The Return of the Spork (***)

"Amidst the blue skies, a link from past to future, the sheltering wings of the protector..."

-Hint in Ace Combat: Distant Thunder

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Spork sat on a bench at the trainstation of Canterlot, reading a newspaper. He and Luna were having a date around eleven o'clock, but at first she must return from a meeting with the delegation of the zebras.

A train halted with a screech and a crowd of ponies and other mammals were exiting from the wagons. However, a weird sight caught Spork's attention.

A group of humans walked along with the ponies and stopped just next to the suspecting Spork, who had narrowed his eyes at the leader of the group.

"Spork..." the man said.

"Ta..." Spork wanted to announce his enemy's name, too, but then he drew out his Berretta and shot the man in the head as he was trying to draw out his UZI. The man fell over and sprayed his life juice on the ground. The other humans were drawing out their weapons, mostly MG42s, but Spork performed a wallrun and took them out one by the other.

The last shot ricosheted from the walls and hit a pony in the stomach. With a echoing "EEEEEAAAAARGHH!!!" it fell over and died. Seeing one of their people die, all ponies went nuts and started to scream histerically. Somehow a fire in a bin erupted and firefighter ponies came by and tried to extinguish the fire with a hose, but the hose had too much pressure and hurled the ponies at the walls where they left nasty bloody stains as they exploded like waterballons. Blood rained upon the floor. This caused almost all ponies to slip and they slided across the ground and caused more chaos than Bambi on ice.

As the ponies spun like crazy like breakdancers, a manticore came out of one of the wagons and roared, before it took off and ate the moon because it was made of swiss cheese.

"Look, the new princess!" a pony announced who slid through between dimensions.

A beige beautiful alicorn with long deep red mane and tail stepped out from a wagon and galloped through the station, safely surrounded by a group of Royal Guards. A griffon with a bomb vest suddenly landed onto the ground and ran up to them while "Lalalala"-ing like these blokes in Postal 2.

Spork quickly took him out by shooting him in the head. The alicorn and the royal guards resumed their way unharmed. But it was the last shot he had and the slide of his Berretta slid off and shot past his head where it embedded itself into a wall. Shrugging, he switched to his primary weapon, the Patriot.

"And look again, the Changelings want some love!"

A swarm of Changeling drones swarmed out of the same train while firing wildly with X95's and OICW's in their magical grasps. Even the Changeling queen participated to the unfolding mess as she stamped holes everywhere with a russian RPK. How ironic. Then all of them slipped on the empty bullet casings which lay on the ground and they exploded in a green gory mess as they fell like heroes.

"And the Cloakers want to coexist with the population of Equestria!"

Windows shattered, vents broke open and a police truck crashed into a nearby horseshoe store as hundreds of hundreds of Cloakers rushed down the trainstation to Canterlot. They started to kick everything in their wake, even the fully grown manticore proved no match for the corrupt bipedals.

Spork did his best and killed as many Cloakers as possible with his trusted Patriot. But the police assault would not die down, more crazy Changelings swarmed in and soon it was too much to handle for the soldier...

"What the fuck is going on?!" he screamed.

Spork's body was not in agony as he awoke with a gasp and found himself in a hospital, the place for every little or big diseases or horror environments in videogames. He slumped back in his bed and thought about what just had transpired yesterday.

He somehow ended up in this technicolored world, where almost no single pony was wearing anything. And then Luna almost killed him by giving him "splendid and useful moonshine". Pushing the button to call a nurse, he was surprised when a doctor pony came in. The doctor made his way to the bed, then climbed over Spork's bed, stomped on the human's tummy and down to the right side of the bed so he was always right, no matter what Spork would say.

"You sir, suffered major damage to the stomach and interior organs. Good luck we could stop the internal bleeding and knot all veins. However, there are two things..." the doctor reared up and placed his forehooves on the edge of Spork's bed.

"And?"

"Just what the fuck where you thinking? We found remnants of Natriumcyanide in your tummy! Do you were drinking moonshine like a boss?"

"Yes..." Spork lowered his head in shame.

"And second thing... we couldn't find any data in Equestria's files according to you. It's like you're illegal." the doctor said and narrowed his eyes.

"Whoopsie-Doopsie."

The doctor narrowed his eyes and crouched down. He found the button he was searching for and pushed it. Suddenly, Spork was launched out of the bed and out of a window. He fell down somewhere in a dirty alleyway, which reminded him much of his home in his childhood. He brushed the dust off and checked for his body.

Still 89% HP left. That should do the day.

So he just walked his way to the castle back where his plane was waiting for him.

"La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo, La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo."  Spork sang happily as he frolicked through the streets of Canterlot. Many noble stallions were giving him the equestria equavalent to a human's middlefinger by holding their right foreleg up in a ninety degree angle and putting their other foreleg into the nap of this leg. They did this because he was walking on two legs, how monstrous.

After a while, he noticed a rather large group of ponies gathered in front of a single house. The day was young, so he walked to the ponies to get a piece of whatever action lay in front of him. As he advanced, he could see that all of them were dressed in ballistic vests and carried firearms in their magical grasp. Whose crazy idea to arm ponies with firearms was a complete moron!

The group of heavily armed ponies were none others than from the newly formed SPAT, the Special Ponies And Tactics. A whole platoon has surrounded a single building in Canterlot  and pointing with Glock 18c's, US SOCOMS, SPAS-12's, Barret M82A1s and XM16E1s from their covers.

"What's going on here?" Spork asked, more for himself.

His question has been heard by the leader of the SPAT. He was a athletic yellow unicorn with a stubby mustache: "A Barricaded Suspect Situation. We think that a spiteful Changeling has hidden himself in the building." then he reached a hoof out. "Sonny Bonds, founder of SPAT."

Spork took the offered hoof. "Spork, US army pilot. What are you going to do now?"

The unicorn pointed at a group of four armed unicorns "These four are preparing an tactical entry. If the Changeling does not come out within the next five minutes, they will storm the building and kill it."

"And what if the Changeling surrenders and come out of it's own?"

"We will kill it, too."

Spork gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. "Nice." then he walked up to a random SPAT member, who held a KRISS Vector in it's magical glow. He read the name from the pony's vest and it was 'Silver Vest'. How funny. He walked up behind the pony and gave a slap at it's musculous flanks: "Whazzup, soldier?"

The pony was startled by this and started to fire uncontrollably with the submachinegun, and after a few moments, all SPAT ponies with a firearm were joining in into the orchestra of thunderclaps. The house and it's surroundings were ventilated by 9mm, .45 ACP, 5.56 NATO, .50 BMG rounds and 12g-slugshots and was soon equivalent to a Changeling's leg or swiss cheese.

Then everypony paused to reload. Empty magazines fell out, new ones were pushed in, slides were pushed back/boltcatchers were released and all were firing again and Spork wished that Luna did not have had field-stripped his sidearm.

"CEASE FIRE!" Sonny shouted through a megaphone.

His little ones did not react and even started to throw white-phosphorous-grenades at the single house. The front side of the house went up in flames and some ponies inhaled the white phosphorous' toxic smoke. All of them started to wretch and vomited up their twitching mass of organs, before they fell over dead. And of course, it was the Changeling's fault.

"I SAID CEASE FIRE YOU DICKFACE!" Sonny shouted into the pony's ear who started the whole scene.

"HoW dO I QuICKScOPe?!" Silver Vest shrieked in response and resumed firing.

"YOU CAN'T QUICKSCOPE WITH A SUBMACHINEGUN! IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A SCOPE!"

"Oh, you're right!" Silver exclaimed, then he field stripped his KRISS Vector and knocked himself out by bashing his head against the ground.

"TOC, this is TOC. Officer Vest is down!" Sonny Bonds reported to himself. "Acknowledged, proceed with caution, lol."

Then he pulled all the pins of the grenades which were in Silver Vest's pockets, before he picked his body up and threw it at the house. "Fire in the hole!"

*KA-BOOM!*

The house was finally swallowed in a giant fireball as a menacing mushroom cloud descended up into the sky of Canterlot. Debris shot everywhere and a few ponies were skewered, but like always, the Changelings were held responsible for this.

Sonny Bonds gasped, then he activated the radio. "Entry team, make entry into the house. The Changeling killed some of my harem... I mean, of my team!"

The four armored unicorns nodded, before they hurried to the freed doorframe of the house. Well, they could have just walk past it, but they were pros, so they knew what they were doing. As they walked, they carried their weapons in their mouths or dragged them behind by their straps. Soon they arrived at the doorframe and cs-stacked up on each other. For extra caution, the teamleader ordered "Open, bang and clear!"

The lowest officer nodded and drew out a flashbang from his pocket. He threw it, without arming it, into the room and shouted "BANG!".

"Go go go!" the leader shouted and they rushed into the house, which lacked all of it's walls. The lowest and second-lowest ponies managed to fit through the doorframe, but the other two smashed their heads at some remaining bricks and fell down, dead.

"Plate, it's clear!" the pony announced his second name for a dramatic effect after he spun around a few times.

"Ferrum, the house is clear! TOC, no trace of the Changeling!" the pony named after the element shouted.

"Damn... this vile creature managed to escape!" Sonny Bonds gritted his teeth in anger, then he sighed in defeat. "Okay guys, clean this mess up."

The two remaining ponies of the brave entry team field stripped their weapons and threw the various parts in random directions, then they walked out of the house. Golden Plate's eyes then fell on a sign which stood on a lawn. He squinted his eyes to read the letters...

"F...o...r... S...a...l...e... hm, don't have any clue..." Plate shrugged and walked up to Spork, who was still rubbing his eyes from the effects of the flashbang.

"Are you alright?" Plate asked.

Spork blinked and looked around. The blindness was slowly wearing off and he could see black and white once again.

"Yes, m'fine..." he looked down at Plate. "What now?"

"What now?! What now?!" Sonny Bonds cried out. "Thirteen of my precious stallions died today in a full-blown shootout with a Changeling, and all you say is 'What now?'?!"

"What else I should say?" Spork put his hands at his hips.

The unicorn favehooved. "You could instead help us to find the Changeling... and kill it."

Spork raised an eyebrow. All those ponies are talking about how bad the Changelings are. But most of it sounds like they don't have any idea and just say something which could have come out of a child's nightmare.

"No sorry, man. I think I make my own opinion about the supposedly 'evil' Changelings." Spork said, before he walked his way to a library.

"YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH! CHANGELINGS ARE EVIL AND SHALL BE ERASED FROM THE FACE OF THIS PLANET! LOWER THE TAXES! FREEDOM FOR ENDLESS NIGHTMARES! INCREASE FERTILITY TO GIVE BIRTH TO MORE COLTS!" Sonny Bonds shouted after the human and earned an middle-finger. The pony sighed and looked to his comrades. "Any ideas?"

"To find a Changeling, you must think like one of'em!" Golden Plate quipped, before he bucked over his comrade Ferrum and started to suck vigirously on his mate's "nightstick".

In the hive:

A sleepy looking Chrysalis stumbled out of her room and to the direction of the kitchen. Her mother Queen Thorax was already having breakfast and drank some coffee. The Mother Changeling was slightly taller than Chrysalis. She had a short turqoise mane which she had tied back into a bun and her reptilian eyes were a seablue.

"Good morning, mom." Chrysalis said with a smile as she sat down upon her seat.

"Morning, Sweetheart." Thorax said without looking up, her eyes were fixed to the newspapers in front of her. Chrysalis' little sister Polly was sitting in a chair for foals and currently eating Kellog's Frosties. Polly was a little Youngling, five years old and she had curly violet mane and eyes. As she saw her big sister, she smiled widely as she extended her cute little legs to the direction of her sister and waved them around "Polly wants piggyback!"

Chrysalis rolled her eyes, but picked her little sister up with her magic nonetheless and sat her down onto her shoulders, before she lightly galloped through the kitchen. Polly giggled cutely and embraced her big sister's neck to hold thight. Thorax watched them and smiled in amusement. After a while, the bigger sister stopped the ride and sat Polly down onto her chair carefully, before she kissed her cheek lightly. The foal "Eeew"-ed and rubbed the damp place on her skin. Changelings can harden their skin through willpower, but now Polly's skin was soft akin to a baby's butt.

"You are so sweet when you take care of your little sister." Thorax said with a warm smile "Come and give your Big Mama a hug."

Her older daughter did not hesitate and walked up to her mother to give her a carapace crushing hug. Thorax stroked Chrysalis' head and said "It aches me to see you growing up so fast. But whatever, you will always be my little beautiful Chrissy."

"Mom, please, you embarrass me with that name..." she answered with a hidden smile. Actually, she liked her nickname. It had a nice ring to it.

Then her eyes fell on a title in the newspaper...

HAIRLESS APE AKA. HUMAN IN A PLANE LANDED IN EQUESTRIA. SCIENCE GO NUTS!

"The human needs a plane to fly? Pf, what a loser. We have wings..." she thought, but then she spotted the photo underneath the title. It showed Spork next to his plane. She kept staring and staring...

Thorax, however, noticed the look in her daughter's face... and she could swear she saw hearts in her big green eyes.

"Oh no, please. Do NOT start a full scaled invasion again because you find someone cute!"

"But mom! It was not my fault that Shining rejected me for the pink flank and I got jealous..." Chrysalis pouted.

"You almost got hurt!" Thorax retorted "And then you tried to convert a mare! I was so worried about you. Polly was worried about you! She kept asking where her big sister was all the time!"

"I already said I was sorry!" Chrysalis was raising her voice...

"Stop fighting!" Polly suddenly shouted.

Thorax and Chrysalis were looking at the little Changeling foal in surprise, then back at each other...

"I'm sorry I brought out things from the past..." Thorax whispered as she embraced Chrysalis. She hugged back and apoligized, too "And I'm sorry for yelling..."

Polly crawled out of her seat, over the table to her mama and sister and snuggled in between them in. They stayed like this for a short time, before they separated and each one returned to their seats.

"Okay sweety, how about this. You sneak to Canterlot later, meet the human... and please, just talk to him. Just talk. Nothing else. If he rejects you, then he is not worth your attention. Just come back without doing anything regretful. Okay?"

"Okay mom. Thanks for the advice!" she said as she stood up.

"Where are you going now?" Thorax asked surprised. Polly pouted at watching her sister leaving "Please don't leave yet, Chrissy..."

Chrysalis turned and gave her little sister a kiss on the forehead and stroked her violet hair "I will be back for supper. Then I will read a book with you before we go to bed, okay?"

Polly smiled gleefully and wrapped her forelegs around Chrysalis' head "You are the greatest sis a youngling could ever dream of!"

However, Chrysalis still had to go. She made a few breads with butter, ham and holey cheese for herself and put them into a Tupperware® box, before she trotted out of the kitchen.

"One or two things, sweety," Thorax said after her daughter "If somebody offers you a pill with a smiley on it, don't take it. And secondly, do not take anyling with you. You may be a Royal Changeling, but I'm a Mother Changeling. And this makes me the Big Boss of the hive."

(Randomness generator back to 100%...)

"Don't teach me things, mom. I can take care of myself!" Chrysalis shouted over her shoulder, before she suddenly yelped and fell down a set of stairs.

*thump!* *thump!* *thump!*

"Oooh, I can hear that!" Thorax shouted back. Polly howled in laughter and milk was spilling out from her nose. They heard Chrysalis getting back on her legs and grumbling "Haha, very funny."

Funquestion, what is more life-threatening? A Changeling? Or when you sit in a driving bus and it's brakes are failing?

Canterlot Castle, Bathrooms, a few hours later:

Luna was sitting in her bathtube and was washing herself as she thought about the situation which enfolded yesterday. A hairless ape in a somewhat weird plane landed in the royal garden and called himself Spork. What an odd name. And it appeared that he was poorly trained in CQC-E. She even left herself open after she field stripped his firearm, but no, he just stood there like the idiot he was.

Her thoughts were interrupted as suddenly a paperplane glided in through one of the open windows. And someone from outside made the fitting sounds with his mouth...

"NIIIIIIIEEEEEEUUUUUUH!"

Luna followed the paperplane with her eyes as it flew around her one time, before it stopped in mid-air and turned to her favourite rubber-duck...

"TATATATATATATATA! KABOOM!"

The paperplane then resumed it's tour and glided out of the window.

Without any warning, her rubber duck exploded in yellowish tiny debris. Remnants of a once proud orange beak landed on Luna's snout.

"Donald..." a tear fell from her eyes, before she growled and stepped out of the tube. She shook herself like a dog, then she trotted to the window...

Spork stood outside and waved up to her. "Hello princess!"

Luna only silently glared down at him. "Just wait until we got thine flanks..."

A little while later, and Luna and her sister, along with Twilight, arrived at the royal garden. Spork was already in his plane and the computer's antivirus app checked if it received any virus, trojans or worms during the night. Safe is safe.

"So Spork, thou dares to step on our land once again..." Luna said darkly, but was hushed by Celestia "Stop talking to him like that, he is still our guest."

"But we wish to find a reason to knock him out by throwing him onto the ground..." Luna pouted embarrassed.

"This doesn't even make any sense..." the elder sister replied, then she turned to the pilot "Hello Spork, it's good to see you in one piece again."

The pilot smiled. "Thanks for asking. And yes, I feel like my good old self aga-"

A loud thump stopped him and everyone was looking for the source of the sound. Celestia looked quickly at Luna "Sister, did you put someone into a closet again?"

"That was only one time, we swear! It's Blueblood again!" she pointed at the most hated pony in all of Equestria, after Chrysalis of course, who was sneaking around a tree and slammed his head against it every once in a while.

"What are you doing, Blueblood? It looks very confusing." Celestia asked as she cocked her head to the side.

Blueblood slammed his head against the tree once more before answering "I'm just wondering if I could fuck this tree. It can't run away or so."

Celestia scrunched up her face and looked away in disgust. This was definitely more gross than a Changeling. But no one liked Blueblood, so he was forced to spend time in the royal garden when he was having his five minutes again.

"Carry on, I guess..." she said and looked back to Spork, who was still staring at Blueblood's attempts to find a proper hole.

"Ooh, this looks like fun!" Twilight cried, then she hurried over to the prince and bashed her head against the tree's trunk, too.

"You'll get used to it. Just ignore it..." Celestia said pained as Spork's expression deepened.

Spork shook his head. "These ponies need professional help..."

To change topic, Celestia soared up and landed on the plane. She stuck her head inside the canopy and was in awe at the various instruments...

"... this is for sure a complex machine. How do you even control this machinery in flight?"

Spork held up a controller, which was connected to the console with a cable. "With this thing here."

"Triangle, square, circle and cross... well, this still looks very complicated." Celestia said after she has taken a good look at the gadget. It was a simple SCPH-1200 Controller, but it was some of the best ever made.

"Practice does the master. And someone already filled up my plane." he said wondering after he noticed a full tank.

Luna stepped forward and spoke "It was us. We need thou to retrieve something very important from a old place in the Everfree Forest."

At first, Spork wanted to decline. Luna showed him utmost hostility from the very first contact. And secondly, he could not care less about transporting something from A to B; he was not working for UPS.

But then Celestia clicked in "Spork, please. We did not have the greatest start... and I'm very sorry. But Luna here wants to make up for you for being impolite. Here, she even re-stripped your firearm."

Her horn began to glow and Spork's ol'reliable pistol showed up out of thin air. And someone was really sorry, because the pistol was now even fitted with a suppressor and a LAM (Laser Aiming Module, for those who don't know how to use ironsights). He decided not to question the origin of the suppressor and the LAM because he knew he would not grasp the logic of the answer.

"However," Celestia looked hopefully into his eyes. "Something went wrong. The slide is stucking. You need to cock the pistol after every single shot, like a spring operated airsoftgun."

Spork took the Beretta and examined it. It was still his loved italian sidearm, so he put it back into his holster. "It's okay. I'll get used to it."

"And maybe you get to know each other better."

Now this evolved into a deal Spork could not decline. Maybe he could be befriend the princess of the night. Maybe she was not so a CQC-crazed mare he thought of...

"Okay, I'll help." he sat down into the pilot's seat. Luna brought a smile to her face as she flew up and landed onto the remaining seat in the canopy. She put the seatback on like a good filly and looked in awe as the canopy closed.

"Hey Luna." Spork said excited. "I did an little research about the Changelings..."

The mare's ears perked up. Maybe he would elaborate some good informations how to ambush them efficiently "And?"

"Did you know that Changelings do lay eggs? But the Queen of a hive doesn't give birth to the Changelings? And the hive mind helps them to communicate with each other over great distances? I read some good books about them and the Changelings are making their own unique species. It's fascinating!"

Luna's short-lived good mood vanished. "Stop talking or I'm gonna buck thine eggs."

The pilot only laughed as he activated the plane's engine, then he asked "Eggs by the way... do you wanna kiss my egg?" he looked seductivily over his shoulder and Luna's face turned a deeper shade of blue.

"WHAT?!"

Spork reached into his pants' pockets and brought out a normal uncooked and unbroken chicken egg. He kissed it before explaining "It should gives us luck. During our flight and maybe for a good relationship."

He only received a growl as an answer, but then he earned a muffled shriek as he gave the powerful jet engines of the F/A-37 full power and soared up into the sky, cutting through the air, clouds and bird swarms...

Let's just say, Luna didn't enjoy the flight...