hard times

"NO! Not ponyville! Our children are there!" Twilight cried out as the rest of the group shared the same concern.
"Then we must act! I have extra hoof adapters if you would like to be able to shoot!" the commander said pulling out several mechanical spheres.
"YEAH! Gimme one of those babies! I want some payback for my wing!" Dash exclaimed.
"A lady does not dirty her hooves with grease and blood… however they do need to kick flank every once in a while. I will use my horn." Rarity proclaimed.
"Same here." Twilight said. Applejack had already been looking at the strange devices at this point, and was very interested.
"Uh… ya have anything a little more… bigger?"
"No problem. Sparta set Mrs Applejack here with a decimator M3 please. And you seem to actually have hands there youngling. You want a gun?"he said offering a flame painted assault rifle to Spike who had been hiding with rarity the whole time.
"Oh yeah… This works." He said aiming down the sights.
"Here you will need a side arm. I still have a hip strap… from my dimension. Heh, I never thought I would have to design saddlebags for the purpose of war… and what about you little one? Would you like one? Perhaps an assault pistol or maybe an SMG…" he said to flutter shy looking into his little device.
"Oh… no, I can't. I could never actually kill something…"
"Well, every assault team needs a medic! OK, and I will need to outfit the royal guards as well… Sam! Are you mobile?" he yelled to the mare that had been shot.
"Ugh… yeah. I'm just gonna shoot up some morphine, and I be right behind ya." She said pulling a Sarette out of her bag.
"Ok, Sparta, you stay here, guard the princess. We will go recover the town, and set up a base. We will radio you on our developments. How does the attack harness fit you Mrs. Apple?" he said to applejack that was testing the controls.
"Hmm, very interesting that's fer certain. It aims where I look."
"Good then its working. Well mares and gentlecolts, let's be going. Shadow, go ahead and find the relatives of our new friends. Soften up the defenses for us."
"Will do!" he said just before jumping out the window.
"Well he certainly is a brave one aint he?" Applejack said looking over the ledge." Fir simply smiled.

"The best." He said putting on his glasses.

Later they had outfitted a travel balloon to fit more, and room for supplies. They were going to ride it using cloud cover to hopefully get low enough to jump. Twilight looked to Fir, who was going over calibrations to the battle harness.
"So Commander… what was your dimension like?"
He stopped what he was doing and froze. He looked off into the distance and then took off his glasses.
"Do you dream, Miss Sparkle?"
"Well… of course. Every pony dreams."
"Well, I am not from any set dimension… after I tell you this, we never speak of it again… when I started, I had discovered that our dreams were glimpses into other dimensions. And I was not from the one I was in. I had my uncle create a strange device. It took me, literally through my mind, taking my imagination with me. I ended up in a dispatch center known a dimension ZERO. There I met all of the characters and villains of my imagination, and someone known as the door master. He understood my quest to find my home, and he sent me back to get one friend of my choice, for I was friends with many people whom had been misplaced. It broke my heart, but in the end chose my best friend, Brian. He and I then searched for our true home, however, the Door master said we had to spend year in every incorrect dimension we visited, as the intelligent species. We knew we weren't home when we visited, because, the "intelligent" species was intelligent, but not at all wise. War, theft, murder, every time. We spent years searching. Of course I had a daughter, and we made living by establishing the "dragon protection agency. Because there were dragons in every dimension we visited. We later learned that the dimension we sought featured all species, as they lived in harmony, with no conflict. That was my home. And I always sought it. We where close, when a week ago, there was a sudden rip in the dimension, and we were thrown into this one. Unfortunately it brought all of my old rivals here too, and I'm afraid I have doomed your dimension to a similar fate… you did not have proper technology to have too much harm befall each other… but now… all is lost… and I can never do anything to redeem myself." He looked off into the distance again as a tear ran down his cheek, and twilight put her hoof on his shoulder and gave him support. Meanwhile on the other side of the balloon spike sat on a crate looking off into the clouds as he polished his new found metallic pet. Rarity walked over to where she was, and sat down.
"I haven't seen you in a long time spike… you certainly grew!"
"Yeah… twilight told me I will never get very much bigger, because I was exposed to so much magic when I was hatched... I'm… sorry…"
"For what spike?"
"I'm sorry to hear about Red… I never liked him much… but I never wanted him… well… you know…"
"Its OK spike. What happened has happened has happened. It's not going to change."
"I'm sorry for leaving."
"What?"
"I never should have left. Even as you where getting married…"
"It's ok. Your heart was broken… it's understandable."
"…but I'm never going to leave you again."
"I wouldn't have it any other way." She said moving closer to him. When she did, he pulled her up closer and he put his hand on her shoulder, and they looked off into the clouds together…