The garden was particularly lovely this time of day. The sun shone brightly, it's radiance giving life to the various botanical species below. All manner of plants inhabited the garden. They were acclimatized to Canterlot's heights by extensive application of magic and professional care. The gardeners who tended to these plants were appointed for life and certainly worked hard to make sure the Royal Garden remained one of the most glorious sights in Equestria to behold.

There were also many species of animals that lived on the grounds of the garden. They were the reason Twilight Sparkle, apprentice to none other than the co-ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia, was spending her time there. The gardeners often imported exotic animals to accompany plants from their homelands. These creatures were often quite unique and had never before been seen in Equestria, Twilight had jumped on the chance to be the first one to study the newest batch from Saddle Arabia.

Said pony was currently sitting on her haunches under the cover of a shrubbery near the center of the garden, she wore a pith hat and held a notepad and quill in her lavender colored magic. She was currently staking out a particularly hard to find jackalope. It was said to be an extremely paranoid and shy creature, and so, without the assistance of her fateful animal expert, Fluttershy, she had to resort to hiding in an attempt to coax it out.

Silence reigned in her part of the garden, she had scheduled an appointment to close the grounds for several hours, enough time for her to study the creature in relative peace.

She had been sitting near motionless for more than thirty minutes when the creature finally showed itself, hopping along its merry way through the garden, oblivious to the pony now observing it. Twilight began scribbling frantically on her notepad, gathering such information as it's colour, fur, and even the length of its jumps, no information was too insignificant for the studious Twilight Sparkle.

Suddenly she felt a swift gust of air and a loud thud from behind her. The rabbit immediately bolted into the underbrush, disappearing from sight.

Groaning, she turned around to come face to face with a member of the Royal Guard, who were entrusted with guarding the Princesses of the Sun and Night. He was a Pegasus and appeared identical to all other members of the guard, thanks to the enchanted armor they wore. He bowed.

"Princess Twilight." He spoke with reverence, Twilight blushed, even though the rights of royal courtesy were afforded to her, as dictated by her horn and wings, signifying her ascension, she was still not used to being addressed as such.

"Uh... Hello, what do you need, Sir?" She responded with as much regal dignity as she could muster, which is to say, none whatsoever.

"Princess Celestia requests your presence at her personal chambers as soon as possible, I am to be your escort." He stated in a blunt, but professional manner. Twilight was immediately struck with concern. What could this mean? Did she do something wrong? She started thinking back to the decisions she'd made in the past few hours, none of which seemed to justify her mentor's wrath.

'Oh no! It was reserving the Royal Garden!' She thought. 'The Princess must have wanted to come out into the garden today. Now she's angry and she's going to renounce me as her prized pupil and then banish me to the moon, or-' Twilight's internal tangent was interrupted by the guard clearing his throat. She realized she'd been hyperventilating. She adopted a sheepish grin.

"A-alright, lead the way, Sir." The Pegasus guard nodded and took off into the sky without another word. Twilight pumped her wings and flew off after him. They had to fly very high up into the air, as Princess Celestia's chambers were in the tallest tower of the castle. As they climbed higher and higher over Canterlot, Princess Twilight observed the city, sometimes referred to as the most majestic city on Equus. Twilight, ever the historian, began to recall more and more of the ancient cities history as they rose.

More than one-thousand years ago, when the city was founded, the Princess had opted to build a small keep, surrounded by a high stone wall. This quickly overflowed with ponies, and so began one of the greatest construction projects in Equestrian history. An entire new quarter was erected. It eventually became known as the fashion sector, as it became home to the heart of Equestrian fashion, in the form of famous boutiques and residences of fashionistas.

Soon, however, this was not enough, as Canterlot reached its five-hundredth birthday two more quarters were constructed, one was now the heart of Equestrian culinary products, and the other became the major housing district. All the quarters were separated by thick stone walls, with several gates maintained and guarded to keep the flow through the city orderly. The wall to the outside of the keep was a work of structural perfection. Twenty meter high stone walls, at around three meters thickness, and magically reinforced, meant that even the most modern Equestrian siege cannons could not bring it down in even a hundred days of shelling. Twilight doubted that any weapon would ever be strong enough to pierce them, bar the magicks of the Princesses, of course. The outer wall had several towers and two massive gates to either edge of the great city, aptly named the Sun gate and Moon gate, respectively.

The keep the Princess had originally built had proven too small for the massive garrison required to keep order in the city, not to mention the Princesses growing palace staff and court. The original keep was now simply the entrance, to what was in Twilight's opinion, the greatest structure ever made. The Royal Palace towered over the rest of Canterlot. Built with several barracks capable of housing the entire city guard, and then some.

As a filly, Twilight had been constantly exploring the castle, during her adventures she would get lost quite often, only to be set back on a familiar path by a passing servant or guard. The palace also contained her two favorite places in the whole of Canterlot, the Royal Archives, which contained an endless sea of knowledge, which Twilight had happily spent most of her time in, and the place where Twilight was currently headed to. As Princess Celestia's personal student, Twilight had spent a great many nights by the fire inside the sun goddesses personal quarters. The room in question was know rapidly approaching as Twilight soared up and up towards the tower.

She slowed down and lightly landed on the balcony, her escort did the same a few seconds after. Seeing as the Princess had requested her presence immediately, she did not bother to knock as she stepped through the majestic and well-crafted stained glass doors of the balcony. She took a moment to enjoy the nostalgia and observed the room, it contained a fireplace with several cushions surrounding it, along with what seemed a pile of administrative paperwork Celestia hadn't gotten around to finishing.

She stepped further into the room, taking it all in, she hadn't been here in years, and now her old memories were coming back to her in full force. She considered sitting down on the cushions when the door to the inside of the tower opened. In walked... a strange creature.

Twilight gasped.

The being seemed nearly two meters tall. It was clearly bipedal. It had very little hair except for some on top of its head and under its strange nose. It resembled a monkey and wore khaki clothing over its upper and lower body. It had five-digit appendages instead of hooves. Glancing at its feet, Twilight realized, much to her horror, it wore leather boots.

Twilight cowered slightly, she had no idea who or what this creature was, or what it wanted. Her panic overcame her and she began to slowly back away towards the balcony door. The creature recovered from its own state of confusion and smiled, showing its white teeth. Twilight noted it had canines.

"Ello' there? Who er' you?" It spoke. Twilight was momentarily stunned but rejoiced. If it could talk, it could be reasoned with.

"H-hello t-there, I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle." In her nervousness, Twilight opted to refer to her appointed title. The reaction of the creature was almost instantaneous. Its feet snapped together as its entire body straightened out. It reminded Twilight of when her brother called guards to attention. Suddenly, it clicked, this being was a soldier, or representative of another race, conducting diplomatic negotiations with the Princess.

Twilight profited from the current situation by examining the creatures facial features. It seemed masculine. He had brown hair atop his head and a small mustache under his nose. He also had piercing blue eyes. Said eyes were staring directly at Twilight as she observed him.

Before any more could be said, the door opened again, with another creature, similar in size and appearance, except wearing some sort of cap, along with a sword attached to his belt. He had sandy blonde hair, along with soft brown eyes. Following this creature, was Twilight's beloved mentor, and ruler of the day, Princess Celestia. Twilight immediately bowed. She heard Princess Celestia lightly giggle.

"Now Twilight, I've told you time and time again that you no longer need to bow, you are my equal now." Twilight sheepishly stood back up, muttering an apology. She noticed the original creature in question had still not moved. The new creature followed her look and noticed the other creature still at some sort of position of attention.

"Sergeant Stalber, at ease." He, as he clearly had a masculine voice, spoke with calm authority in an accent resembling a Canterlot noble. The Sergeant immediately shifted into what Twilight assumed was a more natural position. Twilight now simply looked at Celestia with confusion, who in return gave her a small smile.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I requested your presence so urgently. This," She said, gesturing her wing towards the creature that had entered the room with her, "is Captain Williams, of the British Expeditionary Force. You seem to have already been acquainted with his subordinate, Sergeant Stalber."

Twilight looked between the three other beings in the room. Captain Williams spoke.

"Our gracious host has asked us to answer any questions you have regarding our race and history." Twilight grinned, this was something she knew how to do. In a poof of magic, she summoned her trusty notepad and quill and got to work.

"What are you?"

"I am a human."

"Where do you come from?"

"We hail from England, a part of the British Empire." Twilight had never heard of such a place.

"Where is that on Equus?"

"That... that's the problem, it isn't." This confused Twilight. "Her Highness, Princess Celestia, believes we originate from a different world entirely." This was a new subject for Twilight. Her studies pertained to worldly locations and histories, and while her skills as a scientist and mathematician were the talk of every Equestrian university, she rarely dabbled in theories of other worlds. She was slightly out of her league, not that she'd say so.

"Well, how is your world different to ours?" For some reason, he smiled.

"Where to start... well, our world is separated into several continents, whereas yours is one massive landmass, yours seems to have many creatures that were viewed as mythical in ours, including yourself, an alicorn. Most importantly, your nations seem to be separated on grounds of race, whereas humans are the only sentient beings on our planet, and are separated into multiple nations. Ah yes, we also have no magic."

"What?!" This response, Twilight felt, at least in her opinion, was completely justified. "How could you possess such finely made clothing without magic? How did your society develop? What about your medicine?" He smiled.

"Perseverance and ingenuity, we also possess hands and opposable thumbs, thus giving us a significant advantage over other species in development." Suddenly, Twilight had a rather curious realization.

"Why did your country send soldiers as envoys?" He shuffled awkwardly.

"We are... not sure how we got here, my company was marching off to the frontlines when we found ourselves marching through the fields of your beautiful country. I and one platoon of men were the first to arrive at this city, where we were graciously bid entry by your wonderful Princess."

"It was the only proper choice of action, I will always be hospitable with those who come seeking refuge." Princess Celestia interjected. Twilight decided to continue her questioning.

"How many of you are there?"

"I possess a company of men, consisting of three rifle platoons, forty men each, along with a headquarters section, of around twenty more men." Twilight quickly did the math, judging that they would require food and provisions for about one-hundred and forty souls. She thought to ask what exactly a 'rifle' was but realized there was a much more important question pertaining to his earlier answer.

"You said you and your company were marching to a frontline before you arrived here, what do you mean by that? Your country's border?" Instead of directly answering her, he countered her question with a query of his own.

"How long has it been since the nation of Equestria last went to war?" He asked, Celestia answered before Twilight could.

"The last time my lands officially went to war was exactly five-hundred and sixteen years ago." Nodding his thanks, the Captain turned back to Twilight.

"To answer your question, we were marching through a small allied nation named Belgium, to liberate it from foreign aggressors, their name being Germany, inhabited by Germans." This surprised Twilight, who was completely unacquainted with the concept of war. She couldn't fathom how their relative sameness had not led to cooperation instead of violence.

"T-that's all I can think of right now, I'd love to talk to some of your, uh, soldiers if you wouldn't mind?" Twilight wanted to find out about their culture, and the best way to do such would be to talk to as many different people as possible.

"That's perfectly reasonable, her Highness, Princess Celestia, told me you'd be appointed as official liaison between the British Empire and Equestria." Twilight was elated to find out her beloved mentor had bestowed upon her such an honour. She was terribly excited to begin.

Suddenly, successive knocking rang out from outside the door to the stairs of the tower, then it abruptly stopped and shouting could be heard through the doors. Celestia's horn glowed a golden hue and the door swung open. Revealing a third British soldier, yelling at a Royal Guard, who was barring his way, he immediately ceased when he realized the door was open. Captain Williams spoke.

"Corporal Walton, what is the meaning of this?" He demanded harshly. The soldier went to attention and gulped nervously before speaking.

"Sir, I'm carrying a report from Lieutenant Samson, t-the rear guard received c-contact from German forces!"

========

"Open fire!"

The entire rifle section began shooting at the grey-coated figures moving up the road in front of them. One of these soldiers was Private Jeffrey Conway, he held his rifle firmly, and fired rapidly at the quickly disappearing figures.

The shooting ended just as quickly as it began, the enemy having melted into cover. The ambush was a success. Moments before, the section, consisting of around ten men, who were acting as a rear guard to the company's column, came across several German soldiers approaching behind them. Their Lieutenant had reacted quickly and had the men lay down on either side of the road, in low ditches. Once the enemy soldiers were sufficiently in view, they fired.

At least two grey-clad figures were lying still on the road, the others having darted off to either side. This was the most worrying part because Conway had no idea how many enemy soldiers were going to follow those shots. He received his answer seconds later.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Conway flinched as the rounds snapped overhead. Several German riflemen were working their way up the ditches, while another group further back was trying to pin down the British defenders. After a sufficient lull in their fire, Conway moved to a crouching position and took aim down the length of the ditch, where he could see several soldiers reloading their rifles.

Crack.

A soldier fell backward, a halo of blood erupting from his forehead. The others flinched but kept reloading frantically.

Crack.

A second man slumped forward, face first into the mud. Another soldier, having lost his nerve, dived back into the brush, disappearing from view.

Crack.

A third was hit, he was bleeding from his left leg, his rifle loaded, he gritted his teeth and took aim at Conway.

Crack.

He flew backward, emitting a bloodcurdling cry, he rolled on the ground, clutching his stomach. Conway scanned across to the other ditch, he spotted a German officer, an obvious target with his cap and a sword in his left hand. He took aim, and as he did, he paled when he realized the officer was aiming at him with his pistol.

Crack.

Conway gasped as he fell over, his right shoulder, the one he rested his rifle on, burned terribly, his vision clouded with pain. He let his rifle fall to the ground and observed, only half conscious. He noticed his comrades had long since departed, the Lieutenant had probably called a withdrawal, which Conway hadn't noticed in his adrenaline-fueled shootout. It occurred to him that he was probably about to die. He wasn't particularly scared, just sorely disappointed, he had always worked hard as a soldier, and one lapse of attention had seemingly cost him his life. 'Oh well, at least I held them up long enough for my friends to make their escape' he thought morbidly. The sounds of boots crunching in the muddy ground beneath them rung in his ears. He rose himself to one knee, his rifle discarded.

He noticed the German officer who had shot him approaching, pistol in hand.

He looked closely at the officer, seeing him in detail for the first time. He wore a large sword fixed to his belt. He wore a officers grey trench coat. He had sandy blonde hair with greenish-brown eyes. He seemed to be smiling and spoke impeccable English.

"How brave of you, Tommy? Holding the line so your comrades could escape. It seems the war is over for you now." As Conway's vision began to fade, he noticed a huge influx of German soldiers heading down the road, the officer motioned for one to break out of their marching column and approach Conway, he had a crude red cross painted on his helmet.

Not the worst thing Conway could have seen before he fell into unconsciousness.

========

Major Strasser was having a bad day. No, a bad week at that. He'd been leading his battalion towards the front lines when a thick mist had fallen over the battlefield. This wasn't unusual, as artillery smoke and fire were often present from the fighting, however, this fog had been thick as soup, as Sergeant Uller had said. After it cleared and they had found themselves in a thick forest. Roll call had been made, and his entire battalion had seemingly been transported to a mystical world. A sentry had killed a large beast with several shots from his rifle. Doctor Wexer had said the thing resembled a manticore from ancient Persian lore, this... was somewhat concerning.

Worse still, their old adversaries the British had followed them into this strange land! They had been pursuing what seemed to be a small contingent of British troops for hours now, Strasser hadn't been very worried, his battalion was mostly composed of hardened veterans from Verdun, who could be depended upon to simply swamp any defense the British would put up. What annoyed him, he thought, was that the British continued to run North, deeper and deeper into this foreign territory, instead of accepting the futility of the situation. Nevertheless, they would run out of supplies, and then they would be smashed. Any deeper strategical thoughts were interrupted as a soldier approaching him caught his attention.

"Sir, Sergeant Uller, reporting.'' The fair-haired Sergeant had been in the NCO corps since before the war and was older than Strasser by at least a decade. He had pale blue eyes and very little hair, as he insisted on shaving it off whenever he had the chance. Major Strasser nodded his consent.

''Report, Sergeant."

"Two men killed, a handful wounded, we've captured that one Tommy you shot, Captain Wexer examined him, he says he'll live."

"Good, too many people have died already."

"And more still to come, I assume we are to resume the pursuit of the Tommies?" Strasser smiled.

"Of course, Sergeant, hitting their rearguard means we're about to catch up to the bastards. " The Sergeant nodded, as Strasser had forbidden saluting in the field, to not make officers a target for snipers, and set off to begin ordering the columns to reform. Strasser felt relieved to have such a fine soldier working for him.

He began to observe his surroundings more as they resumed their advance. The road was not paved nor surfaced, but was a mere muddy track, reminding him of the clogged roads of rainy Belgium. To either side of the road were small ditches, meant to collect rainwater. Past that, dense forest covered both sides of the road, this concentrated his forces, but also prevented the British from enveloping them. Where are you, Strasser? He wondered to himself.

A strange whirring sound made him come to his senses, it sounded eerily familiar... it was a plane engine! Several soldiers were already glancing around in the sky, pointing at this and that, trying to spot the aircraft. Strasser paled, if it was an enemy craft it would be able to strafe the column mercilessly, this wouldn't do. He was about to order everyone to go to ground and melt into the surrounding forests when a soldier finally spotted the aircraft.

"There it is! It's an Albatros!" The Major grinned. A German reconnaissance plane was exactly what he needed to pinpoint the retreating British soldiers. He jogged over to one of their caravan wagons, which was being towed by two large, brown coated stallions, and pulled out a flare gun and one round. He chambered it and fired straight into the air. While the color and brightness of the flare would be difficult to see on a bright sunny day, the whining sound was still quite noticeable.

The German plane immediately spotted it and banked, as it flew over the column, it waggled its wings, showing that it had seen them. A ragged cheer went up from the soldiers. However, they had no way to communicate with the plane, and the Major couldn't see how it could land. As if reading his thoughts, the plane banked around again and flew low over the road, so low that for a moment the Major thought he was going to land directly on top of them. Suddenly, the plane shifted left, hard. It disappeared over the canopy as it was descending. Major Strasser tensed, fully expecting to hear the sound of a mighty crash. When none came, he glanced over at two equally dumbfounded soldiers.

"You two, follow me."

"Yes, Sir!" He began pushing his way through the brush. Heading the way he had last seen the plane. The engine had sputtered and ceased, which indicated that the vehicle had made a successful landing. After less than fifty meters of pushing through thick brush, he fell forward. Both soldiers who followed him took care not to suffer the same fate, as they broke through the barrier of the forest, they gasped.

Pushing himself up, Strasser began to observe his surroundings. He was in a colorful field, full of flowers of all colors. He could see the plane had landed successfully, and the pilot was pacing around it to examine it for possible damage. What was breathtaking, however, was the massive castle he could see in the distance.

As it was some distance away, the amount of detail he could make out meant its size was staggering. It had massive spiral towers and the upper citadel seemed to have been built into the cliff face itself. He had seen large castles in his travels to the Austrian kingdom, but they never had been as majestic or massive in the scale that the one he was now looking at was. Shaking his head, he walked over to the pilot, who had finally noticed them. As the pilot removed his large scarf and goggles, the Major was surprised to see a familiar blond haired blue eyed face staring back at him.

"Jurgen?" He asked, not believing the coincidence.

"The very same," His brother replied, "I heard your battalion was moving off to the front, so I... borrowed this Albatros CX to do a little observation for you." The German Air Corps was almost entirely made out of aristocrats, and his brother had jumped at the chance to become what he called; 'A knight of the sky'. The Major had been entirely content to take a traditional commanding position in the infantry.

"Well, brother, now you're in this mess with us."

"That I am, have you seen that castle over there?!" He said, gesturing frantically at the massive structure in the distance. "I flew near it this morning, it seems to be populated with tiny horse creatures."

"Damn, brother, we killed a monster from ancient mythology yesterday, I believe we're no longer on earth as we know it anymore." His brother laughed and clapped his hands in joy.

"Good riddance! Now we can stop murdering each other."

"Heh, funny you should mention that, it seems the Tommies have beaten us here, we've already had several skirmishes with them." Jurgen frowned.

"Damn, not even new worlds will prevent us from shooting each other to death, will it?" He stated.

"Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with you." Jurgen began a detailed explanation of the direction the Major had to take to bring his battalion to the imposing fortress, perhaps the locals could help them with returning home. The Major gave his much-loved brother a cheery wave as he turned and returned to his men. Perhaps this world was a new beginning, maybe, once they'd defeated and disarmed the British soldiers, they could find peace in this new world.

Only time would tell.

Author's Note

And so it begins...