Forgotten Soldier; Wrong War

by rocketlvr

Rating: everyone
Tags: Human, Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Queen Chrysalis, Other, Adventure, Princess Celestia
Length: 26166

A marine attempts to clear an Iraqi house but is sucked in to a portal bringing him to Equestria.

A United States Marine is ordered to clear an Iraqi house containing "suspicious activity", but little did he know a mad Arab scientist had created a portal device which was originally intended to bring "the fires of Allah onto the Infidels" but accidentally sucks the marine into Equestria which is facing the greatest threat in its history. Can he fight off Discord, hordes of changelings, rebels, tons of other monsters and armies?

Published 2012-06-20 17:24:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-09-11 23:45:36 UTC

So it begins...

This isn't really the best chapter, but if you manage to stick through it and the second I assure it gets better. The plot picks up quite a bit after.

****************************************
Technically he should have been home years ago when the war on terror supposedly ended. Well given a clusterf*ck here and a dumbass bureaucrat there and he had ended up back in Iraq no longer a part of the non existent peace keeping force but rather a "supervisor" for the Iraqi military. "Supervisor" he thought "I'm doing more now than I ever did before"

The Middle Eastern sun beated down on his neck. He panted heavily as he slammed back first into the wall of a house that supposedly had "suspicious" activities going on in it. The locals claimed to have heard drills and other power tools going off in the house. "Funny" he thought "the locals actually gave you the location of a probable bomb factory"; the locals were terrified of the terrorists in this region. The US had very little influence in this area so bomb factories, gun smiths, and opium farms were quite common. "I'd rather be back at the FOB (forward operating base) then in the sandbox, the 130 degree weather didn't help his mood much either.

The CO gave you the "clear it" signal and so he swing his body and kicked in the door, gun at the ready. His barrel swept the room left to right while he screamed Arabic hopefully shouting something along the lines of "hands in the air" but it probably turned out as "hands yes perhaps". He paused at the right side of the room to see a man in dirty short robes and a scraggly beard with burn marks across his wild eyed face; on his right there is a strange machine with hexagonal bars forming a peculiar hollow shape as well as a control panel made of rusted sheet metal dirty levers and switches and a liberal amount of duct tape. The rest of his 8 man squad filed in. "The f*ck is that" Carod the m240 gunner asked. "F*ck if I know" he replied curtly. His CO, Lt. Randall, shouted "where's the translator, ask him what he's doing here."

"No good sir, the translators with Foxtrot on routine patrols, command didn't want him involved in this one"

"Sh*t what now"

"lets haul his ass back to base and see what we can-"

"AY!" The man screams at the marine "What you think you be doing infidel Americans?" Randall cooly replied "sir we need you to come with us what is it your doing?"

"I is getting their acceptance"

"whose they?"

"My brothers in so called terrorist group" Randall became visibly worried "Oh F*ck,do y'all think hes building a bomb or missile or some sh*t for them? get command on the radio Asap". Pvt. Spzond started to fiddle with his radio equipment. The man spoke up "wait" Spzond stopped right as he was lifting the microphone to his mouth "no bomb, gateway."

Randall inquired "gateway? to where?"

"Heaven, if I get might of Allah to smite unholy perhaps my brothers begin accepting me"

Carod murmurs to you "is this guy f*ckin serious?"

"shut up, do your brothers no about this?" Randall asked the man

"No, but they will soon once Allah has destroyed you" At this the man jumped up and his quick tie cuffs fell apart probably cut with the small knife he was now clutching in one hand. before the marines could tackle him he lunged for the machine. A shot rang out as his head imploded but it was to late, he fell on to the machines panel and it began to spring to life. A vortex of some non existent color appeared in between the supposedly steel bars and began sucking in the things in the room. The marines trajectory caused himself to fall right at the vortex fortunately he managed to cling on to the bars but his waist and legs were already in the whirlpool of mystery. He couldn't drag himself out, it was as if he was trapped in quicksand or tar or something. He was sinking in as he tried desperately to hold on. He saw Spzond leaning against the doorway firing off a few rounds of his m16 at the panel, but all that accomplished cause the vortex to pull harder and begin to shrink.The marine in the gateway lost his grip on one hand as he thought he was going to fall in, but suddenly an arm reached out and clutched his. Randall was grasping his arm and straining placing his feet almost vertically on a bar. "Randall!" he shouted over the noise of the portal "I can't hold on!!!"
"No goddamn it you hold on, don't quit! your a marine"
"The portals gonna close on me then I'm gonna die!! let go NOW" the rush of wind got louder as it began to suck the marine in harder.
Randall screamed over the madness "F*CK NO!"
"DO IT THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN SAVE ME AFTER IT CLOSES YOU C4 THE WHOLE BUILDING! NOT A WORD OF THIS GETS TO COMMAND, YOU HEAR?, DON'T WORRY ABOUT TERRORISTS REBUILDING IT SO WE'RE SAFE, THE REBELS DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT THIS GUY OR EVEN WANT HIM, TELL COMMAND IT WAS A BOMB FACTORY AND THERE WAS A SCREW UP"

The portal was almost at his vest now, Randall was on the verge of tears "ok... semper fi"

"oorah" he reply solemnly and as they let go.

He took one last look at his world before being swallowed up into the unknown.

First Contact

As he traversed the vortex indescribable feelings washed over him. He was going beyond the speed of light yet not moving at all, getting compressed and smashed and sliced but still felt no pain, at one moment he was everywhere in the void but nowhere, and just as soon as it started it stopped.A portal formed beneath him causing him to fall 5 feet onto the soft grass of a forest. He blacked out.

He don't know how long it had been but awoke to a soft noise in the distance.... singing. As he opened his eyes he saw it wasn't Iraq, heaven or anything he could have imagined. The second dimension. And a cartoony looking one at that. He glanced down at your hands "f*ck... whats this?" He wasn't cartoony; in fact, his hands we're just as detailed physically as they were back in his dimension but his hands were just so.... flat. "Do I still have depth perception?" he reached out to grab at a nearby rock and surprisingly it was where he thought it was "So I'm in the second dimension, and I still have depth perception... this is spooky". He couldn't describe it but despite everything being so flat, things just seemed... normal.

Suddenly, he just remembered the singing.He glanced around and spotted Carod's m240, it must have fallen through the portal, he grabbed it, checked his gear and the surrounding area, finding random weapons lying here or there like m4's, m16's even an m72 LAW and two AT4 launchers, He found ammunition, frag grenades a couple flash bangs and a ton of fully loaded magazines for m4's, Beretta m9's, and USP 45's that got sucked out of his squad mates vests. Then it hit him, "Spzond, Randall, Carod, everyone.... I'll never see them again... just perfect..." He began to think about them until the singing brought him back into focus. He heaved himself off the ground having stacked the surplus of weapons in a neat little pile, well more like a neat massive pile, the standard US soldier carries roughly 70 pounds of gear so when his squad lost a portion of its gear he got more ammo than he could have ever dreamed.

"Hello?, Is anyone there?" a female voice in the distance piped up.

He caught the noise and decided to check it out, He was suspicious of who, or what could be talking, especailly considering that one of the last people he talked to was an insane Arab scientist. He brought up his SOPMOD m4 (Special Operations Peculiar MODifications) to check things out. "Thank God I've still got this thing" he murmured to no one in particular. It was expensive as hell to pay for, certainly not made easy with his meager military paycheck, but it sure was nice having that ACOG sight, grip, m203 grande launcher, and the other fancy crap that came with it. He heard the voice coming from beyond some bushes. Peaking around slowly using the "cutting the pie" technique he learned in basic training he spotted a purple unicorn, "Whoa what the F*ck" he said out loud "Hello? who said that?" she said whirling around in surprise

"GAAAAAHHH WHAT THE F*CK!!" he screamed

"AAAAAAAAA!! MONSTER" the unicorn screamed as she kicked him with her front hoofs right in the chest knocking him to the ground, luckily his SAPI plate (the bullet proof plate underneath his Kevlar vest) took the main blow but he still fell backwards onto the ground. He laid down on his back frightened but unharmed. "TALKING UNICORN!?!" he screamed. recovering from her initial shock she stood over him "Uhhh yes, duh, more importantly what are you?" He realized he was more of the stranger here not her so he quietly replied "ummm I'm a human..."

"A human? that's a smart monkey right?"

"not really, no but-"

"also what is that thing your holding" she gestured with a hoof at the rifle now laying on the ground by his hand

"It's a gun..." he replied unintelligently

"Whats a gun?"

"Its a thing I use to fight with, I'm a soldier"

"Who do you fight for?"

"Well I don't really fight for them now because I was just sucked through this portal thing some jackass in Ira-"

She looked at him with a face of complete puzzlement as she replied "uuummm okaaaayyy" She offered him a hoof to help him up which he gladly took and began walking, following her lead "we should take you to town, maybe we can figure out more about you" "Well I can just tell y-"

She ignored what he was saying, talking softly to herself. He heard something about a "princess" and "changeling" he was wondering what the heck she was talking about when suddenly he remembered...

"WAIT HOLD IT"

"what?" the purple mare replies

"I need help moving my stuff."

"ok, where is it?"

"well there"s a lot of things so maybe you could go get your friends or somethi-"

"I'll just get some towns-ponies to go get, I'm sure they"ll be happy to help" ...towns ponies... the word struck him as odd but he decided to forget it. After all, he was talking to a purple cartoon unicorn.

Him and the unicorn walked in silence for a while and it started to get awkward.

"Uhh so what's you name?" he asked hoping to break the ice. "Twilight Sparkle" she replied "and you?" "Uhhh.... Victor" "Well nice to meet you Victor, I hope we can be the best of friends" "hmmm.... well this unicorn thing seems friendly" he thought to himself contemplating where he was going and what may await him.

Show of Power

He and the purple unicorn trudged on through the woods for a short while. Suddenly, the Unicorn spoke up.
"Welp, we're here" He was jolted from his thoughts as he stepped out of the forest and spied a small town in the distance. The houses were vibrant and bright and he gazed upon the towns residents. "okay, so there's unicorns, normal horses... errr.. ponies, and... pegasi?" he thought to himself.He looked up into the sky at a blue pegasus doing loops and barrel rolls and fancy aerobatics. He was mesmerized by this blue horse, I mean, pony untill a now familiar voice called out

"RAINBOW!"

the cyan pegasus is distracted from her flight and looked down at Twilight. She descended and approached fast as lightning.

"Hi Twilight, what's u-" She saw Victor and paused in mid sentence "uuhh what is that thing" she said pointing at him with a hoof.

"This is Victor he's a human who got lost in the forest because he fell through a portal.... I think" The purple mare looked at him with a troubled face as if she was checking with him to see if she got that right. He nodded reassuringly.

"ok twilight I'm just gonna keep practicing my moves" she said while attempting to take off.

"Oh! wait! I just remembered, Victor left his stuff in the Everfree forest could you go get Big Mac to go get them. Apparently its about 60 feet to the right of the poison joke trail"

The marine spoke up "Hey Twilight, there's a lot of stuff are you sure one hor- I mean pony can lift it all?"

"of course he can he's the strongest Stallion in Ponyville now come on I've gotta right a letter to the princess" she said trotting away

the Blue pegasus watched him pass, shrugged, and then took off headed presumably to this "Big Mac" character. The marine and the Unicorn walked through the town getting plenty of stares from the passing townsfolk or townsponies. Eventaully, he reached a tree with windows landings and roofing.

"Well, we're here"

"This is a library?"

"Yes and my home, now we just got to find Spike and get a letter to the princess"

"Who's Spike?"

"He's my assistant"

"My friend had a dog named that once, kinda cliche if you ask me"

She ignored the comment and proceeded inside.

"SPI-IKE" she called out

"yeah?" came a softer reply from upstairs

"get down here I need to write a letter to the princess"

"okay hang on one second"

a dull thudding came from upstairs and soon a small purple dragon appeared in the stairwell.

"Aw Sweet! a dragon!!" Spike looked at the person freaked out about his presence. "I'm gonna guess this is what the letters about"

"Absolutely, this is Victor, he's not from around here and Victor, this is Spike, he's a baby dragon. Alright get your partchment.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I am writing to you today to tell you of a mysterious occurrence. When I went into the Everfree forest to do a census of local flora and fuana I stumbeled across a new creature apparently not from this world. I sincerely hope that we take immediate action in order to find out what is happening.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

The dragon rolled up the partchment and then set it on fire. The trail of smoke flew out the window and into the air. Just then a knock happened at the door followed by a young southern voice.

"Hey Twilight its me, Applebloom"
"and Sweetie Belle" came a more feminine voice
"and Scootaloo" came from a more tomboyish voice
"We're here cause we wannah see the monster you were walking around town with!"

"well girls I understand you might be curious about new things in town but now may not be the best time"
"PLLLEEEEAAASEE" came all three voices in unison. Twilight looked at the marine for an answer, he nodded. "well alright girls but please try not be in the way we have things to take care of" "YAY!!!" shouted all three voices. Twilight unlocked the door and he saw three ponies, a white unicorn, a yellow pony with a red ribbon in its hair, and an orange pegasus all of them looked much smaller and younger then the other ponies he'd seen around town which would explain how they acted. They all stood mouths agape as they gazed at the strange bipedal hairless monkey thing with clothes that looked like a desert. near instantly they snapped out of their trance and bombarded him and Twilight with questions
"whats he do?"
"where's he from?"
"are there others like him?"
"whats he eat?"
"Is he from the Everfree forest?"
"What's this thing?" The purple haired, orange filly with the tomboy voice pointed at an m9 on the ground and trotted over to it. The marine was too distracted by the other two who were attacking him with questions. She picked the gun up with her mouth sat indian style, dropped it in her lap, and started fiddling with it with her hooves. He turned around just in time to see her somehow squeezing the trigger with the side of her hoof. He was about to yell at her to drop it but it was too late. A loud BANG! filled the room and all went quiet. The marine had been shot right in the chest, fortunately, he still had his SAPI plate in the vest so his life was spared, but it certainly knocked the wind out of him. He didn't fly back into the air like they did in the movies but he still hunched over clutching his chest hardly able to breathe.
"CELESTIA WHAT WAS THAT?" Twilight shouted but he was unable to move "oh gosh we need to get you to a doctor right away" he waved her off, too much in pain to say anything, but tried to get the point across that he didn't need medical attention. "Girls, go get me some pain killers and my first aid kit, its behind the book shelf in the history section. The trio dashed off in a group of startled voices asking each other about what just happened. Twilight grabbed a chair from the corner of the room for him to sit on. As she helped him into it he began to regain some breath and finally said something "I'm fine, just got the wind knocked out of me... I'll be fine, seriously" She stood over him with a troubled look on her face. The three returned with a small box with a red cross on it and a bottle with unidentifiable scrawlings on it. "Okay girls you better go" "No,no they can stay I gotta tell them something" he managed to wheeze out. They all sat there in silence for a few minutes until he regained his breath and spoke "Alright girls that thing, uhhhh Scootaloo right?" she nodded in agreement "Scootaloo held is called a gun it is VERY powerful and can easily kill you if misused, do you understand?" they looked at him wide eyed and nodded "Now if you ever see this on the floor you tell Twilight or me okay?" they shook their heads in agreement. "Alright now can you give it to me?" the trio looked at the weapon terrified "its okay, I'm here just don't touch it by the curved out metal loop okay?" the filly who shot him picked it up with her mouth sheepishly and brought it over to him laying it down carefully in his hand. He promptly holstered the weapon. "I'm sorry about that Twilight it's just my holster must have dropped it. it was already breaking in the first place". The unicorn looked at him quizzically "what's a holster?"
"You know what, never mind, alright you three get outta here." the trio of ponies quickly left the library. He looked back at Twilight and asked "so when's this Celestia person gonna get here?"

A Darkness Reawoken

A Darkness Reawoken

Meanwhile across Equestria a nondescript mare entered the Canterlot sculpture garden. Nothing too interesting about her, she was yellow with a smooth haircut much like that of Twilight Sparkles accept it was orange. The garden was empty because it was closed on Sundays. She walked through the maze of high art and sculptures until she reached a peculiar effigy. It was a mish-mash of creatures with the head of a goat caught in a pose of terror and fright.

"glad to see you've made it" the smooth masculine voice in her head greeted her.

"I can't wait to see them all pay" she replied out into the air

"HALT who goes there?" a royal guard emerged from behind the statue leveling his spear as he spied the mare his expression calmed seeing it wasn't a threat "Ma'am, the garden is closed on Sundays come back another time please. do you need me to escort you out?"

"Oh no that won't be a problem I'm sorry"

"well alright then you have a good day now".

The voice in her head spoke "Circle around the back hedges he won't suspect a thing" She did so once she was out of the guards sight she crept behind the hedges and approached him from behind. The guard suspected nothing as she lunged wrapping her arms around his throat he wrenched about grabbing at her arms trying to break free until his movements faded and he went limp. The mare dragged the unconscious guard into the hedge maze hiding him beneath the underneath the hedges. Her eyes glowed green as her body quickly morphed into an exact replica of the guards. She trotted out to the statue of the creature and her eyes glowed green speaking out to no one she said "Well lets get started now".

*************************************************

"DISCORD IS GONE DISCORD IS GONE!!" a lone guard rushed into the royal chamber running up to the throne of Celestia and her sister. "What is it my subject?" the sun goddess asked, her voice as smooth and caring as a gods should be. "Discord... *pant* *pant*.... broke free *wheeze* somepony *cough* choked me unconscious before he went missing *hack*". Celestia's face grew stern as she stared of into the distance as if she were looking at Discord himself "Who could have done this". The guard caught his breath and regained his composure before replying "I don't know for sure but I did see a yellow mare in the garden with orange hair walking about the garden a few minutes before I was attacked though she could have just been lost". the sun goddess spoke with a stern serious voice "We'll find the culprit as soon as possible but for now we need to get Discord back to imprisonment." Luna who remained silent up until then decided to speak "My dearest sister should we divide up our tasks so that we may find the culprit so that we may try to find out what is being planned?" Celestia replied " You make a solid point, very well then we shall divvy up our tasks I shall gather the element bearers and you shall seek the one who released him" "Very well then my sister I shall do as you command" Just then a scroll dropped down before the Sun rulers hooves.Lifting it with her magic she opened and read it; her face remained unreadable for the whole duration.

"Well it would seem their has been dramatic changes in Ponyville concerning my pupil Twilight Sparkle"
"How so my dear sister?"
"It seems she has run into a strange new creature, I don't like how this sounds. Luna do whatever you can to find whoever caused this catastrophe, guards please prepare my chariot and gather the elements, we are headed to Ponyville."

Interrogation

Interrogation

As I've said in a comment earlier this stories gonna continue from now on in third person

**********************************************************

"So when do you think the Princess will get here?" Victor asked Twilight

"Ehhhh she usually gets here on time she's pretty punctual" Rainbow Dash answered

"Punctual, nice word choice Rainbow, I think those books are improving your vocabulary!" Twilight said with a true grin

Rainbow looked at her slightly annoyed "I told you I'm not gonna be an egghead"

"What ever you say Rainbow"

"Hey y'all I think the Princess is here" Apple Jack was looking out the window at a pristine white chariot led by two guards. He loved Applejack's accent considering he had lived in Georgia for a few years.

(back track)

A short while after he was shot, Spike had burped out a letter. It said the Princess was coming to town to greet this new creature personally and for Twilight to go out and gather all the "element bearers" "whatever that was" Victor thought to himself. Twilight had left for a short while and returned with five other ponies, the stallion named Big Mac arrived with a cart laden with various weapons. The Stallion and mares introduced themselves and he in turn introduced himself he had also explained firearms and proper safety precautions they in turn told him about Equestria, Pegasi, Unicorns, Earth Ponies, Alicorns, what an element bearer was, the elements themselves, and the benevolent Princess Celestia.

(return to present)

"ok thanks AJ" replied the purple unicorn. Twilight and her party exited with the marine following closely behind untill he saw Princess Celestia. He walked up to her greeting her with a slight bow "Princess Celestia I presume?" the ruler replied with a soft, smooth voice unlike anything he could have expected "Why yes and you must be the creature my student wrote to me about"
"Yes my name is Victor, I'm a human"
"Well Victor that is quite something and I am truly intrigued by your presence; however, I am here for another more diabolical reason, a powerful spirit, named Discord, has escaped from his imprisonment and though I don't mean to offend you but we fear you may be him" The other ponies gasped at the news. Twilight was the first to speak "Discord escaped again? but how? we thought the elements had locked him up for good." "That's what we thought too however he has broken free once more and we fear he may have an accomplice most likely another pony who we are currently searching for; however, we unfortunately fear that this human may be Discord himself in disguise."

"Victor is Discord in disguise?" Twilight and the others looked at you with faces of shock, awe, and disgust "well that would explain a lot, like all the weird stuff he brought with him, and why he showed up here the same day Discord escaped, but why would he go to Ponyville of all places? I mean why would he go to the place where the six people who could stop him are?"

Rainbow Dash chimed in "I betcha he wants to take us out before he attacks the Princess. Any no good sneak would act cowardly like that" This caused a mass of talking to erupt amongst the ponies Rainbow Dash thought he was Discord flat out, Twilight still thought he wasn't, Rarity was yelling about how she didn't care who he was so long as he didn't cause her to carry another boulder, Fluttershy was scared and hiding behind a nearby barrel, Applejack was trying to get the other ponies to quiet down, and Pinkie didn't seem to understand or care about what was going on and only talked about cotton candy clouds.

A solitary voice carried over the others "Please quiet down my little ponies, I need to make myself clear" the group was almost instantly silenced and Fluttershy crawled back to them with an embarrassed smile on her face "Thank you, now I figured you would all wonder what the course of action should be and this is why I have asked for all you to gather here. I have brought with me the Elements of Harmony, the Elements can break Discord out of his disguise should he be in one. Now should he be Discord I want you to return him to his stone imprisonment until we can find out a better solution and should he not be him I can assure him accommodations and whatever he needs should he choose to stay and live here."

The human thought this was all fine and dandy and stood before the group "okay fire when ready, I'm cool with it"

"Now Victor I do wish to warn you that this may hurt quite a bit if you are not Discor-"

"I'm cool with that"

"good and also if you are not Discord there is a very real chance that you could be...... incinerated"

"Im cool with tha- wait what? incinerated? like fire, bang, whoosh, torch incinerated?" Victor began to get slightly panicked.

"Yes I do mean burned up, I apologize for this and hope that you can understa-"

"No! I don't want that I don't want to be burned up! seriously! is there any other way you can do this?"

"I'm sorry... but there is no other way"

"Well f*ck that I'm out of here!" Victor began walking away until he was grabbed on the shoulder by a unicorn guard who looked at him unflinchingly and saying in a steady, nearly robotic voice."Sir I'm afraid we can't let you do that." Victor shoved his arm off and replied in an angrier voice "No way man! Screw that! there's no way in hell I'm gonna be turned into a living signal flare" The guard lifted the spear towards him saying "you go to the princess NOW." Victor kicked the spear out of his hands and shouted right in his face "F*CK YOU" and took off at a sprint. He managed to run a considerable distance from him, roughly two city blocks, before the guard tackled him to the ground. He wrestled free from the guard shoving him off and drawing his sidearm which still happened to be on his belt. Pointing it at him and the crowd he shouted in a mix of anger and fear "YOU LEAVE ME ALONE! YOU HEAR ME?! YOU LEAVE ME THE F*CK ALONE. I'M GOING NOW AND DON"T YOU DARE TRY FOLLOWING ME BECAUSE I'LL... I'LL... KILL YOU, ILL KILL YOU A-" He never got to finish his sentence because just then yellow magic covered his mouth like duct tape. He would have fired off his gun but was his arms had just been constrained by the same kind of magic which promptly shoved him up against a wall eagle spread. His face showed only complete terror as his screams, shouts, and pleads became muffled noises and grunts.

The group of six ponies which he thought of as his friends approached him, most with solemn faces, Fluttershy was crying, but Rainbow dash looked at you with an expression of pure hatred "nice try Discord, but your gonna have to act a lot better than that if you wanna fool us." The other ponies must have suddenly realized how easy of an explanation that was as Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie all looked surprised for a second as if all the gears in their minds simultaneously went *click* and they too gained the intimidating, angry, self confident looks that Rainbow dash had; however, Fluttershy was still crying and Twilight was still intimidated by the situation.

The same unicorn who tackled him approached the Princess with a box of necklaces and a tiara. "Thank you for restraining him, I appreciate that" She approached each of the mares giving each a necklace and Twilight the tiara. Next, she walked up to the restrained marine "Discord you are one clever demon, I hope in vain that you learn from your mistakes, but if this is simply a victim caught in the cross fire of our current events then I am sorry for all this and hope you may one day forgive us all" Victor managed to make a soft whimper in reply before she stepped away. Celestia stood behind them "You all are permitted to begin when ready. The groups eyes lit up and began floating in mid air as a ball of white energy grew in the center. The ball focused itself into a smaller shape before blasting forward as a white hot beam of energy. The light crushed and burned him and felt as if ten thousand small suns suddenly exploded in his body, the pain intensified beyond imagination as he began screaming at the top of his lungs but it was all muffled to a sickeningly quiet level by the magic covering his lips. He saw darkness slowly creeping up at the edges of his vision and suddenly it stopped, the beam dissolved into the air as did the unicorns bindings. Victor dropped to the floor onto his hands and knees still in excruciating pain, he was shaking as he coughed into his hand and a he pulled it back he saw a startling amount of blood, ir was the last thing he saw before it all went black.

Awake

Through the darkness there was a soft noise, a quiet nearly inaudible blip. after a brief pause another one followed slightly louder. A third followed with less of a pause but now clearly audible. A soft murmur of sound happened along with the much louder blips. The blips became beeps of a foreign machine and the murmur became a set of distinct voices... oddly familiar... "He's coming around" came from a masculine voice which he did not recognize
"ooh I hope he's alright" said by a feminine voice which he recognized somehow.

A torrent of memories washed over him. Iraq, the portal, the horses, the pegasi, the beam of light. "urgh that fucking beam of light" he faintly grumbled as finally remembered all the pain he was in. Dammit his body still hurt like a motherfucker. Cracking open an eye he looked up into the faces of six familiar ponies of varying colors with anxious faces along with one wearing a lab coat, and an old school reflecting mirror. The marines mood quickly sunk from in depressed and in pain to royally pissed off

"get the fuck away from me" he muttered softly now fully conscious. Twilight looked at the doctor "what did he say?" The marine made eye contact with Twilight as he said "I said, get the FUCK AWAY FROM ME" shouting the end of his sentence. In a fury he heaved himself up off the side of his bed to the gasps of the seven ponies to his left, and onto the floor. Disregarding the pain he felt he looked up into a commonly seen face. Princess Celestia looked down onto the floor at the angered human before her "There is no need to shout we will not hurt you anymore"
"BULL SHIT! you almost set me on fire a few minutes ago and now you wanna be friends?!"

An all too familiar voice spoke up "I don't quite understand what language you're using but I can tell its not a bunch of compliments, now get up off the floor and show some respect to royalty" The unicorn guard lifted you up onto the bed using his trademark yellow magic "Now I suggest you quite your moving unless you wanna die of internal bleeding as our skillful doctor here will explain"
The timid brown earth pony with glasses and the mirror spoke with a voice wrought with timidity "Th-thank you Sir-uh-umm"
"Corporal Storm"
"Oh a-yes ah thank you sir Corporal Storm. Now, uh, given your unique physiology I wasn't to sure of all the-uh organ functions and such, however, I do believe your right lung has suffered some deep lacerations that left unchecked would have killed you as well as some sever bruising, some light burns, and quite a few broken bones. Now I may not be a doctor on your species, but you are one lucky uhh whatever you are"
"Human" Twilight replied helpfully.
"Shut it" the human spat out
The unicorn looked angry but as she looked back at him it changed to a face of sympathy and sorrow.
"get me a mirror" the marine shouted at the doctor
"Excuse me?"
"I said a mirror comprende amigo? no hablo ingles?, look if the unicorn who I THOUGHT WAS MY FRIEND" he yelled looking directly at her causing her to shy away "looks at me like that I can tell something's up"

"uh right away here" the doctor passed him the mirror. Looking into it the marine saw a face that was cut up and bruised and burned. "jesus, it looks I got face raped by a lightning bolt" he thought to himself as he reached up to feel out the damage. His face felt fairly tender, but not as bad as it probably should have considering how bad it looked. he gazed down at the rest of his body to see that his chest was wrapped in bandages and his left leg was in cast up to the mid of his thigh.
He moved his gaze up to his waist "oh god they better not have..." he thought to himself as he lifted the blanket covering his waist and looked at his pride and joy "phew well at least one thing isn't fucked up" The group didn't seem to care that he just checked if his genitalia were still attached properly, probably because they didn't understand his anatomy or at least if they did they didn't give a crap. "well even if they did I wouldn't give a shit"

He looked up at the group trying to keep his voice under control "Thank you for not letting me get set on fire, and for not killing me out right, but if don't mind I would like to have a moment with your queen right here." The group exited in a single file, quietly, with their heads hung low.
Celestia addressed her guard "I think it would be best if you left too, Corporal Storm"
"but princess what if he tries to-"
"I'll be fine Corporal, besides I don't think he's in much condition to attack me"

Storm left the room, angrily muttering something about "that stupid beast tried to insult the princess"
Once he had left the room, the door shut with a highly audible click. The princess walked up to Victor's bedside looking at him with a face of pure sympathy and sorrow "I apologize for Storm he is still wary of you because of our previous incident, but I myself would like to apologize for all the trouble we've put you through, we fear the rise of a great tyrant by the name of Discord. He brought an epoch of despair, sorrow, and chaos upon my subjects until my sister and I overthrew him. He has returned and we fear that he may have new found allies that can bring chaos back to this land."
Victor contemplated this with the best poker face he could muster "so what do you mean by chaos?"
"Things not as they should be, creatures acting as they shouldn't, and things warping horribly"
"could you give me some specific examples?"
"well for instance many residents of Ponyville unlike themselves, some behaved as animals and others thought they were other ponies, and some were capable of walking upside down. Several creatures had changed into horrid beasts, but all was restored with the elements of harmony which you had experienced first hand"
"Was there famine? sickness? death? war?"
"Well... no, but his reign was awful for my subjects"
"Do you know what its like where I am from?"
"No, I am sorry but I do not"
"All those things that I said, those happen everyday."
"Most people on my planet are starving, we have whole countries where people, on average, are lucky to live to 40. We have diseases beyond comprehension, one called Ebola causes your eyes to bleed as you slowly fall apart, people there are dying by the thousands and despite this we're still greatly over populated, 7 billion people live on my planet and each takes up resources, my planet is slowly dying, rotting away. And don't let me get started about war. We have been fighting each other for the most trivial reasons ever since we as a species existed, Christ, 70 years ago there was a war that killed 54 MILLION PEOPLE, and why may you ask? Well, its because some ass-hat with a mustache thought he didn't have enough power. People can kill each other with just the twitch of a finger and we don't even fight clean half the time or even care. If the people I was fighting had captured me, would slowly cut me up probably hacking my fingers, nose, and ears off and still they would expect me to tell them where my friends were so they could kill them too, and if I didn't they'd have tied me up and attached me to a car battery, not like you know what that is but it's pretty bad."

Panting heavily, partly from anger he looked at the princess. She stood mouth agape at the man before her, too shocked to say anything. Victor felt a surge of superiority over this creature he just humbled until he saw something from the corner of his eye. Shifting his gaze to the area, he saw it was the window, or more specifically something outside the window. It was those three small ponies that he had spoke with earlier. The orange one that shot him was out there and they were playing tennis. Only the orange one was any good at it, and that was because she was using her wings to help her jump higher to hit the ball. The yellow and white ones which had just given up threw their rackets on the ground and stared downwards sullenly. Shortly after they gave a brief look of despair at their flanks. Something about that touched the marine's heart and caused him to think about the situation. Here were three ponies blissfully avoiding all hate evil and greed. Some of these ponies were so innocent they seemed as naive as six year olds, or maybe not even that as he remembered a couple kindergarteners having their action figures in rude positions. These ponies didn't even have swear words. He slowly started to realize what he said and either because of his epiphany or all the strong emotions he felt, he began to well up involuntarily. Suddenly he snapped back mentally "These horses still tried to kill me" the thought was quickly put down remembering what consequences they would have faced otherwise. Sure it may not have been bad by his standards but would someone as innocent as they were really have been able to cope with those changes? Well, maybe innocent wasn't the right word, nor was naive. They clearly understood what death and destruction were as they had clearly shown earlier. Perhaps these ponies had reached a moral standard never thought possible in his world. Maybe these ponies had something worth fighting for regardless of the cost. These little ponies would stay true and loyal to their cause no matter what, and by damn he was trained to protect the good and righteous and preserve their freedoms and rights, he would do that and help these little ponies if it was the last thing he'd do. He looked up at the still speechless princess as sorrow stole across him. He made eye contact with her and muttered out two words.

"I'm sorry"

Chaos and Rebellion

Meanwhile far beyond the borders of Equestria in a silent building of non pony origin came a fit of laughter. A draconequus was stuck rolling on the floor guffawing.

"AH HA hahaha I can't believe how easy that was HAHA! thank you my dear uhh what's your name again? oh never mind AHAHAHAHAHA!"

A creature resembling an alicorn stood up from her chair she was like a twisted version of Celestia or any wholesome Alicorn for she was like a bridge between pony and insect but far more sinister.

"I am Chrysalis queen of the Changelings, I know who you are, Discord and I released you for good reason"

"AHAHHAHAH man that was WAY too EASY!"

"DISCORD!" the queen shouted at the draconequus " YOU FOCUS NOW OR I WILL HAVE YOU RETURNED TO STONE!"

The spirit of chaos sat up with a slightly annoyed expression "come now, you seriously need to lighten up and laugh once in a while, there's so many great moments in everyday life that people so often miss"

The changeling queen spoke much more softly but with an angry waver in her voice "Discord, I need you to focus, now unless we want to be stopped again I suggest we put a little more planning and effort into. Now, I propose a little shall we say less... subtlety in our next approach, which is the sole purpose for why a freed you."

"So you didn't free me just because you missed me?" He said with his best faux puppy eyes

Chrysalis was furious at this point and no longer tried to control her temper "You filthy, stupid BEAST! why don't you just listen? I have a fantastic idea to get both of us what we desire but you seem to not care at all. I'll have you turned back to stone!" she emphasized this last bit by causing her horn to glow slightly green. Discord's smug grin vanished, but only for a moment. He put his hands up defensively

"alright, alright, I suppose I have been acting a smidge inappropriate for this situation; there'll be so much BETTER chaos to wreak later! Now dear, tell me this plan you had I'm all ears" as he said that last bit he teleported off the floor and into a nearby chair where he propped up his feet up onto the table it faced.

The queen was still huffing but with a few deep solid breaths she got herself back under control. "good, now as I was saying, I propose that you slip by into Equestria and create a new kind of chaos."

Discord was mildly intrigued by this proposal. "go on, I'm listening"

"Finally, I have your attention. Now I understand you are quiet aware of physical chaos like your ineffective chocolate rain and floating houses."

"Now Chrystal, That was some grade A chaos"

"Let me finish"

"fine"

"Perhaps you could do a little more internal chaos"

Discord looked at her mildly puzzled even though this was his area of expertise "what do you mean?"

"Perhaps if you stirred up a little chaos between ponies you could create an all out rebellion of those ridiculous ponies. This would help divide Celestia's resources between reconstructing Canterlot from my destruction and controlling disloyal subjects. While this occurs we begin our secondary invasion which of course would be far superior. After you separate the townsfolk I believe you should gather more allies to assist in our cause. While their leaders may not attack Equestria, many subjects of the Gryphon and minotaur kingdoms as well as a few stray dragons would be more than happy to see the ponies crushed. My forces could always use more canon fodder"

"Crystal I always knew you had a thing for chaos! glad to see you're finally embracing it! Should I go start this beautiful, beautiful chaos now?"

"the sooner the better Discord, my thirst for vengeance only grows"

"alright see ya Crystal! tata for now!" after that he exploded into a shower of confetti disappearing to Celestia knows where.

The black queen smiled. This was going just as she expected.

Seeds of Disharmony

Night had fallen in the nearby city of Trottingham. An older red pony with a maroon mane was walking through town. His cutie mark was a light bulb which fit his job as an electrician perfectly. He was doing his rounds ensuring all the street lights were functioning properly. He put up his ladder and grunted as he heaved himself up to the nearest burnt out streetlight and began talking to himself as he changed the bulb "Darned lights can't stay lit for more than a week. Stinking mayor dosen't want to increase the darned budget. I shouldn't even be here; I was gonna go to the Canterlot academy and get a degree as an electrical engineer. Stupid Glowing Days, he's the only reason I didn't get in, his father knew Celestia, that jerk. It shoulda been ME in that college not him. If I ever see Celestia I'll-"

"Excuse me sir?"

The red stallion was snapped out of his thoughts as he looked down his ladder at a grey pony with a pair of dice as his cutie mark. "I couldn't help but over hear you talking" The electrician blushed as he started speak with an embarrassed stutter "Oh uh-I didn't mean that, you see uh, um I-"

"not to worry my good sir I share a similar feeling"
"You do? I-I mean what feeling I didn't say anything bad"
"Come now, I heard what you said, and I know how you feel, I too was betrayed by the Princess"
The red pony was suspicious of the grey stallion, something seemed off as he continued talking "You see I had a great plan for ALL of Equestria. It'd make it more exciting, more food than any pony could imagine, but once I proposed my plan to the princess she had me thrown of her hall"
"you're kidding, I don't believe you, Celestia may be a jerk but she isn't that cruel"
"You've probably seen part of my plan do you remember about a year ago when it started raining chocolate milk from cotton candy clouds? I was-"
"Wait a second" the red earth pony interrupted "Chocolate rain?, cotton candy clouds?" he started to look panicked "you're... you're Discord! buck this, I'm getting out of here!" He jumped off the ladder and started galloping away. The grey stallion watched him gallop off "well this petition for chocolate water slides isn't doing too well"

*********************************

Discord teleported into an alley too see a red stallion run by screaming "HE'S HERE!" out into the night. "What's his problem?" he thought. "Never mind, time to start some chaos!". In a puff of smoke he turned himself into a dark blue pegasus with a purple mane. The only feature he retained from his true form was his one sharpened tooth. He trotted out of the alley and down the street until he came across a grey pony with a pair of dice for a cutie mark. It approached him with an eager smile on his face "Hiya there stranger, I haven't seen you in town! might I interest you in signing this petition? It's for replacing these boring dirt roads with chocolate water slides! so far I have no signatures, care to be the first to sign it?"

"I say that is a wonderful idea! I'll sign it right now, may I borrow a pen?" The grey earth pony beamed at the pegasus, it had been his first signature all day. "Absolutely! here ya go" he passed him a pen as well as as a clipboard which he took with a "Thank you", scrawled on it and handed it back. "Thanks ummm..." he glanced down at the petition "Discord" he stood there for a second beaming until he realized with a shock "Discord?! What the-"
The blue pegasus stared into his eyes deeply with a twisted grin. The grey pony's eyes began swirling and continued to do so for a few seconds until Discord evaporated with a poof. The grey pony sat there in the middle of the street staring blankly into the darkness with only one thought in his mind "Destroy Celestia"

Meanwhile a certain purple maned pegasus was flying over Trottingham. He was laughing as he flew. "Geez I'll never forget the look on his face" he laughed for a short while and then went quiet with an almost serious expression albeit for a slight grin. There were so many ponies in this town to corrupt and he had to finish by morning.

Redemption

*TAK TAK TAK TAK!*

The burst of 7.62 rounds tore through the morning air puffing harmlessly into the mountain side. Victor turned around and laughed at the expressions of the terrified ponies. He stopped his guffawing for a moment noticing something amiss...

"Hey where's Fluttershy?"

None of the ponies responded, all too stunned by the weapon to speak. The marine looked around to see the small terrified mare cowering beneath a table laden with his weapons. He hefted up the m240 bravo he had been demonstrating and set it down on the table she was beneath. Careful to ensure the weapon was safe he extracted the belt and racked the slide causing a soft metallic ping to happen as the unspent cartridge fell harmlessly to the floor. He knelt down to comfort the yellow mare.
"aawww I'm sorry Fluttershy, I thought you knew it would be loud."
the little mare sobbed "I didn't think it would be THAT loud!" she curled up into a ball and began crying. Victor hated this, even though he knew it was her nature he still felt like a dick for making such a cute pony cry.

It had been two days since he had woken up and in that time he had reprimanded his friendships with the ponies. He was now currently demonstrating the tools he had brought along with him. He should have been getting rest in the hospital especially considering the doctor had specifically ordered him to, but Victor wouldn't have it. He felt strong enough so why couldn't he go out and do something? Admittedly, he'd probably be sick tomorrow from all the things he was doing but that was future Victor's problem. He was in an empty valley just to the south of Sweet Apple Acres, Apple Jack had recommended it as a perfect place to demonstrate the firearms he had brought along. Celestia herself attended the event interested in what this human was capable of. He had just tested the first weapon an M240 bravo belt fed light machine gun, it had recently replaced the m249 as the standard squad automatic weapon for the US military. He still had plenty more weapons to go.

Twilight went to comfort her friend "It's okay Fluttershy we can go home if you want" The quivering mare only nodded as she and Twilight walked off the range. Great, he had only fired off four rounds and already two of his friends had gone home, not a good start.

The remaining four mares trotted up to Victor as he stood examining his next weapon: the m7 LAW rocket launcher. He would have preferred to use one of the AT4s because he was more familiar with it, but those were only one time use disposable launchers. That idea always annoyed him. "who in their right mind would make a one time use rocket launcher? what if you miss? well at least it was a dependable, powerful launcher and if you couldn't hit something with a freaking rocket launcher than what could you do?" As he thought to himself and loaded a rocket into the tube a pink hoof tapped him on the shoulder. He looked around and stared at Pinkie Pie. Her face was strewn with excitement, the marine opened his mouth in order to ask what she wanted but she was too quick; "OH MY GOSH that was soooo loud! I mean like Party cannon loud. whichisprettyloudbecauseIneedtouseitforpartiesandwhatsapartywithoutnoise?ItellyaIoncewenttoa quietpartyanditwassooboringImeanIvebeentoalotofpartiesbeforelikebirthdaypartiesnightmarenightpartiesandevenwelcomingpartieswhichremindsmeIstillhaventthrownyouawelcomeparty!!

at this point she flew a few feet into the air gasped and said HANGONI'LLBERIGHTBACK! before sprinting off.

"What. The. Fuck." Victor hadn't sworn since he woke up from his black out. He had talked with Pinkie and knew she was an odd ball but this was too much. Rarity, Apple Jack, and Rainbow Dash all shrugged and rolled their eyes simultaneously. She was Pinkie Pie, and that was all you could say to explain her.

Rainbow Dash was the first to speak. "soo uh what was that?" "OH!" it suddenly occured to Victor that he hadn't explained anything about firearms to any of them (aside from Twilight). "Hang on one second, PRINCESS!" he shouted out to Celestia who was watching from a distance on a hill top surrounded by guards for protection should something go wrong with a gun a distant voice replied "what is it?" Victor shouted back "I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING! CAN YOU COME OVER HERE?" "hang on" came the reply. The guards and Princess flew as one cohesive unit and got to where Victor was in the span of 30 seconds. "What is it?" Celestia asked.
"Have I explained guns to everyone yet?"
"No, I don't believe you have."
"Alrighty, I guess I should then. So,..."
Victor went on to describe firing mechanisms, cartridges, and other kinds of weapons for the next 20 or so minutes. When he had finished he gazed down at the ponies before him. Celestia seemed intrigued yet quiet, Rarity and AppleJack were dead apathetic and bored, and Rainbow Dash was kicking a pebble around in the dirt.

"Uhhhhhhhh okay so I don't think you all got that"
The three unattentive ponies jumped at being addressed Apple Jack was the first to speak

"Oh uh sorry sugar cube Ah wasn't payin' too much attention to what ya'll were sayin" she grinned sheepishly and stared at the floor. the other two joined her.

"Ok well I can tell you probably don't wanna hear the whole shpiel again so I'll get back to my shooting" He walked past them back towards the table where he picked up an m72 LAW rocket launcher and slid a round into it.
"You all probably wanna cover your ears, this one's a lot louder, oh yeah, one more thing, don't stand behind me"

The group covered their ears and cringed except for Rainbow Dash who rolled her eyes at them. AppleJack nudged her on the shoulder "Aren't you gonna cover your ears RD?"

"No way, it just startled me the first time, I can handle anything no sweat" Apple Jack shrugged and rolled her eyes before focusing back on the human with the rocket launcher

"FIRING! IN THREE... TWO... ONE!!!"

the LAW let loose a rocket with a mighty thunder as a massive flame shot out the back. The war head flew off exploding into a great crimson and yellow cloud of fire off in the distance.

The lingering silence was broken by a cracking voice "MOTHER OF CELESTIA!!" Rainbow Dash was lying on her back propping herself up with her front legs. Celestia turned to her with a concerned look on her face. "Are you alright RainbowDash?" She looked up at her with a face of confusion

"WHAT?!"

**********************************

Sorry for the late chapter guys, but you know how life can get. I should be getting these chapters up at a more constant and faster time period. also they WILL be longer, pinkie pie swear. Cross my heart and hope to fly stick a cupcake in my eye.

Fitting In

'SURPRISE!!!"

"HOLY FUCK TITS!"

A shower of confetti and streamers flew directly at Victor as he fell down onto the floor of town hall. "wait... what is this?...."
he started to get up off the floor grinning sheepishly.

"ITS YOUR WELCOME PARTY!!!!" came what from what sounded like a coked up pony version of Charlie Sheen. "anditslikeoneofmybestonesyetcausetheyouaren'tevenfromEquestriasoIgottamakeyoufeelextrawelcomeandall
theseotherponiescametoseeyoucauseofthatandwhats a party with out LOTSA PEOPLE?!?!"

Twilight looked at him with a smirk as she rolled her eyes "that's Pinkie for you. she usually acts like this when she gets excited"

"God she's like a horse version of Charlie Sheen"

"Who?"

"Oh, uh just some guy from my world who loves partying"

"oh well, I'd bet they'd be great friends"

Victor was imagining Pinkie Pie and Charlie Sheen at a party together, "banging seven gram rocks" and screaming out things about tiger blood and ninjas. He chuckled at the thought.

"What's so funny?"

"just imagining what they'd be like together..."

"Yeah they'd probably go nuts" she said with a giggle

"well, wouldn't anyone would after taking three ounces of Coke?" he smirked at the thought

"so was this why you told me I had to fill out some documents at town hall?"

"exactly, Pinkie told me it was a surprise party"

"alright well I'm gonna go mingle, man I'm glad to have gotten my gear off"

"Ooh! that reminds me! Rarity needs to give you something, and also when Big Macintosh was in the Everfree forest he found these" Twilight produced from her saddle bag some aviators, a skull balaclava and a small bottle filled with some liquid.
The purple mare continued n a matter of fact tone "Now I can tell these are sunglasses, and that's a mask, but whats in the jar of liquid??"

Victor was too distracted by the other two items "MY AVIATORS!! I thought I lost these for good! and I almost forgot about the balaclava! I thought I had left it in my bag back at the F.O.B! and wait... what liquid?"

"This liquid!" she handed him over the small bottle and he read the label...

"Lysergic acid diethylamide.... LSD... Spzond you son of a bitch you could have gotten someone court martialed." he muttered to himself.

"so what is it?"

"uhhh... its a drug... like a bad drug that makes you see stuff. You should probably hold onto it and keep it away from everybody else, or give it to a scientist to get rid of or something."

Twilight picked up the bottle with her magic and stared at it, rotating it slowly, scrutinizing it with every revolution.
"Alright well I've got a lab so I could probably do something with it."

"ok thanks, see ya" and he walked off into the crowd. The first pony he came across was a green unicorn with a Lyre for a cutie mark "OH MY CELESTIA!! HE'S HERE!! BON BON COME QUICK I TOLD YOU THEY WERE REAL!!" a white earth pony with a blue and pink mane walked up to her and her jaw nearly dropped to the floor "L-lyra y-you were right..." she couldn't take her eyes off him as the green unicorn started grabbing his hands and squealing "HE-HE'S GOT HANDS!!!!!"

"uhhhh okay" the marine uttered quite frankly weirded out. The green unicorn barely regained her composure and spoke with a voice coated with excitment "oh-uh I'm Lyra, this is my friend Bon Bon" she gestured towards the other pony "and I LOVE humans" everyone else said they were fake but not me! and now you're here oh my gosh this is so cool!!!!" she started bouncing up and down as she gave him a hug. The marine blushed at the mare hugging him as Rarity walked up to them.

"Uh ladies, might I borrow him for a minute? we have some business that needs to be taken care of." Bon Bon was still staring at him slack jawed and Lyra leaned back from her hug "oh okay......." her expression grew depressed almost instantaneously. Victor hated to see anypony so sad like that even if she did seem bat crap insane so he fumbled around his pockets to see if he could find something worthwhile to give her, all he found was a quarter and a spork he used for his M.R.E's. "uh here Lyra, I noticed you enjoy human's and stuff so uh have this quarter, it's currency back in my world, and also keep this spork." Her expression changed almost immediately as she beamed brighter than the sun. "Ohmygosh thank you! Bon Bon, look at this thing, its got a picture of a human with long hair on it!" Victor and Rarity took this moment to start walking.

"I do apologize for her uh... eagerness, we all know her for her love of humans"

"ehh its alright, she seems pretty nice, but how does she even know about humans, I mean I'm from a completely different dimension."

"no idea"

"meh suits me... so what was it that you needed from me?"

"I don't need anything from you, I've got something for you. I thought that you didn't have any spare clothes out side of that horrid battle gear so I created this!"

with a flair she produced a black suit and matching dress shoes from her saddle bag. He looked it over and was amazed at the fine craftsmanship of it.

"Aw schweet! thanks Rarity! but how'd you make this so fast, or more importantly, in my size?"

"Oh darling I could make these suits in my sleep! but I got started on it while you were unconscious, I had the doctor take your measurements. In either case it's much nicer than that T-shirt and combat pants you're wearing."

"Oh yeah..." he looked down at his clothing; an oil and blood spattered olive drab T shirt with "USMC" written across the chest and a pair of desert combat pants. The pants were from his B.D.U's (Battle Dress Uniform) as were the combat boots he was wearing, The T-shirt however was just a thing he carried around in his vest just as a quick access rag. He was overall content with changing out of these clothes even though both had been washed while he was unconscious, it's just that considering he had cleaned the engine compartment of a HUMVEE and used it as a tourniquet when McCreary almost got his arm blown off. It just didn't register to him as the epitome of cleanliness.

"Alright now head off to the bathroom and try it on!" she said with a smile.

"uhh.... okay"

He went to the bathroom and promptly changed; wrapping up his old shirt, pants, and boots inside of a few paper towels and carrying them under his arm as he left. Walking through the sea of four foot tall ponies he spotted a stylish purple mane among them.

"Hey Rarity, Thanks! this things awesome."

"No problem dear now go on and enjoy the party" and that he did, he spent a large amount of the drinking heftily of the punch jar and break dancing which he had managed to learn in the mountains of free time in Iraq. He met a couple of the other ponies as well, including the parties DJ, a white unicorn with a blue mane and shade who went by Vinyl Scratch and was a heavy parasprite drinker with a love of dubstep, she seemed to talk a lot about her roommate, somepony named Octavia, who was apparently "pretty snoody and up tight" with her high standards and love of classical music. There were a couple others including a brown earth pony named Dr.Hooves (sorry gonna break the fourth wall for a moment. Hasbro actually canonized this name for him. okay done.), and an orange mare named Carrot Top. These two really intrigued him, though he wasn't too much into pop culture he certainly heard of Carrot Top (the comedian not the horse) and was a moderate Whovian. He really didn't question them to hard on their backgrounds and names because hell, when you're in a magical land of talking horses you really aren't gonna question this sorta thing. Just like if you're in Detroit you're not gonna ask the man with bulges in his trench coat why he's giving those shady fellows a look like that, okay bad analogy but still...

Moving on then! So as his glamorous night progressed he started to get tired of all this rampant partying. His limbs started burn as his excessive breakdancing started to best him. Pulling off one move he felt a sudden tear in his side. "GAH" he gasped as he clutched his side fumbling through the crowd before collapsing into a chair. "Jesus what was that" he yelled to no one in particular. he began to break out into cold sweats as he squirmed in his seat trying to find comfortable position for him to try to rest in. The pain stabbed him, the sweats chilled him, the seat felt as if it was a bed of nails, all the while the heavy beats of the party music played on.

Stabilizing

The soft beeping of an EKG woke the marine from his slumber. He cracked open his heavy eyelids and gazed around the room. A standard sanitary hospital room with a few machines and a curtain divider. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, taking a moments respite from all thoughts. Taking a deep breath and clenching his eyes he gathered up his energy and heaved himself up into a sitting position. Remembering last nights events he took a moment to gaze down at his body, or more specifically, his side. He found there was no cut, no bruise, not even a scar. And he felt just fine. He wasn't even very tired, he felt like he had just woken up at the right time and was set to take on the day.

He heaved himself out of bed and walked to the door and as he reached for the handle the door opened, and a white pony with a pink mane was in the door frame.

"Oh! hello there, glad to see you're up!"

"Yeah thanks, I feel a LOT better. what did y'all do?"

"Well, us doctors and nurses didn't do anything,if you wanna thank anyone, thank the princess" at this she stepped to the side and the gently smiling form of Princess Celestia took up the door frame

"When we found you in the state you were in we were a bit worried for your health. Fortunately, Twilight had the great idea of bringing you back to the epitome of health with the Elements of Harmony. Normally, with a threat to Equestria I wouldn't dare move the elements; however, we believe you deserved some special treatment considering your situation."

"Well thank you Princess. I appreciate it."

"You're welcome. Care to take a tour of the town? Twilight and her friends are waiting right outside the hospital if you would want to."

"Uh, sure. Just let me get dressed"

"Alright then. I hope we meet again soon." At this she walked off and the nurse quietly closed the door giving the marine a gentle smile and pointed at the dresser in the corner of the room that he had failed to notice. He grinned back at her as the door clicked shut." inside the dresser he found a very limited selection of clothes. suit, BDUs, rotted shirt, towel. There wasn't really much selection and he was sick and tired of his shirt so he slapped on his BDUs and carefully slid his derringer handgun into his pocket.

The derringer pistol is a dual barreled handgun typically carried for self defense. In Victors case in Iraq he kept it down where the sun don't shine due to his mild paranoia at getting captured. Now here in Equestria he was carrying his gun in his pocket. He knew he wouldn't need it in the land of brightly colored ponies but he just felt naked when walking around unarmed.

Flicking open his shades and putting them on he left the hospital and met the six ponies outside.

*********************************

yeah, yeah this chapter's short. but hey, next ones gonna have the first gun violence in Equestria! No spoilers but someone dies.

Ambush

With the derringer securely hidden in his pocket, victor made his way outside to see his six friends doing what he expected. Rainbow Dash was flying, Pinkie was missing, Twilight was discussing books with Fluttershy and Apple Jack and Rarity were discussing painting the barn a more aesthetically pleasing color.

Pinkie was the first to notice him. Tackling him from behind, he was thrown to the dirt as the pink mare hugged him. "VICTOR!!! YOU"RE UP!! THIS IS SO GREAT!! NOW YOU GOTTA MEET ALL THE PONIES IN PONYVILLE" She started to drag him across the dirt path by his arm as he sputtered and and gagged on the copious amount of dirt flying into his mouth. "PINKIE!!!! *hack* STOP!! *gag*" she stopped for a moment and looked at him "yeah?"

"can you let me walk?"

"Okie dokie loki"

She let go of his arm and trotted off. Getting up slowly he dusted himself off as the rest of his friends had noticed and approached him. "Oh I dare say Pinkie, you really must take other factors into consideration. You easily could've wrecked his clothing." Rarity retrieved a towlette with her magic, using it much like a mother would swiping and rubbing away the dirt on his face. "uh, thanks Rarity"

Twilight chimed in "Is everypony ready to go?" a chorus of yes, yeps, and uh-huhs resounded.
"Great, let's go!"

The tour of Ponyville was surprising serene. Most of he other ponies had already met Victor and the majority of their remaining suspicious subsided as he talked with them. However, there were a few cases of ponies who weren't to keen with him. For one instance, the Cakes who were far too busy with their orders and taking care of their two children hadn't seen or even heard of the marine before hand were quite frightened when monster that was a good two feet taller then them started to play "I got your nose" with the two babies and nearly gotten his head smashed in by a frantically thrown rolling pin. Which was quite understandable really when you consider that the fingerless ponies have no real way to "get some ponies nose" so what seems like an innocent game in our world is more like organ harvesting in another.

Other than a few ponies running away screaming, nearly getting his head caved in, and being almost set on fire when Lyra tried shake hands with her home made "robotic hands" the day was fairly relaxed. None of them noticed the shadowy figure watching them from afar.

"... and this is Sweet Apple Acres, Apple Jacks farm and home." Twilight pointed at the large sprawling orchards and red farm houses.

"Hey Victor, ya wanna try one of these here apples? Best darn apples found anywhere in Equestria!"

"sure why not, thanks AJ"

Victor walked over to one of the trees that were lining the road. Reaching for one of the apples he felt something graze past him and land in the tree with a soft "wunk". Gazing down he found a large hatchet sticking out of the tree bark. He looked over his shoulder to see a large blue bull thing standing in the center of the road with an assortment of swords, daggers, and axes in sheaths all over his person.

"Destroy elements, no witnesses. Destroy elements, no witnesses." he was groaning softly as he drew two swords from their sheaths and raised them above his head.

"Welp, at least we know what he's here for" Victor said to himself, as the bull charged into the midst of the ponies who all scattered at his approach.

"What's a minotaur doing out here!?" Twilight shouted to her friends.

"What ever it is, it sure doesn't seem friendly" Rainbow Dash said as she flew upwards and then dove to dive bomb the beast. As she was directly over his head he swung his swords at her narrowly missing as she barrel rolled out of way at the last second. As she flew off, the minotaur took off after the closest pony he could find, Fluttershy.

"oh no you don't!!" Victor shouted as he took off after him wrenching the hatchet from the tree and hurling it at him. Unfortunately, the hatchet harmlessly flew over his head and landed softly in the bushes. "shit..." Victor muttered as he drew out his derringer from his pocket and leveling it on the monsters center of mass. The creature was only 15 feet from Fluttershy at this point as Victor squeezed the trigger. Blasting from the barrel, the 45 ACP round punched through the monsters back like a hot knife through butter. A splash of blood and gore came out of the beasts front as he stumbled and fell to the floor.

"WHOOHOO!! Got Him!" Victor punched a fist in the air as he jogged forward to check on his kill and the small yellow pegasus hiding ineffectively in the center of the road covering her head with her hooves. She was shivering as she spoke.
"I-Is he..... dead?"
Victor checked over his shoulder to see the minotaur breathing raspily with a small ooze of blood coming from the exit wound.
"uh..... not yet...... if you think we should try to save him we need to act quickly" Fluttershy started sobbing. Victor didn't know how to comfort her so he just sat there stroking her mane. Poor little thing he thought to himself. He noticed that no one else arrived; he presumed the other ponies had fled to get help.

What he didn't notice was the minotaur slowly rolling over and heaving himself up despite the gaping hole in his back. the rattle of his breath was drowned out by the sobs of the small pegasus as his single directive passed through his head. Drawing a massive axe from the sheath on his back, he dragged himself the last fifteen feet till he was virtually on top of them. Only then did Victor notice the shadow falling over him and the mare. He turned around to see a massive beast, a good eight feet tall, towering over him blood oozing from his wound and small flecks of flesh and blood coming out of his mouth as he breathed. The creature took a moment and gathered his breath as he uttered the four words the marine didn't want to here. "Destroy elements, no witnesses". As he saw the beast starting to heave up his axe. Time slowed down as he jumped forward to tackle the monster. In the middle of his jump he heard the minotaur bellow and watched in slow motion as the large blue furry arm swung towards him. He tried to react but his body seemed to be moving a mile a minute and all he could do was brace himself as the arm crashed into him with the force of a freight train, he heard an audible snap as his weight was shifted and sent in the complete opposite direction of the minotaur. Time sped back to normal as he went smashing through the air into the trunk of an apple tree.

Drooping down onto the ground he felt every broken bone as his vision began to fade.

Bringing his head up slowly he saw the minotaur, who was ignoring him and looking down directly at Fluttershy as he started to bring his axe up again. Fluttershy now fully aware of the situation began backing away terrified.

With his vision darkening he fumbled groggily in his pocket for his last chance.

The creature was stepping towards her now even in his weakened state he still kept pace with her.

The Derringer felt like a thousand pound weight in his hand as he willed himself to bring it up.

Fluttershy frantically backing up bumped into a tree behind her as the minotaur closed the few yards still between them.

With the last strength and his vision almost completely gone he leveled the sights on the creatures head as the beast began his swing. The last thing he saw was the axe come down as he pressed the trigger before it all went black.

Surprises

Victor woke up from his hospital bed quite groggily. He didn't feel any pain 'must've used the elements again' he thought as he cracked open his eyes and stared directly into big blue eyes. "f-Fluttershy? you're okay?"

She didn't say anything but suddenly embraced him in a giant hug. Victor grinned as he patted her back and audibly "dawwed" while he held her he looked around the room finding the mane six and another doctor who was busy checking charts on his clip board. "Hey guys where's the Princess?"

Twilight answered him "She had to go back to Canterlot on official business but we'd all love to thank you for saving Fluttershy here" The yellow mare tightened her grip at the mention of her name.

"oh it was nothing really, Im just glad she's okay" he said petting her.

"Nothing?! THAT WAS AWESOME!!!" Rainbow Dash blurted out.

Twilight continued "Well, to show you our appreciation we made you this" She presented a chocolate cake to Victor with a big "Thank You" written across it in frosting. As it was placed on his night stand, Pinkie pie trotted up to him holding two festively wrapped boxes "Hey Victor! we also found some things in the Everfree forest! We think they're yours" Victor was glad, any free gear was welcome gear

With a "thanks Pinkie" he tore open the packaging and opened the first box and nearly dropped it in surprise. Inside there was an incredibly worn and battered m1928 Thompson submachine gun with 2 drum magazines fully loaded with .45 acp cartridges. "What the fuck... he muttered as his eyebrows scrunched in puzzlement. Upon further inspection he noticed that on the stock there was some carvings in it that looked like Arabic. Now Victor knew only rudimentary spoken Arabic and a decent portion of the Arabic alphabet so unfortunately the scrawlings didn't give him a clue as to what the origins of this weapon were.

He took a moment to think. 'okay so, This gun had to come through the portal with me, there's no other way it could've gotten here. So it must've been owned by that scientist guy. But then how'd it get in Iraq? Well, Iraq was a British colony back up until somewhere in the 40's or 50's and I do know that the British loved the Tommy gun back during world war 2. So maybe the British had a couple over there and when they abandoned their colony they left behind a large amount of weapons. So probably over time it fell into the hands of that scientist' He knew that just because the gun was old that it wouldn't be left behind by terrorist forces. Seriously, when he was in Afghanistan he had stumbled across a weapons cache that had everything from Soviet anti tank rockets, a German mp40 and even an old muzzle loader from the Ottoman Empire.

He felt confident with his hypothesis which was good considering there was no way in the seven rings of Hell that he'd be able to prove it. "alright thanks Pinkie, can I get the other box?" with this she handed him the other present which he opened again just as quickly inside there was both a Browning Automatic Rifle (more commonly known as the BAR) and a slightly decaying and rusted revolver chambered for .357 magnum. He wasn't even going to bother thinking up an excuse for these two weapons. Rebels just manage to find weapons, just like squirrels find nuts, birds find worms, and Ash Ketchum finds the souls of 12 year old girls to feed his immortality with. He pulled back the latch on the side of the weapon and rolled out the cylinder. Seeing that it was loaded he tilted the revolver up and dumped the heavily rusted cartridges onto the floor.

The marine wondered if there'd even be a chance they could work at all.
"Hey Twilight"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have an cleaners, or oil or something?"

"Of course! I have an entire chemistry lab if you need anything"

"Alright I may need to borrow them.... Hey I just realized, I've spent literally every single night here sleeping in this hospital. Is there anywhere else I can move to?"

Twilight put an inquisitve hoof to her chin "Well, we don't have any open houses as of yet, I could send Princess Celestia a letter and see if we could build you somewhere to stay. In the mean time you could either spend the time here in the hospital or move in with one of the ponies here."

"Sure, I'm cool with that. Anyone care to share a house? AppleJack?"

The cowgirl shifted uncomfortably "Well uh... ya see we were have'n family over so we don't have any more space to share"

"Fluttershy?"

"Oh! I'd love to. I've got the perfect place for you to sleep. It can be right next to the song birds so they can-"

"I'd be sleeping next to birds?"

"Why yes and they are just-"

"I'm sorry Fluttershy but no. I'd love to but I HATE birds... it's a... it's a long story"

The Yellow mare backed down "oh... okay then"

"Sorry Fluttershy... What about you Rainbow?"

"I think you're forgetting I live on a cloud. Last time I checked monkeys can't fly"

"I'M NOT A MONKEY!!!" The marine yelled back. "Rarity?"

"Well I suppose you could, I mean you would have to bunk with Sweetie Belle if she spent the night"

"Eh sure why not" Victor clapped his hands together "Alrighty then, shall we begin moving"

The white unicorn replied "lead on"

The group was roughly halfway to Rarity's boutique at this point. Big Mac was hauling a large cart laden with guns, rockets, and ammunition, Rarity and Twilight used their magic to carry the marines clothes, and Victor himself was carrying the BAR, and Tommy gun both of which he had deemed his own personal projects for the time being. Suddenly Pinkie stopped and perked her ears up.

The purple unicorn tapped her on the shoulder.
"Pinkie what are you doing"

"SSSSSHHHHH!!"

"Do your Pinkie senses have something?"

The earth pony stuffed a hoof into Twilight's mouth.
"No, listen!"

The group stopped. There was a faint sound coming from a distance. A soft sound that sounded only like an odd buzzing from this distance.

The marine called out to everyone in a whisper.
"Hang on I'll check it out"
Victor placed down the antiques and crept slowly to the cart and plucked out an m14 EBR with an m203 grenade launcher and ACOG sight and paused. The sound was louder now and could be identified as a mechanical whirring coming from the edge of town. Victor motioned for the ponies to stay put as he jogged forward past the buildings and towards the towns limits.
He stopped when he saw something faintly out on a hillside. It was red. wait, hold on. Red and white striped. Oh wait... it was pulling something... something also red but not striped... but much larger..........
"Holy shit"
Out there on the hillside was a Humvee painted barbershop style red and white hauling a giant.... thing.
"how the...."
The marine kept jogging, tightening his grip on his assault rifle as the military vehicle drew nearer. It was headed down a side road directly in his direction. As the vehicle drew within a hundred feet the marine crouched and leveled his rifle at the wind shield as his left hand crept up and clutched the grenade launcher, finger on the trigger. He wouldn't be able to blast through the windshield as it was bullet proof, but he could wreck the thing with a 40mm grenade. The big HMMWV started to slow down as it got nearer coming to a stop roughly 30 feet from his position with the engine still running

It was at this point that Victor noticed the long scratches and dings all across its sides as if some wild animal attacked it. Before he could contemplate the vehicles history any further he was aroused from his thoughts by the unmistakable noise of a charging handle being drawn. He looked up at the top of the Humvee to see a pony with a straw hat and mustache pointing the m2HB .50 caliber machine gun on the vehicles roof directly at him.

He spoke with a 19th century con mans accent. "Whats that thing in the road, brother of mine?

Wreckage

"Who are you? As a matter of fact what are you? State your business." The pony with the mustache decreed.

"Corporal Victor Pineschi serial number 303-449-219 United States Marine Corps" the marine automatically replied tightening the grip on the launcher even further. He didn't like this. Nobody was ever in a good position on the business end of a ma deuce.

"Who are you and where did you get that HUMVEE?"

"That's the name of this vehicle? how do you know?"

"Answer the previous question" he said voice steadily rising

"what did you have to do with this vehicle?"

"WHO ARE YOU!!"

"NO! WHAT ARE YOU!?!"

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!!" He screamed aiming the rifle at his head

The driver screamed "WASTE HIM FLAM"

Both creatures fired their weapons simultaneously. The marine's rifle barked and sent a round right into the pony's shoulder causing him to jerk the MG violently to its right which made his automatic salvo miss the marine by inches. The pony screamed and clutched his shoulder as he fell back into the Humvee. Out of instinct the marine cinched the trigger on the m203 sending the grenade into the side of the armored vehicle with a hollow *FOOMP*.

The explosion rocked the Humvee, scorching the armor and peppering the sides with shrapnel. The smoke cleared and there was an impressive dent in the side of the car. The ballistic glass looked like a spider web and the door itself was blackened with the remnants of its red and white paint slowly peeling away to reveal small portions desert camouflage beneath.

The marine waited a while for the vehicles rocking to cease and approached the damaged HMMWV gun at the ready. He held the rifle in one hand as he opened up the drivers door of the Humvee to find a badly shaken and unconcious pony slumped over the steering wheel. He looked incredibly similar to the other pony albeit without a mustache. His straw hat was still miraculously perched atop his head. The soldier grabbed the unconscious equine by the collar of his shirt and dragged him out of the vehicle. resting him up against a nearby tree. As he started to approach the Humvee again to recover the other pony when the rest of the mane six, and Big Macintosh, and Spike arrived.

AppleJack called out to him "What in tarnations going on out here"

"Hang on one second..."

Victor opened the door to drag out the pony with the shoulder wound and mustache, he was still conscious but clearly in shock as he was staring out into space and murmuring quiet questions to no one in particular. He was visibly growing paler as the wound was seeping an alarming amount of blood.

"This guy needs medical attention pronto, he's about to bleed out."

"But what happened here?" AppleJack reiterated.

"priorities first AJ, we gotta get this guy to a hospital, anyone got a tourniqutte or something to stop the bleeding?"

All he recieved in reply was silence

"Well okay then"

He ripped the ponies shirt into a long strip of cloth which he used to tie around its shoulder, after which the bleeding subsided considerably. He then heaved the shocked pony up over his shoulder and turned to the group.

"Yo, we gotta go back to the hospital. Big Mac, think you can carry the dude by the tree"

"Eeyup"

He then trotted briskly over to the tree hefted the unconscious pony over his back and followed the group back to this hospital.

The walk back was an awkward one. Flam, due to some severe shock and serious blood loss, started to say some really weird things as he was draped over the marines shoulder. Most of it as random stuttering but what could be made out was something along the lines of "Boom he-*hack*- heheh the m-monkey m-m-m-ade a boom boom hahahahahHAHAHAHAHA *cough* *cough* *cough* g-gonna havta do better'n that ta kill meeeeeeheeheeheeeeeeeee" The pony coughed a bit more, shuddered, and went limp.

"Oh shit, hang on guys" The marine knelt down and gently and took the pony off his shoulder, supporting his head with one hand as he laid him across the ground. He put two fingers on the ponies neck and then cupped his hand over his ear and held it near the ponies mouth.

"He's still alive... but barely, we gotta hurry" He slung him back over his shoulder and started to jog toward the hospital.

"C'mon guys, we don't have much time left"

He could over hear RainbowDash whispering to Applejack.
"I know I said I wanted to see those FlimFlam brothers pressed into jerk cider but this is a little extreme, I mean, they did steal your farm but this just seems a bit... you know..."

"Yeh, I know what you mean RD, I feel bad for 'um regardless of what they did earlier, nopony deserves this, I hope they turn out alright"

Victor cringed a bit overhearing their conversation. Did he just nearly kill two of these ponies friends? Who were they? Where did they get that Humvee? What was their history? So many questions. He'd just have to wait for these guys to recover at the hospital.He checked himself, If they could recover.
They arrived at the hospital a few minutes later, the marine kicked in the door.

"HEY WE NEED A CORPSMEN HERE!" he corrected himself "oh wait shit, pony-doctors, WE NEED A DOCTOR ASAP!!!"

The secretary at the desk looked up to see a group of ponies and one human carrying two bloody pale ponies. This was not her day. She tapped on the intercom and called for immediate medical assistance. A short moment later 4 hospital orderlies wheeling two gurneys burst in to the lobby. They paused and stared wide eyed the second they saw the marine.

Victor snapped his fingers with his free hand to catch their attention "Hey focus, we need these guys to get to the ER immediately" The orderlies snapped out of it albeit with a look of great confusion and brought the gurneys over to the group. The two ponies where set down on the gurneys and were whisked away through the ER's double doors leaving the entourage in silence.

On a Sombra note

Chrysalis looked at the Draconequs and felt a collection of mixed emotions. On one hand he was quite successful in the attacks on Trottingham, and the army he had raised was quite impressive, just a bit of brainwashing, hypnotism, manipulation and trickery and they now had an army that surpassed anything Equestria or her allies could put together. On the other, he had managed to bring back Sombra who he promptly let him be destroyed. This not only led to the destruction of an ally that made Nightmare Moon look like a fat kid on rollerskates, but also raised the attention of the Royal Sisters. Someone had to have let Sombra out, and they'd be looking for whoever did so, and the crystal ponies also added another bastion of defense to the Equestrian forces which might actually prove to be a challenge to her army.

She put her head in her hoof and sighed, she didn't know how to react to him.

".... Discord, you really are a puzzle aren't you"

The Draconequs perked up and looked back at her with a grin

"Why, as the spirit of chaos it only makes sense doesn't it? wait actually, scratch that, it shouldn't make sense, chaos never has to" with that he laughed, created a chocolate milk, downed it and then hurled it at the nearest changeling where it promptly exploded in its face.

That last act of violence determined Chrysalis' mood, she wasn't going to be apathetic or tired, she was going to be mad.

"For the love of Celestia can you please stop killing my guards with chocolate milk?! I mean come on! at the very least you could kill them in a less degrading way!"

the few remaining guards who weren't currently in chocolate scented pieces backed away uncomfortably.

"What about that army I raised for you? that has to make up for some of it. there's at least 90% of both the griffon and minotaur armies in it, not including the swaths of dragons, manticores, and brainwashed ponies".

Chrysalis was still angry

"You could take hundreds of armies to Equestria and they'd still all be defeated by the elements of harmony. Sombra was the only one who could destroy them and now he's dead because of you."

"Come now, Crystal. I can see why you'd be upset, but I can assure I have found another way around that problem."

"What?, you've never mentioned this before. What plans do you have in mind?"

"Oh Crystal, why does everything need to be so complicated for you? Sure complication is great for chaos but I have the perfect idea..."

"Tell me.... NOW"

"Jeez pushy,... okay so, all you need to do to destroy the elements of harmony..."

he paused for dramatic effect

"just drop them in a volcano."

Chrysalis stood there thinking, she opened her mouth to say something but closed it. She thought more, opened her mouth again. and then closed it, and thought a little more. This time she opened her mouth and said something.

".... Discord.... you may actually be right. An unorthodox method for destroying those wretched things, but it seems that that might actually work..."

Discord chuckled and replied "Why, its actually quite simple really, they are just some jewelry after all; jewelry with magical powers yes, but still jewelry."

"Discord, I see no problems with your plans except for one small detail. How do we get the elements? Celestia has quadrupled their security since my attack on Canterlot. It's impossible for us to get through all those guards and spells."

"Not a problem Chrystal, I have one stallion who can certainly get us past..."

Innocence to Corruption

Flim woke with a groan, his head hurt like he'd been smacked in the dome with a barbell. He sat up in his bed and took a look down at his... hospital gown? What happened? He was in the hospital now? just a moment ago he'd been driving down the road in that fancy foreign machine when...... it all flooded back to him, that giant monkey with a boom stick, or whatever the hay those things were called, the gunshot and the cry for help before smashing his head on the dashboard.... wait a second... that voice that screamed.... that was FLAM'S voice, did that giant gorrilla kill him? In the name of Celestia he hoped he was okay, otherwise.... otherwise, he was gonna kill that monkey, wring his neck, push his face into the speedy cider squeezy 6000, set his body on fire, find his kids if he had any, show his kids pictures of it, and then set them on fire too. Flim was furious, Flam better be okay, he had to find him.

Ignoring the pain he rolled off the bed, flung open the door, and began galloping through the hospital. He kicked open each door he passed, looking inside, and then moved to the next one. Ignoring the screams and shouts of surprise from startled patients, he got to about ten doors before a massive orderly tackled him to the ground and pinned him there.

"SIR IM GONNA HAVE TO ASK YOU TO REMAIN CALM .....REMAIN....... CALM" he said in a loud clear voice.

"CALM?! CALM?! YOU'RE GOING TO ASK ME TO STAY CALM WHEN MY BROTHER MIGHT BE DEAD?!?!" He headbutted the orderly, nearly passing out from the pain, as the orderly himself reeled back and clutched at his face, Flim rolled away and kept running, His mind reeled as he sprinted about the hospital before he smashed through the glass doors of the ICU at the end of the hall way. Whipping his head around he spotted a familiar mustached face sound asleep in the only occupied bed in the room. The sleeping pony was hooked up to a blood bag and an EKG with a large amount of bandages around his shoulder. Flim teared up with joy and sprinted over to his sleeping brother and hugged him.

"Y-you're okay Flam." he sobbed clutching his brother "You're alive!" after that he started sobbing into his brother's hospital gown getting it quite soaked with tears. Flim felt movement as the sleeping pony began to wake up.

"Flim?" he said unsure of his surroundings, "Are we dead?"

"No my brother, far from it." and he kept sobbing

At this what was left of the broken door was opened and a stern female voice called out.
"What in the name of Celestia is going on here?!"

Nurse Redheart was standing in the doorway with two orderlies, one clutching an ice bag to his face, a nurse, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and.... That monkey. Flim spotted him and his blood boiled, this was the thing that tried to kill my brother, this thing wanted to destroy my family. He was pissed. He stopped crying near instantaneously, got up from his hug and got between his brother and the marine, head lowered, and snorting.

Twilight was the first to speak.
"Whoa there Flim, there's no need to panic, keep calm"

Flim replied through gritted teeth.
"I'm not letting that THING get anywhere near Flam"

"We understand Flim, we just need to clarify some issues..."

Flim stood there unflinching, no reply only glaring daggers at Victor who was shifting around uncomfortably.

"This is Victor, He isn't from around here, he's from a whole other world, and he's a soldier too. He's lost everything and was trying to adjust to Equestria. He didn't mean to hurt your brother; in fact, he was the one who carried him here."

Flim softened a little, he could relate to this creature, he had nothing as well and had acted much more violently in situations like their previous encounter. The creature noticed he'd calmed somewhat, and walked towards him, and bent down to his level extending a... thing... it looked like a hairless monkey paw, Flim supposed this was like a hoofshake so he reluctantly placed his hoof into his hand and bobbed it up and down.

"Hi there" the creature spoke, it's voice with a lot more personality, not like the near robotic monotone he had earlier. "I'm Victor, I'd like to apologize on behalf of hurting you both, I'm really sorry, and the Hummvee-uh, ahem, vehicle you were driving was and is incredibly similar to things I used when fighting in Ira- damn it, my world." it sounded genuinely concerned.

"Well, so long as Flam turns out alright, I think we can make amends." Flim replied much more gently.

The nurse took this moment to chime in "about that Flim, We have good news, Flam is expected to make a full recovery. Possibly within a few weeks!" Flim was elated to hear this and a grin spread across his face.

Victor took control of the conversation again "Hey Flim, I know you're worried about your brother, I've had to deal with loss before. I've lost a few friends in combat, and its not pretty but I do have an important question for you. Where did you get that vehicle?"

Flim visibly cringed when he head the question. With a soft sigh he looked Victor in the eyes and said in a morose voice. "Well Victor... It is Victor correct?" The marine nodded n agreement "We actually found it in an stretch of road between Manehatten and Trottingham. We were leaving Manehatten because of an... unsuccessful strike at business."

Flam shouted from his bed in a sarcastic voice "It would appear that rabid dogs do not make great Hearths Warming Eves presents."

"Well Flam, I'm sure it would've worked if you hadn't opened their cages in an orphanage."

"How else were we supposed to give them out?"

"Carefully and in their cages!!"

"Uh guys?" Victor looked at the two arguing brothers, they looked back at him sheepishly and regained their focus.

"Right, sorry about that. Well as I was saying, we were headed toward Trottingham when we had stumbled across that peculiar vehicle we had spent roughly a week tinkering with it, seeing how it worked, and if we could turn a profit by making more of them. We figured out how to create it, the mechanics on the device were marvelous really, and we learned how to make it function with some proficiency. So we continued to make our way to Trottingham, maybe see if we could get some help in its mass production. However, that was where we were..... assualted."

"But I'm in Ponytown right now right? this isn't Nottingham Uh I mean Trottingham right?"

"Of course not, you are in Ponyville. It's just that we were attacked by some other..... unpleasant folk"

His demeanor changed quickly to a morose one as he sullenly continued.
"We were attacked by.... other ponies"

This arose a few gasps from his audience, Victor snickered quietly.

"It was.... They were..... something was wrong with them...... and I don't know what..... they...they tried to kill us... If it hadn't been for that thing on the car roof we would've been goners."

The ponies in the room were silent. Victor was now somewhat shocked, ponies aren't supposed to fuck shit up. They're supposed to be all fuzzy and wuzzy.

Twilight spoke "Who were they? Surely, they had to be some sort of gang or terror group."

Flim shook his head "That's the thing, they weren't a gang, they were ponies, messed up ponies from Colts to mares to fillies, they attacked us, there was something wrong with them. They even had axes and chainsaws. So they attacked us and started smashing against the vehicle..."

so that's why the car was all dented Victor thought to himself

"..... and then we started blasting away at the crowd. Flam didn't hit any thankfully, except for one colt, and in the name of Celestia, that weapon is horrific. His head... it.... it... EVAPORATED"
With that memory recalled Flam shifted around uncomfortably, he looked shamefully at his hooves. Flim finished his statement.
"We escaped and finally arrived at Ponyville were we greeted Mr.Victor here and were hospitalized.

The the ponies stood horrified and in silence for a good minute before Victor decided to break it.
"Uh, Twilight, I think you gotta let the princess know about this."

She shook her head clear "Right, I uh... I uh gotta go find Spike." and with that she ran off

"Flim, Flam, I hate to bother you, but might I commandeer that Humvee? I need to check this thing out."

Flam was the one to speak "Good heavens, keep it. I hope I never have to see that wretched contraption ever again!"

"Alright, Thank you sir."

and with that he turned and left, taking care to step through the glass doorway. As he walked down the aisle he heard Nurse Redheart bark out "Alright Ms.Dash I gotta ask you to leave, they need plenty of bed rest, and Flim I'll escort you back to your room. Mind the glass shards."

Reacquaintance

Victor exited the hospital with plenty of thoughts in his head. Most of which were about the Humvee but one or two were on the 2013 Maxim calender he realized he'd never get. He shook his head clear and walked to the place where he thought the vehicle was last. He was accompanied by Rainbow Dash who noticed his silence.

"So, ah. what is this thing we're going to get"

"It's a Humvee, a sort of vehicle us humans use in order to get from point A to point B faster."

"huh, well I don't need to worry about speed, you're looking at the fastest flier in Equestria!"

the marine smiled and rolled his eyes "Cocky little glue sack aren't you? prove it, first one to the Humvee gets my last pack of skittles" He didn't wanna risk his skittles but he was sure he could beat a 4 foot blue pony in a foot race.

"What's a skittle?"

Victor's jaw flopped open "It's... It's like and edible orgasm!"

"an edible what now?

"Errrrr... it's like the awesomest food ever! You taste the Rainbow."

"really?" Dash was the one to roll her eyes this time.

"You'll see if you can beat me"

With that they both hunkered down. Victor got into a running position, and Dash crouched down.
"Okay on the count of three...

"one...

two....

three!"

Dash took off like a lightning bolt nearly to the limit of a sonic rainboom, she covered the distance in less than 3 seconds. like a top fuel dragster on steroids. Victor was thrown to the ground by the blast the second Dash took off. He heaved himself off the ground and stood there mouth agape for at least 20 seconds.

"holy... shit...." he said in a breathless near silent whisper. "holy.... shit..." It had covered nearly an entire mile in the span of three seconds, that was nearly 2 times as fast as the land speed record. That had to be at least........ (he took a moment to think)........ 1,200 mph. She just broke the sound barrier without even breaking a sweat.....

"holy shit"

he heard a soft "done!" in the distance and proceeded to jog the mile getting there in about 7 minutes. Rainbow Dash was leaning against the car.

"Jeez what took you so long?"

"I... you.... Nothing goes that fast! how is that even........"

"I won fair and square. Now pay up."

He rummaged through his pocket rubbing his temples profusely with one hand. He tossed her a jumbo skittles bag and wandered away dumbstruck.

Rainbow causally tore the bag open with her teeth and popped a few skittles in her mouth. She chewed a little and her eyes went wide as a massive smile crossed her face.

"OMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSHOMIGOSH!!!!!!!"

she started stuffing them in her mouth until she looked like a chipmunk. She laid down on the ground and chewed.
This she thought was euphoria

Victor was still wandering around aimlessly trying to make sense of the technicolor pony which just went the speed of the Concorde. He took a moment, the laws of my universe do not apply and repeated this mantra in his head a good twenty times before he turned around and walked back to the sugar rushing pony by the military vehicle.

"Hey Rainbow!"

"Muph?" she replied, mouth still stuffed

"don't get Diabeetus" Victor chuckled at his own joke while Rainbow Dash sat up confused

"Muph hu-huhumph mph muh?" She swallowed and repeated "wait what's diabeetus?"

"Ah, nothing you need to know about." He strolled around the Humvee, its exterior was in poor condition even without the massive dent in the side and red and white paint and... thing.

"Hey Rainbow,

"What?"

"What's the thing hitched on the back of the car." He was gesturing at the massive wood and steel apparatus with large pipes going hither and thither throughout it that had been rather haphazardly attached to the car.

"Oh that thing, I remember it from cider season a while back. They called it the super speedy cider squeezy 6000 if I remember correctly. It's a giant cider press that nearly put AppleJack out of business...... but, it did make good cider..... before they started putting rocks in it...........eeeeeehhhhhIIIIIII think I'll just take it off your hands, you know, to keep AJ's farm safe...... and not make any of my own cider.........eeeeehhhh yeah"
with that she trotted over kicked the hitch off.

"Do you still need me?"

"Nah, I should be fine"

"Great!" and with that she started pushing the super speedy cider squeezy 6000 off into the direction of Everfree forest for *ahem* 'safe keeping'"

Victor watched her go and then turned his attention back to the car. He opened the shotgun door to see the classic Humvee interior he'd grown accustomed to. with all the modern luxuries one could need. With its luxurious canvas covered seats and casing coated floor, it was given a bit of artistic contrast by a splash of dried blood, it was all he needed to give him good old memories of Iraq. He climbed into the center of the massive vehicle and popped his head out of the machine gun turret. The M2HB was a bit wrecked. The barrel was slightly warped and the reciever was covered in scratch marks, the press button trigger was also a bit dented but against all good judgment, he racked the charging handle to ensure it was loaded, and fired off a 3 round volley into the air.

A loud CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK sounded off in the town causing a moment of silence not heard in some time. Looking around, he noticed a few blinds in the houses shift and heads peep from around corners in his direction. He paid them no attention and instead proceeded to unload the box of .50 cal ammo and racked the slide twice hearing an unspent cartridge ping off the floor and pushed the trigger to hear a quiet *click*. He climbed down into the drivers seat with the massive box of .50 caliber ammo setting it down gently in the back. He looked to see the keys were still in place; and with hesitation reached for them.

He figured it wouldn't work considering it just took a hell of a beating from an m203.... and quiet possibly evil cartoon horses; but hey, it's worth a shot. He grabbed the key took a deep breath and then turned them.

The Humvee growled to life. Sickly, with a decent amount of burbling and gurgling, but it worked. He gently pushed on the gas pedal and felt the vehicle slowly move forward. He beamed with that. More than happy that his massive car would still run. He turned the car off and then decided to rummage through its supplies and scavenge what goodies he could find.

First off was the trunk. He got out of the car and into the back and opened the trunk. He gasped at the belongings inside. It was literally everything that his squad was using in their Humvee. This was his Humvee. He started pulling out items one by one. First was a FIM-92 stinger missile. There was literally no good reason that his squad should have had this, but Lt. Randal, a former eagle scout, lived by the motto "be prepared". Next was a crate that put a smile on his face. It said "explosives handle with care" he immediately took it out and opened it up. It was his secret stash of well, everything, it contained everything a soldier could possibly want from a good 8 boxes of skittles 10 2L bottles of Dr. Pepper as well as, Hershey's, Crunches, and Milky Way bars, and who could forget the all important staple to a soldiers diet, pornography. He'd smuggled some magazines in from his last time on leave. He could normally sell it for a bunch if he chose. Normally he didn't though. Also were a collection of black market weaponry. He (being a Californian) was more than happy to get his hands on knuckle dusters, an Uzi, and 4 Molotov cocktails. Normally such a stash would be confiscated, and he would be demoted if not on latrine duty for the rest of his service should it have been found. Even his own squad members would have raided the stash if it weren't for Randal. He was a hell of a CO, and turned a blind eye so long as he got discount magazines. Victor was his squads "procurement specialist" he had the connections to get whatever someone wanted whenever.
He pushed the crate off to the side and opened a bulky rucksack. Inside was a disassembled m82 Barrett, at least 10 m67 grenades with fragmentation jackets, 35lbs of C4, a "Jaws of life", a tool box, and a burrito.

"AWWWW TITS!" he said as he unwrapped the not so fresh burrito. He sniffed it and his nostrils were filled with the scent of over processed meat. He tarted tearing into that burrito like a fat man with donuts. He finished it feeling quite content with the world around him and continued his work.

He plucked out another few weapons including an mp5k, an m40a3, a glock 18c and last but not least a intimidating looking shovel. I mean honestly, there are few shovels out there scarier. It's like the Nicole Kidman of shovels cause its got these wicked spiks on the handle, and the edges are like uber sharp. I mean, you would have to see this shovel to grasp how terrifying it was.

With the trunk clear, he went around to the shotgun seat and opened up the glove box. Inside were a list of papers, a few documents and at the top of the pile was an unopened envelope. It was addressed to a Corporal Victor Pineschi. He took it off the pile and examined it, turning it over in his hands a few times before putting the pile back and shutting the glove box. He carefully ripped open the envelope and with gentle hands took out the letter. The hand writing was terrible and the paper itself was the back of an ID form.

It read:
Hey Victor,

It's me Randal. I have no idea if you'll get this message, or even if you're still alive. But, I didn't feel right leaving a loose end untied. We all miss you bro. Carod doesn't even know what the hell happened, he just keeps repeating it was a dream. Other than that, the rest of the squad still has their wits together. I hope that all this crap in the Humvee can help you. If you're wondering how it got here I have to explain. That thing that pretty much sucked you up got turned off after it got some holes blown in it, but all we had to do was reattach the severed wires and it was running again. We tried to throw it in reverse but you wouldn't believe what came out. A fucking bug ball thing. It's blue and looks like a giant fly with a smiley face. It ate a chunk of some fruit laying outside and threw up another bug thing. We threw them both back in the portal. With that said, I should move on the Humvee. Well we figured out how to make the portal larger and we had to stay behind to destroy the device. We thought that the Humvee might help you so we threw in what ever guns we had left and pushed it through. I don't know if you'll get it and I'm sorry man. If it makes you feel better we're gonna blow up the whole building afterwards and make sure that the machine is gone. The only downside is there's no way we can get you back now. We'll be fine. I have an idea on how we can come up with some B.S for the brass, replace the gear, and list you as M.I.A. No one will believe our story anyways. There aren't actually many people who'll give a fuck cause we work too close with the PMC's. So that's about it news wise. I hope you're okay buddy and I'm glad to have been able to call you my fellow soldier, squadmate, and friend

Semper Fi brother,
Randal

Victor put down the letter and welled up a bit. He put his head in his hands and took a few deep, shakey breaths. He was homesick for the first time here. Not homesick really, more like he just wished he could have said good bye. He shut the door to the Humvee and sobbed.

Pinkie, Parties, and LSD

Twilight was on a late night walk through Ponyville, she thought that this would just be a good night to go out and enjoy the scenery. She was returning home to her library when she started to hear a dull deep thumping. This was rhythmic like music, but none she had ever heard before. She rounded the corner of a large building and saw her library. Light through its windows were flashing in a bunch of different colors and she could make out the noises of talking.
She ran over to the building and flung open the door. She was greeted by a cacophony of rap music and shouting.

"CAUSE IM A MOTHA FUCKING GANGSTA!" Victor was shouting along to the music holding his glock in the air.He was shirtless and wearing his aviators.

"WOO!!" He fired a single round into the air. It was just barely louder than the music and dancing.
"YO SPIKE!"

Spike ran up to him out of the crowd, he was wearing a lampshade.

"YEAH?"

"HOW'S PINKIE HOLDING UP?!"

"SEE FOR YOURSELF!" He pointed over his shoulder at Pinkie Pie. She was ridiculously hyper, bouncing off the walls, LITERALLY, and chasing around anyone who got near her. She somehow managed to find a LAW rocket nearby and now had it held above her head.

"PINKIE NO!" Victor shouted, but it was too late. She fired it and the deafening roar obscured the music for a second. The back blast fried a perfectly good batch of muffins causing a certain grey pegasus to burst into tears, and the rocket to crash through a glass window, and majestically soar out into the night sky where it exploded after a short while giving off a lovely display quite similar to fire works.

The event went largely unnoticed by the crowd and party patrons, except for Victor, Spike, Twilight, and any pony who happened to be close enough to Pinkie.

Twilight stood mouth agape and immediately rushed over to Pinkie.

"PINKIE!? What are you doing?!?!"

Pinkie responded with a series of shrieks, giggles, head spins, and gibberish before jumping out of the same window the rocket had gone through which is kind of impressive considering it was a window twenty feet off the ground. Twilight just looked at the window for a moment before turning around and walking through the crowd to find Victor. He was found break dancing with Spike doing wicked spins like a boss. (please forgive me any real break dancers for I know nothing of the sport). Victor noticed Twilight and stopped spinning, posed on his side with his arm supporting his head.

"Draw me like one of your French girls" he said with a smirk. Twilight blushed, shook her head and focused.

"Uh, Victor? I can forgive the party, but what happened to Pinkie. She's pretty hyped up... more than usual."

"Oh! uhhhhhhh you remember that vial that I gave you?"

"yeah?"

"Weeeeeeeelllllllll she found it and drank it all."

"Oh my gosh! will she be okay?"

"Yeeeeeeaaaaaah...... give her a few hours, I don't know too much about LSD, but I think that was a safeish dose she took. So how do you like the party? Flam helped me set up my ipod-er-thing that makes music to the loudspeakers some blue maned red eyed horse lent me."

It was at that moment when a great roar erupted from the outside. Louder than the music and causing the party to grow silent. The roar happened a second time and this time the music stopped. It was silent for a while before the door caved in and Pinkie Pie burst through the front door riding on top of a Manticore.

"OH SWEET MOTHER OF FUCK!" Victor cried as he dove away from the door behind a cider bar that had been rolled in for the occasion. He huddled next to a possibly drunk pink mare with a few berries as its cutie mark. He looked over the bar just in time to see Twilight and Spike dash out of the building screaming "MANTICORE"

"Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit, OH SHIT!" he said as he realized that the manticore was getting closer. he looked down and saw that he still had his glock in hand.

"......oh yeah....."

and with that he came out from behind the bar and leveled the sights. They were all lined up on the manticores head. Perfect kill shot. Right as he was squeezing the trigger an object like a midieval flail smashed the weapon right out of his hands. It was its tail.

"GOD DAMMIT!" the glock flew across the room and landed on a shelf. His hands were miraculously unscathed though and thus he ducked back under the bar and hid. The manticore seemed to ignore him and rampaged throughout the rest of the library. Victor looked throughout the bar and found no other armament other than an empty Vodka- I mean cider- bottle.
He cracked his knuckles, swore so heartily it killed a nearby parasprite, cinched the bottle in one hand and lept over the bar screaming. The manticore didn't even notice him until they were within five feet of each other when it did it swung its tail directly at him which he narrowly ducked under, jumped into the air and then brought the bottle down on the creatures head.
The sound of breaking glass was interesting as it was mixed with both a roar, and a scream of "FUCK YOU", and was followed by a thump.

The big furry creature was on the ground with a decent amount of blood coming from its head. It was however, still breathing. Victor was wide awake, on his feet clutching his very bloody hand and jumping about like a chicken with its head cut off. Forget what happens in the movies, when you break a bottle over somebodies head there are a lot of cuts to both people.Pinkie pie was still on the manticore as well; however, she was unconscious. A large amount of dribble and vomit coming out of her mouth. The other patrons of the party were either trapped partially under rubble, huddled in corners, or passed out from fear. This was the scene that Twilight and Spike were greeted with as they returned with a platoon of the Equestrian Royal Guards. A Pink mare with a groggy expression poked her head out from behind the bar "wha...huh? wasss goin' on?

The War

Victor woke up in carousel boutique; he had no recollection of how he had gotten there as his last memory had been getting shots for pain before getting stitches. He hated needles and vaguely remembered being held down as he punched somepony in the face. He stretched, yawned, and scratched his nose, only to find that he couldn't scratch it. His hand was swathed in a decent amount of bandages, and as is custom with Murphy's law his hand had an itch. He tried to ignore it, but it only got worse. Eventually, he decided "screw this" and carefully unwrapped his hand, as the last of the bandages came off he saw the work which the doctors had done. His hand looked quite good, a few stitches were on the sides of his had with one large one going across his palm but other than that not much damage was visible. Incredibly carefully, he flexed his hand and felt no pain, he repeated the action faster and concluded that the doctors had done damn fine work.

*****************************************************

Chrysalis smiled, her army was ready. They had dealt with Trottingham with ease, no word of its fall had reached royal ears. Discord's corruption had converted nearly all of the Griffon and Minotaur armies and the entire outer settlements of Equestria. Due to the entire corruption of the border towns her entire army was literally able to walk right in. She would attack first with the ponies, not only to protect her own more valuable forces but to also crush Celestia. She knew how much her "beloved subjects" meant to her, and she wanted to see Celestia destroyed.

********************************************************

Victor was sitting at the kitchen table in Carousel Boutique. Sweetie Belle was cooking with the Crusaders because they wanted to see if they could get foreign food making cutie marks. Victor had already disabled the smoke alarms and was prepared for the worst. He was instructing the creation of breakfast burritos and dear god was it terrible. He was an awful chef himself, having subsisted near solely off of MRE's, graham crackers, and chocolate bars for the last 3 years in service and cooking nothing more sophisticated than instant scrambled eggs. All the windows had been opened previously but that did almost nothing to let out the smell of burning tortilla, and egg. The fruits of their labor 15 minutes later resulted in 4 tubes brown mush trapped in side a haphazardly folded, slightly burned tortilla. He looked at their hideous creations and took one tentative bite. His mouth set on fire and turned inside out as the overpowering burned bread flavor mixed perfectly like an elixir of death with the hot sauce they later used to drown it in to unsuccessfully try masking the burning taste; he lobbed the wretched thing out the window and attempted to wash the flavor out of his mouth with hot chocolate. The cutie mark crusaders who had also tried them did the exact same thing.

"This is terrible!" Applebloom said

"Well cooking is definitely not one of our strong suits" Sweetie Belle replied

"Maybe we can get our cutie marks in poison brewing" Scootaloo said wryly.

A feminine scream sounded from outside, "maybe she tried one of those burritos" Victor joked.
His laugh was quickly silenced by the hatchet which spun through the window, getting lodged in the wall not 10 inches from his head. His training snapped in almost instantaneously

"get upstairs NOW" he said as he picked them all up and carried them upstairs. He dropped them off in Rarity's bedroom, who wasn't there at the moment because she had decided to leave for a walk the second she knew Sweetie Belle would be cooking.

"Lock the door, and don't open it for anyone except me and Rarity"

"Where are you goin'?" Applebloom asked with a face of concern.

"I'm gonna go and find out what's going on, hatchets don't just fly at heads for no reason. Do NOT open this door okay? and DO NOT leave the room, someone really dangerous could be out there and I don't wanna see you get hurt." and with that he shut the door and left.

Sweetie Belle locked it and Scootaloo asked "did he just say someone instead of somepony?"

"I think so" Applebloom replied

"That's so WEIRD!"
**************************************************

Victor ran downstairs to the room he had been sleeping in. All his stuff was there, he threw on his helmet, armor, and vest grabbed an m4 and a USP .45 and left the house.

The first thing he saw was a pink pony with a daisy cutie mark sitting outside the building staring off vacantly into space.

"Ma'am what's going on out here? I heard a yell and an axe flew through our window....... Ma'am?" He gently shook her shoulder and she flopped over exposing the back of her head, or what was left of it.

"Oh Fucking shit! What the Hell!?" her head looked like it had been smashed with a ball peen hammer or a bat. Large amounts of brain were splattered about. He was about to to call for help when another pony ran up and bucked him causing him to fly a few feet and land on his back underneath a colossal stallion. His coat looked a grey red and he had a face of malice.

"Just where do you think you're going ape creature?" he reared up and tried to bring his hooves down onto Victor's head. He rolled away at the last second and brought about his m4 and fired two quick rounds into the pony's chest. The pony screamed in agony before collapsing to the ground, but Victor paid it no attention as he was already looking at the war zone around him. There were burning buildings and several corpses; grey coated ponies wielding everything from clubs to axes to swords and they were all chasing after vibrantly colored normal ponies.

Victor shouted out at no one in particular "What the HELL is going on?!?!"
His outburst went unanswered but his attention was suddenly diverted to a scream that sounded an awful lot like Rarity's.

"Just what do you think you're doing ruffian?!" She said as she bucked a knife wielding pony to the ground.

"YO RARITY!" Victor cried out waving. She turned to look at him and promptly galloped over.

"Victor, what's going on?! I was on my way to Sugar cube corner for a quick bite to eat when all these ponies just started attacking us!"

"Your guess is as good as mine-" He paused for a second as the knife wielding pony ran at them screaming. The m4 was raised, barked twice and the upper portion of the pony's head exploded before his body flailed around a bit then flopped lifelessly to the ground.

Rarity stood there gobsmacked at his sudden and violent actions.

"Don't worry he's dead, they just flop around a bit when you shoot them in the head."

"I'm not surprised that that poor creature was flailing, I'm terrified that you just killed him like that!"

"Well he was gonna kill us you know..."

She glared at him for a moment before shaking her head and ignoring his statement.

"We need to find Twilight"

"Waaaaay ahead of yah"

"Wait a moment, where's Sweetie Belle and her friends? are they okay?"

"Yeah they're fine, hiding out in your bedroom. I told them not to open the door for anyone except you or me."

"Oh thank Celestia, I think I should go check on them and keep them safe. You go find Twilight and the others and meet back here." She then galloped off to carousel boutique. Victor watched to ensure she was safe and then turned around to find the others.

First was Twilight; Her house was the closest to Rarity's. In fact, he could see it from where he was. He made a mad dash for it. As he was running he saw a knife hurtling for him, he ducked it, Only to be forced into dodging several other pointed objects. He jumped over a dead pony with a sword sticking out of its chest and fired at another pinning a pony to the ground with a knife at its throat. The rounds hit it three times in the neck and chest. He sprinted the next 50 feet and made it to Twilght's house and tried to open the door. It was barricaded, and so he backed up fired a round through the window and jumped through it. He landed hard on the wooden floor and struggled to get up, only to be stopped by a wooden spoon held to his throat.

Spike was "armed" with a spoon and wore a pot on his head as a sort of helmet.
"Oh! Victor, thank goodness you're here. All these ponies have gone crazy!"

"Yeah, I kinda noticed. Is Twilight okay? I'm trying to find everyone and get them to Rarity's place?"

"Yeah, Twilight's fine. She's been trying to contact Celestia for the past hour or so. She's used everything from letters, mail, telephone, telegraph, even smoke signals! But she can't reach her."

"Well, I'm afraid you both are gonna have to come with me."

Almost as if on cue, a flaming arrow flew through the window, and set a book case on fire.

"Preferably now"

Spike nodded and they both ran upstairs to find Twilight sitting down in a corner of her room sobbing. Spike reached for her shoulder and she turned around with tears in her eyes.

"we can't stop this, WE CAN'T STOP THIS!!!" she started crying and sobbing without so much as a single cohesive word. She lunged out at Victor in a sort of hug/crazy moment. He picked her up off of him and smacked her quite hard across the face.

"TWILIGHT!"

She had stopped crying.

"TWILIGHT, FOCUS! WE NEED YOU TO FOCUS!!!" She was still shuddering but much more collected. She took a few shakey breaths before speaking.

"You're right, I have to help them... everypony.... there's too much blood shed already. What's your plan?"

"... follow me to Rarity's. I wanna gather everybody up and then act together. What about those elements of harmony? Don't you still have those?"

"That's why I was panicing, they're... they're gone....and now we can't save anypony... we can't stop this....WE----" she caught herself and sighed. I have no idea why or how they're gone. The only ponies who've been aware that we've had them were that royal guard brigade during Pinkie's manticore party. But, Shining armor was with them so they'd never.... oh Celestia.... Shining armor..... he was....... NOOOOOOO!!!!"

She starting smacking her head against the wall.
"STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, STUPID..."
"I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH HIM, I KNEW IT..... NOW PONIES ARE DEAD..... AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT!".

Victor could smell smoke, he even saw the glow of the flames in the stair well. He put his arm around Twilight's shoulders.
"Sometimes it's too late to save a man... We must hurry before we join them in death."

He wasn't even sure if Twilight had heard or was listening to him, but nevertheless, he scooped her up in his arms.
"Spike! come on! we have to get out of here now!" He ran towards the stairwell to find the entire lower floor engulfed in flames. He gagged on the smoke and ran back to Twilight's room. He looked around for an exit, the only one seemed to be a rather large window. Outside was a thirty foot straight drop to the ground. The only safe place to land was a very inconveniently placed cart load of hay a good 20 feet from the tree. Basically an incredibly dangerous long jump.

"Jesus, this is just like assassin's creed... Hey Spike!" the little dragon trotted up to him "You couldn't jump into that cart could you?"

"Of course not! It's way to far."

"Fuck, okay... I'm gonna have to throw you."

"Throw me!?"

"yeah it's the only way!"

"I'm a dragon, I'm fire proof, I could just head down the stairs!"

"Well you aren't axe proof, and I recall three ponies with axes right outside"

"R-really?"

"Yes! now come on! I gotta throw you before the whole building comes down!" The fire was rapidly spreading up the stairs and the doorway was now ablaze.

"Oh Shit! come on!" with that he dropped Twilight, grabbed spike by his legs and hurled him out the window. Time seemed to go in slow motion as the little dragon's arms flailed in the air. He miraculously landed in the hay cart unharmed and scampered out and away in the direction of Rarity's house.

At that moment a flaming rafter fell out from the ceiling right in front of him. Victor picked Twilight up again, and looked around and saw that the majority of the room was now ablaze. Cursing repeatedly under his breath he backed up to a corner of the room, eyes set on the window. He draped Twilight over his shoulders, inhaled deeply and sprinted for the opening. With a great cry of "SHIIIIIIIIITTT" he cast himself out the window, aiming for the small cart far below.

Monsters, in and out

He landed feet first in the cart, the whole thing collapsing under his and Twilights combined weight. However, the soft hay had manged to break their fall and they had landed unscathed. Panting heavily, and feeling a bit drained he heaved himself up and out of the cart.

He looked at Twilight and with an uneasy laugh he said
"Well, I still got my balls, how about you?"

Twilight looked at him puzzled for a moment before she got up
"Victor, we should go find Pinkie Pie, now's not the time for your jokes. Even if I don't get them."

He leaned in whispered something in her ear and she went wide eyed and blushed
"Oh my Victor, you didn't have to explain the joke to me"

Another heavily armed pony snapped them out of it. Victor lept out of the cart and judo flying kicked it in the face. It was knocked out cold.

"Come on Twilight, it's time to go. where are we headed?"

"Pinkie's place would be the best option, she lives the closest"

"Hey what about Spike?"

"Spike will get to Rarity's, that's one thing I know he'll do."

Victor chuckled, and then they both set out on foot, or should I say hoof, and foot.

***********************************************

The trip to Pinkie's was relatively uneventful, aside from the few ponies that were being violently disembowled. Victor and Twilight had managed to slip by without drawing attention from anyone.

The door to Sugar Cube corner was shut as silently as possible.

"Hey Twilight, can you find a light switch?"

"hang on, let me see..."

and within a few seconds the lights of sugar cube corner were flicked on and Victor and Twilight found themselves surrounded by AppleJack and her brother, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and the Cakes.

"Well... that saves a lot of trouble." murmured Victor

"What in tarnation is goin on out there? How's Applebloom? It's like Tarturus on Equestria!"

"She's safe and sound at Rarity's. But that's not important, we need you all to come with us to Rarity's house. I have my things stock piled there. We can ride it out, and wait for reinforcements from the royal guards."

"That sounds all fair and good but how are we gonna get there safely, we're a pretty big party and we aren't really conspicuous."

"That's what you got me for" He said grinning, racking the slide on the USP.

"Wait, where'd Pinkie and Fluttershy go?"

AppleJack merely pointed at a desk, both were huddled together underneath it.

"Yo, Pinkie... Fluttershy..... are you two ready to leave?" He received no response as both were in a near comatose state.

"well I can't carry them and shoot at the same time."

"Big Mac has got ya covered" Apple Jack gestured to her brother who was able to grab both mares and put them in a flour cart from the storage room.

"Excellent!" Victor said as he clapped his hands together. "Everyone ready?"

A chorus of grunts and groans affirmed a yes.

"Then let's do this thing!"

*******************************************************************

The door to sugar cube corner burst open as the marine had kicked it down. He aimed at two axe wielding ponies and fired his m4a1. Two rounds went clean through the first's head, and 3 more stitched the second's arm tearing it nearly off.

He snaked across the side of the road leading to Carousel Boutique and shouted for his entourage to follow. A group of 6 school fillies stood in his way.

"Jesus what the hell are you kids doing out here?! This is a war zone! Follow me."

The first in the group, a small brown colt with a baseball cutie mark, approached him.

"Mister we were lost, we only wanted to play...."

"There's a time and place for everything kiddo, but right now, GET BEHIND ME!"

"But Mister, we wanna play with you..." with that the filly got a sadistic smile on his face and pulled a kitchen knife from his saddlebag.

"What are you- what the?!" Victor yelled as the filly lunged at him. The incredibly small pony caught him off guard and balance, and knocked him to the floor.

"Jesus Christ! Get. OFF. ME." He reached for the fillies neck as it prepared to stab him. He grabbed hold and flung him away. Scrambling to his feet, he found that all the other children were now wielding weapons from fireplace pokers, to hatchets. A little mare filly ran at him with a make shift spear made from a hockey stick, and a screw driver. Victor was quick to put her down with a volley of gunfire. The other fillies looked at him stunned. They paused for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"Get out of here! Scram you pieces of shit! before I have to kill all of you too." The group of fillies skulked off, some in fear, some in anger. It was at this moment that Victor noticed a faint whimpering, he saw the crumpled form of the little brown filly lying down in an alleyway.

"Oh shit no" Victor ran up to the little filly. His neck was broken, and his head was laying at an awkward angle. Miraculously he was still breathing.

"No, no, no.... I'm so sorry kid...." He reached down to grab the filly when all of the sudden his head snapped back up, eyes wide and alert. The same evil grin on its face.

"Gotcha!"

Victor panicked and kicked it in the head, sending it again to an even more obscene angle twisted completely parallel to the back of his neck. It snapped back forward.

"HAHA, is that all you got!"

It was cackling maniacally as Victor kept kicking it in the head screaming in fear. It only got worse as one kick broke its jaw leaving it laughing as its lower jaw flopped around. Victor grabbed his rifle and began smashing it in the head with the stock.

"WHY. WON'T. YOU. DIE!!!!!" He said giving a blow of his rifle with each word for emphasis. The laughing started to turn into burbling as blood and gore started to appear. It transformed into grunts and eventually squishes as bits of brain and fragmented skull showed up. Eventually he stepped back breathless looking at the horrid pile of red mass that once was the fillies skull. He spotted an eyeball dangling out by a thread, and a few teeth scattered about. He ended up vomiting onto the whole mess, the sight of which only caused him to vomit again.

He turned around slowly, only to see the absolutely terrified and disgusted faces of the ponies watching him from the end of the alleyway. Mr.Cake had thrown up on to the floor and Twilight was continuously shrieking.

Walking slowly back to the road he said to the crowd breathlessly
"we have to...... keep...... moving.... and get to the.....fuck it....." tiredly gesturing with his arm up the road.

He dropped his M4, as the stock was too disgusting, now covered in bits of brain and blood. The sling kept it from hitting the road and on his person as he unholstered the USP and kept going, not caring to check if the others were following.

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Hi my friends! Sorry I've been gone these past months. I'm not abandoning the story, I've finally just got back to it and Im ready to keep on trucking. I felt like a relatively short, yet gritty chapter was in order to get back your interests, though I may have taken it too far. The idea came to me as I was writing. With that said, new chapters are coming soon, as is another, sperate story of mine involving world war 2, nazis and nightmare moon. Stay tuned cause this new year (errrr.... highschool junior year in my case) is gonna be a big one.

To Find the Rest

The first action he could instinctively remember was a finger twitch. This twitch had been engrained into his very mind and soul with the firing of thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition over the course of nearly 20 years of his existence. It wasn't just his instincts as a warrior, it was his recreation, his past time, in some cases his livelihood, in others his survival.

It was with this single spasm of a single digit on a single hand that was the fate of lives, and history. In this occasion, it released the firing pin through a mechanism which caused contact with an impact primer on the back of a brass casing, thus igniting powder which sent a .45 caliber bullet careening through the air at 1000 feet per second. It's journey met an end piercing through the front of an equine cranium, carrying on a few inches completely smashing the housed gray matter and ruining the electrical signals and nerve synapses which were then haphazardly carried across the body resulting in muscle spasms and bodily contortions.

Essentially, he had pulled off a clean headshot.

The following twitches did not yield quite as exceptional results, peppering the bodies of the other spear and sword wielding assailants, but nonetheless killing them.

The recoil force pushed back the slide, but the lack of ammunition in the magazine caused it to lock back thus signalling the weapon was empty and needed a fresh magazine.

The wasn't time for a fresh magazine, another attacker charged him. He was prepared though and brought the weapon down on the back of the creatures head knocking it out cold.

"Someone watch out for me. I'm reloading!"

"I've got your back!" Applejack said as she bucked another pony in the stomach.

"DONE!" Victor shouted as hit the slide release, sending it forward with a satisfying clack.

Round now chambered, Victor and his posse followed him as he continued up the street, still shaken by the incident a few minutes earlier.

"There it is!" He shouted, gesturing to the colorful, multistory silhouette of Carousel Boutique.

The last 100 yards were a mad dash for building as he and the ponies jumped and ducked underneath arrows, skirmishes and corpses. He ran to the door and tried it.

locked.

"Rarity! Sweetie Belle! Open the door!". He whirreled around to find his group was starting to get cornered by a group of colts wielding tire irons and torches. He was able to kill them all shooting few but accurate rounds. More were coming.

"SWEETIE BELLE, OPEN THE DAMN DOOR NOW!" He emptied the magazine at the crowd slowly moving towards them, and transitioned back to his m4, regardless of the mess on the stock. Flicking the selector switch, he put it to full auto, and fired long bursts into the approaching crowd, dropping a few but overall doing little.

"NOW GOD DAMNIT, THEY'RE CLOSING IN!" Another mag was slapped in the rifle and his m4 started to spew lead again. This was getting really, close. Not only was the crowd nearing within 50 yards, but he had only 2 mags left. One of which was now half empty and in his rifle.

"SOMEONE OPEN THE DOOR..... please?" With that the door swung open a British voice shouted "GET INSIDE" An order that was swiftly followed. The door was slammed as soon as Victor managed to step inside.

"What do we do now?" Rarity was looking at him nervously "They'll be here any second."

"Rarity, grab the biggest guns you can carry from my stock pile. Everyone else, barricade all the windows and doors, then get upstairs Asap." There was a flurry of movement as all the able bodied ponies scrambled for the couches, sofas, chairs, and desks and began stacking them behind all the entry points. Victor ran upstairs to check the fillies and found them somehow sleeping, he ran back downstairs to find Rarity lugging a large lumpy canvas bag.

"These were the biggest guns I could find, I think I grabbed the right... ammunition for them." Victor opened the bag and pulled out an m79 grenade launcher, and an m60 machine gun. Also inside were 3 boxes of 7.62 incendiary ammunition belts, and pile of 40mm grenades.

"Perfect. hey I have an idea, can we carry all this stuff upstairs?."

Rarity nodded

"Good" he cleared his throat "Hey everyone! We're going to the roof!"

*******************************************************

A short while later, the group was now in the upper floors of the house, Carousel Boutique happens to have (as I'm sure a few of you remember) a pointed roof. Therefore, the top most floor with a window reaching around the room 360 degrees was the next best thing.

Victor had smashed out said windows and was now poised with his m60 trained on the crowd. He took a moment to calm himself before firing.
Incendiary rounds were slicing down through the hordes, killing at least 15 ponies outright, a small amount of inaccurate fire set a nearby house ablaze, and Victor was now through half a belt.

"Crap there's too many of them, hand me that grenade launcher!" He took it, broke it open, slid in a grenade, shut it, and fired. The 40mm fragmentation grenade exploded in the center of the crowd massacring at least another 20 ponies, and sending a few corpses flying through the air.

"Give me another round!" He reloaded his weapon and fired again, this time at the front of the crowd. The explosion had managed to cause some terror in the group, and a few ponies were seen breaking away or pausing.

He switched back to the pig, "Someone reload the launcher!" He tossed it down behind himself, hoping that they could load it.

Now with the 60' he emptied the rest of the belt at the crowd. He could see that while they were still advancing, their ranks were being thinned considerably. He grabbed the empty box and hurled it at the crowd, surprisingly hitting one pony in the head. Threading in a new belt, he slammed the cover shut, and racked the charging handle.

"Good to go."

He started emptying the machine gun again. This time almost all his fire was concentrated at the front. The enemies, now desperate, were sprinting at the boutique.

"Fuck, We got runners! pass me the launcher again!"

The other ponies passed up two pieces, they had somehow managed to disassemble it.

"Are you kidding me?"

There was an audible banging heard coming from downstairs.

"No time to fix it. Stay here, and try to use the machine gun. Don't break it, I'm going downstairs. He took the stairs,4 steps at a time, and ran for his room. He kicked in the door, and ran towards his pile of arms. He grabbed the first weapons he could find, an Uzi with a few magazines, as well as his brass knuckles, and rushed downstairs.

The front door was cracking as the invaders were pounding away at it. Some had already partly made it inside, wriggling through the windows, but partly stopped by the previously stacked furniture. Those were his first priorities, he snapped to his left and fired on full auto at a large blue stallion climbing through. The pony jerked as the rounds hit and collapsed lifelessly halfway through the window. He took this as a que to turn to his right and hit another two grey and green mares crawling through on the other side. He finished them off, and stopped to reload.

It was at this moment that the front door collapsed and broke open, causing the ponies to come charging in.

A fresh magazine was placed and Victor was hurriedly moving backwards spraying his entire magazine full auto from the hip. He managed to take down four of his attackers before running out of ammo.

He slapped on his knuckle dusters and slugged the first pony to get to him in the jaw. He quickly climbed over his falling body and punched a red mare in the face, he felt bone give and crack as he connected with her head. Next was a younger purple colt whom he dealt an oafish hay-maker to the stomach, before wheeling around and nailing another pony right between the eyes.

He eventually lost himself to the frenzy jabbing at every single moving thing that entered the house, after roughly a half an hour, he found himself surrounded by about 40 ponies, none having made it any farther upstairs then the first step.

He was breathless, and more tired than he had ever felt in his life. He fell backwards using a lifeless, pummeled body of a large brown colt as a bed. He raised one arm in the air and shouted out.

"IM.... DONE!"

He almost fell asleep the second he closed his eyes.

The thing that kept him awake was a voice who he had recognized as Rarity's.

"Darling, you can't fall asleep now, we need you."

He groggily opened his eyes.

"What is it? Everyone.... okay?" still breathing heavily.

"Yes we're more than ok, thanks to you" She smiled and blushed, Victor weakly smirked back.

"alright, let me go check on everyone. Has anyone gotten a hold of the Princesses yet?"

"Not quite, but I know Spike is sending a letter out right now."

"Ok, cool. Can you help me up?" he asked extending a hand.

"Sure" rarity said, though not quite sure of herself. She couldn't grab his hand, so instead she leaned over a bit so he could put his hand on her back using it as leverage for heaving himself up."

He had also noticed that there was no shooting coming from upstairs.