Breaking the Barriers

Date: March 23rd

Time: 18:28

The solar princess and her escorts were traveling towards Canterlot via chariot along side Rainbow Dash. Looking over to the alien by her, she could see that it was a bit on edge. Seeing as it wasn't reaching for its weapons nor posing a threat, she took the time to examine the armor. She couldn't begin to describe how its armor functioned other than what she's seen of it so far. She wondered what kind of magic it ran on, or what it was capable of. How durable was it? She also took note of its weapons. They weren't anything she's ever seen before. They weren't even as long as a guard's spear, but it could kill any pony at a distance without touching them with it. She really wanted to disarm the being, but attempts to do so had met with negative results, and although it unnerved her to no end, her student and her friend were right. This thing was on their side, or at least against the true enemy.

She had faced the other aliens before while she was saving the survivors of Appleloosa. They did not heed her warnings. She had barely managed to fend them off, having little energy left. Whatever they were, their weapons were also advanced. She was still recovering to this day from the first encounter. She could only hope that the alien beside her had peaceful intentions with her little ponies.

One other thing she noticed was that it was rather the size of a teenage foal, but more masculine. Perhaps its species are of average height as this one is. However, despite its size, there were too many unknowns about it that she felt uncomfortable with, and the point that she had no means of communicating with it other than pictures, it didn't make her feel any better. There were so many unanswered questions that she was starting to get desperately curious to know. Maybe this is how Twilight feels often.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Celestia examined the alien once more, but noticed something rather interesting. It's head was facing her, but the visor from the helmet was specifically aimed at her chest. The armor she wore had left ample of bust to be seen. No one was to blame. It has been a few millennia since she had actually had to wear it. She had grown a lot since the times of old, and it showed. Still, it didn't have to stare. She cleared her throat as her eyes narrowed slightly. The alien snapped his head forward, caught red handed. Quietly chuckling, Celestia took a wild guess that this alien was male. Stallions of every species are the same, aren't they?

Soon after, they had arrived to Canterlot. The chariots had landed and everypony and being got off. Needless to say, a lot of attention was drawn their way. There was a mixed reactions from the pony citizens. Some bowed per usual, while others stared at the alien. News had reached Canterlot about the attack on Ponyville, mostly because they could see the smoke coming from a quarter of the town from there and could barely hear the screams of fleeing and dying residents. The alien that was in the company of the princess did not seem to notice or care about the attention. Either that or he's not showing it.

What Celestia didn't expect was one of her ponies to charge at the group and tackle their guest. Applejack had the alien pinned, but the look she gave him, a look that nopony had seen on her face as long as they knew her, was one that was full of pure hate.

"You give me one good reason why I shouldn't buck you aliens til yer guts spill!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

Rainbow Dash grabbed her and tried to pull her off of him. "Applejack! Quit it! This one's good!"

"Mah farm, mah cousin, mah home, how much more are ya gonna take?!" She screamed into the alien's visor.

In response, the alien reeled his head back and launched it forward, making contact with the mare's muzzle, disorienting her. After a quick jab to the stomach, he activated his jumpjets to launch himself upwards, flinging her off of him. A blade came out of his right wrist as he stormed over to the farmer, but was stopped by Celestia.

"You will not harm her." Celestia said sternly. Whether or not he could understand her, he seemed to have gotten the message. He raised one finger upwards.

~**One more chance. You all have one more FUCKING chance before I start shooting everything here that breathes!!**~

Celestia stared at the alien, wary. She gestured for her guards to escort him to the castle without her before turning to Applejack, voice full of sympathy. "Applejack, I understand that you have lost a lot. Your cousin in Appleloosa is in a coma, and your farm has been standing for generations. I am aware of your pain." Celestia's look of sympathy turned to one of great disapproval. "However, that's no excuse for your recklessness." Before Applejack could retort, Celestia cut her off with a raise of a hand. "I don't need to understand alien language to know what a grave warning is. You're putting us all on thin ice."

Celestia's horn lit up as she teleported to the castle. Rainbow felt she should say something to her friend, but she couldn't bring herself to open her mouth. She shook her head instead and tried to catch up with the escort.

The armored natives and I had arrived at a castle. Judging by the flags, they seem to belong to Queen Tall White Boobsalot. We were approaching the door when Blue Rainbow caught up with us. The door was opened from the other side by QTWB who I assume had teleported herself inside. I didn't question it as things were odd enough around here as it is with walking talking horse people that knew magic. I only call it magic because it's the only way I can describe it. We followed her inside.

I'm pretty sure I would end up having to blast my way out if I needed to escape because the castle was a labyrinth. Halls, turns, stairs, fifteen minutes and I was lost to where they were taking me. However, it became clear when I noticed they were taking me down to the lower wards. They were going to lock me up. I realized I was right when we reached a dungeon. "Looks like I'm their prisoner. For now." I mumbled. I looked at the cells. The bars were rusted and the place looked like it hadn't been kept in a while. There weren't a lot of occupants of the dungeon, just a few armored natives with the very little prisoners they had. Breaking out of here would seem like it'd be a peace of cake.

One of the guards opened the cell and motioned me to go inside. I'll humor you. Blue Rainbow didn't look so happy about this and made QTWB aware of that. I didn't really understand what she said before she stormed off. I looked around in my cell. There was nothing but a sink and a bunk for two but I didn't have a cellmate. Good. The princesses soon left only leaving two guards standing in front of my cell to make sure I didn't try anything. I couldn't help but to shake my head. Nothing stopping me from capping them both right now. That thought alone made me at the very least curious as to what they wanted with me or what they wanted to do with me. The guards QTWB left me with was watching me intentavely trying to read me it seemed.

I looked at my bunk again and regretted it. It looked much more comfortable than the shit beds on the starships if you can call them beds. Like a thin sheet of cotton wrapped in a blanket on top of metal. I walked over to the bunk and sat on the bottom bed. I saw the two guards staring at me, watching my every move. So I pulled out my rifle and held on to it, finger on the trigger. That got the guards looking away. I may be dozing off, but they wouldn't know.

Location: Rilo City, Planet Onarion.

August 26th, 2749

Time: 19:45

Music was filling the room as I sat with my squad. We liked hanging around social places such as bars, clubs, sometimes parks etc. per suggestion after a long mission or two depending on where we were and whose turn it was to pick. It was agreed that it was a good way to wind down our nerves, form bonds, and get to know the squad on a personal level. However, it was Lamont's turn to pick a place.

Lamont "Cannonball" Jackson is a big guy. He has a fun personality and is generally nice. Unfortunately for him, he is as loud as he is a muscle head. He is one of those guys that hits the gym way too often. On fhe plus side, that's why he's our heavy weapons specialist. He's also the squad leader.

Sitting beside him was Charles "Thunder Strike" Sullivan. He's a bit of a social butterfly, but also very observant. His perceptive skils are top notch and it makes him an excellent sniper and scout. He's pretty wise, however, I wish he would tone down the religion just a tad bit. He gives very good advice.

Sitting between me and Charles is our scouting and stealth specialist, Yumi "Onryo" Tomodo, the youngest in the squad. I actually know her personally before we joined the forces. We were childhood friends. You can thank our dads for that. Her father was a family friend, so we saw each other a lot. However, since he met an unfortunate end on an exploration mission along with his wife, she grew quiet. I've always stuck with her or kept in contact with her though. That was until we by an odd chance found each other wearing the same recruit uniform. Unfortunately, the higher ups found her to be a candidate for a special program. It wasn't a pleasant goodbye. She came back a year in a half completely different, but was a damn good special operative that can take on a hive without armor enhancements.

The empty seat on the other side of me was reserved for Helga Blankenheim, our medic. Although a very reliable one for the missions we are sent to, she can be a bit of a hag. I don't know much about her seeing as she's a workaholic, but although she can be an unprofessional handful, she gets the job done and keeps us alive, so I don't complain. Rumor in the squad has it that she has a twin sister who is the exact opposite as she is.

The four of us sat at a bar in a club wearing our casual uniforms.

"Here's to another successful mission, squad!" Lamont said out loud.

"Aye." Charles and I lifted our cups as Yumi just nodded her head.

Yumi sat silently between me and Charles. Yumi never really talked much in public, keeping mostly to herself. Plenty of times before have we tried making her more outgoing towards others, but eventually decided that it was probably just how she was. I often see her around Charles talking to him about things like sniping and advice and other things. I never really listen in though. She doesn't talk to me as much as she used to. I guess our professional relationship developed over our personal one ever since our seperation. Either way, I was glad that she had found someone else she feels comfortable talking to.

"Moron..." I heard Lamont mumble. I looked at him, and he was looking at me. He just called me a moron.

"Am I missing something?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it, man! Time to drink!" He knew I never drank alcoholic beverages, so I had just ordered a soda.

Looking around, I watched other people dancing without a care in the world while the DJ played the music for his crowd. I was never one into songs or lyrics or musicals.

"It's nice, ain't it, son?" Lamont said, putting his hand on my head. I never liked it when he called me that. "Just look at 'em. Dancin like a care in the world thanks to guys like us."

"Yeah." He had a point. To be honest I would go through every mission we've done all over again to keep things this way.

"Fighting the fight so they won't have to." He said proudly.

I nodded my head in response. Enjoying the view, I took another drink. I regretted it when my vision started blurring shortly after as everything seemed to distort afterwards. The club, the people dancing, they had started wavering.

"Lamont?!" When I looked at him, he was wavering as well, along with the rest of my squad. I looked at my hands and oddly enough, I wasn't.

I closed my eyes cursing myself for picking up Lamont's drink instead of mine. I knew he liked that powerful shit.

I blinked once and plasma bolts whizzed past my head as I ducked for cover behind a boulder. I looked down at myself and found that I was in my armor. I wasn't in a club anymore. Looking around, I took note of my surroundings. I realized that I was no longer on Onarion. I was in a battlefield on another planet.

Peeking around from my cover, I saw a dark red gigantic four legged walker half the size of a mountain, dubbed the Quad Fortress, as the FoG used it to warp their forces in from a neighboring moon. It was something I hope we would have never seen again.

"Rex! Get your head out of the clouds! We need cover fire!" Lamont said.

This isn't possible! That thing went down years ago when our forces brought an enemy dreadnought down on it from orbit!

I rose from my cover and fired at the oncoming FoG forces. Helga threw down a portable cover infront of an injured soldier who survived a plasma bolt to the head, his visor cracked open and half of his face burning.

I was receiving an odd sense of deja vu as things were happening the exact way I could remember from that mission. Something wasn't right. Looking around, I saw something floating in the air. Something that shouldn't have been there. I couldn't get a good look before my surroundings once again started distorting.

A moment later, I was in a dark room surrounded by people in the same uniform I was wearing now, apparently. I recognized one of the people as Yumi, who was cutting her eyes in my direction, smiling. Unfocused. I knew where and when I was. We were going through recruitment, standing at attention. I knew something was going on. I stepped forward. Nobody noticed. I turned around and was looking at myself right in the eyes.

I jumped back and found myself phasing through those standing in front of me. I looked around in the room as everyone seemed to freeze. I realized what was going on. This wasn't a dream. These are my memories in the form of a dream. And I had an odd feeling it had to do with that figure. I looked at Yumi who was peeking at the other me still.

However, behind her was a painting. A painting of a silhouetted unicorn's head with glowing eyes. When I spotted it, it turned its head towards me. I glared and charged, grabbing the painting and flung it off of the wall with force. Wouldn't you know it, a naked horse-like native from Horse World flew out. This one looked similar to Queen white thiccness, but shorter and less bust, and looked like she diets well. I certainly hoped that I was wrong about what I was seeing. I havd never seen this one on my life yet here she is in my dreams, or memory dreams. The bitch was going through my memories.

"I don't know who the fuck you are, what you are, but you had best explain the best to uour ability whay the hell you are doing here." I said, trying to stay calm. It was a battle doing just that.

Standing up, she recomposed herself. "I should be the one asking you that, alien." She said. "You are the one trespassing on Equestrian soil and causing bloodshed." My brows furrowed as I was taken aback by what I had just heard.

"You're speaking English?" I asked.

"Is that what you call your language? Well, we shall answer your question, but afterwards, you will answer ours." She stated. Our surroundings went dark as everyone and everything disappeared, but us. "We are in your dreams. In your mind. We have the ability to speak and hear your words through the form of our language using an ancient spell." Magic... So I was right... "You can understand our Equuish whereas we can understand your English."

"Like a two-way translator."

"Precisely. Now, you will tell us who you are and why you have started to ravage our land!" She screamed. "Do you know the amount of tragedy you have thrusted upon us?!?"

I stared up at her, unphased. "None." I answered simply. "However, you're on your way to changing that."

"What do you mean, alien?" The native asked, impatiently.

I chuckled. "You, horse lady, and your horsey kind have been pushing my buttons as of late, and I'm getting tired of it all, even after saving your little town from the FoG."

"We are ponies, alien. Not 'horse people'. We are Princess Luna and you will address us properly! You jest after threatening to..." She was cut off as our surroundings changed again. Wormheads and Manti were firing on the citizens of horse land in the town I was in, killing ponies left and right. One had managed to wing a wing of a filly she had recognized. Luna had seemingly jumped in the way between the FoG and the injured pegasus before the group of aliens exploded.

After Queen Tall White Thiccness showed up and I broke a few noses and after that hat-wearing pony tackled me, the memories stopped. Oddly enough I could understand what everyone was saying.

"Yeah. That's how I'm here." I finished.

Luna stared at me for a moment. "You should have handed over your weapons as the princess demanded."

"That's a no." I replied simply.

"You have assaulted the royal guards and even one of the Elements of Harmony, and then you threaten pony kind!" Luna intensely glared at me. "My sister was too lenient only giving you time in the dungeon, alien."

"You kiddin' me? That is what you got out of all of this? Not 'Oh look. He's fighting other aliens' or 'wow. those group of aliens look different from the ones I saw actually killing ponies.'" I laughed out loud for a moment, causing her to growl. "And what pray tell would you do?"

"We would have made an example out of you and presented your head to any alien fiend who dares to attack us." She said, placing both of her hands on her hips. Dumb bitch...

"Funny thing, I wouldn't go down easy first of all, and secondly, let me show you what will happen if you were to do that." I said, darkening my dream.

I soon awoke the next morning, and what I saw was something I don't usually see. Well, other than talking humanoid ponies, would be a giant armored rack of a talking humanoid pony in my face as I heard tapping around my helmet. It seemed like someone had either gotten curious, or was sent by somebody in charge to try to study me without waking me. However, her cleavage were hovering over my visor. She doesn't know I'm awake.

"Why is this thing so hard to take off?" She whispered. "It's just a helmet." So I can understand them now.

"I don't know, Rose," said a male voice. "but I think you should be careful."

The ticking and tapping from behind my helmet was getting annoying. I had grabbed the pony's wrist. "My helmet is attatched to my armor. It's not supposed to be pulled off so easily by another being. Otherwise, we'd do poorly surviving on planets with unbreathable atmosphere." I answered. By the time I finished my explanation, the chick was on her rear covering her nose with fear in her blue eyes and the guy horse held on to his spear. They both wore military helmets resembling those of Ancient Rome. The guy pony wore armor that matched the theme of a roman soldier, whereas the female, known as Rose, looked rather unconvincing. I will have to make note to ask about that later, but for now, time to defuse the situation.

"You sir." I pointed to the armed pony. "Put that shit away before you hurt somebody with that."

"You can talk?!" They screamed, drawing in more attention from others as well.

"No shit." I replied. "I could always talk. Just not in the same language."

"It must have worked..." I heard another female voice whisper. I saw a blip on my 3DMS dart out of the dungeon and disappear. That's all I needed to know that I was being studied.

Getting out of bed, I noticed my rifle and sidearms were missing. I felt and looked around the room but couldn't find them. Son of a bitch... Thankfully, the UWE military added a tracking chip on our weapons in case we needed to find another weapon during an attack or defense. Activating it, three yellow diamonds showed up on my helmet's HUD.

"I see you've noticed your weapons are missing." A deep gravelly male voice said. A heavily armored stallion walked into my cell. This one was different as it had black armor and a dark grey coat. He stood in front of me, grinning as he sized me with his yellow eyes. He crossed his arms. "Not so threatening anymore without your toys, are you?"

"I'm only going to say this once. Bring me my weapons or there will be hell to pay."

The stallion laughed out loud. "You will do no such thing." He said. "If you do, you will face dire consequences, alien."

"You're testing me, sir." I replied.

He shook his head. "I am not here to waste my time breaking you out of your armor. I am here to tell you that the princesses want to see you."

I had a choice to make. I could stab this guy a million times with my blade, counting this as the final straw for pony kind, thus killing everyone, even the attractive guardsmares who need better armor. Then Queen Pony will have only herself to blame for ignoring my warnings. On the other hand...

Only out of morbid curiosity of what she wanted from me kept me from murdering as many ponies I could before being killed by the FoG or I'm lucky enough to live for extraction. "Good. I got a few things to discuss with her about you and her sending ponies in my head to spy on me." I made my way out of the cell, but before I even bothered to go meet up with the princesses, I took off in a sprint out of the dungeon. I had a few stops to make.

Author's Note

And the next chapter is out finally! Sorry for the wait. I have started having less and less time to myself, so I could only work on chapters bit by bit on both stories. Progress is SLOW! Still might be for a while. Thanks for your patience.

And for the record, the next few chapters (for both stories) are already written and planned out. Just haven't had the time to type 'em.

Also, it's highly likely this chapter will be re-edited. I'm not sure if I wrote the 'dream transition sequences' very well. Please keep in mind that I'm by myself here. I don't have an editor.