The RED Cataclysm

Chapter Five: First Contact

Okay then, where was I…

Oh, right, the mercenaries were just leaving. Well, by the time they went back into the streets of Ponyville, some particularly brave ponies had decided to try and risk going outside. When the humans stepped out of Lyra’s house, though, there was a loud clamor, and the ponies darted back inside their homes.

“Vell, zat could’ve gone vorse,” the Medic said under his breath, clearing his throat.

The Engineer shot his teammate a nervous look. “H-How?” he asked. It was a perfectly legitimate question.

“Lyra could’ve died,” the Medic answered, counting on his fingers. “Zat Bon Bon pony could’ve died. Zere could’ve been more zan two ponies and a dragon injured, not countink Lyra. I could’ve destroyed a building. I could’ve drawn attention from local law enforcement. I could’ve become a prominent religious antagonist again… L-Look, if you zink you can do a better job at being optimistic, you try it!”

“Doc,” the Engineer snapped, “the multiverse doesn’t revolve around you!” There was a brief pause here. The Engineer kept panting frantically, looking around Ponyville like there was an Overseer in every shadow, waiting to drag him back to the Disciplinary Room.

“Say, vant to double up?” the Medic suggested.

The Engineer shoved his hand in his pocket without any hesitation. “Don’t mind if I do,” he blurted out, coming out with a pill bottle. He tried to unscrew it, but his hands were shaking too much.

“Oh, look, ve’re at zat tree again,” the Medic said simply. The three mercenaries stopped in their tracks and looked back up at the tree with the force-field around it.

“A-All clear!” the Engineer shouted up at the balcony. At once, the force field shattered like glass, sending purple-red shards of energy shooting through the air in all directions like ghostly shrapnel that didn’t actually hurt anything by hitting it.

“Vat are ve doink back here?” the Medic asked, completely indifferent to the force field being taken down.

By this time, the Engineer finally managed to get his pill bottle open. He dumped two pills into his hand and tossed them into his mouth as quick as he could. He took a long, deep breath after swallowing them. When he spoke again, his hands had almost stopped shaking. Almost. Enough to let him cap and pocket the bottle, at least. “I promised the p-purple unicorn who lives in this tree that I’d let ‘er know once we’d gotten ya under control, an’ that’s exactly what I’m gonna do,” the Engineer replied.

The Pyro giggled. “Lrrf rrsh mrrnrr thrrngsh rrn Rrrth-Vrr-Rryt-Prrrm, brrt nrrffrr drrl,” it remarked.

“You just love qvoting Mark Twain, don’t you?” the Medic observed.

Just then, the door of the balcony opened, and Twilight charged out, levitating two open books beside her. The look on her face was actually kind of like the Medic’s when he first came up with the Unicorn Man. Without missing a step, she charged up to the railing, planted her front hooves on it and pointed down at the mercenaries. “You’re from an a—” she started. All of a sudden, she reared backwards and cried out, her irises shrinking involuntarily to the size of pinpricks. “Wh-What’s he doing here?!” she shouted, pointing at the Medic.

The Engineer took a deep breath. “It’s fine,” he said, grinning nervously. “‘E’s under control now. I’d say ‘e doesn’t bite, but that ain’t true, is it, Doc?” There was an awkward silence here, broken only by an awkward chuckle from the Engineer.

“Lrrt rrt grr, Rrnjrry,” the Pyro politely requested, placing its hand on the Engineer’s shoulder.

The Engineer flinched at its touch. “Y-Yeah, a’ course,” he said quickly. “Anyway, what were ya sayin’?”

Twilight stepped forward again and cleared her throat nervously. “Y-You’re from an alternate reality, aren’t you?” she asked.

The mercenaries all reared back at once. “What?! How’d you know?!” they blurted out.

A fantastic “eureka!” grin swept onto Twilight’s face. “I knew it!” she blurted out, regaining her intellectual enthusiasm in an instant and pumping her hoof triumphantly. “I knew it! I just knew it! Mythological creatures popping up out of nowhere, ranting and raving with completely skewed, alien moralities, the giant ball of light—it all makes se… it all makes slightly more sense now!”

“Vait, vait, vait,” the Medic interjected, raising his hand. “How’d you come to zat conclusion, Fräu Sparkle? Zat’s kind of a big leap to make.”

“Fräu Sparkle?” the Engineer repeated, shooting the Medic an odd look.

“Zat’s her name,” the Medic explained. “Engineer, zis is Tvilight Sparkle. Fräu Sparkle, ze RED Engineer.”

“Okay. I didn’t know that,” the Engineer said, giving Twilight a warm grin. “Nice meetin’ ya, Miss Twilight. So, how’d ya figure it out?”

“Well,” Twilight explained, grinning like a madmare, “at first I thought you were creatures from Equus with some obscure magical talents, or possibly some kind of experiment in transfiguration or eugenics gone horribly wrong! But then your friend, Medic, called me an alien!”

“I see,” the Engineer said, nodding. He glanced around him briefly before looking back up at Twilight.

“So the possibility of extra-equestrial life was there,” Twilight was saying, not noticing, “but I didn’t really give much weight to it at the time because, really, why would I? That’s just ludicrous and outlandish.”

“Rrnd rrsh brryrrng frrrm rrnrrthrr drrmrrnshrrn rrshrrnt?” the Pyro pointed out, giggling.

“Good to see ya’ve cheered up, Pyro,” the Engineer remarked.

The Medic winced. “No it isn’t,” he whispered.

“Relax, Doc,” the Engineer ordered.

“Look who’s talkink,” the Medic hissed back.

Twilight, meanwhile, looked down at the humans, observing this odd exchange with an appropriately confused look on her face. “…Um…” she said hesitantly. “A-Anyway! I went back inside and did a little more looking around, but then you two showed up looking for the Medic! You said you were humans, which surprised me because I was just looking through factual taxonomies and not cryptozoological texts! And then I asked, ‘Are you aliens or humans?’ And you answered, ‘Technically, both!’”

“All right, and?” the Engineer prompted, crossing his arms and smiling.

“So then I got to thinking,” Twilight continued, “how could you be both humans and aliens? I suppose it’s possible that humans were some kind of extraterrestrial race that came to Equus in ancient times, but since humans are never depicted holding any advanced technology like the kind a spacefaring race would undoubtedly have access to, that seemed unlikely to me. Then I was kind of stumped for a while, so I came back out here and I saw that big ball of light behind the library and I had this crazy idea! I ran back in here and got my copy of The Life and Times of Star Swirl the Bearded, and guess what he was researching in the final days of his life?”

The mercenaries exchanged a look. “Corporomancy,” the Engineer deadpanned, chuckling with only a little nervousness to his voice.

“Nuclear veaponry,” the Medic guessed with no intended irony in his voice.

“Rrntrr-yrrnrrffrrshrrl trrrffrrl?” the Pyro guessed.

“The theory of alternate realities!” Twilight answered excitedly, her grin somehow managing to get wider.

“Thrrtsh wrrt Rrr shrrd,” the Pyro pointed out, crossing its arms.

“He postulated that there were more realities than just ours in existence!” Twilight continued, talking over the Pyro. “He started working out a theoretical way to observe them and even travel between them! And according to his research, that ball of light behind my house is almost exactly what a portal to an alternate reality would look like! I mean, it’s the wrong color, but besides that, it’s a dead ringer!”

The mercenaries exchanged another look, this one decidedly more impressed. “Vell, technically, ze term is alternate universe,” the Medic said, uncrossing his arms. “But still, good vork figuring zis much out, Fräu Sparkle. You’re smarter zan a whole lot of ozzer natives ve’ve encountered before.”

“Rrw! Shrrmwrrn frrgrrrd rrt rrt! Thrrtsh thrrr shrrtsh!” the Pyro pointed out, raising a single finger excitedly.

The Engineer cringed. “No liquor for you, Pyro,” he hissed. “Even if we had any, ya were just possessed, remember?”

“Rrrrrrrw…” the Pyro groaned, slumping over disappointedly.

“Oh, by ze vay,” the Medic said, raising his finger. “Just so ve’re clear, it’s seventeen, finish ze bottle, zree, right?”

The Engineer began counting on his fingers for a few moments. “…Sure, let’s go with that,” he eventually said. “Anyway, Miss Twilight,” he continued, looking back up. “The short version is yes. We are, in fact, from an alternate universe. Specifically, we represent Earth-VC8-Prime. I am the RED Engineer, and these are my teammates, the RED Medic an’ the RED Pyro. We come in peace.”

The Medic snorted. “I vas just about to…” he added under his breath.

“Doc!” the Engineer hissed, appalled and disgusted. You’d think the Engineer would be more respecting of interspecies relationships. I mean, honestly, it’s 1983 over here.

“Actually, zat reminds me,” the Medic interjected, “you have the PDA, still, right?”

The Engineer’s eyebrows shot up, and his reassuring smile vanished. “Uh…” he said softly.

The Medic slapped himself in the face. “You left it in the cave, didn’t you?” he groaned.

“Uh… four…” the Engineer mumbled, putting his hands over his goggles.

The Medic groaned. “Vell, please tell me you at least haff our medications vis you.”

“N-No, a’ course I’ve got those,” the Engineer said quickly, reaching into his pouch. “Which reminds me, ya haven’t taken yours yet.” He glanced back up at Twilight and shot her a mildly nervous grin. “Excuse us for a moment, wouldja?”

He quickly pulled out the two pill bottles and thirteen syringes and handed them to the Medic. The Medic only took one of the pill bottles at first, though. He opened it, poured a red-and-yellow pill into his hand, tossed it into the air and caught it in his mouth. That unnecessary bit of flair done, he screwed the bottle shut and pocketed it. He then scooped the rest of the meds up and put them away. “Right,” he said, clapping his hands and looking back up, “vere vere ve?”

“Uh… What was all that about?” Twilight asked, cringing and refusing to meet any one mercenary’s gaze.

“Well, the Medic’s a doctor, like I said,” the Engineer replied. “So ‘e keeps our meds for us an’ makes sure we take ‘em on time. Pretty simple.”

“Um… o-okay…” Twilight replied nervously. “Um, no offense, but… W-Well, if you have a mental condition, I’m glad you’re on medication for it, but… o-one would think that the representatives your reality—”

“Universe,” the Medic corrected.

“Whatever,” Twilight replied. “One would think the representatives your universe sent to Equestria to make first contact wouldn’t… need medication.”

“Oh, ve veren’t sent here by anyvon,” the Medic replied, chuckling at the idea. “Us? Diplomats? Zere’s not a single vorld in ze multiverse vhere zat’ll ever happen. Zis isn’t an official first contact. Ve’re not even supposed to be in your universe. Ve’re just here because ve pissed off a vizard. Ve’re not supposed to be here, and ve don’t vant to be here any more zan you vant us to be here.”

“Uh… then what’s keeping you from… not being here?” Twilight suggested, unable to hide a nervous and relieved grin.

“Jonason’s Law,” the Engineer replied. He cleared his throat and adjusted his hard hat. “Y’see, how it works is—”

The Pyro cleared its throat. “Mrrbrry yrr shrrdrrnt,” it suggested gently, putting its hand on the Engineer’s shoulder. “Yrr trrnd trr rrrmbrrl.”

The Engineer looked back at the Pyro for a few moments, then sighed. “Yeah, fair enough,” he said. “Exactly why we can’t leave is sum’n it’d take several hours to explain, an’ an advanced degree in inter-universal theory to really unn’rstand. But the short version is, we’re stuck in your universe for five days.”

“F-Five days?” Twilight repeated.

“Yes indeedy,” the Engineer replied. “Well, actually, we showed up last night, so it’d be four an’ a half now. But don’t worry. This ‘appens to us a lot, an’ we really try t’ be good houseguests. We just need some info from ya. First of all, we know the Medic injured two ponies and a dragon in ‘is little rampage earlier. Do ya know where they went?”

“Well, Spike’s inside,” Twilight answered.

“Spike is ze dragon, by ze vay,” the Medic said helpfully.

“Thanks, Doc,” the Engineer replied, nodding. “Is Spike okay?”

“He’s shaken up a little, but he’s fine,” Twilight answered. “He is a dragon, after all. He’s pretty tough.”

“Good t’ hear,” the Engineer replied. “Now, what happened t’ that other pony the Medic attacked?”

“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight answered. “I think she crawled off towards Fluttershy’s cottage. I-It’s—” She cleared her throat, then continued. “It’s on the outskirts of town, by the Everfree Forest.”

“Good,” the Engineer said again. “An’ where can we find a tailor ‘round these parts?”

Twilight blinked, obviously surprised by the request. “A tailor?” she repeated. “Um… Rarity’s a tailor. She lives in Carousel Boutique.”

“How do we get to Carousel Boutique?” the Engineer asked. Twilight told him.

“All righty, then,” the Engineer said again, smiling warmly. “Thanks for your help, Miss Twilight. We’ll try our best t’ stay outta your way from here on out.”

Twilight didn’t say anything.

“So, vat happens now?” the Medic asked.

“Now? Business as usual,” the Engineer replied simply, turning around to face his teammates. “Im’ma track down this Rarity an’ see if I can get the Pyro’s hat fixed.”

“Grrd lrrk,” the Pyro said cheerfully, handing the broken handle to the Engineer. It removed the broken “hat” part of the hat and handed that to him as well. He shoved the two hat pieces into the pouch he kept his shotgun shells in, where they effectively vanished thanks to his Pocketmancy. “Wrrt shrrd Rrr drr rrn thrr mrrntrrm?” the Pyro asked.

“Y’have free reign,” the Engineer replied simply.

“Yrry! Thrrnk yrr, Rrnjrrnrrr!” the Pyro said cheerily, clapping its hands.

“But be careful, like always,” the Engineer added.

“Rrr wrrl, drrnt wrrry!” the Pyro shot back excitedly.

“Vat are my orders, zen?” the Medic asked.

“Well, Spike’s okay, Lyra’s okay an’ Bon Bon’s okay,” the Engineer answered. “So you’re going to track down the other pony ya attacked, Rainbow Dash, an’ heal ‘er. Once ya’ve done that, ya have free reign, but not a moment before, got it?”

“Jawohl,” the Medic said with a bit of acid in his voice, saluting the Engineer.

Suddenly, the Pyro placed its hands on its teammates’ shoulders. “Grrsh?” it said. “Rrr thrrnk yrr shrrd rrprrlrrjrrsh trr rrch rrthrrr brrfrrr yrr lrrff.”

There was a brief pause, at the end of which the Engineer sighed. “He’s right, I do owe ya an apology,” he said. “I’m sorry ‘bout earlier. I shouldna’ brought that up. None a’… this woulda happened if I hadn’t opened my big mouth.”

The Medic cringed. “No, it vas my fault,” he replied, placing his hand on his chest. “I promised I vouldn’t… ahem, pocket anozzer alien next time ve vere banished. I know. Zat was the only reason you let me try to reanimate your corpse last Tuesday.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and winced. “Wait, what?” she asked.

“I just… lost myself in ze moment,” the Medic continued. “I broke my promise, and I’m sorry.” The Medic extended his gloved hand to the Engineer. “Forgiven?”

The Engineer took his teammate’s hand without even a moment of hesitation. “A’ course I forgive ya, Doc,” he said, smiling.

“Danke schön,” the Medic said with a faint smirk. “Na na, danke schön…”

The Pyro took its hands off its teammates’ shoulders and giggled softly to itself.

“Aww, that’s so sweet!” The mercenaries jumped at the mysterious fourth voice. Well, fifth if you count Twilight.

“Who said that?” the Engineer blurted out, putting his hand on his shotgun instinctively. “Show yourself!”

All of a sudden, the mercenaries all realized at once that there was a bright pink earth pony wearing a basket on her head perched atop the Pyro’s head, like in that one comic strip where the dog pretends he’s a vulture. Her mane was dark pink and as poofy as cotton candy. She had a goofy grin on her face that was matched by the sparkle in her baby-blue eyes. And she just so happens to be another one of my nemeses. “I’m right here, silly filly!” she said cheerfully, giggling obnoxiously and leaping off the Pyro’s head.

The mercenaries all gasped and took a few steps away from the pony. “Wrrr drrd yrr crrm frrrm?” the Pyro asked, pointing at her accusatorially. …Accusatorially? Is that a word? Oh, whatever.

“And I really mean that!” the pink pony continued, bouncing up and down and paying no mind to the Pyro. “It’s nice to see that you can all forgive each other when you do something wrong, even if one of you is a mad scientist!”

The Pyro gasped and clapped its hands over its mouth.

The Medic’s eye twitched. “Vhy, you— I oughta jam burning spikes into your hooves and hook you up to a car battery!” he spat, pointing at the bouncing pony. Her smile vanished quickly, and she stopped bouncing.

“Wh-Whoa! Whoa! Doc, calm down!” the Engineer blurted out, grabbing his teammate’s shoulders and hauling him away from the pony. “It’s okay, she didn’t know! She didn’t mean it!”

“…W-Well, gee, that was… not nice at all!” the pony remarked, slowly reassembling the fragments of her old cheery smile and laughing a nervous laugh. “It was really specific, though, I’ll give you that! Did I say something wrong?”

“In fact, ya did,” the Engineer answered, releasing the Medic. “Back ‘ome, ‘mad scientist’ is a derogatory term against folks with the Medic’s mental condition. It’s like callin’ a black man a nigger, an Asian a Chinaman, or a Martian a spaceman.”

“Oh! You mean, it’s like calling earth ponies ‘flatbacks’?” the pony asked cheerfully, starting to bounce up and down again.

“Pinkie!” Twilight blurted out, horrified.

“Somethin’ like that,” the Engineer confirmed, nodding.

“Boy, did we ever get off on the wrong hoof!” the dirt pony giggled. “Let’s start over! Hi! My name’s Pinkie Pie, and these are for you!” She gestured excitedly toward the basket she was wearing, and the mercenaries only now noticed that there were several pink envelopes inside it. They exchanged a few confused glances. Eventually, the Engineer stepped forward, bent down slightly, picked up an envelope and opened it. He pulled out the letter and, unsurprisingly, saw a message written on it in a strange symbol-based language. What was surprising, however, was that he found he could read this language as easily as if it were English.

“You’re Invited to an ‘Equus Just Made First Contact With An Alternate Reality’ Party,” he read aloud. “Tomorrow, at noon sharp, in Ponyville Town Hall.”

“Universe,” the Medic corrected, rolling his eyes as he plucked an envelope out of the basket.

“Well, I know that now,” Pinkie giggled, “but it’s a little too late to reprint the invitations! You don’t mind, do you?”

“Nrr, rrff crrrsh nrrt,” the Pyro replied, taking an invitation out of the basket.

Pinkie giggled again. “Well, mmmph mmmph mmmph to you too!” she said cheerfully. The Pyro sighed, but didn’t say anything.

“Let me get zis straight,” the Medic said, staring at Pinkie Pie and narrowing his eyes. “An sociopazzic alien just shows up out of novere von morning, starts ranting and raving about cuttink ponies open, attacks two ponies and a dragon, and is only stopped by ze sudden arrival of two more aliens who are, respectively—” He pointed to the Engineer. “—slightly less crazy, alzough prone to nervous breakdowns at very inopportune times—” He pointed to the Pyro. “—and completely unable to function in normal society visout ze aid of medication.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight said again.

The Engineer moaned and clapped his hand over his goggles. “Thank you, Doctor Exposition,” he groaned. “Y’know, they don’t hafta know any a’ this…”

“And you zink,” the Medic finished, “zat the correct response to zis situation is to zhrow ze aliens a party?”

“Of course!” Pinkie replied cheerfully.

“Vhy?” the Medic asked, crossing his arms. It was a perfectly legitimate question.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Pinkie answered. “I’ve never thrown a First Contact party before, and I might not ever get the chance to throw one again!” She began to jump up and down in the air excitedly. “I’m really going all out with this one! I’m sparing no expense! There’s gonna be games and dancing and cake and ice cream and punch and I’m gonna invite everypony in Ponyville! This is gonna be the best party I’ve ever thrown! It’s gonna be so good, I’ll need a whole day to get everything set up!”

“I don’t zink ve—” the Medic started.

“Rrnjrrnrrr, crrn wrr grr?” the Pyro asked, interweaving its fingers and tilting its head to the side. “Plrrrrrsh? Rrr prrrmrrsh Rrrl brr grrd!”

“I don’t see why not,” the Engineer replied.

“Yrry!” the Pyro said, jumping up and down and clapping its hands excitedly.

The Medic rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Vell, if ze Pyro’s going, zen I haff to go, too,” he grumbled.

“Yay!” Pinkie said at the same time, jumping up and down with similar enthusiasm. “You won’t regret this, I promise! Well, I’ve gotta pass out the rest of these invitations now! Don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word for you! If I tell everypony it’s all right to trust you guys, they’ll all warm up to you like that!” She punctuated this declaration with a confident stomp of her hoof. “Just don’t threaten anypony, take anypony hostage or pull any guns of those guns of yours, and everything’ll be okie-dokie-lokie!”

Twilight blinked. “Guns?” she interjected. “What guns?”

“What, didn’t you notice?” Pinkie said, waving up to her friend on the balcony. “These guys are armed to the teeth! I think you know about Medic already, but Engineer here’s got a huge freakin’ shotgun! It’s almost as big as me!” The Engineer winced.

“Wh-What?” Twilight blurted out, her irises contracting again.

“And don’t even get me started on Pyro here!” Pinkie continued, leaning against the Pyro casually. “I mean, you should see the size of this flamethrower!” The Pyro shrunk down, trying to make itself seem small.

Twilight’s eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks, and she involuntarily took a couple of steps back. “F-Flamethrower?!” she repeated, her voice wavering. “Why would you need a flamethrower?! What circumstances could there possibly be in your native reality that would require the possession and use of a flamethrower?!”

The Engineer lifted one finger. “Uh… did I mention we’re mercenaries?” he asked, cringing.

“Merce— No!” Twilight practically shouted.

“Mercenaries?!” Pinkie gasped. “You mean like the Wonderbolts? That’s so cool! Wingless human Wonderbolts from another universe! Dashie’s gonna be so excited! Ooh, what government does your squad take orders from?”

“None of zem,” the Medic answered without hesitation. “Zey ask too many qvestions.”

“Y-You don’t?” Twilight asked, leaning forward slightly. “What’s the point of mercenaries if they don’t fall under the employ of a governmental body?”

“Ve’re under ze employ of a corporation,” the Medic explained. “Reliable Excavation and Demolition, or RED for short.”

“Why would a corporation need a team of mercenaries?” Twilight asked.

“It’s a long story,” the Medic replied. “Ze short version is… actually, no, zere is no short version.”

“Oh!” Pinkie gasped. “So Red Engineer, Red Medic and Red Pyro are your titles! I get it! That makes more sense than you all being named Red! So what’re your real names?”

The mercenaries exchanged a look, and all of a sudden, the misdeed I’d tricked them into doing came flooding back. “I’m afraid we can’t tell ya that, Miss Pie,” the Engineer answered, crossing his arms. “Our legal names, along with everythin’ that happened to us before we signed on with RED, is a buncha highly classified information collectively called ‘Incident Zero.’ An’ none of us wanna violate our contracts any more’n we already have.”

“You can’t tell us your real names? That’s silly!” Pinkie observed. “But hey, it’s no sillier than mercenaries who work for a corporation! If you just want to be called by your code names, I can work with that! Just Pinkie Promise me you won’t use your weapons while you’re here, okay?”

“I Pinkie Promise,” the Engineer quickly swore, raising his hand.

“Engineer, vat are you—” the Medic asked.

“Trust me,” the Engineer interrupted him.

Pinkie took that as her cue to start going through a series of complex motions. “Cross your heart—” She raised her hoof and swept it in the shape of an X across her heart. “—hope to fly—” She sunk onto her hind legs, lifted her forelegs and began flapping them wildly like a pair of ill-conceived wings. “—stick a cupcake in your eye?” She closed her left eye and pantomimed cramming the pastry against it.

“Engineer,” the Medic said calmly, “I’d just like to zrow my hat into ze ring here. It is a bad idea to eschew our veaponry, even if it is just some arbitrary promise to von native. You’re ze von who keeps goink on about not making promises you can’t keep. Vat if somezink attacks ze village vile ve’re here and ve’re drawn into a struggle to defend it?”

“When ‘as that ever happened?” the Engineer countered.

“Every damn time!” “Rrffrry drrm trrm!”

The Engineer hesitated and winced. “Well, I can’t fault your logic there,” he said. “But… I can’t help but feel that, after the spectacle ya just made, we owe it t’ the locals t’ keep a low profile.” Then he grinned nervously. “And need I remind ya,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands together, “that if we keep the casualties under fifteen, there’s a bonus in it for us?”

“Ze bonus for casualties over fifteen hundred is better,” the Medic countered.

“An’ if we fulfill enough bonus condition, we can earn amnesty for lyin’ to the Administrator,” the Engineer continued.

The Medic’s eyebrows shot up, and he snapped his fingers. “Brilliant!” he said. “…Actually, no, it’s stupid and it’s flawed on a fundamental level, but I may as vell humor you!”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” the Engineer grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“Grrd thrrnkrrng, Rrnjrrnrrr!” the Pyro agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Lrrtsh trrk rrn rrth rrf prrshrrfrrshrrm!”

The Medic gave the Engineer a quick salute. “Jawohl, I guess,” he said.

The mercenaries looked down and met Pinkie’s eyes. “We Pinkie Promise,” the Engineer said solemnly, “that we will not use our weapons while we’re in your universe.”

“Unless ve haff to,” the Medic added.

“Unless we have to,” the Engineer agreed.

In unison, all three mercenaries repeated the motions she’d performed for them. “Cross our hearts—” They drew an invisible X across their chests. “—hope to fly—” They began waving their arms around in an unsophisticated fashion. “—stick a cupcake in our eye.” Instead of pretending to jam a cupcake in their eye sockets, they opted to use one finger and poke the objects covering their respective eyes.

“Great!” Pinkie said cheerfully, bouncing up one last time for good measure. “Now remember, don’t even bother trying to break those promises! You’d be more likely to break a vow sworn on the waters of the River Twygz! See you at the party, you mysterious mercenaries, you!”

And with that, Pinkie Pie darted away faster than the Scout on cocaine. You remember that, right? Back in ‘75? Heh, “I CAN SEE T’ROUGH MY HANDS!” That was funny. Anyway, the mercenaries were left standing in the cloud of dust in Pinkie’s wake. Only once she was gone did they realize that they weren’t really sure what had just happened. They exchanged a bewildered look.

“Odd girl,” the Medic observed.

“I agree,” the Engineer agreed, nodding.

“Mrry trrw,” the Pyro put in, also nodding.

A shaken, exhausted voice forced its way into the conversation from the balcony. “Oh, don’t worry about her,” Twilight moaned. “That’s just… Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie.”

The mercenaries looked back up to see Twilight leaning over the railing, looking like she was struggling to keep her eyes open. “Noted,” the Engineer said, smiling warmly and nodding courteously. “Miss Twilight, you look like ya’ve had more’n enough excitement for one mornin’. You should go inside an’ get some rest.”

“I… I will…” Twilight murmured, slowly turning around and heading toward the door. “I’m… done with research for the day…” The mercenaries didn’t move until they heard it close behind her.

“All right, everybody,” the Engineer said, clapping his hands. “Ya have your orders. Move out.”

With that, the three wayward members of the RED Team set off in two different directions. The Engineer proceeded into Ponyville, while the Medic and the Pyro both proceeded toward the forest. And that’s how three alien, human mercenaries from another universe were set loose on a mildly suspecting Ponyville. They all did some interesting, fun, amusing, and sometimes even sadistic things while they were there. Let’s see, who should I tell you about fi—

HANDS UP, FREAK!

I swivel my throne around to see nine humans in trenchcoats and fedoras surrounding me. Each of them points a different weapon at my face, including a magic wand, a shotgun, and a handheld ray gun that looks like it was built in the future of the 70s. Standing on their far right was a bespectacled, purple-shirted, very cross-looking middle-aged woman, wielding a revolver. And hovering above the humans’ heads is a purple alicorn, holding a cigarette in her mouth and smirking like the mastermind she is.

I sigh and roll my eyes. “Don’t you humans know how to knock?” I ask. Then a better question occurs to me. “Actually, how’d you get in here? I would’ve heard you trying to break the door down.”

Helen lets out a sinister chuckle. “I teleported them in, Discord,” she answers around her cigarette. “For future reference, it is generally not a good idea to give your captive access to nearly limitless magical energy.”

I look down at the men’s feet. Sure enough, there’s a ring of purple energy pooling around them. I gasp in mock horror. “What?! Helen, how could you? I thought we had something special!”

“It’s over for you, Discord,” the woman in purple snarls through gritted teeth, “if that is your real name. If you honestly thought you could run a hostile takeover of our facility that easily, you—”

“Yes, yes, whatever,” I say, standing up and sighing. “You’re Miss Pauling, I assume? Fine. I’ve had my fun.” I snap my talons and vanish in a white flash of light.

There’s an instant where I don’t exist, then I reappear standing against the wall opposite the monitors. I dramatically hold my arm to my forehead as the trenchcoat-clad men whip around. Once everypony’s looking at me, I let out a cry of anguish. “Oh, woe is me,” I moan. “The superior military technology of Earth-VC8-Prime has put an end to my reign of terror. Curse the ingenuity and cunning of humanity!” That’s it, Discord, sell it. “But nay, I shall not shrink from my grisly fate.” I sweep his hand across his midsection, replacing part of my torso with a wooden, red-and-white bulls-eye. It tickles, not that I show it. “I am prepared to meet it, immeasurably far from my home… a stranger in a truly, truly strange land.”

“At your command, Administrator,” Miss Pauling growls.

Helen smirks. “Fire at will,” she sneers.

I smirk, too. I don’t say anything. There’s no time for that. I just snap my talons, and a bright red flag with the word “BANG!” written on it shoots out of the barrel of every weapon in the room. Including the ones that don’t have barrels. The agents look at their weapons. Their hats have wide enough brims that shadow covers their faces, but I can tell they’re shocked. Miss Pauling doesn’t have the advantage of a hat, and she has a fantastic “oh, crap” look on her face. Even Helen loses her confident smirk, and her cigarette falls out of her mouth.

“Oh! Phew! You guys really had me going there!” I laugh, putting my hand on my chest and pretending to be relieved.

“What the hell kind of—” Helen blurts out. Her eye twitches.

“I told you before, didn’t I?” I interrupt, smirking. “I am the god of chaos and disharmony. The tricks you used on Draaksice won’t work on me.”

“You mean you’re not Draaksice?” Miss Pauling asks.

I wipe the smirk off my face and lean forward. “Excuse me?” I scoff. “I’ve seen Draaksice, and I look nothing like him, thank you very much. Draaksice, for one, looked exactly like a human except for those bumps on his forehead.”

I snap his fingers. Chains spring up from the floor and wrap themselves around the agents’ ankles. They look down and cry out in shock. “He did use a disguise that kind of looked like me,” I admit, “but he didn’t have fur or scales or anything. He was more into metallic power armor. And I’m not as fat as him.”

I snap my fingers. Miss Pauling and Helen are teleported to several feet to the right, well away from the agents. Chains spring up and keep Miss Pauling in place. They spring up and wrap around Helen’s hooves at the same time. The chains then retract, yanking her back to the ground. She hits the floor and her knees buckle beneath her. She cries out in pain. I wince slightly. “Not to mention,” I continue, “those things on his helmet that kind of look like my horns were there as conductors of some kind, so they always had electricity sparking between them.”

I snap my fingers. The target in my chest vanishes. I can’t hide a little giggle as it goes away. “Have you ever seen electricity sparking between my horns? No, I didn’t think so. But if Draaksice were here, I bet I know what he’d say…”

I snap my fingers. Over-muscled, human arms of a variety of ethnicities sprout from my back, each one holding a revolver. They each randomly pick an agent to aim at. It’s not quite even, but there’s at least one gun pointing at each agent’s face.

“YOU SHALL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE WITH YOUR LIVES, PUNY MORTALS!” I scream. The agents rear back. I smirk, letting them wallow in fear for a few moments. Eventually, I chuckle and snap my fingers. The arms vanish in puffs of smoke, and the revolvers they were holding tumble to the ground, where they shatter like glass. “Or something like that,” I say. “Well, nice knowing you! Send me a postcard from Hell when you get there!”

I snap my fingers, and time slows to a crawl.

This is gonna get messy.

I reach behind my back and pull out a gigantic broadsword. I hurl it at the chest of the fourth agent from the left. The instant it makes contact with his chest, both the sword and the agent explode in a ball of fire. The agent is reduced to ashes, and the agents to his immediate left and right are set ablaze. I wave my hand, and the flames jump from the fifth agent to the third. The third agent collapses, dead from the burns and the blast before he has time to scream. I reach into my chest, pull out a grenade and lob it at the second agent without bothering to pull the pin.

A frying pan smashes over the eighth agent’s head with sufficient force to turn everything above his neck into a fine red mist. The ninth agent finds his throat slit by a folding knife that flaps through the air like a noisy, deadly butterfly. The grenade slams into the second agent’s chest and explodes, leaving the first agent completely unharmed and sending bits of the second one flying everywhere. A shotgun goes off, fired by the sixth agent. The flags shoot out of both barrels and pull quick one-eighties in midair. The left flag goes through his right eye and vice versa. They keep going, fly out the back of his head and slam into two separate monitors, shattering them.

I snap my fingers four times in quick succession. The seventh agent’s skin disappears first, then his muscles, then his bones, then his nervous system. All that’s left is a human-shaped pile of blood. I reach behind my back again, pull out a dead fish wrapped in newspaper, and swing it at the first agent. Despite him being across the room, the fish slams into him with enough force to send him flying backwards into the monitors, shattering exactly six of them and electrocuting him on the wiring. Finally, I just point at the fifth and final agent. His head explodes in a combination of confetti, balloons, and horrific, gruesome gore.

I snap my fingers one last time. Time begins passing normally again, and the corpses start hitting the ground.

Once all the corpses have landed— except the one that got stuck— I raise my finger to my lips and blow away the puff of smoke issuing from it. “You two get to live,” I say. I snap my fingers, and the chains retract back into the ground. “After all, the trenchcoat men were faceless goons. Everypony knows you can’t kill women.”

Miss Pauling drops her revolver and her jaw. “Oh my God,” she says under her breath.

“Exactly!” I chuckle, jumping back into my throne and spinning around in it like the office chair it used to be. “You can just call me Discord, though. Now go away and tell the rest of the Overseers what I’m capable of! Oh, and cancel protocol 7R32-G, would you? Thanks so much!” I snap my fingers, and Miss Pauling vanishes in a white flash of light. She reappears outside the room a few milliseconds later.

“Hmph. You certainly made short work of them, didn’t you?” Helen sneers, trotting toward me.

“And that’s just what I can do with nine guys!” I say cheerfully. The smell of electrical smoke and fried human. Ew. I wrinkle my nose. I turn around and see the corpses of the agents behind me. Or the pieces of them, where applicable. “Oh, what a mess I’ve made. You humans have a lot of blood, don’t you?” I snap my fingers, and the corpses vanish. The monitors don’t repair themselves, though. I’ll get around to fixing that later.

“Okay… I’ll admit it,” Helen says. “I’m mildly impressed.”

I grin a grin that’s wider than my face. Coming from her, that’s one hell of a compliment. “I didn’t spend my entire foalhood training to become the leader of the Tartaric Legion for nothing!” I say, not even bothering to hide how proud I am. “And that’s not even a fraction of my godly powers! You should see what I’m gonna do to New York. I’m gonna call her Lady Chaos when I’m done. She’ll be lovely. Befitting of a true god.”

Helen stops next to me and scoffs. “Delusions of grandeur, hm?”

I let out a burst of laughter. I reach behind her ear and pull out a cigarette. “It’s not a delusion of grandeur if it’s true!” I stick the cigarette in her mouth and point at it. A tiny flame appears at my fingertip and lights it.

Helen tries and fails to suppress a chuckle. “I like the way you think, Discord,” she says.

“Thanks! I like the way I think, too!” I reply, unable to wipe a beaming smile off my face. I clap my hands and swivel around so I’m facing the monitors again. “Well, the moment has passed. Back to work!”

Author's Note

I have a confession to make. I find my headcanon for Team Fortress 2 much more interesting than my headcanon for My Little Pony. But given what I've revealed about it so far, can you blame me? And in completely unrelated information, "flatback" is a term I borrowed from a guy who calls himself Figments. Thanks for that, man. As always, my audience, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my story-type substance. If you have any feedback for me, I'd love to hear it. Leave a comment for me at your leisure.