The Reality War

The Normandy was traveling everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They were moving through a wormhole that was just one of many with more surrounding them on all sides. The act of traveling through different dimensions is a sight which could only be described as seeing beauty in its most raw and physical form. Lights of all colors danced across everyone’s eyes, and even the Doctor was speechless at the sheer size of reality that they were looking at. They were looking into all of space, with no idea where they would end up. The Doctor had installed a program into the inter-dimensional “thingamajig” as Joker liked to put it. The program would allow them to pinpoint life from billions of light-years away. Space is mostly empty, so with the Time Lord technology the Doctor had access to, it wasn’t actually that difficult. The just had to search for energy signatures unique to organic life and if there was enough of said life in the same general area, they would be able to pick it up. Or something like that; Joker wasn’t really paying attention.

The Normandy jerked left and right, a feeling not unlike the one that Joker experiences when entering a Mass Relay’s field. All of a sudden, the feeling stopped and the colors that once nearly blinded them were replaced with the ever expansive darkness of space. The life detecting program had already locked them on to the nearest location with a significant amount of life; not surprisingly a planet. The question remained however: what was down there?

BRGGGGGG BRGGGGG

The sound of a chainsaw filled the air as all around bullets flew while their targets crouched behind cover. Rushing forward a muscled man in tattered armor jumped the first unlucky victim. Slicing through it like a hot knife through butter, the prey was left in half on the ground, no more. Standing over his kill was a blood covered Marcus Fenix, with a scowl on his face and a Lancer in his hands; the perfect depiction of the grisliness of war.

Meanwhile his squad, Dominic Santiago, Damon Baird, and Augustus Cole, had eliminated the rest of the Locust mob that had ambushed them when they were trying to get back to the main body of the army. Before they could continue though, a large spaceship swept in below the dark clouds and hovered right in front of them.

Granted, these were hardened soldiers, so it was only natural for them to take cover and aim their most destructive weapons directly at the ship. They were pretty sure that the COGs didn’t have this technology, so whoever it was was about to get blown the hell up. A door near the front of the ship opened and a figure appeared, silhouetted against the bright light from inside the ship.

“Man, what the fuck is this shit? Are we in the Twilight Zone or some shit like that now?” Cole asked.

Fenix raised a hand to silence him and, taking a ballsy move stood up out of cover to face the unexpected visitor.

“What the hell are you doing? You wanna get shot? Get back down!” Baird yelled.

Fenix looked forward, “Who, and what, are you?”

The Doctor took a deep breath, “I am the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, on a human built trans-dimensional ship from another dimension that came from a world of pastel colored magical talking equines that are currently about to be invaded by an inter-dimensional army of evil imperialist clones. So I and my associate, a PhD in theoretical physics who fights aliens with a crowbar and a zero point energy heavy lifter are traveling through all of existence enlisting the help of anyone who might be able to repel them until I can close the portal they’re going to travel through.” He looked down at them waiting for a response.

“Damn…” Cole muttered and proceeded to pass out.

Celestia looked out over the horizon at her kingdom. Her land. Her dynasty. And it was all about to be taken by an army of aliens that until three weeks ago she hadn’t ever heard of. How she envied herself then. The Elder Sister looked off at her sun; in the other direction, Luna’s moon. Both were on opposite ends of the sky, but both clearly visible to anypony who looked up. It was an ancient alert system, devised by Celestia after the Nightmare Moon incident. When both celestial bodies were in the sky simultaneously for more than a few moments, it meant something was wrong and that everypony should get to a safe location. She was saddened deeply, not only because her country was in danger, but also because she was essentially powerless to stop it. And even worse, she knew that she couldn’t save everypony. She just had to hope that the Combine don’t get that far.

“Princess, the city’s population has gathered in the old abandoned gem mines not far from here, I recommend we do the same,” a guard stated, entering the room with a small detachment of troops, including Commander Shepard.

It had been a little over three hours since the Normandy disappeared in that brilliant flash, and Shepard wasted no time giving orders to everyone nearby. Celestia watched, as she had no idea what to do in this situation. Besides, she thought, it was probably best left to Shepard anyways. Apparently she had done this before on a planet called Elysium. From what Celestia had heard, Shepard single handedly banded together a settlement’s rag tag garrison and repelled wave after wave of enemies with superior numbers and weaponry. But she succeeded anyway and went on to be promoted to the rank of commander soon after.

While Shepard continued giving commands, Celestia had to figure out how to tell her subjects about the situation. She sent a guard to gather Luna and another to gather their Cabinet. Within minutes they all gathered around a table with a map of Equestria spread out across them. The Cabinet was in charge of moving everypony into the nearby mines. Luna was taking a squad of the pegasi corps and was going to the other cities to spread the word. Celestia was afraid for her sister but knew that Luna could at least teleport to the moon for safety. But she knew Luna would not leave her subjects like that; they were here ponies too. Celestia just prayed that they would find a place to hide. Celestia’s job was to figure out a way to quickly tell the populace about a species from an entirely different dimension was in Equestria to help them repel another species from another dimension from taking over this dimension. She had decided to just say country instead of dimension and also decided to leave out all the gory details. There was no need to panic them anymore than she was already going to. She knew most would follow without question. On the bright side though, the Elder Dragon Council and the Griffon Monarchy both agreed to send troops to combat the Combine force. Celestia accepted with enthusiasm; they were going to need all the help they could get.

It had been two hours since that happened. The dragon and griffon army were setting up a perimeter around the portal’s projected drop off area. It wasn’t perfect, but it was something. Now most of Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Ponyville, and other nearby areas safely hidden in the old abandoned gem mines, once the greatest source of income for Canterlot (it was replaced with fashion and other fine art) now little more than caverns. It wasn’t going to be too much longer until Celestia joined them in there along with Shepard and her crew; that was the plan, until…

“I’m not going,” Celestia stated plainly.

“Princess, please. We need to get you to safety,” one of the guards argued, but he already knew it wasn’t going to change her mind.

“No. However, you and the rest of the royal guard ARE going in. I will seal the way in when you are all in safely.” The guard was about to outright object when Celestia added, “That’s an order.” They stared at each other but the guard faltered quickly under the pure gaze of his princess.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” Celestia watched them all leave, except Shepard. She reached a finger into her earpiece, activating it.

“Garrus, gather the rest of the crew and get to the castle, the princess is refusing to leave, so we aren’t either.”

“Shepard, no, I cannot allow you to risk the lives of you and your crew,” Celestia disputed. Right as she was about to continue Twilight and her friends stepped into the room.

“If you’re not leaving Princess, then I’m not either.”

“Twilight…”

“And if Twilight’s not leaving, then we’re not either,” Rainbow Dash added.

Celestia stared at them all in disbelief; she looked at their determined faces and silently pleaded with them to go. She didn’t want them to get hurt, or worse. But they wouldn’t budge. She bowed her head in defeat. Garrus came into the room with the rest of the crew behind him.

“Uh, Commander? Where do you want us to set up?”

“Twilight could you please show them to a room preferably underground and without any windows?” the commander asked.

“I know just the place Shepard; come on you all,” Twilight said, gesturing to her friends, “let’s go help them set up. I know the perfect place. We’ll go to the vault. It’s this giant underground room that holds all of Equestria’s precious metals. Seeing as how these are desperate times, I figured we could use the metals to set up barricades and defenses.”

“That’s an excellent idea Twilight,” Celestia complemented. Twilight smiled and walked past Garrus into the hallway. Her friends looked at each other, shrugged, and followed. Garrus looked at Shepard and with an affirmative nod, Garrus and every other crew member of the Normandy followed the six down the hall.

Shepard looked at Celestia; she had turned back to the window and just stared out of it, obviously deep in contemplation. Shepard started to walk out the door but Celestia’s voice stopped her.

“Am I a bad leader?”

Shepard turned around to see Celestia still staring out the window. “What?”

“Am I a bad leader? I seem to be. I can’t even defend my ponies when they need it. What makes me so important? I never liked that word. Important. Some ponies think themselves more important than others. The noble more important than the pony who cleans his house. Importance is all made up. Who am I to say that I am more important than the pony next to me?”

Shepard was a little taken aback at this outburst. But she couldn’t say nothing. “Princess, you are important, and you are a good leader. But that doesn’t mean others aren’t. Everyone is important, because everyone is necessary. Without a people, a government would have no one to govern and would cease to function, and thus cease to be important. Likewise, without a government a people would have no one to control them and keep them from doing stupid things and tearing each other apart. Thus society would collapse, leaving the people as a whole, unimportant. Only together do you have a country. Some people just seem to forget this and think themselves above others. That is where that word- importance- comes from. As for you being a good ruler, well, I’ve been all over my galaxy, and I’ve seen good rulers and bad rulers. Of course, there are good rulers, and then there are good rulers. Even evil rulers can be good, just by not having their country or economy, or way of life collapse. However, they are often feared and hated by their subjects. Good rulers can do everything the evil ruler can be but also be loved by their people at the same time. Celestia, I’ve looked around, I’ve seen Canterlot and its ponies, and I can tell you, you are loved. You’ve also kept this country alive and strong for over a thousand years. That is almost ten times longer than the Mongol empire back on Earth, and that was one of the largest empires in our history. By the very definition you are a good ruler. Not only that, but the greatest ruler I have ever seen.”

Celestia sighed, “I hope you’re right,” she said, “Well, let’s go see about making sure no one gets in to the caverns after my little ponies.” With that, Celestia set off with Shepard in tow.

Ten hours. It was ten hours since the Superportal first showed up in Equestria. They had seen neither hide nor hair from the Normandy. Luna came back, surprisingly. She said that she didn’t want to face this alone, and while the feeling wasn’t verbally reciprocated by Celestia, everyone knew she felt the same way. Luna had flown all around Equestria making sure everypony was safe. It wasn’t easy but the Manehattanites took cover in the old underground railway system, Fillydelphians took cover in the nearby mountains, and the Midwestern cities all traveled Far East into the unexplored. Most didn’t know what was there and reports were dodgy at best, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Twilight, her friends, Celestia, Luna, Shepard, and the rest of the Normandy sans Joker and Tali were all waiting in the throne room. No one talked, no one murmured, the air was thick with apprehension. All just stared out the windows, waiting, watching. Behind them a large explosive sound shattered the veil of silence.

Running outside they were greeted with the Normandy, neatly hovering a couple feet off of the ground, before smoothly landing on the soft turf of the palace lawn. The doors opened and standing there was a slightly disheveled Doctor and a stoic Gordon Freeman. Stepping off of the Normandy the Doctor walked forward and shook Shepard’s hand.

“Commander Jane Shepard, Princess Celestia and Luna, and all the rest I would normally name but due to time constraints I will not, may I present to you: our army.

On cue Freeman stepped out of the way with Joker and Tali walking out- “Uh ha ha… not them,” he chuckled nervously, as the two regrouped with the mass of people/ponies waiting in front of the Normandy.

The first to step out was a woman. Slender, with clothes not quite long enough to cover her torso, but with enough guns on her to silence anyone who pointed this out. Behind her a just as slender male in leather armor with a goatee and was that a… falcon? Behind him a larger, sturdier built man with large muscles but not so many he retains some dexterity. Last, but not least, lest your life be shortened substantially, a large behemoth of a man with fists as large as trashcan lids. No, scratch that; trashcans.

Lining up next to the doorway the Doctor recited their names: Lilith, Mordecai, Roland, and Brick, respectively.

Up next stepped out four men who rivaled Brick in size and lethality, “Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird,” the Doctor stated, taking their place next to the previous four.

“Man Marcus, I can’t believe that I’m doing this shit,” Cole said.

Next off was an unlikely person compared to everyone previous: a man, sharply dressed, perhaps late twenties to early thirties, wearing, of all things a suit. He had a martini in one hand and a PDA in the other.

“Aloha, or whatever you… ponies say,” he said in an uninterested voice, “My name is Tony Stark. Pleasure to be here, but tell me: why the hell aren’t any of you wearing clothes?”

The Doctor quickly forced him aside just as the next person came out. Another female in dark armor that looked like it could stop a rocket. With what was presumably the helmet for it in her hand she did a little curtsey to the crowd.

“And who might this be?” Celestia asked.

“I am called a lot of things back home: The Last, Best Hope for Humanity, the Wasteland Wanderer, Kid from Vault 101, blah blah blah… but I prefer Isabella.”

While she was talking a low, thumping sound could be heard from inside the ship. It sounded like heavy boots hitting the ground and seemed to be drawing nearer to the door. Rarity screamed, for standing in the doorway was a creature unlike anything she had ever seen before. It had a large diving helmet on and a heavy diving suit. It was covered in dried seaweed and other oceanic flora. On one hand it held a drill larger than a small filly and the other hand coursed with a blue electric energy.

“This is Subject Delta,” the Doctor chimed in. “So named because of the symbol on his glove, considering he won’t talk to us. Although, come to think of it, I don’t think he can talk. It was a miracle we got him to come with us in the first place. But seriously, you do not want to know where we had to go to get him.”

Next out was a moderately sized man. In his hands was a sniper rifle and on his back an assault rifle. He didn’t look that imposing compared to some of the others, but then again, looks can be deceiving. After all, he was covered head to toe in green armor and the space around him gave off a slight buzz, as if there was a field surrounding him.

“SPARTAN Master Chief John 117 ready for duty,” he stated. Then without another word he moved right to the side for the next person.

“Well, they certainly are… a diverse bunch,” Twilight said.

Next out was probably the weirdest group. Nine in all. They stood there, looking at the crowd staring back at them.
“Oy, why are they all starin’ at us?” one said with an Australian accent.

“I have no idea,” another said with a German one.

“Doctor I don’t like zis,” a third said with a Russian dialect.

Fluttershy, who had up until now not really said anything, commented “It’s like… I’ve seen all these people before.”

“Yeah,” agreed Rainbow Dash, “Especially that skinny one with the hat and sweat bands.”

They soon learned their names… or, professions rather. Engineer, Scout, Demoman, Medic, Heavy, Spy, Sniper, Soldier, and Pyro.

“Doctor,” Celesta started, “this is a great start, but where are all the other soldiers? I mean, there really aren’t that many here.”

“Ah, yes, well… these were all we could find,” the Doctor replied sheepishly. “It is a big reality out there and very little of it has life. These are the elite of the elite though; the best soldiers ever. They could take on an army easy. But just in case… I’ll be right back.”

The Doctor bolted past all of them and ran straight to his TARDIS. Jumping inside it took off, leaving everyone wondering where he went.

“Bloody wanker, tosses us here an’ just takes off like that without paying us. We are getting paid still right?” Sniper asked. Before anyone could respond however, the TARDIS reappeared a couple feet away from where it took off.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Had to run an errand. Did anything happen while I was gone? No? Good. Then, without further ado, I present, your army,” the Doctor enthusiastically stated, secretly hoping no one was mad about him taking off like that. Turning around he ushers to someone not visible to the rest of the group. Running out of the way the TARDIS burst forth with energy, as the box visibly expanded so that the door’s opening was large enough to fit a motorcycle through, now a car, now a...

“Nifty little trick isn’t it?” the Doctor rhetorically asked while beaming pride in his ship as a tank rolled through the new opening. Followed by another, and another, flanked on both sides by heavily armed foot soldiers. By the end of it all a total of five hundred tanks and twenty thousand soldiers were out and now spread on the formerly pristine palace garden. Suffice it to say, there was not much room left on the lawn and Joker had to move the Normandy somewhere else to make more.

Celestia was dumbfounded, and quite frankly so was everyone else there.

“I called in a favor, or two, or a lot,” the Doctor answered in a response to their stunned looks at the size of this so called ‘favor’. “May I present the United States Army 1st army 5th Corps circa 2012 ACE. Consider it your army Celestia, and before you ask, I would like to show you just who is going to be in charge of this force: one of the greatest military minds in United States history. The people who gave me this army told me, being the paranoid people they are, that I had to use a US general, not any other nationality. Sir?” With that verbal cue another man appeared in the doorway of the TARDIS.

He stood there, giving off an air of authority. His face had a slight scowl on it as he took in the surroundings. You could just tell from his stance that he was a man who held himself in very high esteem. His eyes reflected a look that conveyed knowledge gained from firsthand experiences. His black-as-night boots went all the way up to his knees. With broad shoulders and enough ribbons on his chest to show just how much he had done in his life he took a step out of the TARDIS. He wore a helmet similar to ones worn by the common ground troop during 20th century conflicts. As traditional his rank was displayed on it in the form of four gold five-pointed stars.

At the sight of him all movement from the soldiers stopped and they turned to salute him. General George S. Patton looked upon the chaos with disgust. Immediately he turned to the nearest soldier to him.

“Lieutenant, gather up all the commanding officers and have them meet me over by those steps,” he said, gesturing to the steps that led up into the castle, “if we’re going to fight this war, we’re going to fight it right.” The soldier saluted and ran off. Patton walked up to the group of onlookers. He approached Shepard first.

“Commander Jane Shepard, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. It is an honor to meet you General,” Shepard said, saluting him.

“The honor is mine if what I heard from the Doctor is true. My orders came from President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill themselves. The first thing they said was ‘listen to the Doctor.’ He said that your men are yours only and that I am to think of you as my equal. While I may not be familiar with these weapons or these men’s training, the basic tactics are the same. We all take a page from the great Sun Tzu and thus I should have no problem commanding any of these troops.” He turned to Princess Celestia, but before he could say anything she interjected.

“General, please make use of anything you need to; the entire palace is at your disposal. I am not familiar with you or this Sun Tzu, and Equestria just invented the matchlock. From what Shepard has told me we still have a long way to go in advancement of military technology before we get to a level sufficient enough to fight the Combine. So you are in charge of the military and its actions.”

“Yes ma’am,” Patton said, saluting. “However, I will need to look at everything you have done thus far.”

“Of course, this way please…”

Patton was pleased with this setup now. In just three hours he had mobilized his entire army and spread them to various locations around Equestria according to how Patton thought the Combine would attack. He felt it best if Celestia’s actions were let be, so the dragon and griffon entrenchment surrounding the portal stayed put. With help from the TARDIS he managed to split his forces evenly among Canterlot (Alpha Garrison), the area surrounding Canterlot (Bravo Division), and Manehattan and its surrounding area (Charlie Division) in otherwise impossible times. After that the Doctor had gone back to wherever he got these troops from and managed to get fifty F-18 fighter jets. All of them were put into the Equestrian guard training grounds as it was the only level and long enough piece of land that the jets could utilize as a runway. In no time they had managed to turn it into a sufficient runway and as a result morale increased dramatically from the new air power.

Shepard was put in charge of the “super soldiers” as Patton called them. She divided them into teams based on where they came from. So there was a Red team (Sniper, Medic, Demo, Heavy, Engineer, Pyro, Scout, Spy, and Soldier), a Pandora Team (Brick, Roland, Lilith, and Mordecai), Delta Squad (Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird), the Normandy team (Shepard and her ground team), and The Misfits (Isabella, Master Chief, and Subject Delta); Tony Stark was resolute in his stance about not being put in a team, stating he worked better by himself. The Great Hall was set up as Head Quarters, much to Shepard’s chagrin. She didn’t like how open the Hall was and that it was susceptible to enemy attacks. So Celestia magically reinforced the windows so that they would only break under the greatest forces.

“But bullets could still break it?” Shepard asked.

“Well, yes, I suppose they could,” Celestia conceded.

“Then what’s the point?”

“Well, I suppose if that happens we could move into the vault like originally planned,” the Doctor suggested.

“Fine. But as soon as one of those windows so much as cracks we’re moving. We have to protect the princesses,” Shepard argued.

“Very well, when they appear to be in danger, we will move them,” the Doctor agreed.

“You know, we can take care of ourselves,” Luna interjected.

“Yes, but there’s a chance you could get hurt, and we can’t take that risk,” Shepard responded.

“But we’re immortal,” Celestia stated.

“You know, that does bring up a good question Princess,” Twilight said, “if you truly can’t be killed and are all powerful, why couldn’t you just take them by yourself?”

“My dear student, it is because while we could destroy them, it would be like trying to hold rice with your bare hooves. You might be able to hold most of the grains, some would inevitably slip through. Although in this case instead of rice it would be incredibly lethal and violent soldiers. We can’t allow that to happen. So all of this is to make sure that no one gets through. Also, we have no idea what the Combine technology would do to us. For all we know it could be the one thing that does kill us.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” said Twilight.

So all was set up and ready to go. Twilight and her friends stayed in HQ, although they had no idea how they were going to help. Patton and the Doctor were the ‘generals’ in this war, as the Doctor specifically stated he would not fight. Red team was moved to Manehattan to provide support there. The Misfits were sent to Ponyville while Delta Squad was sent to what were soon to become the front lines. Normandy team stayed to provide a reinforced garrison in Canterlot, specifically near the palace. Stark said he was going to take a walk around Canterlot and left, much to everyone’s frustration. And the Pandora team covered the rest of Canterlot that Normandy team wasn’t going to. Freeman stayed knew their tactics. Everyone was ready, and everyone was waiting.

Twenty four hours. It had been a whole day since all of this began and there had been no sign from the Combine. Everyone remained vigilant though; they did not want to be snuck up on.

Thirty six hours. It was getting a little boring, to say the least, but Patton was as alert as ever.

“Patience,” he said.

Forty eight hours. People were getting tired of waiting. Soldiers slept in shifts and some of HQ started playing Risk to pass the time.

“Your India is mine!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. When all of a sudden a large explosive sound tore through the air, not unlike the one that set all these events into motion. Everyone looked to the Superportal to see that it had changed hue to a deep red infused blue. Lightning of unnatural patterns started striking the ground when, from out of the portal ships of massive size started moving in an outward movement in all directions.

Patton looked at this scene, and without hesitation turned around, looking at all the people staring back.

“Showtime.”