The former United States Marine waltzed aimlessly through the forest. It’s dreary and dark atmosphere unsettled him as he looked around at the faces that seemed to have been imprinted on the trees. Trees couldn’t possibly harm even a fly, so he dismissed it as a sticks and stones sort of schtick. The sergeant could have sworn that he had heard a familiar “Boom”. It was faint, but it sounded like something had breached the sound barrier. It reminded him of that cyan pegasus he encountered earlier, he laughed at that thought. Pegasi couldn’t possibly fly that fast, right? Who was he to question the way the universe works, a big dragon thing did transport him to the future, so isn’t anything possible at this point?

He noticed pink cotton stuck to arm, he plucked it off and sniffed it. A confused expression befell Sergeant Lowell’s face as he tried to think about where the cotton candy could have come from.

%*%*%*%*%

“It’s not possible Rainbow! The facts don’t line up, and your story does not make a whiff of sense! An armored talking monkey falling out of the sky? Ugh! I can’t believe you!” Twilight facehooved and closed her eyes.

“But it’s true Twilight! When have I ever lied to you?” Rainbow chuckled nervously as Twilight looked to her with a neutral expression. “Point taken, but why would I make this up? It’s not like he could be a threat or anything.” Rainbow rolled her eyes and lifted herself off the wooden floor of Twilight’s library with the beat of her wings.

“Preposterous… Just simply preposterous, Rainbow… You want me to believe that an alien fell from the sky? Anything else you’d like to add?” Twilight had walked back to her writing desk and opened a book titled “Starwirl’s Superb Spells”.

Rainbow stuttered before blurting out “B-but it looked like discords magic! He fell out of a cotton candy portal for Celestia’s sake! The whole scene just reeked of Discord! Argh! Forget it Twi, if you won’t believe me then maybe somepony else will!” Rainbow dashed out of the libraries front door shortly after her outburst, leaving Twilight Sparkle in a state of shock with her maw nearly touching the floor, in the literal sense.

Twilight shook her head to snap out of her shock and promptly started to chase after Rainbow, but as soon as she saw the cyan pegasus, she had shot off in a blast of color in sound. Twilight was left there stunned as to how Rainbow good become so worked up over something like this. Unless she was telling the truth?

%*%*%*%*%

“God damn animals and their stupid shit! Literally!” Lowell lifted up a metal clad boot that was now covered, quite literally, in shit. “What kind of animal could make a pile this freaking big!” His voice boomed throughout the forest, causing many birds to flock away in fear and rabbits to run away back to their burrows.

The soldier looked around the forest, mesmerized by the stunned silence caused by his voice. This did not last long however, as a loud crashing erupted from the forest behind him. He stood as straight as a pillar, not moving and hoping that whatever made that crashing noise would pass. He heard and felt the hot breath of the beast on the back of his neck through the thick armor. It nudged him forward with its incredibly large muzzle, as he presumed.

He did an about-face spin on his heels and came face to face with the most frightening thing that he could possibly see, scary enough to make him piss his pants. A lion’s inquisitive face stared back at him with wide, cat-like eyes of green color. He peered over the lion’s head and spotted a scorpion tail hanging limply above the creature’s lower back. It swung side to side in a taunting fashion, as if to say “If I don’t like you, then this will be going through your chest!”

Not like anything could penetrate his compressed, self-repairing, steel armor. The plates were woven with the toughest steel down to the molecular level. The only thing that this armor couldn’t tolerate was a nuclear blast at point-blank.

The manticore thing sniffed him from heel to head, trying to make heads and tails of the man before it. Lowell assumed that the manticore was thinking about either eating him, or leaving the armored soldier alone in the dark and dense forest. The manticore got a bright look in its eyes before it started licking the marine’s hand and purring. Beneath the red, glowing eyes of his black mask, the marine smiled. He patted the manticore’s muzzle as it continued to show its affection for the marine.

Sergeant Lowell had to admit that he enjoyed the manticore’s company throughout the afternoon, underneath it’s terrifying guise was a sweet, soft, cuddly kitten waiting to be played with. He had a few cats before he was brought out into the war. Cats were ultimately his favorite animal, especially the Siberian tigers. This manticore was something completely different, it was about as big as a Leopard and its tail reached up to the marine’s head, which he tried to avoid as much as possible.

The day went on without much happening, but late into the evening while he was eating an MRE that was stashed in his storage compartment, he heard voices speaking as they entered the forest. He recognized one of them as the cyan pony that he had fallen onto. The manticore apparently noticed the voices as well, because it dashed off into the wilderness, nowhere to be seen. He pulled out his USP .45 standard issue pistol and headed off in the direction of the voices, hoping that he could pull off what he was planning to do.

%*%*%*%*%

“So you went to Fluttershy’s, Applejack’s, Rarity’s, and Pinkie’s homes to get all of them… You managed to convince them that you saw a bipedal alien, and you want all of us to go out to the Everfree Forest, which is dangerous might I add, but you also want us to apprehend said bipedal alien?” Twilight would pinch her brow if she had hands.

“Yeah! Applejack thought I was telling the truth, right Applejack?” The multicolored pegasus turned to the hard working earth pony and smiled hopefully.

“Darn tootin!” Applejack tipped her hat to Twilight. “She’s tellin’ the truth this time Twi!”

“Oh I can’t wait to meet him! We can throw him a ‘welcome to Ponyville party’!” Pinkie gasped, “Or maybe a ‘welcome to Ponyville AND Equestria party! I’ll invite everypony and tom!” Pinkie continued to blabber on about parties, so the rest of the ponies tuned her out as they started walking to and into the Everfree forest, their faces contorted into that of apprehension as they walked amongst the dark trees once more.

They started talking about various topics as they traversed into the forest, but quieted down when they heard a loud rustle in the bushes a few yards away. They briefly saw the end of a manticore tail rush away into the darkness, but they tensed up when they saw something step out of the bushes in front of them. Its black stick pointed towards them in a menacing manner. It spoke five words that will go down in the Equestrian history books as the most cliché first contact line ever used.

“Take me to your leader.”

Author's Note

I'm done sucking google doc's dick. Hate that shit, enjoy your sandwich.