Friends...

Date: July-15-2015…

Location: Outskirts of ponyville…

POV: Cpl. Adrian Shephard…

Time: 0700 hours…

“Okay so, if I had one superpower, what would it be…” I asked myself as I walked down the one dirt path towards the large farm I saw off in the distance back on the hill. The sun once again was out bright and early, and clouds were nowhere to be seen, luckily the morning wasn’t as hot as I was expecting. But, like every summer day, it would get hotter later in the afternoon, which would get bothersome. I choose to keep my full kit on, including mask, to hide my identity. Luckily due to the advanced nature of my equipment, my filters were self cleaning, and they only activated when toxins were identified. If none were present, air passage was just allowed through. Plus the mask doubled as my HUD. All systems were reading green, my suits battery was at full, and my health was at 100 percent. Ammunition for my M4A1 was reading full, so I was content for the time being.

I had left my campsite early in the morning before the sun came up. I figured if I was gonna get anywhere in this new world I was gonna have to meet the locals eventually. So, instead of them coming to me, I would go to them instead.

“Superpower, super… power… Hmmm,” I thought to myself. To keep my mind flowing with thought I constantly kept asking myself random questions. It helps me focus on things, strangely enough, my eyes darted from left to right watching the hills on either side of me, along with the occasional tree.

“Oh, the ability to see and feel heart beats, definitely. Cause, considering my line of work, it could help in situations like this, or tight corridors, and lots of rooms. But I guess it’s not like anyone in my old squad would believe me if I said I could see people, that nobody else can see, you know until it’s too late. Hell, if I could prove it I might get sent to some lab, and have experiments run on me, like some kind of Deadpool experiments… make me live forever, er something…” I said waving my hand around in circles. “Or maybe… invisibility…” I thought.

“Nah… cause if it was only my body that turns invisible, than my equipment and clothing would have to go… and I wouldn’t feel like walking around in the nude inside an enemy compound. Now if it was anything I was wearing, and me, then things would be different. Wait, I thought we had something like that in development… or something. Ah whatever.” I said to myself.

This constant cycle of thinking, talking, and walking kept my spirits up. Soon, about a half an hour had passed, and the trees were beginning to thicken, and grow apples. Soon a white fence appeared keeping path walkers away from the trees, so I knew I had finally reached the farm. It looked to have just been painted, it’s paint, untouched by even the wind. It almost looked like a scene from a post card.

“So… I was right… apples huh? Wonder if they make cider here, like good cider, none of that frozen shit, good hot cider. That reminds me of that one apple orchard back in california… you wouldn’t think apples could grow their but, somehow some way, there were. I went there one day while I was on leave with a few of my teammates and we picked apples nearly the whole day… Then we found out that their was a worm infestation, and our apples were taken to find out where the worms were coming from. I never saw those apples again…” I said outloud while I watched the trees role by.

“Kolbert was pissed, he was gonna use half of our apples in a katapult he was building back at his house. I guess his objective was to launch them over in the field behind the school and hit targets… or kids... but then again, this is Kolbert were talking about here. He could’ve made grenades out of the damn things, and hid them back at the farm for people to find, that sick genius.” I said to myself as I threw my rifle over my back, and let it rest by it’s strap behind my right arm.

Soon the trees began to thicken even more, and finally they turned into rows. They were evenly spaced out, making them seem like they were copy and pasted into existence. The shadows of the leaves that hung over the path, made the path extra cool and darker, much darker. I started to feel uneasy, as if I wasn’t alone, like something was watching me. The darker it got, and the more sparse the light became made walking by myself seem very unlikely, I was being followed. I just knew it. Suddenly the snapping of a twig made my entire body fling into action. In a single motion, I grabbed my rifle, turned around and aimed it at the noise, and of course it looked like nothing was their.

“Yeah, okay…” I said as I moved slowly toward the source of the twig. Each foot step precisely made, avoiding sources of noise, like leaves, and sticks. Making my way to the white fence, I peaked over it, to see a small branch snapped in half. It wasn’t small enough for a squirrel to break, but not big enough not to break in the first place. Which means, the animal, or alien that broke it isn’t too small, and not to big. Jumping the fence, I quickly aimed my gun around the other side of the tree. Completely circling the tree, I found myself on the other side of the fence looking at the tree from the south side.

“Okay, where did you go… I know the branch couldn’t have fallen, because it’s broken in the center, and only a foot can do that.” I turned around to see the trees of the orchard lapping on for miles, rolling over the hills. Maybe whatever it was, had run off.
But just as I had turned around back to the path, something began to rustle in the tree above me. It caught me off guard, but I aimed my rifle up at it anyway, and took off the safety.

“Hiding in the trees, huh… You’re fast, i'll give you that, but you're not smart enough to out think me,” I said out loud so that, whatever was in the tree, could hear me clear as daylight, “Look, if you come in peace, then you have nothing to worry about, I won't hurt you if you won't hurt me.” Saying this I turned the safety back on and held up my hand, with my rifle pointing upwards towards the cloudless sky. To be honest with myself, if whatever hadn’t moved I would have probably kept on going.

Slowly but surely, a little, equine head poked out of the branches. It had yellow fur, and a curly red mane. It looked terrified, so making her feel better, I slowly put down my gun, and removed my helmet and mask. My face once again being exposed to the elements, the cool whispering wind, the smell of tree sap, and apples was strong as the wind blew in new air from the forest. It felt really good.

“See, I'm not gonna hurt ya, trust me, the last thing I would want to do right now is hurt you.” Without the robotic hue that my mask gave my voice, the horse came out all little more and smiled. I would be lying if I didn’t think the little tree pony was cute. The way her head just seemed to pop out of the leaves, was almost funny.

“Howdy their Mr, uh, mah names Applebloom! What’s your name?” She said. To hear it speak was honestly interesting, but to hear it speak english, was another thing. But then again, I’ve seen some pretty strange shit in my time, especially back at Black Mesa.

“Oh, my name? My name is Adrian Shephard, Corporal Adrian Shephard, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” I said back. “I assume you live here on this farm?” I ask pointing towards the roof of a barn off in the distance. She looks over and nodded quickly.

“Yes sir, that their be Sweet Apple Acres. The greatest apple orchard this side of Equestria.” When Applebloom said, ‘in all of Equestria’ she lifted one of her hoofs through the tree, and when this happened, she began to wiggle, and the branch she was on snapped.

‘Oh shit!’ I thought as I watched the filly tumble out of the tree. Quickly, I dug my boots into the ground and pushed off with my arms wide open, attempting to catch the falling pony. As she successfully fell into my arms, I pivoted my body in such away, so that instead of slamming into the tree, I instead fell onto my back, with Applebloom, on top, so I didn’t fall on her. I hit the ground with an audible thud as my head slammed to the dirt, luckily the fall wasn’t higher, otherwise I’d be risking a concussion. The little horse was a bit heavier than I thought, for when I hit the ground, all the air in my lungs, got knocked out of me.

I felt like someone had gut punched me with a 18 wheeler. Now here I lay, staring at the sky, dazed and confused. I lifted my left arm into the air and gave a thumbs up, and with my first new breath I said,

“I'm, good… Applebloom you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m alright, thanks for catching me Adrian.” I heard her say, hearing that I let my arm flop back down to the ground. I saw her face appear in front of me and cover up my vision as her orange eyes and red mane covered up the sky.

“You okay to walk Mr. Shephard, you hit the ground pretty hard.” She asks with a confused look on her face. I shook my head yes, and smiled.

“Trust me, I’ve done much worse, now, if you wouldn’t mind…” I said moving around a bit,

“Oh, right, guess I'm not helping right now am I…” She said, before she jumped off my chest, leaving me gasping for air. Regaining my composure. I walked back over to gather my helmet, gas mask, and rifle. After re connecting my mask to the rest of the PCV I came back over to Applebloom who had been watching me this whole time.

“Why do you wear that there, mask?” She asked as I got close. To be quite honest, security reasons, was I gonna tell her that… nope.

“Uh, it… looks cool?” I said shrugging my shoulders. She tilted her head then began circling me, then when she came full circle, she nodded.

“Yeah okay.” She said back. “So where are you from Adrian, and what are you, I’ve never seen anything like you before?” She asked sitting down on her hind legs. I took a knee to get down close to her again.

I knew this time would have to come adventually. So, the likelyhood of them knowing what I was, was very unlikely, so I told her the truth.
“Well, the scientific term for me is Homo sapien, but I’m more commonly known as a Human. I hale from the planet Earth, very dull name I know… means dirt… and their was about 8 billion humans their, last time I checked… give or take a few billion now since it’s probably at war with an alien race… maybe, I don’t know.” I said shaking my head in confusion. She had raised a brow at me.

“So, yer not from Equestria huh? So that means, you’re an Alien?” She said getting up off her hind legs and getting closer to my mask.

“Yeah, I guess you can say that, but to me, you're the alien, and regarding how I got here, I have no clue, and I will probably never know for sure.” I said sitting on the ground, cross leg style.

We sat there in the summer sun, underneath that apple tree for a good hour talking about our worlds, and how different they are. She told me about the Princesses counsel, and I told her about the United Nations, she told me about magic, and I told her about technology. By the time 0835 rolled around, we had talked about almost everything, even the fact that I was a Marine. At first she was uneasy about me being a “killing machine”, but I guess she warmed up to it cause she never mentioned it again.

I was just about to ask where her parents were when she hit me with an idea she cooked up.

“Hey! you know what? We're friends right?” She asked bumping my left arm.

“Uh, yeah… yeah I guess we are.” I said back straightening up in my seat.

“How about we do what friends do, and introduce each others friends, come on, follow me!” She said getting up and taking off through the apple trees.

"Oh great… here we go." I said getting up off the ground and quickly following her into the rows of trees.