The Gates

Chapters

The Mission
Bitter-sweet Greetings
The Grand Tour
The Truth
Elements of Destruction
Preparations
Showdown
Dreams that Do Come True
Equestrian Whoopass
Get Ready

The Mission

A taxi pulled up to an old abandoned barn, the rain pouring so hard onto the car it almost sounded like rocks were being dropped from the sky, a man wearing a dark coat and sunglasses emerged from the car into the rainy night, the cab driver poked his head out of his window and asked loudly, trying to speak over the rain, “Hey! Aren’t you gonna’ pay?”

The mysterious man turned to the annoyed and soaked driver and said in a German accent, “I’m terribly sorry, but you shouldn’t even know I exist.” He then pulled out a silenced HK USP and shot the driver in his right eye, blood, bits of his brain, chunks of bloody eye, and tiny shards of his skull exploded out the back and splattered all over the side of his car; leaving his head at an odd angle and his body in a painful looking position. The German man approached the doors of the barn and opened them; he made sure no one else saw him enter the building even though they were in the middle of nowhere.

Once he had closed the doors he went to the back of one of the horse stalls, the room so old not even hay littered the floor; broken windows were letting puddles of water form and the place had an eerie feeling to it. He opened up the closet at the back of the room and what looked like a wall on the other side was actually a door, he opened the door by simply pushing on it and the door slid to the left as though a machine was guiding it. Once he entered he hung up his coat and hat and continued walking down a blue hall with lights about every two meters on the ceiling, it resembled a hallway found in those sci-fi movies. An elevator waited for him at the end of the narrow hallway, the elevator being barely big enough for the man opened gently as he entered and closed the same.

Two minutes later the man had arrived at his destination, there in front of him was only a door, with a card reader directly to the left of the door. He pulled a card out of his pocket and swiped it through the machine, a small beep and a voice emanated from the machine saying, “Welcome Albrecht Freud.”

As the doors opened, Albrecht returned his card to his pocket and entered a room containing giant computers, thousands of people were working at these computers all of different countries, people running around and spoke quickly, at the top of the room in a glass box looked to be a room for board of directors, only it had no graphs, only blueprints. Computers were facing every wall calculating trajectory, velocity, mass, and calculations involving atoms, the center held one of the most spectacular inventions humanity has never known.

Albrecht walked up the stairs to the glass box where three men were standing; he pushed open the glass doors and dropped a document into the hands of the lead scientist. Gazing through it he would lift his eyes up back at Albrecht and back at the documents, his lips suddenly stopped mimicking the words. His eyes looked back up at Albrecht and the young man said in a confused voice, “Really? Out of all of them you picked this place?”

Albrecht looked down at him and said, “Just because you’re an American graduate doesn’t mean you know better than me, I have my reasons for picking here. Besides, you shouldn’t have even seen this document. But I have full faith that you will keep this secret for the good of humanity; now remember these coordinates because now this document must be burnt.” He took the folder from the graduate’s hands and placed the document in the fire, only giving the others a quick moment to read the cover which was titled “Project: Gates”. “Now have you written the coordinates down?” Albrecht asked the lead scientist.

One of the others chipped in and said, “Yes, Project: Gates’ coordinates have been wri-” Unable to finish his sentence, Albrecht grabbed him by the throat and began squeezing. At first it was slow but he began to enjoy the feeling of his bare hands killing someone so he squeezed harder until a blood filled gurgle that was supposed to be a scream brought him back to his senses. He dropped the man to his knees and the man began coughing up blood as though his lungs were filled with it.

He turned to the coughing man and said in an angry voice, “Never repeat that name, or so help me I will cut you open and feed your living corpse to your children, now get to work.” As soon as he was done speaking the scientists left the room to the lower area and began talking to the others, as he watched over them Albrecht said to himself, “For humanity’s survival.”

Then suddenly a large explosion was heard nearby, not quite inside but close enough for it to be a warning of some sort, then the door to the lab was sent flying across the room as a lone man stood there, he was about the height of a 16 year old being no older than 19, he wore dark shades, an urban military like outfit and carried with him weapons that looked to be twenty years in the future. He said in a voice that contained no emotion, “Party’s over dipshits.” And began riddling the scientists with holes, he entered the glass room to find the German man hiding behind a chair. The soldier looked at the man and said, “You’ve been charged with acts of terrorism and holding of nuclear weapons and for that I’m going to make you shit sideways.” With that the soldier walked towards him and the German man shot his pistol right in his shoulder with no pain on the soldier’s face he said, “Big mistake.” He then grabbed the German’s bottom jaw and began pulling, at first the poor German was able to resist but the soldier was stronger than that and began pulling harder to the point where the German was screaming and then the breaking point was reached. The soldier tore off the man’s jaw with a loud snap and the German was then left there holding his jaw and drowning in his own blood.

As the soldier was leaving he looked at the fireplace, took out a small tube like device and pointed at the fire as it began to make a humming sound. Ashes started collecting and reforming into a document. Once the document was fully reformed, the soldier replaced his small device and took the documents with him. As he was exiting one of the remaining scientists said in a dying voice, “You still haven’t destroyed our greatest creation, this machine will still live!”

The soldier looked down at him, pulled a bullet from his jacket and brought it close so the scientist could see and said, “You see this? This is at first glance a simple 100-grain hollow point bullet, but it contains red phosphorus in dual compressed chambers, I simply have to press this little button, and all the bullets I have fired will explode.” With that the soldier stood up and began walking away, as he exited the door he pressed his little button on his wrist and hundreds of explosions all occurred at once and the facility was destroyed.

A few hours later the soldier, now known as Cole O’Reilly, arrived back at a secret station somewhere hidden in the Rockies. He entered a secret, all white facility similar to the one previously mentioned but with a higher cleanliness standard. He headed up the stairs to a room that looked like the United Nations only it wasn’t the leaders of the country in the room nor was it the military leaders, they were just unknown people with a lot of badges on their chest. Cole walked in and dropped Project: Gates on the table. The Chief and Lieutenant leaned in and looked through the pages and looked at Cole and the Chief said to him, “Good job, Cole, now all we need to do is have our engineers rebuild this machine and we will find out what this thing is and why it was built. We will contact you when this is done for you to investigate it.” With that Cole was gone, no thank you, no yes sire, not even any sign of emotion. Little did this emotionless soldier know that he was going to accomplish something no creature, or any form of matter would be capable of.

******
Meanwhile, somewhere in a completely different universe, in Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle was taking a simple stroll through town when she saw Pinkie Pie being her usual self. Yet something was different about Pinkie today, her entire body was shaking out of control. Twilight trotted up to Pinkie and asked her with a nervous look, “Pinkie, you’ve been shaking like this for the past few minutes, how big of a doozy do you think this will be?”

Pinkie just kept shaking like a vibrating phone on nuclear energy and said, “I dunno Twilight, but whatever it is, it’s going to be a bi-i-i-ig o-o-o-one” Then as soon as the shaking came the shaking stopped. “That’s weird,” Pinkie began, “the shaky-shaky usually means a doozy of a thing is supposed to happen, and nothing happened.” She then trotted off singing like nothing had ever happened to her. Twilight still had a nervous feeling though, she kept wondering what was going to happen, and when? Then she had an idea, why not ask one of her friends who’s lived here for a while. Then Twilight galloped her way to Sweet Apple Acres to find Applejack.

“Hey AJ,” Twilight exclaimed, “You’ve known Pinkie for the longest time, how long does it usually last between her Pinkie senses and when it actually happens?”

Applejack was just finishing gathering apples when she looked at Twilight with a confused look and said, “I dunno Twi, I’ve only seen her tail twitch and it usually last only a couple of seconds before her predictions come real. Remember the doozy though? There were a few hours between the shakin’ and it actually happenin’. I believe that the more violent her shakin’ is, the longer it takes for it to happen.” Then Applejack put her wagon away and walked up to Twilight and asked, “On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you think her twitchin’ was, Twi?”

“I would have to say a ten actually; I’ve never seen her shake that violently, if she was shaking any worse, she would have fallen apart.”

Now Applejack had a nervous look on her, “Well we best be gettin’ ready for the future, I reckon that this shakin’ means something BIG is about to happen in like a few months or so.”

That wasn’t really comforting Twilight, but it gave her the idea she should be prepared for something big. “Well thanks for the help, AJ.” Twilight said as she began to trot away.

Applejack gave her a reassuring look and said, “Twi, this might not be so bad, it could be a really good thing, maybe not a rainbow, and I really don’t know what could possibly be good enough to make a filly shake out of her saddle. But if it’s a good thing, then it’s a really good thing.”

Twilight thanked Applejack for her time and was on her way, the sun was setting and Twilight had some more books to read. But little did the ponies know that their world was going to be flipped upside down.

Bitter-sweet Greetings

A month had gone by and Cole still hasn’t heard from the secret operations, now known has W.S.A. He was pacing around in his room that lay deep within the Rockies for he wasn’t allowed to mingle with the public, he sat on his bed. He has never felt pain or fear, never felt real love or sadness, only the feeling of hatred and loneliness boiled deep within him. Using only these two emotions to fuel him and keep him going, his anger was for some reason boiling now, and before he went into rage the phone rang. The chief was on the other line saying, “Agent, you have been assigned your mission, the device has been built and we need your presence, all will be explained on arrival.” And he then hung up. Cole didn’t know how to feel, it felt as though he should get there as fast as possible for something was interesting him.

A few minutes later Cole entered the laboratory and in the center of the room was just a capsule, nothing spectacular like Stargate or Star Wars, just a pod big enough for him, all that was inside was a form of strap you wear on a suspension roller coaster. In front of it was the chief and a scientist waiting to greet him, as he approached he showed no fear of what it would do, he only cared about getting the mission over with. The chief then said to the soldier, “Agent, this is probably one of the most important missions of your life and one of the greatest moments in human history. This device won’t take you anywhere in our universe, it will take you to another universe entirely. This presents an opportunity for mankind to spread once our sun has died so we can continue to live.”

Cole simply looked at him and said, “I care why?”

“Because you will be the first human to travel through an inter-dimensional portal, and we chose you because God knows what dangerous creatures are on the other side waiting to kill you. Knowing you, you would be able to handle that. So we are giving you some of the agencies best weapons, all stashed in this de-atomiser case so you can fit infinite amounts of objects in there.” With that scientist began pulling out weapons of all sorts, rapid firing pistols with explosive rounds, rapid firing grenade launchers, a folding RPG, a standard assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and a ghillie suit capable of blending the wearer and any objects he/she is carrying into the surroundings, all from a case that looked like it could fit into his pocket. Then after being showed all of these weapons he gave the agent a book and a pencil and told him to journal any of his findings.

“And one final thing, Cole” the chief said, “Wear this mask, because our speculations are that the air they breathe there might be unsuitable for our lungs. Good luck agent.” With that the chief saluted Cole as he suited up in an all black suit, when he put it on a wave of turquoise swept over his suit through small cracks to show it was working. Then he packed all of his weapons into his de-atomiser case and attached it to his belt. He then walked in to the pod, once he was strapped in a little screen in the corner lit up with a number pad. Cole was given the code to punch in on a piece of paper, once that was done he turned his oxygen mask on. Before the door closed on the soldier the chief said to him, “you have a week in there before we pull you out, if there is any sign you are in danger then your shit out of luck. Oh and one more thing,” the chief handed him a suicide pill in a small container, “if all else fails.”

With that the doors closed on Cole and he began to hear a hum, A voice began to count down till ejection, then the humming grew louder and louder as the numbers counted down from ten. The voice said in a feminine tone, “Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… prepare for ejection. He suddenly felt his body being stretched and burnt alive from the inside with a crusing feeling to it as though he were on a rocket elevator traveling at light speed. Then everything began to shake and the humming grew louder, he felt like his head was going to explode and he let out a painful scream as he felt his body being torn apart atom by atom. Then once the humming became a deafening tone he lost consciousness.

******

Meanwhile in Ponyville, it had been a month since Pinkie’s atomic seizure, everypony was wondering when it was going to happen today, well those who were aware of her seizure had even happened were wondering. Twilight knew it had been a whole month and ran out to the balcony of her tree and looked to see if anything has happened, nothing. She came back into the room and turned to Pinkie and said in a slightly triumphant voice, “Well Pinkie for once your Pinkie sense was wrong, I can’t believe”

Before Twilight could finish her sentence Spike ran up to the lavender pony and shouted out, “Twilight! Quick! The Sky! It’s ripping apart like a piece of napkin!” Spike then ran under the bed as there was a huge cracking noise that ripped through Ponyville loud enough that it could be heard from Canterlot. The sound had a bit of a rippling effect.

Twilight looked at Pinkie Pie with a panicking look, “We have to get the others; maybe the elements of harmony will be needed.” Twilight said as she was heading for the door.

Within minutes, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Twilight were watching the sky when all of a sudden a small object came zooming out of nowhere breaking the sound barrier and bending light behind it, Rainbow Dash had the idea of going after it to see what’s up, “I’ll try and stop it” she said bravely and she took off, a few seconds later she had managed to catch up to see that it was the egg shaped object with a window on one side, inside it was this black monster waiting to be hatched. Rainbow Dash was too startled to notice the rock in front of her and she crashed with a large, “OOF!” and the egg continued its death course until it crashed into the Everfree Forest with such a tremendous explosion that the nearby lake’s water created an inland tsunami. Luckily nopony was injured, well except for Dash.

The other ponies decided to run after the object to see what it was and help Rainbow Dash.When they caught up to Dash she didn’t say anything, she shook her head and got back onto her hooves, when they reached the Everfree Forest everypony rushed through, Fluttershy had a few troubles entering but she managed after a few minutes of comforting and encouraging. Once they arrived to the crash zone they noticed that it was an egg like container but with a weird creature behind the broken glass.

“Fluttershy, help me see if the thing is okay.” Twilight said and as they approached it Twilight could hear faint breathing “Quick, we have to get him out.”

A few minutes of struggling and teamwork later, the creature was moved away from the crash to safety, “We have to get him to the hospital.” A nervous Twilight said staring at this visitor. Twilight wondered to herself how this thing could be a good thing, it had already caused havoc to the entire town and it wasn’t conscious.

*****

When Cole opened his eyes again he was no longer in his capsule, his vision was blurry too. His entire body numb, a wave of thoughts swept over the soldier, what if I was paralyzed, what if the enemies were going experiment on me (He had a bad experience with the anal probe, but who doesn’t). When the soldier tried to move his arms, he was reassured with movement from them, it took him a few minutes, but he finally managed to get up and out of bed, he started walking down the hallway with shaky legs when he heard English being spoken around the corner. What if his mission wasn’t successful? Where was he? Did Albrecht trap him in another facility(he’s been the agencies’ arch nemesis for awhile, it started out when he refused to pay several parking tips and one thing led to another and he was becoming a terrorist)? His spy skills kicked in and managed to go undetected, the enemy the enemy couldn’t see him. The completely invisible agent managed to sneak past security by crawling through the air vents as silently as the air that traveled through them. After a few hours of crawling his way through a labyrinth of pipes he managed to get outside, the sky was blue as a cartoon, not a single cloud in the sky, the birds were singing, and the sun warmed everything it touched. Cole didn’t care about these things, all he wanted to figure out was if he was somewhere else on Earth or if he was in a different universe. Cole crawled out of the air vent and onto the roof, he looked around for any city he recognized, but nothing. He was in the middle of nowhere in a country town.

Suddenly he heard alarms blaring, he figured it was because of him and he dropped from the roof and fell about twenty feet or so. Before he landed, his suit immediately kicked and lit up with a turquoise glow, he landed without experiencing any pain. Once he was reoriented he ran for the forest at superhuman speeds, he checked for his de-atomiser case but realized it wasn’t with him, it must have been left back at the pod, he thought to himself. He had to turn off his suit because he understood that his suit had limited energy, so he went looking for a form of transport because travelling on foot would be useless because the pod could be miles away. After a few minutes of searching he poked his head out of the trees to see a small horse in a clearing sleeping there, or rather a pony sleeping, “It’s small, and odd to be cyan with rainbow mane. It must be torture to have kids do that to you, but it will have to do.” Cole snuck up behind it without making a sound, not even a branch under his foot snapped, and he got ready to jump it. Once he jumped on it he was greeted with the loudest scream he ever heard, the pony bucked and spun madly while Cole tried his best to get hold of it, “Shut up you fucking mule!” Cole yelled out.

The pony stopped moving the instant he said that, “Wait wait wait… did you just call me… a mule?” The pony said in an angry, tomboyish voice. Cole understood that it was angry, and that it was about to kill him somehow, but he didn’t understand how in the name oh holy fuck it spoke to him. Before the soldier could get off the pony suddenly spread wings and took off with Cole on it’s back. Now Cole had to figure out where he was, why this pony can talk and where the fuck it got its wings. The pegasus was beginning to move faster and faster, the last time Cole had been moving this fast was when he was in a special jet, “You know who you just called a mule?” the raging pegasus shouted over her shoulder, now traveling at super sonic speed.

“A talking horse?” Cole shouted back.

“Very funny, chump, well this is where you get off, see ya paly!” With that the cyan pegasus flipped upside down and before the soldier could react he was falling towards a lake without a parachute. From his estimations he was falling from about thirty thousand feet. Luckily Cole was prepared for anything and spread his arms and legs like a flying squirrel, but realized to the horror he hadn’t packed a base jumping suit. His impact resistors won’t work for water so long story short, he’s fucked.

“Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kiddi-.” Before he could finish his sentence he impacted in the lake with such tremendous force he was knocked unconscious, the water exploding up into the air with a loud SLAP.

In what felt like an instant he opened his eyes up to see now six odd coloured ponies. An orange, white, a pink coloured pony, lavender, a pale yellow pony, and the cyan Pegasus he encountered earlier all looking down at him. As he slowly opened his eyes the orange one said with a bit of a western farmer’s accent, “Boy, that was one mighty fall ya took there, you okay sugarcube?” As he began to get up, the others dawned looks of worry, either they were afraid of this strange new creature, or they cared for him. Cole took a look around the room he was in, he was in a sort of cottage, rodents infested the place, squirrels, birds, rabbits, and some other small creatures crawled through the area into holes scattered around the place. The walls and the ceiling were made of wood, and the couch he was lying on was rather comfortable, but he had to get up out of it.

Once he sat up the lavender pony then turned to the cyan with a look of anger and said, “Well Rainbow Dash? What do you have to say for yourself?”

Rainbow Dash just shot back at her, “Hey, he called me a mule!”

“You dropped him from the sky!”

“Serves him right.” Rainbow snorted.

Then the lavender pony nudged Rainbow with a look of frustration to get the cyan pegasus to say, “Fine, I’m sorry, yeesh.”

“Well, now that apologies have been made I think we’d better introduce ourselves. I’m Twilight Sparkle.” The lavender pony said.

“This is Applejack.”

“Howdy do?” The orange one said with a smile.

“This is Rarity.”

“A pleasure meeting you, dear.” The white unicorn cooed.

“This is Fluttershy.”

“Oh… umm…hello?” The pale yellow pegasus squeaked from behind her hair.

The lavender unicorn pointed to the smiling pink one and said, “And this here is Pinkie Pie.”

The pink one started bouncing all around the room talking at a million miles an hour saying, “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie but you can call me Pinkie *gasp* you must be why my tail was twitchy-twitchin’ you’re not from around here are you? I should have a big welcome to Ponyville party just for you it’s gonna be soooo much fun!”

“And uhh… this is Rainbow Dash, you’ve already met her.” The lavender pony said pointing her hoof ant the scowling cyan pegasus.

“Hey.” Is all she said, she didn’t even bother to look at him. Cole could already tell that he and Rainbow weren’t going to be exactly the best of friends.

“So, what’s your name?” Twilight asked pointing to Cole.

“I’m Cole.” He said with no emotion at all.

“Colt?” The nuclear powered pink pony asked, turning her head 180 degrees.

“No Cole! It’s only Cole nothing else” The soldier said with a hint of frustration. So far he didn’t like the pink one. Then once that was over Cole got up and asked, “Where is the nearest human? I need to find out where I am.”

“What’s a hoo-min?” the pink one asked again bouncing up and down.

“That answers that. So are ponies the dominant species on this planet?” Cole asked again walking towards the door.

“Not just ponies,” The lavender pony began, “pegasi and unicorns like me live here.” The lavender pony said matter of factly.

“Well this proves that it worked, so how did I get here?” Cole said before he walked out the door, he wanted to make sure he wasn’t screwed and that he could get his supplies.

“We found you in a white egg sort of thing, if you ask me it doesn’t match your style.” He white unicorn told him; of course all she cared about was fashion. But now that Cole knew his pod was here he could start documenting his findings.

“Well as much as I want to stay, and not that I do,” Cole whispered under his breath, “I have to go get my supplies, can one of you show me where it is?” Cole wanted to just get away from these annoying ponies, the pink one was too much for him, if she continued to bounce he would go apeshit.

“Well it’s in the,” the yellow pegasus gulped down her fear, “the Everfree Forest.” Cole was really annoyed and confused now, how could they be afraid of a forest, it has the word free in it and isn’t free a good thing? (At least in his universe it was)

Cole bent over to get close into the yellow pegasus’ face and said to her with a snarky attitude, “Well then I guess your not coming now are ya?” the yellow pegasus hid behind her long pink hair like a child would hide behind their mother’s leg. The yellow one wasn’t the only one afraid of the forest, the others were shaking too.

The yellow one was probably extra terrified because of how Cole got into her personal space but she managed to sum up the courage to say, “Oh but I do want to go, but we don’t usually go in there alone,” She looked behind her at the others giving her encouraging smiles.

“So what, are all of you going to come now?” Cole was hoping this wouldn’t happen, but the sooner he gets away from these ponies the better.

“Well yeah, it aint natural in there… it aint safe fer nopony to be travellin’ in there alone.” the orange pony said to him. Cole just noticed the orange one was wearing a cowboy hat… really? Cole was seriously wondering what gas his mask was feeding him because he might be on the acid trip of the year. Cole also wasn’t afraid of what could be lurking in there, if he was man enough to suplex a fucking alligator and uppercut a bear he was man enough to walk into a fucking forest. Even if it was dusk.

“Well then let’s get our asses moving, I don’t want to be here and I’m pretty sure none of you want me here either.” Cole said bravely, he really hated these ponies so far.

As everypony left the cottage Twilight thought about this new creature, she really didn’t like him and was glad he wanted to leave, cause so far he caused havoc in Ponyville and forced everyone to help him again with no thank you from him. Yet she had a feeling that he wasn’t like this because he wanted to, there was another reason. All she and her friends had to do was just keep showing kindness and hope for the best. (LOVE AND TOLERANCE)

Later in the Everfree Forest the ponies were all cowering behind this new visitor, Rainbow Dash noticed how he wasn’t the slightest bit scared and thought to herself, What an idiot, he has no idea hes walking straight into the most dangerous place in Equestria. Pinkie began bouncing beside Cole asking him a million questions, “Why is your name Colt? Where are you from? You’re not from Ponyville are you? Where in Equestria are you from? Are you even from Equestria? Are there ponies where you’re from? Do they throw parties like me?”

Cole lost it, a vein visible on his forehead he turned to the pink pony and shouted in her face, “Oh my God almighty shut the fuck up! You ask too many fucking questions, if you ask another question I swear to Christ I will take my fist, shove it down your throat and pull your fucking vocal cords out!” As Cole was shouting and motioning all the actions, a dark creature was sneaking up behind him which made the ponies shake in pure fear. Cole thought he had finally got his message through their skulls when he felt something drip onto his shoulder.

“Chimera!” The ponies screamed. Cole felt the breathing on the back of his neck and turned around to see a creature with the head of a lion, the hind quarts of a goat, and a serpent for a tail (holy fuck that must have taken one hell of an orgy to make). Cole was blind with rage, his suit fired up as he roundhouse kicked it in the face, the suit gave him extra strength and helped kick it into a nearby tree hard enough to crack the tree. Cole walked up to the animal now even angrier, grabbed it by it’s throat and brought it close to his face and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Keep breathing down my fucking neck and I will tear out your lungs and make you eat them, I WILL EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART!” With that he threw the creature at another two trees hard enough to break them both. The chimera got up and growled at him, trying to scare Cole but he just shouted, “I WILL MAKE YOU MY BITCH!” The creature obviously outgunned scampered off tail between legs, not wanting to mess with this stronger creature. Cole then dropped to his knees in exhaustion as his suit powered down. The adrenalin finally out of his system and now a lot calmer, he turned back to the wide eyed ponies.

“You just fought off a chimera…” The lavender unicorn began, “nopony is brave enough to fight off a chimera bear hoofed.” The ponies were all impressed with Cole’s bravery, except for Dash; she thought to herself, He got lucky. As soon as Cole came back to his senses he realized that his oxygen tank had been punctured and he was beginning to panic as he lost oxygen. Cole was, for the first time in his life, afraid of dying. The ponies began to crowd around him but didn’t know how to help. With Cole’s last few breaths he decided to take off the helmet to show them his face. He had grey brown eyes and wavy dark blond hair that was cut short; he had a dimple on his chin and had a very square jaw. He held his last breath and stood up to show them what he really looked like. (So dramatic isn’t it?)

Cole’s heart began to panic, he was going to suffocate and his body took over and made him let go of his breath. Cole gasped for air as he fell to the ground and began tossing and turning, feeling the pain of the neurotoxins in him. The ponies just looked at his odd dancing and Rainbow dash thought to herself, what a baby. Cole then realized he had been doing this for almost a minute, he was breathing oxygen. He jumped to his feet brushed himself off and said in a calm voice, “That’s what it would have looked like if your air was toxic to me.” Cole didn’t feel the slightest humiliation in what he had done.

“You’re loco in the coco, you’re funny.” The pink pony said bouncing away, “Follow me.” She said waving her hoof in her direction.

After only ten minutes of walking the group had finally managed to get to Cole’s pod. The white egg object was in the center of a crater that would take thirty seconds to run around. Cole found his de-atomiser case in the pod and attached it to his belt, he turned to the pink bouncing pony and said to her, “I apologize for the way I shouted at you.” Cole didn’t mean it; he just felt it necessary to break the silence.

“It’ okay, you just got mad that’s all.” She said back to him in her happy bubbly voice. Cole began to pull a tent out of his de atomizer bag and began setting it up beside the crater.

“Uh what are you doing?” The orange pony asked with an extremely confused look on her face.

“I’m setting up a tent for the week.” Cole was impressed at how they didn’t know what a tent was yet knew how to make houses.

“Out here? Remember what just happened back there?”

“Remember what I did back there? I can survive this.”

“Sugarcube, it would be the least ah could do to let you stay at Sweet Apple Acres for tonight.” The other ponies liked the idea of letting him stay at their places for the night, after all he saved them. After a brief discussion the ponies came to an agreement.

“We decided that we will let you stay at our houses for the night the entire week you’re here,” The lavender pony said to him, “the order would be Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Me, and then Rainbow Dash.”

“Hey, I’m not letting him sleep at my place, besides only pegasi can stand on clouds.” The cyan Pegasus shouted. Cole could tell that this Pegasus is going to remember the mule incident forever.

“Well, uhh….” Cole began. He wanted to find an appropriate way to say no.

*****

An hour later, Cole was setting his de-atomiser case on a table while Applejack put a tray into the oven (how did he get talked into this). When the unpacking was over, Applejack gave Cole a tour of the farm.

“This here’s Winona,” Applejack pointed towards her dog, he seemed rather happy to see her, “and this here’s mah lil’ sister Applebloom.”

Then a small yellow pony with a rose coloured mane came from behind Applejack’s legs and looked up at Cole saying, “Um… Hello.”

Once the meet and greet was over at Sweet Apple Acres, Cole and Applejack sat down next to the fireplace with an apple pie that she baked herself. Cole reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver rectangle and popped the top off, with that a small flame appeared and he set the logs in the fireplace on fire.

“Oh wow, what’s that y’all got there?” Applejack asked with a wide look of curiosity in her eyes as she pointed at the lighter with her hoof.

“It’s a lighter, everyone from where I come from has one.” Cole said handing it to her, “Be careful, I don’t want to be responsible for a forest fire.” Cole said to Applejack, who was just flicking the fire on and off.

“Aw shoot, don’t worry ‘bout me, sugarcube.” She said with a bit of laughter. Once she was done playing with the silver rectangle of firey fire she handed it back to Cole and asked him, “We haven’t heard one single thing ‘bout where y’all are from, what’s it like there?”

So for the next hour Cole was forced to talk about how society on earth was based on technology and science, he decided to skip the war, famine, natural disasters, terrorism, diseases, crime and fear parts because he wanted to make it sound like he was from a place that was at least half as peaceful as here. He also mentioned that humans rode ponies and were the dominant species because of their opposable thumbs. Applejack looked like she was listening to a tale of absolute awesome; she was awed at the idea of having fields that stretched miles long are harvested in only a day thanks to technology. She loved to hear about the adventures Cole went on, like the time he went to the moon, and the time he went to the bottom of the ocean.

When it was Applejack’s turn to speak, Cole learned about how society here in this universe was based on magic and how “everypony” (that’s what they say here apparently) had a special and unique talent that was represented by the image on their flanks. At first Cole thought it was just a tattoo, but then again, it’s hard to tattoo fur. Cole learned about all the boring adventures Applejack went on, they were nowhere near as good as the adventures he went on in his opinion. (What a dick)

Two hours had gone by and Applejack was beginning to yawn, she brought out a pillow beside the couch and said to Cole with a sleepy look on her face, “Well Colt, we best be hittin’ the hay, maybe tomorrow the fillies and I can show ya Ponyville.”

“Yeah sure, I’d like that” Cole had no idea why he had just said that, and it took him a couple of seconds to convince himself that it was to be polite and for no other reason. Before Applejack fell asleep, she did the last thing Cole expected; she gave him a hug, not just a simple greeting hug you give your grandma, this was full of emotion. She held on for a little while and Cole could feel her blond mane brushing against his chin, Cole didn’t return the favour though, he didn’t see why he should.

“What are you doing?” Cole asked with a confused look on his face.

“I like ya, Colt, no one has ever sat around and listened to me fer that long.”

“But how can you trust me like this, what if I was a flesh eating monster?”

“Well if that were the case, I would be in yer belly by now.” Finally Applejack let go of him allowing him to fully breathe. With that she laid her head on her pillow and began to sleep.

Cole still wasn’t able to get to sleep for another few hours so he took the opportunity to write his findings:

May 6 2013

It’s been my first full day here in this dimension and the physics are almost alike the ones in our universe, except the habitants tend to display signs of telekinesis and mind powers such as flight, levitation, and crafting.

Habitants are of creatures similar to Earth mythology such as Pegasi and werewolves, as impossible as it seems the dominant species are three variants of the equine family, more accurately the pony family: The pegasi, the unicorns, and the common pony. In rare cases have there been reports on alicorns, but only are [resented in the form of royalty.

Chemical compound found in vegetation is similar, if not exact to earth vegetation. Dominant species only feed on vegetation which presents an odd paradox as to why vegetarians are dominant. The ponies here are capable of communication. It is an extremely unlikely coincidence that we speak the same language. So far six of the residents of my current location have volunteered, under pure generosity, to house me for the week.

Before Cole shut his eyes he looked down at the orange pony, now shivering because the fire had died out. Cole had this strange feeling inside him he learned to oppress years ago, but it felt different, he felt he should give her his covers, because he after all had a suit capable of warming him. Cole also didn’t want to wake up the next day to find a dead horse beside him so he gave her his blanket. As soon as he did, the orange pony stopped shivering. Cole then closed his eyes and began to drift away.

He had another nightmare again, it wasn’t like a movie or anything it was just a flash of all these still images of people he’s killed, he saw innocent families watch as their husbands or sons heads would be stomped on by him. Cole wasn’t being entertained by these anymore; a wave of anger filled his veins, as he got more and more enraged, the images were getting worse and worse until he couldn’t hold it. The last he saw wasn’t an image, it was a memory of when he visited an infected hospital and had to kill everyone there, what he remembered was pointing his pistol at a child no older than four. Before he watched as he pulled the trigger on the crying boy he woke up in a sweat. Cole looked around to see that it was still night and Applejack was still asleep. Cole gave himself a few minutes to slow his heart rate down and rolled onto his side away from the sleeping pony. As he closed his eyes he asked himself, “Why?”

The Grand Tour

Applejack woke up the next morning to see that Cole had given her his blanket. When she turned to smile at Cole she saw him laying there with his ass in the air and snoring up a storm, it was kind of funny to see him like that. She went to nudge him to life while she said in a cheerful voice, “Wakey wakey sleepin’ beauty!” The second her hoof made contact with Cole’s body he jumped to life and landed on his feet babbling about being late for wake up routines. Applejack just simply stared at Cole and asked him with a bit of a giggle in her voice, “Yer life must have been odd.”

Cole wiped the sleep out of his eyes and said, “You wouldn’t believe.” Cole tried his best not to show any embarrassment after what he did. The morning started out quite nicely, Applejack made some applesauce with apple juice and some apple pie on the side. After an hour or so of being in an apple overload (I hope you can tell by now that Applejack might like apples) Cole and Applejack headed over to Twilight’s tree library. Applejack knocked on the door and called for the lavender unicorn, “Hey Twi, you there?”

After a few minutes of waiting, the door slowly opened and Cole looked for the lavender pony but instead found a little purple and green lizard holding the door opened, “Hey Applejack, come on in.” After applejack trotted through Cole decided to follow her but the lizard stopped him and asked, “Who are you?”

“Of course you can talk, name’s Cole, lizard.”

“I’m not a lizard; I’m a baby dragon, name’s Spike.” The lizard stuck out his had for a shake.

“Cool story bro’, now you gonna let me in?” Cole was getting impatient now.

“Just as soon as you tell me how you know Twilight.”

“I kicked a weird animal into next week for her. Wanna know what it felt like?” Cole then suddenly remembered the image of him pointing a gun at that kid’s head and restrained himself from getting violent.

“Okay okay, geez,” Spike opened the door for Cole, “sorry to keep you waiting.”

Cole walked past him and said in a calm voice, “Yeah, I’m an ass sometimes.”

Cole took a look around the inside of the tree, it was quite the accomplishment they managed to hollow out the tree and craft the inside so well using only hooves. Books were everywhere; not only on shelves but on the floor too, it looked as though a book bomb exploded books everywhere.

“Twi? You there?” Applejack called out for Twilight.

“She’s under the books; she’s been studying for hours now.” Spike said pointing at the pile of books.

Twilight poked her head from the pile and gave out a big yawn and said in a sleepy voice, “I’ve been studying again, as usual.” Cole picked her up out of the bookcase and plopped her on a nearby bench.

“We were wonderin’ if you’d like to join me and Cole for a tour of Ponyville.” Applejack said gingerly.

“Yeah sure, that would be fun! Let me get the others.” The lavender pony said gleefully.

Within a matter of minutes, the six ponies were all gathered. The cyan one looked a little unhappy to be here, but Cole didn’t care about her. The pink one was bouncing as usual with a happy look on her face; Cole leaned down towards the lavender unicorn’s ear and whispered into it, “Is she normally like that? Is she on cocaine or something?”

The lavender unicorn looked up at Cole with an odd expression on her face she asked, “I beg your pardon but what’s cocaine?” Cole wasn’t entirely surprised that this place didn’t have drugs either, there were no negative things here like there were on Earth.

“Never mind, forget I asked that.” Cole whispered back into her ear. Cole walked for the door and turned around to see the ponies and asked, “So where do we go first?”

“Well, y’all have already seen Sweet Apple Acres and now you’ve seen Twilight’s house.” Applejack looked around the room.

“Oh my god! You live in a tree?” Cole looked at the lavender pony hoping to see her joke and say she lives in an apartment or something. Isn’t it unsafe to live in a tree? What if there’s a fire? Or a lightning storm? Cole thought to himself.

“Yeah I work here too, what’s wrong with that?” Twilight asked.

“Nothing…” Cole said to her with an expressionless face. Talk about being dedicated to your work. Cole thought to himself. Cole walked out the door and turned around and asked again, “So where do we begin?”

The tour was rather calm, the nuclear powered pink pony wasn’t bouncing madly, and instead she was looking at Cole with an odd expression. Cole got to learn about the town square, Rarity’s boutique (which was odd considering they don’t normally wear clothes). Cole got to see Fluttershy’s cottage again, he wanted to ask her if she would want a professional exterminator to take care of the rodent infestation, but she seemed to enjoy the company of the animals. Cole also got a glimpse of Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, which was quite the sight to see but unfortunate he didn’t get to see what it looked like on the inside. “In the distance you can see Canterlot, that’s where the princesses live.” Twilight pointed at a castle on the side of a mountain in the distance. Before the tour ended the ponies trotted up to a house alive with colors of pink and white and all sorts of lively colors, this was apparently the most popular bakery in town and was also the pink pony’s house, Cole thought to himself, of course! That’s where she’s getting all of her sugar. The group for some reason decided they should take Cole into the bakery.

“I’m not going in there!” Cole said trying to stand his ground.

“Well why not? Don’t you like candies and sweets?” asked the pink one bouncing up and down.

“No, I hate it, it’s disgusting and it’s unnatural!” Cole snorted.

“Who doesn’t like candy? Come on you probably have never tried this candy before!” The pink pony said to him beginning to push him towards the door.

The other ponies were helping Pinkie Pie, except for Rainbow Dash, all she said was, “Let him go if he doesn’t want to, besides all he’s probably gonna do is mope and shout at us.” Cole was getting a little pissed off at this pony’s attitude towards him. She knows I can snap her neck. Cole thought to himself. If she knows I’m dangerous then why is she pissing me off?

Eventually Twilight and the others managed to get him inside the dark room. Another thing you should know about Cole is that he hates dark rooms; last time he was in one was when he was clamped to a desk and being pulled apart. But before Cole could get out, the lights flicked on. Ponies crowded the room and all yelled a synchronized, “SURPRISE!” Cole was stunned by what had just happened, this wasn’t a trap, this was a fucking surprise party for him. Cole turned to the annoying pink blob, who had resumed bouncing and asked her with a look of slightly annoyed, anger, surprise and fear, “What the hell is this?”

“Oh silly, this is the welcome to Ponyville party I was talking about the other day. I do this for everypony!” The pink pony giggled at Cole, she didn’t understand this doesn’t normally happen to him where he unknowingly enters a room filled with people waiting for him and doesn’t get the shit kicked out of him.

Cole looked around the room, there were so many colors. There were balloons, streamers, and drinks. Music filled the room as ponies began to dance and blindfold themselves and spin each other around. Cole could feel something deep in his chest beginning to grow, it didn’t feel like anger, it didn’t feel like fear. It was something he’s never felt before. He kept looking around the room as this feeling began to bubble inside him and grow and grow.

Pinkie and the others backed away from the shaking human, Twilight was worried he was going to explode or something. He just stood there shaking and shaking, he slowly turned his head to Twilight and his face was twitching. She began to panic on the inside, Twilight thought to herself, what if he was going to go on rampage and do something horrible? The other ponies saw him shaking and everyone in the room became nervous about his shaking. Cole couldn’t keep this feeling inside him anymore, he felt his face stretching. He had never experienced this before and he couldn’t resist it, he let go of his control and let his body do the work. The ponies saw it, to them it was something they always see, everypony was like that, but to Cole, this was his first time actually feeling this, he usually faked it but this was genuine. Cole let himself go and a huge smile stretched to the corners of his face, for the first time in the soldier’s life he was feeling happy. He didn’t lie to himself anymore, he knew why Pinkie threw this party for him, she cared about him and no one has ever done that for Cole. Cole has never been happier in his life, or even happy for that matter.

“I can’t believe you did this for me, Pinkie!” Cole ran over with his brand new smile and picked up Pinkie and spun her around hugging her as tightly as he could, he felt weird being happy, but he loved every second of it. He loved the feeling of Pinkies curly pink hair brushing against his face as he held her up, mmmmm her hair smells sweet Cole thought to himself.

“Oh you do like it! That’s awesome!” Pinkie giggled with a snort.

Cole walked gingerly up to Applejack and gave her a big hug too saying, “I’m sorry I didn’t return the hug last night, I don’t know what was wrong with me.”

Applejack laughed a little and said to him, “Aw we all knew all you needed was to be shown a little bit of kindness.” Twilight smiled a little at all of this, she thought to herself, it always works.

The next hours were the best of Cole’s life, he was talking to lots of ponies about his adventures, and he was laughing and loving the feeling of laughing. He ate tons of sweets and went on a sugar rush and out bounced Pinkie Pie. Yet something was missing from the party, he noticed that wherever he looked he couldn’t find that downer of a pegasus. He went looking for her up the stairs and went for the nearest door and put his ear to it. He could faintly hear sobbing coming from the other side, Cole slowly opened the door to find the rainbow maned pegasus in the corner crying a little. Cole walked up to her slowly only to be greeted with a, “What do you want?” from her and more tears.

“I want to know why your not part of the party, did I do this to you?” Cole asked her. Cole thought of her as a tough one, not this.

“Well kinda, it’s not exactly you, it’s another thing too,” Rainbow wiped the tears from her eyes and continued, “but you probably wouldn’t care.”

Cole sat down next to her and said in a calm voice, “But after learning how great it feels to be happy, I hate to see others not feeling the same. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Rainbow sniffed and said with tears coming out of her eyes, “Well you see, it just happens to be my luck that I have a rainbow mane, and I have a tomboyish personality.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” Cole didn’t understand what she was getting at, he would have loved to have white hair to go with his manly personality, what’s wrong with that?

“What’s wrong is that everypony thinks I’m a lesbian,” Rainbow began to cry again, “wherever I go, ponies look at me differently, some don’t allow me near their foals, some ponies even laugh at me and make hurtful jokes towards me.” Rainbow wiped the tears away again, “Sure, when you jumped on my back and called me a mule, that hurt. But the reason I’ve been like this is because I’m constantly thinking that you’re going to be the next one to joke about my sexuality.” Rainbow resumed crying.

“Well, do you like other fillies?” Cole asked, he was trying his best to help her, but he was a soldier, not a therapist.

“Yes… No… Kind of… you see, I like both fillies and colts, I know I’m the freak of Equestria.” She said with a shaky voice. Cole could tell that this was difficult or her to admit because he’s been in situations where he was being forced to tell the truth.

“Rainbow, I would never tease you over something like that. In fact I envy your bravery; in my world it’s really humiliating for gays and lesbians to show their love all of a sudden. But if you’ve known them for being gay or lesbian ever since they were young, then you can look past that and accept them for who they are. It doesn’t matter what they love or who they love, it’s who they are that makes them wonderful. It’s your bravery and your strong attitude that makes you wonderful. You have wonderful eyes, and a wonderful taste in homes and a great smile.” Cole had never felt like this before, what he said was the honest truth and he could tell that he was helping her a lot.

Dash looked at Cole with a tearful smile and said, “That’s really sweet, Colt. Thanks.” With that Rainbow closed her eyes, she began to fear the worst would happen to her for what she was about to do but she was going to do it anyway. Here goes nothing she thought to herself and kissed Cole on the cheek. Her lips met his cheek as she gently pressed them against his face; she held on for a few seconds but then broke the kiss. Immediately she hid her face and began thinking, what if he was going to deny me? What if he’s not interested? What if he thinks I’m creepy? But then the last thing she expected happened, Cole wrapped his arm around her and brought her close to him.

That kiss on the cheek represented Cole’s changing and he was never going to go back to his old self. He held Dash close to him to make her feel better, to make him feel better. He could tell that his comforting worked, but he didn’t know that she liked him. “Listen, I’m flattered and all, and believe me when I say I like you too, Rainbow, but in my universe making love to another creature just isn’t looked too kindly uppon. Besides, I don’t know you enough yet.”

“Oh sorry I did that then…” Rainbow lowered her head, she was right, he denied her.

“Lucky for you we’re not in my universe.” Cole brought her chin up so he could look into her eyes and gave her a smile.

“You’re awesome already.” She replied in a small voice. A tear fell down her cheek out of joy that she could talk to someone who really cared for her. The next hours were the best of Dash’s life, she talked about how her dream was to one day be part of the Wonderbolts and how she loved to fly and loved the feel of adrenaline. Cole talked again about all of his adventures, this time he didn’t rush it, he was really enjoying talking to her. He loved to see the awe on Dash’s face and he felt the same when she told him about the incredible and death defying stunts she performed. Cole was extremely impressed when she told him of her sonic rainboom. Both Cole and Rainbow learned that they had more in common than they thought, they both loved the feel of adrenaline, they never had the best childhoods, they loved to go fast, they hid their true emotions, and they both loved the feeling of freedom when your flying.

Rainbow cuddled close to Cole, she loved the feeling of his hand under her wing, and the feeling of his thumb just slowly moving back and fourth on her side. She adored the feeling of her head against his chest and how she could faintly hear his heartbeat. Cole loved the feeling of her mane tickling his chin, it smelled of blueberries, the sound of her breathing, he loved the feeling of holding someone who actually cared for him, he never wanted to let go. But before Rainbow could make another move on her new love they both heard someone coming up the stairs. Cole looked down at Dash and said, “Quick act like you told me a joke.”

Dash looked at Cole and said with a confused look, “Why don’t you want her to see us like this?”

Dash made a good point; he then cuddled up to her and rested her on his lap.

Pinkie opened the door to see them in each others hands, and hooves, she said in a bubbly voice, “I didn’t know you liked each other, anyways come on you two lovers, it’s time for Colt to open his gifts.”

Downstairs all the ponies were watching eagerly as Cole opened his first gift from Twilight; it was a book on everything about Equestria, “Thanks Twilight!” Cole said with a big cheerful smile. He could just give the chief this instead of his notes. His next gift from Rarity was a hand crafted hat; Cole looked at the white unicorn with a smile and said, “Thanks, it looks comfy!”

“Oh dear, I used only the best material for that hat.” The white unicorn cooed.

Chapter 3: