Unfriendly Takeover

Chapters

Task Force 03
First Contact
Extraction
The island

Task Force 03

The UH-60's propellers sliced through the wind as it traversed at a high speed towards it's specified LZ, it was occupied by four highly skilled soldiers, "The island is now in view prepare for landing in ETA three minutes." the copilot alerted through his headset, I knew this mission was not going to be as easy as it seemed. Me and my team had been in training for less than a week for this "high priority" mission which would be to land on an island that decided to show itself for no damn reason and find some explorers who got lost either dead or alive, so it's safe to say that I have a feeling that this may not turn out too well.

"Why the hell would command send us on a survival mission if we barely have any survival training at all?" My teammate Charles asked from across the chopper. I had no idea why exactly we were being sent on this extraction mission, my squad was named Task Force 03 which is a special forces team part of the United States armed forces used for high priority assassination and escort missions which did not require very much survival training.

"Well they could be sending us because we were the only ones they had that could fight and had at least a day of survival training." I told him, Charles was my right hand man and friend, we were trained together a few years back and he is now my squad's heavy weapons specialist. He sighed and looked out the window toward the island as we continued to approach it.

"So how exactly are we going to find these explorers?" Rick asked, Rick was my appointed marksman and the newest member of my squad, he was trained in reconnaissance and long range combat but I don't know if he is good at either of those since he hasn't been sent on a single mission.

"Once we get on that island our first task is to search the boat the explorers had used to get there and search for anything which will aid in our mission, fortunately the boat is right next to our LZ." I told him, I began to check my gear, my backpack had everything we needed to survive for more than a day, including an M4 with an extra four loaded magazines, a Beretta M9, and my trusty Ka-Bar. I hope I would not have to use some of these items for the hours or even days to come.

"We have reached the LZ prepare for landing." The pilot said as the helicopter gently descended onto the the island's sandy beach. "We will be dispatched to the nearest carrier to quickly return when ordered." The pilot said as the choppers propellers slowly sped down.

"Alright men lets get moving I don't want to spend more time here then needed." I ordered as I pulled the cargo door beside me open allowing us to jump onto the soft, sandy ground, the helicopter began to ascend into the air behind us, as I took in the scenery around me everything seemed so strange, the entire island looked unusually colorful, like some sort of drawing but the sky stayed exactly the same as I was used to and looked very out of place. We were on the island's beach next to a mildly dense forest, it was peacefully quiet here, the only sounds that could be heard were of the birds chirping and the ocean rubbing against the land. "Okay men our first objective is to find the boat." I said before looking directly towards the explorers small yacht that appeared to be at least 100 meters away from our position. "Well that was easier than expected." I whispered to myself. I patted Rick who was still looking around on the back to get a move on.

After less than two minutes of walking we finally reached the explorers boat which was held to the land with a rope and anchor, it was a small grey yacht that looked like new, not a single sign of dirt or scratches on the outside. We slowly walked on the boat and I began unholstering my Beretta to be at the ready in case we found anything unexpected. The exterior of the boat held nothing fancy except for empty food wrappings. We then made are way inside and moved through the ship's hallway, the first room we searched was the captains deck, I checked my surroundings, which looked clear besides the ship's control ships, nothing that would help us complete the mission. "All right lets split up and check the rooms." I ordered my men, we scattered, I went over to one of the bedrooms which contained two bunk beds and a shelf, their was a 22 caliber rifle laying against one of the beds, it was still fully loaded so it was not important, I checked everywhere and found nothing. I left the room and yelled "CLEAR!" and after a few seconds my teammates also finished searching the rooms. "You guys found anything?" I asked.

"No sir, we didn't find a single damn thing." Charles said sadly.

We moved out towards the deck, "So what do we do now sir?" asked Luther as he scanned the forest with his binoculars. "We have nothing to help us find the explorers camp or the explorers for that matter, the chance of us finding that camp is very slim and we'll probably run out of supplies by the time we get there too." Luther is our rifleman and communications officer, the highest ranked member of my squad, a sergeant and my most skilled squad-mate.

"Don't lose hope now, I saw a river nearby from the outside of our heli." I said pointing in it's direction "if the explorers were smart they would move along the water to not run out of it." I said stepping down the yachts staircase. "So if you don't want to stay on this rock for a while I say we get a move on."

It was a long walk but we had made it to the river, it sparkled in the sun and was clear enough to see to the bottom. I looked into it, nothing laid there except for dirt and a few fishes swimming around, but when having a closer look at them they seemed to be some sort of trout, which was strange, I hadn't expected their to be species of animals like back home residing here. We also had found some deer roaming around the forest which made me feel a bit relieved, knowing that we still had some food if we ever ran out.

"Do you guys see that light over there." Rick said pointing towards the forest, as I took a closer look I could see a strange glow coming from around that area.

"Alright let's go check it, but don't get too excited." I said as we made are way towards the light. But it wasn't what I was expecting, the light came from butterflies, all of them glowed in a variety of bright colors. "If we came here for sightseeing then I would be a lot more intrigued than I am now, but since I don't want to be here all day lets get a move on."

We continued our trek down the river until I saw something out of place in the distance, it was the campsite. "Alright guys looks like you get to go home early today."

As we arrived at the camp we found out that it was completely destroyed, I had a very bad feeling about this. "Lets have a look around here." We scattered around the camp, their was four tents which looked to have been either torn apart torn apart or crushed, with the remains of a campfire in the center. I looked inside one of the tents, I had met a frightening sight, their were stains of dry blood everywhere. I signaled the others to see for themselves and took a look into the other tents, they also had markings of blood. "Well looks like the objective was completed, though not as expected, so I'm going to report to command just in time for sunset." I pulled out my radio and contacted command. "The explorers have been found dead, and we cannot recover the bodies, we need evac" but the only answer was static. "Command do you read me?" again static, I turned to face my communications officer "Luther do you think you can fix this static."

"I might be able to sir but it cou-." Luther was then suddenly interrupted by ear piercing roar coming from behind the bushes and trees behind us.

"Weapons at the ready now!" I yelled. We all readied our rifles towards the location were the roar was heard from. I could see Rick shaking from the corner of my eye, the sound of rustling leaves could be heard and we slowly began to move back, Suddenly something leaped out from the bushes, I can only describe it as a giant lion with wings and a scorpion tail. We unleashed our lead hail onto this huge beast which began screaming in pain as it charged propelling itself toward Charles, fortunately he was able to spray a magazine of his m27 into it's stomach and jump to the side before the beast was able to land on him, it quickly turned around to face us for another attack. "Focus fire on it's head!" I yelled, It began it's final charge, it roared loudly and quickly dashed towards us, it took a large amount of shots to it's head before finally going down propelling dirt and blood into the air as it did.

"What, the hell was that!" Charles yelled while breathing heavily.

"Whatever it was, It was probably what killed our explorers." I walked over to the thing, bullet holes covered it's entire body, looking at it's huge claws I cringed at the thought that it would have definitely torn us in half if it had gotten too close. After a moment to get refocused on our objective Luther began working on communicating with command. We had completed all of our objectives, We learned their cause of death and their was no way to retrieve whatever information they had recorded about this damn island. I began looking around to see if I could figure out anything else about this place before we left. Their was a tall hill that was next to the river. I took a drink from my water bottle and walked over to Rick who still looked to be in shock after the encounter. "Rick come with me to that hill over there so we can do a little reconnaissance." I ordered, he reluctantly decided to follow me.

A few minutes had passed and we were nearly up the hill. "You think command might of hid something from us?" Rick asked me as continued our trek.

"Of course they did, They sent us on an island that just decided to come into existence without showing us what the island looks like." I told him.

We had finally reached the top of the hill, the only sight was the endless amount of trees scattered around the place. "Sir are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Rick said as he pointed towards the direction that the river flowed through. I looked where he was pointing and I saw something, A large colorful town, which was strange, I hadn't expected anyone to live here, I could see movement from within it too. I quickly pulled out my binoculars and had a look at what was moving.

"Are those, horses?"

The conference room I was in was basically a bunker, bulletproof, soundproof, and blast proof walls covered the entire room. The only thing inside was a conference table and a couple of office chairs. Me and my boss were having a meeting about the military operation going on in the island now known as classified information. "You think they might have found those towns we've seen?" I asked my boss.

"If they did our orders are to silence them in anyway possible, unless they have a good reason for it." He took a sip of his tea. "Those towns may be a way to find intelligent life on that island and we can't have something turn awry from a couple of highly trained soldiers with orders to stop anything that prevents them from completing this mission." He sighed "You are dismissed Phil, we will discuss other matters later."

Lieutenant Gleaming Shield looked at the guard captain with a perplexed look "So you want me, to take a hundred guards, all the way to Trotting Greens, because Celestia THINKS something bad might happen."

"Yes those are her orders." The captain told him.

"And we can't send the elements of harmony to instead?"

"The elements are another matter Celestia has ordered the guards to go there instead with good reason."

"And what is this reason?"

"That's classified Gleaming and you know that."

"Fine"

Author's Note

Well this is the end of the second chapter (obviously). The creation of the next chapter will be based on feedback that is either positive or allows me to improve.

First Contact

May 1, 2016 - USS George H.W. Bush

I stood on the deck of my ship watching pilots complete flight drills and such, it was 7 after midnight, the sun was shining in the distance as it began floating above the sea. We were crossing through the Pacific Ocean, no one on this ship knows why excluding two people, me and Staff Sergeant Pierce Lewis. I was given two orders, number one is to move the ship near an island and two is to allow command to fly a drone over the island for a short while. I didn't know why and Pierce doesn't either, the higher ups only told us what to do. But they also gave us forty marines and two chinooks, which is very unusual and it was easy to tell that whatever command was planning, it wouldn't be long before I figured out.

The bridge was silent with the only crew member inside being Pierce who was busy staring at a monitor. "Is the drone ready?" I asked causing him to quickly jump out of his chair and give me a weak salute.

"Yes sir, I ran a few tests on it, no signs of damage."

"Alright, we need you to be ready in about an hour, that's when command wants to use the drone."

Iron Hammer inspected the blueprints for the special request that Celestia had sent him to build. it was a large fortress, the blue building plans showed it to be circular in shape with walls that were required to be at least thirty feet high which would be made out of titanium. The walls of the fortress would have windows for guards to survey and defend the area, the inside of the fortress would have buildings for housing, forging, and planning. Their was another building though, that confused Iron, it was a building that was shown in the middle of the fortress which was made out of Crystalime. Crystalime is a material that could only be found in the Crystal Empire, it is many times more durable than titanium and can only be made into a shape with a difficult to learn magic. He tried to think of a reason to build the fortress, even though Equestria had been attacked many times, their was little to no ponies actually being injured especially with the Elements of Harmony protecting them and the very few guards that actually worked outside of Canterlot. Iron cleared his thoughts and readied himself for the coming labor as he saw a row of carriages carrying workers and building materials coming his way in the distance.

I stared in disbelief at what I was witnessing through my binoculars, a small town with bright,wooden buildings that were either light brown or a completely different color. The town looked to be more than a mile wide, their was a large building in the middle of the town surrounded by what looked to be a market and a farm with a tall windmill behind the town. But that was not the reason why I could not comprehend what I was seeing, the reason why was because their was horse like things there that did not look anything like any normal horses. Each one of those things had bright colored hair and bodies, not only that but they seemed to be highly intelligent, they were communicating, eating, and working. That was when I realized that this village wasn't built by humans, it was built by whatever the hell those, things were. I looked towards rick who was as wide eyes as I was. I looked back at the town but this time I saw more and it cause me to become even more confused, I saw something that would only come out of Greek mythology, some of the horses had horns and wings as well. "Rick." I said causing him to slightly jump back

"Y-yes sir?"

"Go tell the guys to get their asses over here right now." Rick dashed away towards the camp, I sat silent as I continued looking towards the town before me. I looked inside some of their homes and noticed things, they had lamps, books and even stoves. From gathering this I could easily tell that this was an advanced civilization which also meant that this was not close to being the only town on this island.

"Alright sir the first thing I want to know is why the hell is Rick shaking so much?" Luther said as he walked up the hill towards me with Charles and Rick behind him.

"Take a look at this and then you'll know why." I said gesturing him to walk towards me.

"What the hell is this." Charles said as he looked down at the town.

"It's exactly what it looks like, now look at those moving things." I told him as I watched him stare at the town with the same expressions as me when I looked at it for the first time.

After a few minutes of waiting for them to get over their panic attacks I decided to make a plan. "Alright guys settle down." I said as I planted my foot on a nearby rock. "As we all know these things are intelligent, very intelligent, which also means when they communicate they have their own language to do so, not only that but I saw books inside of their homes before you guys got here. So what I think we should do is a little reconnaissance and since we probably won't get in touch with anyone outside the island until command comes for us and they will, I think we should do something to pass the time. So this is the plan, we go hide behind some a bush or something to hide us that is as close to one of those things as possible and see if their language sounds anything close to ours, if it isn't then we leave, got it." The entire group nodded in unison.

General Winston stared silently at his laptop which displayed a map of a large island before being interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in." Winston said calmly. The man who entered was Colonel John Lint, he slowly shut the door and took a seat on the chair in front of the General's desk.

"What is it that you asked me here for sir?" he asked.

"You know about that one island, well, of course you do, I'll just get to the point. You probably know nothing about what we are doing there but what I will tell you that some elites in the pentagon probably know something we don't." John furrowed his brow with a confused expression. "Since you're the only one I trust with this information I'll let you take a look at this." He said as he pulled a document out of his filling cabinet. "This is everything you need to know about Task Force 03's mission, I'm the only one in this entire base that knows about this." He handed the file to John who reluctantly took it. "Read it, they were supposed to contact us an hour ago."

We started sprinting down the hill, the trees hiding us as we did. Everyone took cover behind a row of bushes next to some buildings. I took a short glance over the bush, nothing was there except for the back of a bright red painted home that had a small flower pot lying on it's window. I vaulted over the bush and hid behind the house, there was nothing in sight through the window or around me, I gestured my team over towards me. while peaking my head around the corner I found, nothing, then I began hearing voices from the opposite side of the house, they sounded English but I was not too sure, I slowly steeped around the corner of the building trying my hardest to not to make single sound, then as quickly as I could muster I peeked around corner for a split second. I saw two horses, one was dark purple with red hair and the other one was light grey with blue hair and wings, although I did not spend a long time looking at them I noticed that they had different facial structures, one was square like and the other was more rounded. I quickly moved my head back behind the home and began to move back towards my men. But then I heard something heard something that made me freeze like an animal in front of headlights.

"Did you see that?" I faintly heard from one of them. I quickly moved back towards my men who all had different looks on their faces ranging from confused to scared.

"They speak English." I quietly whispered as I began hearing footsteps heading towards our direction and we all dived back into the bushes.

My entire team and I began to slowly push ourselves into the bush as the footsteps got ever closer. "I saw it over here." one of the voices say.

"You're probably just imagining things." Said another in a higher pitched voice.

"Yeah, I probably was, but It looked so real." The footsteps moved away from us and I checked back over the bush, they were gone. Charles stared at me with a somewhat shocked face. "What do we do now sir?" he asked.

"Well the only thing we can do now... Is try to communicate with them, If they speak English then we're probably fine, and by the looks of this place they may not be too aggressive when they see us." I stood up and dusted off my pants.

"how about we go in through the entrance of the town, I saw it before we went over here, it had at least ten of those things there." Charles said.

"Yeah, if we enter without trying to scare them then that plan should work fine.

"Are you sure about that sir, what if they attack us." Rick said

"If they attack us the logical thing to do would be to fight back." I told him as I signaled the group to follow me. We went around the town through the forest viewing the town as we did, most of the building were homes that were two stories tall, but I could also see what appeared to be shops which had signs with different images on them, all of these building were connected with a stone road that when I overlooked the town, saw they leaded all of the way to the farm. We reached the entrance to the town which had a long road that led towards a small market with horses and had a green four story building behind it. "Don't say anything stupid guys, remember that this is first impressions." We slowly walked towards the center of the town and took in our surroundings, homes and lamp posts led down a straight line with different roads leading towards other buildings. I heard sounds of doors closing and looked towards the houses, then I saw a window being shut and others following in tow, I then looked back at the market, the horses were gone. We continued walking slowly towards the market, their wasn't a single living thing in sight besides my men. We reached the market and looked around, it was filled with shops adorned with different assortments of food and what looked to be jewelry. I looked towards the large four story building in the center, all the windows were shut. "Well so much for making an impression." I said walking towards the door of the building. I slowly laid my hand on the door and pushed, as we walked inside I held a slightly tighter grip on my rifle. The inside of the building was almost pitch black, we turned on our helmet mounted lights, the room seemed to be devoid of anything except for a stage in the front. We began opening windows, the room was now fully visible and we were now able to see a long staircase that led towards a hallway with balconies. I then noticed Charles quickly turning around at the corner of my eye. I looked in the direction he was looking and saw eight horses, but these ones were different from the others, each one was wearing a suit of grey armor and carrying a spear except for one with wings who carried a bow and wore a helmet with a feather mohawk, from it's different appearance I could conclude that it was their squad leader or someone of higher rank. They did didn't look too happy to see us which was pretty obvious since they all had their weapons pointed towards us. I also saw that all my men had their weapons trained on them, "Stand down." I said firmly causing them to slowly lower their weapons, I looked back towards the horses who also began to do the same. The one with wings then stepped in front of its comrades.

"What are you and why are you here?" It asked in a shaky feminine voice. Judging from their voices the ones with the rounder heads were females and the ones with more square like heads were male. I decided that this was probably a good time to make a good impression on them.

"Well, my name is Gary Peterson and our species is called humans." I said gesturing to my men "your island showed up on our satteli-. maps for no apparent reason, we came here to look for explorers that we lost contact with and now, we can't leave since we also lost contact with anyone off of this island." I told them in the most formal manner that I could muster.

"s-so you're not going to eat us?" The horse asked with a voice that was a little less shaky. I looked back at my men with a smirk, I noticed Charles try to hold back his laughter.

"No we are absolutely not." I said with a raised brow causing them all to sigh in relief.

"Well not that we have everything figured out how about we introduce ourselves, I am Ironstep the guards captain for Trotting Greens, which is the town we're in right now by the the way." she said in an unexpectedly cheery voice before pointing to the guards behind her "this is Thrust, Yellowdust, Flint, Camp, Dagger, Trance, and Mellow and we are ponies."

'Like I would remember those names.' I thought to myself.

"Right, welcome to the wonderful nation of Canterlot! I don't really know what is happening right now, apparently Princess Celestia said that something evil was going to attack us and the sky also started acting strange, so we thought that you were going to be those evil things Celestia was talking about."

'Princess what now?'

"Oh sorry I'm getting ahead of myself." She said in response to our slowly rising brows "Princess Celestia is the ruler of Equestria, and so is Princess Luna, and they kinda control the sun and moon." The explanation answered our questions but created many more in the process. "We can save the history lesson for later now that we know each other how about I introduce you to the town!"

'Well this is certainly going to be an interesting day.'

We stopped in the market while Ironstep and the guards went around town telling "everypony" that we were not dangerous.

"What are we going to do once command sends guys to come for us?" Luther whispered to me.

"All we can hope for is that they don't come in guns blazing, they probably already know about this place but haven't told anyone about it." I told him before noticing a crowd of ponies coming towards us.

Ironstep walked towards us while conversing with another pony in tow, this one was a dark grey male that was wearing a suit unlike the other ponies surrounding us that wore no clothing, which seemed to mean that he was of a higher social standing. He walked up to us and extended his hoof.

"Hi their I'm Hent Greensten, the mayor of this wonderful little town!" I tried my best to shake his hoof as he directed a warm smile towards us.

'You people are terrifyingly cheerful.'

"I know who you are because Ironstep has already told me all about you so how about I show you around town!" he said while directing us towards him with his hoof. "Since you all have already seen the town hall, I guess I'll have to show you everything else then."

We began walking down the stone road each side had rows of houses and shops with black lamp posts in a line. Ponies also walked to different destinations who all waved at us with a big smile which was unnerving at times. "So, where do you humans come from and how did you get here?" Hent asked us.

"Us humans come from many different lands all across this planet." I told him.

"Planet?"

Rick came into the conversation "I don't think He's from this planet Gary."

"A planet is the giant rock that we're on right now, but you are probably from somewhere else because no such place named Canterlot existed a few weeks ago."

"Oh, so you are explorers for your race I presume?"

"No we were sent here by our nation to find a group of explorers that had gotten lost but it didn't turn out too well."

"How so?"

"Well, we can't contact our people anymore for some strange reason, and the explorers were killed."

"Killed, how is that possible, their is nothing dangerous in these woods!"

"Apparently it is an unusual sight if you have never seen it, a large lion with a scorpions tail and wings attacked us when we were there."

"A manticore!, those are only found in the Everfree and they have never been seen outside the forest before! That can never mean a good thing."

"Luckily for you it's dead, we were able to take it down before it could hurt anybody else."

"Thank you so much, you truly are a brave bunch!" They then encountered a large, three story, dark green wooden building with a sign that had a drawing of a bed. "Here is the Grand Maple it's the hotel you'll be staying at, I believe it will accommodate you well." Hent said as he stopped and pointed towards the building.

"Wow, you guys really are on top of things when it comes to unexpected guests." said Luther who was pleasantly surprised.

"This hotel was built to accommodate both visitors and guests of high importance, you can explore this place once we are done with our tour if you wish."

We continued walking still receiving waves from all of the ponies we encountered through what looked to be the busier part of town, lined with stores and restaurants that gave off the scent of well made food, I was then was met with the sight of a floating, glowing cup of coffee. "What is that?" I asked Hent pointing him to the unusual sight.

"Do you humans not have magic where you come from?" He asked us receiving a shake of heads.

"Well I shall show you how it works once we arrive at the library, I promise you."

We made are way across a short stone bridge that went over the river we had followed to get here. Hent than pointed us towards a large field of crops "this is Pearl Fields, our main source of food, we grow carrots, apples and potatoes here." I looked over towards the windmill I had seen before, the bottom was made of stone and the rest wood.

After taking a short break at the sight of the forest and hills, we began walking back towards the town "if you think this place doesn't seem like much it's probably because this place is one of the newest towns built in Equestria, and towns usually don't grow very quickly in these parts." We were lead back into town were we stopped in front of a building made completely of stone with windows that were blocked by iron bars. "This right here is the armory, this is were the guards sleep and is also were we put the bad guys which there is none of luckily, recently we've had a lot of guards join, we had two before but a few weeks ago six guards transferred here including Ironstep" He quickly turned a different direction and continued leading us. "Alright, since you wanted to learn about magic I'll introduce you to the most skilled unicorn in town, hopefully he has the time to teach you the basics."

We arrived at the library, it was with most certainty the nicest building, It had a more triangular shape than the other buildings with a large clock at the very top and was at least three times the size of the houses. The inside was filled with rows books, their was only one pony inside, it was a green unicorn who was sitting in a group of chairs focused on a large levitating book. "Brightening, you have visitors." Hent said to the pony, who slowly looked up from his book only to meet his eyes with us before expanding them a much larger size than they previously were and jumping behind the chair.

"Visitors indeed Hent, maybe you should have given me a warning before showing me the highly intelligent being you discovered." The unicorn said as he rose from his hiding place. "So, what brings you to the library of Trotting Greens because if you want to learn about Equestria it would be a much better idea if you went to Canterlot instead."

"They can't learn of our past right now Bright, especially since they may not be here for long, I brought them here in hopes that you could give them an understanding of magic, because of the absence of it in their homeland."

"Alright then I'll tell you what magic is, but I won't go too in depth because that will take weeks to teach, so have a seat over here." he said as he sat back down in the chair he had been sitting in. We all accompanied him in the chairs that were laid out in a circle, they were a lot more comfortable than I had expected, although their wasn't much space for my back, we rested our rifles on our laps in to give our backs a little breathing room.

"The first thing you need to know about magic is that it's everywhere, all living creatures even if they aren't unicorns contain a little bit of magic, that being said unicorns are some of the only being able to transfer to objects which is why we are able to levitate things with our horns which I'm sure you saw me do when you came in."

"So does that me that we have a little bit of magic in us to?" I asked him.

"Technically, yes but their could be an exception because of the fact that you have never seen magic in the land you from." He answered "Now, magic isn't that easy to use, ponies that can use it need years of learning to do more than just lift and move objects for example." The book that he had dropped on the floor then instantly disappeared then reappeared next to Hent "teleportation. Now while you can do all of these things with magic, using it for much more than you can handle can grow very tiring which is why ponies who have done it for longer can do all of these impressive spells and why some unicorns never try to use magic in their entire lifetime." He clapped his hoofs together "Well, those are all the basics you need to know about magic I hope you come to visit again, If you can."

"Thanks Bright I knew I could count on you." Hent said as we stood up from our chairs thanking him as we left. The outside was much more darker than it was before as the sun finally began to fall being replaced by the moon.

"So how do you get to Canterlot from here?" Luther asked Hent.

"We have a train station past the mountains behind the farm that leads to Canterlot and Vanhoover."

"You have a train system!"

"Yep, leads towards all of the cities of Equestria!"

"You guys are a lot more advanced than I thought you would be."

"Well how about I show you a map of Equestria so you can have a better picture of what it looks like."

"That would be great!"

We finally arrived at the center of town which was pack with ponies who were buying or conversing at the shops. While making our way to the town hall a light yellow pegasus approached us "sorry for the intrusion, my name is strike I just really wanted to know what those things hanging on your backs were?" The pony asked us which also sparked the attention of other ponies including the mayor.

"Well, this is called a firearm it's basically a bow that fires small arrows at high speeds." I told them in a way that they could easily understand.

"Wow that's amazing!" The pony said to me before strolling back towards one of the shops with the other ponies also going off to wherever.

We finally entered the town hall, which was devoid of other ponies. "Follow me to my office." Hent said while he began climbing up the staircase. We reached the second floor, which had a balcony looking over the first floor and a hallway that lead to three doors. We were escorted to the first door, inside was a room with a desk, shelf, filling cabinets and a map which had a representation of a landmass. "Alright here it is." he pointed towards the map, I scanned over it. On the map were locations of different cities, towns and land forms, I was also able to see their capital of Equestria which was somehow hanging from a mountain, not the most unbelievable thing I have seen all day. I also saw where we currently were, the town was directly under a place called the smokey mountains which was probably the mountains that Hent had mentioned the train station was behind, but the town was only marked by a small circle. I also saw many interesting sights on this map, a city called the crystal empire which had some strange Eiffel tower like building, and a cloud city.

"Is that city actually on top of the clouds?" I asked Hent.

"Yep this entire map was made by equestrian cartographers." I guess that the place with the griffons and the dragons were real to it was a long stretch from what I had already seen and I had began to develop a headache.

"Well that's all that I can show you for today, how about I escort y'all to the hotel so you can hit the hay." These horse puns were going to be the death of me. We all nodded in unison, I just wanted to go to sleep and see if this was actually just a dream.

We arrived at the hotel, Hent left home as the sun finally began to shine it's final moments. The inside of the hotel looked peaceful lounge chairs were placed on the sides behind tables adorned with various books. The greeter was a female unicorn, she pick up our keys from the rack with her magic, a bright green glow was emitted from the keys as they slowly floated towards the four of us. I snatched it out of the air and felt nothing, which was not what I thought the magic would feel like. "Your room numbers are engraved on the keys, you don't need to worry about the bed sizes, they were made for an alicorn." The pony told us before going back to what ever she had been doing before. I looked at the key, my room number was 5.

The inside of my room was larger than I had expected, their was a king size bed in front of a curtain covered window, their was also a short lamp on top of a dresser that was next to the bed and a small bookshelf to the side, I also had my own personal bathroom. The bathroom was strange to say the least, their was a shower but the shower head was a little too close to the ground obviously to be used by ponies, the sink looked very short but usable and their was also a hole in the ground which I didn't need to think twice to guess what it was used for.

I somehow managed to use the toilet and shower, I won't go into details. Finally, able to rest, I threw myself on the bed and slowly drifted to sleep thinking about what just happened and whatever the hell an alicorn is.

Lieutenant Gleaming Shield yawned, it was already night and he had been walking for hours. He looked towards the large group of guards behind him. "Alright we are going to rest here for a few hours everyone take shifts guarding, We should be there in three hours so someone tell me when everyone has rested." He said, most of his men were trained a few days ago and did not completely know how to fight. After the sky had changed guard enlistment was at an all time high.

May 2, 2016 - TrottingGreens

I woke up as bright rays breached through my curtains and covered my eyes so they could adjust. I took in my surroundings, yep, I was still in magical pony land. I forced myself out of my bed as my eyes finally adjusted and wondered what kind of crazy thing would happen today. I then put on my uniform which did not smell as terrible as I thought it would and I walked out the door.

"Good morning." said the greeter as I began walking outside.

"Good morning." I responded as my stomach began to growl. I realized that I did not have anything to eat for hours and pulled an MRE out of my backpack and ate it on one of the lounge chairs, luckily for me the greeter didn't notice that it was meat. I went outside, which had a strangely strong smell of flowers and looked towards the sun which slowly began rising only to be greeted by a loud chopping noise in the sky that sounded too familiar and ponies screaming while running in every direction. I pulled out the binoculars from my belt and looked in the direction of the noise only to be greeted by two CH-47 Chinooks. I widened my eyes and realized what was happening and sprinted back into the hotel for my teammates.

Author's Note

I have finally gotten back into the feel of writing and the next chapter should be finished in at least two weeks. Also keep in mind that this is a prequel of a story I wrote years ago (that I will create a remake of) that did terribly. Stayed tuned for violence and action in the next chapter!

Extraction

Author's Note

Here it is, the 4th chapter that I've been hard at work on during the past few days, I've also added some significant updates to the previous chapters including adding small details and improving the characters so I do recommend reading the last chapter again before reading this one. I will not make any promises on the date of the next chapter but I will say that I will start releasing them much more quickly.

Extraction

May 1, 2016 - Classified Location

The room was dimly lit, their were four desks each with a separate control panel and my boss's desk directly in front of them.
"Sir we have full control of the drone and it is currently flying over the island." said one of the men who was sitting in front of one of the control panels.

"Alright, take the drone towards the town that was nearest to the landing zone." The boss said to the man who gave a slight nod.

"Sir are you sure sending so many men would be a good idea, what if the natives don't treat kindly to it?" I asked my boss.

"Don't worry Phil if they try attack our men will not think twice about firing back, though I'm sure if Task Force 03 was able to come into contact with the natives peacefully it should not be a problem." He stood up "You are dismissed, we shall discuss this matter again once Task Force 03 returns dead or alive."

l loudly pounded my hands against Charles's door getting a polite "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!" From him.

"Get your ass out here right now Corporal, that's an order." I said sternly. Fidgeting could be heard coming from the inside of the room before the door opened revealing him fully outfitted. "Alright I need you to go wake up Rick while I wake up Luther, I'll tell you why once we get outside." My other men were more compliant of being unexpectedly awoken from their slumber and they all formed up in a line at the main entrance waiting for me.

"What was it that you wanted sir, and what's that loud noise coming from?" Luther asked me while holding back a yawn.

"Apparently command is wanting to take us back home, they have two Chinooks landing outside the town right now which they made pretty obvious." I told him.

"Well it's about damn time they showed up." Charles said. We went outside, the sound of the helicopters still loud as ever and the streets of running ponies were now clear except for the mayor who was dashing towards us with the look of fear in his eyes.

"Are you four possibly familiar with those flying machines that are landing outside of town right now?" The mayor asked us while sweating and panting.

"Fortunately we are, our people have finally decided to come back for us." I told him causing him to sigh in relief.

"Fantastic, it looks like this may be the last time we see each other but it has been an honor." He raises his hoof which I gladly shake.

"Now then, should I greet your newly arrived friends?" He asks me with a smile.

"I would advise not to, they may not react very well." I told him which put a worrying look on his face.

"Would they really do that?"

"Yep." The sounds of the helicopters in the distance finally died down. We began walking towards the direction that the Chinooks had landed in, the streets were as clear as the first time that we entered the town with an almost unnerving silence. "Lets try to meet up with them before they enter town so they don't create a scene." I told my men following closely behind.

"It doesn't look like anyone is here sir." A marine said to the sergeant crouching in the bush next to him.

"Nonsense private, command sent a UAV here a couple of hours ago, If they aren't here then we probably aren't ever gonna find them." The sergeant said to the man. The bushes to the west of the town were filled with marines all with the same purpose, extract Task Force 03. Suddenly a group of four men appeared on the road leading towards the direction of the bushes the marines were hiding in.

"Targets are in sight everyone reveal yourselves." Said a voice coming from the sergeants radio, all the marines arose from the bushes in unison stopping the men in their tracks for less than a second. The men the continued to walk towards them and it was now possible make out their appearances. The sergeant then came face to face with the four men.

"Looks like command was a little bit scared to lose us." Said Charles who smiled like a small child during Christmas.

"Well, usually it's not a good sign to lose four armed marines on an island." Said the Sergeant who then began to look at his surroundings "What the hell is this place?"

"It's too long of a story to explain right now." I told him.

"You know you were supposed to contact us yesterday right?"

"Radios weren't working, some kind of interference."

Suddenly a marine screamed in pain before colliding to the ground, he had an arrow stuck in his neck that began to create a pool of blood. "MEDICS!" The Sergeant barked at two men who scurried over towards the marine on the ground and began checking his pulse.

"He's dead sir." said one of the medics sadly. Suddenly a hail of arrows glided towards us from above.

"TAKE COVER." yelled the sergeant as everyone began to sprint towards the wooden homes covered by a rain of arrows. I took cover behind a tan house with the Sergeant in tow who was trying to control his breathing I looked over a corner to see who our attackers were. They were pegasi, tons of them who were covered in golden armor and wielded bows. Once the marines were into cover they began to open fire on the attackers darkening the sky with their rounds. "You mind telling me what the hell is going on?" The Sergeant who was taking cover beside me asked.

"I don't actually have an idea this time." I told him before I turned the corner again and aim my sights at one of the pegasi firing a burst of rounds sending it plummeting towards the ground. They were losing a large amount of soldiers, marines continued to fire into the air, causing the ones that were unfortunate enough to be hit falling to their death. They continued falling before a marine was unfortunate enough to have an arrow hit him directly in the face. The pegasi finally began to retreat flying towards the ground were they could not be seen.

"Stay vigilant, they could attack us again at anytime." The Sergeant said in the radio before turning to me with a raised brow "what in the hell are those things?"

"They're called ponies, they didn't attack us when we were here before but it looks like you guys showing up somehow pissed them off."

After a few minutes of waiting suddenly a marine who was looking around the corner was hit with a bright orb of light scorching his face and killing him. Then the town erupted into gunfire with the bright orbs of what I guessed was magic launching themselves at the marines.

"They have some sort of glowing shield around them, I can't do anything to them." a marine said in the intercom before beginning to fire again. I looked over the corner, it was a wide road that lead towards the center of town and on it was a unicorn and almost a dozen other normal ponies who held spears charging towards us, I found the source of the shield, the unicorns horn had been glowing when I shot at it.

"Everyone unload your mags on the shields and the one in the middle won't be able to sustain it anymore." I said through my radio. The sound of gunfire became even louder as the marines began to rain their rapid fire on the ponies. I also began to fire my rifle at the ponies as they got ever closer. It was too late, in the corner of my eye I could see that the ponies were able to get to the marines and began to use their spears, I looked back to where I was firing to see a pony launch themselves towards me with their spear, I dodged and aimed my rifle at the pony's head firing a round that pierced it's helmet with ease instantly killing it. I looked back towards the road, the marine across from me was able to kill off a few including the unicorn but was being pinned down by three ponies I fired at them while trying not to kill the soldier, he was able to push the last pony off him and I fired a round directly through it's head being thanked by the marine with a thumbs up. I looked over to see my squad mates, they were faring just fine and were helping others with the ponies who managed to break through. The ponies began to retreat as their numbers dwindled but I noticed that the pegasi from before were flying towards us at a very high speed.

"ALL MEN RETREAT, I REPEAT, ALL MEN RETREAT." Yelled the Sergeant, Everyone began to run as quickly as they could into the forest as the pegasi followed close behind. Marines were firing behind them in hopes of killing one of them, but the pegasi were not able to attack because of the flora in their way. I could see the two grey chinooks preparing for take-off in the distance, the marines who reached the helicopters before us were firing upon the pegasi killing many of them before they could get close. The helicopters were in a small clearing, everyone began to pile themselves into the helicopters which closed their hatches and slowly rose into the air showered by the arrows and magical light from our pursuers. I looked out the small circular window next to me, we finally had made it out of the island alive, and the enemy slowly began to give up the chase as I gave a sigh of relief and sunk into my seat.

After the battle was over the mayor reluctantly exited his home, the town was surprisingly still intact after the violent battle that had occurred. He looked to his right and almost lost consciousness from the gruesome sight, bodies of dead pegasi guards were littered on the streets as well as rivers of blood. He looked over their bleeding corpses to see what had happened to them, they all had one or more small holes that allowed for blood to spill out. When he heard a loud explosion after the Equestrian guard went towards the humans he decided it would be a good idea to hide, which fortunately he did as more explosions began to be heard. He went down the road towards the outskirts of town where most of the battle took place, it was littered with bodies of both humans and ponies, the human corpses either had scorch marks from offensive magic or arrows that were able to hit them on their unarmored faces, they all had the same green and brown pattern on their uniforms he began to weep knowing what would come next. The left over guards which only amounted to a little over thirty were making their way to the mayor from the forest, most of them were covered in blood and tears that may or may not have been their own, some were even in a state of shock after realizing what had happened to their friends.

One of the guards came over to Hent and patted him on his back "Don't worry mayor, the monsters are gone your town is safe." He said with a reassuring smile, the mayor did not take this kindly.

"HOW DARE YOU." He yelled pushing the guard away from him "THEY AREN'T MONSTERS THEIR HUMANS, AND THEY WERE FRIENDS THEY WEREN'T HERE TO KILL US YOU FOOL DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE." The guard looked behind him at the other guards with a frown and nodded towards one of them, the guard then began moving towards the mayor with a syringe in their hoof.

"I'm sorry mayor, but it seems that you may become, a nuisance." The mayor slowly began to move away from the guard, but collided into a wall behind him, "Please stay still mayor, this will not hurt very much." The guard jabbed the syringe into his neck and injected the purple liquid that it contained, he immediately began to feel dizzy and slowly fell to the ground before hearing one of the guards say "dispose of him."

Lieutenant Gleaming Shield looked over the aftermath of the battle in fear "We've just messed with the wrong monsters Celestia." He thought to himself. They were only able to kill a small few of the monsters with a third of the guard. "Lightweight!" he yelled at the nearest pegasus guard who quickly dashed toward him and saluted.

"Yes sir." He said as Gleaming Shield handed him a tear covered letter that he had wrote while walking back to the town.

"Head to Canterlot and give this letter straight to Celestia." The pegasus nodded and launched himself in the direction of Canterlot.
"Edge, have you found any sign of the mayor." He ask a guard who was far from the others.

"Sir, I'm sorry to tell you this but, he's dead." This surprised him and the guards who overheard the conversation

"H-how?" The Lieutenant asked.

"They hit him with one of the strange weapons they had, I saw it while we were fighting those things."

"Oh no"

Captain Piercing Blow sat perplexed in her sun-lit office as she reviewed the list of guards, something was strange, the list was two times longer than last years. Although she was the newly assigned captain of the guard, she knew that something was not right. She left the room and trotted down the windowed marble hallways to the guarded large wooden door that waited at the end. "Hello mam, have you heard from the guards who were sent to Trotting Greens yet?" asked one of the a guard that seemed somewhat worried.

"Not yet, but they should have arrived there today." She said while the door opened to the outside. Her eyes were met with the sight of a different sky one that did not look like it belonged, luckily, she saved her surprise for later because she had learned about the sky from guards who had visited her when it happened, Piercing had to cover her eyes in order to recover from staying in the castle for such a long time. She made her way through the shops of downtown Canterlot that were crowded with posh citizens. Then she went down an alleyway to a trap door and knocked on it with her hoof, which creakily opened revealing a brown stallion wearing a trench coat.

"What do you want Piercing." He asked her in an uninterested tone.

"I need some help with my new job." She said causing him to raise an eyebrow before ushering her inside. The room was bland, the walls were made out of stone and the floor wood, their was a few pieces of furniture including a desk and a filing cabinet. The pony sat at his desk and waited for her to sit in a seat in front of it. "So what do you need help with, because I'm pretty sure you could just get help from your advisors if you needed it."

"Well, I took a look over the list of guards today, and somehow the amount of guards enlisted is now two times more than last year." She told him.

"Alright since it's obvious that you don't know and can't find out by yourself I'll figure it out for you, but are you going to at least pay this time?"

She giggled "Fine Eagle-eye I'll pay you, but only if you can find something out this time."

Twilight was confused, Celestia had sent her a letter detailing her on what was occurring in Trotting Greens, but she had not been told why or when. She waited for the elements to meet her at the round table to discuss this matter.

"So what was this thing you asked us here for." Applejack asked as she sat down in her chair along with the others.

"Recently this message was sent to me by the princess." Twilight said as she laid the note in the center of the table so the others could see."

"one hundred royal guards! Isn't that a bit too much?"

"Yes, and that is exactly what concerns me so much, she could have sent us but instead decided to send them and she's never done that before."

"Maybe their just trying to make a big party for everyone!" Pinky said jumping out of her chair and throwing confetti that appeared on her arm.

"No Pinky that's not it, this is strange and that's exactly why I asked you to meet me here, we need to go there ourselves to see what's going on."

"B-but what if it's dangerous." Fluttershy said shaking.

"If it was dangerous Celestia would have sent us instead!" Rainbowdash said slamming her hoof against the table causing Fluttershy to jump.

"No, if it wasn't dangerous than they wouldn't need to send guards at all." Twilight said beginning to ponder.

"Than it's settled." Said Rarity "let's go now before I have to go to Canterlot for a meeting." The ponies gave a nod and stood from their chairs preparing to leave before receiving a loud knock on the front door.

"Who would knock this early in the morning?" Twilight said.

"Hey! That's exactly what I asked myself when you knocked on my door today!" Rainbow said getting a roll of eyes from Twilight who opened door revealing a group of five guards who quickly bowed before her presence.

"Greetings princess." Said the guard in the very front "I have brought news from Celestia, she says that we must escort you immediately to a building project." He told her giving her enough time to become even more confused at what the guard said.

"Is that actually what she said, she only wants us so we can see a building project?"

"Yes those were her direct orders"

"We are kind of busy right now do you mind if we do this later?"

"The princess said it was urgent." This caused Twilight and the others to groan in frustration.

The island

April 6, 2016 - Pacific Ocean

It was like any other day out at sea, the sun was shining, water as far as the eye could see, and an abundance of nothing. Now don't get me wrong I do enjoy being the captain of this glorious freighter which was currently being used to export "important cargo" into China I do hate the fact that the view is the blandest thing I have ever laid my eyes upon, but today was different, today I got the chance to look at an island, a very large one in fact that announced that I was actually very lost. "Rick" I said to my navigator who was currently transfixed with his monitor "how in the hell did you mess up this badly?" he took a sip of his coffee and sighed.

"We didn't mess up sir we're going through the same route we have we've been through a million times." He said as he stared blankly at the navigation console. "But if you want to know where this island came from it probably came out of thin air." He laid his coffee down and stood up.

"What in the hell are you trying to say Rick?" I asked him as I took a look at the navigation console confused, he was right, this was the same route we always took, the satellite imaging we were using was only months old as well.

"I'm saying that this island doesn't exist." He then picked up the ship's communicator and began dialing a number into it.

I continued staring in disbelief at the console "well don't take too long calling whoever you're calling because I'm pretty sure the Chinese are just dying to get their hands on these office supplies and furniture we're carrying."

April 26, 2016 - The Pentagon

The chairman was ready to give his speech, while he was not truly sure what was going on he knew the absolute importance of addressing this matter. "Twenty days ago NASA had received a call from an anonymous source which had claimed of encountering an unknown island in the Pacific Ocean, at first they took no notice of these claims but the next day one of their satellites had found a large landmass nearly the size of South America. Exactly six days after the discovery of this large continent, a group of explorers were dispatched in order to explore the landmass, at the end of that week they had reported of their arrival but in between the hours of setting up camp and exploring we lost all contact with them and fear they were killed." The chairman took a sip from his water bottle and continued his speech. "After a discussion of these events the board has settled with a plan, which will have to involve our military. This will be the only time I will be allowed to speak of this operation in order to keep it away from public eye. We have settled to send a task force to the island, the orders that will be given to these men will be to find the explorers and extract them, if the explorers are found to be dead then their orders will be to find the cause of death and recover any information recorded on the island. This task force will be trained in basic survival skills, and will be extracted immediately after completing their mission."

April 6, 2016 - Canterlot

"Um, what just happened?" Twilight asked Celestia as they stared in awe at the elements of harmony which now rested on the throne room's floor.

"I have no idea." Celestia said as her horn glowed to pick the elements off the ground. A loud thump was heard on the main entrance before it quickly opened revealing Twilight's friends.

"What the hay is going on here?" Applejack yelled at the two as she stomped towards the alicorns.

"What do you mean?" asked Twilight as she focused her gaze on the elements of harmony.

"What do you think I mean, first I heard an explosion comin from here and now the entire sky looks funny!" She said with a confused expression and looked back at her four friends behind her worryingly.

"Well, we we're messing with the elements, and they kind of, exploded." Twilight answered which caused her friends to stare agape with shock "don't worry nothing happened to them they're safe." As she pointed them to the elements receiving a sigh of relief "but did anything else strange happen besides the sky changing that's worth taking note of?" She asked taking a look at the eerily out of place sky through the rooms see-through mosaics. Applejack opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by Celestia falling on the throne room's red carpet. "PRINCESS." yelled Twilight as she rushed over to Celestia. Celestia was still awake, but she looked to be in an intense pain and began to cry. The only thing Twilight and the other elements could do was comfort her until she began to speak.

"I've had a vision." Celestia said quietly "Of bad things happening, very bad things." She began to weep once more before regaining her train of thought "They will come to destroy us, and they will come soon."

"They?" asked Twilight.

"Monsters, unmerciful monsters." She began to stand assisted by twilight's magic "we must act quickly."

Author's Note

This is a remake of a fic I wrote years ago, It was pretty terrible and got horrible ratings but I thought the idea behind was great so I took the time to create a new plot for it. It took over a year to finish this chapter because I would keep scrapping older ideas that didn't sound to good.