War, Friendship, and Crisis: The Tale of a Torn World

As Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie ventured from their dropship to General Solk’s office, a few thoughts and questions about the invasion bounced from one pony to another.

“So, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash started with a head turn, “what happened at Sugarcube Corner? I went over to check it out, but some of those demons broke in or attacked me. Did they foalnap you or something?”

“Yup,” Pinkie Pie responded. “They only took me for some reason. Right after I saw them, they threw me into a cage and took me to the Everfree Forest. I also saw a few more two-legged things–” she pointed her front left hoof at a passing soldier “–like him!”

The soldier glanced at her for a second before shrugging back to his walk.

“Anyway,” Pinkie continued,” they entered Sugarcube Corner and beat up a few of these, demons. Wait a second...”

Pinkie Pie hopped to another soldier passing by the pony trio. “Hey mister, did you find a small, toothless alligator in one of the buildings in Ponyville?”

“Uh, yes actually!” the soldier responded with a smile shielded by glass. “I think it’s located in sector H-05.”

Pinkie zipped over to the sector and returned to her friends with a toothless alligator in her tail. “I can’t believe they saved Gummy! These soldiers are really nice!”

“I don’t like their helmets,” Rainbow Dash mumbled after exiting earshot of the walking soldier. “They make them look like angry machines.”

The pony trio reached their destination after Rainbow mumbled a few more opinions about the soldiers. They entered Solk’s office, standing as usual. The general sat in his desk and examined papers with statements like I quit, where’s the fighting, and I want a raise. A stack of official documents settled next to a cup of scalding hot coffee and waited for Solk to finish reading the employee papers.

“Did the eggheads find something interesting for us?” Rainbow asked, breaking Solk’s concentration.

“Actually, yes,” Solk replied with a relieved sigh. “The scientists found a strange reading in our world. They’re calling it an ED Anomaly, but they really have no idea what the hell it means or is.”

Twilight added more attention to Solk’s words. “Wait, your world?”

“Yes, our world. Your mission doesn’t involve your Equestria this time. Luckily for you, the readings have been listed as benign, meaning that you three can rest up before you leave. Be careful when you’re on this mission. We might be powerful and advanced, but so is the wildlife and crime in our world. If you aren’t careful, a random bandit or animal might make all of you history.”

“How is the wildlife dangerous?” asked Rainbow Dash. “Is it like the Everfree Forest’s animals?”

“Well, I don’t have that much of an idea on how dangerous animals in Equestria are, but I can give a general idea of what we have. There are beetles as bigger than children that cling to trees and wait for someone to come close. There are creatures smaller than dogs that will eat anyone they see alive by hunting in packs and tearing away all of their flesh with razor-sharp teeth. There are even predators a little bigger than you three that suck the bodily fluids and organs out of their prey. If you ever do come across any of these things, Travis will tell you how to deal with them.” Solk glanced at the unarmored and unequipped Pinkie to his front right. He held a communication chip in his open hand. “Oh yeah, you might want to wear this.”

Pinkie took the chip and examined it with magnified eyes. She handed it back to him three seconds later. “I don’t need it.”

“Why?”

“Because I can hear him well without it—duh!”

Solk questioned Pinkie with an inquisitive stare, but he dropped the stare to return to explaining more important matters. “Alright, you three go and get some rest. If you ever need it, the armorer has some new armor built specifically for ponies.”

Twlilight recalled a small detail and pulled out her other set of armor. “Speaking of armor, this is for you, Pinkie.”

Pinkie grabbed the floating armor and rolled it around for a quick overview. “Wow, this looks pretty strong! Thanks, Twily!”

“You can also thank the human in the armory as well. He’s the one who crafted it.”

After studying the build and clamps for twenty seconds, Pinkie unlocked and squirmed into the armor pieces. After putting every piece on and shoving her head into the helmet, she clamped and locked the armor into one big suit. She tested its capabilities by bending her body into various positions. After attempting to roll up into a ball, she discovered that the armor required much more flexibility.

“This won’t do,” Pinkie grunted as she returned from being a living U. " I need something that’s more for me.”

“Then let’s go to the armory.” Twilight led her friends out the door to let Solk enjoy his grueling paperwork and searing coffee.

After a few quick turns through the maze of halls, the pony trio arrived at and entered the armory. The same man who repurposed three GEST Corp. Suits smiled at the ponies and set a chest piece to the side. “Welcome back! I see you also have your friend, too.”

“Solk told us that you have some new armor for ponies,” Twilight started with a trot to the counter, “so we’re here to take some.”

“Alright. Let me see what you three have first.” After counting an earth pony, a pegasus, and a unicorn, the armorer walked over to a restocked section of the shelves and lifted three armor suits to the table. He took out a paintbrush and paint from the counter’s drawers and painted a colored stripe corresponding to the owner on each of the helmets. “Here’s one for each of you. Unlike the last set of suits I cobbled, these ones are more flexible and roomier while maintaining the same durability, protection, and setup as the last ones. They also have a Teslatech brand Nil Weight Box attach to their left sides to provide more storage capacity without hindering agility. Plus, they finally have visors, built in communication chips, and HUDs for health, ammunition, and transmissions.”

Twilight and Rainbow unlocked their armor and removed every piece of it. Pinkie unlocked and removed hers a little later, but she was the first to test the new armor after snatching her new suit and handing her old one. She put on and locked the new armor and planted the improved helmet onto her head. After finishing the set, she marveled at the health gauge and unnecessary ammo counter. She concluded with rolling herself into a ball. Unlike the last suit, she succeeded and rolled into a wall behind her.

“Ooh, it does feel more spacious, and comfortable,” mused Twilight as she shook a hind leg. “And my mane doesn’t feel crammed into my helmet anymore.”

“That’s because I added a small slit at the top of the helmet,” answered the armorer. “Your manes will ignore your helmets and remain how they should be.”

Before anything else could be said, an upbeat chime caught everyone’s attention and introduced a blank toned voice. “Attention all ponies, Ponyville has been recently cleared and rebuilt by our teams. Transport ships have been prepared for your departure, and all of you have been signed out from the refugee list. Thank you for staying at the ED Space Station and using GEST Corp. Services. We hope your departure is safe and reassuring.”

“Well, that’s our cue to go,” Rainbow proposed as she flew to the door. “Twilight, let’s get back home.”

“Thanks for all the armor, mister!” Pinkie left the armorer a smile and followed her friends out the door.

“We should find Spike and ride with him,” Twilight suggested after arriving at a familiar lobby for the third time. With one eye sweep, she found Spike waiting yet again near a gateway. She and her friends approached him and checked the area for a nearby dropship.

“Are we going home now?” Spike asked, eager to finally leave the cosmic complex of metal.

“Yes, we are. Remember that we have quite a few things to do once we return to Ponyville.”

“I know. I’m just glad we don’t have to stay in this weird place anymore.”

The group of four walked through the gateway and to a soldier directing ponies to various dropships. He glanced at the group and pointed a finger to a vacant dropship. They entered it, took a seat, and waited for their departure. After eight ponies boarded and sat in the aircraft, the pilot activated the engine, ascended the aircraft above the ground, and flew into the airlock chamber. Once the door behind the dropship shut and the door ahead opened, the group soared back to the planet’s surface.

•—————•

After a short and busy half of a day and a night of somewhat peaceful sleep, Twilight opened an eye at the invading sunlight and wiggled her way out of bed. After remembering yesterday, she held a hope that the demons were only a figment of her imagination. However, one sight of her GEST Corp. Brand armor washed all her hopes away.

“Good, my friends being taken actually happened,” sighed Twilight with a waking yawn. She nudged Spike’s curled body with a hoof and levitated her armor onto her body. “Get up, Spike. We’re going to be busy today.”

Spike groaned and opened his eyes to halfway. “Was it all a dream?” One look at Twilight’s armored body told him a certain nope. He rose to his feet and rubbed away his sleep. “What do we have to do, other than, you know?”

Twilight wrote down a checklist full of check boxes on a scroll. “While I go and do something for the humans, you have to take care of the library. There are also a few things I need you to do, like buy more food and quill ink. Do you have it covered, Spike?”

“Yeah, I do. Is there a specific time you have to leave?”

“Uhh, maybe, but if I remember, what I’m investigating is benign, So I think I can practice a few spells before I need to go.”

“If you’re going to practice something like what you did to that one guy, please do it outside. I really don’t want to rebuild any of the treehouse today.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” Twilight assured as she handed the list to Spike.

Twilight walked downstairs and poured herself a bowl of oaty cereal. After she sat down at a table and shoved a spoonful of cereal into her mouth, Spike walked down the stairs and shot a confused glance at her. “Um, Twilight, why do you need five heaps of metal? And where do I even find them?”

Twilight swallowed her oats and turned to him. “I need to know that metal can be used for. The humans told me that they dumped some metal on Equestria, so I’d like to study it and see what it can be used for. Also, there are some heaps in the Everfree Forest, Canterlot, and right here in Ponyville. Collect the heaps here first, then buy a ticket to Canterlot and collect the ones there. For the ones in the Everfree, I’d advise you to ask Princess Celestia for some protection.”

“What about these humans you keep bringing up? Don’t they have really powerful soldiers?”

Twilight chewed another spoonful to mush. “Yes, but they have more important tasks to do. The royal guards don’t do much during their shifts, so Princess Celestia might let you borrow some for a while.” She turned her head to a blank scroll and a quill sitting on the table. She levitated them both to Spike and filled her mouth with her spoon again.

“Oh, right, you have to write the letter.”

Twilight swallowed the last spoon of cereal and set her dishes in the kitchen. “Okay, ready?” Once she saw a nod, she cleared her throat and stood up from her seat. “Dear Princess Celestia, I know that you might still be worried about what just happened yesterday, but there are a few things I discovered that you might find either helpful or comforting to hear. When I encountered these monsters called demons, I noticed a few characteristics about them that may show their culture or how they are ranked. They all use different weapons, which I find interesting because most armies, especially yours, use order, symmetry, and sameness. They, along with these other creatures they fight called humans, speak our language. I don’t know how they know it, but there must be a proper explanation for this occurrence. The demons also like to wear armor that should be too heavy for them to wear, and they respond to fire as if it is their ultimate weakness. They are reckless in battle and like glorifying death to a disturbing degree. They don’t even flinch when they kill a human or hurt a pony either physically or mentally.

As with the humans, they seem to be more trustworthy and less prone to killing than the demons. They act like us and talk like us, minus a few mannerisms and scales of emotion they possess. Their leader, General Solk as he is called, thinks that my friends and I are very important because we are the Elements of Harmony. However, the demons also know this, too, which is why they imprisoned Pinkie Pie inside a cage in the Everfree Forest. Their soldiers have unnatural technology beyond what I thought was possible. They even have a floating space station very high up in the sky that all of Ponyville’s residents had to stay in for hours!

One last thing I want to share with you is a lesson I learned after fighting the demons for a while. It may not exactly be a friendship lesson, but it is a lesson I can learn from. I learned that with creatures like these, I need to use my abilities to fend them off. Negotiation or peace will not work. Also, what I consider the friendship portion of this lesson, my friends might have some other abilities that could help me combat these demons. Rainbow Dash used her flight and athletic strength to help me defeat creatures I otherwise couldn’t face alone. For example, this one demon that shot me with what I believe to be electricity had to be distracted and injured by Rainbow Dash so that I could fire a fire spell into it and prevent it from hurting us any further.

I would tell much more to you, but I think Spike’s hand is cramping up from all the writing. I hope that I helped you form a plan that could protect Equestria from any future invasions by these demons. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Spike ended the letter with a final quill stroke and massaged his claw. “Thanks for ending it there.”

“No problem.” Twilight trotted to the front door and pulled it open. “Send the letter and start on the list. I’m going to practice my magic out here for a while.”

With dragon breath and the slam of a door, Twilight left the treehouse and searched for an area to practice her magic. She spotted nothing but cottages—things she wanted to avoid practicing near—and continued down the road.

Her continuation continued until she reached a bouncing cotton roadblock in the vicinity of Sugarcube Corner. “Hey, Twilight, I have something that you’ll really like!”

“What is it?” Twilight asked, interested in this something.

“It’s a new type of cupcake I just baked five minutes ago! It’ll help us a lot on our adventures!”

“Okay, let me see it.”

“Alright! Hold up for just one second!”

Pinkie zipped to Sugarcube Corner and back to Twilight with a plate full of orange and yellow frosted cupcakes. “Here they are! Do you have anything to hurt yourself?”

“No, why would I have something like that?”

“Do you mind if I make a little bruise somewhere on you?”

“Of course I would! I’m not hurting myself for anything.”

“How about if I cut a piece of your mane off?”

“No! Why do you want to hurt me so badly?”

“These cupcakes are made to heal wounds like that! I wanted to test them out on you to see if they work like how they’re supposed to.”

“I’m not testing your cupcakes by hurting myself,” Twilight declined. “Now, I need to practice my spells a bit more for our next mission.”

Twilight walked around Pinkie and continued onward to find a good testing spot; however, the same roadblock stopped her once again. “Well, if you need to practice your magic, and I need to test my cupcakes, how about you practice on yourself and eat one of my cupcakes?”

“Nice idea, but no.” Twilight walked around Pinkie, only to be stopped again.

“Do you want there to be a chance that when we ever need these that they’ll not work?”

“Well, um, not really...”

“Then how about you hurt yourself and test them? That way, you get some practice and know that these cupcakes aren’t useless!”

Twilight, knowing that she’ll be stopped again, agreed to the act of suicide. “Fine. Let’s find a spot away from other ponies to do this, though.”

“Fine by me!”

The pony duo traveled further down the streets and to a small field void of other ponies. Pinkie sat down next to a tree and held out the platter of cupcakes in front of her. Twilight stood in the field and glanced down at herself. I can’t believe I agreed to hurt myself, thought Twilight with an eye turn to the patient Pinkie. Well, here it goes.

Twilight conjured a ball of magical energy from her horn and aimed for her chest. She hesitated with a few hoof shifts around the grass and a gulp of air, but after seeing an encouraging—or forceful—stare from Pinkie, she closed her eyes and unleashed the magic upon herself.

Her body sailed from her standing location into a hill sitting next to a cottage. She smacked the ground with enough force to crack a few bones in her face and legs. Once she stopped rolling down the hill, she curled around the grass and felt the overwhelming pain seizing control of her body. The blunt yet unbearable pain from the magic added with the agonizing cracked bones, bloody scrapes, and draining open wound from said cracked bones forced her to wailing and tears.

Pinkie stood up from her tree and galloped to Twilight’s side. Although Twilight’s wounds kept themselves concealed under her armor, the leaking tears and blood provided enough evidence for Pinkie. Just watching the convulsing and sobbing suit of armor drip blood from its visor struck her with pain and a heavy load of guilt.

“Pinkie, call for help, please,” pleaded Twilight through her sobbing.

“I think it’s a really good time to use these,” Pinkie rejected after staring at her treats. “Open wide, Twily, I’ll help you.”

Pinkie unlocked and opened the helmet to reveal Twilight’s blood-stained and teary face. A deep cut on her forehead revealed a section of her cracked skull, and a few drops of blood spurting from her mouth splashed onto the grass. Pinkie opened Twilight’s mouth, causing more unwanted pain, and shoved a cupcake into her mouth. Pinkie moved twilight’s jaw up and down and forced a swallow.

Twilight felt a tingling sensation once the pastry crawled into her stomach. The cracks in her bones faded with the addition of new bone cells, and the deep or shallow cuts filled with new muscle and skin. A new purple coat grew on the new skin, reversing all the damage caused by the collision and magic.

Twilight stopped crying after the pain melted off her body. She got back up at a sluggish pace and both smiled and frowned at Pinkie. “Thanks for the help, but what I had to feel just to test your healing cupcakes isn’t worth it to help you.”

“When I asked for you to hurt yourself, I didn’t mean break your legs and skin.” Pinkie looked at her hooves and swaying mane with a sigh. “I’m so so sorry I pushed you like that. I promise that I’ll never, ever do it again.” Pinkie thought about that for a few seconds and shook her head. “You know what, that’s not enough. I Pinkie Promise that I’ll never do it again.” Pinkie performed the necessary movements—minus shoving a healing cupcake into her eye. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“It’s my fault that happened, not yours. I overdid the magic and hurt myself. You don’t have to beat yourself up, too.” Twilight turned her head to a GEST Corp. Dropship descending somewhere in Ponyville. She levitated her helmet back onto her head and locked it back onto the suit. “Let’s get ready for our mission and forget about this, okay?”

“Okay, but let me suit up, first.” Pinkie galloped into a gap between two cottages and disappeared from sight. Twilight trotted her way through the same gap and searched the streets for the dropship. After twenty more seconds of wandering and looking, she discovered the dropship sitting beside the town hall. Rainbow Dash, shoving a metal boot onto her left foreleg, hovered down to the ramp and clamped the boot onto her armor. Pinkie arrived in her battle armor and hopped over to Rainbow.

“Just so you know, I baked some yummy treats just in case those monsters hurt you.” Pinkie presented her platter of cupcakes and stuck it into her Nil Weight Box. “They’re only for emergencies, though, not for basic eating!”

“You should also know that I’ve been practicing my fighting,” Rainbow noted. “If some big freak ever tries to hurt you, I’ve got your back.”

“Is everypony ready?” asked Twilight as she placed one hoof onto the ramp. Two nods moved her hooves further up the ramp and onto a seat. Her friends joined her, watched the ramp door rise and shut itself, and braced for ascension.

•—————•

To the trio’s surprise, the dropship refused to land in the ED Space Station. Instead, it darted towards a circular gateway hanging from the station’s side. Inside the gateway swirled a blue soup of shifting colors and appearing and disappearing aircraft.

Once the dropship slammed through the colors and away from the cosmic traffic, the three ponies checked their surroundings. Their jaws dropped, and their pupils shrunk after witnessing a sight that they never imagined before: two suns surrounding one planet similar to theirs, yet drastically different. The planet’s continents and bodies of water differed in shape and size, and the moon that orbited it was covered in varying craters. As the dropship neared the planet, more landforms and structures appeared on the continents, including a massive island coated in a wide selection of biomes.

“This is Andromeda,” the pilot informed with a gruff voice. “That island down there is New Jaminino Island. We’ll drop you off in the metropolis located near the anomaly, and you’ll have to do the walking from then on. If we drop you off in open air or on bare ground, we’ll get shot down or raided by bandits or hostile scouts. Stay sharp and don’t lose focus on what you need to do.”

The pony trio nodded and faced the ramp door. The aircraft landed on a circular helipad and lowered its ramp door. The ponies walked down to the helipad and surveyed their surroundings. Gigantic skyscrapers with domes for ceilings and singular antennas pointing out of them filled the airspace and covered acres of land. Streets beside the skyscrapers and a few smaller buildings bustled with the company and rapid traffic of self-controlled, metallic automobiles. Their sleek and reflective designs almost covered the entire road.

Crowds of humans—not soldiers—walked down the sidewalks, conversing with others or entering or exiting the various buildings. Some people who focused on their communication chips, smartphones, or tablets ignored the three ponies with manes and faces contrasting from the shiny grays, dull blacks, and slick blues that paled in comparison to them. A few more observant people stopped or slowed, angering a few others or generating some disgruntled grunts and moans, and stared at the trio as if they were divine beings or a rare breed of dog. Pinkie gazed through the rows of humans and gave smiles and waves to the staring ones, and Twilight analyzed their clothing and faces. Rainbow, her attention being directed away from the people surrounding her, grumbled and growled at the two humans on the other side of the road.

“Ya really wanna go, punk?” threatened a man wearing a pair of jeans and a gray washed out, short-sleeved shirt.

“What’d you expect after calling me a bitch?” lashed another man wearing glasses and a navy blue business suit.

“I dunno, you getting the fuck outta my face like I first said!”

The suited man clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. “My shoulder scraped you for less than a second! You can’t tell me to ditch my report just because of that!”

The first man pulled out and brandished a butterfly knife, driving a few curious people back a few feet. “If you don’t fuck off right now, I’m gonna make sure ya crawl to your shitty report!”

“I’m going there and that’s final!” The businessman pulled out a pocket knife and pointed it at the other man. “Who says that you own this sidewalk anyway?”

“Alright, c’mere, faggot!”

“Knock it off, right now!” Before the two men could gut each other, Rainbow Dash pulled them away from each other and smacked their knives onto the sidewalk. She turned to the businessman and poked a hoof into his chest. “You, go to your report!” She then turned to the other man and shoved him back a few inches. “And you, take a hike!”

After Rainbow returned to her friends, the two men glared at each other. The first man rubbed the back of his neck and checked himself. “So, is it just me, or did a strange blue horse in GEST Corp. Armor just yell at us?”

“That definitely happened,” answered the businessman after glancing at the pony trio. The rest of the people around him focused on the ponies as well.

“Y’know, I’m just gonna go home and look up what the hell just happened. You go to whatever that damn thing is.”

The two men parted ways and returned to their lives, but the crowd still stared at the pony trio. Pinkie shared more smiles and waves, Twilight studied the now intrigued people, and Rainbow sighed her relief into place.

After walking for a few more blocks and passing a crossroads, Twilight and company reached a massive gateway with a lengthy and almost vacant road stretching out of it. The rest of the area beyond the gateway was rolling hills and steep cliffs covered in grass and a few twisty and bendy trees scattered hundreds of feet from each other. A few random animals, such as eyeless creatures with scaly skin, two feet in height, hundreds of minuscule fangs, two stumpy legs, and three sets of clawed arms, prowled the fields in search of other animals or delectable foliage. In the far distance lay a sky of stone grays and watery blues that veiled the distant twin stars.

“Alright you three,” Travis, returning to guide the trio, started with a voice of glass, “This is the Alplandia Plains. Your destination is south of this gate—meaning you need to go left—and inside the Crypt of Havili. Inside that crypt is an odd signal coming from your world, and GEST Corp. Would like to know what to do about it.”

“I hope we don’t run into anything crazy,” Twilight murmured.

“Well, those two humans back there were fighting for some stupid reason,” Rainbow Dash added. “If anything worse than those two meets us, I don’t think befriending them will be an option.”

“Well,” Travis continued, “the probabilities of that happening are high. Virtually, the entire planet is hostile.”

“That’s reassuring.” Twilight gulped down her worry and turned her head to the plains. “Alright, it’s best we get going now. Come on, girls. Warn me if something sneaks up on us.”

•—————•

After half an hour of trotting through grass and avoiding any hostile fauna, the three ponies discovered an encampment composed of tattered and reused materials for its makeshift tents. Travis feared for the ponies’ lives once he glanced at the green flag showing an iron helmet and dagger.

“Stay clear of that area,” he warned. “That’s a bandit hideout, and what is Pinkie doing now?”

Pinkie Pie hopped down the hill and towards the assortment of tents. Twilight gained an extra pound of worry on her head and took a step forward. Rainbow held a foreleg in front of her and cupped her hooves around her mouth. “Pinkie, what the hay are you doing? Did you even hear Travis?”

“I did hear him,” Pinkie responded with a quick head turn and another hop. “I just wanna teach these meanies what friendship and laughter are!”

“That is not a good idea! Just come back here and–”

Her voice cut off as the tents wobbled and flipped their door flaps open. A dozen humans bearing metal plating and scraped GEST Corp. Armor and holding unorthodox guns of unique builds leaned out of the small openings. They all glared at Pinkie, scratched their heads, or narrowed their eyes.

“What’s that thing supposed to be?” asked one of the humans who had some stubble on his face. He wore a beanie torn on its right side and held a pistol with a blade attached to the barrel. The words skull ripper in orange clung onto its side.

Another human with sunglasses and two beefy arms with multiple tattoos cracked his knuckles as he handed a menacing grin to the little pony. “Heh heh, this thing’s either a big bag o’ money or a tasty eat.”

“Uh, Twilight, I might need your help for this,” Pinkie whimpered as her smile melted into a frown of panic. Twilight charged her magic, ready to blast the bandits if they approach Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash questioned the ethics of hurting a human. She was fine with killing demons due to them being unliving beasts of war, but humans bled and lived. Should I kill them if they hurt us? she thought after watching a bandit cock its gun. They’re going to hurt us, but should I kill them? Despite her thoughts, she prepared for assault whenever the bandits demanded it.

“Hey boss,” started a bandit wearing steel gauntlets and holding a laser assault rifle, “what do ya want us to do with these things? They look like a rare species or somethin’.”

“Give ‘em some black eyes and haul ‘em off to the HRM.” a bulky and scar infested bandit replied with a guttural huff. “Those guys pay big bucks for things like this.”

Twilight fired a magical blast at the beefy bandit heading for Pinkie. He grunted away the pain, regained his senses, and ran behind a tent. Two more bandits cocked their laser assault rifles and aimed for Twilight. Unlike the ignorant novice demons, these bandits aimed as well as actual soldiers trained for battle. They fired their lasers at her, singing a piece of her mane and burning a slice of her right foreleg.

Twilight rubbed her right foreleg and dodged another batch of lasers. “Wait, I thought this armor is supposed to protect me!”

“It is.” Travis answered, “Your armor protects you from physical weaponry and bullets very well, but lasers will absorb into the armor and partially go through. This causes the laser to burn you.”

Rainbow Dash decided to attack after the laser volley. She slammed into one of the aiming bandits, caving in their chest cavity as smacked their head on the ground. The bandit curled up, held his hands to his chest, and gasped for air. Pinkie cartwheeled out of the attack zone and settled next to a tent.

The beefy bandit sprinted out of cover and towards Rainbow Dash. After reaching only ten feet from her, he raised his hands into a grappling position to take hold of and tear off her wings. Unfortunately for him, she acknowledged his presence after a few heavy stomps and countered his grapple with a sudden kick to the jaw. This fragmented three of his teeth and chipped four more, as well as smacking his brain into his cranium. Twilight, now focused on the aiming bandits, fired a blast at them. One of the bandits dropped their gun and cupped their right hand with the other.

“Sonuva bitch!” The injured bandit gave a death stare to Twilight and reached for his gun. “You’ll pay for that, asshole!”

Twilight sent another blast to the bandit, aiming for his chest this time. He dodged to the right and signaled a nearby bandit with a finger point to pick his gun up. The fellow bandit ducked under another magic blast, snatched the gun, and tossed it to the first bandit. They both aimed for Twilight a second time and burned three holes into her tail and grazed her left cheek with a burn. She led her next magic blast and successfully struck the first bandit’s chest. He stumbled for a second and aimed again, surprised to find Rainbow Dash pulling on his shirt collar. She kicked down the assault rifle and threw one knockout punch into the bandit’s face, crunching his nose and facial bones to permanent ruin and stealing his consciousness. He flopped next to the other’s feet and bled a small pool where his face resided.

“Hey, stay back, man!” the bandit warned with a hipfire miss. “I’ll go easy if you do fo–”

A double kick into his ribs answered his offer and smacked him onto the ground. He choked on and coughed out blood moments later, letting Rainbow resume beating the beefy bandit to submission. The skull ripper pistol bandit aimed for her and fired three lasers. One struck her right hind leg, and the other two missed her by less than an inch each. Another three lasers pushed her away from the beefy bandit and to the side of a tent. The pistol bandit, turning to the still out of cover Twilight, swung to the ground after meeting a quartet of hooves trample his torso and head. Two more hooves smashed his face in and introduced him to the Sandman.

“Alright, playtime’s over, freaks!” The scarred bandit reached into his tent and pulled out a gatling machine gun bigger than his already muscular arms. He pulled down the trigger and unleashed a storm of laser blasts into the battlefield. Pinkie, now finished punching the beefy bandit into unconsciousness, hopped off the bandit’s back and away from the hailfire of lasers. Twilight galloped down from the hill and used a tent to escape the lasers. A bandit hiding in the same area she chose kicked her backward and aimed for her head. She ripped the gun from his hands with a levitation spell and fired it back at his face ten times. She dropped the gun on the now Swiss cheese faced corpse and galloped away from another bandit’s lasers.

Rainbow Dash flew away from the scarred bandit’s rain and bumped into a bandit holding a burst fire pistol and a machete. The bandit dodged her first punch and grabbed onto her right hind leg. He held the machete up for a quick strike and failed after having it kicked out of his hand. He backed away and fired three lasers at Rainbow, hitting her left side once. She winced and pinned him to the ground, ending his life by stomping all four hooves into his ribs.

Pinkie rolled into a tent to escape the gunfire and encountered another bandit. This bandit cocked his bayoneted laser assault rifle and slashed it at her face. He succeeded, but the armor and visor downgraded the tear in flesh to a scratch on metal. She kicked the gun back into the bandit, resulting in the bayonet stabbing through his neck and trachea. She returned back outside to discover that the scarred bandit needed to cool down his machine gun. She seized this opportunity by kicking a bandit back to Rainbow’s prepared forelegs, stomping down on another’s head after flinging herself into the air, and landing right next to the scarred bandit. He grunted and flung a miss with his gun at her. She hopped around him and to his tent, pulling her party cannon out of it and preparing it for fighting. The bandit aimed for Pinkie and started up his gun again. However, one sudden blast of confetti to his face broke his control over the gun.

“Augh, damn it!” The scarred bandit flung his gun around and into the direction of two tents. The gunfire tore them and one hiding bandit apart. Rainbow Dash, finished teaching a cocky bandit not to duel the number one pegasus, hurled a storm cloud at the scarred bandit. When the electrified puff of dark gray smacked into his face, it unleashed all its electricity into him. The muscle spasms that followed threw his machine gun into a nearby bandit, crushing them from the force and weight of it. Twilight fired one more blast at him, hitting his neck and destroying what was left of his nervous system. He plummeted to the ground, forever paralyzed and near death. This final blow reanimated the ethics of fighting into Twilight and Rainbow’s minds.

“Travis,” Twilight started with a nudge to a bandit’s body, “are you sure we had to hurt these humans? This just doesn’t feel right, at all.”

Travis prepared an explanation after a few seconds of mumbling. “Well, it’s pretty much the base of our universe. Unlike your world where everything can be solved with minimal violence, we have to fight a constant war to assure peace to our citizens. Ever since we humans started building towns, some of us wanted to steal from them or tear them down. These bandits that you eliminated are an example of what wants to kill us right on our front lawn. They lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get whatever sum of afkins they desire. If you never fought back, they would either sell you or do some other action involving money or self-pleasure.”

“I’m still uneasy on killing them,” Rainbow Dash pressed onto Travis with narrowed eyes and a frown. “Why should we kill these guys if they’re like us? They might not see kindness as the proper choice, but I don’t think they deserve to die for it. The demons are a different topic. They’re heartless monsters that care more about hurting us than our lives.”

“When you put it that way, these bandits are pretty much the same, except they bleed.”

A thought about the past smacked Twilight Sparkle’s face. “Pinkie, did you mention a nice demon when we rescued you?”

“Of course!” Pinkie hopped around and turned to random tents and patches of dirt and sky. “He told a bunch of nice things about me like how my mane is pretty and that anypony that ever has me in their life would be very lucky. The other ones started yelling at him for something they called treachery. After they took him away, I never saw him again. I wonder where he went.”

“Then even the demons are like us” Rainbow Dash hovered in a circle, grumbling and flailing hooves in random directions. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this. They’re bad, but there’s good in some of them, too. I just can’t feel good about hurting something with feelings like this anymore.”

Travis shifted his tone to a dreaded seriousness. “You’ll have to get used to fighting for your life. Almost everything from our universe will kill on sight or disregard any morals. If you’re a foal, you’re dead. If you’re innocent, you’re dead. If you’re on their side, you’re dead. You have to fight to survive, but I’m not asking you to commit bloody genocide. Just stay yourselves and focus on what we need to do, okay?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged and calmed herself a few notches. “Alright, but no more humans, please.”

“As long as you avoid these bandit camps, you won’t have to fight them.”

With the discussion and questioning of slaying humans and demons finished, the pony trio left the camp and its sprawling casualties to its lonesome and returned to trekking through the rolling hills of Alplandia Plains.

•—————•

Pinkie Pie, leading the group by a dozen feet farther than Twilight, scanned the nigh endless rolling hills and lonely trees for anything that contrasted the shades of green and bluish grays. Just to her left by about fifty degrees, a foreign assortment of arches, pillars, walls, buildings, and statues surrounded a central structure with two slightly open bronze doors. Her eyes locked onto the contrasting stone and metal and bounced with a cautious yet still impatient gait. Her two friends, questioning the distant architecture, exchanged fearful faces and followed Pinkie.

As the structures neared the ponies’ eyes, their details and ancient aura developed. Twelve towers resembling spiraling pillars with statues on their top encircled and faced the central gateway to the unknown. These statues presented creatures with spherical bodies, two scrawny legs with minuscule three-toed feet, two long antennae with bulbous ends, gaping toothless maws, holes for nostrils and ears, and two bulging elliptical obsidian eyes as dark as the void. Swirly and twisty patterns and shapes decorated the architecture, and small illustrations in the form of etchings told stories through the actions and expressions of the same spherical creatures. Every structure integrated both marble and steel for their support and decor.

Twilight Sparkle marveled at the etchings, patterns, and sculptures, eyes wide with wonderment. Wow, an entire alien civilization that existed ages ago. I wish I brought a camera to show all this to Princess Celestia.

“Hey, uh, did anypony else feel that?” Rainbow Dash eased her sudden shivering with a wing wrap.

“Feel what?” Twilight asked after inspecting a dusty illustration.

“That weird rush of cold air.” Her body shivered a little more. “It feels like a freezer or something!”

“No. It feels warm to me.”

“Come over here and feel this. Maybe you have some answer.”

Twilight walked over to Rainbow and directed her attention to the air around her. At the same time Rainbow shivered again, she felt a rush of cold, dead air surround her entire body and force her to shivers. It was as if the underworld’s legions of dead exhaled one lifeless breath.

Twilight’s ears drooped down, along with her optimism. “Oh, I feel it, now.”

Pinkie broke Twilight’s concentration on the air with half a conversation. “Why thank you! You look great, too! No, I’m from another planet. No, not Earth, Equestria. Yup, Equestria with a quest in the middle! Maybe, but I’m not sure. Pinkie Pie, and you? Uh, I don’t know if I can pronounce that. How about I call you, Hemmie? Just a few healing cupcakes, really. No, I bake lotsa goodies! I baked pies, cakes, cupcakes, muffins, tarts, donuts, strudels, cupcakes, eclairs, macarons, shortcakes, cupcakes, cookies, rolls, crepes, and more! You probably misheard me. Every single thing I listed was different!”

“What are you doing, Pinkie?” questioned Twilight with a cocked head and unequally narrowed eyes.

“I’m talking to one of the natives! They’re really nice! They even have magic like you do, Twily!” Pinkie’s voice slowed and quieted. “They’re awfully cold and transparent too.”

Twilight shuddered at that last bit of information. Cold and transparent? They must be old spirits or something.

“This is your destination,” Travis informed. “You need to enter this crypt and discover what’s causing the signal. Hopefully, we find something nonhostile or too weak to fight.”

Twilight swallowed her growing fear and peered into the cold darkness. “Girls, let’s go. Watch out for dangerous creatures, and don’t go anywhere without all of us.”

Rainbow nodded as Pinkie turned back to the patch of air. “I need to go, now. I hope I gave you some needed company. Pinkie, not Binkie, silly!”

As the pony trio shuffled through the opening between the bronze doors, small lights on the sides of their helmets brightened the area to a reasonable brightness. The ever present marble and steel usage on the ceilings, floors, and walls presented its beauty and history no matter where the ponies traversed. Nothing in the halls wriggled, scuttled, or buzzed. Not even a tiny beetle, spider, or worm resided in any of the walls or rare cracks.

After a few minutes of slow and aimless wandering, Twilight and company found a few skeletons sitting in front of a wall. Their bodies resembled humans, and the worn and cracked armor they wore bore the common GEST Corp. Logo. Pinkie trembled and whimpered, but after humming a smiling tune, she regained her confidence and ease. The other two ponies remained in their shiver shells.

“Travis, why are there human skeletons down here?” Twilight asked through her chattering.

“We had an investigation in this crypt years ago,” Travis explained. “The squadron never came back, so this must be what’s left of them.” That response, instead of calming her, shook her eyes across the lifeless room.

The ponies continued down the crypt’s halls and discovered a bony equivalent of the sculpted creature from outside. Twilight levitated the skeleton with a shimmer from her horn. The bones rattled and pulled, attempting to resist her grasp. She dropped the bones with a shriek and a choir of thuds. They floated back into place and built the skeleton of one of the unknown creatures. Two glowing purple pupils in its huge eye sockets stared at her as it slowly moved its jaw up and down. A few more rattles filled the room once the skeleton illuminated, building more human and inhuman skeletons with blue pupils instead of purple ones. Swords slid out sheaths, staffs rose from the ground, and pieces of armor encased shifting bones. Twilight readied her magic blasts, Rainbow crouched down and waited to strike, and Pinkie raised her forelegs for striking.

The same inhuman skeleton Twilight levitated opened its mouth as wide as it could get and spoke in a sinister, dead, and distant voice. “Fresh souls.”

As it floated closer and closer to the trio, Rainbow kicked it in the front of its skull, fracturing it and leaving a hoof dent. Twilight fired at an approaching human skeleton wielding a broadsword and a heater shield. It blocked the attack with its shield and walk a few more steps forward. Pinkie attempted to hoof punch the incoming skeletons, but she found herself dodging blades and elemental projectiles instead. After a few unsuccessful hits, Twilight grunted and unleashed a wave of magic around the hallway, throwing all the skeletons back onto the ground. They disassembled and mixed into random piles, but they reassembled back into their original forms and continued walking and fighting.

“How do we defeat these things?” Twilight asked steps away from screaming. She ducked under a blast of ice and dodged a dagger stab.

“Just like all other spirit-based creatures,” Travis informed, “these creatures don’t really die. The only way to stop them is to weaken their spirit by damaging their physical form. If they lose enough power, they cannot animate their own corpses.”

The twitching and slothful movement of the skeletons continued as they surrounded the trio. Desperate to protect her friends, Rainbow Dash bucked into a skeleton’s shield, knocking them to the ground. Twilight decided that area of effect attacks are the most effective and pushed down the restless dead with another wave of magic. The skeletons collapsed once more, but only some—not all—returned to fighting. The ones that stayed stagnant lost their blue pupils. The initial inhuman skeleton grabbed the weaponry from the downed skeletons and spun them around its body, threatening to stab the ponies if they dared to use melee. Pinkie smashed a skeleton’s skull into pieces, reducing it to a pile of bones. Twilight, noticing that another skeleton let its guard down, fired a magic blast at it. The skeleton exploded into fragments and ceased its movement.

“Trespassers will be stripped of their souls,” wheezed the initial skeleton. Its blue glow brightened, illuminating the dark passageway more than wanted. Noticing that it did not shield itself against ranged attacks, Twilight charged another blast, fired it, and destroyed every bone it owned. The glow faded to nothing, and the floating weapons dropped to the fragments below. The only light left was Twilight’s fading horn and the lights from the helmets.

Pinkie wiped her front left hoof over the top of her head. “Whew! That was an exhausting battle! Are there any more of these weird creatures nearby?”

“I’m not sure, Pinkie,” Rainbow glanced down the two ends of the hall. “With the size of this place and the still unsettling air, I think there’s more to come.”

And Rainbow Dash was correct. The trio encountered more of these shambling ghouls as they pressed through the dead resistance. Some minor injuries from a few hard blows or an elemental blast inflicted a few bruises and unfortunate cuts, but Pinkie’s cupcakes negated all of them without any issues.

The twists and turns of the crypt led them to a big circular room with more statues of the same creatures. A wood and steel coffin rested in the middle of the circular room. It collected dust and mold from age, and the clamps keeping it locked rusted to the point where they would never be unlocked again. The as frigid as a terrific blizzard air shrouded everything in its shiver-inducing blankets. The trio shivered and chattered to the point that they huddled for warmth.

Travis obtained a reading from above the coffin and scanned it. “Hmm, the area above that coffin seems to be where the ED anomaly is located. Get a bit closer and check what it does.

The ponies approached the coffin and checked for anything unusual. Twilight, the one who felt the presence of the anomaly, nudged her friends back with her forelegs. “Stand back, girls, I’m going to amplify, whatever this is.”

“Wait, what did you say?”

Twilight gathered magic into her horn and wrapped the area above the coffin with a veil of magic. The magic poked into the atomic holes of reality and pulled them apart. Blinding white light escaped from the new tear in reality and pulled itself outward. At the same time, the magic leaked through the tear and grabbed onto a couple entities.

“You know,” Travis murmured, “ripping reality apart is something that I highly advise you to not do. Literally anything can happen, and it’s not worth the cataclysmic risk of destroying our universe.”

“I think it’s too late to warn me,” Twilight responded with nervous laughter. “I’m already pulling something back into this world.”

The magic dragged two familiar entities out of the tear in reality and dropped them on the coffin. Both of these creatures wore a shiny black shell and flapped their light blue bug-like wings. Their legs’ absent of some flesh considering the holes in them, scrambled around the stone and wood. Their ponylike yet mostly insectoid bodies climbed back onto their supposed hooves and scanned their surrounding with their solid blue eyes. They both locked their sights on the trio in front of them.

“So, you three must’ve been the ones to ruin our scouting,” one of the monsters hissed. “But, wait, you three look similar to what the master wanted.” They turned to their cohort. “What did he say again once we found our targets?”

“He said to take them for testing,” the other answered with the same type of hiss. “They will make good templates for reconstruction.”

Twilight’s pupils shrunk to a ridiculous degree. They’re changelings! But, are they? They definitely look like them, but they said master. When did they have a master, and when did they take ponies for testing? Shouldn’t they be saying Queen Chrysalis and talking about eating love? Something about this doesn’t add up.

One of the changelings spoke again in that unsettling hiss. “You three will be useful to us. If we have one of every variant, we will become legendary!”

The same changeling morphed into a shape that caught everyone off guard. Changelings utilize a disguise from whatever they remember or can see, but this one ignored this rule. It changed into a human with a sword for an arm. Its body was as reflective and shiny as metal, but it wore no armor. The other raised even more questions when it changed into a shadowy beast of smoke that clung to the top of the ceiling.

The now human changeling’s voice changed into deep and determined male voice. “So, who wants to fight me first?”

“How did you changelings enter this world?” questioned the baffled Twilight. “How can you even master dimensional travel?”

“Changelings?” the gaseous one’s voice cracked with its demonic serpent voice.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what you two are!” Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at the humanized changeling.

The human changeling shook its head and chuckled to itself. “You must’ve confused our scouting disguises for those worthless emotion leeches. We’re durnoki.”

Twilight pondered that for a moment. Well, that could explain their advanced shapeshifting ability, but why would be in Equestria, and why would they pretend to be changelings?

The humanoid durnoki prepared to strike the trio. Rainbow Dash reacted to his preparation by slamming it into a nearby wall. The smoky durnoki on the ceiling crept down, daring to choke the ponies of their air. Twilight charged and launched a fire spell at the black mass. It shrieked in unison with the burning flames coating its form. Pinkie scanned the enemies for any weaknesses and noticed that the burning smoke morphed into a brick on the floor. She inspected it with a tap from a hoof. Since she now knew that it was actually a brick, she attempted to break it apart by stomping on it with her entire body’s weight and four hooves. This failed, but she did force a muffled scream out of the brick.

The humanoid durnoki got back on its feet and altered its body. The blade hand shifted into a laser rifle, and its other hand shifted into a grappling hook. The durnoki kicked back Rainbow and shot the ceiling with its grappling hook. It swung from one side of the room to the other, firing laser blasts at Twilight and Rainbow. Rainbow zipped around the lasers and to the durnoki’s right. She conjured a storm cloud and kicked it at the durnoki. To her surprise, it missed.

“Wow, you are a terrible shot.” the durnoki mocked with an amused chortle. “Let’s see if you’re also a terrible dodger!”

Lasers aiming for Rainbow struck her legs and sides quite a few times. She winced with every new burn and flew around the next set of lasers and to the other side of the room. Pinkie jumped back into a wall once the brick morphed into a lean slicing and dicing machine with six arms wielding blades on their ends. One optical sensor stared at her and ordered four pointy legs to bring it closer to her. She rolled around the blades and behind the machine. She kicked it into the same wall, damaging some circuitry and components. The human durnoki, distracted by it injured accomplice, allowed Twilight a chance to fire a magic blast at it. The human durnoki smacked into the ceiling lost its grip, and plummeted to the ground. It coughed up a little yellow and green slush and struggled to crawl back to standing.

“So, I guess, fighting won’t work, huh?” it mused with a coughing fit through its words. “Next time, we meet, You’ll become ours.”

The machine durnoki morphed into another humanoid with metallic skin and glanced back at the ponies. “The master will not take your opposition nicely.” It pulled it cohort back to their feet. “Vazkoran, we need to leave. Create a dimensional rift gun for us.”

Vazkoran nodded as his grappling hook changed into a rectangular gun with a monitor on its top. He shot at a wall with it, ripping open a portal begging to close. The two durnoki, Vazkoran being dragged along the floor, leapt into the portal at the same time it closed.

Twilight huffed her exhaustion away. “Those, are definitely, not changelings! Why did they, even want us?”

“They probably wanted to create a new form,” Travis informed. “Durnoki are capable of morphing into anything they want. They just have to find out what they’re changing into first.” Travis paused and questioned the durnoki’s motives. “They possibly see you three as efficient forms. Plus, since they said that you three were targets, they must’ve already known about your powers.”

“But why did they approach us as changelings?” Rainbow Dash questioned with a wince.

“They might have found them and attempted to hide alongside them. Durnoki criminals are known to be very, very sneaky and deceptive. They are also incredibly good at mimicking others. In fact, they’re so good at it that they can mimic your mannerisms, speech patterns, and personality to a T.” Twilight and Rainbow gave two tiny whimpers. “Also, there’s a drop ship ready at the crypt entrance. You might want to hurry if you want to leave this place.”

“Wait, we’re leaving already?” grumbled Pinkie. “But I was just making friends with the natives!”

“Pinkie, they’re dead.” Twilight put a hoof to her head and sighed. “I can’t stress it enough that you didn’t realize that. Also, they tried to hurt us earlier, so can we just leave them here?”

“Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they can’t be my friends.” Pinkie grumbled a bit more to herself and trotted towards the exit.

“Hey, uh, Pinkie?” Rainbow flew over to her and unlocked her helmet. “I need one of your cupcakes, like right now.”

“Same with me,” Twilight requested. “Some of those lasers burned me, too.”

Pinkie opened her Nil Weight Box and tossed a cupcake each to her friends. They both removed their helmet’s chomped down the pastries, and felt the wounds on them and in them reduce to nothing.

After Twilight shoved the last piece of hers into her mouth, she toyed with the wrapper for a few moments and crumpled it to nonreality. “What did you make these with, Pinkie?”

Pinkie regained her smile and pulled out another one to show. “They’re made with a new herb I found! There’s this special plant that’s really common in the Everfree Forest! It’s called the hearthorn creeper. It’s a vine that grows on the trees and forms red bulbs in the shape of pretty little hearts. If you eat one raw, you get sick with a bad tummy ache, but if you squeeze the juices out of them and mix in some vanilla, you get a delicious soup of goody goodness that heals anything! It’ll help us a lot while we go on all these epic quests!”

“Huh, that’s really intriguing,” Twilight mumbled through a still full mouth. She swallowed the remaining cupcake mush and put on her helmet. “I’ll go study that plant whenever I get the chance. Also, how did you get all that knowledge about it.”

“Zecora told me its name, and I found out the rest by myself.” Pinkie flipped her grin to a frown and pressed a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Seriously, though, don’t ever eat them raw. Not even belly rubs will help the tummy ache.”

Travis jumbled around a few words before forming speech. “If there’s a plant in your world that literally heals anything from ingesting its concentrated juices with vanilla, why didn’t you bring this up sooner?”

“I didn’t know until after I baked them today. I went through thirty-four batches of cupcakes just to find out what made them actually heal you. And yes, thirty-three of them gave me those tummy aches.”

“You must really hate tummy aches considering how bad you make them sound.”

“Anything that makes me want to barf or have the world’s best masseuse massage my belly will never be good to me. If anything does it once, that’s it. It’s the same reason why I gave up on custard.”

The trio witnessed Travis gasp for the first time in history. “You hate custard? What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“It tastes fine, it’s just that I can’t eat it.”

“Define fine.”

Pinkie tapped her head with a hoof. “Uhh, it’s passable, but there’re so many other goodies I enjoy a lot more. It’s just that custard has an awkward taste to me, and I don’t like the feel of it. Also, it made me sick.”

“I don’t know how you can hate possibly the best dessert to ever exist. For a pony like you that probably eats and enjoys a ludicrous amount of different desserts and treats, how could you pick custard out of everything else? You could’ve chosen baklava instead!”

“But baklava is actually pretty good. It’s one of the best sweets I eat that has honey in it!”

“The honey is what ruins it. As well as the flakiness, too. Both of them give it some really weird feeling combined with that unsavory taste of honey. It’s just, eugh.”

Pinkie caught Travis’s irritation and threw it back at him. “I can’t believe you don’t like honey. Honey’s so good when you mix it in any treat!”

“Alright, you both have favorite foods that the other hates,” interrupted Twilight with lowered eyes. “Can we drop this argument and move on? Look, there’s the door, and the dropship’s right outside these ruins. You two can argue after we go home.”

“Sorry about that.” Travis turned his attention from the ponies to a monitor full of statistics. “I need to check some data I received anyway.”

Twilight watched the waiting dropship for a few seconds. She turned to the empty sky and fields and back to the aircraft. “Wait, didn’t we have to land in that city because it was too dangerous to land here?”

“The possibility of losing you, your friends, and an aircraft was likely.”

“Then why is there one here right now?”

“Because further investigation—partially from you three—told us that this area is safe to land in. Originally, we didn’t know what could be over here. You did find a couple bandit camps scattered around the area, so now we know that those specific locations are unsafe for landing or flying.”

The pony trio stepped in the dropship and sat down once again. Twilight swept her eyes through the hills once more, watching the distant animals prowl across the uneven and expansive land. Next time I come back here, I should document everything here and show it to Princess Celestia. She’ll be so proud of everything I found so far.

•—————•

Inside a throne room contrasting Zedin’s domain to near perfection, Princess Celestia and General Solk watched the royal guards progress through tests made for GEST Corp. Cadets. Some of the guards dodged rubber balls from skinny yet rowdy machines imitating gunfire, some attempted to use their magic, flight, or brute force to knock down and destroy mechanical soldiers armed with nonlethal weaponry, and others flipped and rolled laser rifles in their hooves. Solk lowered his groaning head and cringed at the soldiers’ completion and skill.

“Celestia,” he started, staring at the ground and massaging away his headache, “these soldiers are beyond inadequate. How the hell do they fail to dodge incoming grenades? They have magic or wings, and they can run from these situations in nearly an instant. Even my most nonexperienced recruits can fire a gun or take down a robot with boxing gloves faster than these poor idiots.” He raised his head back to Celestia. “You have to at least made them able to fight off something other than themselves.”

Celestia frowned. “I’m afraid to say that the abundance of guards was for illusion purposes. They are not highly trained in combat situations, especially against deities or otherworldly monsters.”

“Alright, I have a special plan for your soldiers.” A royal guard fell on their hooves as a makeshift bullet struck their side. “I have a program called the Equestrian Dimension Soldier Training Association, or the EDSTA for short. I’d need some of your soldiers to sign up to this program so that they can fend off every threat my army’s faced in the past. If any of those groups enter this world while the EDSTA’s newly trained soldiers are in your cities and towns, your nation will remain intact. If you keep soldiers like this roaming around your towns, those groups will do the exact same thing they did to Ponyville, except only faster and with many more troops.”

Celestia thought about the potential results. She turned her frown to half a smile. “Well, this program sounds rather helpful, but will I continue to have control over them?”

“That is not guaranteed. These soldiers need a strategist that has already experienced combat with these enemy forces. You have little to no knowledge of how they’ll act. If you were put in charge, you might not even know where to send them. Warfare is very serious, Celestia, and knowledge is key in that art. Yeah, I know you have over a thousand more years of leading and commanding than me, but you never dueled against an entire extraterrestrial force armed with technology far beyond what I’m seeing right now. We need to guide them.”

She lowered her head and nodded. “As it hurts me to say it, I understand completely. You can have control over these enrolled guards, but I will continue control over the entire nation. Please take good care of them.”

Another royal guard yelped after two boxing gloves smacking his face. “We will. Once we deal with this demon menace and anything else that wants this world, you can have them back. Also, I don’t want to take your control of Equestria away. That would jeopardize both our species.”

“Just, don’t take Equestria away from us, please.” Celestia shed a single tear hidden from Solk’s sight. “I never wanted my kingdom to fall like this.”

“Celestia, calm down. We’re not that heartless. I care about your people as much as you do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here to train your soldiers or protect you from Zedin’s army.”

“I hope that is why you are here.”

“It is.”