From One World to Another.

After a few hours of sleep, Alexander woke up. For now, he was staring at the ceiling and thinking about how he had gotten to this point. Ugh! Everything went to Tartarus from the very moment he forgot that the Everfree Forest has creatures that will bite your ass. And he, such a fool, was disoriented by what had happened and did not attach importance to the simplest collection of information. MO-RON! Militarized idiot! He still dares to call himself “the savior of the Earth” and “an XCOM soldier”. If one of his own found out about this, he would never be able to wash away this shame.

He tried to calm the anger and fury, rage and resentment rumbling inside him. Even despite his shitty state, he still has psionics, and they are reinforced by a mental shield. And if he had gotten to the bed in psi-armor... oh shit, there would have been a local Armageddon. Considering that Alex is most powerful psionic, the ponies would have to restore if not part of the medical wing, then his ward for sure.

He sighed heavily and finally decided to get up. Having sorted out the medical equipment, he took out his shoes from the pocket dimension and put them on. At least he was in his jumpsuit, so it wasn't so noticeable. Then the man looked at his hand, now properly treated, and sighed, going to the window. Also, his back responded with a slight pain. He still couldn't completely absorb this hard blow to the ground. But, at the same time, this is already much better than having a broken spine, or something worse. Then you could shoot yourself or inject a death syringe, as EXALT liked to do.

Outside, meanwhile, life was in full swing. Guards patrolled the city, chatting among themselves. Residents went about their important capital affairs. And somewhere occasionally you could see some aristocrats, doing business.

And what, one wonders, should he do? He is in Canterlot, the capital of Equestria and a hotbed of aristocrats. Also, there is a real chance of a visit from the Six or Princess Celestia.

No ideas came to him, so Alex again began to think over the words spoken by the Tree, to somehow understand what exactly he would need to do.

— How fucking tired I am of this unsaid thing! Go there I don't know where and steal I don't know what, ask that I don't know who... Oh... How fucking difficult it is with fortune tellers... Once they say something, only they themselves will fucking understand! - Raze swore quietly, standing by the window, and returning to the medical bed. He would have spat out of this damned window, but he still has some decency.

Having finally cursed enough, Alexander senses replaced by apathy and common sense.

— Hm... Hm... Hm?... Hm!... And why the fuck am I ranting here!? This is the fucking world of ponies, so let the Princesses decide this issue! Don't drag me into it! I'm sick of it! I've suffered enough, with the fucking aliens destroyed my homeland and killed my friends!

So what should he do? Go and bow to Celestia? At the moment, he's a nobody and has no name, plus there's a slight touch of xenophobia here... Fuck! Why is it so fucking easy for bronies who get to ponies and they live for their own pleasure! And but he can't find any peace, getting into different piles and types of fucking shit?! Either the timberwolf almost took his arm, or he ran into a suicidal attack on Nightmare Moon because of the chance to kill Twilight... want to take it, spit on all this from the heights of Canterlot, and go fuck himself. He actually deserved a rest after the fuck up on Earth!

Then he thought: could this "prophecy" be a mistake or something like that? He urgently needs Canterlot library to find an example of this, or at least some clues about it. But for now, the first thing he needed to do was find out about the tree of harmony itself.

He planned to get the information at night. Climb out of the ward, and then quietly, stealthily, go look for the library and look through the books. The plan based on snot and a kind word, but otherwise he would simply miss a lot of time. Waiting until night was a quest for patience, fortunately he could try to fall asleep and set the alarm for the right time to wake up for "work" on time. And since he was now in the hospital, he could "borrow" a few sleeping pills for a faster effect.

But then a problem arose again: Raze didn't even know where and what office was, and even more so where to look for the medications he needed. Let's say he would find out about a jar of sleeping pills, or some other form. But, at the same time, there is still one problem - “which office is it in?” He sighed heavily and realized that he would have to get out and look for all this crap on his own.

Soon he got dressed and climbed out. By human standards, Alexander wasn't that high, so he fit into the door.

Now… all that was left was to find the office itself or at least ask the nurse for help. Then take a little bit of sleeping pills, set a mental alarm clock and wake up at night. In the end, start doing things. He urgently needed to find out about this crap that was happening to him.

In the open corridor, Alexander saw nurses of different colors, but generally they were white or soft white-pink with small caps with a red cross on their heads. At the same time, seeing the tall soldier, they stayed closer to the wall because of his menacing appearance. He sighed quietly but heavily. It would be difficult… he thought about it and decided to look for the pills on his own.

Walking away from the nurses, they breathed a sigh of relief,. Then Alexander remembered about his medical supplies. Returning to his room, he opened the pocket dimension and pulled out one of the jars of sleeping pills.

At one time, when he was still on Earth, he was prescribed a course of sleeping pills, because he woke up every time from nightmares, scaring the shit out of the XCOM new recruits. Hmmm, well, Alexander didn't think that they would be useful to him not because of nightmares.

Shaking the jar, a sleeping pill fell out, which he immediately swallowed. His throat was dry, so Alex had to help with water from a flask. Sighing, he put everything away and returned to bed. After a while, the sleeping pills began to work, and he began to fall asleep. He managed to set a mental alarm for 0:00.

Finding himself in the dream world again, and seeing different bubbles with other pony dreams, he again wondered why his dream was in this format. Plus, it was unknown how long he would sit here, knowing that time in a dream flows completely differently.

Having lit a "cigarette", he began to wait. Maybe time would fly by quickly, maybe slowly... he had never encountered such crap before, so he didn't know

But despite the rather gloomy shade of the place itself, soon music began to play out of nowhere, and a multitude of colors and fireworks appeared around, gathering in one place, until Eris appeared from all this pandemonium, which greatly surprised Raze, because usually the main draconicus is Discord, and here the "princess" was instead of him.

— Hi-i-i-i-i my tired friend! So how are you living with us?

— What the fuck are you?! And where did Discord go?!

— My uncle decided to take a vacation from worldly and diplomatic affairs, so he will not be disturbed, and I will take his place. And by the way, you did not say whether you like it here.

— Well... I got my ass kicked like a total idiot, but otherwise everything is fine. So, you say that you are for him? And who are you then?

— Ha-ha! Fear mortal, for before you stands the great princess of chaos! Eris!

— Hmh... let's assume. So, despite Discord's "vacation", all the future fucked up remains in force? — Alexander lit a second "cigarette". Of course, it is not smoking in itself, but at least one can imagine it in the "dream world".

— What you call fucked up is canon... And why do you have the sign on your armor that Starswirl the Bearded wore?

— I know about "canon"... but this... well, what about it. I'll tell you: after the fuck up that the aliens did on Earth, and how I destroyed their damned Flagship, I found myself in Equestria. Having landed, I found myself, clichéd, in the Everfree Forest. This time, someone decided to play a joke on me and I landed next to the Castle of the Two Sisters. I went in. Everything seemed to be as usual, I decided to look at the place where all this bullshit with the Elements of Harmony would be. And the tree began to react strangely, vines appeared, there were no escape routes and I was caught. I got into some strange crap, and there was a spirit, talking about the future fuck up, and smashed this "sign of Starswirl the Bearded" right onto the armor.

Eris sighed heavily, already looking a little more serious.

— I'll kill her someday... How many times have I told her to turn off the answering machine... In general, what was told to you was not for you. And for Starswirl's group, MANY years ago.

— Oh, phew... Well, i'm "lucky" I guess. Okay, I'll sort this crap out, or shut it down, otherwise there will be questions. Although... can't you remove this crap?

— I can. But what will happen to me for this?

— Okay... I see, I'll sort it out myself — Alexander immediately "rolled back".

— Hey, why are you doing this so suddenly? I wanted it out of all kindness.

— Well... you're Discord, only in a skirt. Who knows what to expect from you and from Discord himself.

— The most important thing is not to interfere with the canon. They'll manage without you. Otherwise, it may happen that the world itself will want to get rid of you.

— Not to interfere with the canon? For God-Emperor's sake. I wanted to settle down and rest. And I suffered so much in the war with the aliens, damn them, I need to restore my sanity after the shit I've seen for several years.

Slightly changing her face to a more playful one, Eris spread her paws wide and with a small laugh.

At that moment the alarm clock woke up Alexander, and now he looked out the window and saw only solid night. Having checked his psi-armor, he saw that the sign from the armor had disappeared after all.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Now, it was time to sort himself out and not get involved in any bullshit at all. All the bullshit, in turn, was happening in the “triangle” of Canterlot-Ponyville-Everfree Forest. Therefore... he needed to leave, preferably as far away as possible.

This time, checking his supplies that he had collected, he saw in the bins of his “inventory” an advanced first aid kit that the soldiers of his unit used. Now, Alexander almost wanted to yell obscenities at the entire hospital building, because being stupid. Despite the fact that the XCOM medkit was as simple, this thing healed everything: from plasma wounds to alien poisons and brought operatives back from the jaws of death. And when all the medkit were produced in an improved variation, reinforced with alien technology ...

Having removed the bandages and everything that was clearly unnecessary, Raze used the medkit on the wounded arm, already seeing how the wound slowly closed until it was completely healed. After that, the soldier felt relief and a little rage like a Muton berserker (or like a Khorne berserker) because of his stupidity.

Then he checked the level of the mixture in the medkit, removed useless things, and sprayed the rest of the mixture on the wounds on the torso. The wounds healed here too, but, due to the lack of mixture, left slightly ugly scars. But, at the same time, Alexander Raze felt better. He practically returned to his previous state.

Now the most important thing is to get the hell out of here. Since he wants to rest. and Eris-Discord wants him to stay out of canon, he needs to leave Canterlot. Before he starts doing more stupid things, he combed through his pocket dimension and found a “ghost pack”. This package contains a mixture from a “ghost grenade”, but if a grenade can cover all allies, then the mixture in the package must be sprayed on yourself. On the plus side - the camouflage lasts longer and is better than from a grenade, what the doctor ordered.

After spraying himself from the package, he began to cover himself with this mixture, becoming invisible. When he finally became invisible, he put the package back and began to leave.

Opening the door and looking around, Alexander did not see anyone, after which he began to walk along the corridors of the hospital. It was deep night outside, and everyone was already asleep, and the corridors were quiet and dark. Having gotten his bearings, as he had when he came here the first time, the man went down and went out. Opening the door to the exit, Alexander took a breath of fresh air. Now... he ran, bent over (you can't break a habit now), to the exit from the capital.

Having passed through the patrolling guards, as well as the group that guarded the gate, he turned around to the night Canterlot, and ran from there. Soon the stealth began to stop, and Raze began to appear.

Having reached Ponyville, he appeared from stealth, looked around, and going around the city. Finding himself near the forest, but at the same time being at a decent distance from it, Alexander could finally allow himself to catch his breath...

Having leaned against a stone, he caught his breath, and realized that he want to eat. He took out a set of dry rations for dinner. Having taken out the stand and unfolded it, he put in a fuel tablet and lit it with a lighter. After that, he began to cook food. After 10 minutes, Alexander smelled a pleasant aroma and ate well, having eaten a part of the rations for dinner.

Wrapping himself in a cloak, he sat down on a more or less flat stone and again began to look at Canterlot, towering somewhere in the distance. The night was quiet, except for passive noise in the form of crickets, grasshoppers, as well as rustling leaves or grass ... Unfortunately, when silence came, memories activated.

Flashback. Some time after the start of the war. The Battle of Washington.

Alexander and the XCOM squad members rode together with Humvees and Abrams of the US Army. After the war began, Earth began to mobilize, because the aliens raided and attacked cities regardless of their affiliation.

It's been 3 months, and the aliens began to attack Washington, the capital of the United States. At the moment, the National Guard is holding back the alien scum, while the army going into the city. XCOM allocated 2 special forces units of 10 people for the operation - "Storm-1" and "Storm-2". They drove up to the city from the east, moving along George Washington Avenue, almost next to the Potomac River.

Driving onto the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, the front Abrams received plasma hits and exploded. The XCOM squad immediately began to climb out of the army Humvee with other soldiers

— Ambush ahead! Aliens on Theodore Roosevelt Bridge! — Army Signalman Reports, hiding behind a destroyed tank.

— Forward! Hide behind the cars, quick! — Sergeant Alexander Raze ordered. The squad immediately ran to the cars, which were here and there. As soon as they appeared from behind the tank, the aliens began to shoot at them. Dodging green plasma clots, they ran to the cars and took cover. Raze looked out unnoticed and saw that a dozen sectoids and thin mans had set up an ambush.

— Sectoids and thin man at 12 o'clock! Be careful! — now, 2 infantry squads crawled to the "Storm-1".

— Aliens at 12 o'clock, M249 suppressive fire! - two machine gunners from both sides of the bridge placed the M249 on bipods and began to fire suppressive fire. Turning the SCOPE upward, Alex adjusted it, after which he fired a burst at one of the sectoids. Green blood and the fall of the "little gray man" were visible. The rest of the squad also fired bursts at the aliens.

The aliens finally began to respond, firing at the positions from a dozen light plasmers. Many plasma clots flew in their direction, flying over their heads, crashing into the ground, or hitting the cars debris. It became more difficult to return fire due to danger of getting an alien-everything-evaporating "pill" right in the face.

While they were exchanging fire, two MK19s were set up, and soon the AGL spat out their deadly payload. Explosions and a dying hiss could be heard in the distance. Looking out, the sergeant saw that everything ahead was in a cloud of very toxic gas.

— The ambush had been destroyed! Forward! We are behind schedule!

Ten minutes later, they found themselves on the streets of the US capital. Corpses everywhere, destroyed and "parked cars; “walls” of police cars with policemen corpses lying here and there. Bulletproof vests, shotguns, or rifles doesnt helped them. Of course, they managed to destroy numbers of aliens, but the National Guard units already reporting that the alien count was in the hundreds.

There were still a huge number of civilians in the city, and the National Guard managed to occupy several highways, along which residents were taken out on buses and trucks, away from this fucked up place.

Two weeks passed in such a deadly pace of battles in houses, on narrow streets and alleys. During this time, they were able to take out a small part of the civilians, but at least they were saved. The evacuation corridors were constantly attacked by aliens, and small UFO tried to bombard the roads with their plasma guns. Because of this, it was necessary to create a permanent duty of air force, air defense and the XCOM satellite. Also, the evacuation points where all the residents were taken before being sent out of the city were constantly attacked. Two of them were created near the Lincoln and Washington memorials (yes, I am copying the original COD: MW2. Problems?)

Alexander lit a cigarette and watched as the cannonade was heard in the distance. The US Army troops successfully pushed the aliens out of the city areas, while suffering moderate losses. There were so many alien fragments and corpses that they had to take the trophies to the Base with whole Sky Rangers. Scientists and engineers were pissing themselves from the abundance of materials. In the evening... something strange began.

In the sky, a huge bulk was visible... an alien ship, before not shown on radar. Having appeared above the city, it opened fire from dozens of plasma guns. At the same time, flashes of teleportation became visible. The comms exploded with panicked screams.

— WE ARE UNDER ATTACK FROM THE AIR! WE ARE BEING BOMBED!

—THIS IS WOLVERINE-4, ALIEN INFANTRY AND TANKS ARE ATTACKING US! REPEAT! WE ARE BEING ATTACKED BY ALIEN INFANTRY AND HEAVY VEHICLES! BROKEN ARROW! I REPEAT - BROKEN ARROW!

— MSR are under attack! This thing is trampling us into the ground!

— Fucking hell… “Center”, do you see that!?!?!?! — Raze asked in a voice of horror, looking at the dreadnought shooting in all directions.

— I see, “Storm-1”. We are listening to the comms in Washington. Many bases, outposts, and EVACs are under attack by Mutons and tanks and mech analogues. More and more teams are going silent. BCTs are taking heavy casualties. Get out of there! American command is abandoning Washington!

— Roger that, "Center". Over and out. — He turns to the squad and barks. — Get in the Humvee now! Everyone evacuate the fuck out of the city! We're abandoning Washington!

Jumping into a Humvee with a minigun, "Storm-1" reunited with "Storm-2" and they, along with other lucky ones, drove away. Evacuating soldiers were visible everywhere, grabbing whatever they could and jumping into trucks. At the same time, communications with other squads and the US Army command were being monitored.

— All units, retreat to the MSR, we're leaving!

— Attention everyone! Command orders to drop EVACs east of the Potomac! I repeat - drop all evac points east of the Potomac River!

Along with the orders to retreat, many "Broken Arrows" are arriving. Many American soldiers trapped in the city, shelled by an enemy battleship and pinned down by the advancing alien lines. The only thing left for them was to point artillery at their coordinates in order to sell their lives dearly...

Raze and his soldiers, riding away from the city with the rest of their forces, saw the bulk of the dreadnought, which was shelling the already half-destroyed city. High-rises were collapsing like houses of cards, artillery wasted its last shells and also folded up... The aliens washed them in blood, but who knew that in a few years they would return?

End of flashback

Alexander twitched, and the obsession began to subside. The ruins of burning Washington replaced by a sleeping Canterlot, asphalt, blood and fatigue replaced by stones and grass. The smell of plasma and fires replaced by fresh air. He wiped his face with his hands. Looking at his watch, he learned that he had been self-flagellating for almost half an hour.

Sleep began to take over, and covering himself with a cloak and this time installing more psi-alarms, he thought that he must build kind of house. After that, he began to fall asleep. This time the sleep was dreamless.

To be continued.