Friendly AC-130 Inbound

Chapters

Down in Kokomo
Ghostriders on the ground?
Troops in Contact?
Bad Omen
Sol-Centric
Tea, Chats, and Bats
Stress And Shenanigans
General Order and Mayhem
It's a bird, it's a pegasus, it's heading this way!

Down in Kokomo

Chapter 1: Down in Kokomo

Struggle sat on the back of the lowered ramp of the AC-130 he would be flying, taking in the early morning sounds of a base just beginning its new day. The cold winter wind cutting through his thin layers on his flight suit, as he watched the rising sun peak over the tree line. The orange glow glinting off the windows of the dozen or so sleeping gunships on the parking pad. Normally he didn't have an opportunity to do this, their sortie was supposed to take off an hour ago, but a last minute repair had grounded them for just a bit longer.

A voice from behind him, interrupted him from his lazy sight seeing. "Hey Struggle, it's stations time, get out front." That was his engineer Story-Time, as his nickname implied he could prattle on for hours with little to no input into a conversation. With a grunt he jumped down off the ramp, and put his headset on from around his neck. He made his way around the aircraft, bracing the biting winds to make his way up front.

After he got in front of the nose, he picked up his rolled up comm-cord off the ground and plugged in his headset.

"Loads up, sorry for the delay."

They had been in the air for a few hours, and Struggle found himself asleep after all his system checks. His hammock swinging gently to the vibrations of the AC-130's massive engines. Normally sleeping on the plane was discouraged, but on a long ferry flight like this one, no one would have too much heart burn.

"Hey Struggle, you alive back there?" He could tell it was the Pilot nicknamed Chaos, but the usual uptick in his heart rate from being woken up on the plane had already started. Which is ironic because Chaos was one of the most easy going Pilots he knew, and they had a history together. A groan escaped his mouth, before he righted himself in the hammock so he could maneuver his mic to his lips.

"Yeah I'm alive, but barely, did I miss another checklist call?"

"Ha no, but I should have let you think you did, we were wondering up here if you had a patch cord to play some music?"

"Eh I'm not sure, let me check my bag real quick." From his hammock he did a quick scan of the gun deck for his boots, and sure enough sometime while he was sleeping they had tumbled down the ramp. Fuck me, if there is anything more cringe worthy then using the aircrafts shitter, it's walking around the plane in socks.

Foregoing his forsaken boots to their fate, he walked down the ramp to pass the 105millimeter howitzer. As he reached the gun, he ducked under its yellow painted safety cage, before lifting himself on his tiptoes to pull down his bag. After a few minutes of rummaging through his old helmet bag, he spotted the small curly patch cord under a half eaten burrito he had wrapped to save for later.

"Struggle, I know we've got all day, but what's the status on that patch cord?" said the Pilot.

"Just found 'er, give me a sec...any requests when its hooked up?"

"What music do you got?" said the Navigator who was nicknamed Papa Hotel. He was a soft spoken guy, with a bit of a forgettable presence. But out of all of us, he had the most interesting back story to his nickname. On his second deployment to Afghanistan, the base had been mortared, and a 'lucky golden bb' had managed to hit right next to the gunship he was in at the time. The shrapnel from the explosion had managed to cut through the aircraft, and one piece found his leg. One purple heart later, and he had a nickname. In fact now that he thought about it, the only member of their five man crew without a nickname was the Co-Pilot. A scrawny butter bar Lieutenant with a last name of Ticer...Or something, Struggle knew it started with a T. He was a jittery young guy, and he was new. How new? He still had that new guy smell, that's how new.

"A little bit of this, a little bit of that. But mostly just a lot of metal. But don't worry, I'll make sure to find something that will please all of your sensitive little ears."

"Struggle I swear if you play any 'I hate my parents music', I'll let the Co-Pilot fly while I come back there." said Chaos. Struggle let a soft chuckle escape his lips at the thought of a Pilot coming into the metal jungle that was the natural habitat of the mysterious tribe known as 'gunners'.

"You won't, and we both know as much as you like your nickname, you wouldn't dare cause that much chaos." By this point Struggle had hooked his ipod up through the patch cord to the comm system.

"So quit your yappin, DJ Struggles comin' at you with what's hot. In honor of our first stop, I got just the song." said Struggle.

Down in Kokomo

As the song opened up, Struggle spoke barely above the song.

"Bermuda here we come."

Struggle huffed lightly as he finished up his after take off checks. What bullshit! Of all the shitty luck we could have. Apparently a tropical storm had appeared out of nowhere. Unfortunately, this had canceled the carefully planned bed down on the island of Bermuda. In order to not be stuck on the island when the storm hit, the plane had to be refueled to take off immediately, so they could try to stay on their timeline. So much for that island horizontal tango I was hoping for.

"Um Pilot, Nav main." Papa Hotel squeaked.

"Go ahead Nav." Chaos responded.

"How's it look out there? I just got some weird indications on the radar." Struggle was listening intently now. Radar problems over the Atlantic with an approaching storm could mean a hasty retreat back to Bermuda. He could already feel the hope of a tropical rendezvous reigniting in his chest.

"Nothing out of the ordinary out....wait what the hell?" Struggle could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. It was never a good sign when a pilot sounded baffled, even less so for a pilot as experienced as Chaos.

"Talk to me Pilot, what's going on?" Struggle said, his voice slightly elevated.

"Brace yourselves crew we're in for a bit of a bumpy ride, not sure how it caught us by surprise. But the storm is about to be on top of us." If Struggle had been on the flight deck, he would definitely define what Chaos said, as downplaying the situation. In the distance ahead of the gunship, a dark storm front was materializing out of nowhere, blacking out the sky as it advanced towards them with an unholy speed. Water spouts otherwise known as 'water twisters', were dancing between the gap of the water and clouds. Looking like load bearing pillars for the heavens. Lightning lit up the ere darkness beneath the clouds with a foreboding frequency.

"Can we just fly over them?" Struggled responded, while making his way up to the right scanner seat.

"We're too heavy after that refuel. We'll be fine, just find yourself a seat." Chaos said.

By the time Struggle made it to the right scanner seat and took a look out the window, they were seconds away from hitting the storm front. He stared into the gaping maw of a storm that seemed to swallow all light, save for the lightning strikes that danced within. As soon as they met the front, a torrential downpour cascaded and flowed around the window, making it hard for him to see anything in the storm beyond. But this wasn't the only thing he noticed, static electricity danced around the outside of the window. He had seen St. Elmo's fire before, but this was something new. Long strands of electricity danced from the aircraft into the heavens, he imagined that the aircraft looked like the center of one of those plasma balls one could play with in a store.

Major "Chaos" wasn't a happy camper, this storm and now his plane seemed to be fighting him every step of the way. His forearms burned as he fought the controls to keep the plane on the right heading. The entire plane shuddered, and bounced every time he forced the unwilling aircraft. His corrections quickly being undone, and the whole process starting over again. It was almost like they were being dragged along in a unseen current. At least the water spouts he had to dodge had finally disappeared, one less obstacle on their way out of this freaky storm. But before he could thank whatever deity was looking out for them, the instruments on his aircraft started going haywire.

The needle on the compass just kept spinning, and the electronic navigational aids went haywire. He spared a quick glance over to his co-pilot, only for him to look just as baffled at the sudden dramatic change to the instrumentation. He didn't have long to think about it however, before the engineer behind him pointed a shaky finger towards the window. Chaos looked up, only for his brain to grind to a halt with what his eyes were telling him. In the distance of the dark sky it looked like someone had kicked a beehive. The flashing lights of airplanes zigged this way and that in total anarchy. He spared his 'Traffic Collision Avoidance System' a glance, only to have it tell him there were no aircrafts in the sky. But with all the flight equipment on the fritz, he couldn't trust it anyway.

"Hey Story, pass me your NVD." He said in the calmest voice possible. Within seconds the small night vision monocle was passed to his hands, and he swiftly brought it up to his right eye. What he saw didn't register at first, as his eyes darted to each of the aircraft in the distance that were slowly growing larger. Dawning realization slowly crept in, as he recognized the unmistakable silhouette of guns sticking out of a C-130 on each of the aircraft. Gunships?

"What in the world?"

In the center of this swarm of impossible gunships, a single bright light emanated, and as their gunship joined the swarming cloud of planes it grew till it encompassed all of them. The light poured through their aircraft, unhindered by physical barriers until the whole crew was left blinded.

Struggle sat in the window rubbing his eyes trying to get his vision back, while wondering just what had happened. As the floaters in his vision faded, his sight slowly returned to him. He was immediately relieved to see sunlight pouring through the window next to him. Perhaps they had managed to finally break through the storm. With his eyes no longer crying out in agony, he decided to take a look out the window. What he saw immediately set off a tiny red flag, after all there wasn't much land in the Atlantic this far out. Yet no matter where he looked there was land, vast mountain ranges with green fertile valleys. With forests interspersed sporadically between colorful fields.

"Ugh Pilot, Load. Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" he asked.

"Roger Load...I've been to just about every island in the Atlantic, and this place doesn't look like any of them. That's another thing, we were just over the ocean, I've been circling and I can't spot it anywhere. Nav, what does the GPS say our coordinates are?" Chaos said.

"Nothing Pilot, before that light it was going crazy...but now it just keeps showing the drift from our last known coordinates. Normally I would think there is a fault in the system, but it checks out green. It's almost like there's some kind of connection issue." Said Papa Hotel.

Whatever else the nav said fell on deaf ears as Struggle gaped out the window. There in the distance was a castle on the side of a mountain, that however isn't what bothered him. He had seen plenty of crazy medieval castles and towns in Europe. No, what bothered him was the purple shield encompassing the entire thing. It looked like something straight out of science fiction, several scenes from Star Wars flashing through his head about energy shields.

"Ugh guys....Not to interrupt your debate about what's going on, but when you were looking for that ocean I think you missed something in your scan." Struggle choked out. This time it was the nav who responded first.

"Why? Did you figure out where we are?" he said.

"Not exactly. But just to be sure, Co-Pilot could you take a look out your window at two o'clock. About twenty miles out halfway up the mountain, tell me what you see." Struggle responded. There was a long pause followed by a muffled gasp over the comm channel.

"Wha..What the hell is that?!? It looks like a giant purple orb surrounding a city!" the co-pilot responded. Not justified that he wasn't losing his mind, Struggle decided to voice a crazy opinion.

"Crew, Load. I don't know what's going on, but I bet if we go check out that city we might get a better idea of what is."

"Good idea Load, what direction is it now?" While the plane was orbiting, the city in question had drifted behind the wing line of the aircraft.

"About the five o'clock position Pilot." With that said the plane banked to the right, and flew in the direction of their new target. All the while Struggle out of nervous habit, scanned the world below looking for threats. Had he been paying more attention, he might have noticed the shadow that lingered over his window for a few moments.

Strong Scales wasn't sure what he was looking at. A few minutes ago he was happily sleeping on his hoard in his lair, before a loud noise he had never heard before kept buzzing about outside his cave. He had tried ignoring it for a time, before it grated on his last nerve, driving him to investigate. Before departing he grabbed a large ruby in his long green tail for a snack, in case it a while. With his jewel secure, he flapped his massive wings barreling down the cave on his legs till he picked up enough momentum to fly.

It hadn't taken him long to realize that the noise wasn't coming from right outside the cave, as he hovered there searching the surroundings of the forest out side of it. He grunted softly to himself, realizing that the best way to find it, would be to scan the forest from the sky.

Strong Scales had followed the noise for several minutes, but realized that the noise kept moving. He had followed it in a circle of the forest several times now, and could only guess it was two steps ahead of him. No matter, he would wait for it right here, and there would be no way for it to escape him now. So he hovered over a clearing in the tree line, waiting for the noise to circle back over this spot so he could finally catch his foe. It didn't seem like he had much more time to wait as the noise grew louder, and he could barely contain his excitement at catching some new quarry. The other dragons in his clan would surely love this story about how he outsmarted his prey. But before the noise could grow to its crescendo, a large shadow dashed across the canopy below to his right, startling him.

Whipping around to find the source, he scanned the skies until he had found the source. It wasn't a cloud like he half expected. No, higher then most things fly, was some type of grey metal bird. His curiosity piqued, he decided to get a closer look at it. So he flew higher, proudly dancing back and forth. Breaking up small clouds, and undoing the small flying ponies work. But as he drew closer, he started to realize the noise he had been chasing, was coming from his new object of attention. With that realization he was fuming, all that time wasted hunting, not to mention his peaceful slumber being interrupted. Oh I'm so having words with you, my metal avian friend.

It wasn't long before he had come up behind the bird, overtaking and flying above him in the sky. It wasn't till he had gotten close, that he had realized just how large it was. The bird was easily the size of most full grown dragons, not to mention, it looked like nothing he had ever seen. He even doubted it was a bird, but flying above it in a show of dominance eased his apprehension.

"Hey buddy, just so you know somedragons are trying to sleep around here, and I don't appreciate how much noise your making." said Strong Scales while not so subtlety adding a growl at the end to sound threatening. If the bird heard him however, it didn't seem to care as it continued to circle the land below. He...or maybe she is hunting. But this is my territory if it won't leave I'll make it.

"Just so you know this is my territory pal, so if you don't leave I'll make you."

He made to start building up the flames in his mouth, when he noticed it bank right and leave.

He just smiled to himself and let it go, proud that the beast had backed off in the end, clearly intimidated about facing him. The metal bird was an unknown, and while he liked a challenge as much as the next dragon, he didn't really reveille in the idea of taking on something his size without knowing if he would win. Still, he couldn't help but gloat at the loud retreating bird.

"Don't forget to tell your friends, about the day Strong Scales the dragon showed you mercy." He brought the ruby in his tail up to his mouth, and slowly munched on it while he watched it go. Perhaps I did get a story to tell the clan, how many dragons can say they scared off a metal bird the size of a dragon. Might need to add a few details, to make it a good story of course.

Big Mac was lying against his favorite tree in the orchard, basking in the shade it provided while sitting on his haunches chewing on a stalk of hay. The best part of this spot was that it sat on the largest hill in Sweet Apple Acres, overlooking the whole farm and Ponyville as well. With his sister Applejack up in Canterlot for some high fallutin royal wedding, and Applebloom doing some kind of project with the crusaders, he finally found himself some peace and quite to come here. Sure he still had to look after the farm and Granny, but apple bucking season was over, and Granny was busying herself with making pie. But he didn't just come here to relax, no he came here to think and have a hard drink or two.

So with just a little bit of trepidation and glee, he made to pull the object of his desire from his saddlebag. There in a small mason jar cradled in his hoof, was the Apple families special hard cider. He didn't get to drink a lot, what with being the role model as the oldest. But every now and then he got a chance to indulge, just like right now.

So after carefully removing the top with his other hoof he drained the jar slowly as the minutes passed. Basking in the warm pull he got from the cold beverage, and delighting in its not overly sweet taste with just a hint of bitter burn. Soon enough it was gone, and he quickly pulled out another. All the while thoughts about up-coming work on the farm dashed through his head, as well as about a few mares in town who had caught his eye.

As he reached the bottom of the third jar his head was swimming, and he felt more relaxed then he had been in weeks. But his cool mood was interrupted when his ears twitched at a unfamiliar noise he just started to notice. He drew himself a bit straighter, and madly began swiveling his ears trying to pick up the source of the disturbance. He didn't like that it sounded like it was getting closer, his hackles raising as he prepared to confront some intruder on his farm. When his ears finally swiveled to lock onto the noise, he jerked his head so fast that he went light headed. But when everything came back into focus the noise was right over him, and he watched in disbelief as some gigantic bird flew overhead towards Canterlot. Clearly imagining things he let his head dip to think about what he just saw, and when he did his eyes rested on the empty jars littered around him. The picture came into focus and he chalked it up to a alcohol fueled delusion, before loudly proclaiming "E'nope." and setting out to find something to help sober up.

Ghostriders on the ground?

Chapter 3: Ghostriders on the ground?

Chaos surveyed the land running parallel to the train tracks below. It wasn’t ideal, at least not for a large AC-130 to land on. Currently as far as he could figure, it was about four thousand feet of straight away. Possibly a little less, but it wasn’t so much the length that currently concerned him. Their two potential approaches were what bothered him, he could come in towards the direction of that mountain city. However at the end of that potential run-in the tracks jerked violently in front of their path as they began their ascent into the mountains. If he followed that route, he ran the risk of going nose end into the track’s berm.

On the opposite approach it was even worse, he would have to hug the mountain before bringing it in a tight right hand turn. He would lose precious runway as he wouldn’t be able to descend until they could level out. To make matters worse, the treeline at the end of that side of the tracks made the gravel and dirt berm look friendly. But at least flying over the tree lines on the opposite approach he could bring it in low and level towards the mountain. His decision was rather simple in the end.

“Crew, Decent Checks.” The pilot said.

“Copy Pilot, I just finished bandaging the Nav, he’s passed out but he’s secure.” Struggle responded.

The Pilot banked the aircraft out of their orbit, setting themselves on a trajectory over the treeline.

“Keep me informed, if you can, start on the crash landing checks.” He responded before telling the Eng to continue the checklist.

“Crew Briefing.” Story pimped the pilot.

“Alright crew here’s the plan, we’ve got about four thousand feet of runway I’ll bring her over that treeline. We’ll go one hundred percent flaps-

Unaware of the crew’s plan, Princess Celestia watched intently as the large grey beast circled high above. She had decided to err on the side of caution by simply observing the metal beast from her balcony. It had circled above Ponyville for quite some time. However when it turned South, still trailing smoke, she had hoped that perhaps it might have left altogether. But much to her chagrin it turned back around and began losing altitude, she could tell whatever it was it would soon be earth bound. Drawing from her years of experience, Celestia could tell this incident would not blow over if she ignored it. Glancing behind her she picked out the closest guard to herself.

“Bring Lieutenant Swift Stroke to me. Inform him to quickly assemble an escort of pegasi.” She said.

Celestia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she wondered how badly this would interrupt her day’s plans.

“Pilot, Load. Are we going to dump any ammo or fuel?”

“Negative Load, I would rather hang onto any supplies we can. We’ll land heavy if we have to.”

“Copy.” Struggle was running ragged across the gundeck, tying down loose equipment, checking hydraulic lines and double checking his work.

“Load, are the guns extended and stowed?” The Eng asked.

“No I’m working on that Eng.” He grunted in frustration before making his way to the loader weapon control panel. He furiously began flipping switches, but none of the guns moved. He was baffled for a few moments before he silently cursed under his breath.

Fuck that's right, we lost the Booster Hydraulics.

“Hold on, I need to manually extend and stow the guns, the booster was damaged so it will take me a few more minutes.”

“Well make it quick, the Eng is starting to get fluctuating RPM’s on three.” Said Chaos.

“Well if you can magic four more gunners out of your ass then by all means, otherwise shut the fuck up I’m doing what I can as fast as I can.”

Struggle grabbed the manual drive assembly, and rotated its handles with such abandon that his rotator cuff began to scream in agony. The guns slowly elevated. With the 105 millimeter, and 40 millimeter stowed he went around the aft of the largest gun, and began pumping the handle to extend it.

“Load, we are on our final approach you have five minutes.” Chaos said.

No fucking pressure or anything. Struggle grunted to himself, only a few more inches and the gun would be fully extended.

Meanwhile Celestia’s mind raced with the possibilities the large craft could have in store for her. She had gathered her contingent and had left Canterlot a few minutes ago, they had kept their distance but it was clear now to her that it was a flying machine. Unlike any of the ones in Canterlot, but a flying machine nonetheless.

Its smoke trail grew as it descended on Ponyville, no sooner had it left the forest then had it touched down on the ground, bouncing violently near the train tracks. Kicking up dirt, and spitting smoke. She watched the seemingly helpless airship futilely try to slow down. By the time it had reached the halfway point of Ponyville, it became clear to her that it may not be capable of slowing itself down in time before it reached the base of the mountain.

“Guard! On me! Our guest may need some assistance.”

Struggle had barely made it to his seat by the time the aircraft hit the dirt. The landing was hard, he took no pride in the fact that three bounces was a new personal record on landing. But he couldn’t help but breath a small sigh of relief that they were at least on the ground now. He diverted his attention from the window to make sure the Nav was still secure. Sure enough he was still there, even if his head comically rolled about.

As he switched his attention back to the window, he saw the town for the first time at eye level pass him by. Thatch roofs, and colorful buildings blurred by him. The violent shakes and harsh jerks made it hard to see clearly outside. The few animated forms he saw watched him pass with rapt attention, and for the first time he saw its citizens from something other than a bird’s eye view. In a way he wished he hadn’t, they were quadrupedal in nature. Their colorful forms, and wide eyes spoke of intelligence.

Struggle could feel the g-forces as the engines reversed their thrust, trying to slow their speed. He slowly lurched forward under the shifting momentum, stopped only by his inertial reel on his shoulder straps. The town had fled from his vision, replaced by a landscape of rolling hills and sprawling fields.

“Crew, brace for impact.” The Pilot said. Wait what!?!

Chaos had pulled fully back on the throttles, his legs were both applied to the brakes, hoping that anything would find the traction needed to stop their forward movement. But as the mountain grew larger, he realized all was lost. They would hit the berm, the cockpit would be crushed and his life would end along with it. Closing his eyes he prayed for it to end swiftly.

But as the cabin rocked, and he thought the end was nigh. He realized that he hadn’t died, he could still feel the breath ragged as it was escape him. Cautiously he opened his eyes, to find that the berm was mere inches from having impacted the nose of the aircraft, and a golden shimmer seemed to dance along the windshield.

A bead of sweat dropped down Celestia’s brow. Stopping the extremely heavy machine wasn’t as difficult as moving the Sun, but after the day’s events it took an extraordinary effort to stop. She let out a ragged sigh in relief, saving the creature had left her fatigued. However any effort was worth answering her questions, if it meant keeping her subjects safe.

“After Landing checks.” The Pilot called.

“Everyone alright up there?” The Load asked.

“Yes Load, Besides the Co pissing himself.”

“Skittish Tombs, very skittish.”

“Knock it off Load, we’re in a checklist.”

“Co-pee. Pilot.”

Struggle disengaged his seat belt, quickly setting to his task of setting his gear back into his helmet bag that he had brought up to the window. Afterwards he went back to the gundeck, checking to see if any of the equipment had shifted. He was pleasantly surprised to see that everything had remained put.

He waited for the engines to down-speed as he leaned against the small window in the right paratroop door, watching the flames from the number three engine be smothered in fire extinguisher fluid. It was a bit abnormal as the engine choked alongside its brother, the number four engine. After he made his way to the ramp and door control panel, this time armed with the knowledge of the booster system being out, he set on the task of pumping both systems, the ramp lowered while cargo door opened. When the world outside was revealed, he was slightly startled to see that a group of locals had decided on hanging back about a hundred meters from the aircraft.

Well this isn’t close encounters of the third kind, the ramp maybe down but I still have other jobs to do. The take me to your leader part can wait.

“Static right.” The Co-pilot called.

“Load, clear to insert wheel chocks.” Chaos said.

“In progress. Load is checking off.” Struggle waited for the pilot to copy before disconnecting his comm cord, and jumping out the aircraft with the first set of chocks. After landing heavily, he threw the chocks down on the grass, before kicking one behind the back wheel, and one in front of it. Before making his way to the ramp to grab the second set to repeat on the opposite side.

“Loads up, chocks in place.”

“Copy Load, Engine shutdown checks complete. Alright crew clean up your stations, Load wake the Nav if you can and we’ll gather at the end of the ramp. Cleared off crew.”

With that Struggle took his headset off and rested it on his shoulders, as he began to roll up his comm-cord on the way back to the crew rest compartment.

Celestia was clearly confused, it was obvious that the species that she had seen in the craft was none she knew of. Why hadn’t she heard about a new species being discovered, or for that matter, stories of them if they built complicated looking machines. The gears in her head were turning but she was clearly missing something. She watched as one of creatures in her sight turned in their direction, but simply ignored them as it went about performing other tasks, clearly disinterested by her and her guards presence. She didn’t know whether to be insulted or impressed.

She watched curiously as it picked up a pair of yellow painted wooden blocks connected by a rope. Before it jumped down out of the craft, and placed them underneath what appeared to be the crafts wheels. Although she had never seen the substance they were made of.

It shortly disappeared back into the craft after completing the task.

It wasn’t long however before other occupants from inside the craft began to emerge from the darkness within. The new additions however seemed far more interested in her, and her guards presence. Perhaps the first one was some type of servant class, or of a diminished intelligence. However he to shortly returned, cradling what appeared to be a wounded one of their number.

Oh dear, I wonder what happened.

“Welcome back to the land of the living Papa.” Struggle said.

“Ugh, ya I’m back. I still feel like shit. I take it we’ve landed.”

“Yeah we’re there sunshine...we’re there.”

“Alright, give me a sec.” The Nav unbuckled his seat, and slowly sat up before hunching over.

“Ugh, why’s this shit always happening to me. Hate to ask, but do you mind giving me a hand standing up?” Struggle extended his hand to the Nav before rocking his weight to bring the Nav to his feet. He stumbled a bit, before Struggle hooked the Nav’s arm over his shoulder.

“Woah there.” He chuckled before continuing. “You might need more than a hand, just lean on me, Chaos want’s us to meet up in the back.”

“Well, lead the way.”

Struggle carefully helped the Nav to sit down on the ramp, before jumping off of it himself to join the four other crew members of the plane off the edge. Rummaging through his left cargo pocket he fished out his pack of cigarettes before pulling one out.

“You know you're not supposed to smoke on U.S Air Force aircraft Struggle.” Said the Pilot. Struggle arched a brow before slowly looking behind him to the craft in question.

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m not smoking on the aircraft, just next to it.” Before he brought up his lighter to the cigarette.

“Do you really think that’s smart, we’ve got alien guests. What if they take offense to its smell or something.”

“Well then Pilot, I would imagine they wouldn’t have sat themselves downwind of our aircrafts exhaust if they were so sensitive. Besides I think we have bigger fish to fry, like not ignoring the insanity of the fact that there’s a group of aliens in golden armor eyeballing us from a couple hundred feet away.” The Lieutenant decided now would be an opportune time to butt in.

“What do we do Major?”

“We go over our innocent circumstances statement that’s what.” The pilot responded. Eliciting a chuckle from Struggle.

“Really? I doubt our survival school training covers this. Besides if I were them I don’t think I would be satisfied with.” Struggle comically dropped his voice an octave before continuing. “We have found ourselves in your country through no fault of our own, in support of Operation blah blah blah...That’s seriously not going to cut it. Also if they can speak our language, you can shave my ass and call me Shirley.

“Just going to ignore that last part, besides how would you know Struggle you been through this before? That’s what our regulations tell us to say, so that’s what we’ll say.” To this Struggle groaned.

“Look, this isn’t anything we’ve covered, this is a unique situation and we have to treat it as such. Also do we ever strictly follow the regs in combat? No, no we don’t. We adapt them to an ever evolving situation, I don’t see how this is any different. Well you know, besides the potentially alien planet thing...and that this isn’t combat. But you know, semantics and stuff.” He said before taking another puff, careful to blow it in the opposite direction of his comrades.

“I’d have to agree with Struggle Pilot, there’s nothing in the regs on this.” Story responded.

“Alright, maybe we can be a little more forthcoming. But I would still be more comfortable with allowing them to come to us. Peacetime scenarios clearly dictate that we don’t try to establish contact, but we don’t try to evade it either. So we’ll wait for our friends over there, and then we’ll just roll with the punches. But take this seriously, act professionally, and don’t do anything obscene.” Struggle merely smiled before responding.

“Co-pee.” Followed by a chorus of groans from the crew. Besides the Nav, who was still kind of hunched over. Who either didn’t understand, or simply didn’t care to give a response.

Celestia’s ears were pointed forward, while she wasn’t proud that she had thrown a sound enhancing spell on herself to eavesdrop on her new guests. She had been around long enough to know to take any advantage she could find in potential diplomatic talks. Usually that was just sponging information off of maids for visiting dignitaries, but she wasn’t averse to doing the hoofwork herself. When the garbled non-sense of the creatures came back, she huffed before weaving two spells together. The first of which hid her magical signature from sight, the other was Clover the Clever’s universal translation spell.

Clover’s spell itself was ingenious, translating the spell’s target language into the casters. The principle of the spell worked off of translating the specific idea that was meant to be conveyed into something tangible for the caster, while also doing the same for the target. Certain words that had no analogue between the species would simply be translated phonetically into an approximate. All words except swear words in any case. Turns out Clover the Clever saw the potential for abuse of the spell, more specifically a pony casting the spell on themselves just to cuss out another pony in their language. When the mess of sound solidified into something she could understand, she listened attentively.

As she listened she learned a wealth of information, most importantly she had pinpointed this group's de-facto leader. One going by the name Major Pilot. Normally she would have thought Major to be a rank, but none of the others had been referred to by rank so far. Even if it was clear to her by now, that this seemed to be a professional organization if not a military. The most important thing she had learned though, was that this gathering of a new species seemed like they wanted to avoid hostilities.

That earned them respect in her book, so much so that she couldn’t help the ear splitting grin on her face at the prospect of a new peaceful sapient species emerging. Think of all they could learn from each other.

That grin soon dropped as she went over the mention of two things, the first being the word combat. The second that one of them mentioned that this might not be their planet.

“Come Gentlecolts, I think it’s high time we introduce ourselves to our new guests.” Celestia ordered. Lieutenant Swift Stroke who had been silent for much of their observation decided to throw in his two bits.

“After you, your highness.”

Troops in Contact?

Chapter 4: Troops in Contact?

Chaos watched as the ten quadrupedal creatures started a slow cautious approach towards them. His crew’s attention was immediately fixated, and he could tell each one of them was as on edge as he was. Why wouldn’t they be? After all the events that had transpired, he didn’t blame them for being on edge. Going through one hell of an unnatural storm, ending up God knows where, and then if all that wasn’t enough, they had enough fantasy elements thrown at them that anyone would be questioning their own sanity. Now on the ground it was all sinking in. He only hoped that their discipline would win out against the fear and adrenaline.

The creatures in question were about fifty feet away from them now, and their approach only grew slower the closer they came. With nothing but time and nerves, Chaos decided to do another once over of his crew. As expected Story was showing his nervous tick of running his hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair. Struggle perhaps looked the calmest, his only tell was his rapt attention while furiously flicking the cigarette in his hand that had already lost its cherry. Papa was dead to the world as his attention was still solely on his wounds. His Co-pilot however looked to be on the brink of a mental meltdown. He was shaking like a leaf, and his blue eyes were the size of saucers, all that coupled with the piss stain from earlier didn’t leave much to the imagination about how he was holding up.

“Co you alright?” If the co-pilot heard Chaos it didn’t show. Sighing, Chaos made to repeat himself louder, before he could though Struggle put his hand in front of Co’s face snapping his fingers and the crewmember back to reality. Co-pee jerked his head to face Struggle.

“What?”

“Chaos wants you.” Struggle emphasized his point by gesturing in Chaos’s direction. Now with the young crew member's attention he gestured the young Lieutenant over to him.

“You wanted something Major?”

“Yeah, no nice way to say it you smell like piss Lieutenant, you have your 72 hour bag right?” At the Lieutenant's nod he continued.

“Alright, go up to the flight deck and change. If you have any baby wipes I would suggest using them, if not I’ve got some in the big zipper on my backpack.” The Lieutenant seemed mortified at the realization that he had forgotten about his accident. Chaos watched him quickly depart, until he noticed Struggle had saddled up right next to him. Before he had a chance to question him, Struggle pulled close enough to whisper into his ear. It was a quick thing, a simple question before he pulled back searching Chaos’s eyes for approval.

He chewed on his lip for a moment, before giving a single quick nod, without a word Struggle took off into the plane.

Celestia gave the signal to her guards to stop when the first creature withdrew, if she could help it she would prefer to have each of the new species present for their inevitable first contact. With what their leader said, she was more than willing to delay for a few minutes to save the one named Co further embarrassment. It was rather clear now that they had a rank structure, and one that might be eerily similar to her own guards.

The one in charge watched his Lieutenants departure as another crept up behind him, Celestia was at first alarmed with how quick the other pulled the leader in. For what reason he did this she was uncertain until he uttered a word she could barely hear. It sounded like emnine, she pondered on its meaning until she could only assume it was a word that had no rough translation.

Struggle was quick to get to his destination, from the crew rest compartment he could hear Co frantically changing. Most likely not because he wanted to impress Chaos about quickly carrying out his task, as much as him probably fearing being caught naked. Bending down Struggle’s eyes rested on the small grey metal box beneath the forwards seats, extending both arms he gave a quick pop of the latches freeing his target. Pulling it out and opening the lid twenty one M-9 Berettas and twice as many magazines greeted him, the patina on most of them spoke of an already long service life. A few even showing the beginning signs of rust, carefully scanning the more pristine ones, he picked out the best to run their slide through a couple times before picking two favorites.

With the weapons checked he grabbed four magazines before stowing the rest back beneath the seat. About that time Co came stumbling down the flight deck in a hurry, passing the door before Struggle could stop him.

“Co!” The shout was immediately greeted by the sound of slowing footsteps before they headed back towards him. The crew member in question peaking around when he got closer.

“Yes?” Struggle racked back the slide of one of the M-9’s before presenting it butt first to Co.

“Take it.” Co shot a baffled gaze to the offered weapon before returning the same look to Struggle.

“Well?” With a shaking hand, Co grabbed the gun like one might handle a venomous snake, eliciting an eyeroll from Struggle.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Preferably point it somewhere other than my face when you load it. Speaking of which here's two mags.” Struggle offered them up with one hand while he grabbed for his own M-9 with the other.

“Very funny, I mean where am I supposed to put it I don’t have a holster?”

“Do you want a play by play? Just slide it into your pants near your hip, if that’s to hard then maybe you should consider holstering it in your mouth.” After sliding his now chambered Beretta into his waistline he turned to find Co gawking at him. Apparently the greenhorn hadn’t yet met the unholy conglomeration of dark humour and sarcasm that combat vets were known to use.

“It’s a joke not a dick don’t take it so hard. Now come on, I’m sure Chaos won't be happy if we drag our feet.”

Celestia silently observed her guests from where she had stopped, though she hadn’t got a up close look yet she could already distinguish a couple notable traits between them. Their leader who had been referred to as Chaos seemed to be the tallest, sporting a dirty blond mane, and sharper jawline then the others. Then there was the shortest one standing next to him quietly conversing with him, she didn’t know much about the species yet but pudgy definitely came to mind for the salt and pepper haired sapient that Chaos had just called Story. If the conversation was believed then they were currently debating on why she and her guards had stopped approaching. The only distinguishing feature she could make out from the one on the craft was that it had black hair and a slightly darker complexion than the others.

The conversation between them died with the reappearance of the two who had left earlier. Celestia waited till they had rejoined their leader before signaling with a nod to Lieutenant Swift Stroke that she was ready to move again. Swift Stroke responded by pointing his spear forward, relaying the command to move.

“Look sharp gentlemen, we’re about to meet the locals.” Chaos said. Chaos watched their line march towards them with precision, before eyeing his little gaggle. None of them were wearing their hats, and Struggle looked like he had a fight with a water gun full of grease and hydraulic fluid. They may not be the most presentable, but he could at least properly represent Uncle Sam by displaying some order and discipline.

“Form a row behind me, snap to parade rest when you get there.” They did as told, even if it was slower than he had hoped for. Glancing over his back he saw Story had taken up the spot behind him, with Struggle on his left and Co on his right before he returned his attention to the front. “At ease gentlemen.”

“I want to go home…” The Co-pilot said. Eliciting a bark of a laugh from Struggle.

“Calm down kid, they’re small creatures in bronzed armor, we’re cool. Let’s just see where this goes before we get antsy.”

“Don’t let your guard down yet Struggle, we don’t know anything about what’s going to happen.” Chaos responded.

They watched their approach, a single one of the marching quadrupeds breaking off to take a spot next to the tall alabaster one. Chaos surveyed them all before realizing something, all of the ones sticking behind had plumes on their helmet that were either white or blue. Whereas the one sticking close to what he could only assume was their leader had a red plume. Red Leader? Color coded ranks perhaps?

As the tall one drew gracefully closer, a pair of white wings appeared from its sides. There’s no way it can fly with those, maybe a way of appearing larger? Territorial threat display perhaps?

The alabaster one with the colorfully billowing hair stopped ten feet short of Chaos and his crew. With a wordless signal the armored quadruped next to it lifted a foreleg causing an immediate halt from the line, followed by a crisp click as the entire line snapped to attention. Chaos had to admit he was rather impressed, the amount of drilling it would take to do that right the first time was a testament to this group's dedication. But while he was horribly outmatched in drill he could at least give them a show.

“Ah tennch hut!” He was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t hear any feet moving out of sync. He too had moved by his own command, his heels touching, feet angled forty-five degrees apart, and his shoulders squared while his clenched fists rested against his legs, with thumbs pointing down the seams of his pants. For the next command however he wouldn’t move.

“Pre-zent arms!” He heard the snaps of movement behind him signaling that the salute he ordered had been rendered. He decided to give it a few potatoes before he would order the command to drop it, he was surprised however when the red plumed one made another gesture resulting in the line behind them to hoist their spears at an incline into the air.

I guess military is military no matter where you go. Although I’d really like to know how these creatures can hold a spear that well.

“Order arms!” With their salute dropped the other line was quick to issue their own order to drop their spears to their sides.

“Parade hest!” With that he dropped his crew out of attention as well as himself.

Celestia couldn’t help but smile at the impromptu posturing between her guards and the new species. She could now say with almost absolute certainty that the members of the species before her were military, after countless centuries she had yet to meet a rebel or paramilitary group that practiced ceremonial drill. Deciding that she had delayed the inevitable long enough she decided to break her silence.

“Hello travelers, I am Princess Celestia of Equestria. One of the rulers of this land, and Princess of the Sun. May I inquire as to who you are?”

To say the lack of a language barrier floored the human crew would be an understatement. Even Papa who had largely been dead to the world, managed to break out of his stupor long enough to regard the lack of a language barrier with incredulity. As the grinding gears in Chaos’s brain worked furiously to reboot his perception of reality, he made several mistakes. The first being that he abruptly walked forward while deeply clearing his throat that came out sounding dangerously close to a growl while extending his arm for a handshake entirely to quickly in the Princess's direction.

The next few moments passed in a blur of excited responses. The red plumed quadruped let loose a quick whistle while thrusting his spear within inches of the immediately frozen Chaos. Struggle drew the M-9 from his makeshift holster and leveled it at the spear wielding quadruped, eliciting a response from three of the now airborne ones. Co did the same but managed to fumble his own M-9, freezing as he watched it descend to the ground. Story made a dive for it, but ended up spectacularly missing. Three on the right flank now took off straight towards the two humans, while one broke off to back up the other wielding a spear towards Chaos.

The first flying one to reach Struggle was a few body lengths ahead of its closest compatriots, thrusting its spear straight at him as soon as it was within range. The mistake was caught by Struggle as long forgotten training kicked in, he made a quick grab for the shaft of the over extended spear, accidently grabbing the rear of the spearhead nicking his hand before grasping the shaft. The guard's own training kicked in, as it quickly chose instead to drop the spear rather then be dragged into close quarters with a larger opponent. When the grip from the guard slackened Struggle spun the spear back in its direction, by that point though the guard had retreated safely back to it's friends. With a new weapon in play, the two new flying guards simply hovered out of range with spears leveled at Struggle while guarding their disarmed comrade. The last of the armed quadrupeds took a flying position over Celestia essentially guarding her on all sides. Story had managed to grab the M-9 right before two spears took up residence in his personal bubble, with a third trained on Co.

Struggle’s heart was trying to reenact the scene from Alien, close as it seemed to him of bursting out of his chest cavity. As frightened as he was, a small part of him couldn’t help but revel in the fact that he was in the center of a God honest Mexican stand-off. A twitch out of the corner of his eye drew his attention away from the quadrupeds out of range of his commandeered spear. The red plumed one was now eyeballing him, his response was to cock the hammer back on the pistol.

“Now that I know you understand me, let me make something perfectly clear. You hurt Chaos, and I’ll use my boomstick here to add a new hole in your forehead.” The glare coming from the armored guard obviously showed that it thought he was bluffing.

“Tough guy huh? If you think your spears trump my pistol you're sadly mistaken.” Struggle briefly considered whether he had just crossed a line by threatening these creatures, before discarding the thought in favor of staying alert.

The smile that had recently graced Celestia's lips had vanished only to be replaced by the neutral mask she often wore in court. To say Celestia was disappointed would be an understatement, more in herself then in her guards. She should have known that the day’s events would have caused distrust in her little ponies, and all that stress was just like applying tension to a spring, the first outlet for its stored energy would be the course it took.

Luckily she still had the spell up to hide her magical signature, if things escalated any further she could at least rest assured that she could teleport herself and her guards to safety. But that course of action would most likely mean the end to any peaceful relations. That is if they weren’t destroyed already. The scanning spell she had just cast on the black hunk of metal in the creature's claws didn’t yield anything terribly useful, except that something that intricate certainly wasn’t for show. Talking everyone down would take time, and the sooner this situation was resolved the faster she could begin to run damage control. With any luck a bit of trust from me can end this.

“I think that’s quite enough, guards lower your weapons.” The guard’s glare leveled at Struggle was replaced with confusion and uncertainty.

“Princess?”

“You heard me Swift Stroke, lower your weapon, that goes for all of you.” The guards although hesitant complied to her will, and slowly backpedaled away from the humans before lowering their spears. That was except for the guards currently at a standoff with Struggle. Celestia fixed a strained smile towards him.

“I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop pointing a weapon at my guards.” Chaos who had regained his senses was now also looking to Struggle.

“Chaos?” He left the rest of the question unasked.

“It’s okay Struggle, let's take it down a notch.”

Struggle let out a deep calming breath before lowering the pistol and switching the safety back on. The click of the hammer resetting before he returned the side arm to his waistband. He returned his attention to the guard in front of him before pulling the spear back, and slowly spinning the shaft so that the spearhead was facing him. Before presenting the butt and shaft to the guard he had stole it from. Timidly the guard approached before it slowly grabbed it and Struggle let it go. The light now hitting the spearhead revealed a tinge of red. It took a second before he remembered he had cut his hand, spinning his palm to face him he surveyed the damage. The cut wasn’t deep, it ran along the skin between the first and second knuckle of his index finger and thumb. Glancing back to the guard who still seemed a bit shaken up he decided to apologize.

“Sorry about all that, but on the bright side it looks like you got me worse then I got you.” He said as he presented the minor wound for inspection. Celestia let a optimistic smile find her lips at watching the tense situation become a little more friendly. Celestia returned her attention to their leader.

“Where were we? Oh right I had just introduced myself, and if I’m not mistaken you were about to do the same before that unfortunate turn of events.” Chaos couldn’t help but turn a little red at the thought that he had been the root cause of that debacle.

“Right, I would just like to start off by saying how sorry I am Princess. So much has happened that you being able to speak caught me off guard, I just kind of acted without speaking. I only wanted to greet you with a handshake.” Celestia gave him a warm smile.

“No one was seriously hurt, that's what really matters. I’m up for that. What did you call it, a handshake? Your name would be nice as well.” For the first time since landing Chaos smiled as he extended his hand to her. When she offered her hoof to him he took it before giving a quick shake. He was surprised to find that the fur that he felt wasn’t coarse like he had expected, but was instead incredibly soft and silky.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Princess Celestia, I’m Major Joshua Oldes however my friends call me Chaos. And I am the commander of this crew.” Celestia smiled despite wondering why his friends would call their friend such a horrible name. It was clear by Chaos’s silence after his introduction that he might have been out of his depth of expertise. Trying to save him any embarrassment she decided she would have to lead the conversation.

“I believe you just met Lieutenant Swift Stroke here.” Chaos merely looked to the red plumed guard who had held him at spearpoint earlier before quickly looking back to Celestia.

“I would say it’s a pleasure to meet the Lieutenant as well, but I would be lying.”

“I see...I hope you can overlook the Lieutenant’s actions in time, all of my guard’s have been on edge recently, especially following the failed invasion of Canterlot. As you said your crew had a rough day, suffice to say I think we all acted a little hastily.”

“I suppose you're right, let’s put that behind us for now. Let me introduce you to my crew. The man to my far right is my Co-pilot Lieutenant Brad Ticer, and the gentlemen next to him is Technical Sergeant Jason Sterry known more commonly as Story Time, or Story for short.” Celestia hummed her approval before exchanging pleasantries.

“To my left is Senior Airman Jake Drudge, he prefers his nickname Struggle to his real one.” Celestia cocked her head to that before greeting him and allowing Chaos to continue.

“And last but not least is Captain Simon Alicide or Papa Hotel, I doubt he is in any condition to exchange pleasantries, he got some nasty burns before we landed.” At which point Chaos shouted to get Papa’s attention, he merely waved before hunching back over.

“Does he require medical attention?”

“Yeah he definitely does, Struggle bandaged him up. But no offense to Struggle he’s no doctor.”

“In that case I would be happy to have him treated by my own medical staff in Canterlot.” Chaos merely rubbed his wrist unsure on whether he should take up the generous offer and potentially put his wounded crew member in jeopardy. The bottom line was he didn’t trust these creatures yet. Sensing his distress Celestia decided to continue.

“I’ll give you some time to think it over, in the meantime, onto other things. I heard you refer to one of your crew as ‘man’. Is that the name of your species?”

“Oh um human would be our species, man refers to gender, I don’t think I got a name for yours yet though.”

“We’re called ponies.” Chaos stopped at that to take in more details of the creatures in front of him. He had seen plenty of ponies from earth before, sure there were similarities, but only as much as one could say there were similarities between monkeys and humans.

“Is something wrong Major?”

“No its just… I didn’t expect you to be called ponies is all.” Celestia raised an eyebrow to that.

“Why wouldn’t you expect us to be called ponies…” Before it clicked that the translation spell may have found a translation for ponies in their language. “Wait have you met other Equines before?”

“Yes?” Celestia was reeling from the implications, if these humans were correct in the assumption she overheard that they weren’t on their own world anymore, then that could only mean that there is extraterrestrial Equine out there! This discovery would be tremendous, she couldn’t help but let her mind wonder about how exotic and interesting they must be.

“Um Princess Celestia?” Celestia was snapped back to reality, embarrassed to realize that she must’ve been mumbling out loud in her excitement.

“Sorry it’s just this is amazing! I would love to hear all about them!” Chaos’s response to that was to avoid eye contact, how could he tell her that her assumptions were wildly inaccurate. Celestia’s joy was curbed however when Chaos didn’t seem to share her enthusiasm.

“Sorry of course, we can talk about that later. So where are you and your crew from?” From listening in on their conversations, she knew they suspected that this wasn’t their world, she just didn’t know why yet.

“We’re from the United States of America. Have you heard of it?”

“No I can’t say I have.” Chaos let out a sigh at that.

“I guess we were right then, if it wasn’t obvious before, it is now. Most if not all people have heard about America, and most could probably pinpoint it on a map. That’s another thing that seems weird here, my crew and I are shocked by this whole situation. You, however, seem to be taking this very well. Too well, in fact. If I was a betting man, my money would be on you expecting us to come here.” Celestia didn’t understand were he was going with this but let him continue anyway.

“I could see some strange portal opening on our world, as far out as that sounds, especially with all those myths surrounding the Bermuda Triangle. But to end up on a world filled with life? What do you suppose the chances on that are? Or how our arrival just so happened to correspond with an invasion of your city? A bit convenient don’t you think, perhaps you brought us here? It would be a clever tactic, use some aliens to distract your enemy at the precise moment you plan on launching a counter-attack, pretty ingenious if you ask me.”

Celestia had heard plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding her reign, but this one was so out there that she couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“I think I’m missing a few things about your arrival. Did you arrive near the skies of Canterlot?”

“No I would say the city was about twenty to twenty five miles away from where we ended up, but we still saw it soon enough.”

“But you could have missed it right?”

“I suppose that could've happened, but it didn’t.”

“And when you saw it, did something force you to fly here?”

“Well no, but who wouldn’t investigate a city surrounded by a bubble?”

“Let’s say you're right, that I can open portals to other worlds, and that I did bring you here to provide a distraction to the changelings. Why wouldn’t I open the portal above Canterlot? Why would I take the chance in you flying by without spotting it, or another on you possibly choosing to keep your distance? The real question is if I could create portals, why would I not just use that power on the changelings? Use it to send them somewhere else to end the invasion before the changelings had a chance to break through Shining Armor’s shield spell?” The longer Celestia spoke the more wind escaped from Chaos’s sails, everything had just gotten to him, and he felt a little ashamed that he had jumped straight to baseless allegations. The last thing she said though caught his attention.

“Did you say shield spell? As in spell spells? Like magic?” Celestia was confused why he would add so much emphasis on magic but responded anyway.

“That’s correct.” Her succinct answer started causing him to fume.

“BULL-POO! Bull-poo? Nevermind, if you think I’m gullible enough to believe in magic then this conversation’s over.” Celestia and Swift Stroke couldn’t help but recoil at how quick the conversation turned. Chaos was already turning on his heel motioning to his crew to leave when Celestia called out to him.

“Major wait!” Chaos stopped to cast a wayward glance back at Celestia. “If you don’t believe it’s magic then what did you think it was?”

“Some advanced form of technology obviously.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint but Equestria doesn’t have any technology advanced enough to do that. I’m guessing you don't believe in magic, but would you at least give me a chance to show some to you?” Truthfully Chaos truly didn’t, he was tired and this encounter and conversation had done nothing to calm him down. But for all that he couldn’t find it in himself to turn down her chance to explain herself, and get some real answers. So he turned back towards her.

“Very well, you have my attention, Princess.” Sighing, Celestia dropped the cloak spell she had placed to cover up her magical signature. Not wanting to startle the humans that didn’t believe in magic she decided on a simple levitation spell.

Chaos watched as a golden shimmer of light, the same as the color he had seen across the window of the aircraft earlier emitted from Celestia’s horn. He wasn’t exactly impressed until he saw that same glow cover her crown before the damned thing just floated off the top of her head towards him. The light show’s a nice touch but I’ve seen this trick before. When the crown stopped floating in front of him he gave a lackadaisical swat above it, expecting to hit a string. When his hand felt no purchase he rolled his eyes before waving both arms on either side of the floating crown. When that failed he just started flailing his arms all around it. Can’t seem to find that damn string on this blasted thing. Celestia couldn’t help but smile at the silliness of watching Chaos flail his arms all about her crown.

Chaos stopped after a minute of flailing his arms to no avail. Now he was running his fingers through the golden shimmer surrounding the crown, he flinched when he first felt it. It was like a dull warmth that sent tingles up his fingers into to his hands. Okay weird enough, but that doesn't mean anything. Ready to get this over with he grasped the crown with his hands before pulling it closer to himself for inspection.

Celestia watched the Major take her crown, letting go of her magic when he had a handle on it.

“Princess.” Swift Stroke hissed.

“It’s fine Lieutenant, I would not have used my crown if I cared about him inspecting it.” She whispered back to him.

“He’s insulted you, and now you let him get his grubby paws all over the crown. This is outrageous.” Celestia sighed before whispering back.

“They are from another world, Lieutenant, one without magic. I’m willing to look past a few hiccups from creatures obviously confused and scared by our world. Do you honestly think either of us would be better off in that situation? Besides, this isn’t my worst first encounter with another species by far, and I’m still fairly optimistic about the possibility of us becoming friends with each other.”

“If you say so, Princess.” Celestia didn’t bother responding, instead she tucked his statement away for the rather lengthy conversation she would be having with him later in private. Chaos’s spoke up, derailing her train of thought on the matter.

“Alright Princess I give up, how’d you do it?” As he said that he handed the crown back out towards her, she let her magic take hold of it and levitate back to her placing it back in its rightful spot on her head before continuing.

“I know you might not want to hear it but magic, a simple levitation spell to be precise.”

“I don’t think you're going to get me to believe in magic just because I can't figure out how that trick works.”

“Perhaps you’d humor me for another spell?”

“Why not?” With his consent she thought real hard about what might be a good spell to get him to believe her. She rubbed her chin in thought about what to use, her first thought was to display how she could move the Sun around. But she quickly dismissed that as too showy, not to mention the alarm it might cause to not just the humans, but the world at large. A lightbulb came on in the form of the translation spell, most simpler spells might be met with more disbelief. So what better way to show she wasn’t lying about magic then to display to Chaos that he wasn’t even speaking his own language.

“Chaos I’ll need you for a demonstration of this, also I need to come clean about something. When you and your crew first came out here I used a spell to increase the range of my hearing, but what met me was nothing but an indistinguishable language. So I cast a translation spell on you and your crew, right now you're speaking our language, Equestrian. I’m sorry about that, and I would normally never cast a spell on someone without their consent, but I felt it was far better to be safe than sorry.” Chaos couldn’t help but smile at how ludicrous this all sounded, but decided to humor her anyway.

“Alright so we are speaking your language, where do I come in?”

“Just tell one of your crew to start talking, and then I’ll drop my translation spell on you.” Chaos looked to Story.

“You heard the Princess. Tell us a story, Story.” Story beamed a smile as he launched into his favorite pass time.

“Alright so about three years back I went out to the woods with my boys, right?” Celestia had now charged the dispel, and was waiting for Story to continue. “So there we were -anduril onnen o i hathol o narsil crist o elendil i Orchal.”

“Story! What the hell man are you having a stroke?!?” Chaos spun back to Celestia, eyes wide at the realization that she had been telling the truth. “Celestia, I don’t like this stop it!”

“Avabed i lam annun ar si iuithanner.” Celestia responded while holding up a hoof. Celestia’s horn glowed bright for a second before dimming.

“Sorry Major, I didn’t think that would upset you so much.” Chaos was slightly shaking.

“Oh buck, this is unreal.” Chaos spun to face his crew. “What happened? Could you guys understand me?”

Struggle just shared a concerned look with Story before speaking up. “Ugh yeah why wouldn’t we be able to understand you?”

“Because I couldn’t understand you! Or her!” As he pointed to Celestia. “Wait. Why could they understand me, but I couldn’t understand them?”

“Because you were speaking your native language. The spell translates your language into Equish, as well as allows the one the spells cast on to understand it. It doesn’t get rid of the target's ability to grasp their own language, however.”

“So we only think we’re speaking English right now?”

“Precisely. Also congratulations, you just created a new word in Equish, English wasn’t a word until you spoke it using the spells translation.” Chaos closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

Alright Joshua, it’s okay. It’s a lot to take in, magic's real. Other worlds with life are real now too...and so are random interplanetary portals...and talking alien ponies. No, stop, that’s not helping. Okay, focus on what's still sane and normal, still got the plane. Gravity seems pretty normal, still a sun in the blue sky. Fluffy white clouds, and green grass beneath my feet. Got my crew too, my crew… And now I’ve totally lost it in front of them. Man up Major! You’re a goddamn combat veteran for Christ's sakes! With an explosive sigh Chaos opened his eyes again to the insanity of the world. Since when have I let insanity let me lose my cool. I’m Chaos baby, I live for insanity.

“Are you alright Major?” Celestia asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine now. Just a lot to take in at once, I’m fine now though.” Chaos looked to his crew.

“Alright guys you're up next, the sooner we accept the fact that magic is real, the sooner we can move on. Just remember who we are. It will help you to accept all of this, trust me.”

Celestia had just spent the last few minutes simultaneously dispelling and recasting the translation spell on the humans to much the same effect. Chaos had insisted on his Lieutenant going first, his reaction had been much the same as Chaos’s. After a while Chaos managed to calm him down before asking Celestia to do the same to Story. The last one Celestia had cast her spell on was Struggle, who had tried to insist that ‘it was cool he would just take their word for it’, Chaos however wasn’t having it and made Celestia dispel it anyway. Surprisingly Struggle had been the calmest about it all, even motioning for her to leave it off for a bit longer while he laughed at how the others were talking.

“So do you want me to dispel the translation on your Captain as well?” Chaos shook his head as he responded.

“No, I think we can save that for later. Speaking of which, I feel bad that we haven’t gotten him medical attention yet. I hope your offer still stands.” Celestia couldn’t help but smile, there were still plenty of questions to ask. But there would be time enough for that later.

“Of course it does Major.” Celestia hadn’t seen a smile so sincere come from Chaos the whole time she talked with him. Chaos gestured for Story to come over.

“Story I want you to go with Papa Hotel to get him medical treatment.”

“Sounds good to me.” Story responded in a incredibly chipper tone. The Major’s statement however caused Celestia to cock her head a bit. Did he think she hadn’t invited all of them to come?

“Of course my invitation extends to your whole crew Major.”

“I appreciate that Princess, I really do.” He paused in speaking to glance back at the plane. “But I can’t leave the aircraft behind.”

“I see...So you call it an aircraft?”

“Yep. Why, what would you call it?”

“I don’t know if you saw them, but we have a few flying vessels ourselves that we call airships.”

“Must have missed ‘em, but if they're anything like the Airships back on Earth, then an aircraft is a completely different classification of flying machine.” Celestia couldn’t help but look a little bit harder at the aircraft now, the realization sinking in that not a single thing on it was powered by magic. It was an amazing feat of engineering that she would love to hear more about. That’s when the idea struck her to make a compromise with them. If they didn’t want to leave it behind, they could take it with them to Canterlot. It would save her the trouble of explaining that she needed them to move it anyway since it was blocking the rail lines.

“Major?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you accept my invitation to Canterlot if I allowed you to bring the aircraft too?” To that, Chaos chuckled.

“I would if I had any idea about how to get the darn thing up there.” To that Celestia merely smiled as she pointed to her horn.

“I can use magic, remember?”

Struggle was watching the scenery drift slowly beneath him as the aircraft gained altitude. He was holding onto a crossbeam for support, mere inches from the end of the plane’s ramp. In all truthfulness he should be wearing a restraint harness or parachute next to any open door in flight, but rules, as they say, were meant to be broken. And there was nothing like the rush of adrenaline he was getting right now. It’s the reason he became a flyer, all in the name of conquering his greatest fear, heights. Truth be told it still scared the hell out of him, but that’s why he was still doing it, and why he was inches away from the edge with nothing but a hand on a beam for support. The fear made him feel so alive, and the adrenaline was just another high to be chased.

But like all highs, it was over too soon. As the thousand foot drop was replaced by the ground only a few hundred feet below, he decided instead to take in the details of the city. It was impressive to say the least, as he got his first up-close glimpse of it, stylized spiraling towers some with purple painted stripes running up the length of them. Most towers and buildings sporting golden roofs with enough sunlight reflecting off the top of them to make his eyes hurt. It definitely had a sense of wonder and magic to it that would make most tourist cities on Earth envious.

Giving his corneas a rest, he took his eyes off the horizon, interested instead in the slowly approaching world below. Celestia hadn’t been kidding when she mentioned there was room enough in her castle gardens for the gunship. There was enough room to fit at least two more gunships. Of course, that would be at the cost of at least a few dozen flowerbeds. Where she was putting them down now, however, the only sacrifice would be to the grass gods. A shame too, since he had never seen a more well manicured lawn.

Celestia had set them down so soft that he hadn’t even realized they’d hit dirt until the golden glow disappeared. He was quick to grab the chalks, letting the pilot know he was going off comms.

“Got to say that was mighty impressive.” Struggle said as he adjusted the straps on his backpack, waiting for the rest of the crew to grab their gear and assist Papa off the plane.

“It’s was nothing, Airman.” Struggle grimaced at that. He hated being referred to by rank, as it meant he was either in deep shit, or someone was being condescending towards him.

“Please Princess, just call me Struggle.”

“How about Jake?”

“The only people who call me that are family, and before you ask, I hate my last name. The definition of the word drudge, was a serious point of aggravation in training when others pointed out how fitting it was for someone with my job to be named Drudge. Struggle, however, is the only name that I’ve earned, and I’m very proud of it.” Celestia was a bit disappointed at that, but was not surprised that he had been mocked by his peers for his last name.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Struggle.” Struggle just waved his hand around in response, before glancing back to the aircraft.

“Yeah yeah, it’s in the past and all that. What’s taking those guys so long?” Celestia wasn’t surprised when he shrugged off her sympathy, she had dealt with stallions and soldiers for centuries. Most like Struggle would get defensive and change topics at the first sign of sympathy. Despite all that time, she still didn’t understand why they considered an act of empathy to be a sign of weakness on their part.

Struggle and Celestia waited with her guards for a few more minutes before the other humans appeared from within the jowls of the metal beast. Celestia was actually surprised when they emerged, the rest of the humans including Papa had changed out of their unfortunately ugly camo uniforms into another set of clothes.

“Aw no fair! Why didn’t you tell me we could change into civilian clothes?” Chaos looked up from helping Papa down the ramp.

“Because you get first shift watching the aircraft.” Struggle bit back his snide remark only because they had company. Before resigning himself to his fate of watching a parked aircraft for hours.

“Alright Papa, Story’s going to take you to get taken care of, alright?”

“Sure thing Josh.” Papa muttered back to him. With a nod, Celestia called a guard over.

“Take these two humans to the medical wing. Have a guard posted there and spread the word that we will be having guests in the castle.” The guard snapped to attention before turning to the two in question.

“Follow me, please.”

“Now that that is taken care of, I believe I have just enough time to give you a brief tour before the preparations for a wedding I must attend are complete. Just one thing, for now I ask that you leave any weapons you have with the aircraft. At least until any excitement about your presence dies down around here.”

“Since I already had Co leave his weapon, I believe that is acceptable.”

Celestia smiled. “Right this way, gentlecolts.” The majority of her guard followed suit, except for the red plumed guard who stopped just long enough to pick two volunteers to help Struggle guard the plane.

Struggle watched them depart towards the castle till they faded from view around a hedge maze. Sighing, he threw his bag on the ramp, before letting out a depressed sigh. I hope someone sends me some food. Sliding himself onto the ramp he noticed his hands were shaking. Bringing them closer to his face, he observed just how bad they were trembling. Just great, and I’m about to get one of *those** headaches.*

Bad Omen

Chapter 5: Bad Omen

Chaos silently listened as Celestia regaled him with tales of important landmarks within the castle gardens as they walked. Chaos’ attention was caught by Celestia stopping before a seemingly ancient marble sculpture. It obviously depicted royalty if the scepter and crown didn’t give it away.

“This is one of my favorite statues in the garden. This is of one of the descendant's from an ancient Royal family that came to Equestria. Princess Ruby Platinum was the last of the main branch of her royal family. She did a great deal of work cementing relations between the three tribes of ponies after the Windigos finally disappeared. The Hearth’s Warming story unrealistically romanticizes how quickly all three tribes were able to set aside their differences. If the myths surrounding her life are to be believed, then she’s something akin to a tragic heroine. Rumor has it she loved a commoner, that alone would have been scandalous in her day. But it is also said that he was an Earth Pony.”

While fascinating, Chaos certainly felt he was missing a lot of context. However, not wanting to spoil Celestia’s enthusiasm he urged her to continue.

“Knowing what the potential ramifications could be, Princess Ruby set aside her own personal desires for the betterment of pony kind. She was said to have been a great beauty as well she could have had her pick of suitors, yet she never married or had children. I, myself, like to believe her love for her mystery stallion would never allow her to take another.”

“I take it she was something of a mentor to you Princess?” Chaos said.

Chaos didn’t know what he said, but it was the first time he had seen Celestia frown since they’d gotten to Canterlot.

“Unfortunately no… She died almost a century before I came to power. However, I think that only makes me admire her more, she was one of the first ponies to envision a truly unified Equestria. One where the three tribes didn’t simply tolerate each other, but where they lived, laughed, and loved together. She was truly a mare ahead of her time, though I never knew her, I hope I’ve made her proud.”

Chaos didn’t know what to say as they lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as Celestia once again lead him and Co on. With the tour continued Celestia pointed out other monuments.

However his attention wavered as he looked beyond the hedge maze that now mostly hid the gunship, his gunship. A thousand doubts flooded through his mind about the moves he had made. What would his superiors think? How would his mentor, Heavy Metal, have handled things? What if he had just signed his crew, as well as himself, up for torture and imprisonment?

These thoughts and more swirled around his head as he stared at the gray tail of the aircraft, reminiscent of a giant shark fin rising above a sea of green. It stuck out like a sore thumb, an artificial conglomeration of sheet metal, steel, and paint dominating the natural world around it. A chill raced down his spine as the plane's name crossed his mind, as well as his predicament. Superstitious nonsense, it’s just a name nothing more. Besides she’s seen me through plenty of missions.

His thoughts were derailed as he felt something hard make a light rap on his arm, only to turn and discover it was Celestia’s hoof. Snapping back to reality he realized he’d almost walked off the dirt path they’d been following.

“Sorry Princess Celestia, I guess I got lost in thought there.”

She simply smiled before motioning with her head for him to follow. When they had started walking again, Celestia spared only a single glance back in the direction of the statue Chaos had almost walked up to. It may have been roped off now, but she made a mental note to move Discord’s statue to a more secure location while her human guests were here.

“So Major, a bit for your thoughts?” Celestia said.

“That’s an oddly similar saying to one we have back on Earth. As for what I’m thinking...I don’t know; I’m just wondering whether I’ve made a good decision since I got here. Sure according to regulation I know I couldn’t run once you found us. It’s just...I guess I’m just apprehensive about this whole...” Chaos waved his hands in small circles, “thing.” Celestia just hummed quietly before falling into a short contemplation as they walked.

“I… think I understand Major, but I assure you I will do all in my power to protect you. I know that probably doesn't do much to allay your fears, but in time I hope you’ll come to trust me and my little ponies. After today’s events, a friendship with a new species might do wonders to quell any creeping elements of xenophobia in my citizens.”

A silence lingered in the air as Chaos kicked up a bit more dust from the dirt path than was necessary before responding.

“I’ll just have to take your word for it, won't I?”

“I suppose for now, that’s all either of us can do.”

Story sat a few inches away from Papa, the rhythmic beat of a heart monitor calming his nerves. The pain had finally overtaken the adrenaline and the only way they had quieted Papa was by forcibly inserting a wooden stick in his mouth layered in cloth and fastened to the back of his neck. Story tried to ignore the restraints as he studied the soft floral pattern of the medical gown that replaced the olive drab colors of his multi-camo uniform. Story was at least grateful that the gown covered his upper thigh… and other areas.

“Story, was it?” asked the unicorn sitting across the bed studying his comrades chart. As an affirmation Story only nodded his head.

“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure thing, umm, Doc?”

“Name’s Bedside Manner. Anyways do you know if the patient has any allergies, magical or otherwise?”

“Umm, I don’t know… actually wait a sec.” Story rummaged through the bag next to the chair Chaos had told him to grab. After unzipping the top of the book bag and rummaging through several different layers of paperwork he finally stumbled on the red mobility folders. Finding Papa’s, he picked the only thing he needed out of it before replacing the folder in the bag, making sure the name matched up he then passed it to the doctor.

“There you go Doc, it's his medical folder.”

To that, the stallion raised an eyebrow before grabbing it in his magic and unceremoniously tearing the seal off of the brown envelope. The doctor flipped through several pages before clearing his throat.

“I can’t read any of this,” Doctor Manner said.

“Did that spell whatcha-ma-bob not work on our writing?” Story said.

“Ah so you're under a translation spell, makes sense. And sadly no, that’s not how that type of spell works.”

“Want me to read it for you?”

Bedside Manner seemed to think on the question for a second before shaking his head.

“No, just read through it and tell me anything that seems important to know. While you do that I’m going to draw some blood and run a few tests.” The envelope was quickly returned to Story so Bedside could set upon other tasks.

“Sure thing Doc.” Story replied, only to find the Doctor was no longer paying attention to him as Bedside prepared a needle.

“And the mural to your right is a depiction of my sister and I’s defeat of Discord.”

Chaos gave it a glance along with a low whistle to feign approval, to be honest he didn’t really get why all these murals seemed to be triumphs over figurative villains. Although the mural in front of him was rather impressive, a creature, he could only assume was this “Discord.” Was seated upon an elevated throne. His extended paws covered in strings played puppeteer to ponies and fractured pieces of land. The darker color schemes of the mural certainly added to the foreboding atmosphere it was meant to portray. The mural next to it showed Celestia, and who he could assume was her sister sending a rainbow at this Discord fellow, with a ring that emanated from the two restoring the land in front of it to normal.

While Chaos was busy skeptically observing the window panes, Co was taking everything he heard from Celestia at face value. And with half of the room being dedicated to defeating world shaking villains, Co was finding himself increasingly nervous about being on this world.

“Psst, Major.” Co whispered.

“Yeah, Co?” Chaos returned in his own hushed tone.

“Do you...Do you think our planes munitions could take down Discord? What about the..” Whatever Co was about to say was ended with a sharp elbow to the ribs from Chaos. Letting out a low hiss, Co shot a questioning look to him. The only response was a pointed finger that danced between the heads of each of the ponies in front of them. After a few seconds Co got the idea.

The conversation and the tour had gotten deathly quiet as they all silently walked forward, but it wasn’t the silence only broken by footfalls and hooves that was the obvious reason for Chaos’ reaction. Instead, it was the ears of the pony guards as well as Celestia; a few of the less subtle guards had their ears fully tilted to the humans behind them. The others along with Celestia seemed to be struggling to resist eavesdropping, but from the twitching in their ears it was easy to puzzle out they too had been listening.

Digging his phone out of his pocket, Chaos turned it on silent before typing out a quick message in the notes app.

Don’t discuss the aircraft. I’ll fill them in later as the situation demands.

Struggle stood rigid and indecisive about his next move in the center of the gun deck. His head slightly pounded with every course of blood in his veins and hot saliva pooled in his mouth, only further adding to his new queasiness. He made up his mind and went for his bag on the ramp. Unzipping the top, he shifted through a few layers of his packed clothes to stare at the packaged bottle underneath. For a split second, he thought about opening it to get to the liquor inside before dismissing the idea, and instead closed up the pouch after retrieving a white powder wrapped up in a paper sleeve from a smashed blue box.

Unfolding the paper carefully, he dumped its contents into his mouth before cringing at the potent flavor as he chased it with water from his camelback straw.

‘Hopefully those Goody’s can exorcise that headache long enough for me to get something done.’

“What are you doing?” The voice from behind Struggle nearly sent him flying out of his skin, making him devolve into a coughing fit as he whirled around on the voice. Standing behind him on the ramp were two of those pony guards. “Woah, didn’t mean to startle you.”

Struggle wanted to throttle the two ponies in front of him while he hacked up a lung, after a few more moments the coughing subsided enough to where he could speak.

“What am I doing? The more important question is what do you think you're doing?”

The two guards simply exchanged a glance before returning their attention to Struggle.

“Guarding you of course.”

“And I’m guarding the aircraft, something that doesn’t involve allowing unauthorized personnel to wander onto it whenever they feel like.”

“That sounds reasonable; we can help with that.” Struggle restrained the urge to scream, but before he could get a word in, the guard on the left that had been talking continued.

“By the way, my name’s Silver Shield, and my quiet partner that you disarmed earlier is Crescent Sentry.”

The introduction elicited a eye roll from Struggle.

“Nice to meet you; I’m Struggle.” He responded in his most sarcastic, saccharine voice.

Before he could continue, Crescent decided to break her silence.

“So what was that substance you just.. ingested?”

“Medicine.” His statement saw both equines throw a foreleg over their mouths.

“You don’t have some strange alien illness do you?”

Struggle really thought about telling them he did, just to get them out of his hair, but decided causing a panic wasn’t in his best interest.

“It was just a painkiller, for my headache.” Struggle said causing them both to drop their forelegs before showing varying degrees of embarrassment.

“Look, now that we’ve gotten this meet and greet out of the way, I really need both of you to exit the aircraft. I don’t want to imagine how bad my headache will be if Chaos finds out I couldn’t even keep unauthorized personnel out of the plane for thirty minutes.”

“We’re just following orders. We can’t exactly keep a good eye on you from out there.”

‘Apparently conflicting orders is all this day needed to make it better.’

Struggle just stood there rubbing his temples in an attempt to quell the raging dragon in his skull.

“Are you open to a compromise?” Struggle said, causing Silver to cock an eyebrow.

“Depends on what it is.”

“So last thing I need is you guys following me around right this second. You see that ramp I’m assuming you came in through?” To their nod he continued. “One of you post out there, and the other post at the other entrance out front of the left side of the aircraft. That way you know I can’t get out of the aircraft without you seeing me leave, even if you can’t see me while I’m working. Before you ask what the compromise is, once I’m done I’m going to lock up those entrances and join you outside. You get to keep an eye on me, and I know no one can slip into the aircraft. So do we have a deal?” There were, of course, other ways to get out of the aircraft, but Struggle didn’t find it necessary to clue them in on that. They both seemed to mull it over before whispering to each other and nodding.

“You have yourself a deal, Mr. Struggle,” Crescent said.

“Just Struggle.”

“Right, you have yourself a deal, Mr. Just Struggle.”

...You know what, just roll with it.

“...and these will be your accommodations in the meantime. I hope they're to your liking,” finished Celestia.

Chaos, taking the pause as an invitation, decided to open the double doors. The sun, cascading into the room from the large floor-to-ceiling windows opposite the entrance, practically blinded him with the light that reflected off the polished white marble flooring. Taking a few tentative steps inside of the room, Chaos and Co couldn’t help but be blown away by the sheer decadence of their new sleeping quarters. The room’s décor was largely purple with gold trim, adding a sense of majesty to it.

A crystal chandelier hung from the incredibly tall ceilings, and a large circular bed seemed to be set into the floor, only rising above it by a few inches. From what Chaos could tell the bedding seemed to be silk. If he had a harem, he could imagine a good deal of them fitting onto the large, posh bed. A sofa was pushed up against the wall on his right and looked big enough to sleep another of their number.

“So, it looks like we’ll be bunking together,” Chaos said after turning to Celestia.

“That’s a bit forward, don’t you think Major? I mean we did just meet.” Celestia said with a sly smile.

Chaos was confused until he paled at what he had said.

“No, I ugh no I’m so sorry Princess. I didn’t mean for you to think I was insinuating that you, and I…”Chaos stammered before being cut off by Celestia.

“Relax Major, part of being friends is knowing when to poke fun at one another. I knew what you meant, I was just using the opportunity to make a joke. Anyways, you won't need to be sleeping with anyone, at least that isn’t of your own prerogative.”

Deciding to just glance over most of the conversation lest his face get any redder he decided to respond.

“Why’s that?”

“Because you haven’t even seen the adjacent room.”

“Oh?”

“There’s two smaller beds in there, and another couch. Beyond that is a lounge, if I’m not mistaken about the layout of the rooms in this wing.”

“You're not wrong, your Highness. There’s also a small bath connected to the other room,” responded a guard off of hoof.

“Well, I know it’s not much, Major, but I hope in the interim that this room shall suffice. At least until some vacancies clear up from all our guests we’re housing for the Royal wedding.”

“I couldn’t ask for more, thank you, Princess.” Celestia was about to respond before a scroll manifested from seemingly nowhere.

“Ah, it seems things are ready to commence. I hate to leave so suddenly, but as a presiding official I’d hate to be late. Before I go though, there’s a few things I need to cover. While I’m gone I’d ask that you limit yourselves to this room. I won't tell you that you can’t leave, but you would be doing me a favor.”

“I think we can agree to that, what about Story and Struggle though?”

“I’ll send a guard along to ask them to do the same.”

“Alright, what else?”

“When I get back I’d like a meeting with you, Major, as well as my sister.”

“Well, I’ve come this far. Besides, who am I to refuse a Royal audience?”

“Glad to hear it,” Celestia beamed before promptly leaving.

After closing the doors, Chaos turned to Co.

“Best get some sleep, Co, you’re getting next shift to relieve Struggle when Celestia gets back.”

Struggle had managed to get through sealing up the aircraft, luckily things weren’t as bad as he would have initially guessed. He’d checked and rechecked the plane, but all he’d had to really rack his brain on was figuring out fancy ways of saying huge gouge in the side of the aircraft, and depleted Booster reservoir. Luckily in surveying the damage he only found a few hydraulic lines that were completely cut through, which meant a competent welder and some sheet metal could get them back in business on that front. As for the engine, well that would have to be Story’s project.

As it stood though Struggle couldn’t figure which was in worse shape, him or the aircraft. As he once again purged another round of bile from his stomach into the shrubbery near the bench he had been resting on a few seconds prior. One of the guard ponies rubbed his back in an attempt to make him feel better.

“You sure we don’t need to go get a doctor?” Silver Shield asked for what must have been the tenth time.

“Yes, I’m f-,” he was interrupted as a dry heave found his lips, “fine. I’m sure I’ll get a replacement soon enough and then I can go lie down.”

In the distance Struggle heard a bunch of cheering.

“Sounds like the wedding is wrapping up.” Silver remarked, eliciting a sigh from Crescent.

“Too bad, you know I was supposed to be on the detail.” Crescent said.

“What no way! How’d you manage the detail of the century?”

“I did a few favors for Shining Armor a couple years back when he was a Lieutenant. Good stallion, never forgets the little ponies.” Having seen the last of his burrito Struggle stood back up, before making his way back to the bench and his M-4 he’d grabbed out of the weapon box of the aircraft.

“You good now?” Silver asked.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m fine?”

“Sheesh he’s just trying to be friendly. Are all you humans so snippy?” asked Crescent.

“Only the ones who hate repeating themselves.” In the distance Struggle heard a loud boom, sending him skyrocketing out of the bench with his M-4. “The tartarus was that!” he screamed before a tidal wave of colors seemed to be spreading across the sky.

“Oh awesome! I heard that filly from the best young fliers competition would be here to perform a sonic rainboom but i didn’t believe it. What was her name again?” asked Silver.

“Rainbow Dash. Honestly, Silver, you think you’d remember an Element of Harmony.”

“Can you guys stop speaking in gibberish and tell me what in the world that is!” Struggle said.

“It’s a sonic rainboom; no need to worry. Just enjoy it.”

The next few moments were spent watching the rainboom fade away into the horizon before the silence was broken.

“Oh, forgot to ask. Do you humans name your airships like ponies do?” Silver asked.

“Of all the questions you could ask that's what you want to ask an alien?” which only elicited a nod from him. Struggle just smirked before responding.

“It’s Bad Omen.”

“Wait?” Silver asked, as he used a hoof to scratch under his helm. “ It’s a bad omen to name it?”

“No, the plane's name is Bad Omen.” to that the guards looked at each other before shrugging.

“I don't think I get you humans.” Silver said.

Not even a full day and I think I’m over this place already.

Sol-Centric

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Tea, Chats, and Bats

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Stress And Shenanigans

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General Order and Mayhem

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It's a bird, it's a pegasus, it's heading this way!

CHAPTER 2: It's a bird, it's a Pegasus, it's heading this way!

Struggle was practically glued against the window. Something felt off. It might have been the forest they were flying over, what with its gnarled branches and the oddity of a few things glowing in the underbrush. The longer they flew, the stronger the gnawing feeling in the back of his mind - a hunch, if you will, that whatever they were flying over wasn't terrestrial.

None of the trees were species he recognized; that castle they had passed, while inconspicuous enough, was in a state of disrepair that would be a black mark on any respectable preservation society. The other problem was he had been to enough castles in Europe to know that huge crowds were always present for such landmarks, and they were kept as pristine as possible. So why the lack of any discernable presence?

It wasn't until they sailed over an apple orchard that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Only then did he truly realize his feeling might hold any merit. It was quick, far too abrupt for him to verify what he saw. But he could have sworn he saw a red horse, sheltered underneath an apple tree. The trees were a common sight for the thirty seconds they sailed overhead, but yet again something was off. He had flown over plenty of orchards before, and they were always positioned in nice neat rows, but this orchard’s arrangement seemed random. What would possess any professional farmer to adopt such a pattern? Sure, he could see the merit in root space, but it would be a nightmare in terms of irrigation. It wasn't until the 'comms' squelched to life that he was broken from his ruminations.

"Load, Pilot. There appears to be a town ahead. I'm going to bring us into an orbit to get a better look."

Struggle watched the scenery flow by as he waited to get a glimpse of the town Chaos mentioned. It was slow going for the most part until he heard a squeal, signifying an addition to his comm net. He turned away from the window for only a second to see who it was. The Nav stood behind him on a pigtail cord in the crew rest compartment, trying to look over his shoulder through the window. With the Nav on the isolation net, he could talk without the rest of the crew hearing.

"What's it look like out there? Anything to indicate where we are?" asked Papa Hotel.

"Nothing I've been able to recognize. Also, I'm not familiar with any island in the Atlantic that grows apple trees. But that's neither here nor there. Why aren't you at your station, and why didn't you check off comms?" replied Struggle.

"Had to take a piss. Besides, I can't figure out why my equipment isn't working."

"Cool story, but you know how Chaos is about comm procedures. Also, if your equipment isn't working, you should probably get back to your station to figure it out."

"What's your problem? I'm just stretching my legs, after all."

"Well, you're distracting me, so beat it," Struggle said before returning to look out the window.

"Well, fuck you too." A second later another squeal informed Struggle that the Nav had left the net. Normally Struggle wasn't confrontational; in fact, he could be considered the definition of laid-back to the point of being a doormat. But he was on edge, as his sixth sense screamed at him.

"Load, I've brought us into an orbit. In about thirty seconds, you'll be able to see the town....I only caught a glimpse, but I don't know, something seems off."

Struggle waited patiently as it slowly came into view, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for anything out of place. It seemed normal for awhile until it dawned on him.

Something important was missing, something that even the most backwards of countries he'd been to sported. There were no vehicles, not a single one. On the latter part of the orbit, he did see train tracks, although there was no locomotive he could spot. After that, he lost sight of the town till the orbit brought them back around.

With the lack of vehicles in mind, he paid more attention to the dirt roads snaking through the town. He had paid little thought to moving figures after the time he was flicked off by that kid on a bicycle on a training line. But now his disregard for animate objects screamed for attention, since even at this altitude he could make out a difference. The beings below scrambling in an a attempt to get indoors at their arrival was nothing new; what was, was that they didn't appear human. Perhaps in their scurrying they did, but not in their shape.

He had flown over all different types of animals: sheep, goats, camels, cows, even horses. The figures below were clearly quadrupedal, but even the largest of familiar herds barely paid mind to an aircraft's presence. So it was a complete shock to see animals acting in such a manner, almost as if they were sapient.

"Struggle, you see anything out of the ordinary?" the pilot asked.

"That depends, Pilot. Do you consider the lack of vehicles, and animals reacting as people do abnormal?"

"Come again, Load, I must have misheard what you said as crazy."

"Well, I would too, but a lot of small things are adding up to only one conclusion."

"And that would be?"

"That I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. It might be time to check out that city under the dome."

"-even now, my minions are chipping away at it," Chrysalis said before chuckling.

"He may not be my husband, but he is under my total control now." Her pronouncement elicited gasps from Twilight and Princess Cadence. "And, I'm sorry to say, unable to perform his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard!"

"Not my Shining Armor!" Cadence exclaimed.

"Orbit established. What are all those black dots surrounding that purple bubble?" Chaos inquired.

As always, the cockpit got a cursory glance at an object before Struggle did. But when it all came into focus as the orbit brought the city into view, he was just as baffled as they were. Hundreds of flying figures bashed repeatedly against the purple dome. That was until they all moved as one, and the dome collapsed. No sooner had it fallen than the black figures descended on the city like green meteorites. Flashes of green and other colors erupted from the streets below. It didn't take a rocket scientist, or a war veteran like Struggle, to understand what was happening. This was a battle, and the greens were on the offensive.

"Well I guess we know why that purple bubble was in place; it was a shield against their invaders." Struggle stated dryly. “Want to get a closer look?”

The sounds of destruction echoed throughout the city. It was just too bad for Mirage that he had sentry duty with his partner Morpheus. They were stationed on the edge of the city in case pony reinforcements arrived. So much love in such close proximity, and yet they were missing out on the feast. Suddenly, Morpheus hit him on the shoulder and pointed to the sky.

“Hey, what is that?” Morpheus asked.

Mirage followed his partner’s hoof to a blob approaching in the distance. He squinted briefly at it before responding. “I don’t know, a bird maybe?”

“You ever see a bird fly that high? I say it’s a Pegasus.” Their brief debate was interrupted by another changeling.

“What are you two knuckleheads looking at?” The voice belonged to their Sergeant, Mystique. She followed their gaze into the sky. “Sweet Chrysalis, what is that thing?” The object in question was still a few thousand feet higher than the city, but it had come within a mile of the outskirts.

“I don’t know, but it sure isn’t a bird, or pegasus, that's for sure.” Mirage replied. “Think we should get the Captain?”

"~This day has been just perfect. The kind of day of which I've dreamed since I was small. Everypony I'll soon control, every stallion, mare and foal. Who says a girl can't really have it all!" Chrysalis sang before chuckling.

Your Highness we may have a problem. A metal construct is flying outside of Canterlot. The psychic link Chrysalis maintained with her Changeling officers was to only be used in a state of emergency. So it was with regret that she divided her attention from her prisoners to respond.

If it is an ally of Celestia's, then deal with it, you foal! Otherwise, make it clear that outsiders are not welcome at this time. Our victory is at hoof, and I do not want any interlopers! Chrysalis mentally commanded.

Your will be done, Your Highness. The changeling officer responded, before grabbing the three changelings and flying out of the perimeter of the city.

Captain Guise was going over Chrysalis’s order in his head.

“What did she say, Captain?” Mirage asked of their commander.

“In not so many words, she said to see if it’s a threat.” Guise replied.

“Your orders, Sir?” Sergeant Mystique asked.

“Alright, here’s the plan, you three will come with me. We’ll see if we can't figure out what it is, before we proceed from there.”

Captain Guise knew one thing: it certainly was loud whatever it was. As Guise drew closer and it came into focus, he realized it was some sort of flying machine. If it weren't for the windows that had given it away, it would have been the unfamiliar flag of red, white, and blue painted on its backside. Its propulsion seemed to be some type of unholy union of a windmill and fire. But it wasn't what was seen that sent shivers down the Captain’s spine. It was common knowledge that all changelings were emotivores, and as such could feel emotions.

What wasn't common knowledge was that they could feel lingering emotions surrounding objects, or those powered by emotions. This thing was unlike any artifact the changelings had. Old sentimental trinkets acquired from the ponies held love, treasure stolen from dragons held envy, Chrysalis even had a object of fear, stolen from Sombra's reign. This flying machine's residual emotions, however, were something new; a plethora of residual emotions surrounded it. More unsettling was that it felt as if a thousand souls had passed through it, each leaving their own unique mark on it. Where had this thing been, and what had the occupants seen to leave behind such strong residual feelings?

Captain Guise shook his head to clear the fog. It was currently about a thousand hooves above them. Taking the opportunity as it once again circled away from the city, he decided now was the time to relay his commands.

"Sergeant Mystique, I will fire a warning shot when it gets close again. You keep an offensive spell charged just in case it takes offense. Mirage and Morpheus, prepare a teleportation spell, and shield spell respectively." When they nodded, he turned back to the craft, charging his fire spell.

When it drew to its closest to them, he shot just below its massive form. The result was immediate and unexpected: the machine seemed to burst into flame, blinding them and causing Mystique to release her spell, before a shield and teleport went off.

Struggle had lost sight of the city and its conflict for near a minute, when he heard the tone go off, before a set of flares dispensed. But when their orbit finally brought it back into view, he was immediately greeted by a streak of green zipping towards the aircraft. He immediately hit the call button, silencing all other comm channels, and making him louder.

"Break right, break right, Triple A, three o'clock!" It was too late, however, as the stream of green tore through the right fuselage of the aircraft, rocking the mighty war bird and eliciting a cry of agony from the Nav in the Battle Management Center. He waited for another until it was obvious that there would be no encore, before deciding to cue the flight deck into the situation.

"Roll out, Pilot! Get us some distance from that city. Hostiles were using some type of anti-aircraft artillery." Struggle commanded.

"What happened, Load, are we hit?" Chaos responded.

"Yes sir, requesting 5 miles out call. After that, requesting check-off for battle damage assessment. Nav, I heard you scream, are you okay?"

"..."

"Eng, can you take over scanning? I think the Nav might be injured." It wasn't the Engineer, Story-Time, who responded however.

"Cleared off, Load, keep me abreast of the situation." responded the pilot.

Disconnecting from comms, Struggle was greeted by a world of muffled silence. Sure he could hear the roar of the engines, but little else. Time being of the essence in an evolving situation, he stumbled about the rocking aircraft that was presumably still being engaged by their new enemy. Once out of the Crew rest compartment, he grabbed his rolled up long comm cord and plugged in.

“Loads up.”

Even through the evasive maneuvers, he managed to make his way back to the battle management center. He stepped through the forward door to the small compartment. What he saw was unsettling: a thin gash ran down the fuselage, revealing a sliver of the outside world. All the while, a small fire raged, and hydraulic fluid spewed everywhere. And there slumped over in his seat, screaming in pain, was the Nav. Taking care to avoid the debris, he made his way around the booth to him.

Well no wonder we couldn't hear him afterwards; his comm box took a lucky hit. He couldn't tell exactly where Papa had been hit, but it was pretty obvious by the way he cradled his arm protectively over his side. He patted him firmly on the back to draw his attention.

The man flinched slightly under the touch before slowly turning to face him. Struggle grabbed his arm and moved it from his side despite Papa's protest. As he kneeled down to get a better look, he sighed in relief at what he saw. Underneath the singed uniform was about a quarter-inch gash that ran all the way across the top of his hip bone in the small layer of fat on the man. Sure, it looked like a third degree burn, and he was sure it hurt like all hell. But all things considered, it was relatively minor.

As he stood back up, he grabbed the right side of the Nav's headset to move it away to speak with him.

"COME ON! LET'S GET YOU TO THE CREW REST COMPARTMENT!" He had yelled as loud as he could, hopefully enough to cut through the noise and draw the man out of his pain. The Nav's only response, however, was a slow nod.

“The Nav is injured; it’s superficial but probably extremely painful. I’m taking him to the Crew rest compartment. I’ll give you a situation update afterwards.”

As the four assembled changelings watched the craft fly away, most of them felt an immense sense of dread. The first person to speak was the Captain.

“Well, Queen Chrysalis isn’t going to like this…”

“Does she really need to know? I'm sure she'll just be happy that it left.” Mirage said.

“I wasn't referring to us accidently hitting the thing..."

Twilight snuck her way to Cadence while the Queen was distracted.

"Quick, go to him while you still have the chance," she whispered, before using a spell to free Cadence from the goo on her hooves.

It had been slow going getting the Nav farther up-front, but now that he was safely out of the way, Struggle could get to work. It had taken two fire extinguishers to take down all the small fires in the booth.

"How does it look back there, Load?" Chaos asked.

"Not as bad as it could have been. We've lost the booster hydraulic system. It looks like the gun deck armor managed to catch most of it, and what it did cut through is mostly dead space from what I can tell. We're lucky it missed the liquid oxygen tank or we would all be cinders right now. I'm about to start my exterior inspection, just let me get back up to the window. Also, can you open up the overhead hatch on the flight deck, to try and vent this smoke out."

"Copy, Eng is on it, Load." Within a few moments, the flow of air barreled through, carrying all the smoke and irritants from the fire bottles with it.

As he got back to his window, he exchanged a quick glance with the pained Nav. Just let me finish up, buddy, then we can see about getting you some bandages. He sat down, ready to do a scan of the engines and wing but stopped as something grabbed his attention.Huh, looks like they got their shield back up....oh shit, oh shit it's heading this way! He watched in awed terror as it expanded carrying black specks in its wake that were steadily growing larger with it.

His voice caught in his throat as he tried and failed to the warn the crew of their impending doom. Where he failed, the Co-Pilot didn’t.

“Brace for impact!” Struggle didn’t need to be told, as he had already curled up with his eyes screwed shut, waiting for the impending collision…The plane shook violently for a second, and a weird sensation seemed to pass through him, but that was it.

Daring to chance fate, he opened his eyes, only to see that, yes, he was still alive. He sighed in relief as he righted himself in the seat, remembering that he still had to scan the exterior of the plane. But when he turned to the window, what he saw made him lose faith in his sanity.

There, comically plastered up against the window was a bug-esque horse, slowly sliding down the window, making a barely audible squeaking noise as it went, before finally falling off altogether to the world below.

“Wha...I don’t even….jus’ how?” He was trying to reconcile the insanity of what he just saw, totally disregarding the fact of how fast the thing must have been flying when it hit the aircraft. He had been flying long enough to know what happens to birds when they hit an aircraft: lots of pink mist and feathers. Deciding to chalk it up to a stress-induced delusion, he started to scan the wing. What he saw wasn’t promising. Smoke was trailing from the number 3 engine, which must have been hit in the attack as well.

“Crew, Load. Engine three is smoking. I can’t see any fire, but it might be smart to shut ‘er down.” Struggle said.

“Shit, we’re too damned heavy to shut an engine down right now. You think it can make it to landing?” the Pilot asked. Struggle was about to respond when the Eng cut him off.

“Indications on engine three are still nominal. I’m fine with keeping it.” Struggle didn’t like it, but the Eng was the expert on those systems.

“Well, let's not chance it. Let's start looking for a spot to land,” the pilot said. But as Struggle scanned the terrain below, their prospects of potential runways were small. In fact, they were currently at zero. Everywhere he looked, there was either a tree line, a creek, or some other obstacle which spelled disaster. It wasn’t until he remembered the town that he got a bit of hope.

“Pilot, Load. Can you bring us closer to that town we passed? Their railroad tracks might have been landscaped enough to provide a decent runway running parallel.” Struggle said.

Celestia grabbed Twilight’s hoof as she forced herself onto her own.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” She smiled down to her student before continuing. “You have a real wedding to put together.” Twilight smiled back, stating her worry before finally corralling her friends to put the wedding of the century back on track.

As her student and friends departed, Celestia decided now would be a great time to get a breath of fresh air.

What a day. She thought to herself as she stepped onto the balcony. She scanned the scene below, noting the ponies who were assisting their fellow Equine, cleaning up debris, and casually disregarding the severity of the day’s events. It would take a week or so, but her little ponies would get on with their lives. She admired their strength, and she would remember today’s events long after they had been forgotten. The burden of a leader, she supposed. It wasn’t until she checked the position of her Sun that she noted the presence of anything concerning.

In the distance, a small figure sailed through the sky, leaving a distinct smoke trail in its wake. It seemed to be retreating in the direction of Ponyville, a worrying development indeed. She thought after today’s events that she might be able to catch a breather, but duty called, and she knew she would have to answer.