Friendship is Universal

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Tear
Chapter 2: Contact
Chapter 3: The Beasts of Everfree

Chapter 1: The Tear

Night has settled over Equestria. Luna's raising of the moon has allowed the ponies thier time to sleep. The town of Ponyville is silent, everypony resting for the next day. But not too far from Ponyville lies the Everfree forest. A good portion of the creatures there are nocturnal and the night is their time to roam free. But something in the forest startles those creatures into an uncomfortable silence. This unnatural silence wakes one of the Everfree forest's more notable habitants the Mystical Zebra, Zecora. Her eyes slowly flutter as she wakes and rises from her bed. With a raised brow she takes a look out her window to see what could have caused such a silence. As she watches she notices a small glowing light not too far off from her home. It's a strange bright purple light that she's never seen before. Then comes the hum. It starts off low but the sound begins to grow to a higher pitch. The silence is broken as the creatures begin to roar out in pain, the high pitched screech is hurting their ears like never before.

Zecora throws on her dark robe and rushes out of her house to locate the source of the screeching sound and the purple light. Dashing through the woods and avoiding the thrashing creatures around her she finally comes upon the source. Zecora stops dead in her tracks starring in wonder. The light and sound is coming from a small crack in a clearing. This tear is somehow floating in mid-air and emmiting a powerful energy. Zecora has seen many sights in her life and travels, but has never seen something as bizare as this. Hesitantly she turns around and heads back to her cabin. Grabbing a peice of parchment she begin writting a letter as quickly as she can. With the aid of an exotic looking bird Zecora sends her letter off hoping it will reach the Princess in time.

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With a long yawn the tall white alicorn begins to raise from her bed. The night has reached it's end and the time has come for Princess Celestia to bring out the day. As she prepares, placing her crown on her head, a bright green bird with odd looking feathers flies in through the window with what seems to be a letter tied to it's leg.

"Hello there, who might you be?"

The bird lands on the window sill and sings a happy little tune. With a pleasent chuckle the Princess approches the small bird and uses her golden magic to retrive the letter from the bird's leg. At that the bird flies off and Celestia begins to open her letter just as she hears a loud knock on the door.

"My Princess, your subjects await the raising of the sun."

Celestia gives a small scowl at the interuption and places the letter at her bed side.

"Yes, yes. I'll be right there."

Keeping a smile on her face the Princess open the door and heads out to raise the sun for he beloved subjects.

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"Status report!"

In a very different place in a very different setting there's a tall older man in a dark green uniform covered in a series of bages and stars. A thick grey moustahce rests over his upper lip as his cold dark green eyes stare at a small light purple crack in the center of a large metal room. Scientists and Military personel are all over the complex surrounding The Tear. Various tests are being run non-stop while the soldiers are waiting for their orders.

"We've made contact. The wormhole has opened up on the other side. Stablization is at 65 percent."

A young woman with short dark hair is typing away at a computer as she reads off the information. The tall older man rests a hand on her should as a small smile curls across his face. He's been working on this project for many years, now finally it's reaching it's completion. A whole another plane of existance to discover.

"Good work Erika. Now do what you can to make The Tear bigger. We have no idea what could be on the other side but I want to be able to bring in a tank if I have to."

"Yes, General Thorne."

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Not too far from the General and the other women there are two men in a locker room putting on heavy military gear waiting for their que to go. Neither of them know what will await them beyond the Tear. They are the Delta Team, the third team of two men to enter The Tear and make the greatest leap forward since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

"Man, can you belive this? Pulled out of duty for some goofy science project!?"

The first man to speak is a large bald man who's at least in his mid 30's. Just by looking at the scars on his face it's obvious he's seen his share of violence on the field, and perhaps off the feild as well.

"This could be cool though. A Tear between two worlds, who know what we'll find on the other side."

The second man is much younger, in fact he looks like a new recruit. He hasn't seen much of the battlefield, but his grades before enlisting in the military were beyond exemplary. In many ways he's the complete opposite to his partner.

"Whatever. I don't care whats on the other side of The Tear. This 'Other Universe' will either stand out of my way or get shot down."

Gung-ho doesn't begin to desribe this man. On the battlefield he earned the nickname Agent Orange for being just as devastating as the napalm attacks in Veitnam.

"You can't be thinking like that! What if the people on the other side just want peace, you can't be so-"

His last words are cut off by the ping of an intercom system. Erika's voice, the girl at the computer with the short dark hair,begins to echo throughout the locker room alerting the Delta Team

"Delta Group, report to mission control immeditaly. Operation: First Contact is a go."

With a nod the two men finish strapping on theri gear and head out to the floor to venture beyond The Tear.

End Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Contact

On the bed of Princess Celestia the letter from Zecora sat untouched. The sun's rays slowly began to fill the room with it's light as Celestia's magic brought forth the new day. Not too long after the regal Princess would re-enter her room. While she was indeed quite powerful bending the celesital bodies of their world was a tiring feat and required a bit a recovery before returning to her duties. As she began to relax once again she notices the letter sitting on her bed side nearly forgetting about it and the strange green bird who delivered it. Using her golden colored magic the letter would levitate toward her unravelling itself. With a small cough to clear her throat Celestia began to read out loud to herself.

"Dear Princess Celestia, there is danger upon Equestria! A strange glow has begun to appear, it is a phenomenon of which I fear. It drives the creatures of Everfree crazy, of this request you cannot be lazy. I ask you come down to investigate, or else for Equestria it might be too late. It glows and makes a shreiking sound, it's power looks to be profound. It seems like magic hovering it mid air, as if in our world there is a tear. Please come and seal it soon, or else for this world it could be our doom."

There's no signature on the letter, but just through it's composition Celestia can tell it's author. The Mystic Zecora always spoke in rhymes and it appeared she wrote that way as well. But she knew Zecora was no prankster, if she was writing a letter like this then whatever was happening in the Everfree forest it must be something big.

"Guards, inform my sister that she is to watch over Canterlot. Tell Shining Armor to gather some of his best men and be ready to depart for the Everfree forest within the hour."

With a firm salute the guards posted outside her room make haste to preform their tasks for their beloved Princess. Whatever is happening it cannot be good.

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In a different plane of existance the old man with the graying moustahce, General Throne, watches the purple glowing Tear while sipping on a hot cup of black coffee. A smile is plasted on his face no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it. He's been waiting for this day for much too long. Beside him sits Erika, a woman with a genius level IQ who's been spear heading the scientific side of this operation since day one. She types away at her console unsure of what to expect. The General leans over to her with his growing smile.

"What's our stability?"

"Stability at 96 percent sir. The Tear is holding up better than we anticipated. At it's current size we can go ahead and send in Alpha Team."

That smile on Thorne's face grows even bigger.

"Why don't you do the honors?"

Erika looks surprised at that. She gives a weak smile and a nod. She really doesn't want to be the one sending these men to their potential deaths. With a deep breath she moves closer to the intercom microphone and begins to relay the order.

"Alpha Team, you may now begin. Approch the Tear and enter slowly. God bless you both."

Erika wipes her brow of sweat and looks back to her console. She doesn't want to see those men enter what could potentially be a white void of nothing, or a black hole, she's much better off just watching the numbers on her computer. She's comfortable there.

The first two men, Alpha Team, put on their oxygen masks and proceed to enter the Tear that is now large enough to fit them both. They are the first to journey into the unknown.

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"Pinkie!"

Twilight Sparkle raises her hook slightly as Pinkie Pie flies forward crashing into the Library. There's a loud thud but amazingly neither Pinkie Pie or the Library suffer any serious damage.

"Woooo! Again, again!"

Pinkie Pie starts hopping away without a care int the world. Twlight begins to raise her hoof in protest, but she knows it wouldn't do any good. As if her Party Cannon wasn't enough, but the Deluxe Party Cannon was big enough for Pinkie to fire herself around Ponyville. It really was amazing that nopony hadn't be injured yet.

"Come on Twilight! Lighten up! Whats not fun about climbing into a giant cannon and firing yourself around town. Hey, we should start a buisness firing ponies whereever they need to go!"

"Spike, think about it. Does useing ponies as cannonballs really seem like a good idea to you? What if you end up hitting an innocent pegasus just flying by! You have to think about these things every now and again."

Spike's demenor went from extremely happy to pretty darn sad. He thought his idea was pretty cool. As his voice raises to defend himself the sound of the royal horns can be heard not too far away. Twilight immediatly recognises those horns as the Royal Guard and the Princess.

"Wait a minute, those horns...it can't be."

The cute little egghead scratches her head in disbelif as Rarity wizzes by giggling to herself. She couldn't help but get into a bubbly mood whenever royalty showed up in Ponyville.

"Wait! Rarity! Come back! Uhhgg! Come on Spike! We're going to see what's going on down there."

Spike hopped up onto Twilight's back on command as she took off toward the ruckus. Down in the center of Ponyville a humongous crowd of ponies began to form around a blockade of Royal Guardsmen lead by Shinging Armor himself. Behind them was Princess Celestia herself begin pulled on her chariot by her loyal Pegasus Knights. Still unsure of what was going on Twilight began to make her way past the crowd and meeting eyes with her brother.

"Big Bro! What's going on? Why is the Princess here, and why are there so many guards?"

Shinging Armor approches Twilight giving off a slight smile, but right now he's here strictly on buisness.

"Hey little Sis. I can't tell you what's going on. But the Princess can. She's been looking for you and your friends. Something big is happening."

"Big? How big is big? Did Discord break free again? Are the Parasprites back? Did the gross Bug Queen come sneaking in again?"

"No, none of that. Just go ahead and ask Celestia."

Shinging Armor looks to his troops with a nod letting Twilight past them and over to the Princess. Already with the Princess are Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. Just from their expression Twilight can see they don't have a clue to what's happening either. Twilight bows to the Princess before making her final appraoch.

"Princess Celestia, what's going on here?"

Celestia closes her eyes for a moment and gives a breif sigh.

"Unfortunatly I can't tell you here Twilight Sparkle. But we need to find Pinkie Pie as quickly as possible."

Twilight riases an eyebrow quizzically.

"Last I saw she was launching herself out of a Deluxe Party Cannon."

Not a second after the faithful student stops talking Pinkie Pie falls out of the sky landing on top of her with a goofy smile. That cannon could get some great distance.

"Here I am!"

Rainbow Dash can't help but fall out of the sky laughing as the rest of the ponies give a small chuckle as well. Celestia however doesn't crack and looks to the six ponies sternly.

"Now that I've gathered you all we must make haste. Please follow the guards quickly."

Celestia gives a breif nod before her Pegasus Knights fly her off back toward the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy's eyes go a bit wide in fear.

"Why is she heading toward the Everfree Forest? We aren't going there are we? Please tell me we aren't going there."

Rarity gives a slight pet to Fluttershy's mane in an attempt to cheer her up.

"Fluttershy, we must do as the Princess requests. I'm sure whatever's going on in that forest can't be worse than anything we've gone up against before."

With the Royal Guard leading them the six friends set out for the Everfree Forest.

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At the compound on the other side Erika looks at her console as the stability of the Tear is begining to fluxuate from 95 to 87 percent.

"Sir, the Tear is starting to destabalize. It's not much, but we might want to pull our men out now."

"Nonsense."

General Thorne looks at her with surprise and disapproval.

"With the reports we've gotten from Alpha and Beta team we need more men in there, not less. An over grown swamp with the growls of beasts is not something I'd leave to just four men."

Throne grabs the intercom microphone and begins giving the next order.

"Delta Team! Arnold 'Agent Orange' Packer and Raymond Hernandez, you are clear for enterance into The Tear!"

With the order given the two polar opposites approch The Tear and put on their oxygen masks. Agent Orange looks excited beyond belif while Ray is begining to shake with nervousness. The two men enter the purple growing rip of time and space. One step at a time the exit their world. As the disappear into the unknown Erika's console begins to flash red.

"Oh no...Stability at 77 percent and falling! 65 percent! 59! The Tear is collapsing!"

"No!"

Thorne shouts and bangs on the glass seperating him and Erika from The Tear itself. The soft purple light begins to flood the compound as a low hum begins to evolve into a high pitched screech. All personel at the compound begin holding their ears in pain as others begin to bleed from their nose. With a sudden flash the noise is gone, the light vanishes, and The Tear is no longer there. Erika begins to hyperventalte starring at her flashing console while General Thorne stares where The Tear used to be stunned beyond belif. A soldier begins to approch the General and the Scientist who is still getting over the shock himself.

"We...we've lost contact with all Teams sir."

All the General can do is sit there and stare. Twenty years of work, now gone is seconds with six missing men.

"May God have mercy on their souls..."

End Chapter 2

Chapter 3: The Beasts of Everfree

"Wha- What happened?"

Ray Hernandez slowly begins to wake up. Thast thing he can remember is a bright purple flash and a high pitched shreiking sound. He's not one hundered percent sure, but he thinks he head alarms from behind him as well. From the ground he begins to look around him. There's dirt under him and dark green leaves surrounding him as well. It looks somewhat like Earth, but no...that can't be possible. With caution Ray begins to sit himself up using his arms. Thats when he realises his oxygen mask isn't on his face. Panic ensues quickly as Ray starts crawling around the forest floor searching for his mask.

"Hey, looks like you've finally come to."

Arnold Packer, aka Agent Orange, approches the panicing Ray with an ammused smile. Not only is his mask gone as well, but there's a cigar hanging from his mouth.Ray just looks at him for a moment, the panic finally starting to disipate.

"What happened? Did we make it? What happened to our masks?"

"Calm down Ray. Yeah, we made it. We're breathing fine so we don't need them masks. That's not the trouble."

Ray's eyes go a bit wider than they already were.

"Th-there 's trouble?"

"Can't find Alpha or Beta Team. The Comm system ain't workin' no more. And the Tear closed behind us. So we're stuck here."

Ray's panic kicks back up again as he jumps up to his feet. This can NOT be happening.

"No...nononono, it can't just disappear like that! It was stable as we went through it! It can't just disappear like that!"

His panicing is starting to make Ray's voice rise. Arnold takes a step forward and gives Ray a hard slap to shut him up.

"You were trained for this! Don't you dare quit out on me. You and I both know the protocol for when this happenes. We stick to the mission while the white coats on the Other Side work on reopening the Tear. Now come on we have to get out of here. Heard some noises that I'm going to consider 'unfriendly'."

With the slap and the orders Ray becomes speechless. All he can do is nod in agreement. With shaky hands Ray picks up his pack strapping it back on his back and follws Arnold deeper into the forest.

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"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Huh? huh? Are we?"

Pinkie Pie begins hopping around in circles as the rest of the ponies travel with the Royal Guard follwing Celestia.

"Not yet Pinkie."

Twilight tries to get Pinkie to clam down, but it's of no use. Just by looking at her it's quite easy to tell she's nervous of whats happening in the Everfree Forest. Rarity prances forward by a few extra spaces to catch up to Twilight.

"There's no need to be worried Twilight. Whatever the Princess needs it can't be that bad."

Twilight sighs, and not in a good way.

"But that's the problem Rairty, whenever there's been trouble Celestia has almost never asked us directly. When we faced Nightmare Moon she tried to tell me she was just an old mare's tale. But this time she's sought us out directly and won't tell us what's going on. It's just...not like her to be so uptight like this."

Rarity tries to smile and shake off Twilight's remarks, but deep down inside she knows Twilight is right.

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"I need an ETA on when we can repair the Tear!"

General Thorne's angry tone echoes throughout the compound. Scientists and Soldiers are running are like mice in a maze. Most of them have no idea of what to do next. Erika wipes a few beads of sweat off her forehead before looking up to Thorne.

"I can't give you a time. When we found the Tear it was already in existance as we built the Compound around it. There's a chance we might not be able to reopen it."

Thorne's fist bashes down on the top of Erika's console. His anger is getting the best of him as his face begins to turn beat red.

"I don't care what it takes! We have the funding and the best damn technology on the planet! You're going to reopen The Tear and you're going to do it in the next 48 hours! Do I make myself clear!?"

Erika looks away from Thorne frozen in fear. The General usually has a calm and collected demenor. Seeing him explode like this is unnerving to say the least. Taking a few short breaths Erika looks back up to the bear red Throne mustering up all the confidence she can. Honestly, it isn't much.

"Y-yes sir. I'll do what I can."

Those cold stern eyes of the General stare into Erika's own eyes instilling pure fear into her. Throne backs away from Erika and her console trying to keep his temper underwraps. His face is slowly begining to turn back to normal, but the veins in his forehead simply will not relax.

"Good."

And with that the General takes his leave. Of he stays within the confines of the Compound much longer there's no telling what his anger would do to him. Erika gives off a sigh of relif before returning to her work. Reopening The Tear in 48 hours...she knows it can't be done.

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"Guards! What happened here!"

Princess Celestia's voice echoed throughout the forest. Twilight's ears immediatly perked up as she began galloping forward with her friends following close behind her. As the group approches the Princess they see two guards in extremely rough shape. One of them looks extremely winded while the other looks as if he's bleeding from his leg. Shinging Armor himself is using his magic to heal the injured guard's leg, but for some reason it's having no effect.

"Princess Celesita! What happened!?"

The Princess doesn't answer her faithful student for a moment. For now she's starring at the center of the clearing at nothing. With a worried sigh the Princess closes her eyes and turns toward Twilight and her friends.

"I'm sorry for having you kept in the dark for so long girls, but I didn't want to cause a panic in Ponyville. Early this morning I recived a letter from our friend Zecora. She wrote of a glowing "Tear" here in the Forest. Knowing Zecora's wisdom I called forth Shinging Armor and his best Guardsmen to accompany me in investiagting the Tear. When we arrived Zecora was nowhere to be found, the the magical occurance she talked about was here in this clearing. I tried to seal it with my magic, but I was unable to effect it. Rather than take the chance of letting grow unchecked I wanted you girls to weild the Elements of Harmony and stop the Tear before it could cause any damage to Equestria. But now...it's vanished."

The girls all look at their Princess in a mixture of worry and curiosity. THey have no idea what to make of all this and resort to looking at eachother speechlessly.

"B-beasts..."

The wounded guard limps over toward the Princess and the six ponies. Shinging Armor tries to hold him back, but the Wounded Guard fights to move forward.

"From the Tear...strange beasts came through the Tear. They had four legs, but only walked on two. They held these strange black sticks...one of them made a loud noise and hurt my leg. Th-then the Beasts ran into the f-forest...I've heard the noise from their black sticks again..."

The Wounded Guard tries to speak more, but his words are begining to slur and his warnings are now incoherant babbling. Princess Celestia's eyes look even more worried than before. The creatures of the Everfree forest had always been feared in Equestria, but these new beasts seemed to be bearing weapons of some sort. This is exactly what she had feared.

"Guards. You've heard their description. These Bi-pedial Beasts of the Tear will not roam free under my watch. From what we now know their weapons make a loud enough noise to be tracked. Shining Armor will give you further orders."

The Royal Guards salute their Princess and proceed to turn their attention to Shining Armor. The Princess looks back to the girls with a serious look on her face.

"I know this is asking much of you girls, but I would like you all to accompany the Royal Guard on their search. You're all powerful weilders of the Elements of Harmony, plus with your previous feats having you around will boost morale."

Twilight bows in front of the Princess and the rest of the girls follow suit.

"We'd be honored Princess."

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"Well lookie here! Horses! I think."

Agent Orange looks through a pair of binoculars at what seems to be a massive gathering of pastel colored horses. He can't begin to belive what he's looking at. Some of them even seem to be wearing armor. And it almost looks like they're talking.

"What?"

Ray looks up in disbelif before looking through his own binoculars.

"No way...how...I don't even..."

A devious smile appears on Agent Orange's face as he puts down his binoculars and brandishes his gun. Ray is too captivated by the horses in the clearing to notice.

"Man, I havn't gone hunting in years!"

"H-hunting?"

Ray turns his head at Arnold as his lines up a shot. His eyes go wide as he charges at his partner, aiming to take him down before he can fire. He collids with Arnold as the shot goes off. It's deafening sound echos througout the forest causing a series of birds to fly off in terror.

A single scream of pain echoes from down in the clearing.

End Chapter 2