The men were already out of the city, past where the border should have been. They didn't ask questions, and instead followed the green grass outward, almost too stunned to believe that what was happening was real. They trusted Boris' words, telling them to capitalize on the situation. Oddly enough, they hadn't come into contact with anyone else on their little journey outside the border lines.

They had spotted a dense forest, and decided to set up inside there. Boris smiled at the men. "How long has it been since we've been in nature? And not that damned forest, i'm talking about real nature. Untouched by the idiocy of man. It shall provide decent cover as well."

The men agree'd in silence, following Boris' lead to the dense forest in the distance.

Twilight, Celestia and Luna were all in a chariot ride to the anomaly that had appeared from thin air. There had been reports almost instantly after it appeared, but none of them were conclusive. Reports of creatures living inside the anomalous zone were confirmed by guards that were nearby, but they hadn't spotted any of them leave the anomaly. Multiple ponies who were travelling along the area that the zone had occupied out of thin air were gone, or inside the anomaly itself.

"What do we do?" Twilight asked Celestia, who was sitting next to her. Celestia didn't have much emotion showing on her face, which usually meant she was in deep thought. Celestia shook her head, breaking herself out of her thought, before looking over at her student with a smile. It didn't seem certain, though.

"We will figure out what to do when we get there. This isn't the worst thing, nor the craziest thing to happen in Equestria in recent times, is it? We'll be fine."

"We're landing outside the zone now!" A Guard called out from the front of the chariot.

Twilight looked out the side of the chariot, seeing just how large this anomaly was. It was what looked like a gigantic city, but definitely not in the best shape that it could have been. It contrasted the green lush colors that surrounded it, itself being this almost grey blob in the middle of color. It didn't seem right. Even from a distance, it made Twilight feel dread. Something she thought she had gotten rid of over the years of trials with her friends.

"It is certainly large." Luna noted, looking out the side of the chariot as well. "Guards are already down there, I presume?"

"Yes," Celestia confirmed. "They haven't stepped past its border. They are waiting on our arrival."

"We're here, Princess'." The Guard in the front said, stepping out of the chariot to open up both sides, allowing the three Princess' to step out of it. When they got out and stepped onto the soft grass, they finally saw the true scale of this anomalous, grey, broken city. It's towers stood tall and intimidating, and the eerie sounds coming from inside wasn't filling any of the Princess' with hope.

"Princess'! We've got a situation over there-" A guard called out, pointing out to the border line of the city. A human, standing with it's hands wrapped around a metallic object, stared at them from just behind the grass. Twilight immediately recognized it as a human from her previous experience, but this one was much different.

It wore a heavy black jacket, with fur coming up on the top end. It had a black balaclava, and dark green gloves to match his pants. Though she couldn't identify the thing it was holding. She didn't remember anything like that from her experiences at Canterlot High.

Celestia was the first to step forward a couple steps, before stopping, allowing considerable distance between them. He stared at them still, his eye's hardly being able to be seen from the face-cover. Luna and Twilight stood behind Celestia. If anyone was going to speak to him, it was going to be her.

First, proper introductions were in order. "I am Princess Celestia. This is my sister, Princess Luna, and my dear student, Princess Twilight Sparkle. What is your name?" Celestia asked with a smile, but there was no response from the man. He kept his stance, his eyes drifting to the gold piece that wrapped around her neck.

"Zoloto..." He muttered under his breath.

"Hm? I didn't quite hear that, could you-"

The man brought the metallic object up to his shoulder, and pulled it's trigger. A deafening crack was heard, before Celestia had faltered and fell to the floor. A magic shield was brought up in front of the three Princess' by a nearby guard. The man standing at the border continued to fire his weapon, slowly realizing he wasn't making any progress.

With a quick turn, he aimed at a nearby guard and fired, striking the guard in the throat. Another guard tried to render immediate aid, but was also caught in the fire, the bullets ripping through his golden armor easily. It took a couple more seconds before a stun spell was forced onto the man, causing him to fall onto the floor, spasming from the spell.

Twilight stared down at her mentor, who was on the floor, blood pooling beneath the hole in her leg.

In a matter of seconds everything had gone wrong. Her hearing had faded out. The only thing that she could even remotely make sense of was Luna's yelling towards the guards, but she couldn't exactly understand what she was telling them. Celestia writhed in pain, and looked down at her leg with a groan, before locking eyes with Twilight. It wasn't a fatal wound, but this had been the very first time she had seen her mentor bleed.

In fact, with the two guards who had been caught in the midst of the action, it was the very first time she had seen real casualty. She looked over to where the two guards were, and multiple other guards were pulling the bodies to cover. The chariot was pulled up immediately behind the Princess', another guard rushing Luna and Twilight in, before using their magic to haul Celestia's hurting body inside it as well.

"Get them the buck out of here, now!" Twilight could make sense of a guard yelling at the chariot pilots, to which they took off without another word. They were in the air. In less than a couple minutes, they had landed, tried to make contact, before everything going horribly wrong before they were now back in the sky.

Twilight felt a little dazed by the situation, but thanked the stars that Celestia wasn't fatally hurt.

But she could've been.

The men sat around a small campfire they had made in the forest. It had been at least five hours since they had left, and they were simply enjoying the silence. They all perked their heads up when they heard distant gunfire, to which Boris shook his head. "Idiot scavs fighting still, and it's been hours. Thankfully, that life is behind us."

"But what if they come here?" Artyom asked.

"Bah- why would they? Idiot scav knows only one thing. Roubles. How would you get roubles in a forest?"

"If there's people to get roubles off of..." Artyom said to himself, looking at the campfire.

"Any of you know any songs? Before getting stuck in that shitty ass city, I used to sit with my family and sing songs with them. Might've not been in key, or the right lyrics most of the time but, hey, it was fun." Jake said with a shrug.

Boris smiled. "I know a song, but you won't know it, dear American."

Jake smiled back. "Let's hear it."

"Just don't tell mom I'm in afghan."

The three russian's sang in unison, whilst the two american's simply listened. They couldn't make out most of the words, but that didn't matter. Seeing the three men happily singing together definitely seemed in tune with their new situation. Jake hoped that this is how things would turn out onwards into their post-tarkov life.

The song ended shortly after they started. It wasn't a long song by any means, and the three russian's laughed, with Boris shaking his head with a smile. "The graveyard of empires. It was a bloodbath. I'd go as far as to say worse than our friend Tarkov over there."

"What's the 'graveyard of empires'?" Marcus asked, breaking his silence.

"Afghanistan." Artyom answered. "We were there first before the American's waged their own pointless war. The only thing you'll get from those sands is the stories of the damned."

Jake nodded. "Had a brother that got deployed there before I got to Tarkov. Never heard back from him before I got there. I understand kuwait- and other such wars, but... Bah, I guess I'll never understand. I wasn't there. I didn't pay attention to the politics of it. No matter what the hell happens, the only people that get hurt is the people fighting the war. Not the damned politicians that wage that shit."

Dmitri nodded in agreement. "Well said. I knew many men that hated you American's, but I knew it was not you who waged the war. It was the men in charge, and the men in charge are not men at all. They refuse to stand up and see the bullet coming. Instead, they pull the next disposable soldier in front of themselves."

Marcus shook his head. "I suppose the world is just fucked. They'll never learn."

"You've got that right." Artyom said with chuckle. "They've never lived what we lived through. But not even I will go as far as to say that I have gone through worse than the comrades in those sands. Two different fates. And, with where we are at right now, on this green grass? I'd wage we're better off. Never take anything for granted."

"Amen to that shit." Jake said with a laugh.

"You ever believe that perhaps the world would be better without humans?" Dmitri asked randomly, causing all the men to look at him. "Think about it. We are like a plague to the earth. We pillage its resources, we force our own kind into certain ways of living. We can't agree on a damned thing, and, name one creature that is better at killing than us."

Boris nodded. "You're right. We are the plague. Yet I wouldn't give my life up any day. I never will. Maybe in some other... universe, we don't exist. Maybe everything is perfectly fine there. Yet, we aren't there my boy. We're here. Where places like Tarkov exist, and where people like us suffer. Welcome to reality."

Marcus shook his head in disagreement. "I don't think we're a plague. Humans have done a lot of bad things, sure, but if we weren't the ones to shape the world, something else would've. We've caused a lot of bloodshed, but we can't say anything else wouldn't have either. Humans are intelligent. And, with Intelligence, comes ignorance. And ignorance catalysts into violence."

Jake chuckled. "You read too much."

"It's true!"

"Whether or not it's true-" Dmitri interrupted. "I'm just glad we're out of there. Whatever god from whatever religion came down to help us, I thank it."

"Amen."

"Amen."

"We got any drinks?" Artyom asked.

Boris chuckled and reached into his bag which laid between his legs. He pulled out a big bottle of vodka, setting it onto the dirt next to him. "How about we make this into a game of sorts? To celebrate our new life. With each shot you take, you must tell the others something embarrassing you've done. Either as a child, or even now!"

"Not a fan of people laughing at me- but I can deal with it if it means we get to breathe this fresh air."

"Then lets get to drinking. Marcus, you're up."

"Huh? Why me? I'm not even a fan of-"

"Did I stutter boy?! You drink!"

Author's Note

Now, I'd really like to not get into any politics consisting of what they talked about in the chapter. Remember, these are characters, they aren't real.

I just thought I should put that out there.