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.