood up, rubbing his eyes before looking at me. The crazed look was gone only to be replaced by conviction.

“Keep…her…ssaaafffee…,” he rasped as he reached for the fallen rifle, and started walking towards the front windows, before bashing them open with the butt of his rifle. He turned back to me as he leaned against the wall.

“GO!” he yelled pointing at the door, “I left my truck in the alley. You can use it to get out.”

What just happened?

Who… keep who safe?

I slowly got to my feet and walked over to the door. Opening it I found a room with one door open with a view to the outside and the other with a bloodstained bandage caught in the doorframe. Coming up next to it I pressed my ear to it to try and hear if anything was behind it.

Click…Snap…Thump

I could hear the distinct sound of something heavy like a duffel bag hitting the floor when all sound ceased. I waited nervously as I shifted to one side of the door and crouched low, ready for anything, but I couldn’t afford to wait any longer so I decided to take a risk.

Reaching forward I knocked on the doorframe three times.

Tap…tap…tap…

“Who’s there?”

Wait a sec…I recognize that voice.

“I warn you I’m armed and military trained, so whoever you are.. speak up……please.”

I decided to take a gamble and opened the door slightly.

“Hey.”

“C…captain?”

I opened the door completely and walked in slowly. That’s when I saw her, the sergeant from before, and she was still alive! Looking her over though I could see several bandages poking out through her uniform and a certain stiffness in her left…no wait anatomical position…there we go… right leg.

As soon as I had come completely through the door her eyes lit up like it was Christmas day, or rather…her eye. She had a bandage covering her left eye and wrapped around her forehead with some blood staining it from above her eye.

I was relieved to see that she had survived the attack, but scared at the same time…scared that I wouldn’t be able to get her out of here, but before I could do anything she flung herself at me wrapping me in a tight hug.

“You survived!”

I was stunned at her reaction and lightly tapped her back before she released me blushing.

“I…uh.”

I shook my head and glanced behind her taking in the used bandages and opened medical kit, and as much as I was happy to see her, the ‘Van were still on their way and we had to get a move on.

“Are you okay to walk,” I asked as I leaned over to pick up her bag.

'“No wait…I can do it,” she stopped me and tried to pick it up herself, but quickly stopped when I grabbed her wrist. That’s when I saw the bandages on her arm, as well as seeing that the jacket wasn’t hers.

“You don’t seem to be any shape to do that sergeant,” I said slinging the bag over my shoulder.

“Come on we need to go,” I continued as I positioned myself under her good arm.

“Right”

We slowly walked out of the room and I looked to the waiting old man, still in the main building.

He waved at us before motioning that we should get moving.

“Don’t forget to arm the charges when you’re out of range! Good Luck!”

“You too!”

I shuffled out the door and saw that instead of a truck, there was a stripped down Panther in the alley, the predecessor to the Puma. Helping the sergeant into the passenger side, I walked as quickly as I could to the driver’s side.

(=========)

Once we were a safe distance away, I pulled out the trigger, pulled the old fashioned pin, and activated it. Several dozen lights soon popped up on my HUD just like the old man said.

“What are those?”

I didn’t take my eyes off of the road, and simply settled for a simple answer.

“They’re a few surprises that our friend rigged up for the ‘Van.”

“So why is there one right under his…”

“Yeah…”

“We’ve gotta go back for …”

“NO!”

“…”

“He planned for this, he wants this.”

“Can’t we…”

“No…he deserves the rest.”

“Right now we need to focus on getting to the spaceport and getting out of here.”

Just then the cache under his house disappeared.

…BOOM…

‘Rest in peace old man.’

Slowly on the drive back the tingling in my arm and leg wore off, but the pain didn’t return. Instead I just felt a little fatigued and not even the slightest bit sore.

Weird…

Crackle…

“To any nearby units, the main road to the spaceport is under attack by enemy advance forces, requesting assistance immediately!”

Shit

(========)

“Come on, come on! We need to go sir!”

I stayed at my position next to door and continued to usher people through the doors into the spaceport. The pilot continued to yell at me through our comms., but I didn’t stop. I had an obligation to the people who survived and I wouldn’t let them down.

All of a sudden I felt myself yanked around and face to face with a bloodstained trooper. He gripped my shoulders and pulled me away from the doors.

“Sir we need to get on that bird! It’s the last one out of he…”

BOOM…CRACK

The wall exploded and I felt the trooper release me as we were both sent flying. Chunks of concrete, plexiglas, and plasteel flew past us and a roiling cloud of dust enveloped me as I hit a nearby bench.

I rolled off the bench and crouched on the ground, dazed. My vision was blurry and I had a whooping ringing in my ears like I'd been point blank from a flashbang. I lifted my hand to face but I couldn't see it through the blurred haze before me. I slowly pushed myself off my hands and knees only to collapse and lay motionless with my cheek resting on the cold metal floor.

Wait minute here... Cold? I had my helmet on... How in the hell can I feel the cold?

These thoughts quickly fled my mind as the cold soon turned to a warm wetness. I could smell the scent of metal in the air intermixed with the scent of something burning and the dull pounding in my head.

I heard some odd sounds as the pounding seemed to recede and felt something grip my shoulder and flip me over. I was looking into the angry face of a different trooper as he seemed to be yelling at me.

Strange, I can see his mouth moving but I can't hear anything?

All of a sudden my hearing returned in a tidal wave of sound. The roaring of an Avio's engines, the sharp bangs of friendly and whines of hostile fire.

Then slowly, the frantic voice of my savior filtered through.

"We need to go! Can you walk? We've patched you up the best we can, but we can't stay here any longer!"

In the background I could hear other voices and gunfire. Suddenly the medic lifted me up onto his shoulder and he started moving as quickly as he could towards a landing Avio'. The soldiers who were manning the inner doors ran back towards us in squads, covering each other as they went.

Just as I was seated and the men were running up the gangplank, a group of eight Van Majors rand through the doors, guns drawn.

The men still outside opened fire as they moved up the ramp putting down three of the Majors, one of whom had been arming a grenade which then fell to the ground and killed three more. The remaining two dived in seperated directions, one armed a grenade, and the other raised an anti-vehicle launcher. The men poured fire onto the launcher when a piercing shot rang out and the Grenadier's head exploded into a cloud of purple mist.

His body falling he released the grenade mid-throw and it fell at the feet of the launcher. It incinerated the lower half of his body and his hand pulled the trigger of the launcher as he fell, sending the round flying harmlessly upward to our far right.

As the men were running into the Avio’ and taking their seats, I was looking around for the source of the shot that saved us when I saw a slight reflection on the building to our right. I concentrated all of my focus and just managed to make out a silhouette against the setting sun. He was leaning against a long-barreled rifle and gave me a small wave.

All of a sudden, it felt as if someone had driven a white hot spike of pain into my temple. I gasped and clasped the sides of my head, my eyes squeezing shut from the pain. I saw flashes of light and blurs of color that turned into flashes of landscapes and
cities.

The pain receded as quickly as it had come and I opened my eyes with my chin resting on my chest; that was when I saw how badly I was hit.

My fatigues and armor were cracked and I was missing most of my chest pockets and pouches. My dog tags were hanging out of my shirt and I could see the slight trails of blood as it trickled out from beneath my shirt. Then, a pair of gloved hands appeared holding a combat dressing entered my field of vision and they began to wrap it tightly around my leg.

I looked back up and saw that a core-man was crouched in front me, tending to what he couldn’t while he was under fire. Glancing up over his shoulder I saw that the gangplank was quickly closing and I managed to get one last glimpse of the man on the building.

He was waving as he seemed to dissolve into the smoke and one last image of a faraway place planted itself before my eyes.

There was a city. A city with tall buildings and a beautiful forest beside it, it was vibrant with colors and life, like an ant colony hard at work. Then it slowly shifted like a haze had began to smother the lively picture.

When it cleared again, I saw dark buildings and billowing towers of black smoke. I could hear screams and brief flashes of light within the streets. It as if oil, the blood of the land, was flowing into the great the ocean that surrounds us, tainting it a blackish red with the light of the many blazing fires.

Off, on the apex of a smoky hill, the same silhouette was standing, watching the destruction unfold, weeping at what he couldn’t save, but burning with the bright flame of revenge.

{----------------------------------------------}

“Hey Ghost…you alright mate?”

I shook myself from the memories and looked up to see Dan shaking me. I quickly turned and started looking around the room to see the sergeant, now Warrant Officer, walking out the doors with her assistant not far behind.

“Oi! You awake in there?”

I turned back to Dan and stared at his worried expression, then at my helmet in his hand.

“How long was I…”

He shook his head and pressed the helmet into my hands.

“Only a couple minutes,” he said unclipping his own from his waist and holding it under his arm.

“Don’t worry, I told them you were thinking up a plan for us,” he continued and he gestured towards the door.

I stood up slowly and raised the helmet so I could peer into the visor.

‘Who am I really? Behind the mask.’

Tap…Tap

“Do you have a plan for us Ghost?” Dan asked expectantly before he slipped on his helmet.

“Y…yeah I do…but let’s regroup with the others first.”

Into the unknown we go!

Ponyville, Equestria

(Neutral Territory)

Lt. MoonShadow

MoonShadow was pleasantly surprised at what she found in the small town called Ponyville. Greenery surrounded the area, Ponies were wandering about their daily lives as if nothing had happened, as if the war that had been raging across Equestria, had not happened at all. If not for the random guard that she passed on her to the hospital, she would have thought that everything was as it was before the war.

She would have flown straight to the hospital if not for the airspace restrictions. Ponyville was a special case and there were some special rules in place for any visiting ponies that were still actively in either military. Anypony who was in the air, either had a job that involved flying, or was a town guard, and since she was still technically an SF Operator in the Lunar Republic she wouldn’t have been allowed to fly to begin with.

Even during the Official peace treaties, the Princesses still had their differences, so although the two factions were at peace under threat of a common enemy, they were still divided for the time being.

‘I hate this gap in between both factions! I know that I remain loyal to Princess Luna and her ideals, but the two sisters should be able to come up with a compromise shouldn’t they? We have a terrible situation on our hands, and we can’t afford to remain divided!’

MoonShadow couldn’t really see what was keeping the sisters apart, especially after they held a few days of peace for their relative’s wedding. If they could forget their differences for the sake of Princess Cadence, then couldn’t they make amends for the ponies of Equestria?

Moon’s treasonous thoughts ended as she reached the front doors of the Ponyville Hospital, and she prepared herself before entering, all of the rumors that she had been hearing about the element of kindness returning to fill her thoughts.

As timid as a fish, and so shy that she would hide under the nearest table when approached. Her name even represented her personality perfectly. When caring for somepony or animal, her wings would flutter with happiness and her shyness…well her name was Fluttershy after all.

Though recently several new rumors had been cropping up all throughout the ranks of both factions. Stories of her sweet and shy personality changing in an instant to that rivaling the worst Drill Sergeant were becoming widespread. The original story began when two ponies, one from either side, had been brought into the hospital and were treated for their wounds. While in recovery they had both been brought out into the hospital gardens and, upon catching sight of each other, they began to fight and stress themselves, causing the careful bandaging and stitches to tear free.

What came next gave many soldiers an innate fear of causing trouble in the vicinity of the hospital. The two ponies had been brawling for only a short period of time before being interrupted by what they described as, ‘The Drill Sergeant from Hell Itself.’ They would not go into detail beyond that point in their experience, but the fact that they were both hardened soldiers and scared shitless was enough to quell most of the confrontations before they even began. It was said that when any of the ponies who had been treated by that mare in particular, returned to Ponyville, they would immediately snap to attention whenever she was present. Depending on how she reacted, would determine whether or not she approved of what they were doing. If she jumped in fright and disappeared, then you were safe, unless a certain rainbow maned pegasus was anywhere in sight, then you would be berated by her. If she gazed at you coolly while you are at attention and begins to approach you, then pray to the Princesses that whatever she caught you doing was not too severe in her terms.

[---------------------------------------------------]

StarWatcher

Ponyville Hospital

StarWatcher lay in his hospital bed trying to find a good way to propose to MoonShadow. Holding the case for the ring in his hands he tried to plan out their conversation. He was supposed to be released from the ward in a few days, and he was planning to continue on his original idea to have a special dinner with her. So her visit to the hospital today was the perfect opportunity to ask if she would be available for the date.

‘Idiot! If I told her right off the bat that it’s a date, then there’s no way that she’d accept! Uh..oh..here comes that mare again!’

He quickly returned the small case holding the ring to its hiding place under his pillow, and tried to act as innocently as possible.

“Um…hello again.”

‘She’s as timid as ever it seems…’

“W..would you mind telling m..me how you f..feel today..that is, if you don’t mind?”

‘Better make this quick…’

“I feel fine today…actually, I feel better than usual considering one of my close friends is dropping in for a visit today.”

“R..Really? That’s good. Spending time with friends is sometimes the best medicine.”

After a short bout of questions and a quick check-up, Fluttershy declared, or rather whispered, that he was well enough to have a visitor. As she was leaving the room she hesitated at the door and slowly turned to look at his bedside table.

‘Oh shit!’

The pills that he had been given earlier by a nurse were still there unconsumed, and by the look Fluttershy was giving him, he could tell she was irked. StarWatcher could feel the sweat slowly rolling down his back as he contemplated the fact that the rumors he had been told about the hospital were true, so rather than find out for himself he quickly downed the medicine and the water before dropping the empty cup in the nearest trash can.

She gazed at him coolly and nodded slowly before walking out of his room to check on the other patients.

‘Wheeew…crisis averted.’

Knock…Knock

StarWatcher returned his gaze to the door to his room to see MoonShadow slowly walking in. He swallowed and tried to remember his plan of attack on their conversation, but it was lost in the nervousness of the moment.

‘Oh buck it! It’s time to finally grow a pair an’ go for it!’

[------------------------]

Ghost

Location:

Est. 8 Miles from intended Destination.

4 Miles from nearest Settlement.

‘Argh…my head…’

‘Wait a sec…’

My eyes flashed open to see myself face down in the dirt as I remembered what had transpired in the events that led to this point.

‘That damn machine…damn thing sparked up and just had to suck Char’ and Dan in didn’t it? Then Pick and I…well that’s not correct. Pick jumped in right after them, loyal comrade as he is, and I couldn’t let my mission go FUBAR without me involved so I followed…that, and I couldn’t just let them go into an unknown area by themselves, they’re too young for that.

Wait…too young for that? Where the hell did that come from?

I shook my head as I slowly lifted myself from the ground, and took a cautious look around. All I could see were trees and masses of vines and really, I mean ‘really’, colorful plants.

‘That can’t be right though, the other side of the portal was supposed to be a clearing. Great…another mission that we’re going to have to salvage as we go along.’

I couldn’t help but let out an exasperated sigh as I did a quick check of my equipment and my armor. Surprisingly enough the only things that I was missing were a few external clips for my pistol, which I had duct-taped on at the last minute, and my extra duffle was only a few feet to my right. That’s when I noticed a slowly blinking icon in the corner of my HUD.

I watched as it slowly changed color from amber to yellow and sailed from the top right corner of my HUD to the bottom left, before resolving into a small box with the number 118 above it. I immediately recognized it and watched as two more appeared right next to the first one, both were yellow as well, but they all pointed in the same direction.

‘They’re alive! And not too far from me either.’

“Pick, do read me? Char’…Dan?”

‘Ssss…ssss…sss’

I could hear the crackling of my radio but it wasn’t from my team’s personal channel, but rather from the companies’ open channel.

“Gho…port…at is…situ…”

‘Rex?’

“Rex? You’re breaking up; our communications must be really stretched on this side.”

I wasn’t worried at the thought of communications being cut off, I’d worked in plenty of situation like that before, what did worry me, was the fact that my whole team remained at a yellow status, or ‘Incapacitated’.

“Can…ear…ust…ine.”

That was a bit odd, but it had happened to me a few times before.

“Then the problem must be just on my end.”

“Do…eed…rein…ments?”

“No, hold off for now. My team’s scattered and we’re regrouping right now, we’ll be comm. silent until we’re all together to prevent the possibility of a tap.”

“Ro…r”

I quickly picked up my duffle bag and pulled out my modified Tavor GTAR-76. It was a beautiful weapon with a Bullpup design, and solved the problem of Bullpups not being able to hold under-barrel attachments. It fires a 7.62x51mm round, a happy median, literally, between the x39mm and the x59mm. An added bonus was that the ammunition can be of multiple types with only minor affects on performance, and I had brought a bit of all of them, but they were mostly of two types, cased and caseless. I had mainly brought caseless in case we didn’t want to leave to traces of our firing positions, and cased for when we did.

I loaded my weapon with a magazine of caseless FMJ and the under-barrel with a miniaturized version of the SPAPFSDS or Self Propelled Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot, capable of punching through 50mm of steel plate at 400 meters at its maximum velocity of 1,200 m/s with its super-hardened tungsten tip, or 3 Renton Van if they were kind enough to stand in a row. I had also ordered a box of 6 of an experimental round called (FAPDS) or Frangible Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot. It's essentially the same thing as the former except that during penetration, the frangible core fragments into many high velocity incendiary fragments. The effect of a frangible projectile on a lightly armored vehicle is much the same as a high explosive incendiary round, so it would work as the blast-radius anti-personnel weapon, much like the 40mm grenades of the past.

I strapped the duffle to my back and began a quick march towards my team as I had my suit retrieve the vital sign of my teammates.

118

Unconscious

212

Unconscious

318

Unconscious

‘Well that's good, at least they’re not injured.’

I continued at a steady pace of about 8/mph., until I was within 25 meters of them. Then a few things happened. My motion-tracker picked up three yellow dots. Two grouped together and the third about 3 meters from them, plus about 4 slowly moving hostiles in a circle around them. Well…it wasn’t so much a circle as a square, but it didn’t matter much at this point.

There were unknowns surrounding my team, and the red meant that they had no IFF’s which meant either ‘Van, or a hungry pack of whatever predatory animals live in this forest. I dropped my duffel and slowly rooted through it for a pair of silencers for my rifle and my pistol, and since I didn’t want to drain too much of my suit’s power too early, I activated my visual camouflage only to the degree where I looked like a semi-solid shadow, a semi-solid shadow with a very big knife.

I watched the four dots for any indication that they were going to near my team, and lo’ an’ behold one of them did. I used my helmet’s zoom function to get a closer look and I saw made me want to shoot it immediately. It was either the ugliest looking dog that could walk on its hind legs, or it was a werewolf, but lacking the longish snout it was most likely a dog.

It carried a long freshly branch and began to slowly nudge one of the prone figures that lay in the small clearing, which my suit promptly identified as Char’. I almost started shaking with laughter. There was no way in hell that a puny piece of wood would get through our armor, but it would probably wake her up, and I almost didn’t want to be around when she did.

I allowed myself a small chuckle as I worked my way through the sentries, finding that they too, were also these dog-like creatures. I almost felt sorry for them as my knife slipped between their cervical vertebrae.

When I looked into the clearing again, I was surprised to see that the thing was still poking Char’ with a stick. Actually, I wasn’t surprised to see it still poking her with a stick, I was surprised that he wasn’t lying in pieces over here, over there, and up in the canopy. Now I was getting worried, usually all you have to do is just breathe near her and she’ll wake up. I checked her vitals again to see if she was faking…nope.

‘Shit…oh well at least I can get some Intel now can’t I?’

I opened my external comms and let out a dark laugh as I put the thing in a choke hold, and waited ‘till he passed out. After dropping its body I quickly did a manual check of all my teammates, and found…nothing. As far as I could tell they were just unconscious. I shook my head and had their suits give them a small stimulant, then I noticed progress as their vitals rose slowly.

‘Hmmm…better get the info before they wake up…’

{-----------------}

Diamond Dog

Rustle...

He jerked his head upward as he woke up from his forced slumber and stared into the face of the demon itself. His yelp of terror was quickly blocked off by an armored gauntlet.

“Hmm… So you’re the local species huh?”

The demon seemed to take an interest in the bandanna around its arm and tightened his grip around the throat of the beast.

“Now you’re going to tell me everything you know about this insignia you're wearing.”

The Diamond Dog knew that his only hope of survival rested in the fact that he wouldn’t tell the demon anything.

“Tell you nothing!”

“Oh...,” the demon released a dark chuckle, “...resistant little fella' aren't ya?

“Don't worry...I'll get the information I need one way or another.”

{-------------------------------}

Ghost

I slowly walked away from the patch of blue flowers that I had dumped the dog into. Towards the end of my interrogation, I had grown tired of listening to all of the useless info that it had, lifted him up to my face-level, and almost threw him into them when he started begging and spilling everything. It only took me a few seconds to determine where his fear was allocated, and that led me to do a quick biological test on the flowers, and they rated as a Class-5 Toxic Substance. In other words, they made Potassium Cyanide look like table salt.

After getting all the information that I wanted out of him I did the kind thing, I untied him and once his back was turned, I gave him a kick that both knocked him out cold, and tossed him into the flowers.

What? It’s better than stabbing him in the throat and leaving him choking on his own blood in a dark forest.

As I neared my team, I watched as the little yellow boxes slowly turned green and I heard the low moans and groans of my team as they woke up.

“Ghost…”

“Yeah Char’ I’m here.”

“Ugh…my aching head…”

“Good morning to you too Pick.”

“Damn…you didn’t let me do anything stupid last night did you?”

‘Weird…sounds like they think that they’re waking up from a hangover.’

“Dan what about you?”

“ ‘Ang on mate, let me get my thoughts straight…”

I cut off my comms as I ran some more invasive scans on their bodies and minds, but found nothing more than the typical signs of a bad headache.

“What the hell guys? I don’t even drink…”

‘That’s true, so I can’t really pull anything over Char’.’

I quickly had their suits give them a mild painkiller and decided to wait until their thoughts cleared up.

(----------------------)

We were sitting down by a stream refilling our canteens as I tried to explain what had happened to them, or rather, I tried to explain to Char’ and Dan. Pick had removed his helmet and was currently trying to drown himself in the freezing water.

“BRHGPRBGHORHGPH!!!!!”

The three of us just watched as he tried unsuccessfully to off himself because of the headache. It had already worn off for Dan and Char’, and I hadn’t even had one to begin with! I wasn’t about to give him anymore painkillers ‘lest he start to wobble on his feet. Besides I knew the trick that he was doing. The freezing water would create a headache more powerful than the original and when it wears off, the original will wear off with it.

I sighed and rooted through my duffle for some of the rations that I brought with me as well as keeping an eye on the sensors that I had placed around us. I heard someone gasping for air and looked up just in time to see Alex plunge his head once into the icy water…

“BRHGPRBGHORHGPH!!!!!”

And yell his head off under it.

Danger Looms in the ever present Shadow

Ghost

Location: ???

“BRHGPRBGHORHGPH!!!!!”

I could feel a nerve in my temple slowly pulsing as I resigned myself to continue watching over Pick’s antics. How long he planned to continue enjoying the Arctic waters I had no idea, even I would’ve been frustrated by now, especially after passing out from oxygen deprivation.

Dan had gone out to do some scouting and I had my TACPAD open to a view of the surrounding area as I watched his little blue dot slowly moving along with a small chart displaying his vitals. Then I heard Pick pull his head out of the water again, sputtering and coughing. Now my eye was twitching and my hand was shaking in annoyance.

“Pick I swear that if you make me drag your sorry ass out of the water again, I’m going to give you something more painful to worry about.”

He just smiled and was about to shove his head under again when I jumped forward, grabbed the collar of his suit, and yanked him back. I raised my arm and was about to give him a right hook when someone drove a shard of ice into my head.

{----------------------------}

I was crouched on a rooftop and looked down into the bustling streets of a city. My rifle lay next to me as I kept an overwatch position. There were throngs of people below me, all headed in the same direction. A city-wide assembly, and world-wide broadcast had been called for the new leader of the country. She was but a teenager, and yet she possessed the innate ability to lead her people.

Her innocence had long been stolen by the wars that had ravaged the land, and the world was slowly picking the pieces. She was selected out of all the candidates because she alone understood many sides of the conflict. She was a guiding beacon of hope during the darkest days as she attempted to save a world that was driving itself into its own destruction.

Now, the battles had passed, but the war was long from over. Even after their most grueling defeats, some hands still wished to extinguish the bright flame.

I smiled as I picked out the individuals that stuck out like red roses in a field of white.

‘Assassins?’ I scoffed, ‘What a pitiful excuse for blending into their surroundings.’

I slowly picked up my rifle and trained a beam onto each of them, designating them to be apprehended.

‘It’s too easy though, surely they would’ve pulled out all the stops for their last effort?’

I traveled from building to building and eventually, I reached the main assembly plaza. I wasn’t worried about the assassins that I had marked. Even working as an anonymous source for her government, my information was rarely taken lightly, considering that I had saved her and her advisors countless times already.

(-----------------------------------)

They had wanted to meet me in person, but I had declined every offer, always saying that it was safer never to be involved with me. Though even after all of my warnings they still insisted, so when I asked why, they replied that the girl herself had seen me during one of the public attempts on her life. I had gotten sloppy and almost let the soldier get too close, all because I had trusted the wrong sources. Afterward, I corrected the problem quickly.

In the end, against my better judgment, I agreed to meet her after the assembly. After all, this was the last attempt any of enemies would be making, what would I do after my mission was completed?

(-------------------------------)

The stage had been set at the end of the plaza in front of one the few still standing government buildings. It was a last resort should the attempt get close to her.

I took up a position on a building that was near enough for me to reach the stage in a short time, but also tall enough should I have to engage distant targets.

The plaza filled pretty quickly and the front rows were packed with reporters and journalists. Of course their equipment had of been scanned before they were allowed to their seats. I could see small plainclothes security teams moving through the crowd, picking up the people that I had marked, as well as those who moved away to quickly to be innocent. I disliked the fact that we were picking up truly innocent people as well as the guilty ones, but it had to be done.

Tap…Tap…Tap

I looked onto the stage to see that a crew was checking the sound equipment as they got ready to begin the assembly. I knew for a fact that the equipment hadn’t been tampered with because I had messed with it myself. I had locked down the panels tightly, and the controls were encrypted from here to hell and back.

Confident in the security measures, I sat back, rested my rifle against my shoulder, and prepared for a long speech. I kept one eye on the stage and one roving the crowd, plus an ear on all the frequencies that were associated with the enemy. Nothing was going to get past me today.

{------------------------------}

I blinked and the plaza disappeared to be replaced with several fluffy white masses. I stayed gazing at the masses for a few seconds before realizing that I was on the ground. I could feel a cool breeze running over my face, and my hands still felt like I was cradling a rifle. I lifted my hands to my face and made fists, then relaxed them. Instead of being semi-curled, they were once again in the form that I was holding a rifle.

Muscle Memory…

The words of one of my boot camp martial arts instructors ran through my head. He had stressed that repetition was the key to never forgetting our training. It actually got the point where I could go through the motion of disassembling a weapon without having one in my hands. It became a tic of mine for a while.

Muscle Memory…

These were the words that my father used to describe how someone learns to do something on instinct. Your mind doesn’t have to be focused on task literally at hand, but rather it can focus on something more important. Like if you’re fusing an explosive in the dark while trying to talk your way out a sticky situation.

Muscle Memory…

My mother used to describe her visits to the community center where she would knit and hold a political conversation with the senior citizens at the same time. She would tell me of the first few days when they would have sweaters done while she was still making the upper body because she couldn’t do both at the same time.

Muscle Memory…

Oh how I dreaded the days where I would be taken blindfolded out of our camp and to a firing range. They would toss me a disassembled weapon and expected me to calculate and predict the targets’ movements while assembling the weapon, then hitting every target in ever shortening amounts of time.

Muscle Memory…

…

I shook my head vigorously trying to dispel the sudden flood of unfamiliar, yet familiar, images and alien memories.

What the hell? Since when have I done those things? Who are those people? Where was that plaza?

“Hey Ghost, you alright?”

I turned my head at the familiar voice and slowly picked myself up. I turned my back to the sky and the stream to see Char’ leaning against a tree and Pick holding a clump of soaking moss to his cheek.

Pick was looking wearily between me and his hands, while Charise had removed her helmet and had a worried look in her eyes as she glanced back and forth between me and Alex.

I looked once again at my hand and slowly clenched it, then relaxed it. It relaxed to a semi-curled position.

What the hell is going on?

I looked up at them and opened my mouth to speak but Char interrupted me first.

“You’re gonna ask what happened right?”

I nodded.

She sighed, pushed herself away from the tree, and walked over to me before handing me my helmet.

“Here I sent the video file to your suit.”

I stared at the faceplate of the helmet and I could see my reflection in the black visor staring right back at me with a question in its eyes…why?

Why…what?

I turned over the helmet, slipped it on and watched as the video was displayed in the top left of my HUD.

Initiating Playback…

I watched as the video went from black to grey then to color as Charise walked by the stream in the direction of our small camp…returning from somewhere. I started to ask where she was when I heard the thuds and yells. I could only stare as she started running before coming up to a scene that I myself probably wouldn’t have believed had I only been told about it.

I could see myself looming over a cowering Alex who was trying his best to cover himself from my murderous strikes. I watched stunned as Char’ sprinted forward and tackled me to the ground. We rolled for a bit before we stopped and she had her knee on my chest pinning me to the ground. Now I was shocked, because instead of a murderous intent in my eyes, I had only a blank stare and had stopped resisting.

CRACK!

I could almost feel the impact as a tree branch cracked against her back. She leaped off me and turned only to find Alex with his fists raised, the same blank stare in his eyes.

“What the hell is going on?”

Alex lunged at her only to get flipped and slammed into the ground. Then Char’ pulled her helmet off and I could hear yelling in the background before the recording stopped.

I slowly unclipped my helmet and closed the recording before taking it off. I looked at both of them as I sat down and leaned against a tree. I rested my helmet against the ground next to me and held up two fingers.

“Ok then…two things…”

“Yeah,” agreed Alex.

I nodded and put down one finger.

“First off, what happened after you removed your helmet?”

Charise sighed and pointed at Alex.

“I subdued him and slapped him around a few times before he came around.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” she nodded.

“Yep,” continued Alex, “One sec’nd I was under the water, the next I thought she was rescuin’ me from drownin’.” He glanced slyly at her, “If ya were rescuin’ me, then what would ya have done had I not woken up?”

She just smiled and waved her left hand.

“You want me to mess up the other side of your face,” she growled.

“Nah, nah…I’m good.”

I took a closer look at his face behind the moss, and I could see the beginnings of a large bruise, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant one of the medi-gel packs in our Aid-Kits.

“So what happened to me?”

She just glanced at me and pointed to the spot where I had been laying.

“You didn’t move from where I had tackled you. You just stayed there to the point where I thought you were dead, but your suit told me otherwise.”

“How long was I out?”

“About 5 minutes give or take a few seconds.”

Hmmm…

Ok I can accept the spacing out because of a memory, but attacking Alex? An’ the blank stares too…what could have caused that?

“Any idea what could have made you guys do that Ghost?”

“No clue…actually there might have something, but I didn’t even get near it.”

“What are you talking about?”

Alex stood up and removed the moss from his cheek. Already I could see the nasty bruise, but it wasn’t anything that would hamper his combat ability.

“Well, when we dropped in and you guys were still unconscious I stumbled into a clearing and watched as this dog-like thing walked into a patch of blue flowers and started frothing at the mouth and having spasms. I had the suit scan the flower and it rated as Level-5 Toxic.”

Alex let out a low whistle and Char’ shook her head.

“If it rated as an L5,” she started, “then it should’ve killed you two.”

“Maybe,” I sighed and scratched the back of my head, “maybe just got a miniscule dose through our suits’ scrubbers?”

I could tell that this wasn’t the reason for our incident. Unless that flower was an aggressor, paralytic, and an anesthetic all at the same time, then it wasn’t the cause. But for now it was a decent excuse. I pulled my canteen off of my waist and took a short sip before finally noticing that there were still only three of us.

“Hey Char’, did you radio Dan while we were out?”

She tilted her head, “No, you guys recovered pretty quickly, and the last time I talked with him he said that he spotted a possible sign of civilization and was going to investigate.”

“Well we might as well at least let him kno…”

“Hey guys!”

Well speak of the devil.

We yanked on our helmets and opened the channels before picking up our duffels and weapons.

“What’s up Dan,” I replied, hefting my duffel over my shoulder, “got anything on that civilization of yours?”

“Plenty my friends, plenty,” he gasped, “Anyway you’re not going to believe this.”

I could hear his accelerated breathing and assumed that either he had running for a bit, or had just some major breakthrough in the field of ‘Field Stew.’ I was sincerely hoping that it was the first.

“Give me the short and blunt version please.”

“Never mind the short and blunt, I’ve three for ya’ which do you want? The Good, The Bad, or The Weird?”

I looked between the two now faceless figures before me. Charise just shrugged and Alex held up his fingers in the numerical order of 1,3,2. I nodded, getting his meaning.

“Let’s have the good, then weird, and leave the bad for last.”

He started to speak, but I interrupted him as one of his previous rants popped into my head.

“If any of it is complicated enough to warrant you wanting to catalogue it, then leave it for when you get here.”

“Ok, but we don’t have time to sit and chat, can you guys pack up and meet me halfway?”

Dan didn’t want to have an extended sit-down with healthy helpings of Mystery Stew? This was certainly a new one, but the implications were enough for us to move out in quick order.

“Ok Dan speak to me.”

“Ok you guys wanted the good first? Then here it is. We won’t have any trouble with translating the local languages, they seem to speak and write English pretty well.”

“Got i…write it?”

“Yeah um…I may have borrowed a few books for research.”

Dammit Dan!

“Ok then…next.”

I heard him take a deep breath and mumble something before he continued.

“The Weird…you know those video animations from the 21st century and before that Alex likes?”

I stopped dead in my tracks, Char’ slowed to stop and turned to look at me, while Alex tripped and slammed straight into a tree.

I could see a slight shake in Charise’s shoulders as Alex picked himself up. I just know that she’s going to…

“Which video animations exactly,” she asked with the same tone of voice that she used in the exercise room back in the ‘Night. I took this chance to quickly back away and clear a path between the two of them.

“You will tell her nothing!”

I was slightly surprised at the word choice, but then I realized what he trying to do. If it worked, he could keep it a secret ‘till a later time…if it didn’t work…I couldn’t help but smile.

“Anime right?”

“Goddammit Ghost!!”

This was the perfect opportunity to start a…

“What’s anime?”

Damn... I’m gonna pay for that attempt later.

“Please continue Dan,” I sighed, an opportunity wasted, I could almost see the evil grin that Alex probably had pasted to his face as we began to move again.

“Yeah well, I think the most appropriate one to describe our situation would be that one about the wolf girl and the traveling salesman.”

Thump…

Once again we stopped, or rather I stopped, Char’ decelerated, and Alex’s face met another tree.

“You’re joking right?”

“Not at all Ghost, you’ve got my word on that. I swear I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

I wasn’t about to believe it outright just yet, maybe it was some sort of celebration where they dressed up like animals.

“You didn’t happen to get a …”

“No, no I didn’t.”

“Then why…”

“I was too engrossed in the large selection of literature?”

“…”

“Yep, that sounds like you.”

We had reached a small clearing and Dan was only a few dozen seconds away so we took the opportunity to stop a bit, and prepare our gear.

I could tell that Alex was trying not to jump with excitement.

“Do you want the bad now?”

I looked to my right as Dan burst out of the tree line, and quickly replaced the magazines in all my weapons.

“Go ahead…”

Dan stopped right in front of us and took off his helmet. There was a certain seriousness in his eyes that I had only seen when he needed to hack into an encrypted system in a very short amount of time.

“The ‘Van have already made contact with the small city.”

To say that we were surprised was an overstatement. If they were operating in this area, then of course they would have made contact, usually for sport or food. The citizens being both of course.

This time it was Alex that took charge of the situation. He had also removed his helmet and he had a certain gleam in his eye.

“How long ago, and how bad?”

Dan shook his head and replied with something that almost made me drop the SPAPDS round I was loading into the under-barrel of my TAR.

“There have been no casualties, it almost seems that they took care to injure only.”

I had to blink several times, check that nothing was in my ear, and run a suit audio check before I believed what I had just heard.

The Van only injured? That’s a first.

“Why?”

“They wanted to send a message to get a person of power to speak with them for a trade.”

I raised an eyebrow, “A trade? What kind exactly?”

“Ghost…they’ve got hostages.”

……

Well this certainly just got more complicated.

A/N:
I was planning on putting the contact and fight scenes in this chapter but decided to leave it at a cliffhanger.
The whole chapter was revamped! Apologies for the lateness.

Chapter 9 (Title to be changed)

1 hour earlier

Dan made his way hurriedly through the underbrush of the forest on his way to the small settlement that he had found. He knew that he didn't have much time to look it over, but the possibilities that could be opened by just discovering the local sentient species were enormous. If he could sneak around and hopefully record some samples of their language, it could open up possible negotiations and perhaps trade.

'No...stop it! I can't afford to let myself think like that! The mission comes first, and with the Van possibly in the area, the possibility still stands that it's deserted, ...or not.'

Dan kept moving and tried to make as little noise as possible as he tried to move as quickly as possible. There was no telling what lived in this forest as they hadn't encountered any real wildlife yet except for the occasional rabbit or squirrel. As he walked around a close clump of trees he spotted a clearing up ahead.

'Hmph... It's as good as any,' he thought as he started to creep to the edge of the trees. Setting up inside of a bush he waited for the noise of his passage to settle before attempting to listen for anything as well as looking around with his thermal optics.

'Look's clear, and there's no real heat signatures that I can see...I'll just pop the drone here and try and see where I am.'

He started to rummage through his pack before pulling out two objects, one was board like with what seemed to be small metal protrusions at one end, while the other was what seemed to be a small cylinder made up of multiple rings.

He quickly took the cylinder and began to twist the rings in an order before pulling on the ends to reveal the inside.

It was an F4T tactical field surveillance drone. The rings were actually its four rotors, and inside was its main module.

As it popped out into shape Dan hooked it onto his shoulder and started to look the board over. It was of his own creation and was loosely based on something he had seen in an old movie. It had two rotors, front/rear, and a rudder at one end. The other end, or the front, had the metal protrusions, which were actually two sheathed blades. The board, or MRTB (Multi-Role Tac/Surv/Bot), was made to be a second unit to the original F4T, both for surveillance and if needed, a throwaway distraction. It was quite the scary sight when there's a drone with very large blades speeding towards you. That and the small explosive laced containers that were paced at intervals around its rim. These small containers were half-cylindrical in shape and were filled with an a very powerful accelerant surrounded by ceramic ball bearings. These could be attached or detached to add or decrease weight, or even dropped to act as an anti-personnel weapon. In a pinch, Dan had planned the use of the modules could be extended to act as a mobile antipersonnel mine. How all of this came from the possibly flying skateboard that he wanted was a terrifying thought.

{————-}

The possible surveillance applications had been seen by Ghost, but the real cinch had been when Pick had needed to mine a position but had not brought enough explosives as it had been a quick decision to a FUBAR plan. Dan being the only other one near enough, had used the newly created MRTB to attempt to transport the explosives. It was only halfway to Pick's position when it flew over a Van resupply convoy.
Dan had debated the possible outcome if he attempted to sabotage it, but his decision was made for him when the convoy started to approach what had been identified as the Van's FOB.
Under Ghost's orders, he had dropped the drone into the largest of the supply vehicles and waited until it had entered the building to detonate the mostly incendiary explosives. The loss of the drone was regrettable but the time that it had given them was worth it in the end.

{--—--———}

Dan decided to revoke the use of the anti personnel attachments and settled for getting his drones in the air as soon as possible.

{----------}

'Holy...'

Dan sat wide eyed as he stared at the footage streaming into his helmet. He had thought, 'sure there's some sort of intelligent life here'. He just hadn't been expecting the town to be something almost straight out of a cartoon.

'Is that a gingerbread house? What the hell man?'

He moved his drone closer but kept the board-like one in reserve for a quick getaway. He had the drone cruise around the town slowly as he scanned the streets for any sign of life.

'Considering that there's probably a Van presence if doesn't take much to imagine what could happened here.'

Even though he assumed the worst as a precaution, Dan still felt hope that some of the villagers were still alive, as the streets weren't covered in blood and craters. Bodies wouldn't have been found either way considering the Van's diet.

'I need a closer look,' he thought as he began to do some scans of the architecture.

As the drone dropped in altitude Dan could begin to make out the designs of some of the more prominent buildings in the area.

'Victorian style architecture huh? Old fashioned but elegant either way.'

Moving the drone even closer he watched as the altimeter broke the 200 meter mark, well within the sight range for any being on the ground.

'Their architecture and system of planning structures are remarkably human, though considering he theories about parallel and alternate dimensions, I'm not that surprised,' Dan's thoughts switched back and forth along different subjects as he analyzed the town for anything that could provide information, to whatever could be useful for their mission.

'The town looks completely uninhabited, but there's nearly no damage to speak of towards the inner areas, and the outer structures are relatively undamaged. '

He started to move the drone towards the far end of the town but saw something dart from the shadows near what he took to be a giant tree.

'What the hell was that?'

He dropped he drone another 100 meters and tried to find whatever creature still resided within the town. While he hoped that it was of the original inhabitants, he still readied the drone's mounted weapon, a 9mm rail-gun. It wouldn't do much against a shielded Van, but could cause quite a bit of havoc on an unaware group.

'Should I pull it back though? I don't think we can afford to lose it...maybe I should call Ghost?'

Dan tapped the side of his helmet and watched as the team commas began to connect.

'...wait a sec, connecting? The team comms should always be up!'

Dan watched disbelievingly as he communications failed to find any other sources. He had personally gone over the team's comms before they came through the portal, and they were all working optimally. The only thing he could think of was that the Van had some sort of jammer, but his sensors weren't picking anything up, plus the drone was still active, as well as his squad map.

'Whatever it is, it seems to only be affecting direct communication, and he drone operates on a different channel, but a jammer should be affecting all channels.'

He checked through all of the backup channels that he had and found that they were also blocked, whatever was blocking them only affected his team's direct communications.

Dan knew that under these circumstances he should regroup with his team immediately, but knowing Ghost, he would want to track down the source of the interference and all chances of finding some of the native, apparently sentient, species would be lost.

'I know I shouldn't, but the benefit is potentially greater than the danger, besides...maybe I could snag something that isn't bland rations.'

'Now let’s see where that sneaky bastard is...'

[=====]

Moon Shadow darted from shadow to shadow as she tried to avoid the gaze of whatever was currently observing them.

The recent strikes by the Ursa Menors had been steadily increasing along the outlying towns and cities in what seemed to be a slowly progressing line toward Ponyville.

They're disappearance and subsequent reappearance had thrown the military off as they seemed to suddenly appear and strike before melting away and disappearing from even their best tracking magic.

And now this 'thing' that was watching them could only be some infernal beast under the Menor's control.

Her sensitive hearing could pick up the beasts incessant buzzing and the slight clicking sounds it was making. She had been wondering why some unicorn artillery hadn't shot it down yet, but apparently their magic could not detect it, and at best they would just annoy it.

She snarled as she and the other Pegasi could not fly up to intercept it either. Reports from towns that were attacked told of these flying beasts that could intercept Pegasi with unknown weapons, but there were no real descriptions about the beasts themselves.

She looked around from her hidden position and saw many eyes staring at her out of boarded up windows. Waving back at them she moved as silently as she could using her wings for little speedy hops from cover to cover, all the while keep one eye on the creature, who continued to descend.

[----]

Dan lowered the altitude slowly as he shifted the drone's settings to thermal imaging and jumped back at the sudden flares of heat that had erupted on the screen.

'They’re hiding in the buildings!'

Dan was excited about his new revelation and panned the view around until he caught sight of a figure moving rapidly between cover.

'Ha! Can't hide from me forever!'

He dropped the drone to 100 meters and dared not go any lower, he already knew that anything on the ground looking up or paying attention would have already spotted the drone...and by the looks of it, the quick figure already had.

He could see the humanoid figure staring up at the drone and slowly move around the building. Dan stared after her for a few seconds before steering the drone for the town center, over what looked to be some sort of main plaza, and made the drone climb back up to 300 meters.

From this altitude he could see that while most of the structures had above background heat signatures, there were only a few that were glowing with heat, and only one that was trying to blind his drone.

Dan switched between vision modes several times before he accepted where the heat signatures were coming from.

'The tree!?'

[------]

MoonShadow ran/flew from shadow to shadow as she went a round-about way to her rendezvous point. As she ran along the walls of homes, she glanced up to check on the flying beast, only to see it moving toward the library.

'Damn!'

She started to move directly across the road to get to the tree over open ground, when she was tackled back into the shadow of an alley.

"Umph!"

She was about to strike at her attacker when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"What in Tartarus do you think you're doing?!"

Star Watcher was holding her to his chest as he pressed her into the shadows.

"What in blazes were you thinking?"

She stared at him in disbelief and a bit guiltily. She had decided leave on an assignment as a messenger without informing him. She had not wanted to wake him up from his rest in fear that he would aggravate his injuries in order to keep her safe or in an attempt to go with her.

(----)

Watcher had volunteered to be one of the patrol who escorted a Ponyville native named Fluttershy, to her cottage near the forest. While they had secured the area, StarWatcher had been caught in the path of a raging wounded manticore that had erupted from the forest. He had been knocked unconscious and was almost mauled before the others had rescued him.
The details had been a bit sketchy from the other guards, but apparently she had managed to calm it down and inspect its wounds. This was where the story went sour.

The many wounds that the beast had suffered were a combination of severe lacerations and what they had first assumed to be thorns.

It wasn't until closer examination that showed that they were not thorns but in fact spikes that were embedded deep within the flesh of the beast.

The sight of the ammunition used by the weapons of the Ursa Menors had caused several of the guards to panic, until they were calmed as well by Fluttershy. She had patched up the manticore the best she could in the time she was given by the commander of the group before she forced them to leave.

It was on the way back that Fluttershy had taken a closer look at StarWatcher only to find that her initial evaluations of his injuries were incorrect.

The concussion had been worse than she thought, as well as well as that she had not had enough time to find that he had several broken ribs from the impact of the barging animal.

(-----)

MoonShadow stared into the eyes of her compatriot and saw only worry. She was flattered that he cared so much for her and yet indignant that he sought to stay with her at nearly all times, that, and he seemed to be keeping a secret from her, one that she had been patiently waiting for him to reveal ever since she visited him in the hospital.

{----}

She entered the hospital foyer and slowly walked to the nurse at the front desk to get StarWatcher's room number.

Looking around, Moon could see a clear split between the uniforms of the Solar Empire and the New Lunar Republic. While there were some groups that had uniforms intermixed, the majority still seemed to have some sort of grudge against each other.

'Looks like some rivalries still haven't been absolved,' she thought as she passed several NLR soldiers who attempted to snap to attention before she waved them down with a slight smile. Approaching the front desk she smiled at the receptionist who asked who she was there to see.

After getting Watcher's room number she walked briskly to the stairs, eager to see her comrade and yet apprehensive as well.

The first few times that she had seen him, he had been heavily bandaged and in a coma from the range of his internal injuries caused by the spike during the battle.

For reasons that the doctors could not explain, the damage done by the spike seemed to somehow hamper the healing effects of their magic for a time. To Moon's horror, Watcher had been clinically dead for a short time before a unicorn with an affinity for electricity brought him back.

Now after a week of recovery he was healing normally and would be out of the hospital and back into her squad soon enough.

As she entered his room, she could have sworn that he had hidden something under pillow. After a short talk where she berated him for his arrogance on the battlefield they moved on to more peaceful topics.

Throughout the whole time, Moon had seen him twitch several times almost as he was going to reach behind his back but never went past a few inches, always trying to pass it off as an itch on the arm or such.

She was curious of what he was trying to do, but didn't push the issue. He would reveal his secret at some point or another as was his nature, and she would wait patiently as she did all those years ago when he had given her a portrait of the Moon's rise over the mountains for her birthday.

{------}

Dan

Dan slowly piloted the drone until it hovered about a foot above a two story building that resided about 150 meters from the tree, or as he had now discovered, the very literal tree-house. He switched between the different views on the drone and examined the tree by thermal and metallic imaging as he switched the drone to its land form.

The rotor cowls spun until they reached a form similar to wheels, and the drone fell the short distance to land on the roof of the building, making a soft *clonk* as it did so.

The drone slowly creeped to the edge of the roof and Dan watched with curiosity as the two beings that he had seen before darted through what seemed to be a front door.

Dan shook his head and waited until the thermal images of the building had calmed down before he drove the drone off the roof at full-speed and began slowly maneuvering around buildings and through back alleys until he reached the tree.
The thermal cameras were showing him that there were a large cluster of unknowns within a room of the tree, while a large part of it remained cold. This should not have been possible considering that the tree was a major hotspot not a few minutes before.

‘Hmm…let’s see if we can’t a peek shall we?’

Dan’s curiosity was growing with every passing second as he guided the drone to a window, using the onboard grappler to hook onto a branch that was directly above the window, which allowed him to observe quietly without the incessant buzzing of the drone in its airborne form.

{-----------}

Princess Luna was currently waiting in her sister’s most favored student’s library, listened to a report from one of her Special Forces Operatives. Her face was grim as she remained on a padded chair and slowly leaned forward to tap her subordinate on the shoulder.

“Rise Lieutenant, and go assist your fellow.”

She motioned towards the other soldier who was trying to replace fallen books to the shelves of the once proud Ponyville library. The bandages wrapped around his chest were hampering his ability, and the two could tell that he was in pain even if he did not admit it.

Moon Shadow nodded and moved quickly to steady Star Watcher before he teetered over from the large stack of books in his arms. He had been insistent to the resident librarian that he would help to clean up the building as it was his earlier bumbling that had knocked over the shelves in the first place.

Luna sighed and reached over to a small coffee table that held her notes and several maps. It was placed close to the chair to allow her ease of access when the War Room in the basement was too crowded. As of right now, it was surrounded be two of her generals, her sister, and two Solar subordinates.

The report was troubling to say the least. The patrols had picked up traces of increased movement within the Everfree forest and several had not returned, grim news indeed to the princess of the night. This along with the sighting of one of the Ursa’s accursed beasts that was flying over the town, were the cause of her sister’s recent anxious movement within the War Room.

‘They couldn’t have discovered our presence here…could they?’

Luna was worried, recent events had shown that the Menor’s had been searching for something, something that garnered the use of the majority of their forces. Her own intelligence forces had not been able to gather any hard evidence of what they were searching for. Any attempt she made was easily countered, much to her great sadness and fury. She had already sent eight of her best Stallions and Mares to their deaths before receiving word of their discovery. She had immediately recalled all the others that she had in the field, fearing for their safety, and refusing to sacrifice anymore lives for a fruitless search for answers. The most that they had been able to gather was that, the Ursa Menors were traveling between the major population centers of Equestria, occasionally making raids on small outlying villages.

(------)

This in itself infuriated both her and Celestia a great deal. They were cowards who preyed on the weak and disappeared before any of the quick reaction forces could reach them, most having to settle for clearing up the bodies.

It wasn't until they had executed a strike on the Canterlot Castle that they discovered the object, or rather beings, of their interest…the princesses themselves.

And so began the terrible game of cat and mouse that the two sides had been playing for the past week. This knowledge was not public of course, but rather only those in high positions and each princess's own personal guard were privy to the information. The ever changing locations and roving command center were taking a toll on their organization, and protection, but so far they had been able to avoid being discovered.

Ponyville was by far one of their least favorite decisions as a place to hide, but under the pestering of their advisors, they submitted. The presence of the elements, and the three garrisons of intermixed troops (Neutral, NTR, SE) provided an almost inconspicuous defense for the residents.

(-----)

Luna slowly rose from her chair and arched her back as she stretched attempting to relieve the taught muscles of her back, and moved sluggishly to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. The drink had become on of her closest compatriots during these trying times, and she would not allow anything to spoil her few moments of peace.

She stared out the kitchen's window to gaze upon the small town as she gently tipped the mug and took small sips from the steaming liquid. The heat coursed through her body and she savored the small rush of energy that the caffeine provided no matter how short. She knew that with this new found alertness, she could clear the fog in her mind and be better able to react to any situation that could arise, as well as be better tuned to her surroundings...especially that low buzzing noise that was outside the kitchen window.

{-----}

Dan watched the short conversation between the female soldier and her apparent superior, and marveled at the interior of the building and was practically salivating at thought of the plethora of new, raw information that resided only a few meters from the drone's claws.

He moved the drone up its cord and used its claws to drag it carefully along the branch towards one of the upstairs windows, intent on gathering at least some literature for study, even if they'd probably never come here again.

(-----)

10 minutes later

Dan moved he drone out the window he had come in and slowly began to lower it to the ground, precious cargo secured firmly in its claws.

As the drone came level with what he had discovered to be the kitchen window, it came to an abrupt stop. Dan's eyes were wide as he looked down at the figure who was staring out of the window. He immediately recognized her as the soldier's superior, but stared at her clothes which consisted of a pair of shorts and a light dark blue blouse. Her hair was a deep purple and seemed to flow in a nonexistent breeze.

'She can't be much older than her early twenties!' he thought.

He watched as she lifted up the mug of steaming liquid and took careful sips of it. He was entranced by the way she moved, studying every little gesture to attain some sort of understanding of who she was.

'The lifted finger, delicate semblance, light complexion, and...a tiara? Must be part of the ruling class then...'

Dan continued to study her features and admired the way her eyes lit up as she sipped the drink...until she looked up.

'Oh Shit!'

He made the drone climb as quickly as he could back forge safety of the branch, disregarding stealth for speed. The last he saw of the young woman was her widening eyes and he heard her cry, "GUARDS!"

"Damn it..."

Once he had unlatched the drone from its cable he made it leap off the branch as it converted into its aerial form, the weight of the book making it dip down close to the ground before it began to rise.

(------)

Luna saw this 'thing' hovering just outside the window and watched stunned as it moved upward out of sight. She had no idea what it was of course, but that didn't stop her from making the most logical assumption that she could.

"GUARDS!!"

She turned and ran to the main hallway of the library towards the entrance to the basement. Already, the heads of her two special forces soldiers popped around the shelves that they were organizing, followed quickly by the rest of their bodies. She could here the clatter of broken clay behind her as well as the heavy thumping footsteps coming up the basement stairs.
The two soldiers flew past her towards the entrance to the library drawing their weapons. Luna didn't need to explain what happened, recent events had already shown the nature of the situation.

CRASH

Luna whipped her head around as the basement doors flew open, revealing her sister and their generals.

"Twilight teleported to the hospital to warn her friends and the mayor," Celestia spoke first as her orange sundress billowed around her and the generals moved to take up positions, swords drawn and magic at the ready.

Luna still had apprehensions about working with her sister, but the safety of their subjects trumped their views. After all, what good would a government be if their were no citizens?

Luna skidded to a stop as she reached her bag, which held her armor and weapons, and quickly began to outfit herself. While she could summon her armor of the night, lessons with one of her quartermasters had taught her to not rely on her magic armor.

(-----)

He had challenged the effectiveness of her armor and fought her in a ring to prove his case. No magic and dulled weapons were his methods. His favorite weapon being a wooden staff which he used to beat her in over 15 matches. Since her armor required a certain amount of concentration to hold in existence, he used the staff and clever stances to distract her and break her concentration. Once her armor was gone it was only a matter of seconds before he had disarmed her. By the end of her lessons, along with a good collection of red welts, Luna had learned to always go into battle with her magic armor overlapping her real armor, providing a double defense and allowing her to concentrate fully on her battles.

Celestia operated with only light leather armor under her Solar armor, she depended much more on her magic, but was able to hold her armor in focus longer due to her experience with her poker face in the day court, listening to the prideful aristocrats.

(-----)

Celestia stood in her sundress watching as her sister prepared herself for battle. She was tempted to follow her sister's example, but was still skeptical of the 'possibly' incoming attack. Her sister had an eye for the unusual and the reports brought in by her covert operatives was troubling. It wasn't enough to warrant either a mobilization or a relocation but it was better to be safe then sorry.

"Luna...do you really think that they would be able to strike so quickly?"

Luna's eyes centered on hers as she tightened the straps of her boots.

"By all the accounts of your specialists," she sneered, "the Menors are still around the area of Manehatten though they have not done any hostile actions as of late."

Luna was about to reply when a bright flash of light erupted in the center of the room revealing a bleeding unicorn who was clutching at a spike in his thigh.

"The...," he gasped in pain his face twisted into a horrible grimace, "the beasts are at the town's western edge...they attacked a group of citizens who were retrieving some of their possessions from what remains of their residence, the element of laughter was assisting them."

He finished his report and groaned as he tightened a strip of cloth around his leg.

ROAR!!!

{-----}

Dan took the book from the claws of the drone and began to feverishly flip through the pages like a man possessed, only stopping for a brief moment to read the cover.

It read, 'A Brief History of Modern Equestria' by a Professor Do.

'A brief history? This could provide all the information that I need!'

ROAR!!

'Oh no...'

Dan's eyes darted upwards as he tried to determine the source of the sound and quickly reached for his weapon, undoing the safety as he switched his view to the drone that he still had buzzing around the town.

'Where the hell did that come from?'

Looking at the drone's display he could see the 6 hostile indicators that revealed the positions of the attacking, now retreating, Van. Scanning them, Dan's mouth became a grim line as 5 more unknown signs appeared accompanying them.

He flew the drone as quickly as he could towards the group before they disappeared into the forest. They were a few meters from the forest when his HUD identified the unknowns.

'What the hell? They took hostages?!'

A/N: So everyone...New chapter is up and I'm late for an event so if you find any mistakes please let me know.
I'll try an have the next one up by early Nov.

Intermission

Intermission Part 1

From the personal journal of

Subject PXS-551-21-18

Deep, Dark, Dank places. Nobody likes them, and many fear them, for good reason too. There are so many unknowns that lurk in these places, some so deeply ingrained into the shadows that they have become the basis of human myths and nightmares. The cold shivers that run down your spine at the unseen eyes that prowl along your shape. The crackling of bushes, or the crunching of gravel as you walk alone, stalked by the unknown.

We can never really predict where our next encounter with death will be. You can cheat death all your life, avoiding the largest of disasters, and yet, you might succumb to the smallest of things. That’s me I guess, wrong place, wrong time, and definitely the wrong gear.

A simple job they told me…a new adventure into the worst places that humanity has to offer. A rescue mission within a rescue mission into an area that has already claimed the lives of countless beings, both friend and foe.

{---------------------}

I walked carefully along the dirt path away from my drop zone. The dark forest enclosed me with only the companionship of the full moon at my side. I know from past experiences that the moon can be either a ray of hope…or a death sentence. I was never able to tell until it was almost too late.

I breached the forest and watched as the light clouds seemed to congregate purposefully in front of the moon, blocking what bit of comforting light that had protected me along the first leg of my journey. Cautiously I moved towards my objective, wary for whatever lurked in the dark. The stories of this place had given the bravest of men nightmares beyond imagining, and I was walking straight through it.

{-------------------}

Run…

The voices seemed to call to me; the whisps of the wind seemed to carry them from the abandoned villages near the mountain. I could feel the eyes of hundreds watching my every move, their presence an overhanging shadow in the already black night.

Run…Hide…

‘Hmph! Do these ghosts think they can deter me? I have not faltered in any of my endeavors and shall not do so now!’

I allowed a grim smile to adorn my face as I creeped through abandoned fields, filled with the dead husks of ancient trees. Nothing has been able to grow here for centuries they’ve said. I could not allow that to stop me, no the voices, not the ghosts of the dead, not any of the infernal beasts that sought to approach me from the darkness. I will complete my mission, the last request of one of my oldest friends, who through thick and thin, through smoke and fire had followed me to save those who we did not know.

I shook my head and allowed my disturbing thoughts to leave me. I could not dwell on the past and allow it to interfere with my promise. Nothing would stand in the way of my promises, not even the devil himself.

{-----------------------}

I approached the entrance to the mine, its ancient doors cracked half open, the wood hiding the walls of metal that would rival the defenses of Gibraltar itself. I moved steadily along my path to the once proud door, now blasted outwards, the scorch marks engulfing everything around it. Something had tried very hard to get out, something that left clawed tracks on the soot covered floor.

My companions had entered this place not long before me; I could see the outlines of their boots beside the clawed ones. I could only hope for their safety, but from all that I have learned…hope is sometimes too great a thing to cling to, for I could see the claws were reversed as well.

{-----------------------}

I walked through the ever entwining hallways, through the once strong doors that had withheld the madness within this facility for so long. Several of the emergency lights still had some energy, though on their legs, the phosphorescent lamps provided some meager comfort against the almost overwhelming sense of foreboding that surrounded me.
I turned my head to watch the different signs on the rusting walls as I passed them.

Control…Cargo…Sa..G…A.d…XS.1.5….0

XS…those were some of the final symbols that I had seen during my earliest days…what did they mean?

I could not dwell on it; it was not mine to dwell on. I continue on…

{--------------------}

I turn the corner to the sign that I had sought…Barracks…

I do not know what awaits me beyond the threshold of this door. I can only hope that all those that came before me could forgive me…

The deeds that I have done were beyond despicable…I could I only hope that my recent action could provide some sense of repentance for whatever remained of my tattered soul.

I walked through the doors, rifle at the ready, my flashlight flickering in the unknown energy that flowed from the rooms. I could hear the rustling of movement from all around me, but I only had eyes for what lay before me…

A boot…a boot that clothed a foot…a foot connected to a leg…a leg that ended in a dark congealed puddle.

Laughing…that incessant laughing as we died! Why did you not come sooner?

The voices barrage my mind, I could hear the sound of clattering…clattering that I recognize all too well…

So you have come for us ‘eh? Well, we shall not allow you to stop us! We shall have your HEAD!

I moved quickly watching as the shadowy figures danced before me…

So…nearly…free…

And fell to the ground in bloodied heaps.

I allowed a grim smile to form on my face…one less horror of my past to follow me.

FIN

I'll be writing these journals from time to time whenever I get stuck on a chapter, in order to provide some relief between chapters.

Warning:

These things come straight out of my nightmares and mini stories that I have written before.

Intermission 2

From the Journal of Keldon Marsh.

Shadow of Dimension ICpE

Short memoir used for teaching at the Academy of the ******, Dimension *****

Wars of Pride

As I walk down my humble village’s streets, I must turn my head at the swollen sights of the nobles. How it disgusts me! These Men and Lady have no shame of what they do. They strut down our streets, in garments as colorful as the exotic birds brought from the plains, as swollen as the bloated cows I have seen on countless battlefields. They do only that which pleases them. Their Vanity consumes them. Their Pride propels them down this path of greed.

A good friend of mine once told me, “Honor is how people see you, it can lead to fame and fortune, to countless rewards and loving friends. Pride is how you see yourself, and can make you make rash decisions and lose your honor.”

I watch these nobles, bloated with their pride. They pass the poor beggars on the sides of the road. They see it as beneath them to help the ‘peasants’. They lavish their parties with the best of everything, and then throw it away carelessly.

My stomach clenches at the thought of walking in their path any longer. I turn away and see two young men amount to a duel, “For my Honor!”, they yell, clashing blades. I sprint forward and separate them, swiftly disarming them. “Fools! You know not what you say! You duel over such trifles, for your Honor? No! You fight for your Pride! There is no honor in this, you fight for yourselves and so lose your honor!”

“Think and understand! Do not fight ‘lest you shame yourselves!”

I see in their eyes that understanding has dawned upon them. Then, in the shadows, I see him. The man who’d pride demanded that he slaughter all of his foe’s subjects.

He enters a building and I signal my men to follow. Our two factions clash and I soon have him against the wall, dagger presses into his belly. I look into his eyes and the flames of Fury, and the fuel of his corruption with power. The fury that fueled his pride, causing him to send the mass execution order in my name.

“Ghost!” he rasps.

I smile all of my hatred and disgust held in my burning gaze. He would not escape me! He would pay for all of the lives that he had ruined. For all the men he forced me to kill in order to defend myself against his false charges.

My smile widens as I drive my dagger home, “Pride is a terrible thing, isn’t it?”, my voice full of loathing. I withdraw the dagger and allow his body to sink to the floor. My men have subdued the rest of his men, and we leave them tied up for the royal guards to find them. We leave the information which would condemn these criminals to a public execution. Justice would be served, but revenge offers no condolence for the friends that we have lost.

With our current charges, simply being seen would warrant our immediate execution. We would have to remain in the shadows of this land. We have seen the true evil that lurks, pulling the puppet’s strings. We would become the darkness that would chase the shadow. We would become the shadows that would make this evil cringe in fear of the dark. We will find them, we will expose them, and we Will kill them.

Then we shall disappear and only return when another evil seeks to return to the handles of the world. No one will control the masses. People deserve the right to choose how to live their lives. They should not be subject to the power of others who would oppress them.

Recon Pt.1

Ghost

I moved silently along the tree line as the sun slowly rose in the distance. The forest was eerily quiet at a time when it should be bustling with life, the natural chirps and howls absent in the cool morning breeze. The antsy feeling in my arm wouldn't leave me, and my leg would give a nervous tap whenever I stood still for too long.

Crack

I spun sideways and half-raised my rifle before once again settling it into a light carry position. My motion tracker displayed a yellow dot, the signal for friendlies towards the edge of its range. The forest was so quiet that I could hear the snap of a twig at 25 meters.

I shook my head and continued on towards my objective. Dan was already near and the other would reach us soon. A hectic night and only 2 hours of sleep were not the factors of an optimal situation for a hostage rescue mission, as well as the protection of a possible VIP, but it had to be done. I just had to hold out hope that the previous night’s action wouldn’t come back to haunt us.

{------------------------}

10 Hours Ago
2100 Hours

Following Dan’s return to us and his quick recounts of the information that he had gathered with his drones, we quickly moved out to track the escaping ‘Van and their captives. We had to move quickly as the Drone was quickly running out of its charge with the sun already below the horizon.

Dan could offer no solid explanation for this snag, the battery was supposed to last for at least 6 hours after charging. We had to assume that something was either draining the power, or it had malfunctioned in some way. In either case, we could not afford to delay in our pursuit of the enemy. The longer that the hostages remained within their grasp, the higher the chances of several of them suddenly becoming dinner.

Dan had put the drone’s live feed up on all of our visors. It was tracking the slight heat signatures that remained after the ‘Van entered the forest. The thick leaves and tree cover hampered our ability to track them with the drone, so the sooner we were able track with hard evidence, the faster we could hopefully find the ‘Van’s camp and start rescue operations.

Nothing says ‘I’m your friend’ like some innocents returned to their families. The more collateral damage we could prevent now, were less repercussions we would have to suffer later. In a case such as this with sensitive Tech and important Civvies in the grasp of the ‘Van, now exceeded with several more innocent hostages? It warranted two very different responses.

One was to execute extreme care in the liberation of the hostages and ensure the recovery or, at the very least, destruction of all classified materials. It was a great public moral boost and also a good way to earn favors from a great many people, even acquire some sensitive non-mission critical information for black mail later…if necessary.

The second option, was the immediate, systematic and indiscriminate destruction of everything that could be used against us. Everything within the area was to be considered hostile and eliminated with extreme prejudice…no one ever liked that option, didn't mean we haven’t done it, but it was only a last resort.

Considering the nature of the ‘Van’s favored weapons, usual supplies, and the standard gear that most of us carried, it would have been extremely simple to simply transform any occupied area into a swirling mass of dust, fire, and glass. We would do our best to avoid that situation though…for now.

(---------------------------------)

I crouched down slowly and picked up a small colorful item from the clutches of a thorn bush. It was obviously from a piece of clothing, and from the accompanying bloodstains, I could almost imagine what had transpired. The worst being that one of the hostages had been used as a shield for the thorns. As unconventional as it sounded, the ‘Van weren't really known for their gentleness and care for others.

I raised myself out of my slight crouch and made some quick gestures with my hand before moving forward. I could see from my radar alone that my team was spread out into a half-circle formation 15 meters apart from each other. A clump of people was a juicy target for any trigger happy sentry, but one man…one man was a waste of bullets.

I slowly creeped closer towards our objective and settled down when I had reached a suitable spot to wait. I watched as I received green acknowledgement lights from my team and as a blue-ish dot raced away on the radar, indicating that Dan had launched his drone again. His quick jury-rigged EMP Grenade had managed to put a good charge into the drone, though it wouldn't last more than 15 minutes.

As I watched the feed stream into my helmet, my mouth settled into a grim line. The camp was a good sized one, and from the sensors of the drone, the ‘Van presence was at least 35 strong with 25 unknowns and the 5 hostages. I frowned as I watched one of the hostages, a male, thrown roughly into a large cage, his still form marking a dark point in our short reconnaissance.

Dan had started to pan the image away when we spotted movement at one corner of the cage. As the camera settled once again over the man, we watched as a slim figure darted quickly over to the man and rolled him over. In the dim light I could just make out a shimmer of color from her clothing. I reached down to one of the pockets on my belt and pulled out the small piece of cloth from before.

Pink

(------------------------)

I stopped at one edge of the camp and opened comms to my team.

“Everyone ready?” I whispered even though my helmet was sealed. I felt an unnatural anxiety begin to cloud my mind before shaking it off. The night seemed to literally hang over the camp, the darkness sticking to anything that wasn't reached by the low light of the makeshift torches.

“Dan, keep an eye on the drone and watch Char’s back as she plants the charges. Pick, be ready to spring the hostages should we need, if not then at least get some info from the area.”

Three lights blinked back in unison as we each moved off into the camp.

While they moved off into the night, their black armor melding into the shadows, I moved as quickly as I could towards what we had identified as the command tent. When no adequate technology is available to gather info, sometime it had to be gathered the old fashioned way.

I darted from shadow to shadow and allowed my suit’s camouflage function to act in a passive covering making me semi-transparent, almost invisible in the night.

Besides the small amount of ‘Van pairs patrolling the area, I could see almost no security whatsoever. None of the energy signatures that signaled there being an infrared trip wire, or any other sort of defensive mechanism. It was almost as if the ‘Van had become lax in this new dimension. I shook my head slowly at how easy it was to sneak through the camp undetected. It was almost too easy.

I started to take a step forward when I suddenly jerked myself backwards. I looked down past my foot and saw a hairy paw sticking out of the shadows, claws half-extended. I slowly looked up and traced the paw back to its owner only to do a double-take.

The paw was connected to heavily muscled leg, which in turn was connected to what seemed to be a giant lion. A giant lion with wings and a scorpion tail.

Manticore

The name rang true in my mind, like someone had flicked a switch. Information about the beast bombarded my mind, from the weak point in its tail to the strength of its packed fur. I could almost picture myself twisting the neck of the beast until it snapped. All of the raw animal power nothing compared to mine…

Odd…where did those thoughts come from?

I knew that I had been given inspiration before, and even seemed to relive events that were not part of my life. The increasing frequency in which I was getting these flashbacks, was making it hard to dismiss them as simple meandering thoughts from an overworked brain.

I really do need to get myself checked out…

I stepped as lightly as I could around the manticore, doing my best to not disturb its slumber. The last thing we needed was a several ton rampaging beast in the middle of a sensitive op. Though, knowing my luck, it would end up pissed off at me one way or another.

“Can’t…not enough…wait!”

My head darted up at the semi-familiar voice, and I moved as quickly as I could towards the shouts.

Approaching a medium sized tent, I could feel the tension in the air. Not the situational tension that can come by multiple ways and is only a perception of the human brain, but literal tension in the air, as if there was a standing electrical charge in the atmosphere.

I quickly gave my suit a small command to stop the air scrubbers and waited a few seconds before trying the air…and practically choked as the taste of copper filled my mouth. I gagged and quickly turned the scrubbers back on in an attempt to rid myself of the taste.

Ozone…

Usually you can’t taste the ozone in the air, but in rare instances it becomes truly noticeable. A lightning strike, being near a tesla coil, an arching power line, or in this case, the literal standing charge in the air. I shook my head to clear my thoughts when one pushed itself to the front of my mind.

The Portal Generator! Or as the report had put it, the 'Trans-dimensional Space Time Manipulation Device' or TSTMD.

From reading the small report of the project at the base before we left, I had found a section where several scientists had reported strange symptoms from activating the portal. Taste of Ozone, a prickling sensation, euphoria, excessive increases in heart rates, and according to one guard, the irefusable sensation to sit down; enjoy the view of the sky, and sleep.

Pushing myself forward I crouched near the tent and pulled a fiber optic probe from my belt.

“It’s much too soon! You can’t expect me to rush…”

“You’re simply delaying the inevitable in the hope that someone comes for you! Face the facts!”

I froze for a moment before sidling up to the edge side of a few crates that were stacked near the tent. I tried to give myself the smallest profile that I could to avoid being hit by a lucky patrol as I looked around for a place to insert the probe. I had almost decided to cut a hole through the tent’s side myself before I saw a small piece of cloth protruding from the otherwise smooth material.

I switched through the low vision modes of my visor before I could tell what it was that I was looking at.

Clever Bastard…

I couldn’t help but grin at Wide Eye’s attempt to escape. The lightly patched hole would easily make for a large enough exit for a moderately sized person. I jimmied the end of the probe through a small gap in the patch and focused on worming it to the point where I could see what was transpiring within the tent. Hopefully, I could catch a glimpse of whoever I was facing.
I turned on the camera and watched as the lens adjusted to the light, before carefully panning it around the area.

From what was primarily visible, I could see what seemed to be a desk covered with strewn parts of technology, as well as a large open crate in one corner of the room.

SMASH!

I gave a small twitch as I listened to the sounds of breaking glass, magnified by the probe’s microphone and my helmet’s speakers. I quickly panned the end towards the sound and grunted in frustration. There was a chair covered in old rags blocking my view; and not just any rags, but a scientist’s jacket covered in stains, along with several small bushels of some type of dried grass.

I snaked the probe along until it was resting within the folds of the coat, and

The faster you give me a working portal, the faster you can put an end to your suffering…”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

'What the hell is this guy?'

{---------}

Captain FleetFoot

SE Infantry Commander

I slowly became aware of the pounding in my head along with the ringing in my ears. My body felt as if I had an Ursa Major sitting on my chest. Trying to open my eyes, I found that I was unable to open my left, and it felt as if my right was glued shut by some sort of crusty substance.

I tried to turn myself over and gasped as sharp pains racked my body, not just soreness, many runs over field courses had taught me the meaning of being sore. No, this felt like I had just gone through my final exam in Canterlot on the day of the Changeling attack.

(--------)

My team and I were overwhelmed and forced into the crystal caverns under the castle until our subsequent rescue by Princess Celestia's royal guards.

After watching several of my men die it gave me a larger view on life. I couldn't help but feel that I should've been able to do something more. I was sent home to my wife and two daughters in Ponyville for a small amount of leave and time to recover. But only a few days later, the war started.

Some may call me a coward for what I did after the order to return came in. Resigning my position, I volunteered to become of the Ponyville Militia, made up of Ponyville residents, SE, and NLR resignees.

I was just as patriotic as the next pony, but, while the thought of having to choose between the princesses was tough, having to watch all of my old squad-mates be separated between the two factions was just too much.

Ponyville being both a Neutral zone and the home of the Elements of Harmony was a huge boon for my family.
The tense days of the war and having to wait for news of the fronts had most of Ponyville's citizens on edge. Now with the appearance of these new enemies and the subsequent 'alliance' between the princesses our days simply got darker.
I cracked open my eyes and watched as several stars peeked out from behind the clouds. I could see shapes moving at the edge of my vision. Unknown and yet familiar…

{-------}

6 hours before
1500 hours (Ghost's time)
Outskirts of Ponyville

"Daddy! Daddy! Watch what I can do!"

Breaking my gaze away from the sky, I glanced over to where my daughter Featherstep was currently balancing on a fence post before jumping to the next one. I wasn't going to interrupt her; there was too much despair in the world to deprive her of this small joy.

I could feel the warm smile spreading across my face, I could almost swear that her special talent was going to be something related to acrobatics, we would just have to wait and see.

"I'm watching sweetie, just make sure not to fall."

She smiled and proceeded to jump towards her sister, Butterwing who was currently watching some butterflies dancing around the bright yellow flower that grew on the side of the road.

“BOO!”

“AHHHH!”

She jumped high into the air, somersaulting over her sister before landing perfectly on Featherstep’s back. Featherstep managed to hold her up for a split-second before succumbing to the weight.

“Oof…”

I shook my head, a small spurt of laughter escaping my hand as I tried to stifle it. I could hear my wife (VC) as well trying to hold in her giggles.

Featherstep joined in our amusement as her sister got off of her, an indignant look on her face.

“That was not funny!”

I just shook my head before taking my wife’s hand and pulling her to them and, once we had collected them, we began to walk towards our old house. We only got a few steps when…

“HIIII!!!”
Now it was me who jumped. The sudden flash of pink had me at my wits end in an instant.

Pinkie Pie…

“Hiya everypony…”

“Hey…”

Daddy?

“How are you doing today Miss Pie?”

Daddy wake up…please

“Oh nothing…but I heard laughing and decided to join in!”

Wake up! Captain wake up!

She looked full of energy and yet ragged, stains covering her clothing, and several clumps of her usually puffy mane were hanging loose like bangs. She had been through much, trying to keep everyponys’ spirits up, indiscriminate of whether you were NLR or SE.

Most couldn’t help but smile at her antics, her youthful energy and determination to cheer ponies up even when hope seemed lost…

SPLASH!

(---------------------)

I felt the sudden surge of freezing water envelope my face. The combination of cold and water entering my airways woke me up quickly. I could only sputter and shake as shivers wracked my body, my eyes flew open and my hand lashed out only to be caught by a firm hand.

Straining my neck, I turned my head to see someone that I thought I would never see again. His red and orange streaked mane hanging lightly over his eyes as he slowly let go of my arm. He smiled and moved slowly out of the way so I could see behind him, at my wife and children huddled near me, dirty, crying, scratched, but laughing. Next to them, the bright pink mane that had guided so many of us out of dark hazes.

I turned my attention back to the pony who I had spent most of basic with, and afterward be my second in command.

He shook his head, exposing the bandages along his neck and side of his face.

“Long time no see eh, Captain?”

A/N
Okay guys, another chapter's out and once again my imagination throws another monkey wrench into my plotline. I'm sure you all have seen the (Viewer's choice) mark and it means literally what it says.
I can't think of names like that so i need some suggestions.
Whichever I like best will be added in and mentioned after this A/N.
Besides that, since i had already started on the engagement chapter before I decided to put this one in, it shouldn't be to long before I put it out here.

Am i sorry that I'm not uploading quickly? Course not!
I'm letting anything go till its done, checked, corrected, added, and put through a grill.
Welp...see ya'll next time in Recon Pt.2, and First Contact.

Recon pt.2 (poss. inc.)

Chapter 11

Recon Sec. 2

Ghost

I stayed hidden waiting for that thing to leave Wide Eye’s tent. I had just finished a short written message which I promptly sent to my squad. They were to finish their objectives and exfil immediately from the camp/base, no back-talk allowed.

It was a risky move, for me above all else. Being left alone within an enemy base with an unknown amount of hostiles between me and safety was truly a stupid decision on my part, but if what I was planning failed, then it was imperative that my team be able to complete the mission.

I was no glory seeking hog with a death wish; I was someone who tried his best to look out for those under him with minimal collateral damage. Am I a sentimental guy who’s truly a softy at heart? No, I can be sympathetic to those I meet depending on the situation, but my heart hardened a long time ago. I may be a young commander, but sometimes sacrifices are needed in order to achieve the best outcome possible; at this point in the mission, orders be damned.

“I shall return tomorrow you insignificant worm, if you refuse to give me what I want, then I shall give you a fate much worse than this…”

My eyes shot open in horror as something that shouldn't have possible came to fruition.

(-------------------)

I stumbled away from the tents, and drunkenly made my way to a spot where I could sit and think. I had just watched the impossible, watched and heard. My mind flashed the images through my consciousness trying to comprehend what had transpired.

I had seen when Wide...no, Samuel Burke, had made a move when the figure's back had been turned. As he had lifted a blade like object and proceeded to attempt to drive it into his exposed back. I watched as the figure almost seemed to phase out of sight before appearing again, slightly to the side and grasping Burke's arm firmly by the elbow. He had stared into Burke's eyes with sharp almost black eyes, eyes that froze his movement and drove him into shock.

I had seen Operators who could move so quickly that they seemed almost to blur through your vision. Their lightning-like reflexes along with techniques and strikes that would put a cobra to shame, appeared almost superhuman to the untrained observer.

What I had never seen, is a man's eyes turn black as pitch as if someone had poured black ink into a clear container. I had never seen someone who, with only his index finger and thumb, was able to snap a man's elbow with barely any leverage, but the move so crisp that you could not believe otherwise. I had never seen someone's forearm dissolve into dust beginning at the tips of the fingers to where the break had occurred.

I had watched fascinated as Samuel's arm was rendered to nothing but a stump. Once the 'Disintegration' had stopped did I return to my senses and realize that I was gripping my combat knife like a vise and had my legs tensed, ready to slash through the fabric of the tent. I realized that while a part of me had been fascinated by the occurrence, another part had been horrified to the point of a mental freeze of activities, and yet my training still unconsciously had me ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

I had always held the science types in contempt. They thought that because of their higher intellect, that they were able to make decisions or come to conclusions that the rest of us could not. I hold them in contempt because they lack the experience to be able to know that those conclusions are in fact incorrect. Some know that they should gain this experience before truly backing all of their decisions on the field, and yet continue to believe that their intellect will pull them through. Hmph...sometimes the bullets need to start flying before they realize their mistake, but no one deserved that.

I had seen many gruesome sights in my short life, but most became such a daily occurrence that they would not strike me as badly as the first few times. Humans are amazing in the fact that we can adapt to almost anything, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. The disintegration of Samuel’s arm was not a horrifying perspective; I had watched soldiers and civilians alike be torn in half by the Van, their blood and organs flying in all directions. Instead, I was horrified by the uses that such an ability could see in combat, its uses would be unparalleled in hand to hand combat.

I was not too surprised by the new addition to the field of battle. I have seen weapons that use gravitational forces, and all of my recurring nightmares seem to hint at something more. I remember one in which I was watching through the eyes of one using the ability for torture and intimidation before a skirmish. The reasoning behind it was unknown, but I could understand the psychological impact that such an event could have on our troops.

Maybe the dreams aren't really dreams after all?

I shook my head slightly and froze as I heard boot-steps nearing my position. Looking up from my secluded corner I watched as the figure marched past, his annoyance visibly present in the way his shoulders were taught and his back straight. For a brief moment I felt something akin to familiarity, at least I wasn't the only one that was pissed off regularly by scientists.

I waited ten seconds before getting slowly to my feet, mindful of my equipment and the many possible noise makers that surrounded me. I made my way back to Samuel’s tent when a realization hit me and a small glimmer of an idea broke through the dark clouds that smothered my mood. It had been 72 hours since Samuel had been taken. He was the project lead, and knew the TSTMD inside and out, if the figure had other means to create the device, then he would of certainly been killed by now, but he was still alive which meant that that wasn't possible. I smiled as I quickened my pace towards his tent, the outline of an idea forming in my mind.

{------------------------}

Alex (Pick)

I made my way slowly through the camp, trying to avoid contact wherever I could. The camouflage that our suits were equipped with was good, but not good enough to hide me from the trained predatory eyes of a Van sentry. Using the shadows to my advantage I ducked into every space of cover that I could as I made my way to where the hostages were being held. On the way, I was dropping some of my own little handmade surprises into several important looking places to act as a distraction should one be needed wither now or later.

Since Ghost had sent me to keep watch over the hostages and free them should we deiced to engage tonight, I could tell that he was trying for the best possible outcome. Should it come to it, I would do my utmost to make sure that the noncombatants were rescued and kept safe, even if I had to distract the whole base myself. The way I grew up allowed no other alternative, so I would comply.

All I had to do was wait for the signal.

{-------------------------}

Dan

Darkness and shadow, fear and uncertainty, hatred and violence…all of these things were but a daily occurrence in this time-period known as Pre-Equestria. Know that by continuing to read this account of closely guarded facts you are hereby foregoing all of the things that you hold dear in your life. There is no turning back once you learn the truth of that which keeps all life in this world safe from harm…

I slowly put down the book that I had filched from the human-like beings’ library. The information that the book had once contained had already been stripped from the pages, only leaving jagged pieces of paper as all that remained of the original text. A textbook called “A Brief History…” would never had started with such a foreboding Prologue. The evidence of tampering, and the stark contrast between the colors of the book’s original paper compared to that of the current residing information only proved my theories that someone had switched out the contents for the book with that of another.

Possibly to hide it? But then why not destroy it or secure it in a safe or their equivalent of one?

I thought about that idea as I watched Char’ plant small cubic charges of X-12 plastic explosive on fuel dumps and anything that looked remotely flammable. I shook my head as she sneaked into a large wooden hut that had several chimneys as well as a small shack attached to its side. We had already found out that it was a kitchen, and what better way to disorient an opposing force than by throwing off their stomachs?

Then again, something being purposefully hidden when it looks like it should be out for public display would bring an unbearable curiosity down upon the finder. Hiding it in plain sight as well as changing it into the guise of one of the most attention dulling topics known to sentient life is an impeccably smart idea. Who would want to learn about the modern world when you live in it?

…

I've really got to stop watching those Sherlock Holmes movies, his vocabulary and the time period is starting to work its way into my head.

I shook my head slightly in an attempt to dispel my sudden reversion to fancy English and had my attention drawn to the sight of Char’ pulling a large vat out of the hut.

‘Well…that’s not going to be pretty…’

Author's Note

It's a short chapter I know, but there really wasn't much more I could put in it to add relevance to the upcoming part of the story. So for now it will remain like this. Who knows? Maybe once I'm done with the first arc, I'll come back and redo this chapter to include more information that has been solidified into the plot-line.

S111 signing off...

Hidden Message

A/N: Warning, this is a bit of filler while I try and solidify the background for the Civil War. At first I wasn't going to touch the subject, but I started writing and couldn't really stop. Feel free to judge my compressed background and let me know of any discrepancies that you might find.

Ponyville, a relatively new town within the borders of Equestria, one of the few that dares to reside so near to the feared Everfree forest; a town of calm demeanor, but impressive feats. Home to the Elements of Harmony, the small village has seen much in recent days, from the return of Nightmare Moon, a rampaging Ursa Minor, to the return of the God of Chaos: Discord.

The town was founded long ago by the renowned Apple family, and is home to the famed Sweet Apple Acres, run by the Element of Honesty herself. A majority of the land surrounding the town is owned by the farm as well, housing hundreds of apple trees in massive groves, of which no other area in Equestria has since been able to match. Most would say that the calm days in which Ponyville dwelled would never end, only interrupted by the occasional mishap which most residents left to the guards, or Elements to handle. It would have most likely continued with these soft days…if not for the war.

(-----------------------------------)

With the return of Princess Luna, after the Elements had purged the shadow of Nightmare Moon, the political pressures that had burdened Princess Celestia for the last thousand years seemed as if they would lessen. She had been alone to handle to the affairs of the country with a few trusted advisers who had come and gone within her reign, her eternal life ensuring that she outlived all of them, but few had she trusted more than her sister.

Princess Luna was one of the few remaining alicorns with the land; the rest withered away over time, or were taken by sickness or battle. She and her sister had ruled Equestria for nigh on one and one-half millennia, after the disappearance of the King and Queen, and before the incident of her banishment. Now, with her return, she had to take time to ‘catch up with the times’, even gaining the aid of the Elements during the celebrated ‘Nightmare Night’. But, even as she held Night Court to Celestia’s Day Court, few dared to come before her. She, after so many years, had become an object of fear to the masses, as well as the citizens being naturally diurnal (opposite of nocturnal), led to few, if any, who would come to her for aid. Besides her Night Guards, the occasional professor, and the few times she spent with the elements, she was alone.

As before, this led to conflicts between the two sisters, but none as powerful as the ones before the Nightmare. Time had mellowed out the once haughty tempers of the sisters, tragedy and hardship bringing them together after so many years.

There were no true disputes between the two sisters, but it was not the conflicts of the sisters that led to the war. No, the war was started by the citizens themselves. There were those who had been loyal to Nightmare oh so long ago, and left descendants, which grew into organizations that hid away within the recesses of the shadows. By contrast, there were those that were loyal to Celestia and worked their way to the top of Equestria’s political placement. Though Celestia had disbanded them after the banishment of Nightmare Moon, they continued on, their descendents growing in power and influence, waging a shadow war on the remaining supporters of Nightmare.

{--------------------------------}

As the river of time flowed by, and leaders were lost to its depths, the mandates that held up the two sides crumbled away, sides shifted, and reversed. The Solar Empire, as they named themselves, grew to be powerful and wealthy, leading the nation with brilliant inventors and scientists, one of the most noted in history being Starswirl the Bearded. Though as time flowed on, it eroded at even the once thought unbreakable supports of the Empire. They fell to petty squabbles and clambered over each other for power; their honor, brilliance, and chivalry being replaced by pride and greed.

On the other side of the spectrum lay the Nightmare’s Legion. A collection of individuals who followed Nightmare Moon during her brief war against Celestia who was, according to their ancient texts, a tyrant who ruled all of Equestria beneath the oppressive light, and by following the Nightmare they would be given the freedom that lies In the shadows. These fanatical leaders led with fear and force, and after the subsequent banishment of N.M. and raids conducted by the old S.E, the once fanatical leaders of the N.L. dwindled and were either killed by the Empire or assassinated by their own followers. As the Legion fell and became obscured behind rumor and shadow it was quickly forgotten by the general public, but never left the sight of the Empire.

In a desperate bid to regain their power, the few remaining leaders of the Legion left on a journey that was supposedly hinted in a conversation between Nightmare and her generals, and disappeared. With their power all but gone, the Legion fell out of the gaze of the Empire, becoming nothing more but a minor nuisance.

Leaving no one that truly believed in the fanatical ways of their past, the Legion fell to pieces and became several separate factions who became iconically known as The Mob, The Disciples of Midnight, and The Followers of Rafewray. None of these factions truly had any power on their own, and so fell into their own specialties. The Mob were experts at smuggling and organization, The Disciples were secretive and stealthy, working as protection or assassination, or anything else shady for pay, but were always true to their word. The Followers were a group that took after one of the few scribes that were within the ranks of the Legion.

Rafewray had sought to spread the propaganda of the Legion, but at the same time attempted to store away as much true knowledge as he could acquire within his possession. After the banishment of N.M. Rafewray turned to staying out of political affairs which would create bias, and focused on the cold hard facts. He was never really one of the Legion’s fanatics, just someone who was overly concerned with the preservation of knowledge and free thinking, which with the subsequent fall of the Old Empire became of an even greater importance.

The Followers continued his mission and over time obtained a sort of ‘hold’ over the other two factions. They would pay the Disciples to steal a text or make it a very ‘unhealthy’ occupation to be spouting the propaganda of the Empire, and help the Mob undermine its grip on the economy. They would pay the Disciples to obtain a certain text that the Empire was going to ‘refurbish’ and then have The Mob keep it out of sight until it could be copied and stored. Acting as the mediators between the two, the Followers soon became a sort of governing system for the former Legion. Pulling tighter reins around the Disciples, and becoming tied into the economy alongside the Mob, it wasn't long before Followers became the de facto leaders of this shady band.

Using funds obtained through the Mob’s dealings they started schools and funded settlements, creating the first true areas of Equestria that lay out of the reach of the now corrupt Empire. They became teachers and professors that slowly began to chip away at the holds of the Empire. The Disciples would covertly study under the Followers, soon becoming adept strategists and planners, aside from their other skills. The Mob members who attended became much more successful at white-collar business, leading them to gain a hand against the economic might of the Empire.

The coming of this new organization and rejoining of the factions led to several significant changes. The new cooperation between the factions provided boons to each branch. Supplies brought in by the Mob provided better equipment for the Disciples and the Followers, allowing for better training and greater caliber of the skills being taught. The Mob received added protection for their operation from the Disciples, and kept their books clean with the aid of the Followers. The Followers received protection from the many attempted ‘accidents’ of the Empire, and the supplies to continue spreading the truth allowing for the undermining of the Empire’s power over ever greater areas.

With all of the power that the newly jointed groups attained, they sought to become unified under one banner, to truly begin the resistance against the Empire…and so the New Lunar Republic was born, not in memory of the Nightmare who attempted to control all of life on the world, but of the radiance of the moonlight, the mystery in the stars, the light that they provided against the many horrors that lurked in the darkness. It was on the day of the renaming that the scales were switched. The NLR would combat the SE at every grab for power, and await the day when the Princess of the Night would return; for the Followers had discovered a way that the Nightmare may be dispelled and the bright Luna returned to the world.

{--------------------------}

It was only a few minor arguments between the sisters, arguments that would have passed and been forgotten; but this source of even the most minor of conflict provided the spark for the two sides to begin fighting. By the time after the return of the Princess of the Night the NLR had reached a level of power that was almost equal to that of the SE. By spreading the arguments and misinformation, the SE made its move gaining a one up on the NLR. With the knowledge of the arguments spreading through the country plus the embellishment of certain parts led to widespread civil unrest allowing for the SE to launch attacks into NLR territory burning towns and causing casualties not just to the NLR, but to their own areas as well as a faux-provocation. Their targets being schools and warehouses that were thought to hold resources of the NLR were camouflaged behind the many other fires that were raging in different areas.

The NLR was caught off guard as they were knee deep in preparations to reveal themselves to Princess Luna, to make themselves presentable. Besides the few forces of Disciples that they retained, they were woefully unprepared for the attacks planned by SE Commander Blitz Wings.

By the time that the NLR had created a defensive line against the attacking forces, the damage had already been done. The burning buildings, slain citizens (on both sides), Empire-planted evidence, and sudden mobilization of forces that seemingly appeared out of nowhere (Disciples), gave away a far different story then what had actually occurred.

The sisters were stunned at this new turn of events and moved their own personal forces to begin tracking the cause of the chaos. Princess Luna went to the field of battle itself, while Celestia remained in Canterlot, where both were approached by members of the respective groups; the locations of the two creating instant tension between the sisters.

The SE spun off their carefully crafted story to Celestia and presented evidence to back it up, even pointing to Luna’s desire to travel to the field as a sign that she went to check on the handiwork or her secret organization. The SE had even gone so far to plant numerous members within the ranks of the Royal Guard and formal Equestrian military. With the NLR still reeling from the blows, the SE began to spread dissent within the ranks causing several groups to go AWOL in patriotic rage against the Night Princess.

Princess Luna, by contrast, was horrified at the destruction and was almost convinced by the evidence that a remnant of the Nightmare’s organization still remained. It took an insanely brave Disciple to infiltrate her quarters at a nearby hotel and, braving Luna’s wrath, was able to convince her to look closely at the evidence and invite her to one of the major NLR camouflaged Academies. Taking a small detachment of her guards with her, she spent the next few days stunned as she sat through an accelerated history of the NLR.

After hearing their side of the story, she promised to plead their case to her sister and be wary of the SE. but, upon returning to the hotel to collect the remainder of her guards, found a massacre. In the short span of time that she had been gone, the AWOL detachment mix of Royal Guards and Eq. military had launched a surprise attack in an effort to capture the Princess. With their failure however, the SE plants executed the captured members of Luna’s guard when they would not reveal her location.

With the discovery of several bodies from royal guard and the Eq. military intermixed with the forms of her own guards, Luna was struck by a fear and rage that she had only felt once before. She flew back to Canterlot with her remaining guards and a group of Disciples as volunteer guards.

Before she could reach Canterlot however, Celestia was already having doubts about her newly reformed sister. All that was needed to push her over the edge was a well placed faux-assassination attempt by the SE under the guise of the NLR. Of the lone assassin, of the six original, that survived the attack, and subsequently captured by the Royal Guard, the cry of “For Luna!” before committing suicide was enough to tear away what hope Celestia had left.

(---------------------------------)

Beyond the events of the sisters, there was one outcome which the SE had not planned for. The spread of the rumors and arguments did not just serve to give cover to their attacks, but create divisions within the country was planned for. They did not expect however, for Equestria to become split into two political parties, one for Luna and one for Celestia. The SE had expected for the public to now reject Luna after recent events. Instead, their lies about the NLR were quickly countered by the NLR themselves, now able to become a public entity and reveal themselves.

Though they did so in desperation, the effect was profound. Because of the recent events during Nightmare Night in which Princess Luna participated in the festivities with the aid of the Elements of Harmony, many within the general public began to see her in a kinder light. Usually, such a small point of kindness would have been crushed quickly by the allegations, but because of the support of the Elements, one of which was the personal student of Celestia herself, the ‘truth’ was widely contested. In retaliation to help even the grounds, the NLR began to reveal their own dirty secrets about the SE, the only difference being that these were mainly true, not fabricated to fit the agenda. This served to further split the country, turning it into a full on political war, with the military attempting to keep the peace with any fighting that erupted.

By the time Luna returned to Canterlot, Celestia had been fed so much clashing information that she could not pick out the truth, but with the SE representatives using Luna’s reclusive manner and apparent ‘ignorance’, she became more and more convinced of some sort of treachery.

Upon their meeting, there was an almost immediate conflict between the SE members and the Disciples. This did not help the matter, especially when it transformed into a shouting match between the two sides. Before long, insults and rhetorical answers were being tossed around. By the time it had calmed down, things had been said that should not have and mini brawls had erupted between opposite sides outside of the throne room.

By the end of the day, the trust between the two sisters had been shattered, and both were near tears. With tensions high and the whole Equestria sitting on edge, the sisters were forced to choose sides. A decision was made and both sides suddenly found themselves thrust into something that they were all woefully unprepared for…

War

{------------------------------}

Dan

We’re running and trying to distribute these copies wherever we can, but I don’t know how much longer we’re going to last…the damn Empire has spies everywhere. They recently managed to find and destroy two hidden workshops where we were copying and sending off books for the Followers…I wonder how many books were lost to the blaze as we escaped with what we could carry…I hope the others managed to make it to the drop-offs…I hope that we can hold off anymore attacks on the storehouses…but on the off chance that we can’t save several of them and the copies of our records are lost, I’m going to hide this one in the one place those damn Empire censors would not dare to look, I’m pretty sure they won’t do anything to get the Elements on their bad side.

Dan’s eyes skimmed over the information one more time as he tried to solidify the words into his memory. The story told by these few pages was almost too amazing to comprehend, almost as if it was a first person account of the beginning of this world’s civil war. For all he knew, it was.

I’ve got to tell Ghost, this kind of thing definitely needs some attention, though knowing him; we’ll just solve the Van problem and let the locals solve their own conflict. I wish we could do something to help, but who the hell are we to be messing in another world’s politics no matter how dirty it sounds?

BEEP!

Hmmm…looks like the Van are finally making their move…and if what Wide-Eyes told Ghost is true about the Van using hostages to get a VIP, then we can assume it’s either one of the Princesses or these Elements of Harmony.

Dan started to close the book when he felt the edge of the cover give slightly. He turned the book over and looked at the edge of the cover, noting how it was slightly deformed…as if someone had hidden something inside.

Well what have we here?

Pulling his knife from its sheathe, he used the tip to gently slice open a side of the cover. Peeling it back slightly, he could just make out several sheets of paper inside.

Now what are these?

Dan slipped off his gauntlet and delicately reached inside the flap, and tugged at the folded papers causing the whole flap to come off revealing a thin string hidden within the spine of the book.

So that’s how this little compartment opens…

Slowly placing the book on the ground, Dan rested the paper on his thigh plate, before gently prying it apart, revealing several sheets folded together. As he separated the first one, he could just make out the shadow of a drawing through the paper. Turning it over, he shined his light on the drawing and gave a start when he made out the picture and its caption, both of which he recognized.

Looks like someone was…ahh shit…

Author's Note

Once again, allow me to remind my dear readers that if they were to find any discrepancies within my work, if they would be so kind as to point them out for me as while I do have someone who looks over my work, I don't think they can really be counted as a true editor.

Thank you.

Night Before the Storm

A/N: After this chapter, the story rating has hereby been upgraded to mature because of the content that is soon to come.I have to ask for some understanding on the part of the brutality of some scenes. You have been warned.

Luna

Loneliness, darkness, cold, miserable…she had had nothing to do on the moon after her initial banishment. Plotting, scheming, imagining different scenarios for her revenge on her sister, the many outcomes, the possible defeats as well as the victories. Nightmare moon had a complete hold on her mind, her tendrils of hate and resentment burrowed deep within her soul, never ceasing their flood of negative emotions, constantly feeding the overwhelming anger that was directed at her sister...but, amidst the hate and the loathing, she was still Luna.

No matter how powerful the Nightmare became, she could never truly conquer the hidden light within her. The look of sadness and hurt on her sister’s face when she used the elements to carry out her banishment…she understood the reasoning, she still had hope…no matter how deeply it was buried by the Nightmare.

She was alone on the moon…none but the Nightmare and the small voice of what remained of Luna, forced to listen and see the plans, to take joy in the images of the planned suffering and revenge. She was herself and yet not…a being of her own making, a product of the recluse. Nothing could change what had happened, but maybe…just maybe, some kindling could be added to the flame…even as it diminished with age…

{------------------------------------}

Luna stared out of her window or rather, the window in her commandeered room. It was a simple room with only a single person bed, a small dresser, a mirror, and a desk. While her sister had gone for the fancy room, Luna had elected to stay nearby their main operations center…so she was bunking in one of the spare bedrooms in the library. While Twilight did not mind her staying in the guest room she did seem to mind the guards who had elected to sleep in the main area of the library, but was too nervous to mention her misgivings to her house guests.

Luna could read Twilight’s body language well enough to tell that she was still uncomfortable interacting with the princess of the night. The few clashes she had with her sister revealed more to their subjects then either of them would have liked. Those were sides of them which had not been seen since the Nightmare’s initial banishment.

Luna sat before her desk and opened the left hand drawer, pulling out a small black journal which she had kept with her since her liberation by the Elements. It was in this journal that she had poured her thoughts into, trying to catch up with the times, as well as puzzle out occurrences which had passed her by. One of the most recent being a well known musician who introduced a new form of music to Equestria before the war, but it was not just the music that caught her attention, but rather the name she had chosen for herself.

In her time, musicians chose name that included the words ‘Great, magnificent, astounding.’ This rebel musician however had chosen a name that included numbers…DJ PON3…it was an odd name but had drawn Luna’s interest almost immediately. But as fortune would have it, the beginning of the disputes between two groups of citizens and the destruction of the trust between the two sisters had not allowed her to investigate the music other than to hear rumors of it, its composer, and her manager…one of the most recent rumors being that she was touring Equestria with a group of volunteers to help loosen up some of the still present tensions. The threat of the Ursa Primors had rallied most Equestria together, but there were still some who held on like rabid dogs.

(-------------------------------)

Luna sighed and replaced her journal after looking through several of her most recent entries. The Primors and their apparent master were nowhere to be seen and had made no threatening moves as of late. That did not mean that she could let her guard down, but maybe a short break wouldn’t hurt so much.

Slowly getting up from her seat, Luna contemplated going to the spa that her sister had recommended on a whim. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t…why did it feel as if she had done this before?

Luna shook her head and massaged her temples. Her physical appearance said that she was very young, late teens to early twenties. The fact that she was over a thousand years old didn’t seem to change what her subjects saw in her…then again, maybe it was her inexperience and newfound curiosity of the world that spoke of youth and not her literal age.

I think recent events and the stresses of attempting to gather information on the ever elusive enemy is starting to take its toll on me.

Standing up, she moved over to the bed and retrieved the few possessions that she had on her. A short sword, a leather vest, a small satchel, along with a magically reinforced light shirt of chain-mail was all that she constantly had with her. Her instructors had taught her to be efficient when carrying items. Too much and she would get bogged down under the weight, even with magic to support her, she would only exhaust herself faster.

Once she had dressed, over her usual garments, she moved once again to the small window this time looking at the town instead of to a random particle in the air. The bustling of the citizens, and the small groups of soldiers who were either on patrol or off duty, but there was an underlying tension that permeated the air. It was the lack of information that they had about their enemy that had so many on edge. The fact that an attack could happen spontaneously at anytime and anywhere was a daunting prospect for many.

Luna leaned against the wall next to the window, allowing for her cheek to rest against the cool glass. Winter was upon them and the effects were already beginning to show, falling temperatures, a rise in humidity, cloud buildup…the perfect recipe for snow. She smiled as her breath lightly fogged up the glass, obscuring the shapes that moved across the roads and causing Luna to furrow her brow in thought…something didn’t seem right…

She found her gaze drawn over to the distant shape of a large building that looked like an assortment of sweets and pastries. The famous Sugarcube Corner was ever busy, and there was a crowd gathering by the entrance.

‘They must be about to open for breakfast,’ she thought lightly, ‘Maybe I should stop by and see if I can get a mug of hot chocolate before I have to return to my duties…I don’t believe that Ms. Sparkle appreciates my subordinates and I drinking all of her coffee stores…’

With a grin on her face she turned away to leave when she saw a shape flash past the corner of her eye. Whipping her head around she glanced out of the window furtively for any sign of what had moved. Her attention was once more drawn to the crowd at the pastry shop, only this time, they seemed in a hurry to leave.

Just what could…

Luna watched as the shop and the crowd before it seemed to disappear in a blast of light. Her eyes wide she barely registered the unmistakable sound.

BOOM!!

A moment later the window before her seemed to warp inward and shatter into many glittering fragments.

Her arms coming up instinctively she felt the glass shards cut into her forearms which were unprotected by the short-sleeved mail shirt. The remainder of the blast pressure that shattered the glass threw her against the opposite wall, which also happened to be the door. She sat there dazed as she tried to contemplate what had happened. Ears ringing she attempted to stand, only to be bowled over as someone burst through the door behind her.

“Princess, are you alright!?”

Luna tried to roll over as she gagged, the wind knocked out of her from the force of the door. She could feel the hand grab her shoulder and pull her to her feet.

“Ma’am, you’re bleeding!”

Luna barely registered the fact that she had blood trickling down her arms, and shook her head shaking off the daze and concentrated on giving orders.

“They are just superficial wounds Captain, nothing to be worried about.”

“But…”

Luna shook her head and used his arm to support herself as she moved towards the door, adrenaline already dulling the pain and bringing her senses to alert.

“No buts, we are under attack and the townsfolk must be protected!”

Releasing his arm she quickly made her way down the stairs almost losing her balance halfway down. She could hear his footsteps behind her as well as those of the other occupants of the building as everyone rushed to the front door.

(--------------------------------)

Luna was among one of the first out and stood watching a dark plume rose into the sky from what was once Sugarcube Corner. The smoke obscured any sight they might have had of the area and the damage, as well as hid the reasons for the screaming which rang out through the streets.

Darting around, Luna attempted to rally as many soldiers and civilians as she could, the soldiers to battle any hostile forces, and the volunteers to help the wounded and shocked. The training and surprise wake ups by her mentors adding a level of clarity to the situation.

Glancing towards the smoke and dust again, she could just make out the shapes of other ponies helping each other away from the blast area. Turning her attention back to the library Luna watched as a group of soldiers jogged off to get to their assigned posts and revealed Celestia standing behind them, staring blankly at the roiling smoke.

Luna jogged up to her and shook her shoulder, trying to break her out her daze.

Is she in shock over what just happened? Shouldn’t she be out giving orders to her soldiers?

“Celestia!”

No response…

“Celestia! Tia!”

Nothing…

SLAP!

Celestia flinched and held her hand up to her cheek where a deep red mark was already forming.

“What in Tartarus is wrong with you sister?”

Luna stared at her sister, the kind ruler who had ruled for a thousand years without her aid. The only one of the sisters who had managed to pass Mother’s tests of mental strength and emotional neutrality with flying colors, almost literally.

Celestia stared back at her sister, her eyes were empty and almost glazed, her lip was quivering and her shoulders were shaking slightly. She opened her mouth to speak but instead came a groan of pure sadness.

“Twi…Twilight had just gone to get some breakfast for us…”

Luna’s mouth gaped at the explanation and she felt a spike of pain drive itself into her heart. Twilight was the only one who had stayed with her on her first Nightmare Night and helped her to get back in touch with her subjects, as well as being someone that she could correspond for advice through letters.

“S…She waved at m…me right before she w…went in…”

Tears began to trickle down Celestia’s face, the barrier that the shock provided crumbled away and allowed the torrent of her emotions to break free. The floodgates had opened and nothing was going to stop her…

“I AM GOING TO SEND WHOEVER DID THIS TO THE DEPTHS OF THE SUN!!”

Luna could feel rage building within her, and hot anger began to cloud her mind. It was only when the smoke had cleared somewhat revealing the crumpled and half-standing remains of the once proud shop that she clamped down on her feelings. She knew that it was easier for her as she had only met the poor mare a few months past and on a few occasions. She could not imagine the pain that Celestia was feeling, it almost made her want to…

“Well hello there!”

That voice!

Luna spun around, followed a split second later by Celestia and her guards to stare down the figure who had caused them so much grief in such a short time. He stood there haughtily with his arms crossed, slowly rolling a bit between his fingers.

“Enjoying my handiwork?” He gloated before tossing the bit up and catching it once more.

Luna could almost feel his smirk beneath the pitch black hood that he wore. He radiated evil and seemed to suck the light out of the very air around him. The amount of hatred she felt for this singular figure was overwhelming, but that was incomparable to the surge of heat she felt as Celestia’s armor came into full existence. She raised a flaming almost transparent sword and made to advance on him, when he raised his hand and waggled his finger.

“Uh..uh..uhhh, “ he taunted, “You see, I’m not that nice…” he continued waving his hand at the destruction. “I know that there were two very special…ponies was it? In there, so I made sure to have the explosive rigged so that most of its force was directed out of the building. I made it so that many of the occupants would survive…at least until the building comes crashing down on them, crushing their poor little...pony bodies.”

He pointed at Celestia and then jerked his thumb to the destroyed shop, the still standing area seemed to teeter precariously on the edge of collapse.

“You, have a pass to go look for your oh so precious student,” he continued before settling his gaze on Luna, “The only one I personally want…is you.”

Luna was shaking in rage, this p…no MONSTER , had not only killed so many innocent civilians, but just as well orchestrated the slow deaths of many of the residents of the targeted building.

Celestia took several steps forward raising her sword and creating a shield as well. Her eyes were filled with hate; all of her once regal features had faded to the point where she even seemed to embody her hatred for this singular figure.

“I will see you burn for this monster!” she cried as she charged him, followed in a moment by her guards. He simply threw his head back in laughter and materialized a sword that looked like it was made of obsidian.

“Wait sister!” Luna couldn’t bear to see her sister in so much pain, the war and their ideals be damned, they were still siblings. She watched as her sister began to engage the being in a six on one fight, terrified, and yet amazed, at his ability to block, counter, and dodge most, if not all, of their attacks.

“Ma’am what are your orders?” one of Luna’s guards had emerged from the confusion that filled the town.

Luna glanced at her troop before returning her gaze to the battle. In the split second since she had looked away, two guards had already fallen and a third was being impaled on the monster’s sword. Thinking quickly she created a simple plan and had the troop go to find her commanders and then gather several units for rescue from the wreckage and the defense of the wounded.

“Make sure that all our sentries are at their posts and ready to repel any attack that might come. I do not believe that he came alone!”

“Understood Ma’am, I send some more troops to aid you as soon as I can find them,” he saluted before sprinting off to find his superiors and relay the orders. Luna drew her sword and summoned her armor before sprinting forward to join her sister who now only had one guard still standing.

Upon closing the distance between her and her sister, Luna cast off a bolt of black fire at the being, watching with satisfaction as it impacted solidly on his back, causing him to stumble and be hit by the attack of Celestia’s guard causing him to lose his accursed sword.

“Good shot Runner,” Celestia congratulated the guard as she fired a bolt of white light at point blank range into the now defenseless monster.

He was pushed back several feet and was knocked balance, so Runner decided to take a shot a quickly drew and threw his dagger underhand while swinging his sword high. His mouth was wide in a smile as the dagger buried itself into the belly of the beast and his sword touched the side of its neck. Then…it was gone!

Runner did not have time to react as a blade flashed before him and a mist of blood spurted from his now open neck. His last thought was how beautiful his Princess of the Sun looked in her full armor, before the abyss swallowed him whole.

Luna

Luna had seen but could not believe that which her eyes told her was true. One moment the monster was going to decapitated by a well place attack from Celestia’s guard, the next he was behind said guard using his own dagger to slash the poor man’s throat.

Celestia's mouth was wide open in a silent scream as she tried to bash him with her shield. He evade, but narrowly missed being cut in two by a reverse cut.

“I call that a Second Smile! Wouldn’t you say that he looks much happier with his new mouth?” he cackled as he jumped away from Celestia’s increasingly more erratic slashes dangling the bloodstained dagger before her, acting in an even more insane manner than before.

Luna lunged at him with her sword, which he knocked away, but used a hastily constructed spell to channel energy into her hand and create a shockwave that blasted him back, or rather, it was supposed to.

He nimbly moved out of the way of her hand, and, using her momentum, tossed her over his shoulder and slammed her into the ground. Luna could taste the dirt and blood from her bleeding nose. She lay on the ground expecting to be run through at any second by his captured dagger, but instead was surprised as she felt a rough hand yank her to her feet.

Glancing sideway Luna could see Celestia breathing heavily, her sword up but quivering, and her shield a mangled mess.

“Tia?”

Celestia gave a small smile and handed Luna her dagger from its sheathe in her boot.

“Together this time…dear sister, help is almost here.”

Luna looked up to see several groups of intermixed SE and NLR guards round the corner of an intersection and begin sprinting towards them, oddly though, she could not see and pegasi with them…

The figure raised the dagger and used it as a mirror to glance behind him.

*Sigh* “Looks like the fun’s over,” he chuckled maniacally, “Oh well…TAKE THEM!”

Luna heard a sound that she recognized very quickly and stared at the approaching reinforcements as several streaks or blue sailed into their ranks. Those who were at the initial engagement with the this being’s forces knew what they were and called warnings for the rest to scatter. Some were too slow and were disintegrated as the devices exploded in blue fire, those immediately after them went down screaming as their flesh was scorched and limbs were blown off.

Luna tore her gaze away from the carnage and looked back at the figure who pointed at Celestia and made a pointing gesture with his thumb and forefinger.

SHWICK! AAAGH!!

Luna’s eyes darted to her sister and were immediately fixed on the foot-long black object that was protruding from Celestia’s thigh.

“Luna!”

Hearing Celestia’s cry Luna brought her attention back to the figure, only to see that he was crouched right in front of her.

“You…not yet,” he exclaimed as he drove his fist into her chest.

Luna flew backwards from the force of the blow. She had felt her summoned breastplate shatter, and watched as the mail shirt she was wearing fell apart into separate links. All the energy that had been poured into it had been drained by the single blow, and then the mail shattered.

Luna crashed into a wall and slumped to the ground. The darkness was already closing in on the edge of her vision, she could feel the pull of unconsciousness on her body, and put everything she had into staying awake. She could hear the dull echoes of crashing blades, explosions, screams, and a pinging sound, like a hammer on plate-mail. She could hear heavy footsteps approaching and struggled to turn herself over. She gasped in pain, for the blow had not only destroyed her armor, but as well had broken a couple of ribs and dislocated her shoulder.

The footsteps reached her and she felt a large hand grab onto her roughly by her dislocated shoulder. The combination of her wounds and the sudden movement made her cry out in a silent scream of pain. She was lifted by something much taller than her, and caught glimpses of fur and strange red and black plate armor. The stench followed closely with her observations, the stench of sweat, dirt, blood, and iron. When Luna had reached the apex of her rise, she stared into the eyes of the beast which had found a new home in the nightmares of her people.

“Primorrr…” she rasped, blinking to keep a trickle of blood out of her eye.

It smiled at her, its lips pulling back revealing a fearsome array of sharp teeth which were a darker yellow than corn. Suddenly, it set her down with her back resting against the wall…it was almost gentle in its action. It wasn’t until it sidled out of her line of view that Luna saw what the beast had wanted her to see.

“Tia…”

Luna watched as her sister fought in vain against the being who had declared war on them, who sided with monsters that could not even be imagined in the darkest of Equestrian nightmares. He blocked a lunge and cockily looked over to Luna in her helpless position, easily deflecting Celestia’s attacks without even paying her so much as a mind. He waved at her and held up a dagger before tossing it high into the air.

He dodged Celestia’s latest attack and rapped her on the breastplate with the flat of his newly captured sword, dancing away and moving the sword in an ever more complex fashion.

The dagger slows as it reaches its apex…

He parries Celestia’s thrust and leaps back his arms wide open, inviting her to strike.

The dagger begins its return trip down 35 feet to the ground…

Celestia is dazed from fatigue and blood loss, and is fueled only by adrenaline and her rage. She takes the bait and lunges forward, her full effort behind the sword. He sidesteps the blade easily and traps her arm between his free arm and his side pulling sharply upward, eliciting a sharp cry of pain as her shoulder is pulled from its socket.

He tosses his sword behind him and has it replaced by the hilt of the dagger, pulls Celestia close to his chest, and drives it into her stomach.

Luna can only watch in horror as Celestia is slightly lifted as he wrenches the dagger upwards cutting through her armor as if it wasn’t even there. Celestia’s mouth is open as she hacks up blood, her eyes wide and quickly glazing over before she slumps, limp, into his arms.

Luna can feel the tears running down her face as she tries in vain to call out to her sister. She watches as he pushes the limp body of her sister off of him, allowing her to fall to the ground in a bloody heap, her summoned armor gone revealing her light yellow tunic that was quickly turning dark red.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, Luna watches as a multi-colored streak roared overhead before diving at the ground at high speed.

No…not her too…please no!

(---------------------------------)

“Bastard!” Rainbow yelled as she dived on him from behind, lashing out with a kick aimed at his head. He simply leaned away from her and grabbed onto her boot, before using her speed to slam her into the ground. He leaned down to grab onto her when a guard, who was feigning death after being knocked unconscious, lunged up from the ground and ran the man through with his knife. He didn’t even flinch before yanking the knife out and driving it into the guard’s head, letting the body fall at his feet.

By now Dash had gotten to her feet and had pulled two knives from her hips. Lunging at the man, she tried to use a combination of slashes and feints to gain a hit on him. Instead, he easily avoided every strike and even replied with a few punches of his own, striking the knives out of her hands and knocking the wind out of her.

As Dash was hunched over, staggering away and trying to get her breath back, he walked over to her and gripped her wrist like a vise when she lashed out at him. Using her uncontrolled momentum, he twisted her arm behind her back and kicked her legs out from under her. Now with Dash prone on the ground, he placed one foot on her upper back next to her wing joint and, at the same time, pulled her arm upward and stomped down on the wing.

Luna watched as Dash screamed, wailed, and bucked in an attempt to loosen his hold. He simply let out a chilling laugh and gave a sharp yank on her arm as well as twisting the forearm. The shoulder popped out and the force of the twist allowed those still conscious to hear a sickening double crack as both her radius and ulna were broken.

Luna tried to make some sound, something to distract the monster, something to take his attention away from the poor girl. Dash’s mouth was open in a silent scream, tears running freely down her face. She tried to roll and land a kick on his back, but he just caught her foot and pulled hard enough for the *pop* of the dislocation of her leg to be heard. Before releasing the limb, he pulled Dash closer to him, brought his boot up and slammed it down right above her hip with a sickening *crunch*. Dash’s head jerked upward and her still functioning arm and wing flailed for a moment before she succumbed to unconsciousness.

“And that make a third Element of Harmony eliminated…I wonder who will be next?” he glanced over at Luna and disappeared, before reappearing with a light *pop* at her side. Luna would have flinched if not for the fact that she could no longer move either by fatigue or her injuries she did not know, she only knew that her magic was not responding and there was a pounding in her head that would have had her screaming in pain…instead, she was forced to silently endure it.

“Oh…this will do nicely!” he cackled as he raised a half-filled flask filled with golden fluid. “Your fear and anger, the pain you feel…are you not distraught? Are you not losing hope?” he put his hand on her ribs and applied light pressure.

Luna gasped from the spike of white hot pain that was driven into her chest, she could feel her broken ribs grinding against each other, and a pressure building within her chest…it was getting harder to breathe.

“Or is the pain too much for you? Do you wish for the darkness to claim you? To give you relief from this suffering!?” he pulled his hand away from her and sat back on his feet. “No, there is still much that I must show you,” he lunged forward and gripped her hair in his fist pulling her face close to his.

“I will BREAK YOU FOR WHAT HE DID TO ME!” he screamed at her, his cold joking manner gone, replaced by red hot fury. “You will watch as your world burns, and those you love are taken from you again and again! I will take your suffering to levels that you can not even begin to fathom, and then…you will be just like me…” he released his grip on Luna’s hair and allowed her to fall back against the wall. He gestured to the Primor that hovered over her.

“Take her away, there is much essence to gather and too little time to gather much…the crack we made within the defenses will not last…”

SPLAT!

Luna’s chin was resting on her chest so she could not see the source of the sound. What she could see, was the legs of the Primor as it crumpled to the ground, followed a split-second later by a splash of purple and another ground shaking sound. This sound echoed throughout the town, bouncing off walls and seeming as if there were many of them.

CRACK!

Luna raised her head slightly to see the chest and shoulders of the Primor reach the ground…but the head was missing, replaced by a piece of mangled flesh and a spurting stump. Looking past the stump, she could see the monster running towards her, arm outstretched a dagger in his hand. Luna tried to move, anything, to defend herself as the sharp point drew closer…in the end, she didn’t need to.

In a flash of light and shattering metal, the dagger was blown apart along with the being’s hand. In instant later, a pitch black mass flew into his side and tossed him away. Luna could hear his howls of fury, but they were soon drowned out by a loud series of BANG!’s; akin to many fireworks going off in quick succession. She lifted her head in time to see two metallic boots settle into the ground in front of her. Straining her sore muscles and fighting against the pain, she forced herself to look up to her savior, to see who had the power to force the demon away.

Luna stared in shock at the towering figure before her, the grayish-black armor that seemed to be segmented over certain parts of its legs, in its hands, it held a shimmering long sword of white and blue, electricity crackling over its roiling surface. Its chest was covered by molded plate armor, one shoulder had a pauldron that seemed as if it had folded in on itself several time, the other had one that looked like several curved plates that were stacked upon one another. The body seemed to be made of metal and yet flowed like water, and when her eyes were drawn to its face Luna was struck speechless, for she saw…herself, the same scared expression, the blood running down her face, her hair in shambles, a lock half hanging over her face.

At first she saw herself, but soon realized that it was just a reflection, a reflection off of the solid metal helmet of her savior, a cold gleaming black visor staring back at her. She started to speak, but noticed a flash of movement over his shoulder, and tried to call out a warning. Luna caught a glimpse of her widening eyes and opening mouth which signaled to the being that something was amiss. It spun around and raised its sword to face a Primor who had jumped off of a nearby building in an attempt to surprise it.

Luna watched, terrified and then dumbfounded, as the Primor was tackled out of the air by another black shape. Another being crashed into the ground, still holding onto the Ursa Primor, and used it as a cushion for the impact. It immediately adjusted its legs and its hold so that it gripped the beast’s head firmly and planted its boots into the chest and shoulder of the beast, before wrenching sideways and tearing the beast’s head clean off, releasing a gout of purple blood that sprayed in an arc.

Luna’s savior lowered its sword, and she watched as it seemed to dissipate back into its arm, like a liquid being absorbed by a sponge. The other one had stood up, still holding its captured trophy and stared into the beast’s lifeless, but still rage-filled eyes before tossing is casually over its shoulder. As it walked towards them, Luna had a better chance to examine the new being.

It was not as armored as the first, and even seemed to have most of its clothing made up of a flowing, and yet rigid, material. What really stood out to her was that, unlike its counterpart, this one had a semi-distinguishable face. It had a light blue glowing left eye and a bump on its otherwise smooth face that betrayed the possible presence of a nose.

“Sir! We’re holding them back but barely. That damn bastard made a shield around this area and we had to break down a section of it in order to reach the rest of the town. “

The helmeted being before her crouched down and tilted its head, Luna could feel a bout of dizziness sweep over her.

“Any casualties?”

“So far at least four confirmed on our side, but three have gone missing…sir, we can’t hold ‘em off much longer they’re pressing hard…will she be alright?”

Luna’s sight was slowly growing darker as the pressure within her chest increased. She could barely keep her eyes on the reflective visor, she could see her own eyes drooping closed along with her head slowly falling.

“She should be fine…might even come out all the better for it…”

Luna felt a soft material touch her cheek and raise her head. She wanted to sleep, to dream that all this had never happened. She opened her eyes, fully expecting to be looking at a reflection of herself again, but instead found herself staring into a pair of deep gray eyes. Frozen by how cold they were, Luna could not help but feel that they were staring into her very soul, dissecting her very existence and laying it out for all to see. Terrified, she tried to look away, to somehow break eye contact with this being who made her feel as if she was standing naked before a crowd.

Then, her hysteria began to disappear and a strange sense of calm swept over her. She stared with fascination as the cold gray irises slowly seemed to swirl and grow darker, becoming a sort of light hazel that filled her with a sense of warmth. She could see the small crinkle at the corners of his eyes that signaled a smile.

“Sir! Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

The sounds of firecrackers and yells faded to a seemingly faraway place as Luna found solace within her savior’s eyes, and his arms as he cradled her against the harsh environment. Luna fought to keep her eyes open as they began to shut like the inevitable hand of her mother on the candle that she used for late night reading. A soft hand rested on her hair as she finally succumbed to the embrace of the void and began to fall through it…

(----------------------------)

BAM!

Luna’s eyes shot open as her head impacted the floor, the sharp stinging pain tearing away the remnants of sleep and bringing tears to her eyes. Her eyes darted around her room, yet unscathed, and settled on the window. As quickly as she could, while trying to shake of the disorientation of waking so quickly, she rushed to the window, desperate to peer out into the town and still find it whole. The raging fires were gone; there was no crater in front of Sugarcube Corner, the bodies of the villagers were not strewn along the dirt…

It was a dream…but what…

Luna wracked her memories, desperately trying to not forget the vivid images and feelings of the dream. Slowly the sights and sounds returned to her and solidified themselves within her mind’s eye, splayed out before her like a terrible art gallery.

The explosion, the bodies, HIM, Celestia, her guards, Ms. Dash, the…the what?

Luna clutched her head, trying with every ounce of her will to latch onto the fading images at the end of her dream. The blurred shapes, the unknown voices…a pair of soft eyes and comforting arms…Luna blushed deeply at the last part. The last image and residual feeling sent a wave of warmth through her body, which was starting to feel the nip of a chilled room. Looking outside she watched as the first flakes of snow began to fall in the predawn light.

Tia’ must already be up…and why can I remember nothing but those two images?!

Luna shifted uncomfortably as the chill began to set in, and moved to put on some warmer clothing. Rummaging through her borrowed dresser and wondering if she should test the patience of the resident librarian by brewing more of her already dwindling supply of coffee.

It was going to be a long day…

{------------------------}

Ghost

My eyes shot open as I felt myself be shaken awake by Alex. My eyes were wide behind my helmet as I tried to piece together the strangely real dream that I had experienced. I had relived a memory of one of the many ground engagements that I had taken part in to protect a planet’s space ports, only…I don’t remember anything about a young family that was being executed by a patrol of ‘Van. The way that the dark blue haired girl had looked at me was far too real for a dream. Shaking my head, I propped myself up and began to strap on my gear for my shift on watch.

“Dan says that the ‘Van are on the move, they should reach the town within the next 3 hours, they have the hostages with them, plus one.”

Looking up at Alex, I only nodded as I picked up my rifle and slung it over my shoulder, my back protesting from the sudden movement. Sleeping in the armor was always uncomfortable, but in a hostile environment, I would take uncomfortable over dead.

‘No shift on watch for me then’, I wondered before starting through a brief series of stretches. My legs and lower back were sore, so I would have to loosen up the knots before attempting anything strenuous. I could felt my back pop in several places as I forced myself to place my palms flat on the ground while my legs were straight but slightly spread. When I began to stand up, I noticed something drift down through the canopy of the forest we were in and settle on my hand.

Snow huh? Well this just made blending in a heck of a lot harder…

Alex took a look at what I was holding and began to fidget with the setting on his suit. I waited slightly before the color of his once pitch black armor shifted to become a blend of white and gray with a silver visor.

Reaching up to the side of my helmet, I applied pressure to a certain point and used my eyes to navigate through several menus that appeared on my HUD, before I settled on my desired color scheme, just a little darker than Alex’s. Once receiving the command, several hundred of the thousands of nano-machines that resided within the suits, began to send a series of pulses through the outer layer of the armor displaying an odd side effect of the armor’s energy ablative coating.

“Go wake up Char’, and let Dan know to keep his drone on the ‘Van as long as possible…things are going to get bloody around here…”

{----------------------------}

Hmmm…I wonder if it was the right choice choosing to meddle within the minds of the two of them? Maybe, maybe…but it is best that she had experienced that kind of carnage before it actually takes place.

Modifying the memories of that young soldier though? That took some doing; it’s not every day that you can just go and interlock the dreams of two powerful individuals, let alone modify the way they view them so that it seems as if the setting is that of their own worlds…

But…it is probably best that they attain some sort of acquaintance before what is to come…though it may have worked a bit too well in the case of the young woman…

Oh well!

Author's Note

I'm BACK!

I am finally glad to be able to get an action chapter out, cause its been nagging at me ever since I started writing this story.
I sent the next chapter to be reviewed by my companion, for editing so I'll post it when he gets back to me on that.\

I apologize for the punishment and torture that I put the characters through, but I had to do something cruel to offset the minds of the main characters. It was painful for me to have to imagine every scene in gruesome detail and then write down as much as I was comfortable with. Plus! keep in mind that this was a nightmare, in fact one of the many nightmares that Luna has and will experience.

The antagonist of this story likes physcological warfare in the palce of brute force so I had to go watch some tragic movies and listen to some sad music in order to free my mind from the socially acceptable boudaries that have been erected by society. Went and played the last couple missions for Halo 3 for inspiration of sorts. Also got some parts from movies but simply switched the baddy with the good guy.

Anyway, provided the first bit of major action and a cliffhanger for the next chapter where there will be even more violence!

I'd like some feedback on how I wrote the fight scenes. I know that they are not very intricate, but a base on where and what I have to adjust would be nice. Don't worry for this will be one of the few times that the main characters are ever on the recieving end. Even if it is just a dream.

Chapter 14

What is it that makes you exist?
Your individual consciousness is you.
Consciousness is larger than you.
The individual is connected to the latter.
But each can have their own effect on the whole.

We don’t pick our battles based on our odds, sometimes the battles pick you. We certainly won’t run from the battle, but based on being outnumbered, you adapt your tactics to the scenario at hand…but we don’t run from the fight, we didn’t then, and we won’t now.

Ghost

Stationing ourselves between the Renton van camp and the small village was an idiotic idea at first; we were an hour away from the camp and ten minutes away from the town at a light jog. If the locals had decided to stage a counter attack to rescue the hostages, then we would have been right in their way. If the ‘Van had decided to attack the town once more, then they would have had to get through us first. The woody area and thick brush made the perfect camouflage for an ambush…if there were no non-combatants within the group being ambushed. The large trees and dense foliage would have provided excellent for us, but would have made it next to impossible to keep track of the hostages once the shooting started.

We couldn’t stop the ‘Van from making it to the hostage exchange, provided that the locals actually agreed to it, the open fields between the town and the edge of the forest provided clear lines of fire…but I know the ‘Van, their tactics, their instincts. The scraps of clothing we found in the parted thorn bush only served to prove the points that raced across my mind. They would not put the hostages at the center of their group, they had no reason to place their safety above their own, they would put them in front of their unit. To show off, to use as meat shields, to keep a clear line of sight in case they tried to run…all valid answers and possibilities, but they all led to one outcome…a hostage was bound to die.

Not because of the ‘Van actively torturing and killing them for fun, but because we had too few guns. Dan’s UAV had picked up eight ‘Van infantry and one Commander to six hostages. Our squad only carried two long rifles, which were left to Charise and Dan.

Now, they weren’t the best shots in our squad, but I had to direct them from the field, and Alex carried the heaviest close-ranged weaponry, and while Char’ was my equal if not better in hand-to-hand combat, she lacked the brute strength needed to topple a ‘Van Major, let alone a Commander, all fancy take-down moves aside, if you can’t pull a ‘Van’s leg out from under it, then you can’t match it. Besides that, I had the most advanced suit when it came to close combat actions.

{--------------------}

Solid/plasma laced blades that come out of compartments on my gauntlets, which can be detached and thrown as well; a HAZOP mod which doubles as deployable armor around my neck and lower face, plus, the brim on my helmet is separated into two fins that can fold down to act as a secondary HUD should my visor break or an extra layer between my enemies and my visor. Some have told me that when my armor is fully deployed and in its standard color of black, all I would have to do to make myself look like a demon from hell itself, is tint my visor a deep red and modify the plasma-blades to be red instead of blue-white.

{---------------------}

“So…wha’s the plan Ghost?”

I heard Alex’s voice crackle over the radio, jerking me from the slight daze that I had drawn myself into. Turning away from the already frosted over town in the distance, I took a moment to carefully twist my body around to peer down at him, while not falling out of my precarious position in a “tree”. We hadn’t been able to identify it so far as the leaves matched nothing that we knew of. Oddly enough, it seemed as if the trees were not going to lose many leaves during this snowfall, most hadn’t even changed into autumn coloring yet; whether that was normal or not in this dimension I wouldn’t even hazard a guess.

“As of right now there isn’t one, except wait for Dan at the rendezvous and Wilkenson to report in.”

Wilkenson…hadn’t called her that since the first time she showed up for briefing…well, a couple slips here an’ there when I needed to get in her face, but it’s always been either Char’ or Charise.

Turning around completely, I slowly shimmied my way along the branch that I had been perched on and slid down the trunk, making a few smaller branches shake on the way, their leaves laden with snow.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t she supposed to report in by now?”

I had sent her off to see if she couldn’t get back to the clearing where they had found themselves in when we were dropped off, and attempt to make contact with Rex and the other members of X-Ray Bravo squad. I had been surprised that we had been here for three days now and they hadn’t contacted us once since I had initially told him to hold off and defend the outpost.

Alex shuffled along through the underbrush, being careful to leave as little of a physical footprint as he could, but thanks to the cover of the canopy, there was little snow to be disturbed as we traveled.

“She contacted me as she neared the area and when she had set up Dan’s jury-rigged comms unit to boost her signal and…according to my mission clock the window you set up for communications between our teams came and went about ten minutes ago. Good idea by the way, having Rex open up the portal every twelve hours in case we needed to contact them.”

It had been a spur of the moment type of thing when Rex had contacted me out of the blue on that that day right after Alex and I had gone bat shit crazy. Beyond letting Rex know that we were still okay and tracking the subject, it gave us some room for reinforcements if needed, which wasn’t a bad thing now that we knew what we were up against.

With the hostage situation going on, I had told Char’ to request at least two more shooters, but only have one of the shooters be from Bravo so we didn’t drain Rex of a good portion of his squad.

(--------------------)

Easing myself out of the tree line and into the small clearing that we had set as the rendezvous, I could just make out the slight distortion in the middle of the clearing that hinted at a snow covered boulder that was not there before. So, beyond all reason, I called out the challenge that Dan had suggested before he had left.

“Flash…”

The mound of snow moved, if but slightly, and caused a small avalanche of snow that revealed a silver visor.

“Thunder…”

Even though Dan had switched off his mic to cover his chuckles, I could still tell by watching the snow shake off of his shoulders by the jerking movement. I was about to call him out for the ridiculous idea, but my attention was diverted by the amount of snow that had run off from his suit…there was no way that he had been sitting in one position for so long that he was able to mimic a boulder. Though before I could question him, he got to his feet and shook the rest of the snow off of his suit and revealed that he had been using his duffel as a seat.

“Glad you two could finally make it, and before you say anything, I’ve got to let you in on a few things.”

Raising my eyebrow and cocking my head slightly to one side, I couldn’t help but wonder after my squad’s apparent disregard for our communication’s system. If Dan wanted to tell me anything then he should have contacted me long ago, if it was mission critical then he should have let me know immediately, not any of this ‘wait ‘till we’re face to face’ crap, that ended hundreds of years ago.

“Spit it out Dan,” I started with as much annoyance as I could muster, “I’m getting tired of all these surprises that we’ve been getting since we got here.”

He raised a hand as he began to ruffle through his duffel bag and pulled out a small wrapped parcel. My first thought was to berate him for deciding to read in the middle of a sensitive situation no matter the contents of the book. The second, was why he had decided to wrap the book within one of the few thermal blankets that we had. However, I didn’t get a chance to voice any of my concerns before he had pushed a paper into my hands and began to run his mouth about what he had discovered within the book.

“Look mate, you can yell at me later or sign me up to clean the latrines of the ship when we get back, but I’m asking you to listen to for once, as this book presented me with pertinent information that I felt had to be explored, verified, and then…”

I stopped paying attention to his ramblings as soon as I had opened the folded paper, the contents of which stopped me cold. I would have thought it was a map, or an ancient record, or something along those lines, but definitely not a hand stenciled portrait, especially not of…her.

How is this even possible? She’s just a figment of my imagination, or a random face from a buried memory of combat. She couldn’t have been…so why….how…there’s definitely something wrong with my head…

“Oh Ghosty…anyone home?”

My eyes darted away from the paper to stare at the hand that was lightly holding onto the edge of it. I followed the hand to the arm, and up the arm to the now clear visor of Alex’s helmet.

“You al’ight mate? I know that Dan’s speeches can make ya’ll zone out, but not like that, so…wha’s wrong?”

By the temporary recession into his country drawl, I could tell that Alex was worried, and he had a right to be worried. These past couple of weeks with those damn dreams coming to me every night, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was going insane. There was no possible way that the young woman that I saw within my dream was here in this dimension, on this planet, as well as being a monarch…but even as I tried to reassure myself and find a way out of my possible madness, the proof was still there between my hands, written beneath a very well drawn portrait. Looking back to the paper, I said the only thing that could explain my situation…

“I know her…”

I released the paper from my grip and allowed Alex to get a good look at it. Turning to Dan I watched as he reached out and took the paper back from Alex, before hanging it in front of me and pointing to her face.

“You sure about that?”

I could only nod, still trying to get my head around the concept that yet another one of my dreams was somehow linked to my life.

Other-dimensional counterpart perhaps? But as far as I know, she wasn’t even on the planet that is this one’s counterpart…so how?”

“I’ve seen her too.”

This put me on edge as I reacted to Dan’s statement, because either that dream was a real one and he was with me on that mission, or he had…

“She’s in that town that I visited not too long ago, and I think that she’s the one that the ‘Van are after.”

“Explain.”

Dan took a breath before explaining his story in detail and sending a few segments of his drone’s footage to my helmet. His detailed description of the town and the inhabitant of the tree/library along with the information provided by the book, compounded with the information that Samuel Burke had provided me with shook me.

(---------------------------)

Burke had told me that he had heard some hearsay on his trips around the ‘Van’s camp about a VIP that was a princess. I was suspicious of the information at first, but after he explained that he had had his PDA with him when he was taken, and that it had ‘Van-English translation software of on it, I believed him. I told him of my plan and he immediately tore it shreds.

After explaining to me that we would need a functional TSTMD to travel back to the outpost, and how much time he needed to complete it, he suggested that I try and build some sort of relations with the local population and foil the plans of the ‘Van as it provide him with a distraction. If we prevailed, it would offset the plan of whatever was leading the Van and give us an opening to extract him while they were confused, as well as providing us with some allies should we not be able to escape right away. As long as we could spirit away some of the equipment that he had built for the TSTMD then we would have a working option to call in reinforcements to handle the threat of the ‘Van in this dimension.

I didn’t like the idea, but agreed in the end. I didn’t like the idea of leaving some poor saps with a good company of ‘Van on their doorstep. If there was a way to help them while completing our mission, then I would try my best to do it that way, so as Burke laid out the time-frame that I needed to operate by, I gave him a tick-sized transmitter and a radio disguised as a watch that we had taken from his desk. Before I left the camp, I attached several of the transmitters to the outside of the tents in which his equipment was being held.

(---------------------------)

Alex took a step forward to once again take the sheet of paper, but stopped as he felt something give slightly under hit boot…and that something felt like the trigger of a stun mine that his instructors had used during training.

“Ghost…” he hissed, before pointing down at his boot, “mine!”

Dan and Ghost both froze for a split second before reacting, Ghost dropping to a crouch while drawing his rifle and Dan spinning to face the forest as he drew his own sidearm. As Dan moved to check the surrounding area he attached a silencer to his weapon, even if they had been discovered it was not any reason to reveal themselves to the still distant hostage escort party.

Ghost slowly moved until he was prone on the ground and rested his elbow on the ground. Slowly, using his knife as a makeshift shovel, he began to scrape away at the snow around and under Alex’s half-raised boot, he stopped when he hit something that protruded from the ground.

Crack!

Dan whipped his sidearm around to face the source of the noise before slowly moving in the direction that it came from.

“See anything?”

“Nothing on my motion sensor, but then again this thing’s been going haywire ever since we left the ‘Van camp.”

Snap!

Ghost continued to move the snow away from Alex’s boot and began to uncover what seemed to be a trigger place on top of a pressure plate.

“Ghost…there’s something out here, and it’s not Char’, orders?”

“Find it, and if it’s hostile then shoot it! But watch my back…this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before…”

Alex gave a small chuckle before easing his head around, his whole body stiff by fear of moving the trigger enough to activate it.

“That don’t make me feel any better…heh…”

“Actually,” Ghost reached to his waist to pull a pair of pliers out of his utility pouch when he felt something shift under his knee.
“Shit! There’s one under me too,” he hissed before removing the pliers and leaning to grab onto the trigger below Alex’s boot.

“Pick you’re clear, now disarm the thing so I can check on my new gadget.”

Alex took a step back and began to turn when he felt something tug on his ankle. Looking down, he caught sight of the edge of a snow covered rope before it came loose.

“Oh shit!”

A moment later Alex’s helmet slammed into the frozen ground as he was yanked off his feet by a noose-like rope, his cry cut short by being rammed into the trunk of a tree, and pulled into the thickly-leaved branches.

Dan spun around and felt the ground give way under him. Lunging for the edge of the pitfall that he had stepped into, he rolled onto solid ground and came up weapon drawn, before firing two silenced shots into a bush that jerked with movement. He waited and scanned the surrounding area, as he tuned his suit’s audio sensors to scan for the slightest noise.

Clack!

Whipping around instinctively, Dan registered his mistake as soon as he recognized the sound of a rock hitting solid wood. Catching movement at the edge of his vision, Dan jumped sideways to dodge an incoming spear, letting him know not only where his attacker was, but that they had been found not by the ‘Van, but by a local. He was about to call out when he landed on the ground, but felt his rear foot slip and something go taught around his ankle. A slight yelp escaped his helmet before he too was whisked away into the trees.

Ghost laid there for a second and listened as Alex was yanked away by an unknown force. Acting quickly, he let go of the pliers and released his wrist blade, the laser sharpened, titanium composite blade slicing easily through the rope that attempted to ensnare his hand. At the same time he grabbed onto the newly split rope to be yanked away from the trap that had occupied the spot under his knee, never letting go of his rifle.

Letting go of the rope, Ghost tumbled to a stop and raised his rifle staring into the dense underbrush as he heard Dan be yanked away into the shadows. It was upon hearing Dan’s yelp, that he realized an extremely important fact…they had been using both external and suit communications.

He did not have time to dwell on the fact before hearing a ‘Snap!’ echo through the forest behind him. Diving to the ground, Ghost sensed something fly over his head, and, rolling to his feet, heard yet another ‘Snap’ just to his right. Bringing his rifle to bear, he saw his motion sensor displaying a large red blip approaching him at extreme speeds. He only had time to register one thought before it made contact with him.

LOG!

As the large projectile slammed into him, Ghost felt the bones of his right arm give way as he was thrown back, his shields crackling as they disappeared, the rifle flying off into the bushes. Because the log had hit him off center, he rolled off of the rounded end that hit him and flew off to the side causing him to stop abruptly by colliding into a tree, while the log disappeared into the forest.

Dropping to the ground, Ghost lies prone, his suit releasing a bio-medical foam to make a cast for his arm, the nanomachines in his bloodstream forcibly contracting his muscles to set the bones.

Groaning in pain and groggy from the force of the blow and subsequent impact with the tree, he lifts his head to watch as a cloaked figure leaves the edge of the clearing walking towards him with soft steps. Straining to move, he watches as the figure freezes and takes a step back, the cloak separating to reveal moccasin-like shoes, and several golden rings around an ankle. Turning his head, he is able to see the figure throw something into the tree branches above him, and moments later a cascade of snow falls onto him, effectively pinning him to the ground, with only a portion of his helmet protruding from the mound.

With the new weight beginning to compress his chest, Ghost can feel lances of pain which he deduces to be several cracked ribs. Watching the figure continue its approach, Ghost runs through the different menus in his suit, getting a read on what sort of damage it took. Through the glaring red warnings of broken bones and a concussion he watches a small list appear in blue lettering.

Armor Plating: No Damage
Suit Sensors: Damage minimal…recalibrating…
Life Support: No Damage
Crystalline Layer: No Damage
WARNING!!!
User is suffering from multiple fractures, CAD “Whiplash”, and a Class: 3 Concussion. Transmitting transponder to nearest able squad member…administering appropriate chemicals to stabilize subject.
…

‘Damn,’ he thought, ‘Shouldn’t be much of a problem except for those concussion meds, those are gonna put me out for a while…’

“Since the appearance of that first blight, there has not been a calm night. The faux-bears and shadows were enough for this land, so what demon has played this new hand?”

Ghost watched carefully as the figure crouched down next to him, now registering that it was, in fact, a female. Staying still so as not to scare her, he listened as she began to tap his helmet and mutter under her breath, drowsiness spilling over him as the medication took hold.

Ha! An’ they say you should never fall asleep with a concuss….well…they don’t have my tech!

A maniacal, drugged, smile spreading across his face Ghost watched as the female stood up and began to walk away, still muttering to herself, but clearer this time.

“They spoke of the princess of the night, so that must be my friends’ new plight.”

She knows the VIP? Maybe I can get her to introduce me…she did seem kinda cute.

Ghost blinked slowly as his vision darkened, and his thoughts turned to the woman in his dream, her teal eyes and oddly colored hair and a…horn?

No!...…go home Ghosty, you are drunk…seeing things that don’t belong…heh, can’t feel my arm…

{----------------------------}

As the cloaked woman vacated the area, she hurried on her way to the nearest known settlement, where her friends currently resided. In fact, she had been on her way to the town to help with the recently wounded when she had spotted these four beings made of metal.

While spying on them, she watched them go off on their separate ways with one pointing at the ground at the center of the clearing with some finality. Assuming that they would return, Zecora decided to plant some traps of her own and then follow the pair that had left together. After following them carefully to the edge of the forest, she discovered that the target of their observation had been Ponyville.

Now, after listening to their, surprisingly understandable, conversation and watching as they fell to her traps, she moved as quickly as she could to the small town. First to warn her friends, and then do what she had set out to do in the first place.

“Warn the princesses I must, for this will cause quite a fuss.”

Author's Note

Sorry 'bout this bit of extra filler, but my comrade sent it back to me and said that it would do fine as a separate chapter.
And that he hadn't reviewed the other half yet either.
So while he's editing the "next" chapter, I decided to post this one, effectively making it two chapters at 4-5k aprox. words each instead of one chapter at nine thousand words.
I'll see about posting the next one as soon as he sends it to me.

NOTE: He's not a an editor, but not a critic either. plus he's my friend, so I know him and how "well" he likes to check things, so don't be surprised if you find errors anyway.

Chapter 15

Hostage Rescue Pt. 2

Beep….

…

Beep! Beep!

‘Shut up you piece of crap of an alarm clock…frigg’n broken again…’

Whirrrrr…

‘Dammit… I think I’d settle for my suit’s alarm system instead of whatever thrice-damned contraption that Alex has put next to me now.’

*All systems optimal…User injuries treated…Threat level reduced from moderate to negligible*

‘Actually…that does sound like my suit…and this certainly doesn’t feel like my bunk.’

*Injuries remaining…Negligible concussive blow…Combat efficiency reduced to estimated 95%...Minor capillary hemorrhage remains…

‘Well that doesn’t sound so…’

*…Warning! Unknown environmental anomaly detected! Unknown biological entity within suit proximity!*

‘The ‘ell is going on? When did I…oh…’

*Time remaining until optimal user combat readiness…Critical! Initiating emergency wake-up…Administering Adrenaline-Electrolyte Mix...*

I felt something akin to a warm wave rushing through my body, loosening my tensed muscles and allowing me to relax ever so slightly against the mass pressing down on my back, followed immediately by a torrent of icy water flooding through my veins. My eyes shot wide open and began to dart around as the mixture jolted me awake, heart racing, as the situation lay itself out before my mind.

*Time elapsed since last engagement…30 minutes*

‘Hmmm…Half ‘n hour huh? That’s a bit fast for a broken arm and a concussion, that can wait for now.’

I watched as my visor flickered on and began scanning the surrounding area more thoroughly, noting the grayed out boxes that represented my squad meaning that they were out of range. Trying not move my helmet, I looked around my limited field of view trying to find the ‘Entity’, but to no avail.

‘K’ then, where the hell is my squad, where is my weapon, and why is there a wooden carving of a wolf placed in front of me…and it’s growling?’

The thing that I had seemingly mistaken for a statue/carving was glaring into my visor with fiery green eyes…literal fiery. The jaws were parted slightly as it bared its wooden teeth at me, a gooey brownish liquid dripping from its mouth, almost looked like syrup.

Contemplating my options, I decided to simply accept the fact that there was a living, breathing statue-golem thing that was made out of wood. This dimension-slash-world had already shown me many things that I would have thought impossible. Human-like being with wings, and or horn, something that could disintegrate and reform a living being without any sort of visible technology, Renton Van taking hostages. A wooden monster that lives in the forest isn’t too far off the newly beaten path. Compounded with my dreams coming back in force right before and when I came here, Alex and I going mad, a dream that contained a woman that I had never seen before and yet, just happened to be one of the rulers of the land where the Van decided to take up residence…someone, possibly alone, managing to take out a highly trained squad of special forces soldiers with old fashioned traps, that she somehow managed to build in less than half-n-hour…with a log frigg’n catapult, two of them no less!

It was official…I had gone insane.

But, insane or not, the mission came first; I would beat a new dent into the bulkhead next to my bunk, using my head, when I got back. But right now, I had a squad to find, a monarch to rescue, a possible devil to avoid, and about a company of Van to kill…all without being seen by the locals, which we happened to fail at already.

Snap!

My eyes darted back to the wooden wolf as it slowly approached me, to the point where its breath began to fog up my visor, its growl deepening in tone. Slowly, I began to shift my legs and lower back in an attempt to gauge just how badly I was buried, and was met with little resistance. In fact, if the wolf’s reaction was any hint, the snow was not packed very tightly; there was just enough of it to pin down my incapacitated and semi-conscious form. Slowly pressing my hands into the ground, I pulled my legs forward until they were almost under me, and then proceeded to push myself out of the snow-dune. As much as I would have loved to stay put and see if the wolf was going to do something, I didn’t feel like testing my currently unshielded neck against its teeth.

Jumping back, the wolf lowered itself into an aggressive stance and gave a short bark as it prepared to pounce on me. Not wanting to give it the chance, I quickly withdrew my spare combat knife and held it in a reversed grip with my right hand as I prepared my own combat stance. I didn’t want to kill the thing, but by the looks of things I would have no choice. I couldn’t have a wolf hounding me on the way to my objectives… especially if it wasn’t alone.

Ping!

The retort of my radar was my only warning before a red blur slammed into the grey one that represented me. The impact was centered around my upper back and the astonishing weight of the new contact proceeded to send me stumbling forwards into the path of the original wolf as it pounced.

Twisting so that I would not land on my face and leave my back exposed to my attackers, I grabbed onto the first wolf’s front leg with my free hand and proceeded to give it a sharp pull, causing it to overshoot and land in the direction of the second one. Not wasting any time, I used my increased momentum to roll into a crouched position, arms poised to intercept any incoming attack. Instead, I watched as the wolf aligned itself next to its comrade, their fiery eyes glaring into my visor. We were at a stalemate as I waited for them to make the first move.

It came as no surprise when the wolves began to prowl in opposite directions in order to encircle me, but deciding to go on the offensive before any more could show up, I feinted at the wolf on my left, before digging my boot into the snow, and lashing out with my knife to the right…

Snikt…

…right into the chest of the opposite wolf.

Taking advantage of my current position, I wrapped my arm around the neck of the wolf and gave it a sharp twist, the wet snap being the only indication of my success before I was knocked off my feet by the wolf I had faked out. Unable to pull my knife out in time, I quickly released it and rolled myself upright, throwing my arms up into a guard position. I was about to charge the wolf when my suit’s emergency A.I made itself known once more.

*Auxiliary systems rebooting…shields spinning up…energy daggers at 15% efficiency, recommended no more than 15 seconds of use until further scans can be made.*

I felt a slight smile pull at the corners of my mouth as the short bursting arcs of energy rippled across my form. I watched the bar for my energy shields fill only half-way before stopping, along with a small blue icon with a fifteen second timer appear next to it. Narrowing my eyes slightly, I made note to do have the A.I. do a full scan of the suit later; I would need it at peak efficiency to take on the Van.

Tensing my legs for a lunge, I decided to end this quickly. Time slowed down as I blinked twice at the icon, and snapped the fingers of my left hand and before drawing it back, a light buzz and crackle being the only notice given to me as the energy blade popped into existence. In the top right corner of my HUD a timer began to count down.

15…

Releasing the pent up pressure in my legs I darted towards my enemy, my right shoulder lowered into a slight charge. The wolf replied almost instantly with a lunge of its own.

13.5…

The fiery green eyes burned through my visor with a gaze of unbridled fury, its jaws open baring its sharp needle-like teeth as the sap-like saliva flowed out of its maw.

12…

I lashed out with a right hook to its lower jaw, but did not follow through with the swing, before quickly reversing the motion and slipping my fingers into a small notch in its chest. Pulling sharply downward, I brought its chest to meet my armored right knee as I used our momentum pull it to my right side.

9…

Now beside it, I thrust the glowing dagger into the base of its neck before tearing it out the side, leaving a blackened gouge along its back, its wooden body offering no resistance to the superheated plasma. Releasing my hold on its body, I skidded to a stop in the snow as the wooden wolf tumbled over the ground.

Nothing would have normally survived a blow like that, but I was still wary of the surrounding shadows, for where there was one wolf, there are usually more. Walking over to the collapsed body of the wolf, I disarmed the blade and watched as the timer stopped.

5…

(-------------------------------)

Lowering myself to one knee to further examine the wolf, I noticed that the once fiery eyes were now empty, in fact there were no eyes at all, just empty sockets. Allowing my gaze to wander over the body, I made note that the outer shell of the wolf was a dry and dark bark. Rapping my knuckle against its slightly raised back I was greeted with a dull thumping noise, not the deeper taps of a hollow form. Quirking an eyebrow I started tapping along a low path down the side of its barrel chest, listening as the solid sounds abruptly changed to the deep hollow echo.

My curiosity piqued, I moved my observations to one of its forelegs and slowly lifted it, while bending and stretching it a few times, watching as the many wooden pieces that made up the legs seemed to glide over one another to provide smooth movement like an actual body of flesh and bone without a covering of skin.

Gently allowing the leg to dangle in a resting position and gave the foot a light push with my finger pondering the light resistance that greeted me. Not willing to move to retrieve my knife just yet, I simply raised the leg over my knee and snapped it, the dry outer covering popping away as a wet ‘whrgee’ sound greeted my ears.

[A/N: Imagine a half-gargle-squeak...]

Looking into the gap created by the newly missing covering, I watched as more of the ooze flowed out of the new wound, caused by the pressure I had put of the rest of its body to snap the leg. Clearing away some of the goop, a patch of light green caught my eye, and I discovered, after removing more of the sap, that it was fresh green wood surrounded by a wrapping of thin vines.

Interesting…a type of plant-based bone-muscle-tendon and ligament system…but that means…

Looking over the main portion of the body to the blackened furrow my dagger had left, I ‘tsked’ in disappointment. Its neck was now useless to me after the destruction my weapon had caused. So, shaking my head slightly and deciding that now was as good a time as ever, I stood up before moving over to my first kill.

Once again, the eyes were empty sockets, and the dark sap-like fluid was oozing out of its mouth and neck where I had snapped it. Now with an objective in mind, I moved directly to the exposed neck and pulled my knife from its chest. Quickly prying off several of its protective plates I dug around the spinal area a bit before finding my prize. Using the knife to slowly sever the vines around the spine, I found more of the greenwood in place of a spinal cord.

Weighing the options in my mind, I quickly disengaged the filters in my helmet before enabling them again, barely getting a whiff of the smell around me. I was oddly intrigued by the unique smell and permeated the area after my fight. The scent in question was a light piney smell that you would usually find in imported Earth Coniferous Scented Candles, and a hint of smoke.

Tilting my head and confirming my decision I wrapped my hand around the spine and pulled just enough so that I could slip my blade underneath it, before severing the cord completely; nonplussed by the sudden eruption of a small ash cloud from my action.

Waving my hand to clear the air slightly, I tilted up the end of the spine that was still in grasp, and turned on my helmet-light to examine it more thoroughly. Within the spine was now a darkened empty space dead center in the spine. Using the tip of my knife to dig out some of the ash, to confirm that it was ash, I wondered at how a powdery substance would be used in place of a spinal cord when a cerebral-spinal fluid was a viscous…oh…

Moving quickly to the leg and repeating the same process that I had done with the previous carcass a quickly sliced into the greenwood that was the inner foreleg, and was greeted by the same ash-like substance. Catching some of it in my sap covered hand, I watched as the once ooze-like sap quickly became more water-like in viscosity before suddenly drying up and crumbling once more into ash.

Wondering at my new discoveries, I quickly gathered my suit’s video recordings on the matter before saving them into a separate file to give to Dan later.

Standing up, and stretching my legs, I turned to be greeted by the sight of a small tower of gray smoke rising from the other wolf.

Tree sap it is then…looks like it’s just as…

*Whoompf!*

Thoughts interrupted by the sight of the body suddenly bursting into flames, I cocked my head to the side before looking down at my gauntlet.

Note to self, clean off the gunk before reactivating the energy daggers…

Walking away from the burning body and into the underbrush, I quickly found the remains of the log that had hit me, and deviated my path slightly to accommodate the approximate flight path of my lost weapon.

After finding my rifle and determining that it was still in working order, I did a quick once over of myself only to find that I was only missing a small sachet of ration bars, and an emergency IF (Infrared) strobe that was included in the sachet. Not seeing the use of the strobe as I had four more on my person, or the rations as I always had a day and half’s supply in a compartment on my armor, and almost a week’s worth in my duffel bag, I simply left them behind where they would probably be lost to time and nature…hopefully…

If not, then someone will have some K Rations and a strobe light that can’t be seen without specialized equipment, no real loss or danger.

[------------------------]

Jogging quickly Ghost continued on his makeshift path through the shadows of the forest, following small clues and watching as the small timer at the corner of his HUD continued to count down to the estimated time of reckoning, all the while being constantly observant of his surroundings for both his enemy and any interesting finds along the way.

(-------------------------)

After gathering his supplies and tossing the burning body of the deceased wolf-like creature into the snow-dune that had once trapped him, Ghost had quickly attempted to reestablish contact with his squad, only to find that all but short range communications were unavailable.

Adapting quickly to the possibility of a communications jammer, Ghost created a short text message that was to be burst-transmitted the second that his suit detected a friendly connection, and after setting his A.I. to commit its full power to diagnostics on the suit to return it to peak combat efficiency and leave a small program to scan for any open communications lines, he set off towards the edge of the forest to be clear of any interference that the forest might be causing.

He had not even traveled ten steps from the small clearing when his suit pinged that a beacon had been left transmitting at low power. After investigating the source of the beacon, Ghost discovered the beacon rolled up within a paper message from Dan and Alex saying that they were moving on in an attempt to attempt to make contact with Char’ and whoever came with her. They would wait for him under the large tree that stood alone a-ways from the edge of the forest, for up to a half hour before the Van group would break out of the forest. Dan’s recon drone had also detected that the Van had stopped for a time and had caught and killed several medium sized animals to eat, but that all hostages were still accounted for. He estimated that the break would last for ten minutes minimum, or half an hour maximum.

Breathing a small sigh of relief at the first bit of good news he’d received in a while. Glancing at his mission timer, he took note that he had one and a half hours before Dan and Alex would continue, not counting the extra ten minutes. Ghost didn’t trust the maximum time, a motto from one of his survival instructors at the academy was “Hope for the Best, but Always Plan for the Worst” and it hadn’t steered him wrong yet. He had only been slightly confused and suspicious as to the reasons why they saw fit to leave him unconscious and undefended in the clearing, but he would have to wait and see if any of his suspicions had grounds to be correct.

With his mood elevated and a plan beginning to form within his turmoil of thoughts, Ghost left at a brisk jog through the forest towards the original clearing where he and his team had come through, in the hope of finding Char’ or at least finding some tracks that he could follow.

{----------------------------------}

Luna
Great Oak Library, Ponyville
Est. 20 min. after Zecora’s ambush

To say that Princess Luna was worried would have been the understatement of the year; panic would be a more accurate description of her plight, but with the near overwhelming panic came a sense of calm and a spark of hope to follow.

Zecora had arrived at the town outskirts breathless, claiming to have news vital to the war/battle against the Primors, and all but demanded to speak to the Princesses in person. Luna, who had been organizing patrols and a small network of guards that would hide in the clouds and observe the forest’s edge for anything of interest, was immediately apprised of the situation and ordered that Zecora be escorted to the Library.

(-------------------------)

“So then, Miss Zecora, you are saying that you heard these new beings speak of abducting our dear princess?”

No one in the almost crowded library basement could really blame the thinly veiled disbelief within the words of the NLR General. A sudden arrival of new elements into the already tense situation would only cause more problems to arise in short order, problems that none of them needed. Sure, everything looked well and dandy to the majority of citizens, but any who had the misfortune to be present at any of the major meeting knew just how deep of a hole they had fallen into. They were forced to examine every new piece of information under a microscope, and pick it apart more efficiently than any known predator in order to gleam any real advantage against their foes. They could not act blindly on rumors, especially those brought by someone living in the forest of all places!

“And you understand them yes; hear them speaking of their plans clearly? In Equestrian?”

As the conversation moved on to the specifics of what she heard, the Zebra Shaman weathered the veiled accusations and dropped her odd formality of rhyming speech so as to not exacerbate the already high tension in the room.

Leaning on the wall by the stairs however, the Lunar Diarch had her eyes closed in silent contemplation. The shaman had mentioned that they had somehow obtained a sketch of her and a book in which the sketch was hidden. Recalling the small flying creature that had been spying on her during one of her few brakes, she wondered if that was how they obtained the book.

Also, how had the small creature managed to enter the wards around the town and library without alerting them to its presence? They were set to detect hostile and unknown presences, along with any sorts of magic, so even if it was a type of golem-like creature it would have been detected easily even if it had some sort of concealing spell.

Shaking her head and rubbing her temples with the balls of her hands, Luna walked over to a small sidelong table and glanced up at the still arguing Generals as they sought to come to an agreement. Both Zecora and Celestia watched on, the former drinking something out of a waterskin, the latter some tea. Even she was skeptical of the insinuations of the Shaman’s report. Having a meeting in the middle of a small, though concealed, clearing; speaking clearly of their intentions, even that small package that she had brought them.

Luna turned her gaze at the small container before her and slowly lifted one of the opened silvery packages from within. They had already confirmed that the contents were non-toxic and even seemed to be food of some kind. Grimacing as she remembered the reaction of the analyst who had tried some she couldn’t help but wonder what being could stomach such terrible rations.

Turning her attention to the container itself she wondered after the small metallic object that they had found along with the food. In was mostly of a hard casing with was seemed to be a clear glass half at the other end, but when examined was determined to have the appearance, but nowhere near the same composition as glass.

They could gleam no true meaning behind the use of the object. There was no magic residue, their magic was not accepted to activate it, even when they discovered that it could be twisted until it clicked, it still did nothing! It was frustrating to finally have something of their enemy, and yet it have no function other than as some shiny paperweight.

Moving away from the table, Luna brought her mind back to the conversation that the Generals and their advisors had finally decided upon. Slightly worried at the thought of overstraining their troops with extra patrols and cloud-hidden watchers, she wondered if it would even be effective. They had already proved that they could insert small reconnaissance creatures into the town and library without being detected, what else could they do?

(-----------------------------)

Back with the Generals

“We should just hand her over…”

It was of no surprise to any present when the first damning words were spoken, nor by whom they spoken by. The counter, of course, was immediate.

SLAM

The aide opposite of the assisting general could stand no more of the one-sided, clearly, heard-headed debate. Even if it was not his place to speak out, he was a devoted protector first, and a subservient aide second.

“Are you mad!? Your simple prejudice has no place in a situation such as this one!”

“You heard the blasted Zebra’s report,” the Empire A.General sneered, “They want her in exchange for the others.” Jabbing his finger town to the map of the town and surrounding area, he indicated the many blue triangular bricks along with a grouping of multi-colored gems by the town hall.

“Once we have the Element back…”

“Once we have her back what?” The aide snarled back, not missing the objective depiction of one who he respected for the salvation and return of his princess, “You saw how the might of both princesses barely scratched them! What good would the elements do?” He did not mean to demean them in any way, but with new unknowns on the field he was already attempting to find ways to catch their enemy off guard. The only reason they could have possibly survived last time was because they had prepared extensively beforehand. He couldn’t afford to believe the alternative, because of the large drop in moral that came with it.

“The elements have defeated Nightmare Moon and the Changeling Queen, one of which was a fallen princess and the other who bested our rightful ruler with stolen power!”

Now that was going too far! He could ignore subtle digs, but not this blatant positioning when there were more important things at stake. Clamping his jaw shut and gripping the table in a viselike grip so strong that it began to groan and creak with the strain. “Why you…”

Of to the side however, her tea ruined by the quickly degenerating arguments, the Solar Diarch’s temper began to flare like her symbolic form. While she admired the tenacity of the High Generals to ignore the argument and continue planning, she knew that the aides were simply going to continue until one of them started a fight again.

Setting down her cup and rubbing her temples, a leathery object entered her view. Looking up, she spotted Zecora offering her waterskin to the Sun Goddess while gesturing at the arguing couple. Carefully taking it, she gave the contents a wary sniff, prior experience noted the Shaman’s fondness and unbelievable tolerance for Moonlight distilled spirits.

Wincing slightly at the near overwhelming tingling that ran up her nostrils, and the palatable ‘woody’ taste, she gave a small shrug to her sister, and took a half-gulp of the liquid fire and returned the container to its owner before using the rush of heat as a catalyst for her already stressed temper.

“ENOUGH!!”

All three observers allowed small smirks at the sight of the two aides almost instantaneously freezing in mid-argument. The two High Generals simply gave a sidelong glance to the princess before going back to their hurried whispers and shuffling of the pieces on the map. The other three occupants, a C.G. (Captain of the Guard) Shining Armor, Commander Fleetfoot, and Lieutenant MoonShadow seemed slight miffed at the interruption before returning to their observation of the two old war horses devising something devious. At least, two of them were…MoonShadow however, was too busy watching how many times the purple pieces that represented her group were moving from one side of the map to the other.

…It was going to be a long day.

{---------------------------------}

Ghost
Squad count: +3
Lieutenant G. Rex
Sergeant C. Wilkenson
Sergeant C. Rizzo

To say that I was glad when my suit pinged with a friendly radio connection is a good assumption. I had allowed a small smirk to appear, and it only widened when two more signals appeared. Quickening my pace slightly and watching as my text message was sent, I decided to round the next couple of trees to meet up with my allies which were now marked as Char’, Rex, and Rizzo. Surprise is another emotion that could be allowed into the mix as I had not expected Rex to follow along and join me. All these emotions were quickly tempered however, as when I turned the corner…I was greeted by a gasp, and a rifle butt to the visor…
After the ringing left my ears, my eyes refocused, and I managed to get a few words out to quiet the incessant apologies of Sergeant Rizzo, I listened to the makeshift quick briefing that Rex passed on to me from Command.

Objectives:
Avoid Local affairs
Retrieve VIP
Eliminate Renton Van presence (optional)
Capture or Kill Supposed Renton ‘Van Leader

To say that I was happy with my recommended orders would in fact be correct. I was more than happy to stay out of the direct affairs of the natives up to ‘Van involvement. Retrieving the VIP was my original objective, and killing every ‘Van I see was a given. The only part I had misgivings about was somehow managing to capture their leader. After seeing what he did to Dr. Burke, I was not eager to attempt to restrain him, but neither would I delegate the duty to one of my subordinates. I just had to hope that Command would take unavailable or dead instead of alive.

Taking note of how much time was left on my timer, I quickly gave Rex a rundown on the updated situation and the plan that we had improved upon when Char’ had left.

Rex’s first reaction was one of slight disbelief as our whole plan depended on clear line of sight, and quick movements. It was just begging for something to go wrong, and exposure to the locals would be a given, though how much exposure would have to be seen.

We took note of the restricted communication range that we had, and assumed that the ‘Van would most likely be operating under the same circumstances. With our previous incursion into their camp and planting of explosives and traps meant that we could move on the camp quickly after eliminating the Van in the town.

After the faults in our hastily made plan of action, and the many ways in which it could go wrong, we also had to account for the time it would take for Scientist Burke to create another machine to get us back. Without that machine we would be trapped and the whole operation would be for naught. If it wasn’t for his assurance that he would be done a short time after the hostage party was supposed to return, we would have probably have had to make the choice to leave them be.

I knew that such a decision would most likely be met with a challenge from both Alex and Dan, but they would accept orders when given. It was now that I thought about it, that perhaps their reason for leaving me covered in snow and moving off to the town, was to sway my decision on whether or not to help the locals. Slightly annoyed by the thought, we set up to move quickly to the rally point and link up with the two good Samaritans.

(-------------------)

As the group began to move away with Rex taking point and Ghost covering the rear to that he could look through the diagnostic notes that his A.I. had completed, a small flash caught his eye from the corner of his vision. Restraining the urge to turn his head so as to not alert whatever could be have caught his attention, he checked his motion tracker while staring at the spot out of the corner of his eye. Watching every wave of the leaves, or dance of the shadows for signs of intelligent life.

Spotting nothing of note in the shadow and snow covered forest even when filtering through vision modes and expanding his radar range, he decided to leave it be for the time being, but resolved to keep an eye out for the rest of the trip.

It was a pity really that time restricted his ability to observe more carefully for possible threats. If he had focused a little harder and waiting a little longer then a clump of clouds would have completed their journey past the sun and allowed a few rays of light to shine on the forest. If he had stayed, he would have noticed the slight heat shimmer in the frigid air that was partly obscured by the leaves of a large oak tree and the small floating light that was observing the group of grey-white figures through a sky-blue haze.