Away From Home

The crazy taxi had arrived at its destination just outside the airport. Its door opened to reveal Graves and a rather excited Twilight.

As the young woman basked herself in the image, Graves turned around to give the driver his pay and immediately noticed the man staring at Twilight´s behind. Coughing to get the driver´s attention, Graves gave him a kill look, one which made the man inside the vehicle, quickly grab the money and press the accelerator.

Staying behind, the old general rolled his eyes at this action, ´not everyone is brave´ he thought.

Finally returning to the ´mission´ at hand, Graves turned around to spot Twilight waiting for him at the entrance, chatting with a policeman who looked rather spooked and eager to kill himself to avoid the former alicorn´s eternal talk. Graves couldn´t help but to release a thin smile at the scene. Making his way towards the agony scene, the man could start to make out part of the conversation.

“Did you know that the Louvre was originally a military fortress in the 13th century? No wonder why it is so big, it even has a Mc Donalds, even though I´m not really fond of the meat, nevertheless it also...”

“Skits?” Twilight stopped her ramble and turned to stare at Graves, a wide smile on her face. “You should really let the poor man do his job, unless you want to miss that plane.”

The young woman released a sheepish smile in response, while scratching the back of her head. “Ups! I kinda let myself go.”

Graves smiled. “You can let yourself go once we arrive, now lets move.” Twilight nodded in response and proceeded to enter the airport, Graves following behind. The man gave a side glance to notice the security guard giving him a silent thank you. Graves couldn´t blame him, he knew first hand what it was to become the primary target of Twilight´s speeches.

“We should really hurry, Skits.” Said Graves, as he finally caught on with Twilight, who gave him a weird look.

The former princess cocked her head to the side. “Why? We are still on time? Besides, we should really take the time to buy something for the flight, I heard the food cost aboard was getting high and you always get hungry once you are up in the air.”

“Nah! I eat before coming here and its not always that I get hungry in those situations.” Graves exclaimed, making Twilight roll her eyes.

“Don´t say I didn´t tell you.” The former alicorn replied, as she proceeded to head towards the cashier.

Behind her, Graves started his to make his way to the same spot, until he felt his belly betraying him. ´Damn it, Skits, you know me better than me´. He thought, as his gaze was shifter towards Twilight, who was still on the move.

The excited girl did nothing to control her emotions and ran wild towards the entrance. At last she would have the opportunity to meet France. However, she forgot about her companion, who raised his hand in an attempt to stop her.

“Skits, stop!” Thankfully for Graves, Twilight actually heard him and stopped in her tracks, instantly turning around to spot the man. “Maybe I should really get one of those snacks.” After hearing the words, Twilight released an amused look and crossed her arms, making Graves roll his eyes. “Yeah, yeah! You were right... As alw...”

BOOM!

Out of nowhere, a missile impacted against the airport´s ceiling, causing and expansion wave that obliterated several stores and most of the floor.

Twilight went flying away from the explosion´s sheer force and as soon as she dropped to the floor, her conscious did its best to betray her and force her into slumber, however, a distant voice would keep her from the dark.

“Skits!” Graves found himself struggling against the debris, pushing away metal and stone. He had much to think about what had just happened, about te several bodies on the floor and the many people running away from something, however, in his mind was the safety of his girl. “Skits!” He tried again and same as last time, no response came. Even at his age, the general still managed to use his strength at its fullest and even though he was getting tired, he cared more about finding her. Finally, managing to jump some of the debris, Graves found the young girl, instantly shouting at the top of his lungs. “Twilight!”

The former princess did her best to raise her head, but she was too banged up to move, thankfully for her, a pair of arms grabbed her. “Twilight, answer me!” She blinked, trying to stay in reality. “Twilight!”

Finally, she managed to utter. “I´m okay.”

“Stay put, I´m going to a way out.”

The former princess barely nodded with her head and soon after, she felt her body raising, as she was being carried by Graves, who had just started to move, searching for an exit from the now the demolished place. Outside, several sounds of explosions could be heard, making the then a peaceful place, a hellish war.

Graves stopped in his tracks, trying to get a sense of direction, then as soon as he saw a possible way, his eyes turned to stare at Twilight. “We´re almost out, stay conscious.”

The run continued and step after step, Graves was getting closer to a huge hole on the wall. The old man kept running until he heard another explosion several meters behind him, followed by the sounds of weapons being fired. Taking a moment to look at the source, Graves tried to get a look at what was happening, sadly for him, another close explosions would force him to continue.

On the way, he was beginning to make assumptions about what was happening and his face gave away a grim expression, trying to negate the answer he was almost sure of ´not again, not now!´ he thought.

Soon enough, Graves found his way towards the hole and stepped outside, Twilight in his arms. He wide opened his eyes...

They had returned.

There weren´t only a few cruisers, it was a whole fleet towering and shadowing the city. Multiple ships went out of the enormous frigates, attacking and destroying everything in their path.

The sounds of blasters and shotguns resounded across the streets and it was just a matter of time before the EDF arrived. He had to get Twilight to safety in the mean time, then take control of every soldier available to counter attack the invasion. ´Invasion´ Graves thought, not exactly being a word he would have liked to use or hear again.

Soon, his train of thoughts were cut short again by several pig snorts getting closer to his position. Not wasting any moment, Graves saw a clear path amidst the shattered streets and away from the human carnage ensuing in that moment.

Making haste, the general stepped down the airport´s stairs and ran towards the bridge, where the debris made a cave-like area under it.

It was almost comical, he had been talking about this ´impossibility´ just yesterday and now, here he was, running away for what he hopped he would never see again.

Soon enough, Graves made his way towards the bridge and entered the debris cave, then placed Twilight down and proceeded to take a peak outside.

Bzz... gene...bzz... general?”

Graves´ radio tuned in a transmission, something the man made thank himself for having brought his radio communicator. Quickly picking it up, Graves spoke to the transmission. “This is Graves.”

“General, the EDF its on... bzz... Way, rendezvous point outside the Duke burger tower!”

Graves grunted. “Can´t you arrive at the airport?”

“Bzz... Negative... Bzz...ral, section´s too crowded for our choppers to land.”

“Great!” Graves replied, taking a few deep breaths after. He didn´t care about risking himself with a little action, but he didn´t Twilight hurt either. Taking one look at the hurt young woman, Graves sighed then returned to the transmission. “Very well, how long we have before you arrive?”

“Bzz... Three hours at best.”

“Understood, on my way now.” With those last words, Graves ended the communication and walked towards Twilight´s place, positioning himself on one knee. “Skits?”

The girl barely lifted her head and released a thin smile. “Have we arrived to France yet? That flight was sure a blast.”

The man couldn´t help but to release a small chuckle at Twilight´s response. “Good to see your sense of humor is still working.” His expression turned serious. “But I also hope your guts are still in place, because we´re about to have a suicide travel.”

Twilight sighed. It had been shaping up to be a great week, a week to relax herself and keep her thoughts away as possible from her and although she now had a reason to keep her thoughts in check, it wasn´t exactly the kind of thing she had been expecting to happen.

In the past, Twilight had only seen a few illustrations and a couple of stories about these invaders, and from what she learned, the former princess didn´t exactly have any wish to meet them.

She knew about Earth´ close collapse and massive destruction, she remembered the first time she appeared in this world, seeing the several pigcop´s and assault trooper´s corpses lying on the floor, mixed with many unrecognizable limbs of both EDF soldiers and what Graves loved to call ´lizard bastards´.

She wasn´t exactly sensible to this type of brutality, but then again, she had never seen anything even remotely close back in Equestria. ´Equestria´ Twilight thought, her mind flashing images of her past life, she was thankful none of her friends were living what she was about to go through now.

“Skits?” Graves´ voice interrupted Twilight´s thoughts, bringing her back to reality. “Skits, I need you to focus and recover your strength, we are heading towards the Duke burger tower, there will be a chopper there waiting for us.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, several screams followed by an explosion, scared the young girl, who gave a terrified look at the cave´s entrance. “Do not worry about it, just follow my lead and we´ll be safe sooner than you think.”

“Didn´t they almost destroyed the entire planet before?” Twilight asked, making Graves sigh in response.

She was right, they were not going to be exactly safe, even at the EDF´s hands, but still, they now had the technological advancements to fight back. “The human race is not weak, Skits and now you are part of it,” he got up and handed one hand to Twilight, who looked at him with a grim expression, “trust in me.”

Sighing, while grabbing the general´s hand, Twilight got up. “I hate war.”

Graves chuckled. “War hates you.” Twilight rolled her eyes in response.

Setting foot at the entrance of the debris cave, Graves took a peek at the outside. The sounds of explosions and shootings were still audible, but they seemed to be far away from their current position. The general looked from left to right and as soon as he noticed there were no enemies close by, he motioned for Twilight to follow him.

“Listen, Skits.” Graves said. “We head towards towards the Lady Killer casino to resupply, and from there, Duke burger should be just up ahead. We should probable head to the parking lot, grab the car and head to our destination.”

“Isn´t grabbing a car a way to ask for their attention?”

Graves sighed. “I know, it´s a risky move, but the faster we arrive the better, I´ll try not to take the most dangerous paths, but if it comes to it, we´ll have to travel by foot.”

As the general kept seeing for any oncoming danger, Twilight lowered her head. “I can´t believe this is happening.” It all had happened rather quickly and there was very little time for her to react, plus, the adrenaline was still going strong, as for now, they had to make it towards the rendezvous point.

Graves understood this, sure, Twilight claimed she had been through these kind of situations before, be he was sure as hell she had never lived anything like she was about to. Still, for him, this was all surreal, there wasn´t any indication of an upcoming attack, and the actions of a certain man had left a pretty deep hole in the invader´s forces, but then again, everything was possible in this horrible reality called life. “Try not to think about it, for now we only need to arrive to Duke burger.”

“Ugh! Duke dome, Duke burger, why does this guy keeps naming things after him? Talking about an ego boost.”

Graves chuckled. “You have no idea.” His stare went from the empty street to Twilight and released a concerned look. “How are you feeling, Skits?”

The young woman rubbed her back and gave away a painful expression. “Been worse, but I can manage.”

He nodded in response, then looked once more outside the bridge. “Come on.”

At a rather quick pace,the two of them went out of their hiding spot and made their way towards another small mountain of rubble, where both Graves and Twilight settled in order to search for any hostiles. The former princess wasn´t exactly made with war material but she wasn´t a helpless damsel in distress either, still, always relying on magic or science made her less adept to the kind of travel she was about to have, thankfully for her, Graves was right alongside her.

The general took a peek out of cover, then took notice of the parking lot up ahead, noticing some kind of movement around the several cars either destroyed or simply forgotten, then spotted his own vehicle.

Graves turned to look at Twilight and motioned with his head to follow him, making their way closer to the lot.

Oink!

The sound, even though, it didn´t caught Graves by surprise, it had certainly been enough to stop his advance mid way, action followed by Twilight, who hid alongside the man behind a tall column.

From there, Graves spotted two pig cops fucking around the several cars, then turned his gaze towards Twilight. “Stay here, I need a weapon.”

The former princess did not answer, instead giving the man a concerned look, one which Graves did not take into consideration. Just as he was about to head towards the couple of pig cops, Twilight grabbed his arm, silently asking him not to go. Graves grabbed Twilight´s hand. “I´ll be right back, don´t worry, I´m not as old as you make me out to be.”

Twilight tried to argue, but the man was already on his way, with the only thing she could do, being watch the scene.

Slowly approaching the pig cops, Graves watched his surroundings, quickly finding a sharp metal part of a car. Seizing it, he made his way behind on of the invaders, who were looking around for survivors. It was a good thing both of them were giving Graves their back, made things easier for him.

Once he was a few feet away from one of them, the man used the metal part and penetrated the pig cop´s throat with it. It screams and squeals of pain alerted his partner, who wasted no time to look behind him, sadly for the pig cop, Graves was already armed with a shotgun and fired directly into the alien´s face, painting the floor red with the pig´s blood. He gave one look around him, searching for any other kind of danger and once he saw there was none, Graves returned to the place he left Twilight.

On her part, the former princess had witnessed the whole scene. It was hard for her seeing the man that had kept her safe and had given her a place in this world, doing this horrible things, still, she knew Earth had a history of numerous violent wars, but she never imagined something as gruesome as this. Maybe reality did surpass fiction.

Back in Equestria, even the most horrible villains were spared, but unlike them, here, these enemies would not hold back.

“Skits, come on, we have to move.” Graves´ voice interrupted Twilight´s train of thoughts again and proceeded to follow the man towards the parking lot.

On their way, she took a look at the two killed pig cops. “Did you really have to that to them?”
Graves lifted one eyebrow. “Maybe I could have gave them a hug, a bunch of flowers and invited them to have a margarita at Disneyland, I mean, it´s not like they could have killed us at the first moment they got.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay! I got the sarcasm, its just that... Nevermind.”

Graves placed his hand over her shoulder, calming her nerves. “I know this is new to you, but these guys aren´t joking around, right now the situation has turned into ´kill or be killed´.”

The former princess sighed in response. Graves was right, but still, she couldn´t shrug of the feeling that all of these was starting to affect her. It was in these moments, were she just simply missed her home. “I just... I just wish there was another option to achieve peace.”

Graves turned around to head towards the car, then gave a deep sigh. “We all wish the same, Skits, but Earth has does not work with friendship.”

Twilight begged to disagree, for her, it didn´t matter what world it was, friendship would always be the highest power.

Just as Graves opened the car, Twilight took the time to inspect the two bodies, taking notice of their features and complexion. Even though, it was a gruesome scene, she was still fascinated with meeting new life and maybe. She took notice of the pair of mouth horns, the pig-like head and their body muscles.

“Skits! Come on, we have to go!” Screamed Graves from the already running car.

Without a second thought, Twilight stopped her studies on the two fresh corpses and proceeded to stepped into the vehicle. Not too long after, the old man pushed the accelerator, sending both of them towards their destination.

The car flew past the airport´s entrance and towards the streets of the city.

It wasn´t too long before silence endured inside the vehicle, the sounds of war threatening to shatter the windows, regardless, the only thing that mattered, was arriving safely.

Taking a peek outside the vehicle, Twilight noticed the several dead bodies lying around the destroyed streets, adorning the ground with a red carpet made of blood. Several limbs were scattered, sad reminder of a brutal death. Twilight couldn´t but to grimace, her body flinching once she witnessed one of these scenes.

How many of these people had families? How many could have been her friends? She tried not to think about it any longer and directed her gaze towards Graves, who had the eyes on the road.

He had placed his shotgun just alongside him, just in case something happened. Not that it surprised her greatly, but the mere fact that his face showed almost no expression made her wonder the kind of things he had gone through. Graves surely had a lot of experience in the matter, no wonder his soldiers held him in high regard, yet it was depressing to see how one man could carry all that weight and still be able to smile.

Finally, Twilight cleared her throat to speak. “Did the same thing happen the last time they came?”

Graves gave a quick glance at the former princess, before returning his sight towards the road, then sighed. “Almost.”

“Why do you mean by ´almost´?” Twilight asked.

Graves inhaled deeply, formulating the words in his mind, as he took a look on the outside, noticing death surrounding them. “They have never been this brutal.” This got Twilight´s attention, who fixated her perplex stare into the old man. “Years ago, their initial intention was to steal every woman in the world and use them as a source to breed their kind,” he gave a side glance at the streets, “but now, it seems they only seek to annihilate us, maybe they got tired.”

“Tired?” Asked Twilight.

“Time and time again we kicked their asses and the last time we forced them out of our planet, it looked like they had just given up.” Graves sighed. “Guess we were wrong.”

It was a fact, Graves found himself surprised upon analyzing the words in his mind. They (humans) were originally used to help them expand, nothing more, but they had just passed from being alien food to a true threat. Graves didn´t like this a single bit, if in the past the losses were major, he didn´t want to think about what this could mean now. These aliens were not fucking around anymore and for all the weapons they had created, they still needed the ace in the hole.

For Twilight, she had seen invasions before, amounts of Changelings swarming a certain kingdom, but she had never been witness to the kind of brutality these aliens provided. The Changelings paled in comparison to these invaders and she shuddered to think what could happen if they were to invade her world. However, for much of a threat they posed, the EDF had grown enough to withstand another attack.

“Aren´t we going to be able to repel them? We have advanced so much since then.” Twilight asked, getting a chuckle from Graves.

“You have made those advancements possible, Skits, but while we have the firepower to protect ourselves, I fear their change in tactics may be enough for us to even the odds.”

Twilight gave a perplexed look. She knew the organization held many secret weapons, she had seen all of them, yet Graves seemed to be talking about something she had never seen before. What kind of super weapon he could have under key? “How?” She finally asked, trying to uncover this new mystery and thankfully for her, Graves was more than happy to answer.

Releasing a somewhat suspicious smile, the man cleared his throat. “As soon as we arrive, I´m going to round up the forces, then... I will contact him.”

Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Who?”

Graves released a smile. “You´ll see.”